“‘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, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers”).
In the myth of Pandora, Pandora is given a jar or a box and told not to open it. Curiosity gets the better of her, although the result could have been the same if she had been careless or if someone had overpowered her, but in any case she opened the box and all of the plagues and evils began to flood out of the box and by the time that she got the lid back on, the only thing left inside was hope.
In a world filled with so very many plagues and evils and atrocities and tragedies, it can get really hard to hold onto hope. When great big cracks and holes open up our souls when the unfairness of the world or just our own foolish mistakes break our hearts, it is often the case that hope, that “thing with the feathers that perches in the soul” tends to fly out through our open wounds. It is tempting to feel that at such times, even hope has abandoned us, but I'm not so sure.
President Thomas S. Monson once told a story about how when he was a young man, he used to raise pigeons. (Thomas S. Monson, “Anxiously Engaged”). His adviser and mentor, also a raiser of pigeons, offered to give him two very special pigeons. He told President Monson that after ten days, he should allow the pigeons the opportunity to fly out to see if they had learned to trust him and would fly back to him. But week after week, one of the pigeons would always fly back to President Monson’s adviser’s house.
Every time the pigeon flew back, President Monson would have to go back to his adviser’s house to fetch it. While President Monson was there, his adviser took the advantage to counsel with and advise him. It wasn't until President Monson was an adult that he realized his adviser had given him the only pigeon he had that he was sure would always fly back to him, and that his adviser had given him that pigeon precisely for the opportunity to meet with him weekly and discuss his progress.
Just like President Monson knew that when his pigeon got out, he knew exactly where it was going, so too do we know where our hope is headed when we allow it to fly out from our hearts.
Christ is the source of our hope. Christ gave us this thing with feathers that sings the tune without the words knowing full well that our hearts would be imperfect cages for it, and that it would get out time and time again and fly straight back to Him.
Christ is not disappointed when we lose our hope. He knows that if we are ever to get it back, we must set aside our pride and our vain ambition to always be perfect and never make mistakes and to keep ourselves forever and always unbroken so that hope could never possibly leave us. And instead, we must have the childlike humility to recognize that as much as we try our best, it isn't always good enough and we make mistakes and get things wrong even when we mean well and we need someone to save us from our own stupidity and weakness and from all of the evils that the world would inflict upon us.
Jesus Christ is our Savior. He knows our weaknesses. He knows the impossible position that He has placed us in. He knows that the hope he gave us will always fly back to Him. We are not a disappointment to Him when we need to repent and return to Him to retrieve once more our thing with feathers. He loves when we come back to Him. That's why He gave us this hope that always flies back to Him.
If we have to come running back to Him every 15 minutes because our hope just won't stay put, we are not burdening or inconveniencing or frustrating Christ. He is always happy to see us. He will heal our hurts and repair the cracks and holes in our hearts so that hope can perch once more in our soul and sing the tune without the words and keep us warm, until the next time that we let it out and have the gift of returning to visit once more with our Savior so that we can fetch it back.
