About the Book
In The Impossible Will Take a Little While, a phrase borrowed from Billie Holliday, the editor of Soul of a Citizen brings together fifty stories and essays that range across nations, eras, wars, and political movements. Danusha Goska, an Indiana activist with a paralyzing physical disability, writes about overcoming political immobilization, drawing on her history with the Peace Corps and Mother Teresa. Vaclav Havel, the former president of the Czech Republic, finds value in seemingly doomed or futile actions taken by oppressed peoples. Rosemarie Freeney Harding recalls the music that sustained the civil rights movement, and Paxus Calta-Star recounts the powerful vignette of an 18-year-old who launched the overthrow of Bulgaria's dictatorship. Many of the essays are new, others classic works that continue to inspire. Together, these writers explore a path of heartfelt community involvement that leads beyond despair to compassion and hope. The voices collected in The Impossible Will Take a Little While will help keep us all working for a better world despite the obstacles.
Table of Contents:
SECTION ONE: SEEDS OF THE POSSIBLE * Poem: Seamus Heaney- From "The Cure at Troy" * 1. Diane Ackerman "A Slender Thread" * 2. Jonathan Kozol, "Ordinary Resurrections" * 3. Marian Wright Edelman, "Standing for Children" * 4. Danusha Goska, "Political Paralysis" SECTION TWO: DARK BEFORE THE DAWN * Poem: WH Auden-From "September 1, 1939" * 5. Howard Zinn, "The Optimism of Uncertainty" * 6. Nelson Mandela, "The Dark Years" * 7. Vaclav Havel, "Orientation of the Heart" SECTION THREE: EVERYDAY GRACE * Poems: Wendell Berry-"The Peace of Wild Things" * Antonio Machado-"Last Night As I Was Sleeping" * 8. Scott Sanders, "Mountain Music" * 9. Rabbi Arthur Waskow, "The Sukkah of Shalom" * 10. Rose Marie Berger, "Getting our Gaze Back" * 11. Henri Nouwen, "Fragile and Hidden" * 12. Parker Palmer, "There is a Season" SECTION FOUR: THE FLIGHT OF OUR DREAMS * Poem: Eduardo Galeano: "Celebration of the Human Voice" * 13. Pablo Neruda-"Childhood and Poetry" * 14. Susan Griffin, "To Love the Marigold" * 15. John Lewis, "Walking With the Wind" * 16. Rosemarie Freeney Harding, "Freedom Songs" * 17. Toni Mirosevich, "Rough Translation" * 18. Walter Wink, "Jesus and Alinsky" * 19. Vern Huffman, "Stories from the Cha Cha Cha" * 20. Sherman Alexie, "Do Not Go Gentle" * 21. Tony Kushner: "Despair is a Lie we Tell Ourselves" SECTION FIVE: COURAGE IS CONTAGIOUS * Poem: Marge Piercy-"To Be of Use" 22. Victoria Safford, "The Small Work in the Great Work" 23. Sister Rosalie Bertell, "In What Do I Place My Trust?" * 24 Paxus Calta-Star, "Not Deterred" * 25. Jim Hightower, "Rebellion is What Built America" * 26. Jim Wallis, "Faith Works." * 27. Mary Catherine Bateson, "Composing a Life Story" SECTION SIX: THE GLOBAL STAGE * Poem: Martin Espada-"Imagine the Angels of Bread" * Section Six Introduction * 28. Arundhati Roy, "Come September" * 29. Ariel Dorfman, "The Black Hole" * 30. Kenneth Roth, "Hope For Human Rights" * 31. Mark Hertsgaard, "The Green Dream" * 32. Bill McKibben, "Curitiba" SECTION SEVEN: RADICAL DIGNITY * Poem: Adrienne Rich: From "Natural Resources" * Poem: Jalaluddin Rumi: "How Have You Spent Your Life?" * 33. Martin Luther King: "Letter from Birmingham Jail" * 34. Paul Loeb, "The Real Rosa Parks" * 35. Cornel West "Prisoners of Hope" * 36. Carla Seaquist: "Behemoth in a Bathrobe" * 37. Billy Wayne Sinclair, "A Life in the Balance" * 38. Peter Ackerman & Jack DuVall, "A Force More Powerful" SECTION EIGHT: LETTING GO OF HOPE * Poem: Elizabeth Barrette-"Origami Emotion" * Poem: Sam Hamill-From "New York Poem" * 39. Mary-Wynne Ashford, "Staying the Course" * 40. Joanna Macy, "The Elm Tree Dance" * 41. Nadezhda Mandelstam: Excerpt from Hoping Against Hope * 42. KC Golden, "The Inevitability Trap" * 43. Sonya Vetra Tinsley, as told to Paul Loeb, "You Have to Pick Your Team" * 44. Margaret Wheatley: "From Hope to Hopelessness" SECTION NINE: ONLY JUSTICE CAN STOP A CURSE * Poem: Maya Angelou- "Still I Rise" * 45. Alice Walker, "Only Justice Can Stop a Curse" * 46. Terry Tempest Williams: "The Clan of One-Breasted Women" * 47. Starhawk, "Next Year in Mas'Ha" * 48. Amos Oz, "The Gruntwork of Peace" * 49. Desmond Tutu, "No Future Without Forgiveness" * 50. "A Timeline of Hope," by Glen Gersmehl
About the Author :
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of several books, and has written for publications including the New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
