We’ve wrapped Hope. Erased it from our office white board wall. If you didn’t get a chance to listen, or maybe if you just need a glimmer of something from one of our thoughtful guests, you can find it again at ttbook.org/hope. Or in your podcast feed.
Over the course of working on the three-part Hope series, we heard from listeners via Twitter and Facebook, from calls to The Morning Show on Wisconsin Public Radio, and through a recording button on our website (it’s still up, too!) asking for thoughts on hope. People posted GIFs, had love or hate reactions to psychologist Steven Pinker, and said they were inspired to write poetry again. From what we heard, you get hope from family, community and faith. From David Foster Wallace and the dream of farming helium-3 on the moon.
We aired some of these voices in each episode of the show — but here’s a bigger sampling of what we heard.
“Makes me wonder where I should hand out some PBJ’s. There are plenty of people who could use one of those in this area. I need to figure out where to start.” (via Twitter, reacting to activist DeRay Mckesson’s simple but profound first step in Ferguson of making sandwiches.)
“Awesomeness! Children are our only Hope! They are our future! Great Read! Great focus “To the Best of Our Knowledge”! Way to go Lydia Hester! (via Facebook, about teen activist Lydia Hester)
“Sincerely hoping that our children are smarter and more responsible than us. How would they not have a sense of urgency seeing how we are behaving: wasting limited resources, intoxicating the planet, contributing to global warming, running ever increasing deficits, nurturing inequality, and pretending there is no tomorrow? “ (Washington Post commenter)
“Hearing one of my favorite writers talk about another one is like opening some magic literary Russian nesting dolls.” (via Twitter, about writer Megan Stielstra finding hope in the pages Lidia Yuknavitch’s book)
“Naturalists and nature lovers give me hope, as does the balm of time. And birds.” (via Twitter)
We’d still love to hear from you. Where does hope come from for you? Leave us your thoughts at ttbook.org/hope.
—Shannon