The sustaining of hope in dark times

Ethical and just life is always about building harmony and community in universal life. Because that is the goal, universal life will feed our spirits on the way if we will hold open to its gifts. The loss of life in every form on our planet is not just about our physical survival but about our survival in body, heart, mind and spirit.

Walking towards the deathly forces

What lies at the very centre of my faith, and underlies my hope, is a paradigm and a paradox. Obviously Jesus Christ lived out this paradigm but you will find it over and over in the ancient stories of many cultures and religions.

I could as easily tell you the story of “The Tears of Lady Meng” - an ancient story from Taiwan. Lady Meng cared for the poor and oppressed around her. In the end, she became a threat to the oppressive forces and one day they seized her and carried her to the river bank. The suffering people watched in horror and despair as she was thrown into the deep waters. As they watched, they saw her go down into the waters and then she swam away as a beautiful silver fish. They knew that her love and life would never be defeated.

It is my absolute conviction that the pathway to hope and life is via the deathly things in human existence. You walk towards them with determination, holding onto everyone else as you go and, as you enter those destructive environments and engage with courage with the powers which wait for you there, you find with surprise that this very struggle is the pathway through to a grander life.

You will undoubtedly be wounded on the way and some people may even die, but I believe that there is no other road to genuine hope for us all. In the end, the road to hope is always the road which leads straight towards the powers which would remove that hope.

There once was a young woman from the Philippines. She is an icon of hope for me. I met her at a conference in 1977 when the struggle against the Marcos regime was at its height. She was about 22-years-old, a recent graduate in social work and had just conducted a workshop on her work of supporting the families of political prisoners in Manila. As she sat down beside me she said, "Dorothy, I think those words may cost me my life and I don't really want to die". She paused and thought for a moment, then said "But I have to live!" She was arrested by the military on her return to Manila and her body was tortured and found in a mass grave some months later. Her name was Jessica Sales and she did indeed live more than most of us, even though she died.

Every time we walk with courage towards the barriers which separate us from each other and those who create them - the barriers of racism, sexism, heterosexism, of class, culture, exploitation, injustice, lies, violence, abuse and lack of compassion, we will find on the other side of them a great hope. It will be a glimpse of a different universe and there is no price too high to pay for that.

If you want encouragement on you journey towards hope, in my experience, it is often the poorest and most oppressed people who will give it to you. In their laughter among the pain and their sheer delight in the smallest of survival gifts around them, in their hope in the face of what seems like impossible odds, is the resource which restores the hope of people like ourselves.