There is always hope

 

'Get busy living or get busy dying'

'Get busy living or get busy dying'. One of the most memorable lines from one of my favorite movies, The Shawshank Redemption, which I watched again the other night for about the fifth time. The quote is actually from the novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King, on which the movie is based. 

Andy says this to Red right after Andy has spent more than a month 'in the hole' (solitary confinement) for trying to get the warden to arrange for a new trial for him after new evidence turns up that he is actually innocent of murdering his wife and her lover. But the warden won't hear of it and goes about destroying all possibilities for this. The warden has his reasons, none of them ethical or good. It is his refusal to help Andy that pushes Andy to make the choice to escape prison, but not without bringing down the warden along the way. Get busy living is another way of saying 'focus on the positive', on what you can positively do about a difficult situation. It's about having hope, because hope is what man needs to keep him going and to keep him alive. Without hope, man can just lay down and die. As Andy says in the film 'Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies'. And that is Andy's point. You either have hope and move toward the positive, or you don't and then you move toward the negative. You give up all hope and get busy dying. Get busy living is also about adjusting to the curve balls that life throws at you. You have to be proactive, to take the reins of your own life, to change and to grow in order to deal with the tough times. You have to have hope that you'll come through them. 

The Shawshank Redemption is a remarkable film. I can't imagine two better actors playing the parts of Andy and Red than Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman respectively. The bond of friendship that develops between them is beautiful to see. Andy was a generous soul, whose prison term allowed him to develop into a man who truly cared about others. He managed to maintain his humanity in the morass of inhumanity that prison often is. He offered hope to his fellow prisoners without pushing it on them; he just lived according to his principles and that had an effect on those around him, especially Red. 

If you've never seen the film, I recommend it highly. It's violent and tough to watch in places. It doesn't present a rosy view of prison or of Andy's experiences in prison. The beauty of the film is in watching Andy slowly decide what he wants and how he wants to live out the rest of his life, and it's not in prison. He makes his decision without hurting his fellow prisoners, whom he has often helped. He offers Red the chance to join him, leaving the decision up to Red, after they've discussed how they want to live the rest of their lives. Andy never tells Red about his escape plans, thus protecting Red from possible repercussions. But he provides the means (money) for Red to eventually join him and he makes Red promise that he will try to find the place in Maine where Andy has buried something for him. He never tells Red what he's buried, which piques Red's curiosity and gives him the motivation to survive life outside of prison. We need more films like this in the world--films about hope, friendship, generosity (fiscal as well as spiritual), integrity, and goodness. 

The need to breathe--dealing with psychological suffocation

What happens to us when we are constantly bombarded by a barrage of outrage fomented by news and social media, or nitpicking courtesy of the news pundits and social media, or constant noise, or people/events that clamor for our constant attention? My friend Jean came up with the term 'psychological suffocation' to aptly describe how we can feel when faced with all of this--smothered, unable to breathe. Psychological suffocation--when the heart and mind can't breathe--can affect us physiologically. Both she and I agree that modern society as we know it is too focused on fomenting outrage and division instead of peace and harmony, too 'in your face', too noisy, and too 'on' all the time. Even if all these things are not intentionally designed to suffocate us psychologically, they have that effect far too often. As she says, the feeling of psychological suffocation makes her want to throw open the windows and the door to breathe in the air, the peace, the quiet of nature outside her door. When I reach that point, all I want to do is go to my garden or for a long walk or bike ride. Just to get away from it all--from the influences that get the heart pounding in anger and outrage and that make it difficult to breathe. 

The ultimate solution to dealing with the things that psychologically suffocate us is to prevent them from having that power over us. That means keeping them at bay--shutting out the news or walking away from people and situations that want us to be continually outraged. It means being selective about what we let into our minds and hearts. Garbage in, garbage out, as the old saying goes. It's like junk food; if all we eat is junk food, then our bodies will not be healthy. Likewise our minds; they will not be healthy if all we feed them is outrage, aggression, anger, and more outrage. We are constantly being told how to think and how to feel. I'm surprised that doesn't bother more people. 

Both the regular media and social media are invested in riling us up with what I call fake outrage because that's how they drag in viewers. More viewers, better ratings, more money. It's all about the money. If they were really interested in solving the problems in society, they would come up with solutions to problems, even if those solutions were on a small scale. Because I ask you, what is the point of getting riled up if we don't come up with a solution, however small, to deal with whatever problem is brought up? If we do nothing about the problem that we are told to be outraged about, then the outrage is pointless and by extension, false. Additionally, false outrage is demotivating and leads to feelings of hopelessness and despair. As Christians, we are called to act as well as to have faith and to pray. An old Chinese proverb that was adopted by the Christian inspirational group The Christophers as their motto says 'it is better to light one candle than curse the darkness'. I understood this already in my twenties when I discovered The Christophers. If you wait for the big solutions to occur to solve any problem whatsoever, you'll wait a long time. Better to start small. As Mother Teresa said, we can start by loving and showing charity in our own homes and families, before we worry about the rest of the world. She understood that if we managed to do this in our own homes, we would find it less difficult to extend love and charity to strangers. Additionally, if more people did this in their own homes, a number of family problems might actually be solved. Her focus was on starting where we find ourselves on a daily basis--home or work for most people. This makes sense because most of us will never live a life like Mother Teresa's. But she is an inspiration for us when we feel psychologically suffocated, when hope feels like it has disappeared, when outrage and despair take center stage. 

Hope. Hope counteracts psychological suffocation. Hope is found in nature, which exists outside of us and carries on despite what goes on in the world. There is the promise of hope in each new season. Prayer also counteracts it, regardless of how we define prayer or of how we pray. Prayer centers us and leads us to a quiet place, far away from the talking heads in the television studios and their obsession with outrage that borders on monomania. Hope and prayer give us the energy to deal with the problems around us. Continual outrage does not; it may seem like it would, but in the final analysis the energy we expend on continual outrage does nothing but exhaust us, leaving very little positive energy with which to work on the problems in the world. 

Hope is a way of life

Norway's King Harald holds a New Year's Eve speech each year. This year he started by sending his sympathies to those affected by the quick clay landslide in Ask in Gjerdrum county, a short distance from Oslo. The landslide is a catastrophe (‘Catastrophe’ ends already awful year (newsinenglish.no); 11 people missing after landslide strikes southern Norway, leaving large crater - CNN                    

He then spoke about 2020 and the pandemic, and how the country has managed to deal with the worst trial it has faced since WWII. He said: 

"Vi kom oss gjennom fordi vi aldri ga opp håpet. Fordi det å håpe er en måte å leve på. Håp er vilje, håp er handling. Håp er å feste blikket på noe som gir oss mening og følge det. Håpet skal bære oss alle inn i 2021." 

Translated to English, it reads:

"We got through because we never gave up hope. Because hope is a way of life. Hope is will, hope is action. Hope is fixing our gaze on something that gives us meaning and following it. Hope will carry us all into 2021."

HIs message is a good way to end 2020 and to start 2021. 

Reflections on hope and Pandora's box

We read the fable about Pandora’s Box when we were children, and it made an impression on me all those years ago that remains to this day. How could a woman who was entrusted with a box containing all the evils and illnesses in the world, open that very box and release them to the world? Was it curiosity that drove her, or was she tainted by evil herself? She only managed to close the box before Hope escaped, so that Hope remained in the box, presumably to ensure that mankind’s destruction was not sealed. Of course one could wonder why Hope was sealed into a box with all the world’s evils and illnesses, but that is not what this post is concerned with today. 

I am reminded of this fable because of the current political situation in America. It seems to me that our current president has opened the same box containing all the evils and sicknesses in the world. They’ve all come rushing out—bigotry, hatred, anger, aggression, white supremacy, lack of empathy, hypocrisy, lying, cheating, disregard for the weak, among others. These evils dominate our media on a daily basis, and ultimately, dominate our daily lives. We wake up, live, breathe, eat, and go to sleep with them. They wear us down, erode our patience, destroy our internal peace, destroy relationships, and create chaos. If you don’t believe me, just take a look around you and peruse social media or your daily newspaper. Or talk to your friends and family members about what is going on. It is clear to me that the president is very good at creating chaos and then benefitting from it in one way or another. If we don’t wake up soon, we are headed for anarchy, and it will be primarily his fault, for opening a box that should have remained shut. I read a good article yesterday written by a journalist who longed for a 'boring' presidency; by that he meant that he longed for a president who doesn't dominate our daily lives the way the current one does. He longed for a president who doesn't foment hatred and chaos. He longed for a president who just governed quietly and calmly without all the hype, PR, tweeting, hypocrisy, and lying. I agree with him wholeheartedly. 

The only thing I’m not quite sure of is whether Hope remains in the box that has been opened. Hope. What is it really? Is it blind optimism? Is it faith in something better for the future? Is it an ordinary human trait, innate in our personality? I’d like to think so. Is it unrealistic? At times, probably. But in dire situations, it’s all we have. We have to hope and trust that things will get better. But when you take a look at other countries in the world, bad situations don’t get better overnight. Sometimes it takes half a century or more for a country to get out from under a brutal dictator, or for a country to rise up from poverty and starvation. Many times they don’t get there without help from other countries. Those other countries have hope that things can be better, and they help because they know situations can change for the better. 

Those of us who live in democracies know that things can get better. We have a say in how our countries should be run, and they should not be run by dictators. If we truly want change, we have to hope and plan for change. We have to trust that change is possible. We have to use our vote to ensure that change. A vote against the man who opened up the box of evils is a good start. We need to restore order where there is chaos, peace where there is discord, kindness where there is brutality, and civility where there is disrespect. If we don’t do this soon, we have no one to blame but ourselves. 

 

Monday morning reflections

The feeling that things will never be the same is a feeling that is occurring more frequently with each passing day. The pandemic is the cause, yes, but the sense that the 'known' is becoming the unknown is prevalent within me, and I cannot say that I like the feeling. We are moving toward a new epoch in mankind's history, in the planet's history. I dread reading or hearing the news, I am aware of the anarchy around me, in every country on this earth. Some countries give the appearance of having more control than others, but scratch the surface and you will find unrest and dissatisfaction present. You will find people who only care about themselves, and who will do what they want to do, will not listen to medical and scientific authorities, will not listen to reason, will not abide by the rules. What matters to them is their freedom and their 'rights'. One thing has become very clear to me, and that is that it doesn't matter how rich you are or how much power you have--you are nothing in the face of a virus, a pandemic, an apocalypse. Money doesn't matter. Money won't save you when the institutions that use your money no longer exist. I fear the future at times. It doesn't look like anything I picture as a happy place. I look at major cities around the world, but especially in the USA, and see the discordance, the unrest, the violent behavior--all arising really out of a pandemic that laid bare the inequities and unrest in my country. It breaks my heart because I fear that it will only get worse before it gets better. Defunding the police is a terrible idea; it will only lead to more chaos. The country is led by a nihilist, someone who 'believes that life is meaningless and rejects all religious and moral principles'. He doesn't know he is one, but he is. He believes in nothing and stands for nothing, except for himself and enriching himself. 'Make America Great Again' is just a slogan to him, he has no idea what it means or what he really wants for the country, because he has no idea what it means to truly serve his country. The word 'service' is not in his vocabulary and never has been. You can watch the documentaries about him from the 1980s; he's the same nasty person he always was. Make America Great Again are empty words, uttered by an empty person, who fills his heart with rage and hatred against what, I am not sure. But he plays on the emotions of a particular type of person, and those people will follow him off a cliff if need be. Perhaps he is unhappy about being old, because he is old, and one day he will die, like everyone else. I have no idea about his soul or personal relationship with God, but at present, there is nothing that indicates to me that he is interested in preserving the Christian values on which our country was founded. The USA is an imperfect country, yes, but one that offered hope to so many people who wanted to start a new life and strive for something better. Hope seems to have died, at least from where I stand.

And if you take hope away from people, you destroy them and a country from within. You contribute to the rise in depression and suicide, to the increase in bad behavior and lawlessness. Because when there is nothing to hope for, there is no point in living or for striving for a better life. And that is nihilism. If that's what people want, that's what people will get. Nihilism will kill more people than a virus ever will. 

Quotes about miracles

• Hope... is the companion of power, and the mother of success; for who so hopes has within him the gift of miracles. --Samuel Smiles
• God continues to work miracles in my life.--Willie Aames
• There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. --Albert Einstein
• Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. --Walt Whitman
• His hands are miracles. I can watch them for hours, transforming wood into something it never dreamed of being. --Katja Millay, The Sea of Tranquility
• It was possible that a miracle was not something that happened to you, but rather something that didn’t. --Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle
• Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles. --George Bernard Shaw
• After all, I don't see why I am always asking for private, individual, selfish miracles when every year there are miracles like white dogwood. --Anne Morrow Lindbergh
• Since most scientists are just a bit religious, and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific, we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole, while his religious intellect believes in them outside it. --William Golding
• When you look at all the miracles attributed to Jesus, they're all about change. --Michael Sheen

The first quote has special relevance for me now, especially this week. An unexpected phone call reminded me of the presence of hope inside me when I thought I had none, and that hope sometimes leads to miracles. They may be tiny--but miracle of miracles, any tiny miracle is about change, about a shift in the universe toward love and away from darkness. That is what I believe. 

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Looking back on 2018 and the need for hope

What a year--2018. Looking back, I'd say it was a whirlwind of a year for me personally. My work life took an unexpected turn for the better, and as the old expression goes, 'I never looked back' once I hopped on this new train--a new focus area and one for which I seem to be suited. It could all change in an instant; I am fully aware of that, but that is the beauty of growing older. One has been down those paths before, so one is less surprised if it all goes to hell again. I hope it won't, but the universe might have other plans, so it's just to stay open to new possibilities and opportunities.

I realized too how important traveling is for broadening our horizons, and planning a trip to a new place each summer has become a fun occupation. I want to explore more of Great Britain--more of England, Scotland, and Wales. I'd love to revisit Italy in order to take in Florence and Sienna. I'd like to see Spain and Portugal as well. I have a feeling we'll get there, one country at a time. For that reason (and a few others), I really do look forward to retirement and to taking some longer trips with my husband and my friends.

But one doesn't always need to physically travel to a new place in order to broaden one's horizons; one need only pick up a good book that will take you where you want to go (or sometimes where you never thought about going). I have rediscovered how interesting American history is, thanks to Caroline Fraser and her wonderful book Prairie Fires--The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder. If there is one book I can recommend from this year's reading, it is this one. I have mentioned it before in a previous post (https://paulamdeangelis.blogspot.com/2018/08/book-recommendation-biography-of-laura.html), but it bears repeating--the USA has been through some pretty dark times, and it has survived them--climate changes, rampant corruption, economic depressions, widespread poverty, political uproars and turmoil, world wars, and so much more. Our country has had great presidents and terrible presidents. It survived them. We will survive. We may need to undergo some forms of renewal (much like the Catholic church needs to do in order to deal with the sexual abuse scandals), but we will survive. There is comfort in knowing that, and that is what learning about our history gives us--new realizations about where we come from, and even insights about where we might be headed.

Despite the current political chaos that reigns in the White House, our country will survive. The founding fathers built many checks and balances into our system of government. It may seem as thought they are failing one by one, but they are not. The majority of politicians still believe in something good; one must hope that they will rise to the challenge of defending our country's honor and dignity. And if they cannot do it, that we the people must do it for them. Our ancestors left Europe to find a better life in America; perhaps some found that, while others didn't. What they did find was the chance to figure it out for themselves, to think for themselves, to take responsibility for their own lives. They took a risk, and we must take risks too, in order to preserve the freedoms that we have fought to attain. We must not be complacent, self-satisfied, or slothful. We cannot afford to be any of those things. We must find it in our hearts to be grateful and hopeful, because from gratitude and hope spring all that is good, and we must translate our gratitude and hope into positive action.

Easter quotes

• The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake.   --Basil Hume
• It is difficult to say what is impossible, for the dream of yesterday is the hope of today and the reality of tomorrow.   --Robert H. Schuller
• Easter is meant to be a symbol of hope, renewal, and new life.  --Janine di Giovanni
• People respond when you tell them there is a great future in front of you, you can leave your past behind.    --Joel Osteen
• The symbolic language of the crucifixion is the death of the old paradigm; resurrection is a leap into a whole new way of thinking.   --Deepak Chopra
• A rule I have had for years is: to treat the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal friend. His is not a creed, a mere doctrine, but it is He Himself we have.   --Dwight L. Moody
• There is only one secure foundation: a genuine, deep relationship with Jesus Christ, which will carry you through any and all turmoil. No matter what storms are raging all around, you'll stand firm if you stand on His love.   --Charles Stanley
• Easter is reflecting upon suffering for one thing, but it also reflects upon Jesus and his non compliance in the face of great authority where he holds to his truth - so there's two stories there.   --Michael Leunig
• It is at Easter that Jesus is most human, and like all humans, he fails and is failed. His is not an all-powerful God, it is an all-vulnerable God.   --Michael Leunig
• We were old sinners - but when we came to Christ we are not sinners anymore.   --Joel Osteen
• I think we need to do some deep soul searching about what's important in our lives and renew our spirit and our spiritual thinking, whether it's through faith-based religion or just through loving nature or helping your fellow man.   --Louis Schwartzberg

Moments in time

This morning as we drove to work, we heard David Bowie’s new song, Where Are We Now?, on the radio. It caught my attention with its melancholy tone, and I commented to my husband that I would have loved the song immediately when I was a teenager, as I seemed to be drawn to all things sad at that time. Truth is, I loved the song immediately now too, so that tells me that I still am drawn to sadness, but in a more realistic way now than when I was younger. When I got to work, I found the recently-released video of the song on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9XsTnyN26Y&feature=share&list=FL4rKLincZWuFolZVFChzj5g. It is one of the most poignant, emotional and raw songs I have heard in a long time, and affected me in the way that such songs usually do. Got me to thinking about what he is singing about, which is his getting older and his reflections on his past. ‘A man lost in time’. But he is singing too about a moment in life and in time—‘the moment you know you know you know’--those fleeting moments when you are keenly aware of your own mortality, of time passing, when you know there is nothing you can do about it or about getting older, when you are aware of the paradoxes contained in life and thankful for them. They are moments when you are almost outside of yourself looking in—experiencing that moment when you know that you suddenly understand that you in fact understand where it’s all leading to. But he is also telling us that even though he is aware of moving toward life’s exit, he is also thankful for the sun and rain and fire—those things that tether us to daily life and which tell us that we are in fact still alive. There is hope as long as those things still exist for us. The song ends with him singing that ‘as long as there’s me, as long as there’s you’, that it will be alright, or at least as alright as it can be in the context of knowing that one day we will exit this earth. He is reminding himself that he can draw comfort from those thoughts and find the energy to go on, and hearing him sing that reminds me of the same, of the importance of love and of the support it can give us in dark times. A reasonably hopeful ending to a sad song. Art in all its many forms never ceases to amaze me, in that it shows us a way to live, a way to get through the bittersweet and dark moments that are part of life.