Why good wishes resonate across cultures

Hmm… and where did you get that idea from?

Rahil Patel

Rahil is a former Hindu monk, and author of Found By Love. He is a Tutor and Speaker at the Oxford Centre for Christian Apologetics.

Scrabble letters read 'Happy New Year' against a red starry background.

Country house gallery Compton Verney is currently hosting a delightful exhibition by British Indian artist Chila Kumari. It’s a colorful collision of worlds: neon-bright Hindu deities paired with ice cream trucks and cakes—a nostalgic nod to her father’s business during her early years in North England. Chila has captured the balance of her East-West upbringing beautifully.

But what really stopped me in my tracks was the theme of the exhibition: “Love and Truth.” Hmm, I thought. Isn’t that a very Christian theme? Hinduism, as intricate and philosophical as it is, doesn’t traditionally frame life around “truth” or “love” the way Christianity does. And yet, it’s possible that my Hindu friends and family subconsciously desire or even pursue these ideals without fully realizing it.

Surely, on January 1st, my lovely Hindu relatives will send me cheerful WhatsApp messages: “Happy New Year! Hope it’s a good one!” Naturally, I’ll reply with warm wishes of my own. But a thought will linger: haven’t they already celebrated their New Year?

The Hindu calendar, Vikram Samvat, is lunar and runs 52 years ahead of the Gregorian calendar. For most Hindus, the New Year is ushered in during Diwali, celebrated with food, lights, and fireworks. Sikhs, too, celebrate their New Year in March according to the Nanakshahi calendar. And yet, when January 1st rolls around, I’ll find myself in a sea of “hope” and “joy” messages from friends and relatives of different faiths.

Here’s where the question emerges: where did this idea of hope and joy come from? They aren’t central concepts in Hinduism, Sikhism, Jainism, or even Buddhism—not in the way Christians understand them. A friend once told me that biblical hope is “the joyful anticipation of something good.” Author Clare Gilbert described it as being “optimistic even when the heart is broken.” Similarly, Christian joy is not tied to external circumstances. It’s a steady, enduring truth that can coexist with suffering.

And yet, these words—hope and joy—are shared freely by people whose traditions don’t teach them explicitly. Why? I’m not asking anyone to stop, of course! It’s beautiful to see these blessings exchanged. But it does make me wonder: why wish someone something that isn’t foundational in your own worldview? Could it be that these words point to a deeper, unspoken longing?

Consider this: New Delhi-based journalist Garima Garg offers a fascinating anecdote in her foreword to Anthony Stone’s, Hindu Astrology: Myths, Symbols and Reality. Dr. Stone, a Christian with a PhD in theoretical physics from Oxford, went on to study Sanskrit and astrology in India. In her foreword, Garg recalls how, on the day Queen Elizabeth II died, a “comet-like orb” streaked across the sky.

Skeptics, she writes, might dismiss this as space debris or SpaceX satellites. But for believers in astrology, timing matters. A celestial event, aligned with a moment of historical significance, sparks excitement and anticipation. It’s a moment of watchful waiting, a belief that something extraordinary is happening—or is about to happen.

Sound familiar? That feeling of anticipation, of longing for something good, mirrors what Christians call hope. It’s not tethered to what we can see but rests on the unseen. Even in astrology, in its focus on aligning stars and planets, there’s an echo of this universal yearning—a desire for the extraordinary to touch the ordinary, for the unseen to become visible.

This brings me back to the heart of my reflection. Hope and joy, as the Bible presents them, are not mere words but living truths. Hope is a confident expectation of good because of God’s promises. Joy is the assurance of His presence, even in pain. Could it be that cultures and faiths that don’t explicitly teach these concepts are still reaching for them? Could the universal desire for something extraordinary be pointing to Christ?

I wonder if this is why themes like “Love and Truth” resonate so deeply, even in a Hindu-inspired art exhibition. They’re not just abstract ideas; they’re foundational to the human heart.

To be clear, I’m not criticizing anyone for sharing hope or joy. Quite the opposite—I think it’s wonderful. What I am asking is whether this sharing hints at something unspoken. Could these lovely cultures and faiths, in their pursuit of meaning, be reaching for the very hope and joy that Christ offers?

After all, Christianity teaches that God has 'set eternity in the human heart'. If that’s true, then it makes sense that people of all cultures would yearn for love, truth, hope, and joy, even if they don’t fully understand why. These aren’t just Christian concepts—they’re universal signposts pointing us toward God.

So next time someone wishes me a “joyous New Year” or sends a message of hope, I’ll smile and reply with warmth. But I’ll also ponder, quietly: where did that idea come from? Perhaps, without realizing it, they’re expressing the deepest longing of the human heart—a longing that Christ can fulfill.

Join with us - Behind the Seen

Seen & Unseen is free for everyone and is made possible through the generosity of our amazing community of supporters.

If you’re enjoying Seen & Unseen, would you consider making a gift towards our work?

Alongside other benefits (book discounts etc.), you’ll receive an extra fortnightly email from me sharing what I’m reading and my reflections on the ideas that are shaping our times.

Graham Tomlin

Editor-in-Chief

Join us

Review

Books

Culture

Ethics

Film & TV

8 November 2024

4 min read

Small Things Like These: putting the spotlight on backstage goodness

What it means for a film to be good.

Kevin Hargaden

Kevin is a social theologian studying ethics and economics.

The gaunt face of a dishevelled man stares into the distance

A ‘stellar’ Cillian Murphy plays Bill Furlong.

Lionsgate.

Small Things Like These is a novella by the Irish writer Claire Keegan. Published in 2021, it compresses a remarkable story into 128 pages. Acclaimed widely by critics and readers, it follows Bill Furlong, a fuel merchant living in the small County Wexford town of New Ross in 1986, as Christmas approaches. While delivering coal to the local convent, Bill makes an alarming discovery. Memories of his childhood begin to press in on him and he finds himself in an existential crisis.

Like her previous (very short) work, Foster, Small Things Like These is an understated book with a searing moral clarity. And just as Foster was adapted for the screen – in the astonishing Irish-language film The Quiet Girl – a movie version of Small Things Like These is now likely showing at a cinema near you.

The movie is built around a stellar performance from Cillian Murphy. It would be criminal if his name is not featured among the shortlists when awards season comes round. Many of the film’s most arresting scenes feature close-ups of his face as Bill wrestles with the implications of his discovery and the phantoms of his past. The effect is that the film serves as an almost literal portrait of what it means to be a decent person.

The story begins with Bill making a delivery to the convent. He sees a mother drop off her screaming daughter to the back door, where she is met and manhandled inside by a nun. The teenager protests passionately, but to no avail. The viewer understands that this girl has “fallen pregnant”, to use the Hiberno-English idiom that was so common in the twentieth century. She has been dispatched by her family to this institution to serve out the months of pregnancy and to remove any shame or taint from their reputation. Bill watches as the girl shouts out for her father, who is entirely absent.

And, after a tense interaction with an aggressive nun, he goes home to his five girls and his wife, clearly shaken.

A few days later, unable to sleep, haunted by memories of his own childhood being raised by a single mother, with an absent father, relying on the kindness of a wealthy local landowner, he begins his deliveries before dawn. As he deposits peat briquettes in the coal shed of the convent, he discovers a teenaged girl abandoned in the corner of the tiny, filthy room. She is in deep distress and Bill responds instinctively, wrapping his coat around her shoulders and bringing her inside to the convent.

While the existence of Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes were not a secret in twentieth century Ireland, the exact details of their operations were not widely understood. With these two encounters, so close together, and his own personal biography as the son of a woman who was subject to exactly the same marginalising dynamics, Bill can no longer be satisfied to turn a blind eye to the oppression and alienation endured by those sent for reformation.

It evokes the ways in which all such systems of oppression are socially constructed and maintained. Otherwise, good people learn to look the other way.

The film gathers momentum as Bill is forced to confront the way his mother had been treated for “falling pregnant” and the reality experienced by girls the same age as his daughters who were in a similar situation. In the midst of his existential angst, he finds little solace in the no-nonsense pragmatism of his wife who reminds him “there are things you have to ignore” to get on in life. He is taken aside by his local publican, a woman who has similarly scrabbled up from humble origins to establish a thriving business and cautioned to not make trouble for the nuns since “their fingers are in every pie in the town”.

I will refrain from fully revealing every detail of the film’s plot. But this element of the screenplay – where Claire Keegan along with Enda Walsh – draw out the sense in which the oppressive ecclesial institutions were enabled and even sanctioned by the wider population is exceptionally well done. The film does not pull any punches on the evils that were committed in the name of churches in Ireland. Indeed, if anything, the presentation of the nuns veers too far towards caricatures of pure malevolence. But with surgical precision, it evokes the ways in which all such systems of oppression are socially constructed and maintained. Otherwise, good people learn to look the other way.

And that is the lasting significance of this film. Toni Morrison has spoken about how it can seem harder to write about goodness than evil. “Evil has a blockbuster audience; goodness lurks backstage.” In Small Things Like This, Claire Keegan introduces us to a hardworking small business owner who treats his staff well, a loving father who seeks to care for his wife, a man who lives down a back street of a provincial town in an overlooked part of a small island on the periphery of Europe. And in this very definitively backstage context, he is presented as heroic in his pursuit of the Good.

We all fancy ourselves to be the one person who would stand up and oppose systems of oppression if we ever found ourselves enmeshed in them. Cillian Murphy’s depiction of Bill Furlong whispers to us that we likely are enmeshed in just that way and are choosing not to notice. Small Things Like These is a heavy film that somehow liberates. It reminds us that there is, within each of us, this appetite for seeing the Good and bring brave enough to do it. It is worth your time far more than any competing blockbuster.