Keep
the Faith
“You
have to find some way not to become a cynical or negative person, a
person who keeps walking around and opening your eyes in the outside
world but inside you close down, a person who stops expecting
tomorrow to be better than today.”
Richard
Rohr, OFM
The owls are calling this
morning. Still dark outside at 6:15, but they are headed home and
making sure to let one another know it. I've put the feeders out and
a basket of food for the squirrels and chipmunks. All the orchid's
bloom stalks are bursting with buds and will soon become a bank of
flowers. These are the things I focus on these days to keep from
jumping into the ocean of cynicism flooding around us. It helps to
look around and know that the natural world with all its beauty and
abundance is still here and will be long after the trouble passes.
It's easy, at least for me, to think all is lost, all is never going
to be good again. So reminders that most of the living world does not
care in the least what goes on in American politics helps me get
through these difficult days.
As a people, and as human
beings everywhere, we know right from wrong, we know when people are
telling lies and attempting to deceive us for their own purposes. We
can trust ourselves to make sound judgments even when we cannot trust
our leaders to lead. I have been reading again Martin Luther King's
Letter from the Birmingham Jail, sent to the clergy of this city.
Even in the face of all that he endured, and all the racial insults
and brutality that was exercised upon him, he stayed strong in his
faith and true to his cause of equality for all. And when I see Brian
Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative, who have captured in
writing and in museums and memorials, so much of what took place
before King lead his marches, I know that progress has been made.
Friday night, I attended a question and answer session that featured
four African American women who hold elected office in the state of
Alabama, who spoke confidently of their hopes, plans and
accomplishments, and I know that change has come
already in perhaps the most regressive state in this country.
Perhaps we move more
slowly than we should, and perhaps we take one step forward and two
back, but we are moving in the right direction—and that direction
is freedom and equality for everyone. I have no doubt it will come,
though perhaps not on my timetable, because human evolution is
happening in spite of resistance. There is only one direction for us
to go and that is forward. I encourage you to hang on to that
confidence today. Do everything you can to get yourself to a place of
hope and positive energy, and know that you are doing your part to
help the human cause.
In the Spirit,
Jane
No comments:
Post a Comment