It's no secret times are difficult right now.

It's easy to become hopeless watching the news, scrolling through Facebook, or even just looking at the problems in our own communities.

But as Glennon Doyle recently shared on Instagram, "When life in my head or the cyber world makes me feel hopeless - the anecdote is always to drop back into my real life flesh and blood world - to get busy loving the world within my reach." 

For me, hope exists in classrooms. In these colorful sanctuaries, I learn that receiving is just as important as giving. As I listen to kids, I'm reawakened to the beauty of curiosity and wonder.

Recently, I got to lead a Car Window Poetry workshop with Mrs. Willis' 4th graders at Odyssey Elementary School in Colorado Springs, CO. I stood amazed as they wrote poems like these: 

As I write to you now, I think about the Kid President YouTube series and the question that inspired its creation:

What if we listened to kids?

Sure, we're adults with adult jobs and adult houses and adult expenses. But age doesn't mean we necessarily have it all figured out.

I have a feeling that if a few of us went out after this blog post and took time to sit with kids and listen to them, our communities would become far more empathetic. Far more gentle. Far more kind.

Because the truth is kids still have what's easy for us to lose:

Hope.

With love,