Seeing the title "These are dark times" on the recommended diaries list stirred something in me. I guess I felt motivated to live the words of the
Prayer of St. Francis and bring hope where there is despair. Or maybe it just stirred my overactive contrarian tendencies, and I just had to say "Are not!" Knowing me, it's a little of both, but either way, some hopeful words couldn't hurt right now. So...anyone got any?
How about some words from Archbishop Desmond Tutu, spoken as the war in Iraq began in 2003:
In today's moment of deep anguish over the war, it is important to recognize the reasons for hope and pride, both in the United States and across the globe.
Never in history has there been such an outpouring of resistance from average people all around the world before a war had even begun. Millions took a stand. This doctrine of moral and popular preemption must be sustained.
Countless nations, many of them quite impoverished, listened to the majority voices of their own citizens opposing the war. These governments opted not to take the huge sums offered to support the military effort, but instead chose to heed the sentiments of their citizens. In these contexts, this was a considerable step forward for democracy.
A first step to personal healing is to acknowledge the depth of the devastation that many of us feel. We should not pretend it does not exist.
But, we must also look forward. The energies mobilized recently must not dissipate. They should be channeled and broadened.
When Desmond Tutu talk about being hopeful in dark times, I can't dismiss his words as empty platitudes. The man has clearly walked the walk.
From an article by Paul Loeb entitled The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Hope in a Time of Fear:
How do we learn to keep on in this difficult political time, and keep on with courage and vision? A few years ago, I heard Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak at a Los Angeles benefit for a South African project. He'd been fighting prostate cancer, was tired that evening, and had taken a nap before his talk. But when Tutu addressed the audience he became animated, expressing amazement that his long-oppressed country had provided the world with an unforgettable lesson in reconciliation and hope. Afterward, a few other people spoke, and then a band from East L.A. took the stage and launched into an irresistibly rhythmic tune. People started dancing. Suddenly I noticed Tutu, boogying away in the middle of the crowd. I'd never seen a Nobel Peace Prize winner, still less one with a potentially fatal illness, move with such joy and abandonment. Tutu, I realized, knows how to have a good time. Indeed, it dawned on me that his ability to recognize and embrace life's pleasures helps him face its cruelties and disappointments, be they personal or political.
Few of us will match Tutu's achievements, but in a political time that's hard and likely to get harder, we'd do well to learn from someone who's spent years challenging abuses of human dignity from apartheid's brutal system to Bush's Iraq war, yet has remained light-hearted and free of bitterness. Because Tutu embodies a defiant, resilient, persistent hope, where we act no matter what the seeming odds, both to be true to our deepest moral values, and to open up new possibilities. As Jim Wallis, editor of the evangelical social justice magazine Sojourners, writes, "Hope is believing in spite of the evidence, then watching the evidence change."
Also, for anyone who hasn't seen this,
We were made for times like these by Clarissa Pinkola Estes, PhD might offer some hope and inspiration.
...Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take “everyone on Earth” to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.
One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these – to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate.
The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbour and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.
This comes with much love and a prayer that you remember who you came from and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.