Dirty-Feathered Hope

The First Week of Advent

This summer, I kept noticing dead birds of prey on the side of the highway. I live in a semi-rural area, but many of what once were cornfields are now being bulldozed into quick-build subdivisions. I still see owls swooping across the road if I drive home in the dark, and on the way to school, my children love to point out a red-tailed hawk diving into the pumpkin patch across the street to strike, emerging from the brush moments later with a vole in its talons. I don’t know what has been killing them—pesticides, collisions, habitat loss, or poisoned prey—but my heart feels crushed at the sight of one of my fearsome, wild neighbors in the ditch, just as it is inspired when I see them soaring above my home. 

Emily Dickinson wrote, “‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers - / that perches in the soul.” The lyric is so ubiquitous, my brain chants it like a word-association exercise anytime I think of the word hope for more than a second or two. I’m accustomed to thinking of hope as a white-feathered, celestial thing soaring above the tribulations of life, but more often, that feathered thing is lying bloodied on the side of the highway. When you lay a loved one to rest, the promise of resurrection can feel like a far-off whisper. When you watch money drain from your account despite working hard and paying tithing, when you spend hours on the phone with an insurance company only to have your claims denied, when you start growing a dream only to see it fail—hope can feel like toxic positivity, an insult to your experiences. 

While Jesus was probably not actually born near the winter solstice, there is beautiful symbolism in celebrating His advent during the darkest part of the year. Jesus was born during a time of oppression for the children of Israel. His own life was one of poverty. He was executed after an unjust trial. His resurrection was quiet; the people who opposed Him explained His empty tomb away as a deception. 

Sometimes we explain away our hope too. Sometimes I don’t pray for what I really hope for because I believe God wants to teach me a lesson more than He wants to bless me. Being denied so I can grow and develop feels like a punishment that I can’t handle, so I shy away rather than daring to hope I will receive what I desire most. When Jesus asked Martha if she believed he could raise Lazarus, she responded cautiously. Someday, at the resurrection, yes. It’s harder to say, I believe you can do it right now before my eyes. 

And yet, we have been counseled to seek and expect miracles. By definition, a miracle is improbable and inexplicable. Logic tells us a fallen bird in a ditch cannot fly again, but hope transcends logic. “Hope is a living gift, a gift that grows as we increase our faith in Jesus Christ,” Elder Neil L. Andersen taught. Reframing hope as a gift, a divine bestowal, rather than something we have to muster ourselves from depths of personal and global struggles, makes hope seem possible. Sometimes praying for the miracle I yearn for feels like too far a leap, but I have no reservations over asking for hope—a single dandelion of brightness in the expanse of heaven’s garden of gifts. 

In mortality, hope often comes as a reorientation rather than a remaking—the ability to refocus on light rather than shadow. Jesus’s disciples did not escape the oppression of Roman rule or find liberation from poverty. While some experienced miraculous healings, those who followed Him were asked to give up things they loved. Many of them were executed or endured illness and imprisonment. Yet Paul proclaimed that “hope maketh not ashamed.” Peter asserted that Jesus Christ gave us all a reason for “lively hope.” Nephi encouraged followers of Christ to have a “perfect brightness of hope.” King Lamoni’s wife stubbornly insisted that while her husband showed every indication of death, he still lived. These faithful disciples’ circumstances had not been remade yet, but their eyes were turned to the Light, certain that through Christ, every shadow would one day be swallowed up. 

There are moments when I can’t imagine my own shadows being drowned by light, moments when my eyes are on the dirty feathers in the ditch. Doubt whispers in my ear that those feathers cannot be knit back to bone, that the only wind they’ll feel is that of the pickup trucks blasting past on the highway. But hope promises that even when we see no viable path to redemption, it is still possible. The ancient Book of Mormon prophet Ether wrote on the cusp of a dying society, “Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world.” Surety is an audacious word, but so is hope—no delicate feather on the wind, but a fearsome, graceful thing. We may falter, but He never does—whether in a quiet cave in Bethlehem, a cross on a hill, the midst of a battlefield, or the small, private pains of one mortal life. 

Jesus brought unfaltering hope into the world quietly. Only those who were already oriented toward Him could see it at first: the magi watching the skies; the shepherds who followed the angelic summons to witness Him in the manger; the imperfect but willing mother who risked her social standing, her marriage, and even her life to bring the Savior into the world. Hope might have felt far away to the families whose babies were killed in Herod’s decree or the followers gathered at the foot of the cross in Golgotha. It might feel far to you as you navigate the bruises and pains of mortality, tangled in situations that feel like they have no solution. But Jesus Christ keeps His promises. We can’t see the way it will all work out quite yet, but we can hope with surety and without shame. The Light has come into the world. Every one of us will fly again. 

Lorren Lemmons is a pediatric nurse, freelance writer, and mother of three. After years of moving around the United States as a military spouse, her family has settled down in her hometown in Idaho. She is working on her first novel. When she isn’t chasing kids or writing, you can find her dancing, playing the piano and harp, or reading.

Art by Carin Fausett, an award winning artist who has exhibited and lectured at Utah’s top museums.  She received her BFA from BYU.  She grew up with hearing aids and thick glasses that isolated her. For Carin, life consisted of being on the outside looking in—until she discovered art. Currently, Ms. Fausett is using her art to communicate about how, no matter what challenges you have, you can connect, overcome, and feel the love and acceptance of God. Connect and find your wings, you’ve had them all along.

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