To kill or not kill the prophets of Baal

Last night I attended Mendelssohn's Elias, performed by 150 singers from the Bienne-Jura area. Struck as always by the beauty and power of the concert. One thing that occupied my mind, as often at such occasions: what do people make of the story? I imagine three approaches:


There are those, of whom there were many because it was largely church people who performed, who might feel, see, our God is the true God, good for Elijah, we knew it. He's shown it to these false prophets of Baal. Wouldn't it be better if things happened that way today too.....


Others probably think: Here is another demonstration of what a violent religion Christianity is. We knew it and there you have it: slaughtering those who believe something else than you. It's all the same, religion is a source of violence and killing, no matter where you look....


The third category, of whom Rose thought they were the majority, don't bother too much about it. They enjoy the music, watch the people perform, especially the ones they know. The killing is quickly brushed aside, it's an Old Testament story, so why bother....


To be sure, I tremendously enjoyed the concert. At the same time, I'm not sure whether what bothers me more is the story itself or the fact that sacred works from past centuries are being performed with no reflection, critique, musings, interpretation of the meaning. I often feel the same when a Bach oratorio is being given. In light of today's struggle with religion, meaning, sense, indifference and arrogance, I feel the need to look for interpretation of how that resonates in today's society. Beyond what it does for the individual, how it reinforces of questions post-modern assumptions. How it matches or relates to today's events and observations.


Here is what I learned at last night's concert: Elijah was obviously a true prophet, you know that because he challenged the established order, looking for justice. He was a great prophet, charismatic and inspired, passionate and compassionate. When accused of spreading confusion, he said to the King: you are the one who confuses the people. No King likes that. He brought back to life that boy of the poor and marginalized widow. But Elijah fell short of being the Messiah. Not because he wanted to give up, but because he killed the prophets of Baal. Here is the sequence: From the killing he goes right into depression. There is no sense any longer, neither in his ministry nor in his life. The great prophet whose charismatic power and strong faith brought rain onto a dry land is  removed from the face of the earth before the King can kill him. Kind of a nice way out. Then Mendelssohn's work ends with the perspective of the One coming who will illuminate the people rather than prove God's power, who will not kill but bring wisdom. Nonviolence was not part of the vocabulary of Mendelssohn's time. But that's what he is pointing to. And it's what differentiates Elijah from the Messiah.

More on walls

It's time to pick up the blog pen once again. Over at the PeaceProbe blog my friend Gene Stoltzfus writes about various walls. The late Berlin wall was very much on the news and blogs these past weeks. As I attended a series of events in Washington DC, focusing on military spending, demilitarization and related burning issues such as climate change and education, it occurred to me that world military spending is also some kind of a wall. Only that its height and thickness is hardly imagined. The wall is so big and so predominant we cannot see it.


World military spending is just over 1 Trillion Dollars/Swiss Francs in 2009. How much is that? Well, it's several times 100 Million, right? Right but wrong. Here is a hint Frida Berrigan of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation gave us:


One trillion is one million million, in other words:
1 Million seconds = 11.5 days (the week after next)
1 Billion seconds = 32 years (I'd be well over 80 by then, but it's not inconceivable)
1 Trillion seconds = 32,000 years (what is that in human history?)


That's a little help in picturing the amount of money spent on military stuff. 10% of it would be enough to feed all the hungry children (in the US, which accounts for close to 50% of world military spending, in 2009 one child in four was affected by malnutrition), to provide vaccines and education for the world's children. Alas, education and health are sectors that are being cut as I write this. Military spending has about doubled over the past 10 years.


How is military spending a wall? By keeping people, and especially children, out of bounds from food, health and education. By adding tremendously to spoiling the earth, the waters and the air and by preventing effective measures to slow global warming. By killing hundreds of thousands of people, directly and indirectly. By keeping uncounted soldiers and their families from healthy living. By dividing many whose deaths are not reported from live - they commit suicide. By piling up an unimaginable amount of expenditures - which even our grandchildren won't be able to repay - for stuff that kills people and destroys the earth.


World military spending is a double scandal: it is a scandal in its very nature and existence. And it adds to that scandal the one of its sheer size. It is as if the Berlin wall, a scandal in itself, had been built 300 meters high and 2 kilometers thick. How can we not protest all day long against such deadly nonsense?

On taking a break from blogging

It's time to pick up the virtual pen again. The break was good, both for pace, rhythm and space. Every so often though there is a topic, a text, a thought, observation or issue that wants to find itself put into letters and sentences. I've resisted at times, enjoyed the freedom to drop it at others, and been happy to have the luxury of choosing. Cyberspace has its beauty and incredible potential. It has, my sociologist son tells me, an ancient social function: that of creating a reality of its own, needed for individual and collective health and balance. When the garden was in full green and growth and the balcony was inviting sitting at the keyboard felt like a waste of time, a loss of opportunity and missed beauty. Going virtual feels stupid when nature calls and a cool but warm enough evening with a nice wine in good company on the terrasse is just here.

As a bureaucrat I am spending too much time on the computer anyway. Away from books I'd like or I should read, away from people I'd like or should spend time with, away from the earth that feeds and sustains me. What for? Who cares in two weeks about the emails I have or have not written or read? Mailboxes fill way to quick and news get old in a blink. On the other hand, I love the beautiful blogs of creative friends and of perfect strangers. I also spent time on the web recently comparing prices for car insurance and for quality of vacuum cleaners, and I ordered a user's manual for the bread machine. Very convenient. - What if we had none of this, computers, cars, vacuum cleaners and bread machines? We'd still have friends, flowers, sunsets, and, with a little luck, squash and beans in the garden. All we need, really, to be alive and happy.

Mythic Abbaye de Bellelay

The monastery Bellelay was founded in the early 12th century. Legend has it that in 1136 Siginand, provost of the Moutier-Grandval was hunting wild bore in the area and got lost. He pledged to build a monastery in the case he made it back safely to Moutier. The monastery is the place of origin of the Tête de Moine and has a remarkable history. It is documented to have had an organ in the early 1600s and got a Bossard organ in 1720. The abbaye was occupied in 1797 by French military and has since suffered all kinds of uses, misuses and neglect. The furnishings were sold off. Since the 1960s the sanctuary is being used for exhibitions during summer but in 2008 a replica of the 1720 Bossard organ was inaugurated. I heard it today in a concert by Bernard Heiniger who played some of Bach's well known organ works on this fabulous instrument in this awesome place.

The power and beauty of generic sound, not amplified, by a hand-made instrument and in walls that go back almost 1000 years, is not only impressive. It is pure magic. Siginand, Bach, and Bossard, like other geniuses of all ages, used the means available at their time to make visible and audible the spiritus creator.

On seeing heaven

Yesterday Jane Stranz told her encounter with a tree, or more precisely, the beauty of a tree. And, really, not just of that tree. It's one of these instances when a life's moment takes on the quality of eternity and we are given a glimpse of heaven.

Beauty is not always visible to us. When I don't see it I easily conclude it's not there or not real. When I do see it, I know it's everywhere. It is beauty that overcomes violence, as a friend told be years ago when I asked her how she thought violence could be overcome.

It is in nurturing our capacity to see beauty that this world becomes a better place. That I'm sure about.

Virtues for a better world

The German Publik Forum Edition has published Leonardo Boff's 2006 trilogy Virtudes para um mundo possivel under the title Tugenden für eine bessere Welt. I have not come across an English version of this. Boff sees several virtues taking clearer shape and gaining profile around the world: hospitality, living together, respect, tolerance, eating together, a life in peace. It may be tempting to translate "convivência" with community, however, the French equivalent "convivialité" points to something else: being at ease with each other. Perhaps Boff points to what Jean Vanier describes as "fooling around at the dinner table". The three terms hospitality, living-together, eating together, all are closely related. Eating together (I like the German word "Tischgemeinschaft") is really what communion is all about, but Boff is not talking about the ritual as a sacred gesture. He is talking about world hunger and our relationship with food and with each other, or our relationship with each other over food. Hospitality has quite a lot to do with food, so does living together and food is essential to eating together as is relationship.

The other virtues Boff reflects on are respect and tolerance. Respect is being used today as a particular approach to violence prevention. Tolerance has come to be recognized today as perhaps not as primordial as it was seen in the 70s, but together with respect and care it makes for peaceful living.

Boff's book is a good reminder that the virtues that make for peace are not primarily to be preached but to be lived and to be discovered and celebrated in the imposing-demanding mix of performance, pleasure, profit and profiling.

The other crisis

Le Monde today, Tuesday, June 30, has a special section on the other f-crisis: the food crisis. This year, 2009, the number of hungry people on this planet grows beyond the 1 billion mark. Le Monde titles: The world in recession neglects the food crisis. Certainly the G-8 meeting coming up in a week's time, will again address that crisis, say heavy words and make big promises. As we know from experience, little happens thereafter. Le Monde reports that just about 10% of the promised aid was delivered since the last G-8 summit a little over a year ago.

Little is being done to correct the wrongs that create a financial world crisis. The financial villain gets jailed for 150 years. A strong sign that fraud is to be punished. Likewise, little is being done to correct the world's food crisis. The G-8 meet in Aguila where the recent earth quake happened. Symbols are important, so is the media effect.

What strikes me is that 50% of the world's hungry people are farmers, peasants. They are the ones close to the source, no? What can we do to reinstate the beauty and the pertinence of sustainable farming, both in the North and in the South? Sure, it was the war that destroyed subsistence farming in Southeastern Europe in the early 90s. Now it is the world's economy and obsession with fast profits that makes reconstruction of sustainable agriculture in the region impossible.

I grew up farming and I feel the vulnerability of the farmers around the world. Today, as I work in church bureaucracy and find out my project budget is slashed for the second half of the year, being reminded of the other crisis puts things in perspective. What to do?