Photo by shho

As we sit at the kitchen table or in our studios and review the past year, many of us despair over time wasted, projects not done, opportunities that have passed us by. Our thoughts of the New Year are tarnished by our dismal condition in the present. We feel that we are being drawn deeper into a dark place that we don’t want to visit. We get up and wander out the back door and behold a glorious rose or a fuzzy bumblebee or some scampering clouds. Perhaps we get up and answer the phone call of a dear friend who says kind words to us or our mate comes by and drops a kiss on our head.

A small change occurs that allows us to envision a brighter new year and a possibility that we can finish at least some of those projects. What has just happened is that we have picked up a thread of hope, and with it we have begun to stitch together the gash that has separated our present situation from a possible better situation in the future.
Hope comes in all sorts of packages. Our relationships with others can be an ocean of hope. Hope arrives in the guise of a puppy, or a butterfly, a work of art, or a moving piece of music. It is available to all of us, whether we have an optimistic or even a pessimistic personality. Whether or not we believe that there will always be a happy ending, we can still have faith that we can handle whatever comes our way and grow toward a better future. Hope is that faith.

When a thread of hope comes our way, we must pick it up in order for it to work its magic. If I fail to pick up a thread of hope, I change from a visionary who can heal myself and the world, to another wishful thinker with lint on my jacket.

When we pick up a thread of hope, we give birth to our creativity and stitch it into a beautiful healing tapestry that stretches into the future while casting its shimmering folds over our life and those who share it. In this special season, may your life and the earth shine with golden threads of hope blanketing it and all of creation.