In the midst of the many million words of news filtered down to headlines every day, there are stories that promise profound systemic change

I’m tired this week. I imagine some readers of this post are too. Weary of pandemic-driven limitations and differences with friends, colleagues and family. Worried about climate change. Deeply despairing of war and its impact. Exhausted by the relentless loss of livelihood and life to hate and bias. ….. and even when I’m this tired, there are three things I can do to respond to the urgency of the moment.

I don’t believe ideas like freedom can be beaten or convinced into submission. … Questions though, sincere and open-hearted questions, can and have caused ideas to stand down, or shift enough to make more room for more people to thrive.

But what does it mean to meet anguish, especially anguish that looks like resistance to the change we seek? How do we meet it well-enough to mitigate deepening harm, to shift change in the direction of increasing equity and decreasing violence?

When my stepchildren were young, they enrolled in a hip-hop dance class. After the first class, their mom asked my stepdaughter if the instructor had added context to the class. Had they learned about the history of hip hop? Its importance in African American culture? My stepdaughter, who was 9 or 10 at the time, sighed. “Mama,” she said, “we just want to dance.”

Fear lights matches every day, touches them to gas, and sets the world on fire. We’ve got to put out those fires, and fiercely resist the lighting of the match. We’ve also got to learn to respond effectively to fear itself.

One new word opens a window where there was a wall. One old word is a sturdy boat, carrying me across a river I didn’t know I needed to cross.

When I’m stalled by not knowing my place in creating the change I seek, returning to practice lifts my spirits. Then - a small miracle - I often find I can do more.

Retreat to consensus and even its fierce defense is understandable. Still, I can’t see a way out of the requirement of careful thought in response to every new understanding, every turn of the moment, every gift of insight from an emerging future. . . . Thought is a threat to certainty, yes, but thoughtlessness is the enemy of liberation.

The long arc of justice requires love. It requires appreciating each other, and saying that. It requires persistence

The word “us” in a simple sentence speaks volumes about choices to extend care or to withhold it. Choosing to extend or withhold care is arguably a political decision

For many who I know, read and listen to, the past year especially has been a time of critical transition, an opportunity to reckon and change in ways long overdue. With that awareness comes a hunger for information and understanding. It’s an urgent hunger, with often anxious questions, because the stakes are so high and there is so much to learn.

Thinking can mitigate the risks of action, and action the risks of thinking. Besides, mistaking limitations for uselessness is never a good idea.Despite their limitations, change requires action and thinking. Thinking discerns a way forward, action puts feet on the path.

Hope has far more gravitas than mere optimism. Hope is a necessary strategy in the slow work of carving out equity and driving down violence, precious enough in the work of change as to warrant our protection.

When we limit our vision to moments in lives out of context, we risk seeing individuals as exceptional. “Exceptional” seems like a compliment until one considers the question, exceptional relative to what?

When we limit our vision to moments in lives out of context, we risk seeing individuals as exceptional. “Exceptional” seems like a compliment until one considers the question, exceptional relative to what?

What matters is that we do not let moments like this pass without thinking. Hard. What matters is that we question what happened and notice what didn’t, make connections to histories, between movements. If we’re surprised, we can ask if there was anything we missed, and why. If we’re not surprised, we must, I think, brush away cynicism, which is the enemy of action. In moments like this we need to figure out what we need to figure out, then act on it any way we can.

The turn of the year is a few days away. This year, “good riddance” is everywhere. I think that may be a mistake.

Punishment is not working. It is not keeping black and brown people safe from police shootings. It is not keeping first responders safe from violence. It is not supporting loving families, housing and food for children. It is not keeping disabled and trans people safe from beatings and worse. It has not made the lives of victims of violence more whole.