Keeping hope alive
In the besieged city of Mariupol, the one remaining mobile phone operator restores the mobile phone network that was damaged by bombing the day before. A few hours later, bombing takes the network out again. But for a precious few hours, vital connection with the outside world is possible.
The technicians do this every day, accepting that the next day they will have to do it again.
They are not just doing their job. They are living in hope.
Further west, where the Dnieper river flows timelessly into the Black Sea, Russian troops have occupied the port city of Kherson. This morning, in the comfort of my home, I listen to one of the city’s inhabitants describing her choice to stay there, in her home.
“Walking away from the people who depend on me is not an option”, she says. “We’re going to pay a high price for our freedom, but we have to do it.”
For this woman and her compatriots in the face of very real and present danger, the idea of freedom is worth more than life itself.
In battle and in war, conviction in what matters most — sustained by unquenchable hope -can be the difference between defeat and victory.
The hope that lives in the hearts of the people of Ukraine today will live on forever. It will forever keep the idea of their national freedom alive.
Every morning, for many years now, we light a candle. Breakfast without it would be odd. More recently I’ve taken to lighting the flame slowly and watching it for a while as its light grows stronger. Later, when I blow it out, I watch closely as the flame becomes smoke and the smoke dispels into the air.
The air we all breathe.
The air fuels the flame and then absorbs it again. This happens over and over again, every time I light it. As long as I light it.
This ritual sustains my hope.
Hope is like the candle. It is we who light it and we who extinguish it. Something else might give us hope, but we are the ones who keep the hope alive.
There are times when this is hard. For some intangible reason, despair gets the upper hand. You feel distracted, powerless. You want to hide. It happens.
That might be just the moment to light a candle. To say a prayer for the people whose life has been torn apart. And as you blow out the flame, to watch the smoke carrying your prayer into the air.
The air we all breathe.
And remember, you can always light the candle again.
In every small way, we can all do our part to keep hope alive.
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