Hey.
Welcome to A Hit of Hope.
Whenever I get invited to a baby shower,
I tend to buy the same book to bring as a gift.
Richard Scarry's What Do People Do All Day.
The book provided endless hours of fascination when I read it to my children.
So much to spy in the chaos of the pages,
Like Abel Baker Charlie,
Who is making pancakes on a train.
I can still see the little fluffy disks flying out the window of the train car and into the world.
Can you imagine how happy that must have made the family of possums living nearby?
I could,
Which is why I love this book,
Because it celebrates the boisterous weirdness that is life.
Now someone else I know takes a different tact.
She gives the expecting parents books that end in sleep.
In other words,
Her titles are carefully curated to lead the child to quiet and rest.
So fewer cats climbing on the cabinets and more snuggling Little Spoon.
Wonder,
Possibility,
Play,
Good work,
And all kinds of sweet rest.
Aren't those the very things we,
As adults,
Need too?
When we wake,
Isn't it vital that we commit to living this life in front of us and in our living to understand that life is chaos and weird,
Hard,
And delightful?
And knowing that,
Can we choose to do the work that creates the good?
Can we sing our life song and do what makes us shine?
And just as importantly,
When we get to the end of each day,
Can we do so intact with no bits and yet every bother left behind?
To wake and seek out that which makes us glow and to end each day like a contented child.
Come on,
You might be saying,
Is that even possible in today's world?
I'll be honest and say,
I don't know,
Which makes adult me sad because this world,
It can feel so broken right now.
And yet,
Little me,
Fierce me from way back when,
Can imagine it.
And maybe that's where I've been leading with this all along.
With everything that is going on right now,
We can still imagine what might be,
What could be.
And in fact,
I would argue we have to do that.
And then from there,
Who knows what's possible?
How can we be defiantly hopeful?
What is our work right now?
I think part of it is to let the young and the fierce in us imagine.
To train our eyes to see the good,
That the ordinary world is still full of everyday energy and magic,
Full of possibility.
To create all the good we can in small act after small act.
And when we mess up,
Like I just did,
To let it go and know that's what we as humans do.
And for the sake of all that is holy,
To let our weary bodies and spirits rest.
So we can rise again on the morrow.
And who knows,
We might find ourselves living in a world where pancakes fly through the air like sweet frisbees.
We might live in a world where the hungry are fed,
The babies are safe,
And the days,
Our days,
Are filled with all kinds of wonder and singing.
