Looking Up in Hope

My son took this photo on Friday when we went for a walk in the woods. We’re definitely seeing more sunlight and feeling its effects. Those birdsongs of spring warm the soul just as much as that burning orb warms our bodies and minds.

It all inspires hope.

Hope, like this photo, speaks of looking up. Up, or perhaps the proper word choice is “out”. Without hope, we close ourselves off and protect whatever we feel is on our inside. We exist. I’ve felt a lot of that in recent months. I actually didn’t even realize how closed-off I’d become until a door opened. A door I’d given up on and had to be shown was there.

We exist in any number of permutations of our selves over time. Every decade of life can bring a host of variables that alter the how’s, where’s, why’s, what’s, and who’s of our daily living. Those variables fuel the forge that melts us into what we are. The forge never quits until our final quenching.

Time alters us.

It can force us to shut parts of our selves off as we seek to survive. Those abandoned parts shrivel and rot like apples left on a tree as winter hits. We push them even farther away as we seek pleasure in the things we do have in our lives. We don't want reminders.

If we’re lucky, we can still have a good life. It’s just different than what we had imagined.

What happens if a time comes when that old place of wonder and delight is again at our doorstep? Can we see the opportunity? Do we risk opening that door? Can we walk into that realm again, but as the person were are today? We may need help to see the promise of potential that’s maybe- just maybe- within our reach. If we can accept that there's a future we can help mold.

We need help to look up. To hope.

That’s where I am right now. I know the person I was. I know I’ve gained a ton of perspective and experiences over the years but I’m still trying out this idea of looking up. It’s tempting, but I’m also afraid. I'm tiny. I wonder if I should just keep my head down and leave it all to someone else. I worry I’ll just take an opportunity away from someone else if I step forward.

But the birds are singing. The sun is warming. The sky is calling.

Hope.

Love and Hate: That Builds. That Hurts.

We all have our own opinions. I thank my sister-in-law for sharing Todd Starnes’s commentary, "The Devil Smiled" about one of this week's shootings. It allowed me to hone in on my own perspectives regarding our place and responsibilities today. Sometimes different, sometimes similar. I tried to respond within the same structure as Mr. Starnes wrote.

For whatever reason, I feel my perspective is at least a bit more...hopeful? It would really be sad if there was nothing you and I could do moving forward to make our world a brighter place.

Here it goes:

While I have absolutely no proof, I’m not in charge of whether I take the next breath or not, so I like to hope there’s something outside of me that powers everything: me, you, the birds, the trees, the water and land. Everything. That idea gives me hope.

Holding onto that idea, within that everything...

I see kids witnessing us adults say we’re all equal, but some get a pass when they do wrong & others get thrown away.

That hurts.

I see our Pledge says “under God”, but despite the fact many citizens cling to that phrase, we don’t serve the weakest and poorest as Jesus commanded. As all the big religions do. 

That hurts.

We ridicule women, LBGTIA, religions and ethnicities. Our ideas of “good and traditional” exclude so many in so many ways.

That hurts.

Corporations and rich people seem to play by different rules than the rest of us, so many ask, “Why bother?”. Protecting the self is becoming king.

That hurts.

We don’t talk about sex and violence openly. We don’t talk about love with one another. We just don’t talk with each other. 

That hurts.

If God is in all things, it’s in all of us and all of it. All we touch and see is originally God’s work. God can and should be beyond gender, politics, ethnicity, religion or country. We are the ones who turn on each other. We are the ones who decide to rip apart the beauty of what’s around us.

That hurts.

“The Devil” is our ego running a muck. It’s us. “The Devil” is us when we think we’re better or more right that someone else. 

What we call “the Devil” is hate. That hurts. We can do a lot to fix that.

What we call “God” is love. That builds. We can do a lot to build that.

Never Done Until We Are

I’m going to focus today on this quote from author L.R. Knost and a blog from the incredibly inspiring Hannah Wilson.

I’ve written before on how nothing stays the same forever (Hopes and Opportunities and Life is Interacting), even if it feels like it does. As Knost says, we cycle through things we consider awesome, terrible and, well, boring. Lots of boring.

Ups, downs and flatness. We need to accept and deal with all of them. I’ve written about the painful let-down fans experience after attending a big concert, in Life and Fandom. Fans can fear the flatness and downs of normal life. They are not the only ones who do so. Any activity that absorbs large chunks of our days can end up affecting our abilities to experience a rich and fully-lived life. To truly thrive.

We can’t (or shouldn’t) hide forever.

Hannah Wilson talks of this in her blog, Values-Led Leadership: Moving from Surviving to Thriving. That’s my interpretation of her amazing story, anyway. She admits that she found herself existing in the title of “Educator” to the point where she had a panic attack. She had lost herself to her job.

Thriving requires knowing and living truthfully within ourselves.

Hannah offers ways to help us define those things in her blog. She uses references from a variety of sources, who all support these key steps to thriving:

●       Know you why

●       Engage in coaching

●       Know your values

●       Be authentic

●       Live your values

●       Articulate your vision

●       Be resilient

●       Be outward-facing

●       Find your tribe

●       Find your fit

Is life breathtakingly beautiful?

I’ll be honest: I’m struggling with that one. I look at Hannah’s list and can see an action plan to a beautiful life. I can also see where I myself have clearly failed. (And hope to change that, as there is the promise of YET.)  I see Knost’s “amazing” and “awful” as applying to both my own actions and the world I find myself in. Therefore, some of it I can take the credit/blame for, but other parts seem grossly out of my control- verging on a sense of hopelessness. We need hope to see beauty.

I think a bridge between these two women’s thoughts and our realities can be found within Knost’s phrase, “soul-healing”. Hannah’s list emphasizes connecting with other people: getting a coach, facing outward, finding your tribe, finding your fit. To me, those address our inner selves: our souls. That can give us hope.

If we don’t touch other lives, our own will be hollow. So…

Breath in...

Hold on...

Relax and exhale…

Living is beautiful. Living is hell. Living is.

Never done until we are.

Enduring Our Daily Deaths

"The sharpest lesson of life is that we outlast so much—even ourselves—so that one, looking back, might say, ‘When I died the first time….’”

    -- Jessie Benton Fremont on endurance in the face of adversity, 1878

NPR’s Steve Inskeep posted this quote on Twitter this week and it resonated with what has been brewing in my own mind. I’m going to apologize ahead of time. This essay isn’t going to be upbeat. I have some seriously dark thoughts I need to process. They have to do with enduring things- why we want to, and sometimes, why we do not.

I confess I did not know of Jessie Benton Fremont and had to look her up. She lived through the American Civil War and, according to MrLincolnsWhiteHouse.org, was a political force to be reckoned with, as well as an author in her own right. Mr. Inskeep has given me another life to explore.

Although not pleasant, I can agree with this quote’s point that life is a series of deaths. We lose our youthful dreams of Santa, superheroes or magic. For homeless children, the expectation of a warm bed at night is a mirage. Many, young or old, lose the belief in love given or received. Dreams of marriage many times end in painful divorce or long-suffering unions. Careers are imagined and prepared for and while they may be begun in nervous anticipation (if one is lucky enough to be hired in the first place), many soon find themselves mired in the realities of confusing mandates, office politics, excessive or inappropriate expectations, reorganizations or downsizings.

It’s not all gloom and doom. I’ve written repeatedly of the incredible beauty we can find in life, even in tiny things. A song can uplift and inspire, as I wrote in Frisson: A Crossroad of Body, Mind & Spirit. When we have children in our lives, we can actually re-live and enjoy some of those things that may have died for us years before. Or, if we have passions we’re able to follow, we can feel immense satisfaction and joy in their pursuit.

It doesn’t have to all be about deaths. But…

The initial inspiration for this whole essay was a discussion at home where my husband wondered why companies let people go due to budgets but then in the same year, invest in a long list of things like automatic defibrillators and the training to use them. Our kids remarked that they thought the machines are required and they themselves had the school ones reviewed with them at school.

The thought of someone automatically bringing me back to life if I collapse in public didn’t fill me with reassurance as I thought it would, or should. Especially when I see so many people struggling to get by. While there are many things I enjoy and would like to continue enjoying, do I want to be brought back if my body stumbles? I wondered.

I don’t think I’m alone in this doubt. We’re eager to live when we feel valued. When we feel safe. When we feel like we matter. We never want to leave a party if we’re the life of it, right? On the flip side, if we’re at an event and it’s obvious that we don’t fit in and people are shying away from us, we’ll find any excuse to slip out. If we feel like a burden or a failure, we shrink away. I look at my life and world and I wonder. Is this party for me?

We outlast so much- even ourselves.

Being our own worst enemy- that’s what I think this part is reminding us. I see so much of this in both myself and the world. My grumblings here may be a case in point. I know I’ve made bad decisions for myself over the years and that we all have done so in a broader sense. I and we have survived until now, despite our efforts.

It can be really depressing. It can all seem impossible. I wrote about that reality, too. In Regret: A Look Back, I focused on another person’s struggles with those feelings, which led to suicide. From that piece, I am reminded of an answer.

What can we do? Endure...and connect.

Hang on and reach out. When we feel down, something outside of us can lift us up. That means we have to be there for each other. Let’s have hearts, eyes and ears open to receive those messages, as well. As the picture and quote I chose for this essay indicate, we can bloom if we endure the tyrant- whatever or whoever that may be. I have to sit with those directions, myself. I need that reminder to sink in.

So, here’s me reaching out in one way. Who do you turn to to pull you through the deaths you face in your days? What writings, people or general things convince you to keep going- to outlast the onslaught?

Share them. Here. With friends. With neighbors. We can all use resources. They can help connect us. That could go a long way in reducing the adversity we feel, and therefore increasing our ability to endure, as we move forward.

Together.

On The Shore of What Is and What Could Be

Brian Crosby’s photographs inspired me again this week, this time on the ageless beauty of the sea and shore. His image at Whitehaven in Cambria spoke of a balance that I wanted to explore. While not revolutionary, I felt it worthy to be considered again. I do try to apply a unique KPop hook at the end, so I hope you’ll stay with me.

Life’s a dance about what we have and are and what we could have or could become:  What Is and What Could Be.

I see our schools are one place where What Is and What Could Be come together on a regular basis. Not the only place, but a consistent one.

What Is

We’re all a part of What Is. Adults and children: every single human alive today. Our kids are living and breathing What Is. Sometimes it’s privilege, comfortable and sure- one’s life is spread out and the way is fairly clear to see. Many times, it’s not. What Is is messy. It’s good times and things, but it’s also stress, poverty, abuse and job loss or underemployment. It’s differing abilities, preferences and creeds. It’s unexpected calamities. More and more, It’s us against them. It’s fear and anger. It’s blaming someone else. Our teachers experience What Is not only in their own lives- their days are spent soaked in the What Is of hundreds of people. Day in. Day out.

In the midst of What Is, our schools seek to guide young minds to the the concept of something of fluid (and some feel, scary) power: What Could Be.

What Could Be

Today, teachers have technologies and pedagogies (the fancy word for “ways of teaching”) that could lead to amazing advancements in the world. They have ways to guide minds to operate together, debate constructively and to be open to trying and failing and trying again.  They have access to worldwide sources of information on today’s cutting-edge discovers and research and for their students to share their own findings near and far. I doubt I’m too far off when I say that teachers today seek to form people who will lead the world- a world they hope will include their students warmly and allow them to contribute meaningfully.

They do, at least, when not so beaten by What Is that they lose sight of the promise of What Could Be.

What Could Be is fluid, as I said before. I picture it as the ocean and What Is as a rocky island. What Could Be is all the stuff that we wonder and dream about. It’s bits of what we know and splashes of novel things sloshing around with potential, but no real form yet.  It’s neither good nor bad, and What Could Be washes constantly on the shore of What Is, eroding and depositing, molding it over time.

Natural Progression Unless...

That is, if What Is allows it to. What Is can build barriers against What Could Be. These barriers can be laws that select for the status quo. They can be the withholding of information to or access to resources for certain people. They can be the silencing or defamation of contrary voices. These barriers can even be as simple as plain unknowing ignorance, disinterest and/or stubbornness by enough people to slam the brakes on the hopes and dreams of others seeking What Could Be.

To be open to the potential of What Could Be, we have to have hope that things can get better than What Is. We have to be willing to take risks with What Is and practice with new ideas and ways. We need to be willing to help each other and to risk failure. We have to be willing to stand back up and try again when we do fail, because we always will face calamities.

That last paragraph? That’s what you learn in school. That’s what we should practice regularly in our jobs and personal lives, too. All of us.

The ebb and flow of a seashore is a reminder to us all of the amazing and exciting dance we face if we’re willing: What Is and What Could Be. As Block B asks in their 2017 hit, Shall We Dance:

“I don’t want to be locked up
Gather the crowds, let’s break the taboo
We need to spread out
Or else we might become scarecrows
We can make empty lots into royal spaces
This is the peak, don’t exit out now
To the left, to the right, rock all night

Gather in a circle
Hesitant people won’t get in
Turn on the music and don’t give a care
Ya’ll just vibe with me, baby
I like that person over there
Pop it up, burn it up, more and more
Hey you guys, wanna play?
Don’t just watch, join us

Shall we dance…?”

Yes, we should.

November Thoughts: Light or Dark Crossroads

Near the shore, huddled fowl do bob, their

Observant eyes tracking prey and gulls alike.

Vibrant mounds of shed leaves abound,

Ending their summer life to cold autumn’s rot.

Maybe it will snow, perhaps it will sleet

By the time night falls across this scene.

Enjoy the light whilst we can, I cry.

Remember to keep the spark of life inside.

This time of year can be dangerous in the Northern Hemisphere. Everything is withdrawing: light, temperature, life-forces. Trees shed, animals migrate. The world wants to rest and protect. It’s so easy to turn this opportunity to rest and reflect into a cloak of darkness. Viewpoints can become shaded by feelings of helplessness and loneliness.

November can be a reminder to come back to our truths. In summer’s robust madness, we can lose sight of our ultimate goals. Or, we may have discovered something in our fun explorations that we need to consider further. This is a perfect time to do that.

We are not hopeless.

We each have means to affect ourselves and those around us. I was reminded of this today with the announcement that BTS has signed a longterm deal with UNICEF to help world youth. As stated on their new website love-myself.org,

“Children and teens have the right to pursue their lives in safety and happiness and to grow with love and care. At this very moment, however, some of them are falling victim to various levels of violence. Many of them are unable to enjoy their fair share of chances to dream of a healthy future.”

This is a huge task they are taking on. Bullying. Physical abuse. Sexual abuse. Violence towards those you feel aren’t like you. Can they fix everything? No. Can they try? Yes. Can you and I help through our deeds or develop our own plans? Yes.

Yes. Now. Always. Together.

That’s the key we need to hold onto: Yes. That’s the spark of life. It’s hope. It’s optimism. It’s what can get us up in the morning when darkness wants to linger and root itself inside us.

I wrote When's It Gonna Change? Right Now. in response to the song, Change, that BTS’s leader, RM, did with rapper Wale this spring. The song declares that today’s young adults need to stand up and with each other. Clearly, this Unicef deal was in the works during this collaboration. All this effort is a great example for us all (young, old and everyone in between): don’t give up and don’t just think of yourself. Look for opportunities and try.

Try. Try. Try.

Hopes and Opportunities

Today, I am sharing an essay from my book, Dear Teachers, which is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk. From the beautiful pictures of Marlene Oswald, I wrote messages to educators of my own life struggles and understandings in the hopes that they might help others in their own. I made writing space for the reader to connect because I think we all have things to share- we’re together.

Hope

Sometimes, I open my eyes in the morning feeling more tired than when I closed them the night before. My feet ache, my ankles crack and my knees pop as I stumble down the hall, seeking the healing warmth that is my morning joe.

I hear Time ticking. It all reminds me that nothing lasts forever. I can no more forever hold back the ravages of time as I can see the universe in a single glance. But I can be OK with that. I can still have hope and take opportunities.

Hope is feeling an empty page is an opportunity for a new tale or seeing a barren field as tomorrow’s harvest. Hope is what powers that step off the porch for the last time, turning our backs on one dream to begin a journey toward another. There can be more.

Both the veteran educator and the newbie can fall short. Whatever the cause, reality sometimes strips us bare despite our best efforts and plans. Yet, we can still have hope. We can take another chance.

We must remember a truth of all human life: what we have built will stand in some way, shape or form. What we’ve even tried to build will live on in another’s memory or their future discovery. The rusted fence may no longer hold back the wilds of nature or retain the builder’s fortunes, but it still stands. It is. It can be. Something. The life-giving windmill still sings a song, although today it may be a completely different tune and to an entirely different listener. It just needs an ear to hear it.

There is always pain. There is always discord. Yet, there is also always hope and opportunity.

Reflections on Hope: Who, what and where are my own hopes and my opportunities?

Cake It Till You Make It

Another shipment from TeeTurtle graced our front doorstep for the back-to-school shopping this year. I had to splurge on this one for myself. I’ve caked it. A lot.

I’m an introvert who gave myself rashes as a kid from anxiety over people's expectations. Now, having caked it for years, I walk around in public places seeking eye contact and smiles from strangers. I can stand in front of 10s or 100s and speak clearly. Even amusingly, upon occasion. I’ve caked myself there.

Every actor makes a living caking it. If we immerse ourselves in a role, we can harmonize with it and project it.

I took up singing as a junior in high school. I was terrified. I’d never sang in public. By senior year, I was in a song and dance group. I caked it into a group competition. If I were in high school today, it would be a completely different song set (can we say BTS covers like X.East?), but I would do it again in a heartbeat. That was an amazingly fun cake.

Will I ever become completely comfortable doing some of these things? Probably not. There are times when I absolutely cannot get my mind into the steps required in putting on a good cake. I need to retreat to peace, quiet and solitude. While being in the public eye is exhilarating, for me it is also absolutely exhausting and even painful at times.

Why do it, if it’s uncomfortable? With the pains, you learn things and meet people who help you grow. You see change and can feel pride in achieving something new.

Alas, the “make it” part can be temporary and elusive. But it can become more and more natural over time. While I can don the label of “confident writer” more comfortably now than I ever have, it is not a given in my mind. There are days and even weeks where I doubt everything I’m doing. I sometimes make a bad cake. It all crumbles and I’m left with a pile of bits, wondering what was I thinking and how could I hope to ever do anything that’s successful or worthwhile at all. I must go back to the kitchen to try again.

Despite that, caking it leads to sweet rewards. Caking it leads to things we can hardly imagine. We may not be able to reach a 5-tier confection with edible glitter and fresh fruit filling, but we can reach something truly delicious. Because it will be of our efforts. Because it will be of our hopes and dreams.

Because it will be us.

One Year of Becoming

We joke about how much can change in a year. My life is a case in point.

My first blog ever was published on July 31, 2016- just over a year ago. That piece earned a whopping 6 views! I had no idea what I was doing. The biggest accomplishment in that case was the very act of putting it out there. At 45 years old, I was finally done with beating myself up over whether or not I had any right or talent to write. I told that voice it wasn’t in charge anymore. After almost a ½ century of living, I’d finally decided I couldn’t listen to it anymore and I would listen to the other inner voice saying “Do it. Just...write what you feel.”

I was something. I was becoming something.

At the time, I was working part-time. For 5 years, I had immersed myself in the amazing world of elementary education. I was an educational assistant. I was a mom. I was a wife. I was a type 1 diabetic.

Earlier in the summer, I had started to run. I was becoming a runner. I had started to lift weights and dance. I was becoming healthier. I had started listening to new music. I was becoming a Kpop fan. I had started to write. I was becoming a writer.

The only constant in life is change, as they say.

Next, I started to explore Twitter. I am becoming a regular. I started collaborating with a photographer friend. I am becoming an author now by publishing my own book, Dear Teachers, and seeking to do it again. I am starting to reach out to more experts in education to introduce myself and my work. I am exploring and dreaming of more.

I estimate I’ve written over 100,000 words over the last year. I’ve connected with over 1,000 people on Twitter. I’ve gratefully seen over 130 of my books go out to amazing people both near and far. I’ve posted 85 essays on my blog and they have been viewed on 6 continents over 7,000 times.

I was. I am. I am becoming. I will become.

I started with nothing and am only 1 of 7 billion other people. I’m not writing this for compliments. I’m writing this as a reminder to myself and anyone else who finds my words: we can all change and grow over time. If we stumble or lose, we can find something (or someone) new or find what we lost again in another place and time. If we don’t give up.

I desperately want to earn a living writing and speaking. I desperately seek to be a voice of community and opportunity. I desperately wish to be a spark of light by writing not only for those in education, but for those with type 1 diabetes. I have other ideas to explore.  I’m not there yet. But I have hope, though.

Let’s all try to move forward with that: hope.

Self-Directed Living

Students directing their own learning.

We hear about it and talk about it all the time. We plan our days around it. We extol the virtues compared to the days of row-seating and podium-centered classrooms because of its amazing benefits in learning and growth.

What kind of people will our youth end up being and what sorts of experiences will they have over their lifetimes as they are steeped in this mindset from an early age? In my mind, the effects will be both enormously positive and difficult to bear upon occasion.

Until recent decades, our educational culture revolved around an indoctrination system of key tenants (reading, writing, math, etc) until one began to physically mature into adulthood. At that point, large segments moved on to trades and a wide range of employments while others moved on to college, where the remaining individuals were set free to explore the vastness and diversity of thoughts in arts, sciences, mathematics and engineering.  I’m not saying that pre-secondary educational programs were 100% spoon-feeding operations. My own public and private experiences going back to the 1970s included room for creativity and self-expression. The homemade Middle Ages serf costume I created in 6th grade, complete with rags on my feet, is basic evidence of this.

We’ve ramped it up quite a bit since then, however. Earlier and earlier we’re directing our children to spend their days exploring subjects that interest them. Wider and wider is the world view becoming. Students are gaining freedom to design, build and produce products from their own research and their own brains.

It’s heady stuff! I felt compelled to note some of my own thoughts, fears and experiences.

Accelerated Evolution and Divergence of Life Philosophies

Great though it can be, diversity of thought can separate us from those who surround us the most intimately. We’ve always had separations within classrooms and grade levels based upon common interests and goals. It’s easier for this to occur now and it naturally carries over more into home life. There are adults today who voice concerns on how things are being done. Sometimes it’s simply confusion. Other times, there’s an element of disgruntled “That’s not how we did it.” all the way to “I’m not comfortable with my child doing this.”. What excites a child’s mind may not mesh with the traditions and practices of the family, leading to fractures and conflicts. We need to remember this as we move through our interactions with students and the wider society.

On the opposite side, children also have new today to connect with others they would not have had access to in prior times. Therefore, the child with a fascination with the violin or anime can find someone to talk to either in school or online. These connections based on shared interests can bolster a nascent interest and belief in self. “I’m weird.” becomes “I’m not alone.”.

If students are to lead their own learning, we need a framework big enough to catch as many students as possible within a net of safety, support and hope. They will be the leaders of this system soon and by setting them up as best we can, our future is more sure to be successful.

Larger Potentialities for Both Personal Failure and Success

There was a time when you grew up knowing how your work life would turn out. Children mirrored their parents’ roles to a large degree, with small improvements that led to slow-paced advancement in each generation’s means. Families had professions (farming, dentistry, factory jobs, small businesses) that were taken up and passed down to the next generation.

Today, we press for students to decide. We give them as wide a spectrum of options as we can so they can decide what directions they wish to fly. Students from humble beginnings can rise on their drive, creativity and initiative to levels unheard of in their family histories.

However, there is a real fear in our youth and our older workers, that this is a faulty, dangerous dream. Companies and workers no longer hold each other in such high respect that a long-term social contract can be drawn. Opportunities seem held for those with connections, not inventive concepts worthy of investment. Advanced degrees are demanded for even the most basic of positions, further distancing those who stumble or who have minimal means, to being able to flower into self-sufficient members of society.

Anxiety runs high in our world today. We would be wise to discuss this and work with it. How do we ensure that the exploration will lead to a life that can be lived and not one that is lost?

Closer to Star Trek Federation or Annihilation

I confess that I religiously watched Star Trek The Next Generation while in high school and college. I loved the concept of all sorts of beings working together for common benefits and exploring the universe. I could never see how it could actually ever happen in real life, however. The Earth back in the years when this show aired, 1987-1994, was so mired in fears and hostilities between countries, we all feared for this single rock, let alone the cosmos.

This was before the digital age we live in today, where I can chat with someone in South Korea or London instantaneously. We can relate so easily. Students today converse and study together across town, across country and increasingly, around the world. It’s unbelievably exciting. Student-led learning can build bridges which might help make dreams like those Gene Roddenberry had, someday and in some fashion, become a reality.

Unfortunately, the spread of hate and exclusion can move just as fast as the speed of friendship and sharing. Schools need to give time and tools towards concepts of inclusion, how to resist hate and how to excise its power. Culture as a whole needs to pay attention to this. With so much power available, hate and hostility cannot just be left alone to wander where they wish. It could destroy all we hope and work for.

In Hope-filled Summary

We live in a time with more potential than any other. The risks and rewards are equally higher. We can do this. It takes never-ending hope, flexibly working together and always going back to who we’re doing this for in the first place: our children and the future.