During the Changing of the Guard President 2023-24 Mary presented the new Rotary Theme - Create Hope in the World. During the meeting on 7-14-23, she shared her thoughts on that theme.
I was very delighted when I attended president’s training and learned that the theme for this year would be “Create Hope in the World”. It sounded, well, so HOPEFUL.
I knew right away that I wanted to include a meditation on hope at our meetings, and began researching to find writings on the subject.
I came across an article which appeared in the Washington Post, written by Amanda Riley, a contributing columnist. The article was captioned “This element is critical to human flourishing---yet missing from the news”. The author relates that she was attending a cocktail party and met an author who was about to publish a book---which later went on to become a best seller. She asked him whether his book “would offer people any hope?”
He sniffed “it is not my job to give people hope”. After this, she began to question her role as a journalist—only presenting those stories with bleak, disturbing facts, and not providing stories which nurture our humanity: stories which give us hope, dignity and agency. She decided that for a year she would concentrate on stories which give hope.
“Hope”, she tells us, “is not the belief that everything is, was or will be fine. It is a cognitive skill which helps people reject the status quo and visualize a better way”. She expressed it as an equation: “hope=goals + road map + willpower”. She writes “[hope] is the belief that your future can be brighter and better than your past and that you actually have a role in making it better. This kind of hope is critical to the survival of mankind”.
I am glad that we, too, have a year to reflect upon creating hope. Hope is the very nature of what we do here at Rotary: in our meetings, we give hope to one another. Through service to the community, we bring hope to others. It is a noble calling.
As we go through the year, let us be mindful of our opportunities to provide hope. Please feel free to contact me with any “hope” meditations you think appropriate. And, as we give happy dollars, feel free to include hopeful anecdotes, like Kay did last week.
So, the first meditation is, appropriately from Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine.
Hope lies in dreams, in imagination
and in the courage of those who dare
to make dreams into reality
- - Mary Gilbride
Lincoln South Rotary Club President 2023-24