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All roads, it’s said, lead to Rome. The one that took Albertus Herwanta to the capital of Italy and the heart of his faith started far, far away - in a field in Central Java. (Duncan Graham, The Jakarta Post)
It was as a lad on his grandmother’s farm that he became close to the environment, experiencing the seasonal changes, conscious of the cycles and interdependency of plants, soil and animals, aware of the rituals of planting and harvest. He learned that the Javanese are never separated from nature.
All this, plus widespread reading (particularly British economist E. F. Schumacher’s seminal Small is Beautiful), as well as research helped clear the way to his present job -Indonesia’s Father Green.
When the young seminarian from Yogyakarta was ordained after studying theology in Malang, he pondered his future. What order to join?
“I toyed with joining the Benedictines, though I didn’t really want to shut myself away from the world,” he said. “I thought the Jesuits would be too difficult. My elder brother hadn’t succeeded — and he’s cleverer than me.
“So I chose the Carmelites. That seemed the right compromise. I wanted to teach [his parents had been schoolteachers] and do parish work.”
FULL STORY
Albertus Herwanta: Our green man in Rome (The Jakarta Post)
PHOTO CREDIT
Image from The Jakarta Post
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