[sinod] Five visions

[Luc Saffre]

Dear sinoditalgutiim,

I wrote down five visions. Thanks for reading them and for your prayer. 
Let me know if you have something to say.

Luc


    Imagine humanity as an apple tree

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 works to rule 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work-to-rule>. Religious humans are like 
cells that can listen to what the gardener says.


    Imagine Putin and me in sauna

Imagine Vladimir Putin and me sitting together in sauna.

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.

Vladimir: You won’t understand me.

Me: Try to explain anyway. It seems important.

Vladimir: Where to start? Look at your liberal capitalistic system. It 
causes much harm to the poor and to our common home the Earth.

Me: Hey, that sounds like Laudato Si and Fratelli Tutti!

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 /not/ rule . It’s better that one human rules the 
world than no human at all. I am a human.

Me: And you are better than any other human?

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.

Me: But can’t you say “stop” without killing innocent people?

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.

(to be continued)


    Imagine that Google becomes a foundation

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 
biblical jubilee <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)>)


    Imagine the Church as a compass and the State as a captain

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 (Luke 6:39 
<https://www.bibleserver.com/ESV/Luke6%3A39>). An unreliable compass is 
worse than a weak motor.


    Imagine a new democracy

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.
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