Emily Dickinson (1830 86). Complete Poems. 1924.
Part One: Life
XXXII
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.
This past year the *word* was FAITH. I didn’t do so hot, but I am doing better than I was. I left something out that should have come first....I’ll be doing that *word* this year.
The *word* is going to be HOPE this year. It’s such a sweet sounding word. But it’s also a dangerous word. Unrealistic hope can drag me down further than my cynicism and the year of TRUTH (my most catalytic word ever) did. I should have done them together. There is a balance to be had between TRUTH and HOPE but harder to make that balance 5 years apart. (Btw for those who haven’t kept track the missing words from those 5 years are health, stand –as in stand up– and patience—which I also didn’t do well at).
I didn’t choose this word because it was universally accepted as “safe” or “good to have”, because frankly I am not convinced that it is either. I chose it because I need to balance that area in me. Sometimes I hope fantastically big, sometimes I am completely without hope and only see the ugly. I want to live hopefully, but I want hope to be an action like the word *love* is to me. Not some spiritual noun, but a realistic, practical application put in daily practice by my life. Hoping for money is an example. I could turn my hope into action in a variety of ways, I could chose to play the lottery and hope to win big, or I could choose to work better and harder at my job and have the realistic hope of a better position and the raise that generally accompanies such a promotion. See where I am going with this?
I hope that I can help Walter achieve the kind of life he wants, I hope that he can make his dreams come true, but the *noun* hopes are not going to cut it. I have to work with him in his school work and attitude and life skills in order to help him prepare to make his and my hopes for his future to become the reality we are hoping for.
I hope that the loving relationship I am in will last forever, but we won’t if all we do is hope for it. So I hold that hope in my heart and it inspires me to open up to him fully even when I am afraid of what he will see, it inspires me to listen to him and to place his needs and desires at a top priority. I try to make all my actions and words match this beautiful hope inside me....even though I know that a hope that great being dashed could destroy my confidence and break my heart. I allow hope to give me courage to dream of things I’d once given up hope of having. The hope in my heart covers up my fear of being hurt. It’s still there, but softly surrounded and cushioned by the joy and freedom of the emotions I am allowing myself to feel and to share.
It sounds beautiful doesn’t it? It isn’t always. I am at constant battle internally sometimes. Hope is not so much a friend of mine but rather an enemy that has lied to me before.
HOPE has two faces. Someone once said something to the effect that without Hope there is no Despair. It’s a profound thought. I say that without Hope there is no Joy. I’m hoping to get on HOPE’s good side.
Do you remember the story of Pandora? When she opened that box, she let out all the evils except one: HOPE. The Greeks considered HOPE to be as dangerous as all of the world's other evils. Still, while HOPE was still in the box and all the other troubles were visited upon the world, humanity was desolate and desperate....Imagine the relief when Pandora finally returned to that box and let HOPE out to join the rest! Even though HOPE wasn’t strong enough to get out of the box right away, in the end it proved stronger than all the other ills that had been unleashed upon the world! Only Hope could give mankind the strength to face the rest of the World’s evils and to fight it’s way from the prisons of desolation and despair. So why did Zues put Hope in the box in the first place? In *All Too Human*, Friedrich Nietzsche proposes that Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope.
I can relate but I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. I am a Christian at the core. Maybe not a right-winged Bible thumper, but I am a Christian. I believe in God. I believe in Jesus. Maybe I don’t believe it the way it is so often preached, but I do believe the Bible is Truth...maybe not exact truth as humans see it, but it is divine truth. The inspired writings of Paul contains words I live by. In fact it is my favorite Book and Chapter of the Bible. In the 13th Chapter of his 1st letter to the Corinthians Paul writes:
(11) When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child, when I became a man, I did away with childish things. (12) For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known, (13) but now faith, hope, love, abide these three; and the greatest of these is love.
There are 3 abiding spirits that God has given us to accomplish our purposes in this world and to have the strength to deal with life in this world. I’ve worked on Faith and I will continue to do so.... I am always working on Love, all types of love...but Hope, that I have taken for granted and cursed whenever it left me. I want to be friends with it now. I never realized its strength or power until recently when I’d all but given up and had it returned to me without deserving it or even asking for it back. That is Grace in action....the free gift.
Hopefully, I will come out of this year a better person.
Quote for today:
Beginnings are scary. Endings are usually sad, but it's what's in the middle that counts. So, when you find yourself at the beginning, just give hope a chance to float up. And it will.
--Birdee Pruitt (Sandra Bullock) Hope Floats
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