Harry Truman once said that listening to good music made him think of the way things ought to be, instead of the way they are.In the presence of music, we gain a taste of Heaven and Earth.Music is vitally important to our spiritual health: clearing the air, changing our mood, taking us to faraway places, revealing mysteries, calming the soul, allowing us true glimpses into the past.
Hope is a muscle, a practice, a choice that actually propels new realities into being. And it's a muscle we can strengthen. It is not the same as idealism or optimism. This kind of hope has nothing to do with wishful thinking. Hope as I've seen it lived is at once fierce and persistently joyful. I've come to understand this quality of hope as an essential foundation and power for the generative story, the generative landscape, that is emerging out of all of the rupture this moment in the life of the world has laid bare.