Movement 98

Hope Has Two Daughters
\ A /:li; i'il'J:i?J' H,l it"::::
Y U brick, a box of patchwork pieces
and a sign saying 'Fragile: do not stack'
have in common? They were each symbols
brought to a recent series of one-day
conversations exploring spirituality in an
urban context. So much talk about spirituality
gravitates towards an accepted belief
that it is a pursuit for the middle-classes.
often in a rural environment, as a top-up
(i.e an extravagant extra) to 'real' religious
endeavour. When pushed most of us
would probably acknowledge that our spirituality
is more akin to our understanding of
our sexuality: less a top-up pursuit, more a
'way' or a 'manner' in which we live our
lives.
Spirituality is a dimension to all that we
do. lt is a way of living close to the spirit,
the Holy Spirit perhaps, so that our whole
lives are orientated around that drive forwards
to new life. Spirituality is a concept
that can be understood by all world religions,
and by people who claim no allegiance
to any standard religious practice at
all. For the spirit is a force which moves
human beings on, beyond the here and
now to eternal goals. This is why it is
such a baffling concept to many who
maintain rigid adherence to institutional religion.
An open spirituality does not fit.
Wffi#**ilTi:.:mT
great tool to access information otherwise
not easily accessible. lt can also build
communities across borders and time zones.
The work of the United Nations
(http://www.un.org) and its associated
organisations (http://www.unsystem.org)
has been on the Web for a long time. lt is
a powerful information source for all who
are interested in the work of this institution
and it dispels many myths about it. lf you
care about Children, Education and Culture.
then UNESCO (http://www.unesco .org) is
for you. lf you are concerned about
Nuclear Energy'and its control, try the
lnternational Atomic Energy Agency
(http://www. iaea.co.at); even the infamous
lnternational Monetary Fund
(http://www.imf.org) and the World Bank
(http://www.worldbank.org) like to show
their own critiques of what they do.
The world of "governmental organisations"
has its equivalent in the huge number
of NGOs (non-governmental organisations).
More and more, the two realms
begin to depend upon each other as
respect and insight grow lndeed it is one
of the proposals for the reform of the UN
That is why it was so exciting to be
with small groups of people in six different
cities in Britain and lreland exploring what
spirituality in an urban context looks like.
ln Manchester, Birmingham, Sheffield,
H, spirituolity
Glasgow, Belfast and Dublin we had invited
up to 16 people to join us for a day of
'conversation'. There were no experts
other than the participants. Each of us
was asked to bring a symbol. a poem, a
song, a picture, an image: something that
represented for us spirituality in an urban
setting. So along with the brick and the
reJighting candle we also had a jar of
canal water, a statue made of coal of a
coal miner, a fossil that was 1.45 million
years old, three maps of the same area of
a city taken over a period of 10O years.
ln the afternoon we talked about the
places where we worked and the cries of
pain and of hope that come from those
contexts. Many of the cries of pain related
to isolatlon, loneliness, lack of belonging or
self-esteem and self-worth. The 'lack of
inner-connectedness','being forgotten',
the many'boarded up windows', 'the pain
of feeling of no worth, often heightened by
Building Virtual Communities
system, that the NGOs should get a
greater influence in the work. (More about
the reform at http://www.un.org/reform).
One of the main sites associated with
the NGO world is One World. Billed as "a
r'q
ruth horvev
soundings in
dirk griitzmochsr
thc @ colurnn
Hcommunity of over 150 leading global justice
organisations under one roof", it is an
impressive site which gives you links to
many "right on" organisation (in Britain and
beyond. Their partners directory
http://www.oneworld. org/partne rs/pa rtners
_list/index.html is an impressive list of
resources and information. Take Christian
Aid for example (http:/iwww.oneworld.org
/christian_aid) Their site provides campaigns,
briefing documents, reports, latest
news as well as all you need for your next
campaign. lf you ever were worried about
Censorship, the lndex on Censorship
(http ://www. oneworld. org/index_oc/)
should provide you with all the banned literature
you can lay your hands on. lt
comes as no surprise that "Third World
First" (http://www. oneworld.org/twf) as
well as Oxfam (http:/iwww.oxfam.org.uk)
movcfngnt e
institutions', 'the invisibility of poor and
black people', the fact that 'people have
stopped crying' were just some of the
cries of pain.
When we looked for words of wisdom
which come from the city we heard words
of hope: 'hope is not believing that what
you're doing changes things-hope is
believing that what you are doing matters',
and 'wisdom is the word made flesh-not
more words.'The phrase that will stay
with me is 'hope has two daughtersanger
and courage'. ln the face of social,
economic, institutional, emotional and
often physical deprivation the fact is that
many people maintain hope through anger
and courage. They have the feistiness to
be the candle that re-lights no matter how
many times it is blown out. Not all stories
of pain in the city end with the re-lit candle.
Yet the hope, anger and courage
expressed by so many people living lives of
social and ecclesiastical exclusion is
summed up for me in a red and white
candy striped re-lighting birthday cake candle.
Spirituality in the urban context. The
power and the courage to re-ignite faith in
the face of exclusion and despair. E
Ruth Harvey is the director of the CCBI
Ecumenical Spirituality Project, with offices
in Milton Keynes and Fenrith
are part of this Family. When I am looking
for news which come from different
sources, I look at OneWorld's Newsroom
(http://www. oneworld.org/news/today/
front.html), where news can also be
viewed by geographical location or theme.
lf you're looking for news from churches,
there is no way past ENl, Ecumenical
News lnternational (http://www.wcccoe.org/eni).
lts "Daily News Highlights"
are available free of charge in English in
Email form (you can subscribe online at the
site). ENI is part of the World Council of
Churches (http://www.wcc-coe.org) which
gives you insight into the work of this large
and important institution.
The World Wide Web is more than a
page three tabloid. lts main concern is
communication and the exchange of information
between people. lts creators originally
sought a "secure" channel of information
exchange in the doomsdays of the
cold war. Today it has become one of the
greatest channels for peaceful dialogue,
offering open interaction and information
for all people. E
Dirk Griitzmacher is co-maintaining several
SCM pages. More about him is available
on http://wwwed.ac.uk/ - dig