Hope isn't something you create, it's something you let inside.

Pedro the Lion is loud in the speakers and the city waits outside our windows. She sits and sings, legs crossed in the passenger seat, her pretty voice hiding in the volume. Music is a safe place and she knows it. It hits me that she won't see this beautiful skyline for several weeks, and we'll be without her. I leaned forward and asked, what'd she say if her story has an audience. She smiles, "Tell them to look up. Tell them to remember the stars."

I would write her a song, because songs don't wait to resolve, and that songs has that special ability to reach beyond these high walls. Stories wait for endings but songs are brave enough to sing out when all they know is darkness. These words, written next to midnight, as hurricane and harbor, as both claim to save her.

3 years ago, Jon Foreman of Switchfoot wore the first TWLOHA shirt. At that time, it was nothing more to help a friend, tell a story. Chad Butler, drummer of Switchfoot wore it the next night. And then Deon Rexroat of Anberlin, for the next year. And more artistes like Paramore and some other great bands. The shirts were curious billboards and so wherever these bands went, the messages would follow- questions and confessions from folks wanting to learn to fight for their friends. It was conversations over lunch at the cafeteria, folks at work, strangers at the airport. "What does your shirt mean?"

We all wake to human condition. We all wake to mystery and beauty but also tragedy and loss. Someone smart once said that life is hard for most people, most of the time. But the vision is better endings. Restoration of broken familes and relationships. The vision is people finding freedom, finding life and finding love. The vision is a graduation, a wedding, a child, a sunrise.
The vision is people becoming incredible parents, people breaking cycles, making change.
You are not alone, and this is not the end of your story.


Somewhere along that night at Boca and this night where you are, our story bumped into yours. Thank you for being part of this love movement. It may sound stupid for most people, but being able to help someone in desperate times is something we can do to make this world a better place. Because TWLOHA-ians, this is how we roll.



PS: the title is from John Mayer's twitter.