Week IV • Saturday
Indonesia: The Forests of Kalimantan
Week IV • Saturday
Voices from the Landscape
Across the vast island of Kalimantan (Borneo), fires burn each year to clear land for palm oil and mining. Ancient rainforests—once home to orangutang, clouded leopards, and countless Indigenous Dayak communities—are stripped bare. The haze spreads across neighbouring nations; rivers turn black with ash and oil. What was once sacred land, filled with ancestral spirits and the breath of creation, becomes a contested economic zone.
For the Dayak people, the forest is not simply a resource but a living relative—a place where ancestors dwell, and the divine life-force (semangat) flows through trees, rivers, and soil. When these forests fall, the damage is not only ecological but spiritual.
The moral balance of the cosmos—between humans, land, and unseen powers—is wounded. Indigenous leaders who resist exploitation face intimidation or exile; others struggle to keep alive rituals that bless and heal the land.
The question of reconciliation in Indonesia’s forests is therefore not just environmental policy—it is the urgent work of restoring sacred relationship between people, creation, and God.
wonderings
- I wonder what it means to hear the voice of the Shepherd amid so many competing sounds—of fear, nationalism, greed, and despair.
- I wonder if the “other sheep” Jesus speaks of are not only other people, but other creatures—the forests, rivers, and species whose lives are bound up with ours.
- I wonder how my life might change if I believed the whole world were a sacred pasture—every city street, coral reef, and mountain path pulsing with God’s care.
- I wonder what thieves and wolves look like in our time—the systems and habits that steal life from others and wound the earth.
Reflection
Healing the Wounded Forest
Bernard Adeney-Risakotta reminds us that to live in a sacred cosmos is to recognise that every part of creation is woven into a moral and spiritual web. When that web tears—through greed, violence, or silence—the whole cosmos groans. The destruction of Kalimantan’s forests reveals such a tearing: the broken trust between humanity and the earth, between local wisdom and global demand, between the sacred and the economic.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus heals what has been blinded—restoring sight so that truth may be seen. In Indonesia’s wounded forests, we might hear the same invitation: to recover spiritual sight. Reconciliation here begins with remembering—naming the forest not as a resource, but as kin. It deepens through restoring—replanting, protecting, and honouring the land and the people who know its rhythms. It calls for re-imagining a future moral order where development does not demand desecration, and where Indigenous voices lead the way toward balance. And it requires reverencing—recognising that peace with creation is not our achievement, but a divine gift waiting to be received with gratitude and care.
Reconciliation in a sacred cosmos is not abstract. It is slow, bodily work: planting a seedling in burnt soil, sharing a meal after conflict, cleansing the river with our own hands. It is the same gentle light that Jesus brought to the man born blind—a light that exposes our blindness and invites us to see the world, once more, as sacred.
prayer
God of forest and fire, you dwell in the
rustle of leaves and the rhythm of rain.
Forgive us for the blindness that treats your creation as profit, and for the silence
that allows holy ground to burn.
Teach us again the language of trees,
the patience of rivers, the mercy of soil.
May our repentance take root
in the places we have wounded,
until the earth sings again
in harmony with your Spirit.
bible reading
John 10:1–18 :
The Shepherd of a Sacred Cosmos
When Jesus speaks of himself as the Good Shepherd, he is not describing a soft pastoral scene but unveiling a vision of the world alive with relationship. “I know my own and my own know me,” he says—a sentence that gathers the intimacy of belonging, the ethics of care, and the heartbeat of creation itself
This passage invites us to move beyond narrow readings of salvation as private or exclusive. The sheepfold is not a club of insiders but a living ecosystem of trust. Jesus’ voice echoes across boundaries, calling not only those who recognise his name but “other sheep that do not belong to this fold.” The image widens into a cosmic embrace—a vision of interconnection where divine love moves through the whole field of life.
Here the work of Indonesian theologian Bernard Adeney-Risakotta offers a profound resonance. He writes that to live in a sacred cosmos is to awaken to the interwoven presence of God in all things—in people, land, ancestors, and the moral rhythms that sustain the universe. Within such a worldview, the Good Shepherd is not merely a religious leader but the keeper of cosmic harmony. His care extends beyond humanity to all creation. When the shepherd guards the flock, he guards the fragile balance of the world.
Seen through this lens, John’s Gospel becomes a theology of relationship, not domination. The thief and bandit are not simply moral metaphors; they name the human forces—greed, exploitation, ecological violence—that break the sacred order. The hired hand who runs away when the wolf comes reflects a spirituality that treats the earth as expendable, faith as temporary employment, and others’ suffering as someone else’s problem.
But the Good Shepherd “lays down his life for the sheep.” This is not heroic sacrifice for its own sake but the ultimate expression of solidarity. In the sacred cosmos, the life of the one is bound to the life of the many. The shepherd gives his life to sustain the whole—not to rescue a chosen few but to mend the tear in creation’s fabric.
Adeney-Risakotta reminds us that reconciliation in such a world is never abstract. When forests burn, when women are silenced, when rivers are poisoned, the spiritual balance of the cosmos is wounded. Jesus’ self-giving love becomes an ecological and social act—the divine mending of relationships between humanity, the earth, and God.
For those shaped by liberal theology, this passage invites faith that is inclusive, ecological, and compassionate. It asks us to hear the shepherd’s voice calling us beyond individual piety into the communal work of restoration. The “abundant life” Jesus offers is not prosperity or safety but wholeness—the flourishing of every creature within the sacred web of existence.
To follow the Good Shepherd today is to live as guardians of that web—to stand where life is threatened, to defend the vulnerable, to heal the wounds of creation, and to listen again for the still, familiar voice that calls each of us by name, and all of us toward peace.
reflective action
Spend time in silence with the natural world—a park, a tree, a river, or even a potted plant.
Notice its texture, scent, and sound. Whisper a simple prayer of thanks.
If possible, pick up one piece of litter, plant a small seed, or learn about an environmental or Indigenous justice issue in your region. Reconciliation begins with seeing, and then with small faithful acts of care.
journalling prompt
Draw or sketch a simple tree. In its branches, write a few words or symbols that express the wounds and hopes of the forests of Kalimantan or in your own context. In the roots, note what keeps you grounded and sustains you—people, places, prayers, practices.
Then add one small green shoot and write beside it: “Here begins healing.”
Let the image become a quiet prayer for the earth.
