The sustaining of hope in dark times

Analysis is not, of course, just about informing people. It is about inviting them to think deeply and critically about life, to search for the truth and to discover together better ways forward. It is to equip people to take their rightful place in the democratic processes and to take their part in the better formation of universal community.

In my experience, stories often communicate analysis in ways that dense writing does not and also they are more likely to break through barriers of prejudice and ignorance.

Faithfulness and passion matters

A lack of hope is often about one’s perspective on universal life. You have a go at changing something and nothing happens. You feel as though you may as well give up.

As a theologian, I believe that it is very helpful to have what is known in theological terms, as an eschatological view of life - whether you put a god in there or not. This is about perceiving oneself as a small, but unique, speck in the continuum of universal life - stretching endlessly into the past and into the future. In this perspective, you only need to do your bit faithfully because you are not God or a god.

I have found it helpful to ask oneself what is the issue about which you care most and then focus on that for faithful and persistent action. If we take on the whole world, it naturally overwhelms us. Faithfulness is, indeed, about persistence. When people see your name under several letters to editors, they assume that you are someone who gets her letters published. In fact, I probably get only about one in five of those I write published.

Every little offering you make to good and truth, even if you can see no reward for your work in the building of universal community, is part of a grander whole - so you need never feel that you have achieved nothing.

Living as if trust is possible

One of the things which Jesus Christ said was that we are “to become as little children” if we are to enter the reign of heaven. I used to ponder the meaning of this, until my own life was threatened by hate and violence, both literally and metaphorically. What I found was that, as I moved in a dangerous environment, I began to look distrustfully around me and took fewer risks with relationships. In other words, I had lost that openness to life which the trust of a child demonstrates.

Of course, sadly, the child gradually finds that trust is betrayed and adult attitudes of wariness and self-protection expand as the years pass, usually in proportion to the number of betrayals. However, I want to daringly suggest that a sign of hope, and the creation of more hope, comes from an adult who quite intentionally decides to live as though trust is possible. This is a refusal to collude with those who betray trust.

It is a somewhat perilous way to live and most people, including myself, rarely stick to it all the time. However, to live as though others could be trusted is to invite endless new possibilities and to receive many unexpected gifts. You have to hold onto everyone else as you go because you live with fewer defences, but it is worth it in my experience, and it adds to hope in those around you as well as in yourself.

Constantly restoring ourselves

It is tiring as well as inspiring to live as though hope is possible. Those of us who lived through dry years of social activism learn the hard way that one’s spirit will need regular renewal. However you understand your own inner life, it is as vulnerable as the rest of you. We will each, if we search, find the sources which strengthen our spirit and there is no one blue-print for doing that.

If I refer to universal, rather than human community, in this paper, it is because I suspect that hope is a universal goal and is fed by the universe itself, if we will care for it and respect it. Music and poetry, drama and art are, I believe, a never-to-be underestimated resource which is built into the universe for our survival and which are never luxuries.

Some of us will have our hearts lifted as we look at a mountain, others as they stand beside the sea. I am personally restored by walking into the city and simply mingling among its people and marvelling at its skyscrapers.