His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama: Hope
Written By Alexis Pauline Gumbs
her lips like a promise, a name. Actually it was not like a name, it was a name. Hope is the given name of a dear friend of my Nana and many Jamaican women born between World Wars. My Nana and Hope, always on the phone. And so when I hear the word hope, my first image is not an abstract better future. My first association is not the pervasive campaign material of Barack Obama. I see a small brown elder woman, soft in the face, a friend. And my Nana, the casual priestess, she for whom Hope is beloved, familiar, available to call on, anytime.
When I had the joy of speaking with Tseten Samdup Chhoekyapa, secretary for His Holiness the Dalai Lama about the message of hope beaming across the planet right now, he said his favorite part of the video was the green continents of the planet close up and then receding into wholeness. He especially loved the green, he said, because the grass is greener. Giving new meaning to the cliché, he taught me over WhatsApp, that hope is a green future. Hope, he explained, means the grass is greener on the other side of our determination. Hope and determination go together, he explained. We have hope for what our determination will make possible. And our determination is activated by our hope for the future. Round, like a planet. Not, like a planet, it is a planet, this one green planet, our hope. Deserving our determined love. Or is it our love that will let us deserve to be on this planet longer than our emissions predict? Is it our transformation of the meaning of green from greed to sustainability that will save us?
