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Good stories never spoil
Good stories never spoil
December 2012
Yogyakarta, Indonesia
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| With children after their dancing performance at Pendopo |
Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues,Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues,
Good stories
never spoil, especially the
story of the
birth of someone we love.
As we approach Christmas, we are especially thankful for the story of
the birth of Jesus. For
a while, our most powerful
story was about my younger brother’s life and tragic death this
year.
As we shared the deep sorrow
of his
story, we experienced how our
lives are in God’s hand. We are continually reborn in the midst of
death.
Recently
my husband, Bernie,
told me he wanted
to welcome his 64th birthday with special joy.
Life keeps moving slowly along, until suddenly
we realise that
aging is quickly
approaching. Bernie wrote an inspiring
invitation to friends and neighbors in Java
to share in the celebration of
his 64th birthday.
He admires the way Javanese people celebrate
birth. According to their cosmology,
there are three
important birthdays in a person’s
life that are based on the sacred number 8 (windu).
The first is a
celebration of childhood when they reach the age of 8 years and many Muslim
children are circumcised. The next is a celebration of adulthood when they have
lived half a windu of windus (4X8) and are 32 years old. The final
birthday is when they are fully grown up and have lived a full windu of
windus (8X8) at the age of 64 years. This is a celebration of aging.
Bernie’s
invitation touched my heart because of his honesty in
reflecting
deeply on the mystery of his
life. He’s glad he no longer has to worry about what he’ll be when he’s
all grown up.On his birthday, people came from four universities where Bernie teaches and mentors students: Universitas Gadjah Mada, Duta Wacana Christian University (DWCU), State Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga and Muhammadiah University Yogyakarta. The first three are part of the Indonesian Consortium for Religious Studies (ICRS), which Bernie helped start. Our neighbors and networks of women and children also joined the party. Together with my family we celebrated not only Bernie’s birthday but also renewed our relationships in this large, extended family. We made a map of Bernie’s life journey and realized that he has travelled to so many countries to live with people around the world. So many people have touched his heart and enriched his ideas and experiences.
I remember Bernie’s story about his mother, whose birthday is only one day after his. When she gave birth to Bernie she said that he was God’s present to her. On the 64th celebration of his birthday, Bernie cut the birthday cake and gave the first piece to Leonard Epafras, who was God’s birthday gift to Bernie. Leo was the first graduate of ICRS, who successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation on the day before Bernie’s 64th birthday. Bernie met Leo when he was a computer engineer with a good job. Bernie encouraged Leo to follow his heart, study theology and do research on relations between Jews, Muslims and Christians. Leo wrote a brilliant Master’s thesis on the role of Jews in Indonesian Muslim discourse. He went on to become a Ph.D. student in the opening year of ICRS. Along with Profs. Amin Abdullah and Reuven Firestone, Bernie guided Leo’s research on “Jewish Sufism” in Medieval Egypt. Leo explored the porous frontier between two religious communities, created by spiritual hunger. He showed that the common antagonism between Muslims, Jews and Christians can be overcome under the right conditions. These different religious communities have much to learn from each other. This is an important message in Indonesia, the largest Muslim country in the world, where the Middle East conflict is felt like a painful wound in the side. Leo is now the newest full faculty member of ICRS. So Leo got the first piece of Bernie’s birthday cake: yummy!
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| The ritual of honouring the first inborn scholar of ICRS Yogya |
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| Explaining the feast |
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| Dancing Pendet |
Warm greetings
Farsijana and Bernie Adeney-Risakotta
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