For me Hope is found in the tearful and tender confession of “I don’t know”. I don’t know how to be a friend, how to make the world not end. I don’t know how to stay above sadness Or how to make love. But I believe that hope is found in bowing to our deepest “yes”, whether silent in resolve, a shy admission, or thrown about joyously like confetti.
I pride myself on my ability to remain calm under pressure. I’m generally a fairly quiet, composed person.
But some things really get me.
About a month ago I found myself lacking composure in my workplace. Fuming and crying, I sat in my office exasperated and said, “I am a real human being with feelings.”
I wonder if everyone feels the need to declare themselves a human.
I feel the need because I am treated like a token. Being treated like a token is not fun. Because a token is an object. And the people who have tokens normally get to decide what their tokens are for.
Not long before Donald Trump announced victory, early on the morning of Wednesday, November 9, my brother Kento died.
I was in Italy, meeting him for the first time just days before he passed. There in the hospital, he was unable to speak or move much at all. But he squeezed my hand. And it meant the world to me.
Our hands touched.
And then he died.
It’s been a hard month. Hard to know what’s real. Some days, I find myself curled up on the floor, crying, not always sure about what. Other days, most days, I’m numb. Tired. I’ve been struggling to pray, talk, write. It’s hard to make sense of these things. Of anything.
How much hope is enough? I understand and experience hope to be “leaning into better.” Hope is trusting that as things change, good will come. When we are hopeful, we lean into things getting better, not worse.
Is hope a precious natural resource? Is there a limited amount of hope in the world that we need to carefully monitor? Or is hope a renewable energy, like the wind?
What if hope is sourced from a divine energy, limitless and eternal? Hope never runs out. The supply is unlimited.
We live in a time of a “scarcity culture” says social scientist Brene Brown. A culture of scarcity is where we live in fear of not having enough. If she’s right, then this mentality of scarcity is impacting our national supply of hope. We feel as if we are running low on hope. And too many of us are flat running out of it. Our hope gauge is on empty.