“Hope is the thing with feathers,” wrote Emily Dickinson in her iconic poem.

“That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all -”

That’s an important poetic perspective, but also a human one: “never stops–at all–”

As I wove “Hope Rising” during the week of the Democratic National Convention, I could feel a collective sense of hope quite literally expanding, as the sun does when it comes over the horizon. I could feel that sense of goodness spreading its rays, a sense that kindness, justice, compassion, love and inclusion was doing just what the sun does: shine on all of us.

As I wove, I prepared my heart for the beginning of school. This meant the first year of college for my oldest and a trip with him to move him into his college dorm. It also meant the baby’s first birthday was fast approaching. It meant a new freshman in high school, a junior, a second year preschooler, and a fourth grader, too.

To have a child leave home and one turn a year old at the same time–and to have everything in between–stretches my heart. Tugs it. Pulls it. And sometimes exhausts it!

Over my many years of motherhood, my heart has grown and grown and grown. And with it, too, my hope.

It is not that my own hope has not flagged. It certainly has. In fact, over the past seven years since my divorce, I have had a number of truly hopeless moments. It is when I am most hopeless that I feel true despair. In fact, it seems to me, it is in hopelessness that there is the raw, bitter, dead end of depression.

That sense that there is nowhere to go.

Being present for my oldest child as he settled into his dorm room was a moment of pride, joy, sorrow and sweetness. But also of triumph. He went through the pandemic as a new freshman in high school and it was a debilitating time. One that eventually brought for him–as it did for many–a sense of hopelessness.

A dark night of the soul, as some call it.

He was playing frisbee with some new friends on the day of his move in. He was at once excited and scared. But he was also hopeful. It was surely a new day and a new beginning. In fact, it was hope that got him there.

We use the term lightly, though, don’t we? As in, “I hope it goes well!” “I hope you feel better!” It seems like a word without much substance.

In high school, the words from 1 Corinthians 13 were carved at the front of the chapel of my boarding school (and this was a secular school), including this line: “And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.”

Why hope? Hope rises. It does not ever fall. It does not ever fail. As Dickinson says, “”never stops–at all.” We may not always perceive it. We may not always see it. I have missed many, many, many sunrises. But we do truly know from modern science that the sun does not “set.” It continues. It “never stops–at all.”

My beloved yoga teacher, so many decades ago, would say to us at Yale, “do not fall in love, Rise in love.”

As a mother, it is my deepest intention to rise in love. It is my dearest hope. And as a mentor, a minister, and a citizen of this world, I long to RISE. To be part of the “rising tide that lifts all boats.”

A mother of six who is hopeless is a poor mother in deed. Children thrive on hope and yearn for it. It is into their arms that we pour this world. To believe in a hope, a sun, a beauty, that comes and goes, that fails, is fickle, is tied to politics, can be stolen from us by cruel people, is to anthropomorphize a quality of truth. The sun isn’t a person. And hope does not depend on whether you woke up happy or grumpy or rich or despairing. It does not belong to tyrants. It does not belong to anyone. And it cannot be diminished.

It keeps on rising.

I thought of this as I wove. I did not know a sun would emerge, or the bright yellow rays. Hope wove them.

I carry this hope with me, from moment to moment, year to year, with child after child, A hope in the beauty of a future we cannot know, in a dawning day full of newness and life, in a life full of rising golden light.

As I said goodbye to my dearest, eldest child on his first day in his dorm, I could see that my son was rising. He was rising into adulthood and into the fulfillment of a hope from years ago–that he would survive the hardships of high school and pandemic and his own moments of hopelessness. That his mother’s words, “It will not always be like this,” would come to be true.

I hope this is a gift my children always feel. And you too, my friends. I hope (pun intended!) that you feel a rising hope that gathers you on its wings and lifts you higher.

“Rising Hope,” which is woven from mixed fiber, ribbon and quilting scraps, with patchwork hills sewn on, is roughly 10X14 and available, although not yet in the shop. If this piece speaks to your heart, please let me know and I will provide price and purchase information.