God, AIDS, Africa & HOPE

Reflections / Gedanken

09/25/2010 • 10:14 pm Comments Off on Epistle 2010-25…

Epistle 2010-25…

…. and it reads: “Father Roland P.  died this afternoon at 3h45 at the Durbanville Medi-Clinic. His requiem Mass will be celebrated at….”

Pictures surface in my mind: the small talk with him during the opening of the Bavarian House during the soccer world cup. His smile which made you think twice whether he was serious or joking, a brilliant mind.. and.. and .. and.

A life is gone, a life came to an end and sitting in the evening in a restaurant with a friend having dinner, the question arose: Is that all what is left from him? Memories? Memories in those who have known him and which will definitely fade away in the then following generation…
A life is gone, a whole world is gone, because Roland was, like everybody else, unique: The way he experienced things will be gone for ever, and with it, everything he experienced: the first rain, the first steps, the first love, the way he worked as a priest and so much more. Gone for ever or taken up into heaven? What kind of heaven? Heaven with eternal praise or eternal love? Should not a priest know this best?

Not sure, but sure I feel somehow somber in this moment and my thoughts are with his family and with himself. It is like his death is touching my life for a while, slowing it down, commemorating it, and also questioning everything what I am doing and how I am living.

Yes, what is the meaning of life? Where do we come from, where do we go to? Philosophical question and very theoretical normally they are suddenly so vivid and alive. But is it really important to know where we will go when we die?  Not even sure about this – but what I know very much so: That I have to live my life as long as I can, that I have only one chance in life to live it to the fullest. And surely: That I don’t know when I will be called to higher services, it has an urgency to live, and to live it as complete and fulfilling as one can. And that means also to accept all grey shadows of life.
I said Mass this evening in Belhar for him and I am grateful for all the  moments, we shared when our ways crossed in the last years.  RIP we Christian say, but I would love to change it: Live in peace where ever you are now and thanks for being a reminder even in your death, how valuable my own lifetime is. I knew it, I know it, but still I need a reminder from time to time.

Filed under: General, Reflection, Uncategorized, , , ,

09/21/2010 • 11:26 pm Comments Off on 21.09.2010 Travel

21.09.2010 Travel

I traveled a lot this year, Europe and within South Africa – and I am just preparing for the next travels which will bring first to Durban and Johannesburg and in October/November to Europe before in December Johannesburg is again on the agenda.
I am always amazed to hear after my return: “How was your holiday”. It seems that many people connecting travel still only with holidays and it seems that being sometimes exhausted and feeling tired after arriving home is not an option. 🙂
I do enjoy traveling on one hand, but on the other hand it is meanwhile no fun anymore to spend so much time at airports with all the changing security measures. I love to meet new people but on the other hand it is indeed sometimes difficult to connect every day with new people in another city. Maybe one feels the “ying” and ‘yang” of traveling more when one grows older.
But what I still have maintained  is this curiosity to learn when on travel, to be curious about new situations and to draw conclusions for my own life when confronted with new traditions or habits. Travel makes life so much richer and that is worth every effort.

Filed under: General, Networking,

09/16/2010 • 5:12 pm Comments Off on POZ Magazine: NIH Awards $2.5 Million to Study Latent HIV

POZ Magazine: NIH Awards $2.5 Million to Study Latent HIV

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in the USA, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has announced Eric M. Verdin, MD, as the winner of the Avant-Garde Award for HIV/AIDS Research, according to an NIH statement. Verdin’s research will focus on developing new technology to explain how HIV latency is established and maintained and how it becomes reactivated. The goal is to eliminate latent HIV infection. The award grants Verdin, of the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, $500,000 per year for five years.

To read the NIH statement, click here.

Source: http://www.poz.com/rssredir/articles/Latent_HIV_Study_1_19096.shtml

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HIV Treatment, Medical and Research, , , ,

09/15/2010 • 5:11 pm 1

15.09.2010 Talking about time

Talking about time as I did in the last blog – once again time is faster flying than I can keep up with it.
The weekend saw me serving the Catholic Community in Belhar with a very interesting family mass on the Sunday morning. Preparation for the HOPE Cape Town management meeting and a talk, given to readers of “Die Zeit” , a German weekly newspaper, who were on a trip through South Africa. It is always interesting for me to hear opinions and different perspectives to our situation here in South Africa and to learn a lot about how our country is perceived in the first world.
HOPE Cape Town Management meeting yesterday with lots to discuss at senior level. Such a project is developing also in a rapid way and we have to be creative to keep on going in a way serving the communities. From an afternoon with management then directly to Brooklyn Holy Cross Primary School where we celebrated the Feast of the Cross with the school community.
This morning POZ meeting: the working group trying to put up a pastoral care structure for HIV positive priests and religious is battling a bit with the concepts some people of the church hierarchy have. It is not easy to find a way to serve those infected and affected in a sensitive and meaningful way if there is so much fear and phobia within the church tackling the pandemic within our own ranks. Fr Wim and myself had meetings in Rome about the subject in May this year and we intended to be back with first positive steps in November this year, but unfortunately it will take more time. So I canceled yesterday the Rome leg of the trip end of next month in the hope, that next year sees more results.

Making progress in sensitive matters within our church can be quite an issue; and it is not that people would not see the urgency of matters, but the apprehensibility in some quarters of our church makes it at times very difficult. On the other hand: we know that we are as the church moving: slavery, human rights, democracy – the latter have been directly from hell some time ago but today we are the champions when it comes to advocate them for others.
I ask myself whether we are so much different from other organizations – and I guess: no.

Well: Never give up was one of the favorite songs of our first HOPE Community Health Workers and I think, that is a good motto for the days and weeks to come.

Filed under: General, HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, Society and living environment, , , , , , , , ,

09/10/2010 • 4:11 pm Comments Off on 10.09.2010 Sometimes….

10.09.2010 Sometimes….

… a week is gone and you don’t know why and how it has happened. And even my addiction to internet comes to a hold, it must be serious.. 🙂 But also good to have friends beaming one out of stress for a couple of hours.. what a delight.. 🙂

Preparation for Management meeting of HOPE Cape Town Association, meetings with several interesting persons involved in the field of HIV and AIDS, meeting with a TOP (two ocean production) to discuss the possibility to update our HOPE Cape Town trailer as the old one is now 7 years old and outdated. I was amazed to learn what it means on time and effort to have a 3 min trailer done.
And of course not to forget: The HOPE Gala Dresden is on track: 30.10.2010.. not to be missed out. And for the Germans reading the block here an appetizer:

http://www.dresdeneins.tv/nachrichten/5_HOPE_Gala_Dresden-355.html

And to book go onto: http://www.hopegala.de

Filed under: HIV and AIDS, HOPE Cape Town Association & Trust, Networking, ,

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