This week, I’m going on the last two stops on my Texas book tour—I’d love for you to tell your friends and to see you at Nowhere Bookshop in San Antonio on Tuesday, July 16 (today!) and Fabled Bookshop in Waco on Thursday, July 18! But I couldn’t bear to start with book launch stuff when this week has been so heavy, so I decided to focus on something more meaningful for this week’s post.
We were at Bingo Night at our beloved little church when Donald Trump was shot. The small foyer was jam-packed with dauber-wielding bingo players, the smell of popcorn lingering invitingly. You could see the news moving through the crowd, as people whispered to one another and held their phones out.
I don’t write about my church very much, because this is a day and age in which faith can be complicated—for some, it feels off-putting; for others, there’s an internal quiz of “are you in or are you out?” and it’s a game I don’t want to play. My faith is private and personally complicated for me. To be frank, as I get older, all my clear answers are gone. The world as I thought I knew it has been shaken like a snow globe held by a sometimes-vindictive cosmic hand.
And yet—some things remain, and those things matter more to me in this tumbling, tumultuous time than I can express. We’ve continued to quietly go to this small building filled with a bright community where everyone—and I truly mean everyone—is thoroughly and enthusiastically welcome. I don’t name the specific place or give details about it on the internet because being a woman who writes about immigration makes me cautious, and I would never want to bring negative attention to this affirming and wonderful little place.
That Saturday night, the mood among several people in the room became somber (the rest were playing bingo, so: less somber). But there was a sense that the political wheels were already off, that things were escalating in frightening ways. We’re all so tired of the violence and the polarization already, and now this—there was a palpable heaviness that night.
And then, the next morning, one of my favorite guest preachers (who I hope will forgive me for not naming her to keep protecting identities) delivered a breathtaking sermon about the practice of disciplines in the midst of turmoil. I needed her words. I needed to be reminded that hope is not just a feeling, but a discipline.
She talked about the power of cultivating spiritual discipline precisely for times of crisis like the one we’re living in now.
Spiritual discipline may not be a word that people use outside of Christian circles; when I was young growing up in the church, this idea felt relatively commonplace. Perhaps it feels less so now because I run in different circles, or perhaps people just talk about it less. It could feel a bit archaic, if I’m being honest, a bit like the kind of idea that was really popular in your grandmother’s generation but feels a bit cringey now. Except, my grandparents lived through the Great Depression and World War I and II and the Cold War and I’d take any advice they could give me if they were still living about how to keep going in dark times. To me, it was such a refreshing return to something that really meant a lot to me once, something I’d all but forgotten about.
When I think of cultivating discipline, I think back to my parents making me practice the piano. I’ve said several times throughout the years that I could not have written a dissertation if my parents hadn’t made me stick with the piano. And by that, I mean: you can’t jump from “Hot Cross Buns” to a concerto. But by practicing my scales every day, learning finger exercises and teaching my hands how to move over the keys, day by day and year by year, I got better until I was proficient. When I started in graduate school, the idea of writing a long work of research felt insurmountable, but as I wrote paper after paper and dug deeper and deeper, I learned the skills I needed to write a dissertation.
I learned that, with discipline and over time, I could get better at something that mattered to me.
I think that is why I have hope now at a time when the world feels hopeless to so many others. I didn’t realize how much the work of being friends with and writing about displaced people over the last almost two decades has trained my thinking. Conversation after conversation, story after story, I’ve developed the skills to recognize that even in the darkest times, there are moments of hope and connection. I have learned to look not to the news but to the people around me. And I’ve learned how to take myself out of the endless onslaught of grief and rage so that I can keep going every day.
These are some practical ways I try to build the discipline of hope in no particular order:
I stay in community with people I love who care about the world around them and who are doing practical things to build loving, hospitable places for those who need them (the core reason we’re at this church, which is excellent at this important work; also the basis of so many of my friendships). People who care about others teach me daily and remind me when I’m hopeless that the world is full of connections and that people are wonderful and complex and always worth fighting for.
I monitor my body when I’m reading the news or talking about stressful things. I drink water, I put the phone away. Sometimes I put a big metal pot upside down on top of the phone; it’s silly, but it feels contained to me. Or I ask friends if we can change the topic. If I’m starting to feel panicky or stressed and there’s nothing I can do about the thing we’re talking about, I give myself permission to put it away and come back later when I’m ready.
I take walks without a device. The world is so beautiful; there is always something happening, whether it’s drama among birds or scampering squirrels or cute neighbors on bikes. I breathe in and out, and I feel the miracle that is my body taking a breath. I’m aware that each breath of each day is a gift. I let my mind be calmed by the back and forth synaptic input of left-right-left-right while I walk. I let my body get tired so I will be less agitated.
I do yoga, and I like it best when it’s active and moving because my brain needs to be engaged. When I have a teacher who I have to pay attention to because I’ll get off track if my mind wanders, it helps me stay present in my body. My body wants to feel ok, and I let it.
I limit my alcohol content. The temporary buzz of escapism does not last, and I feel much worse later. I make rules for myself about how much and when I can drink and I try to respect myself enough to follow those rules—some rare weeks (when I’m traveling with friends), it’s a glass of whiskey or wine a night. Other times, it’s one or two glasses a week. Deadening myself to the world through alcohol or other drugs does not make me feel less anxious; for me, at least, it’s always the opposite.
Instead, I give my brain a reset by reading escapist books. The other day, I called myself a trash raccoon of a reader and it’s my new favorite description. I let my brain go and let it take a well-earned break from all the stress. It helps. I’m so grateful for the incredible writers who do the important work of giving our brains another world to go to (this is true for movies or TV shows or whatever works for any of us; for me, it’s usually books).
I give myself permission to see and to feel and to care. Escaping so that I can return to something I care about refreshed and ready to face it seems to be the key, not sticking your fingers in your ears to avoid it.
I am intentional about my faith even if that means most of my prayer life is me being deeply, deeply angry and mind-yelling more than I meditate. After years of hearing some of the most horrific stories in the world, I have more questions than answers. I am done being a person with a clearcut point of view and advice for others on how to live their life. I’m very grateful to have been raised in a home where there was plenty of room for anger in my faith, and I’ve moved fully into that space for the last several years. I don’t know the answers any more to the order of the world and many days, I’m not even sure I know the questions. But I do know that raging at an unjust world because I love the people around me is a valid response and a sign of my faith.
I have the best therapist. I meet with her regularly (OK, I took a break for a few months, but I’m starting back this week!). I talk about the hard things I see and feel, about what worries me. We’re big believers in chemical interventions in our home and isn’t it wonderful to live in a time when we can tweak our brain imbalances if we need help moving forward? Medication and therapy and all kinds of inner work—those are all forms of discipline that help us in so many ways and they’re wonderful.
I listen to people I trust and prioritize their voices. There are writers whose work I love, and people whose thoughtfulness means the world to me or who have spent their lives making the world better. I listen more to them, try to value the poets over the pundits.
I evaluate sources of information. I ask: do they want me to feel outraged or afraid? Are they trying to sell me something, even if that something is me being glued to the station or social media feed so they can advertise things to me? Is the world around me falling apart, or is it in their best interest for me to be deeply afraid so they can have my constant attention? If so, I resist as much as I can.
I spend time with my family. They are the greatest source of hope for me, the constant reminders of why I want the world to be better in the first place. Jonathan and our kids are like a nuclear charging station of hope for me.
I also spend time with our dog because nothing in the world makes you feel better than a dog who loves you and is joyful just because you walked into the room. She lives with the constant hope of a treat or a walk, and isn’t that the kind of hope we all need right now? Here’s a picture of Roux—don’t you feel better already?
As I wrote my list, I noticed a couple of things. First, for me, it wasn’t about staying positive. My anger makes me hopeful many days; the fact that I care about injustice that others also care about is a rich space of hope—the act of discipline is in connecting with those people and caring together.
Second, the act of discipline in so many examples is about making space in my mind and my heart. It’s cleaning off the detritus of the world, not allowing the muck of the news and the fear-mongering and the outrage to cling to me. When I give myself space to connect with myself and with others, then I can care deeply about the things that matter to me, and I can seek hope. When my mind is clear, when I’m focusing on others, when I’m using critical thinking skills and compassion to prioritize who I listen to and how I spend my time, I feel more hopeful.
It’s interesting to me that the list I wrote does not actually correlate with the feeling of hope. I didn’t say how I train my body to feel a whooshing gut feeling of ‘this will all be OK.’ Instead, I make space for the hope that is already there. I train myself to be ready to see it. I train myself to look for it. I train myself to be open to the world around me.
Over years and years of doing this work, I play concertos, but I do my scales every day too. I’m always still working at it, disciplining myself to find hope. It’s not easy but I was grateful for the reminder this week that it is something we can work towards—day by day, over time.
I’d love to hear from you—what are ways you cultivate the discipline of hope?
Thank you so much for this😭🙏. It is a wonderful and timely reminder to me… I greatly appreciate it.