‘Dying is living more’

Commenting on our gospel – in conversation with friends – Nicaraguan priest and poet, Ernesto Cardenal, says: “Love is hard. Peter didn’t know that love leads you to give yourself over. He found out later that love leads you to die and that, after all, dying is living more” (Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname).

Dying is living more. How might we interpret this theme? How might we perform it? Play or pray it?

Not with romantic resignation. Nor longing for mere spiritual consolation. Perhaps it invites our forsaking most, if not all, religious sentiment in favour of renewed commitment to others.

Bob Dylan sings: “The sun keeps shinin’ and the North Wind keeps picking up speed / Gonna forget about myself for a while, go out and see what others need …” (‘Thunder On the Mountain’, 2006).

ABC journalist Sarah Macdonald is in Byron Bay for Bluesfest. She is also visiting towns devastated by recent floods and offering whatever help she can – sweeping, cleaning up …

Having asked what is needed most, she reports: tools (crowbars, drills, wheel-barrows, hoses and fittings, power boards, extension cords, rope, torches, tarps); cleaning supplies (brooms, mops, buckets, bins, work boots, sugar soap); other supplies (camping tables, plastic tubs, chicken mesh, toilet paper, mozzy coils and mugs).

Perhaps fellow travellers and festivalgoers will heed the advice.

The Presentation Sisters in Lismore (since 1886) are receiving donations as they offer their support to schools in the area. Sr Anne Jordan stresses the importance of listening – that others feel heard and connected. “It’s about offering a listening heart.”

[Donations can be made by EFT. Name: Presentation Sisters Lismore; BSB: 062565; Acc: 00942133; Reference: Flood Appeal]

Dying is living more. How might we interpret this theme? How might we perform it? Play or pray it?

Filmmaker George Gittoes (a former winner of the Sydney Peace Prize – in recognition of work with de-miners in Afghanistan and Cambodia) and his partner, teacher and musician Hellen Rose, are in Kyev.

The couple usually lives at Werri Beach, near Gerringong. They left their coastal idyll earlier this month, swapping beach attire for down jackets and heavy winterproof boots. They are on a mission to make a film and create a peace mural in the capital.

The film, with working title, Love In War, aims to document the lovers, couples and families separated by the Russian-Ukrainian war … “We are not about guns and war, we are about people and humanity, and interestingly people become softer when they live through hard times,” Gittoes says.

“The good news is that we have found our feet … and will stay as long as it takes.”

What can Australia do to help? Gittoes decries the prevalence of anti-personnel landmines throughout civilian regions in northern Ukraine. He says Australia has professional de-mining crews that could be deployed to assist with mine-clearing.

Perhaps it will happen.

Cardenal elaborates: “… a true Holy Week is one in which we can see the fruits of Christ’s liberation … He has come to free us … from selfishness, even before we free ourselves from all injustice and also from fear, also from death” (Ernesto Cardenal, The Gospel in Solentiname).

Freed from selfishness – step by step, it is a eucharistic practice grounded in thanksgiving with Jesus and friends – we live unto/into justice, love …

Dying is living more. Perhaps it invites our forsaking most, if not all, religious sentiment in favour of renewed commitment to others.

God is love. There is love to share and there is more to love. Amen.