<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
Dear sinoditalgutiim,<br>
<br>
I wrote down five visions. Thanks for reading them and for your
prayer. Let me know if you have something to say.<br>
<br>
Luc<br>
<br>
<br>
<section id="imagine-humanity-as-an-apple-tree">
<h2>Imagine humanity as an apple tree</h2>
<p>Imagine humanity as an apple tree, every human a cell and God
as the gardener.
An apple tree cannot imagine the gardener. A cell cannot imagine
the apple tree.
“Ouch” says the tree in spring when the gardener cuts a water
sprout. And all
the cells that die because they happened to sit in this water
sprout shout “We
are innocent! Injustice!” But that’s life. A cell in an apple
tree doesn’t know
anything about trees and gardeners. It just does her job, it <a
class="reference external"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule">works to
rule</a>. Religious humans are like cells
that can listen to what the gardener says.</p>
</section>
<section id="imagine-putin-and-me-in-sauna">
<h2>Imagine Putin and me in sauna</h2>
<p>Imagine Vladimir Putin and me sitting together in sauna.</p>
<p>Me: Vladimir, what are you trying to say to the world? Genocide
in Ukraine
and pan-slavism are just excuses. You have something more
important to say.</p>
<p>Vladimir: You won’t understand me.</p>
<p>Me: Try to explain anyway. It seems important.</p>
<p>Vladimir: Where to start? Look at your liberal capitalistic
system.
It causes much harm to the poor and to our common home the
Earth.</p>
<p>Me: Hey, that sounds like Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti!</p>
<p>Vladimir: Yes. We cannot let money rule the world. That’s not
what God wants. He
wants us, the humans, to rule the world. Liberal capitalism is
just an excuse to
<em>not</em> rule . It’s better that one human rules the world
than no human at all. I
am a human.</p>
<p>Me: And you are better than any other human?</p>
<p>Vladimir: Of course I am not. But I am the one elected by the
Russian people. I
try to do my best because I feel responsible. The NATO allies
are threatening
us, so I need to say “stop”. That’s my job.</p>
<p>Me: But can’t you say “stop” without killing innocent people?</p>
<p>Vladimir: Hey! I tried! But you didn’t listen! I am more sorry
for the war than
you. Ukraine is our brother. But I had no choice. Remember the
water sprouts of
the apple tree.</p>
<p>(to be continued)</p>
</section>
<section id="imagine-that-google-becomes-a-foundation">
<h2>Imagine that Google becomes a foundation</h2>
<p>Imagine a successful private corporation with limited
liability, for example
Google, whose shareholders decide by their free will that they
have harvested
enough revenue from the money they invested. They would say “Now
is the moment
to thank God and give the fruit of our work to the poor, so that
we will have
treasure in heaven”. Legally spoken the company would turn into
a foundation. The
shareholders would formulate the constitution of the foundation
and decide a
date when all shares will loose their monetary value. (Inspired
by Matthew 19:21
and the <a class="reference external"
href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)">biblical
jubilee</a>)</p>
</section>
<section
id="imagine-the-church-as-a-compass-and-the-state-as-a-captain">
<h2>Imagine the Church as a compass and the State as a captain</h2>
<p>The compass knows where the north pole is. It does not know
about cliffs. It
has no power over the ship. The captain knows about cliffs and
knows the
destination of the freight. Sometimes the straight route is
suboptimal or simply
impossible. The Church with power in the visible world would be
like a compass
that directly controls the steering wheel. A captain refusing to
look at the compass would be a blind man trying to lead a blind
man (<a class="reference external"
href="https://www.bibleserver.com/ESV/Luke6%3A39">Luke 6:39</a>).
An unreliable compass is worse
than a weak motor.</p>
</section>
<section id="imagine-a-new-democracy">
<h2>Imagine a new democracy</h2>
<p>Imagine that you can sign in at the parliament’s website,
select
one of your friends as getting your voice, and hit submit. You
are asked to vote
for one of your friends whom you consider trustworthy. The vote
of your friend
will then count twice (their voice plus your voice). Every
citizen is a
candidate, electoral campaigns have become useless. You can
change your vote at
any time. When you have a certain number of voices, you are
asked whether you
agree to take a seat in the parliament. If you do not want to
take a seat, you
simply vote for some other citizen. The same system could work
for any size of communities, not only for nations.<br>
</p>
</section>
</body>
</html>