MEDITATIONS AND DEVOTIONS ON THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS: A PRAYERFUL GUIDE

[norma dollaga]

 MEDITATIONS AND DEVOTIONS ON THE

MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS:

A PRAYERFUL GUIDE

(Book Reflection presented during the Book Launching)

Feb 6,2012

Philippine Chritsian University

Manila  

 

 

Today, 50,000 people continue to die daily as a result of poverty. A woman dies every minute  during pregnancy and

childbirth. Around the globe, 72 million children still do not go to school.

 

In  the Philippines the SWS reported that there are 4.5 million families who went hungry in the last quarter of 2011. The price of a two-signature second hand bags can build a low-cost housing in Manila. 

 

Oh dear lord You made many many poor people

I realize it of course it is not shame to be poor

Its not a great honor either

So what would be so terrible if I had some small fortune...

- Tevye , Fiddler on the Roof

 

 

I browsed  through the book incidentally before the day  when  I was a part of a team that has   facilitated a group process among the religious and seminarians  on   Urban poor: Myth and Reality.

 

So many questions arose. Who am I in relation to the poor? What does my faith tell about it? Where is the church? Where do they come from? How do we solve the problems of impoverishment? Sheets of  craft papers were almost filled-up with overwhelming  questions.

 

At times, we churchpeople are  disturbed by this situation. Disturbance which lead us to be inspired by how the  wealth of wisdom of the poor has to share us. But the poor does not exist to only inspire the holy ones. Neither, they continue to thrive just for the  few saintly to be in awe and curiously wonder in their capacity to eat garbage and inhale rotten air.  Must we create a momentous time , a kairos  when we are  no longer   satisfied with getting  inspiration from their strength to survive? Perhaps we could go beyond a romantic admiration with the poor ones.   Must we create a  momentous time , a kairos   when both our anger and inspiration would lead us to question why they  are only breathing but not essentially living a  life with dignity and abundance?    But  finding ways to nourish the  mutuality   of  changing the situation so that  a human community  will be living in abundance as promised .  Should there  be an intimate  mutual understanding and sharing of option, actions, dreams and ways to fulfill them?  There comes a moment to decide , to take an option beyond being inspired. Until this inspiration be a constant state of encouragement to be one among them.

 

The Meditations and Devotion , A prayerful Guide

 

is a warning: It stirs our soul and lead you to picture out realities across the world. It will disturb us  and  fill our hearts longing to see the dawn of justice.

 

is an invitation: It incites us to hope and  be unbending and uncompromising in upholding the basic teaching of  our faith: Love God and thy neighbor.   

(In fact in our Annual Conference the Board  of Church  and Society  planned to make a devotional guide using the provisions in Social Principles. But this meditation  must be promoted first not as a substitute to the plan, but a better   offering)

 

 is a reminder: It reminds us that there is no holiness but social. Familiar teaching of Wesleyan tradition on  social holiness .

 

  

As a product of Sunday School classes and yearly Daily Vacation Church School, the meditation is another creative and innovative way to  continuing the tradition of Christian Education that of course  lead us into praying no longer with closed eyes, hands folded and eyed directed only to stomach.

 

But an active prayer – invoking what we have learned in the hymn

 

 Prayer is the soul’s sincere desire,
Unuttered or expressed;
The motion of a hidden fire
That trembles in the breast.

 

Before I ended a mid-part of the book, I am reminded a   prayer-meditation  when I met Irma,   a child in a garbage mountain in Manila:

 

Sometimes, 

I do not want to think that there is God of the hungry

If God is fair and just, why those who work hard in the rice field

Have nothing to feed their hungry children and family?

 I once heard a homily, paraphrasing from the Holy Scripture

That those who are lazy must not eat

How come those who work from dawn to dusk

are still hungry and denied of food?

 
God of the hungry

You do not only hear the cries of our hearts

But you listen closely to our intestines that have nothing grind

You know very well, hungry as we are  

The  imago dei would be  impossible to see.

 

God of the hungry and God of the full

Tell us  how to celebrate life.

While there is  feast on the table for those who are full

Here we are, with no table and food at all.

 

We were once taught that you love   both the sinners and the saints

Must we  believe  too that you  love both  the hungry and the full?

Teach us  to know, the way to Your heart

While  we are hungry, thirsty and  homeless…..

 

 

 

Norma P. Dollaga( Deaconess)

Chairperson

Board of  Church & Society

Philippines Annual Conference

for even in our dance
we see the gift of grace
no matter how dangerous
and difficult each step we may take
we can rise
for we know how to dance amidst struggle
                                - nô!/nong/norms/norma