Quote of the day

"When does the mandate of victimhood expire?" he asked. "At what point does the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews cease to excuse the state of Israel from the demands of international law and of common humanity?"

Fintan O'Toole, the Irish Times' resident philosopher-in-chief, daring to speak the unspeakable.

If you aren’t tired of all the media coverage and speculation by western writers from their safe offices (like me!) , then you can read the Robert Fisk’s full article, Wherever I go, I hear the same tired Middle East comparisons, in The Independent here.

Fisk continues to say that “journalists should be on the side of those who suffer” – sounds like liberation theology to me.

For a visual representation of O’Tooles thoughts, see Zapiro’s two most recent cartoons.

And then, to balance it out, here’s another well argued piece in the Sydney Morning Herald, from a different point of view - It's too easy just to blame Jews.

Whoever is to blame, it is still a very complex and sorry situation. I hope the violence stops soon, though I’m not holding my breath. Ever since I was old enough to read, I can recall newspaper headlines about violence in the ‘Holy land’ region. When will we realise that violence is never redemptive?

becoming myself

A succinct Hasidic tale for monday:

Rabbi Zusya, when he was an old man, said, “In the coming world, they will not
ask me: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ They will ask me: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’”

Party-animal god

And, here's the week's third and final piece on Joy for my advent reflections.
Party time!

Advent reflection 3 - A God of Joy

For the kingdom of God is not food and drink
but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
~ Romans 14:17

Of all the adjectives used to describe the kingdom of God, I’m rather surprised at the choice of Joy. Somehow my childhood images of angels playing harps on fluffy clouds, doesn’t really seem like Party Central. Wasn’t the joke that the party was always downstairs with the devil and all the good music?

Thankfully, the image of God as an old, boring, stern white man does not find any support in Scripture. In contrast, the God of the Israelites is a God who is full of Joy. We may even go as far to say that this God is a party animal God! It follows then that God’s reign/kingdom would be full of Joy.

What would be the overarching description that you would give you your experience of God’s reign? I hope that Joy is in there somewhere amongst the adjectives.

Let us reflect some more extent of this Joyfulness, and the celebratory God we serve:

In the Jewish Scriptures, where the notion of ‘the kingdom of God’ finds it’s roots, the Lord mandates 46 different festivals and parties for Israel in their year. That’s almost party a week!

In just the first 5 books (the Torah) of the Jewish Bible, God institutes 7 sacred festivals. What’s more, three were considered as ‘major feasts’: the Feast of Passover (Pesach), the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost), and the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot).

These are often called ‘pilgrim feasts’ because all adult males were required to travel to the sanctuary to take part (Deuteronomy 16:16). There’s no VIP list, or ‘by invite only’ in this Kingdom. Everyone is invited, even mandated, to come to the party.

What’s more, if 7 days of partying wasn’t enough, when the 7 day Tabernacles festival ended, there was one more day of partying to celebrate the fact they had just had a week long celebration! Phew! It was called the Last Great Day, the 8th, an extra day of assembly. No work was permitted on this day and the people once again gathered at the Tabernacle to join their Joyful God.

This advent, whether your waiting is sad, nostalgic, peaceful, or at ease, may it lead you closer to the Joy of the promise of advent, when we can once more party and sing:

Joy to the world, the Lord is come!
Let earth receive her King;
Let every heart prepare Him room,
And Heaven and nature sing.

inter-faith-ful

This week has been rather inter-faith-ful for me:

Catholicism: Firstly, i lead devotions yesterday at CPE. Trying to be different and creative, i delved into some of my past devotional practices and lead a 'Jesus Rosary' session. The Jesus Rosary just is the same as the Catholic rosary, just substituting the Jesus prayer in place of the Hail Mary's. My 4 fellow CPE classmates (all catholic religious) were very surprised to have a Presby/Quaker leading them in the rosary.

Judaism: Last night i joined the labyrinth crowd for a rather irreligious Passover meal at Kevin's house. There was wine, good food and even some espressos and/or single malt afterwards. I've been to a few Christianised Passover meals before, so it was really interesting to experience this tradition with an eclectic bunch of people with no background in either Judaism or Christianity.

The reflection and discussion before the meal focused on Jewish spirituality, specifically the notion of chosenness and what it does in light of suffering. We got talking about the problems in Jerusalem and how some Jews believe that the Messiah will only come when the temple has been rebuilt. The 'minor' problem here is that there is a temple on the temple mount already: the Dome on the Rock mosque. Kevin's 'solution' was so simple, yet profound: "Why don't they just share the building?" he said. Now there's an inter-faith, communal answer for world peace.

Islam: Today i got off CPE early and joined a Muslim friend of mine at Friday Prayers (Jumu'ah) at his local Mosque. Nazeer took me to a Nikaah a while back, but i've wanted the full mosque experience, to get more of a feel of the Muslim faith. The experience was not as worship-ful as i would have thought, though very liturgical (but not in a restrictive, conforming way). I'd liken it more to a Catholic Mass (though not as sacramental), rather than a charismatic worship service. The sermon was on a few of the attitudes of the Prophet Mohammed, which i found pleasantly surprising. I can't remember them all - it was hard to keep track with all the Arabic words and quotations from the Qur'an in the sermon - but one that stood out is the the Prophet (and Allah) hold forgiveness higher than justice. Watching a few thousand men kneel, bow and pray all in unison was something, and the call to prayer and recitation of the Qur'an was beautiful. All in all, it was not as 'moving' or 'holy' as i would have thought, but it was still a privilege to partake (or rather observe) this sacred time.