A new blog

I just published my new blog. I wanted to blog in English and French at least - perhaps German at times - but wasn't quite satisfied with the way bi-lingual blogging worked. So I created a site called UpsideDownHeaven and you find it here: http://web.me.com/johnhu2


It's still somewhat under construction but it feels inspiring. If you were signed up for RSS Feed, please click that option on the new site.


See you over there....

Food for life...

... not for profit. I was reminded to join Food for Life, by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance. After watching "Le monde selon Monsanto" last night on Arte - you can watch it here - I can't not join that page. The documentary is very well done, original too, with Marie-Monique Robin, the journalist who made the film, sitting on her Mac and googling the various keywords, issues, persons involved in Monsanto's quest for conquering the world by literally hijacking the patents on seeds of all kinds, thus making producers dependent on their stuff. Even if genetically modified seed and food were harmless, which obviously they are not, by no means, such an undertaking is an injustice crying to the heavens.

That basic stuff for live, such as seed, water, health care be made into commodities so a few can get rich is one sin. That they are being monopolized is another on top, and when these things become toxic and poison the people touching or eating them, the cup of sins is full. If we're not angry, the stones will start shouting.

Albert Camus: pacifist-journalist

Forty years ago on January 4, 1960, Albert Camus, then 46, died in a car accident. At 20 or so, he had been refused an academic career because of his tuberculosis which was then not curable.

Camus was writing to advocate for the Algerian Muslims, who had no rights as French citizens. He was writing against fascism, but not simply that, his was a struggle against the denial of dignity and rights of people anywhere, from the Kabyle region to the Gulag. To portray Camus as a communist, as was common in schools of my upbringing, was not doing justice to him. Nor was he happy with being labeled as an existentialist. Camus was a pacifist of the best kind, struggling in favor of non-violence, human rights and truth. A pertinent model for today's journalism. Here is a quote from Camus I like: "All great deeds and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning"

The TSR has a great documentary on Camus, and the Liberation has a series of articles. All of this can be found under lesdocs.ch

Year of Silence

A number of Christian bodies in Germany have taken initiative for  2010 to be a year of silence - Jahr der Stille. Most of them come from the tradition of the word, the protestant tradition. No doubt ours is a time and culture of words. Lots of noise and much of it less than very good. Churches too tend to be noisy and the tradition of silence appears to be fading. Silence is not media-compatible. It's useless for Radio and TV. The internet lives from words and pictures. We are under constant assault of words and noise. 


I welcome the initiative for a year of silence, even though I suspect it will be more words about silence. - Just what I do here. Real silence requires discipline. - As does writing and preaching. Silence is more than not talking. Turning off the constant noise not only outside, but inside, is a real challenge. Becoming quiet has its own blessings. The image of God who is not in the noisy storm or fire, but in the still small voice of a tender breeze is to be pondered more often and more deeply than is usually done. In my view silence and gentleness are cousins. And I wish God's quiet tenderness was as much evoked as God's almighty power. I'm pretty sure the we'd all be better off in our world.

Exclusion and Embrace

Yesterday, first advent sunday, two significant things happened, one a reason to rejoice, the other, a reason to despair.

Exclusion: The Swiss people in an act motivated by fear and ignorance accepted a popular referendum that prohibits the construction of new minarets in Switzerland. This appalling vote, which did a lot of damage even aside of its sad result, demonstrates an act of exclusion. The majority of Swiss people don't want a multi-cultural, multi-religous society. They have not realized that that is not their call. Nor do they seem to be aware that such an act of exclusion today will create more tension and violence they wish to have.

A friend wondered: let's say a muslim community buys one of the empty church buildings, will they have to tear down the church tower? All of a sudden the Swiss want to be Christian and they apparently don't want to have practising Muslims in their neighborhood. For the real reason of this vote was not the Minarets, but the presence of Islam, of other religions and other cultures as such. Never mind that many people don't understand the difference between culture and religion......

Embrace: The Reformed and the Mennonites officially and on a national level celebrated their reconciliation. The Reformed severely persecuted the Anabaptists of the 16th century, fathers and mothers of today's Mennonites. The Anabaptists for their part looked at the Reformed with self-righteous arrogance. Yesterday, after a three-year dialogue and many other steps over decades, they expressed their reconciliation in a moving and meaningful service at the Friedenskirche in Bern, under the theme "Christ is our Peace".

As the institutional church declines, and the Swiss seemingly want to be exclusively Christian, this embracing each other will hopefully lead to more common action towards truth and mercy, so that we won't eternally continue to export weapons while at the same time excluding those who flee from situations where these weapons are being used.

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?

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.