May we become fluent in the language of hope.
Yes, I did indeed turn a made-up word into a print.
The top portion was written at the start of 2022; it’s just as true today, first-line admission and all.
Honestly, I often want a guarantee on what I’m hoping for.
More often than not, Hope just holds out a hand and joins me in the waves.
One day we’ll look back on whatever story this chapter is going to tell, our eyes skimming the underlined and tear-stained and highlighted pages of the days currently yet to be. They probably won’t go how we think they will. Things will shift and change and splinter, storms will rage and waters rise or maybe, may it be, the sea will still for a moment. Who knows what we’ll see when we look back, but we could still look forward with hope, let the armor rust and end up ending the year a little softer. I guess what I’m saying is that if I’m going to shift, I want it to be in the direction of hope. Not the cheesy, flimsy, rainbows and unicorns kind but the hard-fought, not giving up, through thick or thin, anchor in the waves kind. Because it has yet to go how I think it will, but through every change this has stayed the same: I haven’t walked alone.
So... here’s to here.
May we be surprised by joy and steadied by peace.
May we trust in the dark what we know to be true in the Light, and may we never stop watching for, begging for, believing for redemption.
May we dare to laugh, long and loud.
May we rest without prerequisites.
May we love well, tend to the tender places, forgive and try again.
May we learn to build altars in the ruins and may we always find a hand reaching out when all falls apart.
May we become fluent in the language of hope.
Many years ago, it must be six or seven now, I saw a made-up word that grabbed me, struck me and then stuck with me. I think of it often—all throughout the year, as I drive to the doctor’s office and sit in a waiting room every week, and always in that lost time between Christmas and New Years as we look back and look again.
It’s tender and vulnerable, brave and honest, daring and strong.
Hopeward.
I’ve carried it with me; it has refused to let go. Somehow, both are simultaneously true.
And now, maybe more than ever before, it’s all of those things . . . a brave choice, a vulnerable risk, a tender and honest declaration . . . and much more.
And now, definitely more than ever before, I could use the reminder before I swipe and scroll, before I log in and do my best to love and listen and learn, before I log out and do my best to do the same there, here, in person, too.
Online and off, pixelated and not, I want to choose hopeward.
I want to live hopeward, despite it all.
I guess what I’m saying is that if I’m going to shift, I want it to be in the direction of hope. Not the cheesy, flimsy, rainbows and unicorns kind but the hard-fought, not giving up, through thick or thin, anchor in the waves kind.
In July, I created two prints with waves . . .
In August, we read Liturgies for Hope together and had such a beautiful, tender conversation with authors Audrey Elledge and Elizabeth Moore . . .
So for September, to continue weaving the thread and to take us into whatever the coming days will hold . . .
I created two designs, vertical and horizontal, of hopeward—one that’s connected, a subtle hint of hope over all of our days as we look forward1, and one that’s a handwritten style for more of a personal declaration/invitation.
One of these days I’ll stick with the ‘one print and lock screen’ instead of 2 or 3 or 4, but not today. Because I need hope subtle and obvious and going both directions—and I figure, maybe you do too. <3
Both All The Things prints are available as a 5x7 and an 8x10 below. I’d love to hear which one you pick to print/choose for your phone! (I have one design sitting on my dresser, a reminder as I get ready for the day, and the other as my lock screen, a reminder throughout the hours.)
So… here’s to here, still. Here’s to hopeward, always.
May we become fluent in the language of hope.