Glory of Nature....Desolation of Humanity!

All this beauty of the universe that we see about us came into being without human consultation ….

From here on the universe will never function that way again. Without the soaring birds, without the great forests, the free-flowing streams, the sight of the clouds by day, and the stars by night, we become impoverished in all that makes us human ….

The first thing to recognize in human-earth relationships is the Earth is primary and humans are derivative. Humans are for the perfection of the Earth rather than the Earth is here for the perfection of humans ….

The planet Earth or the universe is the ultimate and noblest perfection in things and everything in the universe is ultimately for the perfection of the universe. So humans give to the universe a consciousness of itself.

In fact, in a certain sense, humans are the way in which the universe creates itself, because the human can be defined as that being in whom the universe reflects on and celebrates itself in a special mode of conscious self-awareness.

So in this manner, the first thing to recognize is that humans must become integral with the Earth. This is a very new approach, to the Western world, who have been so transfixed with the glory of the human and with the rights of humans that they have missed the point as regards humans and their relationship with the Earth ….

We might summarize our present human situation by the simple statement: that … the glory of the human has become the desolation of the Earth and now the desolation of the Earth is becoming the destiny of the human.

From here on, the primary judgment of all human institutions, professions, programs and activities will be determined by the extent to which they inhibit, ignore, or foster a mutually-enhancing human-Earth relationship.

Thomas Berry

The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today

The Most Important Question You Can Ask Yourself Today

Everybody wants what feels good. Everyone wants to live a care-free, happy and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when you walk into the room.

Everybody wants that -- it's easy to want that.

If I ask you, "What do you want out of life?" and you say something like, "I want to be happy and have a great family and a job I like," it's so ubiquitous that it doesn't even mean anything.

Everyone wants that. So what's the point?

What's more interesting to me is what pain do you want? What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives end up.

Everybody wants to have an amazing job and financial independence -- but not everyone is willing to suffer through 60-hour work weeks, long commutes, obnoxious paperwork, to navigate arbitrary corporate hierarchies and the blasé confines of an infinite cubicle hell. People want to be rich without the risk, with the delayed gratification necessary to accumulate wealth.

Everybody wants to have great sex and an awesome relationship -- but not everyone is willing to go through the tough communication, the awkward silences, the hurt feelings and the emotional psychodrama to get there. And so they settle. They settle and wonder "What if?" for years and years and until the question morphs from "What if?" into "What for?" And when the lawyers go home and the alimony check is in the mail they say, "What was it all for?" If not for their lowered standards and expectations for themselves 20 years prior, then what for?

Because happiness requires struggle. You can only avoid pain for so long before it comes roaring back to life.

At the core of all human behavior, the good feelings we all want are more or less the same. Therefore what we get out of life is not determined by the good feelings we desire but by what bad feelings we're willing to sustain.

"Nothing good in life comes easy," we've been told that a hundred times before. The good things in life we accomplish are defined by where we enjoy the suffering, where we enjoy the struggle.

People want an amazing physique. But you don't end up with one unless you legitimately love the pain and physical stress that comes with living inside a gym for hour upon hour, unless you love calculating and calibrating the food you eat, planning your life out in tiny plate-sized portions.

People want to start their own business or become financially independent. But you don't end up a successful entrepreneur unless you find a way to love the risk, the uncertainty, the repeated failures, and working insane hours on something you have no idea whether will be successful or not. Some people are wired for that sort of pain, and those are the ones who succeed.

People want a boyfriend or girlfriend. But you don't end up attracting amazing people without loving the emotional turbulence that comes with weathering rejections, building the sexual tension that never gets released, and staring blankly at a phone that never rings. It's part of the game of love. You can't win if you don't play.

What determines your success is "What pain do you want to sustain?"

I wrote in an article last week that I've always loved the idea of being a surfer, yet I've never made consistent effort to surf regularly. Truth is: I don't enjoy the pain that comes with paddling until my arms go numb and having water shot up my nose repeatedly. It's not for me. The cost outweighs the benefit. And that's fine.

On the other hand, I am willing to live out of a suitcase for months on end, to stammer around in a foreign language for hours with people who speak no English to try and buy a cell phone, to get lost in new cities over and over and over again. Because that's the sort of pain and stress I enjoy sustaining. That's where my passion lies, not just in the pleasures, but in the stress and pain.

There's a lot of self development advice out there that says, "You've just got to want it enough!"

That's only partly true. Everybody wants something. And everybody wants something badly enough. They just aren't being honest with themselves about what they actually want that bad.

If you want the benefits of something in life, you have to also want the costs. If you want the six pack, you have to want the sweat, the soreness, the early mornings, and the hunger pangs. If you want the yacht, you have to also want the late nights, the risky business moves, and the possibility of pissing off a person or ten.

If you find yourself wanting something month after month, year after year, yet nothing happens and you never come any closer to it, then maybe what you actually want is a fantasy, an idealization, an image and a false promise. Maybe you don't actually want it at all.

So I ask you, "How are you willing to suffer?"

Because you have to choose something. You can't have a pain-free life. It can't all be roses and unicorns.

Choose how you are willing to suffer.

Because that's the hard question that matters. Pleasure is an easy question. And pretty much all of us have the same answer.

The more interesting question is the pain. What is the pain that you want to sustain?

Because that answer will actually get you somewhere. It's the question that can change your life. It's what makes me me and you you. It's what defines us and separates us and ultimately brings us together.

So what's it going to be?


Mark Manson
Entrepreneur, author and world traveler

Giving Birth and Spirituality

Childbearing is the ideal context within which to enrich spirituality. The purpose of this study was to generate themes regarding spirituality and religiosity among culturally diverse childbearing women….

The themes we identified in all of the reviewed data included childbirth as a time to grow closer to God, the use of religious beliefs and rituals as powerful coping mechanisms, and childbirth as a time to make religiosity more meaningful….

Several women were specific in their articulation that childbirth was a time of powerful connection to their God. For example, a Mormon woman described her birth experience in the following way:

The nurse had been so loud, like, “You can do it!”—cheering me on. And then right as she [the baby] was born, the nurse got quiet and the doctor got quiet and my husband got quiet. It felt honestly like a moment frozen, and the room was bright. It was one of those moments when the Spirit is there.

A Guatemalan mother shared a similar experience. She stated, “Giving birth I felt closer to God. I thank God for allowing me to have a baby. While the baby was in the womb, I realized how great God is”

Another Mormon woman expressed a heightened sense of holiness experienced during childbirth:

When the baby was born, I felt the Spirit of the Lord touch my heart, and I realized that this little innocent human soul came from my Heavenly Father. I felt so close to Him and thanked Him for the blessing I have of being a woman, of being able to assist in the creation of a child, and help him come from heaven to earth.

A Canadian Orthodox Jewish mother, for whom bearing a child was the highest mitzvah or good deed according to Rabbinical law, said, “You feel God’s presence most tangibly when you have gone through [childbirth]”. Similarly, according to the religion of Islam and its adherents (Muslims), life experiences prove the oneness (tawhid) of Allah, or God. The deep spirituality of women who espouse the Islamic faith make the birth experience sacred. For example, an Arabic Muslim woman expressed the sense that she was one with God during labor and birth:

During childbirth the woman is in the hands of God. Every night during my pregnancy I read from the Holy Qur’an to the child. When I was in labor I was reading a special paragraph from the Holy Qur’an about protection. The nurses were crying when they heard what I was reading. I felt like a miracle might happen—that there was something holy around me, protecting me, something beyond the ordinary, a feeling, a spirit about being part of God’s creation of a child.

A new Guatemalan mother also remarked on an almost tangible holiness:

[Giving birth] I felt closer to God. I thanked God for allowing me to have a baby. Well, I don’t say she [the baby] is mine but that He let me borrow her. While the baby was in my womb I realized how great God is. Only God watches over the children that are yet in the womb because only He could do that.

Although the sense of God’s presence and a feeling of closeness to God’s power was a reality for many women during childbirth, some of the women identified the spiritual dimensions of childbirth while not espousing a specific religious faith. While some of these women said birth was not spiritual per se, they associated their emotions with a sense of transcendence. For example, a Chinese woman said, “It really isn’t easy at all. Every mother experiences pain, but I do believe it is sacred”…

Childbirth and motherhood are ideal contexts in which to acknowledge the spiritual dimension of women’s lives. Birth narratives can provide insights into the connection between childbearing and spirituality….

The study’s results affirm … “Motherhood is a rich and widely ramified concept linked to biological birth, to culturally learned patterns of mothering and to expressions of … spiritual insights of human experience.” For many women who participated in our studies, childbirth was a sacred event.

Lynn Clark Callister and Inaam Khalaf

Enlarging our Hearts


Pope Francis travelled on Monday to the tiny Sicilian island of Lampedusa. He threw a wreath of flowers into the sea to remember the thousands of migrants who have died making the journey to Italy from Africa. He then met with several migrants, thanking them for their welcome. The highlight of the day was a Mass celebrated in the island’s sports stadium, which served as a reception centre for the thousands of people who fled the upheavals caused by the Arab Spring unrest in North Africa, as well as refugees from poverty and violence in other parts of Africa.

Pope Francis said he came to Lampedusa “today to pray, to make a gesture of closeness, but also to reawaken our consciences so that what happened would not be repeated.”

He began by greeting the islanders with the phrase “O’ scia’!” a word of greeting in their local dialect, and thanking them for the work they have done to provide assistance to the migrants who have found their way to Lampedusa, saying they offer “an example of solidarity.”

He also greeted Muslim migrants who are about to begin Ramadan.

“The Church is near to you in the search for a more dignified life for yourselves and for your families,” he said.

The Holy Father wore violet vestments during the Mass, calling it a “liturgy of repentance.”

“God asks each one of us: Where is the blood of your brother that cries out to me?,” Pope Francis said during his homily, quoting from the Genesis story of Cain and Abel. “Today no one in the world feels responsible for this; we have lost the sense of fraternal responsibility.”

“The culture of well-being, that makes us think of ourselves, that makes us insensitive to the cries of others, that makes us live in soap bubbles, that are beautiful but are nothing, are illusions of futility, of the transient, that brings indifference to others, that brings even the globalization of indifference,” he continued. “In this world of globalization we have fallen into a globalization of indifference. We are accustomed to the suffering of others, it doesn’t concern us, it’s none of our business.”…

“Herod sowed death in order to defend his own well-being, his own soap bubble,” said the Holy Father. “And this continues to repeat itself. Let us ask the Lord to wipe out [whatever attitude] of Herod remains in our hears; let us ask the Lord for the grace to weep over our indifference, to weep over the cruelty in the world, in ourselves, and even in those who anonymously make socio-economic decisions that open the way to tragedies like this.”

Pope Francis then asked for forgiveness: for the “indifference towards so many brothers and sisters … for those who are pleased with themselves, who are closed in on their own well-being in a way that leads to the anaesthesia of the heart, … for those who with their decisions at the global level have created situations that lead to these tragedies. Forgive us, Lord!”

It's time to start 'cleaning house' at the Vatican

Commentators, whether they be Catholic or not, have described Pope Francis’ trip to Brazil for World Youth Day as nothing less than a triumph.

But now back at the Vatican – where he has decided to spend the hot Roman summer without escaping to the hillside retreat of Castel Gandolfo as his predecessors did – the Argentine pontiff faces the real task that cardinals set before him when they elected him in the Sistine Chapel in March: reforming the Vatican, especially the Roman Curia, the Church's central administration.

In some quarters of the Church, especially those who are less instinctively sympathetic to Francis' focus on mercy and poverty rather than on doctrine and orthodoxy, people are becoming impatient.

“We also wanted someone with good managerial and leadership skills, and so far that hasn't been as obvious. It's a little bit of a surprise that he hasn't played his hand on that front yet,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York in a recent interview with the National Catholic Reporter.

The date to look out for will come in early October, when the cardinals' commission for Curia reform he appointed one month into his papacy will meet for the first time after months of preparatory work and private audiences with Francis.

But in recent days the pontiff has already given an indication as to what his approach will be when he finally gets round to 'cleaning house' at the Vatican.

What he seems mostly adverse to is clerics who dabble too imprudently with money – not just those who try to enrich themselves or just give the impression of doing so.

On Wednesday, Francis accepted the resignation of Slovenia's top two churchmen, the archbishops of Ljubljana and Maribor.

Slovenia is a small East European country that has flourished enormously after the breakup of Yugoslavia and its entry into the European Union.

It is a traditionally Catholic country as is its larger neighbor, Croatia. But Slovenia's church has suffered from a scandal that broke in 2010: Maribor archdiocese ventured into a series of hazardous economic ventures, including investing in a national TV channel that was notorious for its porn output.

The business ran up a loss of €800 million (US$1.05 billion) and when the hole started becoming too big to fill the Holy See had to step in.

Benedict XVI ordered the resignation of the previous Archbishop of Maribor but his successor and other Church leaders in Slovenia were found during further investigations to be responsible as well.

Maybe in old times the fact that a culprit had been found out would have been deemed sufficient, and the desire not to rock the boat and confuse the flock would have prevailed. Not with Francis, it seems.

Then there is the case of Cameroon’s Simon-Victor Tonyé Bakot, Archbishop of Yaoundé, the country's capital. The Vatican, as usual, did not give specific reasons for his early resignation.

But Vatican Radio reported, in its French edition, that “according to the Cameroonian press, Monsignor Bakot had been involved in several real estate deals.”

That Francis doesn't like the pomp and the honors traditionally attached to successful careers in the Church is by now a surprise to no one.

It seems that the pope won't content himself with overturning the scandal-ridden Vatican Bank – which is involved in an all-out attempt to show its transparency efforts are genuine.

It has even set up a public website for the first time, but Francis, on the return flight from Brazil, made it clear that all options are still on the table for him, including shutting the bank down completely.

Those bishops and clerics who have secured a somewhat cushy position for themselves in past years, on the other hand, are probably feeling a bit more uncomfortable these days.


Alessandro, Speciale, Vatican City
Vatican City

God of surprises

Were the angels surprised when the triune God sketched out plans for a universe he didn’t need? Surely they were – as surprised as when they saw the first bird take flight and the first humans blink their eyes; as surprised as when they watched God himself sew garments to cover the fallen humans’ shame.

God surprised Abraham with a promise, Sarah with a child and Moses as he knelt before a tree aglow with flame. All Israel walked in wide-eyed wonder as they followed the cloud and the fire, marched beside walls of water and fled to the new land.

God surprised Isaac with a wife, Jacob with a dream and Joshua with unlikely military victory. He surprised Samuel with a voice, Elijah with a whisper and Rahab with an unexpected legacy. God surprised David with kingship, Solomon with wisdom, Hezekiah with life and Isaiah with a vision.

And one day God surprised a teenage virgin with an angelic visitation.

The child born to that girl surprised the learned with his unusual knowledge of God. After coming of age and learning a trade, he surprised those around him by setting off on a mission. On that mission he surprised blind men by opening their eyes and demoniacs by casting their tormentors into swine. He surprised crippled women by straightening their backs and nervous wedding hosts by turning water into wine. He surprised the poor with his attention and children with his affection, the leprous with cleansing and sinners with restoration. It was a surprise to discover him as the Messiah—a Messiah carrying a towel and not a sword. It was a surprise when this Lord washed feet and called his subjects friends.

And this Messiah came into the world telling stories.
Surprising, beguiling, captivating stories.
Stories that shook awake hearts to see what they needed to see.

To shake the self-righteous from their arrogance he told a story about a good Samaritan. To shake the small hearted from their coldness he told a story of a father who throws a party for his repentant son. And to those about to reject him he tells a story about a vineyard owner who sends his Son to collect the harvest, only to have that Son killed by the vineyard’s tenants.

‘How do you make fresh what is thought to be familiar,’ Rowan Williams asks in The Lion’s World, ‘so familiar that it doesn’t need to be thought about?’ How do you get the attention of a world that thinks it knows what Jesus is all about, when it is often only familiar with misconceptions?

You do what Jesus did – you tell stories.
Surprising, beguiling, captivating stories.
Perhaps even stories with a sting in their tail.

In telling of the vineyard’s murderous tenants Jesus sought to shake awake the Pharisees who, blinded by their own misconceptions of the Messiah, would crucify him to protect their own interests. By killing him, the Son, the Pharisees were sealing their own doom. They would trip over the very stone they cast away.

In telling his Narnia stories C.S. Lewis sought to shake awake a less murderous, more indifferent world to the Christ they thought they knew but didn’t. Would they see the Jesus they had cast aside afresh in Aslan? Would they see him as the dangerous-but-good saviour he really is?

The need is no less today – perhaps it’s even greater.

To shake an indifferent world out of its misconceptions of Jesus.

To show that world that Jesus isn’t the distant, otherworldly figure reflected in some of our cathedral artworks, the revolutionary able to be shoe-horned into a favourite political cause, or the happy hipster depicted in those tacky plastic figurines.

No, this is a Jesus who loves lavishly and pronounces judgment. One to be reckoned with, not casually put aside. One who is dangerous but good.

May today’s artists and storytellers speak of him afresh.

This God of surprises who explodes all our misconceptions.

Sheridan Voysey

Christian Hospitality

In the Christian tradition hospitality reflects God’s hospitality to human beings. The Old Testament emphasis on hospitality to strangers is rooted in God’=s welcome to the Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt. In the New Testament hospitality is made more radical. It applies to our enemies as well. We are to walk the extra mile, to offer our suit when asked for our shirt, to treat our enemies as we would our friends.

This deepening of hospitality reflects a change of focus from the one who offers hospitality to the one who asks for it. In the Christmas story, God does not simply offer hospitality to us, but seeks hospitality from us. As the carols tell us, the Son of God comes as a baby needing shelter and food, totally dependent on others. In asking for hospitality, God enables us to accept it ourselves.

Jesus also reverses the usual pattern of hospitality when he sends out his disciples to preach the Gospel without money, spare clothing or food. They have no option but to seek hospitality from the people to whom they preach. Those who offer them hospitality will be more likely to listen favourably to God’s word.

To ask for hospitality from strangers, of course, leaves you naked before the calculating. They can ignore your need and use you to send signals to others. But that is also written into the Gospel story. One of the most poignant stories is of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem because the city did not offer hospitality to God’s word.

The practice of hospitality is central in the Christian tradition. The unity of the early church was cemented by a network of hospitality. Christian preachers travelled, were welcomed, shared their insights into the Gospel, and moved on. Later the churches became known for the welcome they gave to strangers and refugees who were repelled by civil institutions.

As the rulers of the Empire became Christian, monasteries became places of hospitality, churches places of sanctuary, and hospitals developed out of the guest-houses that sprouted along the pilgrim routes….

The nature of God can well be described as hospitality. The metaphor picks up the energy, mutuality and unity in diversity which any Christian understanding of God as Trinity must track. It also suggests how creation may be both a free and a natural expression of God’s nature, and that the world, and particularly human creation, images the hospitality of God.

The relationship between human destiny, human moral life, human sin and restoration is also illuminated by the metaphor of hospitality. The nature of hospitality is to respect the otherness of both guest and host. It leads naturally to acceptance of God’s invitation to enjoy God’s life. Sin, as the refusal of hospitality, both distorts personal and structural relationships within the world, and makes it impossible to accept God’s invitation.

Within this theology, it is natural to describe Jesus Christ as hospitality incarnate and, in Irenaean terms, as the natural climax of creation. In him, the Son of God journeys to a far country to seek and offer hospitality. In Jesus Christ God’s invitation is definitively offered to and accepted by humanity.

In Jesus Christ, too, hospitality is expressed in the political and personal relationships of a human life. The Lucan account of the woman at Simon’s house is emblematic. Here the woman who welcomes Jesus as guest, against all the practices which govern political and religious life, finds God as host. As will be the case definitively in the resurrection, the hospitality of God proves victorious over the logic and power of the structures of inhospitality.

The Church is the sacrament of hospitality firstly in the sense that it is the community of disciples who have found a hospitable God in Jesus Christ, and whom the Spirit leads to go out to find hospitality for the Word of God among the poor. Secondly, the Church rep- resents the world transformed by hospitality; she proclaims the transformed world, awaits it, and although in maimed ways, struggles to represent it in her own life.

Finally, the Church is gathered in the eucharist, the sacrament of Gods hospitality. There Christ is welcomed by the disciples who are invited to share God’s hospitality. Furthermore, the cost of hospitality is enacted in the memorial of the Last Supper and passion, in which the disciples of Christ commit themselves to follow the hospitality of Jesus.

Andrew Hamilton

The Will Of God

God does not directly send pain, suffering and disease. God does not punish us, at least not in this life. I hold this confidently because in 1 John 1:5 we are told that, ‘God is light, in him there is no darkness’ – so deadly and destructive things cannot be in the nature of and actions of God. Secondly, whatever we make of the varied images of God in the Old Testament, in Jesus God is revealed as being about life not death, construction not destruction, forgiveness not retribution, healing not pain. There is a huge difference between God permitting evil and God perpetrating such acts on us. We need to stare down those who promote and support a theology that portrays God as a tyrant.

God does not send accidents to teach us things, though we can learn from them. We do not need to blame God directly for causing our suffering in order for us to turn it around and harness it for good. The human search for meaning is a powerful instinct but I think spiritual sanity rests in seeing that in every moment of every day, God does what he did on Good Friday: not allowing evil, death and destruction to have the last word, but ennobling humanity with an extraordinary resilience and, through the power of amazing grace, enabling us to make the most of even the worst situations and let light and life have the last word. Easter Sunday is God’s response to Good Friday: life out of death.

God does not will earthquakes, floods, droughts or other natural disasters: can we stop praying for rain please? If God is directly in charge of the climate, he seems to be a very poor meteorologist indeed. When people ask, ‘why did the earthquake and tsunami happen?’, I think it best if we just tell them the simple geophysical truth: ‘Because the earth shelf moved, setting off a big wave.’ Behind the meteorologist-in-the-sky idea is not the God and Father of Jesus Christ, but Zeus, and I think we have to be careful what we think petitionary prayer does. It cannot change our unchanging God (James 1), so it asks our unchanging God to change us to change the world.

God’s will is more in the big picture than in the small. I believe passionately in the will of God. It is just that I believe it is discovered on the larger canvass rather than in the details. I think God wants me to live out the theological virtues of faith, hope and love (1 Corinthians 13). Through the blessing of time and place, the gifts of nature and grace, I work with God to realise my potential in the greatest way possible, even if that involves having to do things that are difficult, demanding and sacrificial. This response is not out of fear and compulsion, but comes from love and desire. I think we should be very careful in talking about God’s will using lines like, ‘But for the grace of God, go I’. What about the poor person who was not so blessed? Did God not care about them?

God did not need the blood of Jesus. Jesus did not just come ‘to die’ but God used his death to announce the end to death. This is the domain of ‘offer it up’ theology: it was good enough for Jesus to suffer; it is good enough for you. While I am aware of St Paul in Romans, St Clement of Alexandria, St Anselm of Canterbury and later John Calvin’s work on atonement theory and satisfaction theology, I cannot baldly accept that the perfect God of love set up for a fall in the Fall, then got so angry with us that only the grisly death of his perfect son was going to repair the breach between us. This is not the only way into the mystery of Holy Week. For most of Christian history the question that has vexed many believers seems to be, ‘Why did Jesus die?’ I think it is the wrong question. The right one is ‘Why was Jesus killed?’ And that puts the last days of Jesus’ suffering and death in an entirely new perspective. Jesus did not simply and only come to die. Rather, Jesus came to live. As a result of the courageous and radical way he lived his life, and the saving love he embodied for all humanity, he threatened the political, social and religious authorities of his day so much that they executed him. But God had the last word on Good Friday: Easter Sunday.

God has created a world which is less than perfect, else it would be heaven, and in which suffering, disease and pain are realities. Some of these we now create for ourselves and blame God. I have lost count of the number of people who have said to me, ‘I cannot believe in a God who allows famines to happen.’ I think God wonders why we let famine happen. God is responsible for allowing a world to evolve within which the effects of moral and physical evil can create injustices. But God is not responsible because we refuse to make the hard choices that would see our world transformed into a more just and equal place for everyone. In the face of this obstinacy, it is not surprising that we find a divine scapegoat to carry the guilt for our lack of political will and social solidarity.

God does not kill us off. As Catholics, thank God, at least since the 1960s, we do not officially take the scriptures literally until we go near texts about God knowing the ‘hairs on our head’ and the ‘span of our days’ (Jer 1:5; Gal 1:15-16; Prov 16:33; and Matt 10:30). Then we become completely fundamentalist. When I go near a nursing home I am regularly asked, ‘Father, why won’t God take Grandma? To which I reply ‘Because Grandma won’t stop breathing yet.’ I do not actually say this. I have more pastoral sense than that, but I want to. The verb ‘take’ is so revealing of what we think is going on here. Why would God’s desire ‘to take’ a two year old to heaven be more than God’s desire ‘to leave’ this child in the arms of loving parents? In contrast to this, I think it is entirely appropriate to believe that life, from the womb to the nursing home, is not allotted a span, as such, by God, but that our body will live until it can no longer function, for whatever natural or accidental reason. God is not an active player in this process, but, again, has to take responsibility for making us mortal. Then, when our body dies, our soul or spirit begins its final journey home.

Some might think that the theology outlined here presents God as remote or aloof. I do not need to think that God has to be the direct cause of everything in my life to have a strong and lively belief in a personal God. Indeed, I am passionate about God’s personal love and presence. Thinking that God is removed from the intricate detail of how things develop does not remove God from the drama of our living, our suffering and dying. God waits patiently for an invitation to enter our lives at whatever level we want. Christ meets us where we are, embraces us and holds us close when the going gets tough, and helps us find the way forward, even and most especially, on that last day when we find the way home.

Richard Leonard

South Africa: Coming down the mountain

As Nelson Mandela remains in a critical condition in hospital, Rampe Hlobo SJ writes from South Africa to describe the mood of the nation. How has ‘Madiba’ led the people of South Africa through a uniquely transformative period in their history?

As the end of life approaches, one’s thoughts turn inevitably to what lies ahead and also to what has gone before, to the experiences that made that life what it was. It is not only the departing individual that ponders such things, but friends and foes of that person, too. This is what seems to be going on today in South Africa and beyond. The harsh reality that Nelson Mandela is rapidly approaching the end of his extraordinary life is beginning to hit home, and we have started looking back over the time during which we have been blessed with this incredible man.

The collective memory of February 1990 is particularly strong: the whole country came to a standstill to welcome this man back into our community, even though many of us did not know what he looked like as he had been kept from our sight for so long. Despite his unfamiliarity to so many, ‘Madiba’, his clan name by which he is fondly and popularly known, managed to lift the whole country, inspiring us and filling us with hope and vigour. Words will never be able to describe fully how he changed South Africa. It was as if he took all of us up a mountain so that we could have a transformative experience like that of Peter, James and John at the Transfiguration. Not only was it a comfort to have him released from prison and back in Soweto, it was also an extraordinary blessing to have him navigating South Africa through the troubled political waters of the 1990s. As a country we were hit by and traversed huge storms that could have pulled us into a dreadful civil war.

His influence was felt particularly in April 1993 after the assassination of Chris Hani. The popular leader of the South African Communist Party was assassinated on his driveway in front of his young daughter. This led to unprecedented violent protests that only Mandela could control or curb. He displayed excellent and magnanimous leadership, and had an authority that obliged both young and old to listen. Before, during and after his presidency, he made us feel proud of ourselves as a country. Despite our painful and divided past, South Africans experienced for the first time the apostle Peter’s sentiments at the top of that mountain: ‘Master, it is good for us to be here.’ (Luke 9:33)

It is now over 23 years since Mandela’s release and the beginning of our ascent up that mountain; it might sound like a long time, but it is remarkable to consider that this is still less than the amount of time he spent in prison. And in many ways the time has gone quickly, as we have felt glad to be here. Yet the recent news reports about Mandela’s health have revealed that we have all been in denial for some time now. We saw him during the closing ceremony of the 2010 FIFA World Cup looking frail and being driven around the stadium on a golf cart. We surely knew then that the elderly statesman was approaching the end, but because we immortalised him, we refused to accept it.

Our sadness now is exacerbated by many other factors that have little to do with Mandela himself. It is as if we are all part of a family whose patriarch is about to pass on; everyone becomes anxious and aware that we are now going to be left without the responsible adult who has led us for so long. The anticipated vacuum in his absence may not necessarily come to pass, but there is a sense that we are losing a moral beacon, and the uncertainty of a future without Mandela is unsettling. The incumbent political leadership offers little hope or consolation because many have been behaving like the elder brothers in a family who, as soon as the patriarch hits the twilight of his life, begin to misbehave and neglect the wider family and the younger siblings. I am sure that creates anxiety for the departing patriarch as well.

Now with heavy hearts we have begun our descent from the mountain and the feeling is unbelievably sad. The challenge for South Africans, just as it was for the apostles, is to make sense of the spiritual experience that we have lived through and nurture the hope that it has kindled in us.


Rampe Hlobo SJ is the Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in South Africa.

Looking for True Friends? (Opinion)

Building strong relationships with people is one way that can make you
successful in life, career, family or business. For instance; role models,
mentors, motivators, financiers etc. Nothing incredible is accomplished
alone. Therefore, developing good relationship skills with people is key to
success of a person's life.

*You need others to help you, and you need to help others. With the right
team, you can form a web of connections to make the seemingly impossible
practically inevitable. However, there are people among your friends,
family, colleagues or relatives who you should either stay away from (if
you can achieve it) or have to properly manage for you to achieve any
progress in life.

I came across this article on "Friends who bring you down" and thought
it is wise to share it with you.

As a young boy, I used to watch, with a mixture of terror and fascination,
as mongooses killed and ate our chicken. Our homestead was surrounded by
thick bushes which provided a home to the menace that is the mongoose. They
mostly predate on chicks, and terrorized our brood daily.

There is a particular breed that kills its prey through suffocation. It
is bigger and heavier than the typical mongoose and has a terrifying way of
luring chicken to their death. It selects a bush that will provide
excellent cover for its upper body, leaving just its rear end jutting out.
Its anal opening has a rough surface that looks like millet. When it
relaxes its muscles, it spreads quite generously and, from a distance,
looks like millet spread on the ground.

So here is what happens: a chicken searching and scratching the ground for
food notices this ear of millet in the bush. It happily runs towards it and
begins pecking on the free food. One peck, two pecks and suddenly, the trap
springs shut! This peculiar predator traps the poor chicken’s head and
suffocates it, the cries of the prey effectively choked.

Often, we run into people who behave exactly like the mongoose. Realizing
their inability to compete with the rest of the world, they set traps,
attractive traps, for unsuspecting victims.

Such “friends” often lure their prey with deceptive smiles and tales, spun
with dexterous mastery. Unfortunately, by the time we realize that they are
out to take advantage of us, it is too late to avoid the disappointment
that follows. Even when we spot the schemes directed our way, we often fail
to respond effectively as the situation requires, therefore creating the
perfect recipe for the suffocation that ensues.

These types of friends can be found everywhere. There is the colleague
who deliberately makes you look bad in your employer’s eyes to get that
coveted promotion.

There is the jealous neighbor with low self-esteem who makes a habit of
feeding other neighbors with malicious gossip about you so that you can be
as miserable as they are.

It could also be that supposedly best friend who has no qualms about making
sexual advances on your husband or saying false things about you to your
boyfriend so that she can break up your relationship.

There is no easy way of telling true friends from the false ones*. It is
this that allows the mongoose friend to get away with his or her treachery.
They hide and blend so well with the crowd that it is impossible to spot
them.

When it comes to friendship, more is not necessarily merrier. In fact, the
lesser friends you have, the easier it is for you to gauge their character
and make an accurate judgment about the kind of people they are.

Another way to sift genuine friends from false ones, a way that is just as
easy to administer as the traps set by mongoose-like friends, involves
treading carefully.

While it can be difficult to identify the threat before it does real harm,
the signs manifest themselves as loudly as we allow them to.
The first thing you should do is verify before you trust. Take time to know
potential friends before you trust them with your friendship.

The second is to compare their values to yours. What is it that you hold
dear? Is it family, work, friendship, or all three?

If their values are different from yours, then their friendship is not the
kind you want.
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