Critical Hope.
It’s been described as a dance between understanding the depth and complexity of the challenges we face and hearing the quiet spark that insists we can’t, we mustn’t, give up –– even when the path ahead is bleak or unclear.*
It’s not naïve or simplistic. Critical hope moves toward complexity, rather than away from it. It sees suffering and challenge clearly, and yet holds tightly to what could and should be.
It’s not something we do alone. Critical hope is a shared, social process.
In this 90 minute online Circle of Trust®, we’ll gather together to hold space for each other’s hopes and fears, joy and despair. We’ll explore how we live with the creative tension between what is and what might yet be. We’ll listen deeply to one another’s wisdom and ponder Flannery O’Connor’s invitation to “cherish the world at the same time that you struggle to endure it.”
The Courage & Renewal Touchstones® will support a calm, confidential and equitable space. We’ll engage with a range of perspectives on hope and take time for private, personal reflection along with small and large group conversation.
We hope you’ll join us.
* “I define critical hope metaphorically as a dance . . . a heated entanglement between the critical awareness of the problems at hand and the spark of spirit that sometimes in contradiction to our own experiences and sensibilities insists on hope. Not naive hope that things will just get better but an abiding wisdom that change cannot be created without a foundational starting point of hope.”
Kari Grain, author of Critical Hope: How to Grapple with Complexity, Lead with Purpose, and Cultivate Transformative Social Change. 2022
The Center for Courage & Renewal and its facilitators do not discriminate on the basis of race, creed, color, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, age, height, weight, physical or mental ability, veteran status, military obligations, and marital status.
