hope is the thing with feathers

[This post is migrated from my previous personal blog, "Mockingbirds Nest Here."]

I was inspired by this quote posted by a good friend today, on his blog, a wonderful nugget of wisdom from Martin Luther:

“This life is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, not health but healing, not being but becoming, not rest but exercise. We are not yet what we shall be but we are growing toward it, the process is not yet finished but it is going on, this is not the end but it is the road. All does not gleam in glory but all is being purified.”

[For more truth and inspiration like this, please feel free to check out my friend’s blog, who posted this, my now distant pastor but still good friend, Ted Wueste, at http://akalt.wordpress.com/ , or @tedwueste on Twitter. He is currently on sabbatical, but has been traveling, hearing the voice of God, and impacting lives over the summer in various spots around the globe.]

Interestingly, it takes me back to a bird-like thought: Dickinson.

“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. ~Emily Dickinson~ [found on Poetry Foundation]

Too true. Hope perches in our souls, waiting to be released. It asks nothing of us. It is just…. there. As I enter this last week of school, I have hope, hope that I will accomplish my tasks, that my ideas for new projects and methods of doing writing workshop are endless, and that next year will bring a new crop of students who have touched my heart just as much as this group of sophomores that leave me.

So sing on, little bird in my soul. Time flies.