05/27/2026
During the Q and A portion of my April 18, 2026 From Sermons to Summits talk at Harken Hall outside Nashville, Tennessee, someone asked me how I keep hope in the age of Trump.
And honestly, that is not an easy question to answer.
Because I do not think hope means pretending everything is fine.
I do not think hope means looking around at the fear, the cruelty, the exhaustion, the attacks on vulnerable people, the endless culture war panic, the public lands issues, the health care issues, the struggling schools, and the political chaos and somehow saying, “Well, everything happens for a reason.”
Nope. That is not hope.
That is a decorative throw pillow from a Christian bookstore in 2007.
For me, hope has become something much more stubborn than optimism. In the talk, I shared a lot about my own journey from conservative evangelical faith and politics into becoming a very different person. I was a pastor for fifteen years. I came from that world. I understood the language, the fear, the certainty, and the way politics and religion can get tangled together until compassion somehow becomes suspicious and cruelty gets dressed up as conviction.
And then my life changed. I left that world. I went to film school. I found the outdoors in a deeper way. I started hiking for my mental health. I started listening more. I started realizing that a lot of the things I had been taught to fear were actually people I needed to love, protect, and stand beside.
So when I was asked how I keep hope right now, my answer was not some polished little motivational quote. My answer was that we keep showing up. We get outside of our echo chambers. We rub shoulders with people who do not already agree with us, not because we need to water down our values, but because people need to see what compassion actually looks like in real life.
A lot of people have been sold fear. They have been told to panic about whatever the outrage machine needs them mad about this week, while the real issues facing families keep getting pushed to the side.
Health care.
Groceries.
Schools.
Public lands.
Housing.
Safety.
Community.
The ability to raise a family without feeling like one emergency could knock the whole thing over.
That is why I said we have to keep the main thing the main thing.
We do not have to agree on everything to protect the things that matter. I know hunters, anglers, hikers, paddlers, conservationists, progressives, moderates, rural folks, city folks, and people from all kinds of backgrounds who may argue about how land should be used, but still agree those lands should be protected in the first place.
That matters.
Kindness matters.
Being a good neighbor matters.
Refusing to let fear turn you into the worst version of yourself matters.
And yes, voting matters.
I know people are tired. I know people are cynical. I know it can feel like we did everything we were supposed to do and still ended up here. I feel that too.
But cynicism does not build community. Despair does not protect people. Giving up does not save public lands, feed families, make schools safer, or make life better for the people being targeted.
So I keep hope by getting outside, telling the truth, staying connected to people, trying to be a good neighbor, and remembering that the work still matters even when the results take longer than we want.
That is not always easy.
But it is still worth doing.
