Sept. 14, 2025: Creating Hope

A Poem as a Psalm:

“Hope is the Thing with Feathers” by Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Old Testament Reading: Jeremiah 4: 19-28
The Gospel: Luke 15: 1-7 

Watching the nightly news can be hazardous to your health. I know because I am a news junkie. This week watching the reports of the assasination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk much like the previous murders of Minnesota Democratic legislator Melissa Hortman and her husband and yet another school shooting, this one in Evergreen, Colorado where our friend and fellow member Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt and her family are from was both sad and unnerving. And then seeing an uprising in Nepal, more bombings in the Middle East and in Ukraine and the continued starvation of the people in Gaza, among other tragedies, I find myself wanting to curl into a ball and cover my ears asking God - why? And, can’t you please make this all stop? 

It would be really easy to lose hope when the world seems upside down, when disagreement leads to violence instead of an attempt to reach understanding, when the love of power seems to rule rather than the power of love.

And yet, it is hope, love, and caring that save every time and this is not the first nor shall it be the last time that the world has been in conflict, torn apart by gun and other violence, when people are struggling, hungry, injured, lost and hurting. 

We have a God who does not give up on us despite what we as humans do to creation as the Jeremiah scripture reminded us. We have a God who, as Jesus reminds us, will go after a single lost sheep and rejoice when it is safely back in the pen. Yes, God is disappointed by the bitterness, strife, violence, pain, and suffering in the world, but God is neither causing it nor giving up on us and we cannot give up either. 

Just as the shepherd searched for the lost sheep in the parable Jesus told, so must we search for hope, creating it where we can, leading with a love that can overcome hate and division: a love that finds connection rather than ideologies that separate. A love that shows caring for all people and creation. 

It would be easy to feel justified in leading with hate and a desire for vengeance when we are wronged or the innocent are hurt or killed, but we are called to follow the example of Jesus to heal rather than hurt, to love rather than hate, to forgive rather than seek revenge. 

Last month we had the 80th anniversary of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought the end of World War II but at a huge cost to the civilian populations of those cities. At this year’s memorial, as always, the remaining survivors called for peace. 

That call for peace began in 1947, when the people of Hiroshima started an annual Peace Day Memorial Ceremony in which they remember the victims of the Atomic Bombs and pray for peace in the world. The ceremony includes adults and children and involves messages of hope, music, the ringing of bells in memory of those lost and the release of 100s of doves as a sign of peace.

Sadako Sasaki loved those peace day ceremonies. She was born in 1943 in Hiroshima. She was a vibrant young girl who loved to run and was very good at it as a member of her school’s winning relay team. When the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima a mile from her home when she was just two years old, the force of it blew her out the window but her mother found her unharmed, although they were both caught in the black rain while fleeing. Her grandmother was not as lucky, she ran back into the house and died that day. Unfortunately, at the age of 12, the radiation caught up with Sadako. She was struck with what was referred to as ‘the atomic bomb sickness”: leukemia.

Sadako ended up in the Hiroshima Red Cross Hospital where her friend told her the legend of the crane. She told her that a crane is supposed to live a long time and that if she made 1000 paper cranes it would be a healing blessing. Her friend folded a beautiful gold paper crane for her and left her paper to make more cranes. 

Each day that Sadako felt well enough, she made cranes. She got paper from gifts other people in the hospital received, medicine wrappings, anything she could find or people would bring her. Her brother strung them together and hung them from the ceiling of her hospital room. When she would wake up and look at the colorful display of birds, it would give her hope. It gave her something beyond her suffering to focus on. 

One version of the story is that she made 644 cranes before she died and her classmates made the remaining 356 and another says that she did complete the 1000 cranes and was buried with some. Some of her cranes have been given by her family to peace exhibits around the world.  Today in the Peace Park in Hiroshima there is a statue of Sadako holding a golden crane that her classmates had made in her honor. Sadly, a similar statue in a peace park in Seattle, Washington was stolen last year. 

I was reminded of this story in 2011 when a large tsunami hit Japan. I was scheduled to travel to Japan on a teacher exchange that summer. At the time, I was the Student Council Advisor at Woodstock Union High School and I told the students the story of the 1000 cranes and asked if they wanted to make 1000 paper cranes as a message of hope and healing for Japan. They accepted the challenge and I brought some of those cranes with me as a gift to the Japanese teachers whom I met that summer. I also have had 100s of them flying in my classroom in three different schools ever since. These are a few of them. I like to think of them as physical reminders to always have hope. 

Some would say that hope alone does not work. Sadako still died despite the 1000 paper cranes but while she was in the hospital, folding cranes gave her hope to face each new day where she still wrote letters to and received them from her friends and classmates. It gave her help to accept something that she could not change and look what she inspired? Children in Japan and around the world still share her story and still make cranes of hope. 

All 6th grade Japanese students study World War II and what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They make presentations about different aspects of the war and the damage atomic bombs can cause and visit the Peace Park in Hiroshima. I was there along with about 40 other American teachers for the students’ presentation in Kobe in 2011. As Americans, whose country dropped the bombs, it was hard to sit through the presentations. And while some of us admitted the guilt we felt for that, the Japanese students and teachers reinforced the idea that we have to learn from our past and we all need to work together towards peace. 

I see hope in the work of a Rutland Wooden Toymaker and Vietnam Veteran. At age 82, Michael is raising money for a non-profit he is calling Mission Halo: a sustainable farm community where wounded veterans can learn the craft of making wooden toys: where they can find hope in the form of a community that supports them and a craft that can sustain them. Michael figures he has enough energy left in him to get it set up and to train the first set of apprentices, then they can take it over. 

We cannot stop all of the hate, all of the bullets and bombs; we cannot heal all the sickness, hunger, prejudice, pain and suffering in the world, but we can follow Jesus’ model of leading with love and caring. The power of love can fight the love of destructive, vengeful power.

Hate is like a fire that will eventually consume itself leaving nothing. Love is like a seed that when planted and nurtured will grow and spread more seeds that have the potential to spread peace, support a group of wounded veterans and heal and feed the world. 

We are each called to be some of those seeds of love and cranes of hope. We can’t solve all the problems of the world but love in the face of hate, despair and violence is a radical act of peaceful resistance. Where others bring hate and judgment, we can bring hope and love following the model of Jesus Christ. And remember, love is louder. 

Hope is the thing with feathers that sings through the storm; we need to keep singing. Amen.

Pastor Michelle Fountain

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