It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
for hope must not depend on feeling good
and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
of the future, which surely will surprise us,
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?
Tell them at least what you say to yourself
Wendell Berry, from This Day: New & Collected Sabbath Poems
“One of my favorite quotes is by Wendell Berry, from one of his Sabbath poems where he writes it is hard to have hope. It’s harder as we grow old. And then he points out that the young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them? And Wendell writes tell them at least what you say to yourself. And my friend, Jim Koplin, who really helped me understand all of these, you know, deeper truths, once said to me, “I wake up every morning in a state of profound grief.” And that’s what he said to himself and he dared say it to me. And so when I think about hope, I think about my friend, Jim, who refused to turn away from the harsher truths about the world. He woke up every morning in a state of profound grief but he went about the business of living joyfully and that was a great model for me when I think about what it means to have hope.”
Robert W. Jensen, Ph.D., professor emeritus in the
School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin
