Weblog
Saturday, 12 March 2011
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Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas
Assayas: I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?
Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.
Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.
Bono I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.
Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.
Bono You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff.
Assayas: I'd be interested to hear that.Bono That's between me and God. But I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s---. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.
Saturday, 05 February 2011
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Egypt
"I write this as demonstrators rock Liberation Square for a second Friday. No one can predict the outcome, but one thing is sure: Egyptians have realised their actions can make the difference. This changes the game fundamentally. For decades we resigned ourselves to apathy. If we sometimes deplored it, this helped us avoid doing something about it. But all this left us with a deep sense of impotence and failure. Recent days have revived long-forgotten feelings of determination, optimism and pride. For the first time these are not associated with mobilisation against a foreign enemy, but with the birth of collective hope. I am, of course, worried; about the difficult labour my country is going through – as well as about my wife going into labour in the middle of the curfew. It is uncertain how the birth will unfold in both cases. I am quite cognisant of the risks involved. We will have to remain vigilant – sometimes in the literal sense."
-Ezzedine Choukri Fishere
Sunday, 03 October 2010
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Look Up
Most people, if they had really learned to look into their own hearts, would know that they do want, and want acutely, something that cannot be had in this world. There are all sorts of things in this world that offer to give it to you, but they never quite keep their promise. The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of what would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped at, in that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality. I think everyone knows what I mean. The wife may be a good wife, and the hotels and scenery may have been excellent, and chemistry may be a very interesting job: but something has evaded us.
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
-C.S. Lewis
Wednesday, 23 September 2009
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My neighbor
“It is hardly possible for [us] to think too often or too deeply about [the glory] of our neighbor … It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.” (C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory)
