An evolving page, to which you are welcome to contribute, on the theme of HOPE! and the strength and courage needed for allowing us to have a Vision of Hope for the future.
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In the midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that… In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me,
within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
Truly yours, Albert Camus
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I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.”
May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all.
The words come from the poet Minnie Haskins (1875-1957). She called the poem “God Knows”, although it is now know as ‘The Gate of the Year’ in many poetry collections. The verse is inscribed on a panel by the gates of the George VI memorial chapel in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, and in a window at the Queen’s Chapel of the Savoy.
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Whatever may come, whatever the next hour, the next day may bring, if it is unknown to me, I am unable to change it, however much fear may prompt me. I await it with entire peace of mind, with entire calm of heart. Anxiety and fear impede our development. Through the waves of anxiety and fear we reject what wants to flow into our souls out of the future.
The acceptance of what is called divine wisdom in the events, the certainty that all that is to come is necessary and that it will have in one or the other way its positive consequences, the evocation of this mood in words, feelings and ideas – this is the mood of the prayer of acceptance.
It belongs to the attitudes which have to be learned in this our time: To live out of sheer trust without security of existence, out of trust in the ever present help of the Spiritual World. Truly we cannot carry on differently, if our courage is not to fail.
Rudolf Steiner
November 1910, Bremen
Thoughts about Love
Someone asked me, how can we better shine light into the world? I believe that the important thing to do is just to do it! – that is, not think about it, not prevaricate. It means consciously and generously looking outward from ourselves, but from the strong self. Our creativity – that is, our being in a state of giving, creating – is the same as our loving.
These pages have already seen the quotation from Rudolf Steiner that follows. He is clearly expanding on ‘a new commandment I give you, that you love one another’ (John 13 : 34):
“What then is essential for love? What is essential in order that one person love another? It is this – that he be in possession of his full self-consciousness, that he be wholly independent. No one can love another in the full sense of the word if this love be not a free gift of one person to another…
Christ is the bringer of the impulse of freedom from the law, that good may be done, not because of the compulsion of any law, but as an indwelling impulse of love within the soul. This impulse will still need the remainder of the Earth evolution for its full development.”
(R. Steiner in ‘The Gospel of John’, lecture in Hamburg, 1908).
Although Steiner speaks of freedom and independence, I find in his words something remarkably close to what I am feeling. To love is to love. There can be no prescription around it, no qualification, no sacrifice to any other feeling whatsoever. There can’t even be a focus on the needs of the world, for even that will distract. And it has to be done in full consciousness: ‘that he be in possession of his full self-consciousness’, as Steiner says.
We might put it the other way round. If our commitment is totally to radiating light, totally to emanating love, there simply is that independence that Steiner requires, that freedom.
Another teacher, White Eagle, says:
‘To know all means to renounce all. To love all means to have understanding of everything.’
It sounds a tall order, a big ask. But is it so hard to be, simply, a lighthouse?
Colum Hayward
Feb 2023
Sobering thoughts, finding the courage, on a threshold of hope…
A Message for our Time, and the year 2023 — ‘Fear Not’
contribution by Janice Dolley
I have been re-reading a chapter in a book by my teacher Sir George Trevelyan- “Christ and the Adversary Forces (1) and hope that those reading this will understand the Christ as a great universal energy of love, light and wisdom permeating all creation rather than the link only to Jesus of Nazareth as understood in orthodoxy.
I was writing this just before Christmas 2022 following an experience on 11/11 this last year, when a friend and I sat and meditated together remembering those who gave their lives in two world wars. After our meditation we shared stories about my grandfather in WW1 and his father in WW2. Both survived but suffered what we now call post-traumatic stress syndrome. He showed me his father’s medals for outstanding bravery in service and I told him of the note that my grandfather left with his will apologising for his periodic outburst of anger and saying that” if you experienced what I had experienced you would understand.”
What I was left with was the sense that all those who died did so to ensure the future generations might have FREEDOM and it is our it is now our freedom that is being threatened in subtle and often invisible ways today. If this statement does not ring bells with you then this is the very reason why I’m writing this. It may seem a strange message to send at the Christmas season and coming into the New Year. But is it ?
At the time of the birth of Jesus the population was under the fierce control of King Herod and his minions. Joseph and Mary were travelling to register their details so that Herod knew exactly who was under his control and could be taxed. Then when their baby was born they had to secretly escape to Egypt because Herod was exterminating any possible threat to his power. Doubtless most of the population acquiesced either because they did not notice what was happening or, if they did , they did not have the strength to resist so prayed for a saviour to come and save them. What they received was not a warrior but a gentle baby!
These attempts at domination surfaced periodically and we are told that the twelfth century mystic and Abbess, Hildegard of Bingen, rebelled against the dominance of church and state in the Middle Ages and that her role was to break the cycle of greed, power, and politics that was destroying Mother Earth as well as the soul of humanity.
Fast forward 2000 year… (click here to go to the full essay on a new page).