You may have recognized this title as being from Charles Dickens’s 1859 novel A Tale of Two Cities. And like much of Dickens’s work, it remains relevant for our times. Here are the opening lines of the novel:
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us …”
These lines have resonated throughout many times and places since they were written, and seem to also relate to our own times. We live in the best of times given so many advances in fields like medical science, technology, transportation, communications and other things that give us much easier lifestyles than many of our ancestors had. But we also live in the worst of times in terms of climate catastrophes, terrible inequality even in the world’s richest nations, millions of migrants forced to flee their homes with no way forward to greater stability, a tiny percentage of humanity having immense wealth while the majority of humans struggle for survival, terrible wars that maim and kill children and destroy homes and hospitals, etc. And, of course, there are many things about our times that make us feel like we live in an “epoch of incredulity”!
Yes, we can take the advice of Mister Rogers’s mother when he was a child disturbed by news of bad events: she told him to look for the helpers in any situation because there were usually helpers wherever bad things were happening. And yet this advice might seem trite given the epic scale of human suffering seen today in so many places. Of course, all this physical suffering, like that of children in war zones, comes with terrible mental, psychological and emotional anguish as well. Even those of us just observing it from a distance are often overwhelmed with grief and anguish at the cruelty that some humans inflict on others. As people of faith, we lift many prayers to God about these matters. And yet little seems to change. Progress at best seems to be at a snail’s pace, or worse going totally in reverse.
Indeed, to use the words of Dickens, it does often feel like we are living in the worst of times, in an age of foolishness, in a season of darkness and a winter of despair. It’s helpful to have Candlemas at the beginning of February, a feast which emerged from the earlier Celtic celebration of St Brigid and the return of the light. About halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, we rejoice that the days are brightening and that once again creator God reveals the season of light that comes after the season of darkness.
However, it’s questionable whether we can always correctly distinguish between light and darkness, or even wisdom and foolishness, since many of us have experienced surprising reversals or opposite outcomes to what we expected.
The old Taoist story about a Chinese farmer is helpful here: when the farmer’s only horse runs away, his neighbours say, Oh, that’s bad luck. But the farmer says maybe. Soon after, the horse returns along with a few wild horses. Then, his son tries to ride one of the wild horses, but he is thrown off and injured, including a broken leg. Again, his neighbours commiserate with the farmer about his bad luck, and the farmer says maybe. Soon after that, the king’s soldiers come to the village to recruit all able-bodied young men for a war, but they reject the farmer’s son because of his injuries.
So, the “bad luck” events all ended up with good outcomes; and the same may be true for us as we observe or experience seemingly negative things that may be thresholds between the past and a future with surprising possibilities. The terms bad and good might be too binary. Surely many things happen in our lives that are somewhere in-between, precisely where Holy Spirit wisdom often operates. May we make room for her surprising ways.
