Joy as Hope
Hope has dirt on her face, and blood on her knuckles, the grit of cobblestones in her hair…
In the ancient Christian tradition Advent began yesterday. It draws from even deeper traditions of waiting for the light to return. This first week centers on hope and invites us to use our imagination and wonder to see what else our world could be. It’s not just dreaming; it’s waiting with the Divine in the dark, believing we are connected. It points to why we might reach out and trust the undercurrent of love that holds us all.
There is a poem by reclusive Emily Dickenson that reads:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all –
In her telling hope flies. Hope is birthed in our soul. Hope never stops. She lets her readers imagine the feeding of hope; she makes it clear that hope is not just a dream but is reciprocal action between goodness and our imagination.
Someone else wrote this piece about hope, and I think he was talking right back to Ms. Dickenson: “People speak of hope as if it’s this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider webs. It’s not. It has dirt on her face, and blood on her knuckles, the grit of cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.”
What I love about this definition is that hope isn’t “wishing on a star,” and “waiting” isn’t sitting with your hands folded until you’re called on. Hope also means getting in there and being a part of making unexpected goodness happen. The future isn’t written, and we are not powerless in its unfolding. We can offer “hope that perches in the soul,” and breathe possibilities into existence. We will get our knuckles scraped as we traverse with a Creator to the future as it could be.
Yet, here in Advent, as we wait for light to return, we are also waiting for the story of a God who is willing to live a broken life with us—an Eternal being willing to wear diapers, and learn how to walk, and bear the scars of living in a painful world. There is deep hope in the truth that God embodied flesh—it means the Divine values us, the creation. We know this God carries the power of hope, because this Being rejoiced to put on skin and walk the earth, despite the pain, to do the work with us of pushing against the evil that so often has the upper hand. I’m willing to get up again and face the day because I can work with Emmanuel—God with us— towards a restored world even as we are cracking at the seams.
Hope—never stops at all.
#joyasresistance