Wednesday Wisdom

A poem on hope — and an invitation

Dear Cottage friends,

As I write, snow is falling in Washington, DC. It is quiet; we are wrapped in silence. It feels like a holy gift, the welcome grace of a noiseless night.

Yesterday, many of you wrote or commented on the news I shared about the lawsuit filed by some of our denominations to protect the freedom of religion we cherish. A large number of you remarked that the case gave you hope.

Today, I share Wendell Berry’s “A Poem on Hope” as words of wisdom on this Wednesday. Hold on to faith, hope, and love — treasure them, meditate on them, practice them. As Berry says, “This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power or by wealth.”

Love relentlessly,
Diana

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A Poem on Hope
by Wendell Berry

It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
for hope must not depend on feeling good
and there is the dream of loneliness at absolute midnight.
You also have withdrawn belief in the present reality
of the future, which surely will surprise us,
and hope is harder when it cannot come by prediction
any more than by wishing. But stop dithering.
The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?
Tell them at least what you say to yourself.

Because we have not made our lives to fit
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
the streams polluted, the mountains overturned. Hope
then to belong to your place by your own knowledge
of what it is that no other place is, and by
your caring for it as you care for no other place, this
place that you belong to though it is not yours,
for it was from the beginning and will be to the end.

Belong to your place by knowledge of the others who are
your neighbors in it: the old man, sick and poor,
who comes like a heron to fish in the creek,
and the fish in the creek, and the heron who manlike
fishes for the fish in the creek, and the birds who sing
in the trees in the silence of the fisherman
and the heron, and the trees that keep the land
they stand upon as we too must keep it, or die.

This knowledge cannot be taken from you by power
or by wealth. It will stop your ears to the powerful
when they ask for your faith, and to the wealthy
when they ask for your land and your work.
Answer with knowledge of the others who are here
and how to be here with them. By this knowledge
make the sense you need to make. By it stand
in the dignity of good sense, whatever may follow.

Speak to your fellow humans as your place
has taught you to speak, as it has spoken to you.
Speak its dialect as your old compatriots spoke it
before they had heard a radio. Speak
publicly what cannot be taught or learned in public.

Listen privately, silently to the voices that rise up
from the pages of books and from your own heart.
Be still and listen to the voices that belong
to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.
There are songs and sayings that belong to this place,
by which it speaks for itself and no other.

Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground
underfoot. Be it lighted by the light that falls
freely upon it after the darkness of the nights
and the darkness of our ignorance and madness.
Let it be lighted also by the light that is within you,
which is the light of imagination. By it you see
the likeness of people in other places to yourself
in your place. It lights invariably the need for care
toward other people, other creatures, in other places
as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.

No place at last is better than the world. The world
is no better than its places. Its places at last
are no better than their people while their people
continue in them. When the people make
dark the light within them, the world darkens.

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On February 13, paid subscribers at the Cottage are invited to a Cottage conversation with Norman Wirzba, theology professor at Duke Divinity School, on hope.

His new book, Love’s Braided Dance: Hope in a Time of Crisis, explores the nature of hope as a practice entwined with love and faith. It isn’t something we have; it is something we do. “Hope,” he insists, “is a way of being in which people commit themselves to the healing of our wounded world.”

We’ll meet online at 3 PM Eastern/12 noon Pacific on Thursday February 13 to hear from Professor Wirzba and engage in conversation with him.

➡️ Zoom link will be sent to all paid subscribers on Thursday about three hours in advance of the online meeting.

If you can’t come to the live gathering, don’t worry. We record these conversations and will send it to all paid subscribers within 24 hours following the online discussion.

If you would like to participate in paid subscriber events and cannot afford the subscription fee, let us know. We’ve never turned anyone away for lack of means. EMAIL US by clicking HERE.

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When you do nothing you feel overwhelmed and powerless.
But when you get involved you feel the sense of hope and accomplishment that comes from knowing you are working to make things better.

— Maya Angelou

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CALLS for TODAY

CALL your representative and senators and insist that unelected Elon Musk be removed from any position in government. Pressure is clearly building on Musk. We can’t let up on this. Use the 5Calls app or go through the Congressional switchboard, (202) 224-3121.

CALL your denomination leaders — a bishop’s office, a national headquarters, whatever is in your polity — and ask them to join in the litigation against the Trump administration’s violations of religious freedom. If they are already part of the lawsuit, thank them for their courage. (This is important — MAGA will target them with complaints.) You’ll need to google the phone number for your denominational information. The participating denominations are listed HERE:

https://www.law.georgetown.edu/icap/wp-content/uploads/sites/32/2025/02/Mennonite-Church-USA-v.-U.S.-Department-of-Homeland-Security-Complaint.pdf

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A special note to my Canadian friends:

I know that many of you are boycotting visits to the United States. That makes me sad, but I get it and understand. If you’d like to spend time with me at an event this year, please consider joining me in either Chartres this summer or Ireland in the fall.

Chartres, France: June 2-6, 2025
RETRACING OUR PATH: THE SPIRITUAL PRACTICE OF REFLECTING ON HISTORY WITH DIANA BUTLER BASS HOSTED BY LAUREN ARTRESS. A labyrinth pilgrimage at Chartes Cathedral.

Ireland: September 8-15, 2025
IRELAND RETREAT with northern Irish writer and peace activist Gareth Higgins and North Carolinian chaplain and spiritual director Brian Ammons, with and with me as guest co-facilitator.

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