This is not what I intended to write today.

I had a post half-written last night, pounded out in a few minutes when despair and hope crashed into each other. I wrote of injustices and tragedies and how did we get so wrong. I wrote of hope, of wolves lying down with lambs, swords beaten into plowshares, no more fighting or war or pain. I wrote of being caught in the middle and always wrestling to hold onto that beautiful hope when despair looms so much nearer and larger, when it feels like hope is running through my fingers like so much water.

But tonight I was nursing my baby girl to sleep, and those words suddenly felt unnecessary. I don't want to add to the shouting. I don't need to point out injustice and pain when we can all see it plain as day, every day, even if we don't all see it in the same things.

In short, hold tight to hope, dear hearts, because that age of peace and love is to come, and we can see glimpses of it even here, bright shining moments of beauty and tenderness and awe and hope. And that's all I'll say about that.

Because tonight, I was nursing my baby girl. I was nursing her and she stopped and looked up at me, twinkle in her eye, as she stuck out her tongue as far as it could go. I stuck mine out in return and we laughed and laughed and it felt like the most important thing right then, she and I sticking our tongues out at each other and laughing. Thinking and worrying and ranting won't change hearts or erase injustices, but laughing with my baby girl? I can do that. I can pray she will carry that laughter with her into the world as she grows, and maybe there will be just a few less injustices, just a little less pain in the world because of it. Maybe. Hope.

That's why I'm not writing today about all that is wrong with this world, in case you didn't already know about it. I erased those words because I wanted to write about laughing with my baby girl, about how that laughter shines rays of love and light through the wrongness and darkness around us.

There is good here. There is good to come.

I guess that's pretty much hope in a nutshell.