Hope

Dear friends,

I took the above picture about 7 years ago- sunrise in Hebron, a city in the southern part of the West Bank, where over the years I've spent many months as a human rights defender. I turn to the beauty of this photo now and remember my friends there, who have also brought such beauty into my life and our world. I know they are hurting right now. So many people are hurting. 

Recently I was in a conversation about activism and different ways of practicing it and expressing ourselves as we advocate (a conversation, as someone noted, that is a result of the privilege we have since we are generally safe). In the conversation, someone said "Rage is the voice of the oppressed." I've been thinking a lot about that statement and keep coming back to this: 

Rage is a voice of the oppressed. 

So is hope.

So is grief.

So is joy.

I find myself wanting to recognize the and of it all. I find myself wanting to let all people, including "the oppressed," to be fully human in all its waves and ways. As I watch what is happening in Gaza, I, and probably you, have seen rage, grief, despair. I've also seen determination, joy, beauty, love, and even sometimes hope. I've also felt all those things myself. In my life I've been in places of devastating poverty and with people who've been subject to horrific violence and I’ve experienced in them a bent toward life, joy, and hope that seems elusive among some of us who've suffered much less.

We have a choice. 

If I ask myself, "What energy do I want to turn toward?" my answer is hope. I don't mean this in a Pollyanna or head-in-the-sand sort of way. Rage, grief, despair are healthy responses to what is happening in the world and they certainly arise in me. When they come, I try to give them attention and care and ask for help when I'm stuck in them. When I am able to let them move through me, I am not devoured by them. When they get stuck, I am consumed, immobilized, and exhausted.

When I am able to turn toward hope, my body relaxes. I am energized in a way that is sustainable and sustaining. When I turn toward hope, I can see the world I want to create instead of playing on repeat the painful parts of the world that is. When I turn toward hope, I turn toward other people, the potential of our collective power, and action. When I turn toward hope, I am more able to receive and support others who are in a different place than I am.

A few years ago I wrote this Advent piece invoking hope for JustFaith Ministries. If you are Christian (and maybe if you're not), it may speak to you. I don't claim to know the path toward the fullness of peace I wish to see in the world. But I do know how to turn toward you and toward others so we can practice together. I know that every time I've been in circles of open-hearted people, even when we've started in rage, despair, and grief, I have felt myself expand and my hope expand. 

We need each other. 

And so I turn toward you, toward us, believing that, like the sun, our hope and our action will light the world. 

With love, 
Cory

Holding the Complexity, the Humanity, the Whole

All week I’ve been thinking about Craig Greenberg, Quintez Brown, Annette Karem, and a friend of mine. These four and more are bound now by events of last Monday morning when Brown allegedly went into Greenberg’s mayoral campaign office here in Louisville and shot at him and his team members. Thankfully, no one was physically injured.

I don’t know Greenberg and I wish him no harm. I can’t imagine how scary it was for him and his team members to be shot at. I met Brown a few years ago when he spoke at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Day event. I was impressed at the time by his strength, clarity, and leadership. I was shocked when he was the one arrested for the shooting. He pled not guilty at his arraignment. The friend I mention had a studio next to Greenberg’s campaign office and was there Monday morning when the shooting happened. He was, as you might imagine, quite shaken by the events. Karem, who I also know personally and really like, was the judge for Brown’s arraignment Tuesday morning.

I’ve heard and read a number of thoughts and opinions about the shooting Monday, the arraignment Tuesday, and the release of Brown from jail Wednesday. I’ve seen reactions ranging from care and concern to anger and vitriol directed in multiple directions. Knowing several people who had very different experiences of the event, I am reminded of the complexity of our human interconnection. My own work right now feels very clear: keep my eyes, ears, mind, and heart wide open. Wide open. Wide Open. Especially my heart.  

When I teach Nonviolent Communication, I often say, “The primary goal is connection. The primary tool is curiosity.” In Atlas of the Heart, Brené Brown writes, “Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. We have to ask questions, admit to not knowing, risk being told that we shouldn’t be asking, and, sometimes, make discoveries that lead to discomfort.” Right now I choose curiosity and the possibility of discomfort. I also want to claim wonder, because wonder feels more heart-centered to me than curiosity. I choose them both.

After days of wanting to write but not quite being able to, I’m finally going to try to type out some words.  

Mostly questions.

I’ll admit here that I think I have answers to some of the questions. I imagine that some of you may answer differently than I. If that’s the case, I want to stay curious, to keep my heart wide open to you, regardless of your answers. Even if the only tangible connection between us is that you are reading what I’ve written, we are interconnected. Ultimately, our well-being is tied together.   

Others questions I offer with genuine curiosity and wonder. I want to keep my mind and heart wide open to whatever expected and unexpected answers may come. I hope that I will continue to turn to curiosity and wonder even about my own assumptions, beliefs, and current answers.

And so, I wonder…

Is it possible that we don’t know all the intricate details that led up to last Monday’s events?

Is it possible that we don’t know all the intricate details of Monday’s events?

Is it possible that we don’t know all the intricate details of what is happening with Brown after his release?

Is it possible that he is receiving mental health care that wouldn’t be available to him in jail?

Is it possible to open our hearts to the possibility both that Craig Greenberg, his campaign team, and their friends and family are hurting and in need of care and healing AND that Quintez Brown and his family and friends are hurting and in need of care and healing?

Is it possible for someone who’s primary concern is Greenberg to be open to the idea that someone else’s primary concern is Brown and that’s OK?

Is it possible for someone who’s primary concern is Brown to be open to the idea that someone else’s primary concern is Greenberg and that’s OK?

Is it possible that people are complex and that the same person can do things that heal and things that harm?  

Is it possible to refrain from labeling such a person as “good” or “bad” based on whether we witnessed more of their healing or harming actions?

Is it possible to notice the labels that we and others use that may oversimplify and narrow the boundaries of understanding?

Is it possible that systems we live in are complex and that they are serving some people much better than others?  

Is it possible that the effects of systemic harm over generations is rippling through these events?

Is it possible that accountability is not only about responsibility but may also include restoration and healing?

Is it possible to open our hearts to the possibility that the judge, the lawyers, and everyone involved is doing the best they can, even if we really, really, want(ed) them to do differently?

Is it possible to imagine that if we were in their shoes we might take the same actions, even if we find the actions problematic from the shoes we’re currently standing in?  

Is it possible to keep our hearts wide open to the possibility that a multiplicity of seemingly contradictory perspectives may all hold truths?

 Is it possible to keep our hearts wide open to the complexity, the nuance, the discomfort, the messiness of this human life?

I am sure there are more questions to ask.

Miki Kashtan often talks about the work of caring for the whole. This doesn’t mean a person takes responsibility for everything and everyone. That’s not a one-person job. Caring for the whole does mean taking into account the well-being of more than just whoever or whatever we are tending to as we make decisions. It means considering how our actions will affect our interconnected web here, now, everywhere and in the future.

I deeply long for all of us to have both the desire and the capacity to care in this expansive way.    

For a whole slew of reasons, we don’t all have the desire.

For a whole slew of reasons, we don’t all have the capacity.

But some of us do.

Currently I have both desire and some capacity to give. I wonder who else is willing and able to try to hold the complexity and the humanity of all parties involved and affected by last Monday’s events.  

I wonder who else is willing and able to do the experimental work of trying to hold the whole.

My prayer is that those of us with the desire to care for the whole find each other and that we harness our collective capacity, wisdom, knowledge, and creativity, so that we may nurture healing and hope.

However you receive these words, I wish you well. I welcome your thoughts, challenges, questions, and insights.