Today, I went to a meeting. In and of itself, that’s clearly not news!
It was an online meeting, all quarantine appropriate, and full of people I didn’t know before.
It doesn’t matter so much, in this moment, what the meeting was about. Here’s what you need to know:
Over 700 people, from all over the world. Kenya, Canada, USA, France, Mexico, Ireland, Brazil, the Ukraine, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Trinidad & Tobago, the UK… and those were just the ones I caught going past in the chat!
If you’ve been to meetings like this, you may be familiar with the quotes going by on the screen in the beginning. One caught my eye…
Don’t be pushed by your problems… be led by your dreams. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
And there, in that little spot of www.land, I found some hope in the midst of what I’ve been experiencing as election terror.
The hope came, mostly, from being surrounded by hundreds of strangers all there because they, too, have dreams for their lives and our world.
I’ve already voted and, as far as I can tell, my job in this moment is to keep dreaming a better nation. A better world. Because, as I’ve mentioned, I have two granddaughters growing up in this world.
Chances are you have a similar motivation for the future.
Let it be conscious. I know it feels safer to try to bury it, so that disappointment isn’t so scary, but that’s not going to work. Please, please, please let yourself believe in whatever it is that keeps you getting out of bed in the morning and doing the good you can.
In the coming weeks, I’ll have some more information about the meeting, and about what I’m up to. And some ideas about how you might get involved…
For today, check out the art, above. It’s under layers of a painting from a year or so ago. If you look closely, you might just find an eye, gazing with hope into the future.
ps… Hi from Phoebe and Luther who have been helping by, you know, not eating roofers and such!