Uncertain Certainty

Yesterday is History,
'Tis so far away

Yesterday is Poetry- 'tis Philosophy

Yesterday is mystery

Where it is Today

While we shrewdly speculate

Flutter both away

-Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson always soothes me when I feel like this. When everything seems so up-in-the-air and no clear landing strip is in sight. Her words sink into me. Her sense of wonder and uncertainty parallel how I feel. I read her poems and hear her words attach themselves to the wonder in my soul. She sums up, in very few words, something so true-

In this short life that only lasts and hour
How much- how little- is within our power 

The way she hides the identity of God, by not naming Him thus, but by naming Him another way. Someone who isn't looking for Christian inspiration may find themselves reading Dickinson and not even realize the hidden meaning she so cleverly disguises in her words- 

Of paradises' existence
All we know
Is the uncertain certainty-
But it's vicinity, infer,
By it's Bisecting Messenger-

While surrounded by uncertainty and poetical musings about a small life, I hold onto a hope inside me that sometimes is hard to explain, except perhaps by Dickinson's poem-

Hope is a strange invention-
A Patent of the Heart-
In unremitting action
Yet never wearing out- 

Of this electric adjunct
Not anything is known
But its unique momentum
Embellish all we own-

Emily Dickinson did not have a wild life. She mostly stayed in her house in Amherst, Massachusetts. There, she wrote about the human spirit, but how did she know so much while she rarely left the house? She had a small, quiet life, and yet her words are not tiny. They are thought-provoking and bold. She lived from 1830-1886, and wrote 1,789 poems. Amazing!