PEBBLE
You will find what you’re looking for.
If you look for fear, you’re going to find it.
If you look for stuff to bum you out, you’ll find it.
If you look for hope, you will find that.
-Bob Goff, shared by Ginny in Fitchburg, WI
BOULDER
Everything is horrific and along side it is hope.
Everything is dark and along side it there is light.
The question becomes, “How do we cultivate a practice of noticing so that we can also speak into existence the things that are going right?”
When we have algorithms that are so tuned towards catastrophe, brains in fact that are so alarmous…
we forget the practice of noticing beauty.
To speak aloud the things that I find beautiful is to rewire my brain and my heart.
And that gives me hope. There’s such a smorgasbord of beauty around us, and we often feel guilty in naming it, as if that detracts or cancels out the severity of what we’re facing. I don’t think it does. What the universe is always asking us to do is to become bilingual.
~Alok Vaid-Menon, shared by Josh in New Hampshire (lightly edited from these informal remarks)
PONDER
In last week’s Ripples I mentioned a book I had recently stumbled upon and read with great interest: Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We’re in with Unexpected Resilience & Creative Power. The timing of this discovery was divine: it arrived just as I was needing an infusion of hope and also just in time for me to share some hopeful, helpful ideas during talks I gave last week (shout out to our longtime and brand new Ripplers from NIRSA!).
In yet another divine coincidence, my dear friend Pidge recently forwarded a post about another hope that was new to me: “Slow hope is a form of hope that acknowledges the gradual nature of change…[it] encourages sustained action and helpful narratives even when results seem cloudy, uncertain and unknown.” (via Instagram)
Just like many of you, I’m still trying to get my head around what’s going on in the world and how I can be of service to those who are struggling. I’m gathering a few folks to help me process some ideas that have been percolating, and I’d love to have you join us if you could use an infusion of hope:
Three Hopes for Hard Times: A Peptalk with Uncle Paul
We’ve set up two different times for you to join us, and there is no cost to attend. You’ll just need to register so we can send you the Zoom link:
Tue, May 20, 7pm EDT (6c, 5m, 4p)
Thu, May 22, 3pm EDT (2c, 1m, 12p)
If you’re interested but can’t make either of these times, I’ll be posting the audio & video replay links in a future Ripples, so watch for it!
Peace,
Paul
P.S. Whoops! Many readers couldn’t access the Three Hopes sneak peek link I provided last week in the postscript…it turns out I hadn’t properly tweaked the permissions so everyone could see the post. Sorry about that!