13th february 2003
GUIDE LEADERS
We never thought this might be possible! We never
believed that, at the beginning of this third millenary, we would hear in
official speeches the apology of crime and assassination, of war, of theft,
of embezzlement, of taking hold of the land of others, of confiscations of
economies, and all this in the name of money, money that has only two
commandments that make really one:
“ all
possible will be realized through technology” and “ all that you want will
be provided by money”…
When you have a dozen, or ten or
thirty little girls, teenagers or young people in front of you who ask “What
can one do?” doesn’t one find oneself a little ridiculous in front of such
an enormous war machinery, of globalization, implacable and systematic,
despising what is voluntary, what is done for free, what stems from
solidarity and brotherhood?
Do not let yourselves be
impressed! Do not leave defeated confronted to violence, terrorism,
criminality, failure… Behind these lost battles one finds always hidden
calls for help.
Violence is not a policy, it is a form of despair faced to a lack of love.
You women, more that men,
you educators more out of tenderness than in view of results, of
considerations such as good value for money;
you young girls or young women with your trust in the trust of this
gang of teenagers;
You, for whom the guide law is a way of life, a free and brotherly
act, and not as elsewhere, a sort of control, or a procedure to be able to
cheat legally;
you whose desire is a promise that opens the eyes and enables you
to listen to the needs, the expectations and the calls of these children and
teenagers, to whom you listen and give preference to, rather than to
killings and wars.
You, guide leaders, precisely because you are young women, precisely
because you are human, you are competent in humanity.
Above all, do not loose or allow
to be destroyed your human competence. This competence is not recognized by
a diploma, a certificate, or a test before a jury, nor by the completion of
a theses, this human competence can be detected by the way you listen,
by your close presence, by the ways you look at
and worry about people, by the respect with which you welcome each teenager,
each young person or child, precisely because you placed in them your
treasure, your capacity to love. To love those girls you don’t feel they
are loved, love those despised girls, left behind, rejected, ignored.
Guiding was created for those who
didn’t have the right to it. Guiding was created for those who were not
capable. Guiding is open
to all those who never found the entrance door. It is exactly here that
you’ll find that the Gospel is at home. They wanted to make a system out of
it, a dogma, principles and a moral:
it is a path.
The path God found to connect
himself to the everyday life of men, women and children. All throughout
the Gospel Jesus has preferred
people to the law,
humans rather than the rules,
the truth rather than the
appearances,
humility rather than power,
the small as opposed to the grand,
man rather than money,
beatitude rather than petrol.
Guide leaders, you don’t realize
the weight your life has in the quest for healing the world.
Guiding is a globalization process, but it is a different
globalization than that of the markets. You posses through Guiding a
globalization process that liberates the human from all that is inhuman.
Guiding is there in order to invent women that are human. You can be proud
of this and come in all confidence to the gathering in Buenos Aires.
Jean DEBRUYNNE
World Chaplain
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