About Guantánamo, Evil and Christmas time.

Before i start, for those who are wondering how i'm doing, i say i'm very good, still going late to bed, waking up late and in a hurry and late for the bus. =)

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I caught myself reading Wikileaks until late at night some days ago. I was reading some prisoners’ profiles on the guantánamo’s files. It struck me how much injustice and pain I saw behind those hierarchic and burocratic papers, men’s destinies on four or five pages. False accusations and people being imprisoned under lies (you can read more on this link). When I read the section “detainee’s conduct” inside the prison, I started to think on how I would act on the same circumstances…

Let’s say Norwegian prison: individual cells, tv, nice bed and sheets, bathroom… Still, it’s hell. There’s something within these four walls that can take away one’s life, consciousness. I wouldn’t be surprised on ex-detainee’s stories on how hard it is to come back to the real world after spending years inside a cell. In a sense, it’s like being born again.

Some days ago someone asked me what I was afraid of when I was a child. Darkness, mirrors and snakes. I was afraid of looking steady in the mirror for a long time, afraid I was going to see something I wouldn’t like or recognize as being me. I couldn’t be with myself in a mirror for more than some seconds. I wonder about facing myself in a cell, for days, months, years. There’s something bad that threatens me inside those four walls. That’s, I fear, myself.

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I won’t be silly on this, I know how bad I can really be. I’m not as good as I picture myself. In a matter of fact, I know pretty well I can ruin my best relationships, my best attempts and myself in some few seconds. Evil is easy, tempting and appealing. At the same time that I try to avoid it, I like it. I’m a victim of my own nature, but I’m the one looking out for bad. Fiona Apple said it right when singing “Criminal”. Evil is on the streets, you can see that. It’s out there… And even when I try to do good, I fail miserably. Reality is much complex for a foul like me to go on with my messianic project.

I picture that a escape from this estate relies outside me. And this is a eternal paradox: human beings perfectly made, God’s best creation, beautifully and amazingly complex on their feelings, stories and deeds, doomed by something they cannot control. Still, there’s hope, longing for peace and mercy. Though, men are looking for a way out inside themselves, we are searching for something inside four walls, but there’s nothing there. It has to come from outside, from someone out there. These urges for hope and mercy do not belong to me; perhaps they are echoes from outside there, something that echoes inside me and make me feel like home, like I should feel.

I remember Paul’s words from his letter to the Romans, on chapter 7, verses 21-25, here . “I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?” Paul asks. In a very clear way, he said what life has been proving me day after day. Also, reminds me of that man’s words on the cross: “Forgive them Father, for they know what they do”. Truly, I know not what I do.

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Yesterday evening I was walking downtown, seeing the Christmas trees and lights. Sometimes I think we’ve buried that voice… I hope not.

Grace be with all.

Some words about our longing and search for meaning.

Hey! =)

This are some thoughts made into words, about John 6:25-29.

You can find the text here.

Jesus, after his miraculous multiplication of bread in the shore of the sea of Galilee, goes to a mountain in order to escape the crowd, eager to make his king. By the evening he meet the twelve crossing the lake towards Capernaum, and join them walking on the water. The next day the crowd realizes that Jesus is missing and go towards Capernaum in search of Him and His disciples. Attention must be given to the fact that Jesus, for more than once, is faced with the crowd and runs away from them. That mus tell us something about the nature if them. Jesus knew they wanted to make him king, and he avoided them. "It would be awesome", they thought, "let's make Him king! Those miraculous signs don't lie, He is the prophet that was to come!". In answer to that desire, the gospels always told us that "Jesus knew their hearts", also He knew His mission and His time on earth. He was to be killed, to be a living sacrifice in order to justify sinners, not to be held as king on earth. The crowd didn't rule His heart and will, he never gave space to the crowd's will, but He himself repeatdly affirmed that He came to earth to do God's will, not His own (which is, in some way, paradoxal), nor crowd's will.

The crowd reaches Him (6:25) and Jesus promptly says: “Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. For on him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” (26-27). Again, He knew the nature of the mass: they were not interested in listening to Him, they were not interested in what endures, they were seeking bread. There's nothing wrong about longing for bread, but Jesus wants to teach them a lesson, wants to show them something. Actually, the miracle of the multiplication on itself remembered them of the times of Moses, which would lead them to think that Jesus was the actual Messiah they were to expect."Do not work for food that spoils, but for the food that endures to eternal life", He said. The human being is in a constant search for food, something that fills his sense of meaning, belonging, existence. Jesus knew that very well. Our attempts of sucess, of being accepted, loved, wanted are all a reflex of our longing. There are "food" for that, none of them endures. None of them fulfill our desire. Buying, selling, addictions, endless events, nights, lovers, studying, working... Salomon said that's all vanity, meaningless, striving after wind (on the book of Ecclesiastes). C.S Lewis compared it to a car: if you don't use the right fuel, it might work for a few minutes, but you will notice it doesn't work at all. "You are using the wrong fuel to your lives. Strive for the fuel that doesn't end, that endures to eternal life", He says.

"Sir, from now on gives us this bread", the crowd said. Did they really want it?, i ask myself. "Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. But as I told you, you have seen me and still you do not believe. All those the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away. (...) For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life” (35-37;40). "I am the bread, I give meaning, who fulfill your strive, I am here to give you the right fuel, and that's me", He says. The longing, exhausting, meaningless, ends in Him. In Him our longing turns in a new life, on which He starts to write everything again. Our striving is towards a new goal: it's to walk with Him, to rediscover everything, without the need to use the wrong fuel, without having food that spoil. Our constant efforts to fill our longing without Him just end in the same longing for love, meaning, acceptance, mercy and forgiviness.

The crowd was scared and skeptical. "This man's crazy, He's going against our traditions and history! He's the son of Joseph, no son of God!", thought the Jews. It's a hard and sometimes long way until we admit our stubborness. We think we're big and strong enough; we're not. Jesus knew them: "You've seen me and still you do not believe me" (36). But He keeps going: "Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.” (49-51).

Again the crowd rise again: "How can this man give us His flash to eat?" He answers: "Jesus said to them,“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me." (53-57) Unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood, you have no life in you. He's refering to His death and rising: if you believe in my words, you'll have eternal life, now and forever; "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near." (Matthew 4:17).

Jesus is saying something like "You know you don't have life in your lives, I don't need to prove you, look at the mirror and you'll see you're longing for something the world can't give you. The fuel always ends, the bread you eat always ends". He is talking about life in concrete ways, life now is gonna change. So, the one who feeds on me will live because of me, He affirms.

This is in the core of Christianity, living in Jesus, because of Jesus.

If He doesn't fill us, there's no life, no Christianity, nothing at all. Meaningless, meaningless!, Salomon screams. He invites us to give away our attempts to continually eat what spoils, what doesn't fill our appetite for love, acceptance, mercy, peace, forgiveness. That's called grace, an invitation, free, to come and eat of the bread of life, the banquet of life in abundance in and though him. "... And whoever comes to me I will never drive away". That's an invitantion. No need to be well dressed or to use polite speech. He's gently and kindly calling us.

Grace be with you.

About Loneliness, Ghosts, Demons, Photography, Alice in the cities, Lakes or What the heck have all this to do with Norway?

Well, I don’t quite know yet, but I was thinking about some topics this past days. I was wandering in a track near a lake in Stavanger when I gathered all the information and, when I got home, I started to write about it.

I watched “Alice in the cities” two weeks ago, by Win wenders. I’ve came all the way to Norway to watch this movie, since I never found it in Brasil. Actually, I found it very appropriate and I’m glad I’ve just seen this now: I would have never understood the movie otherwise. It happens that after 2 months in Norway I’ve discovered what I am here for. I mean, not that I was trying to figure it out, but I just realized after watching it. I’ve been here to learn to be alone. Kinda weird, but it’s truth.

The movie tells about a man who is lost on his own way to do a journalistic essay about landscape in America. Having failed to write the essay, he starts to take Polaroid pictures of the landscape. When the time to come back to Germany comes, a little girl come across his way, and he suddenly see himself got into trying to find the girl’s family, all the way from America, passing through Amsterdam and finally in his home town.

Wenders, speaking on a interview, said something that made complete sense to me. After wandering for a whole day in New York, without the possibility to fly back to Germany at that day, the main character of the movie goes to his ex-girlfriend apartment. Getting there he just starts to speak all about his experience in the US, about the photos, the landscape, the lack of sense and meaning and the road trip he made. She just nods, lights a cigar, talks some in return, while he starts to take his shirt off. In the precise moment that he start to take off his pants, she tells him: “No, you’re not sleeping here tonight”. “It’s gone man, it’s past.” The thing is that he was trying to get back to his last estate of meaning in his life. He didn’t realize that things have changed now, and he needed a new setting on his life.

About this, Wenders said that the man had forgotten how to live by himself. He forgot how to be lonely. And that’s the main reason why I’m writing this stuff. To learn to be lonely, in all the possible meanings. Not to just don’t have someone around, like a girlfriend or some like this, but to BE alone, to wander alone, to LIVE alone. It seems like a curse, but in the course of time, it proves to be the most challenging and rewarding. Often people who can get alone can perfectly be with other people, but not the same when it comes the opposite. To be alone means to be face to face with who you are and struggle hard with it. It also means to face the world in the way you see it by yourself, to discover that you can’t tell about US, unless it is on your Polaroid camera. There’s so much to say about it, but I don’t seem to have the words right now.

About the movie, that’s the point on which the little girl joins the story, to teach the journalist how to be alone again and how to restart his life. Well, 10 months in Norway seems a lot lonely to me. And I’m very grateful to God about this opportunity to work, study, photograph and get to know tons of people and to be, in a very humble way, a stop on these people’s roads. It’s a great privilege, I must say.

But well, here I am, learning to be alone again =)

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Ok, so here it is. I'm exhausted, feeling like running the whole night in the rain, sleeping for a whole day. My mind just feels tired of thinking, fitting the pieces of the puzzle. Lots of things going on, lots of thoughts, lots of feelings. It was the most exhausting 3 days i had this year, and i mean it. I never thought so much about plans and the future. I need to rest, i need to sleep.

But before i do that... For now on i'm a blank page. The past is past, and it's gone. No looking back, no plans, no bridges. I'm here, now. This is the place, this is the time. I'll do what i have to do now, and i won't make anymore plans for when i'm back to Brasil. I can't guarantee nothing more, to no one. No more promises until i'm back to Brasil. Until I get back, i'm in Norway, i'm in Stavanger, i'm working for Laget, i'm photographing people, places, situations, i'm learning, i'm thinking, i'm becoming, i'm laughing, i'm crying. That's the only way i can live my life now. I cannot look further, i just can look the present time. I don't know what will happen later, i don't have a grasp of what are the plans, i really don't know. But one thing i know: I'm in Norway, and that's the time to get things done. No more, no more.

By the way, this is today's song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFMzeZHyPh8

I love you, all.

The Rules

After 2 months in Norway i start this blog. Quite weird, i would say. So these are the rules: only English, and norwegian after i learn it. Sorry for my folks in Brasil, but's this has to be in english, so my friends at HALD can read it too. If you find it hard, google translate is a good friend =)

This is my place. Consider it a place where i drop my thoughts, where i pour down what's going on, both in my mind and life. Kind of a monologue. And i'll write about everything that's been on my mind. From Photography to Christian Spirituality, from complaining about the wheater to whatever you might imagine. Well, if you don't like something, i'm sorry, i can't help it but to keep writing. This is me, after all, and i can't help if you dislike my arm or my leg. In another words, if you don't like my thoughts about something, don't bother yourself, just skip it. Come back some other day to read another post, it will be a pleasure.

You probably won't find some tips about how to spend little money on food or how to get something cool in Stavanger, but you rather find something to do with my experiences being a poor Brasilian in the wealthiest country and how i met a english truck driver in a norwegian 5-minutes rap concert with a bunch of men around a lebanese disturbingly beatiful girl in a club at a random friday. Yeah, and you might find some photograph stuff and thoughts and somethings about Christianity and Bible reflections.

But don't give up on this place! It's a pleasure to have you here! Feel free to comment!

For once and all, Velkommen =)