August 4, 2015 edition

Oh, God, we cannot meet again
In prayer with the congregation
-Sitor Situmorang, Chartres Cathedral
Maybe he wanted silence. But could he lose himself in the quiet, could he escape from 'prayer with the congregation' in this impressive gothic cathedral, a gathering place for the faithful, pilgrims and tourists? "[T]his anonymous glory, this rich stone forest, this epic chant, this gaiety, this grand quiring shout of affirmation," Orson Wells praised Chartres when he used the cathedral as the setting for his last major film, F for Fake. Wells was merely one of millions of visitors fascinated with this 12th century edifice.
It is indeed not easy to be quiet. Cathedrals and churches are expressions of religion as an institution that shapes people into congregations. Congregations are identities that appear stable, but actually can change-sometimes as a fraternity, sometimes as a unit in arms, sometimes as a crowd, From time to time, a crowd that gathers without any clear shape can change into a gang, a collectivity producing energy. Whatever its shape, within it destiny is not 'each person's own silence', to use Chairil Anwar's phrase. Destiny, in that collectivity, is the tramp of a parade, the crash of waves.

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More Sidelines articles in other editions

July 28, 2015 edition

Three characters appear six times in the Qur'an, Alif, Lam, Mimand people wonder what they mean.
No one knows. Various interpretations come and go. Some say that the shape of the three characters symbolizes the path of human life. Others read them as part of God's 'mathematics' with numbers.

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July 14, 2015 edition

Narcissus fell in love with himself and died soon afterwards. At the age of 15, his mother had taken the handsome youth to see Tiresias, the seer.
In Ovid's poem Metamorphosis, which he composed in Rome in the 4th century BCE, the blind seer said something strange: the boy will have a long life "...if he never knows himself."

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July 10, 2015 edition

A long joke can be funny and then become serious. One long joke in history was written by Miguel de Cervantes in 17th century Spain: I am talking, of course, of Don Quixote, a novel of more than one thousand pages.

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July 7, 2015 edition

Authors, particularly in Indonesia, are often convinced they are important citizens of society-more important than their works. The 'literati syndrome' is often infectious.

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June 30, 2015 edition

It is not death that destroys a conqueror, but obesity. That is what happened to King William when he was 59.
On that early September morning in 1087, during a battle to take the city of Paris, the king was thrown from his horse. His bulging stomach hit the pommel of his saddle and he could not keep his balance. He tumbled forward and was killed.

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June 23, 2015 edition

A child did a drawing. He imagined a boa constrictor swallowing an elephant whole. In his picture, the elephant could not be seen. What was visible was the swollen stomach of the snake.

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