Our senses are amazing. Yet, there have been tendencies to underrate them. We know that it is from our senses that we build the concept of sensitivity. The latter, as a concept, however, has shifted from the realness of day-to-day experiences of the self to the domain of ideas. Can our ways of doing philosophy or doing theology be sensible – that these are real to our senses? A thorny question, indeed. It needs no answer, except our journey towards different destinations.

            Being sensible can bring difference in our writings. We put our full attention on the subject matter we are exploring, whilst letting our senses perceive movements and changes. In this edition of Melintas we will find authors who reflect on topics that are closely related to human self, sensitivity, and experience. The first author presents the thoughts of Michel Foucault, who brilliantly analyses the historical events of the past as creative criticisms for shaping human attitudes today, and shows his readers various practices of the self through meditation and inner examination, as well as the practice of telling the truth (parrhesia) to oneself and to others. The second author analyses degrees of integration of plurality and multiculturality values in the curricula of Islamic Religious Education and Catholic Religious Education in high schools in Indonesia, in order to explore students’ possible contribution in promoting the values in the society. The third author correlates experiences, theories, and possibilities concerning the emergence of philosophical thoughts in Indonesia from a hermeneutical viewpoint, and sees how the thoughts build up from the real situations lived by ordinary people responding to the challenges in their lives. The fourth author explores the power of music through its particular elements, which includes melody, rhythm, harmony, beat, dynamics, timbre, and lyrics, in relation to human character education. The fifth author explores the elements of Christian communication based on the Church teachings on the subject matter, in order to counter the tendency of desacralisation of the self on social media and to promote truthful as well as deliberating communication in the society. These authors contribute insights from different perspectives on the interrelatedness of experience and idea.

            What we sense in experience turns into something completely different when reflected on in our mind and written in words. Perhaps this image of a passage can elucidate the movement of our sensitivity. Still, human senses are amazing.

Editor.