Wannneer 'n mens weer in vreugde glo...

Soms, skryf Henri Nouwen, is ons pyn en hartseer so oorweldigend dat ons nie meer in vreugde kan glo nie. Ons ervaar die lewe as ’n  beker wat oor­loop van geweld, verwerping, een­saam­heid, en ein­de­lose teleurstellings.

Sulke tye, voeg hy by, het ons vriende nodig om ons daar­aan te her­inner dat geparste druiwe uitsoekwyn kan voortbring. Dit is vir ons moeilik om te glo dat daar vreugde uit ons smart gebore kan word, maar as ons treetjie vir treetjie in die rigting beweeg van ons vriende se goeie raad – selfs al is dit vir ons moei­lik om te voel dat die dinge wat hulle sê waar is – kan ons die vreugde wat skyn­baar verlore was, herwin en vind dat ons smart draagliker word.

Ek lees hierdie stuk van Nouwen terwyl ek dink aan 'n insident wat ek onlangs beleef het. 

Ek sit naamlik 'n tydjie terug en gesels met 'n goeie vriend en wonder oor hoe ek die nuwe uitdagings wat op ons wag, sal hanteer. Dit is een van daardie fase's wat 'n mens binnegaan wat om onderskeiding van die geeste vra. 

Skielik, uit die bloute, vertel hy vir my van die trauma wat sy familie die afgelope jaar beleef het en waarvan ek nooit bewus was nie. Ek kan sien hy dra swaar aan die las. 

Maar hy wil my met sy verhaal nie belas nie. Hy wil bloot vir my vertel dat hy my wil ondersteun in my besluite en dat hy begrip het vir wat ek ook al besluit.

Ek is oor baie dinge verras: eerstens is ek verras om te hoor hoe swaar hy gekry het - en dit terwyl ek niks daarvan geweet het nie en hom nooit kon ondersteun nie. Ek verwonder my dat hy so 'n traumatiese situasie met soveel innerlike krag kon hanteer.

Tweedens is ek dankbaar dat hy soveel begrip en sensitiwiteit het. Dit raak 'n mens wanneer iemand besef hoe moeilik dit vir jou is om besluite te neem.

Maar uiteindelik raak dit my veral dat hy my in sy vertroue neem en iets wat slegs in hulle klein familie-kring bekend is, met my deel. Ek waardeer sy meelewing, ek is dankbaar oor die raad wat hy my gee, maar meer nog ervaar ek hoedat ons vriendskap hegter word. 

Daar is 'n stukkie vreugde daarin dat hy sy hart oopmaak. Daar is vir my 'n stuk blydskap dat hy my situasie begryp. En, uiteindelik, kom daar in my 'n brokkie vrolikheid op:  ek kan weer in vreugde glo. 

Ek besef skielik: Nouwen het dalk reg dat ons vriende se raad ons kan help om weer vreugde te vind. Maar soms is jou vriende se teenwoordigheid en jou vriende se innerlike volwassenheid al genoeg. Sonder dat hulle jou 'n enkele woord van raad aanbied, kan hul samesyn genoeg wees om jou bly te maak. 

Die afgelope paar dae, na ons gesprek, besef ek, is dit asof die groot besluite wat ek moes neem, nie meer so moeilik lyk nie. 

Wanneer 'n kerk boelie. Oor 'n aangrypende stuk werk

Van my kollega's in Amerika het my vertel van die Vatikaanse ondersoek van Noord-Amerikaanse vroue-lidmate van die Rooms-Katolieke Kerk. Een van hulle is die gerekende professor in Spiritualiteit, Sandra Schneiders. Sy is in Amerika seker die bekendste figuur op die gebied van Spiritualiteit. Ook in ons land is sy bekend, onder andere as besoekende professor vir my spiritualiteitskursus vir Meestersgraad-studente.

Die uitslag van die ondersoek is pas bekend gemaak en dit lyk asof die vrese oor die ondersoek meer as gegrond was. In die ondersoek word vroue-lidmate aangesê om hulle by die gesag van hulle leiers en biskoppe neer te lê al sou dit hulle in 'n gewetenskrisis dompel.

Die verontwaardiging oor hierdie bevindinge loop dik. Dit sien 'n mens te duidelik in 'n artikel van die bekende joernalis, Maureen Dowd, in vandag se New York Times.

Toe ek die artikel lees, soek ek weer 'n brief wat Sandra Schneiders geskryf het toe dit bekend geword het dat die Vatikaan opdrag gegee het dat vroue-lidmate ondersoek moet word.

Die brief het wyd gesirkuleer. Dit het, dink ek, soveel aandag getrek omdat die 'n skerpsinnige analise gee van die kerk in ons tyd, en dit deur iemand wat nie net die gebied van spiritualiteit goed ken nie, maar ook veel oor die kerk en die religieuse lewe skryf. 

Die brief  is deurtrek met spiritualiteit, veral die laaste paar paragrawe oor mense wat getrou gebly het aan hul roeping. Dit het my laat dink aan so baie mense in die kerk ook hier by ons wat sonder bohaai en met toewyding elke dag hul diens van die Woord volbring. 

Ek neem die artikel eerste hier onder oor. Daarna voeg ek die artikel in die New York Times by.

Women Religious and the Apostolic Visitation

by Sr. Sandra M. Schneiders, IHM

As the Catholic community discusses the Vatican's visitation of U.S. women religious, two sets of questions are roiling the waters: 1) Why are religious disturbed about the apostolic visitation? 2) What is the real motivation for this investigation? Many have asked why so many women have left religious life and why so few have sought to join. A far more interesting question is, "Why did the ones who stayed, stay?"

Why they stay(ed)

Two sets of questions concerning U.S. women religious are roiling the waters in and outside the church today:

1) Why are religious disturbed about the apostolic visitation?

2) What is the real motivation for this investigation?

Why are religious disturbed about the visitation?
Some laity, and even some (mostly more conservative) religious, wonder why religious would be upset at the invitation of Vatican officials to a discussion of their life with a view to encouraging and supporting the quality of religious life today. After all, no life is perfect and sometimes helpful outsiders can see things insiders miss.
Many religious (members and leaders) as well as Catholic laity and some priests and bishops are disturbed by the Apostolic Visitation currently being conducted for two reasons: the fact of the investigation; the mode of the investigation.

The fact: Religious congregations (sometimes called "orders" or "communities") are in regular dialogue with church authority. The officers of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, or the LCWR, which represents, through their leaders, about 95 percent of religious in the U.S. meet, by their own initiative, annually in Rome with the officers of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Vatican bureau concerned with religious life, for the purpose of such dialogue and they make strenuous (often unreciprocated) efforts to create open communication (see documentation on the LCWR web site). Heads of orders are in regular contact with local ordinaries and most orders invite the local bishop to visit on various occasions. They must, and do, consult with the bishop and/or pastor when there are concerns about the ministry of religious in a diocese or parish.

Furthermore, religious life, including the behavior of its members, is no longer hidden in cloistered dwellings but is reasonably open to the view of both laity and clergy. Some people, lay or cleric, might prefer religious to wear atemporal uniforms of homespun and sensible oxfords rather than simple contemporary professional clothes, or to live in special dwellings and teach in a parish school rather than living, perhaps individually or intercongregationally (as some religious have since the first century) or at a distance from their headquarters (as missionaries always have), in relation to their now diverse and widespread ministries. But there is nothing intrinsic to religious life about a particular type of clothing or dwelling or ministry. Clothing of religious, according to the directives of Vatican II, is to be simple, modest, hygienic, and appropriate to the times; housing is to be appropriate to the form of community life and poverty specified in an order's approved documents (called "constitutions"); ministries are to be undertaken in obedience as obedience is understood in those same documents. These norms are applied differently by different orders and this has always been the case, often enough even among houses of a single order. Jesus and his itinerant band of ministerial disciples wore no special clothes and had no fixed abode. He brought down the murderous ire of the hierarchy of his own religious tradition because, among other things, he related to women as equals and involved them along with men in his ministry, reached out to the "disordered" and marginalized in his society, laid healing hands on the suffering, conversed with and allowed himself to be challenged and changed by people outside his own religious tradition, refused to condemn anyone, however "sinful," except religious hypocrites burdening people with obligations beyond their strength.

The current "Apostolic Visitation" is not a normal dialogue between religious and church authorities. It is the ecclesiastical analogue of a grand jury indictment, set in motion when there is reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a prima facie case of serious abuse or wrong-doing of some kind. There are currently several situations in the U.S. church that would justify such an investigation (widespread child sexual abuse by clerics, episcopal cover-ups of such abuse, long term sexual liaisons by people vowed to celibacy, embezzlement of church funds, cult-like practices in some church groups) but women religious are not significantly implicated in any of these. Religious are disturbed by the implied accusation of wrong-doing that the very fact of being subjected to an apostolic visitation involves, especially because the "charges" are vague or non-existent. We will return to this point in regard to the second question about motivation.

The mode: The characteristics of a grand jury indictment process (which have led most modern western countries to abolish the grand jury as a judicial instrument) are that the grand jury can compel witnesses to testify under oath; proceedings are secret; defendants and/or their counsel may not hear the witness against them.

A number of features of the current investigation of religious are problematic or repugnant to intelligent, educated, adult women in western society. For example, even though the visitation had been authorized well before the annual meeting of the LCWR officials with the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life in Rome in late 2008, the forthcoming visitation was not even hinted at during that meeting. The religious leaders discovered that their orders and members were under investigation by reading about it in the secular press. Many religious experienced this, rightly or wrongly, as an expression of contempt for them and especially for their leaders. And Americans could hardly not see this tactic as a kind of "sting" operation in which enforcement personal raid suspects who are already deemed guilty, using the element of surprise to prevent escape, hiding of evidence, or defense. Religious are not trying to escape since they are all in religious life by their own choice. The evidence of the quality of their lives is the hospice patients they comfort, the students they teach, the directees and retreatants they counsel, the poor they feed, the sick they nurse, their peace work and justice advocacy, the research and art they produce. They do not feel that their carrying out of Vatican Council II's directives in the renewal of their lives and their resulting presence to and ministry in the world for which Jesus died needs defense.

In other words, whatever the Vatican may have intended, the initiation of this "visitation" was calculated to appear to many Americans, Catholic and others, inside and outside religious life, not as an invitation to respectful and fruitful dialogue and ongoing improvement of their lives but as an unwarranted surprise attack. One religious speaking to me referred to it as "the Pearl Harbor model of dialogue."

Apostolic visitations, precisely because they imply suspicion if not guilt, are typically undertaken in regard to specific groups, e.g., a religious order, province, or monastery, a diocese, a particular pious society, or particular practices or behaviors, e.g., suspect cults or fraudulent claims of apparitions or private revelations, etc. This investigation, however, targeted indiscriminately all 60,000 or more U.S. women religious in some 400 orders. It would be equivalent to setting out to investigate all sacramentally married people in the United States, or all the priests and bishops of every diocese in the country. Undoubtedly some abuses could be found in any such global group, as they probably can be among religious. But the implication that whatever abuse is being investigated is so widespread and deep-rooted among religious that all of them must be investigated is deeply disturbing if not insulting. These women, who have no obligation to be or remain religious, have given 30, 40, 50, 60, even 70 years of their lives in largely unremunerated service to the church and its members. What could possibly justify such universal suspicion?

Religious then learned that a single "visitator" had been appointed, without any consultation, for the entire population. Her competence might indeed be astounding. But she was an unknown among U.S. women religious who include in their number a virtual "hall of fame" of outstanding, highly credible women who might have been tapped for this sensitive role. The visitator is unknown because she has spent a good part of her mature religious life outside this country and belongs to a small order with one small province in the United States. But could any one person, however talented and experienced, no matter what group she belonged to, questioning subjects without the presence of any witnesses and rendering secret reports which the subjects may not verify even for accuracy much less "tone" or "inference," possibly carry out a task of such scale and scope? Nevertheless, leaders of religious orders made good faith efforts to cooperate with a process that is hardly comprehensible to people not living in a totalitarian political system.

They then found out that phase three of the investigation would involve "site visitations" (of congregations chosen by the single investigator) by teams composed by the single investigator from a pool of nominees who must swear a loyalty oath, not to the people being investigated whose reputations and ministries are at stake, but to the investigating authority (the Holy See). Superiors were invited to submit names of candidates for these teams. Understandably, many religious -- congregations as a whole, superiors, and individual religious -- declined the invitation to make any kind of loyalty oath to any human being (they have all made lifelong vows to God which they consider quite adequate) or to investigate their fellow religious and write secret reports about them. The solidarity among women religious, both within their own orders and among orders, is too deep for many to even contemplate participation in such a process. But that leaves open the unsettling possibility or even likelihood that those who are willing to become site visitators will have views of religious life, authority, and justice quite different from those they investigate.

Furthermore, the orders selected for site visitations have been asked to pay the transportation and other expenses of those sent to investigate them! Each successive element of the visitation has elicited more gasps of shock and disbelief from American women used to a legal system that, despite its grave flaws, espouses transparency, protects the rights of the accused, and is based on an assumption of innocence.

Most recently the Instrumentum Laboris or working document for the second phase has appeared. All heads of orders will be required to answer in writing a long, detailed questionnaire which will surely consume a great deal of valuable time that congregational leaders should be devoting to their very heavy primary responsibilities: spiritual leadership of their congregations, fostering community, supporting ministry, caring for their members both active and infirm, and trying to handle the enormous financial challenges facing most orders today. Furthermore, every individual religious is being asked to reflect on this same list of questions. Most (probably all) congregations frequently spend quality time, individually and corporately, in reflection and examination of their life, on planning and implementation of processes for the improvement of the quality of their lives and ministries, and on decision-making for their immediate and long-range futures. Being asked to address a list of "one-size-fits-all" questions is not only a questionable consumption of valuable personal, community, and ministerial time and energy but implies that religious have been living in a state of superficial distraction or self-delusion from which they need to be awakened by mandated self-examination. Most women religious will tell anyone who asks that they spend a great deal of time and energy in serious reflection on their personal spiritual life (in daily prayer, annual and more frequent retreats, spiritual direction, personal discernment of life and ministry with their community and its leadership, ongoing education) and their corporate life in community and ministry (in congregational days, assemblies, chapters, small group meetings, council meetings, community discernment processes, and so on). These inquiries run much deeper than the mechanical questions on the Instrumentum.

At the end of all this investigation, including the site visitations of phase three, the single investigator will (apparently without the help of anyone) synthesize all this material and write a comprehensive secret report on the whole of ministerial religious life in this country to the Vatican. Women religious are professionals who are very familiar with assessments and evaluations of their institutions such as schools, hospitals, and social service agencies and certification processes for personnel including themselves. Such professionals could not imagine appointing, for example, a single chemistry professor from a foreign university to evaluate single-handedly all the universities in the United States (programs, professors, administration, finances, libraries and laboratories, admissions processes, graduation and placement statistics, extracurricular activities, student life, etc.), judge them all, and make a secret report to the Department of Education on their "quality." Religious orders are extremely diverse in foundation, history, charism, purposes, personnel, government, traditions, problems, financial resources, ministries, community life, spirit, and so on. Even if the report gets things basically right about one order, how applicable would that to the others? To many, this investigation appears, at the very least, astonishing, if not downright mind-boggling in the unprofessionalism of its process.
In short, not only does the fact of the investigation feel threatening if not sinister but its mode is upsetting to adult professional women religious.

What is the motivation of the visitation?
The motivation for the visitation remains very vague. Perhaps the most commonly voiced hypothesis of both lay and religious, is that the purpose of the investigation is to ascertain the size and status of the financial assets of religious orders of women in order to enable the U.S. bishops to take possession of those assets to pay their legal debts. Even if there is no validity to this hypothesis (and I dearly hope there is not) it is distressing that Catholics' confidence in their hierarchy has been so eroded that they suspect their bishops of wishing to further impoverish religious orders struggling to support their elderly and infirm members. Another frequently voiced hypothesis, with perhaps more credibility, is that Cardinal Franc Rodé, the head of Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, wants to mandate for all women religious a return to pre-conciliar lifestyles akin to those in his eastern European homeland under Communism. Again, the suspicion is not without some basis in remarks the cardinal has made publicly, but there is no proof of such an intention and, in any case, such a move would surely occasion far more trouble than the Vatican probably wants to deal with.

The only "purpose" stated in the official documents is "to look into the quality of the life of women religious in the United States who are members of apostolic religious institutes." At several junctures Cardinal Rodé, who initiated the investigation, has suggested that his concern is about the "decline in numbers" of religious in these orders. There seems to be an implied "cause and effect" relation between these two concerns, namely, that the decline in numbers is somehow due to the poor quality of the life of religious. It is time to address this implication with some facts.

It is true that the numbers of U.S. women religious declined precipitously, by tens of thousands, from the highpoint (at least 120,000) in the mid-sixties to something around 60,000 today. This was due principally to two factors, not identical, namely, the sharp drop-off in numbers entering religious life and a major exodus of professed religious from the life. These phenomena were largely simultaneous which leads many people to fail to distinguish between them.

Numbers entering: The inflation of numbers of religious from the late 1940s to 1960s paralleled the influx of large numbers of men following Thomas Merton into monasteries in the disordered social aftermath of World War II. This brief period of heightened religious enthusiasm has been studied extensively and I will not engage this data here. Suffice it to say that, prior to the vocational tsunami beginning in the 1940s and peaking in the mid-1960s, the total number of women religious, between the 1700s when the first ones came to this country and the early1900s, was nowhere near the post-war high point. Indeed, it was closer to today's "low point." To understand the sudden decline in entrants after 1965 one has to understand the sudden inflation immediately after the war. I will mention here only the most important factors.

Pre-Humanae Vitae Catholic families tended to be large, often five to ten children. The U.S. bishops insisted that parents were morally obliged to send those children to Catholic schools which were almost totally staffed by the unpaid workforce of women religious. Thus the average Catholic girl spent most of her waking hours for eight to twelve years in the company of "the nuns," becoming familiar with their life, admiring them as "special" people, as the favorites of God and male authority figures in the church, as uniquely powerful women who were more educated and professionally engaged than most other women they knew. The nuns wore fascinating and exotic clothes, lived in mysterious enclaves whose interiors "seculars" could only imagine, and seemed to enjoy a special esprit de corps among themselves in their secret world.

At that point in time the Catholic girl had two viable life options when she completed high school (or more rarely college): to marry like her mother and begin her own life of child rearing or enter the convent. While by far the majority chose marriage (probably as naïvely as the minority chose religious life!), the numbers from every graduating class entering the convent was impressive. And parents, trained to regard a "vocation" in the family as an honor and blessing, could afford to offer one or more children to God without fear of dying without grandchildren. Novitiate classes could number 30 in a small congregation to a hundred or more in a large one. And Catholic culture made leaving the convent after profession as unthinkable as divorce.

Post-Humanae Vitae (ironically, this document reiterating the ban on "artificial contraception" seemed to precipitate, or at least not prevent, a sharp decrease in the Catholic fertility rate) Catholic families are as small as those of most other Americans, i.e., one or two children. The number of Catholic schools rapidly declined. Even those that existed usually had few or no sisters in the classroom. Parents claimed their right to send their children to the schools of their choice, often choosing a better endowed or geographically closer public school over a Catholic one. Feminism and other forces combined to open opportunities to girls well beyond the "marriage or convent" choice. There was no profession or ministry open to a woman religious that was not equally open to a laywoman. Parents who wanted grandchildren were less inclined to promote their (often only) daughter's choice of the convent. Church officials were rapidly closing the "feeder" institutions (Catholic schools) and religious orders were losing their high schools to economic and personnel pressures.

The bad news in all this, of course, was that by the mid-sixties very few Catholic girls considered religious life and even fewer entered. The good news is that the only real reason, now, for a young woman to enter was that she really felt called by God to a life of consecrated celibacy lived with others who shared this vocation and expressed in a total commitment to the service of God's people. Not having a husband or children, not becoming personally wealthy, perhaps not being able to pursue exactly her professional interests were no longer seen as just "part of the package" of an otherwise "special" and therefore rewarding vocation but as difficult, free choices of a highly demanding life which could find justification only in a genuine religious vocation. Women took considerably longer to come to such decisions. The huge novitiate classes of 18-year olds disappeared and women entering tended to be in their late 20s or 30s or even older and applying, not as "classes" or "bands," but as individuals. This had little to do with the quality of religious life. It had everything to do with there being far fewer Catholic children to begin with. They were not exposed to religious life (or, often, even to normal Catholic culture within which a religious vocation might seem normal or attractive); opportunities for women had broadened enormously; parents tended not to encourage vocations; women were putting off life-commitment decisions for a decade or more beyond high school.

Religious leaving: Beginning in the late 1960s through the 1980s there was a massive exodus of women from religious life. There were certainly some who left in bitterness and anger at what they considered an alienating and oppressive life of uniformity and repression in which they had somehow become trapped. But the vast majority, many of whom continue to this day to maintain warm relationships with their former orders and convent classmates, left because they came to realize that they were not called to religious life. Many realized that they were called to marriage and that celibacy was not required for holiness or for engagement in ministry which was, for many, the main reason they had entered. Others wanted careers, financial independence, or personal autonomy incompatible with religious poverty, obedience, and community. The new theology of vocation and moral freedom and responsibility encouraged by the Council made the once "unthinkable" (i.e., change of state of life) thinkable. The stigma attached to "leaving the convent" largely vanished making the change culturally acceptable. These women, part of the great influx of the 1950s and '60s, were now in their 20's, 30's, or 40's, generally well-educated and professionally prepared for a world and church that now had much more room for lay women in many areas. Many of the thousands of women who left religious life within a couple decades of entering remain to this day profoundly grateful for the psychological, spiritual, and professional formation they received in religious life. They are not sorry they entered and do not consider their convent experience a "mistake" or those years "wasted." But they are also glad that they realized in time that they were not called to that life and that it was possible for them to peacefully follow God's will in leaving as they had followed that will, as they understood it, when they entered.

The combination of many departures and few entrants has created a "gap" between age 20 and age 50/90 in most orders. This creates problems for women entering today who have few peers and few religious right ahead of them. No one under-estimates the seriousness of this situation and efforts like "Giving Voice" (a cross-congregational association of younger religious) and intercongregational formation programs are trying to address it. But it is important to realize that neither the exodus from religious life nor the decline in numbers entering was due to a sudden deterioration in the quality of religious life. The change in demographics, in the sociology of the Catholic sub-culture, in theology of states of life and vocation, in roles of women in church and society, and many other factors we cannot delve into here created the situation with which we are contending today.

That situation, in my opinion and that of most religious I know, is indeed challenging but not desperate. Nor will it be rectified by a retroversion to pre-Conciliar convent lifestyles or disciplinary initiatives of Vatican authorities. The response, which is and will continue to be arduous, lies with those who have stayed.

Conclusion: The ones who stayed
A far more interesting question than who left and why is, "Why did the ones who stayed, stay?" These are the women who, today, compose the largest cohort in religious life, the 60-80 year olds. This is not only the largest but also the most vibrant group in religious life flanked at one end with a small number of wonderfully courageous new entrants in their late 20s to 40s and at the other end, by a still numerous group of women in their 90s and beyond who continue to witness with stunning beauty to the joy and fruitfulness of a life totally given to God and God's people. The members of this largest cohort are examples of "80 being the new 60." Generally in vigorous mental, psychological, and physical health, they have to take time off from full-time ministries to celebrate their 50th and 60th anniversaries in religious life. They are carrying the responsibilities of leadership in their orders and supporting with indomitable hope and courage the church-wide but beleaguered effort to keep the spirit and substance of Vatican II from succumbing to the tides of restorationism. These religious are not hankering for the "good old days," for a return to special clothes and titles, instant recognition and elite status in church and society, and someone to support them, think for them, and keep their life in order 
in a turbulent world. The real question is, who are these "stayers" and why did/do they stay?

These women are the contemporaries of those who left in the exodus of the '70s and '80s. Like those who left, they were young (20s to 40s), perhaps the best educated group of women in America at the time, professionally precocious, theologically well-grounded, and becoming increasingly interdependently autonomous as women in the church and world. These religious were eminently well-positioned to leave and had every reason (but one) to do so. They watched in anguish as increasing numbers of their friends made that choice. Religious life had little to offer them, humanly or materially speaking. Orders were losing their big institutions; financial insecurity was becoming a major concern; few were entering. The institutional church was repudiating feminism in all its forms; the papacy was engaged in vigorous restorationism; many in and outside the church including some in religious life had resigned themselves to (or rejoiced in) what they saw as "the death of the Council" or the "end of renewal." The exciting theologies of liberation and lay ministerial empowerment in the church were being repressed in favor of a renewed clericalism and centralization of power. From a strictly human standpoint it was a bleak time for those who had come of age in the joyous, Spirit-filled enthusiasm of the Council when community, equality of discipleship in the church, commitment to the building of a better world, deepening spirituality, inter-religious dialogue, feminist empowerment were the very air they breathed. From every angle hope was being crushed and old world narrowness, neo-orthodoxy, and Vatican re-centralization were replacing the Spirit-filled, world-affirming, humane spirit of John XXIII and the Council.

In this crucible the ones who stayed were tested by fire. Elsewhere I have referred to and described in more detail this period as a corporate "dark night of sense and spirit" for women religious. They were experiencing a deep purification of any sense of spiritual superiority (to say nothing of arrogant certainty), of elitism, of corporate power and influence, of "most favored status" or mysterious specialness in the church. Their faith was being battered by profound theological tensions raised by the clash between what they most deeply, if obscurely, knew was true and what was happening in the church and world. They had to find the taproot of their vocation, not in peer group euphoria, social status, or preferential treatment by the hierarchy, but in the core of their spirituality, face to face with the One to whom they had given their lives in celibate love, in the emptiness of a poverty that was spiritual as well as material, and in an obedience unto the death of everything they cherished, except the God in whom they believed. They found out experientially why Jesus withdrew to the mountains or the desert in the middle of the night and before dawn to pray, not to "set a good example" for the less spiritual but because he desperately needed God to make it through one more day.

As this cohort of women religious made its way through the 1990s toward the new millennium, and even as financial and ecclesiastical problems multiplied, a serenity began to surface from the darkness. Even secular sociologists, but especially the laity who associate with these religious and those they serve, have recognized that the joy and counter-intuitive confidence, the capacity for work and suffering, the whole-hearted commitment to their own spiritual lives and to the people to whom they minister, the unity and solidarity in community that is evident in most women's religious Congregations -- given the enormity of the challenges they confront -- must be rooted in something, Someone, much deeper and more central to their lives than anything temporal or material.

Some congregations have had to face their imminent demise and have begun to prepare, not to be passively wiped out by circumstances beyond their control, but, like Archbishop Oscar Romero of El Salvador, to die into Christ's resurrection leaving a legacy that will somehow rise in those they have loved and served. Many congregations have reconfigured their corporate lives by consolidation or merging or refounding and are launched into new adventures in a still strange land. Others, though diminished in size and resources, have decided that they can and will make it together into the future and have undertaken vigorous, faith-based strategic planning, including vocation work, to make that happen. But the important thing for our purposes here is that these women are still "staying" because, in the very core of their being, they do not just "belong to a religious order"; they are religious. Hopefully, the present investigation will make evident to those whose concerns gave rise to it the meaning of religious life as it is being envisioned, lived, and handed on today in Congregations renewed in and by that Pentecostal outpouring of the Spirit called the Second Vatican Council.
[Sandra M. Schneiders, a member of Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary of Monroe, Mich., is a professor of New Testament Studies and Christian Spirituality at the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, Calif.]

Hier is die berig uit vandag se New York Times:

IT is an astonishing thing that historians will look back and puzzle over, that in the 21st century, American women were such hunted creatures.

Even as Republicans try to wrestle women into chastity belts, the Vatican is trying to muzzle American nuns.

Who thinks it’s cool to bully nuns? While continuing to heal and educate, the community of sisters is aging and dying out because few younger women are willing to make such sacrifices for a church determined to bring women to heel.

Yet the nuns must be yanked into line by the crepuscular, medieval men who run the Catholic Church.

“It’s not terribly unlike the days of yore when they singled out people in the rough days of the Inquisition,” said Kenneth Briggs, the author of “Double Crossed: Uncovering the Catholic Church’s Betrayal of American Nuns.”

How can the church hierarchy be more offended by the nuns’ impassioned advocacy for the poor than by priests’ sordid pedophilia?

How do you take spiritual direction from a church that seems to be losing its soul?

It has become a habit for the church to go after women. A Worcester, Mass., bishop successfully fought to get a commencement speech invitation taken away from Vicki Kennedy, widow of Teddy Kennedy, because of her positions on some social issues. And an Indiana woman named Emily Herx has filed a lawsuit saying she was fired from her job teaching in a Catholic school and denounced as a “grave, immoral sinner” by the parish pastor after she used fertility treatments to try to get pregnant with her husband.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York recently told The Wall Street Journal that only “a tiny minority” of priests were tainted by the sex abuse scandal. But it’s a global shame spiral. The church leadership never recoiled in horror from pedophilia, yet it recoils in horror from outspoken nuns.

In Philadelphia, Msgr. William Lynn, 61, is the first church supervisor to go on trial for child endangerment. He is fighting charges that he may have covered up for 20 priests accused of sexual abuse and left in the ministry, often transferred to unwitting parishes.

Somehow the Philadelphia church leaders decided that the Rev. Thomas Smith was not sexually motivated when he made boys strip and be whipped playing Christ in a Passion play. Somehow they decided an altar boy who said he was raped by two priests and his fifth-grade teacher was not the one in need of protection.

Instead of looking deep into its own heart and soul, the church is going after the women who are the heart and soul of parishes, schools and hospitals.

The stunned sisters are debating how to respond after the Vatican’s scorching reprimand to the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the main association of American Catholic nuns. The bishops were obviously peeved that some nuns had the temerity to speak out in support of President Obama’s health care plan, including his compromise on contraception for religious hospitals.

The Vatican accused the nuns of pushing “radical feminist themes,” and said they were not vocal enough in parroting church policy against the ordination of women as priests and against abortion, contraception and homosexual relationships.

In a blatant “Shut up and sit down, sisters” moment, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, noted, “Occasional public statements by the L.C.W.R. that disagree with or challenge positions taken by the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals, are not compatible with its purpose.”

Pope Benedict, who became known as “God’s Rottweiler” when he was the cardinal conducting the office’s loyalty tests, assigned Archbishop J. Peter Sartain of Seattle to crack down on the climate of “corporate dissent” among the poor nuns.

When the nuns push for social justice, they’re put into stocks. Yet Archbishop Sartain has led a campaign in Washington to reverse the state’s newly enacted law allowing same-sex marriage, and he’s a church hero.

Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic lobbying group slapped in the Vatican report, said it scares the church hierarchy to have “educated women form thoughtful opinions and engage in dialogue.”

She told NPR that it was ironic that church leaders were mad at sisters over contraception when the nuns had committed to a celibate life with no families or babies. Given the damage done by the pedophilia scandals, she said, “the church’s obsession, at times, with the sexual relationships is a serious problem.”

Asked by The Journal if the church had a hard time convincing the flock to follow its strict teachings on sexuality, Cardinal Dolan laughed: “Do we ever!”

Church leaders behave like adolescent boys, blinded by sex. That’s the problem with inquisitors and censors: They become fascinated by what they deplore.

The pope needs what the rest of us got from nuns: a good rap across the knuckles

Deur trane heen kom genadiglik die liefde. Oor die opstanding.

Johannes Evangelie ken ons as die Evangelie van liefde, geskryf deur die Dissipel vir wie Jesus liefgehad het (Joh.20:2).

Dit is ‘n boek wat nie net die liefde besing nie, maar wat ook in liefde geskryf is. Hoe liefdevol en versigtig het Johannes in sy Evangelie die volgelinge van Jesus se liefde vir Jesus beskryf!

Dit kom veral na vore in die mees intense oomblikke van hul verhouding met Jesus. Johannes 20 is die heel eerste deel van die opstandingsverhaal, daardie kern-gebeurtenis in die lewe van Jesus se dissipels. En veral hier sien ons hoe intiem die volgeling vir Jesus liefgehad het en hoe hartverskeurend sy dood vir hulle was.

Hulle is duidelik verpletter na Jesus se kruisdood: Met die mees intieme, liefdevolle dade versorg hul Jesus tot aan die einde. Vir oulaas het Josef van Arimatea, bang, maar tog waagaam, sy liggaam gaan haal. En daardie ander geheime volgeling van Jesus, Nikodemus, nog steeds net ‘n stille volgeling, het met ‘n kosbare klomp salf-olie opgedaag. Toe het hulle Jesus se liggaam, teer behandel met geurolie en sorgsaam toegedraai in doeke, in die graf weggelê (Joh. 20:40-41).

Hulle het ook nie daaraan gedink dat Jesus sou opstaan nie, soos Johannes 20:9 skrywe.  

Dit was hulle afskeid. Nie vir ‘n oomblik het hul oor hulself nagedink, gewonder oor hierdie innerlike verlange na Jesus wat hulle nie losgelaat  het nie. Nie vir ‘n oomblik sou hulle die gedagte koester dat God aan die werk was, selfs in hul tye van verdriet en pyn nie.

In die tuin, die simbool van die paradys in Johannes se Evangelie, het hulle Jesus begrawe: dit tuin was vir hulle die plek van herinnering, ‘n simbool van die goeie tye saam met Jesus, die man van Liefde.

Hoe het hulle aan hul herinnering vasgeklou. Weer eens, sonder dat hulle dit self besef het, is hulle, selfs in Jesus se dood, deur hul verhouding met Jesus geïnspireer.

Daar by die kruis sou hulle liefde nie eindig nie. Ook daarna, dae na Jesus se dood, is hulle na die graf aangetrek.

As ‘n mens eers een keer die liefde ontdek het, laat dit jou nooit los nie. Niks, nie eers die dood, kan jou daarvan skei nie. As God ‘n mens een keer in liefde aangeraak het, sal jou hart nooit weer tot bedaring kom nie.

1. Verdieping: die oop graf

Geloof, weet ons wat vandag terugkyk op die dood en opstanding van Jesus, is iets wat ‘n mens se lewe vir altyd ryk en vol maak. Maar geloof beteken nog glad nie dat ‘n mens altyd die bergspitse beklim nie. Soms, soos ons so dikwels in die Bybel as boek van geloofsreise sien, kan ons geloof hom te pletter loop teen die werklikhede van die lewe.

Johannes vertel sy lesers wat vroeg-oggend, toe dit nog donker was, op die derde dag na Jesus se dood by sy graf gebeur het. Maria Magdalena, wat toe beskou is as die voorste vroue-dissipel van Jesus, die een uit wie Jesus sewe duiwels verdryf het (Lk. 8:2) en wat tot aan die einde, met Jesus se kruisdood, getrou aan sy sy was, het, toe dit nog donker was, na die graf gegaan. Die Vrydag nog het sy saam met Jesus se ma langs die kruis gestaan. Nou was sy op pad na sy graf.

Asof die kruis van Jesus nie erg genoeg was nie, asof haar pyn nie seer genoeg was nie, ontdek Maria iets wat haar nog verder sou verpletter :

Die vrou, vroeg in haar lewe reeds verlos van groot donkerte toe Jesus haar duiwels uitgedryf het, daarna ‘n getroue volgeling van Jesus is op weg na die graf. Sy is opnuut in die donkerte ingedryf.  Haar hart is in hierdie donker tyd gevul met verlange na Jesus.

Hierdie keer is sy op haar eie. Daar is, soos sy loop na die graf, nie Iemand wat haar donkerte uitdryf nie. En sy dink dat sy iets van daardie verlange kan stil deur naby hom te wees.

Maar tog: lank voordat sy by die graf aankom, was God al daar en het die wonder gebeur. 

Dit is die ironie: die vrou op weg na die graf. Wat sy, alleen op pad na die plek waar Jesus was, nie geweet het nie, is dat God die nuwe lewe  gebring het en die mag van die dood gebreek het. Die mens is op pad na die graf, maar intussen, ongemerk, is die klip weggerol en het die goddelike wonder van die opstanding plaasgevind. Die mens is ‘n besoeker aan die dood, die reisiger na die graf. God, daarenteen, verander alles, skep nuut, keer alles op hul kop.

Johannes maak seker dat sy lesers hierdie simboliek sal verstaan: dit, vertel hy, het alles gebeur op die Sondag-oggend, die eerste dag van die week, ‘n dag na die sabbat.

Dit is, sou ‘n mens dink, ‘n gewone dag. Volgens Joodse gebruik is dit die eerste dag na die sabbat wanneer alles van vooraf begin en die mens weer aan die werk kan spring na die ruskans.

Maar wie mooi dink, sal besef hierdie is ‘n baie spesiale dag. Op die eerste dag het God die hemel en die aarde geskape. Dit vertel die paradys-verhaal vir ons. Hier het ons weer ‘n eerste dag. En weer doen God wonder-like dinge. Van voor af, in die tuin, begin God ‘n paradys-verhaal. Dit is die eerste dag van die nuwe skepping.

So werk genade. So werk God se liefde: dit kom na ons lank voordat ons dit ervaar. Terwyl ons nog in die nag is, in die donkerte rondtas, is God reeds teenwoordig, rol God grafstene oop en skenk die opstanding uit die dood.

2. Nuut en veranderd

Waar God werk, kom alles in beweging – al weet ‘n mens nie altyd so helder wat aan die gang is nie. Die eerste ding wat Maria doen is om haastig te begin hardloop. In vers 1 “gaan” Maria na die graf. In vers 3 hardloop sy terug toe sy sien dat die graf se klip oopgerol is. Vervaard gaan vertel sy aan Petrus en Johannes wat sy ontdek het.

Maar Maria lees dinge heeltemal verkeerd. Sy sien glad nie God se werk raak nie. Kyk net haar boodskap: vir haar beteken die oop graf dat Jesus uit die graf weggeneem is en elders begrawe is. Dit is nog donker – nie net buite nie, maar ook in Maria se gemoed want haar treurigheid word in die verhaal weer en weer geteken: Later, nadat die dissipels ook by die graf was, het sy nie saam met hulle huis toe gegaan nie, maar “buite by die graf staan en huil” (Joh.20:11). Toe, vertel Johannes weer vir die tweede keer, het sy  al huilende in die graf ingekyk. Johannes vertel dat daar alle rede vir haar was om te besef dat God aan die werk is. Want in die graf was daar twee engele. Dit het haar egter nie  dieper laat dink nie. Haar lewe is pure paniek, vol gehardlopery en gehuilery.

Vir die tweede keer, en dit terwyl God vir haar tekens gee dat hier iets spesiaals aan die gebeur is, misverstaan sy alles. Heel ironies sê sy vir die twee engele dieselfde wat sy vir die dissipels vertel het: sy huil omdat hulle Jesus, “my Here”,  weggevat het en sy nie weet waar hulle Hom begrawe het nie.

Hierdie vrou, deur Jesus self aangeraak in ‘n grootse liefdesgebaar toe Hy haar van haar duiwels vrygemaak het, laat haar nie eers deur engele van haar trane wegkry nie.

En vir die derde keer, selfs toe Jesus self voor haar gestaan het, het sy gedink dis die tuinier en vir hom gevra of hy Jesus weggevat en elders begrawe het.

Drie keer, huilend, in die donker, treur sy oor haar dooie Jesus. En dit terwyl Jesus lewend voor haar staan. Hierdie vrou, uit wie Jesus sewe duiwels gedryf het (Lk.8:2), wat so getrou aan Jesus was, selfs toe sy by die kruis gewaak het, sy wat so baie kere na Jesus geluister het en gehoor het hoe Hy praat oor die dood,  verstaan Jesus nie regtig nie.

Hoe gebeur dit alles dan?

‘n Mens kan so ingebuig wees in jou ellende, dat dit jou perspektief op God se werking tot niet maak. Trane kan ‘n mens blind maak vir nuwe lewe, vir engele en vir die teenwoordigheid van Jesus.

Maria vertel ons dat God soms juis in ons trane, in die graftye, in die donker nag by ons is – al lyk dit nie so nie.

Trane, moet ons leer, vertel van ons verlange na God, na die Liefde. En God, die God van Liefde, laat nie ons verlange onbeantwoord nie. Hy sien die trane, droog dit af en neem die pyn en lyding weg (Open.21:4).

Want kyk wat uiteindelik die groot ommekeer in Maria se treurigheid bring. Terwyl sy nog in trane met Jesus praat en dink dat hy die tuinier is, praat Jesus een enkele woord met haar. “Maria” is al wat hy vir haar sê. Dit is asof Jesus daarmee in een woord sê wat ons elders as belofte van God lees: “Ek het jou by die Naam geroep. Jy is myne.” (Jes. 43:1). Of ook: “Ek het jou naam in my handpalms gegraveer” (Jes. 49:16).

Genade word op ons uitgestort. Veral wanneer ons verlore voel, asof ons tussen die varkpeule verval het, veral dan is God, al hardlopende op pad na ons – net soos die Vader van die Verlore Kind.

Die tuin was nou die paradys. Dit het die plek geword waar Jesus lewend teenwoordig was. Die intieme verhouding tussen God en mens word met een woord herstel.

“Kyk, die woonplek van God is nou by die mense. Hy sal by hulle bly; hulle sal sy volke wees, en God self sal by hulle wees as hulle God. God sal al die trane van hulle oë afdroog. Die dood sal daar nie meer wees nie. Ook leed, smart en pyn sal daar nie meer wees nie. Die dinge van vroeër het verbygegaan” (Open. 21: 3-4).

Die meule maal langsaam, maar seker...

Daar was vanoggend in ons koerante ‘n berig oor die skuldigbevinding van Charles Taylor, die voormalige president van Liberië, vir sy misdade teen die mensdom.

Die berig in die New York Times van vanoggend maak hierdie kliniese feit deur een enkele voorbeeld konkreet. Wanneer ‘n mens die berig lees, draai jou maag.

Dit het niks met Afrika of ras te doen dat iemand so koelbloedig en verby alle menslikheid heen kan moor en vernietig nie. Daarvoor is die Nazi-tyd en nog meer onlangs, die oorlog in Servië/ Bosnië te pertinent in ‘n mens se geheue. Die moordkultuur lê diep ingebed in die menslike psige.

In vanoggend se koerant word vertel hoedat Taylor doodstil en oënskynlik argeloos gesit en luister het hoe die regter sy uitspraak lees. Dit is eers toe dit duidelik word dat hy skuldig bevind gaan word dat hy sy hande begin saamklem het.

Sy eie toekomstige lot in ‘n tronk sou hom op daardie moment begin pla het. Dit is skrale troos. Honderde duisende mense wat afgeslag is, sal nie van die uitspraak weet nie. Hulle sal nie merk dat selfs die mees gewetenslose volksmoordenaars darem nog iewers  in ‘n hof ontsenu kan word nie. En al die potensiële massa-moordenaars gaan nie afgeskrik word deur Taylor se saamgeklemde vuiste nie. Die verwoeste lewens van baie mense wat deur die slagting moes gaan, sal nie maklik herstel nie.

Maar wanneer ‘n mens lees oor die sterk internasionale pogings, ook van die VSA, om hom te vang en tot verantwoording te bring (sien Wikipedia se artikel oor Charles Taylor), is ‘n mens dankbaar. Die kwaad is in ons midde, soms in skrikwekkende omvang. Maar dan is dit ook waar dat daar die magte van die goeie aan die werk is. So is dit meer as ooit tevore. Geregtigheid, sê die volkswysheid, sal seëvier - die meule maal langsaam, maar seker. 

Hier is die berig:

WASHINGTON — When I heard the news Thursday that Taylor, the former president of Liberai, had been found guilty of war crimes in Sierra Leona, I immediately telephoned one of the people whose life had been ripped apart by his soldiers: my sister Eunice, back home in Liberia.

Before Mr. Taylor unleashed the tsunami of rape, murder, torture and dismemberment that would engulf Sierra Leone, killing more than 50,000 people and causing hundreds of thousands to flee, there was Liberia.

It was in Liberia that Mr. Taylor’s rebels arrived in June 1990 at the Firestone rubber plantation (they still called it “plantation”) outside Monrovia, where Eunice was working. The fighters were intent on the revenge killings that would claim hundreds of thousands of civilians from Liberia’s rival ethnic groups. Eunice, then 27, ran outside in time to see about 20 men grabbing her co-worker Harris Brown and dragging him outside.

Why? He happened to be Krahn, the same ethnic group as that of the country’s hated president at the time, Mr. Taylor’s predecessor.

With the civil war raging and Mr. Taylor’s gunmen roaming the country wearing the wedding gowns, blond wigs and Halloween masks that some believed would make them bulletproof, many Liberians did not allow their children to stray far from their side. Mr. Brown had taken his son to work with him, so the 10-year-old boy was there to witness what came next.

First, the soldiers stripped Mr. Brown to his underwear and sat him on the ground. They shot him from behind, then stabbed him in the stomach. Then they dragged the knife up through his chest. And when they were done, the man who wielded the knife that killed Mr. Brown walked up to his son, patted him on the head, and said, “Don’t cry.”

Eunice watched all this, then fled upcountry, joining the legions of African women doing what they do when their world falls apart: making cassava bread to sell on the side of the road. And every day that she strained the cassava to drain the juice to make the flour to bake the bread, she thought about her own son, Ishmael.

She had taken steps to make sure that what had happened to Mr. Brown’s son, what had happened to all of those other Liberian sons and daughters who were kidnapped by Mr. Taylor’s troops and forced to become child soldiers, did not happen to her Ishmael. She had sent him away, at the age of 5. She had sent him all the way to Gambia, to live with his father and his father’s people.

With Liberia’s rapidly vanishing infrastructure, battered economy, nonexistent mail service and about-to-be-destroyed telephone lines, the distance would eviscerate the relationship between mother and son. But Eunice, like so many African women then, made that choice to save her son’s life.

Because of Charles Taylor, she would not see him again for 21 years.

It was in Liberia that Mr. Taylor’s forces kidnapped another of my sisters, Janice, along with her husband, Yao, and their 1-year-old son, Logosou, from the Monrovia suburbs where they were living with a handful of orphans and refugees. As the Taylor rebels fired rocket-propelled grenades and artillery rounds, Janice crouched beside a bathroom wall with her baby. Logosou had become so used to the fighting in Liberia that he had acquired the habit of putting his hands up in the air whenever he saw soldiers, saying: “See, Mama? Hands up.”

Janice didn’t let him put his hands up this day, though; she crawled on top of him to shield him from the shelling. Ten Taylor fighters stormed the house, shooting wildly. They killed a 9-year-old orphan who had been injured during the siege, killed a man who happened upon the group, and took everyone else hostage, marching them 10 miles to their barracks. As my sister walked under the blistering sun, she held her son close, reciting the “Hail Mary” into his cheek.

A female soldier walked up to Janice and admired Logosou. “Oh, what a fine baby!” she cooed. “I’ve killed two like him today.”

At the barracks, the rebels locked Janice, Yao and Logosou in a cell with nine others. They took three older men who had been staying at Janice’s house and shot them outside the cell. The next day, the fighters inexplicably let Janice and her family go, and they made their way — on foot, by bus, hitchhiking — to the Ivory Coast border. It took 15 days.

It was in Liberia that Mr. Taylor campaigned for president using the slogan “He killed my ma, he killed my pa, but I will vote for him anyway,” in a telling acknowledgment of the psychological damage a pointless war can inflict on a country. It is in Liberia that, almost a decade after Mr. Taylor was driven from the country, men and women today are trying to turn former child soldiers into functional people.

There are dizzyingly complex reasons Mr. Taylor was tried for what he did in Sierra Leone, instead of Liberia, many of them involving the effort to keep the hard-won peace that now exists between factions in Liberia. I know this. I just hope that when history books recount this first head of state to be convicted by an international court since Nuremberg, they remember Liberia.

Wat liefde werklik is.

Liefde is 'n onderwerp waaroor ons baie en graag praat.  Die saak van liefde hou ons gereeld besig. 


Maar: liefde is nie bloot net 'n pragtige saak waaroor 'n mens graag praat nie. 


Liefde gaan oor verhoudinge waarin 'n mens betrokke raak en betrokke is, oor bande wat mense aan mekaar bind. 


Hierdie bande is nie oppervlakkig, geskoei op gevoelens van jammerte en op sensitiwiteit vir ander mense nie. Liefde is nie iets wat 'n mens "moet" bewys nie, wat ek as 'n swaar verantwoordelikheid beleef nie. 


Wanneer 'n mens lief het, gaan dit om 'n verhouding van goedgesindheid waarin 'n mens vir ander die allerbeste toewens. Jy wil graag dat hulle 'n vol, ryk, gelukkige lewe moet voer. 


As 'n mens vir ander omgee, wil 'n mens graag dat dit met hulle goed gaan.


Maar dit is net een deel van die prentjie. Daar is 'n dieper dimensie aan die liefde. 


Egte liefde is baie sterker as goeie wense. Egte liefde is geanker in 'n dieper visie van wie ander mense is. 


Om lief te hê, beteken om na ander deur God se oë te kyk en om vir ander om te gee soos wat God vir hulle omgee. Daarmee word 'n mens deel van 'n verborge, mistieke ervaring. Wanneer 'n mens in 'n verhouding met ander is, is dit 'n verhouding wat deur die onsegbare, deur die onuitspreeklike gedryf word. 


Dit besef ek weer die week toe ek lees hoe God, ongeag die houding van die Joodse volk en die eerste Christene in Handelinge 10, die Heilige Gees oor alle mense uitstort - of hulle nou gebore Jode is of nie. Kornelius is maar een van baie voorbeelde van mense wat ook hul Pinkstermoment gehad het. God het ook vir Kornelius aangeraak en vir hom nadergetrek om die geestelike weg te loop. 


Met watter oë van genade het God tog nie na hierdie soekende mens gekyk nie. 


God se liefde is nie halfhartig nie en beperk tot sommiges, tot die uitverkorenes, die gelukkiges nie. 


God se liefde word nie in die algemeen, so in die lug, verklaar nie. 


God se liefde word bewys, word prakties uitgeleef. 'n Mens sien en beleef dit. Die goddelike liefde gaan uit na mense wat ongerekend is, wat buite staan. Hulle word konkreet ingetrek in en omring deur die liefde. 


Wanneer 'n mens na ander kyk, sien 'n mens in hom of haar iemand vir wie God op hierdie manier lief het. Die liefde van God roer 'n mens om ook so lief te hê. 


Daarom gaan dit in liefde om veel meer as die wens dat ander mense gelukkig sal wees. In liefde gaan dit om die vreemde geheimenis dat God aan die werk is in die hart van ander, soos dit ook in my innerlike gebeur. 


Wanneer 'n mens dus na die ander kyk, sien jy veral iemand raak vir wie God omgee. Liefde vertel van hierdie ander, dieper Kyk. 

Onderskeiding deur 'n leraar

Die Siro-Fenisiese vrou kom na Jesus sodat haar kind deur Hom genees kan word 


Jesus weier: die brood wat hy breek, gaan na die kinders. Dit is nie goed dat die kinders se brood vir die honde gegooi word nie. 


Die vrou is 'n Griek en daarom het sy nie dieselfde status as 'n Jood nie. Hy bring sy boodskap aan Jode, nie Grieke nie.


Die vrou verdra Jesus se skerp woorde. Sy aanvaar dat sy minder as die Jode is. Maar sy aanvaar nie dat daar nie na haar kant ten minste broodkrummels sal kom nie. Jesus, weet sy te goed, is immers die "Here" - soos sy Hom aanspreek.


Jesus gee toe. Hy hoor haar versoek en verander sy standpunt.


Daarom antwoord Hy:


"Oor hierdie woord"  kan sy teruggaan na haar dogter wat intussen genees is. 


Sy het 'n woord gespreek tot Jesus en dit het Hom beweeg om haar te help. Sy leer Jesus om te onderskei, om die regte ding vir haar te doen.


Hoe groot is Jesus, die Groot Leermeester. Hy lewer nie net die groot woorde nie, maar soos 'n briljante leermeester, kan hy ook luister en leer. 


Net soos in die tuin van Getsemane leer Hy om die wil van die Vader beter te leer ken. In die tuin bid Hy dat God se wil in sy lewe sal geskied, nie sy wil nie. 


Dit was nie die eerste keer dat Jesus God se wil vir sy lewe biddend sou ontdek nie.


In Tirus het 'n vrou, as sy eenvoudige, maar wyse leermeester, vir Hom gewys wat God se wil is. En God se wil is dat almal, selfs die vroue as die mees misrekende mense, die goddelike genade en boodskap moet ontvang. 


Die vrou was 'n leermeester van die Leermeester.

Ons het opgehou gesels al praat ons so baie

Hierdie opiniestuk in vandag se New York Times probeer om ons moderne konteks beter te verstaan.  Behalwe vir die gedagte dat ons afleer om met mekaar te gesels, interesseer dit my dat mense meer as ooit tevore eenvoudig kies vir wat hulle interesseer en origens hulle eenvoudig afsluit van die res. Ek haal net die eerste deel aan. 

WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection.

At home, families sit together, texting and reading e-mail. At work executives text during board meetings. We text (and shop and go on Facebook) during classes and when we’re on dates. My students tell me about an important new skill: it involves maintaining eye contact with someone while you text someone else; it’s hard, but it can be done.

Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile connection and talked to hundreds of people of all ages and circumstances about their plugged-in lives. I’ve learned that the little devices most of us carry around are so powerful that they change not only what we do, but also who we are.

We’ve become accustomed to a new way of being “alone together.” Technology-enabled, we are able to be with one another, and also elsewhere, connected to wherever we want to be. We want to customize our lives. We want to move in and out of where we are because the thing we value most is control over where we focus our attention. We have gotten used to the idea of being in a tribe of one, loyal to our own party.

Our colleagues want to go to that board meeting but pay attention only to what interests them. To some this seems like a good idea, but we can end up hiding from one another, even as we are constantly connected to one another.

A businessman laments that he no longer has colleagues at work. He doesn’t stop by to talk; he doesn’t call. He says that he doesn’t want to interrupt them. He says they’re “too busy on their e-mail.” But then he pauses and corrects himself. “I’m not telling the truth. I’m the one who doesn’t want to be interrupted. I think I should. But I’d rather just do things on my BlackBerry.”

A 16-year-old boy who relies on texting for almost everything says almost wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.”

In today’s workplace, young people who have grown up fearing conversation show up on the job wearing earphones. Walking through a college library or the campus of a high-tech start-up, one sees the same thing: we are together, but each of us is in our own bubble, furiously connected to keyboards and tiny touch screens. A senior partner at a Boston law firm describes a scene in his office. Young associates lay out their suite of technologies: laptops, iPods and multiple phones. And then they put their earphones on. “Big ones. Like pilots. They turn their desks into cockpits.” With the young lawyers in their cockpits, the office is quiet, a quiet that does not ask to be broken.

In the silence of connection, people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people — carefully kept at bay. We can’t get enough of one another if we can use technology to keep one another at distances we can control: not too close, not too far, just right. I think of it as a Goldilocks effect.

Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be. This means we can edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not too little — just right.

Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the move from conversation to connection is part of this. But it’s a process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.

We are tempted to think that our little “sips” of online connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation. But they don’t. E-mail, Twitter, Facebook, all of these have their places — in politics, commerce, romance and friendship. But no matter how valuable, they do not substitute for conversation