Is the glass half full or half empty? Perhaps trite, this is the textbook example of optimism. In times when hope is important—and that may be always, but at times it’s really much more keenly felt—we need to see the glass filling again. Emily Dickinson famously wrote “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers.” Although published posthumously, many refer to this poem when the glass starts to look empty. Recently a friend pointed us to a more realistic version of this by the contemporary poet Caitlin Seida titled “Hope Is Not a Bird, Emily, It’s a Sewer Rat.” It’s easily found with a web search but I’m hoping to buy Seida’s book because most poets have a difficult time of things. The gist of it is that hope is a scrappy, gritty rodent that knows how to survive in a dark, noisome world.
Of course, the Bible has a lot to say about hope as well. Sometimes we tend to see the half-empty glass of the judgment verses, but what truly makes it Scripture is the hope. In fact, hope is all around if we look for it. For example, I recently had to get a new set of glasses. I really liked my old frames and they had stopped being produced. I had to try something new. This pair, instead of screw-hinges holding the arms on, has a mechanism that uses tension between the two pieces of metal so they retain their shape but can also be folded. The end result is they don’t have a solid fixed “normal” position, but one which can be slightly adjusted because they’re more pliable than fixed screws (it’s clear why I’m not a technical writer). In any case, their ability to adjust is a sign of hope. If things don’t look right, literally, a nudge can fix it. You can find resilience even in your eyeglasses.
In times of difficulty doubt can be the thing with feathers. What we need is one of those water-drinking birds. You know, the kind that’s made of glass filled with a red liquid that bobs its head up and down into a glass of water. (It turns out they have their own Wikipedia article under the title “Drinking bird.”) Here is the ultimate symbol of hope that spans both Seida and Scripture. The bobbing head always dips into the glass even though it can’t actually drink. We might be tempted to say it’s a foolish waste of time. With the correct perspective, however, it shows the glass to be half full. At least when seen through the lenses of hope.