Sebuah Rumah di Atas Awan

Sebuah rumah megah usai dibangun di sebuah bukit menjulang. Sebuah proyek raksasa telah usai dikerjakan, siap menantang awan. Tempik sorak, tepuk tangan kekaguman dikumandangkan. Sang tuan rumah tersenyum puas, terpancar binar kebanggaan di raut wajahnya. "Well, ini semua untuk sebuah kata: persembahan!" Sang pemborong, kepala para tukang, tersenyum puas ketika namanya disebut sebagai perancang beton-beton angkuh yang sekarang menjulang di bukit yang dulunya gersang. Sementara rekan-rekan sang tuan rumah bertepuk tangan dan merasa ikut puas. Toh gedung-gedung mentereng itu tidak mungkin berdiri tanpa investasi yang mereka lakukan. Para tamu, yang terdiri dari para tentangga dan para handai taulan, ikut bertepuk tangan, meski mereka tidak tahu untuk apa dan kepada siapa mereka memberikan tepuk kekaguman. Toh di hati mereka heran, "Andai uang sebanyak itu untuk Mbak Jupri yang tak punya gubuk reot sekalipun... Tentu banyak mbah-mbah Jupri yang lain akan dapat berteduh dari terik dan hujan... Ah..."

Mereka hanya bisa mendesah...

Konon rumah itu dibangun di atas sebuah pondasi: atas nama Kerajaan Allah! Namun bukankah Kerajaan-Nya bukan berbicara tentang lokasi dan bangunannya? Kalau kemudian biaya perawatan bangunan yang sudah berdiri saja mampu menelan seluruh kekayaan kampung-kampung miskin di pedalaman Papua sana, apakah pantas jika dikatakan bahwa beton-beton itu didirikan atas nama Kerajaan-Nya? Kalau kemudian untuk memasuki halaman rumah itu aku harus menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan para punggawa yang berdiri di gerbangnya - jujur itu sempat membuat aku tergagap - apakah pantas jika dikatakan bangunan itu demi Keagungan nama-Nya? Ah... Aku mungkin terlalu naif... Sekarang, biarkan aku mendesah... Karena hanya itu yang mampu aku lakukan...

Rumah di atas awan. Aku mencoba melongok ke dalam. Mencoba melihat isinya. Tenggorokkanku mengering, tercekat dan bingung. Aku merasa asing. Aku mencoba menjejakkan kaki ke bumi beberapa kali. Namun aku tetap merasa terbang ke awan. Bukan lagi berjejak di bumi ini. Maka aku segera berlari, berlari-lari ke luar gedung megah itu. Dan meski nafasku tersengal, hatiku lega. Kakiku kembali berjejak di bumi. Jujur aku takut. Aku takut, jangan-jangan para penghuni rumah di atas awan itu begitu terlena melayang di sela-sela awan. Dan jika mereka terpaksa harus keluar, mereka tidak mampu berjejak di bumi. Berjejak di halaman-halaman lain yang dipenuhi gubuk reot. Ah... Sekali lagi aku hanya mampu mendesah... Kuatir. Namun pasrah...

from

Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

MEDITATION XVII

NUNC LENTO SONITU DICUNT, MORIERIS

Now this bell tolling softly for another, says to me, Thou must die.

PERCHANCE he for whom this bell tolls may be so ill as that he knows not it tolls for him. And perchance I may think myself so much better than I am, as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me, and I know not that. The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all. When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me; for that child is thereby connected to that head which is my head too, and ingraffed into that body, whereof I am a member. And when she buries a man, that action concerns me; all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated; God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice; but God's hand is in every translation, and his hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again, for that library where every book shall lie open to one another; as therefore the bell that rings to a sermon, calls not upon the preacher only, but upon the congregation to come; so this bell calls us all: but how much more me, who am brought so near the door by this sickness.

There was a contention as far as a suit (in which, piety and dignity, religion and estimation, were mingled) which of the religious orders should ring to prayers first in the morning; and it was determined, that they should ring first that rose earliest. If we understand aright the dignity of this bell, that tolls for our evening prayer, we would be glad to make it ours, by rising early, in that application, that it might be ours as well as his, whose indeed it is. The bell doth toll for him, that thinks it doth; and though it intermit again, yet from that minute, that that occasion wrought upon him, he is united to God. Who casts not up his eye to the sun when it rises? But who takes off his eye from a comet, when that breaks out? who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings? But who can remove it from that bell, which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?

No man is an island. entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

Neither can we call this a begging of misery, or a borrowing of misery, as though we were not miserable enough of ourselves, but must fetch in more from the next house, in taking upon us the misery of our neighbors. Truly it were an excusable covetousness if we did; for affliction is a treasure, and scarce any man hath enough of it. No man hath afflicion enough, that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction. If a man carry treasure in bullion or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels. Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it. Another may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels, as gold in a mine, and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction, digs out, and applies that gold to me: if by this consideration of another's danger, I take mine own into contemplation, and so secure myself, by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.

Source:

Donne, John. The Works of John Donne. vol III.

Henry Alford, ed.London: John W. Parker, 1839. 574-5.

Dunia Ironi


Memasuki bumi Jayapura, melewati berbagai tikungan berkelok, aku melihat ironi yang nyata.
Bumi yang indah, tanah yang hijau, sebuah gambaran lukisan ilahi yang begitu cantik.
Seharusnya mereka dapat hidup dengan tersenyum.
Seharusnya anak-anak mereka dapat bercanda riang di dalam tawa yang penuh harapan.
Tanah yang hijau, laut yang jernih siap direngkuh sebagai sumber kehidupan yang penuh cita.
Namun sebuah ironi segera menyeruak dari harap yang tergantung.
Saudaraku yang di sana sedang dalam duka.
Tanah tempat mereka menggantungkan harap untuk mengisi perut mereka telah tergadaikan. Mereka yang seharusnya menjadi tuan atas tanah mereka, kini siap melihat tangan sang tuan teracung kepada mereka.
Kegelapan akan siap mengancam dan menerkam laksana beruang yang lapar.
Mereka terlena, mereka terlelap...
Tanpa sadar bayang-bayang kelam virus mematikan siap menjadikan mereka pesakitan.
Kehidupan pesta kemabukan siap menelan mereka dalam kekosongan hidup.
Sebuah ironi segera terpampang:
Bumi yang cantik, namun saudaraku hidup dalam tangis.
Aku berdoa untukmu, sobat.
Aku menangis untukmu, saudaraku...
Kiranya Tuhan segera membangunkan tidur lelapmu. Berjuanglah, kawan...!

(Catatan Papua, 29 Maret-11 April 2007)

RESURRECTION, IMPERFECT.

by John Donne

SLEEP, sleep, old sun, thou canst not have repass'd,

As yet, the wound thou took'st on Friday last ;

Sleep then, and rest ; the world may bear thy stay ;

A better sun rose before thee to-day ;

Who—not content to enlighten all that dwell

On the earth's face, as thou—enlighten'd hell,

And made the dark fires languish in that vale,

As at thy presence here our fires grow pale ;

Whose body, having walk'd on earth, and now

Hasting to heaven, would—that He might allow

Himself unto all stations, and fill all—

For these three days become a mineral.

He was all gold when He lay down, but rose

All tincture, and doth not alone dispose

Leaden and iron wills to good, but is

Of power to make e'en sinful flesh like his.

Had one of those, whose credulous piety

Thought that a soul one might discern and see

Go from a body, at this sepulchre been,

And, issuing from the sheet, this body seen,

He would have justly thought this body a soul,

If not of any man, yet of the whole.

Desunt Caetera

Source:

Donne, John. Poems of John Donne. vol I.

E. K. Chambers, ed.

London: Lawrence & Bullen, 1896. 169-170.

The Morning Psalm
Happy Are the People Whose Strength Is in You

Happy are they who dwell in your house!

they will always be praising you.

Happy are the people whose strength is in you!

whose hearts are set on the pilgrims’ way.

Those who go through the desolate valley will find it a place of springs,

for the early rains have covered it with pools of water.

They will climb from height to height,

and the God of gods will reveal himself in Zion.

LORD God of hosts, hear my prayer;

hearken, O God of Jacob. Behold our defender, O God;

and look upon the face of your Anointed.

For one day in your courts is better than a thousand in my own room,

and to stand at the threshold of the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of the wicked.

Psalm 84:3–9

Antara Saving Grace dan Living Grace

pengantar untuk sebuah studi tentang Disiplin Rohani

1 Korintus 15:10
“Tetapi karena kasih karunia Allah aku adalah sebagaimana aku ada sekarang, dan kasih karunia yang dianugerahkan-Nya kepadaku tidak sia-sia. Sebaliknya, aku telah bekerja lebih keras dari pada mereka semua; tetapi bukannya aku, melainkan kasih karunia Allah yang menyertai aku.”

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.”
(New King James Version)


Memahami dengan utuh Teologi Kasih Karunia adalah satu hal, menghidupi dengan nyata Kebenaran Teologi Kasih Karunia itu di dalam suatu teopraksis adalah hal yang lain. Kita mungkin dapat berkata, "Aku telah diselamatkan oleh karena kasih karunia Tuhan." Tapi apakah kita berani berkata, "Saat ini aku menghidupi kasih karunia ini di dalam kerja keras yang nyata, bukan untuk diriku, melainkan untuk Tuhanku. Bahkan aku bekerja lebih keras dari banyak orang lain. Namun bukan karena aku, sekali lagi karena kasih karunia Allah yang nyata dalamku."

Paulus pernah mengatakannya (1Korintus 15:10). Saya yakin Anda dapat mengatakannya di dunia saat ini. Kuncinya adalah hidup di dalam Disiplin Kasih Karunia. Gereja telah kehilangan tatanan untuk pembangunan sebuah disiplin rohani. Bonhoeffer pernah berkata bahwa anugerah akan menjadi anugerah murahan jika gereja tidak lagi menerapkan disiplin bagi jemaatnya. Marilah kita mulai sebuah episode Kehidupan di dalam Disiplin Kasih Karunia-Nya.

Sebuah Teopraksi Kasih Karunia adalah Disiplin Kasih Karunia.