Consider this/ Einfach zum Nachdenken

But even though very few people, scholars and non-scholars alike, would contest this finding, our Western economies still function as if the opposite were true. Have you ever seen an advertisement urging you to not buy a luxury car or not to go on a particular holiday, because they do not hold what they promise? Can you imagine turning on the TV and being urged to reduce your spending by 10%, since that might actually make you happier? Such ads only begin to appear when the negative effects of our consumption become blatantly evident: anti-smoking campaigns, drives to eat less junk food or ads encouraging us to use less energy in order to curb greenhouse effects are such examples. But they are rare, and late in coming.

Today is the half-way point of what Christians call the season of Lent. For roughly six weeks believers all over the world devote themselves to “fasting, prayer and almsgiving”. Many think that this amounts to a corporate act of dieting, where we all decide to come off cigarettes, sweets or alcohol, since we know they are bad for us anyway. But that misses the point. Fasting is in fact an act of giving up food or other good things, simply in order to express that ultimately these things don’t satisfy. Lent is to remind us where the source of our life and happiness is, namely in God. This is why fasting is always accompanied by prayer- spending time with God- and acts of kindness. As we give up things we also release resources to bless others.

Why have Christians insisted on keeping such a yearly season? The Bible speaks of a different and even more serious global warming: it is called sin. Christians believe that, if left unchecked, humans very quickly give into selfishness, greed and complaining. We need to regularly review our lives and see how we live. At least once year a spiritual spring cleaning is in order. That is when we consider what is really important, what we really need, and where we have accumulated ballast which keeps us from living as free men and women.

Let us not wait for a government health warning before we address toxic patterns in our lives. Instead maybe this season might help us also to re-discover a spirit of gratitude and contentment, like our African friends. As St. Paul says in his first letter to Timothy:“for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world; but if we have food and clothing, with these we shall be content”. How would that look as the text for the next major advertising campaign?

# posted by tino @ Sunday, March 18, 2007 1 comments

Do you know what the bestselling book was worldwide in 2004 and 2005? Harry Potter? The Da Vinci Code? Jamie Oliver’s “The Naked Chef”? Wrong! It was a book by an American pastor called “The Purpose-Driven Life”. In it the author invites the reader to devote 40 days of his life to consider what the purpose of his life is. Starting with a Bible passage, every day considers what the important things are in a human being’s life- and to date about 22 million people have bought it.

Gustav Mahler’s 1^st symphony begins with some deep D-notes, often referred to as the “eternal music that was there before there were notes”. The listener plugs into this cosmic melody, which eventually becomes an almost paradisiacal poem. But in the background something gnaws at the listener, and the third movement vividly depicts this sentiment in the form of a funeral march. Ostensibly the sorrow is over an unreciprocated love, but really the pain goes deeper. The cycle of songs which Mahler wrote earlier and which reappear as motifs in various places in his First, offers an explanation. In one of the “Songs of a Wandering Wayfarer” the hero sings

I have a red-hot knife,

a knife in my breast.

O woe! It cuts so deeply

into every joy and delight.

This describes the deep sorrow and malaise which was going to accompany this brilliant composer all his life. Some of it can be explained by the age he lived in, the fin-de-siecle atmosphere of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. Some has to do with his ethnic roots, as he says in one place: “I am thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Everywhere an intruder, never welcomed.” But does that really offer sufficient explanation why such a gifted man, who achieved all that a musician could in his day, would still be so miserable, restless and misunderstood?

Back to Rick Warren: in his first chapter he states something which sets him apart from all the authors of self-help books written in recent times. “Contrary to what many popular books, movies, and seminars tell you, you won’t discover your life’s meaning by looking within yourself.” Or to quote a more ancient writer: “for you have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in you” (Augustine- Confessions). What both Augustine and Warren (and all of Christian tradition with them) would say is that human life, if only looked at or lived out in this world, is unhappy, restless, void of meaning. Deep inside every human being is a desire for sense, fulfillment, purpose. But that purpose will only be achieved in eternity, in communion with God himself.

You and I might not be geniuses like Mahler, but we all make the same experience: life is glorious, majestic, beautiful, but it is marred by a sadness, malaise and restlessness. The Psalms of the Bible say “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God!” (Ps 42,5) When we are restless, uneasy, wondering, it is not because something is going wrong. It is because we are made to not find satisfaction in ourselves and this world alone. So pick up the book and find out what you are made for…and listen to the last movement of the First for a fascinating denouement.

# posted by tino @ Saturday, March 10, 2007 0 comments