1 - 8 Nov 2009

I saw this quotation on someone's computer desktop last week:

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, nor to anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”

Siddhartha Gautama (about 563-483 BCE, founder of Buddhism and known as the Buddha meaning Enlightened One)

25 Oct - 1 Nov 2009

I have been reading about a thesis by anthropologist, René Girard, which is very appropriate having just seen Nick Griffin of the BNP on Question Time:

“We are living in troubled times and people have become bothered and bewildered. When people are bothered and bewildered, great caution is needed because our instinctive response is scapegoating and death-dealing.

“Scapegoating seems to make us feel better – but at immense cost. All of us look for someone to blame, blaming appears as natural as the air we breathe... Tragically, there is plenty of evidence in our recent history to support Girard’s analysis...: the treatment of Jews, gypsies and homosexuals in Nazi Germany, the Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the degrading of indigenous people, are scarcely sufficient examples. The challenge that faces pastoral care in dismal times is to help us become robust enough ... to be able to resist this age-old temptation to seek out someone to blame and the ensuing socially cathartic bloodlust.”

Ann Morisy (From “Bothered and Bewildered: Enacting Hope in Troubled Times”, Continuum, 2009).