It only takes a spark to get a fire going

On Wednesday evening we were all invited to a potluck at Shorlette's house (mansion) with all of us interns, the SWARM kids and Shorlette and Caitlyn, the community director who had come to speak with us previously this summer. The food was really good (something I'm really going to miss about this summer) and Wendi and I collaborated on some fresh blueberry lemonade. We started the discussion with an ice breaker called Roses and Thorns in which each person says their rose, or positive thing of the week, and their thorn, or negative thing of the week. We then launched into a good hour and a half discussion about building communities and rallying people around specific causes. One of the most important ideas that was thrown out there was the concept of active and passive hope. Passive hope is seeing a problem and hoping that it gets better or that someone will work to resolve it, without your direct involvement. Active hope is done mostly through action by engaging in a movement or cause. Passive hope was argued to be extremely dangerous and damaging when things don't turn out the desired way. I would have to disagree with the notion that passive hope is stupid however, because sometimes you just can't put your heart, soul and efforts into a cause. There are so many worthy causes in our society and to throw our efforts into each and everyone would mean that we aren't truly committed. Passive hope is the only way of sustaining a positive outlook on the situation. True, you do run the risk of being very upset when things don't improve, but isn't that a risk worth taking when the alternative is not having hope at all? I do, however, believe that active hope is the way to go. We also talked about collaboration between causes and to learn to find common ground in order to unite various groups and increase their strength. I didn't have a lot to say throughout the discussion (strange right ;) because I was too busy listening and trying to process all the other ideas that were being said. In otherwords, I was actively listening. This conversation was very important and gave me some good ideas to use in the future. Now as our time begins to wrap up here, I am beginning to wonder about when in the future I will get to have these types of conversation again.