Faces of The World

On going a spiritual tour

Last month, I was asked by one of my friends, an ex-would be catholic priest to accompany him to visit several villages in my regency during the Easter week or the Passion Week. My friend, who finally resigned from the Franciscan order, told me that our tour was somewhat spiritual because he was asked by the local parish father to help the parish as a deacon to lead a “mass” in several villages as scheduled by the parish.
The tour for me was a kind of new experience coz I had never had a chance to visit a village to do so. When we arrived at the first village, people greeted us warmly and told us they were waiting for us but they were not ready yet with the mass. They did not appoint the men for the reading, songs and etc. A friend of mine who knew better about catholic songs coz he was of course a not would be priest. He taught the women and the children to sing some songs and the reading as well.
Coming to the village was a struggle for us since the roads (if it can be called) are broken. If that night rained, we would cry to go home because of the road.
My friend on the previous day had asked me to prepare the topic for his sermon on the mass. He told me to find some inspiration on the theme “resurrection”
I finally found the inspirations on the theme and told my friend that the core message was how to get rid of our bad behaviors. Jesus’ resurrection must give us strength to revive and start improving our life.

In every village we visited, we saw the lack of catholic ministry in remote areas. Most villages don’t often hold Sunday Mass. My friend and I felt pity for such situation.

Obese Democracy

A few weeks ago, hundreds of millions Indonesians cast their votes to choose the Indonesian House of Representative Members for the upcoming five years. As a good citizen, I went to the nearest vote station to do my duty to vote for parties and would be legislators which mostly are “blur” and unknown for me. Frankly speaking, I don’t really give a damn on Politics coz I don’t really believe in politics. Politics for me is just a vicious circle; nothing is worth appreciating in the politics of Indonesia. I am fed up with those rotten politicians being caught by the National Eradication Commission on TV, I am fed up with the Indonesian Political System since it is too “obese” for a developing country like Indonesia. I think it does not matter who becomes the president, the situation in Indonesia will not experience a better change, and it just remains the same.

If we take a closer look at our democracy system, I think our democracy is making us poorer and worse because the system of democracy in Indonesia is too complicated and “obese” for us. Just imagine if we eat so much and becomes so “fat”, our body digestive system won’t work well. Indonesia is implementing an obese democracy. Why is our democracy obese? It is because too many legislative members, too many parties, too complicated procedures, too administrative oriented procedures, too expensive. I can not imagine how those 500 and more legislative members work efficiently coz there are too many members. I think it is better if we make it simpler by reducing the members of House of Representative to 200 members only. Let’s say each province or regency sends 2 or 3 members only to the Senayan Office. It must be a lot better than today’s system. We can take America as an example of this system. It is not the numbers that matter but the quality does. The fewer the members, the better outcome for us since the elected member is the only well known and qualified person in that region. It also implies that somebody needs to prove himself o herself worthy first before hand.


With the obesity of our democracy, our democracy cannot attain its ultimate goal: welfare of the people. How can Indonesia attain welfare if the system is too costly and complicated? It is a nonsense talk. I have a dream that in the next 20 years our democracy is simpler and not too expensive as today. But, it seems still a long way to go!!!! Who knows then?

Kristian

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