I work (and live) with teenagers. Jealous? Teenagers, if you’re unfamiliar, can be kind of paradoxical. There are parts of my day where repeated poor choices, general lack of impulse control, and being surrounded by over 3,500 underdeveloped frontal lobes can make me feel a little defeated.

At the same time (and often in the same day, sometimes in the same interaction), I see kids demonstrating great depths of compassion, generosity, and kindness—making it very easy to feel incredibly optimistic about the future. In this way, my time with teenagers means that I encounter hope every day, which is an invaluable job perk.

Even though I get to swim in a sea of hope (disguised as a cafeteria full of teenagers on sambusa day), sometimes I’m not open to it. I worry. I worry about the student who’s working through recovery, or transitioning, or whose family lives in fear of deportation. And I don’t stop there. What if the adults those kids depend on aren’t able to summon the strength required to support, counsel, teach, and love them through the hardest parts? How can we all sustain hope when the world can feel very dark indeed?

So lately, when the weight of worry has felt too heavy, I borrow these words from Nadia Bolz-Weber’s poem “A shitty little prayer for gloomy thinkers”:

“What I am trying to say, God, is that if you could help me pivot my restless brain from gloom to gladness even just like, 10% faster that could make a huge difference.”

Maybe that’s the work of hope: helping us pivot, even at small intervals, toward the light. The good news is that we don’t always have to generate our own hope, we can let it find us. In my case, I’m confident it will come disguised in sneakers and making way too much noise in the hallway.

And if you need a little help locating hope, might I recommend finding a teenager? Ask them what they’re excited about. Then listen. Their answers will give you a glimpse of tomorrow, and it’s worth hoping for.

— Emily Rosengren, UUCM Board of Trustees Member