May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in the world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Part of a traditional Franciscan Blessing

At the moment it seems scarcely possible to turn on the television, open a newspaper or read the news on the internet without being faced with images of our neighbours, both near and far away, who bear the image of God’s face and yet are without food, shelter or the essentials of life.

It seems poignant, then, that by the time you read this it will be November, we will have entered a season of remembering and be approaching Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day. We will be remembering those events within our history that have shaped, and continue to shape our world, and the people who were and are still caught up in them. Men, women and children. People from all walks of life; of all nations and places; of all races and religions. We remember the millions of people whose lives can never be the same again as a result of conflict, and those who have lost their lives.

In the face of all this it can be difficult to know what to pray for. There is so much to think about that it can seem impossible to get our heads around. This Franciscan blessing asks God for foolishness: not the kind of foolishness that views the world through rose-tinted spectacles, but the sort that that recognizes oppression, injustice and cruelty and has the courage to speak out against it, believing that we can make a difference.

I’m reminded of the story of the young boy walking along the beach throwing beached starfish back into the water.

‘Why are you doing that?’ asks his friend. ‘There are thousands of them. It won’t make any difference.’

The boy reaches down for another starfish, turns to his friend and says ‘It makes a difference to this one.’

May God bless us all with that foolishness.