Mother General

Superior General & Manager

Rev. Mother Mary Frances

 Message

Of Hope and Rainbow Drawings

Change often has a way of arriving unannounced. On March 11, 2020-a hundred and two years after the emergence of the Spanish Flu-the world woke up to the news that it was in the grip of another global pandemic. As the novel coronavirus claimed host after host in disease and death, loss and fear followed in its wake. Mathematicians shared statistical predictions of possible scenarios. Healthcare workers became frontline warriors. Governments drew up strategies for containment. Researchers kick-started trials for a silver bullet vaccine that would end the pandemic. As words like ‘lockdown’, ‘isolation’ and ‘social distancing’ sounded alarm bells around the world, the rhetoric of naysayers was that our world had changed forever. 

 

Overwhelmed by the glut of numbers, political narratives and gloomy pronouncements and sighing over every conceivable loss, many of us accepted the rhetoric of defeat and made it our own. Though history testifies that the human race has survived not one but numerous pandemics, these facts seem as unreal as ghosts of the past. As disbelief, despair and defeat swirled in the air, some chose to create a narrative of hope. As authorities clamped down on residents in Wuhan, homebound people opened their hearts and their windows to greet their neighbours. Singing and dancing, they called out to one another with cries of jiayou-stay strong, keep going. In Italy, the epicentre of the pandemic in Europe, people drew rainbows and did much the same, attesting to the resilience of the human spirit.

 

In these dark times, hope is not a foolish pipe dream. As loss and disruptions rip the curtains of our lives and tears in the fabric appear, one can choose to find hope in the space of uncertainty. As historian Rebecca Solnit rightly observed, this is an extraordinary time full of vital, transformative moments that could not be foreseen. It’s also a nightmarish time. Full engagement requires the ability to perceive both. Hope is an alertness to the new possibilities emerging in the cracks of a shifting system of change. It is also a readiness to work towards the uncertain day when these possibilities may be realised. 

 

The realisation of the need for a radical overhaul of All Saints’ College was felt well before the pandemic struck. It was reflected in a series of meetings, consultations and workshops that emphasised the role transformation could bring. None were aware of the slew of changes that lay round the corner. In June 2020, lectures in the campus shifted to blended and online modes and Google Meet, Google Classroom and YouTube became the virtual classrooms of our students. In July, Sr. Belinda Pereira was appointed Director of the College, another first for the institution. 

 

Change continues to ripple through the institution and the world through inlets and outlets, known and unknown. Though the pathways of the future remain hidden from us, hope can help us to seize the transformative moments that hold the key to a brighter future. Till the rainbow appears in the sky, we can be content with rainbow drawings-tennis matches on rooftops, home baking, DIY haircuts gone wrong, Amazon Prime Movies, work from home, lounge wear and scores of innovative ways we have adopted during the crisis. The greatest rainbow drawing, however, is nothing less than a drawing out of the inner resources of the spirit-that of the freedom to hope.

 

 

 

SR. MARY FRANCES CCR

MANAGER

ALL SAINTS' COLLEGE

 

 

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