Bryan Stevenson

a pie-in-the-sky thing.

He says it's an orientation of the Spirit, a willingness to sometimes position yourself in a hopeless place and be a witness.

And that, I do think, is the gift I've been given by so many people who've come before me, so many people who have done things with fewer resources, fewer opportunities, fewer supports than I have.

And it's what I want to give to the people who come after me.

is, you know, this idea that if we can labor long and save lives and change the law and create perhaps a slightly more just system, then we have to continue to hope we can do more.

Yeah.

I think learning about hope...

is a really important action item.

Sometimes I think we don't think of learning as an action item, but I do.

I think to learn is to do something.

And learning the stories of what hopeful people did despite the odds is one of the most important things we can do to prepare ourselves, to train ourselves, our minds and our bodies to do hopeful things in our lives.

Just like we have to train ourselves if we want to be fit or run a race.

I think we have to train ourselves, prepare ourselves to be hopeful in the midst of so many difficulties.

And the world is just filled of stories about hopeful people.

And I think we need to learn them and be shaped by them.

I never really talked much about my grandmother or my great-grandparents who were enslaved.

Until I was in my 40s.

I didn't want to forget about it.

It just wasn't relevant in my head.

Now I talk about them all the time.