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Tuesday, June 24, 2003
On the train return journey from Saint Ursanne to Lausanne : a swealtering heat in a crowded compartment, trying to find a seat among people more or less welcoming… I asked if could sit where a place seemed free : two men said « yes »… snow white hair, light skin, rather aged one would say : that’s me. Pitch black curly hair, copperlike skin and around thirty : that’s them. Their language : arab. I took the Monde diplomatique, read, tried to grasp the state of our fragile beloved planet… and its people. They chatted away very quietly. Now and then from the corner of our eyes, a split second gaze encounter. Shy. That was all until 
one of them went to the bar and brought back sprite and peanuts in a paperbag. Lo and behold : oh ! so gently, with infinite respect, the older man pushed a half filled plastic glass of bubbling, sparkling lemonade towards me… « Oh ! thank you » said I … and drank… the rest of the journey was far too short for us to share « who we are, where we come from, where we go to, what we do… life and living ! » I come a bit from anywhere in the world : Clos-du-Doubs, Southern Africa, German Switzerland, Romandie… I am a Sister and I am in love with Jesus and people. They come from the Middle East, Saoudi Arabia, they are here to work, they’ll go back home, the older man to his two wives and four children, the younger man to one wife and two little girls… He offered me one, two, three peanuts… 
which I gratefully took and ate. We were brothers and sister just for a few miles of a long long road… building networks of human awareness… Saturday, June 21, 2003
Singing in Lausanne Today, Lausanne celebrates MUSIC ! The soul of Lausanne is musical, it whispers, vibrates, roars and thunders with the moods of the sky, waters, earth and vineyeards… it sings alleluia at dawn and loving lullaby at dusk… Lausanne’s heartbeat keeps the rythm, sometimes wildly, sometimes peacefully… 
«More than 1 400 musicians, present in 30 public places, they will contribute to the feast… in the open, in halls, churches, clubs and restaurants, on Saturday, 21st June » (So said the press communiqué of May 22nd) See them sing at the Saint-Laurent Square, the FA7 jazz and Gospel choir ! hear them and sing along the Negro Spirituals : Oh ! what a beautiful Day… how good is it to praise Jesus’ name… there is one more river to cross… the walls of Jericho come tumbling down… and Oh ! Jesus in the morning, Jesus in the evening, at noon and at midnight and in every heart including yours and mine… Seven years old toddlers sing their children songs waving and swinging and clapping hands and feet… Old people sing songs of their youth… like a wishful dream to come… a better world… no longer wars and no more weapons… but ploushares, yes, and golden wheat and rising bread for all… Brassbands play in the Place de l’Europe and how warm profound and tender and copperlike it sounds… A variety of instruments, a wealth of talents, an overwhelming enthusiasm, people happy to come together, to stay, play and sing together… creating peaceful harmony… Said a man standing next to me : « what’s happening here goes to prove that we can do something better than fight and make wars» 
Wednesday, June 11, 2003
« Katutura » Just a twinkle… a friendly question… « Debate Weblog Your opinion is expected » Katutura exists since November 2002 it’s a beginner’s loving effort to communicate, to share ideas, visions, dreams and harsh realities often, in the light of Jesus’ Words Visitors came and visitors went just to get a look…and how good it is! Yet, creative criticisms are so welcome… and needed... tell us if you want to, what you think of it all about the shape and the presentation about the content thanks ever so much ! 
Retreat : as from 12th to 19th June 2003 Dearest friends of Katutura, during eight days of silence, you will be deep in my heart, together with all the our beloved Planet’s dwellers… as I shall be wrestling with our beloved Yeshua, asking : what is the meaning of life ? 
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace and a time to refrain, a time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a time for war and a time for peace. What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men ; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. —Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, NIV 
Tuesday, June 10, 2003
The Spirit of Jesus is alive in us José Comblin says : « the Spirit living in us has nothing to do with exceptional, noisy, tumultuous happenings… it is, rather, a constant continuous flow of Life (living Waters) every day of our lives… it is peaceful and permanent, it is tangible ‘He dwells in us’ (1Jn 3 :24) » 
Often, we are not aware of his loving presence because he has become so naturally integrated in our soul… in our very being… as we are unaware of our heartbeat, of our breathing… He is, nevertheless, the driving force, helping us to «trace a path as we keep walking ! » Monday, June 09, 2003
The Holy Spirit The Spirit of Jesus lives in us. We celebrate that fact on Pentecost Day. I am helped and inspired by: José Comblin. The Holy Spirit and Liberation. Translated by Paul Burns. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1989. The original title is : O Espirito Santo e a Libertação (Editora Vozes Ltda, 1987, Brésil) 
With my limitations, I translate from the French. Just a thought (with love for you): "When our actions are geared towards the building of a new society, therein, we make the experience of the Holy Spirit… This experience includes sufferings and persecutions like the first courageous groups of Jesus’s followers made !" This experience is a source of Joy and Energy ! 
Saturday, June 07, 2003
PENTECOST EVE The friend, inspirator, beloved leader, executed like a vulgar criminal… that was more than enough for his unsophisticated followers to feel lost, despondent… true, there had been the empty tomb and Yeshua’s appearances here and there… true, there had been his revealing disappearance, veiled in foggy, cloudy emotion and dismay… obscuring his passion filled farewell words : « Now, please, go! Don’t stay put ! Go ! cut across all barriers and barricades, deserts and seas, cultural and mental walls and fears, oh ! right across systems threats, facing the goliaths with GOOD NEWS pebbles in your youthful hands… go ! It is urgent. Prisoners all : the hungry, thirsty, naked, landless, homeless, wordless… :Go ! Proclaim my WORD : MAN IS BORN FREE ! my Spirit is their power, their feebleness wholly mine… daring, loving, weeping, dying and daily rising … be who I am ! Even beyond the world’s limits… Born Free : the planet; born to be free : beloved people ! 
« God’s Spirit is in my heart, he has called me and set me apart this is what I have to do, what I have to do : He sent me to preach the good news to the poor tell prisoners that they are prisoners no more tell blind people that they can see and set the downtrodden free and go tell everyone the news that the Kingdom of God has come and go tell everyone the news that God’s kingdom has come ! 
Tuesday, June 03, 2003
The eyes of our swiss media have been focused on the protests at the G8, Evian, protests mainly in Lausanne and in Geneva … the media were frantically busy… For the of anti-globalisation demonstrators, it would seem that the newspapers are on the side of the Powers that be ! 
The protesters are demonised, criminalised, in advance : thousands of Police are on foot, to protect the mighty and threaten the lowly… «Yet from the ranks of the « lowly street protesters », a rising polical generation is emerging, so writes the journalist Pierre Kolb in today’s Fribourg daily «La Liberté ». The young, many of them graduates between 20-30, are keenly aware of today’s social fragility, which they refuse to associate with fatality… there lies the motivation for protesting, namely, to denounce wealth and arrogance diplomacy, to propose world wide fraternity. There is the « raison d’être » and the meaning of the anti globalisation movement… » 
Sunday 1st June 2003 (I apologize: this entry was put in the French section of Katutura, on 1st June, today, 3rd June, I hasten to put it where it belongs!) The Gap The gaping gap between those arriving at Geneva airport picked up in an helicopter and flown over to Evian and the thousands crawling along the angry streets of Lausanne, driven by the burning desire to create peace among peoples and peace on earth … the gaping gap between the peace-filled souls of thousands of protesters and the few hundreds blind, armed, ignorant and violent gate crashers… poor, ignorants kids for whom I pray… The gap between faith and reality… It seems to me : there is nothing new under the sad sky nothing new were it not for Jesus who stands between the gap’s shores, arms extended and hands offered… When you’re down and out, When you’re on the street. When evening falls so hard, I will comfort you. I’ll take your heart, when darkness comes, And pain is all around, (Paul Simon) 
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