Hope: A Dipper’s Guide

Immature Brown Booby

We know that God makes everything work together for the good of those who love God and have been called according to God’s purpose. ~ Romans 8:28

If we are going to talk about hope and birds, we can’t escape Emily Dickinson’s observation that hope is a thing with feathers. Naturally, you will get no argument from me. Though, if I were composing a poem about hope I might suggest that it is a thing with expensive binoculars and other high-powered optics. But whether we see hope as the bird or the birder, there is no question that chasing birds just doesn’t happen without a healthy heap of hope.

The poem speaks of storm and gale, chillest land, and strangest sea, which any hardy New England birder will hear as an invitation, since those sea birds that effortlessly wander far from shore are at times driven close enough by storms that we terrestrial beings stand a chance of catching fleeting glimpses. Enduring the conditions may not bring joy, but hope is definitely fueled.

Birders are not a particularly optimistic group, at least not those who are twitchers, that is, those who are intentional about keeping lists. Twitchers must be chasers, and chasers become dippers, finds invariably outnumbered by dips. The law of diminishing returns means that the more birds on your lists, the fewer you will be able to add, thus the odds of dipping on the chase are ever increasing. But this calculation does not negate hope, in fact, the more pessimistic you are, the more hope is required.

It is too easy to misread the scripture in Romans as good things happening for God’s people, almost a denial that bad things can happen to good people. The actual message is that God is working all things together for the good. All the things are not already good, this is not about optimism, rather it is about the hope that in the end God’s will will be done. You may still see the reality of things going badly, missing out on blessings here and now, and still flex the muscle of hope and trust that the work you put in now will pay off, even if you don’t see it, because God does.

Prayer: Heavenly Dove, perch in our souls, sing the tune without words, and please never stop at all. Amen.