Peter Espeut | Choosing personal change

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom – Viktor Frankl

In my youth – you, readers, may have had a similar experience – I thought that I could change the world. I had a vision of a brave new world of peace and justice, of greater equity and equality, and I threw myself into it with a passion. After my degree in chemistry and zoology, I taught high-school science for five years, trying to give to others what I received in my five years at high school.

Under the auspices of a Catholic development agency, I worked in the canefields of Frome, Monymusk and Bernard Lodge helping to form and strengthen the sugar workers co-operatives. Later, I worked with small farmers in Portland, organising a production and marketing co-operative.

With that experience, I read for master’s degrees in development studies and rural development, and worked with fishers and vendors in St Catherine and Clarendon towards sustainable fishing practices, and management of their fisheries.

Looking back at my life, great things were achieved; but then again, not much. What I was doing was fraught with contradictions: when you try to build human capital and positive human institutions, those in power are threatened, and do their best to tear you down, and negate your work.

Seaga’s Jamaica Labour Party government cancelled the sugar workers’ co-operatives, and P.J. Patterson’s People’s National Party government frustrated the work in the Portland Bight Protected Area. They may wear different colours, but they are of the same stripe.

In Lent and the Easter season, we reflect on the human predicament, and realise that reality has a cruciform pattern. Jesus was killed in a collision of cross-purposes, conflicting interests, and half-truths, caught between the demands of an empire and the religious establishment of his day. Why should environmentalists and development scientists expect anything less?

REALITY IS NOT MEANINGLESS

In choosing the cross, Jesus demonstrated that reality is not meaningless and absurd, even if it isn’t always perfectly logical or consistent. Reality is filled with contradictions. In his divine-human persona – for some the ultimate contradiction – Jesus carried the mystery of universal suffering, and resolved it in wholeness.

We are indeed saved by the cross – more than we realise. The Gospel is simply the wisdom of those who agree to carry their part of the infinite suffering of God. They are the real agents of transformation, reconciliation, and newness. Solidarity with all of life is, in fact, the meaning of life.

Looking back on my time with young people in the classroom, with farmers and fishers, and fighting for the integrity of forests, mangroves, and coral reefs, has allowed me to draw close to the pain of the world. It has changed me. I no longer hope to change the world, but hope to make just a little better the lives of those with whom I come in contact.

For evil to succeed, it must disguise itself as good, which is apparently much easier to do than we imagine. We often do not see it until it is too late.

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never made up their minds to be or do either evil or good. But the resistance to evil begins with us as individuals. We humans cause monstrous conditions, and precisely because we cause them, we soon compromise, and learn to adapt ourselves to them. Only when we can no longer adapt ourselves, or if inside we rebel against every kind of evil, will we be able to put a stop to it.

As psychiatrist and holocaust survivor Viktor Frankel pointed out, everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way. The sort of person you become is the result of an inner decision.

Fundamentally, therefore, any person can decide what shall become of them – mentally and spiritually. They may retain their human dignity, even in a concentration camp. It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

The way in which a person takes up their cross gives them ample opportunity – even under the most difficult circumstances – to add a deeper meaning to their life.

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. And that will change the world!

The Rev Peter Espeut is a Roman Catholic deacon and is Dean of Studies at St. Michael’s Theological College. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com