Somewhat akin to that Fred Rogers (1928-2003) quote from his classic children's television show
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood that aired in the United States from 1968-2001:
When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'
Except I'm looking for the hope, instead of looking for the helpers.
This started about a year ago when I was at an out-of-state training and I saw this sign outside the public restroom.
This was the first time I had seen any gender inclusive sign of this kind, and I was blown away with hope and gladness in my heart.
Then, on another occasion, I was at my local pharmacy looking for a greeting card, and I saw this whole new row of cards available for same-sex couples.
"Wow!" I thought, and again, a huge smile spread across my face.
Then just yesterday, I was uplifted yet again when I heard a story on NPR about a camp for girls ages 8-18 called Girls' Rock Camp Alliance.
The news story featured girls from various parts of the country (though there are camps also in other parts of the world like Buenos Aires and Tokyo) talking about how the lyrics to a 1993 song called "Rebel Girl" by a girl punk band called Bikini Kill was empowering them as young females.
That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood
She's got the hottest trike in town
That girl, she holds her head up so high
I think I wanna be her best friend, yeah...
When she talks, I hear the revolution
In her hips, there's revolution
When she walks, the revolution's coming
In her kiss, I taste the revolution.
Or another news story I also heard on NPR called "A Tennessee Farm Grows A New Generation of Social Justice Activists" about another summer opportunity for teenagers and young adults called Freedom Schools--run by founder of the Children's Defense Fund Marian Wright Edelman--that in part empowers Black youth to organize literacy campaigns in Black communities.
I know to some, these may seem like small glimpses of a larger picture that is much more troublesome, and that may be true.
However, it may also be true, that when you put all these hope-moments together, it can feel like something more.
So I'll close with these quotations by 20th century German poet Rainer Maria Rilke from Letters to a Young Poet (1929) that I also have collected in the last year.
Perhaps you too may want to put them in your basket to find meaning in times that can feel confusing and hard, at best, in order to choose hope- again and again.
May it be so.
We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors: if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience...
So you mustn't be frightened, if a sadness rises in front of you, larger than any you have ever seen; if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows, moves over your hands and over everything you do. You must realize that something is happening to you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand and will not let you fall. Why do you want to shut out of your life any uneasiness, and misery, and depression, since after all you don't know what work these conditions are doing inside you?
