by Lida Shepherd, director AFSC WV Economic Justice Project

I was listening recently to an interview with Rebecca Solnit, purveyor of “Hope in the Darkness” and she was talking about how hope doesn’t come from ignoring reality, it comes from honesty.  With that in mind I will refrain from any “happy new year” greetings, because it has been a gut-punching and despair-inducing new year thus far.   

ICE agents killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis, our country dropped bombs on Venezuela, ICE agents are disappearing people from our communities in West Virginia and around the country --- meanwhile billionaires are looking to rake in more even more profit as stocks are up for weapons manufacturers and oil companies like Chevron.   

Feeling like we are in the inescapable grip of the merchants of misery is enough to make you weep.  While there is a lot about which to feel really really uncertain, here is Solnit again: “Uncertainty leads to possibility: Despair often assumes the future is fixed. But history is full of surprises and turning points.”  

I’ve been re-reading these days about nonviolence resistance and strategy in the face of authoritarianism (for obvious reasons), how the overreach of tyrannical regimes can actually provide those turning points, and how people always have more power than we might feel.  

Solnit has instructive advice for tamping down the anguish that we might feel right now: “Connect with others: Hope grows when it’s shared. Joining movements, communities, or simply leaning on friends creates a sense of belonging and power.”