How do we respond when so much suffering surrounds us? This past week alone has seen a continuing potential genocide of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (Burma). The United Nations estimates that over 290,000 have fled to the border district of Cox’s Bazaar in Bangladesh in the past two weeks, to join the 100,000 already… Read More Silence as ‘Negative Space’
Are you aware of the illusions you may hold? About your own life? About your nation? Discerning and then facing our illusions is one of the most difficult processes we can go through in life. According to one definition, an illusion is a deceptive appearance or impression. It can also be a false idea or… Read More Facing Our Illusions
At the end of this week, my soul feels battered. There is a weariness, an attentiveness to pain and grief. Yesterday a good friend and colleague from India, Vijay, was buried in the Indian Christian Cemetery in Pune. He was only in his mid 40’s, and leaves behind his precious wife Baizine and two teenage… Read More Celebrating the Darkness
This is not a blog about politics. It deals with history, especially in Asia, and relations between faiths. But under one definition, politics is fundamentally about how people relate to one another, and how can you avoid writing about that? Whether in India or in the United States, the two nations that I love the most,… Read More The Politics of the Broken-Hearted
What will people say about your life when you’re gone? Will there be vastly different remembrances, or similar? If very different, it may say more about perspectives on the past than even you personally. I saw a TV interview today, with people giving their opinions on a political leader and how they were doing in… Read More What will people say when you’re gone? Different perspectives on history
Some of us think that we can live in denial of problems in our families, nations, or organisations and not face a cost. Wrong. Others of us think that speaking truth to power, or being “whistle-blowers”, will also be able to be done cost-free. Also wrong. Of course of the two, the latter most often… Read More What is the Cost of Denial? Of Speaking Truth to Power?
It must have been a stark and stunning image that September day in 1287: Edward I, the King of England, kneeling to receive communion from Rabban Sauma, an Asian Church of the East leader. Sent from a Mongol ruler named Arghun from the capital near modern day Beijing, (and with overall Mongol Emperor Kublai Khan’s… Read More Power Reversal: A 13th century Asian Christian leader gives Holy Communion to the King of England
In the news lately, in several fields of life, has been the courage of ‘whistle-blowers’. People who usually at great cost to themselves, say ‘no more’ to denial and are willing to come forward about injustice, personal or corporate wrongdoing. They ‘blow a whistle’ to say stop, no more, this can’t go on anymore. What… Read More The Deadly Danger of Loyalty that Leads to Denial
When we receive a physical wound, a scar remains, however small or large. Healing does happen, over time, but the scars remain. In 1982 in the weeks before I went to work in India, a nail pierced the top of my right foot while some of us were removing an old structure near our YWAM… Read More Our scars remain
Last week I was at Leeds University, giving a lecture on 13th century Asia-Europe connections at the annual International Medieval Conference. As I wandered around at lunch break, a plaque on a wall caught my attention. It was not on a main path, or very noticeable. But somehow my attention was drawn. I do not… Read More “Live as if you were to die tomorrow, learn as if you were to live forever.”
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