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October 2009
“Kindness is the perfume of the world. To be a disciple of Jesus and missionary is a call to spread the sweet fragrance of God’s loving kindness.”
Intense meditation alters our grey matter, strengthening regions that focus the mind and foster compassion while calming those linked to fear and anger, according to a new book, “How God Changes Your Brain.” Whether the meditator believes in the supernatural or is an atheist repeating a mantra, says neuroscience author Andrew Newberg, the outcome can be the same, a growth in the compassion that virtually every religion teaches and a decline in negative feelings and emotions, Reuters reports.
Industrialized nations owe the poorer countries a US $2.3 trillion “ecological debt,” said a University of California study, and it should be assessed and penalized by an international court, an ecumenical gathering heard. “Ecological debt keeps growing,” Joan Martinez Alier, a university professor in Barcelona, told the World Council of Churches hearing in Geneva, held during a meeting of the WCC’s main governing body, Ecumenical News International reported. “The demand for economic growth means more use of energy and resources, which produces more waste.”
Child laborers working in Malawi’s tobacco plantations are being exposed to dangerous levels of nicotine, tobacco dust, abuse and exploitation, says a new study by Plan, a UK-based international children’s charity, titled “Hard work, little pay and long hours.” According to the report, child pickers are subjected to high levels of nicotine poisoning – the equivalent of 50 cigarettes per day. “You reach a point where you cannot breathe because of the pain in your chest; then blood comes when you vomit,” one child told researchers.
Massive subsidies and quotas for biofuels are wreaking social and environmental havoc and in many cases actually exacerbating climate change, says a new Christian Aid report. Titled “Growing Pains,” the study demands a radical overhaul of governments’ multi-billion dollar support for biofuels, so that only crops which offer genuine greenhouse gas savings and wider social benefits are encouraged.
Long-term development in East Timor – which celebrated the tenth anniversary of its vote for independence on August 29 – will be “seriously hindered” if justice for past crimes remains undelivered, the international development agency Progressio has warned. Despite a decade of self-rule, East Timor is still the poorest country in the region and one of the least developed nations in the world. An estimated 40% of the East Timorese people live on less than a dollar a day.
Asia faces an unprecedented food crisis and huge social unrest unless hundreds of billions of dollars are invested in better irrigation systems to grow crops for its burgeoning population, according to a UN report quoted by the British newspaper The Guardian. India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilizers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia’s demand for food, says the report from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).
Christians in Pakistan are working against the controversial law on blasphemy. The Justice and Peace Commission of the Pakistani Bishops’ Conference, has called for the signing of a petition to be presented to the government, calling for an abolition of the law. Specifically speaking, they refer to Articles 295 (b) and (c) and 298 (a), (b), and (c) of the Pakistani Penal Code, which have to do with the laws over blasphemy which are often used against religious minorities like Christians and Ahmadi. The Code condemns “any, who with words or writings, gestures, or visible manifestations, direct or indirect insinuations, insult the sacred name of the Prophet.” The punishment for violating the law is life in prison or the death penalty.
Where God is respected, so is nature, affirmed Benedict XVI. Noting the gift of nature, and the “phenomena of environmental degradation and natural calamities,” the Pontiff recalled the need for mankind to enter into “a correct relation with the environment.” And noted: “A new sensitivity to these topics is being developed, which arouses the correct concern of the authorities and of public opinion, which is also expressed in the multiplication of meetings at the international level.” Benedict XVI called the earth “a precious gift of the Creator,” and said “we must hold ourselves as stewards of His creation.”
Countries tackling food insecurity and climate change adaptation can greatly benefit from agroforestry – integrating fleshy plants and trees into their farming systems, environmental specialists say. Those in Sub-Saharan Africa, that have a history of food insecurity brought on by meager rains, land degradation, declining soil fertility and bad management of resources, would have much to gain.
When I made the decision to become a missionary, I never thought one day I would be documenting the torture, abuse and inhuman conditions of children in prison with hidden cameras and taking legal action to rescue them and give them a new life free from abuse and the heavy hand of authority. Nor did I expect to be making undercover contact on the streets of an Asian city talking to prostituted women and children and working to help set them free from brothels, traffickers and pimps.
The food being wasted in Europe and the US alone would be enough to feed, seven times over, the world’s starving. The scandal is denounced in a new book by a British farmer, food analyst and anti-waste activist.
Kindness is a virtue that needs to be cherished and cultivated. Regular practices become habits which, in turn, become deeply ingrained and shape our identity. Our actions determine us as much as we determine our actions. Indeed, kindness begets kindness. We are made kind by being kind.
In the fifth century, before envy was listed by the Church as one of the seven deadly sins, the virtue, able to fight its deleterious effects, was coined. This virtue is kindness. And, if one looks attentively at the world’s social and spiritual history, one will find
that it is still able to help us in our struggle to live better in a kinder world.
Kindness and mercy is at the heart of the Christian message. Jesus said: “You received without pay, give without pay.” The Church must, therefore, seek to put mercy into practice and to proclaim it to the men and women of today.
Christianity and kindness go hand-in-hand. One may even add that the unkind person betrays the Christian faith, which is essentially the practice of the love of God and neighbor. This is the good news that the missionaries brought to the Philippines, and we still can learn from it today.
Justice and peace are not built by great speeches and Church, international meetings and partially successful peace negotiations alone but, rather, by the active love of people like Father Biseko.
The kindness and compassion that Sr. Brenda Imdeke showed towards a woman, defaced by a terrible illness, conquered the hearts of Muslims in a little town in Kenya. Kind gestures have the power to make wonders.
“They recognized Him at the breaking of the bread.”
(Read Luke 24:13-35)
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