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Father Karel Gržan is a priest and a writer, best known to the public by the novel Le kaj počne Bog v nebesih, ko je na zemlji toliko trpečih? (What Is God Doing In Heaven When There Are So Many People Suffering?), published last year. The author warns that the book does not offer the truth, but only the starting points for further reflection.

He believes the answers to many questions an individual as well as the society in general are seeking, hides within compassionate closeness. When asked the meaning of compassion, he answers that compassion is when you are perceived, are respected within your story, and you are not alone. "It gives you the power for living. Perhaps we fear each other too much, as they succeeded in pulling us up to the surface, and we somehow forgot how deeply we are interconnected within ourselves." He continues that he himself meets more and more people who are conceptualizing the superficiality of the disengagement from their inner self, and return to themselves, which, as he emphasizes, means that they are returning towards their fellow men. "Once you accept the reality within yourself, you start connecting with the others on another level. Concealment is no longer necessary," was what he said at the beginning of our conversation which you can read below.

In your book you wrote a very beautiful thought on relations with fellow men. It often happens that we are unkind to those closer to us, and we hurt them more often - although we have no intention of doing it.
Such attitude towards the others only shows the tragedy of our own personal experience. And the absence of what would calm us, make us accept ourselves, embrace ourselves and soothe us. You can't accept another human being before you come to terms with yourself, and start loving the essence of yourself. For that you need good allies on your side, we could say true friends, spiritual fathers and mothers, a connection with the divine, a connection with nature, which help you to accept yourself - in order to reconcile with yourself and stop rejecting yourself for your differing from the general pattern.

Once you accept your peculiarity, you realize you are wonderful, and miraculous. I think that by doing good to yourself, making a step towards acceptance of one's own originality, we calm down, and help the others to start living their own story next to us. Failure to do so generalizes people. You resemble to a shepherd who stops seeing sheep as individual animals, and perceives them only as a herd, as a unit.

But humankind can't be perceived as a herd. Individuals forming humankind are too precious to be overlooked. Individuals represent the fundamental capital of humankind, therefore I believe that the mission of all of us is to discover and gain awareness of oneself. To find helpers, to succeed in reaching one's own hidden self, the essence of being. And once a person starts living within it, the person starts breathing. In science the most simple solution is usually the best. You suddenly realize that something within yourself is very simple. And consequently, coexistence with the others becomes simple as well due to the honesty involved.

It seems a lot of people are internally "damaged". They seek consolation and help in different ways.
The number of such people is enormous. I had to start by admitting to myself that I was damaged as well. Because before you get to that point, you project your injury outwards. It is not terrible to be damaged, it is a starting point which allows you to overcome the damage, and realize yourself. But it requires from us to seek not only people who could help us at the rational level, but at the spiritual, emotional level as well, in order to heal the wounds.

In autumn beech forests never cease to amaze me. I should take more time to venture into forests and to enjoy their warmth. Nature starts glowing with warmth, and it reminds me of a dormouse. They also gain strength in autumn, eat their fill, and gather their fat supply. But do I take that therapy which could carry me through winter time? The best aromatherapy is a stroll through the autumn woods, kicking leaves while you walk. It's very simple.

We must be rational, but rationalism won't save us. Deep down we are children who need to be held, accepted, confirmed, evaluated, recognized as valuable, and not only by people who love us - parents, family, but also from the trustworthy people - teachers, priests… We must not overlook anybody in his/her individual excellence. Personal excellence especially needs confirmation. Once you give a person a foundation, that person gains courage to live that story. Today a lot of individual stories are repressed, and a person to whom that is happening is crying deep inside, and feeling like a bird locked in a birdcage, showing that distress to the world in various unpleasant manners.

It seems however that the time we live has started encouraging people to start walking toward themselves again. For years we have been living in wild capitalism which encouraged only striving for the sparkling exterior. It looks as if the society realized that that road is taking us nowhere.
I fear any kind of manipulations where humankind is concerned. The present poverty can be a kind of manipulation as well. The fathers of communism had said that a person can start thinking of the purpose of being only after his existential needs are satisfied. Because, until then their only purpose is survival. I fear that the nursing of poverty by the world capital is keeping the mentality of people superficial, maintaining the illusion that the superficial can bring satisfaction. That's basic. Therefore it is required to assure basic existence to a person, and only then he/she can start dealing with the other dimensions of human essence. Here I would like to mention the possibility of manipulation by keeping people at a minimum of their requirements, of even below that. Because in that case it is much easier to offer them all kinds of solutions and completely focus their attention on subsistence.
But still, the experience is evolving within the enthusiastic youth and the awakened old age that only the external gain can't satisfy the integral human reality. It is important to have, but only to the right measure, as gaining things can't replace what should complete a human being within, be it on an emotional, or a spiritual level. The basic crisis of our time is the absence of compassion, lack of people who have time, people who would perceive his own and other people's lives, and thus surmount the inner loneliness.

The answer to the basic question from my book is compassionate closeness. Be it the closeness of God, which is in the Christianity distressingly lowering into the night. The Christianity has two basic holidays, both connected with the dark: Christmas, and Easter. On that night God wakes up in commiseration, as someone close to us. God is not offended by my shit. And that's the tragedy of the perception of God as a wrathful figure, which obscured his image of the compassionate figure leaning down into the night of humankind, into our reality. God is not disturbed neither by my sin, nor by my misery. With his compassion and his presence he wants to give me strength, to make me stronger.

That's the basic pattern of our getting closer to each other. If God banalized himself into a human form, I should find a way to banalize myself to get closer to my fellow men, animals, the creation, and allow them to recognize me as a fellow man. I can't remain 'above', but 'side by side’. Here a paradox occurs. Once I decide to help somebody, it happens that that person helps me. I often give advice to people who can't find a way out of their problems. I advise them to find somebody who is in trouble, and get close to him. In this way you not only dissolve the distress of your fellow man, but your own as well. I advised many people to go into a shelter and adopt a dog or a cat. And in this way they rescued themselves as well. You need to do an act of benevolence, and then luck finds you as well. You can do a good deed for anyone who suffers, even for Mother Earth.

Are you ever angry with God?
Yes, really angry. Hurt, wounded, which reaches even deeper than anger.

We were told that anger is a sin, and similar things. But anger is a feeling which needs to be taken advantage of, as anger shows you, or makes you realize the reasons for your distress, the level of your sensibility; anger tells you to find the closeness which would allow you to express the personal reality you are experiencing. We were thought the truth, and not how to express our personal reality. Genuine relationships include also anger, but in a cultured manner. We are not cultured, therefore outbursts of anger can be dangerous and cause damage. But by expressing your anger in a cultured manner you can express your inner reality in such a manner to bring deliverance to you and to the relationship, and propel the situation into another dimension. But we should learn how to do it. We learned a lot about the fields in which we are used, but nothing about the fields which are basic, and would enable us to live with ourselves, and our fellow men.

I am convinced that in future education will get completely different fundaments. What we learn now, i.e. knowledge for usability, is of course necessary, but new fields will open to help people get to know themselves, accept themselves, recognize relationships as opportunities to grow. And which will in a way help with playfulness of expressions of our sentience, anger as well, and the entire assortment of our experiences with each other, and our expressions.