(cc)"Some years ago I was preaching in Africa, in the cathedral of Nairobi. The people listened to me for hours and at the end I was invited to pray with them. They gathered in the sanctuary and sat down on the floor. An old black man prayed, "Lord, never let us move into stone houses." And I nodded and said, "Yes, Lord," though I had no idea what this prayer actually meant. The praying lasted more than an hour. Then I went into the sacristy and asked the priest why the man had said this prayer. The priest answered,"You know our country. People here live in little huts, and huts have no doors. That's why your family is my family, an my family is your family. The only family is the extended family. But as soon as you move into a stone house, you build a door. And on the door you put a lock. And behind this door you begin to collect your belongings, and then you have to spend the rest of your life defending those belongings." Thus the world is divided for all time into "mine" and "thine." "
-R. Rohr The Freedom of Letting Go
No comments:
Post a Comment