Theology of Hope: Where It All Began

In August 1969, I signed a contract with the publisher Paulist Press for my 1965 book “Theology of Hope”. For seven months I was was updating that book after the personal and life-changing revolutionary years between versions. After writing the first book at 35, I finished my last year at Ohio State and my last year of making GRAIL art reproductions and catalog for national sale. I then had the privilege of being part of an international team to help develop a girls artistic embroidery cooperative in Akhmim, Egypt. In the middle of the June 1967 six day war, I was suddenly evacuated. I ended up for two amazing years in Paris during the revolutionary days, when Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy were killed. Everyone was speaking about revolution from U.S. college campuses to French workers. 

I heard about artists in sleeping bags, occupying the great hall in Belgium’s major museum, Palais des Beaux Arts, This was a new one – artists occupying!  I went, taking the short train ride to Brussels. There with masterpieces hanging all over, I remember asking a young occupier, “Do you think bringing down the whole old order will change things for the better?” He raised his fist and said a vibrant, “Yes! “.

I put my mind to thinking about all this and what revolution means. What kind is good and not just a short lived reversal? I want change too!

Then one day in March 1970, after seven months of revision work on Theology of Hope, it seemed as if two caterpillars, later named Stripe and Yellow, crawled off the cover asking for their own story. That same day, nearly ninety percent of Hope For The Flowers was written, I worked right through lunch. It took two more years to convince the publisher, polish the story with many readers, and color separate the drawings by hand, pre-computer.

The image of the caterpillar’s radical change through the cocoon into a flying creature, became the natural metaphor for the revolution that really matters. You don’t ever get butterflies if you step on the caterpillars. It’s all love folks that will make the difference. It’s hope that inside the caterpillar is indeed what it takes for a butterfly to develop. 

Love the caterpillars if you want butterflies.

It’s such a relief that I don’t have to judge others, and can leave that to God, who has a much bigger scope than I do.