'n Erediens vir ateïste.

Die onderstaande berig in vandag se NYT vertel van ‘n erediens vir ateïste in die diep, konserwatiewe suide van Amerika.

Ek het so pas Alan de Botton se boek, Religion for Atheists klaar gelees.

Albei hierdie stukke skryfwerk vertel van die inherente verlange by elke mens om na die hoogste waardes en norme te soek op ‘n manier wat ‘n mens kan vier.

In die laaste ses jaar het 15 % mense in Amerika hul band met godsdiens los laat raak.

Maar hul behoefte na die dieper dinge bly. Hulle kan net nie meer met tradisionele vorme van godsdiens sin maak nie. 

In die Amerikaanse geval wil die organiseerder die behoefte aanspreek deur ‘n diens waar daar geen verwysings na God is nie.

In De Botton se boek, veel ryker en intelligenter, is daar ‘n besinning oor die inhoude in tradisionele godsdienste wat in sekulêre kringe oorgeneem en bewaar kan word.

Alles vertel dat daar verpakkinge aan die evangelie is wat nie meer met mense resoneer nie.

Die uitdaging is om die evangelie so te vertaal dat mense daarby aanklank vind, maar sonder om die unieke impak daarvan prys te gee. 

Dit hoef nie noodwendig 'n kwessie te raak nie. Trouens, voortdurende vernuwing is steeds weer 'n kenmerk van egte geloof. Spiritualiteit beklemtoon dat die geestelike reis ‘n proses is wat in die onbekende strek: in nuwe tye gaan mense altyd nuut op God se aanraking reageer – altyd in gesprek met die getuienisse van die verlede.

Dit is al ‘n prestasie om van hierdie uitdaging bewus te raak. Nog groter is die prestasie om antwoorde op die uitdaging te vind. Daarom is dit nuttig om ‘n artikel soos die een hier onder deur te lees.

BATON ROUGE, La. — It would have been easy to mistake what was happening in a hotel ballroom here for a religious service. All the things that might be associated with one were present Sunday: 80 people drawn by a common conviction. Exhortations to service. Singing and light swaying. An impassioned sermon.There was just no mention of God.

Billed as Louisiana’s first atheist service and titled “Joie de Vivre: To Delight in Being Alive,” it was presided over by Jerry DeWitt, a small, charismatic man dressed all in black with slick, shiny hair.

“Oh, it’s going to be so hard to not say, ‘Can I get an amen?’ ” he said with a smile, warning people that this was going to be more like church than they might expect. “I want you to feel comfortable singing. And I want you to feel comfortable clapping your hands. I’m going to ask you to silence your cellphones, but I’m not going to ask you to turn them off. Because I want you to post.”

As Mr. DeWitt paced back and forth, speaking with a thick Southern accent, his breathy yet powerful voice occasionally cracked with emotion. The term may be a contradiction, but he is impossible to describe as anything but an atheist preacher.

Mr. DeWitt acts so much like a clergyman because he was one.

He was raised Pentecostal in DeRidder, La., a small town near the Texas border. In 2011, after 25 years as a preacher, he realized he had lost all connection to the religious point of view that had defined most of his life. He left the church and found himself ostracized in his hometown and from his family. Since then, Mr. DeWitt, 43, has become a prominent advocate of atheism, giving lectures around the region and providing an emotional counterpoint to more academic atheist exponents like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

With Sunday’s service — marking the start of Community Mission Chapel in Lake Charles, which Mr. DeWitt called a full-fledged atheist “church” — he wanted to bring some of the things that he had learned from his years as a religious leader to atheists in southern Louisiana.

The percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans appears to be on the rise. A 2012 Pew Research Center study found that while only about 6 percent identified as atheist or agnostic, they were among nearly 20 percent classified as religiously unaffiliated. That was up from 15 percent in 2007, a greater increase than for any traditional faith.

Mr. DeWitt counts himself among the hard-line atheists, but he believes that something may be lost when someone leaves the church — not just the parts about God, but also a sense of community and a connection to emotion.

“There are many people that even though they come to this realization, they miss the way the church works in a way that very few other communities can duplicate,” he said in a phone interview. “The secular can learn that just because we value critical thinking and the scientific method, that doesn’t mean we suddenly become disembodied and we can no longer benefit from our emotional lives.”

Some in the audience had a difficult time coming to atheism. Joshua Hammers, a member of an atheist organization in Lake Charles, said he had been completely separated from his community and social life when he left the Pentecostal church in which he was raised. For him, there was something comfortable, a reminder of childhood, about hearing Mr. DeWitt preach.

“We were at the Reason on the Bayou conference, and everything else was just like a lecture,” Mr. Hammers said, referring to a secular rally held in April at Louisiana State University. “Then Jerry got up, and he was just, you know, preaching the message. Most other atheist leaders are academics and intellectuals, and Jerry’s not like that. He’s just talking to your heart.”

Services are gaining traction as outlets for organized atheism in places like London, Houston, Sacramento and New York, as well as at universities with humanist chaplains. In a deeply conservative region like the Deep South, they can serve a vital purpose: providing a sense of camaraderie in what many have found to be a hostile environment for nonreligious people.

“Here, we have a very strong sense of community,” said Russell Rush, a former youth pastor from DeRidder. “When you go into an actual church, it’s almost like having a family reunion. When you leave that lifestyle, and leave that church life behind, a lot of times you can feel ostracized. Things like this let fellow atheists and agnostics know that they’re not alone.”

Mr. DeWitt sees services like his as giving a human shape to a broad intellectual movement that is in its infancy. He believes that he and the others in the room are building something meant to last.

“Though this movement has had starts and stops throughout world history, right now it’s important to remember that we are young,” he said after a singalong to a song of that name by the band Fun. “Someday, what you are doing will become normal. Isn’t that a feeling?”

Mense wat trou verwag meer as ooit billikheid, trou en intimiteit. Oor die oorlewingsdrang van die huwelik.

Toevalling loop ek, na gister se blog, ook hierdie artikel oor nuwe tendense oor hoe vele mense oor die huwelik dink,  raak. 

Dit is 'n boeiende artikel wat hoogs interessante navorsing bespreek. 

Onder die vele opmerkings, bly die volgende my by:

Mense wag langer om te trou. Maar, meer as ooit, skryf Cohen, verwag mense vandag meer as ooit billikheid, getrouheid en intimiteit van die huwelik. 

Die dae van die huwelik is nog lank nie getel nie... 

Hier is die artikel in eergister se NYT: 

AT first glance, the prognosis for marriage looks grim. Between 1950 and 2011, according to calculations by the University of Maryland sociologist Philip Cohen, the marriage rate fell from 90 marriages a year per 1,000 unmarried women to just 31, a stunning 66 percent decline. If such a decline continued, there would be no women getting married by 2043!

But rumors of the death of marriage are greatly exaggerated. People are not giving up on marriage. They are simply waiting longer to tie the knot. Because the rate of marriage is calculated by the percentage of adult women (over 15) who get married each year, the marriage rate automatically falls as the average age of marriage goes up. In 1960, the majority of women were already married before they could legally have a glass of Champagne at their own wedding. A woman who was still unwed at 25 had some reason to fear that she would turn into what the Japanese call “Christmas cake,” left on the shelf.

Today the average age of first marriage is almost 27 for women and 29 for men, and the range of ages at first marriage is much more spread out. In 1960, Professor Cohen calculates, fewer than 8 percent of women and only 13 percent of men married for the first time at age 30 or older, compared with almost a third of all women and more than 40 percent of all men today. Most Americans still marry eventually, and they continue to hold marriage in high regard. Indeed, as a voluntary relationship between two individuals, marriage comes with higher expectations of fairness, fidelity and intimacy than ever.

But marriage is no longer the central institution that organizes people’s lives. Marriage is no longer the only place where people make major life transitions and decisions, enter into commitments or incur obligations. The rising age of marriage, combined with the increase in divorce and cohabitation since the 1960s, means that Americans spend a longer period of their adult lives outside marriage than ever before.

The historian Nancy F. Cott suggests that recent changes in marriage could produce shifts similar to those that accompanied the disestablishment of religion. Most American colonies, following the British model, had an official church that bestowed special privileges on its members and penalized those who did not join it. Residents were sometimes fined or whipped if they failed to attend the established church. After the American Revolution, states repealed laws requiring people to belong to a particular church or religion to qualify for public rights. When the official churches were disestablished, new religions and sects were able to function openly and compete for followers. And the old church had to recruit members in new ways.

An analogous process is taking place with marriage. Many alternatives to traditional marriage have emerged. People feel free to shop around, experimenting with several living arrangements in succession. And when people do marry, they have different expectations and goals. In consequence, many of the “rules” we used to take for granted — about who marries, who doesn’t, what makes for a satisfactory marriage and what raises the risk of divorce — are changing.

Until the 1970s, highly educated and high-earning women were less likely to marry than their less-educated sisters. But among women born since 1960, college graduates are now as likely to marry as women with less education and much less likely to divorce.

And it’s time to call a halt to the hysteria about whether high-earning women are pricing themselves out of the marriage market. New research by the sociologist Leslie McCall reveals that while marriage rates have fallen for most women since 1980, those for the highest earning women have increased, to 64 percent in 2010 from 58 percent in 1980. Women in the top 15 percent of earners are now more likely to be married than their lower-earning counterparts.

Similar changes are occurring across the developed world, even in countries with more traditional views of marriage and gender roles. The demographer Yen-Hsin Alice Cheng reports that in Taiwan, educated women are now more likely to marry than less educated women, reversing trends that were in force in the 1990s. High earnings used to reduce a Japanese woman’s chance of marrying. Today, however, such a woman is more likely to marry than her lower-income counterpart.

Until recently, women who married later than average had higher rates of divorce. Today, with every year a woman delays marriage, up to her early 30s, her chance of divorce decreases, and it does not rise again thereafter. If an American woman wanted a lasting marriage in the 1950s, she was well advised to choose a man who believed firmly in traditional values and male breadwinning. Unconventional men — think beatniks — were a bad risk. Today, however, traditionally minded men are actually more likely to divorce — or to be divorced — than their counterparts with more egalitarian ideas about gender roles.

Over the past 30 years, egalitarian values have become increasingly important to relationship success. So has sharing housework. As late as 1990, fewer than half of Americans ranked sharing chores as very important to marital success. Today 62 percent hold that view, more than the 53 percent who think an adequate income is very important or the 49 percent who cite shared religious beliefs.

Two-thirds of couples who marry today are already living together. For most of the 20th century, couples who lived together before marriage had a greater chance of divorce than those who entered directly into marriage. But when the demographer Wendy Manning and her colleagues looked at couples married since 1996, they found that this older association no longer prevailed. For couples married since the mid-1990s, cohabitation before marriage is not associated with an elevated risk of marital dissolution.

In fact, among the subgroups of women facing the greatest risk of divorce — poor minority women, women who have had a premarital birth or were raised in single-parent families, and women with a history of numerous sex partners — cohabitation with definite plans to marry at the outset is tied to lower levels of marital instability than direct entry into marriage. America may soon experience the transition that has already occurred in several countries, like Australia, where living together before marriage has become a protective factor against divorce for most couples.

All these changes make it an exciting time to research marriage — and a challenging time to enter it. But it’s not that we’re doing a worse job at marriage than our ancestors did. It’s that we demand different things from marriage than in the past. And marriage demands different things from us.  

Stephanie Coontz, a guest columnist, teaches at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.

Hoe meer 'n mens sukkel met 'n huwelik, hoe romantieser is dit: spiritualiteit as proses

Film en televisie het hul siklusse aan etiese en geestelike patrone.

Daar was vir lank vele films wat die werklikheid van gebroke gesinslewens weerspieël en ook bevorder het. Saamwoon, egskeidings, verhoudinge buite die huwelik en 'n sorgeloosheid oor seksualiteit was natuurlike en aangeprysde tema's.

'n Mens sien dit nog daagliks. Trouens, in sommige gevalle is die tipe films en programme so pervers dat 'n mens wanhoop aan die planeet se toekoms as mense met sulke verdorwe houdings die vermaak van gemeenskappe voorsien.

Ek noem dit die banalisering van ons kunste. Hoe kruer, gewelddadiger, agterbakser en oneerliker, hoe groter kuns word dit.

Dit is nie verstandig nie, word jy gewaarsku, om iets negatiefs oor sulke films en programme te skryf nie, want as jy daarteen praat ontken jy die "werklikheid" wat in kuns uitgebeeld moet word. Dan is jy suurpruim en outyds.

Maar soms kom daar uit die hart van Hollywood stemme wat 'n mens verras omdat dit op 'n nuwe manier vrae vra oor die dinge. In vanoggend se NYT is daar byvoorbeeld 'n hoogs interessante artikel waarin oor 'n nuwe tendens in die kuns en vermaakbedryf geskryf word. Die artikel hak aan 'n opmerking van Ben Affleck by die oorhandiging van die Oscars waarin hy oor sy jarelange huwelik met Jennifer Garner as "werk" praat. Party mense was vir hom vies hieroor.

Maar sy woorde het op 'n ondenkbare manier uiting gegee aan 'n nuwe tendens wat blykbaar in die hart van Hollywood se bevryde gemeenskap aan die groei is - aldus die skrywer.

Daar is, volgens die artikel die ou wysheid:

"The idea that lifetime love equals long-term labor pops up in rehearsal-dinner and anniversary-party toasts, and in parental advice and pastoral counseling sessions. It is one of those kernels of common sense that always seems to go without saying, but that also somehow requires constant reiteration." 

Hierdie "outydse" uitspraak het vele mense vir 'n lang tyd laat dink die huwelik is "boring" en "endless drudgery."

Maar kyk die paragrafie oor die nuwe patroon van denke in sekere flieks:

But in film and television, work and wedded bliss are now synonymous: the harder marriage is, the more romantic it seems.

Hoe moeiliker 'n huwelik is, staan in die artikel, hoe romantieser word dit!

Daar kom al hoe meer films op die mark wat die huwelik en monogame verhoudinge aanprys. Die artikel bespreek 'n hele klomp flieks. Hier is 'n skakel na die artikel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/movies/the-hard-work-in-before-midnight-amour-and-other-films-and-shows.html?pagewanted=1&_r=0&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130623

Dit is die moeite werd om dit stadig en herkouend te lees. Nuttige stof tot nadenke, ook in ons konteks waar so maklik gemaak en gebreek word aan strukture wat vir mense 'n gevoel van intimiteit en veiligheid gee, maar wat versigtig gekoester moet word.

Dalk ook 'n goeie idee om die flieks in groepe te kyk en te bespreek.

Spiritualiteit gaan om 'n proses van geloofsvorming. Niks kom maklik nie. Soos ons weggroei uit ou, tradisionalistiese strukture, word die ou nie noodwendig afgeskryf nie. In 'n worsteling om steeds weer sterker anderkant uit te kom, moet die ou strukture vernuwe word: die goeie daarvan te behou.

Dit was immers die boodskap van die bergrede.

Deurtrek met liefde. Oor spiritualiteit as transformasie in liefde.

Jan van die Kruis, die Spaanse digter en mistikus, het ‘n beroemde beeld gebruik om te verduidelik wat gebeur wanneer God ‘n mens aanraak en omvorm.

Hy gebruik die beeld van die vuur wat ‘n stuk hout aan die brand steek. Die vuur dring die hout binne, omvorm dit en word een met die hout.

Dit wys op die innige verhouding tussen God en mens, op God wat die mens aanraak en in hom of haar ‘n ewigheidservaring laat begin.

Waaijman gebruik hierdie beeld om ‘n belangrike aspek van transformasie te verduidelik. Spiritualiteit gaan immers om transformasie - om die totaal nuwe bestaan wat God in mense bewerk. Een aspek van hierdie transformasie is dat ‘n mens deur God tot liefde omvorm word. Dit noem hy die transformasie in liefde. 

Ek is in my leeswerk vandag geboei deur sy opmerkings oor die aard van die liefde. ‘n Kenmerk van liefde tussen God en mens is naamlik volgens hom die intimiteit daarvan. 

Wanneer God mense aanraak, ontstaan daar ‘n intieme band met hulle.

Waaijman formuleer aangrypend: Die mens gee sy/haar siel aan God en God ontvang hierdie gawe van die siel se liefde. God as die geliefde gee Godself aan die mens en die mens ontvang hierdie gawe van God se liefde. 

God en die mens vind vreugde in hierdie gedeelde liefde. Nou brand hierdie liefde in God en die mens. 

Dit is op hierdie punt dat Jan van die Kruis sy beeld inbring: wanneer God se liefde die mens aan die brand laat raak, dan is die mens soos die hout waarin die vuur indring. Naderhand brand die hout vanself en dit begin vlamme afgee.

God se liefde dring die mens binne. So brandende is die liefde dat die mens self liefde gee en word. Die mens kan liefhê soos God lief het. 

God bemin die mens, en, boeiend, die mens kan in wederliefde na God uitreik.

Dit is nog lank nie al nie: Hoe intenser God se liefde in ‘n mens brand, hoe intenser brand die liefde in die mens. 

En nog boeiender; Die mens is, boonop, nie regtig in beheer van hierdie liefde nie. Dit is God se liefde in ‘n mens wat die liefde vlammend laat brand. 

In Bybelse taal is dit die inwoning van die Gees wat die mense se hart in liefde laat ontvlam.

Altyd weer is die mens se diepste verlange ‘n verlange na die Gees, na die inwoning van die liefde. Altyd weer ontvang die mens dit as ‘n gawe, maar word die mens ook bemagtig om terug lief te hê.

Waaijman sluit hierdie deel af met die opmerking dat elke keer wanneer die liefde van God in ‘n mens se lewe ontvlam, ‘n mens ‘n voorsmaak van die ewige lewe kry. Die liefde bring in ‘n mens se lewe vreugde en die vreugde laat ‘n mens ‘n idee kry van die ewige lewe. 

Deur die vlam van die liefde word die mens opgetel na God en in God se teenwoordigheid gebring. Om by God te wees, is om die ewige lewe te ontvang. 

Groot sportmanne, groot helde?

Spiritualiteit sê eintlik ook dat 'n mens daad by die woord voeg. Jou hart moet wees by wat jou mond kwytraak. Wat jou geloof sê, moet deel wees van jou lewensweg en jou lewenservaring. 

Baie keer sal dit meebring dat jy maar eerlik en onbevreesd dinge wat verkeerd is, moet uitdaag en kritiseer.

Muhammed Ali was ook in Suid-Afrika 'n legende. Daar was tye dat boks 'n groot sport was, met toegewyde aanhangers. 

Ons het selfs in ons klasse in die kweekskool na 'n groot boksgeveg grappies met die professore oor die uitslag gemaak. Die geveg is oor die radio uitgesaai, man en muis het daaroor gepraat en die media het groot daaroor geskryf.

Ali was op almal se lippe.

En toe weier hy om in die oorlog te gaan veg.

Daarvoor het hy 'n groot prys betaal. En ander atlete wat op ander maniere in die openbaar protes aangeteken het teen wat hulle as onreg beskou het, het ook in latere jare verguising en persoonlike lyding ervaar.

Vandag weet almal hoe sinloos die Viëtnam-oorlog was. En al hoe meer mense bou teensin op teen die sinnelose geweld wat hulle oral om hulle merk. 

Twee dinge bly ook nog by my: hoeveel sportmense sal vandag hul groot inkomste en hul populariteit wil inboet om hul oortuigings uit te leef? En, as ons van sportlui verwag om nie hul gewetens uit te verkoop nie, wat van ander mense - die besigheidsmense, sportlui, predikante, dosente, dokters, spesialiste, skrynwerkers, verwers, kantoorwerkers en iedereen wat elke dag 'n eerlike bestaan moet voer? 

Hoe spiritueel is ons? 

Maar, wonder ek, tweedens, as Ali so dapper en toegewyd eenvoudig botweg geweier het om oorlog te gaan maak, hoe rym 'n mens dit met sy gewilligheid om te boks? 


Hier is 'n artikel in vanoggend se NYT wat my hieraan laat dink het. 

I woke up Thursday morning and heard a familiar voice that I thought was part of a dream: Muhammad Ali was discussing why he had refused to be inducted into the Army.

This was no dream, but the commemoration of an unforgettable moment that was being replayed on the radio. The clip was taken from a June 20, 1967, interview after Ali was convicted of draft evasion. Two months earlier, at an Army induction center in Houston, Ali refused to step forward.

The radio show host, Joe Madison, who played the clip, said he was a high school senior in 1967 and that Ali’s defiant action made a profound impact on his life.

As a high school junior and varsity athlete in Chicago, I had a similar reaction to Ali’s act of resistance. We were engulfed in the Vietnam War in personal and often tragic ways. Two classmates of mine at Harlan High School — one a great track athlete, the other an outstanding quarterback — each lost their legs in combat.

Ali was one of the most identifiable human beings on the planet. Here was the Greatest, telling the world that he was not going to war. For me, words like conscience, principle and integrity were merely terms in a civics class. When Ali defended his controversial position, how he had no appetite for war, standing for one’s principle became concrete.

“My conscience won’t let me shoot my brother or some darker people,” he told reporters. “And shoot them for what? They never called me nigger.”

That phrase triggered heated debates in our school and in our neighborhood, prompting us to ask each other hard questions.

Why do we continue to use the N-word?

Why should a black man, whose ancestors had been raped and beaten, deprived of human rights in the name of building a democracy, take up arms to fight an immoral war?

Ali’s actions changed my standard of what constituted an athlete’s greatness. Possessing a killer jump shot or the ability to stop on a dime was no longer enough. What were you doing for the liberation of your people? What were you doing to help your country live up to the covenant of its founding principles?

Shortly after Ali’s conviction for draft evasion, Jim Brown, the legendary Browns running back who had recently retired, called on some of the most influential black athletes of that era to meet with Ali in Cleveland. Bill Russell, Willie Davis, Bobby Mitchell and Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) were among the athletes who met with, and grilled, Ali. Convinced that Ali was sincere, the athletes held a news conference the next day to express their support. Ali’s actions inspired other athletes to step out of their traditional roles and speak out against injustice.

A year later, a pair of United States sprinters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, staged their iconic demonstration on the victory stand during a medal ceremony in the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City.

In 1969, Curt Flood, an All-Star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, took on Major League Baseball’s reserve clause.

For those athletes who took courageous stands, there was a high price to be paid. Ali was banned from boxing for three years. Smith and Carlos were unable to find consistent employment for years. Carlos’s wife committed suicide. Smith’s first marriage ended in divorce. Flood will likely never be voted into the Hall of Fame.

I’m not sure that contemporary athletes are wired for making those kinds of sacrifices. Taking unpopular stands may jeopardize their earning potential or even their employment.

I have stopped using the word hero to describe greatness.

In an era of unimaginable intrusions into our private lives, the would-be hero walks on a rug that can be snatched away at a moment’s notice. Better to talk about someone’s heroic moment or performing a heroic act.

Muhammad Ali is a great man. What he did 46 years was a heroic deed for the ages.

Each generation has its own method of protest and resistance. Listening to Ali on Thursday morning was a reminder that courage, honor and integrity are timeless.

Waarom vrede 'n mens ontwyk

Vrede, skryf die kerkvader met die naam, Matteus die Arme, raak ‘n mens innerlik en bring jou hart en gedagtes tot rus. Mark Sedrak gebruik sy gedagte in sy daaglikse brief. 

Maar Christelike vrede is nie maar net ‘n geestelike toestand nie, voeg Matteus by. 

Dit is ingebed in ‘n verhouding. 

Vrede vloei voort uit die gelowige se verhouding met God en met mense.

Albei hierdie verhoudinge gee ‘n mens innerlike vrede. ‘n Mens kan nie met God vrede hê en dan in onvrede met ander leef nie.

Vrede ontwyk ‘n mens wanneer hierdie verhouding met God of mense skade ly.

Mense hou selfs vergaderings om oor die dood te kan praat.

Mense soek mekaar gereeld op in kafee's in Amerika om oor die dood te praat.

Dit is 'n nuwe tendens in Amerika, soos onderstaande artikel uit vandag se NYT uitwys.

Dit klink morbied, maar die artikel wys watter interessante en boeiende perspektiewe na vore kom wanneer mense oor die dood praat. Wie het nou ooit gedink aan die sake wat in die gesprekke na vore kom.

Die artikel laat my dink: gelowige mense oral op die aarde reageer nogal soortgelyk. Die dood is ook hier by ons nie 'n gewilde onderwerp nie. Dokters, begrafnis-ondernemers en predikante is inderdaad mense wat meestal daarmee omgaan.

Maar waarom kan 'n mens nie inderdaad die "eksklusiewe" plek van die dood verander nie? Waarom kan mense nie in 'n rustige, normale gesprek daaroor praat nie (collatio!)

Die artikel kan nogal 'n hele klomp preke oor die dood genereer, dink ek terwyl ek dit lees. En dit kan 'n interessante bybelstudie-groep aan die gang sit.

En mense se innerlike behoefte, wat dikwels verdring word, na vore bring as 'n onderwerp vir bespreking.Want waaroor 'n mens nie praat nie, kan jou lewe negatief raak. Deur met ander te deel, kan 'n mens 'n groot klomp rustigheid kry.

Wat gebeur as 'n mens sterf? Hoe raak die feit dat 'n mens gaan sterf jou lewe? Hoe wil jy dat jou familie oor jou sterwe moet reageer? Waarom praat spiritualiteit oor die dood as die transformasie tot heerlikheid?

Stof tot nadenke!

By PAULA SPAN

¶Socrates did not fear death; he calmly drank the hemlock. Kierkegaard was obsessed with death, which made him a bit gloomy. As for Lorraine Tosiello, a 58-year-old internist in Bradley Beach, N.J., it is the process of dying that seems endlessly puzzling.

¶“I’m more interested, philosophically, in what is death? What is that transition?” Dr. Tosiello said at a recent meeting in a Manhattan coffee shop, where eight people had shown up on a Wednesday night to discuss questions that philosophers have grappled with for ages.

¶The group, which meets monthly, is called a Death Cafe, one of many such gatherings that have sprung up in nearly 40 cities around the country in the last year. Offshoots of the “café mortel” movement that emerged in Switzerland and France about 10 years ago, these are not grief support groups or end-of-life planning sessions, but rather casual forums for people who want to bat around philosophical thoughts. What is death like? Why do we fear it? How do our views of death inform the way we live?

¶“Death and grief are topics avoided at all costs in our society,” said Audrey Pellicano, 60, who hosts the New York Death Cafe, which will hold its fifth meeting on Wednesday. “If we talk about them, maybe we won’t fear them as much.”

¶Part dorm room chat session, part group therapy, Death Cafes are styled as intellectual salons, but in practice they tend to wind up being something slightly different — call it cafe society in the age of the meetup. Each is led by a volunteer facilitator, often someone who has a professional tie to the topic (Ms. Pellicano, for instance, is a grief counselor). The participants include people of all ages, working and retired, who are drawn by Facebook announcements, storefront fliers, local calendar listings or word of mouth. Women usually outnumber men.

¶“In Europe, there’s a tradition of meeting in informal ways to discuss ideas — the café philosophique, the café scientifique,” said Jon Underwood, 40, a Web designer in London who said he held the first Death Cafe in his basement in 2011 and has propagated the concept through a Web site he maintains.

¶Mr. Underwood adapted the idea from a Swiss sociologist, Bernard Crettaz, who had organized “café mortels” to try to foster more open discussions of death. “There’s a growing recognition that the way we’ve outsourced death to the medical profession and to funeral directors hasn’t done us any favors,” Mr. Underwood said. He envisioned Death Cafe as “a space where people can discuss death and find meaning and reflect on what’s important and ask profound questions.”

¶In practice, people’s motives for attending vary, as does the depth of the conversation. Dr. Tosiello, who said she had never lost a close family member, was there for intellectual enjoyment. Others went to ponder the questions and feelings that the death of a loved one had raised.

¶For instance, at a Death Cafe meeting this month in St. Joseph, Mo., the host, Megan Mooney, a 29-year-old social worker, asked each of the 19 participants to supply a single word that he or she associated with death. “Freedom,” someone said. “Grief.” “Transition.” “Relief.” “Finality.” And then, “Graduation.”

¶The last came from Kelly Vanderpool, a 25-year-old mother, who was a high school freshman when a friend with a new driver’s license died in an auto accident. “Ever since, I’ve wanted to know where he was,” she said in an interview. “Is it true that life continues? Is Joe around still?”

¶Jeneva Stoffels, who is 69 and drove 70 miles from Auburn, Neb., to attend the meeting, told Ms. Vanderpool that she did not have an answer. But she did know that her late mother once spoke to her in a dream. “A younger version, glowing and happy, an ‘I’m in a good place so you can let go’ kind of thing,” Ms. Stoffels said in an interview. “Regardless of where it came from, it was reassuring.”

¶Ms. Mooney, the host, asked a series of conversation-starting questions: What is your biggest fear about death? What do you want your legacy to be? She had brought markers and blank boards on which people could finish the sentence “Before I Die I Want to … .” The responses included “See Egypt,” “Win the lottery,” “Write a book of poems” and “See my daughter grow up.”

¶ 

Over all, Ms. Mooney said, “There are some somber moments, but people laugh. They have fun.”

¶The meetings tend to be more mundane than macabre, and more likely to produce small epiphanies than profound realizations. “It’s not like psychotherapy,” Ms. Stoffels said. “There’s not going to be a big breakthrough. It just widens the door a crack.”

¶Doctors and scholars who study attitudes toward death say that for most people, such conversations are healthy; talking about death can ease people’s fears and the notion that death is taboo. “A major part of American society is very averse to thinking about dying,” said David Barnard, a professor of ethics at the Oregon Health and Science University who has written extensively about the end of life.

¶ 

In the United States, Death Cafes have spread quickly. The first one met last summer in a Panera Bread outside Columbus, Ohio, where guests were served tombstone-shaped cookies. Since then, more than 100 meetings have been held in cities and towns across the country, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Cleveland, Los Angeles and Seattle.

¶ 

“At one cafe, I had someone who believed in reincarnation sitting across from three atheists, telling them about her past lives,” said Lizzy Miles, a hospice social worker who organized that first meeting in Columbus and has led the group there ever since. Discussion topics have included euthanasia, grief, the best-selling book “Proof of Heaven” and do-not-resuscitate orders.

¶ 

Ms. Miles logged 112 participants in her first nine events and determined that a quarter were under 35 and 22 percent were over 65, with most ages 45 to 64 and women predominating. About half of the people who filled out a survey after a meeting agreed with the statement that “I feel more comfortable talking about death and dying now.”

¶ 

The Death Cafe movement has a few ground rules. Meetings are confidential and not for profit. People must respect one another’s disparate beliefs and avoid proselytizing. And tea and cake play an important role.

¶

Kontemplatiewe gebed en Calvyn

Wat gebeur wanneer ‘n mens bid? In sy boek oor spirituele praktyke gebruik Driskill gedagtes van Calvyn om daaroor na te dink. Hy vertel hoe verras mense is as hulle hoor dat Calvyn gebed benader het in die lig van die mistieke eenheid van God met die mens.  Trouens, Calvyn het gebed as die belangrikste geestelike praktyk beskou.

Terwyl ek die opmerkings lees, besef ek hoe die praktyk van ons gebede bepaal word deur ons verstaan van gebed. Kru-weg sou ‘n mens kon dink dat gebed ‘n kans is om sekere versoeke aan God te rig. Maar gebed, in Calvyn se perspektief, is in die eerste plek om in God se teenwoordigheid te wees en om te deel aan God se intieme verhouding met die mens. Dit is gebed wat ‘n mens se geestelike vorming bepaal en stuur.  

1. Bid is om by God te wees. Dit is nie in die eerste plek om met God te praat nie. ‘n Gebed beteken dus om alle aandag op God te rig. Die dinge wat ‘n mens se aandag kan aftrek, moet vermy word. Die alledaagse lewenspatroon word onderbreek. Voor of na die dagprogram, of selfs in die hitte van die dagtaak, skep ‘n mens ‘n kans om weg te kom en voor God te gaan staan.

Wanneer ‘n mens ‘n gebed begin, is dit met die voorneme om allerhande los gedagtes te verban en te vermy, om al ‘n mens se gewone doenigheid op te skort en in God se teenwoordigheid in te gaan.

Dit beteken dat ‘n mens jou doelbewus losmaak van los gedagtes wat die aandag van God wegneem of ‘n plek opsoek wat ‘n mens in afsondering by God kan laat wees. Gebed is ‘n tyd van konsentrasie en fokus.

2. Gebed kom uit ‘n opregte hart na vore. ‘n Koue hart kan nie bid nie.

3. Gebed het ook met ‘n gebroke hart gedoen. In God kom ‘n mens tot rus in jou onrus, vind ‘n mens stabiliteit in tyd van onsekerheid wanneer ‘n mens jouself en jou gebreke aan God ontbloot. Gebed is dus nie ‘n vriendelike gesprek met God nie. In gebed stort mense hul teleurstelling en spyt oor hul eie mislukkings voor God uit om van God vergifnis te kan kry. Gebed is daarom ‘n oefening in nederigheid, ‘n bewuswording van jou plek in die skepping en in ‘n gemeenskap. Gebed is dus om jouself aan God se ontferming toe te vertrou.

4. Gebed is ‘n vertroue dat God mens tot ‘n volwasse geloofslewe lei. Mense houvas aan die krag wat God gee om sinvol te kan lewe. Gelukkig , besef hulle en bid hulle, is daar uitkoms, kan mense buite hulleself ‘n bron van besieling en bemagtiging vind. Juis daarom wil hulle in gebed deel hê aan die intieme verhouding met God waaruit nuwe geestelike groei gebore word. 

Boeiend is dat Driskill skryf dat hierdie gedagtes van Calvyn oor gebed eintlik sentrerende gebed is: dit is kontemplatiewe gebed, wat ingestel is op die mistieke eenheid met Christus. 'n Biddende mens soek om met 'n hele hart by God te wees, om met 'n brandende hart vir God te aanbid, om in berou deur God hernuwe te word en om met vertroue op God se teenwoordigheid die geestelike reis te bly loop. 

Blydskap wanneer die kerk sy eie feilbaarheid raaksien. Oor 'n pas uitgereikte verklaring...

So pas kom daar 'n berig uit Nederland dat die kerke amptelik hul spyt uitgespreek het oor die kerk se aandeel aan die bedryf en instandhouding van slawerny.

Uit die reaksies kan 'n mens aflei dat daar vele mense is wat hierdie gebaar waardeer. 

Dit het die Nederlandse kerke 'n jaar geneem om die verklaring voor te berei.

Die een rede vir die vertraging was die reaksie van die Kwaker-gemeenskap. Hulle het die aandag gevestig op hulle eeue-lange verset teen slawerny.

Dit klink kleinsielig dat hulle daaroor praat. Maar wie die geskiedenis ken sal weet watter lyding sulke kleiner kerke ervaar het omdat hulle nie die hoofstroom-kerke in hul ondersteuning van slawerny wou volg nie. 

Eintlik moet die hoofstroom-kerke nie net hul spyt oor slawerny betuig nie, maar ook bely hoe hul mede-Christene wat van die begin af die evangelie hieroor reg gehoor het, verneder, bespot en selfs vervolg het. 

Nietemin  -  die verklaring is insiggewend. Ons betree 'n tyd waarin die kerk nie onfeilbaar wil voordoen nie en daarmee nie foute wil erken nie. Trouens, die kerk wat sy eie foute erken, verstaan kerk-wees goed.

Meer nog: die berig sluit af op 'n treurige, selfs beskamende noot omdat die geskiedenis van slawerny ook met Suid-Afrika en die N.G.Kerk te doen het. Veral in ons land, waar huidige generasies nog ly onder slawerny as 'n instelling, is dit dus nodig dat die kerke ook oor so 'n verklaring begin nadink.

Hier is die berig in vandag se Trouw.

Nederlandse kerken hebben honderden jaren steun gegeven aan uiterst winstgevende slavenhandel. Met mooie woorden uit de Bijbel praatten dominees het uitbuiten van mensen systematisch goed. Dit jaar, precies anderhalve eeuw na afschaffing van de slavernij, tonen Nederlandse kerken officieel spijt. Het is de eerste keer. 

De excuses komen niet heel snel, erkennen de kerken. "We realiseren dat we te laat spreken", zo staat te lezen in de 'Verklaring over het slavernijverleden', die de Raad van Kerken gisteren in Zeist presenteerde. "We erkennen onze betrokkenheid in het verleden van afzonderlijke kerkleden en van kerkelijke verbanden bij het in stand houden legitimeren van de slavenhandel", luidt een de kernzinnen in het document. Volgens de Raad, die in Nederland achttien kerken vertegenwoordigt, lieten gelovigen zich leiden door 'misplaatst winstbejag en machtsmisbruik'.

Het opstellen van de verklaring, waaraan een jaar is gewerkt, is omgeven met gevoeligheden, leert navraag bij Klaas van der Kamp, algemeen secretaris van de Raad van Kerken. Zo wensten de Quakers, een klein kerkgenootschap dat zich al vroeg keerde tegen slavernij, dat werd opgenomen dat er wel degelijk 'verschillende geluiden' te horen waren in de diverse kerken.

'Spijt en schaamte'
Dit soort nuanceringen betekent volgens Van der Kamp niet dat de verklaring lichtzinnig moet worden opgevat. "Wij zijn als kerkleden verbonden met de kerk van alle generaties. We bouwen voort op de erfenis van onze voorouders. Daar hoort ook erkennen van dit belaste verleden bij."

De Protestantse Kerk in Nederland (PKN) kwam gisteren meteen met een extra aanvulling op de Verklaring. De PKN is de erfgenaam van de gereformeerde kerk, tot 1816 de officieuze 'staatskerk', en de latere Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk. Zo viel Suriname kerkelijk onder het buitengebied van de gereformeerde kerk in Amsterdam, omdat vanuit deze stad veel schepen vertrokken richting de kolonie en kerkleden winsten haalden uit de slavenhandel. "Met spijt en schaamte moet worden uitgesproken dat dit alles deel is van ons verleden als kerken", staat in de extra toelichting.

Nederland was een van de laatste landen in Europa die de slavernij afschaften. Dat gebeurde officieel op 1 juli 1863, bijna anderhalve eeuw geleden.

Slaven niet gedoopt
Gelovigen liepen bepaald niet warm om de slavernij af te schaffen. Slavenhandel werd in de zeventiende eeuw, de hoogtijdagen van de VOC en de WIC, theologisch zelfs goedgepraat door de toenmalige protestantse leiders. Wie niet gedoopt was, redeneerden deze, hoorde niet bij het christelijke 'uitverkoren verbondsvolk'. Gereformeerde slavenhouders in de Kaapkolonie (Zuid-Afrika) lieten om die reden hun slaven vaak niet dopen. Zo behielden hun slaven de status van handelswaar en werkvee. De vooraanstaande protestant Isaac da Costa bestempelde in 1823 de roep om te stoppen met de slavernij tot een dwaling van de Verlichting.