I was on the phone with a rabbi earlier this week, and we came up with the idea to pull together a small group of people to reflect on what we’ve learned about society and ourselves during this past year. God knows, it’s been a hard, tumultuous year.

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.

Many people have asked me lately about personal resilience during this messy, strange, disturbing time that we’re living through. You are trying your hardest to keep your head above water, yet you often feel unhappy, unfulfilled, unrelentingly under pressure. Even when things are going well. You may be asking yourself: is personal resilience enough to get through these times?

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.

I’m announcing a new national initiative called Engaging Frontline Civic Leaders in Responding to COVID-19. We’re sending this questionnaire to you and thousands of public innovators in our national network. These open-ended questions will help us all to better understand how you and others are responding to COVID-19 and what we need to do to move forward in our communities and as a nation.

Like you, I find myself intensely wrestling with the effects of this pandemic. On so many levels, in so many ways, our lives are fundamentally changing before our very eyes, and it is nearly impossible to predict what will happen in the days and weeks ahead. But here are some things I have been thinking about.

On my office wall, I have a sign from Newtown, Connecticut that I got after my work helping the community respond to its school massacre, which reads: “Our collective strength and resilience will be an example to the rest of the world.”

I am recalling these signs now as panic and fear grips the nation over the coronavirus.

This blog comes to you one day after the South Carolina primary and two days before Super Tuesday. As I write this to you, the results aren’t in yet. But what I do know is that regardless of what happens, there is profound and troubling anxiety running throughout America today.

What are we to do with all our anxiety?

On this President’s Day, I find myself drawn to President Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, presented on March 4, 1865. It could have been written yesterday. We must heed it today.

“With malice toward none, with charity for all…”

This week’s political events unfolding in the nation’s capital are just one more indication of why local communities must lead the way in placing our shared lives on a more hopeful, inclusive path.

We can do better. We must.