Hutan, Ketidakadilan Sosio-Ekologis, dan Teologi

Bertahun-tahun lalu, Indonesia masih disebut sebagai paru-paru dunia. Mengapa? Karena negara ini dipenuhi hutan hujan tropis yang kaya akan flora dan fauna, dibandingkan dengan negara-negara lain di dunia. Akan tetapi, jika saat ini, per tahun 2019, ada yang mengatakan bahwa Indonesia adalah paru-paru dunia, maka orang tersebut akan saya tertawakan. Indonesia sebagai paru-paru dunia? Paru-paru seperti apa yang dimaksud? Paru-paru orang "bengek" (asma)? Atau paru-paru perokok? Mengingat kasus kebakaran hutan di Riau di tahun 2015 yang memakan lebih dari 2 juta hektar area hijau, maka dapat disimpulkan planet Bumi ini seperti perokok akut dengan paru-paru yang sudah rusak, hanya tinggal menunggu kematiannya.

Ruang Rahasia

Untuk pertama kalinya dalam kurun selamanya
hatiku sesak karena harus meninggalkan
cinta yang begitu berharga
kisah-kisah yang mengawang
indah namun penuh goresan darah

Aku terbang dalam kekosongan
karena yang terlewatkan masih menjejak nyata
Aku masih menjadi boneka di dalamnya
Kuputar tanpa henti
senandung indah itu
kehangatan itu
sentuhan itu
suara yang menenangkan itu

Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: Constructing a Theology of Migration

I wrote this essay for a course that I attended.

Women often are the ones who get negative results from the double standards created by the society. In a heteronormative system, domestic work labeled as women's work is never preferred as a real job that requires professional expertise as well. This is also evident in the issue of migration. Male immigrants must experience social injustices, such as very low payment, bad employer, and others. Women who migrate because they have to meet family needs often experience injustice caused by their status as "the weaker" part of the patriarchal community. Countries that accept these migrants, both legally and illegally, refuse to accept the fact that they need less-paid workers, especially in the field of care and household. These two fields play an important role in social and economic development in each country.

A Perfect Naivity

Let the music play

And the movie begin

I asked for a dream

Don't give me a bubble of nothing

Childhood is a home

For everyone who never asks

I called it a dream

An envisioned future

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?