Dare We Hope?

    This Moment - this overcast, early spring, barely shirtsleeve warm Saturday - I realize that I'm feeling hope again. 

I want to crush it, that feeling of hope.

    Because, for over two years we've lived in a series of overwhelming emotions - none of them in any way hopeful.  Stunned shock. Anger so deep all many of us could do was cry.  Confusion - we never really understood that The Cruelty was & is The Point.  Underlying it all - despair and feeling powerless.  Slowly, slowly we've moved toward taking action.  

But never during those years did I allow myself to feel hope.  Until now.

And after that time of existential quandary, allowing hope to the surface feels too vulnerable.

    Yet there's no denying it. This IS a Moment.  We have twenty - 20! - candidates.  ALL of them are persons of character, persons of intelligence, persons who have demonstrated that they care about people.   How is this Not a Moment?  

    We have amazing candidates who are saying on the world stage what we've been saying to each other.  We have candidates articulating policies that would help millions.  We have candidates showing respect for each other and still speaking unvarnished, well-articulated truth to power.  Our candidates have shown courage in both their careers and in their candidacy.  This IS a Moment.

    Feeling hope does make us feel vulnerable.  The other side works hard to instill and instigate fear, and that fear has covered the landscape.  Hope struggles to create points of light.

I'm scared of this hope.  We've been destroyed in our hopes before - all of us.  Yet it's in the struggle that hope grows stronger.

    I'm remembering the words of one of my favorite young men in the world - Karl Anthony Townes.  Karl played basketball at the University of Kentucky - and won over the world with his authenticity and charm off the court as well.  A few months back he wrote an opinion piece for The Players Tribune, about the times, the divisive political climate, and his own life.  The words I've been remembering from that piece are these:

"Remember, There are More of Us than there are of Them"

Add That to our wealth of candidates, and to our actions, our dollars, our doing what we can - and hope feels a bit less shaky.