It’s Alive! - Emily Dickinson

1830–86

Emily Dickinson wrote several poems describing faith. In one, she describes faith as a “pierless bridge” that connects what we see and what we don’t see. In another, she calls a child’s faith “wide—like the sunrise.”

Eleventh-grade American literature students, college coeds studying great poets, and scholars through the past century and a half have all tried to explain what Emily meant about faith in these and other works.

When she calls faith “a fine invention / For Gentlemen who see!” in one poem, some say she’s tearing down religion as something made up, unreal—especially when she goes on to say that microscopes are “prudent / In an Emergency!” Others counter that she’s simply carving out space for both faith and science.

Most of Dickinson’s 1,800 poems seem simple, even childlike, as she writes about life and death, faith and doubt, nature and culture. But this simplicity gives rise to a multitude of interpretations.

That’s the beauty of poetry—the poet can mean one thing, but the reader can take away something completely different. She can learn something about herself, discover some new thought, or see something in a completely new way through the poem. The reader isn’t wrong for taking those things away, even if the poet didn’t intentionally mean for it to happen. Poetry can be thought of as “living” because something new can always be taken from it.

Kind of like the Bible.

Each time you read a Bible passage, a chapter, or a book, there’s an opportunity to take away something new, see something in a different light, and let God speak to you about the situation you’re in now. Maybe you’re an expert in the Scriptures, with vast knowledge of the text in the original languages, as well as the cultural context—but the Holy Spirit can still teach you something new each day. Are you willing to read the Bible with an open mind to let it say something new?

The word of God is alive and active.

Hebrews 4:12, NIV