Hope is the thing with feathers

Where do you find hope?   

Emily Dickinson once wrote,
"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 chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me."

Where do you find hope?

In his letter to the church in Rome, Paul writes, "Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. " (Romans 5:1-5, NRSV) 

Where do you find hope?

It seemed as though winter would never end.  I had grown weary of the frigid temperatures, the biting wind and ever present threat of snow.  I was never more ready for winter to be over, and I would gladly tell anyone who would listen about how irratated I was with my plight. 

One late afternoon, I was walking in the parking lot with my hands in my coat pockets, shoulders hunched close together and my head down cursing the breeze that was attempting to chill me to my core.  How I longed for this dismal winter to finally be over!

Then it happened.  Hope took me by surprise as I neared my car.  The sight of it stopped me in my tracks, and I literally laughed aloud at the sight.  There peaking up through a tiny crack in the pavement was a small flower. There was hope.  Hope disguised as a bloom that had no regard for the impossibility of its surroundings or the harsh realities of its climate.  And there it is.  Isn't that what hope always does?

"and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us."

Where do you find hope?

In the Face of Uncertainty

Each and every day we face uncertainty.  It seems to be waiting around every corner and hiding in the darkness of every room.  We fight it with all of our might.  With jaw set and fists clinched, we stress and strain hoping that through our own effort we can turn that uncertainty into certitude making clear all that was once unclear.  At the close of another battle with this unseen foe, we realize that this fight is unending.  It seems that uncertainty will always be there.  Life's edges will always appear hazy and unclear.

Yet, our hearts continue to burn for clarity in life.  We long to know exactly what we will face around life's next bend.  We want to know that our actions today will positively impact tomorrow's outcome.  Therefore, we try to project and plan the unclear and uncertain out of our lives.  We pray that their grip on our mind might finally be broken. 

In his book Ruthless Trust, Brennan Manning tells of a man who went to spend three months working with the sick and dying in Calcutta with Mother Teresa.  On his second morning there, he met Mother Teresa.  She greeted him and asked, "And what can I do for you?"  (Can you imagine that - Mother Teresa asking what she can do for you?) 

The man replied, "You can pray for me." 

She then asked, "And for what should I pray?" 

The man said, "Pray that I might find clarity."

To his astonishment and dismay, Mother Teresa smiled gently and said that she would not do that. 

When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing that you cling to that you must let go of."  When he told her that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed to have, she smiled again and replied, "I have never had clarity, but I have always had trust.  I will pray that you trust God."

Life's unquenchable thirst for certainty and clarity satiated not by effort or through planning but with a relentless trust in a sovereign God.

In what we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, "Therefore do not worry, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear?' For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. "So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today's trouble is enough for today" (Matthew 6:31-34 - NRSV).

I pray that none of us receive the clarity for which we long.  Rather I pray that all of us learn to trust in the One who will never leave nor forsake - a relentless trust in a sovereign God.

Eyes to See and Ears to Hear

"Claudia said, 'But, Mrs. Frankweiler, you should want to learn one new thing every day. We did even at the museum.'
'No,' (Mrs. Frankweiler) answered, 'I don't agree with that.  I think you should learn, of course, and some days you must learn a great deal.  But you should also have days when you allow what is already in you to swell up inside of you until it touches everything.  And you can feel it inside you.  If you never take time out to let that happen, then you just accumulate facts, and they begin to rattle around inside of you.  You can make noise with them, but never really feel anything with them.  It's hollow'" (p. 153).


This short passage comes from From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E.L. Konigsburg, a great little book written for preteens.  In this book, Claudia is a young preteen who had run away from home in search of an adventure.  Mrs. Frankweiler is the wise 82 year-old woman who holds many of life secrets.  It is a meaningful book that is worthy of a read.


As I was reading this book with my twelve year-old daughter, this passage stopped me cold in my tracks.  I almost had to put the book down.  Instead, I nonchalantly dogeared the page to come back to it later.  Well, it is later now.  And here I am.  

I would never advocate for a cessation of learning.  I love to learn. I actually enjoy the entire process of discovery.  I find a tremendous amount of satisfaction in the "Ah-ha" moment.  However, I must confess that I often get so wrapped up in the process that I forget to allow that which I have learned to walk around inside me for a while.  I get lost in learning the next thing.  And sometimes it is too uncomfortable to give the space and the breathing room for the discovery to gain a life of its own.  It is just so much easier to "accumulate facts." 

Jesus often spoke in parables.  According to the authors of the Gospels, the people who were gathered around Jesus often had difficulty understanding what it was that he was saying. Apparently this was especially true of those who were supposed to be closest to Jesus - his disciples.  In order to explain this, Jesus says, “This is why I speak to the crowds in parables: although they see, they don’t really see; and although they hear, they don’t really hear or understand” (Matthew 13:13, Common English Bible). 

As long as I only seek to gather the facts, I will be one that sees without seeing and hears without hearing.  I can fill my head, but unless I allow it "to swell up inside of (me)until it touches everything" I will not feel it inside of me. 

True transformation comes not with the simple accumulation of facts, but in the change that comes when these bits of information take up residence inside and begin to grow together touching everything.  I long to be more than just a knowledgeable noisemaker.  I long to be transformed.

May we all have eyes to see and ears to hear.  May we all have the courage to "allow what is already in (us) to swell up inside...until it touches everything."