I wanted to personally write to you at this critical moment in our country: our public square is being hijacked by the loudest, noisiest, and most divisive voices and groups. I believe deeply we must take intentional action to counter these negative forces taking over our public square. 

Ten years ago last week, a gunman killed twenty first graders and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. The massacre shook the nation. Just weeks later, I was called into Newtown to help the community move forward, from trauma and despair to healing and hope.

Since then, school shootings have become so common that kids report imagining how they’d react if it happened to them. I have two children of my own; no child or parent, anywhere, anytime, should have to imagine such tragedy. 

The U.S. has more guns on the street than any other nation, with gun violence on the rise. In the last five years, the U.S. has had more mass shootings than any other comparable time span dating back to 1966. What’s going on? What should we be thinking about—and doing?

The 2022 elections are over, and the political instability once predicted seems to have passed. But the challenges people face in their lives have not magically evaporated because of one election season, nor have future political shenanigans. You, me and others who believe in creating a more inclusive, hopeful path moving forward must act—and with renewed intentionality. There is work to do, progress to make, hope to build. Now.

As election day approaches, tension and anxiety are rising to a feverish pitch across the country. What will be the fall out, and how will people and our nation endure the potential chaos and uncertainty that ensues? It is at this moment that we—you, me and others—must reclaim hope. Now.

The morning following the first public hearing investigating the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, Rich Harwood offers a perspective on where we can find hope today despite the intensely negative news cycle. He urges us not to deny that may be tired, defeated, or even enraged. But that we find and embrace hope amid the many struggles and crises in the world today.

There are times in your life when you become so angry, frustrated, scared, enraged, or feel threatened that you just want to walk away and give up. Now may be one of those times for you. I am hearing this from so many people. Perhaps I can hear you whispering such things as well.

In the past few weeks, during an almost unfathomable period of pure hell in the U.S., I have led four virtual regional roundtables with community leaders across the nation (the final one in the West is on Tuesday), and while I am deeply troubled, I am even more deeply inspired by what I have heard.

What do we face today? What are we willing to look at, see, engage with? What is asked of each of us, and all of us, especially as the scourge of COVID continues to ravage our nation, our economy sputters and indiscriminately spits people out, and systemic racism calls out to us to bravely step up and take action?

In response to the four crises we face—COVID-19, economic turmoil, systemic racism, and political breakdown—foundations, corporations, and other groups are all running into the void offering more funding and more resources to various causes and groups. All good. And yet these alone will not enable us to seize this moment.

While there is so much to despair these days, there are also signs of hope resting just beyond it. We must be willing to open our hearts to our collective despair, grab hold of it, and turn it and us into something better.

We see such signs of hope in the protests that have only kept growing.