Categoria: English

How to experience God today in a situation of crisis

Leonardo Boff4 Comentários

The present present times are so politically afflicted that we are psychologically altered. Seeing no path forward, walking blind, adrift like a rudderless ship, extinguishes our spark to live. We wind up forgetting what is essential.

Those who read my last article, Can present day Brazil be fixed?, find the background there for this refection on God. In moments like this, without being pietistic, we turn towards the Fountain that has always nourished humanity. Especially in somber times of generalized crises, we feel a longing for God. We wait for His light. And even more: amidst the turbulence, we want to experience God, and to feel Him in our hearts.

Examining history, we see that humanity has always wondered about the Ultimate Reality. Humanity realized that it could not quench its infinite thirst without finding something infinite that was adequate for the thirst. Humanity could not explain the greatness of the universe and our own existence, without that which is conventionally called God, even though It has thousands of names in different cultures. Today, in secular language, drawn from the new cosmology, we speak of the «Original Fountain whence all beings come».

In spite of this tireless search, the universal testimony is that “no one has ever seen God” (1 Jn 4,12). Moses begged to see the glory of God, but God told him: “You can not see my face because no one can see Me and continue living” (Ex 33, 20). Even if we cannot see Him, we can identify signs of His presence. To that end, it is enough to pay attention and open ourselves to the sensibility of the heart.

the testimony of a Cherokee impressed me. He spoke of someone who desperately sought God, but did not heed the many signs of the divine presence. As he recounted:

«A man whispered: God, talk to me! And a nightingale began to sing. But the man paid no attention. He begged again: God, speak to me! And a thunder clap resonated throughout the land. But the man gave it no importance. He begged again: God, let me see you! A magnificent moon shone in the night sky, but the man did not notice it. And, nervously, he began to scream: God, show me a miracle! And a baby was born. But the man did not stop to see the baby or admire the miracle of life. Desperate, he screamed: God, if you exist, touch me, let me feel your presence here and now. And a butterfly landed gently on his shoulder. But the angry man brushed it off.»

«Disappointed and in tears the man continued his journey. Wandering without direction. Asking no more, he was alone and filled with fear, because he did not know how to read the signs of God’s presence».

His lack of attention caused his despair, loneliness and rootlessness. The opposite of believing in God is not atheism, but the sensation of loneliness and existential desertion. With God all is transformed and filled with meaning.

Amidst our present entangled political situation, we seek a true experience of God. To that end, we must go beyond the rational reason that comprehends phenomena through their branches, calculates them, manipulates and incorporates them into the game of knowledge as scientific objectivity, as well as of political interest such as those at present. That calculating spirit thinks about God, but does not perceive God.

We need a different spirit, one that feels God: a spirit of finesse and cordiality, admiration and veneration. It is cordial or sensible reason that feels God from the heart.

God is better felt starting from cordial intelligence, than being thought about through intellectual reason. Then we will understand that we never are alone. An ineffable, mysterious and loving presence is with us at all times.

Is that not why we never stop asking ourselves about God, century after century? Is that not why our hearts are full when we spend time with Him? Is it not because it is He, the one without a Name and of the Mystery, who inhabits us? Is that not why we believe that there is always a solution to our problems?

We know that it is He when we are no longer afraid, because He is the true Lord of history. And we dare to hope that a good destiny will emerge from the darkness we now endure.

Leonardo Boff  is Theologian,Philosopher and Earthcharter Commission

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Can present day Brazil be fixed?

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

Whoever observes the political-social-economic scene, wonders, Can Brazil be fixed? A band of thieves, disguised as senators and judges, in the face of all arguments to the contrary, seek to condemn an innocent woman, President Dilma Rousseff, who is accused neither of illicit appropriation of public goods, nor of any personal corruption.

With the recent important revelations, it has become clear that the problem is not President Rousseff, it is the Lava Jato, that, apart from the selective accusations against the Labor Party, the PT, touches the majority of the leaders of the opposition. All of them, in one way or another, have benefited from gifts from Petrobras to guarantee their electoral victories. “We must stop this bleeding”, said one of the best known of the corrupt ones, “otherwise all of us will be affected. We must get rid of Dilma”.

No one risks his own fortune to finance his campaign. No one needs to do so: there exists the Box 2 mine, fed by the corrupting enterprises that create the corruption in exchange for later advantages in terms of great projects, often over priced, from which a large part of their fortunes derives.

We have reached a ridiculous point in the eyes of the world: two Presidents one a usurper, weak and with no form of leadership, the other, the legitimate one who was forced out, and made a prisoner in her own palace; two ministers of planning, one forced out, and the other, a substitute; a monstrous government, anti-popular and reactionary.

We effectively are flying blind. No one knows where this nation, the seventh largest world economy, with the world’s largest oilfields and gas deposits, and unmatched ecological wealth, the bases of the economy of the future, is headed. The way the correlation of forces is aligned, we are going nowhere, except to eventual social conflict.

The poor, the majority of Brazilians, are used to suffering and to seeking any way out. But a point comes when the suffering is unbearable. No one can take it anymore, to continue being indifferent, seeing children dying of hunger and of a total lack of medical care. And one concludes: things cannot be this way, we must revolt.

This reminds me of a Franciscan Bishop of XIII century Scotland who, rejecting the high taxes demanded by the Pope, replied: non accepto, recuso et rebello (“I do not accept, I refuse and I revolt”). And the Pope relented. Can something like that occur among us?

When in my talks, making a great effort to offer a ray of hope, I am told: «so it appears that you are a pessimist!», I respond with Saramago: «I am not a pessimist; it is the reality that is wretched». Truly, reality is wretched for everyone, except for those of the monied elites, who are used to wanton robbery, and profit from the degradation of the people. Those elites have their profane temple in Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue, where a large part of the Brazilian GNP is concentrated.

The great problem is that we lack leaders. Except for former President Lula, whose charisma is unquestioned, two are worthy of mention: Ciro Gomes and Roberto Requiao, to me, they are the only strong leaders with the courage to speak the truth, who think more of Brazil than of political party disputes.

This crisis has an unresolved antecedent in our history, recently unmasked by Jesse Souza. (A tolice da inteligência brasileira, 2015). We are heirs to centuries of colonialism that left on us the mark of «worthless people», always dependent on foreigners.

Still worse is the secular inheritance of slavery that made the heirs to La Casa Grande believe that they can lord over the life and death of the Blacks and the poor. For them it is not enough to send the Blacks and the poor to the periphery: they must be rejected and humiliated. The middle class imitates the upper class, letting itself be totally manipulated by them, and unknowingly to become accomplices to the horrendous social inequality.

The super-rich elites (71,440 persons who earn 600,000 dollars a month, according to the IPEA) who through the means of mass communication, that function as the grease for the machinery of their domination, became golpistas and reactionaries. Those elites never wanted real democracy, only one of a very low intensity, that they can buy and manipulate. They prefer coups and dictatorships. Since coups can no longer be achieved with bayonets, they planned something else: a coup by means of artificial manipulation among corrupt politicians, a politicized judicial branch, and with police repression. Consequently, there are three types of coups: political, juridical and of the police.

I finish with the words of Jesse Souza: «we find ourselves in a world commanded by a union of thieves in politics, justice by “justicieros” that protect them, an elite of vampires and a society condemned to material misery and spiritual poverty. It is necessary that everyone understands this coup. It is the mirror of what we have become». Should I echo Martin Heidegger? «only God can save us»; Karl Marx is perhaps more modest and accurate: «there is always a solution for every problem». That will be.

Leonardo Boff  Theologian-Philosopher Earthcharter Commission
Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

The atomic bomb on Hiroshima and the Olympic games in Rio

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

At the exact moment when the Olympic Games will begin in Rio de Janeiro, at 8:00 p.m. on August 6, 2016, 71 years after August 6, 1945, in Hiroshima, Japan, at the same time, that corresponds to 8:15 a.m., the dreadful launching of the atomic bomb on that city will be remembered. The bomb caused 242.437 victims, counting those who died instantly, and those who died later, as a consequence of nuclear radiation.

In the text of surrender of August, 14th, Emperor Hirohito recognized that «it was about a weapon that could cause the total extinction of human civilization». Days later, when sharing with the people the reasons for the surrender, he declared that the main reason was that the atomic bomb «could bring about the death of all the Japanese people». In his ancestral wisdom, Emperor Hirohito was right.

Humanity trembled. According to cosmologist Carl Sagan, suddenly humanity realized that we had created for ourselves the beginning of our self destruction. Jean-Paul Sartre said the same: «humans will appropriate the instruments of their own extermination». Terrified, the great British historian, Arnold Toynbee, who ultimately penned 12 volumes on the history of civilizations, wrote in his memoir, (Experiences 1969): «I lived to see the end of human history become an anti-historic possibility, capable of actually occurring, not as an act of God, but of man». The great French naturalist Theodore Monod emphatically said: «we are capable of senseless and deranged conduct; from now on, we can be afraid of everything, actually everything, even the annihilation of the whole human race» (And if the human adventure would fail? 2000).

In fact, the horror came to nothing, because nuclear weapons continued to be developed, ever more potent, capable of eradicating life from the planet and putting an end to the human species.

Presently 9 countries have nuclear weapons, totalling 17.000, more or less. And we know that complete security does not exist. The disasters of Three Mile Island in the U.S., Chernobyl in Ukraine, and Fukushima, in Japan, provide convincing proof.

A few days ago, the Northamerican President, Barak Obama, visited Hiroshima for the first time. Lamenting only the fact, he said: «death fell from the sky and the world changed… our moral awakening began». But President Obama did not have the courage to ask for forgiveness from the Japanese people for the apocalyptic scenes that transpired there.

A world-wide discussion now exists as how to evaluate this act of war. Many pragmatically claim that it was the only way to force Japan to surrender, and avoid thousands of victims on both sides. Others consider the use of this deadly weapon, in the official Japanese version, as «an illegal hostile act under the norms of international law». Others go even farther and affirm that it was a «war crime» and even «State terrorism».

Now we are moved to say that it was a criminal act against life, that cannot be justified in any form, because thinking in ecological terms, the bomb killed much more than people: all the forms of vegetation, animal and organic life and the total destruction of cultural goods as well. Wars are usually made of armies against armies, war planes against war planes, battle ships against battle ships. Not here. It was about a totaler Krieg (total war) in the Nazi style of killing anything that moves, poisoning waters, contaminating the wind and decimating the physical–chemical bases that sustain life. Conscious of this barbarity, Albert Einstein refused to participate in the atomic bomb project and, together with Bertrand Russell, he vehemently condemned it.

Besides other deadly threats to the life-and-Earth-systems, the nuclear threat continues to be the most terrifying, a true Damocles sword sits atop humanity’s head. Who could contain the irrationality of North Korea, in unleashing a devastating nuclear attack?

There is a deeply human proposal that comes to us from Sao Paulo, Brazil, from the Association of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Survivors (called, hibakusha–It is believed that there are some 118 in Brazil), led by Chico Whitaker, a militant opponent of nuclear energy, that on August 6, at the moment of the opening of the Olympic Games, there be a minute of silence, to remember the victims of Hiroshima. Not only that, but that our thoughts also turn against violence against women, refugees, Blacks and the poor, who are systematically decimated (in Brazil alone, in 2015, 60 thousand Black youth were lost), the indigenous, the quilombolas, the landless, the homeless, in fact, all the victims of the voracity of our system of accumulation.

On this topic, the Mayor of Hiroshima has already sent a letter to the Olympic Organizing Committee. Let’s hope that the Committee promotes that silent cry against all war, and for peace amog all the peoples of the world.

Leonardo Boff  is ecotheologian and writter

Free translation from the Spanish sent by
Melina Alfaro, alfaro_melina@yahoo.com.ar.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.

Amidst the present darkness open yourself to the Light from the Highest

Leonardo BoffDeixe um comentário

After weeks of political turbulence, dominated by dense clouds of distortions, the desire to destroy and visceral rage, but fortunately with some flashes of light, we write this meditation about the Light. For cosmologists, light is still an impenetrable mystery. We only have the barest understanding of it, as waves and particles.

Independently of the question about the nature of light, we profess a firm belief that the Light has more force than darkness. The small flame of a match is enough to ban darkness from a whole room.

That is what has moved us to courteously and reverently publish this small reflection.
From the depths of the universe emanates a mysterious Light. It touches our head, exactly where we have the hard section that separates the right side of the brain from the left. This separation is the source of our dualities, feelings on one side and thinking on the other, on one side the analytical ability and on the other, our capacity for synthesis. On one side. our sense of objectivity, and on the other, subjectivity; on one side the world of the ends and on the other the universe of meaning an spirituality.

The beatific Light from the Highest suspends the division of our brains and creates a union. We think lovingly and love thoughtfully. We work at writing poems. We combine art with leisure, but with a condition: that we open ourselves completely to the Light from the Highest.

«Welcome the mysterious Light that runs through all the universe and comes to you! Let it run through your whole body, through your head, your eyes, lungs, heart, intestines, and genitals. Let it descend through your legs, detain it in the knees, and hold it for a moment in your feet, because your feet support you».

«And rise with the Light, passing through your whole body, guide her once again to your heart, so that from there the good feelings of love and compassion come to you. Have her rise to the center of your head, to what we call the third eye. She will bring you brilliant thoughts. Finally, let her rest on the top of your head».

«From there the Light will fill your whole body with light. And it will open you up to the whole universe, giving you the sensation of being one with the Whole. The dualities will be overcome, you will have the blessed experience of the original unity of everything that exists and lives. You will know the peace that is the integration of the parts into the Whole and the Whole in the parts. And from you will emanate a light like that of the first moment of creation. You will know, at least for an instant, what it is to be happy in plenitude».

«Finally, be grateful for the transforming presence of the Light from the Highest. Let her go towards the womb of the Mystery whence she came».

«Listen also to this advice: Be always prepared to welcome the light, because she never stops coming. And if less than your whole being has been opened, the light will pass you by and you, curiously, will feel empty, sensing a lack of significance and meaninglessness».

«When you welcome the most blessed Light you will always irradiate goodness and benevolence. And everyone will feel good by your side».

«Open yourself totally to the Light until you yourself shall fully become light».

Leonardo Boff  is theologian and writter

Free translation from the Spanish by
Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.
Done at REFUGIO DEL RIO GRANDE, Texas, EE.UU.