A Christmas Reflection from Pakistan

Fr Tomás King is a Columban priest from Ireland who works in the Diocese of Hyderabad, in the Sindh Province of Pakistan. This is his Christmas reflection.

View of Nagarparkar City from Karoonjhar Mountains

CHRISTMAS 2014, Nagarparkar 

Dear Friends, greetings from Pakistan. I hope all is well with you as you prepare to celebrate Christmas. 

 Malala Yousafzai 

Last weekend I sat down to put a few thoughts together to send as Christmas greetings. I was hoping to focus on the good news story for Pakistan in recent weeks; that being the teenager Malala Yousafzai being joint winner of the Nobel Peace prize along with, Kailash Satyarthi, an Indian    child rights activist. Malala was shot a few years ago by the Taliban, but survived.  Her offence; to go to school, as well as to demand education for all children, particularly girls. Malala, in her acceptance speech, she asked her government to 'build schools and not tanks'. 

Kailash Satyarthi

But just a few days later, Tuesday 16th the Taliban attacked a school in Peshawar city and killed 148 people, most of whom, 132, were children. It is simply incomprehensible, impossible to understand the mentality that would motivate one to carry out such acts.The children were systematically and intentionally targeted, so as to cause as much death, damage and destruction as possible.  

What kind of response is possible, and necessary to such pure hatred? Are there any hints of answers in the Christmas story? St Luke’s Gospel tells us that the 'shepherds were keeping watch in the night'. What were they looking for? Maybe for something to brighten up their difficult lives. Maybe they were looking for the 'the light that shone in the darkness' which is the image used in St John’s Gospel to describe Jesus’ presence among us. How does light shine in darkness, as the image seems to suggest?  

Christ being born in our world, is very much about finding God inside of ordinary every day events. And also it seems, even in the darkness of sin, violence, war, greed and the other negative realities that are part of our world, difficult as that is. Christmas is about light being seen inside of darkness. Christmas invites and challenges us to watch like the shepherds when we look at the world and see the light which is God’s presence, grace, graciousness, forgiveness, love, unselfishness and innocence. 

We also need the attitude and disposition of Mary. St Luke’s Gospel also tells us that when Mary heard from the shepherd what Jesus was to become her response was to 'treasure all these things and ponder them in her heart'.  There is a lot in this appearance of God in the world that we cannot understand. But ‘watching,’ ‘treasuring’ and ‘pondering’ will help us on the way to understanding and enable us to give and receive the blessing, the ‘benediction’ that Rabindranath Tagore speaks off below: 

Benediction 

Bless this little heart, this soul that has won the kiss of heaven for our earth. 

He loves the light of the sun, he loves the sight of his mother's face. 

He has not learned to despise the dust, and to hanker after gold. 

Clasp him to your heart and bless him. 

He has come into this land of an hundred cross-roads. 

I know not how he chose you from the crowd, came to your door, and grasped you hand to ask his way. He will follow you, laughing the talking, and not a doubt in his heart. 

Keep his trust, lead him straight and bless him. 

Lay your hand on his head, and pray that though the waves underneath grow threatening, 

yet the breath from above may come and fill his sails and waft him to the heaven of peace. 

Forget him not in your hurry, let him come to your heart and bless him.  

Rabindranath Tagore

    

Peace and Blessings this Christmas for the coming year. 

Father Tomás

Adoration of the Shepherds, El Greco, c.1610

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York [Web Gallery of Art]

Photos from Wikipedia.

Pakistani girl shot for advocating education for girls.

Malala Yousafzai [born 1997, shot on 9 October 2012 and now in hospital]
The photo that I originally used here, taken from Wikipedia, has been removed from the latter.

Fourteen-year-old Malala Yousafzai was flown to the United Kingdom today in an air-ambulance provided by the United Arab Emirates. My Columban confrere here in the Philippines, Fr Shay Cullen, writes in his weekly Reflections about her:

Educating Children is the Road to Freedom

The only way out of grinding poverty and a life of child labor in the developing world is to give the children an education. Millions of children grow up unable to read and write and are locked out of a life of knowing, enlightenment and human development. They have to struggle and endure the hardship of working for a living from an early age. 

Eleven-year-old Grace was one child among thousands whose parents were so poor that they could not afford to send her to a public school. After Grade Two, they sent her to the beaches of Puerto Galera in the Philippines to sell necklaces and bangles made from sea shells. This uneducated child was easily lured into a beach hut by a rich foreign child-sex tourist and gravely abused. If Grace had been in school like most children, it would never have happened. She would have been smarter and wiser too about the dangers to children from the child-sex tourists who prey on innocent, ignorant, uneducated children. That child-abuser was arrested and brought to justice. 

Getting vulnerable children into school is one of the most important and effective ways to overcome poverty; it breaks the otherwise endless cycle of child exploitation and abuse.

[My own comment: How many of us priests speak about what God will ask of us on the day of judgment?]

What could be worse for a child than growing up ignorant, illiterate, and unable to read or write?  What could be worse is to be a 14-year-old girl child student in the Swat Valley of Pakistan or any Taliban infested country and advocate child education. Brave and courageous 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai made child education her mission until a Taliban extremist went up to her school van last week and shot her at point blank range. As I write this she is struggling in hospital with a bullet removed from her head and back. She had been warned to stop but she continued her mission. 

What drives extremists to such barbaric acts of attempted child murder in the name of religion is the lack of moral and true spiritual education, ignorance and fear. These makes youth easily vulnerable to extremist persuasions and easily converted to simplistic religious views that advocate violent acts disguised as acts of piety and religious zeal. 

The vast majority of Muslims condemned the attempted child murder as un-Islamic and against the Koran which honors persons as children of Allah. The vast majority of Muslims love and cherish their children and strive and sacrifice to have them educated in the true religion of Islam that we all respect. 

Yet some children never make it to school and the lack of mental and intellectual development leaves the uneducated child likely to grow up physically but not humanely. The male is prone to be violent and oppressive. What education did for Malala Yousafzai and thousands of others is that it gave her more than knowledge about things and a variety of subjects, it gave her happiness, and a zest for living, compassion, love and concern for others. That's what education did for her, the lack of it in another brought about her near assassination. She loved to learn and wanted all children to have that chance, she loved others as a result. 

Education can give all a sense of the true value of the human person, one that helps us all to have respect for each other. Malala Yousafzai was determined that every girl child like her should go to school and learn, grow and develop their personalities and characters to lead useful meaningful lives as it is their right. She spoke out for these rights at 14 years of age and paid a terrible price. 

Those few who detest the education of girls fear what knowledge can do to empower the person. Knowledge is empowerment. Knowledge and learning is what opens the mind and heart to see the world, and understand it. It sparks self-awareness and knowledge and that kindles a spirit of freedom, joy and exuberance of life.  It frees the human will to decide its free choice and course in life. Good education frees us from the dark dungeon of ignorance and unknowing. Knowledge of one’s self is knowledge of one’s rights, dignity, equality and independence. That is what real education does; it leads us forward to a better life. 

 In a girl or woman, all this is anathema to a chauvinistic extremist male view of life where men wrongly demand and enjoy dominating, controlling and subjugating girls and women. The brave and courageous girls and women who do fight back for freedom and dignity are often beaten and battered. Many cannot overcome this dominance which violates their freedom of choice to have or not have more children than they can bear, feed and educate. That lack of choice can perpetuate the cycle of endless poverty, hunger, disease, ignorance and early death after a brutal short existence. 

Education for the child, especially girls, is the way out, the journey to enlightenment, empowerment and freedom from dominance and abuse. Educating children is ensuring their right to a life of dignity and decency, respect and freedom. Educating a child is among the greatest acts of charity we can do for the poor and the downtrodden. If we can educate even one child, we have saved a life, hers and perhaps even our own. 

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Please pray for the full recovery of this remarkably brave young girl.