Hope-Tumanako
This year, in May, we celebrated my mum’s 100th birthday. The Queen’s letter sits on the mantle, just above a note from Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. My mum, Maureen, lives independently in a cottage on our farm, still gardens every day, and the nightly gin and soda is poured precisely at 6pm. As we sip and sit, I am told about the day’s news from home and abroad, including the cast of those not ‘scrubbing up to the mark’, like Boris and Trump, who are put in her virtual naughty corner. Maureen is our ‘tenlach’, the ‘hearth’ of our family, the source of our warmth. The last of a generation from the Irish immigrant Treacy family who travelled here from County Clare. G’ Ma has known heartache and happiness. Throughout it all, her strength and so ours comes from her hope.
Author Julie Neraas describes hope in this way,
“Hope, in contrast with religion, seems refreshingly spacious. It is roomier and more inclusive because it does not require assent to particular beliefs, nor is it wedded to ideology. Indeed, hope, while necessary to our well-being, can exist with equal strength within religious traditions and outside of them.
Hope is compelling because it is universal. It crosses all human boundaries: age, race, class, gender, ethnicity, and religious, political, or any other persuasion. Everyone needs it, and almost everyone exhibits at least some measure of hope if they have made it as far as this day.”
A life marked by hope is a life marked by optimism, regardless of where you find yourself. It doesn’t mean that you are always happy or that you can’t feel emotions like hurt, sadness, or anger, but it does mean that your view of your circumstances — and so those of the world around you — goes beyond what is actually happening.
This has been a tough year for you and your family. May you and yours be sustained by hope, refreshed with all that is good from a Kiwi summer, and nourished with family and friends.
Stay safe, and happy holidays. See you in 2022.
Kia pai tōu haerenga me ōu rā whakatā. Ka kite anō i a koe i 2022
Gerard Winter