Congratulations to Andreas Zumach for the Göttinger Peace Prize

Yesterday our friend Andreas Zumach was awarded the Göttinger Friedenspreis - the Göttinger peace prize - for his reporting and campaigning journalism about the wars in former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq.
Andreas is the TAZ correspondent at the UN, does some radio and tv journalism, and has written the book pictured here. He has repeatedly warned against preventative wars over raw materials and also argues for a greater role for the UN given the global challenges.
The Göttinger peace prize was founded by Roland Röhl a scientific journalist who died in 1997.

After the death of God - a conversation between Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt and Abdennour Bidar

The March issue of Philosophie Magazine has a fascinating conversation between the writers Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, who describes himself as an agnostic Christian, and Abdennour Bidar, who promotes the idea of an existentialist Islam (see Un Islam pour notre temps - 2004, or Self Islam - 2006).
Schmitt, who was taught philosophy by Jacques Derrida, whom he describes as "the pope of deconstructionism", opens the conversation by describing how he gradually began to feel exhausted by rationality which didn't respond to his questions. "Today I identify myself as an agnostic Christian. Agnostic because, I don't know whether God exists. I believe so, but this belief does not engender any knowledge. Christian because the gospels are an inexhaustible ethical and spiritual resource for me."
Bidar also speaks about his experience of trying to make the link between the mystical Islamic Sufism he was involved in with the philosophy studies he was doing in Fontenay. He describes how the two schools of thought - rationalist philosophy and the mystical way - "were telescoped in me at an age when one isn't very gifted to make compromises ... I couldn't find my place anywhere and nearly lost myself in that adventure. Only at 32 did this conflict unknot and I was able to tell the story in self Islam."
At one point in the conversation Schmitt says that one of things he appreciates in Bidar's approach is how it keeps critical solidarity with history and heritage, as opposed to the Western philosophical approach which tends only to progress by a tabula rasa, getting rid of the things of the past, killing God and taking his place.
Towards the end of the conversation Schmitt says:
"Why are you and I interested in God, even though it's been the fashion for more than 200 years to do without God, at least for intellectuals? Because we don't want a humanism which loses a sense of the infinite and the immeasurable."

What message would you leave on God's voice mail?

Khaled Diab in the Guardian reports that God now has a number, but that it's permanently on voicemail. For the next six months, people can call God on a Dutch number.
Dutch Artist Johan Van der Dong said he set up the number to give people an opportunity to pause and contemplate life.
"Like praying, leaving a voicemail message is a way to organize your thoughts," he said. "It's a perfect combination for some contemplation."

So maybe make skyping God part of your spiritual exiercise this Lent? Even if God's voicemails is in Dutch I imagine you can leave a message in any language.

Word of the day "livresse"

Walking around Geneva on my afternoon off I came across a lovely café which is also a bookshop. It sports the splendid name of "livresse" which is a clever play on words between books (livres) and drunkeness (ivresse).
Geneva wine shops seem to specialise in names which play on words "vins sur vins" and "lavinia". On a damp, cold end of winter (I hope) day, the fun of some of the shop names can almost cheer you up.

World Day of Prayer

Today is the World Day of Prayer, probably one of the world's oldest, most wide reaching and inclusive ecumenical initiatives. There's a great interview with ERF minister Bettina Cottin on the background to the Day here.
This year the liturgy has been prepared by an ecumenical group of women from Papua New Guinea.
Find a service near you today, the day's guiding theme throughout the years is "informed prayer, prayerful action".
The English-speaking congregations in Geneva will hold their service to mark the day at the Ecumenical Centre at 12.30.

Women and money and women for positive masculinities

There is lots of posting going on over at the UN Ecumenical Women's blog a the moment. The photo here is a picture of their colourful prayers as they take part in the diverse, in-depth and sometimes difficult debates going on at the UN's Commission on the Status of Women.
There's a good report here on Women and the financial crisis.
There's also an interesting report about a seminar on "building up boys" and developing positive masculinties.

Justice for women in Mexico

For international women's day, Réforme is leading this week with the campaign of Mexican women for justice for the 400 women who have been found murdered over the past 15 years in The Mexican-Texas border town of Ciudad Juarez, a further 4,000 women are reported missing. Nakaworari Leál Ortíz pictured here has set up an association which works with the families of the victims, most of whom live in situations of extreme poverty. The association recieves free legal aid from lawyers in Mexico City and the Ford Foundation also supports their work.
Naka however also says that the work has to continue until age old problems of men seeing women only as sexual objects are overcome. "Pour Nakaworari, rien ne sera résolu tant que la femme mexicaine ne sera pas traitée à égalité de l’homme. « Quand les garçons parlent entre eux des filles, ils les voient uniquement comme des objets sexuels »"
The work of the association and its campaign for justice is supported by ACAT Christian Action Against Torture.
What campaign, which people are you supporting for international women's day?

Interview with Radio Vatican about Seven Weeks for Water

Radio Vatican interviewed me last week on the Seven Weeks for Water initiative and you can find a podcast of the interview here. (click on that almost indistinct little loud speaker)
Ah yes and I should have mentioned that the interview is in French, interviews in German, Spanish and English are fielded by Maike Gorsboth the Ecumenical Water Network's coordinator.

Eat a fairtrade banana

It's fairtrade fortnight so go bananas and become part of a world record attempt.

Be part of the world’s biggest Fairtrade banana-eating record attempt. Join in by eating a Fairtrade banana anytime between noon on Friday 6 March and noon on Saturday 7 March.

Sign up here.

Fairtrade minimum prices are calculated to at least cover average local costs of production - this price can be over double what producers would normally receive.

Jesus donuts to be eaten on atheist bus?

It is not yet April 1st but there really are some strange stories out there. Like this one about Evangelical Christians in Spain using donuts to get people to try out Jesus. Hmm ... one of my friends has suggested this could be a special delicacy to be eaten only on an atheist bus. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.

I remember how strange I found it when I arrived in northern France and someone served me sausage called Jésus cru and Jésus cuit - cooked or uncooked Jesus, but I think it tastes better when it's just called sausage.

"El DONUT DE LA FE Esta última campaña que ha alcanzado a los medios de comunicación (en este caso el diario ABC) es, como hemos dicho, la que protagoniza un donut, junto a otros tentadores alimentos, y se debe a la propaganda evangelística que está realizando la iglesia evangélica Cuerpo de Crist"

I think that must be the first time that I have seen the words donut and Body of Christ in the same paragraph. Perhaps I should get out more. And just for the record yes I do normally write doughnuts of course, not donuts.

Meanwhile if you're looking for something sweet you could order some alfajores here.

Don't flush and forget - read Steve de Gruchy on sewage as a theological issue

Steve de Gruchy from South Africa has written this week's reflection on Seven Weeks for Water. In it he says:
Indeed the Jordan River perspective holds together economics and ecology, recognizing that “we all live downstream”. It is a reminder that freedom is worth nothing for the poor if we cannot deal with sewage.

Read the whole of his reflection here and don't forget to leave a comment.

Stuffed or starved?

This is the map of how the world eats ... pretty shocking and quite guilt-inducing for the fat person I am.

Every year the Protestant and Roman Catholic churches in Switzerland launch an ecumenical Lenten campaign Pain pour le prochain and Action de Carême ~ Brot für Alle and Fastenopfer. The campaigns are as much about raising awareness as about raising money. They provide wonderful liturgical resources in French and German and other information in Spanish, Italian and English. This year's campaign is a Healthy Climate to Guarantee Daily Bread. Cleverly linking climate change and issues around malnutrition and the right to food.

Some good news from Zimbabwe - Jestina Mukoko released

And not before time. Read more here.
“I am free now and I must concentrate on my health,” said Mukoko who looks emaciated and unwell. “The time will come for me to comment to the media. I am still being attended to by the doctors and I might be in here for some weeks to come.”

There is still a long, long way to go in Zimbabwe. Heads of denominations said this among other things in a public statement in recent days.

NEW GOVERNMENT HAS A LOT TO DO
We wish to remind the new Government that it is taking office at a very special time and under very special circumstances in our history. The special circumstances include a clearly defined and limited lifespan of the Government during which it must present to the nation some specific deliverables which include the following:
· facilitating the development and promulgation of a people-driven national constitution as afoundation for democratic governance;. opening up space for people's democratic participation, freedom ofexpression and personalfreedoms;· enacting legislation and mechanisms for people's free participation in the national elections . .. that will mark the end of the life of the current all-inclusive Government;· re-vamping the national economy in order to create jobs, reduce hunger, poverty, disease and restoring public and social services, particularly those related to health and education; · Addressing all outstanding issues that include the release of persons detained on politicalgrounds, fair distribution of land and equitable distribution of relief and aid to those who need it.
STOP THE VIOLENCE
In addition, political party leaders should work to ensure that the unity they have achieved at their level cascades down to their supporters. The resurgence of politically-motivated acts of violence

Eggs, ashes and water

Ruth Burgess and Chris Polhill wrote and edited Eggs and Ashes, a book of Lenten prayers, liturgies and meditations by Wild Goose publications.

I was pleased to discover that week two in the Lenten discipline they propose focuses on Water - week one was transport. You can read a pdf extract of the book here.

Here's an extract from a prayer by Yvonne Morland in the book entitled Living Water:

We are connected in creation
by water which gives us life
...
Let our marks be gentle
Let us respect the sacredness of water
which moves between us
as ablessing from the hand of God

Are you going to go bananas?

Are you going to take part in the world wide record attempt for eating fair trade bananas on Friday March 6?
You can sign up here.
The photo shows staff at the United Reformed Church head office preparing for the day.

Hundreds of thousands of people in Great Britain and Ireland will Go Bananas! from noon on Friday 6 March to noon Saturday 7 March by eating one Fairtrade banana each as part of a world record attempt. They’ll all be trying to break the world record for the greatest number of people eating a Fairtrade banana in a 24-hour period. More than 200,000 people are already signed up to take part a week before the event and the number is growing daily on the Fairtrade Foundation website, where the tally is being recorded.

In Switzerland getting Max Havelaar fair trade bananas is fairly straightforward. In France it's not so easy but I think I had better sig up for this world record attempt.

Tears and joy for worship on water

When preparing for Monday morning prayers in the ecumenical centre the major constraint is time. We have just thirty minutes - and of course it is Monday morning too so it's sometimes a little difficult to really start on time. If we want everyone to be back in their offices by 9.00 then 20 minute sermons tend not to work ...

Today we based prayers on thirsting, searching and longing for water, and celebrating the gift of water. Yes ok I admit it was also an unashamed attempt to plug Seven Weeks for Water with colleagues in the house.

After words of welcome we began by listening to a rain stick. (I've since discovered that you can learn how to make your own by going here or here.) The noise it makes is wonderful: gentle and yet powerful; promising too somehow.

The choir led the singing beautifully, even managing to get the Goudimel version of Psalm 42 to sound like a light dance and not the dirge that sometimes comes out when "Comme un cerf altéré brame" is sung by congregations.

In my three minute sermon I focused on tears - as something that makes us truly human, signs and symbols of both grief and joy. Tears are an essential part of a spirituality of resistance, an expression of our deep emotions, a way perhaps too of becoming streams of living waters for others.
"Mon seul pain ce sont mes larmes" says the French of Psalm 42, tears have been my food, the bread that feeds our thirst for God and for justice.

As well as a Geneva Psalm we sang the Rivers of Babylon and O Healing River and we prayed, for those suffering from cholera, for a former colleague dying of cancer, for all of us as we wipe away tears and seek to care for God's beautiful planet,

You can find the outline here.

And remember water is about justice, justice rolling like a healing stream.

Christian Aid's journey to Jerusalem

For Lent Christian Aid is putting daily meditations online encouraging readers to travel to Jerusalem. There is a prayer section where you can add your own prayers and develop a sense of community.

Identity, ecumenism, guilt and anger

I felt guilty at the end of last week for being unthinkingly anti-Cathlolic in something I said. It's so easy in things we say to make ignorant generalisations - oh typical Catholics, just like the Evangelicals, that's the Anglicans for you ...
This morning's BBC Radio 4 Sunday Programme had an interesting report on the crisis of training people for the priesthood in France. Apparently the French Catholic Church now has more married deacons than other European countries - priests will typically be ordained deacon first but be priested after a year. Meanwhile, lifelong deacons will not be priested and cannot celebrate the mass but make a big contribution to keeping local church life ticking over and tend to be married. The report also highlighted the huge role women play in keeping church life going.
This morning was our local Protestant Church's AGM. For reasons of déontologie pastorale I have not attended the AGM since I left as the minister. Dr B did however attend - he likes these sorts of things, a good committee person. Today's session sounds as if it was the usual good- in-part review of the past year, with some unfortunate Clochemerle incidents of course. One part of the minister's report deeply saddened me. Apparently our local Roman Catholic Bishop, Monseigneur Bagnard, has informed all of the Catholic clergy working in the Pays de Gex that Protestants can no longer be Godparents at baptisms in in the Roman Catholic Church. He has also refused use of Catholic churches for Protestant funerals which breaks with tradition of more than 30 years.
This may not seem like a big deal but you need to understand that there are three Protestant "temple" in the Pays de Gex and more than 30 Catholic churches. Funerals tend to be village affairs, people will be buried in the cemetries in their villages which are often close to the Roman Catholic churches. I have often taken funerals together with Catholic colleagues in the village churches in this area. It should be added that the upkeep for most of the Catholic churches is paid by the State in one form or another whereas Protestant churches are usually paid for by their members.
So at times of stress when families are grieving they can choose to have a Catholic mass in the local village church possibly against the wishes of the dead person, or to travel long distances to and from the Protestant temple and back, or possibly simply to have a graveside ceremony - not easy either in the rain and snow, nor in the beating sun we often get around here.
I imagine that the bishop's ruling on this is almost certainly only verbal, though I shall try and do a bit of research. It would seem also to only apply to the Pays de Gex which is almost certainly the most culturally diverse and most heavily Protestant part of the diocese. (This just means that Protestants are a slightly larger small minority here than elsewhere!)
It would be easy to react to this by trying to be as exclusive as possible oneself, in many ways radical openness is the only way through this. Establishing clarity about it is hard work and puts the minority in the position of having to ask for favours. What is interesting is that in the neighbouring diocese of Savoy the situation is quite different.
I wonder now what this does to local ecumenical relations ...