Yesterday I ran into David Attenborough’s DVD The Truth about Climate Change as produced by the BBC and the Open University. It contains two parts: Are We Changing Planet Earth? and Can We Save Planet Earth? This is an excellent introduction to the challenge of global climate change, pointing out the seriousness of the challenge, the urgency to act responsbly, and providing, mainly in the second part, a set of very concrete steps individuals and societies can take. The despair viewers may feel when confronted with climate change is, therefore, always turned into positive energy. I recommend this as a top introduction and will invite my students and as many as possible of my fellow Jesuits to watch it. One cannot remain unmoved when encountering the passion of David Attenborough!

I finished reading a short and inspiring reflection on Ignatius Loyola’s meditation on the two standards (Spiritual Exercises 136-148) by the Bolivian Jesuit Victor Codina (*). He shows how this ignatian meditation intends deeper ways of spiritual discernment and how it addresses two different logics and approaches to our commitments in the world. The kenotic way of Jesus is unveiled in Luke’s narrative about Jesus’ temptations in the desert, after his baptism by John the Baptist and the revelation of the Trinity. Following Jesus in his kenotic life style and approach, in his friendship with the poor, is listening and following the Holy Spirit’s guidance in our lives. Codina’s hermeneutics and analyses are thought provoking. E.g., he emphasizes Jesus as the Galilean (“Galilea, región despreciada”): “La Bandera de Jesús es el estilo particular de Jesús de Nazaret, un estílo galileo, nazareno”, a theme that is also addressed by Virgilio Elizondo in his emphasis on the Galilean Jesus, as well as by Elías López in his work on forgiveness and reconciliation. These theologians are not mentioned by V. Codina, who refers chiefly to Aloysius Pieris, Ignacio Ellacuría, and Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI). For those interested in the reflection on ignatian spirituality, V. Codina offers interesting material for reflection on the importance of the Trinity and especially of the Spirit (not very often mentioned explicitly in the Spiritual Exercises), as well as the connection of the work of the Spirit with the ignatian “magis” in its dynamism towards  the “minus” that is also visible in the gospel beatitudes. For those who know Spanish, I recommend V. Codina’s reflection on the two standards. 

* Victor Codina’s full text “Dos banderas” como lugar teológico has been published by Cristianisme e Justicia (Barcelona) in its Eides series (July 2009) and will, I suppose, be very soon available on the Eides webpage.

In his second letter, Afonso Murad, emphasizes how the hard realities of the Amazon Region, the exploitation of the natural resources, the oppression of indigenous people, the agro-industries and the neccessity for water resources, the innercity violence and drug abuse, do not lead to despair, but unveil the hopes and the desire to commit of the participants in Porto Velho. This finds its expression in the liturgies, in the atmosphere of solidarity, and in the sharing of experiences and contexts. This already the articulation of the dream for a just, inclusive and sustainable society.

I received some further web references concerning the meeting in Porto Velho:

Adveniat in Germany hosts a blog on the event: http://adveniat.de/blog/.

The official site of the Brazilian Bishops Conference offers further materials and photographs: http://www.cnbb.org.br/ns/

I promised to keep track of the XIIth Interecclesial Meeting of the Ecclesial Base Communities. I received a letter from one of the participants, Afonso Murad, a theologian from Brasil.

In his address to the meeting, the Archbishop of Porto Velho, Mgr. Moacir Grechi, quoted an African thought : “Little people who do small things in unimportant places, reach extraordinary results”. It illustrates well the awareness of people who are locally committed in very concrete situations, but who are also aware of the fact that their struggles have a universal, planetary importance. The first celebration of the meeting illustrated symbolically the complexities of the Amazon region: the river and the forest, the inhabitants, the biodiversity and cultural diversities in the region, the destruction of nature by agricultural industry, the hope and the resistance of its people. The perspective of the meeting is “socio-environmental” and originates with the situation of the poor.

The way of proceeding of the meeting is also highly symbollical: the central meeting point is called the “haven”, to which the 12 miniplenaries or “rivers” report. The 144 smaller discussion groups, in which participants can exchange their personal experiences, approaches and convictions, are called “canoes”. Today’s theme concentrated on the effort to “SEE” and to hear the prophetic cry of the earth and of the peoples of the Amazon region as a gift to the whole of humanity and the whole planet. The hopes and struggles that are articulated in this meeting, although they may be small and insignificant, and although they concern truly local issues in unimportant places, are nevertheless crucial for a planetary hope and struggle.

For maps of the Amazone region, see: http://www.raisg.socioambiental.org/.

From July 21st to July 25th Brazil’s Ecclesial Basic Communities meet in Porto Velho around the theme of Ecology and Mission: “From the belly of the earth, the cry that comes from Amazonia”. This is a very important and well attended meeting in which the socio-environmental concerns of the Amazonia region as well as the indigenous viewpoints, theologies and cosmologies will receive full attention. The meeting is important not only because of the Amazone region itself, which is threatened by deforestation and inconsiderate use of its water resources, but also because of the threats to what its indigenous may contribute to the reflection on worldwide sustainable lifestyles in a period of growing global environmental concerns (as illustrated in an IRIN notification that the IPCC plans to prepare, by 2011, a special report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation). I will provide some more news on the meeting in Porto Velho over the coming days, as I also hope that participants will be aware of the contribution they can offer towards the preparation of the coming United Nations’ Climate Change Conference (COP15: COP stands for “Conference of the Parties”) in Copenhagen from December 7th to 18th, 2009.

Today’s proclamation of the exam results at our Faculty of Theology, K.U.Leuven, provided a welcome oportunity for the inauguration of the newly renovated collegium veteranorum, a building which will host the dean and the key administration offices of the Faculty from August 15th, 2009 on. Two thoughts struck me in the various speeches that were on offer. They concern the role and the place of a faculty of theology in today’s world.

Prof. Mathijs Lamberigts, a former dean of the faculty, told us how he had moved forward the project of the renovation of the collegium veteranorum. One of his arguments with the university authorities claimed that a faculty of theology needs a front door that opens it up to the street and through which the street can enter. It’s a powerful metaphor to state that the world and the concrete realities of that world should never be very far from the heart of our concerns and thoughts. Theologians cannot isolate themselves from the concrete real lives of people, a fact which our current dean, Prof. Lieven Boeve, put forward by saying to those students graduating today that their input, arising out of their pastoral and educational commitments, will be crucial to our faculty and our ways of thinking in Leuven. We need that input to feed our thought.

One of the university’s top managers, Prof. Koenraad Debackere, praised the Leuven theologians for their entrepreneurial spirit – they know how to acquire funding, they know how to manage the greatest theology library in the world, etc. – and referred to the importance of values in setting up economic systems so as to point to the role theologians can and have to play in a world that is suffering one of the worst economic crises in its history: the renovated building can be an embodiment in the midst of the university precisely to highlight and emphasize the role of theologians.

I liked both remarks, because I am convinced that we live in a rapidly changing world – the environmental crisis being a key player in these dramatic changes – and as a theologian I feel the urgency to build up a theological reflection that addresses these challenges. How can we, in a faculty of theology, empower (in Flemish, I would say: “toerusten”, to equip, to provide with the necessary tools and skills) our young students so that they become more capable to address a world, the shape and contours of which we can hardly imagine today. And, inevitably, as professors we will increasingly have to learn to listen to the intuitions of our young students – not only when they describe the crisis and its dangers, but also and foremost when they express their hopes and their ideas about what will be important to address the challenges. To try to find out the ways in which theology can become a source of creativity and of hope in a rapidly changing world is, I think, the main challenge of a faculty of theology. May the new offices of the dean remind us constantly of this!

Brian Lennon is an Irish Jesuit, committed to the Northern Ireland peace process and involved in many grassroots processes. He has recently published a very interesting little book that I had the occasion to read today: So You Can’t Forgive …? Moving Towards Freedom (Dublin: The Columba Press, 2009, 84 pp.). He concentrates on and analyses the processes of forgiving in a wronged person, stresses the importance of separating from the wrongdoer before, in a Christian movement as illustrated by many biblical references, moving beyond the separation. Brian synthetically summarizes the process of forgiving (he doesn’t want to use the word “forgiviness” or “reconciliation” as he concentrates on the processes in the wronged person alone) in four steps, the latter two reflecting the move into a Christian attitude and its call to forgiving:

1. Recognizing my anger and accepting it as legitimate.
2. Letting go of the desire for revenge by separating myself from the wrongdoer.
3. Developing a degree of empathy with the wrongdoer by distinguishing between the bad act and the person who did it.
4. Wishing the perpetrator well.

The use of the “I” person involves the reader as if it were in the process of a challenging workshop and, indeed, the book offers insights which are grasped with more depth when readers become involved with their own histories of being called to forgiving, when the book begins to tickle one’s own life.

I am really impressed by this book as it unknots what I could call the “compulsive Christian” in me, who feels guilty while having to fathom patiently all the diverse aspects of a process of forgiving, thereby unlocking many possible pitfalls that I would have liked to avoid, but that I am called to address if I desire to heal in freedom. I allow myself to quote a passage from the book, on p. 27, that is profoundly compassionate, full of humor and encouragement:

COMPARING OURSELVES TO OUR LORD
Another trap, for Christians, is to compare ourselves to Our Lord: he did it, so why can’t we? One answer is because we are not Our Lord!
Yes, we are called to follow Our Lord. Yes, he did say ‘Be perfect as my heavenly Father is perfect.’ But nowhere in the gospels does it say that we have to achieve this overnight.
We have to be patient with ourselves. One old, old trap is to set ourselves a goal, e.g. giving up drink, then beat ourselves up for not achieving it, and then because we are fed up on account of this we go back on the drink!
It can be the same with forgiving: we can set ourselves impossible goals, and then when we fail we give up the whole idea.

Brian invites us to engage into forgiving as a life process of growing in freedom and of following God, unfolding patiently the rich complexity of a love that heals us by allowing us to explore our depths.

This evening I saw Rodrigo Plá’s impressive movie “La Zona”, about human reactions when in a rich area of a Mexican city, separated as an enclave from the rest of the poor city by walls and private security people, robbers kill one of the inhabitants, who take revenge in their own hands while protecting their secure life. It is a very hard movie, not only because of its plot itself, but also because some very profound logics of human behaviour are unwrapped: violence and greed are all at once not strange to us, to the viewers of the movie. Do we not live in protected zones of many kinds, keeping our privileges by keeping others out and policing our neighbours dictatorially when these privileges become threatened? To me, the movie is also a metaphor for the contrast between rich and poor in our world and it explains how people become trapped in violent logics so as to maintain the advantages of power, status and wealth.

This is not the most beautiful side of our human nature and behaviour and I came out of the movie with pain in my heart. The young Alejandro, who befriends Daniel, one of the persecuted robbers in the zone, gives hope: in him profound and compassionate humanity works its way to the surface of existence. The mystic Jan Ruusbroec wrote that compassion is the deepest of human characteristics, and the theologian Jon Sobrino insists that compassion is the starting point of every serious theology into which we sometimes have to be shocked. These ideas are also present in the movie and they stimulate me to change myself, the people around me, and the world.

Added later: While talking to a friend, it struck me how this movie also invites me to think about the Church as a holistic, inclusive and universal endeavour. The Church is about bridging in a life giving way murderous differences and separations … it’s about constructing frontierspaces of encounter on borderlines of separation.

Colony Collapse Disorder is a frightening pheonomen taking place in the USA, but apparently also spreading to Europe and other parts of the world. I quote a recent BBC-World article: “Accross the Atlantic US honey bees are being wiped out in vast numbers by a mysterious condition that leaves hives deserted”. The exact causes of CCD are as yet unknown and that is all the more disturbing, as bees are primary actors in processes of polinization, crucial to the growing of our food. This is certainly something to know about and to follow-up, but there is more.

I was listening to a radio report on the issue this morning and to my great surprise the seriousness of the issue was measured in terms of money losses to the US and the world economy. No mention at all was made of the fact that CCD may add to the already existing worldwide food problems, that it may mean (at least) serious hardship to many people, particularly poor people. We measure losses in dollars or euros … do we forget about human lives?

Yesterday, I started reading Lytta Basset’s very moving book Ce lien qui ne meurt jamais (Paris: Albin Michel, 2007), a conversation with a diary she started writing five years ago after the suicide of her 24 year old son Samuel (May 7, 2001). I am very touched by the way she speaks about the capacity of people to be near, to embody Christ’s presence next to us, to interact in consoling situations and events which she calls “white pebbles” (“cailloux blancs”):

“Mais qu’appelle-t-on ‘caillou blanc’ au juste? Pour moi, c’est une coïncidence, une convergence, une résonance … tout événement instaurant un trait d’union entre des vivants. Pourquoi ‘événement’? Parce que cela arrive, sans que nul ne l’ait programmé ni prévu, sans que l’entourage n’y voie rien (de particulier): c’est un événement uniquement pour la personne à qui il est destiné” (p. 45).

I understand this as follows: an event that happens to us, in life-giving and empowering relationships with others, and in which we touch a depth of reality which at that precise moment opens up to us, to the person to which this depth is addressed, a sudden density in which many elements of our lives touch one another and in which some depth of our life comes to the surface. It is really moving that this happens amidst interactions with people who by coïncidence open up reality to us without even being aware of it, people who are a gift without knowing it. For their openness to become such a gift, these people are very dear to us.

I am grateful to Lytta Basset to describe these experiences so precisely. They are so vital and crucial to us, and I was reminded of their simple beauty on the train between Leuven and Brussels. There was a seat free next to me, as there was also one next to a person sitting in the row before me. People crowded in, many people … amongst them, an elderly couple, the man clearly somewhat distressed that they will have to sit on different rows, not next to one another, not facing one another. The tenderness between them was very moving and I stood up and said: “well, I think both of you want to sit side by side … I’ll move to another row, then there are two seats free here”. The man answered: “we’ve been together 51 years, I think we can sit on different rows of twenty minutes or so … but I am glad to accept your offer”. To me, this was one little white pebble, one with a great sense of humor, reminding me to trust in love and friendship and tenderness over very long periods of time, encouraging me to overcome anger and pain in relationships. A wonderful combination, coïncidence, encounter with L. Basset and two wonderful people, still in love after 51 years.