Tag: hope

Restoring Trust

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Trust is one of those tricky words with multiple meanings.  Among its synonyms are faith and belief, but they are quite different.   The Latin word credo (I believe) finds its way into English as creed, credible (or incredible), credentials.  The Greek word pistis, or Latin equivalent fides, has a more subtle meaning of confidence or trust. Clearly, they overlap, but the meaning that I find of greatest social value is the idea of trust.  Do we trust our own judgment? Do we trust people in whom we confide? Do we trust the police, the justice system, our elected officials? Do we trust corporations to produce products that are safe and beneficial? Do we trust banks with our money?  Surveys about trust suggest that most of the institutions of American society do not evoke trust.  That decline is aided by social media, but it is not new.

Faith is the connector between belief and trust.  Think about the huge difference between “I believe in you (faith, trust) and I believe you (I think that what you are saying is factually true).  That confusion has dominated Western Christianity since the 3rd century, when the many (sometimes conflicting) stories about the life, death, teachings, and resurrection of Jesus were parsed and hardened into factual truth statements that eventually became mandatory beliefs in order to call oneself a Christian.

Blind faith is belief without evidence. Blind faith, inf fact, often  resists contradictory evidence and only is receptive to confirming evidence. (Psychologists call this “confirmation bias.”) New information that does not fit our pre-established beliefs is rejected almost every time.) Likewise blind trust in the good intentions of people and institutions weakens rather than strengthening the ties that bind us together in community at all levels from the household to the community to the nation.

Without trust, the kind that led the signers of the Declaration of Independence to pledge to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, our nation will revert to a state of nature in which (the words of Hobbes) life is nasty, British, and short for most of us. So being cautiously trusting is a risky but necessary first step.

Beliefs are durable, trust is not.  Trust is easy to shatter and difficult to repair. Our beliefs are a part of our identity. Our shared beliefs create mutually reinforcing communities of believers. And most important, trust is the foundation of a functioning democratic society.  We need to trust the good intentions, the competence, and the honesty of our public officials and the institutions—courts, law enforcement, public agencies, election administrators.  It would also be a good thing if we felt we could trust private agencies, banks and other corporations, service providers, and the media. However, each of them has let us down time and again.

Our faith in government and elected officials, in corporations, and in the shallowness of motivations of many of our fellow citizens has eroded over time, with a rapid fall in recent years. How do we restore trust in one another, in government, in the news media in an age of AI and social media?

There are no quick and easy fixes.  But there are steps that we can take to restore our capacity to trust and to be the kind of person others would trust as they judge is us our words and actions. We can encourage and support those institutions that we trust and call to account those that fail to be honest, respectful, compassionate, just, and fair.

We can begin with our own inventory of whom and what we trust—people, news media, friends, family, organizations. None of them are perfect, but we can call them to ccount when they fail and affirm our faith when they serve us and the larger community well.   t s incumbent on each of us to question, to get information from more than a single source, th protest wrongdoing and participate in civic processes that can slowly but eventually restore our trust in one another and our institutions.

We can seek out individuals and organizations that affirm our shared values and promote them together. There is both safety in numbers and reassurance in mutual support.  Together, we can learn, act, protest, vote, and engage in other ways in creating a society resting more firmly on a foundation of mutual trust and obligation.

In whom and what do you place your trust? How can you being the work of restoration for yourself and the larger community?

Trust but Verify

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Or in an Arabic saying, Trust Allah but tie up your camel.  In a world of hackers, scammers, shooters, liars, and broken promises, in whom can we trust? Our national motto is “IN God we trust, but some of us need to have an actual person in whom to trust as well as institutions that we can trust.

The word used for faith in Saint Paul’s dictum “Faith, hope, love, these abound; but the greatest of these is love.”  If faith is a matter of factual belief, then it is most helpful to me. I do believe the earth revolves around the sun and smoking can cause cancer, but I do not believe that the myths of any of the major religions are true in the same literal sense. I trust science because that approach to knowledge has created major safeguards to avoid any false propositions to be confirmed.  Science doesn’t give us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, but it does pretty well at offering truth and nothing but. I more or less trust science. 

The opposite of faith in either meaning, belief or trust, is doubt. When we no longer trust the systems and institutions that have served us well in the past, we tend to retreat to what theologian Paul Tillich described as a limited defensible fortress. His fortress was one of ideas, but it can also include people and institutions.

I used to trust the rule of law and the legal system, but recent events have raised serious doubts about the ability and willingness of elected officials to enforce courts decisions. I used to trust financial systems, but they are no longer as well safeguarded as they once were. Right now, I trust the accuracy of election results, but I’m not sure that the elaborate safeguards that protect the election process can be trusted in the future. I have serious doubts about crypto and artificial intelligence and ensuring peace by always being over-prepared for war. I used to trust the full faith and credit of the United States Government, but that was before our national debt grew to be as big as our GDP and growing faster. I used to trust the evening news, but now I have to seek confirmation.

Trust breeds hope, even optimism.  Doubt creates fear, and pessimism.  What can we as individuals do to reverse the direction of living under a cloud of doubt, at sea without rudder or compass, and no land in sight?

My answer, at least a partial answer, comes from three great minds.  One is Ben Franklin, who at the signing of the Declaration of Independence said, “We must all hang together or we will all hang separately.”  The second is theologian Joanna Macy, who argues that neither optimism nor pessimism is the foundation of any strategy—optimists believe that everything will be all right, and pessimism believe we are doomed and powerless to stop it.  She calls us to active hope, to fight the good fight, knowing that what we seek to accomplish may not be accomplished in our lifetimes. (Especially mine. I am 84!) We a called to active hope, to pick out parts of the perceived doomsday machine and throw a monkey wrench into the works.  The third piece of wisdom comes from Margaret Mead, who said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. “

Together the sages Franklin, Macy and Mead call us into community, to find people we can trust and work with them to reclaim our democracy, our rule of law, and our country. And to do it is peaceably lest we become like those who lost or stole our trust (civil disobedience is fine,). Friends. Religious communities. Nonpartisan organizations. Women’s suffrage took 72 years. Civil rights came slowly and are being rapidly demolished  in many ways.

Finally, there is a matter of picking your fights—what issues and what tools.  Ask yourself what gifts you have and what issues you are passionate about. Those two questions may steer you in the direction of people, information sources, and communities that can get you out of the fug and on the path

My gifts are writing, speaking, and organizational leadership. My issues are protecting democracy. economic justice, and reproductive rights. I am careful about whom I trust, and I depend on several organized communities that share those goals and can offer me support and companionship. 

What are your gifts and issues? Do you have such communities? How can they help you use your gifts and passions to practice active hope?

First Day of Christmas

~ purplesage41 ~ 3 Comments


For many of us it may be the last day of Christmas. But in Colonial times and beyond, Christmas Day itself was a solemn religious holiday, followed by eleven days of parties and celebrations of various kinds. It passes through New Year’s Day and ends at Epiphany, traditionally the date of the visit of the three kings or three magi, depending on your preference. For me, the first day of Christmas is fairly quiet. My family, or most of it, has come and left after much food, gifts, conversation, board games, home repairs by my son-in-law, and general being together.I spend the rest of the aftermath days until the new year reading some of the many books and doing one of the many jigsaw puzzles I always get for Christmas, un-decorating, and walking in the winter wonderland.

Two poems for the after days,, the first from Howard Thurman and second from me.
The Work of Christmas
When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home
When the shepherds are back with their flocks,
The work of Christmas beings:
To find the lost
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the brothers,
To make music in the heart.

Christmas 2024
The Christmas myth is rich and warm
Amidst the bleak of winter.
A baby, humbly born
Yest destined to become
A guide unto the nations.
Shepherds, angels, kings
A star in the East
All come to welcome him.

And so we celebrate—
Family, like Mary, Joseph and Jesus
Community, like shepherds, angels and kings
Gifts given, gifts received
Like modern day Pandoras,
A year ago we opened
A box labeled 2024
It was a hard and fear-filled year.
As we approach its end
We celebrate the gift of hope
That casts out fear and welcomes joy.

Welcome Yule

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

A popular expression among some Christians is “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Yes, there is a connection, but The season is the reason why the choice was made to celebrate the unknown date of his birth at this particular time of year. Before Jesus, there was Saturnalia, and Diwali, and Hanukkah. The common thread is the holiday that falls this Saturday, December 21st, the winter solstice, known since ancient times as the festival of Yul or Yule. It celebrates the shortest day and the longest night of the year as the northern hemisphere turns away from the sun..
In Celtic and other traditions, the story goes something like this. The Sun God is born at Yul and grows to manhood. His companion through this travel in the Triune Goddess, maiden Bridgid, Mother Danu, and the crone, who has various names. He courts the maiden in spring, and she becomes pregnant with the sun god. At summer solstice the sun is a the peak of his powers and the goddess she is radiant with a child in her womb. The Sun God begins to decline and dies at the winter solstice even as a new sun god is born. The crone is renewed as the maiden, and the cycle begins again. Or at least, that’s ‘the mythical story that underlies the holidays that enable us to reconnect with he rhythms of the turning year.


Here is a solstice poem:
This ancient holiday
Marks ending and beginning


The seed is still beneath the earth
Preparing to emerge from its cocoon
At Imbolc or beyond.
Yule calls us to take rest in darkness
To hibernate, reflect, and be prepared
To bloom once more.
Let us not hasten through
These cold short days
Spring will come soon enough.
There is no spring without winter
To prepare us or rebirth.

Head or Heart?

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For most of this seemingly endless election year, Republicans have been speaking to the emotions while Democrats were speaking to the reasoning mind. President Biden was calmly reciting the many accomplishments of his administration while Republicans painted government as an overweening threat to our personal freedom and our cherished values. Their affirming audience resonating with that campaign style included (among others) evangelical Christians of a certain focus (abortion), white men who resented upstart women and minorities, and gun lovers (as in “they want to take away our guns!”). The language of fear, anger, and despair were the vehicles to convey empathy for those who felt ignored or even persecuted by a government that catered to women, immigrants, and poor people, and was prone to making rules that everyone had to obey.

Suddenly and with little warning, everything changed in July.  Biden out, Harris in.  Remarkably, a prosecutor turned attorney general turned senator turned Vice-President, and a woman o color to boot, was a powerful instrument in turning the flailing Democrats into the party of hope, joy, and unity, with the able assistance of a folksy high school teacher and coach turned Congressman turned governor. Republicans, who in the Trump era have been avoiding most serious policy discussions that appeal to the reasoning mind, preferred a message of fear and anger, but were stuck with trying to disown or explain away Project 2025,. This very wordy 900 page document appealed to the left bbrain with a detailed blueprint for a totalitarian Republican administration.

Nods of assent to proposed policies have always taken a back seat to the gut sense of connecting through the emotions when it comes to choosing a president.. Yes, policy matters, but voters know that the problems the next president has to address may be very different from what is going on right now or in the immediate past. So they are looking for clues about he or she thinks and feels and makes decisions. Those clues are found in the message it conveys about whose concerns are going to get the most attention in the next administration.  In general, polls always ask about issues, but  people vote as much or not more with their gut rather than their brain. Those poll responses about what issues matter most to them are probably the product of rationalizing their feelings than analyzing the costs and benefits of child tax care credits or the price of insulin.

If emotions are the key to successful campaigning (just like advertising), the important question in the 2024 Presidential election is, which emotions does the candidate want to evoke? Does love cast out fear? Does hope triumph over anger or despair?  After eight years of an endless campaign by Donald Trump in and out of office that focused on negative emotions, is It possible to turn the tables by making the election about hope, joy and connectedness with one another?

As an economist, we sometimes came across what were called natural experiments, since no one would give us an actual economy to play with. In this country, we learned a lot from states that adopted certain policies while others did not—a higher minimum wage, for example.  This election pits two emotion-based campaigns against each other.  I do have a preference about candidates, and also about issues, but the idea of two parties offering competing visions of American cast in terms of hope for the future is a lot more appealing to me as a voter than anger or despair.

Results from this more or less natural experiment coming in seven weeks to a polling place near you.

A Torrent of Holidays

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I always like to write about holidays. (A gentle reminder of my book Economics Takes A Holiday!) February began with a couple of starter presidential primaries and Groundhog Day on the 2nd (historically celebrated by spring housecleaning), paused for Superbowl Sunday, then cruised on through Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, Valentine’s Day on the 14th, and Presidents’ Day on the 19th. Easter and President’s Day are moveable feasts, especially Easter which falls March 31st, which moved Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday back into mid-February. President’s Day always falls between the 15th and the 21st of February, whichever is a Monday. It is also not the ever the birthday of either of the two presidents it was created to honor, Washington and Lincoln.   

 This confluence of holidays calls for exceptionally rapid costume changes of emotional attitude. The Superbowl was just two days before Mardi gras, Valentine’s Day coincided with Ash Wednesday, and before we knew it, there was Presidents Day. A quick change of pace from a fast-paced, loud, noisy football game watched by millions to a religious holiday marking a season of repentance and reflection interspersed with a celebration of romantic love and ending on a sharp reminder that we are in a very intense and perhaps even ominous presidential election year. From crocuses to Dust Thou art and to dust you shall return to Super Tuesday presidential primaries in just one short 29-day month.

 Unlike the Christmas holidays, each one called for a different kind of emotional response.  Valentine’s Day is lighthearted and sentimental, hearts and chocolates and flowers and cards.   Presidents’ Day invites us to be patriotic and closes the banks and the Post Office, and in many places, the schools.  There is also the invitation to shop at the Presidents’ Day sales, spending some of that green stuff with their pictures on the front. Mardi Gras is the final celebratory fling (the carnival, literally meaning farewell to meat) before Ash Wednesday. This holiday calls observant Christians to the austere penitential six weeks of Lent.  Even those of us whose faith traditions didn’t make a big deal out of Lent often feel compelled to join our high church comrades in giving something up for Lent.   Nothing like a holiday the celebrates self-denial. By Tuesday we will be in for a good rest with no significant holidays till Saint Patrick’s Day four weeks later. Whew!

All these holidays have a common element, however, and that element is hope.  Valentine’s Day which was originally a Roman holiday. The name of the month, February, refers to the fever of love. The earth is preparing to be fertile and humans are willing to go along with it by celebrating romantic love, even if it is only by watching reruns of Bridgerton on Netflix. Renewal of plant and animal life as we all start to emerge from winter’s hibernation is a source of hope.  As the weather warms, we can spend more time outdoors—walking, gardening, coffee on the patio. SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) is banished until November. 

Presidential elections sometimes run on hope, sometimes on fear, most often (this year included) on a mixture of the two.  In a polarized nation, both the hopes and the fears are more intense. Theologian Joanna Macy reminds us that hope is useless unless it is active hope, a spur to invest our efforts in seeking out those candidates who best embody our vision of how our state, local, and federal governments should carry out that visionary hope. We can also hope for the future of our planet by engaging in sustainable lifestyles and inquiring of candidates what they propose to do about growth management and air and water pollution and global warming.

Finally, Mardi Gras and Lent are about letting go, turning one’s back on self-indulgence after one last fling and instead make an effort at cultivating the spirit. (In medieval times, it was also a way to stretch the food supply in the final months before spring crops began to come in.) It is long enough to change, short enough to see the light of Easter at the end of the Lenten tunnel. Just a manageable chunk of time to sustain the hope that by Easter, the holiday of renewal and rebirth, we will be reborn as better, wiser, more patient and less greedy and gluttonous than we were six weeks ago.  That’s a tall order, but we have to start somewhere.

AS we zip through these back-to-back holidays, let us celebrate hope.  Especially the hope that we have transformed into the practice of active hopefulness as we work toward bringing our hopes to fruition. In summer, this season of hope is followed by the season of joy, in autumn the season of wisdom, and in winter a season of rest and recovery. May the hopeful and challenging rhythms of the earth resonate in your body, mind, and soul this spring holiday season.

Morning Questions

~ purplesage41 ~ 1 Comment

I’m a longtme journal-keeper, starting the day with a page or two of what is going on in my life.  At the end of each day’s entry, I ask myself three questions.  The first two are “What do I hope for today?” And “What am I grateful for today?” The third question come from British author E.B. White, who posed it something like this.  “When I get up in the morning, I have to decide whether to enjoy the world or to improve the world. It makes it hard to plan my day.” In the form of a question, as the Jeopardy host would say, ?What do I plan to do (or not do) that will enable me to enjoy and/or improve the world today?”  Most days I try to do some of each, but there are some days that are mostly enjoy and some that are mostly improve. Over time, I have seen closer links among the questions because the enjoy/improve questions are grounded in what I hope for and what I am grateful for.

The practice of gratitude journaling has been around for a while. Those not inclined to do prayers of thanks (I’m one of those) find an alternative way of expressing thanks to be an alternative spiritual discipline.  There are so many big and little things that make our life more enjoyable that we can be thankful for and so many things we can do to make the world a better place. I have hopes for myself, about being a better person or getting more exercise or losing weight of being more mindful and more present. I have hopes for my friends and children and grandchildren, hopes for my state and my country and the world, hope for peace in Ukraine and slowing down climate change and preserving democracy. Gratitude is tied to enjoy, and hope is improving (or at least not to making things worse). All four of them are part of the mix of who we are and what we do and how that being and doing impacts our life and the lives of others.

Theologian Joanna Macy reminds us that hope has to be active hope, not wishful thinking.   She castigates both optimism (all will be for the best in this best of all possible worlds) and pessimism (nothing I do will make any difference) as a failure of hope, which those who read the New Testament may recognized as one of Paul’s cardinal virtues, along with faith and love. It is not enough to sit yon your recliner and think hopeful thoughts, but to find ways to work alone or even better with others to bring them about.  Similarly, gratitude means respecting the sources of joy, whether it is a sunny day, flowers, a cat on your lap, or a surprise phone call from an old friend. Gratitude calls us to be kind, attentive, and respectful of the atmosphere, the plants, animals, and other people.

What might it look like as a journal entry?  Something like this.  Today I plan to enjoy my weekly 4 pm visit with my women friends who largely share my values and attitudes but are enough different to challenge some of them.  I also plan to enjoy my exercise class, doing some writing, taking a walk, and making pumpkin bread.  I will finish up preparations for my congregational board meeting (I’m the president) and gather the supplies I need for a postcard to minority voters projects to launch after the Sunday service. I will get in touch with an old friend who recently suffered a fall and haul my recyclables to the local recycling center.  I will spray my doorways and windowsills with cleaning vinegar to discourage critters from moving in without resorting to poison. The postcards are part of my hope for democracy, the recycling and vinegar reflect my hope for the planet, and my call to my friend rests on the hope that it will cheer her up while she recovers. I am grateful for so many things, but the ones that are reflected in my enjoying and improving are my friends, my faith community, a good recipe for pumpkin bread, and the Botanical Garden in my community where I often walk.

We are what we think and what we do and what we refrain from thinking and doing.  Sometimes it helps to commit it to paper.

When Hope Is Hard to Find

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Do you ever feel that your personal life is going fine, but the outside world is going to hell in a handbasket?  I was feeling that way already—climate change, COVID, political polarization and deadlock, frequent mass shootings—when I watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix last night.  Along with depressing me with the presentation of the widespread addiction to exploitative and divisive social media sites, this documentary affirmed my decision almost a year ago to divorce Facebook.

As a born activist, my response was, what can I do?  And the answer is, not enough. I can make my tiny contributions to slowing climate change, but they are not enough, and it may already be too late.  I can protect myself from COVID, and encourage others to do the same, but I can’t get through the noise about the vaccine and the refusal to take responsibility that make it hard to get back to anything we would consider normal life. I am trying to engage in dialogue across boundaries, but I am not a very effective little progressive wave against a Tucker Carlson ocean.

Aldous Huxley in The Perennial Philosophy describes the merely muscular Christian as one who attempts to continuously ladle from a bowl that is never replenished. So, after watching the climate disaster play out in Germany and the Western US (in the southeast, we are enjoying an unusually mild summer), after watching The Social Dilemma and then news of shootings and political fighting, how do I refill the bowl with healthier thoughts?  

I am not a Buddhist, but Buddhism does offer good advice for hard times.  Take refuge in the sangha, which I translate as community. Family, friends, congregation, voluntary associations (the League of Women Voters at the local level, in my case).  Take refuge in the dharma (which I translate as wisdom—the teachings of faith traditions and philosophers). Take refuge in the Buddha (which I translate as the presence of the sacred, by whatever name you may call it.)  And go for long walks in the woods.

May you find ways to refill your bowl and go forth with your ladle to save the world.

A Torrent of Holidays

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February usual begins quietly with Groundhog Day on the 2n,, pauses for Superbowl Sunday,  then cruises on through  Valentine’s Day on the 14th, Presidents’ Day on the third Monday, and Mardi Gras and Ash Wednesday, which fall sometimes in February and sometimes in early March depending on the phases of the moon.  This year we experienced  a confluence of holidays, each calling for a different emotional attitude, as there were four holidays in a row on the 14th, 15th, 16th, and 17th.  Unlike the Christmas holidays, each called for a different kind of emotional response.  Valentine’s Day is lighthearted and sentimental, hearts and chocolates and flowers and cards.   Presidents’ Day invites us to be patriotic, closing the banks and the Post Office and in many places, the schools.  There is also the invitation to shop at the Presidents’ Day sales, spending some of that green stuff with presidential pictures on the front.   Mardi Gras is the final celebratory fling (the carnival, literally meaning farewell to meat) before Ash Wednesday calls observant Christians to the austere penitential six weeks of Lent.( Even those of us whose faith traditions didn’t make a big deal out of Lent felt compelled growing up to join our  more high church comrades in giving something up for Lent. Nothing like a holiday the celebrates self-denial.) By Thursday al of us will be in for a good rest with no significant holidays till Saint Patrick’s Day a month later. Whew!

All of these holidays have an interpersonal aspect in their observances that don’t work well with a pandemic, even one that is starting to recede.  Valentine’s Day is for hugs and kisses and exchanging cards—maybe not in a pandemic.  Presidents’ Day means the kids are out of school and some of the parents off work, which might mean some playtime or family time or a weekend adventure somewhere.  Not during a pandemic.  Mardi Gras is observed in various ways ranging from church pancake suppoers to a party or a trip to New Orleans—not during a pandemic.  Even the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday is hard for churches to manage during a pandemic.  At least the pandemic can’t mess with Lent, since this season of austerity  has come during a time when we are already being asked to practice self-denial—what’s another six weeks of it?

All of these holidays have a common element, however, and that element is hope.  Valentine’s Day was originally a Roman fertility holiday. The name of the month, February, refers to the fever of love. The earth is preparing to be bloom again and humans are willing to go along with it by celebrating romantic love, even if it is only by watching Bridgerton on Netflix. Renewal of plant and animal life as we all start to emerge from winter’s hibernation is a source of hope.  As the weather warms, even those of us practicing social distancing can do more of it outdoors and see other humans as more than a head in a rectangle on Zoom.

With the inauguration of a new president and political tempers cooling after the post-election drama, there is also a renewal of hope that perhaps we can learn to dwell together in peace, a good thought for Presidents’ Day. I just heard the statistic that politically speaking, 25% of Americans are Republicans, 25% are Democrats, and 50% are Independents.  There actually is a majority—it’s the No Party Party!  Perhaps efforts to woo those independents will pull both parties back toward the center.

Finally, Mardi Gras is about letting go, turning one’s back on self-indulgence after one last fling and instead make an effort at cultivating the spirit. (In medieval times, it was also a way to stretch the food supply in the final months before spring crops began to come in.) It is long enough to change, short enough to see the light of Easter at the end of the Lenten tunnel, with the hope that by Ester, the holiday of renewal and rebirth, we will be reborn as better, wiser, more patient and less greedy and gluttonous than we were six weeks ago.  That’s a tall order, but we have to start somewhere.

So as we zip through these back to back holidays, let us celebrate hope.  Especially the hope that we have actually learned something from the pandemic and will remember it next year when these last gasp of winter/start of sprig holidays come round again.