94 he turns 94 this summer, my father. The man about whom, when my father turned out to be sickly a few days after he was born, Mr parish priest said, 'Get him baptised so he deserves heaven.' That was the moment when my grandmother lost her faith, because if such an innocent child, who had not yet been able to do anything wrong, was not worthy of heaven, then the lightning could be stolen from her.

 

The lessons my parents taught me can be summarised in two sentences: 'he who does good, does good' and 'what you would not want done to you, do not do to others'. Whether that earns you a ticket to heaven, I don't know, but my mother does. She passed away barely a year ago and how I would love to be able to discuss the big questions of life with her. Especially now that everything I consider 'good' is so under pressure. And my father too will continue to owe me the answer, because he lives in a universe of his own that sometimes touches ours, sometimes seems heavenly innocent, at other times hellishly complicated.

What did they want to give me? What did they hope my world would look like? It is easy to sprinkle clichés. Doing good and treating others respectfully seems so easy. But I too have a gut, judgements. What is good anyway? And if I do good, will the goodness in the world automatically come my way? In my struggle, I discover that right and wrong are two sides of the same coin. Without good, wrong does not exist either. I have the freedom to choose and that freedom brings with it responsibility. My free will is not just my own self. If I indeed want to do the right thing, I cannot help but look compassionately at my own dark sides as well as those of others. Every day I, we, have the chance to choose anew what we think is right. Let us not lose sight not only of ourselves, but also of others. Because, as a pastor in our village once said: 'Every person is capable of blessing another.'

I wish you a blessed Easter in the hope that we can stand up together against injustice and oppression, to build a world of tomorrow. A world for all.