Blog

object(WP_Post)#1837 (26) {
  ["ID"]=>
  int(10856)
  ["post_author"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["post_date"]=>
  string(19) "2016-03-08 16:28:26"
  ["post_date_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2016-03-08 14:28:26"
  ["post_content"]=>
  string(10328) "

 

The allies!

Touching the bottom in order to get to the top

 

The target

After a brief investigation, I discover that there is a big mission which each year gives several millions of presents to the poorest families on the planet….

It’s not only a demographic that can’t read, but also that needs, more than anyone else, to have the enriching experience of the most beautiful message of hope that there is, the one that helps people triumph over everything; the one that is summarized in my little comic book.

 

How are we going to go about it?

I understand pretty quickly that "contact" addresses on the internet are in reality just dead ends.  When they aren’t quite simply abandoned, they are strictly monitored by fierce watchmen known as secretaries, whose job consists pretty much entirely of filtering the messages. (The last thing we need is one of those plebs bothering the leaders.)  By chance*, I at last meet someone who knows one of the main leaders of the youth section of this mission!  Over the months, the tenacity of my efforts to obtain "the" telephone number has at least the merit of being a source of inspiration of jokes for my entourage, but finally….yessssss! I’ve got it!

Voice from the back of the workshop: ‘Ha, ha, ha, yes, but it’ll never work!
I pick up the handset of the telephone. The cord uncoils slowly, I feel like Indiana Jones, poised to give a flick of his whip, only this time the target's on the other side of the Atlantic.

(To tell you the truth, I am freaking out a bit…)

*("chance" - Ha! Ha! Ha! this word - Ha! Ha! Ha! I can't take it anymore! lol! )

 

First contact!

Sitting at his desk, one of the big chiefs of the mission is wondering about some old comic books produced by his predecessors that he has just found in the archives:
‘Lord, would it not be a good thing to do these again….?’
Like a reply to his prayer, the phone rings….it's me calling.
The guy, in a bit of a state of shock, doesn’t give anything away, but asks to know more.

One thing leading to another, from Skype to official correspondence, with the help of a real treasure by the name of Heyidlovetoeatasteak (not her real name), discovered at about the same time, who helps me translate my poor English (awesome coincidence: she lives 30 mins away from the mission), he ends up giving me an appointment in his office.
(Little, but non negligible detail: for me, this latter is situated at the other end of the earth!)

 

Rendez-vous with destiny

My first rendez-vous (just before the appointment with him) will be on Tuesday 11 June at 8.00 a.m. on the dot.
They are giving me 10 minutes to give my testimony to the 300 members of staff. A special privilege which will not be offered a second time, if I were to happen to arrive late. (Late, me... !? Never !)

I fly away into the void

After scraping some money together for the flight, I honestly think that I won’t have enough money for a hotel... But that doesn’t matter, the stakes are too high, I am taking my flight. To Washington, then I have to get a connection.

I enjoy making friends with everyone during the flight (that’s what I’m like.... !) As I leave the first plane, the stewardess, glad to have been able to have a chat with me in Spanish, tells me: ‘If ever you need any help, I’m here till 11 p.m.!’
She knows perfectly well, however, that I am leaving on the 5 p.m. plane.  I have a sense of foreboding...
‘Lord, could it be, by any chance, that you are trying to tell me something ... ?’
Whatever... Tomorrow morning at 8.00 I have a rendez-vous with my destiny (and indirectly with that of millions of disadvantaged people) and that’s all that matters.

 

Sorry, it’s not going to be possible !

5 p.m.: the plane’s cancelled !
‘No problem ! You can take another one at 8 p.m.,’ the lady behind the desk tells me, with an embarrassed smile.
8 p.m.: the plane’s cancelled again and rescheduled for 10 p.m.
10 p.m.: it’s cancelled for good.
A bone to chew for the complainant

Faced with my consternation and my persistence, the smile of the lady behind the desk is no longer anything more than a muscle exercise.  Her voice betrays some annoyance. The politeness is just a light veneer of kindness behind a cold, professional indifference.  She hands me a photocopied sheet with writing in an incomprehensible language: the language of administration (and in English to boot). As the solution for every problem, it contains the number of an automated answering service, where I won’t even be able to leave a message. I get the idea: this sheet of paper is nothing but a bone to chew on, so that the complainant leaves her in peace; to accept her piece of paper is to give up. There is so little understanding in this place that I decide to give it some of mine (the person really responsible is hidden behind her; I fully understand that this evening can’t be easy for her either).
I take the piece of paper.

The Hispanic stewardess

I know nobody here, I am so far away from home, the airport is about to close and I am politely asked to vacate the premises by guys who look like policemen and who are just doing their job, and, of course, it is nobody’s fault... (him again!)
Mercifully, I meet the Hispanic air hostess again. She explains to me what options remain for me: in other words... nothing !
She provides me with a thin blanket and a wash bag with a toothbrush kit, and she looks sincere when she wishes me all the best before heading off; when all is said and done, at least she did respond to my most basic need - a semblance of compassion in this artificial world.

Abandoned

A drop-out... I wander around the airport with my luggage and my guitar on my back.
It’s not the first time that I feel completely dumped. But this awful feeling of abandonment is surely nothing compared with the way the thousands** of people feel that I intend to help through this journey... , for, if I don’t understand anything either about what is happening to me, I know at least that, for sure,  God is not far away.

You would think that another invisible force was trying to prevent my rendez-vous. However, I have to make it, they’re counting on me... ! (or not)
Who knows, maybe, some day, someone will thank me for doing this...
(**in reality it’s much, much more, but I am just saying thousands so you don’t think I’m a show-off)

 

Zombie territory

The only seats that I can find nearby have nasty arm-rests, and I have the impression that they are deliberately designed like that to prevent a poor guy like me from stretching out on them. I can just about manage to work out the level of lack of decent compassion required to have the ability to ask an engineer to design a seat like that. I lie down well underneath it so that a passer-by doesn’t trample on me. If the fake luxury marble floor isn’t a great success as far as colour is concerned, it is excellent when it comes to durability. I think that I have never appreciated a blanket as much (even if it was lightweight) as during that night.

I am worn out, *ç%&/()= ! have to sleep, but is it sensible to do that ?

As I don’t have much power left on my mobile phone, which serves as my alarm clock and I am afraid that it won't ring on time, but I also don’t have much power left in my body, I doze….
During the night, several people come and kick me all over to rob me; or did I just dream that?  Anyway, I feel in the same state as if it had been real: I am shattered!  I wake up all the time wondering if I have been sleeping or not….

Strange zombies are wandering here and there all around me (…No, phew……! they’re just weirdos). I cling tightly on to my suitcases so that they don’t run off, in case, inadvertently, my tiredness leaves this body for the land of nod…..as long as I get up in time for my plane.

 

4.30 a.m., I'm waiting at the end of an interminable queue that isn’t moving forward (blast, am I becoming a zombie too!?). Victory is possible, the plane is taking off (and what’s more, I’m inside!) Before losing power, my mobile had received a message from my two guardian angels (prayer team, see the comic book Appointment in the forest page 33) to tell me that they were on to it.

Heyidlovetoeatasteak and her husband are waiting for me at arrivals. (Amazing - but then that means that contacts on the internet are real people!!?)

part 1    part 3   part 4
"
  ["post_title"]=>
  string(36) "The Master of the Seasons – Part 2"
  ["post_excerpt"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_status"]=>
  string(7) "publish"
  ["comment_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["ping_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["post_password"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_name"]=>
  string(30) "le-maitre-des-saisons-partie-2"
  ["to_ping"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["pinged"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_modified"]=>
  string(19) "2016-03-27 17:07:58"
  ["post_modified_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2016-03-27 15:07:58"
  ["post_content_filtered"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_parent"]=>
  int(0)
  ["guid"]=>
  string(32) "http://www.auderset.com/?p=10856"
  ["menu_order"]=>
  int(0)
  ["post_type"]=>
  string(4) "post"
  ["post_mime_type"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["comment_count"]=>
  string(1) "0"
  ["filter"]=>
  string(3) "raw"
  ["post_title_ml"]=>
  string(181) "[:fr]Le Maître des saisons – (Partie 2)[:de]Der Herr der Jahreszeiten   (Zweiter Teil)[:en]The Master of the Seasons – Part 2[:es]EL SEÑOR DE LAS ESTACIONES (segunda parte)[:]"
  ["post_title_langs"]=>
  array(4) {
    ["fr"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["de"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["en"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["es"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
}

object(WP_Post)#1838 (26) {
  ["ID"]=>
  int(10794)
  ["post_author"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["post_date"]=>
  string(19) "2016-02-26 23:56:48"
  ["post_date_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2016-02-26 21:56:48"
  ["post_content"]=>
  string(11637) "

A time to sow (an idea that germinates)

A universal language

‘Hey Alain, do you realise that you are one of the few people who are fluent in a language understood in any lingo on the planet, even by those who can’t read?’

‘Eh? Who? Me? How’s that...?’

‘Through pictures! You fattie: pictures!’

‘I’m not fat!!!’

My conscience is getting to me (you're witnesses: all it ever does is go on at me about my weight!!!)

So I think up a story without words which sums up, exclusively in pictures, the heart of the Bible’s message. I set to work...(compared to a white whale, I’m even …..downright ultra slim!!!!)

A time to grow

 

The twinkle in Doc's eyes
I almost forget the realities that surround me during the weeks that this stage of the creative process lasts. All my heart beats for now is this quest. Totally absorbed in the task, I scarcely sleep more than 4 hours a night and get a boost from shots of pure adrenaline, drawn straight from the cask of this all-consuming passion...

Only once the sketch I am working on is finished do I lift my nose from my drawing board. (Well I never, are there people around me?)... 

And, as in the film “Back to the Future”, in the manner of Doctor Emmett Brown in his moments of ecstatic creativity, crazed, I grab a passer-by to show him my drawing. Without any further explanations. 

I watch his facial features attentively while he is reading, and if I detect him pulling the slightest grimace of incomprehension, I snatch the sketch from his hands, leave him high and dry with his questions, to return straightaway to my drawing board in order to think up a more comprehensible scenario.

 

Winter time (when nothing happens)

‘I’ve fiiiiiinished!’...
This is what I used to shout as a child on the potty when I had finished doing my business… But here, once my work is finished, (er….the comparison stops there, okay!?), there’s silence, no-one comes…

I find myself alone with my comic book. 

It’s as if a workman had failed to turn up to finish the job.

Didn’t he hear the call? Doesn’t he feel up to it? Might that be you? How can we now get this little book without words into the hands of the potential target audience?

If you would like to see the little book without words, click here:http://www.auderset.com/en/bd-sans-parole

 

The Spanish example
This isn't the first time that this situation has happened to me…..

I was filled with a strong surge of love for Spanish-speaking peoples, to the point of being moved to tears for them. (Is it serious, doctor?) A love like that could only come to me from above! (Personally, I have nothing of that kind in stock.) I therefore put a crazy amount of energy into translating my comic book "Conventional Wisdom"*1 into Spanish using my pure line of descent to help me out (friends, family, etc...) and once it was finished: NOTHING. 

I didn't know what to do with the book. I put it away in a drawer in the workshop alongside my hopes for it, and I moved on to something else.
If you would like to see this book, Conventional Wisdom, click here: http://www.auderset.com/en/comics/idees-recues-1

DIY
How are we now going to get this little book without words into people’s hands?

I benefit from having a small network within the French-speaking world, but not a Spanish one as yet, let alone a global one…..

Not content to stop there, I decide to don, for a while, the guise of another: that of a prospector. 

 

part 2    part 3    part 4

 

 "
  ["post_title"]=>
  string(34) "The Master of the seasons (part 1)"
  ["post_excerpt"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_status"]=>
  string(7) "publish"
  ["comment_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["ping_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["post_password"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_name"]=>
  string(35) "en-the-master-of-the-seasons-part-1"
  ["to_ping"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["pinged"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_modified"]=>
  string(19) "2016-04-10 23:33:40"
  ["post_modified_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2016-04-10 21:33:40"
  ["post_content_filtered"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_parent"]=>
  int(0)
  ["guid"]=>
  string(32) "http://www.auderset.com/?p=10794"
  ["menu_order"]=>
  int(0)
  ["post_type"]=>
  string(4) "post"
  ["post_mime_type"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["comment_count"]=>
  string(1) "0"
  ["filter"]=>
  string(3) "raw"
  ["post_title_ml"]=>
  string(185) "[:fr]Le Maître des saisons Version complète (partie 1)[:de]Der Herr der Jahreszeiten (Erster Teil )[:en]The Master of the seasons (part 1)[:es]EL SEÑOR DE LAS ESTACIONES (parte 1)[:]"
  ["post_title_langs"]=>
  array(4) {
    ["fr"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["de"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["en"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["es"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
}

object(WP_Post)#1841 (26) {
  ["ID"]=>
  int(10652)
  ["post_author"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["post_date"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-28 16:07:47"
  ["post_date_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-28 14:07:47"
  ["post_content"]=>
  string(3330) "A story from “Appointment in the forest“

Part 4

Third look… ?

In Switzerland, newly disembarked from the aeroplane, I notice certain details which had not shocked me before. In this airport, marbled, super-clean, top class but cold, nothing is compatible with human warmth. The walkway is surrounded by luxury shops. There I notice a female employee, who, driven by loneliness, allows herself a moment of respite. For the time the discussion lasts, she steps out of her role of perfect saleswoman and describes her daily life to me:
‘If I arrive a quarter of an hour late, I get a fine; they are always checking on us, we have to perform well. If we’re not careful, we soon lose touch with the family and, in the end, all our friends.’
My beautiful, spick and span country is itself also familiar with a kind of dreadful, hidden poverty… Before leaving, I tell her that God is thinking of her and that she should talk to Him about it.
Here too there are posters everywhere. Adverts with divinely beautiful women, who look down on us from above, flaunting jewellery and wristwatches like talismans to success. These pictures are shaped entirely by the hand of artists who are computer experts. They are merciless idols, venerated in secret, who wrap their worshippers in a cloak-like layer of hypocritical untruth, by making them believe that this is not the case, but I am not taken in; I can see perfectly well that they are dressed in every detail exactly the same as these pictures…
Through the window of the train I no longer see the poverty of the slums, nor the vivid, contrasting colours of India, the spontaneous smiles of passers-by, something unexpected at every street-corner, the hordes of young people, all those craftsmen-cum-handymen who dream up the most bizarre jobs – each one stranger than the other – in order to survive, neither those old men with long, white beards, nor their eyes sparkling with life…
I am almost shocked to see the deserted streets (just a few old people!). Where are the inhabitants of my country? Are they all hidden away in their homes, hypnotised by their screens? Or has there been a catastrophe that has decimated practically the whole of the population? What on earth has happened during my absence (all it takes is for me to vanish for barely a few weeks for everything to go down the drain!)?
Maybe it’s not here that the upheaval has taken place, but in my perspective…

The first poster
A poster with one of my drawings is soon going to be stuck on billboards in the streets of India and like seeds from the world beyond will sow hope in the hearts of the Indians who will see it…



To order the poster"
  ["post_title"]=>
  string(14) "India (part 4)"
  ["post_excerpt"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_status"]=>
  string(7) "publish"
  ["comment_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["ping_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["post_password"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_name"]=>
  string(29) "india-4eme-et-derniere-partie"
  ["to_ping"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["pinged"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_modified"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-28 16:27:04"
  ["post_modified_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-28 14:27:04"
  ["post_content_filtered"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_parent"]=>
  int(0)
  ["guid"]=>
  string(32) "http://www.auderset.com/?p=10652"
  ["menu_order"]=>
  int(0)
  ["post_type"]=>
  string(4) "post"
  ["post_mime_type"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["comment_count"]=>
  string(1) "0"
  ["filter"]=>
  string(3) "raw"
  ["post_title_ml"]=>
  string(98) "[:fr]India, 4ème et dernière partie[:de]India (part 4)[:en]India (part 4)[:es]India (parte 4)[:]"
  ["post_title_langs"]=>
  array(4) {
    ["fr"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["de"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["en"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["es"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
}

object(WP_Post)#1842 (26) {
  ["ID"]=>
  int(10620)
  ["post_author"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["post_date"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-17 20:28:17"
  ["post_date_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-17 18:28:17"
  ["post_content"]=>
  string(6048) "A story from “Appointment in the forest“

Part 3 (to see the part2)

The meeting of the 1000
On the stage, I am standing in front of more than 2,000 pastors’ eyes (2 per person!), inquiring and curious to see what the little Swiss guy from the mountains is going to be able to say to them. The audience is composed mainly of young people; amongst them
some are from Orissa and still smell of smoke…

I share with them my encounter with Jesus, this great Artist who makes wonders out of nothing, as well as the story of my pathetic little tears, shed for them… While I am speaking, a piece of music resonates (and reasons) in my head. An old-fashioned chorus from the past, which I thought I had left behind in the hall of the youth group that I used to go to 10 years before

(shoot! who on earth has turned on this transistor in my head?!). I decide to expel it through my mouth and sing:
‘I have decided to follow Jesus. Though I may wonder, I still will follow. The world* (* its deceptive pleasures) behind me, the cross before me. Though none go with me, I still will follow.  I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back, no turning back.’

EVERYONE knows it and, with fervour, they repeat it again and again in their language. The proof that a spark can set alight a whole crowd. I am moved because I know that for them it is more than a chorus, because they count the full cost of it.
‘This song was written by one of ours, Sadhu Sundar Singh! A role model etched in each of our hearts,’ they yell at me. When I come down from the stage, they hug me in their arms and they themselves weep, without holding back. The Lord visited us that day…


 The joy of being one of them
There is a table of honour for the few special invited guests that we are (a few cream-coloured dots in a coffee-coloured crowd), but, at the risk of offending their ancestral customs, we prefer to eat with them. This perturbs more than one of them, as, for Hindus, the white man belongs to the higher caste (what a joke!). Let’s smash that myth to pieces, even if eating the same as they do is not without danger for the wimps that we are (as for me, I have no vaccinations, just vitamin C).
The Indians have a good laugh at my attempts to speak Hindi. I can feel already that I am going to miss them. They are a beautiful people. Here, no one thinks it strange if a stranger speaks to them spontaneously. The fellas hold hands together quite naturally (er, no, it’s not even ambiguous).
Enlightenment
We are in the middle of town, but two paces away from me a sacred cow is lying nonchalantly across the road. OK, I have already crossed paths with a majestic parrot, a playful monkey and even a sow (Mrs wild boar) with huge teats, gambolling, carefree, in the street… Just routine, you know!
At any rate, my thoughts have done a runner; they don’t have time to deal with the bugs in the matrix, as, for quite some time now, they have been absorbed elsewhere resolving a far more important problem. Seeing my inability to help them, they have left me there, on the terrace of a joint which has an air of post-war ruins.

The ‘table’ where I am sitting is ludicrously rickety, but in tune with all these delightful paradoxes surrounding me. The warmth of the mild air caresses my face and I drink the best chai tea of my whole life.
‘Lord, how can I reach these people, introduce them to you? Comic-book readers are not legion… and amongst the poorest, who is able even to read?’
(Hey…? My thoughts have come back, it seems.)
While my gaze roams all around me, it is suddenly

intrigued by a poster hanging on the wall. It is the portrayal by an artist of one of the numerous local gods. This kind of picture is everywhere, in the taxis, in the shops, on every free street corner…
In one fell swoop, wham! Enlightenment! I’ve got it! Posters! We need to draw posters! That is the language that everyone here understands. It’s also a challenge perfectly suited to me which I am capable of giving to this people…


Save as many of them as you can             
Before leaving, I am invited to a family belonging to the Christian community. In spite of their poverty, the couple have adopted several young orphans, thus saving them from being forced to beg on the streets, as well as from the worst forms of abuse that a child can know. They introduce me to a little lad crazy about drawing: I bend down towards him, give him one of my comic books that I am carting around with me in my luggage. This book represents a fortune for him and, even if I had succeeded in giving it to an Indian editor, he would never have appreciated it as much as this little lad with sparkling eyes. I also give him my pencil and with a tremble in my voice tell him:
‘Draw for the Lord and your people, my boy! Art isn’t just a game or a hobby but it’s very important! Show Jesus’s way to your people and save as many of them as you can!!!

 

To be continued next week"
  ["post_title"]=>
  string(14) "India (part 3)"
  ["post_excerpt"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_status"]=>
  string(7) "publish"
  ["comment_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["ping_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["post_password"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_name"]=>
  string(15) "en-india-part-3"
  ["to_ping"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["pinged"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_modified"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-19 20:56:21"
  ["post_modified_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-19 18:56:21"
  ["post_content_filtered"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_parent"]=>
  int(0)
  ["guid"]=>
  string(32) "http://www.auderset.com/?p=10620"
  ["menu_order"]=>
  int(0)
  ["post_type"]=>
  string(4) "post"
  ["post_mime_type"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["comment_count"]=>
  string(1) "0"
  ["filter"]=>
  string(3) "raw"
  ["post_title_ml"]=>
  string(22) "[:en]India (part 3)[:]"
  ["post_title_langs"]=>
  array(1) {
    ["en"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
}

object(WP_Post)#1873 (26) {
  ["ID"]=>
  int(10597)
  ["post_author"]=>
  string(1) "1"
  ["post_date"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-11 19:51:38"
  ["post_date_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-11 17:51:38"
  ["post_content"]=>
  string(6520) "A story from “Appointment in the forest“

Part2 (to see the part1)

Tears, that’s nothing…
Scarcely has the taxi dropped me off than already it disappears, caught up in the business of the traffic. Around me there is nothing but people; they’re there everywhere and all the time. They pass by, sell, stare into space, sleep directly on the ground (unless it’s a corpse). Misery in all her forms lives here. There is such a thirst for hope that people are prepared to pray to even any object, tree, statue in the hope of quenching their thirst for the Divine. It’s a world forgotten by comfortable Christians and everywhere I see so many lost people… so many…
All the way through that first night in India, bursts of noises from the streets climb all the way up the walls to infiltrate the badly soundproofed windows of my hotel room and arouse my Western feeling of security.
Confronted by the scale of this poverty, which has slapped me in the face, I am completely helpless. Alone, sitting on my bed, I pray for this country. My heart is broken, there is nothing I can offer them apart from my  tears, which form droplets all the way down my cheeks for them… Jesus, my master, silent but present at the foot of the bed, will maybe be able to make something out of them… (?)
 Journey to the edge of the world
As soon as the leaders have joined me, the old cliché of the white missionary wearing a pith helmet is sent packing. Here the mission is managed by and for Indians… They are the ones who guide me through the human jungle of this country to the place of our next meeting.
We travel by science-fiction (or by train, it’s all the same!). The door of the old, tired train is wide open and I sit down as if on the edge of the water to dip my feet into the emptiness just above the ground which is slipping by.
At any moment I expect to hear the remonstrance of a ticket-inspector behind my back who, in his Swiss German accent, would say to me:
‘Nein, verboten’ (prohibited)! You can’t do that!!’
But no, here the people are not treated like children; it’s cool. (Maybe in Switzerland we are not as free as we imagine…?) By the side of the rails of the train track, people, always people… What are they doing? Are they watching time go by? They readily smile at me and I can see that it’s from the heart… (This time there’s no mistaking: I am on another planet!)
We pass by a public rubbish dump which goes on for ever; people are defecating there without any embarrassment. A stone’s throw further on, a starving child is looking for its daily food in the stinking rubble. In front of a makeshift shack, built with the help of the materials strewn all over the ground, an entire family watches me, in silence. That’s how the majority of the people on my planet live. It’s intolerable. Thank goodness my tears cloud my vision.
With anger in my heart, I grab hold of my pencil and draw for them, as in a cry of despair:
‘You are not forgotten!! You are precious, God loves you, His Son was born in your midst!!! Take heart!’
(One day my picture will reach them…)
 Persecutions
The reception centre of the mission is an oasis of tangible peace, freed from the latent oppression which, elsewhere, you can sense pretty much all over the place. As well as being our meeting place, it is also that of the leaders of the church who have come from all over the country. Some of them have had to contend with inordinate distances to get here.
From the moment I arrived, discretion has been advised to me for, even if India boasts of being the largest democratic country in the world, freedom of expression is still sitting in the waiting room. Hindus believe in castes, people ‘of lowly birth’ aren’t even considered as animals; with resignation, they suffer contempt and slavery. It’s not money but a change of mentality that the poor need in order to cope. When they learn that the Son of God in person loves them and took their lowly position, that they are priceless in his eyes, their lives change radically and are set free from fate. No longer condemned to being a low caste, they take charge of their lives. The high castes, outraged at losing their unpaid workforce, urge the Hindu religious fanatics to rise up.
5,000 Christians from the Orissa region have seen their houses burnt, their women raped and their pastors brutally killed by stab wounds. The families that managed to escape found a ‘shelter’ in the jungle. But it was inhabited by other predators such as the tiger and illness…

The leaders of the different communities consulted each other: should they take up arms to defend themselves?
All, with one accord, opted for the non-violence which Christ teaches. And they decided to forgive…

 
To be continued next week (Part 3 - out of 4)


During my first night in India, I have the idea of a picture which will make it possible to present Jesus to someone who is unable to read and who would not have Western Christian culture as an option in his baggage. 
 The Spirit of the creator, symbolised by his two hands, indicates the path to the one who really wants to find the way. This requires being attentive to the signs and to His voice which whispers in the hurly-burly of the world to the one who is sincere.
 This demands the ability to see the bigger picture, which wisdom gives, to realise that the easy little paths which society offers us all along our way are attractive, well marketed, but that their end is ruin. (Picture taken from the comic-book ‘Conventional Wisdom 3’)


"
  ["post_title"]=>
  string(14) "India (part 2)"
  ["post_excerpt"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_status"]=>
  string(7) "publish"
  ["comment_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["ping_status"]=>
  string(6) "closed"
  ["post_password"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_name"]=>
  string(15) "en-india-part-2"
  ["to_ping"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["pinged"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_modified"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-19 14:42:45"
  ["post_modified_gmt"]=>
  string(19) "2015-12-19 12:42:45"
  ["post_content_filtered"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["post_parent"]=>
  int(0)
  ["guid"]=>
  string(32) "http://www.auderset.com/?p=10597"
  ["menu_order"]=>
  int(0)
  ["post_type"]=>
  string(4) "post"
  ["post_mime_type"]=>
  string(0) ""
  ["comment_count"]=>
  string(1) "0"
  ["filter"]=>
  string(3) "raw"
  ["post_title_ml"]=>
  string(97) "[:fr]India (2ème partie)[:de]India (Zweite Teil)[:en]India (part 2)[:es]India (segunda parte)[:]"
  ["post_title_langs"]=>
  array(4) {
    ["fr"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["de"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["en"]=>
    bool(true)
    ["es"]=>
    bool(true)
  }
}