Jakarta, in the midnight, 19/10/2017, after an overwhelming class

I have this class called Trauma, Theology, and Aesthetics. In that class, we learned to share our tears. We shared our burdens yet we took our friend’s burdens to become our own. We learned to embrace the vulnerability of creation. We risk to change our point of view, our way of thinking, upside down. We learn to read the Bible differently. We learn to hear and to listen to the voice of the voiceless. We risk ourselves, our theology, for being the witness to the brokenness of humanity, of our society, which they tried to hide. We offer them the brutality of reality, which they could not bear, all this time. We risk ourselves, we risk our theology. We risk our faith.

In that class, we shared tears. Even society could not bear the tears. Tears are something taboo, that you must hide it and keep it private. Keep it to yourself.

Our society is a cold stone. We are the water drop. And if we keep dropping the reality, the cold stone will break.  This is a community of sharing.

I have learned many things the hard way. God can be absent, God cries, God has been through death. God can be as vulnerable as human being can be, as creation can be this point of view breaks all Christian doctrines which shows the powerfulness, almighty, the presentfulness of God. Therefore, I can see God as a friend. Not like some usual friend, but rather, an intimate friend, who walks with me and accompanies me, through the darkness, through the death, the abyss of life, the wound, and the trauma itself. Like the lyric of a song: I will fear no evil, for my God is with me. And if my God is with me, whom then shall I fear?

Maybe it takes dying to detach... and find yourself again

Bulan Juli 2016 menjadi sangat penting bagiku. Di bulan ini aku mulai mengenal teman-teman baruku, mulai mengenal jemaat, dan tanpa kusadari aku telah menyayangi mereka dengan begitu rupa. Aku dan mereka telah menghabiskan waktu bersama. Berjam-jam, berhari-hari, berminggu-minggu, hingga kini tanpa disetujui, aku harus menghakhiri segala petualanganku di tempat ini, bumi Halmahera yang surgawi.

Pantai Wayabailo

Untuk kedua kalinya aku memimpin ibadah di GMIH Lahairoi Pediwang. Aku menyadari bahwa aku begitu cepat terbiasa dengan jemaat ini. Bahaya ketika membiasakan sesuatu adalah kita tidak lagi mempersiapkan waktu khusus bagi pelayanan kita. Bagiku membiasakan diri sama saja dengan berhenti belajar karena ujung-ujungnya aku akan menganggap enteng hal-hal yang harus kukerjakan itu.

Ibadah Minggu yang selalu berganti mengikuti liturgi GMIH yang diatur per minggu menjadi satu hal yang mencegahku untuk menganggap mudah tugasku di gereja. Aku harus mengecek tata ibadah dengan teliti agar tidak salah memimpin.

AnakkonKi do hamoraon di Ahu, ninna Debata

pict by Sarawut Intarob

Sumringah
Begitu semula senyum itu
Anak dan Boru ni Raja tersemat di antara namanya
Embara Habatahon mengalir deras
Menyatu dengan darahnya

Dari permulaan ia merangkak
Hingga berdikari kini
Telinganya selalu dibisikkan
“Anakkonkhi do hamoraon di ahu.”
“Anakku adalah harta kekayaanku.”
Di meja makan, di antara kudapan-kudapan nikmat
Kalimat itu disenandungkan merdu
Dari atas mimbar, di antara ayat-ayat kitab suci
Kalimat itu digaungkan

Holy Grandeur Enough for All

Abstract

Natural degradation is not merely a competition between ecology and economy. The destruction of nature is closely related to religiosity and human relationships to fellow human beings, the environment, and God. Ecotheology becomes a self-criticism of the classical doctrines of Christianity, which are considered to exalt humankind as the "crown of creation" and marginalize non-human creatures as commodities of economic value for human interests. Ecotheology seems to have talked too often about damaged nature, or even extinct plants or animals, and forgetting the other side of the bountiful biodiversities, which is the holy beauty of nature. Ecotheology needs to ponder that God, the Holy Grandeur, who manifests the cosmic wisdom in the beauty of all creation, is enough for all.
Keyword: Holy Grandeur, Sophia, ecotheology, Eastern Orthodox, holy beauty

Neither Confounding Nor Dividing: The Personhood of People with Disability

Abstract

In the society that makes ableism as a normal standard, self-autonomy is often identified with the personhood. The personhood of people with disability is often reduced because they are seen to be unable to perform their activities ‘normally’ without any help from others. All creations are relational beings because they are created by and in a relational God. The Church witnessed their faith, through Athanasian creed, that the Holy Trinity neither confounding the Persons (persona), nor dividing the Essence (substantia). Using Duns Scotus’s theory of haecceitas, I argue that every human being, even every creation, especially people with disability, possesses the thisness of their own that comes from the thisness of the relational Holy Trinity.

Keywords: disability, thisness, personhood, communion, doctrine of Trinity