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Can privacy and innovation really go hand in hand? What can we do to safeguard sensitive data today, and what's in store for the future? Dan Cassara, Project Manager for the Digital Credit Observatory (DCO), explores these questions and more in the second part of this two-part series on privacy enhancing technologies and their role in financial inclusion. If you missed part one, click here to check it out.An employee at Radio Shabelle prepares the studio for an upcoming show | Tobin JonesTrust is fundamental for an improved digital financial system. As discussed in part one of this series, privacy enhancing technologies (PETs) play a central role in enabling trustworthy and responsible innovation. Despite the complexity of data privacy, policymakers are exploring regulatory approaches. Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) may be the most well-known regulation, but it is not the only one. Globally, more than 130 countries have data privacy laws, a number many anticipate will increase as decision makers learn more about the benefits and challenges of responsible data usage.In conversation with partners, policymakers, and practitioners, CEGA explored this subject at its 2022 Africa Evidence Summit in Kigali, Rwanda. Key insights from the summit are summarized below:What: Minimizing data collection avoids the possibility for sensitive data to be improperly used or shared and is one of the most intuitive ways to protect privacy. When collecting sensitive or identifying information cannot be avoided — for example, for medical research — the next best step is to de-identify the data as soon as possible.How: Gathering informed consent prior to collecting any information is vital to conducting ethical research or providing services in most circumstances. However, Informed consent is based on complete, accurate, and understandable information, and it is important to recognize its limits. Often, these criteria are not met; for example, most privacy policies are designed to not be read. Even when all criteria are met, pressing needs can push people to accept terms they may otherwise reject. Regulatory guardrails can help balance the equation. For example, the Central Bank of Kenya has released regulations to address these types of concerns, which is a model that other governments can emulate.Where and Who: Safely storing data through encryption — scrambling data so it can only be unscrambled and read with authorized access — and putting appropriate access controls in place — limiting data access to authorized users — are two of the most commonly used security tools to protect data from being accessed outside its intended context. Unfortunately, many fintech apps either do not encrypt all data or use outdated modes of doing so, which leaves many of their customers vulnerable to data breaches. Requiring financial institutions to adopt the most secure standards for encryption and communication should be a high priority, whether through voluntary adoption or regulatory guidance.Why: There are typically trade-offs between privacy and accuracy, and effectively evaluating them is dependent on what purpose the data will serve. For example, public health guidance has historically permitted surveillance without consent in some settings where obtaining consent would not be possible or would impede public health goals, judging these benefits to outweigh privacy needs. It is imperative, however, that the usage of data is limited to its initial purpose. While cell phone data can be leveraged for humanitarian aid delivery or to benefit public health, the data shouldn't be used later for other purposes.The ongoing data revolution will likely transform the way people around the globe access and interact with financial services. This change has the exciting potential to promote financial inclusion and lift people out of poverty, but it also comes with risk of data misuse, financial loss, and infringements upon privacy.While protecting individual privacy and peace of mind is worth pursuing in and of itself, the benefits of proper data privacy frameworks go well beyond this. Using data improperly and not using data at all, for instance, both come with costs. Many private sector companies and government initiatives seek the same data but, lacking the means to responsibly and legally share it, collect it separately. This drives up costs and impedes innovation. Those with the least typically pay the largest share through higher interest rates, lower accessibility, and little to no data privacy.Tools like PETs can help mitigate risks and promote responsible innovation. More research is needed to explore how these tools can be best utilized to improve the financial well being of those excluded from the formal financial system. CEGA is contributing to this effort by funding a research agenda that examines key questions, such as:How do local definitions of data privacy vary by context, how can we best measure this, and how can we ensure local voices and values are incorporated into decision-making processes?What PETs or other tools are best suited for solving specific privacy problems, and can we analyze their effectiveness in doing so?How can privacy enhancing tools enable data portability and data sharing, which could unlock new or improved public goods such as credit bureaus or anti-terrorism monitoring systems?CEGA's Digital Credit Observatory (DCO) is building a portfolio of research and a community of researchers and practitioners that will drive a more comprehensive understanding of the challenges and solutions to protecting data privacy in low- and middle-income countries. If you're interested in research funding, collaborating, or learning more about the DCO, we'd love to hear from you at digitalcredit@berkeley.edu.Beyond Disruption: Rebuilding Privacy in the Digital Era was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

PurposeUsing integrated, constructivist and inquiry-based curricular experiences to expand student understanding of historical thinking and exposure to Native perspectives on Utah history, this paper aims to analyze the thinking and practice of teaching the Utah fourth grade social studies curriculum. As a team of researchers, teachers and administrators, the authors brought differing perspectives and experience to this shared project of curriculum design. The understanding was enhanced as the authors reflected on authors' own practitioner research and worked together as Native and non-Native community partners to revise the ways one group of fourth grade students experienced the curriculum, with plans to continue improving the thinking and implementation on an ongoing basis. While significant barriers to elementary social studies education exist in the current era of high-stakes testing, curriculum narrowing and continuing narratives of colonization in both the broad national context and our own localized context, the authors found that social studies curriculum can be a space for decolonization and growth for students and teachers alike when carefully planned, constructed and implemented.Design/methodology/approachThis article represents an effort by a team of teachers, administrators and researchers: D, a councilman and historian dedicated to sharing the history of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation; S, an eleventh-year teacher, teaching fourth grade at Mary Bethune Elementary School (MBES); E, the director of experiential learning and technology at MBES; L, the MBES vice principal and EL, a faculty member in the adjacent college of education. Working in these complementary roles, each authors recognized an opportunity to build a more robust set of curricular experiences for teaching the state standards for fourth grade social studies, with particular attention to a more inclusive set of narratives of Utah's history at the authors' shared site, Mary Bethune Elementary School, a K-6 public charter school that operates in partnership with the College of Education in a growing college town (population 51,000) in the Intermountain west. The complexity of Utah history embedded within the landscape that surrounds MBES has not always been a fully developed part of our fourth grade curriculum. Recognizing this, the authors came together to develop a more robust age-appropriate curricular experience for students that highlights the complexity of the individual and cultural narratives. In addition to smaller segments of classroom instruction devoted to the Utah Core fourth grade standards (Utah Education Network, 2019) that focus particularly on the history of Utah, the authors focused the curriculum improvement efforts on four specific lengthy spans of instruction.FindingsThese fourth-grade students read, contextualized and interpreted the primary source documents they encountered as historians; they both appreciated and challenged the authors' perspectives. It is our belief that students are more likely to continue to think like historians as they operate as "critical consumers" (Moore and Clark, 2004, p. 22) of other historical narratives. This ability to think and act with attention to multiple viewpoints and perspectives, power and counter stories develops more empathetic humans. While the authors prize the ability of students to succeed in intellectually rigorous tasks and learn content material, in the end this trait is the most important goal for teaching students history.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors recognize operating within primarily non-Native spaces and discourses about social studies; with curricular efforts, there are a variety of ways the authors could do harm. Along the way, the authors recognized places for future improvement, critically examining the authors' work. As the authors look to future planning, there are several issues identified as the next spaces that the authors wish to focus on improving the Utah Studies curriculum experience of fourth graders at MBES. This is an area for further exploration.Practical implicationsThis precise set of primary sources, field experiences and assessments will not be the right fit for other classrooms with differences in resources, space and time. The authors hope it will serve as an example of how teachers can create curriculum that addresses the failings of status quo social studies instruction with regard to Indigenous peoples. The students were not the only beneficiaries of change from this curriculum development and implementation; as a team the authors also benefited. The experience solidified our self-perception as decision makers for our classroom. The authors' ability to extend past the packaged curriculum of textbooks and worksheets made it easily available to engage students as historical inquirers into the multiple perspectives and complex contexts of decolonizing-counter narratives built the authors' confidence that such work can be successful across the curriculum.Social implicationsThe authors believe this is a more potent antidote to the colonizing-Eurocentric narratives of history that they will undoubtedly be exposed to in other spaces and times than simply teaching them a singular history from an Indigenous perspective; if students are able to contextualize, interpret, and question the accounts they encounter, they will be more likely to "challenge dominant historical and cultural narratives that are endemic in society" (Stoddard et al., 2014, p. 35). This too can make them more thoughtful consumers of today's news, whether that news is about Navajo voting rights in southeastern Utah or oil and gas development in South Dakota.Originality/valueWorking against the colonizing narratives present in media, textbooks and local folklore is necessary if the authors are to undermine the invisibility of Native experiences in most social studies curriculum (Journell, 2009) and the stereotyping and discrimination that Native American students experience as a result (Stowe, 2017, p. 243). This detailed look at how the authors developed and implemented standards-based curriculum with that intent adds to the "little research [that] exists on teacher-created curricula and discourse" (Masta and Rosa, p. 148).

Problem setting. The progressive digitalization of all spheres of life and their confident transition to fundamentally new forms of functioning and interaction between economic entities, public administration and international relations is based on digital tools that allow using digital technologies in the digitalization of the national economy. However, the experience of their application and effective use is insufficient in comparison with developed countries, so to ensure sustainable development of society, it is necessary to thoroughly and comprehensively study the features of digital tools and their use in government and to objectively assess the prospects of digitalization in all spheres of life in modern Ukraine.Recent research and publications analysis. The issue of digitalization and the increasing use of digital technologies is present in the research of many specialists. In particular, it is necessary to note significant achievements in this field of such scientists as V.Apalkova, O.Bernaziuk, S.Vereteniuk, N.Hrytsiak, N.Deieva, A.Dobrynin, N.Drahomyretska, O.Yemelyanenko, T.Kaminska, A.Kaminskyi, G.Karcheva, O.Kachnyi , S.Koliadenko, N.Kraus, V.Kuibida, S.Kutsenko, D.Layon, I.Lopushynskyi, V.Liashenko, A.Maslov, V.Nikolaev, V.Pysarenko, A.Semenchenko, K.Semiachkov, S. Chukut and many others. However, there is a necessity for complex research, which concern the use of digital tools for ensuring sustainable development.Previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The article aimed at substantiating the directions of intensification of the use of digital tools for ensuring sustainable development in Ukraine basing on the studies of features of the usage of digital tools, the analysis of its use in various fields at the present stage of the development of our state. Paper main body. The conceptual approach to understanding the essence of sustainable development makes it possible to consider this concept as "development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The answer to public demands is given by the Sustainable Development Goals, offering a new vision of economic growth of states and new values.In the context of the needs of today's development and the implications for future generations, we need to look at the digital economy and the increasing use of digital tools. Digitalization can not only solve today's problems but also generate new ones, the consequences of which may be felt by the next generation in the case of inefficient use of digital technologies. In the world, digitalization processes have significantly accelerated after quarantine and affected not only developed countries but also Ukraine and other developing countries. They relate to all spheres of public life, in particular, to the interaction of citizens with public authorities.In Ukraine, the introduction of digital tools in the work of state and municipal authorities has not become as widespread as abroad, but it is worth noting some steps in this direction. The following digital tools for interaction between the government and communities are already in force or will be implemented in the nearest future: for the government – feedback from the community population; involvement of people into the managerial process. For adult residents of communities – Centres for providing administrative services, which work as centres of "Action"; consulting zones for entrepreneurs; online population survey; local chatbots. For students and schoolchildren – the opportunity to get an IT profession online; career guidance online courses; electronic magazines.Along with public authorities, digitalization processes have confidently entered the business sphere, and this has become especially noticeable in the conditions of quarantine, according to which many employees were forced to switch to remote work. Digital tools allow businesses to adapt to new realities and build relationships between employees, customers and partners on a fundamentally new basis. They help to automate routine processes and business, and also to redirect free resources in the direction of finding new ideas for business development.Digitalization has also affected the scientific sphere – today it is difficult for the average scientist to imagine his work without the use of, for example, Google tools, in particular, such as Google Cloud Platform, Google Academy, etc. Thanks to them, it is possible to conduct comprehensive research and publish their results. And the use of such specialized digital tools for scientists as Google Public Data, Dataset Search and Google Data Studio makes it possible to work effectively with data sets.Along with the scientific sphere, digitalization is closely connected with the educational field. Responding to the quarantine requirements for distance learning, the State Education Quality Service of Ukraine has introduced the following distance forms: the study of practical experience of work of participants in the certification of pedagogical staff; conducting institutional audits of general secondary education institutions.Areas of intensification of the use of digital tools to ensure sustainable development are regulatory, organizational-managerial, labour, competency-based, project, infrastructure and international. The development of digitalization and the introduction of digital tools in social processes have become inevitable, so it is necessary to ensure the implementation of digitalization procedures with maximum effect.Conclusions and prospects for further studies. Digital tools can be defined as a tool, a mean to improve communication between individuals and legal entities and the state through digital technologies and online communications. In the direction for ensuring the sustainable development of society, digital tools are essential tools that minimize resource costs, which allows you to redirect their use in a more constructive direction and, if possible, to preserve the resource potential for future generations. ; Розглянуто особливості використання цифрових інструментів відповідно до потреб забезпечення сталого розвитку в суспільстві. Вивчено специфіку застосування цифрових інструментів у різних сферах життєдіяльності суспільства. Проаналізовано еволюцію розвитку цифрових інструментів у світі протягом останніх двадцяти років. Представлено напрями активізації застосування цифрових інструментів забезпечення сталого розвитку на сучасному етапі трансформаційних змін в Україні.

The article considers the peculiarities of the development and preservation of the ethnic identity of the Bulgarian population of the south of the MSSR and Izmail region of the USSR post-war period 1944-1954 years. The urgency of the research is proved, first of all, by the lack of knowledge of this question, insufficient number of documents available for scientific community. The topicality of this investigation is caused by the attempt to analyze the achievements of the Bulgarian Diaspora on the way to preserving its ethnic identity separately from other nationalities. The author points to the positive changes in the national, cultural and educational development of the Bulgarian Diaspora in the post-war period. The specific features of the education of the Bulgarian population during the Soviet era and the role of education in preserving the ethno social identity, the development of the national consciousness of the Bulgarians are revealed. The author states that the Bulgarian language remained in wide use only at home in the post-war period. The learning process was held on Russian. However, this contributed to the fact that the Bulgarian youth became competitive in entrance exams, and eventually they were able to work and occupy various positions in Ukraine, Moldova and also abroad. The article also analyzes the state policy in relation to the ethnic minorities. The important consequence of the state education policy became the formation of a new Bulgarian educational intelligentsia, which could not but affected the ethno cultural development and preservation of the ethnic identity of the Bulgarian population of the region. The government contributed to the creation of a number of Bulgarian art groups, they were formed on the state account and initiative. In addition to the organization, the financing of the art collectives was also performed by the government. The professional music schools and their branches were also opened in the regions with the Bulgarian population. Further, the author specifies the achievements of the Bulgarian population in the field of culture. The participation of the Bulgarians in the social and cultural life of the Izmail region and the south of the MSSR is researched. The author claims that it was the cultural sphere where the national identity of the Bulgarian ethnic group of Ukraine and Moldova was preserved. The role and place of amateur folk art in preserving the language, folklore and ethnographic heritage of the Bulgarian people in consolidation with the Bulgarian ethnic group, as well as renewing and strengthening the social and cultural connections of the Bulgarian Diaspora with Bulgaria are also revealed. However, numerous direct contacts were established only in the post-Stalin period. It was considered that the Bulgarian people were not indifferent to the national culture and its development. In disregard the ideological, political, ethnic turmoil that apprehended the Bulgarian population of southwestern Ukraine and the south of Moldova in the post-war period, they preserved the inherent peculiarities in language, culture, ritualism and religion. It should be noted that national identity, originality and uniqueness are better preserved in the spiritual sphere than in the economic field. Thus, the article of I.I. Tatarko provides important inputs to the study of the most urgent problems and issues of historiography in Eastern Europe – the post-war period and the policy of the Soviet Union towards ethnic minorities. ; У статті досліджено особливості розвитку та збереження болгарським населенням півдня МРСР та Ізмаїльської області УРСР етнічної ідентичності в повоєнних умовах 1944 – 1954 рр. Актуальність роботи обґрунтована насамперед слабкою вивченістю проблематики, недостатнім уведенням у науковий обіг джерел, а також спробою проаналізувати досягнення болгарської діаспори на шляху до збереження своєї етнічної ідентичності окремо від інших національностей. Автор висвітлює позитивні зрушення у національному, культурному та освітньому розвитку болгарської діаспори у повоєнний період. Розкриває специфіку здобуття освіти болгарським населенням за радянської влади та роль освіти у збереженні етнічної ідентичності, розвитку національної свідомості болгар. Автор зазначає, що болгарська мова в повоєнний період залишилася у широкому вживанні тільки в побуті, навчання здійснювалося російською мовою. Однак це сприяло тому, що болгарська молодь стала конкурентноспроможною на вступних іспитах, а надалі змогла працювати і обіймати різноманітні посади не тільки в Україні та Молдові, а й за їх межами. Крім того, у статті аналізується державна політика щодо етнічних меншин. Важливим наслідком державної політики у сфері освіти стало формування нової болгарської просвітницької інтелігенції, що не могло не вплинути на етнокультурний розвиток і збереження етнічної ідентичності болгарського населення краю. Влада сприяла появі великої кількості болгарських мистецьких колективів, утворювала їх сама. Відкривалися професійні музичні школи та їхні філії у регіонах із болгарським населенням. Зазначається, що окрім організації, позитивним внеском у розвиток колективів було їхнє фінансування. Далі автор конкретизує досягнення болгарського населення в галузі культури. Висвітлює участь болгар у суспільно-культурному житті Ізмаїльщини та півдня МРСР. Стверджує, що саме у сфері культури вдалося зберегти національну самобутність болгарського етносу України та Молдови. Відзначає високу роль самодіяльної народної творчості у збереженні мови, фольклорної та етнографічної спадщини болгарського народу, у консолідації болгарського етносу, а також у поновленні та зміцненні суспільних та культурних зв'язків болгарської діаспори з Болгарією. Зроблено висновок, що болгарському народу не була байдужа національна культура та її розвиток. Попри ідеологічні, політичні, етнічні негаразди, які спіткали болгарське населення Південно-Західної частини України та Півдня Молдови у повоєнний період, воно зберегло властиву йому специфіку в мові, культурі, обрядовості, релігії. При цьому слід зазначити, що національна ідентичність, оригінальність і неповторність краще збереглися у духовній сфері, ніж у сфері господарській. Отже, стаття І.І.Татарко робить важливий внесок у вивчення найактуальніших проблем та питань історіографії Східної Європи – повоєнний період і політика Радянського Союзу по відношенню до етнічних меншин.

Problem setting. The progressive digitalization of all spheres of life and their confident transition to fundamentally new forms of functioning and interaction between economic entities, public administration and international relations is based on digital tools that allow using digital technologies in the digitalization of the national economy. However, the experience of their application and effective use is insufficient in comparison with developed countries, so to ensure sustainable development of society, it is necessary to thoroughly and comprehensively study the features of digital tools and their use in government and to objectively assess the prospects of digitalization in all spheres of life in modern Ukraine.Recent research and publications analysis. The issue of digitalization and the increasing use of digital technologies is present in the research of many specialists. In particular, it is necessary to note significant achievements in this field of such scientists as V.Apalkova, O.Bernaziuk, S.Vereteniuk, N.Hrytsiak, N.Deieva, A.Dobrynin, N.Drahomyretska, O.Yemelyanenko, T.Kaminska, A.Kaminskyi, G.Karcheva, O.Kachnyi , S.Koliadenko, N.Kraus, V.Kuibida, S.Kutsenko, D.Layon, I.Lopushynskyi, V.Liashenko, A.Maslov, V.Nikolaev, V.Pysarenko, A.Semenchenko, K.Semiachkov, S. Chukut and many others. However, there is a necessity for complex research, which concern the use of digital tools for ensuring sustainable development.Previously unsettled parts of the general problem. The article aimed at substantiating the directions of intensification of the use of digital tools for ensuring sustainable development in Ukraine basing on the studies of features of the usage of digital tools, the analysis of its use in various fields at the present stage of the development of our state. Paper main body. The conceptual approach to understanding the essence of sustainable development makes it possible to consider this concept as "development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The answer to public demands is given by the Sustainable Development Goals, offering a new vision of economic growth of states and new values.In the context of the needs of today's development and the implications for future generations, we need to look at the digital economy and the increasing use of digital tools. Digitalization can not only solve today's problems but also generate new ones, the consequences of which may be felt by the next generation in the case of inefficient use of digital technologies. In the world, digitalization processes have significantly accelerated after quarantine and affected not only developed countries but also Ukraine and other developing countries. They relate to all spheres of public life, in particular, to the interaction of citizens with public authorities.In Ukraine, the introduction of digital tools in the work of state and municipal authorities has not become as widespread as abroad, but it is worth noting some steps in this direction. The following digital tools for interaction between the government and communities are already in force or will be implemented in the nearest future: for the government – feedback from the community population; involvement of people into the managerial process. For adult residents of communities – Centres for providing administrative services, which work as centres of "Action"; consulting zones for entrepreneurs; online population survey; local chatbots. For students and schoolchildren – the opportunity to get an IT profession online; career guidance online courses; electronic magazines.Along with public authorities, digitalization processes have confidently entered the business sphere, and this has become especially noticeable in the conditions of quarantine, according to which many employees were forced to switch to remote work. Digital tools allow businesses to adapt to new realities and build relationships between employees, customers and partners on a fundamentally new basis. They help to automate routine processes and business, and also to redirect free resources in the direction of finding new ideas for business development.Digitalization has also affected the scientific sphere – today it is difficult for the average scientist to imagine his work without the use of, for example, Google tools, in particular, such as Google Cloud Platform, Google Academy, etc. Thanks to them, it is possible to conduct comprehensive research and publish their results. And the use of such specialized digital tools for scientists as Google Public Data, Dataset Search and Google Data Studio makes it possible to work effectively with data sets.Along with the scientific sphere, digitalization is closely connected with the educational field. Responding to the quarantine requirements for distance learning, the State Education Quality Service of Ukraine has introduced the following distance forms: the study of practical experience of work of participants in the certification of pedagogical staff; conducting institutional audits of general secondary education institutions.Areas of intensification of the use of digital tools to ensure sustainable development are regulatory, organizational-managerial, labour, competency-based, project, infrastructure and international. The development of digitalization and the introduction of digital tools in social processes have become inevitable, so it is necessary to ensure the implementation of digitalization procedures with maximum effect.Conclusions and prospects for further studies. Digital tools can be defined as a tool, a mean to improve communication between individuals and legal entities and the state through digital technologies and online communications. In the direction for ensuring the sustainable development of society, digital tools are essential tools that minimize resource costs, which allows you to redirect their use in a more constructive direction and, if possible, to preserve the resource potential for future generations. ; Розглянуто особливості використання цифрових інструментів відповідно до потреб забезпечення сталого розвитку в суспільстві. Вивчено специфіку застосування цифрових інструментів у різних сферах життєдіяльності суспільства. Проаналізовано еволюцію розвитку цифрових інструментів у світі протягом останніх двадцяти років. Представлено напрями активізації застосування цифрових інструментів забезпечення сталого розвитку на сучасному етапі трансформаційних змін в Україні.

Multi-body systems (MSs) are assemblies composed of multiple bodies (either rigid or structurally flexible) connected among each other by means of mechanical joints. In many engineering fields (such as aerospace, aeronautics, robotics, machinery, military weapons and bio-mechanics) a large number of systems (e.g. space robots, aircraft, terrestrial vehicles, industrial machinery, launching systems) can be included in this category. The dynamic characteristics and performance of such complex systems need to be accurately and rapidly analyzed and predicted. Taking this engineering background into consideration, a new branch of study, named as Multi-body Systems Dynamics (MSD), emerged in the 1960s and has become an important research and development area in modern mechanics; it mainly addresses the theoretical modeling, numerical analysis, design optimization and control for complex MSs. The research on dynamics modeling and numerical solving techniques for rigid multi-body systems has relatively matured and perfected through the developments over the past half century. However, for many engineering problems, the rigid multi-body system model cannot meet the requirements in terms of precision. It is then necessary to consider the coupling between the large rigid motions of the MS components and their elastic displacements; thus the study of the dynamics of flexible MSs has gained increasing relevance. The flexible MSD involves many theories and methods, such as continuum mechanics, computational mechanics and nonlinear dynamics, thus implying a higher requirement on the theoretical basis. Robotic on-orbit operations for servicing, repairing or de-orbiting existing satellites are among space mission concepts expected to have a relevant role in a close future. In particular, many studies have been focused on removing significant debris objects from their orbit. While mission designs involving tethers, nets, harpoons or glues are among options studied and analyzed by the scientific and industrial community, the debris removal by means of robotic manipulators seems to be the solution with the longest space experience. In fact, robotic manipulators are now a well-established technology in space applications as they are routinely used for handling and assembling large space modules and for reducing human extravehicular activities on the International Space Station. The operations are generally performed in a tele-operated approach, where the slow motion of the robotic manipulator is controlled by specialized operators on board of the space station or at the ground control center. Grasped objects are usually cooperative, meaning they are capable to re-orient themselves or have appropriate mechanisms for engagement with the end-effectors of the manipulator (i.e. its terminal parts). On the other hand, debris removal missions would target objects which are often non-controlled and lacking specific hooking points. Moreover, there would be a distinctive advantage in terms of cost and reliability to conduct this type of mission profile in a fully autonomous manner, as issues like obstacle avoidance could be more easily managed locally than from a far away control center. Space Manipulator Systems (SMSs) are satellites made of a base platform equipped with one or more robotic arms. A SMS is a floating system because its base is not fixed to the ground like in terrestrial manipulators; therefore, the motion of the robotic arms affects the attitude and position of the base platform and vice versa. This reciprocal influence is denoted as "dynamic coupling" and makes the dynamics modeling and motion planning of a space robot much more complicated than those of fixed-base manipulators. Indeed, SMSs are complex systems whose dynamics modeling requires appropriate theoretical and mathematical tools. The growing importance SMSs are acquiring is due to their operational ductility as they are able to perform complicated tasks such as repairing, refueling, re-orbiting spacecraft, assembling articulated space structures and cleaning up the increasing amount of space debris. SMSs have also been employed in several rendezvous and docking missions. They have also been the object of many studies which verified the possibility to extend the operational life of commercial and scientific satellites by using an automated servicing spacecraft dedicated to repair, refuel and/or manage their failures (e.g. DARPA's Orbital Express and JAXA's ETS VII). Furthermore, Active Debris Removal (ADR) via robotic systems is one of the main concerns governments and space agencies have been facing in the last years. As a result, the grasping and post-grasping operations on non-cooperative objects are still open research areas facing many technical challenges: the target object identification by means of passive or active optical techniques, the estimation of its kinematic state, the design of dexterous robotic manipulators and end-effectors, the multi-body dynamics analysis, the selection of approaching and grasping maneuvers and the post-grasping mission planning are the main open research challenges in this field. The missions involving the use of SMSs are usually characterized by the following typical phases: 1. Orbital approach; 2. Rendez-vous; 3. Robotic arm(s) deployment; 4. Pre-grasping; 5. Grasping and post-grasping operations. This thesis project will focus on the last three. The manuscript is structured as follows: Chapter 1 presents the derivation of a multi-body system dynamics equations further developing them to reach their Kane's formulation; Chapter 2 investigates two different approaches (Particle Swarm Optimization and Machine Learning) dealing with a space manipulator deployment maneuver; Chapter 3 addresses the design of a combined Impedance+PD controller capable of accomplishing the pre-grasping phase goals and Chapter 4 is dedicated to the dynamic modeling of the closed-loop kinematic chain formed by the manipulator and the grasped target object and to the synthesis of a Jacobian Transpose+PD controller for a post-grasping docking maneuver. Finally, the concluding remarks summarize the overall thesis contribution.

IIn central Tunisia, the agricultural intensification of irrigated agriculture generates local and regional environmental impacts, linked to an increased consumption of inputs and resources, including water and soil. In favor of a more sustainable agriculture and in order to inform public policies of agricultural development, it is necessary to assess the impacts of agricultural practices and water and soil conservation planning (WSCP), and this at the territory scale. The question is how to implement an environmental assessment approach in a context of 1) scarcity of reliable data including statistics, and complexity of farming practices, 2) prominence of socio-economic issues over environmental concerns 3) lack of knowledge of the perception of local actors on these issues and therefore of difficulty in identifying relevant indicators (scientific and of the stakeholders) and mobilizable. We propose an innovative approach to design and implement a participative approach involving different types of actors, to enable them to get more insights into each other's logic and perceptions of the impacts of agricultural practices and WSCP. This approach is designed to produce quality information by valuing local knowledge, share and take into account the perceptions of different stakeholders, and finally, build a consensus to contribute to the development of more effective WSCP policies. This approach has been structured in two main stages: the design of a community of practices articulated to a participatory systemic rapid diagnosis and the implementation of participatory workshops. The evaluation mobilized a dual mechanism including external observers and a satisfaction survey among participants. The survey is based on an evaluation grid of this approach, its outcomes and its short term induced effect. Sharing and taking into account the information and data collected, as well as the expertise and perceptions of the various stakeholders, has made possible to produce information deemed satisfactory or very satisfactory by all the participants. This nourished the knowledge of almost all the stakeholders and contributed to a constructive dynamic of collective learning. Our approach has contributed significantly to the evolution of perceptions and to a stronger mutual understanding between government officials and farmers. A dashboard grouping the indicators mobilized by each stakeholder was discussed and allowed to highlight convergences and differences in their analysis grids. The gradual and adaptive structuring of the approach, the choices of the stakeholders, the venues for the workshops and the use of a neutral facilitator were very important factors for the commitment and the mobilization of the stakeholders, in particular at the central scale, in this operational space for consultation on territorial issues, agricultural practices and WSCP. This work demonstrates the interest of integrating the engineering of consultation and environmental assessment within one approach and its feasibility in a difficult context for the ACES policies implementation. ; En Tunisie centrale, l'intensification agricole de l'agriculture irriguée engendre des impacts environnementaux locaux et régionaux liés à une consommation accrue en intrants et ressources, dont l'eau et le sol. En faveur d'une agriculture plus durable et pour éclairer les politiques publiques de développement agricole, il est nécessaire d'évaluer les impacts des pratiques agricoles et d'aménagement de conservation des eaux et des sols (ACES), et ceci à l'échelle d'un territoire. La question est ainsi de savoir comment mettre en oeuvre une démarche d'évaluation environnementale dans un contexte 1) de rareté de données fiables y compris statistiques, et de complexité des pratiques agricoles, 2) de proéminence des questions socioéconomiques sur les préoccupations environnementales 3) de méconnaissance de la perception des acteurs locaux sur ces questions et donc de difficulté à identifier des indicateurs pertinents (sur le plan scientifique et des acteurs) et mobilisables. Nous proposons une démarche innovante de conception et mise en oeuvre d'une approche participative regroupant différents types d'acteurs, pour leur permettre d'appréhender mutuellement leurs logiques et leurs perceptions des impacts des pratiques agricoles et des ACES. Cette démarche est conçue pour produire de l'information de qualité en valorisant les savoirs locaux, partager et prendre en compte les perceptions des différents acteurs, et enfin construire des consensus pour contribuer à l'élaboration de politiques d'ACES plus efficaces. Elle a été structurée en deux grandes étapes : la conception en communauté de pratique articulée à un diagnostic rapide participatif systémique et la mise en oeuvre d'ateliers participatifs. L'évaluation a mobilisé un double dispositif comprenant des observateurs extérieurs et une enquête de satisfaction auprès des participants. Elle s'appuie sur une grille d'évaluation de cette démarche, de ses produits et des effets induits à court terme. Le partage et la prise en compte des informations et des données collectées, mais aussi des expertises et perceptions des différents acteurs, a permis de produire des informations jugées satisfaisantes ou très satisfaisantes par la totalité des participants. Cela a nourri les connaissances de la quasi-totalité des acteurs et a contribué à une dynamique constructive d'apprentissage collectif. Notre démarche a nettement contribué à l'évolution des perceptions et à une plus forte compréhension mutuelle des agents de l'administration et des agriculteurs. Un tableau de bord regroupant les indicateurs mobilisés par chaque acteur a été discuté et a permis de mettre en évidence convergences et différences dans leurs grilles d'analyse. La structuration progressive et adaptative de la démarche, les choix des acteurs, des lieux de réalisation des ateliers et le recours à un animateur neutre ont été des facteurs très importants pour l'engagement et la mobilisation des acteurs, en particulier au niveau central, dans cet espace opérationnel de concertation sur les enjeux territoriaux, les pratiques agricoles et les ACES. Ce travail démontre l'intérêt de l'intégration de l'ingénierie de la concertation et de l'évaluation environnementale au sein d'une même démarche et sa faisabilité dans un contexte difficile pour la mise en oeuvre de politiques d'ACES.

IIn central Tunisia, the agricultural intensification of irrigated agriculture generates local and regional environmental impacts, linked to an increased consumption of inputs and resources, including water and soil. In favor of a more sustainable agriculture and in order to inform public policies of agricultural development, it is necessary to assess the impacts of agricultural practices and water and soil conservation planning (WSCP), and this at the territory scale. The question is how to implement an environmental assessment approach in a context of 1) scarcity of reliable data including statistics, and complexity of farming practices, 2) prominence of socio-economic issues over environmental concerns 3) lack of knowledge of the perception of local actors on these issues and therefore of difficulty in identifying relevant indicators (scientific and of the stakeholders) and mobilizable. We propose an innovative approach to design and implement a participative approach involving different types of actors, to enable them to get more insights into each other's logic and perceptions of the impacts of agricultural practices and WSCP. This approach is designed to produce quality information by valuing local knowledge, share and take into account the perceptions of different stakeholders, and finally, build a consensus to contribute to the development of more effective WSCP policies. This approach has been structured in two main stages: the design of a community of practices articulated to a participatory systemic rapid diagnosis and the implementation of participatory workshops. The evaluation mobilized a dual mechanism including external observers and a satisfaction survey among participants. The survey is based on an evaluation grid of this approach, its outcomes and its short term induced effect. Sharing and taking into account the information and data collected, as well as the expertise and perceptions of the various stakeholders, has made possible to produce information deemed satisfactory or very satisfactory by all the participants. This nourished the knowledge of almost all the stakeholders and contributed to a constructive dynamic of collective learning. Our approach has contributed significantly to the evolution of perceptions and to a stronger mutual understanding between government officials and farmers. A dashboard grouping the indicators mobilized by each stakeholder was discussed and allowed to highlight convergences and differences in their analysis grids. The gradual and adaptive structuring of the approach, the choices of the stakeholders, the venues for the workshops and the use of a neutral facilitator were very important factors for the commitment and the mobilization of the stakeholders, in particular at the central scale, in this operational space for consultation on territorial issues, agricultural practices and WSCP. This work demonstrates the interest of integrating the engineering of consultation and environmental assessment within one approach and its feasibility in a difficult context for the ACES policies implementation. ; En Tunisie centrale, l'intensification agricole de l'agriculture irriguée engendre des impacts environnementaux locaux et régionaux liés à une consommation accrue en intrants et ressources, dont l'eau et le sol. En faveur d'une agriculture plus durable et pour éclairer les politiques publiques de développement agricole, il est nécessaire d'évaluer les impacts des pratiques agricoles et d'aménagement de conservation des eaux et des sols (ACES), et ceci à l'échelle d'un territoire. La question est ainsi de savoir comment mettre en oeuvre une démarche d'évaluation environnementale dans un contexte 1) de rareté de données fiables y compris statistiques, et de complexité des pratiques agricoles, 2) de proéminence des questions socioéconomiques sur les préoccupations environnementales 3) de méconnaissance de la perception des acteurs locaux sur ces questions et donc de difficulté à identifier des indicateurs pertinents (sur le plan scientifique et des acteurs) et mobilisables. Nous proposons une démarche innovante de conception et mise en oeuvre d'une approche participative regroupant différents types d'acteurs, pour leur permettre d'appréhender mutuellement leurs logiques et leurs perceptions des impacts des pratiques agricoles et des ACES. Cette démarche est conçue pour produire de l'information de qualité en valorisant les savoirs locaux, partager et prendre en compte les perceptions des différents acteurs, et enfin construire des consensus pour contribuer à l'élaboration de politiques d'ACES plus efficaces. Elle a été structurée en deux grandes étapes : la conception en communauté de pratique articulée à un diagnostic rapide participatif systémique et la mise en oeuvre d'ateliers participatifs. L'évaluation a mobilisé un double dispositif comprenant des observateurs extérieurs et une enquête de satisfaction auprès des participants. Elle s'appuie sur une grille d'évaluation de cette démarche, de ses produits et des effets induits à court terme. Le partage et la prise en compte des informations et des données collectées, mais aussi des expertises et perceptions des différents acteurs, a permis de produire des informations jugées satisfaisantes ou très satisfaisantes par la totalité des participants. Cela a nourri les connaissances de la quasi-totalité des acteurs et a contribué à une dynamique constructive d'apprentissage collectif. Notre démarche a nettement contribué à l'évolution des perceptions et à une plus forte compréhension mutuelle des agents de l'administration et des agriculteurs. Un tableau de bord regroupant les indicateurs mobilisés par chaque acteur a été discuté et a permis de mettre en évidence convergences et différences dans leurs grilles d'analyse. La structuration progressive et adaptative de la démarche, les choix des acteurs, des lieux de réalisation des ateliers et le recours à un animateur neutre ont été des facteurs très importants pour l'engagement et la mobilisation des acteurs, en particulier au niveau central, dans cet espace opérationnel de concertation sur les enjeux territoriaux, les pratiques agricoles et les ACES. Ce travail démontre l'intérêt de l'intégration de l'ingénierie de la concertation et de l'évaluation environnementale au sein d'une même démarche et sa faisabilité dans un contexte difficile pour la mise en oeuvre de politiques d'ACES.

AbstractScience and technology activities for the community aims to provide knowledge to them in finding solutions to problems. Tateli II is one of the villages in Tateli II Village, Mandolang Sub-district, Minahasa District, North Sulawesi Province. Tateli II village fishermen are often or often confused with the marketing of fishery products because of the low selling price; this is because of their low state of knowledge about postharvest handling so that income is always low. Fishermen should be taught how to handle post-harvest catch so that when sold will create a reasonable price and at least be in accordance with the results of the business. One effort to maintain the quality of fishery products of fisherman production since harvested to the hands of consumers, and fish in a fresh / wet condition is handling with cold chain system (cold chain system).Training methods are based on adult learning methods (self-taught) and classically by providing theory and practice through lectures and group discussions (FGD: Focus Group Disscution). Implementation is made by providing theory as much as 25% and practice as much as 75% for 8 months.First, approach the village government to obtain permits and discuss the timing of meetings for the implementation of the technology extension / demonstration that will be implemented in view of the importance of time-gathering arrangements in this case the fishermen group.Extension and training activities can provide a view to the fisherman about the importance of post-arrest handling that is to maintain the quality of the fish in a cold state so it is not easily damaged or rotten. Counseling is given to the fishermen either individually or in groups. Conducted in groups in order that they can use this group in developing a capture fishery business can propose funding and / or equipment aid proposals through existing groups.Based on the results of observation, counseling and training, the activities of IbM Fishermen Group of Tateli II Village of Mandolang Sub-District of Minahasa Regency: 1. Fisherman Group of Tateli II Village of Mandolang Sub-district, have conducted fishing activities and there is desire from them all to use system where fish must be kept cool or keep it at a low temperature. 2. The fishermen group of Desa Tateli II Mandolang sub-district is able to understand that by maintaining the temperature of the fish remains cool the selling price can be high and apada can eventually increase their income. 3. Individual awareness as well as group members on the importance of group roles, spontaneously they want to submit fund and equipment proposal to the Government of North Sulawesi Province. Changes in attitude towards such development can provide a guarantee of the sustainability of their business so that the future can change the state of the economy and their daily circumstances and their families in a better direction.Keywords: ekstention, Female Workers AbstrakKegiatan Iptek bagi masyarakat ini bertujuan memberikan pengetahuan kepada mereka dalam menemukan pemecahan permasalahan. Tateli II merupakan salah satu desa yang berada di Desa Tateli II Kecamatan Mandolang Kabupaten Minahasa, Provinsi Sulawesi Utara. Nelayan desa Tateli II kerap kali atau sering bingung dengan pemasaran hasil perikanan karena harga jual yang selalu rendah; hal ini karena keadaan pengetahuan mereka yang rendah tentang penanganan pascapanen sehingga pendapatan selalu rendah. Nelayan harus diajarkan bagaimana cara menangani hasil tangkapan pascapanen supaya bila dijual akan menciptakan harga yang layak dan minimal bisa sesuai dengan hasil usaha. Salah satu usaha untuk menjaga mutu hasil perikanan produksi nelayan sejak dipanen sampai di tangan konsumen, dan ikan dalam keadaan segar/basah yaitu penanganan dengan system rantai dingin (cold chain system).Metode pelatihan dilakukan berdasarkan metode pembelajaran orang dewasa (otodidak) dan secara klasikal dengan memberikan teori dan praktek melalui ceramah dan diskusi kelompok (FGD: Focus Group Disscution). Pelaksanaannya dibuat dengan cara memberikan teori sebanyak 25% dan praktek sebanyak 75% selama 8 bulan.Pertama, melakukan pendekatan kepada pemerintah desa untuk mendapatkan ijin serta mendiskusikan tentang waktu pertemuan untuk pelaksanaan penyuluhan/demonstrasi teknologi yang akan diterapkan mengingat pentingnya pengaturan waktu mengumpulkan masa sekalipun dalam hal ini kelompok nelayan.Kegiatan penyuluhan dan pelatihan dapat memberikan pandangan kepada nelayan akan pentingnya penanganan pasca penangkapan yaitu harus mempertahankan mutu ikan dalam keadaan dingin sehingga tidak mudah rusak atau busuk. Penyuluhan diberikan kepada nelayan baik secara individyu ataupun secara berkelompok. Dilakukan secara berkelompok agar disuatu saat mereka bisa menggunakan kelompok ini dalam mengembangkan usaha perikanan tangkap dapat mengusulkan proposal bantuan dana dan atau peralatan melalui kelompok yang ada.Berdasarkan hasil pengamatan, penyuluhan dan pelatihan, maka kegiatan IbM Kelompok Nelayan Desa Tateli II Kecamatan Mandolang Kabupaten Minahasa : 1. Kelompok nelayan Desa Tateli II Kecamatan Mandolang, sudah melaksanakan kegiatan penangkapan ikan dan ada keinginan dari mereka semua untuk menggunakan sistem dimana ikan harus tetap dingin atau tetap pada suhu rendah. 2. Kelompok nelayan Desa Tateli II Kecamatan Mandolang mampu memahami bahwa dengan mempertahankan suhu ikan tetap dingin maka harga jual bisa tinggi dan apada akhirnya bisa meningkatkan pendapatan mereka. 3. Kesadaran secara individual dan juga anggota kelompok akan pentingnya peranan kelompok, secara spontanitas mereka ingin mengajukan proposal dana dan peralatan ke Pemerintah Provinsi Sulut. Perubahan sikap ke arah pengembangan demikian dapat memberikan jaminan keberlanjutan usaha mereka sehingga kedepannya bisa merubah keadaan perekonomian dan keadaan sehari-hari mereka dan keluarganya ke arah yang lebih baik.Kata Kunci : extensions, training, cold chain

As the capabilities of the mobile robots as well as their abilities to perform more tasks in an autonomous manner are increased, we need to think about the interactions that humans will have with these robots. Human-robot interaction (HRI) has recently received considerable attention in the academic community, government labs, technology companies, and through the media. The interdisciplinary nature of HRI requires researchers in the field to understand their research within a broader context. Since natural language is the easiest and most natural mode of communication for humans, it is desirable to use it to instruct the robot and to generate easy-to-understand messages for the user. Using natural language to teach a navigation task to a robot is an application of a more general instruction-based learning methodology. It can be used to instruct the robot with higher-level goals or to handle certain behaviors and modify their execution. One effective way is to describe the route to the robot in a multimodal way. On the other hand, significant progress has been made towards stable robotic bipedal walking in the last few years. This is creating an increased research interest in developing autonomous navigation strategies which are tailored specifically to humanoid robots. Efficient approaches to perception and motion planning, which are suited to the unique characteristics of bipedal humanoid robots and their typical operating environments, are receiving special interest. One important area of research involves the design of algorithms to compute robust navigation strategies for humanoid robots in human environments. Therefore, autonomous robot navigation based on route instruction is becoming an increasingly important research topic with regard to both humanoid and other mobile robots. In this dissertation, the problem of humanoid robot navigation in indoor environments is addressed. A complete framework is presented for humanoid robot navigation based on a multimodal cognitive interface. First, a spatial language to describe route-based navigation tasks for a mobile robot is proposed. This language is implemented to present an intuitive interface that enables novice users to easily and naturally describe a route to a mobile robot in indoor environments. An instruction interpreter is implemented to analyze the user's route to generate its equivalent symbolic and topological map representations which are used as an initial path estimation for the humanoid robot. Second, a robust lightweight object processing system with a high detection rate is developed. It can actually be used by mobile robots and meet their hard constraints to recognize landmarks during navigation. A landmark processing system is developed to detect, identify, and localize different types of landmarks during robot navigation in indoor or miniature city environments. The system is based on a two-step classification stage which is robust and invariant towards scaling and translations. By combining the strengths of appearance-based and model-based object classification techniques, it provides a good balance between fast processing time and high detection accuracy. Finally, a time-efficient hybrid motion planning system for a humanoid robot in indoor environments is implemented. The proposed technique is a combination of sampling-based planner and D* Lite search to generate dynamic footstep placements in unknown environments. A modified cylinder model is used to approximate the trajectory for the robot's body-center during navigation. It calculates the actual distances required to execute different actions of the robot and compares them to the distances from the nearest obstacles. D* Lite search is then used to find dynamic and low-cost footstep placements within the resulting configuration space. ; Da die Fähigkeiten von mobilen Robotern einschließlich ihrer Möglichkeiten, Aufgaben autonom durchzuführen, erweitert wurden, muss die Interaktion zwischen Mensch und Roboter neu betrachtet werden. Human-Robot-Interaction (HRI) ist ein aktuelles Thema in der Forschung, in Technologie-Unternehmen und in den Medien. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter des HRI-Bereiches erfordert Forschung innerhalb eines breiten Themenkomplexes. Da natürliche Sprache das einfachste und natürlichste Mittel der Kommunikation für Menschen ist, ist es wünschenswert, diese Form der Kommunikation auch bei der HRI zu nutzen, um einem Roboter Anweisungen zu geben und leicht verständliche Botschaften für den Benutzer zu generieren. Die Verwendung natürlicher Sprache zur Instruierung bei Navigations-Aufgaben ist eine Anwendung einer allgemeineren instruktions-basierten Lernmethodologie. Dem Roboter können so übergeordnete Ziele mitgeteilt werden, bestimmte Verhaltensweisen geändert oder auch die Ausführung einzelner Aktionen modifiziert werden. Eine effiziente Methode zur Beschreibung der Route ist die Verwendung multimodaler Anweisungen. Weil die vergangenen Jahre einen bedeutenden Fortschritt auf dem Gebiet der humanoiden Roboter und des stabilen zweibeinigen Gehens gebracht haben, besteht ein verstärktes Forschungsinteresse an der Entwicklung autonomer Navigationsstrategien, die speziell auf humanoide Roboter zugeschnitten sind. Von besonderem Interesse sind effiziente Ansätze zur kombinierten Perzeptions- und Aktionsplanung, die an die speziellen Eigenschaften von zweibeinigen humanoiden Robotern und ihre typischen Betriebsumgebungen angepasst sind. Ein wichtiges Gebiet der Forschung ist der Entwurf von Algorithmen zur Berechnung von robusten Navigations-Strategien für humanoide Roboter in menschlicher Umgebung. Aus diesem Grunde ist die auf Routen-Instruktion beruhende autonome Roboter-Navigation ein zunehmend interessantes Thema im Hinblick auf humanoide und andere mobile Roboter. Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit dem Problem der humanoiden Roboter-Navigation in Innenräumen. Es wird ein komplettes Framework für humanoide Roboter-Navigation basierend auf einer multimodalen Schnittstelle vorgestellt. Zunächst wird eine formale Sprache eingeführt, mit der die routen-basierten Navigationsaufgaben beschrieben werden können. Diese Sprache stellt eine intuitive Schnittstelle bereit, mit der auch unerfahrene Anwender leicht einen mobilen Roboter in einer Route in Innenräumen instruieren können. Ein Befehls-Interpreter analysiert die Benutzer-Eingabe und generiert entsprechende symbolische und topologische Darstellungen, die als erste Pfad-Schätzung für den humanoiden Roboter verwendet werden. Des Weiteren wird in dieser Arbeit ein robustes und effizientes Objekterkennungssystem mit einer hohen Erkennungsrate entwickelt. Es kann bei mobilen Robotern eingesetzt werden und erfüllt die Anforderung, Landmarken während der Navigation zu erkennen. Das Landmarken-Detektions-System ist in der Lage, während der Roboter-Navigation in einer Miniatur-Stadt verschiedene Typen von Landmarken zu detektieren, identifizieren und zu lokalisieren. Das System basiert auf einem zweistufigen Klassifikations-Prozess, der robust und invariant gegenüber Skalierung und Translation ist. Durch die Kombination der Stärken der erscheinungs-basierten und modell-basierten Objekt-Klassifikation bietet es einen guten Kompromiss zwischen schnellen Bearbeitungszeiten und hoher Erkennungsgenauigkeit. Ebenfalls Bestandteil dieser Arbeit ist die Implementierung eines zeiteffizienten hybriden Bewegungs-Planungs-Systems für humanoide Roboter in einer Innenraum-Umgebung. Die vorgeschlagene Technik ist eine Kombination aus Sampling-basierter Planung und "D * Lite"-Suche, die ermöglicht, dynamisch Tritt-Platzierungen in unbekannten Umgebungen zu erzeugen. Ein modifiziertes Zylinder-Modell wird verwendet, um die Trajektorie des Roboters während der Navigation näherungsweise zu bestimmen. Die Planungskomponente berechnet die benötigten Freiräume, um verschiedene Aktionen des Roboters auszuführen und vergleicht sie mit der aktuellen Entfernung zu den nächstgelegenen Hindernissen. "D* Lite"-Suche wird dann verwendet, um eine dynamische und effiziente Platzierung der Schritte innerhalb des resultierenden Konfigurations-Raumes zu finden.

El punto de partida ha sido conocer y reflexionar sobre los motivos por los que una gran parte del profesorado parecía mostrar cierta resistencia para contribuir a "la normalización"1 de las TICs en la clase de inglés, aun contando con los recursos materiales necesarios. Para ello comenzamos una investigación basada en la elaboración de cuestionarios enviados a todos los profesores de inglés que componen la plantilla de los centros de Enseñanza Secundaria públicos y concertados de la provincia de Badajoz; de entrevistas realizadas a un grupo de estos profesores, y del estudio de documentos oficiales sobre enseñanza secundaria, publicados por la propia Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Extremadura y por el Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, junto con el CNICE, en España. El trabajo se ha estructurado en tres partes, con un total de ocho capítulos, presentados de la siguiente manera: 1) En primer lugar, se ha elaborado el planteamiento del problema en torno al que se ha realizado toda la investigación, identificando las cuestiones que van a servir de orientación y guía para la misma. 2) En segundo lugar, y dentro de la primera parte, está el contexto de la investigación, en el que se hace un análisis de dos de los documentos oficiales en materia de educación más relevantes, prestando especial atención a la utilización de las TICs en la Enseñanza Secundaria. El primero de ellos realizado en la comunidad de Extremadura y, el segundo, en todo el territorio nacional. Ambos nos van a permitir entender el panorama educativo actual en el que se enmarca nuestro estudio. 3) A continuación, la segunda parte, sobre fundamentación teórica, que contiene todos los temas relacionados con el objeto de estudio. Se estructura en tres capítulos que van desde la importancia de las TICs y del carácter innovador con el que impregnan el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje; el estudio de las actitudes del profesorado en general hacia la utilización de las TICs y ante las reformas educativas; y por último, un capítulo dedicado a la normalización de las TICs en la enseñanza de las lenguas y a su integración en el currículo. 4) La tercera parte, que consta de cuatro capítulos, aborda todo el proceso de investigación, y en él se establecen las bases de la metodología utilizada; la presentación de los datos de cuestionarios y entrevistas, y la discusión y análisis de los resultados que se obtienen en los mismos y que se realizan considerando los objetivos e hipótesis propuestos en la investigación. En este capítulo se incluyen además las referencias del "Análisis del Debate Educativo" en Enseñanza Secundaria en Extremadura, necesarias para realizar la triangulación de resultados. Por último, las conclusiones que se derivan del análisis y las propuestas de mejora. ; The starting point has been to know and reflect on the reasons why a large part of the teaching staff seemed to show some resistance to contributing to the "standardisation "1 of ICTs in the English class, even though they had the necessary material resources. To do so, we began an investigation based on the elaboration of questionnaires sent to all the English teachers who make up the staff of public and subsidized Secondary Schools in the province of Badajoz; on interviews carried out with a group of these teachers, and on the study of official documents on Secondary Education, published by the Department of Education of the Regional Government of Extremadura and by the Ministry of Education and Science, together with the CNICE, in Spain. The work has been structured in three parts, with a total of eight chapters, presented as follows: 1) Firstly, the approach to the problem around which all the research has been carried out has been developed, identifying the issues that will guide and guide the research. 2) Secondly, and within the first part, there is the context of the research, in which an analysis is made of two of the most relevant official documents in the field of education, paying special attention to the use of ICTs in Secondary Education. The first one was carried out in the Community of Extremadura and the second one in the whole national territory. Both will allow us to understand the current educational panorama in which our study is framed. 3) Next, the second part, on theoretical foundations, which contains all the topics related to the object of study. It is structured into three chapters, ranging from the importance of ICTs and the innovative nature with which they permeate the teaching and learning process; the study of teacher attitudes in general towards the use of ICTs and towards educational reforms; and finally, a chapter devoted to the standardisation of ICTs in language teaching and their integration into the curriculum. 4) The third part, which consists of four chapters, deals with the entire research process, establishing the basis of the methodology used; the presentation of data from questionnaires and interviews, and the discussion and analysis of the results obtained from these, which are carried out in the light of the objectives and hypotheses proposed in the research. This chapter also includes the references of the "Analysis of the Educational Debate" in Secondary Education in Extremadura, necessary to carry out the triangulation of results. Finally, the conclusions derived from the analysis and the proposals for improvement.

Introduction: Internal conflict has become the predominant threat to the security and stability of many of the small island nations of the Southwest Pacific and particularly in the countries of Melanesia. Since the late 1980s, conflicts of varying causes and degrees of intensity have occurred in Papua New Guinea (Bougainville secession attempt), Fiji (coups and attempted coups), Vanuatu (police rebellion) and Solomon Islands (ethnic conflict and coup). These events have seriously debilitated the already fragile national economies and polities of all countries, so much so in the Solomon Islands that that country is now being described by many analysts as a failing, if not failed, state. While most of these countries have so far been able (not without difficulty) to maintain a measure of state integrity, the situation in Solomon Islands has become so precarious that Australia and New Zealand (with the support of most Pacific Island governments and anticipating a request from the Solomons parliament) are preparing to intervene in an attempt to restore the rule of law and rebuild administrative institutions. The form of that intervention is not yet clear - it is thought likely to include up to 2,000 armed military and police with a large team of civilian technical personnel nor has a mandate been determined. In this context a host of questions arises as to how best to resolve, contain, manage and/or transform these internal conflicts in the interest of the security, stability and well-being of the peoples of the countries concerned and of the region as a whole. What are the ways out - or ways through - such conflicts? What are the appropriate domestic strategies, policies and mechanisms for resolving conflict and producing stability? Are they sufficient to the task? What roles can (and should) regional states play in helping states manage, settle or ameliorate internal conflict? Is external intervention the answer? What is the likely impact of such intervention? Is there a regional security architecture that might be useful in these circumstances? Is there a role for NGOs? Is conflict prevention possible? And if so, how? Do the answers not lie in a holistic approach to improving the processes of economic development and governance? And if so what agencies and policies are most likely to bring this about? How has the region responded to date? These questions deserve serious consideration and doubtless many will have been explored in presentations and discussions at this conference. The purpose of this paper is to consider one form of conflict management undertaken recently in the region; that is, the peace monitoring interventions by Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific Island Countries (PICs) in Bougainville and Solomon Islands. How useful have these exercises been in assisting peace processes and in conflict management/peace construction, and what lessons can be drawn from them for any future such operations - including perhaps for the more vigorous co-operative intervention currently in prospect? From 1997 to 2003, the Truce Monitoring Group (TMG) and later the Peace Monitoring Group (PMG), consisting of unarmed Australian, New Zealand and Pacific Islands military and civilian personnel, provided support to and helped facilitate the peace process in Bougainville. These external groups, numbering from 250 to 300 personnel at various points in time, were agreed to by the parties to the Burnham and Lincoln peace conferences held in 1997 and 1998. In Solomon Islands, following the conclusion of the Townsville Peace Agreement (TPA) in October 2000 to mid-2002, an International Peace Monitoring Team (IPMT) comprising 50 unarmed police and civilian personnel from Australia, New Zealand and other PICs, was established to work in support of the indigenous Peace Monitoring Council (PMC) that had also been set up by the parties to the TPA to advance the cause of peace. While the specific mandates and responsibilities of the PMG and IPMT differed and the resources available to the two operations also differed substantially the expectation of the signatories to the peace agreements was that by providing a neutral, physical presence, by undertaking community confidence-building activities, and by facilitating contact between stakeholders in the respective peace processes, these interventions would help consolidate peace and reduce the prospect of renewed fighting. Note that these were not coercive interventions or humanitarian interventions in which armed forces under, for example, United Nations or regional agency command are inserted into a civil conflict to stop fighting and bloodshed and to make or keep the peace. They were unarmed and neutral monitoring operations consisting of military, police and civilian personnel inserted after peace agreements had been reached between combatants and authorities. These were a type of intervention designed to assist in conflict management and amelioration as part of the larger peace process rather than as the prime mover of the process.(At times, however, the PMG saw it as its responsibility to help maintain, or re-start, the momentum of the process when it flagged). Note also that in attempting to learn and apply lessons from one countrys conflict to anothers, methodological difficulties arise. Conflicts and resolutions are often context specific and the factors in play in one conflict/post-conflict situation do not always translate well to others. But while there are obvious limits to comparisons, it is nonetheless possible to generate at least some rules of thumb, particularly since there has been (a) such a large number of monitoring interventions of various kinds and (b) that the learning of lessons especially from UN operations has become something of an industry. ; AusAID

Issue 44.1 of the Review for Religious, January/February 1985. ; REVIEW FOR R ELIGIOUS(ISSN 0034-639X), published every two months, is edited in collaboration with the faculty members of the Department of Theological Studies of St. Louis University. The editorial offices are located at Room 428:3601 Lindell Blvd., St. Louis,-MO 63108-3393. REVIEW FOR R ELIGIOOS is owned by the Missouri Province Educational Institute of the Society of Jesus, St. Louis, MO. © 1985 by REVIEW FOR R El.IGlOOS. Composed, printed and manufactured in U.S.A. Second class postage paid at St. Louis, MO. Single copies: $2.50. Subscription U.S.A. $10.00 a year: $19.00 for two years. Other countries: add $2.00 per year (postage). For subscdpllon orders or change of address, write REVIEW FOR RELIGIOOS: P.O. Box 6070; Duluth, MN 55806. Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.S.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor Jan. / Feb., 1985 Volume 44 Number 1 Manuscripts, books for review and correspondence with the editor should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELtGIOOS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the department "Canonical Counsel" should be addressed to Richard A. Hill, S.J.; J.S.T.B.; 1735 LeRoy Ave.; Berkeley, CA 94709. Back issues and reprints should be ordered from REvlEw FOR RELIGIOUS; Room 428; 3601 Lindell Blvd.; St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. "Out of print" issues and articles not published as reprints are available from University Microfilms International; 300 N. Zeeb Rd.; Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Review for Religious ~,'olume 44, i985 Editorial Offices 3601 Lindell Boulevard, Room 428 Saint Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 . Daniel F. X. Meenan, S.J. Dolores Greeley, R.S.M. Iris Ann Ledden, S.~.N.D. Richard A. Hill, S.J. Jean Read Editor Associate Editor Review Editor Contributing Editor Assistant Editor REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November on the twentieth of the month. It is indexed in the Catholic Periodical and Literature Index and in Book Review Index. A microfilm edition of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS isavailable from~University Microfilms International; Ann Arbor, Michigan 48106. Copyright © 1985 by REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS. A major portion of each issue of REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS is also regularly available on cassette recordings as a service for the visually impaired. Write to the Xavier Society for the Blind; 154 East 23rd Street; New York, NY 10010. Religious Life as Unchanging in a World of Change John E Whealon Archbishop Whealon of Hartford addressed the Fall Meeting of the Consortium Perfectae Caritatis in October, 19.84. He may be addressed at his office: Archdiocese of Hartford; 134 Farmingtoh ~v~nue; Hartford, CT 06105. he theme of your meeting, my dear sisters and brothers, is "Religious Life as Unchanging in a World of Change."Th~ medieval~scholastics taught us that distinctions are necessary for ~good thinking, for good logic. So I make a necessary distinction here between the essentials and the accidentals of the religious life. As a Father of the Second Vatican Council (andotherE are precious few of us left :as active bishops these days), I point,out with sortie authority that the council did call'upon religious to change--or at least to consider.changing --the accidentals ofiheir religious life. The operative text is Paragraph 2 of the council's decree Pe~fectae Caritatis, which lays in effect: "The: appropriate renewal of religious life involves two simultaneous processes: (1)'a continuous return to the sources of all Christian life and to the original inspiration behind a given community;, and (2) an adjustment of the community to the .changed conditions of the times." ~ " So the council expected every religious community to fix one eye on the Gospel and on its founder, and the other eye on the modern world, and to update those accidentals which no longer made sense in the modern world. I do think that all communities, nineteen years after that council decree, have done what they were asked to do. The real question is whether some communities have lost some of the essentials as well in their efforts to update. Returning, then, to that basic distinction, I am thinking now of religious life as "Unchanging in E~sentials in a World of Change." 3 4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 I wish to do twothings this afternoon: first, to speak about these essentials; second, to read to you some quasi-private correspondence. What are the essentials for us in our living out of the Christian life? Forgive me, not a religious, for listing her~ some of the items that are essential in my life--I suspect, though, that they are quite essential in your lives as well. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew gives us the Lord's teaching about the person whose house is built on rock. It is a useful metaphor to describe the person who has certain fundamental convictions which carry through the years. Let the tides and eddies and swirls and winds come, the rock-foundation of these convictions is there, unshaken, unmoved, unaffected by what goes on around. So you and I should be solidly based on the rock of our certain convictions, on the essentials of our lives, so that we are not really shaken by what other people say or do, by the spirit of the age, by the shallow currents of our shallow times. I will now list for you five unchanging elements in this world of change. They have carried me through some years which have been very difficult for any bishop. Perhaps the listing of them will find an echo in your own lives as well. The first essential is God. As the years go on, I "become even more convinced that the incredible design in nature, the intricate and intertwined design of the human body and psyche, and the very continuation in being of this world and of us humanbeings in this world and in.life must be explained by God. How a person can go through, life and not accept a Designer, God, who alone explains life, the world, and the universe, I fail to fathom. The second essential is JeJus Christ, the climax of Revelation. By Revelation I mean that truth from God which we know frrm Scripture and the Spirit-guided Tradition of the Church. From Revelation there are many things God had not ~old us and which we can only wonder about and theorize about in theology. We know so little about heaven and ~hell and purgatory, about what Jesus Christ knew,~ about what the Blessed Mother knew, about how she came to the end of her life, about the Apostles, But we know all that we"need to know to save our souls and to lead a good and fruitfully human life --and whatwe know is summed up in one word, because it is the Word-- Jesus, our Lord. Our life isto be the imitation of that Perfect.Life: Our life is to be our acceptance of the One who is the Way, the Truth, the Life. So, as St. Paul said, life is Christ and death is Christ. In thefirst reading, from Galatians, of today's Mass we have the same lesson: we are baptized into Christ, we live totally in Christ. St. Ignatius of Antioch over eighteen centuriesago described Christ as "our inseparable life." This is what it means to have Jesus as our Lord. For us the ~iimax of God's Revelation is Jesus Christ: in what Jesus was and is, and in, what Jesus has taught us and teaches us. So this is a.second solid essential on which to base a life: Jesus Christ, after God. The third essential for living is prayer, mainly personal prayer, but also Religiou~ Life as Unchanging public or liturgical prayer. One of the standard definitions for prayer is -conversation with God. In my life prayer has not been a. conversation at all with God. My prayer is a poor, one-sided effort to speak to the Almighty and to praise the Almighty. I trust and I believe that God is listening. Prayer is a necessary dimension of living,. I believe, so that a day spent without an attempt at mental prayer, a little move towards contemplation, minutes spent in praise and thanksgiving, would be a ,day somehow lost spiritually. I know that prayer does more good for me than I will ever know, and so prayer is the third foundation for living that I list. A fourth essential is community with others. I am not a religious, but I would have a' very difficult time living alone as an anchorite or a hermit. I need to be with others who think and pray and live as I do, and that is why I live with a community of priests. It seems to me that for much the same reasons the religious life is an element in the Catholic Church that will be present until the Lord comes again. So long as the faith is strong, some will want to live out their Christian lives in a community form of life. Some will be called by God to put themselves under vbw in order to live their lives in Christ more fully, in order to do more for Christ and for his Church. So in .a world of change--and I suspect that the prominence of the electronic, media in our society will make inevitable an atmosphere of continuous change in the: years ahead--religious life will be a constant, an ever-available way of life for those with a vocation. A fifth essential element for any Catholic is the Church itself--the Catholic Church possessed, of a teaching authority or rnagisterium that is a part of the Christ's Church. We are the Church, we People of God. But we are also a Church which has a teaching authority. The Lord Jesus gave a universal shepherd and other shepherds to guide his flock. The Lord Jesus, who taught with authority, told his apostles to use his authority and to teach and baptize all nation's, even to the ends of the earth. One of the dominant characteristics of the Catholic Church is its magisterii~m. We have in the Church an authority to tell us what is right and " wrong, what is true and false, what is to be done and what is not to be done. The test of theomagisterium, and of Our acceptance of it, occurs precisely when we are told to believe something or to do something that we personally would prefer not to believe or not to do. The "obedience of faith," then, calls for some humility. And in a proud and indulgent age, neither the concepts nor the words "obedience" and "magisterium~ are very popular. So, specifically by reason of the magisterium in the Church, the Catholic today should know and hold clearly that racial discrimination is wrong, abortion is wrong, contraception is.morally wrong, liberation theology is in some forms dangerous, and ~o forth. I do not see how a person can live the Catholic life fully without following the magisterium. In saying that, I fully realize that there are distinctions which have to be made about the voice 6 '/ Review for Religious, Jan.-~eb., 1985 expressing: magisterial teachings, the clarity and loudness (so to speak) of that voice;, the.topic taught, and so forth. But my point is that the gentiine ~Catholic is to follow the teaching of pope and bishop, and not turn Somersaults so as to avoid accepting magisterial teaching. It is in the context of this acceptance, of magisterial teaching that I see the various reactions (really only two) to the Holy'Father's letter of April 3; 1983, addressed to the diocesan bishops of the United States. The Holy Father asked the bishops to: give special pastoral.service to religious in their dioceses, with a view to express gratitude for all that religious mean for the Church and also to convey concern over the future of this charism in the Church because of the decline in vocations. The papal letter mad~ reference to the Ten Essential Elements .of Religious Life and to their further explanation in an accompanying document drawn up by the Sacred Congregation for .Religious and Secular Institutes. ,, There.,has been much voiced opposition by some U.S: religious to that document and to the Ten Essential Elements. 1 have heard presentations, that go. into a lengthy exegesis of the document, that anal~,ze the mind,set, the limited world-outlook and limited theology o~ its authors, that criticize the ten points for this or that reason. I can only say to such criticisms that it seems to me to,be improper to attempt to separate the document or the Ten Essential Elements from the Holy Father. In September of last year, in company with~a hundred U.S. bishops, I made the obligatory ad limina visit to Rome and presented a quinquennial report~ on the archdiocese. In talking to me, and to,each of the.other U.S. bishops, the Holy Father asked with concern and worry about.the religioias in our dioceses and about their reaction to :his letter. On the basis of my experience, then, it seems tome that the way to read and interpret this letter is to see that the Lord's Universal Shepherd is'worried about a most.important part of the universal flock, the ireligious in the U,S.A., and wants to tell them what religious life should be: in the past, and now, and in the future. A hypercritical or narrowly analytical reading of that letter will offer, I believe, a wrong interpretation and, in view of the magistegium, not a fully Catholic reaction to it. This question of magisterium is of critical importance today for Catholics seeking to understand more fully the dimensions of their faith. During the past twenty years the underlying question in many news stories relating to Catholics has really been about magisterium. And magisterium is the real question un~derlying the recent discussion regarding two Catholic legislators and their pro-choice stance concerning abortion. I conclude this presentation by summarizing the :several points which we need to hold to as basic for living, as Christians and Catholicsand religious, in an ever-changing world: '1) God; 2) Jesus Christ as Lord; 3) prayer,or our aRempts at prayer; 4) religious community; 5) the magisterium' of~the Catholic Church Religious Life as Unehanging / 7 Come what may in future years, may we hold to these essentials and find strength as. we base our lives, build our house, on them; My second purpose this afternoon is to read to you, for whatever wisdom it holds, my answer to the Holy Father's request for special pastoral service to the Leligious of the archdiocese. A copy of this letter has been. sent to Arch-bishop John Quinn for~reference to the Pontifical Commission which he heads and the committee which he appointed. ~ , My answer was dated August 14, 1984, and reads as ~follows: Most Holy Father: This letter is in response to the request of Your Holiness to the U.S.A. diocesan bishops, asking each to give special pastoral service to the religious in the dioceses. After receiving the letter of Your Holiness, I met with either the provincial or council or community of each of the ten communities of religious with provincial houses in the Archdiocese of Hartford. With each group I discussed the esteem of Your Holiness for these religious, your concern for their future, and religious vocations, and their experience of renewal after the Second Vatican Council as seen in the light of the ten "Essential Elements." ~ I learned that of the ten communities, seven [and here I list,,their names] see the ten essentials as expressing their religious life. Most of these have already had their constitutions approved. Of the ten communities three have experienced renewal in. a different way. In general they have experienced a reduction of centralized and local authority In favor of a more collegial approach, an openness to difference and individual apostolates, a willingness to permit smaller groups to live apart from the larger community, and.a replacement of religious garb with a simple secular dress. In these three.communities, however, a minority of the community has kept the religious garb and traditional customs. These are mainly older members of the community. From these interviews, and from meetings with religious outside the Archdiocese, I conclude: 1. We have today in the U.S.A. two sharply different approaches to religious life. The one approach follows the Ten Essentials. The other approach follows some of the Ten Essentials, but has adopted a noticeably more democratic approach to authority, work, living arrangements and religious garb. 2. These two approaches' are irreconcilable. There is a painful division between the two groups, and a more painful division within a community in which the leadership and most younger members have followed a progressive approach to renewal, while most of the older members have remained conservative.* 3. Some; not all, consei'vative communities are growing. The more progressive communities, our largest communities of women, are Review .for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 showing no growth. 4. Because of these two different approaches to religious life, there is widespread confusion about the identity of religious life. 5. The progressive group,, includes many of our best, brightest, most dedicated religious. Their lifestyle and works of religion are to the credit of their community and Chui'ch. And that they are not growing in numbers is cause for lamentation. 6. The progressive group is concerned that its approach to renewal will be judged as not valid, and they will lose their status as religious in the Church. One answer to this is that they have .already effectively ~ converted the community to the status of a secular institute. The picture is extraordinarily complex. My best thinking is that the Holy See could respond in two possible ways: 1. Following the Gamaliel~principle, do nothing. In fifteen years, a brief time in the life .of the Church, the picture will be much more clear. At the end of the century a decision can be made. 2. Designate the religious following the Ten Essentials, including individuals in progressive communities, as "religious. of strict ob-servance," and designate the others by a different terminology. The conservative in progressive communities should be given special consideration.~ ' ~ My conclusion is that there is in the long run little difference between these two approaches. But, for the purpose of identifying the religious in the. Church' and for encouraging religious vocations, the second approach is probably preferable. With respect and fraternal affection in the Lord. That is the end of my letter tothe Holy Father, and end of my presentation to you. And I am grateful~ for your attention. *In response'to a listener, Archbishop Whealon offered the following clarification: By the terms .progre~ssive and conservative 1 intend nothing other than the more or less conventional way used to describe different extremes in the body p~61itic. I am consciously irying pot to use loaded terms in any way, and so am open to any more successful way of expressing these differences. Future Directions in Ministry Barbara Kraemer, 0 S. E Sister Barbara Kraemer is Vice-President of the School Sisters of St. Francis. This article is based on a presen~tation delivered to the, Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the course of their.Assembly (August 6, 1984). Sister may be addressed at her generalate: 1501 S. Layton Blvd.; Milwaukee, Wl 53215-0006. Our future directions in" ministry are rooted in our history and in our current context. We are members of apostolic communities in the United States. Our spirituality is rooted in our western culture. The experience of growth and renewal these past years has been basically positive for Changes have not been made lightly, nor have they been made without mistakes and difficulties. Renewal is an ongoing process. My community was founded at a time when ~Catholic schools were being established to teach religion and to giv~ people the skills they needed in an irfimigra~society. Over the years, the needs have changed and also our responses ~m ministry. Todaywe must ask: "What is our unique contribution in education?" Today the descendants of~the German immigrants are members of the middle and upper classes. Do we continue to have a mission to them? What is its new focus? Do we have a mission to new immigrants from Southeast Asia, from Latin America and the Caribbean? There are several areas of blatant need in the U.S. today that help to direct out: efforts in ministry. They are the real needs of real people and they must be part of our consideration as we shape our present and future responses. First, Poverty. Not the t:oncept, but thepeople who are poor. How can we keep in touch with the devastating reality of the poor people around us?.How can we keep our hearts open to them? What can we do so that the distribution of wealth and opportunity will be more equal? "~ ,. Second, .Violence. There is a lack of respect for life in our country, and I'm not speaking only of abortion or capital punishment, but also about child and 9 10 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 spouse abuse, prison conditions, war-making. Are we aware of the violence within us? What steps can we take so that in the future our country and our people stand for a nonviolent world? Third, Inequality of Women. Women in our country receive contradictory messages. Are we convinced that further changes need to be made? What is my or your personal commitment to equality for women? Fourth, Economic Exploitation, There is the philosophy that says we should have more because it's available, that we should sacrifice nothing and enjoy our abundance. And there is the undeniable fact that someone can make a living by exploitation, later beginning a respectable enterprise, made more respectable by donations. People are happy to accept the money because they need it. Playboy Enterprises now has a charitable foundation. Do we scrutinize the source of donations we accept? The response we make to these and other needs is important not only in terms of the what but also the how. The value of our future contributions in ministry depends as much on how we live out our beliefs and values, as it does on the work itself. Therefore, I would like to emphasize three characteristics of ministry that are extremely important for the future: insertion into the lives of people; public witness; and effective use of resources. Insertion Insertion simply means that .we must be part of the people we :serve, part of the society we live in, identifying ourselves as much as possible with the people. Sometimes that seems easy, especially when we come from the same class and a similar background. It is harder when a person with ~a middle-class background goes to teach in a wealthy suburb or to work~at an inner-city shelter for the homeless. It takes careful looking and searching to see the people around us and to recognize what they have to contribute to our lives. Not many, if any, of us rea!ly know what it is to stand in a line at a government office waiting'for an unemployment check,.to personally face the question of abortion or divorce. But iLwe let people teach us, our ministry will not be superficial and it will not be judgmental. Recently,someone. questioned the priorities of a small group of our sisters living in a village in Guatemala. "They spend so much time buying food and " preparing the meal," she said. Their work is basically with the .women of that village and the surrounding area. What better way to understand the life of those women than to identify with how they spend their day! And whose time priorities do we use to measure the value of our presence with these people? Henri Nouwen has spoken about how difficult it is for us to receive from people; we 'always want to give. He pointed out: a servant doesnt decide how h~/she is going to serve. He/she comes to work for people and observes and graduall3i learns how to serve them.~ It.seems that this is something we learn slowly in life. New teachers believe that everything depends on them. They prepare and prepare, presenting a day's work in the first half hour of class and Future Directions in Ministry then wonder what they will do the rest of the day. With time they learn that they don't even know what to prepare or what to give until they learn from the students what they need. Teachers must receive from their students in order to be of service to them. There are some consequences to the approach to ministry: We can't as easily deceive ourselves, believing we are in control. Not to be in charge can be very frustrating! Neither should we be an elite group in the Church anymore, on a pedestal, separated from the rest of the faithful. There is no work religious do that laity cannot do. And maybe the laity can do some things better. We may learn that lay leadership can be far more effective than our own in a parish or a school. We may need to stay for years in an area before we are really accepted by the people. This is often true in places like Appalachia where people are suspicious 6f"here-today, ,gone-tomorrow" outsiders with projects. The people we work with who are poor, who have little, help us examine our own lifestyles. We see what we actually need and what we have accumulated because consu-merism has crept in. One sister, speaking about the poor she encounters in the cour~ system, said; "They keep me honest." In our society and in our wo~:ld, the values that are a.ccepted and carry weight are: competition, power, domination, control--what we would characterize as "masculine" values. What our world needs is an alternative vision: not domination, but in,terdependence; not control, but freedom; not individualism, but collaboration. Within the Church, as religious persons, we already bring many gifts. We have the potential to do more. Sometimes lay women see sisters as rivals .for positions or recognition, rather than seeing them as sisters working with them to make the Church receptive to the contribution of women. Collaboration requires us to leave our ghettos, wherever they are, however comfortable. We need to stretch ourselves, to be with those who are different from ourselves and who can complement the gifts we have to bring. For such collaboration, coalitions can be formed so the power of action for good can be strengthened, i have belonged to the Central America Solidarity Coalition in Milwaukee since I returned from Nicaragua in 1980. ~.There are Catholics, atheists, Lutherans, students, union workers, socialists, democrats, medical personnel and many others in that coalition. It takes us time to come to agreement on directioqs or actions. But there, is respect for the differences, which is cbnstantly an example to me. I ~m convinced that it is worth the effort to make the coalition work because we can reach out to more people. We are not only talking to ourselves, to those convinced of the need to stand with the peoples of Central America. We also talk to the Catholics who are indifferent, to the union workers who want to see the relation of Central America to their jobs, and to many others. Our mission as a coalition is served by our diversity, even though this same diversity can be an obstacle, because people tend to categorize others by their associations. That may be what we are afraid of in taking such a step. 12 / Review for Religious, Jan,-Feb., 1985 To summarize, insertion into people's lives calls for a ministry with them, a -ministry which is reciprocal. It calls us to collaboration with other religious, with laity, with people who have the same goals as we, no matter what their background. There is one other point to be considered, and it is a sensitive one. Why would a musician take a practical nursing course and work in a nursing home? Some would say she is wasting her talents. Why would a Ph.D. go to work in a refugee camp or in a Catholic Worker house when~ she could be teaching? Most often these changes occur because the ministers have inserted themselves into the lives "of the people around them, and are listening to the needs of these pepple. Most often these.people are poor. We continue to hear the phrase, "the preferential option for the poor," and it has a foreign ring to it. The expression comes from Latin America, not from the United States. What does it mean? This preferential option for the poor basically is not about the type of people w~e work with, or where, or what type of work we do. It has to do with our hearts and with the values that inform all we do. It has to do with our priority concern in ministry. The term "preferential option for the poor", does. come from Latin America. The Latin American Conference of Religious-(CLAR) has explained its meaning, declaring a priority for certain poor, those who have these three characteristics: (l). they have nothing, no opportu, nities, no resources (2) they can do nothing, i.e. they have no power, and (3) they struggle in faith and love for justice and for a better world.2 The Church in Latin America has made a preferential option to accompany this group of people. And these are the poor 'who evangelize, who convert us. The question is: can We p~rsonally, can our religiou~s-institutes, make such an option in ministry? Can we support those who make this option? Public ~Mi~ "nistry For'some missionaries the preferential option for the poor has led to their persecution, torture, even death, the same consequences that the poor face in their daily lives. By thifir choice these missionaries give public testimony to Gospel values and to their following of Christ. This'is a second characteristic of ministry, public witness. In the United States our bishops have exercised a public ministry through their positions on racism, the threat of nuclear war, abortion, capital punishment and Central America. They' have not been persecuted, but they have been criticized and wooed. They have generated opposition and reaction. J. Bryan Hehir in the commencement address at Catholic University this past year coffcisdy presented.the meaning of public witness for us in the U.S. Church: In the.end a public church is a community which stands for something--indeed, which Future Directions in Ministry v stands f9r many things. It is the product of people who shape their personal lives in such a way that they make a public d~ifference. In concrete terms, that is the challenge of a public church: to live with a vision which makes a difference for the world.3 In this country we have a unique opportunity to 19e a public church. We are guaranteed freedom of expression and freedom from religious persecution. But many times Catholics do not understand this role for themselves or for the Church. Our tradition of separation of Church and state, designed to guarantee freedom of religion and prevent the establishment of any one religion, has been interpreted to mean that religious concerns are private, and that the Church should stay out of public life. The spirit of the Second Vatican Council is just the opposite. Gaudium et Spes calls the Church tO be a permeating rather than a parallel presence in the world. The mandates of Vati.can II must be carried out in the market place, in political cgnventions, in schooi~, in nursing.homes, in international meetings. To move in this direction is a risk. Bishops, Church people, may lose support and privileges. Religious institutes might lose their tax-exempt status, especially if the message they.speak is a threat to the status quo. Yet how ¯ important it is to hear Church representatives and organizations say no, as Bishop Hunthausen and others .have, to weapons production; ~ say no, as Archbishop Weakland has, to the deportation., of Central American refugees. More and more the Church must be known for upholding the vision of a better world and thus announcing the Reign of God on earth. It is unfortunate that at times we hear more from .our bishops than from our parish priests. There is such a need to awaken a consciousness of injustice. Who is doing it? Are we? Just as we say an institution has a mission or a sponsored program has a mission, so the total religious community or institute has a mission and can make a corporate response to the needs of the world. The community can take a public stance on certain issues, not because they are fads or the latest cause, but because of the values that we believe in as religious persons, as Catholics, as Christians. Furthermore, the leaders of a religious community, by their writing and other.actions, can call attention to injustices and to needs in society and in the Church. For years, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth, Kentucky, have been using a corporate reflection process in their community. They reflect in small groups and then in larger groups on a certain need or concern, for example, racism. Most of their sisters are located in the south. Publicly they are known as a community tha~ stands against racism. What are our communities known for publicly? How can the Gospel affect the world through our 9ommunities? Another dimension is the public witness of individual members of the community through writing, public appearances, participation in demon-strations, lobbying for reforms, holding prayer vigils, even civil disobedience. Our beliefs and values as a religious community, stated in our documents, are a guide to us as members examining the need for public witness. Increasingly, 14 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 this area of action l~as become more controversial within the Church. as we face the question of public office. It may not always be appropriate for individuals to speak publicly or take political stands. One of.our sisters in'Honduras, Maria Rose Leggol, directs a program for orphaned and abandoned children. The success of her efforts depends on support from all sectors of society and from the Government. Another ' sister in Central America works in a refugee camp. If she wants to continue to work there, she cannot criticize or even complain about anything that happens. This is especially difficult for her because of her background in union organizing in the south, but she makes this choice in order to continue her ministry. What is important is that some of us are present in the public arena--as legislative aides, as members of UN commissions, as writers for national publications and as artists who call to mind the beautiful in this world. Through some of our members we can be present where decisions are made, where values can be influenced. One caution in all of this: we must avoid dichotomies. Rather, we must see the connections. There is not only one way to look at anything. So, we are not all ptiblic figures or writers or artists. But some of us are. And weare all called to be leaders and prophets in our own ministry. The choice is not between direct service and structural change, between education and social justice, between the individual and the corporate. The choice is between cooperation and competition. The challenge is for us to see the connections among all of these types of ministries, and to be a public witness in the spirit of 1 Co 12:4-5: There is a variety of gifts but always the same spirit; there are all sorts of services to be done, but always to the same Lord . Effective Use of Resources As members of religious institutes Wer share in their personal, financial, institutional resources. We do have some money at our disposal and perhaps, as religious communities, more money than many individuals in our society, because the money is held in common. At the same time we also have needs within our-communities, including retirement needs. Therefore, there has to be a balance between the use of inonies to meet those community needs and to respond to ministry needs. A question to ask, as a community, is: What are the ministries that we believe in so much that we are willing to make sure that they continue? We can make sure that they continue in different 'ways. One is~by giving personnel, maybe even sacrificing someone we would like to see in internal community work so that ministry needs can be met. Another by allowing our members to work by contributing services, that is, working for a stipend or lower salary. A third is giving real money, on a one-time or an ongoing basis. Maybe those earning more can contribute or be assessed a certain amount annually to support those who do not earn enough. Future Directions in Ministry ] 15 An example of how to insure an ongoing program, in this case one that meets the immediate food needs of the poor, is the St. Benedict Meal Program in Milwaukee. This program has been organized citywide with many parishes and organizations providing the meal one day a month for the people who are poor and homeless. It is a program that does not drain resources, because different parishes and groups sponsor one day a month. They can afford to do that. It is a program that is systematized so that people are fed every day of the month. Therefore, it is a program that is ensured a long life and is a real service to people. St. Benedict the Mror Parish also had the idea for,the project now known as the Benedict Center for Justice, which helps women in jail through a program of v!siting, of education, and of job counseling. This program is dependent on outside financial resources to be able to continue. There are limits to financial commitments, and the parish may not be able to do much, but they have established a brainstorming group to consider the long-term. Over the years, our religious institutes have made some institutional, Commitments. We must evaluate these to determine whether they continue to respond to the fieeds of people, and whether we have the resources, personal and financial, to maintain them. Institutions can give a service that individuals cannot. Because of the size of an institution and its very existence, it has a certain amount of clout, or power. An institution can have an effect on a political issue, for example. We have been looking at this questirn in relationship to our health care institutions in the United States. We have one rehabilitation hospital, one nursing home, one psychiatric hospital and one general hospital. We have been asking whether we should maintain the one general hospital, and until now the answer has been "yes" because having a general hospital allows us to speak in a forum that would otherwise be closed to us. . An alternative tO owning and operating an institution is to sponsor an institution or a program. For example, our community sponsors the LaFarge Lifelong Learning Institute, a separately incorporated organization, serving the needs of over one-thousand elderly people each semester by providing classes, a place to visit, h.chapel, and a hot meal at noon. The community has no financial obligation to this institute, but some of our sisters, active and retired, work within it. Another example is a project our community sponsored some years ago in the Walker Point area of Milwaukee. It is still bearing fruit, even though the project as such has ceased to exist. A small group of sisters researched the needs of the Walker Point neighborhood community. Three of them began to live and work there. One worked with a handicraft cooperative, another helped to establish a neighborhood newspaper. They all served within a local parish. At the present time, only one of those sisters remains, but now there is a tri-college outreach project, with our college, Alverno, participating, to help women in that area of the city who have not had the opportunity to continue in school, to complete their basic education. So needs change, responses change. If there 16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 is some ~commitment to an area, sponsorship ofa new program, even though that program h~is a time limit, m~y be one way to serve people, Many of us are familiar with discussions about the meaning of "corporate th.rust~ or ',corporate commitment." Institutions and sponsored programs and parish schools are clearly ',corpora, te" commitments. But there are other ways of serving ,that amplify :our undei'standing of the corporate dimension. For example, the Capuchin priests ~nd brothers have some intentional communities, In one the priests are in different w.brk but they are all committed t~ being part of the inner-city neighborhood the~ live in; and they share the same values and concerns about justice. Another w,ay of looking at the corporate dimension is to see it present in each member,of the community. One member may say about another, "Oh, she is just going off to do her own thing." What that person may not know is that this itnd~vldual may have internalized v~ery well the vision of her foundress and theigoals of her community. Se.eing a need, she might, respond as an individual but very much as part of the community Bishop Kenneth Untener of Saginaw, MI, said to the religious of his diocese that the measure of the val,ue of religious life is the impact of our lives upon others. He says, ~ ' Today your witness is more individuali Today we notice how each of you prays. Today we notice how each of you finds ways to :live out the vow of poverty. We notice how celibate commitment is expressed through your own person. We notice your attempts to be obedient to the Lord's call, to the work of your community, to the needs of the Church. Your respo~nse unfolds in ma~ny different ways . You are aware, I'm sure, that this p~laces different demands upon ~ou. It is One thing to be a member of a community whose Collective life makes an impact. It is quite another thing to make an impact through your own individual life. The Church needs both . 4 If this trend is true, and we know from our experience that it is, then it continues to be exceedingly important that each one of us develop ourselves, our own resources through study, reflection, education and through other ways :of ~keeping ourselves open, to learn more an~l to become more. Experiences of people very different from ourselves can be broadening if we are open to them. One of our sisters, participating in our mission exchange program, went to Peru to develop her Spanish and her understanding of Hispanic people. She works with learning-disabled children in Aurora, Illinois, many of whom.are Hispanic. This year she is back in Aurora, her h~art opened to the pastoral needs of the Churc~h in another part of the. world. We are all aging and though x~e might be happy with .the work we are doing, we have less choice about, what else we might do. The Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in LaCrosse .~ponsored a hostel last summer for their sisters age fifty'five ~nd older. It ~;as a program of theological reflection, in which participants looked at their own futures and possibilities for new directions in their lives, recognizingithat with aging come physical Limitations. The contribution of new members also needs to be drawn out and appreciated. When we think about~lspecific ~vorks, we need to recognize that new members are not necessarily in education or health-care fields in which Future Directions in Ministry many of us have worked. What do they bring? What kind of ministry directions do they point us toward? We had a meeting of all our formation directors from different countries during December, 1983. One of the points mentioned at that meeting was that the new members help to form the community. If we really believe that, we have to find ways of putting it into practice. Sometimes they are so new that they do not take much initiative, or they are drowned out by the initiative of other members. We need to look for ways to hear their voices so that they can really shape the community, which is theirs, in the future. Each one of us must: Consider the treasure that w~ arer the gifts and skills and abilities we possess. We must recognize our own freedom or lack of freedom to make changes, to start on a new path, to "let go." We must take into account our limitations, our personal needs. The deeper our awareness of our own selves, the more we can be in ministry. We, in the United States, in the Catholic Church, have a unique opportunity to be prophetic. We belong to a Roman-based Church that, at the present moment, emphasizes hierarc~iy at the exPense of the prophetic dimension, and the Church needs both. We know that at times our contribution is not recognized. Thdt does not mean that it is not valuable. The Church needs the dimension we bring just as the body needs both arms, each finger and toe. To be prophetic in ministry may mean nothing more (or less) than that each of us and all of us pursfiE our goal as members of our communities, which at root is the goal of the Church and' ultimately of the Gospel, to transform the earth and promote the Reign of God. ' We express our fidelity to that goal through our ongoing willingness to reexamine our ministry priorities. As :we crntinue that reexamination, we must keep before us the people we serve. We must ask ourselves about our awareness of reciprocity and our efforts to collaborate. About the quality and the fearlessness of our public witness; individually and corporately. About the creative and effective use of our many-faceted resources. Then we will be prophets in the Chui'ch of today ¯ and tomorrow, true in our following of Jesus and fa'ithful to the heritage of our communities. NOTES t Henri Nouwen, "The Spirituality of Struggle," a presentation at the annual meeting of the U.S. Catholic Mission Association, May 6, 1984. , 2Cited by Anthony Bellagamba, I.M.C., "The Preferential Option for the Poor," Alba House Cassettes, Canfield, Ohio 4440~6, to be released in Spring, 1985. 3j, Bryan Hehir, "A Public Church," Origins, May 31, 1984, p. 43. 4Kenneth Untener, "The Rich Abundance Within an Earthen Vessel," Origins, June 7, 1984, p. 61. Focused Freedom: To, Someone in Formation Desmond O'Donnell, O M.1. ; Father o'Donnell, is a General Councillo~r of his congregation, and may be addressed at the generalate:~ Oblati; C.P. 9061; 00i00R o m~a-Aureh"o; Italy. His last article in our pages, "The Problem Member in Community;~ appeared In the issue of March/April, 1981. Agood friend confides in you that he or she is considering adopting a way of life which will guarantee reasonable security but no significant material rewards, in which Considerable mobility of residence may be foreseen, in which work-preference will not always be,given, in which marriage and family life ar~ forgone and for which a seven or eight year training period, will be necessary. What would you sa); to your friend? What sort of questions do you think he or she should consider? Is there~ one big question which your friend should face deeply? Before you read further, in this letter, it could be useful to jot down the sort of questions you think you~r friend should think about before he or she gets into this unusual way of life. t No deep reflection is necessary to discover that your friend is thinking ~bout giving up a great deal nor to see that the demands of this way of life are unusual. Can you do it? Is it worthldo~ng? Has anyone the right to ask all this of you? Why are you doing it anyway? What do you hope to get out of it? These are some of the spontaneoqs questions which might come to mind in responding to you~ friend. It is clear that at base there is question not merely of material prosperity, marriage or m~obility but of your friend's very self, of his or her core freedom. Your friend h~s to face the issue of exercising or of losing his or ~her freedom in a very radical way. You are aware~that I am talkin~ about your own respofise to priesthood or to the vowed life. Looking at either from this human point of view that of using.or losing one's freedom---can~,be a good starting point. The questions are 18 Focused Freedom / "19 important for you at this time and they cannot be answered theoretically nor by another person for you. Your own very personal freedom is at stake, The exercise of freedom at any level is personally demanding but at the level of priesthood or the vowed life, one's entire personhood is involved. 31,000 priests asked to be dispensed from their way of life between 1963 and 1978; 60,000 sisters have changed their way of life during approximately the same period. Did these sincere people have freedom? Did they lose their freedom? Did they give it away? 'Did they have it taken from them? Or did they find it only in later life? What does the fact of their presumably painful experience of staying, then leaving and readjusting to a new way of life, say to people life yourself? The failure to deal with this sort of question could mean that you become an additional statistic. Keeping Your Options Open There is a very obvious, and attractive temptation today to avoid the risk and exercise of freedom at any depth. It is to avoid completely all deep and permanent choices like marriage, priesthood or the vowed life. It is to sidestep all unconditional decisions. Besides being aimless, this if-perhaps-maybe-for-a- while exercise of freedom is purposeless, as we are~ reminded by Dag HammarskjiSld -- "The man who is unwilling to accept the axiom that he who chooses one path is denied the others must try to persuade himself, I suppose, that the logical thing to do .is to remain at the cross roads."1 We can understand and admirea married couple very fruii-fully renewing their choice of each other, at regular intervals, but constantly revising or reassessing their choice would hardly make for a deepening relationship any more than regularly uprooting a flower and replanting it would help it~ growth. As Karl Rahner reminded us, freedom is not exercised in the constant revision of choice but in the, ability to make one choice and follow it. Experiencing Freedom . 4, To be free is to be untrapped, free from han/~-ups which could hinder a chosen directioning of one's life. It presumes the ability to shake off anything which might limit the power to say yes in the direction of a deeply-chosen goal. More positively it is the power to surrender one's whole self, to lose oneself even one's life--for a chosen cause: It is the ability to bring oneself together, to collect one's frequently scattered parts, to point them and trigger them all in one important direction. Freedom at its best enables the momentous launching of one's life in a morally irreversible .direction. "Man is free when he is able to make up his mind in conformity with the highest values and the ultimate aims" (John Paul II to the Faculty of Frib~urg University, June I3; 1984, quoted in L'Osservatore Romano 2/7./84 p.3). Maximilian Kolbe was most frbe when he walked out of his cell in 20 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 Auschwitz to take the place of another prisoner about' to be killed:" .Dag Hammarskj~ild tells us about his '.freest moment--"To be free, to be able to stand up and leave every, thing bfhind--without looking back. To say yes" (p,88). ~ Jesus .summa~:izes his life thusT--"I~ lay down my life., no one takes it from me. I lay it down freely" (Jn 10: 17, 18). While this deepest exercise of freedom can sometimes be socially supported and encouraged by less than totally selfless motives, it can come ultimately only from someone who i~ rich indeed--a real adult. No wonder (Jordon Allport reminded us that only adults can commit themselves and that commitment and adulthood arrive simultaneously. Appreciating Freedom It seems to me that one blessing of this age of totalitarian regimes and mind-manipulating techniques is ttlat it is leading to an increased appreciation of freedom. In the past the conscious awareness of freedom was lower because it was less necessary, or less encouraged but now there is a growing sense of human rights and freedom everywhere. Some would see a need to recall St. Paul's words today even in the Church: "Some who do not belong tO the brotherhood have furtively crept i,n to spy on the liberty we enjoy in Christ Jesus and to reduce us all to slavery again" (Ga 2.4): To which he opposes the fact that "When Christ freed us, lie meant us to remain~free" (Ga 5.1). Paul surely appreciated hisfreedom agai.hst those who would limit it even within the Church. ', It is only in freedom that we c.an become our best selves by transcending ourselves in an act of kenosis and thus reflect the justice-fidelity of God by the power of his Spirit---"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Co 3:17). When we use our freedom toldo what w6 know is right or what we know we are called by God to do, we arellike God whose dabar was his word-event, his word-acted-upon in freedom. Our freely acted-upon word no~t only expresses us but it makes us what we are,. as Karo.l Wojiyla, later Pope John Paul II, emphasized in his Acting Person. Thus it is that freedom involves your deepest you. Your free acts express you, and they also make you---especially those rare acts of dedication which influence your life'~ direction deeply. While you can be forcibly limited by others whenexpressing it externhlly, this core freedom can be touched only, and used only, by you. The full and, fruitful exercise of this freedom calls for an ever-deepening appreciation of it. Conscious Awareness Since thefinal choice of priesth~aod or/and of the vowed life is. going to be an expression of your deepest freedom, it is important that you get the feel of this freedom now. You cannot lose yourself unless you have found yourself. It will only be when you have exp'ressed and felt the satisfaction of lesser Focused Freedom / 21 :freedoms that you can gradually appreciate the deeper ones. and finally the deepest one of being "ready at any moment to gather all into one Simple sacrifice"2 as Hammarskji51d put it. -~, Have you recognized yet that every choice is a little death; that every choice makes you in a way that can never quite be unmade? Or have you ex;er thought and reflected upon how prominent people in the Chuich, in your own congregation or in history have exercised their freedom? Why not organize a seminar or write a paper on one of these people and then line it up with the oarticioants' own experience of freedom? And to flex your~own freedom muscles in the exercise of everyday actions such as eating, drinking, fasti~g, going to bed, getting up, keeping to study or prayer exercise/schedules can be a revealing and helpful exercise. This recognition of' the primacy of the practical--just doing it--will add authenticity to the reading and reflection you do on the subject. Your failures to be free can teach you as mu(has your hard won victories. From these you can discover and list--it is good to write them down--the areas of your freedoms and unfreedoms and what it is that contributes to'each. Your freedom to finally choose the vowed life or. to accept priesthood will be on sand or on solid ground depending on the type of soil you have prepared over these early years. The fact that. you fail or succeed in exercising your smaller freedoms could be less important than ~,our discovery of what motivated the success or failure. That iswhy the habit of monitoring your.freedom in a daily examen of consciousness is important. Heightened physical and mental aware-ness has great benefits for richer living: Try to grow in a similar awareness of your freedom by learning to look at it reflectively. Discerning Freedom , ~ To help you in monitoring your freedom-efforts as you grow into~your vocation, may I offer you a guideline or norm? As you find yourself growing in peacefulness, ease, harmony or even enjoyment of your way of life, you can know that you are moving into real freedom in your vocation, This, of course, allows for rough spots and moments of doubt but not for a constant series of such. You will grow into thefeeling that paradoxically you are beco .ming less free to choose outside that way of life as a happily married couple becomes less free to part, with the years. In a way, your growing vocational choice can be compared to an onion with its many layers~ If the core is sound, then each layer originatingfrom the core fits around it and strengthens' it~ As time passes, the healthy core becomes safer with its close-fitting layers protectingly around it~ And a time comes when the core cannot be touched unless the layers are gradually and destructively removed and the entire organism destroyed. That is why. it is difficult to lose a genuine vocation and impossible to lose it suddenly or without gradual and long infidelity. If a person's vocational choice has been sound in the beginning and 22 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 succeeding choices emerge from it and fit it, then what is called loss of vocation has tb be more a partial disintegration of the personality than a departure from something which was part of it. If, !on the other hand, the core has been poorly motivated, the later layers are more like wrapping paper which can easily be removed b~cause ~they do not really belong; they, were put on rather than having emerged from the core. Thee vocation was not lost; it was never there. So it is vital in these early years to beaware of your core freedom, to reflect on it and to relish it.~Each day of ygur life over these early years cannot be a review, a revision nor a momentary rejection of your basic choice just as the layers of a healthy onion cannot be !removed even for constant clinical analysis. On the contrary, each~act is a renev~ing and deepening of what you know was a healthy initial choice. It will help you perhaps in ~onltonng your grdwth into freedom to consider Ivan Illich's question about schooling--,'Is it a place where the child . is~,chasing knowledge or where knqwledge ~s chasing the child?" In these early years, do you increasingly get the feeling that this way of life is something you are pursuing more comfortably eac.h year or do you have the feeling that it .is something clumsily pursuing you and with which you are increasingly less than comfortable? Or to put it another Way, can you see and feel yourself enjoying this way of life freely in, say, tweniy years' time? Is this way of life becoming more "good news" to ~ou each year? If you answer these questio.ns in a clear no or with a hesitant yes, you have reasons to doubt the presence of freedom in your present way of life. . I ~ Spiritual directors now exercise their role less as directors than as someone who accompanies--a sort of spiri.tual friend. And who better to help you monitor your growth in freedom? ~With this friend, you can, as it were, take your freedom out to look at it in the only way possible--how you use it from day~to-day, In the presence of such~ friend, you can bring yourself to account gently and even ask him or her to do it for you. Formators, too, have an important role to play in our growth in the external use of freedom. You can 'r.easonably ask, then, that they fulfill their contractual role- that of leading you into a life'form which they themselves are already living. In recent years .,there may have been a sort of suicide of leadership in reaction to an earlier bver-authoritarian model. But laissez-faire leadership is not a Christian model and if your formators use this, they do you an injustice. If you feel theyare faili,hg you in this way, yo.u can reasonably ask them to encourage, challenge and confront you on your external behavior in such matters as presence at commgn prayer, availability to the community, academic results, interpersonal behavior and pastoral work. Both your spiritual guide and your formators are important, in helping you find your response-ability in freedom. ~ ~ Focusing Freedom ,~ .~ It seems very significant that s~]ch a diverse group as a Dutch spiritual Focused Freedom writer, a Jewish psychiatrist, a French philosopher and an American psychol-ogist stress that focusing is an indication of adulthood. Van Kaam says that permanent commitment is entrance intopotential maturity after the indecisiofi and dispersion of adolescence, while Viktor Frankl stresses that the human person actualizes him or herself only insofar as he or she becomes committed to life's meaning. Gabriel Marcel adds to this by reminding us -- "Man can know himself only if he is committed and only the man who knows himself is ready for ~ommitment." Gordon Allpo~t seems to summarize it by saying that it is only when youth begins to plan for life that the sense of self is complete. Like a river which gathers force when it is channeled, freedom is at its best when it is focused. A man is never so free in his relationship with women as when he deeply chooses and marries one. Freedrm is maximized when. it 'is purposefully pointed in one direction. Because all freedom is ultimately situated in a pla,ce, time'and activity, it must be focused to be full and fruitful. You are now looking seriously at one life-form on which you consider it worth centering your freedom. Your diocese with its people, its structures and its leaders or your congregation with its charism, community living and mission, offer you an opportunity to express yrur freedom in and through them. The question before you remains -- "Is this the structured life-form in which and through which I can freely b~come my best self?. Is this where I want to focus and express my deepest freedom unconditionally?" Hume said that reason must always serve passion and Lonergan described emotion as the mass and momentum of human existence. True, to follow feelings or to be driven by emotions is not necessarily to find one's vocaiion, but feelings and emotions experienced over a time can help us find our personal truth." Despite-the partly foreseen sacrifices entailed in your con-sidered way of life, do you feel that this is where you want to express~our personal gifts;' that the mission of this diocese or congregation is increasingly getting hold of you? Do you feel even somewhat driven as St. Paul expressed it in speaking of his own mission: "It is for'this that I struggle wearily on, helped only by his~' power driving me irresistibly" (Col 1:29) or lik~ Jeremiah: "You have seduced me, Lord, and I allowed myself to be seduced"or like Jesus when he said: "I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already" (Lk 12.49)? Do you feel a conviction that something important will remain undone if you do not do it because,no one else can make your unique and irreplaceable contribution?' While. this experience has come to some people in one momentarily very strong impulse, it comes~to most of us in a calmer and more prolonged way. But come it must and pres~ent it must be, if you are to launch your life freely into the life-form you are now consideiing. Freedom Through Community One good way to determine the quality of your choice now and throughout your life will be your attitude towards and your actions for or 24 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 against the community you join. ~her.e will ever be a healthy tension between your individuality and the community. Dialogue and discernment will have to ¯ be a permanent part of this interdction but from the point of view of the new member like yourself, he or she can reasonably ask: "Will this presbyterium or c~ngregation give me the experience of a community of believers so that the exercise of my freedom in faith arid love will be supported or am I just being invited into a busy bachelors' club or into a same-sex group of social workers where interaction is generally SUl~erficial and mostly for the sake of smooth interpersonal relationships?" On 'the other side of the dynamic, a modern Jewish scholar poses questions t6o: "The proper use of autonomy begins by repudiating the self as a monad! I am individual and unique but likewise inseparably part of all mankind. More, by my finitude I am necessarily more intimately linked to some of its vast number than to others. I am therefore morally obligated to live my life,in community with them and exercise my personal autonomy in terms of them . I understand that to mean that my community .may reasonably demand of me that 1 discipline my will so that the community can function and persevere . It can also legitimately expect me to sacrifice my conscience when its promptings conflict with central affirma-tions of my group . .Our com¯munities and traditions bear a wisdom far more profound and embracing an,d certainly more enduring than anything we could create on our own. In conflict with it we must often bow to what, against our private judgment but in due humi.lity, we accept as.its superior understanding.'3 I have consciously omitted mtich explicit reference to God in this letter so far. I thought it best to isolate the ~,experience of any focused freedom without naming the central motivation which would inspire it in our case, namely faith in God and in his Son, Jesus Christ. To return to your im~ aginary friend of the first paragraph, sure!y the deepestland most inclusive question for him or her will be: "Why are you doing this?'? Because priesthood and the vowed life are meaningless without faith and a real experience of God. the choice of these vocations without faith would beiself-destructive and ~]ltimately harmful for others also. It is not easy to define priesthood or.~ the vowed life with theological precision but one t6ing remains clear, namely that a deep experience of God must be the motivating force. Even positive motives such as preaching good news or changin~ political structures for the sake of God's poor, will not sustain these life-f0rms. While this faith-motivation does not usually come to us as it did to Paul en route to Damascus, it must be there just the same, despite the often-present doubts which are part of any adult faith. "Father, if it be possible." was i .fiamediately followed by nevertheless spoken in faith and freedom by Jesus. Freedom and Uncertainty The .quest for total certainty iis self-defeating whether it is about hang gliding or about God, whether it i~i abou.t someone we love or the significance Focused Freedom of our own lives. Caution cannot be a substitute for action; it can only accompany it. We must beware of theorizing too much about certainty and freedom in a veiled attempt to eliminate the risks of action. Lot's wife was almost persuaded to leave Sodom and Gomorrah; Agrippa was almost persuaded by Paul to become a Christian and the rich young man was almost persuaded to leave his wealth and follow ,lesus. Their search for certainty paralyzed them. Again, Dag HammarskjSld helps us: "Once I answered yes to Someone or Something. And from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender, has a goal.TM He acted in freedom despite the uncertainty expressed in his "Someone" or "Something." It is surely important to be as free as possible before making important life decisions but this is not to say that we must await the chimera of perfect freedom. Carl .lung reminds us: "Life itself flows from springs both clear and muddy. Hence all excessive 'purity' lacks vitality. A constant striving for clarity and differen-tiation means a proportionate loss of vital energy, precisely because the muddy elements are excluded. Every renewal of life needs the muddy as well as the clear. ''~ Muddy freedom will become clearer #s it is exercised just as the str~earia gets clearer on its journey from its muddy source. Conclusion I find that Robert focused' freedom: Frost offers people like us an ideal, as we grow in But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to unite my avocation and my vocation as my two eyes make one in sight. Only where love and need are one and work is play for mortal stakes, is the deed ever re.ally done for heaven and for future sakes. NOTES ~Dag Hammarskjtild. Markings Ed. W.H. Auden: Faber and Faber Ltd, London 1966. 2Dag Harfimarskji51d. op. cit., 1. 3Eugene Borowitz Theological Studies. March 1984, "The Autonomous Self and the Commanding Community." 4Dag Hammerskji51d. op. cit., 1. 5Carl .lung Psychological Types Bollington Series (Princetown), 1974, p.244. Trusting in the Providence of God Mary Ann Fatu~a, 0. P. Sister Mary Ann is well. known to our readers by reason of her earlier contributions, the most recent of which was "Catherine of Siena on the Communion of Friendship" (March/April, 1984). She may be addressed at her office as Chairperson of the Theology Department of Ohio Dominican College; 1216 Sunbury Roadi'Columbus~ OH 43219. "Cast all of your cares upon the Lord, for he cares for you" (1 P 5:7). A key figure in the political and dcclesial crises of her day, the fourteenth-century Dominican and doctor of the Church, Catherine of Siena, lived a' spirituality which embraced this radical trust in the providence of God. In her Dialogue she expressed with unique insight a central truth experienced by men and women of faith before and after her: far from providing an escape from the reality of human life, it is precisely such a trust which provides the focal point for a key human conversion. It is a conversion to placing one's trust not simply in one's own limited resources and efforts, "but" in the abundant and intimate providence of God. Paradoxically, it is also this conversion which founds a spirituality capable of nourishing an authentic personal autonomy and mature interdependence. Early in Catherine's life the Lord pledged that he would make her his concern if she would make him her concern. Experience of her helplessness in situations which her efforts proved powerless to change faced Catherine daily with the same choice 'which in some way confronts every human being: either to trust or to despair. "Which of you by being anxious can add a cubit to his or her life? If then you are not able to do even this, why are you anxious about the rest?. Yo~.ur Father knows your needs. Seek first his kingdom, and these things shall be yours as well" (Lk 12:25-26, 30-31). Toward the end of her life, Catherine reflected on the Lord's faithfulness to his promise made in her youth. The result is the section in her Dialogue which stands as a hy, mn of praise to the infinite mercy of a provident God. Her close friend and 26 Trusting in the Providence of God / 27 biographer, Raymond of Capua, wrote that this chapter was an explication of the very foundation of her spirituality, the experience of the frailty of what is Created, and the absolute power of the love of God. °The Choice~to Trust In life's most precious experiences there is perhaps the wordless recognition of,.the fruit of trust. It is the paradox of security in the presence of what we cannot ,unequivocally verify. Around us are alluring traces of the kind of trust which makes human life possible at all: in the vulnerability of a child asleep in a parent's a~:ms; in the secret shared between friends; in the vow that is said and then lived, to love faithfully until death. But life leaves also its scars. Those who know what it is not to trust or to be trusted, who know what it is to be betrayed, recognize also the fruit of distrust in the sense of worthlessness which eats away at their identity, in the anxiety and fear which rob them of peace. ~For each of us, in the face.of what life has held out to us, a deeper question and choice inevitably presents itself in the decisions of everyday. Has life ultimately been gracious to us, or has it cheated and betrayed us? To ask this is to ask the meaning of our life experiences taken as a whole, an6 holy vve will choose to live out the future in the light of that meaning. More than most, Catherine knew what it was to live through the bitterness of life. She knew what it was tO have those for whom she had poured out her life energy turn against her. And yet Catherine made her choice. In and through the weak and often twisted ways of the human heart, she found the reality deeper than all others and which she learhed to trust absolutely. For Catherine, the entire universe is ruled not by forces' which rob and deceive us, but by the provident mercy of God. She learned to trust that all of creation is made for humanity, and it is this fragile and precious work of his hands with whom God ~has fallen "insanely" in love. He has given everything with love and care: every facet of creating, every gift and faculty of our unique persons. In every event of history he has unfolded his mercy, until finally, he did not spare even his own Son. What he wantsqs only our good, and having provided for our every need in the past, he will continue to do so to the end.* Catherine realizes that it is only those who see with eyes of faith and hope, who make the radical choice to trust in God'sprovidence, who are able to receive its fullness. The God who infinitely respects the human persons he has authored will not force his love on .their freedom. His providence will never fail those who place their hope and trust!in him (280): But it.is a trust Which cannot exist side by side with a contrary hope. To trust in oneself is to trust in "what is not." To trust in God is to cling to the one alone "who is." The choice to trust is finally the choice to let go, to entrust oneself, to receive the gift Contained in *The Dialogue: 136; in Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue, translation and introduction by Suzanne Nofke, O.P. (New York: Paulist Press, 1980), pp. 180-181. Other references to this work will be cited in the text by page number. 211 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 every moment of life. Yet how can one receive with love and reverence the tragedies which life holds and which evoke in us only :anger and bitterness? Are not '~life's experiences of disappointment and pain empty of the providence of God? ~On the contrary," the Lord tells Catherine. "No matter where they turn those who trust in my providencewill find nothing but mydeep burning charity, and the greatest, gentle, true, perfect providence" (290). It is not that his providence causes tragedies. Rather, even in life's inevitable tragedies, his providence is great enough to bring life from what is material for death. Itis not that we are to deny or repress human feelings of anger in the face of pain. But working through anger and pain is meant to bear fruit finally in the peace and even joy " which recognize the gift of God given in every event. The Wealth ltidden Within Catherine's experience taught her that what human beings find particularly bitter is the discovery that all that is created will eventually~fail us. The temptation then is to cry out against the God whose providence has .abandoned and deprived us of what our plans had fashioned. We "lift up our heads against the goodness of God," writes Catherine, and draw death from what was intended to give life, because we "do not recognize the wealth hidden within" (219). How is the "wealth hidden within" every human experience to be discovered? One dimension of sin is the human resistance to change,-the unwillingness to grow. "How can you lift your head .against my goodness? Because you do not see that all things except my grace are changing and. because you . are constantly changing, I am constantly providing what you need at any given time" (282). The refusal to olet go of a present and yet outgrown security is so. strong a temptation in us that unless it.is removed from us, it can become an obstacle to the deeper security which alone founds human maturity and autonomy. God permits what is created to fail us so that, in the absence of previous supports, we may cling to the one alone "who is," and so be given the means for deeper growth. The "troublesome thorns" of life God permits not out of hatred but love for us (290). In this way we are forced to learn what we would rather not: that what is created can never be God for us. In the collapse of hope in what is created, we are given .the invitation to see and to turn to the one who will not fail us: "I wanted her to learn that although everyone else might fail her, 1 her Creator would never fail her. and that with or without the help of another person, in any situation or at any time whatever. I know how to and can and will satisfy her in wonderful ways" (296). Those who place their trust not in themselves but in God, eventually experience the fruit of this trust. God himself becomes their provider and gives them his "merry," the Holy Spirit, as their mother to nurse them at the breast of God's love (291). Gradually their fear and insecurity starve for want of food. Trusting in the Providence of God / 29 The Spirit, their mother, feeds them with the milk of gratitude and love. The ones so nourislied become with time strong and confident, able to see life with new eyes in a light given by the Spirit. Slowly they learn to hold "all things in reverence, the left hand as well as the right, trouble as well as consolation." Even in painful situations they learn to reverence the gift "hidden within" as the material for deeper growth. Thus, the Lord tells Catherine, in situations 0f great labor, he gives the gift of even greater strength (292). The "Holy Tricks" of Providence In order to make his people "drunk" with his providence, the Lord devises "holy tricks" perfectly suited to meet their needs at any particular moment. To those caught fast in sin he gives his providence by "plucking the rose" from their thorn. One kind of "thorn" is an enslaving sin; the rose, the lack of satisfaction he gives in the experience of that sin. "They set their affection on something,., but they find nothing there" (297). This gift of his providence is meant as an enticement away from the emptiness and pain of sin by means of the sweeter gift of peace and freedom (297): In other circumstances, the Lord employs still other "holy tricks" of his prowidence. He finds ways to humble the pride which bears fruit in judging others, gossiping, and using the tongue to complain and "spit out hurtful words." As healing, the Lord permits emptiness in a person's feelings, darkness in her mind, and temptations which besiege the senses. "Why do I keep her in such pain and distress? To show her my providence so she will trust not in herself but me." The person who is humbled through these struggles will learn the contrast between her own weakness and the provident love of God for her. In these struggles is contained her liberation, for the Lord himself eventually will free her in deeper ways than she could have imagined. Serenity and peace come unforeseen, not through her own effort alone, but through the Lord's "immeasurable charity, which wanted to provide for her in time of need when she could scarcely take any more" (301). The struggles which humble are in fact the gift of God: "The soul comes to perfection by fighting these battles, because there she experiences my divine providence, whereas before this she only believed in it" (302). For those formed in virtue, the Lord provides in still other ways by using a "pleasant trick to keep them humble.," Often, after they have borne the weight of burdens and sufferings with patience and gentleness, he allows them to feel passion or rage at a mere trifle: "In something that really is nothing, that they themselves will later laugh at, their feelings are so aroused that they are stupefied." At other times, his providence leaves his servants a "pricking" as he did with Paul: "I left him., the resistance of his flesh." Is the Lord able to remove the weakness of his servants? Certainly, he tells Catherine, but his providence leaves his loved ones "this or that sort of pricking" so that they will become humble and "compassionate instead of cruel to their neighbors." For those who suffer from their own weakness will have cause to be all the more 30 / Review for. Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 compassipnate toward the weakness of others (305). .- The Chain of Charity According to Catherine, the most tender means which the provident God has designed to care for us is one anothi~r. The God who in his being is trinitarian communion of love has fashioned us in his image. The inescapable truth etched into our own beings is that we are made by love, and we are made for love. We are, in fact, made to need and care for one another. "In this life I have bound you with the chain of charity. 1 in my providence did not give to any one person or to each individually the knowledge for doing everything necessary for human life. No, I gave something to one, something else to another, so that each one's need would be a reason to have recourse to the other" (31 l). Could he have given, everyone as an individual all that he or she needs? Yes, he tells Catherine, "But in my providence I wanted to make each of you dependent on the others,'so that you would be forced to exercise charity" (312). Thus, for example, the poor who place all their trust in him will experience for themselves his providence.Sometimes in their .need they are brought almost to the brink of despair, only so that they may see all the more clearly the miracle of the Eord~s care for them (314). Sometimes the provident God acts directly, as he did with Dominic, causing bread to appear for his brothers who had nothing to eat. Usually, however, he inspires his loved ones to pray for and to come to the assistance of the poor themselves. In many ways he touches his servants' hearts to provide' for those in need. Even those dedicated to solitude cannot escape the chain of charity with which the Lord has bound his people together. Thus, he inspires a hermit to leave his or her solitude in order to giqe help to another hermit (324). He "stretches out" his providence to his poor by inspiring his servants with compassion for the needs of their brothers arid sisters (315). "The whole life of my gentle poor is thus cared for by the concern I give the world's servants for them" (314). In still another way, the Lord cares for our deepest needs through one another. He tells Catherine that he uses a ~holy trick" of his providence to inspire people with a "special love" for another. It is this "special love" which eventually brings to light hidden insecurity, jealousy, possessiveness, manipula-tion, selfishness. The inner struggle uncovered through the pain of these relationships is meant to lead to humble self-knowledge and dependence bn his healing. As a person grows through these struggles into deeper personal autonomy and inner freedom, "a greater and more perfect love for others in general will follow, as well as for the special person my goodness has given her" (303). Thus, his providence has inextricably bound and woven itself into our care for one another. Our 'own~ persons are the lixJing sacrament of God's providence given to us in one another. As his friends grow more and more one with him in prayer, they become identified with him and live out the Trusting in the Providence of God / 31 experience ofPaul: "It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me" (Gal 2:20). And as with Jesus, those whose love grows will know both deeper joy and deeper sorrow. The pain of the friends of God is not finally that of offenses done to them, but rather the grief they feel for sin against, the Lord and the destructiveness of sin for the sinner. Those who learn to love "know how ineffably I :love my creatures., and so they have fallen in love with my creatures' beauty for love of me." Through the chain of charity with which the Lord binds his people together, he provides in a marvelous way at one and the same time for both sinner and those his love inspires to intercede for them, The sinner's heart is touched through the prayer of his servants, and these latter are in turn all the more united to the Lord through their p~rayer~ Through their love and yearning for others' salvation, "they are another Christ crucified ,. they have taken his task on themselves" (306-307). Catherine compared God's people united in charity by his providence to an orchestra. The Lord is the "maestros" and each person is an indispensable instrument. Without each of the otl~ers, no instrument,alone is sufficient. The more sweetness with which each one plays his or her instrument the gift of each one's own unique life--the more those who hear are allured by this music to the Lord. "Consider the glorious virgin Ursula," writes Catherine of the legend of Ursula and her companions. "She played her instrument'so sweetly she caught eleven thousand from the virgihs alone." The entire orchestra together is meant to grow more lovely in its sound, swelling to make this music worthy to fill heaven and earth with the praise of God. For those who trust in him, everything which happens in their lives is a gift f~rom God as a way of refining their instruments and rendering the music they play more beautiful. It is his infinite providence which cares for each one and all together, teaching each one what and how to play (311). The chain ofcharit~ with ,which the provident God has bound us to one another will not be loosed even in death. The life of heaven will be a rejoicing not only in him but in one another, and this very joy.will be a continual praise of his providence~ "I have so brdered their charity that no one simply enjoys his or her reward in this blessed life that is my gift without its being shared by the others." The joy of all adds to the joy of each, and the joy of each is the joy of .all (312). ~ To live one's life in trust is a gentle ~'0retaste on earth of the life of heaven. The fruit of trust in the proEidence of God is a joy and peace more secure than what human missteps and failures can destroy. The One who trusts learns to rejoice "in what she sees and experiences in herself and others," and finding joy ~in God's goodness to l~er, she learns to rejoice without jealousy in the goodness of God to others. She "is not afraid thaf she will lack the lesser things because by the light of faith she is guaranteed the greater things" (293). Conclusion For Catherine, trusting in the providence of God is not a spec~c kind of 32 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 "spiritual exercise,~ but the entire content of a life lived in 10ve. The more one lives in hope and trust, the more lavishly will God's providence in fact provide. To live in trust is not something mere human willing can attain; it is rather a gift the provident God most deeply wants to give, and for which he wants his people to ask. Catherine learned that what best nourishes trust is a good memory, a heart and mind that have learned to remember and to reflect upon the experiences of one's own life, and to find there the indisputable evidence of the personal and intimate providence of God. In this way, one's own unique life story becomes the inspiration and encouragement to ask for even deeper trust for the future. To trust in this way is not imprudence nor immatu(ity. It is, rather, a depth seeing which increasingly frees one's energies from inner forces inhibiting personal autonomy and mature interdependence. It entails the paradox of a radical inner poverty and inner contentment. To trust, in fact, is to live secure in the care of the one who can be trusted absolutely. It is to have the peace and freedom and courage to dare, to take risks inspired by the Holy Spirit. It is, ultimately, to have the heart to let go. It was not the fourteenth-century Catherine of Siena alone who had the personal call to live a life of trust in the providence of God. Today also, it is the witness of lives lived.in the maturity of trust in the one who alone is Lord over all, which perhaps will be the most radical statement a contemporary world will hear. From Tablet to Heart: Internalizing New Constitutions I and II Address: by Patricia Spillane, M.S.C. Price: $1.25 per copy, plus postage. Review for Religious Rm 428 3601 Lindell Blvd. St. Louis, Missouri 63108 Christian Conversion: Suffering Out of Love John Navone, S.Z Father Navone is well known to our readers. The idea of this article is developed at much greater length in his recent Gospel Love: A Narrative Theology (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, Inc.). Father Navone is professor of biblical theology at the Gregorian's Spirituality Institute, where he may be addressed: Piazza della Pilotta, 3; 00187 Roma, Italy. In the seventeenth century, Samuel Crossman wrote that Christ in his passion has:° Love to the 16veless shown That they might lovely be. The passion story is both the good news of God's unconditional love for us as well as the mirror by which we can judge the authenticity of our own life and loves. It changes us from being °unlovely to being lovely (and loving) by showing us what true loveliness could be. Christ is the author and communicator of authentic communion with God. His claim that all authority belongs to him (Mt. 28:18; .In 17:2) and his communication of that authority to others are based on his power to transcend the limitations imposed by human desires and feelings to suffer freely and gladly out of love, When someone truly loves us, we respond to that love by investing our lover with the authority to initiate elements in our life story. When that love is absolute, as in the love of God for us, the absoluteness of that love claims an absolute authority. The story of Jesus reveals that God is Love, and it summons us to share in God's dynamic state of being-in-Love.I The trinitarian imagery of Scripture presents us with the symbolism of transcendent and unrestricted love where the persons are persons by virtue of their relationship to one another. ,iesus is the human incarnation of that loved and loving reiationship to God and the Spirit. Being-in-Love (Father) with 33 ~!4 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 Jesus Christ (Son) entails our accepting a relationship to the Love that transcends every human Ioye.2 We, however, do not establish that relationship; it is given to us. We do not possess it by nature, so it cannot be taken for granted .3 Our self-deception is the failure to accept the gift of God's love and the call to be transformed into God's children in the Son. We merely pretend that our communion with God is authentic, that we share his being-in-Love, if we are not willing to undergo the suffering that is entailed in meeting the demands and total claims of Love. In meeting the demands of L6ve, suffering demonstrates our authentic acceptance of the gift of God's love. The sovereign transforming power of God's love, as opposed to self-love, is manifested in the sufferings of the just. The Drama of Suffering Love The Synoptic Gospels tell the story of Jesus as a drama in four acts. The first act prepares us for what is to come (Mt 3:1-4, ll= Mk l:l-13 = Lk 3:1-4:13); the second act tells the story.of Christ's ministry in Galilee (Mt. 4:12-18:35 = Mk 1:14-9:50 = Lk 4:14-9:50). In the third act Jesus journeys to Jerusalem (Mt 19:i-20:34 =. Mk 10:1-52 = Lk 9:51-18:43) while the fourth act tells the story of Christ's passion and resurrection. As in every good drama, the story invites the onlooker to join in the dramatic action. We are called to become actors within Christ's dramatic story rather than to remain as onlookers marveling at the drama of what is happening to someone else. The evangelists want their hearers to be trans-formed by authentically sharing Christ's life and his Spirit by dying and rising with him. The life of the Spirit is a sharing in the whole life of Jesus, his dying and rising, his self-emptying and his self-fulfilling glorification in God. We cannot be filled by the Spirit unless the self has been emptied to make room for the Spirit's gifts. The mystery of the Cross and resurr6ction expresses the true nature and power of Jesus' being-in-Love, the power and freedom to .be able to love to the end. The disciples, who share their Lord's de~tiny, are also called upon .to suffer. As his ,followers, we must expect suffering, rejection and persecution (Mk 8:34-35; Mt 10:24-25; Lk 6:22; 14:26-27; .In 12:25,26), for the kingdom of God that comes to us in the myster3) of Jesus Christ's dying and rising is a sign of contradiction. Fidelity to the Master means that the disciples must enter into the same struggle that Jesus entered to fulfill God's plan for creation. Opposition to Jesus is manifested within all his human contexts. Mark structures his Gospel to underscore human resistance to the arrival of the kingdom in the person, work and ministry of Jesus Christ. Society resists Jesus (l: 14-3:6)~ Pharisees and scribes, the leaders of the people, engage him in five controversies (~2:1-3:5) and decide to destroy him (3:6). His family, relatives and townspeople are disturbed by him (3:7-6:6), and they fear for his sanity (3:21). Despised in his own country, among his own relations and in his own Christian Conversion / 35 house, he could work no miracle there (6:4:6). Jesus meets with the incompre-hension of his own disciples (6:6-8:33), and he rebukes them for not understanding the miracle of the loaves (8:17) or the necessity of his passion and death (8:31). Fidelity to the will of God meets with human resistance and incompre-hension. If the kingdom of God was ours by nature, Jesus would not encounter incomprehension, hostility and.rejection. His harmony with the will of God entails his disharmony.with all that is opposed to it. His being-in-Love entails his suffering and death out of love that all persons might be-in-Love. He loves his people, fami]3i, disciples and all others with whom his life, vision and mission are in conflict. He suffers out of love for them with the compassion that leads to his passion and death, in order that all might have the fullness of new life in the kingdom. Especially in Mark's story of Jesus, we see that as God's will for Jesus is being progressively fulfilled, he becomes increasingly unpopular until he dies alone--rejected and abandoned by all. Mark's narrative structure makes the theological point that God alone is the fulfilling origin, ground and destiny of Jesus Christ's living, dying and rising out of Love. The coming of the kingdom in the person of Jesus Christ is the ,revelation that God is in love with all human persons and summons them to become a new creation in God's Love. What is demanded of us is repentance and faith in his love given to us in his Beloved Son (Mk 1:11, 15; 9:7). Such repentance and faith entail the suffering out of Love which the Beloved Son himself experienced i.n his prayer at Gethsemane (~Mk 14:36). Jesus experiences suffering out of Love in every human context, the intra-personal as well as the interpersonal; this is evidence for the community of faith that the integrating center of his life transcends every human context. God's lordship in love is a creative goodness which makes others good. When God begins his reign as Father in Jesus Christ, all things are made new in his love,.all things are possible (Mk 10:27; 11:36; Mt 19:26; Lk 18:27). Conversion: Becoming Persons-in-Love Through the example of Jesus' being-in-Love, ~he Christian community sees that God compassionately demands all persons to find and accept their true fulfillment in the gift of his Love so that all might forever be persons-in- Love. God is not indifferent to what weare and become. To accept his love for all is to learn to suffer with his compassionate and passionate love for all, ¯ overcoming our intrapersonal and interpersonal tendencies to remain impersonal. The new life of the kingdom that is given to us in Jesus and his Spirit entails the suffering out of Love for others that manifests our being-in-Love with others. This new life transforms us by making us willing and glad to suffer for others in the service of the kingdom. In the context of the Last Supper, John's gospel implies that Jesus gladly and voluntarily lays down his life that his friends might know the joy of being able to do likewise. ~16 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 True disciples love as the,Master loves. They share a life that is rooted'in God's community-creating love for all, the only love that constitutes the community of divine and human persons which lasts forever. True disciples have solidarity in that invincible love which, despite suffering and death itself, makes them glad to pour out their lives for others. They do not consider themselves to be martyrs or victims; rather, they suffer for others (divine and human) as true friends in the power of that love which alone grounds the eternal friendship that is life in the kingdom, Central to the notion of Christian conversion as suffering out of love is the fact that God wants all human persons to enjoy his life as their own. The gift of God's love is not so much a giving away as a sharing. In loving, God shares himself and all that he is. Jesus Christ enjoys the life and love of his Father; therefore, he is glad to suffer out of that love so that all human beings might share what he most cherishes. But what is perfect in the Master is imperfect in the disciple. The life that Jesus Christ fully enjoys is the life that his disciples are learning to enjoy. The disciple knows the Master to the extent that he or she enjoys the same life and is glad to suffer out of love to secure that life for others. The. solidarity of Master and disciple in suffering out of love for others consists in their enjoying and cherishing the life that they want others to enjoy. Christian conversion is not only an event but also a process that deepens this solidarity through fidelity to the grace and demand of God for responsible lives. Christian conversion, both as event and as process, is participation in the befriending love that Jesus Christ received and accepted from his Father as the integrating center of his life, mission and death for 6thers. Lived Christian conversion entails suffering out of a befriending love that affects all our conscious activities, directs our attention, pervades our imagination, release~ symbols that penetrate to the depths of our psyches, enriches our under-standing, guides our judgments, reinforces our decisions and motivates 0tii~ actions. To enjoy the transforming, benefit of God's befriending love in Jesus Christ and his Spirit implies a gratitude that actively accepts it and makes a religious and moral commitment to sharing it with others. Gratitude for the gift of God's befriending love reflects a humility that takes nothirig for granted. Such humility'brings an appreciation of others and a commitment to them, even when they are superficially unattractive. If we truly appreciate others, we are glad to suffer out of love for them and to befriend them as disciples of ~the Master who lived and died to make his joy ours and to make our joy complete (see Jn 15:11). Some Principles and Practical Points of Reference 1. Being-in-Love is the motivating power for suffering out of Love. 2. If, as Jesus reveals, God is befriending Love, being in befriending Love is the motivating power foi" suffering out of befriending Love for others. It makes us glad, despite difficulties, to befriend others. Christian Conversion 3. Suffering out of befriending Love for others is the self-transcending activity that frees us from self-absorption, self-pity and self-idolatry (i.e., from being impersonal). It frees us for the fulfillment that is being-in-Love with others (i.e,, for being personal). 4. For human beings to be fully personal is, ultimately, for them to be-in- Love befriending others. Sin is the refusal to be personal, the state of the impersonal subject. 5. In lived Christian conversion, suffering is not sought for its own sake; rather, it is embraced only when it is a condition for commitment to the grace and demand of God's befriending love. 6. If lived Christian conversion entails suffering out of befriending Love for others, suffering is not a univocal sign that something is wrong with a person. It may be, as the teaching of the beatitudes implies, the sign that something is profoundly right with a person. 7. We are not committed to persons or values for whom we are unwilling to suffer. We cannot suffer out of love for others when we have no love for them. 8. Being-in-Love is the efficacious ground of self-transcendence required to live responsibly and to be responsible to the pursuit of the truth, however difficult it may be to discover or to accept. It motivates the will to be responsible and to pay the pric.e of responsibility. 9. The fact that Jesus Christ was willing to suffe~ and die for us grounds the primary dogma that God loves us~ To sense that we are loved is to sense something that is true. It may be that imagination is involved in our sensation, but the truth of the dogma will stand. Being-in-Love and willing to suffer out of love for others should never be identified with the presence or absence of any particular feeling or sensation. Our faith and hope is in God, not in our feelings. 10. Because human beings leave something to be desired that God alone can fulfill, suffering out Of love is the condition for the possibility of friendship. Friendship (marriage, community, society, and more) disintegrates with the refusal to endure limitations arid deficiencies in others. Our incapacity for friendship is related to our unwillingness to be committed to others who do not fully gratify, support or console us. There is no lasting commitment to others apart from the willingness to suffer out of love for them. 11. Having time for others is a form of suffering out of love for them. Religious conversion implies that we are living in God's time, that we have the gift of his time for welcoming and listening to others. Consequently, we do not see others as taking or consuming our time; we are free for them to the extent that we are free from the illusion that the only time we have is our own. Prayer is a form of enjoying God's time and transcending our own. Some seldom find time to pray because they are living in their own time and do not want to lose it for life in God's time. The call to pray always is the call to be-in-Love and to live in God's time forever. Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 12. Sufferingout of love for others is a form of our self-investment in them. Inasmuch as communities are formed and held together by a common faith and hope, there is a community-creating and community-sustaining power and value in suffering out of faith, hope and love for others. 13. Inconveniencing ourselves for others is perhaps the most basic form of suffering out of love for others. Unwillingness to inconvenience ourselves for others is a reft~sal to be personal; it is the failure to befriend others at the most rudimentary level of everyday life. No possibility of a lasting commitment to others exists without our being willing to inconvenience ourselves for them daily. 14. The New Testament demand for human transformation through following Jesus' way of the cross should warn those who are tempted to reduce God to their own measure. The self-abandonment that God's befriending love required of Jesus Christ should correct our tendency to manipulate God. 15. Tothe extent that we are convinced that our importance is in God, as opposed to the illusion of an independent self-importance, we are equally convinced that all others have the same importance and are worthy of self-sacrificing and befriending love. The conviction that we exist because God loves us implies that we-find security and a sense of personal worth in God, rather than in the approval that others may choose to give us. 16. If God's will is done, all human persons will be in his kingdom. Our finite, limited, human love is inadequate to the challenge of loving all persons, apart from the gift of God's all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-sustaining, all-forgiving, all-reconciling and all-fulfilling love. His community-creating love for all is the origin and ground of life in the kingdom. 17. Love takes others seriously. How seriously we take others, according to the Judeo-Christian tradition, reveals how seriously we take God. It is the conviction of Jews and Christians that God takes all human persons seriously. How seriously God takes us is implied in the Christian affirmation that God is Love. We know that God is Love because he sent his only Son to live and die for us: We know that such Love transcends words because it embraces human living, suffering and dying. We know that we are truly loved and taken seriously by those who willingly share our living, suffering and dying. We discover the reality of our love for others in willingly doing likewise. NOTES ~See Bernard Lonergan, Method in Theology. (London: Darton, Longrnan & Todd, 1971), passim, esp. pp. 105-122, 2Although Being-in-Love is the existence of the Father and Son and Spirit, I pareaihesize Father to highlight the filial relationship of Jesus as Son. 3See Charles Hefling's lntrduction to Frederick E. Crowe, The Lonergan Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1980), p. xvi. A Clump of Lichen and Me Kathleen Gallas, OS.B. Sister Gallas is Food Service Director at the Sacred Heart Convent and Conference Center, where she may be addressed: P.O. Box 488; Cullman, AL 35056-0488. What ig contemplative life? Why the nuclear arms race? Why the environ-mental devastation? In the aftermath of "The Day After" my reflectivd moments pondered these seemingly unrelated questions. A combination of spiritual reading, n~ws magazines and discussions on the American Catholic Bishops' Pastoral On Peace surfaced this assortment of questions. While pon-dering the last two questions there eventually came over me a sense of futility. What can any one p.erson do to change the course of events toward possible destruction of life and environment? It can even be questioned as to what will destroy what firs!! Even if there' is a nuclear disarmament it will only be a matter of time before life is destroyed through our irresponsible use of environ-ment and our exploitation of peoples around the world as though they were so many pins on a chart. The question of contemplative life I pondered as an altogether different kind of issue. Ordinarily when one speaks or hears of contemplative life and of contemplative prayer, it is understood in terms describing activities limited to a select few. Contemplative life involved Contemplative prayer, and anyone experiencing contemplative prayer was undoubtedly living a contemplative life--which usually meant living a vowed religious life. Neither combination is necessarily true, nor the total meaning. My own convictions saw a distinction between contemplative life and contemplative prayer. Mother Mary Clare, S.L.G., in her book, Encountering the Depths, gives a difference. "Contempla-tive prayer can be experienced, if God wills it, in any such circumstance as he sees fit to bestow, while contemplative life is the life so directed in its simplicity, and separated from the normal distraction of the active world, that it provides the best preparation for carrying out the work of contemplative prayer." How- 411 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 ever, as Thomas Merton said, "Not all who are vowed contemplative religious experience contemplative prayer." After a while I found myself considering the word contemplative as separated from the terms life and prayer. By itself I couldn't limit the meaning of contemplative to a few but asked the question if being contemplative wasn't a dimension of being human, and therefore per-taining to everyone. What is it to be contemplative? This assortment of questions unexpectedly came together and found its own kind of answer in an experience 1 had on a January afternoon. Everything I had been meditating within the context of each of the three basic questions surfaced and synthesized an experience with a clump of lichen. I had been pondering these questions separately without any thought of relating them. However, my experience of lichen gave me the insight that in actuality the answer to the question of what is contemplative life was the foundation to answering the other questions--and all other questions concerning peace, justice and harmony in our relationships with each other and our environment. I am standing at my special place on a particular hillside with an Alabama version of mountains before me evoking the line: "I lift my eyes to the moun-tains from where comes my help--the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." At my feet is a clump of gray-green lichen with red dots. Flowers? To see them eye to eye I have to lie on my stomach. Then do I see. The lichen grew finger-like projections and each finger tip is painted red. There am I on the ground "eyeballing" a lichen's painted finger nails! At first I laugh at myself. Then at us, the~lichen~and me. I talk to it. "Aren't we a crazy pair? Somehow, this is a fun moment, isn't it? We share a secret, you and I. Others might question my sanity if I were to tell them of our secret delight in each other. However, there must be others like us, for Goethe back in the eighteenth century said: 'Tell no man, tell wise men only, for the ~vorld might count it madness'," My deepest intuitions say that I am not mad in having fun seeing and listening ~ith a clump of lichen. After a while the humor of the situation shifts in mood to a sense of wonder, fascination and appreciation of so tiny a bit of color on a January day. In this Garden of Eden setting comes the urge to pick up this clump of lichen and bring it home to the prayer room--a winter flower for the Lord. But no! in my position of lying stomach flat to th~ earth comes the awareness that I am hugging great Mother Earth who in Greek mythology was named Gaia--a name personalizes and effects a deeper relationship. Gaia and I became one in this°moment--a moment of union. She and I are gift to each other from our God, the maker of heaven and earth. There is the vista before me, t_he clump of lichen below me, and myself. We are responsible to each other and for each other. So, I am one human being and this under my eyes is roughly a 3 x 4 inch clump of lichen. Yet this clump of lichen and I represent a microcosm of life on planet earth. On the one hand it could be said what harm done to pull up this clump +sp~cially with the motive of offering? But how thoughtless and insensitive to Gaia who needs this clump of lichen to maintain nature's balance A Clump of "~chen and Me / 41 so that I might live comfortably. To be fruitful and multiplyr fill the earth and stibdue it doesn't mean that I ravage it, pollute it, coerce it for my own selfish needs and even worse, under the guise of something good. Whose good? How often our God voiced that he spurned such offerings. Some would say that I have done no harm to another human being in pulling up this clump. But I have. Even if it is in innocence, the innocence of thoughtlessness; I have harmed another in contr!buting to making earth an unfit place to live. Gaia is upset. Mother Nature reacts and there can eventu-ally come a separation, a divorce. I could be a contributing cause in the erosion of this hillside. In being responsible to Gala and for Gala I am also responsible to all other human beings. Each of us is responsible to the other for maintaining a harmonious relationship with Gaia who will respond accordingly. In this total economy of life no one human being is insignificant. Neitheris this clump of red-dotted lichen by my side. Just now 1 suddenly recall a long-forgotten story, The Little Prince. The fox is explaining to the prince what it means .to be tamed. "It means to establish ties." "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world." We were asked to subdue the earth, Wouldn't "to subdue" mean "to tame'~. To establish ties, to create a need for each other? To instill a reverence for the uniqueness of each other? In lying flat on the ground face to face with a clump of lichen, I felt an. interrelatedness. The lichen and I were one. My body pressed to the body of earth were one. As far as the eye could see there was not another clump of lichen to be seen amidst the variety of winter-colored plant life. Yet there was the awareness that while this was so on the immediate level, there was also an awareness on another level that the earth was populated with the likes of me and the likes of this lichen. Each was one in the many and the many in the one. I knew an interrelatedness with all in the universe that was human. The lichen would'feel the same with its kind. However, the sense of harmony, the expe-rience of0neness-and-manyness wasn't limited to recognizing this in our sepa-rateness of plant and human, for at the same time there was the feeling of Oneness with each 6ther. The lichen and I knew a oneness with each other as well as a oneness in the manyness of us. Lichen and me. Plant life and human life. Mother Earth Gaia and me, Gaia and the manyness of me. Each and speaks of union. Each and speaks of a union that is life-creating, life-giving, life-supporting. This life with a small "1" could only be because of the gratu-itous, unfathomable love that is Life with a capital "L." It is from the Life and in this Life that the lichen and I have life. We are gifts to each~ other, responsible to each other from the Gift that is Life--maker of heaven and earth. A dialogue from another story, The Farthest Shore, by Ursula LeGuin Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 speaks of this responsibility. The wise magus explains to his young companion the meaning and responsibility of personal choice. "On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf and the .gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole. But we, insofar aswe have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility." When did we become responsible for each other? In the beginning of , creation Life hovered over the darkness of the deep and breathed over the waters of the abyss. God said, "Let there be . " With each word of God, each breath of Life a living being was created. Gaia is a living being. This clump of lichen is a living being. I am a living being. Within each resides the breath of Life uniting us as one. Gaia and this clump of lichen act unconsciously accord-ing to their nature. The breath of Life that brought me into being included the freedom of choice. But "having choice, we must not act without responsibility." However, if I am not awakened in eye and heart to that breath of Life within me then my actions are likely to be irresponsible and contrary to the nature Life intended me as a ruler of myself and of the earth. Only if I am awake to this Life breathing within me will I be able to make responsible choices that will be in harmony with all other beings until All is in all, a union of One, a oneness in the manyness. Frederick Franck in his Book of Angelus Silesitis says: "For the awakened.spirit there is no longer a split between 'I' and 'other'." Meister Eckhart asks, "When is a man in mere understanding?" "When he sees one thing as separated from another." "And when isa manabove mere under-standing? . When a man sees All in all, then a man stands beyond mere understanding." Until one is awakened to the Life within there is no unfolding, no con-sciousness that this clump of lichen and I are responsible to each other, gifts to each other for all others in our oneness. Thoughtlessness, insensitivity, ihgrati-tude to the gift of oneself and the gift of each other have compounded to the magnitude of global disaster at the exp.ense of all that represents the lichen and me. In our insecurities and lack of appreciation of each other's unique gifted-ness-- everything that makes up heaven and earth--we have become envious and greedy. In our drive to be number one in whatever area of life, individually and nationally, we have lost sight of our interconnectedness. We have forgot-ten that the world is round'and not fiat. In our linear vision of life we have forgotten that there is a Center that links us as spokes in a wheel. In our fears and insecurities we can be likened to the schoolyard bullies easily provoked when our power position is threatened. In the global schoolyard we clench nuclear warheads. ° A Clump of Lichen and Me / 43 Or? I was about to pull up the clump of lichen to use as an offering and a decoration but I didn't because ~of an awareness that each of us is connected to a Center and interdependent. But on a global level we have those who thought-lessly, selfishly ravage the earth's peoples and places as so many clumps of lichen and for a variety of reasons--least of all, offering and decoration. On the other hand, when done out of offering and decoration it is far more devastating. It is said that greed brings out the animal in us but that isn't true. Animals act according to their nature as designed when breathed,into life. ,~ dog gnawing on his bone is not envious of the dog next to him chewing on a steak. Each is content. Humans in their greed that becomes exploitation of all living beings act contrary to even animal nature in wanting both, their own and what others have. ~ I feel that my experience with the lichen spoke to the fundamental ques-tion, what is contemplative life--what is it to be contemplative? Am I off the track? I don't think so.-It is for each of us to live life moment by moment deliberately, reflectively, consciously, reverently; awarely, thoughtfully, prayer-fully. The majority claim that this isn't possible. But why not? Walter Burg-hardt in his book Season that Laugh and Weep_:quotes his friend William McNamara in defining contemplative as "a long loving look at the real." Burghardt goes on to explain the "real~" Reality is living, pulsing people; reality'is fire and water;~reality is the sun setting over the Poconos and a gentle doe streaking through the forest; reality is a ruddy glass of Burgundy, Beethoven's Mass in D, a child lapping a chocolate iee-crearn cone; reality is a striding woman with wind-blown hair; r~ality is Christ Jesus. Contemplation~is not an abstraction "where a leaf is no longer green, water no longer ripples, a woman is no longer soft, and God no longer smiles." He goes on to say, "This real I 'look' at. I no longer analyze it or argue it, describe or define it; I am one with it. I do not move around it; I enter into it." When one enters into it one becomes one with it. I am that at which I give a long loving look. Sense of separateness disappears.in the embrace. I am convinced that this capacity is within each of us.As I am writing and ponder-ing this (now a summer morning) I'm aware 0fa buzzing fly. The window has a space between outside glass and .inside screen. The fly flew in by the open middle section. It is now buzzing and frantically dashing itself at the top section of panes. This has been going on for over an hour. If it would just stop long enough to take a long loving look at the reality of its situation, it would come to know that the next set of panes is open. The fly would be free to become one with all that is outside the barrier of closed upper-window panes. To be contemplative is a dimension within each of us that must be responded to in order to live in harmony with one's self, with each other, with Gaia. That dimension is there enabling us to be free, but like the fly we frantically dash our lives on window panes of our own choosing. In all the ceaseless buzzing and frantic dashing about we fail to "see" that the next set of panes is op.en which would free us to be one with all we see but interact with through the glass of 44 / Review for Religious, Jan.-Feb., 1985 fears and insecurities. We are gifts to each other.~As human beings breathed into existence each of us is endowed with gifts we hold in common as well as those unique to each. Gifts can remain latent or be 'used intelligently ~nd responsibly. But this is an unfolding and a growing that starts from a beginning. In the beginning God created the heavens and earth. In the beginning was the Word. In the begin-ning life breathed. The very words "in the beginning" suggest that there is a past, a present and a future. We all have beginnings and are now in process toward endings. But life is a spiral of beginnings and endings gradually open-ing us to greater circumferences. Beginnings proceed to endings only to find that endings become new beginnings. Life is breathing, bringing us to an expanding awareness and fullness. However time past and time future ismean-ingful if I live the now moment attentively, patiently, caringly, lovingly. Other-wise the clump of lichen is just a clump of lichen to be trampled on or pulled up indifferently, carelessly--for there are no established ties. Again, theqittle prince and the fox: "What must I do, to tame you" asked the little prince? "You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me--like that--in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstandings. But you will sit a little closer to me, every day." In my experience on that January'day, the lichen and I tamed each other. Ties were established revealing secrets visibly to the heart. As I was walking back home filled with the fullness of Life, pain and sorrow entered. I could identify with St. Francis who cried because Love is not loved. Along the roadside was the trash 6f beverage cans and fast-food restau-rant containers. This marring of the creation of heaven and earth is evidence of a lack of awareness of the meaning of life breathing within all created things. Most of the trash along our highways are food containers betraying the pace and emptiness of our lives. Many people claim they are too busy to eat' reflectively, appreciatively, companionably and as an undivided activity. Too busy to take "long loving looks at the real." Busy-ness reflects an emptiness or a fife lived in qu~intity not quality until it becomes a frantic dashing about. There is not the patience to live the now moment attentively, undividedly. From just considering the kinds of trash I saw along the way, it seems that eating has become something we do while in the process of doing something else, on our way to somewhere else--all activities of another kind that are not entered into fully either. Our attention is fragmented; when the activities of each moment are multiple and experienced indifferently and randomly, as a ¯ necessary activity to get over with, it is a natural consequence to open the window of the car and carelessly toss out the trash on the landscape which goes unnoticed. The fox upon saying goodby to the prihce imparts his secret. "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye." "It is the time you have wasted for another that makes this tamed one so important'. Men have forgotten this truth but you must not forget it. You A Clump of Lichen and Me / 45 become responsible forever, for what you have tamed." What is it to be contemplative? Whether described as "a long loving look at the real" or "time you have wasted for another," it is a time consumption that a pragmatic materialistic society rejects because for them time and life are mea-su~- ed in terms of money--cash and flow. The contemplative dimension that enables us to be truly human is there but lost. From still another source, Tom Brown, a woodsman taught by an Apache Indian, describes in his book, The Search, his conviction of the contemplative dimension. There is a place I know where everything lives in harmony. Nothing is envied, stolen, or killed. Instead, everything is shared. The land is everyone's and no one's. Life is sacred there. A dweller in this place thinks highly of human life because he lives so close to the earth. He understands his part in the scheme of nature and is not lost or searching for himself. Where is this place? Does it really exist? Yes. It is within me and can be within you. It is a state of mind; it is an awareness; it is an appreciation; it is an understanding; it is a commitment to life. It is the realization that everything I described is all about us every day of our lives, but we miss it. We are blind to the beauty of a sunset, deaf to the music of the wind, callous to rough bark and soft grass. We speak of salaries and war instead of singing songs of life. We taste the bitterness of pollution and miss the sweetness of wild honeysuckle. We smell bus fumes but never the apple blossoms or clover flower. Life is manufactured and marketed. It is, for many of us, something to be bought or sold, and the more we pay, the better off we feel we are. Empty, untamed and fragmented lives are not awakened to the Life within. There is no awareness of interconnectedness, of taming and being tamed. There is no awareness that the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth and everything therein, is at the center of his universe and the center of each of us. One indifference leads and escalates into another: trash out the window by individuals, pollution and exploitation of land, sea and sky by industry, oppression of people around the world by political systems. If lives were lived contemplatively to what is essential and visible to the eye of the heart, then it would be realized that no being is insignificant because each o

Pınar Bilgin on Non-Western IR, Hybridity, and the One-Toothed Monster called Civilization





Questions of civilization underpin much of IR scholarship—whether explicitly (in terms of the construction of non-Western 'others') or implicitly (in the assumption that provincial institutions from Europe constitute a universal model of how we ought to relate to one another in international politics). While this topic surfaces frequently in debates about postcolonial international politics, few scholars are able to tackle this conundrum with the same sense of acuteness as Pınar Bilgin. In this Talk, she—amongst others—elaborates on not doing Turkish IR, what postsecular IR comprises, and discusses her own position in regards to that one-toothed monster called civilization.




Print version of this Talk (pdf)




What is, according to you, the biggest challenge / principal debate in current IR? What is your position or answer to this challenge / in this debate?



What I think is the biggest challenge in current IR is not so much a debate, but the difficulty for students of IR to come up with ways of making sense of the world in a way that appreciates different experiences and sensibilities and others' contributions and contestations. International Relations as we know it at the moment and as offered in the standard textbooks, portrays a world that they really don't recognize as the world that they live in. And I should point out that I am not just speaking of Non-Western experiences and sensibilities—there is in any case a growing body of literature on Non-Western IR, and you have spoken to Amitav Acharya (Theory Talk #42), Siba Grovogui (Theory Talk #57) and others—but I am also referring to all those perspectives in which international knowledge are presented and which the textbooks do not usually reflect, including feminist perspectives for instance (such as Ann Tickner, Theory Talk #54), or perspectives from the Global South some of which actually fall into the definition of 'the West'. So when I speak of ways of making sense of the world in a way that appreciates different experiences and sensibilities, I am referring to the agenda of Critical Theory of IR. I do think we have come a long way since the early 1990s when I was a student of IR and Critical Theory was beginning to make its mark then, but we still have a long way to go. For instance, critical approaches to security have come a long way in terms of considering insecurities of specific social groups that mainstream approaches overlook, but it has a long way to go still in terms of actually incorporating insecurities as viewed by those people, instead of just explaining them away. 



As for the principal debate in IR, the debate that goes on in my mind is how to study IR in a way that appreciates different experiences and sensibilities and acknowledges other contributions as well as contestations. This is not the principal debate in the field, but the field that comes closest is the one that I try and contribute to, and that is the field of non-Western approaches to IR. It is not exactly a debate, of course, in the sense that the very mainstream Western approaches that it targets are not paying any attention. So it's the critics themselves who have their disagreements, and on the one hand there are those who point to other ways of thinking about the international, Stephen Chan comes to mind as the producer of one of the early examples of that. I can think of Robbie Shilliam's more recent book on the subject, thinking about the international from non-Western perspectives. On the other hand are those who survey IR in different parts of the world, to see how it is done, what their concerns and debates are. Ole Waever, Arlene Tickner and David Blaney's three-volume series 'Worlding Beyond the West' contains materials from both these directions. 



My own approach is slightly different in that while acknowledging the limits of our approaches to IR as any critical IR person would, I don't necessarily think that turning to others' 'authentic' perspectives to look for different ways of thinking about the international is the way forward for students of IR. That brings me to back the way I set up the challenge to IR today: it is about incorporating others' perspectives, as well as acknowledging their contributions and contestations. I think I would like to take a more historical approach to this. It's not just about contemporary differences—studies on these are very valuable and I learn a lot from them—but what I've also found very valuable are connections: how much give and take has already taken place over the years, how for instance the roots of human rights can be found in multiple places in our history and in different parts of the world, how the Human Rights Convention was penned by multiple actors, how human rights norms don't go deep enough and how calls for deepening them have in fact emerged from different parts of the world, not just the West. So these contributions can actually point to our history and to different perspectives across the globe, but these are often referred to as non-Western IR, whereas they're actually pointing to our conversations, our communication, the give and take between us. That is what I am mainly interested in at the moment: the multiple authorship of ideas, and pointing to them you actually face the biggest challenge. It builds on Edward Said's legacy, so it's a critical IR project, the way I see it: Said built on multiple beginnings and engaged in contrapuntal reading. I should add that when I am talking about 'sensibilities', I am not necessarily talking about it with reference to other parts of the world, although it may seem this way. The more reflexive approaches to IR have taught us that we are all shaped by and all respond to our contexts—in one way or another.



One interesting result of Arlene Tickner's and Ole Waever's book, International Relations Scholarship around the World, was that IR in different parts of the world is not in fact that different: it is still state-centric, it talks about security in the way that most mainstream textbooks would talk about it, and IR courses are structured in such a way that you would be able to recognize in most parts of the world. Such surveys, therefore, tell us that IR works quite similarly in other parts of the world. Hence the need to look for difference in alternative sources and the need to look beyond IR—towards anthropology, sociology, linguistics, etc.—there is growing interest in conceptions of the international beyond what IR allows us. This is not confined to looking beyond the West, but is equally emerging in Western scholarship: there is now emerging literature on postsecularism and IR, and bringing religion back into the study of IR. However, I am not so much interested in studying differences (without underestimating the significance of such studies) but studying to our conversations, our communication, the give and take between us.





How did you arrive at where you currently are in IR?



My journey to this point has been through critical security studies. I studied international relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara and did a Master's Degree Bilkent University in Ankara where I currently work. I was not entirely comfortable with IR as an undergraduate student, thought I could not quite put my finger on the reason why—though I was able to make sense of during my later studies. At the undergraduate level, I received an interdisciplinary training, not so much by design but rather by accident: I picked courses on political theory, economic history and political anthropology, simply because our curriculum allowed such a design. I was lucky to have interesting people teaching interesting courses. And again by sheer coincidence we had a visiting professor who introduced me to philosophy of science and the work of Thomas Kuhn and I began to question the standard IR training I had been receiving. So then I went on to an MA degree at Bilkent University which became consequential for me in two ways: for one, that University has the best IR library in Turkey, so there are no limits to what you can learn even when you are left to your own devices, and secondly, Hollis and Smith's Explaining and Understanding International Relations (1991) was on our reading list. So when I began reading that against the background of Thomas Kuhn, I began to make sense of IR in a very different way. Mind you, I was still not able to see my future in IR at that time. 



Then I began writing my MA dissertation and was also working at Turkey's then very powerful semi-military institution the MGK, the National Security Council, at the General Secretariat: I was hired as a junior researcher and lasted for about four-and-a-half months, and then I went abroad for further studies, but those months were what set me on my path to Critical Security Studies. Working there, I began to appreciate the need for reflexivity, and the difficult role of the researcher, and the relationship between theory and practice. At that point I received a Chevening scholarship from the British Council, and the condition attached was that I could not use it towards PhD studies but had to use it for a one-year degree. I decided to study something that I could not study at home, and came across Ken Booth's work ('Security and Emancipation,' 1991) and knew of course Barry Buzan's oeuvre (Theory Talk #35), and found that Aberystwyth University offered a one-year degree in Strategic Studies, which is what I decided to do. That happened to be the first year they offered an Master's degree in Critical Security Studies, and I became one of the first five students to take that course, taught jointly by Ken Booth, Richard Wyn Jones and Nicholas Wheeler. Together with Steve Smith, who was Head of Department at the time, they were committed to giving us an excellent education, so it was a great place to be and I stayed on to do my PhD there as well. It's a small Welsh town with only 13,000 people and the University has about the same number of students. During that time I read important examples of critical IR scholarship, as well as the newly emerging literature on Security Studies, and it was around that time that Michael Williams (Theory Talk #39) joined the Department and he was a great influence on my work, as was of course my dissertation advisor Ken Booth: I learned a lot from him in terms of substance and style. 



After receiving my PhD in the year 2000 I joined the IR department at Bilkent University as the only critical theorist there. Bilkent was at the time one of the few universities in Turkey committed to excellence in research—now there are more—and that allowed me the academic freedom to pursue my research interests in Critical Security Studies: I was able to focus on my work without having to spread out into other fields. It helped that I became part of research networks as well: I've already mentioned Arlene Tickner's and Ole Waever's work, their project on geocultural epistemologies in IR and 'Worlding beyong the West'. Ole Waever invited me to join, thus opening up my second research agenda since my PhD, enriched by workshops and conversations with scholars in the group. It is not far removed from my core work, but it is an added dimension. And this helped me over time to overcome my earlier doubts about IR, for I began to see just how multidisciplinary it was. It was only through Critical IR that I learned how parallel perspectives in other disciplines, and alternative ideas could be brought to bear on IR—something you also find nowadays in international political sociology or different aspects of anthropology in constructivism. 





What would a student need to become a specialist in IR or understand the world in a global way?



In terms of skills, I think that studying at different institutions if possible, different settings with different academic traditions helps a lot. Institutions vary widely in their emphasis—Bilkent for instance believes that the best teachers are those who do cutting-edge research. Others may disagree and say that small teaching colleges are the best, because they pass on what they specialise in. I think therefore that studying at different institutions is very good for students, whether it be within formal exchange frameworks or acquiring fellowships for study away, not to mention of course fieldwork, which offers new settings: every new environment is an important learning experience, even if the substance is not so useful and what you learn is not necessarily so significant. Secondly, some would suggest learning a different language is important, along with acquiring a foothold in area studies and comparative studies, and I agree with that. Thirdly, Stefano Guzzini talks about IR theory being what a student needs in terms of disposition and skills: he has this piece in the Journal of International Relations and Development (2001), where he makes the case specifically for would-be diplomats in Central and Eastern European countries that by learning theory, students would be equipped to communicate across cultural boundaries—it's like learning a new language. They would learn to watch out against ethnocentrism, he argues, and this is one of the pieces I use when I teach IR theory. In this spirit, I think it important to use theory as a new language, as one of the tools that every student should have in their toolkit. And finally, I think I'd follow Cynthia Enloe's (Theory Talk #48) recommendation that it's useful to have a foot both in IR theory and in comparative studies. I feel that one without the other is less rewarding, though one will not know what one is missing until one goes to explore. 



In my PhD work I focused on the Middle East, since then I have looked more in depth at Europe's relationship with the Euro-Mediterranean relations and Turkey-EU relations as empirical points of reference. This has been enriching and has benefited my research. In sum, it is essential to read as broadly as possible, and I give the same advice to my M.A. and to my PhD students. You can't read everything, and it can happen that the more we read the more confused we get, but in this Theory Talks is doing a great job by allowing students to learn from the experience of others. Learning happens also at conferences: you may find subjects that are of no interest to you, but that is helpful also, and on the other hand new subjects will broaden horizons. The wealth of cultural references in each part of the world can be baffling and may make it difficult to delve deep. The only way we make sense of the unknown through what we know. 





What regional or perhaps even global protagonism can you envisage for IR studies emerging from Turkey? Turkey is often perceived to bridge Europe and the Middle East, Europe and Asia, but we have the problem that Asia itself is a Western idea, then a 'bridge' is in danger of belonging to neither.



As I made clear in what I said above, I don't think of IR in terms of contributions emerging from this part of the world or that part of the world. And although I grew up in Turkey and began my academic career there, I don't consider my own work to be in any way a 'Turkish perspective' on IR. What can be said to be Turkish about my perspective is that I have to travel to Aberystwyth and Copenhagen and all those ISA conference locations to discover that I can have (and some say I should) have a Turkish perspective. My undergraduate education was about learning IR as a 'universally undisputed'. I now know the limitations of that universalism, but I cannot offer a specifically located perspective, for it is a complicated picture that emerges in front of us. I am not in favour of replacing one parochialism with another one, in terms of those who speak of X School of IR versus Y School of IR. 



Having said that, I consider that my contribution as being comfortable with what Orhan Pamuk has called the 'in-between world', though I prefer to use the term 'hybridity', not in-between-ness. That Turkish policy-makers have always claimed a bridge status for their country, but these ideas are rooted in Turkey's hybridity and belonging to multiple worlds (as opposed to being in between multiple worlds). Policy-makers can talk about being a bridge between Europe and Asia, or Europe and the Middle East, because Turkey in fact belongs to all these worlds. So in some ways being at ease with this hybridity does allow me to have a particular perspective in IR that I may not have had if I had come from a different background. But then again, it's difficult to know. I have taken courses in political anthropology, learning about the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey as an imagined community, but all my introductions to geocultural studies and epistemology came from Critical IR settings, so looking for geographically or culturally specific roots simply doesn't work. As Said put it, it is 'beginnings' that we should be looking for, not 'origins.' 





When Europeans and North Americans speak of 'state building' and 'development', Turkey is often taken as a model example of conversion to Western models—largely by its own choice. Should Turkey's path and modern reality be understood differently?



I am not comfortable with the word 'model', but 'example' may be a preferable term. So what is Turkey an example of? That has become a particular research question for me and I have written on this—Turkey's choice to locate itself in the West and what that means. Turkey is interesting for having decided to locate itself in the West, and this is where language and culture come in the picture. More often than not, the literature tends to assume that elites in places like Turkey would make the decision to adopt the 'Western model', and the rationale for adopting that model is not questioned, but instead taken to be 'obvious' from development theory and its teleological outlook: 'it just happened'. It is those that do not adopt the dominant model, those that decide against Westernization, that need explaining. Perhaps I would not have asked myself that question, had I not—and here my biography comes into the picture—been puzzled by references to 'civilization' in Turkish texts. If you look into Turkish literature or historical documents you will find references to 'civilization' everywhere—the national anthem refers to civilization as a 'one-toothed monster called civilization'. As a young student, I just couldn't make sense of this and wondered why is everyone talking about civilization and why is it a good and a difficult thing at the same time? 



I began to make sense of this as I was researching Turkey's choices about secularism in the late 19th and early 20th century, and was looking at some of those documents once again, but this time with insights provided by postcolonial IR. The language commonly used was 'joining' the West, and secularisation was a part of the package, but it was not necessarily a question of mere emulation but search for security, being a part of the 'international society'. These were not easy decisions, so here I look at Turkey's choice to locate itself in the West within the security context. There was a notion of a 'standard of civilization' in Europe and the West more broadly which others were expected to 'live up to', and this gives you some sense of the ubiquity of the references to civilization in the discourses of Turkish policy makers at the time. I am not suggesting that this is the whole answer, and I do not reject distinct answers, but I do think it helps understand Turkey's decision to locate itself in the West in the early 20th century. So this is where my security aspects of my work and Critical IR together. My starting point is to identify the ubiquity of one notion and then locate that within critical IR theory. Turkey becomes an example of postcolonial insecurities. Though never having been colonized it nonetheless exhibits those 'postcolonial anxieties' in Sankaran Krishna's words.  



I am keenly aware of the reality that even when we as academics are doing our most theoretical and abstract work, we are never removed from the roles of the 'real world', for we are teachers at the same time: by the time we put our ideas to paper we have already disseminated them through our teaching. Some of us are more committed to teaching than others, of course, but some critical theorists see the most important part of their job as being good educators and training the new generation, as opposed to being more public intellectuals and writing op-ed pieces and talking to bigger audiences. We are therefore never far removed from the world of practice and from disseminating our ideas about security and international relations, because we are teachers, and some of our students will go on to work in the real world institutions, like government or the media. 



Beyond that, there is a growing vitality in the literature on the privatisation of security: on private armies and how security is being privatised and fielded out to professionals. The new literature that is emerging on this is more and more interesting, I am thinking for instance of Anna Leander's work here: she talks about privatization of security not only in terms of the involvement of private professionals going off to do what government or other actors tell them to do, but also in terms of the setting up of security agendas and shaping security, determining what threats are, and determining what risks are and quite literally how we should be leading our lives. In this sense theory and critical security studies have become very real for all of us, because no one group of people owns the definitions.



Currently I am working on a manuscript that brings together two of my research interests, conceptions of the international beyond the West and Critical Security Studies. I use the case of Turkey for purposes of illustration but also for insight. I am trying to think of ways of studying security that are attentive to the periphery's conceptions of the international as a source of (non-material) insecurity. 





Pınar Bilgin is the author of Regional Security in the Middle East: a Critical Perspective (Routledge, 2005) and over 50 papers. She is an Associate Member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences. She received the Young Scientists Incentive Award of the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) in 2009 and 'Young Scientist' (GEBIP) award of Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA, 2008). She served as the President of Central and East European International Studies Association (CEEISA), and chair of International Political Sociology Section of ISA. She is a Member of the Steering Committee of Standing Group on International Relations (SGIR) and an Associate Editor of International Political Sociology. 





Related links





Faculty Profile at Bilkent University
Read Bilgin's Thinking Past 'Western' IR? (2008) here (pdf)
Read Bilgin's A Return to 'Civilisational Geopolitics' in the Mediterranean? Changing Geopolitical Images of the European Union and Turkey in the Post-Cold War Era (2004) here (pdf)
Read Bilgin's Whose 'Middle East'? Geopolitical Inventions and Practices of Security (2004) here (pdf)
Read Bilgin's and A.D. Morton's Historicising representations of 'Failed States': beyong the cold-war annexation of the social sciences? (2002) here (pdf)

Print version of this Talk (pdf)

Issue 67.4 of the Review for Religious, 2008. ; Personal Witness Heart -Knowledge, .Spiritual Reflection QUARTERLY 67.4 2008 Review for Religious fosters dialogue with God, dialogue with ourselves, and dialogue with one another about the holiness we try to live according to charisms of Catholic religious life. As Pope Paul Vl said, our way of being church is today the way of dialogue. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published quarterly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393 Telephone: 314-633-4610 ¯ Fax: 314-633-4611 E-Maih review@slu.edu ¯ Web site: www.reviewforreligious.org Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard - St. Louis, MO 63108-3393 Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ Pontifical College Josephinum 7625 North High Street ¯ Columbus, Ohio 43235 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 5.5806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. 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Fischer sJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Eugene Hensell OSB Mary Ann Foppe Tracy Gramm Judy Sharp Paul Coutinho SJ Martin Erspamer OSB Margaret Guider OSF Kathleen Hughes RSCJ Louis and Angela Menard Bishop Terry Steib SVD QUARTERLY 67.4 2008 contents 340 prisms Prisms 342 personal witness Thomas Merton's Legacy: A Personal Reflection Richard Hauser SJ gives personal witness to Thomas Merton's influence in five areas of spirituality: models of spirituality, personal prayer, the sacred and the secular, nonviolence, and interreligious understanding. Personal Reflection / Group Discussion 358 Our Ethnicity.en Route to God Ruth Bolarte IHM, recalling her early religious formation as a Peruvian woman in the United States, points out the need for everyone's ethnic cultural roots to be recognized and made good use of in spiritual direction and in faith and religious-life education. 366 heart knowledge Constitutions and Heart Knowledge Beatrice Eichten OSF proposes that women and men religious may ~ell review their ¢onstitntions and question how they live out in practice their co ,mmunity life and governance today. Personal Reflection / Group Discussion Revie~ for Religious 380 Can New Life Arise from the Rule Book? 386 Nestor Gregoire OMI suggests ways that the Rule Book of a religious congregation can become user friendly and be a part of the community's prayer life. Monasticism's Rooted Adaptations Joel Rippinger OSB paints a picture of the contemporary demands on the monastic community and the adaptation required to remain true to monastic life. 392 4O4 413 Revisiting Hope William P. Clark OMI ruminates on all the richness that the virtue of hope gives to our daily living and to our witness-ing to our Christian faith. Becoming All Fire: Thoughts on Religious Identity Hedwig Lewis SJ offers reflections on the Jesuit as "a man on fire" in the light of Decree 2 of General Congregation 35. Though applied here to the Society of Jesus, the ideas have relevance for all women and men religious and for others who desire greater commitment to the Lord. A Source for Prayer Undreamt Of A. Paul Dominic SJ proposes ways that we might find content for our prayer in the dreams that God may use in speaking to us. 425 Scripture Scope: The New Perspective on St. Paul 430 Canonical Counsel: The Lacuna Canon: Common and Constant Opinion 435 Book Reviews 443 2008 Index 339 67.4 2008 prisms 3401 Nvember is the month in the Catholic liturgical tradition devoted to a commemoration of the faithful departed. We remember, those who have died and now have a different role to exercise in the communion of the saints. We remind ourselves that death is not an end, but rather a door passed through to life forever. Some years ago the Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner wrote a long essay in the Quaestiones Disputatae series entitled On the Theology of Death. One of the challenges that Rahner pre-sented was for us to view death as a beginning. Obviously in our Christian faith in the resur-rection of the body we acknowledge that in dying we rise to new life. Although physical death can be seen as an end, that same death can be seen as a beginning. Rahner, however, was drawing our atten-tion to how we prepare for our Christian death by how we live. If we truly 7want to enter into living our Christian faith, we should spend our lives learning how to die. All the little dying opportunities in our life allow for this growth. Something so simple as the physical act of fall-ing asleep at night and waking to a new day can be an exercise in dying. We can't make ourselves sleep, but we can give ourselves over Review for Religious to its possibility. And that attitude/action of "giving our-selves over" is what makes death a beginning. In our everyday life, there can be a lot of bringing things to a completion or to an end (a dying), and then we find ourselves giving ourselves over to a new project. Every time we face an ending or a dying, we are learning how to die by giving ourselves over to something new. As Christians, then, we truly can be said to be peo-ple who spend their lives learning how to die. In fol-lowing Jesus, we are his disciples even up to his death on a cross. Even suffering an unjust and cruel death by crucifixion, Jesus saw and freely accepted his death as a giving over of himself to God and to us--his own gift of self in love. This is the gift God makes present to us in every Eucharist--the eternal stance of Jesus giving himself over to the Father and to us, and inviting us to be with him in this gift. So as we enter into every Eucharist, we again are exercising our learning how to die--a giving of ourselves over to new life. November is also the end of the church's liturgical year. We begin anew our liturgical year with the sea-son of Advent. Just as in the secular ending of a year and then the beginning of a new year, we find ourselves challenged to acknowledge that this year we are one year closer to dying, no matter our age. It seems to be a good time to ask ourselves; as Rahner would remind us, how we accept death as a beginning and how each day we are learning how to die. David L. Fleming SJ The Review for Religious advisory board members and editorial staff pray for a blessed Advent and Christmas sea-son for all of you, our readers. 341 67.4 2008 prayer RICHARD J. HAUSER Thomas Merton's Legacy: A Personal Reflection 342 The Newsweek cover of 19 November 2007 proclaimed 1968 as "The Year That Made Us Who We Are." Prominent among the events recalled were the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. on 4 April and Robert Kennedy on 6 June. For me the year recalled another death, Thomas Merton's, on 10 December, and Newsweek's title led me to reflect on how Merton had made me and many of my genera-tion who we are as Christians. This surprised me. I had never explicitly assessed Merton's contribution either to 20th-century spiritual-ity or to my own. Then I received and accepted an invitation from St. Mary's College, South Bend, to speak about Merton's legacy to contemporary spiritu-ality. I began delving back into spiritual devel-opments after the Second Vatican Council. Richard J. Hauser SJ writes from Creighton University; 2500 California Plaza; Omaha, Nebraska 68178. Review for Religious To be safe I narrowed my topic to Merton's influence on me, but I soon felt that Merton had influenced my entire generation, affecting major writers such as Henri Nouwen and Thomas Keating. From 1969 to 1972 I studied in the Department of Religion and Religious Education at Catholic University in Washington, D.C. There I became fascinated by Abraham Maslow's self-actualizationpsychology, espe-cially his approach to peak "religious" experience. Deciding for my dissertation to compare Maslow, an agnostic, with a Christian spiritual writer, I did not take the suggestion to use Ignatius Loyola. I had read Seven Storey Mountain in high school; as a young Jesuit I had not become further acquainted; but I would become familiar with him. I chose Merton. Looking back now, I am aware that Merton signifi-cantly altered my approach to spirituality in at least five areas: models of spirituality, personal prayer, the sacred and the secular, nonviolence, and interreligious under-standing. Models of Spirituality Merton transformed my understanding of not only spirituality but also human nature. He moved me from a behavior-centered approach to a contemplative, heart-centered approach. And for the first time I began under-standing the role of grace. In my Jesuit formation from 1955 to 1968, we strove to do God's will as indicated in the daily order. Our day included Mass, meditation, examinations of conscience, the rosary, and other prayers. It included times for work, study, play, eating, and sleeping. Our, day was spent doing things for God. Holiness, as I understood it throughout my Jesuit formation, was in fidelity in doing God's will 343 67.4 2008 Hauser * Thomas Merton's Legacy: .4 Personal Reflection by observing the daily order and keeping the rules: "Keep the rules and the rules will keep you." I frequently failed in observance. I was a perfectionist and experienced guilt. I had migraine headaches during my early years. During my studies at Catholic University, I began rethinking my model of spirituality and of human nature. Though I had never formally articulated it, my understanding of human nature throughout my forma-tion was Freudian: Human nature cannot be trusted because it is dominated by the strong self-centered instinctual impulses of the Id, and so spirituality strives to repress and control this unruly nature. Abraham Maslow's personality theory challenged this model. Maslow describes human nature in a posi-tive series of needs leading to full self-actualization. This actualization occurs as we recognize and respond to our nature's promptings. For my dissertation I sought a theological perspec-tive on human nature that would complement Maslow's psychological one. Merton's theory of the True Self pro-vided that perspective. He stresses that the True Self is the self in an existential union with God. This union is capable of transforming the self if we live in tune with it: "The secret of my identity is hidden in Him. He alone can make me who I am, or rather who I will be when at last I fully begin to be. But, unless I desire this identity and work to find it with him and in him, the work will never be done." Also: "There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace, and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find him I will find myself, and if I find my true self I will find him.''1 For the first time in my life I was exposed to a Christian approach to the self that stressed not sinful- Review for Religious ness but grace. For me, Merton was describing grace as it worked transforming the various levels of Maslow's series of needs. Merton's "self-realization in Christ" was the perfect complement to Maslow's agnostic "self-actu-alization.'~ But Merton's approach to the self was not naive. He realized that discovering our True Self is difficult because we are shadowed by a False Self. This False Self is a product of our secular, materialistic culture; it leads to an understand- ¯ ing of the self that does not include God: "Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. My false and pri-vate self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God's will and God's love--outside of reality and outside of life. And such a self can-not help but be an illusion .A.ll sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered" (Seeds, 34-35). Merton's approach to spirituality focuses not on behavior but on the habitual consciousness underlying actions. Spirituality seeks to recognize and respond to God's presence at the center of our self, our True Self. This includes recognizing and rejecting the patterns of our False Self that separate us from God. It is not unlike Paul's contrast between following Christ by faith-ful observance of the external law and following Christ Merton's approach to spirituality focuses not on behavior but on the habitual consciousness underlying actions. 67.4 2008 Hauser * Thonms Merton'~ Legacy: .4 Per~onM Reflection 346 by responding to the law of the Holy Spirit written upon our hearts. This insight illumined my spirituality. When I began my university teaching, I was asked to teach a graduate course called Approaches to Mysticism. Merton's contemplative spirituality became my guide. Personal Prayer Merton transformed my personal prayer, helping me experience prayer as an authentic and fulfilling expres-sion of myself before God and not only as a prescribed religious obligation. He helped me recognize the Spirit's role and become aware of actual contemplation in my life and prayer. I believe that contemplation is the key to Merton's spirituality. ' Daily personal prayer was a regular part of our Jesuit formation. We were given Jesuit-authored meditation books that presented scriptural passages for each day of the year. We were taught the Ignatian methods of meditation and contemplation presented in his Spiritual Exercises. We were instructed to reflect on those passages using memory, understanding, will, and imagination. We prayed for fifty minutes each morning beginning at 5:30. I found these prayer hours difficult and did not look forward to them. They seemed irrelevant; I often experienced distraction, boredom, and sleep. I was faith-ful to this regimen for the first nine years of my Jeslait formation. As part of my formation I taught at a Jesuit mis-sion in South Dakota. Life at the mission was difficult, both in community life and in ministry. The students showed little enthusiasm for the courses I taught or the activities I ran. Discouraged, I wondered if I had fol-lowed the right vocation. I began taking walks alone late at night down the country road. I poured out my Review for Religious discouragement to the Lord. The walks stabilized me; in the stillness I often found peace. I looked forward to these walks and would not miss them if I could help it. I determined to continue serving the Lord. But I did not consider these walks personal prayer-- they were not the Ignatian prayer I was trained in. Needing sleep, I soon was sleeping through the morning prayer hour and getting up in time for the 6:30 Mass. I felt guilty, but one day I realized I was not skipping prayer--I was doing it at night. From that moment my personal prayer changed. I felt that prayer does not have to be a strenuous concentration of mem-ory, understanding, will, and imagination. Simply being with the Lord anywhere--in chapel or outside--was prayer. Theologians might not agree with me, and this was not the Ignatian prayer I was taught--so I kept my ideas to myself. In graduate school Merton gave me a theological foundation for my prayer. He helped me realize I was holding on to a Pelagian understanding of prayer. He showed me that prayer is really more the work of the Holy Spirit than my work: "It can therefore be said that the aim of mental prayer is to awaken the Holy Spirit within us, and to bring our hearts into harmony with his voice, so that we allow the Holy Spirit to speak and pray within us, and lend him our voice and our affec-tions that we may become, as far as possible, conscious of his prayer in our hearts.''2 Merton showed me that prayer can actually be easy and that we can pray from wherever we are in our lives. It does not have to be a strenuous effort to forget our daily lives and to concentrate on Scripture using mem-ory, understanding, and will. "In prayer we discover what we already have. You start where you are and you 347 67.4 2008 Hauser ¯ Thomas Merton's Legacy: .4 Personal R~ection Merton gave me the theology and language to explain and justify what had become my regular practice of personal prayer. 348 deepen what you already have, and you realize that you are already there. We already have everything; but we don't know it and we don't experience it. Everything has been given to us in Christ. All we need is to experience what we already possess.''3 Finally, and unbelievably, I learned that my prayer sometimes fulfilled Merton's description of contem-plation- being touched by God in a way transcending words. What I had considered merely natural human expe-riences-- Maslow's peak experiences-- were actually encoun-ters with the divine: "Contemplation is a sudden gift of aware-ness, an awakening to the Real within all that is real. A vivid - ¯ - awareness of infinite Being at the roots of our own limited being. An awareness of our contingent reality as received, as a present from God, as a free gift of love. This is the existential contact of which we speak when we use the metaphor of being 'touched by God'" (Seeds, 3). I realized these experiences happened most frequendy for me--and for Merton--in nature, and they happened most frequently outside of formal prayer times. He showed me that contemplation is not merely the preserve of cloistered monks and nuns, but that we are all called to it by our baptism. In short, Merton gave me the theology and language to explain and justify what had become my regular prac-tice of personal prayer. This had several enduring effects Review for Religious on my rhythm of personal prayer. I moved toward more and more silence in prayer, allowing the Holy Spirit to pray within me. I began daily prayer with my personal concerns rather than Scripture. I arranged my place of prayer to ensure I could always view God's creation. I altered my annual eight-day retreats: I stopped going to retreat houses and went to places of great natural beauty near a mountain or an ocean--and I began looking for-ward to these retreats. The Sacred and the Secular Merton's ideas had many ramifications in my life. He helped me transcend an artificial distinction I had made between the sacred and the secular. He helped me recognize that daily life is sacred. Before the Second Vatican Council and throughout my formation, I had lived with a basic misunderstand-ing about spirituality and holiness. I believed that spiri-tuality is primarily faithful performance of devotional practices aimed directly at worshiping God, such as Mass and visits to chapel, and that holiness is measured by fidelity to these practices. I did acknowledge other things as important, such as doing God's will and charity toward others, especially toward the most needy. These things, however, seemed not as central to holiness as the explicitly religious activities. When the council came, I was deeply influenced by the document "The Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium et spes). The council clearly taught that being a good Catholic is more than simply performing reli-gious obligations faithfully. A good Catholic must also be actively involved in serving the kingdom of God by living in love in ordinary daily life, and especially by working for justice in the world and working for the poor. 349 67.4 2008 Hauser ¯Tbomas Merton's Legaiy: A Personal Reflection This call occasioned a crisis in my life. I began to feel there had been too much emphasis on religious activities and not enough on service to others. I questioned my commitment to daily Mass and meditation. For a while I dropped daily personal prayer. I had set up a dichotomy between sacred activities and secular activities. Merton helped me overcome this dichotomy. His understand-ing of the True Self was key. The True Self exists in an existential union not only with God but also with the entire human family. There is no true union with God without union with one another, and so the Holy Spirit moves our hearts not only to love God in religious activ-ities but also to love one another in our daily activities: "Christ prayed that all men might become One as He was One with his Father, in the Unity of the Holy Spirit. Therefore when you and I become what we are really meant to be, we will discover not only that we love one another perfectly but that we are both living in Christ and Christ in us, and we are all One Christ. We will see that it is he who loves in us" (Seeds, 65). Living a life of service to others is not a distrac-tion from union with God but actually a condition for reaching this union: "One of the paradoxes of the mys-tical life is this: that a man cannot enter into the deep-est center of himself, and pass through that center into God, unless he is able to pass entirely out of himself and empty himself and give himself to other people in the purity of a selfless love" (Seeds, 64). Merton emphasizes that the quality of prayer affects the quality of our action. The more deeply we are united to God in prayer, the more energy we have to serve our neighbor. "Action and contemplation now grow together into one life and one unity. They become two aspects of the same thing. Action is charity looking out- Review for Religious ward to other men, and contemplation is charity drawn inward to its own divine source. Action is the stream, and contemplation is the spring. The spring remains more important than the stream, for the only thing that really matters is for love to spring up inexhaustibly from the infinite abyss of Christ and of God.''4 Merton gave me the theology to dedicate myself to both prayer and service. Since both flow from the Holy Spirit, both are sacred. This theology impelled me to social action. Soon after I began my university teaching, I initiated a campus boycott of iceberg lettuce to sup-port the farm workers' union. I encouraged nonviolent picketing of the food service lines. The boycott took more than a year but was ultimately successful. Nonviolence Before reflecting on Merton's spirituality, I had a lim-ited understanding of nonviolence. I thought of it sim-ply as conscientiously objecting to the war in Vietnam and, influenced by Martin Luther King's civil rights movement, as not retaliating physically when attacked. Though I admired these positions, I saw those who took them as rare, highly idealistic, and a bit naive. Merton revolutionized my understanding. His description of the True Self showed me that an attitude of nonviolence is an integral part of living the gospel and following Christ. Since God dwells within every human being, this com-munion has radical consequences for how we think and how we act. When we are in tune with God at our center, in our True Self, we experience our oneness with others, even with our "enemies." Our behavior changes. Merton helped me realize that Western understand-ings of the person foster secularism, individualism, materialism, competition, and a sense of superiority. 67.4 2008 Hauser ¯ Thomas Merton's Legacy: A Personal R~leaion Merton helped me.realize that Western understandings of the person foster secularism, individualism, materialism, competition, and a sense of superiority. This False Self has the illusion that our existence is not connected with God or with others, and this illusion leads to violence: "People who know nothing of God, and whose lives are centered on themselves, imagine that they can only find themselves by asserting their own desires and ambi-tions and appetites in a struggle with the rest of the world. They try to become real by imposing themselves on other people, by appro-priating for them-selves some share of the limited supply of created goods and thus emphasizing the difference between themselves and other men who have less than they, or nothing at all" (Seeds, 47). Merton concludes simply: "I must look for my identity, somehow, not only in God but in other men. I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being" (Seeds, 51). The transformation Merton calls for happens most profoundly in contemplation. In a busy Kentucky city, Merton experienced his most well-known contemplative awakening: "In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of Review for Religious separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness.''s Such consciousness is the foundation for Merton's understanding of nonviolence. It can move us to deal with our neighbors always with compassion and love, not violence. We seek nonviolent ways to show our neigh-bors the divine within them as it has been shown joyfully to ourselves. This is the way Merton was leading me to radical implications of being a Christian. How inad-equate my understanding of nonviolence had been! Merton lived during the turbulent 1960s and applied nonviolent principles to social movements. He became the prophetic voice for many involved in these movements. While studying in Washington, I attended many mass demonstrations against the Vietnam War. I remember a group of marchers on Pennsylvania Avenue carrying a ban-ner slandering President Nixon. Merton helped me realize that this was not true nonviolence. Without compassion and love, it was merely a redirection of hatred. Truly non-violent social movements exclude hatred, because we are all members of one human family with God as our Father. I began applying nonviolent principles to personal con-flicts. I realized how often I sought to resolve conflicts by some sort of psychological intimidation. I saw anew the need for prayer. And I began teaching a course titled Faith and Nonviolence. We read the New Testament, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Cesar Chavez, Daniel Berrigan, and Merton. The course applied nonviolent principles to both societal and personal conflicts. Interreligious Understanding Although I had taken several courses on world reli-gions during my theology studies, I understood these religions mainly as institutions with distinctive creeds, 67.4 2008 Hauser * Thomas Merton's Legacy: .4 Personal Reflection codes, and cults. Through his approach to contem-plation, Merton led me toward an empathetic under-standing of them. Key to this deeper understanding was Merton's insistence that the contemplative experi-ence of the divine is beyond words: "Contemplation is always beyond our own knowledge, beyond our own light, beyond systems, beyond explanations, beyond discourse, beyond dialogue, beyond our own self." "It cannot even be clearly explained. It can only be hinted at, suggested, pointed to, symbolized. The more objec-tively and scientifically one tries to analyze it, the more one empties it of its real content, for this experience is beyond the reach of verbalization and rationalization" (Seeds, 2 & 6). Since all human beings share the same human nature, and since the same God dwells within us all, we may indeed share similar experiences of God. Reading Merton's Inner Experience confirmed this idea for me. Buddhist descriptions of satori are not unlike Merton's descriptions of contemplation. Merton presents a poem. Devoid of thought, I sat quietly by the desk in my official room, With my fountain-mind undisturbed, as serene as water; A sudden crash of thunder, the mind doors burst open, And lo, there sits the old man in all his homeliness. Merton comments: "There sits Chao-pien himself, the same and yet utterly different, for it is the eternal Chao-pien, one with no familiar name, at once humble and mighty., utterly beyond description or comparison because he is beyond yes and no, subject and object, self and not-self. It is like the wonderful, devastating, and unutterable awe of humble joy with which a Christian realizes: 'I and the Lord are One.'''6 Review for Religious This was a major breakthrough in my understand-ing. After my own experiences of contemplation, I could now allow Merton's books and essays on Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Judaism, and Hinduism to lead me to deeper understanding of these religions. Since I wanted my students to understand the centrality of prayer and contemplation for every world religion, I began adding these readings to my courses. We all mourned Merton's untimely death in Bangkok on 10 December 1968, during his three-month trip to Asia. This death was especially sad because his firsthand Asian experiences would have given him further data on similarities between Eastern and Western mysticism. My Debt to Merton I realize that many today take for granted the five areas of spirituality that I have described. But Merton's insights were presented before the council and offi-cial Catholicism accepted them. Indeed, his own abbot general censored his 1961 antiwar writings. Merton's writing became foundational for a new generation of Christians and spiritual writers. This fortieth anni-versary of his death is the first time I have stopped to acknowledge my debt. I do not consider it an exaggera-tion to say that Merton was a prophet heralding a new age of spirituality. Merton paved the way for my own understanding of the council's teaching on the Holy Spirit in Christian spirituality. Merton's insistence that the True Self is ontologically united both to God and to all humanity and that the Holy Spirit is the source of this communion transformed my previously unrecognized American indi-vidualism. I had never grasped that the indwelling of the Spirit has actual effects in daily life and daily prayer. The 67.4 2008 Hauser * Thomas Merton's Legacy: .4 Personal Reflection combination of Merton's description of the True Self and the council's message on the Holy Spirit revolution-ized my spirituality. I was so energized by these insights that I wrote three books and dozens of articles. I am indebted to Merton for "bringing me home" to Ignatian prayer. Merton's descriptions of prayer flow-ing spontaneously from daily life led me to reconsider my understanding of it. I realized that Ignatian prayer is not simply to be identified with intense concentra-tion on scripture texts as found in the meditations and contemplations of the Spiritual Exercises. Prayer more characteristic of Ignatius is found in his Contemplation for Obtaining Divine Love and flows from daily life. Observations of Ignatius at prayer, like the following recollection from one of Ignatius's first companions, assure me that I am on the right track: At night he would go up on the roof of the house, with the sky there up above him. He would sit there quietly, absolutely quietly. He would take his hat off and look up for a long time at the sky. Then he would fall on his knees, bowing profoundly to God. Then he would sit on a little bench because the weakness of his body did not allow him to take any other posi-tion. He would stay there bareheaded and without moving. And the tears would begin to flow down his cheeks like a stream, but so quietly and so gently that you heard not a sob nor a sigh nor the least possible movement of his body.7 Merton helped me internalize that hallmark of Ignatian spirituality "Finding God in all things." He also paved the way.for my understanding of Ignatius's discernment of spirits, but that is another article. I have asked myself why my journey into Ignatian spirituality took so long. I recognize now that Iowas blocked by invalid False Self assumptions. I needed Review for Religious someone to address them directly. In God's providence Thomas Merton was that person--the person who with God's grace most made me who I am today as a Catholic Christian. Notes 1 Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 1961), pp. 33 & 36. Hereafter, in the text, Seeds. 2 Thomas Merton, Spiritual Direction and Meditation (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1960), p. 67. 3 David Steindl-Rast OSB, "Recollections of Thomas Merton's Last Day in the West," Monastic Studies, Vol. 7, pp. 1-10. 4 Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island (New York: Doubleday Image, 1955), p. 65. 5 Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander (New York: Doubleday Image, 1989), p. 156. 6 Inner Experience, pp. 300-301, taken from L.S. Cunningham, Thomas Merton: Spiritual Master (New York: Paulist Press, 1992). 7 W.W. Meissner SJ, Ignatius of Loyola: The Psychology of a Saint (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992), p. 280. Personal Reflection / Group Discussion Has Thomas Merton or another spiritual writer influenced my practices of the spiritual life? Like Hauser, how would I describe the change? 67.4 2008 RUTH BOLARTE Our Ethnicity en Route to God ~ elonging and "distinctness" are both .signifi- ~ cant dimensions of my life. Years ago I left my country of origin, Peru, and began religious life in the United States. During those first years, away from fam-ily and friends and the emotional and material support they had been for me, my desire and need to belong and be one of.the group made me conceal a part of myself, my Peruvian culture. My initial years of religious for-mation did not acknowledge my Hispanic heritage and the spiritual treasure it was. My being Hispanic was only a curious novelty, something to be asked a few questions about. Without any intentional fault of those guiding me on the spiritual journey, I neverthe-less received the unspoken message that I should abide by the new codes and values that were presented to me and somehow forget what I had learned in Peru Ruth Bolarte IHM, a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, is director of the Catholic Institute for Evangelization; 4404 North 5th Street; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19140. Review for Religious about God, life, and people. Eventually, little by little, my God-friend became the God of rules and formality. Spontaneity, touching, and initiative disappeared, and a "prove yourself" attitude emerged. I believed in my heart that hard work, silence, and distance were the key to my religious life in the United States. In order to be recognized as one of the group, I adapted myself to the mainstream culture and disre-garded my images of God, of prayer, of life and death. When the opportunity presented itself, I limited my "ethnic sharing" to external aspects of culture: food, music, stories, and dance. These were safe issues and did not upset anyone. People, consciously or not, were simply not interested in listening with open hearts to the heart of my culture: my experiences of God through family, nature, joy, and suffering; my views on authority, poverty, power, or church. I was not raised with a code of beliefs and rules to obey. We.entrusted ourselves to a loving God who walked, ate, laughed, and cried with us throughout the events of our day. Church was not the only place where we could worship God. We gave glory and praise to God through our family celebrations, our processions, and our dead. In later years I would find out that my traditions of religion were what theologians and the church named "popular religigsity." Pope Paul vI explains this concept in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi: " One finds among the people particular expressions of the search for God and for faith, both in the regions where the church has been established for centuries and where she is in the course of becoming established. These expressions were for a long time regarded as less pure and were sometimes despised, but today they are almost everywhere being redis-covered. l 67.4 2008 Bolarte ¯ Our Etbnicity en Route to God The Holy Father explains that these religious expres-sions are susceptible to many misinterpretations. If, however, they are well oriented through the pedagogy of evangelization, they are rich in value since they reflect the thirst for God that 0nly the poor and simple can know. Popular religiosity is a major part of the spiritual life of Hispanic people. Hispanic spirituality is divine and human at the same time; it is incarnated spiritual-ity. 2 God is perceived as all-powerful, sovereign, and superior to all human beings, but also as a member of the family--someone who sits at the table and does not need a special invitation. God is not a far distant image in heaven; God is Emmanuel, always at our side, accom-panying us all day every step of the way. Since these expressions of faith were not acknowl-edged during my formation years, my cultural identity became dim. I only became aware of this only when I visited Peru after having lived in the United States for five years. I began to feel this tension between two seemingly opposite forces, my Pei'uvian culture and my adopted American one, between my yearning to "belong" and my efforts to hold on to my "distinctness." What a surprise it was to find that I did not "belong" anymore to the place where I had lived most of my life! Two cultures, American and Peruvian, had shaped me into a new person I only pardy understood. Returning to my homeland made me conscious that somehow my identity and personhood were rooted in both the American and Peruvian cultures. Once I became aware of this, I felt a need to inte-grate both cultures in my life, whether I resided in Peru or in the United States. The questions for ~e were, How do I do that? and who will understand? Many questions arose, 'and there was no one to talk to about Review for Religious them. Even though I had spiritual directors, I did not feel comfortable bringing up these "cultural" issues. For ten more years I lived with the questions and the ten-sions of being different and trying to belong to a com-munity, a parish, a church that was at the same time borne and foreign. During this time I learned to assert myself and prove to others that I was as capable and prepared as any other religious in the United States. I have come to believe that wholeness in our lives is a process of becoming,, something we undertake each day. Tension is an opportunity for growth and devel-opment. Becoming conscious of my longing to "belong" while also recogniz-ing my "uniqueness" and sense of inde-pendence marked the beginning of a long road borne. Only when I started to ask myself questions about my Latina identity, reading the works of various Hispanic theologians and reflecting critically on my experiences in the United States, was I able to be at borne with the tension of being part of two worlds. I had the opportunity for this reflection while doing the research for my thesis. After so many years living in the United States, I was finally able to name struggles and hurts, and more than anything I could identify, cel-ebrate, and rejoice in my cultural heritage. The tension I had felt became a source of wealth and fulfillment Becoming conscious of my longing to "belong" while also recognizing my "uniqueness" and sense of independence marked the beginning of a long road home. 361 67.4 2008 Bolarte ¯ Our Etbnicity en Route to God As my own "true self" was gradually revealed to me and then to others, a new person emerged, one that was freer to relate to God and others. rather than being a barrier to my social and personal development. The cultural wealth of our various ethnic groups, yours and mine, is a main component in our human and spiritual development. It is crucial that those involved in religious formation, spiritual direction, and ministry consider the cultural factors in people's spir-itual journeys. People need a sense of belong-ing and historical con-tinuity. If we deny our family origins and his-tory, we deny ourselves. 0nly when we feel affirmed in our identity can we be free, open, and welcoming to other cultural groups. On the other hand, people often develop a sense of inferiority, a poor self-image, when they feel minimized or attacked in their ethnic identity. In many cases these feelings become a defen-sive or aggressive attitude toward the dominant ethnic group or toward other minority ethnic groups. Since spirituality involves all aspects of life--psy-chological, physical, social, and political--we need to recognize that all cultural groups have distinctive ways of facing life, sickness, family, power, pain, and death. An inte, grated spirituality recognizes that all of our lives must be subjected to the transformative power of the Holy Spirit. We hear and appropriate the Good News of Jesus from our various cultural perspectives. Those perspectives influence how we understand the message Review for Religious and how we respond to it. Vgho can be sure of a univer-sal description that is the norm for all? The ministry of Jesus is to reveal the meaning of life and offer humanity an opportunity to enter freely into a loving relationship with God as adult daughters and sons. Because an important root of spirituality is found in the self, we must integrate the psychological value of self-affirmation, self-fulfillment, or self-realization with the Christian tradition of self-denial, self-emptying, or self-surrender. From the moment of birth we seek in our human development a proper balance, the right connectedness with others and the right separateness from others. The challenge for everyone is to achieve relatedness without symbiotic engulfment and indepen-dence without alienation and emptiness. As my own "true self" was gradually revealed to me and then to others, a new person emerged, one that was freer to relate to God and others. In faith I had the power to respond to the gift of my being and abandon the "false self" of pretenses; concealments, and fears. It was this "false self" that I was called to deny, the self that hid my ethnicity. Thomas Merton summarizes this dynamic when he affirms that if we find God we find ourselves and if we find our own selves we find God.3 For Merton, maturing in the spiritual life is a discov-ery journey, the discovery of oneself and of God. One of the tasks of those involved in faith formation is to search for and reveal the seed of God that is already there in her and her culture. They must lead her to recognize Christ in herself and challenge those aspects of her which need purification so the complete image of God can be revealed. All through human development, critical reflection is required. As people grow in maturity, there is a shift 363 67.4 2008 Bolarte * Our Etbnicity en Route to God from being acted on by the world to acting on the world. In my experience of tension between two worlds, it was only when I internalized and reflected on being a part of two cultures that I could incorporate the tension into who I was. Duringthis internalization, I needed to grieve my cultural losses, experience the pain of the hurts, and forgive those who purposely or not had discriminated against me. Sometimes people do not perceive that ignoring cultural differences is a form of discrimination: it deprives someone of her distinctive cultural identity, the unique person she was created to be. Our spiritual journey in Christ requires accepting that our worth, our value, our selfhood as children of God is given to us as our birthright. It means knowing deeply that we are known, loved, and invited to partnership in being with the God who from all eternity intended us and who desires our love. To answer the question "Who am I?" we need to incorporate all our past--including the past of our family, culture, religion, and national group. Only this person can be the subject of our own destiny. Knowing that I am loved by God, I need not live in anxi-ety, or seek affirmation through achievement or some other form of power, for I learn to accept imperfections and strengths, my own and others'. God's grace invites us to become the persons we were created to be. God's love does not absorb, anni-hilate, or force itself upon the beloved. Instead it longs for the beloved to become more and more "other" or differentiated. Without such "letting be" of the beloved, the dialogical intimacy essential to a loving relation-ship would be impossible. God allows unique persons to emerge and become capable of deep relationships because, God, "how could you give yourself to me unless you had fii'st given me to myself?.''4 Review for Religious By no means is my endeavor to integrate cultures within myself and my religious life a finished task. It is a process that every day makes use of the newness I encounter in the many kinds of relationship in my life. Sometimes I long for the support of my Anglo friends because they can understand my experience; other times I look for my Latino support group because they can feel forme. There are times when I feel alienated from one or both of the cultures, like a fish out of water; at other times I am tired of the tension of the two worlds and I just want to run and hide. Being a "bridge per-son"-- gente puente--is dangerous business. One takes the risk of being hurt or judged--becoming the scape-goat for one of the cultural groups. At these times I remember Who called me to be a Latina woman reli-gious evangelizing in the United States. God is the one who gifts me with the ability to interact with two ethnic groups. Yes, the gift entails pain and suffering--dying to my "false self." But in Jesus' resurrection I find the hope and joy of new life and the courage to continue living in a tension that is a source of new life for many, including me. Notes ~ Pablo VI, Evangelii nuntiandi (On Evangelization in the Modern World), §48. 2 Rosa Marfa Icaza, "Prayer, Worship, and Liturgy in a United States Hispanic Key," in Frontiers of Hispanic Theology in the United States, ed. Allan Figueroa Deck (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1995), p. 136. 3 Thomas Merton, Seeds of Contemplation (New York: Dell, 1960), p. 53. 4 Cited by Nicholas of Cusa as quoted in John Haught, God aj%r Darwin (Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press, 2000), p. 40. 67.4 2008 heart BEATRICE EICHTEN Constitutions and Heart Knowledge knowledge 366 In this article I suggest that religious--you and I, wherever we are--reflect on our vari-ous constitutions, on what we say about our life together and on how we live what we say. For most congregations the original con-stitutions antedate all the members. They were written to carry the inspiration and hopes of founders, foundresses, and early members regarding the possibility of living the gospel with charismatic idealism and practical action. They contain many elements--identity, vowed life, community, mission, prayer, membership, governance, and stewardship--all matters of relationship. After Vatican Council II ~any members were involved in adapting to the changing times. This called for re-visioning and revising the constitutions and having them Beatrice Eichten OSF here offers an adaptation of words to a Franciscan Sister's community. Her address is/577 Huff Street, #1; Winona, Minnesota 55987. eichten.consuldng@gmail.com Review for Religious approved. Now, many years later, it may be helpful to review our constitutions and ask (possibly in a second-ary document) how our community life and governance are lived today. This would be a practical effort, not an academic one. In the fast pace of life today, with many calls on our attention, have we lost touch with the heart of who we are and why we are here? Few members entered their community because they read compelling statements in their congregation's con-stitution, and it is surely the same today. Women enter a community because they are drawn to members who embody its charism, who have been claimed as God's own and who love and live for, hope and work for, God's kingdom on earth. Such women have the energy and spirit of the founders and the early members. They may not be able to quote the constitution, but they know its values and challenges. They have "heart knowledge" of their constitution, from their experience in the presence of God and their community. One could say that they know their constitution "by heart." Their lives express their constitution, the dreams and hopes and challenges it contains. We all know persons like this--we may even be one! How do people acquire that "heart knowledge"? By persistence. I am reminded of my training as apastoral psychotherapist. We were told that only after we learned the training center's theory well would we know when to adapt or depart from it. I remember the foundational text--it was like reading a foreign language! I read it diligently, paragraph by paragraph. Some sentences were a paragraph long! I would read them several times silently, and then out loud. I even underlined the sub-ject, verb, and object as I tried to figure out what they meant. Bit by bit, as I studied the text and saw it used 367 67.4 2008 Eicbten ¯ Constitutions and Heart Knowledge by skillful practitioners, I came to know and understand the theory very well. The text became a practical work-ing document for me, one that was useful and which I felt comfortable adapting as needed. Your constitution is like that. It captures the funda-mentals of your way of life--who you say you are as a congregation and how you will live your life together. As you study it and live it, you begin to live it "by heart." You make some adaptations that are, hopefully, faithful to the intent of the original document. After a while you live your life without conscious reference to your constitution--and you may have lost some of the motivation and challenge it carries. A wise Sufi teacher said of the Koran that'it is like a map. If it is used well, if you follow the rivers of life it charts out for you, it helps you make progress in living a faithful life. If you do not use it, why have it? But, he added, it is important to remember that, unlike maps, rivers change course over time. If you insist on follow-ing the river as it is mapped, you will miss the flow of life. Our constitutions are like that map, and charism, vows, and mission are rivers of our lives. Vghen maps are used wisely, they help. Ernie Larkin OCarm offers another image for our constitutions. He says we "emphasize the presence of God in all things, but may tend to forget the envelope that contains it." Our constitutions are the envelope that contains the essentials of our community way of life, essentials that are "the medium through which God comes." Our constitutions contain our "Now," which is "the only place where one can meet God." Fundamentally, then, constitutions exist to articu-late "heart knowledge," and are not the mere sets of rules and laws that a legalistic mindset too easily makes Review for Religious them. St. Clare of Assisi was aware of this. She insisted that her Rule, the guideline for the Poor Ladies' reli-gious life, express clearly her sisters' impulse in coming together. Essential to her vision was the privilege of poverty, a privilege and obli-gation which she insisted be written into their official Rule. It contained inspiration or poetry along with obliga-t_ ion or requirement. It became a living document when its followers lived by it. C.S. Lewis expresses the idea: "poetry replaces grammar, gospel replaces law, longing transforms obedience." Constitutions contain both inspiration and require-ments. Congregations sometimes register only the inspi-ration while bypassing the requirements. Sometimes they bypass the inspiration and register only the require-ments-- and chafe at them. So how do we make our constitutions truly living documents that honor both poetry and obligation? In our relationships with God and one another, do we "mind the music and the step"? Are joyful inspiration and gracefully disciplined foot-work changing us into Jesus' disciples? Fundamentally, then, constitutions exist to articulate "heart knowledge," and are not the mere sets of rules and laws that a legalistic mindset too easily makes them. Conversion Religious constitutions come from our relationship with God, from our desire to let God be the center of our life. There are different ways to do this. Franciscan 369 67.4 2008 Eicbten ¯ Constitutions and Heart Knowledge constitutions seek conversion of life. The Third Order Regular Rule of St. Francis says this: "With all., who wish to serve the Lord; the brothers and sisters of this order are to persevere in true faith and penance. They wish to live this evangelical conversion of life in a spirit of prayer, of poverty, and of humility." You and I know that conversion is not a comfortable experience, nor is it one you can program for yourself: "I think that this year I will be converted to poverty, or nonviolence, or . " Typically, conversion comes to us unbidden, in ways that surprise and perturb us. Dr. Ann Ulanov, a Jungian psychoanalyst, says: "Being truth-ful with ourselves can be messy business. [We think] the illusions we have created . . . will be more readily received than our true self." She goes on to say that we all have protective armor which can look like virtue or competence or generosity. Nonetheless, it is armor designed to hide our wounds and messiness and keep us safe and protected. The human reality is that those very wounds create chinks in our armor. Conversion occurs because God will always find the chinks and slip through them to unsettle us and invite us to make "soul decisions," decisions to recommit our hearts to a pilgrim's journey in witness to the gospel. Soul decisions open us to be changed by God's abundant love into true disciples. Sister Helen Prejean resisted the gospel's social-justice dimension until, at a presentation by Sister Maria Augusta Neal, she heard the phrase "integral to the Good News was that they would be poor no lon-ger." Helen adds, "And I got it. She cracked me open." Perhaps her very resistance was the source of that con-version moment. She moved a year later from a suburb to a housing project that was "less than five miles . . . Review for Religious but it was galaxies away." She could not have done that without a profound soul decision. How do our relationships in community open us to "soul decisions" or conversion moments? I see four movements. Relationship with God We all entered a communal life of prayer and con-templation, of working relationships, and of minis-try that fulfills and stretches us. Communal life, lived fully, offers ample opportunities for conversion. Parker Palmer says we enter religious life with the illusion that outside there is jealousy, compe-tition, resentment, power struggle, status difference, and more, but in religious life there will be only love, sharing, working together, generosity, equality, and so forth. We find, however, after living in a religious community for a while, that people are the same both inside and outside religious life. We pour effort into learning to commu-nicate, to deal with conflict, to share our faith, to do many other things, hoping thereby to have the perfect community. Guess what? Even if we do learn all these things, there is still iealousy, resentment, and failure. We learn that there is no perfect community. We have to face, says Palmer, our "illusion of salva-tion by interaction." In the face of contradictions and In our constitutions and in our living of them we are called to center our lives on God, realizing that God longs for us and desires our love. 371 67.4 2008 , Eicbten ¯ Constitutions and Heart Knowledge differences, we are called to "go deep inside [ourselves] beyond the polarities to a place of unity where every-thing holds together." We know that place as God. Etty Hillesum says of this place: "There is a really deep well inside me. And in it dwells God. Sometimes I am there too." In the midst of our real relationships, in our prayer and letting go and giving over to God, we move to the awareness that salvation is from God. We only come to know that when we come to know the mystery of God--that God is for us and is given to us. In our constitutions and in our living of them we are called to center our lives on God, realizing that God longs for us and desires our love. Coming to believe this leads us to have room for others, seeing.in them the face of Jesus, accepting, lov-ing, and receiving them because God loves them and receives them. This leads me to the second interper-sonal movement. Relationship with Others in Community Our commitment to life in community is not some-thing casual or optional. It is a lifelong commitment to our congregation, to its shared life in the Spirit, and to its members rights and responsibilities. As members we are interdependent financially, structurally, and relation-ally. Sandra Schneiders says that a constitutive element of communitarian life is "a permanent acceptance of the community itself as the primary and determining rela-tional context of one's life." It means loving, and living today at this particular time, in this particular commu-nity, with these particular women--with all our gifts, limitations, and idiosyncrasies. Our diversity is "authored and authorized by the Source of all life, in whose Mystery diversity poses no Review for Religious threat to unity." When we become aware that the very diversity that delights God troubles and disturbs us, we have stepped into a special moment for conversation and conversion. We realize that diversity need not be a threat to unity. Rather, in our diversity, we realize the need to make "a commitment to sustained and deliber-ate conversation for the purpose of achieving a common ground." Michael Blastic OFMConv points to St. Francis as a prime example of relationships with the other: Francis allows the other to be other. His sense of self is an openness to and for the other. Francis continu-ously looks to the Other, Jesus Christ, as the content of his self. By definition. Francis's self was room for the other. Francis was "a person in full possession of him-self, but [was] never by himself. In order to be an example for others, Francis needed to work at being himself---it did not come naturally., for him. Fran-cis did not nor could he accomplish this identity for himself by himself. One cannot become a self with room for others by oneself for oneself. In our constitutions we call ourselves to this kind of awareness of the other, challenging ourselves to embrace diversity within the congregation as a sign of the Spirit and, by doing so, to proclaim the possibility of harmony on earth. Accepting diversity, however, does not mean that individualism reigns, even though we remain differ-ent and retain our unique characteristics (the only way we each have to express our humanity). Accepting our diversity enables us to give a countercultural witness to a new kind relationship, a relationship based on unity, on a mutuality where there is no "other." This witness of community, says John Allen, a Catholic newspaper cor- 373 67.4 2008 Eicbten ¯ Constitutions and Heart Knowledge respondent in Rome, is the most powerful gift we have to offer our fragmented and troubled world today. Relationship for Mission We are in our religious community not simply for ourselves. Our vowed commitment "does not exist within the individual alone, but within the context of community . . . a community fully engaged in con-versation about its life." The mission statement in my community's constitution challenges us to "be a com-munity of compassion, reconciliation, and reverence for all creation, to rebuild our own society, and to reach out in solidarity to our sisters and brothers throughout the world." Becoming part of the spirit and flow of energy that is our religious community stretches us and opens us to God's great energy working in the world today. As reli-gious we have a great responsibility. We need to know and to claim that we are the face of God to those around us, and we need to open our eyes and hearts to see the face of God in creation and in every creature. How we live that responsibility is a challenge. Marie Chin RSM, in a presentation to my Franciscan community, said that we are challenged to take a crucial step in recognizing that we can no longer equate community with mere group living or, to put it more blundy, simply living under the same roof for expediency or convenience. Community has to be for a greater project than self. Somehow we have to change our root image of community as a place of security where we have all our needs met and instead begin to explore the chal-lenges of justice, the challenges of forming relation-ships that are right and just and which are potentially present in community. Review for Religious Her challenge confronts our tendency to become, as Laurie Brink OP says "settled religious, [who have] lost sight of the power and passion of our original covenant with God." It is not that we are not involved in commu-nity life or engaged in a valued ministry, but rather that we are settling for comfort and "good enough"--which in turn means liv-ing with little zest and passion for life and ministry. It means not being willing to take risks or make changes that might unset-tle. Ron Rolheiser OMI says that the problem for reli-gious today is not that we are not good people, doing good things, but that we are not great people. We have settled for giving ninety percent of ourselves and held on to the ten percent that would give witness to the pas-sion and energy of God alive in us. When we entered, I would guess, we wanted to give ourselves a hundred percent. Avis Clendenen offers an interesting reflection on how we may have adapted Jeremiah's response to God "from 'too young' to 'too old'; Ah, Lord God! I am weary from speaking the truth in love. Our best days are behind us. I am too old." And God says, "Do not say 'I am too old,' for even now to all to whom I send you you will go; be not afraid, for I am with you to deliver you." Are we holding back? Can we live more fully every moment of our life today and on into the future? The problem for religious today is not that we are not good people, doing good things, but that we are not great people. 67.4 2008 Eicbten * Constitutions and Heart Knowledge 376 Relationship with Structure and Authority Our constitutions are about holding with care the relationships that shape our life together. They assume and emphasize our relationship with God, which in turn is expressed in relationships with other members and associates and with the church and society. Treating these relationships with care can only happen when both members and leaders take seriously their responsibility as part of community. As individuals, you bring your personal power to the community, ideally making it a force for growth, bridge building, and healing, rather than a force for negativ-ity, divisiveness, and controlling behavior. Together you affirm that your congregation is there to facilitate your religious way of life and your ministry, and you accept responsibility as members to participate in defining and working towards the purpose of your community. The goal of your congregation's governance is to exemplify and facilitate the living of your congregation's charism, weaving "the organizational elements of shared values, mission, and vision and translating tl~em into reality, into a course of action." In the governance of our religious congregations, we have various indications of history and personality. Rigid authority structures have left many with scars and cautions, and efforts towards new models of communal living have not always been successful. Leadership functions amid our practice and expec-tations of ourselves as members of our communities. Patricia Wittberg SC offers three models of relation-ships of community and authority. Hierarchical/Bureaucratic Model: This model offers an organized way to carry out the purpose and mission of the congregation. The value it emphasizes is effi- Review for Religious ciency; the mode of operation is dependency. Power and authority are concentrated at the top and flow downward, as does communication. There is little individual responsibility. The young are mentored, and the model can continue without changing. Every congregation has some elements of hierarchy/bureau-cracy which are needed for effective functioning of an organization. Associational Modek This model values individual fulfill-ment; the individual "I" is at the center of the model. Relationships are one-on-one and dependent on the individual's choice of persons to whom s/he wishes to relate, both within'the organization and outside it. Persons live as if this were a professional organiza-tion where membership is equated with paying one's dues or meeting basic requirements and participating as one wishes. Leadership is often not acknowledged or is reluctant to call for difficult actions on the part of members. This model is not likely to reproduce into the next generation. Communitarian/Relational/Intentional Modek The value for this model is the common good; interdependence is the desired mode of operation. Relationships and communication are mutual and are focused around a sense of common identity--"we" with members and leaders working together for common goals. In this model, individual members are willing to sacrifice or limit some personal goals for the common good. There is a mutual shaping of the future. Wittberg says today'~ congregations have their ¯ Toe in the Hierarchical/Bureaucratic model; ¯ Torso in the Association model; ¯ Hand reaching out to the Communitarian model, but fearful of sacrifice or of retreat to the Hierarchical model. She offers this reflection: Religious congregations, precariously balanced between the competing commitment models of 67.4 2008 Eichten ¯ Constitutions and Heart Knowledge 378 ] bureaucracies and intentional communities, may. ¯ have mutually contradictory expectations of their leadership or of their members . Congregatio.ns which refrain from addressing the ambiguous roles of leadership [I would add membership] may miss discov-ering creative and psychologically healthy new ways of filling them. Most communities, I wager, create goals based on the Communitarian model while denying or not acknowledging that the other models exist and may even predominate. There is no right/wrong, good/bad to any model; each has good elements. It might be worthwhile to reflect together on the blessings and challenges of each model as you experience them in your community. The challenge may be to identify and implement the best elements in each as we move into the future. Governance is part of the process of communal transformation. It invites members to a continual com-munal effort toward conversion of heart, mind, and spirit. We bring together our individual selves with our dreams, passions, idiosyncrasies, and personal power. Through the design of our constitution, we seek together the common good for the sake of the gospel. We are one with many, experiencing a range of relation-ships that offer the possibility of transformations into people mutually empowering and accountable. All of these relationships--with God, with one another, with authority, and in mission--are what constitutes your religious congregation and mine. Relationship calls for risk, trust, hope, and moments of conversion, moments to be followed up with firm "soul decisions" to give our all to God's grand dream "that all may be one." Review for Religious Personal Reflection / Group Discussion "Fundamentally constitutions exist to articulate 'heart knowledge,' and are not the mere sets of rules and laws that a legalistic mindset too easily makes them." Have I experienced a "heart knowledge" approach to the reading and study of the constitutions of my congrega-tion? What are some necessary steps for me to take in order to read the constitutions in such a way? What happens to me when I approach the constitutions of my congregation in terms of relationship~to God, to community, and to mission? How do I understand my relationship to structure and authority? Dark Matter It should not surprise us that we encounter darkness and unknowingness within; two-thirds of the cosmos is dark energy and we are offspring of that unfolding mystery, pregnant with possibilities, gestating, incubating in our wombs. The shapeless masses and undeveloped forms lie clogged in a fathomless morass, yet the Potter takes the no-thingness, gently birthing it into a new creation. Barbara Mayer OSB 379 67.4 2008 NESTOR GREGOIRE Can New Life Arise from the Rule Book? 380 ~iin every religious congregation the religious Rule s the distillation of the community's spirit, ideals, goals, and governance. It is the result of years of reflec-tion and prayer, revisions and constitutional changes. It is meant to be the mission statement (long before the term was ever developed) of all the members of the religious congregation: novices, newly professed, and those with perpetual vows. But have the rules become too much a document of doctrinal values and governance procedures in too nar-row a sense? While they are read and studied, reflected upon and taught in many conferences, are they a source of nourishment at the grass roots? Do we consult the Rule Book about what to do, or do we use it for prayer and as inspiration for our prayer, our liturgy, and the community's day-to-day life? Is it more reference book than prayer book? Nestor Gregoire OMI lives at 504 - 3rd Avenue East; Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan; S9X 1H5 Canada. olppastor@sasktel.net Review for Religious How do the Rule Book and the constitutions serve your congregation? Is it very directive, constricting the community's life and spirit, or does it improve vision and expand the horizons of community members? Does the text go beyond expressing doctrinal correctness and touch the community's lived experience? How does the Rule actually fit in the day-to-day living of the local community? Do particular rules have noticeable par-ticular effects? Are there unintended consequences? The Rule Book must be more than a reference book that the novices study, consult, and know parts of from memory. It must become user friendly and be a living part of the community's prayer life. A good indicator of this would be how worn the pages of our personal copy of the Rule Book are. Are they library fresh, or do they have fingerprints, personal notations, and other signs of frequent use? Does the book appear to be one that is close to the heart of a community member? User Friendly Each community can work to make the Rule user friendly in its own way. There are many ways that indi-viduals and communities can find to do this and thereby nourish their own and the community's spiritual life. No one size fits all. Be creative. In the publishing world there have always been meditation books to serve our prayer and reflection, often with a page containing one thought or insight for each day of the year. The reader need not delve into a developed chapter. Often religious congregations will prepare a book of meditations for each day of Lent and Advent and send it out to their members. One of the best ways to make the Rule Book user friendly is to ask members of the community to develop 381 67.4 2008 Gregoire * Can New Life Arise from the Rule Book? 382 a series of meditations and prayers that arise from the values, the vision, and the actual words of the rules. What themes recur frequently throughout the rules? What resources are there available to assist reflecting and praying about the meaning and implications of indi-vidual rules and their contexts? With the Rule Book as our source document, it is possible-to develop a series of meditations which incor-porate the values and teachings of general chapters, writings of our congregation's past and present spiri-tual teachers, and stories of members who served well, lived the charism with joy, and even may have given the congregation its particular tone. Bring the character and flair of these members to the meditations. The stories and the experience of members who have preceded us can help us discover in the Rule mean-ings that are new to us. Each congregation's Rule Book did take on flesh, in joy and tears, in earlier members. What possibilities does the same Rule challenge us to try and perhaps fulfill today? By preparing a series of meditations on the rules and constitutions of my own congregation, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, I discovered new connections being made between the documents of the past four general chapters, the talks of our superior general, and the text of the Rule. New depths appeared in my own under-standing of our "mission statement." The Founder's Writings There are many opportunities to take bite-size quo-tations and insights from the talks and writings of the founder to flesh out the meaning of particular state-ments in the Rule: We can parallel today's text with passages which ring with the conviction of the founding Review for Religious members. The writings of the founder and founding members can help us appreciate and integrate the offi-cial text into our daily lives. Using the actual words of our congregation's founder can develop a fuller understanding and application of this particular rule. Our understanding of the present text must not be based only on its meaning on the page. It must be broadened to the possibilities that are given to it through the insights of our foundation documents and the firstmissionary endeavors. Allow the writings of the founder and the early members to give new flesh to our understanding of our community charism, the religious values and idealism of our institute. When we try to broaden the possibilities for new insights into and understanding of the Rule, we can find togetherness and nourishment in our foun-dational days and in our church's mission in our mod-ern world. Not only must we seek the contributions of the past to our living the Rule today, but we must be receptive to the new insights and challenges that our situation brings to the Rule. The Rule must always be in dialogue, giving to and receiving from our current mission work, our reflections, and our prayer. Daily Prayer The words of the Rule can be used in composing prayers for the community's daily life. Take individual statements of our rules and constitutions and adapt them into prayers of intercession for the daily office. A little editing can bring the rules' clear and concise statements into our prayer with God. Here are two examples, from our Oblate Constitutions and Rules. The text is not just read but becomes a living part of our prayer. 67.4 2008 Gregoire ¯ Can New Life Arise from the Rule Book? Leader: Lord Jesus, may we always work in cooperation with you, our Savior, and imitate your example-- Response: --by committing ourselves principally to evan-gelizing the poor (Constitution #1). Leader: We pray that the community of the Apostles may with you, our Jesus, be the model of our life (Constitution #3). Response: May we come together in apostolic communi-ties of priests and brothers, united to God by the vows of religion, cooperating with you, our Savior (Constitution #1). We must search for other places in the Rule that can be used in composing new prayers for various community gatherings: at the beginning of meet-ings, on renewal days, at funeral prayer services, and so forth. 384 Poetry and Song Our Rules are meant to be user friendly, to be alive in us, to be at home in our emotions and in our heartfelt prayers. They must touch us in order to move us, to energize us tolive the religious values and the charism our Rule expresses. In her classroom a good teacher makes sure that her students not only pay attention and read the lesson on the board, but also write it, sing it, recite it, and put it .into bodily motion whenever possi-ble. There are so mgny ways that lessons can and should become part of her students' minds and hearts and lives. Too often our religious Rule has been limited to the printed text. Can we express it in new ways? One of the most underused possibilities for our Rule to become more user friendly is to turn it into poetry and song. Where are the gems of religious thought that are seeking to get off official printed pages and be sung Review for Religious as proof of our willing service of Christ and as ways to bring joy and love to the poor? Has the text of our Rule ever become a hymn or a refrain? Have we asked the poets in our midst to look at the Rule and allow the poetic muse to bring forth through them new pic-tures for our imaginations, fresh words that touch our hearts? And what of the photographers, the painters, and those who can sketch? Can they create visual expres-sions of the valued teachings in our Rule? Can the text evoke in them color, pattern, and depth that they can share? For the next community gathering, can one of our photographers bring together a collection of sym-bolic photos and significant texts to help us see our Rule in new and vibrant ways? Let the imagination within your community enable your Rule to be absorbed by your community through all five senses. How else? Let me draw a picture from many a childhood. Will your community's Rule Book be like an encyclopedia that was bought years ago to give the children a learning atmosphere but was hardly ever used? Or will it be like your mother's cookbook, tat-tered, pages falling out or sticking together, scribblings in the margin, flour stains, memories of mother calling us or fragrances inviting us to just-baked cinnamon rolls or to supper? Cookbook, prayer book, rule book--all redolent of love and devotion and sharing. How differ-ent are they? 67.4 2008 JOEL RIPPINGER Monasticism' s Rooted Adaptations ~f~irtainlmg oass ta f porrotyfe ysseeadr sm ionn ak cwohmom hausn liitvye odf Benedictines, I am aware of the reality that, at the beginning of the third millennium, monasteries of men and women living according to the Benedictine Rule constitute an endangered species. We run the risk of becoming an exotic form of religious expression, with our communities acquiring the character of religious theme parks and our spiritual tradition being taken over by increasing numbers of nonprofessed laypersons intensely attracted to the monastic charism. Several developments have been part of this phe-nomenon. Vocations to vowed monasticism have been in decline for some years, especially in North America and Europe, and that course seems to be continuing. With this decline there has been a marked increase of lay oblates and affiliates to monastic communities. Joel Rippinger OSB writes again from Marmion Abbey; 850 Butterfield Road; Aurora, Illinois 60504. Religious Many of those bringing with them this new interest in monastic life have adopted and are putting into prac-tice much of this ancient heritage. Indeed, one of the remarkable aspects of the recent rise in popularity of all things monastic has been the spate of books and articles by such non-Catholic and nonprofessed writers as Kathleen Norris. Norris and others have brought to monastic life both an inherent sympathy for its spiritual character and an outsider's insights into its distinctive charism. They have brought to wide circles of believers their insights into monastic common life and liturgical prayer. The contemporary phrase "family values" has a spiritual counterpart in what book publishers have pro-moted as monastic values. In fact, it seems that attaching the very word Benedictine or monastic to any book can assure many readers. The number expands when it takes in American and British television productions chroni-cling life inside monasteries for visitors from outside the cloister. The recent surprise hit from the Grande Chartreuse in the French Alps, "Into Great Silence," was an exploration of the most austere monastic order, the Carthusians. All of this has generated some striking spiritual scenarios. Increasing numbers of the laity are seeking retreats and spiritual direction at monastic houses, even as the professed monastic men and women struggle to maintain sufficient staff to care for their visitors' needs. Diocesan priests, who once were sent unwillingly to monasteries as a place to be disciplined and do pen-ance, now willingly sacrifice time and personal comfort to make personal retreats in the solitude and silence of monastic guest rooms. A cottage industry has arisen to publish material on St. Benedict's Rule as a model for corporate management, ecological balance, and family 67.4 2008 Rippinger ¯ Monasticism's Rooted Adaptations The hospitality called for in the monastic tradition trumps demands for orthodoxy or religious conversion, life. And, as we have said, programs of spirituality are likely to attract sincere searchers if they use the terms Benedictine or monastic in their publicity. At one level, all of this is cause for rejoicing. An ancient and revered tradition of spiritual formation and communal observance has been retrieved. What only a few decades ago many considered an arcane and irrelevant current of church life is now prized as a source from which to draw the gospel's living waters. Nor does it hurt that monasticism repre-sents a strain of tra-dition that antedates the Reformation and the more polemi-cal and controver-sial categories of the Catholic Church's public profile. Protestants and other non-Catholics come to pray and to dialogue in monastic settings, and they feel at home. The hospitality called for in the monastic tradition trumps demands for orthodoxy or religious con-version. Moreover, the sacred space of monastic cloisters attracts an intriguing variety of searchers. There are those seeking the soundness and insights of spiritual direction, pursuing like Tony Hendra the wisdom of the "Father Joes." There are those drawn by the aesthetic appeal of Gregorian chant and the spare beauty, not of bare ruined choirs, but of natural landscape and architecture that inte-grates silence and a life shared in community. There are those who, caught in the frenzy and rootlessness of what passes for contemporary culture, see in the deep-rooted witness of monastic communities a safe haven. Review for Religious At another level, there is cause for concern. The fact that some monastic communities are dying is a reminder that this is part of a historical cycle that has been in place for well over 1500 years. The dying also alerts us to an unsettling prospect for the near term. There will be fewer and smaller communities of pro-fessed monastic men and women in North America and in first-world countries generally, along with the emer-gence of an ever larger number of nonprofessed devo-tees of all things monastic. The irony here has already been referred to. Devout "outsiders" come to a monas-tery today for the experience of leisure and for restful rhythms of prayer, but they also expect to encounter monastics, whose own time for spiritual direction and holy leisure is now much eroded from what it was in an era of bulging novitiates. It may in fact be a blessing that the outsiders look-ing over the cloister wall are now faced with the real-ity of human struggle and imperfection that is always present in monastic enclosure, but too often in the past has been disguised by various romantic views of monas-tic life. The economy of monasteries is of a piece with its marginal status in society--always a bit parlous and never capable of assuring a comfort zone for those who are committed to it. At the same time the interface with a nonmonastic public has changed. The services pro-vided by the larger monastic communities have evolved with the passage of time. No longer anchored exclu-sively in such institutional ministry as education or pas-toral care, many of the more contemplative houses now emphasize the signature monastic marker of hospital-ity. Monasteries that were once remote in both a physi-cal and a psychological sense now have accessible Web sites and accommodating retreat centers. While some of 67.4 2008 Rippinger * Monasticism's Rooted Adaptations Monasteries of the third millennium have broader borders their contact with an outside public entails the selling of caskets and caramels, fruitcakes and jam, greeting cards and icons, another dimension consists in offering guests the freedom of a room without HBO or wireless com-puter hookup, but with the amplified sounds of nature and the silence of the cloister. The counsel of a wisdom figure and the simple rhythms of a daily round of prayer and work constitute for many guests the unique spiritual ambience of monastic hospitality. If monastic life has been de-romanticized in recent years, it has also been given a wider religious compass. Monasteries of ~e third millennium have broader bor-ders than their predecessors. An international com-munity like Taiz6 illustrates an ele-ment of young than their predecessors, people that is quite at home in the lit-urgy and life of a monastic commu-nity. Thomas Merton would no doubt be impressed at how his Trappist community at Gethsemani recently invited a number of victims of clergy sex abuse to their community to have the monks hear their stories. The spirit of ecumenism and religious renewal heralded by Vatican Council II is incorporated in the variegated communities of Bose and its satellite houses in Italy. The number of non-Catholic and non-Christian com-munities that have claimed monastic connections in recent years is not small. These include not just tra-ditional communities of the Anglican and Lutheran tradition that follow the Benedictine Rule, but variants Revie~v for Religious of the Orthodox faith that follow the different forms of Eastern monasticism. This has led to some fascinat-ing boundary crossing, such as Pentecostal seminarians in Missouri taking regular weekend retreats at a local Trappist monastery or a Monastic Institute sponsored by St. John's Abbey in Minnesota inviting representa-tives from Buddhist and Islamic traditions to speak of monastic hospitality. A measured look at the future should not induce too much anxiety. Monasticism in the third millennium can count on doing what it has always done: adapt its timeless liturgical round and its particular work of com-munity life to fit the needs of a changing world and ever more complex demands. To do that in a way that is faithful to its spiritual pedigree and open to a wider public will require drawing both old and new from its storehouse. The shape of a future monastic identity will have less to do with drawing people by the charm of its physical surroundings and more with the substance of spiritual life. However newly configured it becomes in the course of the coming generations, one can only hope that monasteries will remain places where a wide variety of people can find a place of peace, a place where the work of inner transformation can be encouraged and expedited. 391 67.4 2008 WILLIAM P. CLARK Revisiting Hope spiritual reflection An Irish-American author, by the name of Frank O'Connor, writing of his growing up in Ireland, told how he and his pals enjoyed hiking in the countryside. Sometimes they would come to a wall separating one farm from another, a wall that seemed too high to scale. They would then toss their caps over it and thus be motivated to scale it. When obstacles daunt, we need to use our hope like those caps. In one of Graham Greene's novels, a man speaks of hope in a strange way. He refers to it as a disease. If it is a disease, it is a disease which both comforts and strengthens and is an antidote for the cancer of despair. We very much need hope after all the disheartening things we have experienced in our world and in our church in recent years. We need hope William P. Clark O!VII, in active retirement from teach-ing philosophy, writes from St. Henry's Oblate Residence; 200 North 60th Street; Belleville, Illinois 62223. Revi~-w for Religious in our own public and private lives. Charles Spurgeon offers a good image of hope: "Hope is like a star--not seen in the sunshine of prosperity, and only discovered in the night of adversity." Hope seems especially important as we grow older. As adults we come to realize that choices really do not exist in the way we thought they would when we were children. We expected the regal power of adulthood to provide clarity and insight and control. In the light of humbling realizations, hope takes on increased impor-tance. According to an oft-quoted saying of Julian of Norwich, "The highest honor we can give God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of that love." We can give God that honor only through faith and hope. We know of God's love through faith. The primary object of hope--and our destiny--is to be perfectly united with God in love. Diametrically opposed to hope is the belief that existence is meaningless. If existence has no mean-ing, why would anyone want to continue living? One of our most intimate experiences is of ourselves as incomplete, as unfinished. As someone put it, "In this life there are no finished symphonies." We are drawn beyond anything we manage to achieve. Regardless of the level at which we find ourselves, we feel an attrac-tion to something still higher. In a certain sense, we leave every achievement behind in the very moment of accomplishment. When we achieve what we most want, our pleasure in it often fades. We even may be most acutely aware of our failures precisely when, after some achievement, someone praises us for it. Even in our achievements, we experience the need to go beyond where we are. We still hunger for what is "not yet." Desire outstrips satisfaction. Desire or longing is a driv- 393 67.4 2008 Clark * Revisiting Hope ing force in our lives. It can show itself as aching pain or as hope. As Christians we deal with the future by choosing to believe that life, not death, is the ultimate reality. We choose to turn continuously to our God in hope. That hope rests on the conviction that we are free and thus we have real control over our future. We can turn from where we are to what we want to be. Hope is confidence in God's power to do all things. Hope is the "nevertheless" of faith. In spite of every contradiction, we believe in the divine life within us and that God will bring it to completion if we but persevere in trust. We believe God will preserve and guide the church. Sometimes believing those things is difficult. That is why we must again and again ask the Lord to strengthen our hope. Hope might well be described as the dynamic force of faith and love. Because we are pilgrims, because we. do not see God and do not yet share God's love defini-tively, our faith and our love need to be permeated with hope. We know we cannot attain final fulfillment on earth. We know equally well how decisive our life on earth is in regard to final fulfillment. It is through hope that we press on. Hope offers a vision beyond the inevitable difficul-ties of our human condition, beyond human suffering and even death. It is hope that enables us to choose life, even in a deathlike situation. In hope we trust God can bring life out of death. Sooner or later virtually every-one has to face a deathlike situation in which they are challenged to choose life. It is a deathlike situation to be forced (in fear) to enter long-term nursing care. It looks like the end of the road, the gateway to death. From a purely human Revie~ for Religious point of view, there seems nothing to look forward to except the loss of privacy and freedom, humiliating dependence, chronic pain, and loneliness. To many it appears worse than death. How do people find the courage to carry on in such a situation except through hope? Persons with severe disabilities, persons who have undergone some crushing loss or misfortune, how can they find the courage to go on except through hope? Obviously the hope in question is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking. Rather it is the kind of hope that the Catechism calls a "theo-logical virtue." That terminology is helpful, emphasizing two charac- .teristics our hope should have. By saying it is a virtue, we are saying it is a well-intentioned, stable aspiration. By saying "theological" we are saying it is directed toward God and is a gift from God. Christian hope is not based on self-confidence. Self-confidence is fragile even in a purely human sense. A combat pilot in World War II put it this way in his book God Is My Co-Pilot: "Those who knew no strength except their own to lean on soon found that fear can sabotage even the strongest hea~'t." As Christians, the fulfillment we hope for is pure gift. It is not something we deserve because of our own talents, or efforts, or merits. Nor should hope be confused with optimism. Hope and optimism are quite different. Optimism often distorts reality, making it look better than it is. Hope is the assur-ance of God's fidelity even in the most troubled times. Hope means surrendering everything into God's hands. Christian hope is not based on self-confidence. 67.4 2008 It is not unusual for people to lose hope, to become disillusioned, even bitter, when years of hard work bear no apparent fruit, when little of a desired change is accomplished. Such temptations can surface in any life when one's efforts and prayers seem to be without result. We may be tempted to confuse unseen results with waste, utter waste. That is a mistake. Real faith and hope pro-vide the remedy for that temptation and that mistake. For whatever reason, hope seems to be a some-what neglected virtue. In the Christian tradition we find much more emphasis on faith and charity than on hope. Simply consider the output of books and articles, whether in academic theology or in popularization. Hope also seems an underdeveloped virtue. One finds people whose faith is firm who nevertheless experience considerable fear and anxiety. In his book The God 1 Don't Believe ln, Juan Arias tells of a conversation he had with the great Dominican theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange. The conversation took place toward the end of Garrigou's life. He is quoted as say-ing: "How difficult is hope! I feel I shall soon reach my God. I cannot deny that my faith and my charity have been purified and that they are virtues which I possess in peace, but hope is my torment." Scripture scholars tell us it is often difficult to dis-tinguish faith and hope in the Bible. One reason sug-gested for' this is that the original Hebrew text uses the same root word for both ideas. Thus there seems to be a scriptural basis for saying that hope is not something apart from faith. Bernard H~iring calls hope "the inter-nal dynamism of faith." Faith is more than intellectual assent to a body of propositions. The fullness of faith is the gift of one's whole being to God as Truth itself. The biblical con- Review for Religious cept of faith includes trust in the Lord, who is faith-ful, who pledged to remain with us, who gave us that hope-inspiring message recorded by John: "Do not let your heart be troubled. Trust in God and trust in me. There are many mansions in my Father's house; if there were not I should have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you, and after I have gone and prepared you a place, I shall return to take you with me; so that where I am you also may be" (Jn 14:1-4). In the Bible, faith is understood as a joyous, grateful acceptance of the One who is our savior and our hope. In the Epistle to the Hebrews, there is a close con-nection between faith and hope. "Faith is the confident assurance concerning things we hope for and conviction about things we do not see" (Heb 11:1-2). Scripture scholars tell us this is not a formal definition of faith. In any case, the passage gives us a good insight into the dynamic nature of faith. It suggests how hope is implied in faith. We think of hope as a reaching beyond. Faith is depicted here as enabling us to reach beyond ourselves and our own powers in a double sense. The first part of the passage, "Faith is confident assurance concerning things we hope for," represents reaching beyond our-selves into the future. It concerns what is not yet pres-ent but is confidendy awaited. The second part, "Faith is. conviction about things we do not see," represents reaching beyond ourselves to grasp a present reality that is unknown except through faith. Together these two dimensions describe essential characteristics of Christian existence. First, Christian existence is marked by the assurance that the goods promised by God will be ours. Second, Christian existence is marked by the conviction that the past and present facts on which that assurance is based are indeed facts and not illusion. 67.4 2008 Clark * Revisiting Hope The assent of faith is a surrender to God reveal-ing himself and his kingdom to us, a surrender based ultimately on the testimony of the Spirit, not on the strength of any argument. Faith gives assurance to our hopes because God does not reveal abstract, philosophi-cal ideas, but trust-inspiring truths of salvation, or, better, God reveals himself as a lov-ing Father. To put it another way, by faith we not only believe in God but we also believe that God believes in us. Typically we focus on the first part of that statement. Most people, if asked what ° they mean by faith, would answer with a simple formula such as "It means belief in God." We fail to appreciate the implications of the second part of the statement, that God believes in us. This latter idea is the basis of our hope. Saying God believes in me means he knows I am capable, of being totally fulfilled. It means I have such a capability because God has so willed it. This is possible because God's faith in me does not depend on me, on my goodness. That faith in me comes from the fact that God first loved me. That love is the foundation of my goodness and my value. As Fulton Sheen used to say, "God does not love us because we are good. We are good because God loves us." God's love is unshakable. God loves us without the possibility of regret or reversal. The Bible constantly reminds us of God's initiative. It tells us over and over again of God's loving invitation to us, that he does not regret his work, that his friendship is everlasting. It is By faith we.not only believe in God but we also believe ¯ that God believes in us. 398 Re~iew for Religious not easy to believe in this faith God has in us. It is not easy to sustain the hope that belief implies. So we often minimize God's generous love. We hesitate to believe that God believes fully in us. Only too often do we have to face our limitations and our brokenness. In spite of that, God seems to be telling us: "I know everything about you but I still believe in you." In Isaiah we read: "The mountains may depart, and the hills be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you, and my covenant of peace with you will never be shaken, says Yahweh" (Is 54:10). God does that in spite of our infidelities, our sins. "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool" (Is 1:18). We can trust completely in God's faithfulness even though it is beyond our ability to measure. According to our narrow standards, even a mother can lose faith in her child. But God never loses faith in us: "Does a woman forget the baby at her breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you. See, I have branded you on the palm of my hands" (Is 49:15-16). Even if we deliberately turn away from God, God continues to believe in us. He goes on believing in our capacity to return. Like the father of the prodigal son, he will go out every morning and evening to wait for us with open arms. When he sees us returning, he will run to meet us and prepare a feast for us. There is not one text in the Bible mentioning sin and judgment without some reference to the hope to which God calls us. This conviction that God believes in us, this hope, is obviously important in our spiritual life. It also has great witness value. Traditi6nally we have been encouraged to witness to our faith by the way we lead our lives. In 399 67.4 2008 Cl~rk * Revisiting Hope 400 today's world it is vital also to witness to our hope. In our shrunken world we are constantly made aware of the problems, the suffering, the evil that exists in virtu-ally every corner of the world. That led Louis Evely to say, "Hopelessness gnaws at our era." We are called to witness to the meaning of Christian hope. We need to show by our lives how our hope gives us strength and courage to face the difficulties and problems that inevitably come into our lives, to show, as Isaiah says, "Those who hope in Yahweh renew their strength, they put out wings like eagles. They run and do not grow weary, walk and never tire" (I~ 40:31). It is important to bear that witness. In Lumen gen-tium the council fathers urged Christians not to hide their hope in the recesses of their hearts, but to bying it to bear on the external structures of daily life. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin was fond of saying, "The world belongs to those who offer it the greatest hope." Christian hope is a gift, a gift of peace, but also a deci-sion. Christian hope means that in and through Christ we can courageously face sin and evil in the world and in our own lives. Hope frees us from the need to predict the future and allows us to live in the present with the deep trust that God will never leave us, but rather will fulfill the deepest desires of our heart. It is important to realize that Christian hope is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking. It is a Christian virtue, not a purely human virtue. No one naturally hopes for victory in the face of helplessness or defeat. In his Letter to the Romans, St. Paul utters a triumphant cry of hope: "Condemnation will never come to those who are in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit which gives life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death" (Rm 8:1-2). Paul's hope arises Revie~ for Religlous out of his personal experience of the inward struggle and anguish that characterize the human situation (Rm 7:14-23). He ends that description with a desperate cry: "What a wretched man am I? Who can free me from this body under the power of death?" And Paul answers: "God--thanks be to him--through Jesus Christ our Lord" (Rm 7:24-25). What distinguishes Christian hope is that it arises in the very face of human helplessness and defeat and is anchored in Jesus Christ. The Epistle to the Hebrews says: "This is the anchor our souls have, reaching inside the curtain, where Jesus has entered as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever of the order of Melchizedek" (Heb 6:20). This does not mean we are to leave the present world as it is and simply wait for God to make it new. History reveals that the Christians who did the most for the world in which they lived were precisely those who thought most of the next. We need to look not only at what we hope for but also at what we are doing when we are hoping. Hoping implies looking ahead, but it is not just envisioning something we do not yet possess. The experience of hope includes three things: desire, we want what we hope for; belief, we believe what we hope for is indeed possible; doubt, we fear what we hope for may not hap-pen. Those are the elements of human hoping. Hope, as a Christian virtue, is something different, something more. The difference lies in the third element. Christian hope does not include doubt. Christian hoping is not just believing in the possible. It is a conviction about what is sure. Christian hope is the gift of certainty that what God has promised will surely be ours. St. Paul calls it a "hope that never disappoints" (Rm 5:5); in 401 67.4 2008 Cl~rk * Revisiting Hope Christian hoping comes only as a gift of grace. 402 Hebrews it is called "a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul" (Heb 6:20). Christian hoping comes only as a gift of grace. It is rooted in faith, which is itself a gift. Our faith and our hope are not based on history. A natural reading of history surely does not provide us encouragement to hope. In fact, that reading of history suggests that noth-ing will ever change radically for the better. That reading of history provides no model of people living together in mutual respect and universal love. In fact we see just the opposite. The human appe-tite for violence is enormous. A cynic would say history shows that people love killing each other. Almost three thousand years ago Homer wrote in the Iliad: "Men grow tired of sleep, love, singing, and dancing sooner than war." One need look no further than the last cen-tury for ample evidence supporting that view. But there is another history, the history of God's definitive intervention in our world in the person of Jesus Christ. Our faith and our hope are based on that intervention, on God's word--his word in Scripture and his incarnate Word. In his second letter, St. Peter tells us: "What we are waifng for, relying on his promises, is the new heaven and the new earth, where uprightness will be at home" (2 P 3:13). Old Testament prophets have spoken of "swords beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks" (Mi 4:3); "lions sleeping alongside lambs, the poor given justice, the weak raised to strength, and no hurt or harm done on all God's holy mountain" (Is 11:6;9). Preaching to the Jews, Paul said: Review for Religious "To keep his promise God raised up for Israel one of David's descendants, Jesus, as savior" (Ac 13:23). Hope is a challenging virtue. There are times when our hopes seem to be in vain. Hoping for, if not an end, at least a lessening of suffering and evil in the world seems almost a futile effort. And, from time to time in our personal lives, we are disappointed in our hopes. Often we may feel we have only enough spiri-tual bread in our basket for one day, and we are fearful about tomorrow and all the tomorrows to come. But we do not live in those tomorrows. We have no guarantee there will even be a tomorrow for us. In any case, just as the past is history and should not preoccupy us, so the future is mystery and should not preoccupy us. There is a difference between living for the future and living in the future. The former is done in the present; the latter alienates us from our real life. Among the ancient Christian symbols in the Roman catacombs, there is one which depicts an anchor with two small fish attached to the points of the anchor. The symbolism is clear. We Christians are the small fish attached to the anchor of our hope, Jesus Christ. God offers us the fullness of hope in Jesus Christ. Christ, as the fulfillment of God's saving love, is our hope. Christ is the great visible sign of God's fidelity and love for all men and women. Christ is our hope as victor over all the negatives of life, over the disappointments and frustrations, over anguish and pain, over sin, and even over death. "In the power of the Holy Spirit, may you be rich in hope" (Rm 15:13). 403 67.4 2008 HEDWIG LEWIS Becoming All Fire: Thoughts on Religious Identity Abba Lot, one of the Desert Fathers,. on a visit to Abba Joseph, confided: "Abba, when I am able, I recite a short office, I fast a little, I pray, I medi-tate, I stay recollected. As far as I can, I try to keep my thought pure. What else should I do?" Abba Joseph rose to his feet and stretched out his hands to heaven. Suddenly his fingers became like ten lamps alight. He turned to Abba Lot, eyes sparkling, and whispered, "If you will, become all fire." 404 A young Jesuit, in one of his regular sessions with his spiritual director, asked searchingly: "What is it to be a Jesuit today?" The older Jesuit grabbed a hard-copy of the Decrees of General Congregation 35 (GC35) that lay beside his compute.r, raised it aloft, and said, emphasizing every phrase: "To be a Jesuit today is to be 'a man on fire.'" Many a mystic has written about the "spark of the divine" in every human heart. Divine Providence graces each Of us with potential to turn that spark into a blaze. Hedwig Lewis SJ, th~ author of several professional and psycho-spiritual books, reside~ at St. Xavier's College; P.B. 4168; Ahmedabad 380 009; Gujarat, India. His website is http://joygift.tripod.com. Review for Religious We can let it burn so fiercely that everything around catches fire, spreading far and wide, destroying despair and detestation, creating space for hope and harmony. Hearts Inflamed Fire has often been used to express diverse emotions we experience: purification and passion, comfort and control, devotion and devastation. "Becoming all fire" would mean controlling these conflicting tensions and living life to the full--hearts on fire with Love. And Love then spreads out, setting other hearts afire. All religious are called to be on fire with Love and to let Love shine forth through their good works, in keeping with their charisms, so as to bring glory to God and spread the joy of the kingdom. The Jesuits recently rekindled their own fire. Over a period of about two years before GC35 (held in the first months of 2008), they met in their provinces and came up with suggested topics for discussion, which were sent to Rome. These were scrutinized and presented to the delegates of GC35, who zeroed in on six themes and drafted them into decrees. These were promulgated in early June. Decree 2, titled "'A Fire that Kindles More Fires': Rediscovering Our Charism," defines Jesuit iden-tity today. It responds to questions like: What does it mean to be a Jesuit in a globalized world? What mean-ing and message do Jesuit life and identity bring to people of diverse identities? Drawing inspiration from this decree, I offer here some reflections on what it means to be % man on fire" in the Society of Jesus. I hope this article will serve as a source of enlightenment to Jesuits, to those who share the Ignatian constitutions, and to other men and women religious, and will help them to be "persons on fire." 405 67.4 200g Lewis ¯ Becoming.41l Fire: Tbougbts on Religious Identity The Enkindling Spirit Religious founders have been "men and women on fire," and members of all religious orders and congrega-tions today can tell stories of how they originated as a spark that enkindled other sparks and became a flame. A torch was handed from generation to generation. The first Jesuits "began a narrative, they lit a fire.''t GC35 beautifully summarizes this tradition in the opening paragraph of Decree 2: The Society of Jesus has carried a flame for nearly five hundred years through innumerable social and cul-tural circumstances that have challenged it intensely to keep that flame alive and burning: Things are no different today. In a world that overwhelms people with a multiplicity of sensations, ideas, and images, the Society seeks to keep the fire of its original inspi-ration alive in a way that offers warmth and light to our contemporaries. It does this by telling a story that has stood the test of time, despite the imperfec-tions of its members and even of the whole body, because of the continued goodness of God, who has never allowed the fire to die. (§1) When we read the histories of other religious communi-ties, we find them echoing these sentiments. The story of the Society of Jesus begins with St. Ignatius Loyola. The very name Ignatius suggests fire. Ignatius faced not only cannon fire but also the ecclesi-astical canons that almost had him burned at the stake. His spiritual journey as a "pilgrim" takes a defini-tive turn after his "sublime illumination" at the River Cardoner in Manresa (§5). He set myriad hearts on fire with the love of God, sharing his spiritual experiences through "conversations" and his "school of prayer," the Spiritual Exercises. He enlightened a few enthu-siastic men on the ways of God, forming a group that Review f~r Religious would share his vision of spreading Christ's kingdom. As the Eucharistic Preface of his feastday liturgy states, Ignatius provided the church "with a society of apostles on fire with [God's] love." A letter that Ignatius wrote in 1546 reflects his fiery spirit. A certain Friar Barberan in Spain had publicly expressed a wish that all Jesuits from Perpignan to Seville should be burned at the stake. Ignatius, in Rome, heard of the outburst and wrote to a friend, "Please tell Father Barberan from me that I wish him and all his friends and acquaintances, not only between Perpignan and Seville, but throughout the whole world, to be set on fire and burned up by the Holy Spirit, so that they may all attain to great per-fection and signalize them-selves gready, to the glory of his Divine Majesty." St. Francis Xavier, the pioneer apostle of the Society, ventured beyond physical and socioreligious frontiers "to set the world on fire." Through five centuries to the present, Jesuits have been inflamed with the same spirit and have followed the blazing trails of their predeces-sors and created new paths (§25;.Decree 1, §6). As "men on fire," charged by the Ignatian magis, Jesuits are urged to spread the fire of God's love even in the darkest parts of the world's civilizations (§22). They must gather people around and warm their hearts, listen attentively to their varied stories, encourage them to dance in harmony with their different melodies, and thus "give them meaning and provide focus in a frag-mented world" (§1). The Jesuit vision is to re-create a divine milieu by manifesting "a strong sense of the The very name Ignatius suggests fire. 407 67.4 2008 Lewis ¯ Becoming All Fire: Thoughts on Religious Identity sacred inseparably joined to active involvement in the world. Our deep love of God and our passion for his world should set us on fire--a fire that starts other fires! For ultimately there is no reality that is only profane for those who know how to look" (§ 10). Hopefully GC35's decrees will bring to reality the prophecy of the Jesuit visionary Pierre Teilhard de Chardin: "Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, and gravity, we shall harness for God ener-gies of love. Then for the second time in the history of the world we will have discovered fire." 408 Persons on Fire The "new" fire that GC35 has lighted engulfs the "spirit" of the Jesuit identity as spelled out in the pre-ceding three general congregations. To be a Jesuit today is to be "a man on fire." The fire at the heart of a Jesuit's identity and mission is Jesus Christ (§2). The "man on fire" is an alter Cbristus, for Christ is his con-stant companion (§3). The "man on fire" lets his light shine through good works for the greater glory of God (§22). He enkindles other hearts with the Love that burns within him, for that was Christ's deepest yearn-ing: "I have come to cast fire on earth!" (see §21). From an Ignatian perspective, it is a "fire" that con-sumes and cleanses, for the Jesuit is "a sinner, yet called to be a companion of Jesus." It is a fire that cannot be contained, for the Jesuit is "a man for and with others." It is a fire that urges the Jesuit, a "servant of Christ's mission" (§7), to the edges of society (§24) in the ser-vice of faith and the propagation of justice (both human and environmental) (§7, §24; Decree 1, §6). The fire is kept ablaze by the Jesuit living out generously the Ignatian "polarities": "being and doing, contemplation Review for Religious and action, prayer and prophetic living, being com-pletely united with Christ and completely inserted into the world with him, as an apostolic body" (§9). Our near-contemporary St. Alberto Hurtado (of Chile, 1901-1952) was "a fire that enkindles other fires" (§25). He established the nonprofit organization Hogar de Cristo (the Hearth of Christ) to aid the homeless. It provides both shelter and human warmth for body and soul. Hurtado not only enkindled these unfortu-nate people, but wanted his experience with them to intensify the fire in his own being. He made this conviction abundantly clear: "Love them in order to make them live, that a more human life may develop in them, unlocking their intel-ligence, putting an end to their backwardness. May the errors anchored in their hearts prick me continuously. May I be tor-mented by the lies and illusions used to intoxicate and enrapture them; may the mate-rialistic press that pretends to enlighten them irritate me; may their prejudices stimulate me to show them the truth. And this is nothing more than the translation of the verb 'to love.' I have placed them in my heart so they may live as people in the light, and the light is none other than Christ himself, the true light that enlightens everyone who comes into the world. All the light of natural reason is really the light of Christ; all knowledge, all human science. Christ is the supreme science. ,2 Father Pedro Arrupe SJ was described in 1952 as "a man on fire" by a seventeen-year-old student in Madrid, The "man on fire" is an alter Christus, for Christ is his constant companion. 409 67.4 2008 Lewis * Becoming All Fire: Thoughts on Religious Identity Adolfo Nicol~is.3 Like Hurtado, Arrupe had sheltered the hapless victims of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima. Given his training in medicine, Arrupe ministered to those suffering from severe burns. His experience would inflame his own heart with greater compassion and love - - for the suffer- ,~ ing. Later, as the Jesuits' superior general, he would open centers for refugees (see Decree 1, §6). Arrupe's is also a good example of how "men and women on fire" foster religious vocations: they walk their talk and talk their walk in the service of the Lord. Arrupe's lecture on his experiences at Hiroshima had rekindled in young Nicol~s's heart the burning desire to become a Jesuit. Nicolas would later follow the great missionary to Japan and eventually succeed him as supe-rior general in Rome. The Jesuit "man on fire" must realize that "the Jesuit identity is relational." He shares in the life of a com-munity, each member drawing its fire from the same source: Christ. Together as "friends in the Lord," they bear witness to the Light. A glowing community life, one that is intensive and joyful, attracts people, "inviting them--above all the young--to 'come and see,' to join us in our vocation and to serve with us in Christ's mis-sion. Nothing could be more desirable and more urgent today, since the heart of Christ burns with love for this world, with all its troubles, and seek~ companions who can serve it with him" (§ 19). The Jesuit "man on fire" must realize that "the Jesuit identity is relational. Review for Religious Playing with Fire Jesuits are also, by choice, "firemen" in Christ's brigade. The "demons" of this age are on a rampage, spreading on earth the fires of the underworld through irreligion, injustice, and consumerism (see §21). As firemen in Christ's brigade, Jesuits have been called to unflagging commitment to Christ and his mission of extinguishing the fires that defile human dignity and ravage natural resources. The Jesuit fireman plays with fire and becomes vul-nerable to the "inferno" he has to confront. It often means getting burned by rampant injustice or religious fanaticism. He comes under fire when he ventures beyond the frontiers--as is evident in the long list of Jesuit martyrs for social justice in recent times. Yet he remains committed regardless of thorns, threats, and thrashings and moves ahead fearlessly under the banner of the cross (§11; Decree 1, §9). The pathway is not always bright. There are periods in the Jesuit fireman's life when the fire within him burns low, threatened by storms inside or out, or the path is hidden in thick smoke. He experiences, in short, the challenge of the cross--where "the Divinity is hidden." The light flickers or fades in the struggle, and doubts and anxieties oppress. The time may compare with what mystics have described as the "dark night of the soul." "The experience of a hidden God cannot always be avoided, but even in the depths of darkness the transforming light .of God is able to shine" (§7). The "man on fire" must not lose hope, but seek and find that "light" so as to rekindle his fire. After the example of Jesus our companion, whose "entire life was a kenosis," he must feel supported and continue on his mission (§ 14). 411 67.4 2008 Lewis * Becoming/Ill Fire: Thoughts on Religious Identity While GC3 5 was in session, every Jesuit community around the globe kept a small lamp lit in the chapel as a symbol of oneness and solidarity, uniqueness and unity. Every Jesuit, in his own God-given way, must more than anything else be "a man on fire." And then, merging his flame with the flames of other religious "men and women on fire," together with "all persons of goodwill" (§21), he must set the world ablaze. Notes ~ GC35, Decree 2, §2. The texts of all the decrees are available at www.sjweb.info. Paragraph numbers of this decree will be given in the body of the article thus: (§2). 2 Albert Hurtado, personal reflection written in November 1947, quoted in "Saint Hurtado's Christocentric Mindset" by Hedwig Lewis sJ, Ignis 2005, no. 4, Gujarat Sahitya Prakash, Anand, India. 3 Adolfo Nicolfis sJ, "Eight Encounters with Father Pedro Arrupe," Province Express, Australia, 14 November 2007. 412 A Birthing On my way to Damascus I was tripped by Grace, and fell Into the hands of Love. My brain lay scrambled And pride lay wounded I felt blinded. Deep within my labored soul Faith gave its birth cry. Paulson V. Veliyannoor CMF Review for Religious A. PAUL DOMINIC A Source for Prayer Undreamt Of God speaks first in one way, and then in another, but no one notices. He speaks by dreams, and visions that come in the night, when slumber comes on mankind, and men are all asleep in bed. Then it is he whispers in the ear of man, or may frighten him with fearful sights, to turn him from evil-doing, and make an end of his pride; to save his soul from the pit and his life from the pathway to Sheol. (Jb 33:14-18; JB) If it is true that God speaks to us in dreams, what fol-lows? Or what should we do? We should speak in turn. Or we should at least desire to do so and try. Speaking to God in dreams as God does to us in dreams is not normally at our command. However, whether we dare speak to God after we have dreamt depends on us: it is definitely within our power. Such speaking to God is prayer indeed. Prayer linked with dreams may start in dreams and end in them or continue after them, or it A. Paul Dominic sJ last wrote for us in our 66.4 (2007) issue. His address is Human Development Centre; Port Mourant, Corentyne; Guyana (South America). 413 67.4 2008 Dominic ¯ A Source for Prayer Undreamt Of 414 may begin only outside them, drawing inspiration from them. Both kinds could be learned, though for now my interest is in the second,~ which is simpler: it is prayer following the dreams. The literature on prayer has been mosdy on how to pray rather than on what to pray. Is it worthwhile to con-sider the manner and matter of prayer separately? In any case, being persuaded myself that more deserves to be said about what to pray about, I would like to deal with the hardly dreamt-of topic broached above. To state it explicidy, whatever you dream at night can well serve as food for your prayer. I believe that something sensible can be said about dreams as source material for our praying. The idea proposed here is really part of what Christians generally use in their meditative or contem-plative prayer, namely, the Bible.2 They use the whole Bible, even if not every page and even though they most often use Gospel passages.3 Even in the Gospels, some paragraphs may seldom be considered prayer-worthy. It is a rare person who will pray over the genealogy of Jesus given at the beginning of Matthew. Still, the Bible in all its multiplicity and variety serves Jewish and Christian prayer. I think this is true of the bibli-cal passages about dreams, albeit they are not noticed much.4 Biblical dreams are found here and there in both Testaments. For many, they could prove to be a new wellspring of prayer. God Active in the Unconscious A