Obama's victory even makes French papers write English headlines!

For proof that Obama's victory really is already having a profound effect look no further than Réforme which has even had headlines in English on its website this week - A President is born. This is unheard of. So those of you looking for a French translation of Obama's short interview in Time magazine from last July can find it here.
For several years now Le Monde has been offering a Saturday supplement from the New York Times in English. No guesses for what's in this week.

Meanwhile next week if you are in Paris next week you can attend a conférence débat on "Tomorrow a New America? Given the speakers the evening will be in French. Here are some more details:

Pour conclure notre série sur les Etats Unis et commenter les résultats de l'élection présidentielle, nous vous invitons à une conférence débat le 13 novembre 2008.
A partir de 20h 30, au temple de l'Oratoire du Louvre, Jean-Luc Mouton, le directeur de l'hebdomadaire "Réforme" animera ce débat qui s'annonce d'ores et déjà très intéressant.
Olivier Abel, philosophe et théologien, Denis Lacorne, historien et politologue, Etienne Leenhardt, chef du service étranger à France 2, Sébastien Fath, sociologue, Neal Blough, théologien, Marie Lefebvre-Billiez, envoyée spéciale de "Réforme" en Californie, Laurence Monroe, journaliste, seront les invités de cette soirée.

Praying for human rights

This week I received a copy of the booklet pictured opposite. On Tuesday colleagues from the World YWCA and World YMCA who helped to preapreit will lead prayers in the ecumenical centre chapel in Geneva. As well as containing meditations on different aspects of human rights, liturgies and prayers, it also includes a Bible reading plan for the year.

For over a century the two movements have issued a joint call to prayer in the second week of November as an important reminder of the spiritual vision that drives their efforts to create a better world for all people. This year’s theme is 'Born Free, Born Equal - Celebrating Human Rights' and highlights how the scriptures call for a commitment to protect freedom and justice.
You can download it in English French and Spanish by clicking on this link.

The annual joint Week of Prayer and World Fellowship will be held from November 9 - 15, 2008 by member associations of the World YWCA and the World Alliance of YMCAs across the world.

Beautiful letters to new president Obama

Many people including church leaders are writing to president-elect Barack Obama
here are two that touched me today, from Alice Walker and Wesley Granberg-Michaelson. There's not much more to say, it's been a moving and momentous week. It's also inspiring. And yes this week even French people have been saying positive things about the United States - wow. Anyway, it's wonderful to see a political event moving people to write good prose

Dear Brother Obama,

You have no idea, really, of how profound this moment is for us. Us being the black people of the Southern United States. You think you know, because you are thoughtful, and you have studied our history. But seeing you deliver the torch so many others before you carried, year after year, decade after decade, century after century, only to be struck down before igniting the flame of justice and of law, is almost more than the heart can bear. And yet, this observation is not intended to burden you, for you are of a different time, and, indeed, because of all the relay runners before you, North America is a different place. It is really only to say: Well done. We knew, through all the generations, that you were with us, in us, the best of the spirit of Africa and of the Americas. Knowing this, that you would actually appear, someday, was part of our strength. Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.

I would advise you to remember that you did not create the disaster that the world is experiencing, and you alone are not responsible for bringing the world back to balance. A primary responsibility that you do have, however, is to cultivate happiness in your own life. To make a schedule that permits sufficient time of rest and play with your gorgeous wife and lovely daughters. And so on. One gathers that your family is large. We are used to seeing men in the White House soon become juiceless and as white-haired as the building; we notice their wives and children looking strained and stressed. They soon have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors. This is no way to lead. Nor does your family deserve this fate. One way of thinking about all this is: It is so bad now that there is no excuse not to relax. From your happy, relaxed state, you can model real success, which is all that so many people in the world really want. They may buy endless cars and houses and furs and gobble up all the attention and space they can manage, or barely manage, but this is because it is not yet clear to them that success is truly an inside job. That it is within the reach of almost everyone.

I would further advise you not to take on other people's enemies. Most damage that others do to us is out of fear, humiliation and pain. Those feelings occur in all of us, not just in those of us who profess a certain religious or racial devotion. We must learn actually not to have enemies, but only confused adversaries who are ourselves in disguise. It is understood by all that you are commander in chief of the United States and are sworn to protect our beloved country; this we understand, completely. However, as my mother used to say, quoting a Bible with which I often fought, "hate the sin, but love the sinner." There must be no more crushing of whole communities, no more torture, no more dehumanizing as a means of ruling a people's spirit. This has already happened to people of color, poor people, women, children. We see where this leads, where it has led.

A good model of how to "work with the enemy" internally is presented by the Dalai Lama, in his endless caretaking of his soul as he confronts the Chinese government that invaded Tibet. Because, finally, it is the soul that must be preserved, if one is to remain a credible leader. All else might be lost; but when the soul dies, the connection to earth, to peoples, to animals, to rivers, to mountain ranges, purple and majestic, also dies. And your smile, with which we watch you do gracious battle with unjust characterizations, distortions and lies, is that expression of healthy self-worth, spirit and soul, that, kept happy and free and relaxed, can find an answering smile in all of us, lighting our way, and brightening the world.We are the ones we have been waiting for.

In Peace and Joy,

Alice Walker

Dear President Obama,

You are a leader not just because of what you have done, but because of who you are. Tend to your soul.

Your dream of a changed nation, transcending polarization, captured the hearts of millions. Nurture that vision continually. Imagine the future it can create. Share this constantly.

You demonstrated inner emotional confidence in the face of an external financial crisis. Stay grounded in hope. This dispels the fears of others.

Your election has inspired the world. Show that our nation can live with others according to the value of every human life that our ideals so cherish.

Read Matthew 25 at least every week. Inspire policies that remember the least of these.

Keep loving your wife and children. Your presence and time is the greatest gift you can give them.

The expectations of a nation and a world have rarely been higher for a new President. After all you do, each day, your surest response is to relinquish yourself, again and again, to the Lord whom you love.

Pray without ceasing. “Lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love.”

And may the God of peace be with you, and sustain you, always.

Sincerely,

Wesley Granberg-Michaelson
General Secretary
Reformed Church in America

Photo: David Katz/Obama for America
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Finger print meditational maze

I didn't really think youtube spirituality would be my scene and then thanks to Maggi Dawn I came across this finger maze which has changed my mind. I like the winding and unwinding theme, the music and the choice of questions and texts. I also really like the idea of using the finger print - a symbol of our individuality but also of our connectivity, the people and keyboards we touch. So thanks to the people who made this simple but effective reflection.
Hope you enjoy it too.

Truth as revolutionary

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell

I received this quote in an email from a friend today. It made me think of the oft quoted "speaking the truth to power".
Such a wonderful phrase, such an essential and important task in today's world.

A prayer from Haiti

From the book "God Is No Stranger: Prayers from Haiti" -
used in morning chapel service, 6 November 2008 led by Sylvia Raulo, who is the LWF field officer in Haiti.

Lord,
help us not connect ourselves to things;
we may have four dresses today,
but maybe there will be a time
when we won't have any.
Help us connect ourselves to God's Word.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord,
we don't get mangos from an avocado tree,
and we don't get corn from the banana plant;
we produce what we are.
Help us to be what you need to be produced.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord,
thank you that you have given us the name Christian.
Now give us the strength to carry it.
Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord,
there is a big devil called Discouragement.
We ask you to send him away because he is bothering us.
Lord, hear our prayer.

O Lord,
make you and me like coffee with milk.
Mixed together we can never be separated.

Alternativity stars to prepare for advent

I've just bought some of these boxes of stars from ALTERnativity.
I'll try to link to some more of their resources in coming weeks. The stars are a different kind of advent calendar with a star and thought for each day up to Christmas.

ALTERnativity seeks to:

Rediscover the values of the Magnificat.
Remember the simplicity and meaning of the Incarnation, with the freedom, joy and peace that is offered in the coming of the Messiah.
Resist the excesses of consumerism, which cause some to incur unpayable debts and stress to many.

The bottom line is that it is all about money and the decisions we make. Mary gave us a manifesto of "Advent economics" which challenges us all, especially at Christmas where we seem to lose all sense of proportion: "he has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly, he has filled the hungry with good things and has sent the rich away empty"

The USA votes - the world hopes

Will change for the better come?
Here's hoping ...

Calvin chocolates for the 500th anniversary of the reformer's birth

Yesterday Dr B returned from a press conference carrying a precious box of chocolates. What is even more surprising, given the proclivities of this household, the box remains as yet unopened, the contents uneaten. It is awaiting its first photo shoot for the benefits of the ENI website. Anyway before giving away too much more about the chocolate deprivation some journalists are willing to go through for the sake of their jobs I should perhaps explain.
For the launch of the "calvin09" - 500th anniversary celebration of Calvin's birth next year - a Swiss chocolatier, Blaise Poyet, says he has tried to capture the essence of the Swiss reformer in special chocolate pralines.
Now this is the sort of theology I could really get into. Here's some more from the press release about the chocolates:
For the first layer, we took a classic praline mix, the kind that has existed for a long time, and that everyone knows. But we have "reformed" it. A praline is always smooth and runny, but we have used crunchy caramelised hazelnuts and, this is something new, we have made them slightly savoury using salt from the Swiss Alps. For the second layer, the upper layer, we wanted to present the theology of Calvin. It's not easy to represent theological ideas by using the taste buds. But the key thing for Calvin is the glory of God, his excellence, his perfection. So we chose a chocolate that we chocolatiers find exceptional, rare and flawless. It is a chocolate Grand Cru from Bolivia, 100% wild and without any additives… It is a real pleasure, paradise indeed.

So now I wonder whether people would like to think up recipes which could best represent Barth's theology of revelation, Luther's ideas of justification by faith, Moltmann's theology of hope - although I suppose I should exclude any apple recipes for Augustine's theology of original sin as a little bit too obvious.

Anyway while you're thinking about that here's the link to purchase the Calvin chocolates online: http://www.calvin09.org/shop/shop-en.html&lang=2

Love and spirituality in management

"No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread." (Robert Burton, 1577-1640, English writer and clergyman, from The Anatomy of Melancholy, written 1621-51.)
This quote introduces some interesting articles here on love and spirituality, including by Barbara Heyn.

In business and organisations 'love' and/or 'spirituality' mean genuine compassion for humankind, with all that this implies. We are not talking about romance or sex. Nor are we referring to god or religion, because while love and spirituality have to a degree been adopted by various religious organisations and beliefs, here love and spirituality do not imply or require a religious component or affiliation at all. Far from it. Anyone can love other people. And everyone is in their own way spiritual.
Given that love (or spirituality, whatever your preference) particularly encompasses compassion and consideration for other people, it follows that spoiling the world somewhere, or spoiling the world for future generations, is not acceptable and is not a loving thing to do.
Love in business and work means making decisions and conducting oneself in a way that cares for people and the world we live in.

Robert Frost's road less travelled ...

I've been re-reading M. Scott Peck's book "The Road less travelled" in recent days - and also his interesting take on business and civility in "A World waiting to be born".
Reading Frost's poem late on a sunny winter Sunday afternoon it made me think about priorities, how we make choices and live with those choices down the line. It's a lovely reflection on a leaf- strewn autumn walk and a metaphor for life.
So have I taken the road less travelled and has that made all the difference? Hmm ... I sometimes feel actually I'm just following the same path that everyone else is on but I pretend to myself and to others that my path is different, more spiritual, more meaningful.
For the most part though, the poem makes me thankful for taking the paths I have so far. Perhaps in the future there will be regrets but for now taking the paths I have, less or more travelled as it may be, has "made all the difference."

The Road not Taken
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

Robert Frost

Living a hidden or epic life - Michael Piret's reflections for All Saints day

Michael Piret of Magdelen College Oxford gave a fine reflection for All Saints Day on Radio 4's Prayer for the Day. Taking up themes from George Eliot's wonderful book Middlemarch, Piret spoke about epic and ordinary human lives, saying that perhaps a tomb of an unknown saint should also be built, like the tomb of the unknown soldier, in celebration of ordinary lives.
The heroine of Middlemarch is Dorothea Brooke and Piret ended his meditation by quoting part of the last paragraph of the book (in my copy this is on page 896!) in celebration of the majority of us who try to somehow faithfully live our "hidden lives". Here's a slightly longer extract:
But we insignificant people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that of the Dorothea whose story we know.
Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.

Today I give thanks for all the saints, particularly those whose hidden lives I am privileged to share in the here and now. I also give thanks that a guardian angel was watching over one of those hidden lives so effectively earlier this week.

If you click on this link you can get to the "listen again"page of all this week's prayer for today. The others this were all Hindu reflections on Divali by Shaunaka Rishi Das. Be warned though, the beginning of each podcast tends to be the announcer telling you what happened on this day in history - today for instance was the day Michael Angelo first unveiled the Sistine chapel. His was not a hidden life.
But as I reflect on epic and hidden lives I also wonder about our modern obsession with so-called celebrity, our seeming need to claim everything as epic, and our incapacity to value and encourage ordinary hidden lives as meaningful. Somehow the saintly path is to aspire to become more godly and more truly ourselves. Yet a recent OECD report about poverty in Britain pointed to the wealth gap narrowing but to the "hello" magazine culture making people feel poor as they compare what they have with what the mega-rich have.

So will finding more meaning in our extraordinary, wonderful ordinary hidden lives help us feel more satisfied - not only with what we have but what we are? (Ah, preacher heal thyself!)

Reformation Day from struggle to reconciliation

Throughout this week Simone Sinn who works in the Lutheran World Federation's department of theology and studies has offered powerful times of prayer and reflection at the beginning of each day - always accompanied by a religious painting.
Today we reflected on the story of the reconciliation between Esau and Jacob, which is pictured here at the centre of the Pax Christi Icon of reconciliation from Jerusalem.
But we read the whole of the passage prior to the scene of reconciliation between the two brothers in which Jacob wrestles all night with God and is only let go when wounded in his hip and blessed (Genesis 32.22 - 33). I think it was the first time I had heard either story read aloud with the other in an act of worship. I must check to see how the readings are used in various lectionaries. Suddenly I saw that wrestling with God is clearly set within the context of reconciliation. It's wonderful how you can read the Bible for years and still get fresh insights in this way.
Simone then said that the church is in many ways about offering a space for people to wrestle and struggle with God so as to find the courage for the way forwards to reconciliation.
We also read a strong statement from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Zimbabwe, showing a church seeking clearly to wrestle with the issues of its own context and seek a clear path for justice and reconciliation in the future.

Praying for Congo

I've been reading this article in the New York Times on the terrible prevalence of rape in Congo which United Nations officials have called the worst sexual violence in the world.
At the same time as being very moved by the stories of women who have survived rape "speaking out" and breaking the silence about the terrible burden they live with, I am also saddened and profoundly disturbed at our seeming helplessness to transform the poverty and culture of violence all people in Congo are living with.
Next week the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle invites churches around the world to pray for Congo, Rwanda and Burundi. As we pray for the survivors of war, genocide and desperate violence in these countries - especially as that violent cycle again takes hold in Congo - I shall especially pray for a transformation in attitudes and behaviour towards women. I shall also give thanks for people like Eve Ensler, the American playwright who wrote “The Vagina Monologues,”. She went to Congo last month to work with rape victims and the article reports her as saying:

“I have spent the past 10 years of my life in the rape mines of the world,” she said. “But I have never seen anything like this.”

She calls it “femicide,” a systematic campaign to destroy women.

Zimbabwe - Kairos and prophetic action

Methodist Bishop Levee Kadenge, the convenor of the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance, was in Geneva this week. The mission of the Christian alliance is is to work to resolve the crisis in Zimbabwe by bringing about social transformation through prophetic action. Ecumenical News International has an article about the bishop, who has been detained five times by security officials. In the article, Bishop Kadenge was asked why he thought so many church leaders had remained silent while Zimbabweans had suffered. "I think it is a question of fear ... If that means they are silent and they choose to be, that is their choice," Kadenge said. "But they can go for it. Truth bearers are not often welcome. The scriptures say so."

In 1988, Bishop Kadenge chaired Ecumenical Support Services, the group that drew up the Zimbabwe Kairos Document in advance of the World Council of Churches assembly in Harare. That document contained trenchant criticism of the record of President Mugabe's ruling ZANU (PF) party, and was also critical of some of Zimbabwe's churches, stating that while some churches "have constantly challenged injustice, both before and after independence, many have failed to educate their members about abuses of power by authorities". Ten years after the Kairos document, Zimbabwe remains gripped by a political and economic crisis. Launched in February 2006, the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance is an association of like-minded Christian leaders in Zimbabwe who feel called by God to be instrumental in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis through non-violence. The bishop was asked during his visit in Geneva if he also was not afraid to speak out. "Yes I fear. God yes, I fear, I am a human being. I'm afraid. That does not stop me doing what I have to do," he said. "That is the difference ... But I'm convinced there is a bigger force beyond me that takes care of those things."

Photo (c) Peter Kenny/ENI

Meanwhile the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the Association of Protestant missions (EMW) have issued a prayer for Zimbabwe, so far only in German.

Benita Joswig's Books writing art project comes to Geneva

Benita Joswig’s Books Writing art project is a transnational writing project and all next week from 3 to 7 November it will be housed in the chapel of the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva. Benita Joswig will preach at our service next Monday.

The projects involves ten still partly unwritten books and is an experiment calling upon the writing power of interested individuals from a variety of social backgrounds and situations. Those of us who work in the centre and people from local churches will be invited to write and read in the books. It sounds quite a challenge.

The ten books have different titles which were developed by teachers and students at New York’s Union Theological Seminary/Columbia University and Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. The individual book titles reappear as chapter subtitles in the books, so that each book contains the titles of all the other books.

The titles are:

Blut / blood

Farbe / colour

Grenze / border

heilen / healing

ich / me

Lust / joy

reich / rich

Stadt / city

warten / waiting

Worte / words

What I find particularly interesting is that the books are handwritten. They are time capsules, living recordings of different voices but in written form. At the end of each book there is a list of authors which those writing can add their names to. Joswig says:

In a digitally defined world, handwriting becomes an unusual form of expression. Reading unfamiliar handwriting may constitute an act of deciphering, of entering into the handwriting of another person, of coming to grips with a strange text and of continuing it and adding one’s own thoughts. What will remain is a series of books, a handwritten micro-library, a network document, a register on paper, sensual and thoroughly thought over.

Art projects are visible inscriptions, three-dimensional figures, moving collages, fields of action which upset customary patterns and hopefully encourage new decipherings of meaning.

Discernment in the wilderness ...

Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I am going to rain bread from heaven for you

The house of Israel called it manna; it was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

This morning we had an interesting Bible study on Exodus 16: the Hebrews in the desert complaining to Moses and Aaron about not having enough food and things having been so much better next to the fleshpots of Egypt. We discussed the rather idealised idea of the supposed proximity to God in the desert wilderness - if you read the book of Exodus you can get the impression that it's almost a haranguing match between God, Moses and the People, that may not be the ideal of closeness with God most of us long for!
Yet in some ways the fleshpots of Egypt serve as a symbol of a far greater wilderness than even wandering in the desert for 40 years. A longing for the ease of past years, an idealisation of what being close to God may really mean.
All that makes discerning how God may be calling us complex and challenging. Are we being called to set out and dare to be liberated from the ease of consumerism? In an age of instant gratification are we willing to trust in a distant hope 40 yeras off?
I was interested to read that the bread of heaven looked like coriander seed and tasted of honey - perhaps giving the people in the desert a daily foretaste of the promise of the land of milk and honey. Sustenance for the wilderness journey.

Footwashing from Ethiopia

At our morning prayers this morning we listened to the reading of Christ washing his disciples feet in John's gospel and meditated this picture which Simone Sinn had brought back from a recent meeting in Ethiopia. We were intrigued by how Peter is the main figure in the picture and the eyes of all the disciples are on him - we also wondered about his white hair ...