Hope – in the midst of our Crisis

What a troubled world we are living in today!

· Coronavirus is producing fear and unrest across all countries, great stress on health services, many thousands of deaths.

· Environmental warming continues to produce more and bigger fires, floods and other natural disasters.

· Quite extraordinary amounts of wealth are being accumulated by some – while hunger and poverty and violence continue to increase.

· In varying degrees we all live with fear and insecurity ……

And yet WE CONTINUE TO HOPE!

Indeed hope is the main impulse that keeps us going. Each day we wake up, most of us, anticipating/hoping that things will improve. Some instinct in our D.N.A. keeps saying “it will be better tomorrow”!

Reflecting on what’s happening around us in the light of the Sacred Writings of history, listening to the cry of the earth and cries of people, listening to my own heart …. brings me to write this:

Our biggest problem, biggest sin, biggest disease, is INDIVIDUALISM – our focus on ME and on MY THINGS. We even make a priority, God help us, about MY getting to Heaven/Paradise …..

Surely we are being called – by nature, by the wisdom of so many cultures, by our own hearts …. to a NEW WAY of living, a life style that is much more communal, INTER-CONNECTED with people, the land, with nature.

The seed of hope planted within us will only come to fruition through relationships, conversations, with people with nature ….

We simply cannot live life APART, on our own!

We were never meant to.

Hal Ranger

St Patrick’s Cathedral