AS I See It

LEARNING TO LIVE WITH THE VIRUS

We are just leaving behind the heroic phase in our tryst with COVID-19. In history, realism follows heroism. And if realism comes (as Shelley would not have said) can cynicism be far behind? Cynicism is a monstrous birth from misaligned realism. We may ‘learn to live with’ either in realistic engagement or in cynical resignation. […]

Corona and Christ

To see anything clearly, it needs to be held at an optimum distance from oneself. To be too close is to be too far in terms of effect. In both cases, one cannot see the given object or phenomenon for what it is. Apart from distance, there is another factor that interferes with understanding: prejudice. […]

CORONA AND THE NAKEDNESS OF MAN

Epidemics – except for the likes of boredom and depression – are organic. They affect the body. They also use the body as means for self-replication and transmission. They also imitate the logic of the body. That logic is somewhat as follows. The body, as autonomous from mind and spirit, becomes mere flesh. The flesh […]

EASTER THOUGHTS FOR DIFFICULT TIMES

Tolstoy, given the stern ethical rationalist he was, had little patience with the miraculous and the irrational. Yet he wrote Resurrection (also known under the title The Awakening) and considered that to be his most significant novel. Tolstoy deems resurrection as native to the essence of life. This is something that we need to consider, […]

CHRISTIAN REFLECTIONS ON THE CORONA EPIDEMIC

To the world the Corona is only a virus: an enemy. That it is, even for Christians. But a Christian is under obligation to love his enemy. To ‘love’ is to know or to understand. Loving is a state of deepening understanding. Love overcomes, or should overcome, stranger anxieties and transform strangers into neighbours. The […]

PERPLEXED BETWEEN ORTHODOXY AND REFORM?

A religious reformer is not unlike a sectarian without a sect. Or, as Wordsworth might put it, like a solitary reaper on arid land gathering, best of times, only thorns and thistles. He belongs nowhere. Or, as Jesus says, ‘has nowhere to lay His head.’ He stakes all on His faith, but His faith community […]

THAT CHRISTIANS MAY CONSIDER…

I cannot but wonder if Christians pay any heed to the account of the creation of the human species in the Bible. We have turned reading the Word into a customary practice: something to be done, and to have done with. As to how the Word connects to our life – especially religious life – […]

CHRISTIANITY IS POLITICAL: BUT WHAT POLITICS?

Jesus was political. This simple fact could either surprise or shock because we have been fixated on other things for centuries. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name,” Jesus said, “there I am in their midst.” We can, with equal relevance say, where two or three are gathered together, there is politics […]

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