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David and friends,
on the subject of pessimistic worldviews versus worldviews of
hope, I found something interesting in a book by a woman theologian of the
"liberation theology" school. She has a chapter, entitled
"Against the luxury of hopelessness". The general drift of the chapter
is that "hopelessness" is a luxury cultivated by the (or, some of the)
rich (she does not say "capitalists"). She tells all kinds of
observations and stories from her work in Latin America. "My observation
tells me that people were the more without hope the more they were intelligent,
educated and knowledgable. ... I found hope among those working at the base who
had less of on overview, more simplistic analysis, less possibility for
action...." After a lecture she gave in Lima, Peru, a theologian from the
audience gave her a poem which summed up her own views [Leninists of wsn, just
overlook the first word:]
God in the Garbage
I have been asked
what is the source of your
hope.
I realize
it is not my hope
but the hope of the poor.
I go on
because of the faith
of these shit peasants
the cockroaches of this city
the rats in the street
who insist to survive
against every attempt
to crush them
to take their lives
which they love in their way
just as I cannot give up the hope
that we will not perish
[end of poem][the original was presumably in
Spanish]
REFERENCE: Dorothee Soelle, Gott im Muell. Munich, Germany:
dtv, 1992, p. 164; my translation]
Au revoir dans l'espace cyber
Gert Kohler
Oakville, Canada
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