Prague 2010: Marijke's blog

11 June

The Assembly is in full swing! Today the working groups met for their first sessions. The drafting group is busy drafting a final text, that will be a letter to the European churches, complemented with a prayer. The working group on theology will write a seperate text. So there is enough to look forward to!

Yesterday evening we had a Cosmic Walk. This was an enlightening experience. From the Big Bang on, via the shattering of stardust in space, the forming of our galaxy and the appearance of life on earth, we followed the evolution of humankind, with its endless wars and battles but also with the birth of Jesus, the splitting of the atom and the first time man saw the earth as a whole – during the moonlanding in 1967! Where will we go from now is the question...

Before that we had an interesting day of presentations, both thelogical, scientific, and political. It was somewhat frustrating to hear a former politician admit that nowadays politicians follow polls to see what the public wants, and then put that into their political programmes. What happened to principles, to values, to content? Apparently this is now up to NGOs. They have a task to educate the public and influence politics, the former politician pointed out. Of course this task includes the churches. They have important things to say, especially on ethical matters such as climate change.

That climate change is also very much about spirituality was shown by theologian Alastair McIntosh from Scotland. Coming from a Quaker background, he showed us why it is important to include depth-psychology in modern creation theology. We are all victims of manipulation by the markets, urging us to consume more and more and more..... causing enormous global problems, such as climate change. We need to break through this manipulation, by confronting ourselves with our false pride that wants to be a part of this consumerism. Only if we open up the inner eye of our heart, we can look beyond the shallowness of materialism and find new life.

Marijke van Duin