The Impossible Will Take A Little While.

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http://www.soulofacitizen.org/newimp/impindex.htm

 

THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE:

A Citizen's Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear

Basic Books $15.95 August 17, 2004 ISBN 0-465-04166-3

 

People need hope more than ever in difficult political

times---like these.

 

That's why I've created this anthology, mixing my own

essays with the voices of some of the most eloquent

writers and activists around. Think Nelson Mandela,

Maya Angelou, Arundhati Roy, Tony Kushner, and V clav

Havel. Alice Walker, Jonathan Kozol, Diane Ackerman,

Susan Griffin, and Marian Wright Edelman. Cornel West,

Terry Tempest Williams, Jim Hightower, Desmond Tutu,

and Howard Zinn.

 

I believe readers will draw strength from their ideas

on how we keep on working for a more humane world,

replenish the wellspring of our commitment, and

continue no matter how hard it sometimes seems

 

I've included pieces that explore the historical,

political, ecological and spiritual frameworks that

help us to persist-- with concrete examples of how

people have faced despair and overcome it. Some

directly address our current time. Others examine what

it was like to confront South African apartheid, the

Eastern European dictatorships, or Mississippi's

entrenched segregation.

 

Political hope and personal hope are intertwined, of

course. What lets us work for change is related to

what keeps us going day after day when our personal

lives get difficult. So some pieces straddle both. But

I've focused on the kind of hope that takes us beyond

merely personally surviving and carving out the best

private life we can. I believe this book will help

people find common solutions and see the world

clear-eyed--acknowledging the destructive power of

greed, fear, and shortsighted expedience, resisting

any temptation to complacency or sentimentality, yet

acting with courage to make change. I believe it will

help us, in the words of Sojourners founder Jim

Wallis, to learn how to believe in spite of the

evidence, then watch the evidence change.

 

See the book's Table of Contents below, or click to

read its Introduction, more excellent reviews, reading

group suggestions, bulk order details, and information

on classroom teaching, including classroom study

questions.

 

If you're not on my email mailing list and would like

to know when my books come out, or receive my monthly

articles, please email sympa with the

subject line:

 

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From mid-August, when The Impossible hits the stores,

through the election, I'll be speaking and doing media

interviews all over the country. See schedule for

detailed information, which I'll update regularly. And

please tell friends about the book and my touring with

this descriptive flier.

 

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

THE IMPOSSIBLE WILL TAKE A LITTLE WHILE

 

 

Initial Introduction

 

SECTION ONE: SEEDS OF THE POSSIBLE

Poem: Seamus Heaney—From " The Cure at Troy "

Section One Introduction

Diane Ackerman— " A Slender Thread " : Hope and despair in

volunteering at a suicide prevention line, by the

author of A Natural History of the Senses

Jonathan Kozol— " Ordinary Resurrections " : From the book

of the same name, the hope Kozol draws from children

Marian Wright Edelman— " Standing for Children " : by the

founder of the Children's Defense Fund and author of A

Letter to My Children

Danusha Goska— " Political Paralysis " : An Indiana

activist with a paralyzing physical disability talks

about overcoming political immobilization, drawing on

her history working with the Peace Corps and Mother

Teresa

 

SECTION TWO: DARK BEFORE THE DAWN

Poem: W.H. Auden-From " September 1, 1939 "

Section Two Introduction

Howard Zinn— " The Optimism of Uncertainty " : Drawing

strength from the very uncertainty of our efforts, by

the author of A People's History of the United States

Nelson Mandela— " The Dark Years " : Memoir of his Robben

Island imprisonment from The Long Walk to Freedom

Vaclav Havel— " Orientation of the Heart " : The value of

seemingly futile actions by Czech president Havel,

adapted from his book, Disturbing the Peace

 

SECTION THREE: EVERYDAY GRACE

Poems: Wendell Berry— " The Peace of Wild Things " and

Antonio Machado— " Last Night As I Was Sleeping "

Section Three Introduction

Scott Sanders— " Mountain Music " : Hope between

generations, from " Hunting for Hope "

Rabbi Arthur Waskow— " The Sukkah of Shalom " : The Sukkot

shelter as a metaphor for hope in a vulnerable world,

by the author of Godwrestling and Seasons of Our Joy

Rose Marie Berger— " Getting Our Gaze Back " : Daily

respite amid overload, from a contributing editor to

the radical evangelical magazine Sojourners,

remembering that " we have more in common with flowers

than microchips " Henri Nouwen— " Fragile and Hidden " :

Catholic theologian Nouwen on daily grace

Parker Palmer— " There is a Season " : The seasons of the

earth as metaphor for those of our personal and

political life; by the author of The Courage to Teach

and Let Your Life Speak

 

SECTION FOUR: THE FLIGHT OF OUR DREAMS

Poem: Eduardo Galeano— " Celebration of the Human Voice "

Section Four Introduction

Pablo Neruda— " Childhood and Poetry "

Susan Griffin— " To Love the Marigold " : On imagination

and hope, by the author of Women and Nature

John Lewis— " Walking With the Wind " : Sustaining

metaphors from the Congressman and former head of the

civil rights group SNCC (Student Nonviolent

Coordinating Committee)

Rosemarie Freeney Harding— " Freedom Songs " : The music

that sustained the civil rights movement

Toni Mirosevich— " Rough Translation " : Brief vignette of

jazz and resistance in the heart of Soviet Russia

Walter Wink— " Jesus and Alinsky " : Jesus as model for

legendary community organizer Saul Alinsky

Vern Huffman— " Stories from the Cha Cha Cha " : Comic and

creative nonviolent resistance in Rhodesia

Sherman Alexie— " Do Not Go Gentle " : A story, from the

author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in

Heaven, about grief, despair, sexuality, and wild hope

that transcends any parties or platforms

Tony Kushner— " Despair Is a Lie We Tell Ourselves " : by

the author of Angels in America

 

SECTION FIVE: COURAGE IS CONTAGIOUS

Poem: Marge Piercy— " To Be of Use "

Section Five Introduction

Victoria Safford— " The Small Work in the Great Work " :

Opening the gates of hope, from a wonderful Unitarian

minister Sister Rosalie Bertell— " In What Do I Place My

Trust? " : Essay on faith and hope for the environment,

by a leading Catholic environmental activist

Paxus Calta-Star— " Not Deterred " : Brief powerful

vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow

of Bulgaria's dictatorship

Jim Hightower— " Rebellion Is What Built America " :

Lessons in persistence by the Texas populist, from his

book Thieves in High Places

Jim Wallis— " Faith Works " : Faith and persistence from

Sojourners editor and radical evangelical Wallis

Mary Catherine Bateson— " Composing a Life Story " :

Courage, intentionality, and radical continuity in the

narratives of our personal lives

 

SECTION SIX: THE GLOBAL STAGE

Poem: Martin Espada— " Imagine the Angels of Bread "

Section Six Introduction

Arundhati Roy— " Come September " : September 11 and

global justice, by the author of The God of Small

Things

Ariel Dorfman— " The Black Hole " : Recovering the hope of

Salvador Allende, by the author of Death and the

Maiden

Kenneth Roth— " Hope for Human Rights " : From the

executive director of Human Rights Watch

Mark Hertsgaard— " The Green Dream " : The author of Earth

Odyssey and The Eagle's Shadow on global environmental

hope

Bill McKibben— " Curitiba " : How this Brazilian city has

become a global model for development that respects

the earth and delights its inhabitants, by the author

of Hope, Human and Wild

 

SECTION SEVEN: RADICAL DIGNITY

Poems: Adrienne Rich-From " Natural Resources " and

Jalaluddin Rumi— " How Have You Spent Your Life? "

Section Seven Introduction

—: The classic text that everyone's heard of but fewer

have read

Paul Loeb— " The Real Rosa Parks " : My widely reprinted

Los Angeles arial essay on Parks and persistence

Cornel West— " Prisoners of Hope " : Hope and rage in the

African American community

Carla Seaquist— " Behemoth in a Bathrobe " : An inner

dialogue on conscience, from the Christian Science

Monitor

Billy Wayne Sinclair— " Road to Redemption " : How

Sinclair, who has been in prison for 38 years and

co-edited the award-winning prison publication, The

Angolite, helped to stop pardon selling in Louisiana

at the cost of remaining another decade in jail Peter

Ackerman and Jack DuVall— " Resisting Terror " : How

nonviolent resistance overthrew murderous

dictatorships in Argentina and Milosovic's Serbia, and

even freed the Jewish husbands and wives whose

non-Jewish relatives protested in Berlin under Hitler,

from the book A Force More Powerful

 

SECTION EIGHT: BEYOND HOPE

Poems: Elizabeth Barrette— " Origami Emotion " and Sam

Hamill-From " The New York Poem "

Section Eight Introduction

Mary-Wynne Ashford— " Staying the Course " : Wrestling

with despair by the former president of International

Physicians Against Nuclear War

Joanna Macy— " The Elm Tree Dance " : Despair and healing

ritual in a visit to the city most contaminated by

Chernobyl's nuclear meltdown, by the author of Despair

and Empowerment

Nadezhda Mandelstam— " Hoping Against Hope " : From her

memoir of deportation under Stalin

K.C. Golden— " The Inevitability Trap " : Brief take on

why we shouldn't succumb to predictions of the

inevitable

Sonya Vetra Tinsley, as told to Paul Loeb— " You Have to

Pick Your Team " Margaret Wheatley— " From Hope to

Hopelessness " : By the author of Turning to Each Other

and Leadership and the New Science

 

SECTION NINE: ONLY JUSTICE CAN STOP A CURSE

Poem: Maya Angelou— " Still I Rise "

Section Nine Introduction

Alice Walker— " Only Justice Can Stop a Curse " : The rage

that convinces us the world deserves destroying, and

how to find the hope that moves us beyond it

Terry Tempest Williams— " The Clan of One-Breasted

Women " : Her classic essay on radiation survivors and

hope, with a new introduction, by the author of Refuge

Starhawk— " Next Year in Mas'Ha " : Essay on an

Arab-Israeli Seder in the occupied West Bank, by the

author of Dreaming the Dark

Amos Oz— " The Gruntwork of Peace " : Account by the noted

Israeli novelist of an Israeli-Palestinian meeting

that has produced a new peace plan as an alternative

to despair

Desmond Tutu— " No Future Without Forgiveness " : How

South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has

helped inspire the world, from Ireland to Rwanda