A reminder: Look for the feathers

While wandering around a card store last night, I found a reminder of a poem I've always loved. My dad was an English teacher for the first 10 years of my life, for his profound love of literature and learning I am profoundly grateful. My mom always took us to the library growing up and it was a place where I felt so free, free to learn, free to find as many interesting books as I could hold and free to explore the fictional world. For her willingness to cart 3 children into a different world besides her home even on days which staying in bed would have been more appealing, I am thankful.

By Emily Dickinson

Hope
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 on the chillest land, 
And on the strangest sea; 
Yet, never, in extremity, 
It asked a crumb of me. 

Winter, for me, is the time when it's challenging to hear the song perched in the soul. Sometimes the hope song is buried in the snow. Sometimes it's blown away in a gust of wind. Sometimes the lack of sun simply feels as if it's hidden the Spirit always willing to comfort.

Winter must be both embraced and held at arms length. Doing both gets tiring. Last week, I went with friends to a yoga class offered through Jacob's Well. As always, I was reminded the posture with which to wait and embrace is best remembered with a few other people.

Esperar, the Spanish verb, to wait and to hope. I heard a mom whisper this word to her precious little daughter this week when she showed her a splinter in her hand. And it reminded me: wait....hope, look for the feathers.