Daily Lesson from Life 12 April 2009

"Iraqi Christians gather for Easter
The situation in Iraq has improved and that is a cause for optimism. -Sun, Apr 12, 2009 AFP

BAGHDAD, April 12, 2009 (AFP) - Hundreds of Iraqi Christians gathered in Baghdad on Sunday to celebrate Easter, an occasion marked with thoughts of thousands of the religion's followers who fled after the 2003 US-led invasion.


Father Boutros Hadad, of the Church of Mary the Virgin in Baghdad's Karrada district, told worshippers that Easter was a time to forgive past sins and an opportunity to look to the future.
"Our religion taught us forgiveness and to forget the past and to turn a new page," he said.

"Jesus taught us forgiveness and this is the philosophy of the Christian religion - to forget those who wronged us. The situation in Iraq has improved and that is a cause for optimism."

Christians make up around three percent of Iraq's overwhelmingly Muslim 29 million population and are mostly concentrated in the relatively stable Kurdish autonomous north of the country.

According to Christian leaders, 250,000 of the 800,000 Christians who lived in Iraq before the invasion six years ago that ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, have now left the country. More than 200 Christians have been killed nationwide since 2003, with the violence intensifying last October, particularly in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's second largest.

Security has improved dramatically in Iraq since 2007, but Easter comes amid a recent upturn in violence across the country that has seen dozens killed and hundreds injured in recent weeks."

Today is Easter Sunday where Christ supposedly resurrected after being nailed and left to die on the wooden cross sandwiched between two common criminals. The Resurrection is a significant event in Christianity as this separate their religion from others by claiming there is life after death!

Lessons for me are:

1. religion is an emotive subject with human being. When one is deeply into it, emotion reins over rationality. When one acts with too much emotion, there is a danger of irrational behaviors taking place readily! So, preaching and teaching tolerance at calmer time is important!;

2. there will always be persecution of by some people of people who have a different religion even when their religion preaches forgiveness and peace. This apply to Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions when one criticized the other too vigorously! Some wars were started in the name of protecting one's religion! How ironical can that be!? It is like saying to save life we need to kill. Oh well, maybe not so ironically if by exterminating a small group of people one can save a lot of people!;

3. the 3% Christian Iraqis must be very devoted and dedicated believers in order to survive in a Muslim majority country. This also shows that when the mind is set, the will to persist in the face of all challenges has great strength. Hence, it is important for leaders to win the heart and mind of their people instead of just winning over their heads with rational reasoning. Touching the heart and mind produces the biggest self-motivational force to push people to do whatever they set out to achieve!

All the best to the Christians as they celebrate the resurrection of Chris their saviour.

p/s: Interesting to note that it is very close to the Thais New Year, Songkran festival (which starts tomorrow), and the Singhalese New Year too in Sri Lanka!!