Many hands make light work

keeping hope alive

Good morning bread friends!

I can’t wait to make some bread for you this weekend 🤗

It may be spring break related… but last week was a light week for bread orders. I’m looking forward to you all keeping me busy again this weekend.

This week also brought a number of interesting conversations that I’ve been reflecting on. I almost wrote “tough conversations”… but I’m not sure that is the right way to think about it.

This week I had five separate conversations with parents (or groups of parents) where people were reflecting on how tough it feels right now to be raising kids. They all revolved around how dispiriting it feels to be raising kids to grow up in an America that feels so much less stable and less communal than the America that we grew up in.

Not only does the country feel less stable, but the actions of the leaders of our country (elected and defacto) make it clear that they are more interested in enriching themselves and cementing their power, than they are in building a society that will be strong for our kids, or safe for those in need.

In each of these conversations this week… someone expressed a sentiment like this: “The thought of fighting for the future just feels overwhelming right now” or “I’m just one person… anything I do would be throwing a small pebble into an ocean and hoping it makes a difference.”

I certainly can empathize with those feelings on some days.

The good news is that there are a lot of people still throwing pebbles into the ocean, and no one is expected to solve all the problems of the world on their own.

Collective hope and collective action can make a big difference.

I can imagine that on some days it would have felt tempting to believe that volunteering on this state house race in Pennsylvania (where that county has only voted for a democrat once since 1856) was a futile effort. And yet… a candidate ran offering a different direction than where Republicans currently have us headed, volunteers showed up every day, and voters turned out… and a Democrat won the seat for the first time ever, just this week!

As humans living in tough times… I think we owe it to ourselves to stop to acknowledge and appreciate reminders that it matters to apply our energy towards making a difference.

This week one of my friends said that he’s going to try to start using the app 5calls.org as a way to channel his daily frustration into just reminding his elected officials that he’s paying attention and expects more of them. I thought that was awesome and asked him to keep me posted.

I was delighted when I got this text from him that evening!

If there is something that you did this week (or you’ll be doing next week) that is a small act for the purpose of serving others and/or making our community/state/country a little better - I’d love to hear what it was.

It is such a source of encouragement to be reminded of the various ways that people are working to build and strengthen our world.

Something that I’ll be doing is one more round of door knocking for the WI Supreme Court race. I’m deeply uninterested in Elon’s plot for how our WI Supreme Court can serve him. And in addition to appreciating Susan Crawford’s priorities as a judge… because I’ve known her brother for 15 years, I’ve come to get to know her as an honest and caring human, who I would be proud to know is serving us on the WI Supreme Court.

2018 picture with Rebecca Dallet one week before she was elected to the WI Supreme Court in 2019, and Susan Crawford who we could elect to the WI Supreme Court next week!

See you soon friends.

Cheers,
Mo

P.S. special thank you to Melissa (my lovely wife), and to Jarvis (my oldest friend) for being lights in my life that routinely remind me that many hands make light work.