what is the color of hope ?

                                                       

What is the color of hope?

Is it yellow?

There is a scene at the end of the movie "The Passion of the Christ."It is finished. The tomb is sealed, the dead savior within.The air is cold and it is midnight black. All hope has vanished in this death. And then, and then, slowly a tiny sliver, then a half moon and then yellow light enters.He is risen as He said! Rejoice.

Or is it white?

The white of an old lace shift being worn as she goes from window to window.Is she looking for him? We know so little of her but it is said that she loved deeply and that her love was not returned. How did she feel wandering through the house in the daytime and in her garden in the evening?

She was a watcher, an observer and from that watching, in the early hours sun and the evening gloom, she put pen to paper and became an American icon.She wrote letters, poems, read devotedly and rarely left her home. Emily Dickinson was obsessed with death and loss and in her final years became the town recluse. If someone made their way into the house, she would talk to them through a closed door.She wrote to a friend that her only companions were the hills, sundown and her dog Carlo.

Emily died at age 55 of  heart disease. Her burial was as simple as her life.White flannel robe, white coffin, handles and ribbons and a few small flowers, blue and white that lay next to her body.The bulk of her poems were found after her death and she received little recognition in life and if one were to paint a portrait of her life,I expect the colors would be white, grey and death black. So grim.

Or is hope as multi-colored as a tin full of buttons?

I pick up a piece of art by a young artist, Mia, that makes me smile.It has a dark background but the girl's dress is red, green, has flowers,white and pink and on the bottom are common, ordinary but bright and shiny buttons and I read of the whisper that is hope.

Mia, Mel Gibson, Emily and I know a thing or two about hope. Emily wrote:

                                                  Hope is a thing with feathers 
                                                     that perches on the soul
                                                         and sings the tune 
                                                         without words 
                                                      and never stops at all.