Reflections On Hope, And Our Common Humanity

Speeches on a rainy day

Holly in my hat

On Saturday (21st December) I attended a peace vigil and gave a short speech about about hope from a pagan perspective. The quality of the video isn’t great so I’ll share a brief summary of the points I made.

Today is an opportunity for reflections on hope, and an assertion of our common humanity.

There's a phrase I which resonates with me:

“As above, so below. As within, so without.”

COMMON HUMANITY: "As within, so without."

Within: we shape ourselves to be good people. We work on humility, decency, charity, kindness, courage, and then use our inner strength to spread a message of peace and love outwards from our core.

As a Scottish Interfaith officer I work with and study other religions, looking for what we have in common. I think at heart most religions are about peace, and true adherents to that message are good people.

Religion used for hate and division is not religion, but an excuse.

We are all united here, whatever our faith, or none at all. We are united to oppose injustice. That's what common humanity is.

HOPE "As above, so below."

I'm a pagan, which is an ancient form of nature-based spirituality. That which is above us shapes our world. For example, the Sun leads to the change of seasons in a cycle (spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring), the Moon to the changing tides (two low and high tides every twenty-four hours). These are circles that repeat and mark out time. For pagans our life is part of that pattern, birth to childhood to maturity, to old age, to death, then rejoining the whole we came from. We honour the cycles of nature.

In the UK the most common pagan celebrations are tied to the cycle of the year, equinoxes (day and night have the same length) and solstices (the lengths of the day and night have the greatest difference). And one of the key parts of the cycle is the winter solstice, the longest night, the shortest day, the darkest point of the year. Today!

And it's important to us because it is a turning point. After this the sun returns, life pivots the other way. The festival of Yule is a message of hope, and looking forward to longer, brighter days: celebrating the return of the light. There will be rebirth and renewal. The holly, ivy, mistletoe, and evergreen wreaths are symbols of life’s resilience during winter’s harsh reign.

So being at the darkest point does not mean it will be that way forever. Let us hope that, as a species, we can return to the light, and learn to live at peace with one another and everything else we share this beautiful planet with.

As above, so below. As within, so without.

Peace to all.

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I was also asked to read out this poem by Mohammad Abu Oda:

It had been read out by Humza Yousaf at another event not long ago.

Mohammad Abu Oda