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

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.

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!

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:

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:

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.

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

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

Think of it:

I am a thought of Alaha made flesh

through Mum and Dad!

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

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?