...a wish with feet

'Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul...' 
...opined Emily Dickinson, in her simply profound way.

Today, this day, I think, in fear and trembling, I may beg to differ. Today, this day, Advent begins, with armfuls of hope and heart swelled with song.

And after spending the day thinking about, talking about, sitting with hope, I think perhaps, that hope is a weightier thing than a flitting, flighty creature. I think, perhaps, that hope has heft, substance, mass. Hope is not the kind of thing you want to kick in the dark mid-night on the way to the bathroom; hope won't give.

The difference, this, between hope, and wish: hope is a wish with intention, with motion, with backbone. Hope is a wish with feet.

Hope is a wish with feet.

...more and more

God who made us, Christ who calls us,

Breath who guides from deep within,

may our lives of mumbled praying

end with Heaven’s clear “Amen.”

---Terry W. York, 2006

In this beautiful new hymn, which guides us into worship with an invocation of the Trinity—God, Christ, Breath—we are called to consider the deep mystery that is prayer. Well. At least, to me, prayer is often deep mystery. I think I am clear on some differences between prayer and wishing, and prayer and magic…although I am certain that in moments of crisis I might act less on points of clarity and more on base instinct.

When I think of magical prayer, I think of the now-famous instruction Dorothy was given in L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel Wonderful Wizard of Oz:

Then close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself, there’s no place like home.

As for the power of wishing, who doesn’t immediately burst into song on hearing the lovely waltz from the 1950 Disney animated film Cinderella?

            A dream is wish your heart makes

            when you’re fast asleep.

But prayer must hold more for believers. More than lining up words in some incantational magic, more than wishing and dreaming what will delight us. The prayer I aspire to is the dynamic partnership between our searching and God’s guiding, a holy hide-and-seek where God will always intend, more and more, to be found.

More and more.