What do you do when you feel helpless, powerless, or hopeless? Is your first instinct to suffer through, hoping that someone will come to help? Or do you try to take an action — any action, even one that seems hopeless — to try and change things? Are you waiting for deliverance, or making your own?

Prompt: In this moment in history, are you wondering, “Why isn’t anyone doing anything?” Or are you coming to realize that you, yourself, are someone who can do something? Think, honestly and perhaps even a bit brutally, about this question. Create about it.

Have you ever had to wrestle with the realization that something you always believed was true was wrong? What did that feel like? How did you react? What was it like to let go of that belief — and what have you found in its place?

Prompt: Think back to a time when you had to admit you were wrong — whether about a situation, a fact, a belief, or anything else. How did you handle it? What did you learn? Create about it.

What tapestries are you part of? Consider: Your community, your neighborhood, your friends, your relationships, the creative canon you work within or contribute to. What does it mean to you to be part of a larger whole? Do you feel your importance is diminished by being only a small part of something larger? Why or why not?

Prompt: Consider the phrase: “Everyone is the main character in their own story.” Think of three to five people whose stories you are part of — as a side character, a wise mentor, a love interest, maybe even a villain. How do you feel about the role you play? Create about it.

Have you ever felt that your world was ending because of someone else’s choices? Conversely: Have you ever felt responsible, however distantly, for the ending of someone else’s world? How do you think about that responsibility? Remember the first clip of this newsletter — what responsibility do we have, in moments of injustice, to fight back?

Prompt: One of the central, repeated phrases of the Exodus story is, “And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened.” In the song above, it’s in the lyric, “So let my heart be hardened.” What are the small, everyday ways in which you notice yourself hardening your heart, even if it’s to protect yourself? What would it feel like to intentionally choose to soften? Does that softening make you any less capable of resistance? Create about it.

What is it that helps you keep hope alive, when a better world feels impossible? Is hope something you cultivate? Something you practice? Is it fleeting or constant? Does faith (whatever that word means to you) play a role in that hope? What do you come back to to restore your sense of hope when that well feels like it’s running dry? How can you share those waters with others?

Prompt: Read through this tumblr post — one of my very favorite examples of the “yes, and” storytelling that happens on that site. Choose a favorite line from this community-created poem about hope (added below for accessibility). Create about it.