Archives: Magazine Post
Putting Purpose in its Place
My grandfather wrote music for as long as I can remember, though I only ever heard one of his songs, at a Christmas program in grade school. After he died, my musician uncle looked through what, to my young mind, seemed like an entire room of his music and said that it wasn’t particularly good. […]
Blest Be the Ties that Bind: Remembering a Purpose of Religio in Higher Education
There is a breach in our world. A breach is a breaking, a gap, a hole, a divide in something that was once whole. I am not sure how whole we have ever been as the human race, but the breach is on full display these days through inhumane physical and linguistic violence—from international wars […]
Considering Hope
I am often in conversation with people about some of the most weighty and challenging issues of our time—issues like anthropogenic climate change, environmental degradation, species extinctions, ongoing racism and income inequality, disease pandemics, the tearing of social fabrics, political polarization, and widely reported increases in personal stress, anxiety, depression, and despair. It is easy […]
How Beauty Fuels Hope
In the spring of 1912, Tokyo’s mayor gifted Washington, D.C., with 3,000 cherry trees, an act of friendship that continues to transform the capital each year into a dreamy spectacle of pink and white. Every spring, these cherry blossoms breathe new life into the austere Washington, D.C., architecture. They put the city under a spell. […]
The Hope of a Living Cross
Two decades ago, when my wife, Leah, and I moved to Durham, North Carolina’s Walltown neighborhood, we were young Christian activists who were determined to interrupt the violence of this world’s systems. In the spring of 2003, we had joined the Christian Peace Teams in Baghdad, Iraq during our nation’s “shock and awe” campaign to […]
The Virtue of Hope in the Face of Death
As a medical doctor who cares for older and ailing patients, I have long struggled with how to inspire hope when the medical facts paint an otherwise grim picture. In the face of imminent death from cancer, a fatal drug overdose, or a devastating injury—what can a doctor say about hope in such cases that […]
Imagining a More Compassionate Post–Covid-19 World
The early days of the pandemic were filled with fear and uncertainty, but we also witnessed levels of compassion, solidarity, and sacrifice that were previously unimaginable. In the midst of suffering, a seed of hope grew as we heard stories of medical personnel mobilizing, people sewing masks in their homes, and others singing from balconies […]
A Glimmer of Hope: Horizontality in the Leadership and Art of Woman, Life, Freedom
A reflection inspired by the Mozaik Philanthropy WOMAN. LIFE. FREEDOM. virtual exhibition Visit the exhibit at mozaikphilanthropy.org/woman-life-freedom I vividly remember the streets of Iran, woven with threads of beautiful traditions and burdened by the iron grip of the government. Streets hold memories that are entwined into the fabric of my being, sweet and bitter. They […]
Care to Hope
About a decade ago, a group of us imagined a healthcare system focused on care. This system would allow clinicians and patients to co-create, within relationships of trust and unhurried conversations, evidence-based treatment plans that could improve each patient’s situation. What was unusual for those involved in that moment was our decision to not just […]
Radical Hope Retrospective: An Interview with Jonathan Lear
Radical Hope: Ethics in the Face of Cultural Devastation by Jonathan Lear was first published by Harvard University Press in 2006. Lear, a professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, is also a trained psychoanalyst. In the years since he wrote Radical Hope, he has maintained and expanded his relationship with members of the […]