Tiny Sign of Hope

“Tiny Sign of Hope”
Lent 2009 – Day 7 (Mar 4)

By Deshi Ramadhani, SJ

Talking about the child within? Well, let me tell you this. Beside my pillow, there are Nemo and Dory. Yes, I sleep with fish! My favorite scene in the movie "Finding Nemo" is when Marlin is in a deep crisis and wants to give up, believing that he will never find back his son Nemo. Dory, the blue fish with short-term memory problem, tries her best (you can hear the funny voice of Ellen DeGeneres here). This is my favorite line said by Dory to the frustrated Marlin: “…And-and I look at you, and I... I'm home! Please. I don't want that to go away. I don't want to forget…” Without knowing, Dory has been able to overcome her short-term memory problem simply by being with Marlin. For me this is a beautiful scene that shows how imperfect persons can go beyond the barrier in each one of them simply by sharing the slightest hope that still remains. For Dory, this tiny sign of hope is that as long as Marlin is around, she can remember certain things!

Jonah is not a perfect prophet at all. He ran away the first time he heard God’s call. The beauty in this story is that God doesn’t give up on Jonah. God tries again, and this time Jonah obeys. Not only that. That fragile prophet simply gives a warning: “Folks, only forty days left!” To his surprise, those words turn out to be powerful. All have to repent! (I can’t help thinking of those poor animals that suddenly have to fast!). Imagine the life in the city of Nineveh during those fasting days. Those days are filled with little story-telling here and there. Those days become special because they simply hold on to the tiny sign of hope that still remains. “Who knows, if we repent, God will not condemn us,” so they think. They aren’t even sure about what God would do to them. Here we see something very beautiful. Something, I believe, that God did on purpose in order to teach Jonah. Here we see how repentance becomes the only hope of life. The choice between persisting in sin and repenting from sin becomes the choice between death and life.

In the time of Jesus, people around Him seem to have lost their ability to see such tiny sign of hope. Repentance has become, so to speak, a cheap business. In the free market of life out there, the call to repentance doesn’t sell easily. In a sense, that is the situation in which we live today. How often we dream of a spectacular experience of repentance? Only “if” I hear that famous preacher, I will be touched deeply to repent. Only “if” I see a miracle in my brother’s life, I will repent. Only “if” God can really erase poverty from the face of the earth, I will repent. Only “if” there is a dramatic improvement in the stock market, I will certainly repent. The list can go on and on. Just think about the many “ifs” in your life. Or, simply think of all the “ifs” you have told yourself during these first days of Lent. You don’t need any more signs. The very fact that you are alive is a sign from God that you are still granted enough time to repent. It is the tiny sign of hope to which you should cling: repent!