Niece Olivia was 8 on Sunday.....
So we went to her house down the west coast to celebrate her birthday.
It was a lovely party. Balloons, bouncy castle and chicken wings, African children proudly showing off their hurling skills, Brazilian samba music, people getting lost on the way there.
And, as always, the undercurrent of sadness. Her father on the phone, sad because he can't be with her. Her mother, having a quiet cry in the corner of the kitchen, remembering other days, other lands, and lost children.
When the lights of our hometown came into view one of the people in the car said 'Almost home now'. We all nodded in agreement and then a strange thought struck me. There were four people in the car and each person came, not from a different country, but a different continent.
Strange, and sometimes wonderful, world.
posted by Carigeen at Thursday, October 23, 2003
Belief and non-belief....
Many refugees have a deep and profound belief in God, who they see as sustaining them through the bad times. I've no doubt that it really does help people carry on for another day. I've a series of friends on site that want to convert me to Islam, Catholicism and evangelical Protestantism respectively.
Too great a reliance on a 'God will provide' approach is very counterproductive. People expect miracles and miracles are very few and far between in the corridors of government departments. As a religious friend says 'God will provide but bring your shovel!'
Volunteers come from the two extremes of the spectrum when it comes to belief. There are very few conventional believers in the active volunteer community.
At one end are the ones who search for rules on how to conduct their lives in their holy book, be it the Bible or the Koran. They seem to find good rules too, maybe the search is the important thing. Perhaps the best use of scripture is as a mirror to reflect the soul and the society of the reader.
There are plenty of non-believers in the volunteer world too. Two common strands in Ireland seem to be a revolutionary youth and developing country experience. I've had both so I'm really hooked!
Personally I find the choice between the various Gods meaningless. The question of what happens to me after my death is equally irrelevant.
The strange thing is just how well the two groups work together. I've seen elderly nuns sipping tea in dingy pubs as skullduggery was planned! As a result I've grown much more tolerant of religious belief in the past few years.
As Bertrand Russell put it:
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
posted by Carigeen at Monday, October 20, 2003
