Hope

If you’re a long-time reader of this blog, you will recognize a theme that I keep returning to, but it was much on my mind this week.

Walking around in my slightly overgrown back yard, I paused to watch the winged seeds make their twisty way from the tips of maple branches, and a poem by Lisel Mueller came to mind. I’ll include just a piece of it here, but you can read the whole thing in someone else’s blog post.  https://pollycastor.com/2017/07/11/hope-poem-by-lisel-mueller/

Hope

It hovers in dark corners
before the lights are turned on,
it shakes sleep from its eyes
and drops from mushroom gills,
it explodes in the starry heads
of dandelions turned sages,
it sticks to the wings of green angels
that sail from the tops of maples.

Emily Dickinson also spoke of hope. Her lovely poem compares hope to a bird that sings even in the middle of a storm.  

Dickinson’s  poem begins, “Hope is the thing with feathers/ that perches in the soul/ and sings the tune without the words/ and never stops at all.” I imagine its lilting voice piercing darkness and fog, giving encouragement and renewed strength to some weary soul. If you’ve ever had a Carolina wren singing outside your door, you will know what I’m thinking of!

If we ever needed hope, friends, we need it now. Someone I love sent me a link to an article about how long this current crisis may continue. I read most of it and remarked, “That’s pretty alarming.” “That’s the point,” my friend countered. “You should be alarmed.” Well, yes. And no. I am concerned. I’m taking the virus seriously. I know many people have died, and many more are likely to die. What if that’s me? Or someone I love? I want to enjoy teaching high schoolers about great literature for a few more years.  I want to watch my four granddaughters grow up. I want to spend my remaining years with my kind and funny husband. What if the virus gets one of us? It might.

So I promise my family that I will be careful. I will avoid crowds and will wash my hands with great care. But I will remember the words of Jesus: “Do not be anxious for your life, as to what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, as to what you shall put on. Is not the life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. . . .Therefore do not be anxious for tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

We could find many sermons in this passage alone and in the words surrounding the passage. But here’s just one message: Worrying won’t help. I can—and should—plan ahead. I can—and will—take care of myself as I am able. My hope, however, is in God and his provision.

So look around. Trees are putting out new leaves, tulips are in glorious bloom, the wisteria smells heavenly, birds are building nests . . . . You get the picture. Take hope.

--Sherry Poff