The hunger for hope

Fellow Labourers-

The hunger for hope is a driving force in my daily living. Hope springs eternal in my breast. The more I try to understand the past the more I hope. When the preacher said "Remember now thy creator", he is speaking to me. Was it George Santayana who said that "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it?" In Nelson's Mandela's book "Long Walk to Freedom" there is a chapter with the title "Roben Island: Beginning to hope" in which he said the following "I performed in only a few of the dramas, but I had one memorable role: that of Creon,the king of Thebes, in Sophocles' Antigone. I had read some of the classic Greek plays in prison, and found them enormously elevating. What I took out of them was that character was measured by facing up to difficult situation and that a hero was a man who would not break down even under the most trying circumstances."

It is a truism that knowledge of the past is a great force for future development. The late Michael Manley in his book "The search for solutions said "To know the past is to understand the present." But does understanding the present gives one hope? Yes! I know what got me in the state that I am in, but I also know that the present is not my future but my next step away from the future. I recommend the reading of history to all of us especially cultural history, because as Jacob Burckhardt observed "Cultural history deals with phenomena which are recurrent, constant, and typical. It is because of history why I am sure that my hope is real hope. The God of the past is the God of the Present, the God of the future. Did not he deliver in the past?

Why are you cast down O my soul and why are you disquieted in me. Hope in God for he is the help of my countenance and my God.

Pax Vobiscum

Robert A. Stewart