Perseteruan antara Israel dan Palestina tanpa dapat disangkal oleh siapa pun ternyata menyisakan duka, kecemasan, keprihatinan, dan kengerian yang sangat mendalam. Bagi kita yang hanya dapat mengikuti peristiwa itu dari berita, foto dalam Jawa Pos edisi Selasa, 6 Januari 2009, pada halaman paling depan, dapat menjadi sumber untuk menilai betapa kejamnya perseteruan itu. Sebuah fakta yang menampilkan sebuah pemandangan yang sangat memprihatinkan. Seorang bapak yang ditenangkan oleh kerabatnya setelah menyaksikan ketiga anaknya yang masih balita tewas akibat serangan tentara Israel. Pemandangan ini jauh lebih mengerikan ketimbang dentuman bom, atau letupan senjata berapi.
Sangat memprihatinkan dan mengerikan karena pemandangan itu merupakan cermin yang paling nyata semakin tidak berharganya manusia di satu sisi, dan ambruknya pondasi dan citra moral manusia di sisi lain. Fenomena ini sekaligus merupakan representasi yang sangat jelas bahwa politik dan kekuasaan tidak lagi diintesikan untuk mengabdi manusia, sebaliknya manusialah yang harus mengabdi politik dan kekuasaan. Jika logika semacam ini dikembangkan, maka citra manusia tidak akan lebih dari sebuah “barang” tidak berharga yang bisa diperalat untuk mempertahankan politik dan kekuasaan, sekalipun itu harus ditempuh dengan mengorbankan jiwa-jiwa yang tidak berdosa dan menghalalkan segala cara.
Apakah skema penjabaran politik dan kekuasaan semacam ini legitim? Kalau kita berpedoman pada apa yang dipikirkan oleh Machiaveli maka fenomena pengejawantahan politik dan kekuasaan seperti yang saat ini diterapkan oleh Israel adalah sah. Sah karena bagi Machiaveli, seorang filosof yang merupakan salah satu pendiri filsafat politik modern ini, politik harus terpisah dari etika. Politik merupakan ranah yang incompatible dengan etika. Politik memiliki hukum dan keutamaannya sendiri, yang berbeda dengan hukum dan keutamaan yang dikedepankan oleh etika. Etika lebih mengedepankan perihal bagaimana manusia dapat hidup dengan baik sesuai dengan tatanan, kaidah-kaidah, dan nilai-nilai manusiawi. Sedangkan politik adalah ranah yang berurusan dengan soal bagaimana seorang penguasa menata negaranya, membela dan mempertahankan kekuasaannya, menjaga stabilitas keamanan negaranya, dan membela kepentingan rakyatnya sendiri.
Machiaveli setuju dan mengakui bahwa etika dengan segala artibut keutamaannya adalah sesuatu yang baik, terpuji dan luhur. Akan tetapi politik bukanlah persoalan yang dapat digandengkan atau bahkan disatukan dengan dunia etika. Jika seorang penguasa berani menempatkan etika di atas pertimbangan politis, maka pada saat itu juga dia harus siap dengan konsekuensi kehancuran kekuasaannya. Dalam tataran real, tidak satu pun penguasa menghendaki kehancuran kekuasaannya. Atau kehancuran negaranya. Karenanya seorang penguasa harus berani menyingkirkan pertimbangan-pertimbangan etis demi keutuhan negara dan kekuasaannya.
Itulah Machiaveli. Mari sekarang kita merunut pendapat yang memiliki nada yang berbeda. Aristoteles ternyata memiliki pendapat yang berbeda dengan Machiaveli. Aristoteles, yang dikenal sebagai filosof klasik, berpendapat bahwa politik memiliki relasi yang tak terpisahkan dari etika. Berbeda dengan Machiaveli yang memisahkan antara politik dan etika, Aristoteles justru berpendapat bahwa politik sangat mengandaikan etika. Etika merupakan dasar dari pengembaraan dan penjabaran politik. Dasar dari tesis ini adalah kodrat manusia. Manusia dari kodratnya adalah makluk sosial atau makluk politik atau makluk yang hidup bersama dengan manusia lain. Definisi ini sekaligus hendak mengatakan bahwa hidup dalam kebersamaan dengan manusia lain merupakan representasi dari kesempurnaan jati diri manusia. Kesempurnaan manusia tercermin pada relasi harmonis dengan sesamanya. Bertolak dari kenyataan ini, Aristoteles berpendapat bahwa setiap tindakan yang berusaha merusak dan menghancurkan sesamanya merupakan tindakan yang tidak hanya kejam, melainkan juga tindakan yang bertentangan dengan kodrat manusia.
Dalam konteks ini yang menjadi tugas negara atau pemerintah adalah mengupayakan hidup dan berkembangnya relasi antar manusia. Tidak hanya agar tidak terjadi peperangan dan pertumpahan darah, melainkan terutama agar setiap manusia dimungkinkan untuk merealisasikan kesempurnaan dirinya. Disinilah terletak ukuran legitimasi sebuah kekuasaan pemerintahan atau negara. Menurut Aristoteles, sebuah kekuasaan dapat dikatakan legitim jika mengedepankan kaidah-kaidah kebenaran etis yang meniscayakan setiap manusia bertumbuh kembang dan menjadi sempurna dalam jalinan hubungan antar manusia.
Kamis, 08 Januari 2009
Jumat, 12 Desember 2008
MINUMAN PAHIT
Orang yang mencekokimu minuman yang pahit supaya engkau sembuh dari sakit, lebih menyayangimu daripada orang yang memberimu minuman manis sehingga engkau sakit. (Thales, dalam Mulyadi Kartanegara, The Best Chicken Soup of The Philosophers).
Kamis, 25 September 2008
THE BASICS OF HINDUISM
5 PRINCIPLES
10 DISCIPLINES
1. Satya (Truth)
2. Ahimsa (Non-violence)
3. Brahmacharya (Celibacy, non-adultery)
4. Asteya (No desire to possess or steal)
5. Aparighara (Non-corrupt)
6. Shaucha (Cleanliness)
7. Santosh (Contentment)
8. Swadhyaya (Reading of scriptures)
9. Tapas (Austerity, perseverance, penance)
10. Ishwarpranidhan (Regular prayers)
DARI: http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/principles.htm
- God Exists: One Absolute OM. One Trinity: Brahma, Vishnu, Maheshwara (Shiva). Several divine forms
- All human beings are divine.
- Unity of existence through love.
- Religious harmony.
- Knowledge of 3 Gs: Ganga (sacred river), Gita (sacred script), Gayatri (sacred mantra)
10 DISCIPLINES
1. Satya (Truth)
2. Ahimsa (Non-violence)
3. Brahmacharya (Celibacy, non-adultery)
4. Asteya (No desire to possess or steal)
5. Aparighara (Non-corrupt)
6. Shaucha (Cleanliness)
7. Santosh (Contentment)
8. Swadhyaya (Reading of scriptures)
9. Tapas (Austerity, perseverance, penance)
10. Ishwarpranidhan (Regular prayers)
DARI: http://hinduism.about.com/od/basics/a/principles.htm
INDIAN SUFFERING
Dear Children of the Living God, Does any religion allow this - Is this not Terrorism??
Minggu, 14 September 2008
ST PAUL'S CONVERSION AND OURS
Christian identity found in Christ and his Gospel, not esoteric theories or abstract moral codes
On Wednesday, 3 September, the Holy Father arrived at the Vatican by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo for the General Audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall. Returning to the Apostle to the Gentiles, the Pope commented on the turning point in St Paul's life, his conversion. The following is a translation of his Catechesis, which was given in Italian.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today's Catechesis is dedicated to the experience that Paul had on his way to Damascus, and therefore on what is commonly known as his conversion. It was precisely on the road to Damascus, at the beginning of the 30s in the first century and after a period in which he had persecuted the Church that the decisive moment in Paul's life occurred.
Much has been written about it and naturally from different points of view.
It is certain that he reached a turning point there, indeed a reversal of perspective. And so he began, unexpectedly, to consider as "loss" and "refuse" all that had earlier constituted his greatest ideal, as it were the raison d'être of his life (cf. Phil 3: 7-8). What had happened?
In this regard we have two types of source. The first kind, the best known, consists of the accounts we owe to the pen of Luke, who tells of the event at least three times in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 9: 1-19; 22: 3-21; 26: 4-23). The average reader may be tempted to linger too long on certain details, such as the light in the sky, falling to the ground, the voice that called him, his new condition of blindness, his healing like scales falling from his eyes and the fast that he made.
But all these details refer to the heart of the event: the Risen Christ appears as a brilliant light and speaks to Saul, transforms his thinking and his entire life. The dazzling radiance of the Risen Christ blinds him; thus what was his inner reality is also outwardly apparent, his blindness to the truth, to the light that is Christ. And then his definitive "yes" to Christ in Baptism restores his sight and makes him really see.
In the ancient Church Baptism was also called "illumination", because this Sacrament gives light; it truly makes one see. In Paul what is pointed out theologically was also brought about physically: healed of his inner blindness, he sees clearly.
Thus St Paul was not transformed by a thought but by an event, by the irresistible presence of the Risen One whom subsequently he would never be able to doubt, so powerful had been the evidence of the event, of this encounter. It radically changed Paul's life in a fundamental way; in this sense one can and must speak of a conversion.
This encounter is the centre St Luke's account for which it is very probable that he used an account that may well have originated in the community of Damascus. This is suggested by the local colour, provided by Ananias' presence and by the names, of both the street and the owner of the house in which Paul stayed (Acts 9: 11).
Fierce persecutor ardent apostle
The second type of source concerning the conversion consists in St Paul's actual Letters. He never spoke of this event in detail, I think because he presumed that everyone knew the essentials of his story: everyone knew that from being a persecutor he had been transformed into a fervent apostle of Christ.
And this had not happened after his own reflection, but after a powerful event, an encounter with the Risen One.
Even without speaking in detail, he speaks on various occasions of this most important event, that, in other words he too is a witness of the Resurrection of Jesus, the revelation of which he received directly from Jesus, together with his apostolic mission.
The clearest text found is in his narrative of what constitutes the centre of salvation history: the death and Resurrection of Jesus and his appearances to witnesses (cf. 1 Cor 15).
In the words of the ancient tradition, which he too received from the Church of Jerusalem, he says that Jesus died on the Cross, was buried and after the Resurrection appeared risen first to Cephas, that is Peter, then to the Twelve, then to 500 brethren, most of whom were still alive at Paul's time, then to James and then to all the Apostles.
And to this account handed down by tradition he adds, "Last of all... he appeared also to me" (1 Cor 15: 8). Thus he makes it clear that this is the foundation of his apostolate and of his new life.
There are also other texts in which the same thing appears: "Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship" (cf. Rm 1: 4-5); and further: "Have I not seen Jesus Our Lord?" (1 Cor 9: 1), words with which he alludes to something that everyone knows.
And lastly, the most widely known text is read in Galatians: "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were Apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus" (1: 15-17).
In this "self-apology" he definitely stresses that he is a true witness of the Risen One, that he has received his own mission directly from the Risen One.
Thus we can see that the two sources, the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of St Paul, converge and agree on the fundamental point: the Risen One spoke to Paul, called him to the apostolate and made him a true Apostle, a witness of the Resurrection, with the specific task of proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles, to the Greco-Roman world. And at the same time, Paul learned that despite the immediacy of his relationship with the Risen One, he had to enter into communion with the Church, he himself had to be baptized, he had to live in harmony with the other Apostles. Only in such communion with everyone could he have been a true apostle, as he wrote explicitly in the First Letter to the Corinthians: "Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed" (15: 11). There is only one proclamation of the Risen One, because Christ is only one.
Paul's conversion an external event
As can be seen, in all these passages Paul never once interprets this moment as an event of conversion. Why? There are many hypotheses, but for me the reason is very clear. This turning point in his life, this transformation of his whole being was not the fruit of a psychological process, of a maturation or intellectual and moral development. Rather it came from the outside: it was not the fruit of his thought but of his encounter with Jesus Christ.
In this sense it was not simply a conversion, a development of his "ego", but rather a death and a resurrection for Paul himself. One existence died and another, new one was born with the Risen Christ.
There is no other way in which to explain this renewal of Paul. None of the psychological analyses can clarify or solve the problem. This event alone, this powerful encounter with Christ, is the key to understanding what had happened: death and resurrection, renewal on the part of the One who had shown himself and had spoken to him.
In this deeper sense we can and we must speak of conversion. This encounter is a real renewal that changed all his parameters. Now he could say that what had been essential and fundamental for him earlier had become "refuse" for him; it was no longer "gain" but loss, because henceforth the only thing that counted for him was life in Christ.
Nevertheless we must not think that Paul was thus closed in a blind event. The contrary is true because the Risen Christ is the light of truth, the light of God himself. This expanded his heart and made it open to all. At this moment he did not lose all that was good and true in his life, in his heritage, but he understood wisdom, truth, the depth of the law and of the prophets in a new way and in a new way made them his own.
At the same time, his reasoning was open to pagan wisdom. Being open to Christ with all his heart, he had become capable of an ample dialogue with everyone, he had become capable of making himself everything to everyone. Thus he could truly be the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Turning now to ourselves, let us ask what this means for us. It means that for us too Christianity is not a new philosophy or a new morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ. Of course, he does not show himself to us in this overwhelming, luminous way, as he did to Paul to make him the Apostle to all peoples. But we too can encounter Christ in reading Sacred Scripture, in prayer, in the liturgical life of the Church. We can touch Christ's Heart and feel him touching ours. Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we truly become Christians. And in this way our reason opens, all Christ's wisdom opens as do all the riches of truth.
Therefore let us pray the Lord to illumine us, to grant us an encounter with his presence in our world, and thus to grant us a lively faith, an open heart and great love for all, which is capable of renewing the world.
To special groups
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I welcome all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience including the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit and a group of Maltese altar boys currently serving in Saint Peter's Basilica. May your visit to Rome strengthen your commitment to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Upon all of you, I invoke God's abundant blessings of joy and peace.
Lastly I greet the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. Dear young people, in resuming your usual daily activities after the holidays, may you return to the regular pace of your intimate dialogue with God, diffusing his light around you. You, dear sick people, may you find support and comfort in Jesus, who continues his work of redemption in every person's life. And you, dear newlyweds, may you strive to keep constantly in touch with the Lord who gives salvation to all and to draw on his love so that your own may be ever more sound and lasting.
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/or/or_eng/text.html#13
On Wednesday, 3 September, the Holy Father arrived at the Vatican by helicopter from Castel Gandolfo for the General Audience in the Paul VI Audience Hall. Returning to the Apostle to the Gentiles, the Pope commented on the turning point in St Paul's life, his conversion. The following is a translation of his Catechesis, which was given in Italian.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today's Catechesis is dedicated to the experience that Paul had on his way to Damascus, and therefore on what is commonly known as his conversion. It was precisely on the road to Damascus, at the beginning of the 30s in the first century and after a period in which he had persecuted the Church that the decisive moment in Paul's life occurred.
Much has been written about it and naturally from different points of view.
It is certain that he reached a turning point there, indeed a reversal of perspective. And so he began, unexpectedly, to consider as "loss" and "refuse" all that had earlier constituted his greatest ideal, as it were the raison d'être of his life (cf. Phil 3: 7-8). What had happened?
In this regard we have two types of source. The first kind, the best known, consists of the accounts we owe to the pen of Luke, who tells of the event at least three times in the Acts of the Apostles (cf. 9: 1-19; 22: 3-21; 26: 4-23). The average reader may be tempted to linger too long on certain details, such as the light in the sky, falling to the ground, the voice that called him, his new condition of blindness, his healing like scales falling from his eyes and the fast that he made.
But all these details refer to the heart of the event: the Risen Christ appears as a brilliant light and speaks to Saul, transforms his thinking and his entire life. The dazzling radiance of the Risen Christ blinds him; thus what was his inner reality is also outwardly apparent, his blindness to the truth, to the light that is Christ. And then his definitive "yes" to Christ in Baptism restores his sight and makes him really see.
In the ancient Church Baptism was also called "illumination", because this Sacrament gives light; it truly makes one see. In Paul what is pointed out theologically was also brought about physically: healed of his inner blindness, he sees clearly.
Thus St Paul was not transformed by a thought but by an event, by the irresistible presence of the Risen One whom subsequently he would never be able to doubt, so powerful had been the evidence of the event, of this encounter. It radically changed Paul's life in a fundamental way; in this sense one can and must speak of a conversion.
This encounter is the centre St Luke's account for which it is very probable that he used an account that may well have originated in the community of Damascus. This is suggested by the local colour, provided by Ananias' presence and by the names, of both the street and the owner of the house in which Paul stayed (Acts 9: 11).
Fierce persecutor ardent apostle
The second type of source concerning the conversion consists in St Paul's actual Letters. He never spoke of this event in detail, I think because he presumed that everyone knew the essentials of his story: everyone knew that from being a persecutor he had been transformed into a fervent apostle of Christ.
And this had not happened after his own reflection, but after a powerful event, an encounter with the Risen One.
Even without speaking in detail, he speaks on various occasions of this most important event, that, in other words he too is a witness of the Resurrection of Jesus, the revelation of which he received directly from Jesus, together with his apostolic mission.
The clearest text found is in his narrative of what constitutes the centre of salvation history: the death and Resurrection of Jesus and his appearances to witnesses (cf. 1 Cor 15).
In the words of the ancient tradition, which he too received from the Church of Jerusalem, he says that Jesus died on the Cross, was buried and after the Resurrection appeared risen first to Cephas, that is Peter, then to the Twelve, then to 500 brethren, most of whom were still alive at Paul's time, then to James and then to all the Apostles.
And to this account handed down by tradition he adds, "Last of all... he appeared also to me" (1 Cor 15: 8). Thus he makes it clear that this is the foundation of his apostolate and of his new life.
There are also other texts in which the same thing appears: "Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship" (cf. Rm 1: 4-5); and further: "Have I not seen Jesus Our Lord?" (1 Cor 9: 1), words with which he alludes to something that everyone knows.
And lastly, the most widely known text is read in Galatians: "But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and had called me through his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were Apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia; and again I returned to Damascus" (1: 15-17).
In this "self-apology" he definitely stresses that he is a true witness of the Risen One, that he has received his own mission directly from the Risen One.
Thus we can see that the two sources, the Acts of the Apostles and the Letters of St Paul, converge and agree on the fundamental point: the Risen One spoke to Paul, called him to the apostolate and made him a true Apostle, a witness of the Resurrection, with the specific task of proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles, to the Greco-Roman world. And at the same time, Paul learned that despite the immediacy of his relationship with the Risen One, he had to enter into communion with the Church, he himself had to be baptized, he had to live in harmony with the other Apostles. Only in such communion with everyone could he have been a true apostle, as he wrote explicitly in the First Letter to the Corinthians: "Whether then it was I or they, so we preach and so you believed" (15: 11). There is only one proclamation of the Risen One, because Christ is only one.
Paul's conversion an external event
As can be seen, in all these passages Paul never once interprets this moment as an event of conversion. Why? There are many hypotheses, but for me the reason is very clear. This turning point in his life, this transformation of his whole being was not the fruit of a psychological process, of a maturation or intellectual and moral development. Rather it came from the outside: it was not the fruit of his thought but of his encounter with Jesus Christ.
In this sense it was not simply a conversion, a development of his "ego", but rather a death and a resurrection for Paul himself. One existence died and another, new one was born with the Risen Christ.
There is no other way in which to explain this renewal of Paul. None of the psychological analyses can clarify or solve the problem. This event alone, this powerful encounter with Christ, is the key to understanding what had happened: death and resurrection, renewal on the part of the One who had shown himself and had spoken to him.
In this deeper sense we can and we must speak of conversion. This encounter is a real renewal that changed all his parameters. Now he could say that what had been essential and fundamental for him earlier had become "refuse" for him; it was no longer "gain" but loss, because henceforth the only thing that counted for him was life in Christ.
Nevertheless we must not think that Paul was thus closed in a blind event. The contrary is true because the Risen Christ is the light of truth, the light of God himself. This expanded his heart and made it open to all. At this moment he did not lose all that was good and true in his life, in his heritage, but he understood wisdom, truth, the depth of the law and of the prophets in a new way and in a new way made them his own.
At the same time, his reasoning was open to pagan wisdom. Being open to Christ with all his heart, he had become capable of an ample dialogue with everyone, he had become capable of making himself everything to everyone. Thus he could truly be the Apostle to the Gentiles.
Turning now to ourselves, let us ask what this means for us. It means that for us too Christianity is not a new philosophy or a new morality. We are only Christians if we encounter Christ. Of course, he does not show himself to us in this overwhelming, luminous way, as he did to Paul to make him the Apostle to all peoples. But we too can encounter Christ in reading Sacred Scripture, in prayer, in the liturgical life of the Church. We can touch Christ's Heart and feel him touching ours. Only in this personal relationship with Christ, only in this encounter with the Risen One do we truly become Christians. And in this way our reason opens, all Christ's wisdom opens as do all the riches of truth.
Therefore let us pray the Lord to illumine us, to grant us an encounter with his presence in our world, and thus to grant us a lively faith, an open heart and great love for all, which is capable of renewing the world.
To special groups
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
I welcome all the English-speaking visitors present at today's Audience including the Missionary Sisters Servants of the Holy Spirit and a group of Maltese altar boys currently serving in Saint Peter's Basilica. May your visit to Rome strengthen your commitment to share the Good News of Jesus Christ. Upon all of you, I invoke God's abundant blessings of joy and peace.
Lastly I greet the young people, the sick and the newlyweds. Dear young people, in resuming your usual daily activities after the holidays, may you return to the regular pace of your intimate dialogue with God, diffusing his light around you. You, dear sick people, may you find support and comfort in Jesus, who continues his work of redemption in every person's life. And you, dear newlyweds, may you strive to keep constantly in touch with the Lord who gives salvation to all and to draw on his love so that your own may be ever more sound and lasting.
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/or/or_eng/text.html#13
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