Here are a few more descriptions for prophets of hope.

Prophets are permission givers; because they’re doing something to “cross the border” and make a difference others can too. They see a bigger world than the one defined by borders – so they question and play with and sometimes reject the borders, whilst others are constrained by them.

Here are three major borders: between what we see and understand now and a bigger world which is invisible to us;  between knowing about something and experiencing it; and, between experiencing and actioning.  The prophet helps us cross each of these borders.

Prophets are living prototypes of an emerging future.  They haven’t got everything figured out; they are simply willing to give some tentative expression to what they’re seeing and hoping for and communicating.

Permission is more general and inspirational; a prototype is one possibility – it isn’t the way of living the future but  a way.  The more prototypes of the Human future the better.  As such, they’re not sealed off from their environment and the company of others in some personal certainty, but are increasingly open to and learning from as much as possible from every direction.

Prophets are connectors.*  Their lives are places in which otherwise disconnected artefacts, ideas, and people can come together,making it possible to redesign old worlds and design new ones.

Connectors are important because they challenge the prevalent ideas of disconnection which separate and adversify.**

Prophets see the repeated mistakes of the past and try out a new song: “Forget the former things, behold the new,” they sing with all their might, even if they’re sometimes off key or forget the words – then, hope isn’t perfect.

(*Sorry there isn’t a third “P”.)
(**I don’t know if this is a word but I’m thinking of how we make adversaries of people and organisations.)