Reflect

It’s impossible for most of us to fully imagine what it was like for Nelson Mandela to be imprisoned for 27 years under apartheid in South Africa. For the nearly three decades he was locked away, there was little indication that he would one day be released unconditionally, let alone become the first Black president of South Africa. But somehow, Mandela never relinquished his hope for the future. In fact, he described hope as a “powerful weapon,” writing, “I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lies defeat and death.”

Mandela is one of the great heroes of modern history, his life a reminder that we shouldn’t confuse the “powerful weapon” of hope with naiveté or blind optimism. Hope, in fact, is the very oxygen that the flame of possibility requires to stay alive. Rebecca Solnit writes, “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes — you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others.” We may not be able to fully envision how to create the bright future we envision for ourselves and the world, but hope is a reminder that the future is not yet written and has not yet been lived.

This week’s practices invite you to consider the power of hope and the way it helps us live into possibility.