Categoria: Política

Tenderness: the life-blood of love

Leonardo Boff7 Comentários


The paths that connect the heart of a man to the heart of a woman are mysterious. Equally mysterious are the paths between the hearts of two men and similarly between the hearts of two women who find each other and declare their mutual love. From those connections is born the falling in love, love; and finally marriage or permanent union. Since we deal with liberties, the couples are exposed to imponderable events.

Existence itself is never established once and for always. It exists in permanent dialogue with the environment. That exchange leaves no one immune. Everyone lives exposed. Mutual loyalties are tested. In a marriage, passion is followed by daily life with its dull routine. In their lives together the two experience separations, volcanic passions erupt with fascination for another person. It is not uncommon that the ecstasy is followed by deception. There are twists, forgiveness, renewal of promises and reconciliation. But the wounds always remain, such that even when healed, scars remain as a reminder that once they bled.

Love is a living flame that burns, but that can diminish and slowly be covered with ashes, until it is extinguished. It is not that the persons come to hate each other, rather, they become indifferent to each other.  That is the death of love. The 11th verse of the Spiritual Canticle of the mystic Saint John of the Cross, which are songs of love between the soul and God, says with acute observation: «the pain of love is only healed with presence and closeness». Platonic, virtual love, or love at a distance are not enough. Love demands presence. Love needs the concrete closeness that, more than just the physical, is the face-to-face, and the heart feeling the throb of the heart of the other.

The mystic poet puts it well: love is an ache that, in my words, is only cured with what I would call essential tenderness. Tenderness is the life-blood of love. If you want to guard, fortify, and give sustainability to love, be tender with your companion. Without the balm of tenderness the sacred flame of love is not nourished.  It burns out.

What is tenderness? To begin with, let us set aside psychological and superficial concepts that identify tenderness as a mere emotion and the excitement of feeling the other’s presence. To concentrate only on feelings creates sentimentalism. Sentimentalism is a product of insufficiently integrated subjectivity. It bends in on itself and celebrates the sensations provoked by the other. It does not reach beyond itself.

Tenderness, by contrast, arises when one is not centered only in oneself, but reaches out in the direction of the other, feeling the other as other, participating in the existence of the other, and allowing oneself be touched by the history of the other’s life. The other marks the subject, by its lingering in the other, not for the sensations that it evokes in one, but for love, for the appreciation of the other and the value of that person’s life and struggle. “I love you not because you are beautiful; you are beautiful because I love you”.

Tenderness is the affection we give to others for themselves. Tenderness is caring without obsession. Tenderness is neither effeminacy nor renouncing of rigor. It is an affection that, in its own way, opens us to the knowledge of the other.  Speaking with the bishops in Rio de Janeiro, Pope Francis asked them for “the revolution of tenderness,” as a condition for a true pastoral encounter.

In reality we only know each other well when we have affection and feel involved with the person with whom we want to establish communion. Tenderness can and should coexist with extreme undertakings for a cause, as was truly exemplified by the absolute revolutionist Ernesto Che Guevara (1928-1968). We hold dear his inspiring sentence: “we must be hardened but without losing tenderness” . Tenderness includes the creativity and self-realization of the person next to us and through the person we love.

A relationship of tenderness does not involve anguish, because it is free from the search for advantage and domination. Tenderness is the heart’s own strength, it is the profound desire to share paths. The anguish of the other is my anguish, their success is my success and their salvation or perdition is my salvation and, in deep down, not only mine but of all.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662),  XVII century French philosopher and mathematician, made an important distinction that helps us understand tenderness: he distinguished the esprit de finesse from the esprit de géometrie. The esprit de finesse is the spirit of purity, of sensibility, of caring and of tenderness. The spirit does not only think and reason. The spirit goes beyond: to reason it adds sensibility, intuition and the capacity of feeling in depth.  From the spirit of purity is born the world of excellencies, of the great dreams, of the values and commitments to which it is worth dedicating one’s time and energy.

The esprit de géometrie is the spirit of calculus and work, interested in efficacy and power. But where power is concentrated there is neither tenderness nor love. This is why authoritarian persons are hard and without tenderness and, sometimes, without pity.  But this is the mode of being that has dominated all modernity. It has cornered, and placed under great suspicion, all that is related to affection and tenderness.

From here also comes the terrifying vacuum of our “geometric” culture, with its plethora of sensations but without deep experiences; with fantastic accumulation of knowledge but with scant wisdom, with too much muscular vigor, too much sexualizing, too many artifacts of destruction, as shown by the serial killers, but without tenderness or the caring for one another, for the Earth, and her sons and daughters, for the common future of all.

Love and life are fragile. Their invincible strength comes from the tenderness with which we envelope and nourish them forever.

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

Para onde aponta a crise do clima

Leonardo Boff19 Comentários

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         Conheço poucos jornalistas que com tanto afinco, inteligência, boa informação e senso de equilíbrio nos entrega textos de grande relevância sobre questões ecológicas e afins como Washington Novaes. Cada sexta-feira publica no Estado de São Paulo um artigo que vale ler e guardar. Todos no Brasil estamos sofrendo sob o calor intenso, falta de chuvas e de águas nos reservatórios. Por outro lado, enchentes devastadoras, localizadas, em várias regiões do país. Como entender estes eventos extremos? Que sinais são estes que a Terra nos está dando? Para onde nos conduzirá o aumento da temperatura que não para de subir? Estas interrogações nos são colocadas para nossa preocupação e como desafio para fazermos alguma coisa a fim de mitigarmos e adaptarmo-nos aos efeitos perigosos das mudanças climáticas. Publicamos neste blog este artigo do amigo Washinton Novaes pois nos orienta sobre a real situação da Terra e de nosso pais. Lboff            

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O noticiário recente sobre a mais longa estiagem no Brasil em seis décadas – e suas graves consequências em vários setores de atividade no país – traz consigo memórias incômodas e a sensação de despreparo do poder público e da sociedade   para a questão das mudanças do clima. Há muitas décadas numerosos  estudos científicos têm alertado para a gravidade e o agravamento progressivo das mudanças, para a necessidade de implantar sem perda de tempo políticas e programas de “mitigação” e “adaptação” a essas transformações. Mas têm encontrado pela frente o ceticismo – quando não o descaso.  Ou a crença nas avaliações dos chamados “céticos do clima”.

         Para não ter de recuar muito no tempo, o autor destas linhas retorna, por exemplo, ao que escreveu neste mesmo espaço há uma década (6/3/2004), quando o panorama na área do clima tinha causas opostas às de hoje: o Nordeste em janeiro daquele ano recebera um volume de chuvas sete vezes maior que sua média histórica; em alguns pontos de Goiás, em 50 dias chovera tanto quanto todo o ano anterior; açudes e barragens rompiam-se; abriam-se comportas para evitar rompimentos e provocavam-se graves inundações a jusante. Cientistas clamavam por um sistema oficial de informações que habilitasse a sociedade para programas de adaptação e mitigação – à semelhança do que a Europa já fazia, devolvendo seus rios ao curso natural, eliminando barragens, evacuando as margens de rios, implantando sistemas de drenagem urbana.  O então secretário-geral da ONU, Kofi Annan, advertia: “São visíveis os sinais de mudanças climáticas, com inundações e secas cada vez mais graves”. Mas outro artigo  (26/23/2004)já acentuava que “no Brasil não se conseguiu ainda definir regras”, nem mesmo para um plano nacional de saneamento básico.

         Quem quiser recuar ainda mais no tempo, pode ir ao artigo de 31/7/1998, há mais de 15 anos, que se referia à maior estiagem no rio Cuiabá em 65 anos, que ameaçava o fornecimento de água a um milhão de pessoas – ao contrário do que acontecia no rio Branco, Acre, com “volumes inéditos de chuvas” levando a temer que se repetisse por aqui o drama pelo qual passava a China, com as maiores inundações em 40 anos, 2,5 mil mortos, um milhão de desabrigados. Dizia então o PNUD (ONU) que de 1967 a 1990 chegara a 3 bilhões o número de pessoas atingidas pelos desastres climáticos.

         Agora, São Paulo enfrenta os dias mais quentes desde fevereiro de 1943.  O “sistema Cantareira está à beira do colapso” (ESTADO, 8/2) e ameaça reduzir em 45% o  suprimento de toda a água na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo. O volume de água armazenado já caiu 13,7% em relação ao que era em 1930. Guarulhos sofre com  o racionamento dia sim, dia não. E o panorama se repete praticamente em todo o país, intensifica o consumo de energia elétrica.

Estudiosos como Sir Nicholas Stern dizem que o aumento da temperatura no mundo será de 4 a 5  graus até o fim do século. James Lovelock, autor da “teoria Gaia”, chega a prever (Rolling Stones, novembro de 2013) que “a raça humana está condenada” a perder mais de 5 bilhões da população até 2100, com o Saara invadindo a Europa, Berlim tonando-se mais quente do que Bagdá. A temperatura subirá 8 graus na América do Norte e Europa. Segundo a Organização Mundial de Meteorologia, “não haverá pausa no aumento da temperatura”; cada década será mais quente.

         Michael Bloomberg, o bilionário ex-prefeito de Nova York, hoje à frente de várias iniciativas “ambientalistas”, sugere o fechamento imediato de todas as minas de carvão mineral, a maior fonte de poluição – mas por aqui já colocamos em atividade as nossas termelétricas a carvão, as mais poluidoras e mais caras. Enquanto isso, a safra de soja em São Paulo já se perdeu em 40% (ESTADO, 7/2), com prejuizo de R$744 milhões. Em Goiás, já se foram 15%. E o mundo subsidia o consumo de petróleo.

         Não adianta mais exorcizar os que os “céticos” chamavam de ”profetas do Apocalipse”. Nem fechar os olhos à realidade. Temos de conceber e adotar com muita urgência um plano nacional para o clima. Que inclua regras rigorosas para a ocupação do solo, impeça o desmatamento, promova a recuperação de áreas, proteja os recursos hídricos. Obrigue os administradores públicos a tratar com urgência também do solo urbano e dos planos de drenagem , além da contenção das emissões de poluentes nos transportes.E que nos imponha repensar nossa matriz energética. É preciso conferir prioridade absoluta às fontes de energia “limpas” e renováveis. Avançar com a energia eólica, já competitiva e ainda desprezada. Estimular os formatos de energia solar, que avançam a toda a velocidade no mundo. Voltar a conferir preferência para as energias de biomassas, inclusive ao álcool, onde o Brasil foi pioneiro e agora importa dos Estados Unidos para baixar índices de inflação, com o etanol nas bombas prejudicado pela política anti-inflação de segurar os preços dos combustíveis.

         Não é só. Temos de caminhar sem retardo para conferir, na matriz energética, prioridade para a microgeração distribuída. Gerada localmente e consumida também localmente, essa microgeração – que pode ser, por exemplo, a resultante do aproveitamento de biogás  resultante dejetos animais, como se está fazendo no Paraná e se começa em outros lugares – permite ao produtor rural deixar de pagar contas de energia e ainda vender o excedente da produção para as distribuidoras. Sem “linhões” fantásticos, caríssimos (já temos mais de 100 mil quilômetros deles), desperdiçadores de energia. Sem megaprojetos de geração que custam os olhos da cara e exigem juros gigantescos.

 Esse é o caminho do futuro: o desenvolvimento local, com microgeração de energia. Sem concentrar a propriedade, sem concentrar a renda. E, se tivermos competência e sorte, reduzindo a emissão de poluentes e contribuindo para atenuar as mudanças do clima.

 

 

Eine Anatomie der menschlichen Seele: die Psalmen

Leonardo Boff3 Comentários

Die Psalmen stellen eine der am weitesten entwickelten Gebetsformen dar, die die Menschheit je hervorbrachte. Millionen von Menschen, Juden, Christen und religiöse Menschen aller Traditionen rezitieren und singen täglich Psalmen, vor allem Nonnen, Mönche und Priester beim täglichen Stundengebet.

Wir wissen nicht genau, wer ihre Autoren waren, denn diese zeichneten die Gebete auf, die im Volk kursierten. Einige Psalmen stammen sicherlich von David (10. Jh. v. Chr.), der als der Psalmist schlechthin gilt. Er war Schafhirte, Krieger, Prophet, Musiker, König und ein zutiefst religiöser Mensch. Er eroberte den Berg Zion in Jerusalem und führte dort um die Bundeslade einen Kult  sowie die Psalmen ein.

 

Wenn man von den „Psalmen Davids“ spricht, bedeutet das gemeinhin „im Stil Davids komponierte Psalmen“. Die Psalmen tauchten während einer Zeitspanne von knapp 1000 Jahren an den Kultorten auf und wurden vom Volk rezitiert, bis sie in der Epoche der Makkabäer im 2. Jh. v. Chr. als Sammlung zusammengestellt wurden. Das Psalter ist ein historischer Mikrokosmos, der einer mittelalterlichen Kathedrale gleicht, die jahrhundertelang von mehreren Generationen und durch Tausende Hände gebaut wurde und die architektonischen Stiländerungen der unterschiedlichen Epochen beinhaltet. Ebenso gibt es Psalmen, die unterschiedliche Gottesbilder reflektieren, da sie aus verschiedenen, uns fremdartigen Epochen stammen und von Rachegelüsten und dem Verlangen nach einem unerbittlichen Zornesgericht Gottes sprechen.

 

Die Psalmen zeugen von der zutiefsten Überzeugung, dass Gott, wenngleich in unzugänglichem Lichte, in unserer Mitte zugegen ist, sozusagen in einer Art Zelt lebt (shekinah). Wir können uns ihm mit Anrufungen, Klagen, Lobliedern und in Dankbarkeit nähern. Er hat stets ein offenes Ohr für uns.

 

Der Ort, an dem sich seine Gegenwart verdichtet, ist der Tempel, in dem die Psalmen gesungen werden. Doch als Schöpfer der Erde und des Himmels befindet er sich auch an allen Orten, wenngleich keiner davon ihn völlig in sich aufnehmen könnte.

 

Völlig zu Recht behaupten die Hebräer voller Stolz: „Niemand hat einen Gott, der so nah ist wie der Unsere“, jedem nahe und inmitten des Volkes. Die Psalmen sprechen vom Bewusstsein der Nähe Gottes und seinem tröstlichen Schutz. Aus diesem Grund findet man in den Psalmen eine persönliche Nähe zu Gott, ohne jedoch in einen privaten Individualismus zu verfallen. Es gibt eine kollektive Gebetsform, die das persönliche Erleben nicht ausschließt. Eine Dimension verstärkt die andere, da in beiden eine Wahrheit liegt. Es gibt keine Personen ohne das Volk, dem sie angehören, und es gibt kein Volk ohne die freien Menschen, die es bilden.

 

Wenn wir die Psalmen nachbeten, finden wir in ihnen unser spirituelles, persönliches und kollektives Röntgenbild. In ihnen finden wir unsere eigene Gemütsverfassung wieder: Verzweiflung und Freue, Angst und Vertrauen, Trauer und Tanz, Rachegelüste und Bereitschaft zur Vergebung, unser Inneres und die Faszination von der Weite des Sternenhimmels. Der Reformator Johannes Calvin (1509-1564) drückte dies gut im Vorwort seines wunderbaren Psalmen-Kommentars aus:

 

„Ich pflege das Psalmbuch nicht ohne Grund eine Anatomie aller Teile der Menschenseele zu nennen; denn es findet sich kein Gefühl im Menschen, dessen Bild nicht in diesem Spiegel zu finden ist. Alle Schmerzen, alle Traurigkeit, alle Befürchtungen, Zweifel, Hoffnungen, Sorgen, Ängste, ja auch alle die gemischten Regungen schließlich, die den Menschengeist umtreiben, hat hier der heilige Geist nach dem Leben geschildert.“

 

Dadurch, dass die Psalmen unsere spirituelle Autobiographie wiedergeben, repräsentieren sie sowohl die Worte, die der Mensch an Gott richtet, als auch die Worte Gottes an den Menschen. Schon immer diente das Psalter als ein Buch des Trostes und als geheime Sinnquelle, insbesondere wenn der Mensch sich von Verlassenheit, Verfolgung, Ungerechtigkeit und Todesbedrohung bedrückt sieht. Der französische Philosoph Henri Bergson (1859-1941) hinterließ uns ein unverhofftes Zeugnis: „Von den Hunderten von Büchern, die ich las, vermochte mir keines so viel Licht und Trost zu verschaffen wie diese Verse des Psalm 23: „Der Herr ist mein Hirte, nichts wird mir fehlen. … Muss ich auch wandern in finsterer Schlucht, ich fürchte kein Unheil; denn du bist bei mir.“

 

Ich möchte folgendes Beispiel nennen: Da war ein Jude, der, umgeben von Kindern, in die Gaskammer von Auschwitz geschoben wurde. Er wusste, dass er dem Tod entgegen ging. Dennoch betete er mit lauter Stimme den Psalm 23: „Der Herr ist mein Hirte … Muss ich auch wandern in finsterer Schlucht, ich fürchte kein Unheil; denn du bist bei mir.“ Der Tod vermag die Gemeinschaft mit Gott nicht zu durchbrechen. Er ist ein Schritt, wenngleich ein schmerzhafter, hin zur großen Umarmung mit dem ewigen Frieden.

 

Somit handelt es sich bei den Psalmen um religiöse und mystische Poesie in ihrer höchsten Ausdrucksweise. Wie alle Poesie erschaffen sie die Realität neu durch Metaphern und durch Bilder, die dem Imaginären entstammen. Diese gehorcht einer eigenen Logik, die sich von der der Rationalität unterscheidet. Durch das Imaginäre verwandeln wir Situationen und Fakten, indem wir in ihnen einen verborgenen Sinn und göttliche Botschaften entdecken. Deshalb sagen wir, dass wir nicht nur prosaisch in dieser Welt leben, indem wir den offenkundigen Sinn im Lauf der Ereignisse erfassen. Wir leben auch poetisch in dieser Welt, indem wir die andere Seite der Dinge sehen und hinter dieser Welt eine andere Welt voller Schönheit und Bezauberung wahrnehmen.

 

Die Psalmen lehren uns, poetisch in der Wirklichkeit zu leben. Diese wird dadurch in ein großes Sakrament Gottes verwandelt, voller Weisheit, Ermahnungen und Lektionen, die unsere Pilgerschaft zur Quelle sicherer gestalten, wie es so schön im Psalm heißt: „Gehe ich auch mitten durch große Not, du erhältst mich am Leben .. deine Rechte hilft mir“ (Ps 138,7-8).

Übersetzt von Bettina Gold-Hartnack

 

 

 

The ultimate cause of the ecological crisis: the destruction of the universal relationship

Leonardo Boff4 Comentários

There are many causes of the ecological crisis. Here we address the most basic: the permanent rupture with the ultimate connectivity of the universe and its Creator that humans have introduced, nourished and perpetuated.

There is a profoundly mysterious and tragic dimension to the history of humanity and the universe. The Judeo-Christian tradition calls that fundamental frustration the sin of the world, and theology, following Saint Augustine, who invented the expression, calls it the original sin or original fall. Original here has nothing to do with the historical origins of this anti-phenomenon, or consequently, with the past. Rather, it relates to that which is original in the human being, which affects the fundamental and radical reason for human existence, and therefore, the present human condition.

This sin can neither be reduced to a mere moral dimension, or to an unsuccessful action by the human being. It refers to a globalized attitude, and thus, to a subversion of all human relations. It is about an ontological dimension to the human being, understood as a web of relationships. That web is distorted and corrupted, damaging all types of relationships.

It is important to emphasize that original sin is an interpretation of a fundamental experience, an answer to a challenging enigma. For example, the splendor of a blooming cherry tree in Japan exists simultaneously with a tsunami in Fukushima that devastates everything. There is a Mother Teresa of Calcutta who rescues desperate street people, and a Hitler who sends six million Jews to the gas chambers. Why this contradiction? Philosophers and theologians have long sought an answer. So far, without success.

Without going into the many possible interpretations, we accept one that is gaining ever greater consensus among religious thinkers: that is imperfection seen as a moment in the process of evolution. God did not create a universe that was instantaneously finished, a past event, totally perfect. Rather, God unleashed an open-ended and perfectible process that tends towards forms that are ever more complex, subtle and perfect. We hope that one day it will reach its Omega point.

Imperfection is not a defect, but a process of evolution. It does not express God’s final design for His creation, but a moment within an immense process. The earthly paradise does not mean nostalgia for a lost golden age, but the promise of a future yet to come. The first page of the Bible is actually the last. It comes at the beginning as a kind of scaled down model of the future, so that the readers are filled with hope for a happy ending to all of creation.

Saint Paul saw the sad condition of creation as a submission “to vanity” (mataiótes), not because of the human being, but because of God Himself. The exegetic sense of “vanity” points to the process of maturity.  Nature has not yet reached maturity. That is why in the present phase it is still far from the final goal. Because of that “all of creation still groans and suffers with labor pains” (Rm 8,22). The human being participates in this process of maturation, and also groans (Rm 8,23). All of creation anxiously awaits the full maturity of the sons and daughters of God, because between them and the rest of creation there exists a profound interdependency and connection. When that occurs, creation will also reach maturity, because, as Saint Paul says, “it will participate in the glorious freedom of the sons and daughters of God” (cf Rm 8,20).

Then the final design of God will be realized. Only then will God be able to speak the longed for words: “and He saw that all was good”. Now, these words are prophesies and promises for the future, because not all is good. Ernst Bloch, the philosopher of the hope principle put it well: «genesis is at the end, not the beginning». The human being’s delay in maturing implies a delay in creation. Human advances imply an advance of the whole. Humanity can be an instrument of liberation or an obstacle to the process of evolution.

And here is where the drama lies: when evolution reached the level of humanity, it attained a state of consciousness and liberty. The human being was created as a creator. Humans can intervene in nature for good, caring for her, or for bad, devastating her. It began, perhaps with the appearance of the homo habilis, 2.7 million years ago, when the instruments were created with which humans could intervene in nature, without respecting her rhythms. At the beginning it could have been a single act. But its repetition created an attitude of lack of caring. Instead of being together with everything, living together, humans set themselves above things, dominating them. And so it has been in crescendo, up to our times.

With this humans broke from the natural solidarity among all beings. They contravened the design of the Creator who wanted the human being as co-creator, whose genius would complete the imperfect creation. But instead, the human being assumed the place of God. The strength of human intelligence and will enabled humanity to feel like a small “god” and to behave as if in fact it were God.

This is the great separation from nature and the Creator that underlies the ecological crisis. The problem is in the type of human being that developed through history, more a «geophysical force of destruction» (E. Wilson) than a force for caring and preservation.

The remedy lies in re-connecting with all things. It is not necessary to be more religious, but more humble, more a part of nature, responsible for her sustainability, and more careful in all human activity.  Humanity must return to the Earth, from which it has exiled itself, and become her guardian. Then the natural contract will be remade. And by also opening up to the Creator, humanity’s infinite thirst would be satiated, and the reward would be peace.

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