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Conflict and trauma are realities we learn about daily. For some of us, we learn of conflict and trauma through news stories, or personal anecdotes from people close to us. For others, it is a lived and daily reality: conflict and trauma are the air we breathe.

As many celebrate Valentine’s Day, the WCC invited reflections on the power of love. Below are four reflections, all from people somehow involved in or leading, in their local contexts, a Thursdays in Black campaign for a world free from rape and violence. They share the joys, the pain, and the ever-changing perspective on what love is—and what it can become.

In the words of Prof. Rev. Dr John Langan SJ, a human right "is a right that a human person has simply by virtue of being (human), irrespective of his or her social status, cultural accomplishments, moral merits, religious beliefs, class memberships or cultural relationships.” 

Nigerians, like the rest of the world, have had to battle the threat of COVID-19 since the beginning of the year 2020.

I will never forget those August days in 2015: Together with an ecumenical pilgrimage group, I came to Hiroshima to listen to the survivors of the atomic bombing 70 years before.

An article on an interesting subject? No, not this time. I can only write from the deep crisis situation we are in at present. There is nothing else that keeps me more busy than the question of how to live with the anxiety and fear of the coronavirus and what to make of it.

It was meaningful indeed to visit St Sebastian Church outside Colombo, and meet with survivors after the awful Easter bombings, Oslo bishop Kari Veiteberg from Church of Norway said.

Interfaith meetings more often than not feature experts from the different beliefs but what of ordinary believers — do they ever meet? The answer is ‘yes’ but not often reported on. I recently participated in a meeting between some 25 committed ecumenists and Muslim believers from a local mosque — a grass roots meeting, as they say.

Creating art or poems is a way to reimagine the future, to build bridges and foster understanding, to develop empathy, to make friends, to express feelings, to build self-confidence, to learn how to be flexible and open-minded, to be exposed to different ideas and learn to listen to the views of others, to work collaboratively. These are all attributes that can help to promote peace.

Looking back on a week of grief. A week full of sorrow, tears, loss and anger.
A week of grief that began with the air disaster in Ethiopia, when the life of our colleague Rev. Norman Tendis was taken too early. A question that surfaces: Why? Why this air crash, involving leading climate experts on their way to the UN climate meeting in Nairobi? So many dead and missing. So much grief.

This Christmas Season I will have concrete places in my mind when I listen to the story of the shepherds in the fields of Bethlehem. I will think of the Bedouin community in Suyica, near Yatta, a Palestinian city in the West Bank. They live in tents and in caves because they are not allowed to build houses. Together with about 20 Methodists from around the globe representing the World Methodist Council, we visited them in October.

These days everyone uses the words “change” or “transformation” yet they are used to describe very different things. The French president Emmanuel Macron speaks of the transformation of the French economy through the liberalisation of labour laws, and in his book “India Transformed” Rakesh Mohan describes the benefits achieved by 25 years of neo-liberalism. So what do church-related aid organisations like Action de Carême, Pain pour le prochain and Etre partenaires mean when they use the word “transition”? Is this concept really part of the Christian message?