Complicated hope
Helping Friendly Newsletter, 03.14.25
Every other Friday, I share 5 things to consider. On the Fridays between, I mix things up. This is a 5 Things Friday.
GM! ☕️
Here are this fortnight’s 5 things to consider:
I’m delighted to share that I just finished a season of learning with the BTS Center climate chaplains cohort. This was one of the most connecting and meaningful professional development experiences of my life, especially as Hurricane Helene, the L.A. wildfires, and a devastating political landscape unfolded around us in real time.
The course covered topics like disaster relief, care for activists and scientists, the experiences of climate refugees, race-conscious care, solidarity with Peoples of the Land, and climate psychology (big themes = grief, anxiety, and burnout, but also wonder and belonging).
I found it particularly helpful to explore how we can hold a complicated hope that is strong and honest enough to face climate realities, without retreating to cynicism or denial.
“The kind of hope I’m referring to is one that doesn’t ignore the bad. It doesn’t ignore the systems of oppression that surround us and crush us. It doesn’t ignore the chokehold that the fossil fuel industry has on the world. No. It looks all these destructive systems in the eye, and in defiance embraces a different world of liberation and ecological harmony.” - Our Changing Climate, “Why We Need Climate Hope”1
Last week I shared a page from my journal and noted the importance of unlikely maps. Ever since, I’ve been noticing others who are sharing similar or related ideas.
From the arts, Billy Strings’ mournful tune “Leaders” positively aches for something new: “We’re not the leaders anymore. We’ve got to find another door.”
In leadership development, Centre for Holding Space directors Heather Platt and Krista dela Rosa are teaching 10 competencies for leadership in liminal spaces: accountability + agility + self-reflection + curiosity + collaboration + intuition + groundedness + courage + humility + connection.
And from the nonprofit sector, Vanessa Reid reflected on “Secret Guides and Weird Waymarkers” for Stanford Social Innovation Review’s excellent Winter 2025 supplement, Practices for Transitions in a Time Between Worlds:
“It’s possible that you, and the work, people, and places in the world you care about, have questions to which you do not have the answers. And this is important. To not know. This is the moment in the old stories, the wisdom stories, where the seeking of a new or very old way—a deeper truth—begins: with an unanswerable question.” - Vanessa Reid, “Secret Guides and Weird Waymarkers”
For those of you in research fields: check out sahibzada mayed's ethical reframe of research terminology. Making this transition would impact methodology, yes? The call to action is a move "from extraction to reciprocity, from compliance to care, and from detachment to relational responsibility." Really good stuff.
Excellent questions for creatives who would like a more expansive practice, from Yumi Sakugawa. I love this one: “What would make this so exciting and compelling that [you] can’t wait to play and create and build on these ideas?”
A prescription on the occasion of the Blood Worm Moon:
Catherine Barnett, “Apophasis at the All-Night Rite Aid.”
Bonus book love + local C’ville giveaway
Jefferson-Madison Regional Library is giving away copies of our 2025 Same Page community read, Chesapeake Requiem. As of yesterday, they still had copies (I was at Gordon Avenue branch). I loved this book, which tells tale of a place where I have ancestral roots. Enjoy!
ICYMI, last week I shared one of my unlikely maps:
Thank you for reading! This newsletter is a labor of love. 💌 To support it, you can upgrade to a paid subscription, share this post, or engage my services. You can learn more about my work at jenniferlphillips.com.
Peace,
Jenny
P.S. ✨ shine on ✨👇🏼
Via Waterspirit.