Even a cursory glance at what is happening today will enable us to see that the signs of our times are, to say the least, startling – not only because we can now see that we are living on the edge of chaos, but also because of a giant leap forward in our history and evolution seems to have become a real possibility.
The signs of our times are ambiguous at the same the signs of our times are the pointers to the future. Every good and authentic human being who sincerely wants to live life in peace and harmony is not content to restrict this life to certain well defined limits, to certain religious acts to mere minimum, which satisfies the latter of the law and religious beliefs, that does not keep in with what religion is all about. He wants his faith to give meaning to every aspect of human existence, his own as well as that of the whole human family.
The real intent of religion is to bind us and our world to God. This is what we would define a person as a good, integrated and religious human being, whether he be a Hindu, a Catholic, a Muslim, at each moment of his life, he seeks to encounter God, goodness of others, and well being of the society, in each circumstance and any situation into which he has been sent, in the street in the neighborhood or in the home. Where ever he is, he spreads waves of “we are here as brothers and sisters, God is one, religions are paths to us individuals to the God we believe, and on this journey we make, we are companions” for us the present moment and the terrible times we are facing are not to be thought of as an ambush prepared by a “God of wrath” but rather as a rendezvous prepared by our God who created this world and us, to live in harmony and to use religion as creative paths to spread the seeds of goodness , of tolerance and of respect for the life of each one of us.
In the book ‘The Meaning of Success’ by Michael Quoist he rightly says, to live life to the full we must bring a new point of view to bear on our own life and on that of the whole human race. Our view must be one of faith, trust and hope, evoking a response of love; we must seek to discover the ‘Grand Design’ and the real dimension of each event on our life. And the grand design is the colors of the rainbow the richness of different religions and cultures, the grand design of different flowers in the garden that Mahatma Gandhi spoke when he spoke about different religions Flowers bring joy; they speak of the preciousness of life, the different religions and all that is found in them road maps and paths we should take to reach our goal. Eternity!
What we have to avoid is the imposition of our pre-conceived ideas of today, look up to the political giants, who not only used words and dreamt dreams but put their hands at the wheel of life, and made thing happen. I am thinking of men and women like, of course Jesus, Nelson Mandela, Steve Biko, Albertina Sisulu, Helen Joseph and many others. What inspires me is not only their courage and commitment in their struggles for social and political freedom, but also and more important their humility, and personal freedom! No hatred, no revenge only solidarity. Delink, religion from terror! God and terror does not go hand in hand! Only love and compassion!
