KENNEDY COLUMN: A gift in the cold, hope will remain

By Carolyn Kennedy, Sauk Prairie Eagle columnist

Hope is the Thing with Feathers

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches on 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.

In this poem, hope is both fragile and persistent. Like a bird, it is light as a feather. Yet against all odds, it sustains all who listen.

After Thanksgiving, we launch the Christmas season. As the weather changes we move the snow shovels to the front of the church and the lawn mower to the back.    

Yet this is also Advent, a time of spiritual preparation for Christmas. It marks the beginning of the Christian new year.

Traditional churches light Advent candles each of the four Sundays before Christmas. We start with one candle and add another each week.  

Each week has a theme. Last Sunday we thought about hope. Then we'll move to peace, joy and love.    

We cannot do without hope, especially now. We hear stories of lost jobs and unpaid mortgages. Our soldiers are away from home and in harm's way. Will a tough winter bring unmanageable heating bills?

I've seen images of terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India. I hang on to the hope that one day no one will decide to die in order to foster a warped ideology.

Dickinson's poem reminds us that hope comes in unexpected ways to perch in unexpected places. Hope does not abandon us just because times are hard.  

Hope is a gift in the cold. It encourages us when we most need encouragement. We receive the feathery song that cuts through the winds of despair.

We wait for Christ to come back. In the meantime we prepare by living the way He taught us.

It is presumptuous to pretend to know when Christ will return. But it is not presumptuous to wait with hope and anticipation.  

Though this poem compares hope to a little bird, we don't wait for a bird. We wait for a baby. This baby sings a song from a manger in a cave that shelters animals.  

We wait for the song from a wounded, but not broken, man.  We listen for a song that insists God is present despite any danger.  We are given a song that survives the relentless storm of a cold land and a strange sea.  

In hope, we remember that despite all extremity God gives us a gift, asking not a crumb from me.

— Carolyn Kennedy is the pastor of the Mazomanie United Church of Christ and can be reached at (608) 220-6987 or by e-mail at mazoucc@charter

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