Practicing Hope: Renovating a Barn, Living with the Unknown, Part 2
- dawnsagonias
- Feb 1
- 8 min read
The Vision
Have you practiced hope before?
Sometimes we don't know how something will turn out, we don't know if our acts will come to fruition, we don't even have a full picture of what the finished project / product will look like, yet we put one foot in front of the other and we trust the process. That, to me, is "practicing hope."
I didn’t set out to learn about hope by renovating a barn. I thought I was restoring wood, clearing out bat $&*!, repairing floors, making plans. What I’ve actually been doing—for a year now—is practicing hope. (IYKYK)
Renovating the barn has been an exercise in living inside uncertainty. There are the obvious unknowns: timelines that shift, budgets that make me stretch or cringe, weather that doesn’t cooperate, machines that break (we called the thickness planer and its chain breaking "The Weakest Link"), materials that cost more or take longer than expected. And then there are the quieter, yet sometimes very heavy, questions that hum beneath it all: Will this work? Will it become what I envision? Am I making the right decisions? Am I crazy to even attempt this??
Some days the answers feel clear. Other days, it seems like life is heavier than all these boards combined.
What I’ve noticed is that hope doesn’t arrive once everything feels secure. It shows up before certainty—often right alongside fear and doubt. Practicing hope, for me, has meant continuing to show up to the barn, and in life, even when I don’t know how everything will turn out. It’s choosing to take the next small step without a guarantee.
This is something we all know intimately, whether we’re aware of it or not.
We practice hope when we start a new chapter without knowing how it will unfold. When we stay in a relationship that’s changing. When we leave one that no longer fits. When we invest time, energy, or money into a dream that hasn’t yet proven itself. When we listen to a quiet inner nudge even as fear asks us to stay small and safe.
Uncertainty has a way of triggering doubt: What if this fails? What if I regret this? What if I’m wrong? What if cut this board in the wrong place? Practicing hope doesn’t mean silencing those questions. It means learning to walk forward while they’re still present.
In the barn, hope looks very practical. It looks like trusting the process one beam at a time. Making decisions with the information I have today, knowing I can adjust tomorrow. Letting imperfections remain instead of forcing everything to be resolved immediately. Accepting that some answers only reveal themselves through movement.
Life works the same way.
Let me say that again...Life works the same way--accepting that some answers only reveal themselves through movement--even if it is not the movement that you ultimately need for the whole wheel to move forward. Sometimes it takes lining up the spokes to get the wheel to turn. (Refer back to my other blog "Life Gets Constipated..."!)
As I move through this phase of renovation, I keep returning to an old parable—the story of the Three Bricklayers. When each is asked what he is doing, the first says, “I’m laying bricks.” The second says, “I’m building a wall.” The third looks up and says, “I’m building a cathedral.”
All three are doing the same work. What differs is the meaning they hold while they do it. The PURPOSE.
Some days in the barn, I am simply laying bricks—focused on tasks, steps, and what needs to be done next. Other days, I feel the weight of building walls—structures, commitments, responsibilities. And then there are moments, quieter and rarer, when I remember the cathedral. The deeper purpose. The Why beneath the work.
That Why, to me, is YOU. I build this to share it with you. I build this to share a very special place that inspires and connects people. A place that uplifts and brings delight. De-Inner Light!
Practicing hope, I’m realizing, is the choice to keep the larger purpose in view even when the daily labor feels uncertain, messy, unfinished, or unsatisfying. It’s remembering that what we are building may be larger than what we can see from where we’re standing.
That trust is hope in practice.
This is also why I’ve chosen to name the third floor of the barn—now under renovation—The Cathedral.
Not because it will be perfect or grand or religious in a traditional sense, but because of what it represents. A cathedral is not built quickly. It is built with devotion, patience, and a vision that extends beyond the present moment. With some of the largest historic cathedrals, those who laid the first stones never saw the completion. They built anyways.
The weekend retreats I offer are an extension of this same intention. They are not an escape from uncertainty, but a way to step into life with purpose. When we gather in The Cathedral—sometimes literally, sometimes in spirit—we are choosing to remember the larger meaning beneath our daily efforts. We are giving ourselves space to reconnect with what we are building, and why. The Cathedral on the 3rd floor will be a spiritual room--for yoga, meditation, prayer, treatment sessions, and a spiritual library. It's going to be beautiful!
In retreat, hope becomes embodied. Through sound healing, shared silence, reflection, and rest, we practice listening beneath the noise of fear and doubt. We attune to what wants to be built through us—not all at once, but brick by brick. Together.
You don’t have to have your vision fully formed to belong here. You only need a willingness to pause, to listen, and to stand alongside others in the unknown, in the becoming. In community, purpose often clarifies not through answers, but through resonance—through feeling what rings true in your body and heart.
Practicing hope, then, is not just continuing the work. It’s remembering the cathedral we are building—within ourselves and together—even on the days we are simply laying bricks.
And it’s a trust we’re not meant to cultivate alone.
One of the reasons I offer sound healing weekend retreats in this space—the Inner Wolf Retreat Space—amid unfinished edges, evolving visions, rustic simplicity, and a barn that is still becoming—is because gathering together is itself a practice of hope. When we pause our daily momentum and step into shared time, we remember that uncertainty doesn’t have to be isolating. We get to sit side by side in the not‑knowing, supported by presence, rhythm, and care.
Sound healing, especially, has taught me how to listen inside the void rather than rush to fill it. Sound meets us where words fall short. It moves through the body when the mind is full of questions. It reminds us that even in the unknown, something is always vibrating, responding, alive.
These retreats are not about fixing or figuring everything out. They are about practicing hope together—resting with what is, listening deeply, and letting courage arise naturally. They are an invitation to be brave without needing to be certain, to be valiant simply by showing up.
If you are walking through a season of uncertainty, doubt, or quiet becoming, you are not alone. I would love to welcome you into this space—to sit with you in the unknown, to listen together, and to practice hope in community.
Sometimes the bravest thing we do is stay open.
And sometimes hope begins by allowing ourselves to be held.
And sometimes hope holds us together.
The Process
In the last blog entry about the barn renovation, I shared how we used the lift to seal up little spaces the size of a nickel in the roof 3rd floors up.
The next part of the process was milling the wood. I bought 60 sawmill boards that had already had time to dry from Shelton Lumber, in Flag Pond, TN. I had no idea what I was getting into with milling the wood ourselves....
Michael has done all this before, and loves it! He has all the saws / machines and know-how for finishing the wood to look like the boards one might get from Lowe's, ready to install.
For perspective, we took each board through 5 machines--the thickness planer (each board goes through at least 3-5 times, shaving off a layer of wood each time to get it level and smooth), then 2 sanders--the orbital sander and the belt sander to smooth out any rough or high places, then the jointer (to make one perfectly straight edge), table saw (to cut its width to size), and the rabbeter so it will have a ship lap edge. We chamfered the inside edges of the lap joint with the block plane, then we embedded crystals into the boards, and stained them a beautiful cobalt blue wash. (Insert happy, sweating emoji here!)
We've had a small team of mighty folk who have enjoyed a few weekends of "friends having fun getting together to work on a project,"as we coined it.
Gitana and Andrew were priceless in their energy and company in fueling this project! We worked hard and also enjoyed some other fun activities on these work weekends. Your help and dedication is truly treasured and priceless. Thank you!
I chose a beautiful cobalt blue for the stain. We brushed it on, let it sit for a bit, and then wiped off the excess so you can see the wood grain (the middle blue board in the pic).
Here you get glimpses of the room and the metal roof before we put up the insulation.
Michael and I put up the insulation over 2 days, separating half of the ceiling at a time. He was on the ladder and I held the "dead man" to support the batt of insulation until he stapled it. We got a kick out of the fact that we were replacing bats with new batts....
Here you see nimble and quick Michael jumping from one ladder to the next!
We removed some shelving from the side wall (you can see it in the second photo behind our beautiful stack of finished boards). It was held in place with small finish nails.
The last photo shows our completion putting up all the insulation.
Special thanks also to Megan Naylor, and Greta Lee & Dave Hollister for gifting us some of the insulation that we lacked!
Next Up
Stay tuned, in the next blog installment, I'll show the boards as they take position on the ceiling of the Cathedral! It's coming together, y'all!
What an inspiring blog and window into all the work that is part of your labor of love! I am so glad to see you have such amazing helpers. I can’t wait to travel down and see you.