DUCKS TO WATER

“In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” — Anne Frank

This audaciously hopeful declaration has inspired and grounded me my entire life.

I have a foggy recollection of my parents sharing the quote with me over breakfast, when I was very young, after meeting some upsetting headline in the morning paper. As a child and teen, I read Anne’s famous Diary numerous times; when I feared that I couldn’t face the world alone, her indefatigable spirit gave me a boost of faith and courage. Anne Frank was the subject of my college application essay; I wrote about her insistence upon humanity’s essential goodness as an heroic act of self-determination. And I’ve come back to this statement again and again throughout my adulthood, in my ministry and every time I am inclined to despair.

It inspires and grounds me, even as it breaks my heart. I’m reminded that heartbreak and hope aren’t opposites.

Anne’s faith and courage didn’t save her life. Her hope couldn’t halt the hideous march of hatred across the continent while she lived. And it hasn’t stopped the bigotry, betrayal, and barbarism that has continued to plague us in the eighty-one years since her death at age 15 in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

And yet, in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

I choose to believe this. I don’t have illusions that this choice will guarantee that everything works out fine in the end, but I know for certain that not believing it is far worse. Not believing it actually makes things worse. And not just in the end, it makes it all worse immediately.

So I’ve been leaning into Anne’s example a lot lately:

• Because HOPE IS AN ACT OF RESISTANCE.
• Because JOY IS REVOLUTIONARY.   
• Because while corruption and greed and incompetence rage on — as cruelty and self-interest are on loudspeaker amplified by algorithms that fuel fear & futility & future — when people seem awful and the world looks bleak, FAITH IN OUR BETTER NATURES IS A WELLSPRING OF POSSIBILITY AND CHANGE.

There are those who would have us believe that empathy is weakness, that caring for each other and the planet is a frailty and a liability, and that “woke” is an insulting slur. I couldn’t disagree more. In fact, I know that it will be our salvation finally to learn how to share ourselves with open hearts, to greet the world with a willing interdependence, and to be wide awake both to our problems and to our glorious opportunities.

It will require that we choose to give each other the benefit of the doubt, as much as we can muster, even when it doesn’t make sense. It means practicing trust though it hasn’t yet been earned, maybe after it’s been betrayed, and even when it might not be deserved. It means committing again and again to the idea that we are better together, that we need each other, that we are fundamentally interconnected.

This is one of the main reasons why I believe that community is essential — spiritual community, creative community, any and all sense of community where we can practice belonging and togetherness. The good news, I believe, is that this is our natural state.

I took the long way around getting to my title. (Which, honestly, I settled on once again because I thought it might lend itself to a few bad jokes I’ve got in my pocket.)

My idea is that hope and empathy, rather than making us “sitting ducks,” actually invite us “like ducks to water.” If we can let down our guards and open our hearts to each other, we will discover that who and how we’re meant to be is authentic, expressive, intimate, and vulnerable. We’re meant to be in love. And if we dare to try, we’ll take to it like ducks to water.

I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, March 8, 10:00am at q-Staff Theatre. With the divine Patty Stephens. Don’t forget to turn your clocks FORWARD an hour! Feel free to come in your pajamas and slippers if you like. We’ll have coffee. XO, Drew

©2026 Drew Groves