By Henrita Frost, SSND
Recently, I heard former first lady, Michelle Obama say “I am tired of daily chaos.” She was in Miami giving a speech at a “WhenWeAllVote” Rally. Michelle’s words resonated deeply with me. A desire has been growing within me to transcend CHAOS’s hold on me, to free my soul and spirit. The world doesn’t need me preoccupied with chaos, but to overcome it with love and compassion. A new moment, a growing desire within me to move forward with ripples of hope, courage, compassion and so much more. I wonder what it means and where it will take me.
Daily chaos is not going to go away, but my daily encounter with it needs to change. I can sit for hours searching for the path to a New World. Yet, knowing I can’t create it, but we can together, with God as our companion. Ripple away I say to myself. Keep dropping pebbles of compassion in the ocean.
These words of Robert F. Kennedy delivered about 52 years ago in Cape Town, South Africa, live on affirming the power of a tiny ripple of hope –
It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped each time a man stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others or strikes out against injustice. He sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance.
Robert Kennedy’s words about the tiny ripple of hope, . . . “from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest wall of oppression and resistance” – energize me. They spark the movement of my spirit from a fixation with chaos to one of centering on a spirit of peace and tranquility as I persist with fidelity to walk the ripple journey of hope, courage, love and compassion.
“Treat others and the planet as you would like to be treated.”
