A couple of days ago I called a friend in Texas to see how she was holding up. At first we were both nearly monosyllabic, but after a few minutes we laughed so hard our burdens started to roll off our shoulders. This morning, while watching a butterfly out the front window, I found a text from her with a link to Krista Tippett's July 1 interview in the New York Times. (Please don't tell Buddha I took my eyes off that butterfly to glance at my phone.)

In response to a question about the parts of herself she tends to hide, Krista Tippett says: "Here’s an honest answer: Part of my role is drawing out voices that deserve to be heard and shedding light on generative possibilities and robust goodness. Not goodness on a pedestal but the messy drama of goodness that makes it riveting and also means it’s not just for saints. I talk about hope being a muscle. It’s not wishful thinking, and it’s not idealism. It’s not even a belief that everything will turn out OK."

Rather, Tippett says, "It’s an imaginative leap, which is what I’ve seen in people like John Lewis and Jane Goodall.These are people who said: 'I refuse to accept that the world has to be this way. I am going to throw my life and my pragmatism and my intelligence at this insistence that it could be different and put that into practice.' That’s a muscular hope. So, to your question, I don’t always feel robustly hopeful. Depression is something I’ve struggled with. I’ve found the world an unbearable place for months at a time in the last two years. But at the same time I don’t feel like there’s a place in my work for my despair."

In the midst of all our trials and tribulations, thanks be to God for butterflies, friends, Buddha, laughter, truth-telling, Krista Tippett, John Lewis, Jane Goodall, and hope.

David Marchese's interview, "Krista Tippett Wants You to See All the Hope That's Being Hidden," appeared in the New York Times magazine on July 1, 2022.