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?

UNESCO World Heritage: Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds

Le Locle and La Chaux-de-Fonds are cities just above the 1000m altitude and in Geneva it is common to ask someone who is planning on going up there whether they have mounted the snow tires. It's not that bad, actually in winter it's beautiful because there is real white snow and it's often above the fog level. What made the two cities - Le Locle being smaller but older - make it onto the list of UNESCO's world heritage sites is their history - and legacy - of watch making. It's the cradle of watch making and thriving until the time when the Japanese took over with the transistor technology and Quarz watches. The Rabbi of La Chaux-de-Fonds told a catechism class I took to the local Synagogue some years ago that the Swiss watch was invented there but it was the Jewish community that took the watches around the world which made their reputation. Both the Jewish community and the watch making have become rather small. The city's international watch making museum is a fascinating place to visit.

La Chaux-de-Fonds has another interesting side to its history: the socialist and the pacifist movements were very strongly rooted there. Both Karl Marx and Mahatma Gandhi had connections and make references to La Chaux-de-Fonds. It seems both socialism and pacifism had, just as watch making, some golden years in the area. Churches and the media recognized the reality and significance of these movements. Elie Ducommun, born in Geneva and 1902 Nobel Peace Laurate, had his origins in La Chaux-de-Fonds.

Louis Chevrolet, the founder of Chevrolet cars was a child from La Chaux-de-Fonds, and his father was a watch maker. Le Corbusier was from La Chaux-de-Fonds, and according to legend, the inventor of the apéritif Suze, may have been from there as well, or, still according to legend, the apéritif got its name from the little river that has its spring in the valley just below La Chaux-de-Fonds. Fernand Moureaux, the founder of the company that makes Suze and which began in 1889 is said to have promised that the apéritif would flow in France just as la Suze in Switzerland. As far as I'm concerned, I like both, walks by la Suze and the drink. Suze, by the way is based on gentiane, which grows on rocky pastures in the area. And this year, 2009, Suze celebrates its 120th anniversary, along with the Eiffel tower, which features on the label of the first bottle of Suze, in honor of Gustave Eiffel - Santé! I just wish pacifism were as famous and common today as watches and Suze!

A victory for the climate and for Obama

So Obama won a crucial vote in Congress - narrowly, but he won and that makes his future possible and it's a boost for the future of the environment: reducing CO2 emissions by 17%. It's a victory for Obama's approach, vision and program, and it's a victory for the climate, for the world, and - to the contrary of what Republicans and Democrats who were opposed said, a victory for a more sustainable economy.

I have not followed this closely, nor am I an expert on the subject. What made me curious and what told me this was a crucial struggle, was the arguments the opponents brought forward: that this bill meant the end of the American economy, that it was going to create massive unemployment, and that it was entirely unpatriotic. Upon hearing such stuff I know Obama is right on and what at stake is essential.

Yet today, after this very significant development, CNN's home page is all about Michael Jackson. I had to go to BBC to find a headline about the bill on limiting emissions. That too says a lot about how much the environment and sustainability matter to the mainline media. The real good news are not easy to come by in today's media culture....

Impulse Solar

Today is the unveiling or presentation of Solar Impulse. It is an impulse indeed, and an inspiration, as it is meant to be, to a lot of people. Of course, Bertrand Piccard is for a good part the one who inspires with gentle, visionary and up-beat charisma. Yes we can applies very much to Piccard. Obviously the project, fabulous and fascinating as it may be, is not meant to show off the future of aircraft propelling, but precisely to inspire, to motivate and to raise awareness. For me, even though I know full well no aircraft I will ever travel in will be fuelled by solar power captured while on-flight, I find the project one of beauty and elegance.

Pierre Veya in Le Temps points out that birds - who everybody recognizes are way ahead of humans when it comes to flying - don't get their energy from the sun directly. Birds eat grains and use energy from sun and earth produced in sophisticated processes and stored in amazing crumbs.

Perhaps the most profound and teachable lesson of Solar Impulse is that we have still a long way to go until our aspirations, our entertainment and our business all are sustainable.

Meanwhile Switzerland's - and Europe's - plans and spending still banks on nuclear energy, which is an aberration of any sense of sustainability. Major international corporations invest mig time in projects to produce solar energy in the Sahara and sell it to Swiss mountain farmers and city dwellers.

There is one lesson nature teaches us, and it seems that investors, manufacturers, policy makers, and consumers aren't getting it: produce or capture energy where you are going to use it. That is, decentralized, local, small, sustainable. The future's blowin' in the wind - and in the sun.

The tragic confusion of war, conflict and violence

It is common in the media to find the word conflict when it actually is about war, real, physical, armed war. "Armed conflict" would be more accurate, since it may well be a conflict, but the real problem and disaster is the killing and destruction caused by weapons. The use of the term conflict is tragic and has devastating long term effect, because it reinforces an all too common misunderstanding which is that conflict is necessarily violent, negative, terrible and destructive. In fact the terms conflict and war have become pretty much interchangeable in the media. Just as in churches, sermons and general talk use the terms violence and conflict as being synonymous. The general sense is that conflict is bad and should be prevented just as violence. At the same time, the general assumption is that conflict breeds violence and more problematic still, that if there was no conflict there would be no violence. The fact that much of the violence happens not out of conflict but out of greed or thrill.

When will we learn that conflict is necessary and, more often than not, constructive. War is neither necessary nor constructive, ever. Recent findings in sociology suggest that it is more accurate to see violence as happening in the absence or real conflict. Violence happens before or after conflict is being recognized and "handled". Looked at from this perspective, violence could almost be seen as the opposite of conflict. The opposite of violence is not peace, but tenderness. War kills truth, conflict brings it to the fore. War distorts proportions, conflict helps set them straight. Violence makes dialogue impossible, conflict makes it necessary. War and violence are not the same, but the former is not possible without the latter. Conflict does not need violence, nor does violence necessarily emanate from conflict. But the suppression of the truth makes real conflict impossible and that may eventually lead to violence.

Think, imagine, resist!

Today a conversation on Swiss french radio "Espace 2" with Marie-Claire Caloz-Tschopp caught my attention. Caloz-Tschopp is the author of the book Résister en politique, résister en philosophie. Making extensive reference to Hannah Arendt, she reflects on the idea of the freedom and space for imagination, discussion and resistance.

This in particular caught my attention: Belonging is a condition for avoiding war and violence. However, belonging not simply to a mass of people, to a crowd, but to a community. I was thinking about the difference between a crowd and a community. Shopping centers attract crowds. Totalitarian regimes create masses that are all following the same ideologies and orders.

Totalitarism, whether fascist, religious or ultraliberal, erases the public space for reflection, because it is occupied by a person, logic, law, or ideology. Totalitarism kills thought and imagination. Caloz-Tschopp insists that discussion, sharing of opinions and the possibility of dissent is essential, in society as well as in the work place. That's what democracy is about, not democracy à la G.W. Bush, but power to the people.

The news these days are telling us about dissent, imagination, resistance. That's very encouraging indeed.

Hopeful Insubordination

MIR France, the French branch of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation (IFOR) published a book with a wonderful title "L'espérance insoumise" - Insubordinated hope. I love the title because I think I see in history - and these days - that where there is real hope there is insubordination. Subordination and hope don't go together well. Those who expect subordination and impose domination don't want change, whereas those who are looking for change and hope for it eventually end up refusing to be subordinated. That's a pattern throughout history.

The book talks about peace building, reconciliation, peaceful resistance. The hope is not only for change, but for lasting change away from domination. It is hope in the power of nonviolence and just peace. Whatever the suffering imposed on those who are insubordinate because they hope for a better future, their hopes will carry the day in the long run. They may loose today, but they will be proven right. That's real progress and nonviolence precisely builds on that. The crux on the road is really to have the courage to hope, because it means to have courage to not be subordinate. Isn't this what the beatitude about those who suffer for the sake of justice is referring to?

Violence prevention: driving a car is potentially violent

A World Health Organization (WHO) study reveals that nearly half of the deaths of road accidents are people not in a car: pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists, reports an alert issued today by the WHO's Violence and Injury Prevention department. The first global assessment of road safety reveals that about 1.27 Million people die in road accidents each year.

Interestingly, the WHO violence and injury prevention are part of the same effort and are considered public health issues. In some way, casualties in traffic accidents also are victims of a kind of violence and the recent study documents that the more vulnerable ones that are the more likely victims.

Both kinds of violence, the one caused by road traffic and the one caused by relational incidents, are preventable, the WHO motto says. I would add that prevention is not rocket science, but it requires honesty and willingness to change. Appeals and statements won't prevent effectively.

For me, not carrying a gun ever and refusing to engage in physical or verbal violence are principles. It gets more complicated when it comes to structural violence or to driving a car: I try to be nonviolent, but do I underestimate my indirect participation in indirect violence and exposure to potential violence? Perhaps I can begin by acknowledging that driving a car per se is not fully compatible with living gently.

Symbolic food or fake reality?

Recently I was compelled repeatedly to reflect on the estrangement of communion from its original and real function (just as foot washing is estranged, but hardly practised): It struck me that communion, which gerenally comes at the end of the service, is proclaimed by inviting people to the table of the Lord which is generously set, and afterwards people rush home to have a real meal. Jesus' last supper with his disciples may have been symbolic, but it was a real meal and so was communion in the first generation church. People came to eat to their hunger and they celebrated the communion in the power of the risen Christ. Likewise, the washing of the feet was a common gesture with not only real meaning but real function. Both actions, as gestures and symbols carry beautiful meaning and perhaps power. My contradictory take on this is that while I think that foot washing may promote community and forgiveness, I feel we should reconsider communion or Eucharist as a merely symbolic "meal". For it is no real meal, no real food, we only pretend to have a meal and to eat together. And that's aside from the fact that often the symbolic act is done in a dark, overly sober or sad atmosphere, as if we were reminiscing eternal tragedy. Yet the Lord's table, to which believers are invited, thank God, in reality is rich and full. It is joyful and challenging, conversational and truthful. There is much more than the meager, thin, tasteless and dry bite which could not be further from really nourishing us. Some of our traditions have a sip of wine or juice - again, never enough to quench our thirst after a long and perhaps dry service in a hot room. Why are we not getting real? Perhaps that would be too challenging, to painful, too much breaking our habits of avoiding each other, avoiding truth, relegating reconciliation?

Jesus didn't say to his disciples, eat and drink symbolically, then go home and eat and drink for real. Jesus said, every time you do this - eating and drinking, do it remembering me. Sure, the last supper was the passover meal and as such, symbolic as well. Still, it was for real. Perhaps it is no accident that churches celebrate it only symbolically, pretending to share bread and wine. For in reality, do they really want to share bread and wine? Do they really want to break down the walls and barriers? Do they really want to set in motion the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth? Pretending is so much easier. You don't have to change. You can still feel good. At least you are forgiven and you are not alone. That's a whole lot to get already in a heart breaking, violent world. But is it enough? It is what the church claims to proclaim and to be?

I know, a lot of churches do - occasionally - eat together for real. After having celebrated communion. Eating together is a central and essential part of being human in the world. People eat together with their loved ones, their friends. And occasionally with strangers or those they would not call their friends. In the heavenly world, when friends don't have time to come to the table to celebrate, the strangers, the poor, the undignified ones, get invited. For a real meal, not for pretending. They love it. Speaking of which, that did create some substantial conflict in the early church. The conflict was addressed in a way that has proven sustainable to this day.

Let the church be the church - real and authentic, embodied and tangible. Real people, real food, real sharing, real change. Real faith and real community, wich laughter and tears.

Living Gently in a Violent World

I'm not sure anymore how I got the book, but it was on one of my piles at the office or at home and I decided to read it, knowing expectations were appropriate when the authors names are Jean Vanier and Stanley Hauerwas. What made me curious however, was the fact that these two names were on the same book cover.

I love the book. It points in a direction which is for a good part opposite of current Christian corporate culture.

Jean Vanier's simplicity and honesty; his ease with and attention to basics in life, laughter, crazyness, people who are labelled as disabled yet are beautiful in their capacity to laugh, love, cry, be angry or celebrate.

Stanley Hauerwas' writing is somewhat more complex - he's a theologian. Marked strongly by John Howard Yoder's thinking and challenges, Hauerwas has a capacity and passion to challenge the church and that's good.

A quote by Vanier that struck me: "I'm not interested in doing a good job. I'm interested in an ecclesial vision for community..."

Living Gently in a Violent World; The Prophetic Witness of Weakness; Stanley Hauerwas & Jean Vanier; IVP Books, Downer's Grove, IL 2008

Foot washing

The Ekklesia daily email bulletin from June 8 tells the story of a former apartheid chief washing the feet of those he says he wronged. That gesture, beautiful for some, biblical for some, outdated and weird for others, is a compelling sign of forgiveness and of justice, tangible and real. 

In my tradition - Mennonite and Amish - foot washing was a regular part of community and worship. The Amish practise it to this day and some Mennonite communities do so, even some very modern, or post-modern ones, who do it as an occasional special service. I have participated in some foot washing services and have every time experienced it as really meaningful, quietly joyful, and authentic service to each other, in the name of Christ.

I recall one such service when a highly placed church administrator - yes, even the non-hierarchical Mennonites have such positions - offered to wash the feet of a young boy who was  known to be in trouble every so often and even if you didn't know you could tell from his face that he felt troubled. This boy's face was shining as he washed the feet of the smart man who had been the famous preacher that morning.

Some people might feel weird or disgusted at the thought of having to look at, let alone touch some person's feet who is not their friend. Or letting someone wash and dry your feet, when you'd rather not enter in personal discussion with that person. In contrast to mid-Eastern times of Jesus, foot washing today has absolutely no hygienic significance; we're all glad that the people serving us food or shaking our hands have washed their hands. So foot-washing is entirely symbolic, just as communion is, estranged from its original function which was real and useful. Foot washing I would maintain is a symbol of forgiveness and acceptance. Mutual, non-pretending and real. The fact is, while it is not needed for cleaning our feet really, it actually does create a gentle but strong sense of acceptance. That boy was, at least for the moment of the ceremony, totally forgiven for whatever he might have missed or messed up, and he must have felt so, probably far beyond that morning.  And who knows what mark it left on his spiritual and moral memory.

The end of Enlightenment and the future of the church

The national catholic weekly America's 100th anniversary edition has a fabulous article by Timothy Radcliffe. It speaks my heart about the perspectives of the church, current and future. I won't try to summarize it here (I'd rather translate it into German perhaps), but what struck me particularly were two things, related of course: "Some of the thought patterns (of Enlightenment) locked the church in narrow places, cramped her into ideological positions that have not always helped the church to flourish." Radcliffe says the end of Enlightenment and the emergence of a new world, which we all can testify to, although too often without knowing what to make of it, may offer new opportunities to the church, beyond the dichotomy of tradition vs progress.

The other thing that struck a cord I've been playing for awhile, is about preaching vs conversation. Radcliffe: "Teaching about Jesus Christ is necessarily dialogical, because he was a man of conversation." It will be a wonderful day when going to church means engaging in conversation and not mostly be subject of being preached at. I say that, being a preacher myself, while most of my best friends don't go to church much precisely because of that.

Radcliffe's hopeful and revolutionary perspective is my sermon of hope this weekend.