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Sunday, November 13, 2005
From one world to another Charles de Foucauld  Charles de Foucauld was my first love. As a little girl amongst other children on the farm, I listened carefully to mum and dad: they were speaking of Charles the soldier. The soldier, the student, then the Man who followed Jesus to the desert to live and love Him in the people living there. Like Francis of Assisi, the Little flower. Our own little brother Jean! Charles the Foucauld revealed Jesus to the people around him and thus it was that a little seed, sown in my heart grew and with it, the desire to be “a sister for all people” just as Charles was a “man for all people”. How pretentious a desire on my part, but it seems God, in His love, understood the greatness of the wish coupled with my littleness. He helps! Charles de Foucauld was born in Strasbourg on Septembre 15th 1858. He became an orphan when he was six years old and his maternal grand father raised him. He studied eagerly, he served in the french army, he drank a lot, spent money lavishly and played for a time with women. It reminds us of the little Francis of Assisi. Then he went to the desert. The passion with which some Muslims honored their faith forced Charles to reconsider his Christian heritage. Around 1888 he began to pray, "God, if you exist, make yourself known unto me." God answered his prayer. Soon, he loved Jesus passionately and said: "The more you love Jesus, the more you love people”.  But he never tried to “convert” people and, on one occasion he said: “It would make as much sense to start by preaching the news of Jesus to the Muslims here as it would for a Muslim preacher to go to a town in Brittany [a Catholic stronghold in France].” His life was a Good News to the people.  All his life he grew more and more as the “universal brother of all”, like Jesus. And on the evening of December 1, 1916, a fifteen-year-old boy left to guard him shot him in the head. That is one of the versions of his death! He had just written a final letter to his cousin, Marie: "Our annihilation is the most powerful means we have to unite ourselves to Jesus and to save souls ." Today the little Charles is being honoured by Church authorities. We rejoice. Yet we know, so many little people the world over love and honour him as their “brother and friend”. Wednesday, November 02, 2005
http://www.socialistworker.org/2005-2/564/564_09_RosaParks.shtml In loving memory of a soul Sister of so many little Sisters! (grateful thanks to Socialist Worker, Claire Marie) OBITUARY: "ROSA PARKS“ "A life history of being rebellious” By Brian Jones November 4, 2005 Page 9 AFTER MARTIN Luther King, Jr., the most widely recognized figure of the civil rights movement is Rosa Parks. Her famous act of defiance--refusing to give up her seat on an Alabama bus in 1955--and her subsequent arrest were the sparks that initiated the famous Montgomery bus boycott, the opening shot of activism in the war that smashed legal segregation.  Many have heard that Rosa Parks’ decision was simply the quiet rebellion of an old lady who was tired from working all day as a seamstress. Parks was a seamstress, but she was also a lifelong activist and organizer, not a “tired old lady” (she was only 42 at the time of her arrest!). Responding to the myth of her alleged tiredness, Parks said, “the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.” She married her husband, Raymond Parks, in part because he was the first activist she had ever met. In 1943, she became the second woman to join the Montgomery branch of the NAACP. As its unpaid secretary, she kept records on cases of discrimination and violence against Blacks. Parks received activist training from veteran activist Ella Baker, who stayed in Parks’ home during her trips to Montgomery, and spent a week at the Highlander Folk School, where she attended school desegregation workshops. Parks was also a member of the Montgomery Women’s Political Caucus, the organization whose initiative would later help set the Montgomery Bus Boycott in motion. Like most activists, Parks suffered years of frustration, failure and defeat before tasting victory. She worked with the NAACP’s Youth Council, encouraging young people to use the main public library, instead of just the ones set aside for Blacks. These efforts came to nothing. Likewise, her work recording discrimination in Montgomery was fraught with frustration--there was little that could be done for those who actually dared to come forward. At the Highlander conference, three months before Parks would make history on the Cleveland Avenue bus, a participant remembered that Parks was pessimistic about the possibilities for change in Montgomery, assuring people in a workshop that “nothing would happen there.” From her experience, it would have been hard to draw any other conclusion. Parks had refused to comply with the segregation laws on the buses long before 1955, to no avail. She had done this so many times, in fact, that bus drivers in Montgomery often recognized her on the sidewalk and refused to stop for her! Defying segregation on the buses was courageous--and dangerous. In the year before the Montgomery bus boycott, historian Jack Bloom recalls, “five Black women and two Black children had been arrested for disobeying the segregation laws on the buses. One Black man was shot; others were threatened with pistols by bus drivers; a blind man had his leg caught in the door and was dragged down the street.” The idea of a boycott had been contemplated before. A 15-year-old girl was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus, and King participated in a committee that met with the police, but no changes were granted. King and other civil rights activists were convinced that the movement needed a more respectable symbol after they learned that the 15-year-old girl was pregnant. In November 1955, the Interstate Commerce Commission outlawed segregation in interstate travel. Six days after the announcement,, on Thursday, December 1, Rosa Parks was arrested. Finally having an “upstanding” case to organize around, Montgomery activists sprung into action. By Monday, a boycott of the buses was in full swing. The initial demand was tame--an end to mistreatment by bus drivers. But with the buses running empty week after week, the movement gained the confidence to raise a larger demand--an end to segregation. For more than a year, Montgomery’s Black population carpooled, taxied and walked themselves to work. Three hundred and eighty-one days and countless fines and court injunctions later, they were victorious. Martin Luther King recognized this as a double victory--for in fighting to change the laws, Blacks had changed themselves. “Our nonviolent protest in Montgomery is important because it is demonstrating to the Negro, North and South, that many of the stereotypes he has held about himself and other Negroes are not valid. Montgomery has broken the spell.” Success in Montgomery thrust King and Parks into the national spotlight. Parks spoke at countless civil rights rallies and meetings across the country. She became an inspiration to people everywhere who wanted to “break the spell” and stand up to segregation and racist violence.  She was a symbol of the movement, but her role was confined by conservative ideas about female leadership. Parks was invited, for example, to participate in the famous 1963 March on Washington, but was not asked to speak. “Nowadays women wouldn’t stand for being kept so much in the background,” she later wrote, “but back then women’s rights hadn’t become a popular cause yet.” Death threats eventually drove her from Montgomery to Detroit. Like many leading figures from the civil rights movement, Parks became absorbed into the Democratic Party (she began working for Michigan Congressman John Conyers in 1965). Unlike others, she never cashed in on her prestige. At the time of her death, she was able to maintain herself only because her landlord stopped charging her rent. Parks received countless honorary degrees and awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. To her credit, though, Parks remained committed to antiracist politics. A few years ago, she was assaulted and robbed outside her home, but made a point of asking the public not to vilify Black youth in response. Rosa Parks’ death is doubly painful--not only because she was a leader of one of the most important social struggles of the 20th century, but also because the accomplishments of that movement have been all but destroyed. Public schools are as segregated, in some places more segregated than they were 40 years ago. Hurricane Katrina exposed the threadbare living conditions Southern Blacks endure 140 years after the abolition of slavery. Today, a new antiracist movement is needed, one that goes further than the question of civil rights, and rips up the economic roots of racism. Like the civil rights movement, this new movement won’t pop out of the sky. It will be built over years by people who commit their lives to the struggle for justice. Rosa Parks had, in her own words, “a life history of being rebellious.” That’s the kind of life worth celebrating, and worth living.  Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Yesterday, 17th October 2005 we celebrated the world day against exclusion and for the eradication of poverty. In Switzerland, the "poor" gathered at La Place Saint François and remained there the whole day, ready to share their thinking, their experiences of exclusion and poverty with friends and with passers by.  It was a workday, so friends were few and those who could come only arrived in the late evening; the passers by were many, but most of them hurried on to "get on with their job" but also to avoid, I presume, these strange and awkward looking people: "the Swiss Poor". Switzerland is a rich country? Tourists may have that impression... What does it mean for the 800 000 poor or more, ashamed to show themselves unless it be on a day like this. And even so, the poorest stayed at home. Hiding! Ashamed to be one of them in public! I can't claim to be poor, since I have what I need as a Sister! But I came and tried just "to be with them", to listen to their few words of sadness, of anger also to see so much wealth all around and to be deprived of life's necessities. We talked to each other of very concrete things: how do we make a nourishing vegetable soup for instance! I saw and met three Sisters of Charity, no one else from our churches! Yes, our fragmented world is very sick. Globalisation, whatever that may mean for those in power, means, for small people: globalisation of poverty ! Jesus is one of the small people on our earth. He said in his own land, and continues to say today: "ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE"… but not without our struggle, our energy, our hope, our tears! The struggle has to continue unabated even though it be on the ashes of our dreams, we build on and on and on. So we promise each time we say the Our Father as he taught us and which we say in our own words and with his spirit!  Prayer for Justice God Our Father Open our Eyes just as Jesus restored the blind man's sight. May we have clear vision to create structures of justice that include all Your people. Heal us of our blindness of our own assumptions Release us from our clouded perceptions. Make our hearts and minds clear that we may see the world as you see it and work for justice for all. Tuesday, October 11, 2005
Apocalypse day after day…  When a beloved friend dies beside you, and oh! you're totally helpless, no word can surge from the depth of suffering. You just suffer! Raw suffering! A muted cry no one ever will hear! You die with your beloved! A long long silence, darkness… you let go. You suffer. No more anger, no more revolt… you let go, you die as the hours slowly keep falling into nothingness. You're numb. You are suffering. Dead! Nothing else. Then something happens and you do not know what, nor how… the beloved has reached HOME whence he came! You know! Oh! bliss! In His creator's heart, he lives, gloriously free, and breathes into you, little bereft creature left behind on this earth, he breathes a breath of his own vibrant life! It's like emerging from a cruel nightmare, it's like an energy puts you on your feet… and you know, you've got to walk on the long long way, doing good along the road, and then, reach HOME calling you: come! Our creator, our loving ABBA's most tender smile tells you: see, we're all together, for more adventures, for on going life…  You may have died in a jail, in a Pakistan's earthquake, in New Orleans, in Guatemala's hurricane, in a lonely old age home, in an accident… one thing is sure: we all go home, HOME whence we came just to pass through this vale of tears sometimes doubting the use of the passing, yet plodding along to God! Nevertheless, facing my creator and your creator, my eyes in his, I shall ask him: Abba, why suffering? WHY? Then I shall know! Saturday, October 01, 2005
Dear friends, you could believe Katutura is about to vanish! Of course not! I have been loaded with piles of texts to translate and this job demanded all my leisure time and concentration! Now the job is done and I find my friends again through the gracious service this old computer which is gettting slower and slower. May be that's just as well in a world of rush and races and stress! I have the blissful feeling of crossing a desert inhabited by multitudes of people singing, remember? People People who need people Are the luckiest people in the world We're children needing other children And yet, letting our grown up pride Hide all the need inside Acting more like children than children People God's children Were born to be free To love All people have a dream For peace, for security Let the world fall in love again Please, please, let our lives not be in vain  Lovers are very special people They're the luckiest people in the world With one person One very special person A feeling deep in your soul says You were half, now you're whole No more hunger and thirst But first be a person who needs people People who need people Are the luckiest people in the world Jule Styne/Bob Merrill well this is just how I feel: I need you, you need me we're lucky, arent'we? Tuesday, July 12, 2005
 Debts cancellation Massive aid increase for Africa I read about it, I talk with people of many different views and opinons. I even listen to Tony Blair pushing for "making poverty history" in Africa. And I keep wondering what the African grassroot people themselves are feeling, thinking, saying. I do not so mean their leaders (those of the G5) I mean the African who make Africa. Since I am back in Switzerland, I hear of so many projects conceived and financed by european NGO's without consultation of the grassroot peole. Surely African people must hear the media talk, write, more: sing with Bob Geldof about debt cancellation, about "making poverty history" in their own native Africa, colonized, milked dried of their underground wealth and the rest even up to now under the so called new liberated regimes.  What is "good governance" if it is the image and the praxis of the western capitalist systems' big bosses? Why vote for a government - in African countries - if "it cannot guarantee one decent meal a day for his family, cannot ensure he is treated in hospital when he is sick and cannot provide primary education for his children". (Thomas Joyce, The Tablet, 2nd July 2005)  "Africans hope talk will translate into progress " To make poverty history demands that the rich get a little poorer so that the poor get a little richer. It needs relationships between north and south (east and west) based on sharing. Sharing of what? Sharing: how? It means talking together, not sitting on top of a ladder, but at the very bottom. There is more room for human feelings, ideas, a common vision, at the bottom than at the top. We can, from the bottom od any ladder, listen to Jesus' teaching and learn from him. Then get going to end, with much patience, poverty everywhere, to end "massive aid to grateful black recipients", and to go on, laboriously, building a society according to the dream of the creator for ever stirring in our hearts! (with grateful thanks to the Tablet, 2nd July 2005 for inspiration) Monday, July 11, 2005
I have received these few lines from Louis, a dear friend who lives in Bethlehem. I share his thinking and felt it good to share it with all people around. "Bethlehem 10 July 2005 Dear friends Peace and all Good. Never in my life have I seen a bigger contrast as that of last week, between Wednesday and Thursday, in London. What happened there is terrible. Also my Muslim friends are upset and say that this is the opposite of Islam. Nevertheless these attacks will deteriorate the relations between Muslims and other people. There is a threat of a vicious circle of violence and hatred. We have to separate the violence from religion. We have to find a way out. It can take time. Even now there are people arrested for the crimes in World War II. Also we musn't forget how sometimes politicians arrogantly speak about Islam. That is also a kind of violence which provokes violence." Yves, another friend - now passed away - and who lived in the Middle East was telling me years back: "we must, in conviviality first, learn to live together with our muslim neighbours … unless we die together in fear of each other!"  Dialogue in conviviality: this is what I am trying to do here, in Lausanne, for quite a number of years with women from all the world over. More about it in the days to come. Friday, June 17, 2005
1976, 16th June One student wrote to The World newspaper: "Our parents are prepared to suffer under the white man's rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth." On June 16th 1976, the school children, by the thousands, took to the streets and demanded an education for freedom instead of a schooling for ongoing slavery. Eight hundred were shot dead on that first day. Amongst them Hector Peterson.  2005, 16th June: we are "free", well… far from it! The long road to freedom is still ahead of us. Apartheid laws have gone. Injustice goes on. And corruption. Inevitably. We don't really know how far up the hierarchy's ladder. But it nearly reached the top. That's why Thabo Mbeki sacked his right hand vice president Jacob Zuma, because his financial advisor Shabir Shaik, a millionaire businessman, is accused of passing him bribes from a French arms company. ... has been at last judged and condemned. Who'll go to prison? No one knows yet.  Our African school children learn history at school, and they wonder. May be it's good that Zuma goes. May be not. Even the authorities say quasi "yes-no"… according to opportunistic wisdom! Hector Peterson and the little children shot dead will never come back to celebrate 16th June Youth day in South Africa. The struggle continues. And how complicated it is! So help us God! A strange way to celebrate June 16th! Monday, June 06, 2005
Prayer before the planet  Floating amongst stars in the universe our inhabited planet, our only home the creator dreamt it alive, vibrant love incarnate in the earth, in the people in me… a relay place between heaven where we come from and the same heaven where we go to Not alone, all together, hand in hand, heart to heart mind to mind why then the rumours of wars, so foreign to the earth, so foreign to people? so foreign to the creator's dream to man's primal vision, primal hunger for happiness and peace! Wherever I walk today, whoever I meet today let it be a love-filled encounter on the way home: to be with Yeshuah, to be with all who have arrived and see in heavens light the meaning of our darkness! Saturday, May 14, 2005
Contextual theology: Pentecost today! "The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) Spirit of God in the clear running water, blowing to greatness the trees on the hill, Spirit of God in the finger of morning, fill the earth, bring it to birth, and blow where you will. Blow, blow, blow till I be but breath of the Spirit blowing in me. (by Sr. Miriam Therese Winter, Medical Mission Sister, used with gratitude!)  I am a breath of the God's Spirit made "woman" We are a breath of God's Spirit made Man: that is Incarnation. And we are called and set apart like in the song: "God's Spirit is in my heart He has called and set me apart, This is what I have to do, what I have to do: He's sent me to bring the good news to the poor Tell prisonners that they are prisonners 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!"  How we sang and sang and sang these beautiful words during the noble anti apartheid struggle years! The outcome of doing theology in a fragmented society was the upsurge of life through death! The little people are, today still, rising from Apartheid's ashes, they are building a rainbow nation. Slowly, painfully, with many set backs but united in God's Spirit: what a power, not a might! Just the Power of God's Love. And today? Contextual theology, liberation theology, people's theology? Quo vadis? Paul had warned, in his time already, the dogma loving theologians of all times: "Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies" (1 Thess. 5:19-20) And many high placed dogmatists did and do just that!  So Jesus starts all over again to speak in our hearts and to send us urgently "proclaim that his Spirit lives and works and creates a new world with our sweat and eager hands!" Monday, May 09, 2005
8th May 2005 Mothers' Day Because I feel that in the heavens above The angels, whispering one to another, Can find among their burning terms of love, None so devotional as that of "Mother"... Edgar Allen Poe  Thursday, May 05, 2005
 May the 5th is a very special day 5th May 1948 Just arrived from Switzerland via England and Ireland, I arrived where I had been sent: South Africa. On that day, in a small south african boer town named Aliwal North, the capital of the then Orange Free State, I began the year's formation as a Sister, the novitiate. Nearby, in the veldt, the large, mostly waterless Orange river slept as it streched desperately towards the sea. I got used to the healthy climate of this beautiful country, I learned, partial as it was, the history of the Church amongst the people. I learned English and Afrikaans, met people and tried to feel, with respect, their life and living. I discovered beautiful people caught up in a horrible system: the institutionalized separation of races named Apartheid. It was a shock!  5th May 1949 I was judged fit to make "profession" and be accepted as a teaching Missionary Sister. I was working in the Little Flower Mission school, in a densely populated Blackspot, near Pretoria. My Mission was to civilize and convert, as far as possible, the uncivilized and pagan black people. Lo and behold: the poor and oppressed people civilized and christianized me. At least they tried. I discovered Jesus living, struggling to survive in death realities, dying, rising endlessly on the move. Even today.  5th May 1955 After 6 years of probation I was allowed to make life long alliance with Jesus, for better, for worse! In that time, I had learned much about the system that dehumanized people, be they rich or poor. We are born free. The yearning for freedom kept burning in our hearts; take part in the grassroots struggle for freedom was as natural as the struggle to be faithful to Jesus. It was people driven and justice orientated!  5th May 2005 With immense gratitude for the God given strength along the way, I think of the "Long Road to Freedom" of Nelson Mandela, our Madiba, of his people, of the ongoing struggle for economic justice and for healing, for the building, without garantie of success, of our rainbow Nation! Furthermore, we celebrate this very day, what the Church calls the "ascension of Jesus". I have no problem believing that Jesus indeed descended deep into his actual abode: people hearts.  Saturday, April 30, 2005
April 30th The noble, courageous Kingdom of Lesotho is dear to my heart! Because of its people, its animals be they mountain horses or mohair goats, Because of its blues mountains and its deep blue sky! Because of the air we breathe and the precious water we drink when it has rained! Now this very day, the people of Lesotho go to the polls and SAPA reports (I gratefully quote) "Maseru - The first ever local government elections in Lesotho will be held on April 30, the Independent Electoral Commission's spokesperson, Rethabile Pholo, said on Tuesday".  "But we will only be able to measure the interest of political parties and independent candidates during the nomination process scheduled to take place in March this year," he said. "Local government elections will be conducted in 1 300 electoral divisions contained in 130 council areas. Each electoral division will elect one councillor". "Local government is the pinnacle of democracy. It is the only way it can enable people to determine their affairs and development. The vehicle of local government has no reverse gear. We are going forward with the holding of the local government elections," Mosisili told the public at the 38th National Independence celebrations held in Maseru in October last year. - Sapa  Wednesday, April 27, 2005
These lasts weeks, freedom theology and theologians were again scrutinized, in turn weighed, found wanting, judged and condemned because ecclesiastical authorities had decreed they should be condemned. Theology of liberation is still alive because the Spirit of Jesus continues to blow where it wills. So take heart and consider the freedom puzzle with: Mzwakhe Mbuli  Is freedom a puzzle? Is freedom a quiz? What is freedom? And what is the meaning of freedom? To Nonsikelelo Biko, the meaning is different. To Helen Suzman, the meaning is different. To ex-freedom fighters, the meaning is different. What is freedom? And what is the meaning of freedom? To KwaZulu/Natali people, the meaning is different To black and white people, the meaning is different To those living in tin shacks, the meaning is different What is freedom? And what is the meaning of freedom? To the bosses and farmers, the meaning is different To the rich and poor, the meaning is different To the homeless, jobless, miners and workers, the meaning is different What is freedom? And what is the meaning of freedom? Is freedom a puzzle? Is freedom a quiz? What is freedom? And what is the meaning of freedom? To the SABC and M-Net, the meaning is different To Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola, the meaning is different To the Star and Sowetan newspapers, the meaning is different Is freedom a puzzle? Is freedom a quiz? What is freedom? And what is the meaning of freedom? Perhaps freedom is like a jigsaw puzzle Perhaps freedom is like a mirage Perhaps freedom is wealth for the chosen few Perhaps freedom is mixed Parliament and freedom of speech Perhaps freedom is building bridges where there are no rivers Perhaps freedom is the Truth Commission against the long arm of the law Perhaps freedom is economic power and the continuation of toyi-toyi Perhaps freedom is death of apartheid and the establishment of a new order Is freedom a puzzle? Is freedom a quiz? What is freedom, and what is the meaning of freedom? When Jesus said: don't fear, did he mean the same thing as when the popes say: do not fear?  Jesus simply said: "It is I: be not afraid" (John_6:20). Jesus wished that we recognize him: our brother, our lover. "That truth shall make us free" (John 8:31,32). Indeed. Sunday, April 24, 2005
I had a dream Did you ever expérience the complete sense of bewilderment when you just don't know what you should do or what you shouldn't do? Where you should go and when, and where you shouldn't go and why? It is excruciating at times! You ask friends for advice and you realize that they are not part of your existential reality. You stand alone with the challenge and your conscience. So you wait, and try to be still, and pray that Jesus helps and enlightens you! Knowing that He is the soul of your soul. All at once, the light shines in your darkness: you now know what you are going to do, and what you will do will be the right thing and you will be feel at peace with your conscience whatever people around you say! Jésus had said it through Paul to the Hebrews 10: 15-17 "The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this . First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time (Pentecost) , says the Lord: "I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds. Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.”  The law of Yeshua burns in each one's heart. It enlightens each one: It is his or her conscience. It tells him or her: "do this, avoid that". We are alive, we are conscious of Jesus' presence in us. He guides each one. Do we therefore need so many erudites professors, theologians, priests, cardinals, popes, to bombard the throngs with so many words, like "sounding brass and tinkling cymbals" on the media's loudspeakers? They seem to have forgotten Jesus! Have they, or is he just for them an abstract dogma? I dream of a Church inhabited by peope happily conscious that the Spirit has empowered them with his law and his Spirit in their heart. Together at grassroots, they are on their own with God's tent pitched in their very midst. Institutions and systems fear Yeshua's empowering Spirit among the little people. Systems' custodians prefer our silence and submission to our walking straight and fully conscious of God's dynamic life in us! Still we have no choice but be true to him who made us! Oh! what a beautiful dream: to walk with God's people conscious that He has written his laws in the depth of their heart. Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Conclave in the Vatican "His own did not receive him" From Leonardo Boff (translation & adaptation C.M.J) 20.04.05  The Cardinals of the catholic Church arrived from all parts of the world, each bringing with him the anguish, the hopes of their people afflicted by HIV AIDS, suffering hunger and victims of wars. They arrived at Saint Peter's throne to choose a new pope. As the rite obliged, they got into a conclave to pray and to examine the state of the world and of the Church in that world. They wanted to find out, in the light of the Spirit of God, which of them was fit to take on the difficult Mission "to strengthen the brothers and sisters in their faith" because such had been the mandate that God had given Peter and his followers. They were already locked up in conclave and isolated from the rest of the world when a Man showed up totally unexpected. The colour of his skin and his clothes betrayed his jewish origin. He got so far as the Sistine Chapel door and asked the last of the cardinals who was just about to hurry in: "May I please get in with you? You see all the Cardinals are my representatives and I have an urgent need to speak to them!" The Cardinal thought that he was facing a mad man and told him not unkindly: "go to the swiss guards, they might help you to solve your problem." And the Cardinal got in and left the man out. So the strange man calmy walked over to a swiss guard and asked him: "may I enter the Chapel to talk to my representatives, the Cardinals?" The guard looked him from top to bottom not believing a word of what he had heard. He asked the man to repeat his request and the man pleaded again. Disdainfully the guard said: "it isn't anybody who enters the Chapel. The Cardinals alone may do so, no one else!". Yet the strange man insisted: "but I just had a word with one of them, and since all are my representatives, I have the right to be with them".  The swiss guard was baffled; he though he was facing some paranoïac fellow who thought he was Julius Cesar or Napoleon. So he called the top superior of the guards who had overheard the whole story. He took the man by the shoulders and said in an angry tone of voice: "this is not a psychiatric hospital. Only a mad man can imagine the Cardinals represent him! And the chief guard ordered the man to be delivered to the police of Rome. There, the police heard the same request: "I have an urgent need to speak to my representatives, the Cardinals." The police chief didn't bother to listen. He gave a sign to remove the man from his sight. Two gigantic policemen got hold of him and locked him up in a dark cell. The man continued to cry out, from the darkness of the cell, and nobody could stop him. They beat him on the mouth, they beat him on every part of his body, relentlessly. Yet, bleeding as he was, he still pleaded: "I need to talk to my representatives, the Cardinals, and it is very urgent." Then a giant of a policeman got into the cell and beat the life out of the prisonner. He bound his arms with ropes and hung him on hooks on the cell wall. It seemed like he was crucified! One could no longer hear: "I need to speak with the Cardinals, my representatives!" True, that mysterious man was not a cardinal, nor a patriarch, not a metropolitan, nor an archbishop, nor a bishop, nor a priest, nor a baptised creature, nor a christian, nor a catholic. He was just a Man. The MAN. That's the reason why he couldn't ever think of getting into the Sistine Chapel. He was a Jew. He had an urgent message that could save the Church and the world, but no one would listen to him. His name is Yeshua. All likeness to Jesus of Nazareth, whose representatives the Cardinals claim to be, is not simply a coïncidence. It is the Truth. "He came onto his own and his own received him not" reports sadly John, the evangelist, (Jn 1: 9-11). Original: gratefully taken from the review "Rebelion". http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=14156 Tuesday, April 19, 2005
Early morning awareness of Yeshua Awaken by the traffic rush and a thousand noises, I sought a loving heart to heart with Yeshua, his life giving spirit, his joy, strength, warmth, light giving spirit, and Oh! he stirred deep within my soul, a peace filled breath. A breath pregnant with that of all creatures, beloved ones, so many fondly loved ones, who have reached, after a short wandering on earth, the source whence they came: Alaha. Our Father, Abwoon d'bashmaya breathed through me "O Thou, the One from whom breath enters being in all radiant forms. O Parent of the universe, from deep interior comes the next wave of shining light O fruitful, nurturing Life-giver! your sound rings everywhere throughout the cosmos. Father-Mother who births Unity you vibrate life into form in each new instant." (from the Hidden Gospel by N.D. Klotz, p. 20) Think of it: I am a thought of Alaha made flesh through Mum and Dad! Sunday, April 17, 2005
On the way, never to get there Happily they had climbed into the 28 seaters mountain buss on its way to the Grand Saint Bernard Pass in Switzerland when it happened: a most terrible accident it crashed 150 meters down a ravine so far 12 dead, many wounded, all deeply shocked the end of a project, of a short, well deserved holiday, of a dream  (Key Stone photo from Radio suisse romande, today's edition, with thanks) It happened here today and it happened there yesterday and it will happen again and again. We do not where, we do not know when, we do not know how, neither do I know whether I'll one day be among the travellers Tuesday, April 12, 2005
On the move Today, two asylum seekers were deported by the police although very many swiss people, helpers, friends had said: NO Mr Mermoud, the chief authority simply said: GO This happens in Lausanne, Switzerland Tonight the two are back in the land they had left during the war in Yougoslavia To morrow some more will be picked up and forcibly removed! Mercilessly from this land of plenty We are the spectators. Unwilling, protesting, picketing, signing petitions, yes praying… But the powerful say GO and the migrants are taken manu militari and deported…  How do they feel? And their families who welcome them in poverty, how do they feel? how does Mermoud, the chief, feel? We feel enraged, angry, I too, but this is not enough, we simply must continue to struggle to break down barriers, frontiers, and start from scratch… to build a human and humane world… May be we could join the migration projects all over the world, read, publish and work with those who, in countries near and far away, believe that Jesus says: I am a migrant… do you recognize me? Sunday, April 03, 2005
John Paul II has died yesterday in Rome. Born in Poland. He was elected Pope and lived in Rome, at the Vatican, which is a State as well as a huge Palace and a Basilica. The pope travelled widely all over the earth wanting to tell people about Faith in God. He spoke a lot. He saw the millions of people below him people who strained their faces upward to get a glimpse of him.  He spoke with the mighty ones of this world and told them about the poor and the oppressed, but he didn't speak much with the downtrodden about the sins of the rich and the exploiters… He didn't so much ask the downtrodden to "stand up for their rights"! He didn't so much listen to what the poor would have liked to tell him, their dear pope in whom they trusted and whom they generously welcomed! Their life was but a cry for Freedom! To be freed from hunger and thirst! Jesus' cry of pain in the world of 2005. Our world. I heard today that, in Rome, they want to canonize John Paul immediately… Forgetting that he had been hesitating to officially say that another man: Oscar Romero of Salvador, had, 25 years ago, given his very life for the people… Romero had listened to his people's plea and he had understood and he had acted! So they killed him during Mass. Rome was still a little worried that Oscar Romero had been a revolutionary… Like Jesus you see!  The cry of the little people for Justice, for food, for water doesn't really draw the media's attention! Not at all! Jesus' cry today in our streets is not taken up by TV and radio! I ask myself tonight this question tonight: if Jesus said and did in St Peter's square what he said and did in the Jerusalem Temple in his country, in his days… would he ever have a chance to be canonized? I wonder…  Thursday, February 17, 2005
Dear Friends, it may be that you come surfing to Katutura and find nothing new! I want to apologize because I think we must never disappoint anyone! The problem is: all the flat dwellers must leave because the Owner has so decided! So it is a question of looking for a place to be. Not on the moon, you see! Not even in heaven of course because heaven is terribly, deeply rooted in the folds of our precious planet... we are just looking for a place to be like millions of people do today, like Yeshua did who had at times not a stone to rest his head! Think of it: Katutura means: we haven't got here an everlasting home! When something more than a "stone" has been found, I hope to be a more regular blogger! So long with love... Tuesday, January 25, 2005
Far too long have I been silent! I love every friendly visitor and I hate disapponting any, just because, there's nothing new! I am sorry! Yes there are things new, but we live a particularly hard time, the reason being, that we all must leave this house, and find a roof somewhere else! That's what we do and, like for Jesus who didn't have a stone to lay his head on, it is not easy when your means are small and you belong to the "little people". That an honour... and a drawback in times of needs! But that's the reason of my silence... for which I apologize! Yet, life goes on and we are committed to stop the deporting of asylum seekers who. years back, were forced to seek refuge somewhere, including here, in Switzerland! And are now told to go! I was with all of them in this icy cold night, but my heart glows because love is around! See you soon... Thursday, January 06, 2005
Fare well my child! So many people have lost dear ones in South East Asia. We mourn with them, we feel their heartbreak and we pray and we know: the souls are back to the creator who made them… Today too, with our dear Madiba, we grieve because his only son left to him has passed away. One of his daughters Makaziwe Mandela, died in 1948 aged only nine months, and his eldest son, Thembekile Madiba, died in a car crash in 1969 while Mandela was in prison. Today, his only son left to him breathed his last. And Madiba said: "It is best for a family to be open about suffering from terminal diseases rather than let rumours spread like wildfire, former president Nelson Mandela said in Johannesburg on Thursday after announcing that he lost his son, Makgatho Mandela, earlier in the day to Aids". 
Makgatho Mandela (RIP) "According to ancient Hebrew wisdom, the hardest thing that a man can do is to say goodbye to his own son. A father of the nation has lost his only natural son and we therefore share his grief. Mr Nelson Mandela has faced many trials in his life, but surely this must be the saddest." So say his people who mourn with him and I, too, share his pain". (gratefuly acknowledged fom the Daily Mail and Guardian, 06.01.05). Wednesday, January 05, 2005
So long an absence! I have to apologize to the friends who come and ... find nothing new for so long! But I'll soon come back with a thought, a sign of friendship, a little story... a question, many questions! I'll tell you a secret: the times have been tough because like many other "wandering people" I am looking for a shelter, a shelter for the mind, a shelter for the heart, a shelter for the body! The chance to feel like one among many "homeless" migrants... Like Jesus was and is: looking for a shelter before he was born, after he was born and his search continues even today, as we search wearily with him...for just a little roof over our head! As we search for him! Where does Jesus fit into the disaster picture of the angry waves swallowing thousands upon thousands? Where do we find Him? He is so small, insignificant, he is swallowed up, he has almost disappeared... only to rise again... the ocean's tremendous soul looks at us... standing on the shores, uncertain, afraid... and his gaze says: be of good heart, "the spirit hovers over the waters", Oh! yes, the spirit breathes deep in the depth of the sea! In the depth of our hearts! |