God's Pursuit of Me,  Story

The Thing With Feathers

June 21, 2010 /

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

– Emily Dickinson

Oh Emily.

You might have been a tad eccentric.

You were probably lonely.

But you know a thing or two about hope, don’t you?

Hope.

It’s a bit of a dangerous thing really, isn’t it?

The thing with feathers.

Even in the darkest moments, in the loneliest nights, what keeps me keeping on, is hope.

Hope.  With its feathers and its opportunity for movement.  Upward movement.  Carrying me to some place, any place except the place I am in.

That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And that’s another thing too.

It never stops at all.

Hope.  It never stops at all.

Even when the song has no words.

When the words are not there because my voice is too weak or too tired or too unable to make use of something so basic as words.

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve known some storms.

And I am always surprised to hear, to know, hope despite the chaos.  Hope in the midst of the tears.  In the middle of the heartache.  The broken places.

I look at hope and wonder how it has survived.

And fear for the storm it cannot weather.

And wonder if there even is such a storm.

I’ve heard it in the chilliest land
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.

Yes.

Hope has humbled me with its tenacity.  Its strong little tendrils and its mighty grip on the ledges of my life.

But I think Emily penned it a little off here at the end.  (At least, dear Emily, thus has been my experience.  Who am I to judge yours?)

I think hope always asks something.

Particularly in its extremity.

In fact, I think maybe hope demands something.

And that’s where it gets dangerous.

Hope always asks something of me.

To hold on.

To persevere.

To trust that there will be a tomorrow.   A day after.   Another season.   A fresh start.   A new opportunity.  A second chance.

Isn’t that the definition of hope?

Oh . . .  sweet hope.

And just in my own life,

when I feel as though I had been ready to let the little bird fly away,

to watch the storm conquer the little winged thing,

hope sings a new song.

Without words,

for sure,

but a melody I am interested in hearing, nonetheless.

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