Thinking Anew:IT IS truly wonderful to have news from Chile that the rescue efforts for the entombed miners have been successful. It has been a horrendous experience for the men and their families, from the moment disaster struck when all seemed lost, through the long journey from utter despair, to hope, to the happy outcome now being reported.
These events have been characterised by a determined refusal to give up, initially by the men themselves, and then by their families and the rescue agencies as it emerged that there was the possibility of rescue. It was the human spirit at its best, determined to go on believing, no matter how discouraging the signs.
In tomorrow’s Gospel reading, Jesus tells his followers that courageous belief is essential. Speaking about prayer, he tells them not to lose heart if prayers seem to go unanswered. This has special relevance for those directly affected by the economic crisis facing this country. It is hard to imagine the terrible pain of those who have lost jobs or homes or family members through emigration in search of work. But if our faith means anything, it urges Christians to believe that things can improve – and we must say that.
The English Franciscan, Father Andrew sees all of life’s experiences as an opportunity and cautions against foolish optimism and gloomy pessimism.
“In any young life that is unspoilt, that of a kitten or a child, the first outlook on life is a beautiful world full of flowers and sunshine and kind people. This is of course a superficial view, a real view but not the whole truth. Then perhaps there is some great disappointment or pain and then the temptation is to become a pessimist. The pessimist counts the sick people, the failures, the frauds till he begins to declare that there is no health, no success, no honesty anywhere. He sees a real view but again it is a superficial view. It is true, but not the whole truth. There are weeds but there are flowers.
There are dark nights but there are stars.”
He goes on to make the point that it is in the whole life experience, the ups and the downs, that the Christian faith is lived. All of life is “an opportunity of co-operation with God”. It is important to distinguish between accepting life’s problems and being resigned to them. Resignation has been described as “a dead end in the sense that it has no life about it and nothing comes from it.” Christian acceptance is a beginning; a first step, facing reality and finding out what God wants us to do in a particular set of circumstances. This is especially true for those life-changing times like bereavement, ill health, redundancy or old age.
Anne Frank was one of a million Jewish children who died in Nazi concentration camps during the second World War. She became famous because of a diary she kept while in hiding. Despite a miserable existence she remained hopeful believing in the essential goodness of people: “It’s really a wonder,” she wrote, “that I have not dropped all my ideals because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are good at heart.”
A cynic might say that given the tragic outcome of her short life hers was a vain hope; her family were betrayed and she and her sister Margot died from typhus in 1945 in Bergen-Belsen.
But the Christian faith rejects cynicism, insisting that there is a “beyond” dimension that belongs to God’s timeframe –which is different to our timeframe. The promise is – and this is central to the entire Gospel of Jesus Christ – that in God’s good time all shall be well.
Anne Frank offered this advice to anyone thinking of giving up: “The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy, is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quiet, alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be.”
– GL