The Work of Hope
The Work of Hope This is a personal reflection on how I process despair in current events and focus on hope, actively. Some mornings, it’s hard for me to open the news without feeling nauseous. The scale of cruelty, the casual disregard for truth, the normalization of violence, it’s a lot to carry. Lately, I keep seeing videos of children in Gaza, begging for help, their faces covered in dust, and I can’t make peace with it. I keep trying to hold onto hope myself, searching for something that feels honest. I want a hope I can inhabit. It is a hope that insists on engagement and demands movement. It is a hope that does not retreat, isolate, or ignore. If I’m going to hope, it has to start with seeing things as they are. Despair isn’t failure When I feel despair, it doesn’t mean I’ve given up. It means I’m awake. We often treat sadness, anger, and fear like failures, something to get rid of. But sometimes those emotions are the most honest and valid response available. When I s...