Day 28: Start with Hope, Then Add Grit
How to act in hope even when we don't feel hopeful.
One of the joys of writing this Thirty Days of Hope series is that I’ve been able to feature the work of other writers. I started on Day 7 with my wife, Wendy DeGroat, who pens the Substack newsletter, Furrow and Fire. I love her thoughtful, insightful writing, so it seemed a fitting place to start.
But I wanted to extend beyond people I already knew, so I reached out to the wider Substack community. There I discovered Julie Snider, a writer I didn’t know but saw that in her Substack newsletter, Impermanent Joy, she also writes about hope. When I asked her if I could cross-post her piece, “This is precisely the time when artists go to work...,” she said yes, I was pleased to present her essay on Day 14.
I then ran into a local friend, Dorothy Fillmore, who told me that she had been working on a poem about hope called “Paper Flames,” and I asked her if I could publish it. That became Day 21.
Today, on Day 28, I’m presenting the last guest post in this series, “Hope Alone” by VK Lynne, another new Substack acquaintance, whose newsletter, Spinning Hope, couldn’t be more closely suited to my theme. I hope you find it both thought-provoking and challenging.
It’s been a joy and honor to feature other writers in this series. I hope you’re enjoying them too.
Hope Alone
by VK Lynne
Hope. It is a powerful ingredient to a worldview. A strong and medicinal spirit in the cocktail of perseverance. But its purity can turn toxic if not tempered with resilience or, dare I say, faith. Grit.
I inevitably think of Hunter S. Thompson when the subject of hope arises. Not a terribly apt example of a hopeful figure on the surface, Hunter harbored an almost childlike hope for this nation that, arguably, killed him.
In an excerpt from his “Fear and Loathing on The Campaign Trail,” in which he follows the McGovern/Nixon presidential race, the reader can almost feel Hunter’s initial enthusiasm drain out of him as he realizes that it is NOT a quest for the best man to preserve the American ideals, but instead a type of political sporting event. One that everyone has money, power, and prestige riding on.
Because, in spite of all his snark and wit, Hunter believed in this nation. He was a veteran who, through his pen, championed the actual country: the land, the environment, the democracy that was meant to be settled upon it. But by then end of that campaign, he exclaimed:
Jesus! Where will it end? How low do you have to stoop in this country to be President?
And so, we find ourselves here, in 2024, when decent men refuse to stoop, and so we find ones that live at eye-level with the worst in our natures. One can only imagine what Thompson would say if he were alive.
But sadly, he is not. Once he SAW what politics really was…he couldn’t unsee it. Now, I wouldn’t be so bold as to say that the rise of Nixon and his ilk is what inspired Hunter’s suicide. But I would posit that the realization that our deepest beliefs and ideals were critically polluted, and sadly naive, haunted him.
It is chilling to reflect upon his observations about Hemingway. He had this to say about Papa:
Here (Ketchum, Idaho), at least, he had mountains and a good river below his house; he could live among rugged, non-political people and visit, when he chose to, with a few of his famous friends who still came up to Sun Valley… he felt he could get away from the pressures of a world gone mad, and “write truly” about life as he had in the past….Perhaps he found what he came here for, but the odds are huge that he didn’t…So finally, and for what he must have thought the best of reasons, he ended it with a shotgun.
Forty years later, Hunter would follow in his footsteps.
All this is to say: Gird your loins. We are living in times which threaten to become terribly, proverbially “interesting.”
Right now, the artists are energized and passionate. Outpourings of HOPE in the forms of poetry, art, music, and analytical prose have filled our cyber air. And these cultural reactions are important.
But beware. As time passes, and things grow more dire, hope alone can flag and despair set in. Into the pure hope, we must mix grit.
Each finds it in different places: Meditation, prayer, mindfulness, etc. When challenges come, a bedrock in something bigger than ourselves is what maintains a foundation for the fortress that hope builds.
It allows us to ACT in hope, even when we don’t FEEL hopeful. And with those brave acts, change comes.
VK Lynne is a writer and musician from Los Angeles, and a recipient of the Jentel Foundation Artist Residency Program Award for writing. She penned the award-winning web series 'Trading on 15” and authored the novels Even Solomon and A Pook is Born. Her two poetry volumes, Crisis' and 'Revelation, make up the audiobook The Release and Reclamation of Victoria Kerygma.
Her writing has been published in the LA Poet Society's Anthology "Los Angeles Poets For Justice: A Document for the People", Women Who Submit's "The Gathering" Anthology, Image Curve, The Elephant Journal, GEM Magazine, and Guitar Girls Magazine.
Today’s Reflection
What can you do that, as VK suggests, will allow you to act in hope even when you don’t feel hopeful? Do you believe that’s possible?
What does VK mean when she writes, “Into the pure hope, we must mix grit?” What does adding grit look like in your life? How can you add grit to sustain your hope as we move into 2025?
With hope in my heart,
Annette
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