Weekly Soul: Week #49 - Hope (Craigie)
Today's meditation from Weekly Soul: Fifty-two Meditations on Meaningful, Joyful, and Peaceful Living by Dr. Frederic Craigie:
-49-
To
be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact
that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion,
sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasize in this complex
history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our
capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places—and there are
so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to
act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a
different direction. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to
wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of
presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of
all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.
Howard Zinn
The Democratic Republic of Congo is
considered the worst place in the world to be a woman. Years of brutal civil
conflict and economic exploitation have created a culture in which rape,
torture, and trafficking of women and girls is widespread. Estimates are that
as many as half a million rapes have occurred since the beginning of what is
known as the First Congo War in 1996, with the perpetrators—both armed militias
and members of state forces—almost never held accountable. Victims are often
shamed and ostracized by their families and communities.
In 2007, Congolese gynecologist Dr. Denis
Mukwege invited American playwright and activist Eve Ensler to visit his
hospital to witness the massive human tragedy that he had been facing. They
partnered with Belgian/Congolese human rights activist Christine Schuler
Deschryver in founding a transformational healing community for victims of
sexual violence. They named it “City of Joy.”
A powerful 2016 film, City of Joy,
traces the beginnings of the community and the experiences of the first group
of women to live there. They come distraught, with stories of unspeakable
violence and abuse. Many suffer debilitating physical sequelae of their abuse,
and almost all suffer traumatic emotional reactions. They are welcomed and met
with kindness. They embark on a multi-faceted 6-month journey of story-telling,
emotional release and training in practical life skills from meal planning to
self-defense. Notably, the women are not treated as pitiable victims who need
to be saved, but as resilient women who can learn to chart their own courses of
healing and claim an awareness of power that they likely had never experienced
before. There is much anger, and there are many tears. There is also laughter. Women
come to know and trust one another. Gradually, a spirit of community forms, and
there is a blossoming of joy.
To date, City of Joy has graduated over a
thousand women. They go back to their communities as social workers, teachers,
and directors of schools, journalists, and radio hosts, and as emissaries to
other women and girls with the lessons that they have learned about love,
community and healing. Together with Iraqi human rights activist Nadia Murad,
Dr. Mukwege was awarded the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize.
Hope… hoping… includes the recognition
that the narratives of demoralization and despair that so often fill the news
do not represent the whole picture. There is often a remarkable, inspiring
reverse side of the coin.
In his 2018 book, Enlightenment Now,
Harvard cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker presents data showing that major
indices of health and well-being of the world are much better than they have
ever previously been. Life expectancy, infant mortality, famine deaths, extreme
poverty, major wars, homicides, literacy, occupational deaths—the list goes on—have
all moved in favorable directions, in many cases, substantially in the last 50
years. In my own small corner of the world, I have often pointed out to medical
residents, students and colleagues that chronic post-traumatic stress is
actually less common that post-traumatic growth, and that it is important to
look for, honor and be supportive of both.
These data and observations do not
diminish the tragedy and injustice that remain and probably will always remain.
But we need to recognize that along with darkness in the world, there is light.
Along with cruelty, there is goodness. Along with suffering, there is healing.
Hearing hopeful narratives matters. American
folk singer and activist Pete Seeger once commented, “The key to the future of
the world is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.” Indeed.
Optimistic stories—the narratives of hope—hold and provide very different
energy from the narratives of despair. As Howard Zinn says, that energy gives
us the power to act.
Reflection
- As you look at the world out
there, what optimistic stories do you see? Where do you find hope?
- Remember that stories have
power. Sit with a particular hopeful story or narrative that comes to
mind. Picture the rich details of this story: the people, the colors, the
sound, the movement. What feelings or reactions do you see in yourself as
you experience this story?
- In the coming days, be
attentive to the optimistic, hopeful stories that you see in the larger
world or in your own part of it. Stories of light in the midst of
darkness, goodness in the midst of cruelty, or healing in the face of
suffering.
Author
Howard Zinn (1922-2010) was an American
university professor, writer, and social activist. He grew up in Brooklyn, the
child of Jewish immigrants who both worked menial jobs to support their family
during the Depression. Having no books in the home and seeing their son’
interest in reading, they sent ten cents a month to the New York Post to
purchase each of 20 volumes of the collected works of Charles Dickins.
As a young man, Zinn crossed paths with
other young people in his neighborhood who were interested in communist ideas
as an alternative to the economic disparity that they saw around them. He
attended a rally in Times Square in which the peaceful marchers were charged by
mounted police. Zinn was knocked unconscious. He reflected in later years that
this event was a turning point in his life, persuading him that he could no
longer trust in the benevolent intent of government and that radical social
change was necessary.
After high school, he worked as an
apprentice shipfitter in the Brooklyn Navy Yard, helping to found a workers’
cooperative of apprentices, since workers at his level were ineligible for
regular union membership. This experience began a lifetime of involvement and
support for union movements.
Concerned about the spread of fascism,
Zinn volunteered for the Army Air Corps at the outset of the second world war. He
served as a bombardier on B-17s and competed missions throughout Europe. As the
war was winding down, he was involved in a bombing run in southwestern France
in which napalm was dropped on a small city that by that point had no military
significance. In later years, he visited this and other cities that had been
similarly targeted and concluded that the government’s assertions of precise bombing
of military targets were untrue and that large numbers of civilians had
actually died.
With the support of the GI Bill, Zinn
completed a doctorate in government at Columbia University and launched on an
academic career. This took him, first, to Spelman College in Atlanta and then
for a long tenure at Boston University. He was revered as a teacher and mentor,
while he merged his university work with on-the-ground social activism and
writing. He was an advisor to the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee in
its early days and took part in countless marches, protests, and demonstrations
in support of the civil rights movement. He was an early and passionate
opponent of the Vietnam War, seeing it as an outgrowth of colonialism that
particularly affected people of color. With Daniel Berrigan, he traveled to
Hanoi in 1968 to repatriate war prisoners who had been released by North
Vietnam. In the years before his death, Zinn similarly spoke out against the
Iraq war, arguing that it violated the UN charter and caused substantial and
unnecessary suffering.
Over his long career, Zinn published
dozens of books and articles. He is probably best known for his 1980 People’s
History of the United States, which recounts American history from the
vantage points of disenfranchised people: Native Americans, slaves, workers and
early participants in union movements, women in the struggle toward suffrage,
and ethnic and racial minorities. Many attempts have been made to discredit and
ban the book, but it continues to sell robustly and to be widely used as a
university history text.
The quotation comes from Zinn’s 2006 book,
A Power Governments Cannot Suppress (City Lights).
Book Description:
Keywords:
meditation; reflection; inspiration; miracles; aliveness; purpose; laughter; joy; presence; mindfulness; activism; acceptance; gratitude; forgiveness; creativity; civility; hope; affirmation; wholeness; well-being; mental health; personal growth; transformation; inner peace; personal reflection; joy; joyful living; inspirational quotes; inspirational commentary
For more posts by and about Fred and his book, click HERE.
CONTACT editor@msipress.com FOR A REVIEW COPY
has gained mass recognition for releasing highly acclaimed books of varying genres
that are distributed internationally.
To purchase copies of any MSI Press book at 25% discount,
use code FF25 at MSI Press webstore.
Want to read an MSI Press book and not have to pay for it?
(1) Ask your local library to purchase and shelve it.
(2) Ask us for a review copy; we love to have our books reviewed.
VISIT OUR WEBSITE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ALL OUR AUTHORS AND TITLES.
Sign up for the MSI Press LLC monthly newsletter: get inside information before others see it and access to additional book content(recent releases, sales/discounts, awards, reviews, Amazon top 100 list, links to precerpts/excerpts, author advice, and more)Check out recent issues.
We help writers become award-winning published authors. One writer at a time. We are a family, not a factory. Do you have a future with us? Find out at www.msipress.com.
Turned away by other publishers because you are a first-time author and/or do not have a strong platform yet? If you have a strong manuscript, San Juan Books, our hybrid publishing division, may be able to help. Ask us. Check out more information at www.msipress.com.
Planning on self-publishing and don't know where to start? Our author au pair services will mentor you through the process. See what we can do for your at www.msipress.com.
Interested in receiving a free copy of this or any MSI Press LLC book in exchange for reviewing a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book? Contact editor@msipress.com.
Want an author-signed copy of this book? Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25) and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.Julia Aziz, signing her book, Lessons of Labor, at an event at Book People in Austin, Texas.
Want to communicate with one of our authors? You can! Find their contact information on our Authors' Pages.Steven Greenebaum, author of award-winning books, An Afternoon's Discussion and One Family: Indivisible, talking to a reader at Barnes & Noble in Gilroy, California.MSI Press is ranked among the top publishers in California.
Check out our rankings -- and more -- HERE.
Comments
Post a Comment