As we in the U.S. celebrated the anniversary of adopting the Declaration of Independence from the government of King George III of Great Britain, I read these words from David Cole, national legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. They resonated with the original “just causes” listed in the Declaration, and they resonated with so much of what we are experiencing now. I share them here, one day late, to revisit the value of hope in action.

“I fundamentally believe that hope is more the consequence of action than its cause… It seems to me you have two choices in this life, you can be a fatalistic spectator, or you can engage and produce hope. If those are the two choices, there is really only one choice.”

(From the July 2, 2018 New York Times magazine article by Joel Lovell: