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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…