Ross Gay — Hope Portal, Episode 7

Summary

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On Being with Krista Tippett

Episode: Ross Gay — Hope Portal, Episode 7
Date: July 10, 2025
Host: Krista Tippett
Guest: Ross Gay

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the radiant interplay between joy, hope, and resilience in tumultuous times, featuring poet and community gardener Ross Gay. Through the lens of Ross’s celebrated “Book of Delights” and his daily practice of noting small joys, the conversation asks: How can we tend to delight and hope even when the world feels heavy? Krista Tippett and Ross Gay delve into ordinary moments, the power of attention, the role of gardens in understanding life’s cycles, and the emotional intelligence of cultivating what we love—offering listeners both wisdom and practical invitation for replenishing the spirit.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

The Question of Joy in Difficult Times

• Opening Reflection (00:06): Tippett reflects on the common question:
  “How could you be joyful in a moment like this, in a world like this?” She challenges the view of joy as a privilege and reframes it as a “resilience making life giving birthright of being human.”
• Linking Joy with Hope:
  Tippett notes: "Joy is a companion to hope as a wellspring of resilience."
• Ross Gay’s Approach:
  Ross isn’t just a poet but a “very intense lover and interrogator of words,” reminding us of “adult joy"—the awareness that “suffering and loss always live close by life and love.” (00:06-02:50)

The Practice of Delighting: Building a “Delight Muscle”

• Delight as a Practice (03:08):
  Ross describes how actively seeking delight daily surprised him by making the world’s delights much more evident:
  Ross Gay [03:12]: “The study of delight made delight more evident. That was really quick… I was a little bit like, this can be hard, you know, to just, like, have something delightful happen every day…”
• Delight Radar vs Diagnosing Negativity:
  Tippett compares this to therapy, where one might focus on neuroses weekly, but here Ross was focusing on joys:
  Krista Tippett [03:36]: “You developed a delight radar or a delight muscle… it’s the opposite experience from… saving up things that illustrate your neurosis and you were doing the opposite.”
• Ross’s Response: “Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's fun." (03:53)

Ordinary Wonders: What Counts as Delight

• Unexpected Delights (04:08):
  Ross shares delight in small physical moments—“public physical interactions,” like witnessing gentle hand gestures, or people sharing burdens. Ross Gay [04:14]: "I love how frequently I’m in the presence of, like, sweet little interactions that don’t have to happen, but do have to happen."
• Tippett’s Observations (04:54):
  She notes moments like two people sharing a shopping bag or a sack of laundry; the subtle choreography of cooperation.
• The Power to Transform (05:23):
  Tippett expresses: “We have the power with our words and with all kinds of small gestures… to walk through the world making somebody’s day.”
• Ross, Soft Impact (05:56): “Yeah, yeah. Just in a soft way. It's kind of amazing.”

Everyday Pleasures: Cafes, Gardens, and Food

• Simple Joys (06:03-06:21):
  Tippett and Ross joke about Ross’s frequent “cafe runs,” vegan donuts, and the anticipation of treats.
  • Ross: “Man, I drink a lot of coconut. Get the vegan donut.” (06:03)
  • Tippett: “It's already delighting here. Just the thought of getting to it.” (06:09)
• The Garden as Character (06:21-06:30):
  Ross’s community garden is both a literal and metaphorical backdrop:
  Ross Gay [06:30]: “Yeah, yeah. And it didn't occur to me, probably because...the garden is so much in my life."
  Tippett calls the garden “a character in the book.”

The Invitation: Practicing and Advocating for Delight

• Invitation to Listeners (06:45):
  Tippett suggests developing your own “delight radar” as a daily or regular practice, emphasizing that it’s accessible to anyone.
• Advocacy for Beauty and Love (07:10):
  • Tippett quotes Ross on the importance of speaking up for what we love:
    “I often think the gap in our speaking about and for justice or working for justice is that we forget to advocate for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. ...Imagining and holding in one's imagination what is wonderful, and to be adored and preserved and exalted, that’s harder for us, it seems.”
• Hope as an Orientation (08:05):
  Tippett wraps by urging listeners to balance resistance with deliberate attention to what we cherish, describing it as “the muscle of hope.”
  • Krista Tippett [08:20]:
    “…even as we know what frightens us and what we must fight and resist, what we must compost and hospice in this world that is not serving our highest humanity, even and especially amidst this hardness of being alive now, the muscle of hope calls us to orient around what we love and hold dear, the world we want to be part of making and nourishing.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Joy and Privilege
  “Joy in human life is a resilience making life giving birthright of being human.” — Krista Tippett [00:18]
• On Delight’s Power
  “The study of delight made delight more evident. That was really quick…” — Ross Gay [03:12]
• On the Subtlety of Ordinary Connection
  “I love how frequently I’m in the presence of, like, sweet little interactions that don’t have to happen, but do have to happen.” — Ross Gay [04:14]
• On Small Gestures Transforming Days
  “We have the power with our words and with all kinds of small gestures… to walk through the world making somebody’s day.” — Krista Tippett [05:23]
• On Gardening and Life’s Cycles
  “The garden is actually a character in the book.” — Krista Tippett [06:28]
• On Justice and Love
  “Imagining and holding in one’s imagination what is wonderful, and to be adored and preserved and exalted, that's harder for us, it seems.” — Ross Gay (via Tippett) [07:20]
• On Hope and Orientation
  “…the muscle of hope calls us to orient around what we love and hold dear, the world we want to be part of making and nourishing.” — Krista Tippett [08:20]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:06: Opening reflection—Joy as resilience, hope, and introduction to Ross Gay
• 03:08: Ross Gay on how delight became visible through intentional practice
• 04:08: Examples of everyday delight—hand gestures, tender interactions
• 05:23: Power of small gestures—“making somebody’s day”
• 06:21: Role of gardening in Ross’s life and his book
• 07:10: The importance of advocating for what we love alongside justice
• 08:05–08:40: Closing meditation—balancing resistance with nurturing hope and delight

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Final Takeaways

• Delighting in the ordinary is a resilient, life-giving act—especially in difficult times.
• Attention begets more delight; naming and recording joys cultivates them.
• Small, daily gestures are powerful—impacting ourselves and others.
• Tending to what we love is as essential as tending to what we seek to change.
• Practicing a “delight radar” strengthens both hope and our capacity to envision a world worth fighting for.

Krista Tippett ends the episode blessing listeners for their commitment to the “superpower of hope,” inviting all to keep delight alive as an act of emotional resilience and creative possibility.

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Transcript

[A]

I have heard in the last few years a question rolling around the world. It goes something like this. How could you be joyful in a moment like this, in a world like this? And the question troubles me because it suggests that joy is a privilege, but joy in human life is a resilience making life giving birthright of being human. And to suggest that you can't be joyful in a time like this is akin to the idea that you can't be hopeful unless everything has gone right for you. Joy is a companion to hope as a wellspring of resilience. And my wonderful teacher on this is Ross Gay, a poet and community gardener and teacher who brings his own way in to the conviction that we have to know what we love and what delights us, and we have to tend to that as seriously and as fiercely as how we tend to what is broken and what we're called to make better, what we're called to make more. Just knowing what we love and knowing how to take delight is fuel, even, and especially in experiences of great challenge. And Ross Gay is infectious. His presence is infectious. I'm not sure that we used the word hope in the conversation we had, but hope emanated from it. As I said, he's a poet, and he's also a very intense lover and interrogator of words. His work actually reminds me of that Emily Dickinson quote, that hope inspires the good to reveal itself. He told me that the etymology of the word delight is both of light and without light, which, again, drives at the deeper meaning of this, that, as he says, adult joy knows that suffering and loss always live close by life and love, and that knowledge brings what is good and joyful all the more into relief. He actually works really interestingly with his community garden and the complex interplay that is in a garden between death and life and beauty and loss and pleasure, season after season after season. So the part of the interview that I want you to hear a little bit of here is about the practice he undertook to write his book of poetic essays called the Book of Delights. So what surprised you in the process of moving through that year and moving through that year, looking for delight and writing about delight every day?

[B]

I mean, many things surprised me, I suppose, but one of the things that surprised me was how quickly the study of delight made delight more evident. That was really quick, you know, and I wasn't sure. Like, I was a little bit like, this can be hard, you know, to just, like, have something delightful happen every day, you know?

[A]

Yeah. You said somewhere it's like you developed a delight radar or a delight muscle. Yeah, well, it seems to me it's a little bit. It's kind of the inverse or, I don't know, the opposite experience from, like going to the therapist every week where you're kind of saving up things that illustrate your neurosis and you were doing the opposite.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's fun.

[A]

So. But what are some of the things that you noticed that you found delightful and called delight that you. That you wouldn't have imagined before you started?

[B]

I mean, it just like occurred to me. It made me realize too, how often I am delighted, how often things happen that, like, you were doing this hand gesture and you were doing these hand gestures. I was like, I love hand gestures when you were doing that. I do them too, you know, with abundance. You know, I realized over the course of writing the book how much I love. I have a title of one of the pieces in there, but it's like unambiguous. How do I say it? Physical contact that is pleasant. You know, unambiguously pleasant. Public physical interactions, I think is what I call it. Yeah. You know, like, I love how frequently I'm in the presence of, like, sweet little interactions that don't have to happen, but do have to happen, you know,

[A]

I guess some that I noticed, you know. Yeah. Just these ordinary things, like seeing two people sharing the burden of carrying a shopping bag.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or a sack of laundry. How they're helping each other and how their bodies are adjusting to each other.

[B]

It's pretty amazing. Yeah, it's an amazing thing. But it's not until you say it's amazing, you know, it's like, whoa, that's amazing. We do that all the time.

[A]

Yeah. I think sometimes about this phrase, you know, made my day. We have the power with our words and with all kinds of small gestures like that. I mean, even like somebody being really nice in a checkout line or you being nice to somebody in a checkout line after the last two people were really rude to them and you watch a transformation take place that you made that their day was getting broken. And you made. What an incredible power we have to walk through the world making somebody's day.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Just in a soft way. It's kind of amazing.

[A]

Yeah. There's also a lot of cafe runs.

[B]

Yeah, that's something too. Like, I was like, man, I drink a lot of coconut. Get the vegan donut. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

It's already the lighting here. Just the thought of getting to it.

[B]

Totally, totally. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

[A]

And also arugula and greens and garlic from your garden.

[B]

Yeah, my garden. And it's funny because people, when they talk about the book, they notice the garden as like a primary feature.

[A]

The garden is actually a character in the book.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And it didn't occur to me, probably because it's so much. The garden is so much in my life, you know.

[A]

It's precisely the closeness and ordinariness of what Ross attended to that I think makes him a teacher to me and to all of us. And the invitation here is to play around with developing your own delight radar. There's nothing stopping any of us from making this daily exercise that he took on, an exercise that we take on for some period of time. And I want to share something else Ross wrote that I love and drew him out on. It is a lovely deepening and a turn on a lot of the themes that have come through in this course about the importance of what we get proximate to and orient towards and devote our words to and put ourselves in service of. He said this. I often think the gap in our speaking about and for justice or working for justice is that we forget to advocate for what we love, for what we find beautiful and necessary. We are good at fighting, but imagining and holding in one's imagination what is wonderful. And to be adored and preserved and exalted, that's harder for us, it seems. This is the final session of this hope course. For now, I hope you have enjoyed and been edified and sometimes delighted. Take some time to let it all settle inside you, inside your life. Maybe that's what the journaling will be about this week as well. And if you decide to pursue nothing else as follow up, keep your delight radar on. This is of course a pleasant practice, but it holds such a profound emotionally intelligent resilience, making insight that even as we know what frightens us and what we must fight and resist, what we must compost and hospice in this world that is not serving our highest humanity, even and especially amidst this hardness of being alive now, the muscle of hope calls us to orient around what we love and hold dear, the world we want to be part of making and nourishing. Thank you for being here for being in the first place on the generative landscape of our time, for investing your life force already in the superpower of hope and its life giving reality shifting force in our world that carries so much pain and so much promise. Blessings to you from me until we meet again.