The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear

by Paul Rogat Loeb

What keeps us going when times get tough? How do we keep on working for a more humane world, no matter how hard it sometimes seems? In a time when our involvement has never been needed more, this anthology of political hope will help readers with the essential work of healing our communities, our nation, our planet—despite all odds.

In THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE, a phrase borrowed from Billie Holliday, the editor of Soul of a Citizen brings together fifty stories and essays that range across nations, eras, wars, and political movements.
Danusha Goska, an Indiana activist with a paralyzing physical disability, writes about overcoming political immobilization, drawing on her history with the Peace Corps and Mother Teresa. Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic, finds value in seemingly doomed or futile actions taken by oppressed peoples.
Rosemarie Freeney Harding recalls the music that sustained the civil rights movement, and Paxus Calta-Star recounts the powerful vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow of Bulgaria’s dictatorship.

Many of the essays are new, others classic works that continue to inspire. Together, these writers explore a path of heartfelt community involvement that leads beyond despair to compassion and hope. The voices collected in THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE will help keep us all working for a better world despite the obstacles.


pt. 1. Seeds of the possible. From "The cure at Troy" / Seamus Heaney
A slender thread / Diane Ackerman
Ordinary resurrections / Jonathan Kozol
Standing up for children / Marian Wright Edelman
You are brilliant and the earth is hiring / Paul Hawken
Political paralysis / Danusha Veronica Goska
pt. 2. Dark before the dawn. From "September 1, 1939" / W.H. Auden
The optimism of uncertainty / Howard Zinn
On being different / Dan Savage
The dark years / Nelson Mandela
An orientation of the heart / Václav Havel
Reluctant activists / Mary Pipher
pt. 3. Everyday grace. "The peace of wild things" / Wendell Berry
Gate A-4 / Naomi Shihab Nye
Mountain music / Scott Russell Sanders
The Sukkah of Shalom / Arthur Waskow
Getting our gaze back / Rose Marie Berger
Fragile and hidden / Henri Nouwen
There is a season / Parker Palmer
pt. 4. Rebellious imagination. "Celebration of the human voice" / Eduardo Galeano
"Last night as I was sleeping" / Antonio Machada
Childhood and poetry / Pablo Neruda
To love the marigold / Susan Griffin
Walking with the wind / John Lewis
Rough translation / Toni Mirosevich
Jesus and Alinsky / Walter Wink
Stories from the cha cha cha / Vern Huffman
Do not go gentle / Sherman Alexie
Despair is a lie we tell ourselves / Tony Kushner
pt. 5. Courage is contagious. "To be of use" / Marge Piercy
The transformation of silence / Audre Lorde
The small work in the great work / Victoria Safford
We are all Khaled Said / Wael Ghonim
Arab revolutions / Stephen Zunes
Not deterred / Paxus Calta
In what do I place my trust? / Rosalie Bertell
Faith works / Jim Wallis
The progressive story of America / Bill Moyers
pt. 6. The global stage. "Imagine the angels of bread" / Martín Espada
Kids, trees, and climate change / Mark Hertsgaard
Curitiba / Bill McKibben with a postscript by Paul Rogat Loeb
Come September / Arundhati Roy
The black hole / Ariel Dorfman
Behemoth in a bathrobe / Carla Seaquist
pt. 7. Radical dignity. "How have you spent your life?" / Jalaluddin Rumi
Letter from Birmingham Jail / Martin Luther King, Jr
The real Rosa Parks / Paul Rogat Loeb
Prisoners of hope / Cornel West
Road to redemption / Billy Wayne Sinclair
Resisting terror / Peter Ackerman and Jack DuVall
Composing a life story / Mary Catherine Bateson
pt. 8. Beyond hope. "Origami emotion" / Elizabeth Barrette
From "The New York poem" / Sam Hamill
Staying the course / Mary-Wynne Ashford
The elm dance / Joanna Macy
Is there hope on climate change? / David Roberts
The inevitability trap / K.C. Golden
Hoping against hope / Nadezhda Mandelstam
You have to pick your team / Sonya Vetra Tinsley, as told to Paul Rogat Loeb
From Hope to hopelessness / Margaret Wheatley
pt. 9. Only justice can stop a curse. "Still I rise" / Maya Angelou
Only justice can stop a curse / Alice Walker
The clan of one-breasted women / Terry Tempest Williams
Next year in Mas'Ha / Starhawk
The gruntwork of peace / Amos Oz
No future without forgiveness / Desmond Tutu

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Activism, Politics, Social Justice, Self Help, Social Change

496 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2004

About the author

Paul Rogat Loeb is an American social and political activist, who has strongly fought for issues including social justice, humanitarianism, environmentalism, and civic involvement in American democracy. Loeb is a frequent public speaker and has written five books and numerous newspaper editorials.

Reviews

[Martin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of my textbooks in college that not only stretched my mind, but gave me something enjoyable to read over and over again for years to come. It's a collection of works by so many of the people who have inspired me with their words, actions, and thoughts. Anywhere that you can find Maya Angelou, Howard Zinn, Alice Walker, Desmond Tutu, Tony Kushner, Pablo Neruda, Nelson Mandela, and Jonathan Kozol among others all hanging out in a around 400 pages is a place I want to be. Hope you all find a place on your bookshelf for this one!

[KC · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took a lot of time to finish this, so that I could have time to digest the essays before starting another. Powerful essays with life and world changing potential, truly prophetic.

[Danika at The Lesbrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is closer to a 4.5. Even though this was written during the Bush administration, it feels like the most relevant thing I could be reading right now. I want to buy my own copy and read an essay a day. Each essay is only a few pages (usually around 3-5 pages), so even though the topics can be extremely heavy, it never feels like a slog.

If you're wondering how you can possibly have hope right now, this is the book for you. If you feel like even talking about hope is almost obscene right now, you need to read this. It covers a huge spectrum of perspectives and contexts. It defines hope as not cheery optimism, but the rugged, persevering force that inspires you to act even if failure seems guaranteed.

I highly, highly recommend this to any activism in a post-Trump elect world. It has a few dated references, but those are rare. As with any anthology, some of these hit closer to home than others, but the quality of writing was consistently high, and all of the excerpts are reworked so that they seem complete in themselves.

[Abiola · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was recommended to me by one of my favorite professors after we had one of those "everything is just awful" conversations. Years later, I still find myself returning to this book when I'm down or having a bad week. This book is able to inspire hope and for that I'm grateful to these authors.

[Ethan Casey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent this summer building a patio, something I had never done before. I had to imagine it, then haul out a lot of dirt, then build a retaining wall and haul in crushed rock and sand. I couldn't have done it without my friend Pete, who has experience and tools that I lack. The surface is 2,000 reclaimed bricks: assorted antique pieces of Seattle history (some  from the original harbor steps dating to the 1880s).

I could get run over by a bus tomorrow, or an earthquake like the one that just hit California could destroy my house, or rampaging condo developers could devour my quaint neighborhood. And anyway, ISIS is overrunning Iraq and Syria and police in armored vehicles have been terrorizing residents of Ferguson, Missouri, and I'm told radiation from the 2011 nuclear disaster in Japan has reached the West Coast of North America, which is where I live. So why bother building a patio? My answer is that, regardless of all the bad things happening around the world, my wife and I and our friends and relatives will enjoy it for years to come and, I hope, eventually pass it on intact to others to enjoy. Like establishing a garden or writing a book, building a patio in an uncertain world is an exercise in enlisting the passage of time to advantage: an act of faith.

"Faith" is a widely and glibly abused word, but the sense in which I use it here should ring true to anyone, religious or not, who lives in our world as it is and wants to do what he or she can to make it better. If you're going to bother getting out of bed in the morning and doing anything at all, you have to believe that life is worth living and that human beings are meaningfully connected through time as well as across space. Needless to say, that can be easier said than done. As Paul Farmer has said, depression is a rational response to the state of the world.

But over 30 years, Farmer and his Haitian and international co-workers have achieved remarkable things in a certain very poor region of rural Haiti, as I've seen with my own eyes. They couldn't have done any of it if they hadn't started doing it 30 years ago. Farmer and Haiti aren't featured in Paul Loeb's wonderfully encouraging revised collection The Impossible Will Take a Little While, but they could well have been. And that's part of the book's beauty: Loeb could have conveyed essentially the same message with an entirely different selection of specific material.

The Impossible Will Take a Little While is a judicious selection of writings, grouped thematically and with section introductions by Loeb, by contributors involved in public activism past and present, from South Africa (a compelling excerpt from Nelson Mandela's autobiography and Desmond Tutu's "No Future without Forgiveness") to Chile ("The Black Hole" by Ariel Dorfman) to Nebraska (Mary Pipher's "Reluctant Activists" on the remarkable story of how broad-based local citizen opposition arose to the Keystone XL pipeline).

Also included are poems and reflections on the personal costs as well as enrichments of political action. Loeb is clearly a very literate and humane person, and the book's greatest value is that it addresses, implicitly and at times explicitly, the question of why we should bother in the first place. As Loeb writes in the introduction to the section titled "Beyond Hope,"

Sometimes we achieve the impossible sooner than we expect. Knowing that can stiffen our resolve. But relying on quick victories can also tempt us to place too much emphasis on outcomes; it can cause us to become unduly impatient, brittle, with our will easily broken by setbacks. A deeper, more farseeing hope, by contrast, combines realism with resilience, acknowledging suffering and despair without giving in to them. … By letting go of impatient hope we can persist no matter how hard it gets.

Loeb quotes his friend Abe Osheroff, who fought in the Spanish Civil War and was still politically active when he died at age 92: "When I was younger, I acted because I hoped to achieve a certain something. Now I'm path-oriented. I act to get in contact with the best part of who I am. I do the work whether we win or lose." Loeb rightly emphasizes that it's both permissible and necessary for us to live with paradox: "If we let go of consequences altogether, we can delude ourselves into thinking that critical life-and-death outcomes don't matter. Yet if we base our commitment solely on whether we'll prevail, we run the risk of giving up before the full promise of history is fulfilled."

The Impossible was first published ten years ago, and the new edition is a substantial revision, with a number of additions and substitutions to cover more recent events, such as "We Are All Khaled Said" by the Egyptian activist Wael Ghonim. For some reason to do with rights or whatever, Loeb wasn't able to include Rebecca Solnit's powerful essay "Acts of Hope: Challenging Empire on the World Stage," written in the wake of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, but he points out that you can read it on the Internet. As a Wisconsinite, I wish that he had included something on the historic citizen occupation of the state capitol building in Madison in early 2011, but you can (and should) watch the excellent documentary film  We Are Wisconsin .

Activism by its nature is about current events, but - another paradox - we can't act effectively in the present without knowing and understanding history. Hence, post-Ferguson, the exquisite timeliness of Loeb's pre-Ferguson inclusion of Martin Luther King's classic "Letter from Birmingham Jail": "I must confess that over the last few years I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to 'order' than to justice."

Loeb juxtaposes King's piece with "The Real Rosa Parks," a memorable excerpt from his own book Soul of a Citizen , because he wants to bring home a crucial point: "She didn't single-handedly give birth to the civil rights efforts, but she was part of an existing movement for change, at a time when success was far from certain. … For only when we act despite all our uncertainties and doubts do we have the chance to shape history."

[C.E. G · Rating 3 out of 5]

I requested this book a day or two after the 2016 presidential election in the US, hoping it would point me toward activists to read or listen to more in depth. It's not quite as impactful a collection as I remember from the first time I read it 8+ years ago, but there are still some essays that helped shape my orientation to current/future resistance. It definitely highlights how much internal work activists need to do in order to be brave.

-------------------------
First read in February 2008: 5 stars.

[Gina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly inspiring. Pulling from many authors and experiences, it is possible to feel hope. There are reminders of things that can work, but also that the attempts that fail have value and are part of the process. I know I will want to return to it again and again.

[Lisa Kentgen · Rating 5 out of 5]

So relevant and important for the times we live in....doesn't matter that it was written in 2004.
Just re-read and as inspiring now as when it first came out.
Highly recommend!

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I spent a great deal of time pouring over this collection of stories and essays and found myself attached to and comforted by this book as if it were a dear, wise friend.

I marked up the pages. I noted powerful sections. I found myself constantly wanting to share and discuss this book. I bought two copies to give to friends. Then I bought three more to give as a thank you to keynote speakers at a workshop I had organized.

The intention of this book is the encouragement of social change locally, nationally, and internationally with the gentle reminder that meaningful work is often difficult and requires a push against the resisting status quo - but I found it just as impactful on an internal, personal level.

There are many contributors known to me (Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Jr., Pablo Neruda, Alice Walker, Terry Tempest Williams, Maya Angelou, Bill Moyers, Desmond Tutu), but even those with whom I was unfamiliar proved to be welcome additions to my list of mentors.

Where many activist calls-to-action induce guilt or overwhelming feelings of inadequacy, this collection gently inspires and instructs. I enjoyed the ability to take a short chapter or two, digest its message and then let its ideas permeate my thoughts the rest of the day. The format itself is a reminder that we can be successful through small actions.


***

A few of the many favorites:


Paul Hawken's "You Are Brilliant and the Earth Is Hiring"

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be a static, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television (p. 58).

The lovely story told in chapter 11, “Gate A-4” by Naomi Shihab Nye



Parker Palmer's amazingly beautiful descriptions of life as seasons in "There Is a Season":

Autumn is a season of great beauty, but also season of decline: the days grow shorter, the light is suffused, and summers abundance decays toward winter's death. Faced with this inevitable winter, what does nature do in autumn? She scatters the seeds that will bring new growth in the spring – and she scatters them with amazing abandon.
...
But as I explore autumn's paradox of dying and seeding, I feel the power of metaphor. In the autumnal events of my own experience, I am easily fixated on surface appearances - on the decline of meaning, the decay of relationships, the death of a vocation. And yet, if I look more deeply, I may see the myriad possibilities being planted to bear fruit in some season yet to come (p. 153).

I adored Chapter 21, “Jesus and Alinsky” by Walter Wink, especially this interpretation of sections of the Sermon on the Mount:

When the court translators working in the hire of King James chose to translate antistenai as "resist not evil," they were doing something more than rendering Greek into English. They were translating nonviolent resistance into docility. The Greek word means more than simply to "stand against" or "resist." It means to resist violently, to revolt or rebel, to engage in an insurrection. Jesus did not tell his oppressed hearers not to resist evil. His entire ministry is at odds with such a preposterous idea. He is, rather, warning against responding to evil in kind by letting the oppressor set the terms of our opposition. (p.182)

..."If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also." Why the right cheek? How does one strike another on the right cheek anyway? Try it. A blow by the right fist in that right-handed world would land on the left cheek of the opponent. To strike the right cheek with the fist would require using the left hand, but in that society the left hand was used only for unclean tasks. As the Dead Sea Scrolls specify, even to gesture with the left hand at Qumran carried the penalty of ten days penance. The only way one could strike the right cheek with the right hand would be with the back of the hand.
What we are dealing with here is unmistakably an insult, not a fistfight. The intention is not to injure but to humiliate, to put someone in his or her place. One normally did not strike a peer in this way, and if one did the fine was exorbitant. A back-hand slap was the normal way of admonishing inferiors. Masters back-handed slaves; husbands, wives; parents, children; men, women; Romans, Jews.
...
Why then does Jesus counsel these already humiliated people to turn the other cheek? Because this action robs the oppressor of the power to humiliate them. The person who turned the other cheek is saying, in effect, "Try again. Your first blow failed to achieve its intended effect. I deny you the power to humiliate me. I am human being just like you. Your status (gender, race, age, wealth) does not alter that. You cannot demean me (pp. 183-184).”

I was reminded in Bill Moyer’s “The Progressive Story of America” about the component of the Constitution conservatives have tended to ignore – that of ‘promoting the general welfare’:

How are Americans to restore government to its job of promoting the general welfare?… It wasn't enough simply to curb the government's outreach. That would simply leave power in the hands of the great corporations whose existence was inseparable from growth and progress. The answer was to turn government into an active player in the economy at the very least enforcing fair play, and when necessary being the friend, the helper and the agent of the people at large in the contest against entrenched power (p. 260).”

But people simply helping one another couldn't move mountains of disadvantage. [Jane Addams] came to see that "private beneficience" wasn't enough. To bring justice to the poor would take more than soup kitchens and fundraising prayer meetings (p. 262).

This reminded me of a recent debate on the Utah House of Representative’s Floor regarding the expansion of Medicaid. One Representative spoke about the needs of her neighbor diagnosed with cancer and that taking her a casserole just wasn’t going to cut it.


I was touched by the entirety of Chapter 41, "Road to Redemption," by Billy Wayne Sinclair.


And this statement by Terry Tempest Williams, in light of current events within my own church, gave me pause:

What I do know, however, is that as a Mormon woman of the fifth generation of Latter-day Saints, I must question everything, even if it means losing my faith, even if it means becoming a member of a border tribe among my own people. Tolerating blind obedience in the name of patriotism or religion ultimately takes our lives (p. 435).

Finally, Chapter 54, "The Gruntwork of Peace," by Amos Oz was brilliant in its comparison of the peace talks between the Palestinians and the Jews with that of a disputing, but intimate, divorcing couple:

...we are more like a long-married couple in their divorce attorney's waiting room. They and we can joke together, shout, mock, accuse, interrupt, place a hand on a shoulder or waist, throw invective at each other, and once or twice in shed a tear (p .446).

[Joslyn Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review published: https://chronicbibliophilia.wordpress...

The title and subtitle of this compendium say so very much. Comprised of essays from 49 leaders and activists – including Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Cornel West, Alice Walker, and Desmond Tutu – “The Impossible Will Take a Little While” is about finding hope, growing courage, and resisting fear. These essays were compiled post-9/11, when the world suddenly seemed darker, scarier, more sinister. Compiled in 2004, they were also written in a pre-Obama world that was unaware of how soon hope was rising, and in a pre-Trump world ignorant of the rising specter of fear and hate that would sweep the planet.

This book is a fantastic resource and a fluid read. The writers and works chosen to create this volume are strong, eloquent, and empowering. They cover a variety of backgrounds, experience, community, and voice, which make the whole that they create that much more powerful. And so, in an unusual approach, I will allow excerpts from the essays to speak for themselves.

“[I]t’s clear that the struggle for justice should never be abandoned because of the apparent overwhelming power of those who have the guns and the money and who seem invincible in their determination to hold on to it. That apparent power has, again and again, proved vulnerable to human qualities less measurable than bombs and dollars: moral fervor, determination, unity, organization, sacrifice, wit, ingenuity, courage, patience – whether by blacks in Alabama and South Africa, peasants in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Vietnam, or workers and intellectuals in Poland Hungary, and the Soviet Union itself. No cold calculation of the balance of power need deter people who are persuaded that their cause is just.”

“The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

– Howard Zinn, The Optimism of Uncertainty

“A man who takes away another man’s freedom is a prisoner of hatred; he is locked behind the bars of prejudice and narrow-mindedness. … For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

– Nelson Mandela, The Dark Years

“Hope is not prognostication. It is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. Hope, in this deep and powerful sense, is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but, rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed. …It is also this hope, above all, which gives us the strength to live and continually to try new things, even in conditions that seem as hopeless as ours do, here and now.”

– Vaclav Havel, An Orientation of the Heart

“Given the catastrophic failure here and abroad of the Kyoto global warming accords, given our newfound post 9-11 imperialist exuberance, given the sagging of the world’s economy and the IMF-directed refusal to see any solutions beyond making poor people suffer even more than they always do in the hopes of reviving a market that only ever revives long enough to make the rich even richer, given the eagerness in Washington to explore new and tinier kinds of nuclear bombs, well, it’s sort of optimistic to believe it’s a supernova that’s going to get us. It’s clear that what’s much more likely to get us, if we are got, is our present condition of living in a world run by miscreants while the people of the world either have no access to power or have access but have forgotten how to get it and why it is important to have it.”

– Tony Kushner, Despair is a Lie We Tell Ourselves

“The important thing to know is that you are wanted. You are needed You are important. You are not only what democracy counts on, you are what democracy is.”

– Jim Hightower, Rebellion is What Built America

“Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people’s brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead.”

– Arundhati Roy, Come September

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

– Martin Luther King, Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

“We need a moral prophetic minority of all colors who muster the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, and the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out into nothing, hoping to land on something. That’s the history of black folks in the past and present, and of those of us who value history and struggle. Our courage rests on a deep democratic vision of a better world that lures us and a blood-drenched hope that sustains us.

This hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism adopts the role of the spectator who surveys the evidence in order to infer that things are going to get better. Yet we know that the evidence does not look good. The dominant tendencies of our day are unregulated global capitalism, racial balkanization, social breakdown, and individual depression. Hope enacts the stance of the participant who actively struggles against the evidence in order to change the deadly tides of wealth inequality, group xenophobia, and personal despair. Only a new wave of vision, courage, and hope can keep us sane – and preserve the decency and dignity requisite to revitalize our organizational energy for the work to be done. To live is to wrestle with despair yet never to allow despair to have the last word.”

– Cornel West, Prisoners of Hope

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this book: there is hope for us, but it will take effort by us to bring about change.

The book is a collection of 55 essays, grouped together in a logical progression of chapters from recognizing causes or problems through the various steps that lead us to progress and resolution we might not solve the problem (climate change, Palestinian relocation in Jerusalem, an oil pipeline through your land), but you will have done what you needed to do.

After reading White Trash, this book gives me hope.

[Brittney Sooksengdao · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Given to me by a friend at a time of grappling with overwhelming hopelessness in the political system and society as a whole - took a long time to sit with each piece of writing. Some pieces spoke more to me than others but it was a powerful collection as a whole grounded in hope and all the faith it encompasses.

[Annez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought provoking collection of writing that reminds us no matter how dark the circumstances, sustaining hope and change is a choice. I recommend this book to anyone who has been shaken by the events of the past year.

[Selena · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is everything. It is full of hope and wisdom and honesty and beauty and pain. I am a better person for making my way through these stories.

[Michael Simile · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are like me and want to leave this place a little better than you found it while trying not to go freaking insane over everything, I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The convergence of voices in this compilation brought me to tears and has motivated me to gently continue my journey through whatever this existence is, picking up one piece of the world at a time wherever and whenever I can. This is deeper than literature — this is a resource.

[Malbadeen · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is full of lovely people like Jonathan Kozol, Desmund Tutu, Wendell Barry, Pablo Neradu, etc, etc, etc,
The problem is that it was presented to me in a class full of people that said things like,
"for me grace is the slow small strokes a swan takes to cross the pond"
and
"grace is the movements of a young couples dance of love"
no kidding that's for real! Those are actual quotes from classmates and if invoking that kind of drivel isn't reason enough to turn one off this book forever, there was also the activity that involved the passing out of cookies before a yoga breathing exercise and the requied rendering of memories with pastel's (done of course with inspirational music in the background).
And if you're still thinking you could swallow this book under those circumstances, this final example should help you empathize with my situation sufficiently:
At one point we were sent outside for 5 minutes to "experience the grace of nature" with a Maya Angelou poem in hand and the task of indentifing with a stanza.
we would know when the 5 minutes was up because we would hear the "Ka-Kaw" of the group leader.
Honestly, she stood at the door and said "Ka-Kaw, Ka-Kaw" with her hands cupped at her mouth.
but wait, it's not done!
once inside we were to write about how the poem could help us break a curse we're currently experiencing in our work or porfessional lives.
hmmmm the stanza i chose was:

"Does my sexineess upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meetings of my thighs"

lets see, that can hlep me get ride of the curse of data entry because, because, because -?
Damn! I only picked it so i could say "does my sexiness upset you" to a room full of people. I didn't think we were gonna have to be breaking curses with it!

So you see, there is no way after all that, that I could possibly judge this book objectively and give it anything higher than 1 star.

p.s. I'm sorry Maya, I'm really, really, really sorry that your "rise" was reduced to 5 minutes in nature before breaking a curse.

[CTEP]

This book was monumental. It is a compilation of stories and essays by strong, thoughtful authors who discussed different movements and small actions throughout history that helped change history-sometimes suddenly, sometimes slowly over time. It is subtitled, "a citizen's guide to hope in a time of fear," and is illustrated beautifully with acts of hope by average citizens. I fully believe that we must challenge fear if we are to hope, and to love. I went to this book for a reaffirmation that the little things I can do to make change can make a difference in the world because as CTEP members at our sites, every day we do little things that we hope make a difference. One of the best outcomes I noticed in the youth surveys we have the program participants fill out at the end of the school year long program was that everyone agreed with the statement, "Teens can make positive change." This was so exciting to me because I do believe that teens can make positive change and I was so glad to hear that they believed it of themselves as well. There are times when I doubt for myself whether I can make positive change, but they there are little stories that emerge months or years later about how I impacted someone without knowing it and that is encouraging. This book was basically a historical, anthropological collection of these types of stories-people taking action that eventually become turning points in movements for change along with small stories that didn't become the main stories of change, but were stepping stones towards change. These stories, small and large encouraged me, but the overall tone of the book was quite dark. It was written just after George W. Bush began his second term, so for those that had begun to feel hopeless during the first, it was a time when one really needed to fight to remain hopeful in America. Though I have been encouraged by the election of President Obama, this book is a sobering reminder that the problems that existed before have not all gone away and that we still need to do every small thing we can to make the world a better place and maintain hope, because, "The Impossible Will Take a Little While."

When I began reading “The Impossible Will Take A Little While: Perseverance and Hope in Troubled Times” I knew I would be in for a series of substantive contributions from great thinkers on difficult issues. The book, edited by Paul Rogat Loeb, compiles short writings from people like Maya Angelou, Cornel West, Howard Zinn, Nelson Mandela, and Tony Kushner to name a few. This diverse group of philosophers, activists, artists, and leaders opens up dialogue about the challenges to implementing social change. Each writing illustrates a different perspective on facilitating social movements and challenging the status quo. Ultimately the book offers the suggestion that the process of change is neither straightforward nor predetermined, but rather multifaceted and very much so the product of human inspiration. Throughout this review I will attempt to bring together some of the pieces I found most inspiring and relate them to my experiences working to promote digital equity.



Tony Kushner, an American playwright most famous for his work “Angels in America” writes challenges the “despair” narrative that we tell ourselves; that is, that we are doomed to an inevitable finite future. He writes, “people, ordinary citizens, routinely set aside hours, days, time in their lives for doing the work of politics, some of which is glam and revolutionary and some of which is dull and electoral and tedious and not especially pure -- and the world changed because of the work they did”. Kushner suggests that change requires people engaging with work that is not necessarily glorious or rewarding. It is the collective contribution of regular people to the process of change that coalesces into something extraordinary and renounces the inevitability of despair. I find this perspective incredibly uplifting amidst my service year with AmeriCorps. There are some tasks and parts of the work I do that undoubtedly seem tedious or unfulfilling. However, that by no means is a suggestion that these endeavors are meaningless. Some of the most rewarding moments have come in moments of monotony. Through repetition of technology vocabulary I have seen learners come to terms and integrate the meaning and concepts of words. It is these moments that contribute to the collective learning of all people in the lab.



Cornel West eloquently expands on these ideas with an analogy between jazz and human perspective. He writes, “When we look closely at jazz, or the blues, for example, we see a profound sense of the tragic linked to human agency. This music does not wallow in a cynicism or a paralyzing pessimism, but it also is realistic enough not to project excessive utopia. It responds in an improvisational, undogmatic, creative way to circumstances, helping people still survive and thrive.” In a rather melancholy mood, I was actually listening to a Miles Davis record shortly after reading this passage. It reminded me of the immensity of some of the issues we’re facing today, but not in an overwhelming way. As I see some of the struggles and barriers that our learners have to overcome to get to where they are today, I am encouraged by their perseverance and determination to succeed in spite of them.

This book has countless writers who help illustrate the emotions and experiences I have had so far in my service year. The empathy and hope that each of these writers exhibit in their lives are essential to me and other practitioners endeavoring to continue their work today.

This book is a collection of excerpts and short essays by political, academic, and historical people throughout time, and what they choose to focus on in times of worry, or what they do when they feel like political and social realities are destructive. I chose this book in light of current events, and as a way to reframe my work and its effect on the individuals I serve and the community I am in, despite moments when I am overwhelmed by larger mechanics at play. I want to go over a couple of select essays that moved me in one way or another.

One of the essays that had the greatest impact on me was Howard Zinn's "The Optimism of Uncertainty." He discusses how the worst regimes and moments in history can suddenly become upended and done away with, how long standing institutions of oppression can be quickly destroyed in a moment no one really saw coming. He says these things happen because little revolts, little people all over join together and maintain hope. People all over organize, reach out, and work against systems they dislike, and the voice of people can suddenly and unexpectedly swing opinion or policy.

Another story I enjoyed was Jim Wallis' recollection of being in a Black church in South Africa during apartheid. During a rally held at the church, racial and state injustices were being discussed by the preacher, and a giant raid broke out at the church. Police rushed in, tried to disrupt the proceedings and arrest individuals, but the preacher maintained his composure and continued speaking, about how history, morality, and God was on their side. He continually spoke strongly about the righteousness of their cause, and during the speech, as the police crowded and surrounded the church, displaying all of their force and might, Wallis recalls the preacher said that since they are on the wrong side of history they have already lost, and he said "We invite you to come over to the winning side!" This declaration against brute force, this courageous and confident claim to truth in such a hostile situation, electrified the crowd, and they began dancing and chanting. This moment of resistance and courage greatly lifted my spirits.

This book has enough excerpts I could go on and on (there is an excellent excerpt where a political professor does a close reading of Jesus's turn the other cheek speech and underlines its radical political possibility), and it reminded me of the small things I do every day at my site to foster community. It greatly inspired me to come to work with more of a sense of urgency every day, with a belief that my work at any minute works toward a greater future for someone, anyone I serve.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful book! It will hold a prominent place on my shelf, so I will remember to pull it down and read a chapter or two for inspiration whenever I need it.

The book is a collection of 49 essays and poems, curated by Loeb into 9 subthemes. The pervading message (as you might guess from the subtext of the title) is the continued relevance of, and necessity for, hope. Sounds cheesy, no? Like a bunch of mush?

What makes it not so is that each of the contributing writers are people who have every reason to have lost hope. These are not folks who are holed up in their study, writing platitudes from the cosy comfort of their armchairs. They might be facing bodily terrors like death and torture, the ongoing oppression of decades of war, the slow poison of nuclear-induced cancer in generations upon generations of their family, or even just the crushing obscurity of feeling small and hapless in a world spinning out of control. In spite of ever-mounting opposition, the authors hold on to compassion, humor, and the nugget of a belief that there could be something better for us all.

Every day, we see the wrongs that must be righted, and our hearts ache for others' pain. But most of us step gingerly aside and think, "It can't be helped" and "I can't do anything." But the writers here have dared to shoulder the burden. They've chosen to every day, with every breath, take a fighting step (however small) toward that better future. That's what I admire. I admire the immense willpower and persistence it takes to do countless small, unglamorous things, just to make possible an uncertainty.

They're just human like me. They are faulty and flawed, like me. They are just one small voice in a throng of a few billion, but they've chosen action rather than resignation, and as a result, have touched all of our lives.

...read this book!

[Samantha Sprole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book of essays gets repetitive at times, but makes up for it with stories of nonviolent civil disobedience, unexpected impact, and resilience in the face of opposition.

Thanks to the unflinching gaze of the writers, we can also bear witness to a century of US incursions in Latin America, the peaceful overthrow of tyrannical government in the Eastern Bloc, hilarious examples of malicious compliance with systemic racism in Africa, and courage under fire in communities suffering from nuclear fallout or fossil fuel incursions in the United States. These statements act as an invitation to action; they encourage us all to take heart, cultivate hope, and join this legacy of communal action to bring about a better future. Even the smallest efforts can sometimes blossom unexpectedly.

In summation, the lessons of "The Impossible ..." are simple:
1. Stay the course: Keep working for a better world regardless of your odds of success.
2. Acting together is essential, and connection feeds the human spirit.
3. Identify even modest tasks that will keep you moving in the right direction.
4. Cultivate radical stubbornness, especially when you experience temporary defeat.
5. Focus less on your perceived impact and more on the work itself and your community of changemakers.

With several gorgeous poems and essayists including Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cornel West, Bill McKibben, Bill Moyers, and Howard Zinn, this book can be an ongoing reference to inspire the better angels of our nature.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me almost two years to read this book all the way through. It's meaty enough to read an essay (or part of one), underline good bits, and process for a while. If I could give this one a million stars, I would. I'm also finding it apropos in this time of political unrest--most of the authors showcased here have emphasized that they never felt worthy or strong enough to make any difference in this dark world, but that somehow, by linking arms with others and raising their voices, miraculous changes have been made. It's about connection and community, and sometimes being just crazy, desperate, hopeless, hopeful, and joyful enough to make a start together. I've been challenged to look around my own neighborhood to see what small-big things I can do for others. My heart is also leaping at the thought of justice for folks trafficked here in Japan--I don't know how to help them when even the police turn a blind eye, but maybe, just maybe, I will meet someone else with the same vision and we can get the ball rolling. In the meantime, my eyes are wide open and I'm on the lookout for what I can do--this book smiled at me with encouragement.

[Donnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book quite a while ago--it was published in 2004. I was feeling concerned about some of the directions our country was going in back then and intended to read it. It languished on a shelf until I saw it when I was cleaning up my desk and decided to read it. The introduction to the book perfectly describes the way I think many people feel today and this was the perfect book for me to read now. It is a series of short essays by a wide variety of authors who have all faced situations where uncertainty and risk were paramount and the stories they tell offer hope. Many of them gave me new insights or a slight shift of perspective on our own country's current problems. These stories cover a wide range of situations in a variety of settings: civil unrest, racial tension and apartheid, political prisoners, unjust wars...……… Always with a strand of unexpected dignity, courage, honesty, bravery, hope.
I read this book slowly--I wanted to drag it out. Each story gave me a lift and left me with hope.

[Hans Otterson]

It's not often that a story or an essay leaves one feeling good about humankind while also orienting one toward action. This book is full of such pieces. There's no such thing as the soul, but we do have something that may metaphorically be called an animating spirit, and this collection is wind at the back of that spirit.

Two criticisms: Some of the pieces are so pared down by the knife of excerption as to be nearly contextless and so not very good as pieces in the collection. Also, I found the interstitial essays by Mr. Loeb not particularly enlightening or useful--about a third of the way into my reading of the book I began skipping them so I could get back to the primary sources, which are enlightening and useful.


(This is a part of the Shelf Love project: shorturl.at/dCRV9)

QC

[Marla O'Fallon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book for my capstone class! Highly recommend if you're wanting a raw view on getting involved in social justice things. Incredible experience and perspective from the author!

“Then there’s another group of people who admit that they don’t know how things will turn out, but have decided to work for change. I see Martin Luther King on that team, Alice Walker, Howard Zinn. I see my chaplain from college and my activist friends. They’re always telling stories of faith being rewarded, of ways things could be different, of how their own lives have changed. They’ll give reasons why you shouldn’t give up, testimonials why we’ve yet to see our full potential as a species. They believe we’re partners in God’s creation, and that change is really possible.”

[Paul Strohm · Rating 4 out of 5]

While the sky may indeed seem to be falling, the subtitle of this book of essays is "A citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear," which it is.

The editor, Paul Rogat Loeb, author of "Soul of a Citizen," has assembled a collection of 44 essays from the likes of Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Cornel West, Jim Wallace and Desmond Tutu... that provide more than a glimmer of hope that we can, in fact, turn the world around, right the wrongs, and create a global community where we'd be proud to live.

If you've been thinking of facing off the Tanks or simply try to always do the right thing, you're on our side and making progress for the cause.

Read the book. Join us.

[D. Adiba · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic book! I have been more than outraged by what is going on in the world, and found myself in a funk where I felt that nothing would ever change.
Then I saw a Tweet from one of the Women's March organizers about how helpful she found this, and she could not be more right.
This book is something that you could read every year. There are so many inspiring stories and it sheds light on the cycle that humanity now finds itself in.
I cannot recommend this enough. It is a long, long, book. I honestly did not believe I had the patience to complete it. Then I did in less than three weeks! Three wonderful weeks where I have been changed forever.
Thank you Paul Rogat Loeb.

[Darla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hopeful.
I needed this. Two of my favorite pieces:


“When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free

- Wendell Berry, The Peace of Wild Things


Gate A-4
Naomi Shihab Nye

https://poets.org/poem/gate-4

[Steph Marbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

This huge collection of short essays from a diverse array of authors is a little bit hit and miss...but I still really love it. I haven't actually finished it, but have purchased a copy to keep out on the table, so I can pick up and read a selection as desired. This isn't a book you want to rush through, but one where you want to spend some time ruminating on what you just read. I highly recommend to anyone working for justice in the world, who at times gets weary.

[Courtney Westerlund · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! Everyone who wants to make a difference in this world needs this on their bookshelf. It does a great job of discussing the mundane parts of life that we often think are insignificant and shows how they really can make a difference.

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Inspiring! This collection of essays by everyone from Nelson Mandela to Pablo Neruda details a lot of what has done to try to make this world a better place, but it also suggests ways that others may do the same. Highly recommended.

[Merry Quinn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whoa!

Well what I thought might be an uplifting book I struggled through. Some stories were riveting and inspirational but others troubling and horrifying. While I sincerely realize the struggles and strife these author's have been through, a tough read.