Biologically diverse ecosystems in countries served by the World Bank provide an array of valuable economic services. While the benefits of conserving ecosystems frequently outweigh the costs, conversion of these ecosystems to other uses occurs anyway, because many ecosystem benefits are of a public good nature, without markets that would reflect their real value. The objective of this paper was defined at a Concept review meeting held on December 2009 and is to increase the understanding on how biodiversity is incorporated in a development agency such as the World Bank Group (WBG) and how the WBG can enhance its role in biodiversity and ecosystems protection and management as a key ingredient to reach development sustainability. In order to define a reasonable strategy to prepare this paper, two approaches were used: the first was to carry out background and analytical studies, and the second was to consult with a wide range of stakeholders including Bank staff, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and indigenous groups. Biodiversity provides many instrumental benefits, from food and fuel to recreation. But even where biodiversity is not immediately instrumental, it represents global public goods that must be protected, if only for their potential value in the future. The Global Environment Facility (GEF) has been the mainstay of grants implemented by the Bank ($1.4 billion) for biodiversity conservation and management, but the Bank has itself committed $2 billion in loans and has leveraged $2.9 billion in co-financing.
Current international financing (primarily ODA) for environmental services in developing countries is very roughly estimated to be upwards of $21 billion annually (not including climate change financing), but additional resources on the order of tens, if not hundreds, of billions of dollars are needed. In 2009, environmental ODA was estimated at $18 billion with a few billion more delivered through philanthropic and market-based financing channels. Although there are only a few studies of the additional financing needed, and those are relatively narrow in scope, the estimates that are available clearly indicate that significantly higher levels of finance still need to be reached. Additionally, the impacts of environmental finance on environmental sustainability and development objectives are poorly understood. Systematic reviews of previous experience, and standardized monitoring in the future, would support the countries and projects monitored, while also providing important lessons for the broader development and environment communities.
Importantes falencias en los procedimientos de licenciamiento ambiental en Colombia se relacionan directamente con la degradación generalizada de sus franjas costeras y zonas litorales. Estas áreas se encuentran afectadas severamente por intervenciones humanas que interfieren con los procesos naturales y modifican sustancialmente sus balances sedimentarios, contextos geomorfológicos y condiciones físico-bióticas. Entre muchos otros ejemplos, se destacan: a) La erosión generalizada y la destrucción de playas y dunas en el delta del Río Magdalena, asociadas a la construcción de los tajamares de Bocas de Ceniza; b) La modificación drástica de la hidrodinámica de los litorales de los departamentos del Atlántico y Magdalena por proyectos de infraestructura lineal; c) la híper-salinización y pérdida de más de 30,000 hectáreas de manglar en el complejo lagunar de la Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) debido a la expansión de la frontera agrícola e infraestructura lineal d) el retroceso acelerado de playas y acantilados en el Caribe sur, debido a actividades como la deforestación, extracción de materiales de playa y construcción desordenada y caótica de cerca de 500 obras de defensa costera; y e) La salinización de más de 10,000 hectáreas de pantanos de agua dulce en la Bahía de Cispatá, como consecuencia de la formación inducida del nuevo delta de Tinajones. En este sentido, la ubicación de infraestructura en terrenos geológica y geomorfológicamente inestables, afectados por fenómenos como la subsidencia costera y el diapirismo de lodos, plantea amenazas y riesgos naturales de primer orden. Este es un panorama palpable en el presente y futuro de zonas urbanas y rurales de ciudades como Barranquilla, Cartagena, Arboletes y Necoclí, todas ellas con desarrollos futuros (industria, puertos, urbanísticos) de la mayor importancia. Los costos ambientales asociados a intervenciones como las mencionadas son incalculables, sin contar la existencia de otros numerosos ejemplos, que evidencian entre otros factores un insuficiente reconocimiento a la geomofología en la evaluación, seguimiento y control de las intervenciones humanas en el entorno marino-costero. Estas funciones de manejo ambiental en Colombia se surten por medio del procedimiento de licenciamiento ambiental, que están a cargo de autoridades de orden nacional y regional según la Ley 99 de 1993. En el contexto anterior, se plantean las siguientes preguntas de investigación: ¿Qué elementos del licenciamiento ambiental de intervenciones en ambientes costeros pueden mejorarse, dando prioridad a los contextos geomorfológicos particulares de las zonas de intervención? ¿Cómo ha evolucionado el sistema regulatorio en Colombia con respecto a las intervenciones humanas sobre los ambientes costeros? 20 ¿Qué mejoras técnicas se pueden hacer al marco regulatorio colombiano para guiar la evaluación, seguimiento y control de intervenciones humanas desde el enfoque geomorfológico de susceptibilidad? Este trabajo examina el marco regulatorio ambiental que actualmente rige en las zonas costeras colombianas, a través de dos niveles geográficos. En un primer nivel macro se caracterizan y analizan las intervenciones humanas en el litoral Caribe continental, región que representa una muestra significativa del contexto colombiano por sus mayores niveles de ocupación humana y consecuentes perturbaciones antropogénicas. En un segundo nivel, de mayor detalle, se define e ilustra el enfoque conceptual y metodológico que resulta de esta investigación, con la demostración en una de las unidades ambientales costeras definidas por el decreto 1120 de 2013 para el manejo costero integrado. Para responder a los interrogantes planteados, el Capítulo I introduce brevemente la evolución geomorfológica histórica de los litorales colombianos desde finales del siglo XVIII. En este "abrebocas" se evidencia la compleja geología y geomorfología de las costas Caribe y Pacífico de Colombia, en las cuales islas-barrera deltaicas de bajo relieve y manglares contrastan con relieves rocosos escarpados, acantilados y amplias plataformas costeras emergidas y sumergidas. La evolución histórica de los litorales colombianos involucra cambios en la línea de costa estimados en cientos de metros, a tasas máximas de 40 metros al año (Punta Rey, Arboletes, Bahía de Tumaco), y pérdidas y ganancias de terrenos del orden de decenas de kilómetros cuadrados (Ciénaga de Mallorquín, Isla Cascajo, Delta de Tinajones-Bahía de Cispatá, Golfo de Urabá, Delta de los ríos San Juan y Patía). Estos casos reflejan variaciones drásticas en los balances de sedimentos del litoral, muchos de ellos provocados o influenciados por acciones humanas, como infraestructura para la navegación, modificación de cauces y obras de protección costera. El Capítulo II identifica la perspectiva geomorfológica en el licenciamiento ambiental de intervenciones costeras en Colombia, a partir de su comparación con los marcos regulatorios de Italia, España y Cuba. Las entrevistas y revisiones documentales destacaron 59 intervenciones asociadas con usos y actividades humanas en las zonas costeras, cuya obligatoriedad para el licenciamiento varía entre países. Los procesos geomorfológicos naturales también fueron analizados dentro de los criterios técnicos incluidos en las directrices oficiales para estudios ambientales. Se concluye que, a pesar de la aceptación mundial de las evaluaciones de impacto ambiental como procedimiento de licenciamiento, su aplicación es aún muy diversa y limitada en cuanto a la pertinencia de los procesos geomorfológicos costeros. Por consiguiente, se identifican siete buenas prácticas para la evaluación y el control de los impactos antropogénicos en la zona costera y se introduce un nuevo enfoque, orientado en procesos, para los procedimientos de licenciamiento ambiental. 21 En el Capítulo III se hace un inventario y se caracterizan las intervenciones humanas sobre la costa continental del Caribe colombiano, para establecer una línea base regional. A partir de imágenes de Google Earth, se ubicaron un total de 2,742 obras y actividades, que representan 29 tipos diferentes de intervenciones humanas. Este inventario se complementó con una evaluación del impacto general de cada intervención, en función de cuatro atributos de sus efectos geomorfológicos, a saber, extensión, intensidad, reversibilidad y persistencia. Los tres tipos de intervenciones humana más comunes (asentamientos de baja densidad, espolones y asentamientos de lujo con muelle) fueron también los más impactantes. Sin embargo, algunas intervenciones (por ejemplo, asentamientos de alta densidad o infraestructura vial) tuvieron valores de impacto ambiental más altos que otras más frecuentes. A partir de este análisis exhaustivo del Caribe colombiano, en el Capítulo IV se evalúa el marco regulatorio ambiental nacional aplicable a las áreas costeras. Se evidencia que el procedimiento de licenciamiento en Colombia actualmente solo regula cuatro de los diez tipos de intervenciones con mayor efecto en las zonas costeras colombianas. También se resalta que el número de obras y actividades cubiertas en cada nueva reforma legislativa disminuyó constantemente con el tiempo. Adicionalmente, se extrajeron tres implicaciones políticas para la planificación costera y oceánica, relacionadas con: a) la diversidad geográfica de las zonas costeras tropicales; b) la necesidad de instrumentos de capacidad de carga territorial; y c) la falta de articulación de los instrumentos de planificación territorial. Las conclusiones identifican una brecha importante entre la toma de decisiones técnicas y políticas en el marco regulatorio ambiental de Colombia, lo que subraya la necesidad de diseñar nuevos métodos para evaluar la amplitud y la dimensión de la dinámica geomorfológica en un contexto de manejo ambiental. Por consiguiente, los capítulos anteriores resaltan tres deficiencias importantes en Colombia, con respecto al manejo ambiental de intervenciones humanas en zonas costeras: 1) la ausencia de una estrategia para determinar intervenciones que requieren un procedimiento de licencia ambiental (screening); 2) una deficiente definición del alcance de los estudios ambientales a través de requisitos de información pertinentes (scoping); y 3) la desarticulación de los instrumentos de gestión ambiental, como la planificación territorial y las licencias ambientales. Todos estos elementos ratifican que el marco regulatorio ambiental en Colombia ha sido insuficiente hasta la fecha para manejar el impacto antropogénico en los ambientes costeros, debido a que no se tiene en cuenta la susceptibilidad natural al efecto de las intervenciones humanas. En este trabajo se define susceptibilidad como la predisposición de una unidad ambiental (sistema socio-natural) para experimentar cambios o afectaciones debido a la introducción de una intervención humana. Con el fin de proponer mejoras al sistema ambiental colombiano, el Capítulo V plantea un nuevo modelo conceptual y metodológico para guiar la evaluación, el seguimiento y el control de los 22 impactos humanos desde una perspectiva geomorfológica. Este producto novedoso se ha denominado Susceptibilidad a las Intervenciones Humanas con fines de Licenciamiento Ambiental (SHIELP en inglés). La arquitectura de este modelo tiene tres componentes, que son particulares para un tipo de entorno, a saber, procesos geomorfológicos, configuraciones geomorfológicas e intervenciones humanas potencialmente impactantes. Cada uno de estos componentes se traduce en una variable por medio de calificaciones de expertos y el cálculo de lógica difusa. Por lo tanto, el sistema experto-difuso SHIELP cuantifica la susceptibilidad de una geoforma distintiva a los efectos de un tipo característico de intervención humana, a través de la perturbación estimada en cada proceso geomorfológico que configura el tipo de ambiente en estudio. Como demostración, este capítulo también documenta el diseño del sistema experto-difuso para ambientes costeros, esbozado en talleres de investigación con miembros del Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras "José Benito Vives de Andréis"- INVEMAR. El rol que cumple este instituto como asesor oficial de las autoridades ambientales en cuestiones de evaluación de impacto, demuestran su pertinencia para soportar la base de conocimiento experto del modelo. Como resultado, el modelo SHIELP se aplicó con los parámetros establecidos para los entornos costeros, derivando en una base de datos de valores de susceptibilidad para 4,524 interacciones (configuración litoral frente a intervención). La aplicabilidad real de este ejercicio corresponde a la traducción de esta base de datos en un criterio técnico para mejorar el marco regulatorio colombiano. Por un lado, cinco rangos de susceptibilidad se vincularon a cinco instrumentos diferenciados, dos de los cuales articulan el licenciamiento ambiental con planes territoriales, mientras que los otros diferencian el tipo licenciamiento pertinente según las propiedades de ubicación de la intervención (screening). Por otro lado, los instrumentos diferenciados también se combinaron con cuatro grados de requisitos de información para la definición del alcance en los estudios ambientales respectivos (scoping). De esta manera, el valor de susceptibilidad de una intervención dada en una configuración determinada (interacción) se ajusta a un rango percentilico que establece la competencia territorial (regional o nacional) para su control ambiental, así como un instrumento de licencia específico con requisitos de información diferenciados para la definición de la línea base ambiental. Finalmente, la operación del modelo SHIELP se demostró con un estudio de caso: la unidad ambiental costera Rio Magdalena - complejo Canal del Dique - sistema lagunar Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta. La información geográfica de esta unidad costera regional se interpretó de acuerdo con los parámetros definidos en el modelo SHIELP para ambientes costeros. Se delimitaron 154 polígonos en el área de estudio, de acuerdo con las 40 configuraciones litorales identificadas. Como resultado, 13 mapas cartográficos representan esta área, con los niveles de susceptibilidad atribuidos a cada configuración para las 52 intervenciones potencialmente impactantes. A fin de ilustrar la aplicabilidad del modelo, se presentan cuatro escenarios para discriminar las 23 intervenciones por instrumento de manejo ambiental (screening) y para definir los requerimientos de información sobre procesos geomorfológicos (scoping). De esta manera el modelo SHIELP especifica el instrumento de licenciamiento ambiental para las intervenciones humanas y el alcance correspondiente del estudio técnico requerido, dadas las características de su interacción con la configuración gemorfológica. Las Conclusiones Generales documentan reflexiones y recomendaciones al Sistema Nacional Ambiental colombiano (SINA) para implementar los resultados de esta investigación. Además, este trabajo abre una perspectiva amplia para futuras investigaciones en el enfoque de la susceptibilidad al efecto de las intervenciones humanas. El modelo SHIELP para entornos costeros se puede replicar en diversas geografías para articular progresivamente una base de datos nacional de susceptibilidad costera. Asimismo, el esquema metodológico presentado puede aplicarse en diferentes tipos de entornos, distintos de la zona costera. La ampliación de este enfoque de susceptibilidad geomorfológica sobre la variedad de ecosistemas tropicales, establecería el camino para una transición exitosa desde la actual concepción antropocéntrica y orientada a la fragmentación, hacia una aproximación del manejo basado en los ecosistemas. ; Important flaws in the environmental licensing procedures in Colombia are directly related to the generalized degradation of its coastal fringes and littoral zones. These areas are severely affected by human interventions that interfere with natural processes and severely modify their sedimentary balances, geomorphological contexts, and physical-biotic conditions. Among many other examples, the following stand out: a) the widespread erosion and destruction of beaches and dunes in the Magdalena River delta, associated with the construction of the Bocas de Ceniza jetties; b) the drastic modification of the hydrodynamics of the littorals at the Atlantic and Magdalena departments due to linear infrastructure projects; c) the hyper-salinization and loss of more than 30,000 hectares of mangrove in the lagoon complex of the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta (CGSM) due to the expansion of the agricultural frontier and linear infrastructure projects; d) the accelerated retreat of beaches and cliffs in the southern Caribbean, due to activities such as deforestation, beach material extraction, and disordered and chaotic construction of nearly 500 rigid shore protection works; and e) the salinization of more than 10,000 hectares of freshwater marshes in the Bay of Cispatá as a consequence of the induced formation of the new delta of Tinajones. In this sense, the location of infrastructure in geological and geomorphologically unstable lands, affected by phenomena such as coastal subsidence and mud diapirism, poses first order natural threats and risks. This is a palpable panorama in the present and future of urban and rural areas of cities such as Barranquilla, Cartagena, Arboletes and Necoclí, all of them with future developments (industry, ports, urban development) of the greatest importance. The environmental costs associated with such interventions are incalculable, not counting the existence of numerous other examples, which demonstrate among other factors an insufficient acknowledgment to geomorphology in the evaluation, monitoring, and control of human interventions in the marine-coastal environment. These environmental management functions in Colombia are provided through the environmental licensing procedure, which rests upon national and regional authorities according to Law 99 of 1993. In the above context, the following research questions arise: What elements of the environmental licensing of interventions in coastal environments can be improved, giving priority to the particular geomorphological contexts of the intervention zones? How has the regulatory system evolved in Colombia with respect to human interventions on coastal environments? What technical improvements can be made to the Colombian regulatory framework to guide the evaluation, monitoring, and control of human interventions from the geomorphological approach of susceptibility? This research work examines the environmental regulatory framework that currently governs Colombian coastal zones, through two geographic levels. At the first macro level, human interventions 16 are characterized and analyzed on the continental Caribbean coast, a region that represents a significant sample of the Colombian context due to its higher levels of human occupation and consequent anthropogenic disturbances. At a second level, in greater detail, the conceptual and methodological approach resulting from this research is defined and illustrated, with the demonstration in one of the coastal environmental units defined by decree 1120 of 2013 for integrated coastal management. To answer the questions raised, Chapter I briefly introduces the historical geomorphological evolution of the Colombian coastlines since the end of the XVIII century. The complex geology and geomorphology of the Caribbean and Pacific coasts of Colombia are evident in this "appetizer", in which low-relief deltaic islands and mangroves contrast with steep rocky reliefs, cliffs and wide emerged and submerged coastal platforms. The historical evolution of the Colombian littorals involves changes in the coastline estimated in hundreds of meters, at maximum rates of 40 meters a year (Punta Rey, Arboletes, Tumaco Bay), and land losses and gains of the order of tens of square kilometers (Ciénaga de Mallorquín, Isla Cascajo, Tinajorenas Delta - Cispatá, Bay, Urabá Gulf, San Juan and Patía river deltas). These cases reflect drastic variations in the sediment balances of the coast, many of them caused or heavily influenced by human actions, such as navigation infrastructure, modification of river courses and coastal protection works. Chapter II identifies the geomorphological perspective in the environmental licensing of coastal interventions in Colombia, based on its comparison with the regulatory frameworks of Italy, Spain, and Cuba. The interviews and documentary reviews highlighted 59 interventions associated with human uses and activities in the coastal zones, whose compulsory nature for the licensing varies among countries. The natural geomorphological processes were also analyzed within the technical criteria included in the official guidelines for environmental studies. It is concluded that, despite the worldwide acceptance of environmental impact assessments through a licensing procedure, their application in coastal environments is still very diverse and limited in terms of the pertinence of the geomorphological processes that configures the coast. Therefore, seven good practices for the evaluation and control of anthropogenic impacts in the coastal zone are underlined, and a new process-oriented approach is introduced for environmental licensing procedures. In Chapter III, an inventory and characterization of human interventions on the continental coast of the Colombian Caribbean are documented, to establish a regional baseline. Based on images from Google Earth, a total of 2,742 works and activities were located, representing 29 different types of human interventions. This inventory was complemented with an evaluation of the general impact of each intervention, based on four attributes of its geomorphological effects, namely, extension, intensity, reversibility, and persistence. The three most common types of human interventions (low-density settlements, groins and luxury settlements with dock) were also the ones with the higher environmental impact. However, some interventions (e.g., high-density settlements or road infrastructure) had higher environmental impact values than more frequent ones. 17 Based on this exhaustive analysis of the Colombian Caribbean, Chapter IV evaluates the national environmental regulatory framework applicable to coastal areas. It evidences that the licensing procedure in Colombia currently regulates only four of the ten types of interventions with greater effect in the Colombian coastal zones. Also, the number of works and activities covered in each new legislative reform consistently decreased over time. In addition, three policy implications were extracted for coastal and ocean planning, related to a) the geographic diversity of tropical coastal zones; b) the need for territorial carrying capacity instruments and; c) the lack of articulation of territorial planning instruments. The conclusions identify an important gap between technical and political decision making in the environmental regulatory framework of Colombia, which stresses the need for the design of novel methods to assess the breadth and length of geomorphological dynamics in an environmental management context. Therefore, the previous chapters highlight three important deficiencies in Colombia, with respect to the environmental management of human interventions in coastal areas: 1) the absence of a strategy to determine interventions that require an environmental licensing procedure (screening); 2) a poor definition of the scope of environmental studies through relevant information requirements (scoping) and; 3) the disarticulation of environmental management instruments, such as territorial planning and environmental licenses. All these elements ratify that the environmental regulatory framework in Colombia has been insufficient to date to manage the anthropogenic impact in coastal environments due to the unawareness of the natural susceptibility to the effect of human interventions. In this work, the susceptibility is defined as the predisposition of an environmental unit (socio-natural system) to experience changes or affectation due to the introduction of human interventions. In order to propose improvements to the Colombian environmental system, Chapter V establishes a new conceptual and methodological approach to guide the evaluation, monitoring, and control of human impacts from a geomorphological perspective. This novel product has been called Susceptibility to Human Interventions for Environmental Licensing Purposes (SHIELP). The architecture of this model has three components, which are particular to a kind of environment, namely, geomorphological processes, geomorphological configurations and potentially impacting human interventions. Each of these components is translated into a variable by means of expert qualifications along with a fuzzy logic computation strategy. Therefore, the expert-diffuse system SHIELP qualifies the susceptibility of a distinctive landform to the effects of a characteristic type of human intervention, through the estimated perturbation in each geomorphological process that configures the kind of environment under study. As a demonstration, this chapter also documents the design of the expert-diffuse system for coastal environments, drafted from research workshops with members of the marine and coastal research institute INVEMAR (In Spanish: Instituto de Investigaciones Marinas y Costeras "José Benito Vives de Andréis"). The role of this institute as an official adviser to the environmental authorities in matters of impact assessment demonstrates its relevance to support the expert-knowledge base of the model. 18 As a consequence, the SHIELP model was applied with the parameters established for coastal environments, resulting in a database of susceptibility values for 4,524 interactions (littoral configuration vs intervention). The real applicability of this exercise corresponds to the translation of this database into a technical criterion to improve the Colombian regulatory framework. On the one hand, five susceptibility ranges were linked to five differentiated instruments, two of which articulate environmental licensing with territorial plans, while the others differentiate the pertinent degree of licensing for human interventions according to location properties (screening). On the other hand, the differentiated instruments were also combined with four degrees of information requirements for the definition of the scope in the respective environmental studies (scoping). In this way, the susceptibility value of a given intervention in a given configuration (interaction) would fit a percentile range that places its environmental control in a territorial competence (regional or national), and through a specific licensing instrument, with differentiated information requirements for the baseline definition. Finally, the operation of the SHIELP model was also demonstrated with a case study: the environmental coastal unit Magdalena River - Canal del Dique complex - Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta lagoon system. The geographic information of this regional coastal unit was interpreted according to the parameters defined in the SHIELP model for coastal environments. 154 polygons were delimited in the study area, according to the 40 coastal configurations identified. As a result, 13 cartographic maps represent this area, with the levels of susceptibility attributed to each configuration for the 52 potentially impacting interventions. In order to illustrate the applicability of the model, four scenarios are presented to discriminate interventions by environmental management instrument (screening) and to define information requirements on geomorphological processes (scoping). In this way, the SHIELP model specifies the environmental licensing instrument for human interventions and the corresponding scope of the technical study, given the characteristics of its interaction with the geomorphological configuration. The Overall Conclusions document reflections and recommendations to the Colombian national environmental system – SINA (in Spanish: Sistema Nacional Ambiental) to implement the results of this research. In addition, this work opens a broad perspective for future research in the approach of susceptibility to the effect of human interventions. The SHIELP model for coastal environments can be replicated in different geographies to progressively articulate a national database of coastal susceptibility. Also, the presented methodological scheme can be applied in different kinds of environments, other than the coastal zone. The extension of this approach of geomorphological susceptibility to the variety of tropical ecosystems would set the path for a successful transition from the current anthropocentric and fragmentation-oriented conception towards an ecosystem-based management approach.
ABSTRACTCharacteristics of the border region is often described as the outermost regions are isolated, backward, and so forth. With the myriad of issues concerning the welfare of society in general were below the poverty line with low levels of education. But life does not always belong to border communities in naming above, Miangas for example, the community has its own traditions how to survive in conditions of isolation and backwardness, have skills in producting seafood, farming and other skills. Long before the existence of state power, the unit from Miangas sides of residence lives bound by customs and a sense of shared identity. Results from this research show that, due to the presence of markers of the state's power infrastructure in this locations, many facilities built by the government in Miangas impressed as empty and wasteful projects that looks abandoned. As well as the presence of power by government intervention ultimately weaken the social institutions in lives of indigenous people, and tends to make people more spoiled and more pragmatic, and left the local wisdom and traditional values that have been practiced for generations by their ancestors and was bequeathed to offspring. Conclusion of this study, the Miangas known as hard working people, many skills are acted by people in meeting their needs, such as reliable in making boats, intelligent processing of marine products such as making wooden fish (smoked fish) and salted fish being traded to the island- Talaud large island in the district. But when the excessive government interference in the end there is a change in society itself and shift traditional values. Neglect of traditional values by society, increasingly indicates that the presence of state power in Miangas, indicating the government has failed in maintaining traditional values, language and traditions into local wisdom as mandated in the constitution of this country, which is poured into 1945. Should society and government both have important roles in maintaining the integrity and sovereignty of the Republic of Indonesia to maintain local knowledge as part of the national defense. PENDAHULUANKarakteristik wilayah perbatasan bagi sebagian orang seringkali digambarkan sebagai wilayah terluar yang terisolir, terbelakang, halaman belakang, pagar belakang, penuh dengan segudang permasalahan menyangkut tingkat kesejahteraan masyarakat yang pada umumnya berada di bawah garis kemiskinan dengan tingkat pendidikan yang rendah.Namun dalam penamaan ini yang seringkalidilupakan oleh sebagian orang bahwa kehidupan masyarakat di wilayah perbatasan tidak selamanya tergolong apa yang disebutkan diatas, disetiap wilayah masyarakat memiliki budaya dan tradisi berbeda bagaimana bertahan hidup dalam kondisi keterisolasian dan ketebelakangan. Seperti yang di ungkapkan oleh Ralp Linton dimana kegiatan-kegiatan kebudayaan atau culture activity di bagi ke dalam trait complex, misalnya sebagai contoh masyarakat memiliki ketrampilan dalam proses pencaharian hidup dan ekonomi, dengan mengandalkan hasil alam seperti melaut, bercocok tanam dan peternakan (Ralp Linton, 1936: 397). Apabila dicermati hal ini merupakan kearifan lokal.Demikian halnya jauh sebelum adanya program pembangunan di wilayah perbatasan, masyarakat yang oleh Koentjraningrat disebut sebagaii suatu kesatuan hidup manusia yang bersifat mantap dan terikat oleh satuan adat istiadat dan rasa identitas bersama(Koentjraningrat, 2009:120). Wilayah perbatasan sebagai garis pangkal penentu kedaulatanNKRI, perlu adanya perhatian khusus baik dari segi pembangunan infrastruktur dansuprastruktur, pembangunan kualitas sumber daya manusia, sampai pada pembangunan pusat penyelenggara kekuasaan negara yang memberi pelayanan terhadap masyarakat. Namun persoalan yang dihadapi sekarang wilayah perbatasan yang diwacanakan sebagai "beranda depan" ternyata masih jauh dari harapan dan tinggallah sebuah wacana.Dengan adanya kehadiran kekuasaan negara bukan memoles wilayah perbatasan menjadi wilayah terdepan, malah cenderung membuat masyarakat untuk terus bergantung kepada pemerintah dan meninggalkan tradisi-tradisi yang dulu terpelihara, seperti nilai-nilai atau norma-norma adat-istiadat dan keterikatan oleh suatu rasa identitas komunitas (Maciver dan Page dalam Koenjtraningrat, 2009:119). Seperti yang dikatakan oleh Burhan Bugin kajian tentang masyarakat sipil atau civil society penting di kaji setelah dominasi kekuasaan negara begitu kuat. Selain menjadikan masyarakat sipil tidak berdaya, dominasi kekuasaan negara dapat menunjukan fakta bahwa seakan-akan pembangunan yang dilakukan oleh Negara ditunjukan bagi kepentingan rakyat (Burhan Bugin, 1993: 6), namun kenyataannya malah kekuasaan Negara yang pada umumnya terlalu dominan lebih cederung memberikan efek negatif terhadap kearifan lokal masyarakat adat di Miangas, di sisi lain masyarakat sendiri tidak mampu untuk mempertahankan kearifan lokal yang ada.Rumusan Masalah1. Bagaimana kekuasaan negara terhadap struktur adat masyarakat Miangas?2. Mengapa terjadi perubahan atau pergeseran nilai adat ketika pemerintah melakukan intervensi kekuasaan di Miangas?Manfaat dan Tujuan Penelitian.a. Adapun tujuan dari penelitian ini, adalah:1. Untuk mengetahui sejauh mana kekuasaan negara terhadap struktur adat masyarakat Miangas!2. Untuk mengetahui Sejauhmana terjadinya perubahan atau pergeseran nilai-nilai adat ketika pemerintah melakukan intervensi kekuasaan di Miangas!b. Manfaat Ilmiah, bahwasannya penelitian ini kiranya dapat memberikan kontribusi berarti untuk pengembangan ilmu pengetahuan bagi Jurusan Ilmu Pemerintahan terlebih khusus bagi Program Studi Ilmu politik.Manfaat praktis,diharapkan hasil penelitian ini dapat memberikan kontribusi bagi terselenggaranya program pemerintahpusat dan daerah dalam pembangunan kawasan perbatasan yang sesuai dengan karakteristik wilayah perbatasan, agar ke depan program pembangunan yang dilakukan oleh pemerintah pusat dan daerah tepat dan berguna bagi masyarakat perbatasan, guna untuk menjaga tetap tegaknya keutuhan dan kesatuan NKRI.KERANGKA KONSEPTUALKonsep Kekuasaan1. Menurut Robert M. Mac Iver,kekuasaanadalah kemampuan untuk mengendalikan tingkah laku orang lain, baik secara langsung dengan jalan memberi perintah, maupun secara tidak langsung dengan mempergunakan segala alat dan cara yang tersedia (Robert M. Mac Iver, 1961:87).2. Menurut Negel, kekuasaan adalah suatu hubungan kausal nyata atau potensial antara yang disukai oleh yang berbuat sehubungan dengan hasil dan hasil itu sendiri (Negel dalam Robert Dahl "Analisis Politik Modern, 1980; 169).3. Menurut Selo Soemardjan dan Soelaeman Soemardi, kekuasaan adalah hubungan antara yang berkuasa dan yang di kuasai, atau dengan kata lain antara pihak yang memiliki kemampuan untuk melancarkan pengaruh dan pihak lain yang menerima pengaruh ini, dengan rela atau karena terpaksa (Selo Soemardjan dan Soelaeman Soemardi, 1964:337).4. Menurut Soerjono Soekanto, kekuasaan adalah suatu kemampuan memerintah (agar yang diperintah patuh) dan juga memberikan keputusan-keputusan yang secara langsung maupun tidak langsung mempengaruhi tindakan-tindakan pihak-pihak lainnya (Soerjono Soekanto, 1981:163)5. Menurut Max Weber, kukuasaan adalah kesempatan dari seseorang atau sekelompok orang-orang untuk menyadarkan masyarakat akan kemauan-kemauannya sendiri, dengan sekaligus menterapkannya terhadap tindakan-tindakan dari orang-orang atau golongan-golongan tertentu (Max Weber (Max Weber, Essay in Sociology, translated and edited by H-H Gerth and C. Wright Mills. 1946: 180).6. Gilbert W. Fairholm mendefinisikan kekuasaan sebagai "kemampuan individu untuk mencapai tujuannya saat berhubungan dengan orang lain, bahkan ketika dihadapkan pada penolakan mereka" (Gilbert W. Fairholm, Organizational Power Politics: Tactics in Organizational Leadership, 2009:5).7. Stephen P. Robbins mendefinisikan kekuasaan sebagai ". kapasitas bahwa A harus mempengaruhi perilaku B sehingga B bertindak sesuai dengan apa yang diharapkan oleh A. Definisi Robbins menyebut suatu "potensi" sehingga kekuasaan bisa jadi ada tetapi tidak dipergunakan. Sebab itu, kekuasaan disebut sebagai "kapasitas" atau "potensi" (Stephen P. Robbins, 2009:15).8. Menurut Harold D Laswell dan Abraham Kaplan mendefinisikan kekuasaan adalahsustu hubungan di mana seseorang atau kelompok orang dapat menentukan tindakanseseorang atau kelompok orang dapat menentukan tindakan seseorang ataukelompoklain agar sesuai dengan tujuan dari pihak pertama.(Harold D Laswell dan Abraham Kaplan dalam Leo Agustino, 2007:72).Unsur-Unsur dan Saluran-Saluran Kekuasaan Kekuasaan dapat di jumpai dalam hubungan sosial di antara manusia maupun antar kelompok, adapun menurut (Soerjono Soekanto 1981:164-166) membaginya sebagai berikut:1. Rasa takut2. Rasa cinta3. Kepercayaan4. PemujaanSelain dari keempat unsur diatas, di dalam masyarakat Soerjono Soekanto membagi serta membatasinya ke dalam beberapa saluran-saluran, antara lain sebagai berikut;1. Saluran Militer2. Saluran Ekonomi3. Saluran Politik4. Saluran Tradisi5. Saluran Ideologi6. Saluran-saluran lainnyaBentuk Pelapisan-pelapisan Kekuasaan Adapun menurut Soekanto sosiolog dari Indonesia, memandang bentuk kekuasaan pada satu pola umum dari sekian banyak pola dalam masyarakat.Yaitu, bahwa dalam bentuk dan sistem kekuasaan selalu menyesuaikan dirinya pada masyarakat dengan adat-istiadat perikelakuannya (Soerjono Soekanto, 1981:169).Adapun bentuk pelapisan-pelapisan kekuasaan sebagai berikut: Wewenang Menurut Soerjono Soekanto, wewenang adalah hak yang telah ditetapkan dalam suatu tata tertib untuk menetapkan kebijaksanaa, menentukan keputusan-keputusan mengenai masalah-masalah yang penting dan untuk menyelesaikan pertetangan-pertentangan ( Soerjono Soekanto, 198:172).1. Wewenang kharismatis, tradisionil dan rasionil (legal).2. Wewenang resmi dan tidak resmi3. Wewenang pribadi dan territorial4. Wewenang terbatas dan menyeluruhKonsep NegaraHakekat pengertian tentang Negara pada dasarnya merujuk pada konsep kebangsaaan, dimana dari kata dasar "Bangsa".Dalam Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia edisi kedua, Depdikbud halalam 89, bahwa bangsa adalah orang-orang yang memiliki kesamaan asal keturunan, adat, bahasa dan sejarah serta berpemerintahan sendiri(Sumarsono, dkk. "Pendidikan Kewarganegaraan", 2005:8).Menurut Parangtopo (1993) kebangsaan adalah sebagai tindak-tanduk kesadaran dan sikap yang memandang dirinya sebagai suatu kelompok bangsa yang sama dengan keterikatan Sosiokultural yang disepakati bersama untuk hidup bersama membentuk organisasi yang disebut negara (Idup Suhady dan A.M. Sinaga, 2009:4).Adapun beberapa konsep negara sebagai organisasi kekuasaan politik menurut para ahli sebagai berikut:1. George Jellinek, Negara adalah organisasi kekuasaan dari sekelompok manusia yang telah berkediaman diwilayah tertentu (George Jellenik dan Efriza, 2008:43).2. Menurut Miriam Budiardjo, negara adalah bagian dari integrasi kekuasaan politik dan merupakan oraganisasi kekuasaan politik, yang merupakan alat (agency) dari masyarakat yang mempunyai kekuasaan untuk mengatur hubungan-hubungan manusia dalam masyarakat dan menertibkan gejala-gejala kekuasaan dalam masyarakat (Miriam Budiardjo, 2006; 38).3. Menurut R. Djokosoetono, negara adalah suatu organisasi manusia atau kumpulan manusia yang berada dibawah suatu pemerintahan yang sama (R. Djokosoetono dalam Indup Suhady dan A. M. Sinaga, 2009:6).4. Menurut Harold J. Laski, negara adalah suatu masyarakat yang diintegrasikan karena mempunyai wewenang yang bersifat memaksa dan secara sah lebih agung daripada individu atau kelompok yang merupakan bagian dari masyaraka(Harold J. Laski dalam Miriam Budiardjo,2006: 39).5. Menurut Epicurus, negara adalah merupakan hasil daripada perbuatan manusia, yang diciptakan untuk menyelenggarakan kepentingan anggota-anggotanya (Epicurus dalam Soehino, 1986:31).6. Menurut Norberto Bobbio, negara adalah dimana kekuasaan public diatur oleh norma-norma umum (yang fundamental maupun konstitusional) dan ia harus dijalankan dalam pengaturan undang-undang, di mana warga Negara mempunyai hak perlindungan dari jalan-jalan lain untuk menuju kepada satu pengadilan yang mandiri dalam upaya meneggakan aturan main dan berjaga dari penyalahgunaan atau tindakan berlebihan dari kekuasaan (Norberto Bobbio dalam Ali Sugihardjanto,dkk. 2003; 154).7. Menurut Thomas Aquinas berangkat dari pemikiran klasiknya, negara adalah lembaga sosial manusia yang paling tinggi dan luas yang berfungsi menjamin manusia memenuhi kebutuhan-kebutuhan fisiknya yang melampaui kemampuan lingkungan sosial lebih kecil, seperti desa dan kota (Thomas Aquinas Efriza, 2008:43).8. C.F. Strong seorang pemikir modern, dimana dalam perumusannya negara merupakan masyarakat yang terorganisir secara politik, negara sebagai suatu masyarakat teritorial yang dibagi menjadi yang memerintah dan di perintah (C.F. Strong, 2004; 5-7).Menurut Ahli berkebangsaan Inggris L. Oppenheim, sebuah negara berdiri bila suatu bangsa telah menetap di suatu negeri dibawah pemerintahannya sendiri", defenisi ini mencakup 4 unsur yang sangat jelas, rakyat, wilayah, pemerintahan dan sifat kedaulatannya (Oppenheim dalam J. Frankel, 1991: 9-13), adapun penjelasan unsur-unsur negara menurut Oppenheim sebagai berikut:1. Rakyat2. Wilayah3. Pemerintahannya4. KedaulatanSelain apa yang disebutkan diatas, negara memiliki tujuan dan fungsi negara. Adapun tujuan negara sebagai berikut;1. Menurut Miriam Budiardjo negara dipandang sebagai asosiasi manusia yang hidup dan bekerjasama, dimana tujuan akhir negara adalah menciptakan kebahagiaan bagi rakyatnya (Miriam Budiardjo, 2006:45).2. Negara sebagai organisasi kekuasaan teori ini dianut oleh H.A.Logemann dalam bukunya Over De Theorie van Eeen Stelling Staatsrecht. Dikatakan bahwa keberadaan negara bertujuan untuk mengatur serta menyelenggarakan masyarakat yang dilengkapi dengan kekuasaan tertinggi (H. A. Logemann, 1948).3. Menurut Roger H. Soltau, tujuan negara ialah memungkinkan rakyatnya "berkembang" serta menyelenggarakan daya ciptanya sebebas mungkin" (R. H. Soltau dalam Miriam Budiardjo,2006:45).Selain daripada tujuan dan fungsi diatas, Negara yang oleh Soekanto pada umumnya memiliki kekuasaan yang secara formil negara mempunyai hak untuk melaksanakan kekuasaan tertinggi, kalau perlu dengan paksaan; juga negaralah yang membagi-bagikan kekuasaan yang lebih rendah derajatnya (Soerjono Soekanto, 1981:164). Konsep MasyarakatDalam bahasa Inggris masyarakat adalah society berasal dari bahasa latin, societas, yang berarti hubungan persahabatan dengan yang lain. Societas diturunkan dari kata socius yang berarti teman (Konjtraningrat,2009:16).1. Menurut Koentjaraningrat, pengertian masyarakat adalah kesatuan hidup manusia yang berinteraksi menurut suatu sistem adat-istiadat tertentu yang bersifat kontinu dan yang terikat oleh suatu rasa identitas tertentu (Koenjtraningrat, 2009;118).2. Menurut Mac Iver dan Page, masyarakat adalah suatu sistem dari kebiasaantata-cara, dari wewenang dan kerjasama antara berbagai kelompok dan penggolongan, dari pengawasan tingkah laku serta kebebasan-kebebasan manusia, keseluruhan yang selalu berubah ini kita namakan masyarakat. Masyarakat merupakan jalinan hubungan sosial, dan masyakat selalu berubah (R. M. Mac Iver and Charles H. Page, 1961: 5).3. Menurut S. R. Steinmetz, masyarakat adalah sebagai kelompok manusia yang tebesar dan yang meliputi pengelompokkan yang lebih kecil, yanng mempunyai hubungan erat dan teratur (S. R. Steinmetz dalam Harsojo, 1967: 145).4. Menurut Miriam Budiardjo, masyarakat adalah suatu kelompok manusia yang hidup dan bekerjasama untuk mencapai terkabulnya keinginan-keinginan mereka bersama (Miriam Budiardjo, 2006;39).5. Menurut Warner,masyarakat adalah "suatu kelompok perorangan yang berinteraksi timbal balik(Warner dalam Pokok-pokok Antropologi Budaya. Editor , T.O Ihromi, 1996;107).6. J. L.Gillin dan J. P. Gillin dalam buku mereka Cultural Sociology (1954:139), bahwa masyarakat atau society adalah "the largest grouping in which common customs, traditions, attitudes and feelings of unity are operative". (J. L. Gillin dan J.P. Gillin dalam Koenjtraningrat, 2009; 118).Organisasi Sosial atau Struktur Masyarakat Melville J. Herskovits,antropolog berkebangsaan Amerika, mengemukakan bahwa organisasi sosial atau struktur masyarakat dapat dilihat dari pranata-pranata yang menentukan kedudukan lelaki dan perempuan dalam masyarakat, dan dengan demikian menyalurkan hubungan pribadi mereka (Melville J. Herskovits dalam Ihromi, 1996;82). Melvillemembagi lagi pranata-pranata dalam dua kategori yaitu, pranata yang tumbuh dari hubungan kekerabatan dan pranata dari hasil ikatan antara individu berdasarkan keinginan sendiri.Pranata Sosial Atau Lembaga Kemasyarakatan Menurut Koenjtraningrat, pranata adalah suatu sistem norma khusus menata suatu rangkaian tindakan berpola mantap guna memenuhi suatu keperluan pola khusus dari manusia dalam kehidupan masyarakat (Koenjtraningrat, 2009:133). Dari semua hal mengenai apa yang telah dijabarkan oleh Koenjtraningrat diatas, kesemuanya itu dapat tercapai karena adanya interaksi sosial antarindividu dan kelompok dalam kehidupan masyarakat.Menurut Soerjono Soekanto, dikatakan bahwa unsur-unsur pokok dalam struktur sosial adalah interaksi sosial dan lapisan-lapisan sosial (Soerjono Soekanto, 1981:192).Adapun ciri-ciri umum lembaga kemasyarakatan atau pranata sosial menurut (Gillin and Gillin dalam Soerjono Soekanto, 1981:84), sebagai berikut:1. Suatu lembaga kemasyarakatan adalah suatu organisasi daripada pola-pola perikelakuan yang terwujud melalui aktivitas kemasyarakatan dan hasil-hasilnya.2. Suatu tingkat kekekalan tertentu merupakan ciri dari semua lembaga kemasyarakatan.3. Lembaga kemasyarakatan mempunyai satu atau beberapa tujuan tertentu.4. Lembaga kemasyarakatan mempunyai alat-alat perlengkapan yang akan digunakan untuk mencapai tujuan dari lembaga yang bersangkutan.5. Adanya lambang-lambang biasanya juga merupakan ciri khas dari lembaga kemasyarakatan.6. Suatu lembaga kemasyarakatan, mempunyai suatu tradisi yang tertulis ataupun yang tidak tertulis, yang merumuskan tujuannya, tata-tertib yang berlaku dan lain-lain.Selain daripada ciri-ciri lembaga kemasyarakatan diatas, Gillin dan Gillin mengklasifikasikan beberapa tipe lembaga kemasyarakatan dari berbagai sudut pandang, sebagai berikut:1. Crescive institutions dan enacted institutions yang merupakan klasifikasi dari sudut perkembangannya.2. Dari sudut sistem nilai-nilai yang diterima masyarakat, timbul klasifikasi atas Basic institutions dan subdiary institutions.3. Dari sudut penerimaaan masyarakat dapat dibedakan aaproved atau social sanctioned-institutions dan unsanctioned institutions.4. Perbedaan antara general istitutions dengan restricted institutions, timbul apabila klasifikasi timbul didasarkan pada faktor penyebarannya.5. Akhirnya dari sudut fungsinya, terdapat perbedaan operative institutions dan regulaitve institutions.Intervensi Politik (Negara) dalam Struktur Masyarakat Adat Di Indonesia Dalam konteks NKRI, di zaman orde baru (Soeharto) negara dijalankan dengan skema totaliter berbasis militer, hal ini telah memberikan pengaruh besar pada penciptaan tatanan kehidupan berbangsa dan bernegara. Di era reformasi ada pergesaran serta adanya dekadensi terhadap nilai-nilai adat dalam komunitas masyarakat, hal ini diakibatkan adanya campur tangan (intervensi) negara yang berlebihan terhadap pranata sosial didalam masyarakat. Menurut Adumiharja Kusnaka, bahwa selama ini para perencana pembagunan nasional di Indonesia menganggap nilai budaya masyarakat sebagaisimbol keterbelakangan. Dengan adanya UU No 72 Tahun 2005 tentang perubahan atas UU No 15 Tahun 1999 "Tentang Pemerintahan Desa", adalah "puncak" dari kebijakan intervensi Negara sejak masa kolonial hingga nasional sekarang yang melumpuhkan kekuatan modal sosial, dan sekaligus merampas hak-hak komunal yang melekat pada ulayat (wilayah kehidupan) dari entitas sosial yang disebut "masyarakat hukum adat" di Negara ini (Zakaria, 2000).Menurut Imam Soetiknya, akibat pemerintah menyalahgunakan UUPA No. 5 Tahun 1960, maka yang terjadi adalah suku-suku bangsa dan masyarakat adat yang tidak mandiri lagi, tetapi sudah merupakan bagian dari satu bangsa Indonesia di wilayah Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia, yang wewenangnya berdasarkan hak rakyat yang berhubungan dengan hak-hak atas tanah, yang dahulu mutlak berada di tangan kepala suku atau masyarakat hukum adat sebagai penguasa tertinggi dalam wilayahnya, dengan sendirinya beralih kepada pemerintah pusat sebagai penguasa tertinggi, pemegang hak menguasai tanah ulayat wilayah Negara (Imam, Soetiknya, 1990; 20). Di dalam UUD 1945 Amandemen IV, pasal 28I ayat 3, pasal 32 ayat 1 dan ayat 2, serta UU Nomor 32 Tahun 2004. Dimana negara menghormati dan menghargai serta memelihara bahasa, budaya masyarakat tradisional sebagai budaya nasional yang selaras dengan perkembangan zaman. Masyarakat Adat dan Kelembagaan Adat Konsep Masyarakat Adat Istilah masyarakat adat mulai mendapat perhatian dunia setelah pada tahun 1950-an sebuah badan dunia di PBB bernama ILO (International Labour Organization) mempopulerkan isu tentang "Indigenous peoples" dimana istilah ini digunakan ILO untuk sebutan terhadap entitas "penduduk asli" (ILO dalam Keraf, 2010). Keraf menyebutkan beberapa ciri yang membedakan masyarakat adat dari kelompok lainnya (Keraf, 2010:362), adapun ciri-cirinya sebagai berikut:1. Mereka mendiami tanah-tanah milik nenek moyangnya, baik seluruhnya atau sebagian.2. Mereka mempunyai garis keturunan yang sama, berasal dari penduduk asli daerah tersebut.3. Mereka mempunyai budaya yang khas, yang menyangkut agama, sistem suku, pakaian tarian, cara hidup, peralatan hidup, termasuk untuk mencari nafkah.4. Mereka memiliki bahasa sendiri.5. Biasanya hidup terpisah dari kelompok lain dan menolak atau bersikap hati-hati terhadap hal-hal baru yang berasal dari luar komunitasnya.Masyarakat dengan pola orientasi kehidupan tradisional, yang tinggal dan hidup di desa. Menurut Suhandi ada beberapa sifat umum yang dimiliki masyarakat tradisional (Suhandi dalam Ningrat, 2004:4):1. Hubungan atau ikatan masyarakat desa dengan tanah sangat erat.2. Sikap hidup tingkah laku sangat magis religius.3. Adanya kehidupan gotong-royong.4. Memegang tradisi dengan kuat.5. Menghormati para sesepuh.6. Kepercayaan pada pemimpin loka dan tradisional.7. Organisasi yang relatif statis.8. Tingginya nilai-nilai sosial.Lembaga Adat Ratu mbanua dan Inangngu wanuaDi Zaman dahulu pemerintahan desa dilaksanakan secara adat oleh Ratumbanua dan Inangnguwanua, mereka dianggap oleh sebagian masyarakat Talaud dan Miangas khususnya sebagai kepala yang membawahi beberapa suku atau klan, dan dianggap sebagai pemimpin dari beberapa kepala suku.Istilah pemerintah desa adat tersebut disesuaikan dengan kemauan penguasa pada saat itu, dan setelah adanya perkembangan pembagian wilayah Zending, maka terjadilah keputusan Residen Manado pada tanggal 1April 1902 yang mencantumkan pengakuan terhadap wilayah ke-jogugu-andi kepulauan Talaud maka saat itu juga di mulai pemerintahan desa.1. Ratuntampa adalah seseorang yang memegang tampuk pimpinan adat yang membawahi pimpinan adat, (Ratunbanua dan Inangnguwanua dari beberapa desa/kampung).2. Inangngu tampa sama dengan ratuntampa hanya di bedakan tugas dan fungsinya.3. Ratu mbanua adalah seseorang yang memegang tampuk pimpinan adat bersama-sama Inangngu wanua di suatu desa/kampung.4. Inangngu wanua adalah seseorang yang memegang pimpinan adat bersama Ratu mbanua di kampung, dia sebagai wakilnya Ratu mbanua.5. Timade ruanga/Inangngu ruanga adalah seseorang yang memimpin rumpun keluarga yang disebut suku.Adapun istilah ruanga dalam istilah Indonesia adalah panguyuban, rukun, atau suku (Hoetagaol dkk, 2012:19). Ratu mbanua dan Inangngu wanua dalam Struktrur Pemerintahan Desa Pada era demokrartisasi sebagaimana tengah berjalan di desa, masyarakat memiliki peran cukup sentral untuk menentukan pilihan kebijakan sesuai dengan kebutuhan dan aspirasinya. Masyarakat memiliki kedaulatan yang cukup luas untuk menentukan orientasi dan arah kebijakan pembangunan yang dikehendaki (Setiawan, 2009).Desa sebagai kesatuan masyarakat hukum terkecil yang memiliki batas-batas wilayah yang berwenang untuk mengatur dan mengurus kepentingan masyarakatnya berdasarkan asal-usul dan adat istiadat setempat yang diakui dan dihormati oleh negara. Masuknya ratu mbanua sebagai pemangku adat dalam keanggotaan BPD memperjelas peranan ratumbanua dalam penetapan peraturan desa bersama Kepala desa, termasuk menampung dan menyalurkan aspirasi masyarakatnya.Selain posisi ratu mbanua dalam keanggotaan BPD, ada beberapa kelembagaan desa dimana Ratumbanua serta perangkatnya berperan di dalamnya yang sudah dikenal dalam rangka pembangunan daerah pedesaan adalah Lembaga Ketahanan Desa (LKMD) dan Koperasi Unit Desa.Hubungan ratu mbanua sebagai lembaga adat dalam lembaga kemasyarakatan secara hukum nasional Indonesia maka kedudukan tugas dan fungsi Lembaga adat ratu mbanuasebagai mitra pemerintahan desa.METODE PENELITIANJenis Penelitian Penelitian ini tergolong dalam jenis penelitian deskriptif kualitatif, yang artinya "masalah" yang dibawa dalam penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengobservasi, dan memahami suatu situasi sosial, peristiwa, peran, interaksi dalam kelompok masyarakat. Dalam penelitian ini juga masih bersifat holistik, belum jelas, kompleks, dinamis dan penuh makna serta bersifat alamiah (Sugiyono, 2011:9). Metode pendekatan yang dipakai adalah pendekatan Antropologi politik dimana kajian ini memusatkan perhatiannya pada"Hubungan antara struktur dan masyarakat dengan struktur dan tebaran kekuasaan dalam masyarakat tersebut (Koentjaraningrat " Sejarah Teori Antropologi, hal 196-226).Instrumen Penelitian Dalam penelitian kualitatif-naturalistik peneliti akan lebih banyak menjadi instrumen, karena dalam penelitian kualitatif peneliti merupakan key isnstruments (Sugiyono, 2011;92). Lokasi Penelitian Sesuai dengan judul penelitian ini dan yang mengacu pada fokus masalah yang terjadi di Miangas, maka penelitian ini berlokasi di Desa Miangas Kecamatan Khusus Miangas Kabupaten Kepulauan Talaud. Fokus Penelitian Pada penelitian ini, dengan berbagai pertimbangan antara lain, faktor jarak yang ditempuh, tenaga, waktu, dan dana, maka peneliti memfokuskan penelitian hanya di Kecamatan Khusus Miangas, Desa Miangas, Dimana fokus kajianya adalah melihat fenomena dari kekuasaan negara dalam struktur adat masyarakat Miangas dan mengapa terjadi perubahan atau pergeseran nilai adat ketika pemerintah melakukan intervensi kekuasaan di Miangas. Jenis Data Pada penelitian ini, data yang digunakan terdiri dari data primer dan data sekunder. Menurut Sugiyono di dalam pengumpulan data ada dua sumber data, pertama sumber primer adalah sumber data yang langsung memberikan data kepada pengumpul data, dan sumber sekunder merupakan sumber yang tidak langsung memberikan data kepada pengumpul data, misalnya lewat orang lain atau dokumen, hasil yang diperoleh dari hasil studi kepustakaan (Sugiyono; 224). Informan Penelitian Menurut Sugiyono (2011), dalam penelitian kualitatif tidak menggunakan populasi, karena penelitian berangkat dari kasus tertentu yang ada pada situasi sosial tertentu dan hasil kajiannya tidak akan diberlakukan ke populasi (Sugiyono, 2011:216).Mengutip juga pendapat Spradley dalam penelitian kualitatif, tidak menggunakan istilah populasi, tetapi oleh Spradley dinamakan "social situation" atau situasi sosial yang terdiri atas tiga elemen yaitu: tempat (place), pelaku (actors), dan aktivitas (activity) (Spradley dalam Sugiyono, 2011:215).Dimana penulis sendiri sebagai instrumen dalam penelitian ini, penulis turun langsung ke tempat dimana menjadi fokus penelitian, mewawancarai nara sumber, partisipan, informan yang dianggap tahu dengan situasi dan kondisi Miangas, atau yang lebih berkompeten dan memiliki pengaruh di tempat itu. Serta mengamati secara langsung aktivitas warga masyarakat yang ada di Miangas. Penentuan sumber data orang-orang yang diwawancarai yaitu dipilih dengan pertimbangan tertentu, dan masih bersifat sementara. Informan dalam hal ini kepala desa, ketua BPD, Ratumbanua dan Inangnguwanua, tokoh masyarakat dan tokoh adat. Teknik pengumpulan data Dalam penelitian ini yang digunakan dalam pengumpulan data adalah teknik observasi, wawancara dan dokumentasi.Prosedur Analisis Data Menurut Sugiyono, analisis data adalah proses mencari dan menyusun secara sistematis data yang diperoleh dari hasil wawancara, catatan lapangan dan dokumentasi. Dalam proses analisis data pada penelitian kualitatif dilakukan sejak sebelum memasuki lapangan, selama di lapangan, dan setelah selesai di lapangan. Analisis data kualitatif bersifat induktif, yaitu suatu anilisis berdasarkan data yang diperoleh (Sugiyono, 2011; 245).HASIL PENELITIAN DAN PEMBAHASANFenomena Pembangunan Di Miangas Pengalaman pahit Indonesia kalah dari Malaysia dalam memperebutkan Sipadan dan Ligitan di Mahkamah Internasional (Ulaen, dkk. 2012;164), membuat pemerintah ekstra hati-hati dalam menjaga wilayah teritorialnya.Pasca Soeharto, adanya pergeseran pencitraan atas Miangas dan pulau perbatasan lainnya, kalau dulu Miangas dianggap sebagai wilayah terluar, dan pos pintu keluar-masuk para pelintas-batas, maka sekarang dalam setiap program pembangunan diwacanakan sebagai "beranda depan" benteng Pancasila. Begitu banyak fasilitas yang dibangun oleh pemerintah di wilayah paling utara Sulawesi utara ini. Namun banyak fasilitas-fasilitas aparatur sipil yang dibangun untuk menunjang pelayanan terhadap masyarakat hanya terbengkalai dan dibiarkan kosong akibatnya rusak dan terkesan hanyalah proyek mubazir. Selain hal diatas ada beberapa bangunan yang disediakan pemerintah sebagai tempat penampungan kebutuhan pokok masyarakat seperti, depot logistik, 4 buah tangki BBM. Sejak dibangun pada tahun 2007 sampai sekarang terbengkalai dan hanya menjadi tempat penyimpanan karung semen dan menjadi tempat bagi rayap dan kepiting laut. Perhatian pemerintah terhadap pulau Miangas yang jumlah penduduknya sebanyak 209 KK, yang didalamnya berjumlah 762 jiwa, dengan disediakannya berbagai fasilitas oleh pemerintah, apabila dilihat sepintas memang terkesan negara dan orang-orang yang bernaung didalamnya begitu serius dalam menangani persoalan di wilayah perbatasan. Namun dari segi lain malah terlihat berlebihan, jika dibandingkan dengan pulau-pulau yang berdekatan dengan Miangas yang dulunnya merupakan satu kesatuan administratif dari kecamatan Nanusa, seperti pulau Marampit dan kecamatan Nanusa sendiri yang juga sebagai pulau terluar. Para Pelaut Handal Dari Utara NKRIGenerasi tua di Miangas merupakan generasi terakhir pendukung "tradisi bahari", mereka merupakan para pelaut-pelaut handal tanpa harus menggunakan layar disaat tidak berangin untuk mencapai pulau-pulau terdekat, seperti pulau-pulau yang ada di selatan daratan Filipina (Mindanao). Dimana tujuan mereka adalah menjajakan hasil olahan tangkapan mereka dilaut dan hasil lain dari masyarakat Miangas seperti tikar-pandan, kopra (Ulaen,dkk. 2012;67-68). Tradisi bahari yang sejak dulu ada dikalangan generasi tua di Miangas, sekarang mulai kehilangan identitas sebagai pelaut handal, pembuat perahu, dan ulet dalam pekerjaan khususnya sebagai seorang nelayan yang mahir dalam membaca perbintangan. Masyarakat lebih memilih menjadi buruh di pelabuhan disaat ada kapal yang masuk, dengan gaji seadanya asalkan dapat memenuhi kebutuhan hari ini, di sisi lain Miangas yang kaya akan sumberdaya kelautan tidak dimanfaatkan secara optimal. Tradisi yang dilakoni oleh generasi tua kini tidak lagi dipraktekkan oleh paragenerasi muda Miangas yang ada hanyalah kenangan manis yang tersirat dan tidak pernah tertuliskan. Tradisi Mamancari Sebagai Strategi Bertahan Hidup Masyarakat Miangas. Pada zaman dulu hingga pertengahan abad ke 20, masyarakat Miangas sama seperti halnya masyarakat yang ada di bagian bumi manapun pada umumnya, manusia memiliki strategi atau cara bagaimana harus bertahan hidup. Masyarakat Miangas pada umumnya di zaman dulu mengandalkan hasil laut, pertanian dan hasil kerajinan tangan yang dijual baik di pulau-pulau Talaud maupun di pulau-pulau daratan Mindanao, namun sekarang tradisi melaut mulai hilang sejak adanya bantuan pemerintah berupa sembilan bahan pokok di Miangas, kalaupun ada yang melaut itu hanya untuk keperluan makanan. Sedangkan hasil seperti keterampilan membuat ikan kayu (ikan asap) yang mereka dapat disaat mereka bekerja di perusahan ikan Jepang yang ada di Filipina, dan kerajinan tangan seperti tikar serta topi anyaman dari daun pandan tidak lagi ditemukan. Masyarakat lebih memilih membuka warung untuk berjualan, sementara tempat bertumbuhnya kelapa sebagai sumber mata pencaharian dan laluga atau puraha sebagai bahanmakanan yang mereka andalkan disaat kehabisan bantuan, sekarang menjadi tempat landasan pacu pesawat dimana proyek pemerintah cukup menelan biaya besar. Kelembagaan Adat (Ratu mbanua Dan Inangngu wanua) Di Miangas Politik tidak lepas dari persoalan kekuasaan, wewenang, kebijaksanaan dan pembagian yang pada umumnya berada pada negara, sejauh negara merupakan organisasi kekuasaan. Namun tidak bisa dipungkiri ada gejala-gejala kekuasaan yang sifat dan tujuannya sewaktu-waktu dapat mempengaruhi negara. Sifat dan tujuan dari gejala kekuasaan yang nonnegara dalam hal ini salah satunya adalah lembaga adat. Pranata sosial atau lembaga masyarakat inilah yang membentuk negara sebagai organisasi kekuasaan. Struktur Pemerintahan Desa Dan Struktur Kepemimpinan Adat Di Miangas Miangas di zaman keresidenan Manado, merupakan satuan wilayah adaministratif ke-jogugu-an Nanusa, semenjak adanya keputusan pemerintah pusat (Surat Menteri Dalam Negeri No. 5/1/69 tertanggal 29 April 1969), pemukiman warga Miangas dinamakan desa dan dipimpin oleh kapitelaut atau sehari-harinya disebut apitaᶅau ditemani jurutulis. Secara politis kapitenlaut ini pada umumnya dipilih berdasarkan keputusan dari 12 suku yang ada di Miangas dan tidak melalui proses dan mekanisme kerajaan yang pemimpinnya berdasarkan garis keturunan. Selain struktur kepemimpinan formal dalam hal ini pemerintah desa, ada juga struktur kepemimpinan tradisional. Kepemimpinan tradisional di Talaud pada umumnya dan Miangas khususnya di warisi secara turun-temurun dan oleh warga di sebut "kepemimpinan adat" di Miangas seperti yang telah dijelaskan diatas terdapat 12 (suku), Ratumbanua dan Inangnguwanua merupakan yang membawahi 12 suku, dan setiap kelompok suku dipimpin oleh tetua yang disapa Timaddu ruangnga/ kepala suku, atau pemangku adat. Peran Ratu mbanua dan Inangngu wanua Dalam Struktur Pemerintahan Desa di MiangasDalam struktur adat di Miangas ratu mbanua dan inangngu wanua, sebelum adanya struktur pemerintahan desa dan struktur keagamaan, sangat dihargai dan dihormati, serta memiliki perannya masing-masing. masalah pertahanan dan pemerintahan dalam wilayahitulah tugas dari ratumbanua, kalau inangguwanua tugas dan perannya adalah membantu ratumbanua dalam menjalankan roda-roda pemerintahan adat, dimana tugas dan perannya adalah menyangkut masalah kesejahtraan masyarakatnya, menjembatani konflik dalam keluarga serta mencari jalan keluar dari masalah kedua belah pihak yang berkonflik, dimana bukan pada persoalan mencari letak kesalahan atau mencari siapa yang menyebabkan konflik untuk diberikan sanksi (hukum adat). Melainkan baik ratumbanua dan inangnguwanua merupakan mediator dalam mengumpulkan tetua adat serta masyarakatnya untuk menyelesaikan persoalan diatas dengan cara kekeluargaan. Dengan adanya struktur pemerintahan desa, lembaga adat yang ada di Miangas mulai dilebur menjadi bagian dari struktur kelembagaan desa. Peran ratumbanua dan inangnguwanua hanya sekedar simbolisasi dalam mengisi acara seremonial. Seperti upacara adat, kunjungan pejabat, dan acara perkawinan. Dari amatan peneliti serta hasil wawancara dengan narasumber, bahwa kelembagaan adat serta peran ratu mbanua dan inangngu wanua sebagai primus inter pares. Tidak lagi seperti dulu, dimana peran ratumbanua dan inangnguwanua serta kelembagaan adat pada umunya menjadi lemah dengan hadirnya beberapa struktur kelembagaan kekuasaan di dalam negara, sehingga apa yang disebut sebagai "kearifan lokal" tidak terpelihara malah dari hari-kehari semakin terkikis. Didalam UUD 1945 Amandemen IV, pasal 28I ayat 3 dan pasal 32 ayat 1 dan Ayat 2. Serta UU No 32 Tahun 2004 "Tentang Pemerintah Daerah" Bab I pasal 2 ayat 9. Negara Indonesia dengan kemajemukannya memiliki kewajiban untuk mengakui, menghormati, menjamin dan memelihara serta memajukan identitas budaya dan masyarakat tradisional yang didalam terdapat nilai-nilai budaya seperti, hukum adat, bahasa daerah yang selaras dengan perkembangan zaman, sejauh nilai-nilai budaya itu hidup dan sesuai dengan prinsip NKRI. Di Miangas Misalnya, dalam penamaan ratu mbanua dan inangngu wanua mereka alih bahasakan kedalam istilah jawa yaitu, mangkubumi I dan Mangkubumi II, sepintas istilah mangkubumi terkesan enak di dengar, namun apabila peneliti meninjau kembali baik dari UUD 1945 dan UU No. 32 Tahun 2004, penamaan mangkubumi yang dipakai oleh para pejabat yang berkunjung atau para penyelenggara kekuasaan negara di Miangas dalam menyapa ratu mbanua dan inangnguwanua, tentunya menyalahi apa yang menjadi aturan perundang-undangan Negara Kesatuan Republik Indonesia diatas.PENUTUPKesimpulan1. Sebagai "beranda depan" ataupun penamaan lain yang teralamatkan, seperti "benteng Pancasila", "garda terdepan", sampai didirikannya 4 buah tugu sebagai penanda supremasi pertahanan bangsa oleh pemerintah, hanyalah sebatas membangkitkan phobia nasionalisme semata, dan sekedar wacana dari pemerintah untuk mengisi lembar halaman dalam media cetak maupun online.2. Program pembangunan yang telah diagendakan oleh pemerintah baik pusat maupun daerah, secara kasat mata memberi kemudahan bagi masyarakat di Miangas. Fasilitas yang telah disediakan oleh pemerintah, hanya fasilitas yang menunjang kerjasama antar kedua negaralah yang sampai sekarang selalu siap ditempat. Sedangkan fasilitas-fasilitas yang dibangun untuk pelayanan akan kebutuhan masyarakat hanyalah proyek mubazir, kosong dan hanya menjadi tempat rayap dan kepiting laut,selain itu Keterbatasan akan kebutuhan pendidikan dengan minimnya tenaga pengajar tidak menjadi perhatian serius dari pemerintah.3. Dengan adanya penempatan beberapa personil aparatur sipil dan aparatur pertahanan keamanan di Miangas dari luar daerah, mempengaruhi struktur sosial masyarakat Miangas, contohnya penamaan Ratu mbanua dan Inangngu wanua dialih bahaskan ke dalam istilah Jawa "Mangkubumi I dan Mangkubumi II semakin mengambarkan adanya dominasi kekusaan negara. dimana wilayah yang kecil tidak berimbang dengan adanya penempatan beberapa personil aparatur negara. Hal ini merupakan pelemaham terhadap nilai-nilai bahasa daerah sebagai budaya nasional.4. Pengabaian terhadap nilai-nilai adat oleh masyarakat, menandakan pemerintah gagal didalam memelihara nilai-nilai adat, bahasa dan tradisi yang menjadi kearifan lokal seperti yang diamanatkan di dalam konstitusi negara ini, yang dituangkan ke dalam UUD 1945. Seyogyanya masyarakat dan pemerintah sama-sama mempunyai peran penting dalam menjaga keutuhan dan kedaulatan NKRI dengan memelihara kearifan lokal sebagai bagian dari ketahanan nasional.5. Masyarakat cenderung pragmatis dan bersikap selalu bergantung dan berharap kepada pemerintah, sehingga terjadi pergeseran nilai-nila kearifan lokal yang dulu dilakoni oleh para generasi sebelumnya tidak ditemukan lagi.6. Dengan adanya pembangunan infrastruktur dan struktur kelembagaan desa, peran lembaga adat (ratu mbanua dan inangngu wanua) mulai direduksi dalam struktur kekuasaan negara dan terkesan hanyalah simbolisasi dalam mengisi acara-acara seremonial.7. Dengan hadirnya kekuasaan negara di Miangas, bukan memudahkan pelayanan kepada masyarakat. Malah oknum-oknum penyelenggara kekuasaan negara dengan mengatasnamakan negara untuk kepentingan pribadi dan golongan.8. Ditengah-tengah keterisolasian dan keterbelakangan dengan faktor ekonomi yang rendah dan minimnya sumberdaya manusia, serta jauh dari pusat perekonomian yang tidak ditunjang dengan sarana transportasi yang memadai, tidak adanya ketersediaan BBM untuk melaut, serta ketidaktersediaanya infrastruktur yang memadai membuat perekonomian masyarakat terlihat stagnan. Sehingga dengan adanya pengaruh budaya materialisme dan pemanjaan oleh pemerintah pusat dan daerah mengakibatkan terjadi pergeseran nilai-nilai kearifan lokal masyarakat Miangas.Saran1. bahwa dengan harapan ke depan hasil karya ilmiah ini dapat menjadi referensi, serta panduan bagi para peneliti yang akan mengembangkan studi tentang wilayah perbatasan.2. Pemerintah seharusnya lebih mengutamakan pembangunan sumber daya manusia dengan melaksanakan program-program yang tepat guna, membekali masyarakat dengan berbagai keterampilan sesuai dengan karakteristik wilayah, sehingga masyarakat lebih diorientasikan pada pembangunan ekonominya.3. Lebih memperhatikan masalah yang menyangkut kebutuhan dasar masyarakat, seperti penyediaan BBM bagi para nelayan agar mereka dapat melaut, menyediakan tempat penampungan sementara dari hasil tangkapan, seperti gudang es (cool store). Menyediakan fasilitas air bersih bagi masyarakat, memperlancar sistem komunikasi dan transportasi ke Miangas, agar kedepan masyarakat semakin diberdayakan.4. Pemerintah seharusnya menggali kembali keterampilan yang ada di dalam masyarakat berupa hasil-hasil kerajinan tangan, seperti topi dan tikar anyaman dari pandan. Hasil-hasil ini kemudian menjadi tambahan pendapatan bagimasyarakat dan menjadikan masyarakat lebih mandiri, dan tidak selamanya bergantung pada pemerintah.5. Pemerintah seyogyanya menjaga dan menghormati lembaga adat sebagai mitra pemerintah sesuai dengan yang diatur oleh perundangan-undangan. Menghargai nilai-nilai budaya serta memelihara kearifan lokal yang tumbuh berkembang di dalam masyarakat, perlu adanya penguatan kembali terhadap pranata sosial serta membangkitkan kembali identitas sosial untuk menjaga keutuhan dan kedaulatan NKRI.6. Diharapkan masyarakat lebih menjaga tradisi yang ada, seperti upacara adat, hukum adat, dan bahkan tradisi mancari atau mamancari untuk bertahan hidup. Agar tidak selamanya harus bergantung kepada pemerintah.7. Harapan terakhir peneliti agar para penyelenggara kekuasaan negara di Miangas, diharapkan menjalankan tugas sesuai dengan peraturan yang sudah dibuat dan tidak memanfaatkan atau mengatasnamakan negara hanya untuk sekedar kepentingan pribadi dan golongan.DAFTAR PUSTAKAAbubakar, Mustafa Menata Pulau-pulau Kecil di Perbatasan. Belajar dari Kasus Sipadan, Ligitan dan Sebatik. 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Issue 29.2 of the Review for Religious, 1970. ; ASSOCIATE EDITORS Everett A. Diederich, S.J. Augustine G. Ellard. S.J. ASSISTANT EDITOR John L. Treloar, S.J. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS EDITOR Joseph F. Gallen, S.J. Correspondence with the editor, the associate editors, and the assistant editor, as well as books for review, should be sent to REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS; 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis, Missouri 631o3. Questions for answering should be sent to -Joseph F. Gallen, S.J.; St. Joseph's Church; 32~ Willings Alley;,Philadelphia, Pennsylvania ~9~o6. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Edited with ecclesiastical approval by faculty members of the School of Divinity of Saint Louis University, the editorial offices being located at 612 Humboldt Building; 539 North Grand Boulevard; Saint Louis. Missouri 63103. Owned by the Missouri Province Edu-cational Institute. Published bimonthly and cop':'rlgi~t ~) 1970 by R~-:w~-:\v at 428 East Preston Street; Baltimore, Mary-land 21202. Printed in U.S,A. Second class postage paid at Baltimore, Maryland and at additional mailing ot~ces. Single copies: $1.00. Subscription U.S.A. and Canada: $5.00 a year, $9.00 for two years; other countries: $5.50 a year, $10.00 for two years. Orders should indicate whether they are for new or renewal subscriptions and should b~ accompanied by check or money order paya-ble to REVIEW FOR RI~LIGIOUS in U.S.A. currency only. Pay no money to p~rsons Change of address requests should include former address. Renewals and new subscriptions, where a¢com. panied by a remittance, should be sent to R£VlI~W ~on Rtt.tetous; P, O. Box 671; Baltimore, Maryland 21203, Changes of address, busine~ correspondence, and orders not accompanied by a remittance should be sent to R£vl~w R~I~o~s ; 42B East Preslon ~treet; Balfimo~, Mawland 21202. Manuscripts, editorial cor-respondence, and ~oks for review should be sen~ ~o R~v~w roa R~mvs; 612 Hum~ldt Building; 539 North Grand ~ulevard Saint ~ouis, Mi~ouri 63103. Questions for answering should be sent to the address the ~u~fioas and ~we~ ~itor. MARCH 1970 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 2 Meditative Description of the Gospel Counsels Introductory Statement" Framed* in words and concepts Iamiliar to the last third o[ the twentieth century, this meditative descrip-tion oI the vows accents the pgetic nature of religious li[e: the "more than" dimension to a faith-existence; the contemplative, "'being" aspect oI religious consecration; the "useless" character o] anything which is an art, any-thing which is beautiIul. RELIGIOUS VOWS We share the richness of the lived experience of vowed commitment, as an institute and as individual members. Because of the radical and rapid changes occurring in society, we are called upon to re-think and re-articulate the meaning and purpose of religious consecration in today's world. It is a fact that we are now living our promises differently; therefore, there is a present need to speak of them differently. Today, more than ever, we need a positive explana-tion of the vows. Renunciation and detachment will always he valid and essential elements of this radical, total commitment. However, we must presently seek greater understanding of the YES aspect--the CHOICE OF LIFE. A spotlight on religious communities should reveal real people who live fully, love deeply, give totally, and enjoy life immensely. The three vows of consecrated celibacy, poverty, and obedience manifest the centrality of commitment to Christ in community. All three vows are facets of this ¯ This-meditative essay on the counsels was written at the request of the special general chapter of the Sisters of Mercy of the Union in the United States. Four sisters o~ the Union cooperated in writing the essay: Sister M. Catherine Daly, R.S.M.; Sister Patricia Smith, R.S.M.; Sister Marjorie Bosse, R.S.M.; and Sister M. Evangeline McSloy, R.S.M. The essay is printed in the R~v~w through the kindness of the superior general o[ the Union, Sister Mary Regina Cunningham, R.S.M.; Sisters of Mercy Generalate; I0000 Kentsdale Drive; P.O. Box 34446, Bethesda Post Office; Washington, D.C. 20034. + + ÷ The Counsels VOLUME 2~ 1970 193 The Coimsei~ REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 194: same reality. They are means to unity---community-- with God and with one another. Our vows can open us to all reality and, at the same time, help us to transcend, to .go beyond persons--to Person. CONSECRATED CELIBACY Chri~to~entric in inspiration and in direction, con-secrated celibacy, like all Christian values, has many dimensions. It is community-oriented, gift, faith-grounded, directed to the work of Christ, sign of what creation is and is called to be. In today's function-cen-tered, production-conscious society, the "waste" of celibate living signs to the absolute worth of the human person, to the being (as distinct from the doing) of man. Practica~ly and theologically, the celibate should be the universal pilgrim--moving on, challenging, opening up .narrowness, questioning preconceptions and vested interests. The religious, supported in her celibate com-mitment through community, signs beyond herself to the possibility of community. CONSECRATED CELIBACY is a free gift, a charism to be like Jesus Christ-- motivated by love [rom and for God to give undivided attention to the things of the Lord (I Cor 7:35) and to share in realizing God's kingdom. The celibate woman is sustained in faith because of God's promise to be ever faithful (Jr 31:33, 1 Pt 2:10; and so forth), experienced and nurtured in the dying-rising of the Paschal nlystery, trusting that there is a "more than" dimension to human life, to all reality. In her being and doing, the celibate stands as a sign of , God's love and active presence. By her being, she signs a~ a pledge, promise of harvest, hope (Key 14:4-5) to the proclamation of God's primacy in creation, to the reign of God as absolute, creative, fulfilling in her life, to the "already but not yet" tension between Christ'S first and final cosmic victory, to God's power in human weakness. Her consecration of her entire person to God, over and above any functional value she may offer, signs to the absolute worth of the human person in a tech-nological, bureaucratic world as a challenge to the priorities of that world. By her doing, she moves as pilgrim dynamically resdess, challenging preconceptions of ~'normality," the defini-tion of what it is to be human, and what it is to love humanly-- stepping in faith beyond the immediate to the uni-versal, signing to the personal, non-exclusive, non-possessive, and growth-giving love of God ¯ Bound to no one small circle, as Gospel woman ~he lives the Good News of Jesus Christ calling the whole human race, challenging any idol-atry of a particular nation, culture, religion, and so forth, free (and freeing others) for servi~ce, availability, heal-ing. Her use of her body signs that woman's sexuality is to be dedicated to many things; that to be woman is to be sensitive, kind, to speak truth, to share an interpersonal love . The celibate religious woman lives in a community built not on blood ties, ~ ~ but on a mutual drawing of person to person, and persons to Person, on ties of shared faith in divine power (Lk 1:49), shared vision of all that creation, under the Lordship of Christ, can be, shared support in her commitment to celibate lovingm witnessing to the possibilit~ of unity in a cosmos where men are searching to be one. VOWED POVERTY Christian history from its earliest beginning to the present day holds poverty to be a necessary part of the ~u'isdan life. It is a living out of the Gospel message: a genuine pilgrim people, humble and serving. Today more than ever before, however, poverty needs to be un-derstood in this true Christocentered approach. The "poor of Yahweh" must be grasped before visible ways of witnessing to poverty will be found. No longer can legislative interpretations be the guide to sharing in the poverty of Christ. P, eligious are living poverty differ-ently today and need to give expression to it in a whole new style of life---in a whole new manner of being; and of giving and sharing. The following statement is a simple meditative ap-proach to poverty which may hopefully stimulate a con-temporary thrust toward a creative reality of poverty in the lives of religious women vowed to poverty. The Counsels REVIEW FOR,RELIGIOUS 196 POVERTY is a dynamic human attitude toward life uniquely personal in expression seeking less to have than to be, and, in being to give expressing, personally and communally, a deep rever-ence for persons and things. Living in the manner of Jesus Christ, one vowed to. poverty accepts her total condition empties herself (Ph 2:1-I 1) seeks out the neighbors in need, using her gifts to serve them works in the same condition as people work today-- for a living. The woman truly poor, strives through her promise to trust fully in God as provider of all, even of life itself (Mr 6:25-34) to live without the assurance of tomorrow, in the glad-ness of today to accept humbly whatever God calls her to, to free herself of all unfreedoms, that she may share her person to offer all: voice to speak hands to touch~ heart to love openhandedly, to God's people through community In community, one vowed to poverty shares in the work of Christ: building the kingdom in an effort to affect more just distribution of wealth in personal responsibility for being collectively poor in the fruits of ordered minimalness: peace, joy in the present; hope, faith for the future In community of mercy, those vowed stand together corporately committed to simplicity of life possessing only to serve as a public sign before the world of Christ's all-sharing love stewards of the Master's goods held in trust-- feeding thepoor healing the sick teaching the uneducated visiting the needy, and so forth-- conscious that all things are theirs, that they are Christ's that Christ is God's (1 Cor 3:23) RELIGIOUS OBEDIENCE This description of obedience attempts to penetrate the meaning of an attitude much praised in Scripture: attentiveness to" God and readiness to do His will. Such an attitude is characteristic of the person who seeks out the ultimate meanings o[ things and goes beyond limita-tions: the person who lives by faith. This kind of person seems quite welcome in our contemporary world, par-adoxical though this might seem, agonized as this world might be over its own failures to promote human life, despite its marvelous successes in science and technol-ogy., athirst as it might be for those ultimates, those "beyonds" that give real meaning to life. OBEDIENCE is the power to seek out, to listen, and to hear the will of God. and the responsiveness, the readihess, to do it. Christians seek God's will in the leading of the Spirit speaking in the Christian community (Jn 1:29-51) Christ promised that the Father would send. "the Paradete, the Spirit of truth" (Jn 16:7-15) And they try to live as He did, whose very food was "to do the will of the Father" (Jn 4:80-8; 6) Religious vow to look for the Spirit,s promptings, and to do God's will with that community in which they have given them-selves, sure in faith that God will reveal His will among them, through the initiative and submission of all of them. through their personal struggles and mutual efforts to keep open to the truth in each one, accepting, appreciating, rejoicing in the different gifts among them, sure in faith, that He will make His will known ac-cording to role and need. Religious in positions of authority try to discern God's will by actively using all channels. It is a new insight on an old truth that the one governing is most in need. of the power to Obey. to listen., to hear. The call to leadership is a call to unify. Religious today realize anew, as did God's people in the Old Testament, that the Spirit speaks to the whole humart family through other signs, the "signs of the times": conditions, like afttuence and poverty, awareness of human dignity, racial tensions; events, like flights to the moon, assassinations and crime, team-work, celebrations, protests and dis-discoveries; people, like Eichmann and Ghandi, John Kennedy + + ÷ The Counsels VOLUME 2% 1970 and Martin Luther King, Jr., Dag'Hammarskjold, Dorothy Day, Jolm the XXlII, Darwin, Einstein, and Marx. PARADOXICALLY, The person who is growing in genuine obedience ~ 'becomes more and more humanly free (He who loses His life shall find it, Mt 10:39) Such a person becomes more and more attuned to the transcendent, alive to community, available for service, responding always anew ("God, here I aml I am coming to obey your will,'" Hb 10:7) + ÷ + REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS GENERAL CONCLUSION The basic affirmation of Christian life: that God is our end, that all else is means, lies at the core of our under-standing of the vows. Ways of channeling our baptismal commitment, they proclaim publicly a choice of avail-ability, service. They point toward possibilities---of hu-man commitment, enduring fidelity, growth in process, becoming. They speak of and call us to live---a mystery. RELIGIOUS VOWS are means, signs of a personal choice: a commitment in faith to the God who is both among and beyond His people; a life orientation toward possibilities fo~ human actualization and for apostolic service; a radical attempt to incarnate the gospel message by living like Jesus Christ. Framed in terms of covenant, the vows intensify the God-man covenant made at baptism; acknowledge God's greatest gift--that He first loved us in Jesus Christ; express a human response to that gift; include the covenant relationship between God and the person, the person and her community. Public in nature, ecclesial in character, religious vows boldly proclaim as a "splendid and striking witness": a stance of constant presence before God, constant openness to the Holy in human life; an attitude of constant striving for more total avail-ability to God and to His people; gratitude for the mercy continually received from God through His people; communal commitment to the kingdom and to its com-ing. In a cosmos and among men viewed in terms of "proc-ess," religious vows attempt to express certain hu-man possibilities: of total self-giving, both in being and be~:oming; of fidelity amid change; of commitment not sterilely binding but creative; of growing in oneness in a fragmented so(Jety; of living mystery, in and through the Spirit, in a prob-lem- solving world. VOLUME 2% 1970 199, SISTER MARY FINN "Live--Do Not Be Overtaken by Death" ÷ ÷ ÷ Sister Mary Finn of the Home Visi-tors of Mary lives at 356 Arden Park; Detroit, Michigan 48202. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS I spend my evenings in an abandoned store a few blocks from our home in Detroit. The store is in the black community and is opened as a center for teenage boys. Last Spring we placed in the window a large pic-ture of the Black Christ. Invariabl~ every young man who stops and stands before the picture and looks--even for an instant--straightens up, puts his shoulders back, and stands tall. What loftiness is stirred whenever a man is faced and inspired and called beyond himself by an-otherl Great spirit and dignity and grace rise up when-ever a man stands before life. In looking up to this beau-tiful Black Christ young men are meeting the One who says: "I come that you may have life--more abun-dantly." A word today for someone who has life is "soul." When a black teenage dropout exclaims "Jesus has soul, man," he means very reverently what the Gospel means when Matthew says: "Jesus was led by the Spirit," or "Jesus is the way, the truth, the life," or "Jesus came that we might find life." Is there anything the ghetto searches for more than life? Anything the affluent, the student, the addict is more desperate for--than life? Our entire culture is hungry for life. Death prevails and abounds all around. We are men and women enclosed in a machine-centered world; encapsulated by professionalism and technology and humanitarianism; asphyxiated by accumulation of things and manipulation for power and craving for pleasure. Where does a man turn for life? What are the alternatives? Who are the sources of life in a technolog-ical culture? Religious are a people consecrated--really consecrated --to life in the midst of death. If ever our American culture needed religious people and institutions it is now --to show the individuals and institutions of our society that there really is an alternative to death., specifi-cally death.by-power, and death-by-wealth, and death- .by-pleasure. The alternative to dea.th-by-wealth is my vowed life of poverty. The alternative to death-by-power is my vowed life of obedience. The alternative to death-by- pleasure is my vowed, life of celibacy. This is the glory of religious life--that in ~/day when man is seduced unto death there are men and women and institutions consecrated to life. The glory of religious life is to bring men and institutions to LIFE. There are people in the world with a profound sense of life and people in the world with a deprived sense of life---life lovers and death lovers; people who lift up and people who cast down. I am a strange mixture of both. There is the death lover in me and the life lover in me: Reality is almost always experienced in the form of people, things, events. The death lover in me is fasci-nated by what is lifeless. I am scared and frightened by the wonder and mystery of life; so to protect myself from living I have all sorts of ways of exploiting people. The death lover in me handles people, manipulates them, disposes of people mechanically. I crave my own suc-cess and safety and will suppress a person who threatens me.The "music teacher" in Death at an Early Age is so threatened by the life, the artistry of 6th graders that she finds multiple ways to protect herself from life--to the point of kindly:killing creativity in the chil-dren. She squeezes the life out of one child, then another, and another, and finally brings about their death and the institution's death--all for her own safety. Only when she feels successful and becomes "master" of the child and has the child "under her control"--only then can she "praise" him. She literally kills the child; she desecrates life, snuffs inner life right out of a youngster because she herself is so deathly afraid of life. The death lover can't possibly be celibate with people because death-centeredness is violent and irreverent with life and to be celibate means to revere life--to initiate, foster, sustain life in a wonderful varie, ty 0f ways. This is'how the death-lover in me relates to people. Toward things the death lover in me is possessive. I ollect,~,hoard, and secure every little creature I desire, I'm threatened by what .I'm unable to possess and up-tight and" upset when. my "things" are slightly out of order. The woman in the Old Testament, who falsely claims to be mother of the child, is typical of the pos-sessiveness of the death lover. She prefers a properly divided dead child than to allow, the true mother pos-session of her living child. The,death lover can't possibly be poor because poverty VOLUME 29, 1970 ,REVIEW FOR REL[G[OUS 20~ is freedom from domination by things and liberation from enslavement to things. The death lover in me is possessed and "run by dead things." Toward events the death lover in me is fearful and forceful. I am dominated by a compulsion to control and master; power-hungry. My supreme values are power and order and having the situation under control--so well under control there is no room for variety or growth or spontaneity. The death lover in me runs the world like a great big machine. The death lover can't possibly obey because obedience means to listen and be responsive and available to the voice of life all around me. There is also the life lover in me, and the life loving me has special attitudes toward reality. As life lover I have a profound reverence for life--for people, th!ngs, events. I experience people with great joy and have a sense and belief in their almost unbelievable and won-derful individuality. For the life lover, every person is a special presence to be encouraged and brought more and more deeply to life. The death lover in me makes the individuality and uniqueness of the other a target--to be picked at and shot down. There is a lot of the sniper in the death lover. The life lover has a profound rev-erence for the life and specialness and individuality of the other, and when the other appears as unique the life lover in me becomes even more alive by coming to the support of the other who is being born in a new way. I foster and nourish the individuality of the other to be-come even more herself--more unique and individual. The death lover in me is scared and frightened and threatened by the specialness of the other so I become insecure with my own individuality. The life lover in me admires and promotes the specialness of the other and is at home and responsible for both the extensions and limitations of my own individuality. The attitude of reverence for my own individuality and the specialness of the other person is beautifully ex-perienced and expressed and sustained by vowed celi-bacy. My celibacy is an alternative to death-by-pleasure; a fundamental reverence for people--my own self and the self of other people. To be truly celibate means to be touched by life, to be brought alive by the uniqueness of the other and to bring others alive by my own unique-ness. To be celibate means to be a lively individual. It means I pulsate with vitality and generate an abiding attitude of personal and interpersonal reverence. The celibate in me is the great lover of life--re-creating life all around by my own wholehearted presence to life. Celibacy has a great lifting power. ToXbe celibate means not only to be at home with my cwn individuality and the individuality of the other, but to be creative even in unveiling the individuality of myself and the other. It means providing the truest con-ditions for unfolding life and immediately and ulti-mately manifesting the Lord Jesus. To be celibate has a lot to do with privacy and with being alone. Celibacy means I am able to be alone and to bring Out the individuality of the other who is alone. I feel my aloneness from my friend much more deeply than my aloneness from people less near, but if I really mean it when I say I respect the individuality of the other than I am able to "leave the other alone"--not to tamper or handle or seduce the other. My sense of alone-ness is an awesome sense of life and vibrancy, but in it I have moments of feeling my tendency to "prove" or "test" the closeness of the other to me. As soon as I do this--as soon as I try and touch and overhandle the intimacy of the other or overexpose my own intimacy --then I violate and betray my celibacy, and life disinte-grates- like a bubble. Being celibate and intimate with the other is more like two open hands cradling sand than clutching sand in my closed fist. Christ went about touching people--but what a difference in His touch and mine. Christ never touched anyone for His own sake-- to prove or test anything for Himself. He touched people only for the sake of their growth and life--for the sake of the Lord God. My sense of aloneness is a supreme moment of celibacy because it places me in an awesome experience of being born and coming to life. My celibacy is both a separation from "death" and communion with new life. As a life lover I also have a rather special experience of things. A great and wonderful multitude of things appear in my daily life: the things of technology--water that refreshes, clothes that adorn, vehicles that trans-port, gadgets that facilitate, books that illuminate; and all the wonderful things of nature--the enduring of a mountain, calm of a sunset, strength of water, grace of a flower, splendor of a leaf, gentleness of a meadow, free-dom of a bird. When things become more and more ap-pealing and plentiful and available the death lover in me looks and grabs and clutches. With some things I be-come overinvolved, infatuated, indiscriminate, cluttered. With other things I am cold, passive, uncaring, reckless. The life lover in me has a profound reverence for things and relates to them as a source of life and inspiration and celebration. The attitude of reverence and gratitude and joy for the gift of things is beautifully expressed and sustained by vowed poverty. My poverty is an alternative to death-by-possessiveness. Fundamentally poverty is reverence for things. To be poor in spirit VOLUME 4. 4. 4. $ist~,~ Ma~ Finn REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 204 is to be treed and serene and gra.ceful in the presence or absence of things. This experience of poverty redeems me from death, frees me trom domination by things, liberates me from enslavement to things. Poverty heals the break and rupture between myself and my posses-sions and restdres me and gives me a sense of wholeness and unity and harmony. The life lover in me has vision that penetrates and goes beyond the surface of things and enters into a communion with the inner meaning and life of things. Especially in a technological world this lively, delight-ful, restful relationship with things is not often found. It is fashionable to have and collect useful things, but not so fashionable to enter into the deepest meaning of things. To really commune with the heart of a. thing means I must take a kind of distance from its im-mediate usefulness. I can't rejoice when I look upon things too closely. Closeness in this sense suggests at-tachment and possessiveness. Possessiveness fills me with anxiety. Anxiety confines my spirit and ties me to the outer, superficial layer of the thing. When I stand back and am detached from the thing, then I become un-cluttered, unencumbered, and free to enter into the heart and mystery of the thing. It's when I come to the heart of the thing--to the center and the mystery of what the thing is--that I come to the moment of free and fruitful enjoyment. My poverty releases my spirit and my spirit breaks forth. I enter into and transform and bring to life whatever thing I touch. My poverty draws man toward great and abundant joy in things through detachment and reverence. Besides people and things reality is encountered in the form of events. The lover of life experiences events with a loose, playful, graceful spirit. We are confronted with all sorts of events---everyday. Events of nature: a storm, headache, double chin, expanding waisdine, gray hair. And we are confronted with the wonderful and fearful events of culture: change and growth and decay; and power and militancy and reactionary, traditional-ism; institutions and structures and systems. The death lover in me stands before events of change and growth, for example, with fear and suspicion--somewhat cold and calculating, overcautious and hesitant. When I move I move to control and enforce and restrain and master. For this I have need of power so I invoke "law and order." The death lover stands before events with a sense of fate and despondency. The life ldver is called to newer and greater and more profound life. by events of culture and nature. The profound reverence the life lover experiences for events is beautifully manifested by. vowed obedience and is a very precise alternative to death-by-power. Obedience means, fundamentally, .my reverence for events. Obedience means I am in communion with the deepest and most hidden and secret meaning of events-by listening. To obey means to quietly discover and listen to a secret. When I listen to reality I am born, raised up, and brought to life. Not drugs or inter-personal dynamics--but obedience--expands my con-sciousness, extends my horizons, uncovers my depths, brighten my vision, enables me to stand tall. When I listen to the mystery at the heart of a cultural or natural event I come into touch with myself at a new level, with the secret at the heart of the event itself, and ultimately and finally into touch and consciousness of the Lord Godmpresent and acting somewhere and somehow in the event. Each event then--when I am a lover of life--each event is a sacred event; a salvific event; redemptive. There is no event, no change or in-stitution or structure or sickness that is unholy. An event is not unholy. Unholiness is when I enter into an event in an unwhole or death centered manner. The obedient person is so much in love with life that she consecrates herself, vows to listen to the deepest voice of life all around her. She submits herself to the voice of reality in her culture and in nature in order to foster unity and reverence and serenity in the world. This listening experience of obedience is altogether different ~om the controlling experience. Listening is expecting.Controlling is handlingmtill there isn't any life left.' Neither of these attitudes toward reality comes in a pure form. In other words, the pure form of death lover or life lover is rare. The pure death .lover is insane. The pure life lover is a saint. Most of us average people are a blend. What matters is that I know and am aware and discerning of both movements within myself. Becauge of the profound need in our culture, and for the preservation and enrichment of the truest values of the society itself, and especially by the very real but simply unexplainable mystery of God calling me and touching my life in the way He does--I am one whose way is meant to be an alternative. I am consecrated to life in the midst of death, poverty in the midst of plenty, celibacy in the midst of pleasure, obedience in the midst of power. This is my call. It is a profoundly personal experience of the living God forever calling me to abundant life, forever faithful to me. I cannot ex-plain my call to another. I am able to describe some moments of it--but never explain it. It is mystery. I can only live it. The deepest moments of life are always born and unfold in mystery. But forever, somewhere in VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ ÷ ÷ RL~VIE'~ FOR RELIGIOUS 2O6 my heart, I know well I am called by One who is faith-ful. His call to me is enduring. I experience His fidcli:.y as well and as really as my own infidelity. I may repress my call, cover it up, run from it, hide--but forever it is my experience to be called to center my life prhnarily and consistently around the living God. In fai,h and quiet readiness and humble awareness I am able to do this. In a predominantly technological and function cen-tered culture my religious life, then, individually and institutionally, is a radical departure from the system and the establishment and superficial values and struc-tures. "Radical" means "deep within" not "way out." Religious life is truly radical. By centering life (in this machine and man centered world) primarily and con-sistently around the Lord I take a radical stand toward reality. A function centered culture has its special at-titude toward reality. It prizes and gives priority to pos-sessing things, pleasing people, controlling events. To live in the midst of things with an attitude of poverty, and in the midst of people with an attitude of celibacy, and in the midst of events with an attitude of listening says in a radical way to the members and institutions of my function centered culture that there is another way, that there is an alternative. The religious is the alternative. She offers love of life as an alternative to death centeredness and ultimate religious meanings as an alternative to superficial and' peripheral meanings, and releases the Spirit as an alter-native to fixation on the material: God centeredness as an alternative to the merely humanitarian. This life may actually appear a bit too radical, too threatening for a culture so permeated and centered around values of possessing things, pleasing people, and controlling situations, and consequently may draw a kind of ridicule. The culture may do to us what we find our-selves doing to whatever we can't cope with. We either don't see it or we ridicule it. When this happens it be-comes quite difficult for certain personalities to remain available and receptive to the mystery of poverty, celi-bacy, obedience. They want to "rename" the experience something else, or explain away the mystery of religious living, or so rationalize their life that they become un-able to remain faithful. I may be tempted to question my call and to shift m~t centeredness to what is super-ficial and peripheral. To go on living, however, and to become the gracious recipient of misunderstanding and ridicule bestowed by a function centered culture--to be chastened and purified and to endure the ambiguity of it all--this is the "price" as Kierkegaard says of "willing one thing." The One Thing---or the One the religious wills is Christ Jesus. I make my willingness explicit by my vowed reverence for reality, and this very reverence is a profound alternative to the death and violence that thread through a culture where values are primarily and consistently functional. Religious community is a beautiful means of fostering and sustaining, religious centered life and discovering and manifesting the most radical and religious mean-ings of life. Religious community is radically different £rom other kinds of community just as religious centered living is radically different from function centered living. Reli-gious community is "where" religious life and centered-ness are born and sustained and enriched. Religious community is where we provide a home for each other and room for each one to be a special individual, where we joyfully engage ourselves in Christ's life and call each other to life and urge each other to go through the Pass-over togethermthe ultimate experience of life. Religious community is where we transform the life and attitudes, where we "expand the consciousness" of each other, where we are purified and healed and transfigured, where we enable each other to live as uniquely and fully as possible. Religious community is where each of us is marvelously engaged in telling one another the good news, inspiring each other to uncover the living God dwelling in her own heart, calling one another to un-cover her religious heart by her own special presence, encouraging one another to be a special individual and to share with each one in a grand variety of ways one's own special religious experience. Being together in religious community is being together in Christ. Christ is the center of our religious life, so together we initiate, form, and sustain a Christ centered life. We speak to each other by our religious living together: "Keep in mind Jesus Christ." In religious community there are all sorts of room for tremendous diversity--diversity of personality, inclina-tions, cultures, races, expectations, ages. Wonderful unity is born out of this diversity. Religious community is a heartfelt experience of Christ initiating and accomplishing redemption in me. I need His touch of redemption in my doublemindedness and indecisive conformity to peripheral values. I am inclined to betray life, to shift from religious to less ul-timate and radical living. But in religious community my sisters urge me out of darkness and death and sus-tain me in light and life. This fills me with a sense of joy and enables me to speak my courageous "yes" to live life religiously, to unfold my attitudes of expectancy and enthusiasm for life, my roominess and fxiendliness, VOLUME 29, 1970 207 ÷ 4- ÷ REVIEW FOR REL;GIOUS 208 my pioneering and prophetic spirit. Religi6us commu-nity gives my spirit direction, inspires me to face God and my sister and fellow man as an individual of great peace and inner unity and decisiveness to life whole-heartedly. My sisters call me toward the Unknown. They name me "sister" and ask me to share with them--not just what is external, but the hidden treasures of my heart. I need their light to quicken my desires and their help to form my consciousness and their inspiration that I may be graced with the ability to leave life alone and not overhandle and extinguish the breath of any living spirit. Religious community is where I make a home for my sisters and communicate to them the radical and ulti-mate meaning of life and my own radical consecration and identity. Religious community is life centered but not the center of life. When the community is actually religious the Lord God is our one Center. Community is a means of initiating, forming, and sustaining our God centered life. The purpose of religious community is to speak "Father, . Son," "Spirit"--to say to each participant: "K, eep in mind Jesus Christ; keep in mind your life center." If the community "says" anythingelse it is not religious community. If the community claims to be religious but in reality says: "I am the center of life," it lies and cheats and creates confusion and becomes more dead than alive. Religious community is reaIly meant to say--very simplyPto all its members: "Pray"; "be holy"; "be alive to the call of God in Christ jesus." Members of our culture who feel the call to live more radically--artists and students and black people-- look all about them for alternatives. When they look toward the establishment they see power, greed, pleasure. What are the alternatives? Where are they? Or rather-- who are the alternatives? The celibate me is a radical alternative to a. passion centered and pleasure centered culture. The poor me is a radical alternative to a pos-session centered culture. The listening, obedient me. is a radical alternative to a power centered culture. I betray the brightest, most creative and sensitive and radical people of my culture when I betray my poverty and replace it with preoccupation and fascina-tion with budgeting, clothing, entertainment, traveling. I betray these same people when I replace my obedience and creative listening with a preoccupation and fascina-tion for management, control, manipulation, domina-tion. And I betray them when-I substitute my celibacy with preoccupation and fascination with personal corn- fort and appearance, with pleasure, popularity, and maneuvering to be "in." A second remark by way of conclusion concerns replacements for the living God. There are all sorts of replacements. We e~ich have our own preferred variety, our own little gods and golden calves and plastic idols. One of the golden calves is humanitarianism. In place of Christ at the center of my life I put myself and humanity. In place of consecration I put commitment; in place of prolonged contemplative prayer, endless drawn out dialogue and interpersonal relationships; the institution and mass identity in place of the individual's uniqueness; majority rule in place of self-determination. In place of self-surrender I put self-consciousness; in place of life, death; in place of spiritual reading, study ~ind learning and the daily paper; in place of liturgy, secular celebrations; in place of intuition, measurement; in place of asceticism, ease; in place of mystery, proof; in place of recollection and withdrawal, overinvolvement; in place of the unknown, the' known; in place of dis-cernment, public opinion; in place of faith, ration-alism; in p/ace of insight, behaviorism; in place of re-sponsibility, conformity; in place of internalizing and personal appropriation, objectification; in place of in-spiration, explanation; in place of decision, discussion; in place of celibate community, personality compatibility; in place of harmony, specialization; in place of spiri-tuality, sociology and psychology; in place of spiritual direction, group dynamics. My fascination with nature may even become a re-placement and substitute for the living God. The touch of nature, the beautiful and artistic may well dispose my heart for the Lord God--or may become a substi-tute. Theology may become a substitution or replacement for spirituality. They are quite unalike., as different as Karl Barth and Thomas Merton, as different as Tan-querey and Teresa of Avila. Another golden calf is the crowd--which becomes a major replacement or substitution for religious com-munity. The crowd is the great killer of life and prayer and wholeness; the great and gigantic intruder upon the ground of the Lord. Crowd is different from reli-gious community. Community which is religious ini-tiates, fosters, sustains religious centeredness. The crowd protects me from the most radical depths of meaning because it deprives me of that authentic aloneness and true individuality necessary to go very deep. Crowd squeezes the life out of me and becomes a divisive and shattering force against my consecration. It is especially the task of the religious in the culture ,,L~,~ ~09 to be radically set aside from the crowd, to become an alternative and to inspire the peaceful individuality of the others. The religious is the one who is able to be profoundly alone and profoundly related to others. She is able to stand, to live outside the crowd around her by uncovering the uniqueness of her own life and re-specting the life of the other. The celibate religious stands in the culture, in the midst of men, as the one so consecrated to life that she refuses to exchange her cen-teredness around the Lord for assimilation and death in the crowd. I betray my call and my religious community and the entire culture whenever I avoid or repress or replace commtinion with the Lord God with any other com-munion. Religious are meant to stir up loftiness and great spirit and dignity and grace so that those who look upon religious life, even for an instant, may straighten up, throw their shoulders back, and stand tall because they have found life abundantly. Religious are meant to say to the culture in which they live: "Receive the touch of the Lord and live. Do not be overtaken by death." ÷ ÷ ÷ ~.~ter Ma~ F~nn REYIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 210 EDOUARD POUSSET, s.J. Human Existence and the Three Vows The Gospel texts* contain a threefold call con-cerning the kingdom: chastity, poverty, and the humble service, of others in obedience to the Father. Every Christian must necessarily reach a point where he real-izes that he is personally involved in this call and that he must, within the limits of his own vocation, conform his life to it. When this call makes itself heard in a man's life it penetrates to the very heart of his existence and invites him to make what can only be described as a staggering conversion. Everything that counts for a human being is, in fact, directly involved: marriage and a family and the possessions which his work and his freedom of action obtain for him. Whoever hears this call is obliged to reorientate his life and it can happen that a man will go so far as to renounce, . through a death and resurrection which transform him, the essential values of his existence: ¯. there are eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can (Mt 19:12)¯ . sell all that you own and distribute the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come follow me (Lk 18:22). ¯. anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all (Mk 10:43--4). It was in this way that all forms of consecration to the Lord which include the vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience were born in the Church. These three vows do not in any way consist in marginal practices and devotions. Chastity renews the heart out of love for God and creatures. Poverty establishes a new re-lationship between man and the riches of this world. ¯ This article was first published in French in Vie consacrde, vol-ume 41 (1989), pp. ~-94. The translation was made by William Russell, S.J.; St. Joseph's Abbey; Spencer, Massachusetts 01562. 4" Edouard Pomset, S.J., is professor philosophy at Lea Fontaines; ~O-Chan-tilly, France. VOLUME 2% 1970 4. 4. 4. Edouard Pou~set, REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS Obedience converts the desire for power and by so doing initiates man into true [reedom. The wows are man's very existence as it is lived out. in accordance with the death and resurrection o[ Christ.1 That is their greatness. But the renunciation which they entail has so direct, an effect" on the living sources and, the very structures of existence that today many are asking themselve.s if they do not doom those who pronounce them to live a life which is inhuman. And let us be honest about it, thi~ is a risk. What are these living sources, these fundamental structures of man's very existence? What does the gospel call to perfection entail? In what way are the vows a risk? How does someone live the vows? How can the risk involved be overcome by dying and being resur-rected jn Christ here and now in this world? Human Existence Man makes his appearance on the scene of life and advances in existence by a triple dynamism which un-folds in three essential activities. By means of these activities h~ develops a human s6ciety and thereby comes to understand what he is. First, there is the amorous desire which directs a human being towards his counterpart: man towards woman and woman towards man. It is this desire which is at the origin of the conjugal and familial society. Secondly, there is the power to transform and ap-propriate for oneself the natural universe which is the extension of one's body. By his work a man takes possession of this world and establishes' an economic society iri which the relationship between all the mem- XThis definition presents a difficulty, namely .that of being ap-plicable to every Christian life and not restricted to the religious life as such. Nonetheless, inasmuch as we are attempting to situate the religious life in its relationship to human existence in general and not to the life of Christians who are not religious this difficulty is of no consequence in this context. Those who would like a more precise treatment of this point may wish to consult Karl Rahner's article, "La thfiologie de la vie religieuse," in the collec[ive .work, Les religieux au]ourd'hui et deraain, Paris: Cerf, 1964, pp. 53-92. The fullness of Christianity--the perfection of love for God and man-can be attained without the vows. But religious life, because of the renunciation which it entails, "makes apparent in a very evi-dent manner and incarnates in an obje.ctive reality the faith in the supernatural grace of God which transcends this world." It is quite true that a Christian who marries, possesses his goods, and enjoys his independence can integrate the values of this world in a life of faith and thereby reach perfection. But because his existence (mar-riage, wealth, freedom) already has a value discernible by this world, independently of faith, "it does not make the transcendence of grace and faith evident in such an impressive way" (pp. 79 and 8~). And this is exactly what religious life accomplishes. bers strengthens the individuality of each one and each one's individuality strengthens the relationship which exists between the members. Thirdly, there is the desire to be independent, which is man's way of asserting his freedom when confronted by his counterpart, and his ability to conduct himself rationally. This desire is at the origin of the political society where interdependencies take shape which are the conditions of each one's freedom. Man is a being of nature, he is part of nature, but he is not, as is the animal, merely immersed in nature. He is consciousness, which implies that he can stand up to nature, look upon it as the object of his under-standing and his action, and so dominate it. A careful analysis of the relationship which man maintains with the world by sensible and intellectual knowledge would show that he is able to hold his own with everything that exists: the earth and sky and all they contain as well as what they cannot contain. The universe is his property, the object of his consciousness, and it is his vocation to make this universe---even though he is com-pletely exiled from it when he first appears in the world--his own. When he has emerged from nature, all of nature has at one and the same time been gathered together in him and remained entirely ex-terior to him. Both present to and absent from him, the universe is for him the object of a fundamental desire. And this sitiJation renews itself each time a human being is born. An infant is different from an animal in that the latter has particular, selective in-stincts, whereas the child reaches out for everything and puts it in his mouth. Everything is his. Because he is desire, the human being is desire to dominate and possess. But by coming in contact with others and experiencing the things of nature he is forced to adjust this desire both to the resistance he discovers in things and to the comparable desire he finds in others. The master finishes by finding his own master and .at times he even finds him,. in the servant he first sought to enslave. The oppositions and the struggles result in humanizing men by bringing them. little by little, to know themselves~ for what they are, to respect one another, and to get along with each .other. But because, he is desire, the human being, at the same time .as he is desire to dominate and to possess, is also the secret aspiration to find in another a subject simi-lar to himself who recognizes him without being forced 2 To I~ow onesell (se reconaRre): a precise phrase whose meaning is very strong. By mutual recognition each one sees and appreciates in the other what he is and even contributes to the creation of this value within him. 4. 4. the Vows VOLUME 2% 1WO 21~ + ÷ Edotmrd Pousset, S.]. REVIEW FOR REL|G[OUS ~14 to do so and who enables him to exist as subject as well. Without this aspiration no mutual and brotherly recognition would result from the play of forces and violence. It is this aspiration which, coupled more or less with the desire to dominate and to possess, sets man and woman in motion one towards the other: Man and woman are drawn by their very desire to seek in the other the subject, the 'T' which is able to affirm their own subjectivity, so that their harmonized reciprocity must converge in union . If man and woman succeed in giving themselves in a gift of mutual and equal assurance they can then embrace and merge in an act which establishes their unity? We have all known engaged couples and we know only too well to what extent the meeting between a young man and woman and the promise which they make one to another can transform them and develop in them potentialities which were hidden up to that time and cause them, as it were, to blossom. An un-questionable sign that they are, one for the other, be-coming more human. The relationship between a man and his wife results in the conjugal and familial society. By the union of the sexes the desire of the human being to possess nature and be recognized as a person by another person is fulfilled in a way that is partial and yet which takes the form of an intense communion. What con-stitutes the attraction of this relationship is not so much the pleasure, in the trivial sense of the term, but rather the intense communion with nature and with men. By his body each spouse recapitulates for the other all of nature, and this body is at the same time a free subject who gives himself to another subject whom he recognizes as being worthy of this gift. All the devia-tions and all the failures which can be blamed on the desire to dominate and to possess which is mixed in with the love drive do not erase the grandeur and the beauty of this mystery. Man and woman come to know one another and out of their union a child is born. By him they become father and mother. Paternity and maternity are not added on to their respective beings much like a particu-lar and accidental function; it is a re-creation of them-selves by themselves, and by their child. By this re-creation man and woman reach the fullness 6f their masculine and feminine beings, and no one who has seen a young mother bending over the crib of her little child or heard a father announcing the birth of his son could ever doubt this. All those who have 3 Gaston Fessard, "Le myst~re de la soci~tfi," Recherches de sciences religieuses, 1948, pp. 168-9, and again in L'actualitd historique, vol-ume I, Descl~e de Brouwer, 1960, p. 164. consecrated themselves to the Lord by the vow of chastity know these things, they think about them-- at times with nostalgia--and they would like to be no less man and woman, within their own vocation, than their married brothers and sisters. Nevertheless, we must not lose sight of the fact that the relationship between man and woman con-ceals an antinomy: that of love (the disinterested de-siring of good for the other and the hope of being recognized by him) and that of selfish desire to domi-nate and to possess for oneself. In marriage this antinomy is resolved but by a fragile balancing which is easily put into question. However successful family life may be it is the success of a particular group. Even harmonious--supposing they are so--family relation-ships retain the stamp and the limits o[ their origin: a biological generation which, of itself, produces only the particular bond of blood. But the human being requires a more universal society so as to become fully himself; this explains why the child once grown up leaves the family circle and enters a larger society, that of work, where he comes in contact with other men. This transition is brought about by a necessary movement: even before he experiences the narrow-ness of the family circle man must work to live and this work gives rise to relationships which are more universal than those of the family. To work is to confront and transform nature so as to take exclusive possession of it by adapting it so that it becomes one's own. Whether it be the first gathering together of things by the cave man or the building of a space capsule it is always man appropriat-ing nature, By his work he procures the goods which satisfy his needs (consumer goods) and which extend his individual body into the world (tools, equipment). This appropriation of the world by man is not only r~ecessary for his sustenance; the strengthening of his individuality depends on it as well. Even supposing that he has what he needs to satisfy his animal need to eat and drink, man, without his house and the objects with which he fills it, without the tools of his work, would scarcely be a man at all. He needs to possess these things so as to reinforce his existence in the world. Without them he is a poor creature indeed. Step by step he must possess the entire universe. The world, t~ansformed and organized by work and tech-niques, is man's body. To make the world and its riches one's own is a human act as spontaneous as it is necessary; it stems from a need, itself as undefined as the desire behind it. It is this need---the limitless ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLUME 29, 1970 ÷ ÷ ÷ Edot~r. , d Pousset, REVIEW. ~FOR ,RELIGIOUS 21,.6 multiplicity of needs and their satisfaction--which gives birth to the economic society. By means of his work man extends his intelligence and his strength .into a produ.ct Which he fashions as he distances himself from nature. This produtt, the re-sult of his work, is at first exterior to him, but in a second time it must return to him in one way ,or an-other so that he might consume it and thereby satisfy his needs. This is the circuit which takes shape: work stemming from a need; the producing of an exterior object; the appropriation and satisfaction of a need by consumption. But as he works within this circuit man comes into contact with other men as well as with nature and these men, in turn, are also at work. Their meeting gives rise to an indefinite and indefi-nitely more complex development of this circuit: in-stead of consuming the product of his work directly he exchanges it for the product of another. Exchange is a factor of progress and by it, so long as one is also a producer, one can obtain things under the best of conditions and at the lowest costs. The more a society develops the more the rate of exchange is intensified within that society and the contrary is equally true. But the desire to dominate and possess which is at the very heart of man enters into this circuit of produc-tion and exchange and throws of[ the mechanisms thereby causing all sorts of disorders and frustrations to the detriment of one and all and even to entire classes of society. This desire is at the root of the social conflicts which periodically disrupt the life of a nation. No economic system has yet found the solution to the contradictions which arise within human activity. When a solution is introduced at a given point, as in the socialist system which deprives private property of the means of production, difficulties spring up at some other point. The economic sodety does not possess the means of resolving the problems it generates. In addition, the economic society' exists only Within another .sphere, the political society, which comes into being as a r~sult of the relationship of one man ~o another. Man, as he emerges 'from animal nature, comes in contact with another "man and a domination of one over the other is the consequence of their encounter. WithOut this dominatiori of a "master" who forces his "slave" to work, the elementary needs which the hu-man being feels would have led him only so far as to~ instinctively gather up things or to hunt and this would not have been enough to draw him out of his animal nature. If the young schoolboy was not~ obliged by his teacher .to make straight strokes beiween the lines of his notebook or to decifer the marks in his school book he would never do much more than scribble, he would never learn to read and write and he would not become intelligent. At the root of all human and humanizing activity there is a discipline, a law, either one which man's reason imposes upon himself once he has become reasonable or one imposed on him by an-other in those areas where his reason has not yet at-tained full competence or efficiency. When a man comes in contact with another, author-ity is made apparent, as is obedience. The one and the other are necessary for the development of ]reedgm which is, in the final analysis, the value with which the political society is chiefly concerned. Whether it is a question of a band of thieves or a group of disciples which a saint gathers about himself, the authority of the leader is asserted and accepted as a fact. It is then legitimized by the feel and concern for the common good of the group which is evident in the person of the leader. This will be the very basis of the obedience of the members of the group. The dialogue between leader and subordinates stems from this mo'tivation" of the common good, and it is this dialogue which defines the obligations and rights of each one. Thus the flee dom of each member keeps pace with political society as it develops, whether it be a gang, a clan, a nation, or an empire. It is in political society that the desire of each one to be free and responsible for his conduc( takes shape. This determination, as in the case of the love drive and the act of making the world one's own, comes from the very depths of man, from what I have referred to above as desire. It is inalienable and s6 powerful that it is capable of setting in motion entire peoples fighting for their independence, for. and against anything and everything. It is good in itself but it can deteriorate both in an individual and in societies into a desire for power and a sense of pride which affect political relationships more or less seriously and at times provoke the most violent of conflicts be-tween individuals or peoples. Such, summarily analysed, is this third sphere of human experience, that of the relationship of man to man as he is taken as a human being independent of the man-woman distinction. It is the political society which attempts to integrate with-out destroying and to unify without confusing the two preceding spheres: the family and the economic so- .ciety. Amorous desire, the power to appropriate the uni-verse for oneself, the determination to be independent, free, and responsible are three "drives" which can giv, e birth to three passions or sins: the inordinate desire of the flesh; the thirst for riches and for self; the desire. t ././././~. l,'otus VOLUME 29,~1970~. ~ '" . Edouagd Pousset, $.]. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS for power and pride of spirit. The gospel call is not only addressed to these three capital sins, however, but reaches us at the very heart of our existence, inviting us to live according to the paradox of death and resurrection and thereby to go beyond ourselves towards the Love which is the life of the Holy Trinity. The Gospel Call The gospel call to chastity is one addressed to all. Some live chastity by remaining single while others-- by far the greater number--live it within the ~amework of a monogamous and indissoluble marriage. On this point Christ. preaches more by His silence and His own example than by what He has to say. Yet He also speaks of it in these terms: . there is no one who has left house, wife,¯ brothers, parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not be given repayment many times over in this present time and, in the world to come, eternal life (Lk 18:29-30). These words were first addressed to a man who had heard Jesus, the messenger of the good news, and who in turn desired to be God's herald. He had to be ready to leave everything at a moment's notice for the sake of the kingdom. "Because of my name" Matthew writes. This phrase from Luke quoted above sums up what is essential: to follow Jesus for the sake of the kingdom which, for some at least, includes the two conditions of detachment and freedom of action. In another pas-sage of St. Luke we find a similar warning but in this instance it is worded in the form of a far more general requirement: "If. anyone comes to me without hating his father, mother, wife, children, brothers, sisters, yes and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk 14:26). And our Lord adds: "Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery and the man who marries a woman divorced by her husband commits adultery" (Lk 16:18). Finally, at the conclusion of his teaching on the prohibition of divorce which so puzzled his disciples, Our Lord sets the price even higher when he speaks of "eunuchs who have made themselves that way for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who canV' (Mt 19:12). Some have supposed, perhaps rightly so, that Jesus was referring to examples familiar to His listeners, John the Baptist for instance. They ask themselves if, in this comparison, He was thinking of perpetual con-tinence. Are we reading into these texts if we find in ¯ In parallel texts neither Matthew nor Mark make mention of the wife. them what Christ taught about the freedom r.equ, i~ed,, for following Him? Or does this interpretation take the edge off the point of our Lord's statement? J.-P. A,udet, who is not one to exaggerate the meaning of texts, asks himself these very questions and finds it ,preferable "to consider that Jesus was effectively thinking of the free choice of perpetual continence." 5 In the light of the example of our Lord tradition has interpreted this declaration as a. call to religigus chas-tity kept for the sake of the kingdom. Though the call to poverty recurs in numerous tex~ts, it appears at times to be addressed to very few: "If you wish to be perfect, go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow reel (Mt 19:21). And yet this call is re-echoed in a warning against riches which is addressed to all: "How hard it is for those who have riches to make their Way into the king-dom of Godl" (Lk 18:24). In their primitive context these calls and warnings are to be understood as con-ditions for greater freedom necessary for one who car-ries the good news to others. They do not imply the condemnation of riches, even if they do underline the possible obstacle riches can be for those who hope for the kingdom. These calls become, in other passages, very general requirements which have to do with every disciple: Sell your possessions and give alms. Get yourselves purses that do not wear out, treasure that will not fail you, in heaven where no thief can reach it and no moth destroy it. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also" (Lk 12:33-4). One must be careful not to hoard: "Watch and be on your guard against avarice of any kind, for a man's life is not made secure by what he owns." (Lk 12:15). Free with regard to the goods of this world the disciple abandons himself to providence: "But you, you must not set your hearts on things to eat and things to drink . Your Father well knows you need them" (Lk 12:29-30). Poverty is not sought out for itself; it is desired for that confident abandonment which prepares us for the intimacy of the kingdom. By poverty man becomes like unto God, a child o[ the king-dom; he follows the lead of the Son who is supremely poor (and thereby rich) in His relationship to His. Father. Because of one's poverty which makes~ him a child of the kingdom the hundredfold is repaid him here and now. As regards obedience, which is not the object of a for- ~ J.-P. Audet, Mariage et cdlibat dans le service pastoral de l'Eglise, Paris: Orante, 1967, p. 58. . ¯ . 4. 4. 4. Existence the Vows VOLUME 29,,1970 . 219 mal call in the gospels, it is, as seen in the Son of Man, the very heart of His mystery: "My aim is to do not my own will, but the will of him who sent me" (Jn 5:30). But the will of the one who sent Him was that the Son give His life for many: "For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many" (Mk 10:45). He calls to a service which He Himself has fulfilled in obedience to the Father: to become the slave of all as He did whose "state was divine, yet., he emptied himself to assume the conditions of a slave., even to accepting death, death on a cross" (Ph 2:6-8): You know that among the pagans their so-called rulers lord it over them and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No, anyone who wants to be-come great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to al'. (Mk 10:42-4). This is how a man enters into life: "I have come so that they may have life, and have it to the fulF' (Jn 10:10). By religious profession this threefold call becomes the institutional norm of those who are called to this vocation.6 But confronted with what man is ac-cording to the dynamism of his nature, namely desire, the power to dominate and to possess the earth, and the determination to be independent, this gospel call institutionalized by the vows raises a problem felt very keenly in our times. Is it human to renounce the carnal expression of love, to renounce all goods, and to submit one's will to the power of another? Does the renunciation called for by the Gospels succeed in opening man up or does it accomplish just the opposite by imposing frustrations, on him? The Risk Involved in the Vows If the renunciation spoken of in the Gospels leads to a resurrection in this world it will be seen that it e Even if life in a religious institute is not the vocation of all, the renunciation called for in the Gospels does concern everyone in that all are called to perfection, to the kingdom of God, and to love, Man and wife, as they enter into a fruitful union and thereby collaborate by marriage in the creative work of God have to make their way as Christians towards the resurrection. They must be attentive to the grace which will perhaps predispose them and permit them to un-fold by choice, here and now, into the life of the Kingdom "where men and women do not marry" (Mk 12:25). Even those whose voca-tion is to make the earth bear fruit and to organize existence in this world are invited to become poor with Christ who was poor. Finally, in accordance with the diversity of states of life all Christians have to share the mystery of the Son who "'emptied himself., even to accepting death" (Ph 2:7-8) by living in such a manner as to make it apparent to all that they are disciples of the Master who "did not come to be served but to serve" (Mk 10:45). re-creates man and that it will not work against him except insofar as it enables him to be fulfilled over and above what he might have otherwise attained. But does this renunciation spoken of in the Gospels actually lead to a resurrection here in this world? Isn't it, for many who have embraced it, merely putting up with a num-ber of frustrations? Isn't it rather a question of slipping into and getting bogged down in mediocrity? Faced with this question one can first point out that the human being becomes human only to the extent that he exercises a certain interior asceticism over his spontaneous drives and converts their instinctive vio- ¯ lence into reasonable behavior. Without this the love drive, the power to make the universe one's own, and the desire to be independent are neither human nor hu-manizing. Yet it is quite true that the renunciation of the Gospels goes beyond this interior asceticism. Not only does it discipline nature, in a sense it contradicts it: to die so as to be reborn, yes, but to die, and in a very radical sense. If this is lived out in an awkward fashion it can give rise to harmful repressions and frustrations. This is the risk involved in the vows; this is why they are sometimes said to be "inhuman." But this does not tell the whole story behind the vows and the renunciation requested in the Gospels. If such were the case we would be left with the as-surance that they are both bad and harmful. Nor is this, generally speaking, the initial experience of those who embrace the religious life.7 But it is one aspect of the truth; it is a moments in Christian growth and development as the experience of religious life shows us when the daily ordinariness is felt over a period of 7 Most young people who respond to a call to a religious or priestly vocation experience their consecration as a fulfillment rather than as a profound contradiction or frustration of their being. Generally speaking di~culties arise later on in their religious life. s,,Moment,, implies a "stage" or "point" within a development. What is characteristic of a "moment" is that it contains all the re-ality which a development will eventually produce but without as yet making it apparent in an adequate way. Reality at this stage is seen under one or several of its aspects but not as yet in its totality. Therefore at a given moment when the renunciation spoken of in the Gospels and the vows themselves are felt to be "inhuman" we have an example of a partial truth overshadowing a more complete one: that the vows do not contradict man's fundamental dynamism except insofar as they enable him to outdistance this very dynamism and so fulfill him in a higher order of reality. To the extent that the religious will enter into this higher order of reality the more clearly will he recognize that the vows, far from being inhuman, are actually eminently humanizing. In certain periods of crisis or de-pression this more total truth can be entirely obscured. At such a time the partial but very real aspect of the truth--that the vows contradict human nature and can in a sense be said to be "inhuman" --is sometimes felt very acutely. the Vows VOLUME 29, 1970 221 Edouar d : Pousse t, REVIEW. F.O.R RELIGIOUS 222 -:years, when one finds it difficult to accept events, situa- ~tions, others, and even oneself, when disappointments .and deceptions begin to weigh on us. But this reality is. no scandal. For. those 'who have experienced the ups and. downs of their religious existence it is, in a sense, liberating. One can actually profit from such an ~experience by carefully evaluating it and seeing it as it ~eally is: limited, partial, and always there in the background. . This "inhuman" side o[ renunciation and the vows is especially noticeable when one confronts the celibate religious with the essential dynamism which draws man and woman one to the other and which finds its ¯ growth in the unity of a fruitful love. In the marriage .state ,perfectly happy lives are, without doubt, less numerous than those would have us imagine who are :sooyery alert to the failures or half-failures of religious life and who place, the cause of these " failures squarely on celibacy. It is nonetheless true that when we ~consider the physiological and psychic make-up of man .and woman, human love and its carnal expression .oppear as both the means and the goal of their ful-fillment ¯ here on earth. Human beings develop through :relationships;. and the richest, the most fruitful, the most humanizing of relationships seems to be that of a .man and woman united in a love which generates free-dom and responsibility. In marriage even those who are not destined to enjoy "the tomorrows that sing" experi-enc_ e,, at least in the beginnings, the joy of loving and ~being loved, the unfolding of an immense hope and .fll. e certitude of having found it. When their sexual attraction, diffused up to that time, is centered on a chosen being, man and woman, by the exercise of their freedom, reach maturity and enter concretely into a di~alogue which creates an even greater freedom. Their love~ in its carnal expression, because it is pledged ac- .cording to the concrete conditions of this freedom where each one is, for the other, a permanent appeal for a gratuitous love, must of necessity rule out whatever is ambiguous and whatever causes the possessive and domi-nating instinct to weigh heavily upon it. This may or may: not be the case; love can renew itself each day or it can slip into the trite and the ordinary; freedom can either grow or, on the contrary, become an alienato i~i~': force. The precise conditions of this creation and gr.o.wth 'are, however, given' to us: a man and a woman who choose one another accept whatever a life lived t6gether .entails, the grandeur as well as the risks of a frutiful union. /OppOsed to this is the notion that one who remains celibate or who chooses celibacy deprives himself of the very means of reaching maturity. He will, in any case, probably be longer in reaching that maturity. And doesn't the universal availability of the celibate conse-crated to God, an availability which does not link him to any one person in particular, mask an escape? Doesn't it place him outside the real conditions of af-fective life?° Finally, doesn't the ,sexual drive, contra-dicted in celibacy, run the risk of being kept under control by being repressed inasmuch as it does not find, it would seem, an expression which channels it, disciplines it, and makes it fruitful in directing it to the service of a creative love? These questions are by no means merely theoretical. Religious poverty gives rise to problems which are probably not so delicate as those raised by chastity. Poverty has to do with things and reaches the human being less directly. What would create a problem today is not so much religious poverty as the lack of it. We question ourselves more about the way of living poverty than about the means of remedying eventual inconveniences. Among possible inconveniences we should perhaps mention infantilism or the failure to fully realize what is involved in money matters or at least a superficial attitude which produces and sustains ir-responsibility in matters of purchasing and budgeting. He who has vowed poverty expects and in fact receives everything from his community without for the most part having to experience the price of things directly. These are serious lacunae. They indicate that we have neglected to face up to this objective and fundamental problem: that of work and remuneration or, to put it another way, that of the exchange of specified services. A child can expect everything from his parents; but an adult, if he is to avoid falling into infantilism, cannot expect unlimited services without asking himself the question of reciprocity and remuneration, the question of ,paying back. Money, in this sense, is not seen in a sinister light. It is a precise and very respectable in-strument of adult behavior. A poverty which would keep the religious on the outside of financial problems would be quite vain and perhaps even ambiguous, especially if it were based on a contempt for money. Poverty at times gives rise to another inconvenience. It consists in asking one's superior or his or her delegate ~A psychoanalyst asks this question: "How can we speak about the affectivity of someone who has put himself in a position where he will not be affected by anything or anybody?" Even though his question does not correspond exactly to the reality of the situation it does serve to focus our attention on still another aspect, that of the celibate consecrated to God who is not dependent upon a loved one--husband or wife--who might eventually betray him. .4, E~istence and the Vows Edouard pou'sset, . Sd. REVIEW ~FOR REI.IGIO~J~ :224 .fbr; everything and a bond of dependence is thereby created: poverty of dependence. If this dependence is strict and experienced down to every detail and for things insignificant in themselves it can result in a minuteness and a niggardliness entirely opposed to gpiritual freedom. To be able to pay for what one finds pleasing or what answers .a need favors a certain autonomy of the person which is in line with the human order of things. Close dependence on this point with regards to another can conceal a repressed and petty enviousness completely lacking in dignity.1° As regards the vow of obedience it too, as in the case of chastity, reaches the person at the heart of his human 'existence. Some, dreaming of a fraternal society with-out a "father," do not understand that a human being cannot become himself and assert himself without a relationship of authority. Such people look upon the vow of obedience as one of the most inhuman of aber-rations. But even when One admits the necessity of authority and of interior asceticism for converting instinctive drives, the vow of obedience, inasmuch as it pushea this asceticism to the very renunciation of one's own will, will seem to go too far and fall,, by excess, into something inhuman. Such a person will be unable to see that the sacrifice of one's will makes us die so ag 'to be reborn to the will of God, to the will to at-tain the kingdom of love where each one is truly him-self, above and beyond that which he might want very much. But if the secret of this death and resurrection is not clearly seen it is because it is something difficult to live. Because of their deficiencies religious are fre-quently the cause of the objections formulated against 'their way of life. It is so difficult to live freely accord-in~ g to the spirit of the kingdom of God in complete renunciation of one's own willl It is so very difficult to 'die to self so as to be rebornl Quite a few of those whb have made the vow adopt a middle-of-the-road solution~ which lacks both human and religious truth-fulness. Some, in fact, take their obedience lightly and .SO put themselves in a false situation. Others enter ¯ materially into the behavior required by obedience or tolerate a type of guardianship and even at times con-. form themselves to the will of superiors but without being able to renounce in depth their own will and judgment. This is not what is meant by dying so as to rise again. Rather ~hey live in a state of subjection which only frustrates them. It happens that the per-sonality is more or less stifled--only a moulage is left-- 1°This is perhaps more evident in communities of religious women. ~nd if at times iio bitt~tlless is felt ~of6 often thatt not the religious harbors secret resentments. Are the vows for or against mah? On the factual level the reply to this question is not all that evident. And this very situation favors the opinion of those who consider it hazardous or prejudicial to go against the fundamental dynamisms of human existence so completely. Living the Vows As impressive as the obj.ections are which one can raise against the vows, the strength and clarity of the gospel' call do not allow us to put into question the consecration to God by chastity, poverty, and obedience. In addition, the experience of those who are living the vows does not in any way lead them to think-- except perhaps in a moment of crisis or prolonged de-pression- that they are on a dead-end street even if in terms of human or spiritual success they still have much ground to cover. They see only too well the difficulties and even the risks involved in the religious life but they do not experience them as dangers ~rom which there is no escape or as barriers thrown up along their path. Many, by far the majority, are convinced that they were not deceived by the youthful eagerness of their early years in religion and the spontaneous joy of their first gift to God. But let us consider those religious men and women who have not yet attained the heights of perfection and who have not yet penetrated into the mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ. These religious know and feel that their vows have made them men and women with hearts full of love and wills that are free. They are frank and honest in their way of thinking as they go about converting all the relation-ships which constitute their human existence in society. What type of life do they lead? In our communities many attain a fundamental ad-hesion to the will of God, one which frees them from whatever tends to imprison their human intelligence and will. They owe this freedom to their obedience. In their superior they find a presence which helps them to see clearly. On their part they reflect and explain their reasons to him and his agreement confirms them in truth. If it is "no"--and they are ready to hear and accept this "no" without bitterness---they see themselves as being caught up in the search for a truth which is, for the time being, still beyond them, one free of self, of self-affirmation, self-seeking, self-interest. They know that they are no better than anyone else; to some degree their desire for power is still a factor to be reckoned ÷ ÷ ÷ Ethx~i sote Vnocwe s~and .'. " VOLUME 29, 1970. :.:., Edot~rd Pmuwt, SJ. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS with and their zeal, as generous as it is, still runs the risk of being warped by an instinct to possess and to take pleasure in things for themselves. This instinct is, in their eyes, a devouring weed even if it does not spread into everything they do. They do not dramatize their situation though they know that the most contra-dictory conceptions of the world and the most ruinous enterprises take root in this very desire for power and in this appetite for enjoyment. By allowing themselves to be converted by obedience they further the canse of peace and unity among men before God. For them to obey is to enter into the action of the all.powerful Master who renounced His power to the point of be-coming a slave and once a slave He did not attach Him-self to existence, as is ordinary in the case of a servile being, but rather accepted death through obedi-ence. This two-fold action is reciprocal as well: the God who becomes human uproots all desire for power of the "master" in us who wants to impose himself, and the man who is God frees the slave (ourselves) from his subservient attachment to life and enjoy-ment. Whether it is a question of moderating their tendency to dominate a discussion and so fall in line with the superior's will or not treating themselves to a cool drink on a hot day these religious are allowing them-selves to be transformed by this double and reciprocal action of God made man which is, in act, the salvation of the world. This is hard and mortifying on certain days, though their sacrifices are not without their hu-morous side, and as they are thereby reborn they are also called to die a little. Christ said that "my food is to do the will of the one who sent me" (Jn 4:34). It is a joy which nourishes us with the feeling that we are participating in a day to day way in the very mystery of the Son of God and in His lifel At times we protest against this obedience of judg-ment and yet it is this very obedience which com-pletely converts the relationship of force and inequality which, in all authority, exists between the leader and his companions. By this obedience they share the joy of serving the same Lord together, in a friendship which draws them close to each other and makes them equal. But as long as the judgments of the superior and his brother religious have not become as one--the su-perior accepting an attentive exchange with the religious and the latter in turn making known his reasons only so that he might better enter into a plan which may not, at the outset, be his own--a relationship of domination and submission persists. The decision reached under these conditions will be one in which the religious who obeys will be changed by the will of the ~superior. but his own judgment will remain outside their re: lationship. If, on the contrary, he is able to share the. judgment of his superior, all trace of submission ,dis-appears, leaving place for the communion of the two in truth as they both see it: a communion in joy and friendship. Obedience does not always lead to this, friendship and joy which are the ultimate truth of all authority, but there are those who experience it in their communities or in their .small apostolic groups. Others are still looking for .and hoping to attain this "friendship which draws close . " It is quite, true that those in authority who are narrow and .who do. not. possess all the necessary qualities continue to create. situations which we would hope never to see agkin in, religious life; but the sufferings of those who put up with these situations in no way cancel out this joy and hope for even there where no solution is apparent the mystery of the Master become a slave who ac-~ cepted death carries on its work of life. To die so as to be reborn: that is the mystery of. obedience. It is also the mystery of poverty. The poverty of the Gospels is a prophetic call inasmuch as it is set down as an absolute requirement for .entrance into the kingdom of God. The statements concerning it are uncompromising, categoric; they, too, are but a part of an incarnation which liberates. At first glance this call does not appear to take into consideration. the building up of this world by man who must con-tinue the work of creation. Immediate, material poverty, the literal conformity to the call of the Gospels: "Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor., then come, follow me" (Mt 19:21) will quickly knock the supports out from under those who hold to some archaic fantasy or to a form of parasitism in this regard. When he vows poverty man does not thereby escape from the conditions of a creature who has needs. If he did he would become the parasite of those who possess because they work in lucrative enterprises. Perhaps he, too, would work, but in a gratuitous way by devoting himself to an activity which would not assure the satisfaction of his vital needs. Even if the work he is doing is being done out of his concern for the kingdom of God, the. fact remains that he would not be earning his livelihood; he would have to have some-one richer near at hand so as to be able. to live in his poverty. There are those among us today who have eXperi-enced the scandal of rich religious institutes or at least of institutes whose poverty is not meaningful for our times. These religious have heard the call of the Gospels 4, Existence'. Und ,.~ VOLUME !29,, 1970 :,.;~ ' 227 REVIEW POR RELIGIOUS aga~ln but they want neither fantasy nor parasitism. They feel that there is a disinterestedness with regards to the problem of money which can be a misunder-standing of precise human obligations. They have con-formed to "Go and sell what you own" but they are also clearly aware of the content of ". then come, follow me." For them to follow Jesus in poverty is to set out on a road of patience along which one takes into consideration the conditions to which he is sub-jected by his nature as a being who has needs. If they are to follow Jesus they must first submit with dis-cernment to the economic laws of their own historical context, .a context which can and does change. By their personal renunciation--"go and sell what you own"--they are in a way prophets as was the Messiah who had no place to lay His head. By humbly accepting to bear with the machinery of an economic system they are being faithful to Jesus who lived among men. And if this system should oblige them, if not to be owners at least to enjoy social rights and to receive benefits due them because of these rights, they accept--not re-luctantly, as if it were a crack in their wall of poverty, but willingly, recognizing in this the concrete form of their condition as men. Inserted in social structures which do not allow them to be, to the letter, "the beggars of Jesus Christ"--and, in point of fact, the parasites of others--they live poverty according to their own times by submitting to a precise system of economic exchanges where rights and benefits have as their coun-terpart services to be rendered and services actually rendered, all carefully defined. And yet they still feel free to serve over and above what is required of them, gratuitously, without counting the cost. Gratuitouslyl And it is at this point that they feel they are in a way prophets of their times because eco-nomic activity and its apparent and unrelenting law of "nothing for nothing" needs gratuitousness: The practice of gratuitousness is an everyday happening. In order to extend industrial production it is essential that dis-interested activities create a flow of applicable inventions and innovations and that the market be surrounded by a network of hopes and expectations (Father Perroux). Poverty is not a technique for resolving the contra-dictions of the economic society so as to assure its good functioning. Nevertheless, the poor religious does not feel himself to be unimportant in this society. His poverty, which contradicts the spirit of profit-at-all-cost and outdistances the rigidity of "nothing for noth-ing" is, in fact, in step with the society in which he is moving. Finally, the religious discovers that it is society which allows him to have access to the kingdom of God and in addition enables him to make the world his own. Because he does not possess things as does someone who owns an original oil painting by a famous artist and valued at a considerable amount of money his poverty frees him to see, hear, touch, taste, feel, in a word "make his own" the universe of things and beings just as a free and cultured man makes his own the work of art he goes to contemplate as connoisseur in a museum where it is for everyone. Poverty creates a new rela-tionship with things. The detachment it entails creates an availability for disposing of the world according to what it is, according to its beauty rather than its mere immediate utility. In this way the poor man pos-sesses the earthl Obedience and poverty liberate man but it is chastity which allows him to taste supreme freedom. Whoever has converted desire within himself loves God for God. This love satisfies within him the need which every creature feels because of the very way he is consti-tuted, but from this moment on what was carnal desire is now ardent adoration. He loves others as he loves God and this is why his choice can be shared among many without being, divided. The vow of chastity is the vow of friendship and love. There are many men and women among us who are not yet Francis of Assisis or St. Clares who know this to be true. They have known the joy of their initial eagerness and of their first gift. There was someone sleeping deep within them whom the Lord awoke. Springtime of lovel Then they entered religious life and discovered the weight of institutions and the ordinariness of daily life. It was no longer spring, but the love they had for Jesus Christ, rehewed each day, strengthened the delicate fragility of their youth. They grew strong and re-mained young. For them--for each one of us--the first step on the road of love was the break with the world. The love of God does not admit of a sharing and so they began by giving up many things. Some will perhaps speak of frustrated affections and sexual difficulties which can re-sult but these are but mishaps along the road. Men and women anxious to give themselves entirely to God do not look upon them as irremediable. To give up a human love for the Lord implies that one accepts to be momentarily "off balance" but this is part of human nature. They accepted this; this was their first authentic gift of faith. A second step followed this which was the Lord's doing. They were chiefly responsible for the first step ÷ ÷ + VOLUME 2% 1970 229 ÷ ÷ Ed6uard Pousset, " $.1. REVIEW!FOR.RELIGIOUS when they answered His call and actively committed themselves. In this second step it was the Lord who worked ~leep within them and detached them so as to attach them to Himself. They may have met others and discovered human love along the way. This is their secret. At. the point they had reached there was a great danger that the seduction of this human love might win out over their attachment to the Lord which was not yet fully rooted in their being. They alone can appreciate the sacrifice they had to make but one thing is certain: they grew because of it. At this same stage in their ,lives they also knew what fraternal life could offer: emulation in things spiritual, intellectual, and apostolic built strong friendships among them. which the passing years have not wiped away. They still have much to discover, much progress remains to be made, btit these friendships have enabled them to understand that there are not two loves, the love of God and the love of creatures, but only one. No one who has heard a simple word spoken by a friend which opened his heart and brought him in contact with God's love will ever be able to doubt again that this is so. There are not two loves. Love and freedom--that is the resurrection whose price is the renunciation spoken of in the Gospels and as it is practiced by the vows. But many reading these lines will ask themselves: where do I figure in this? Am I the one just described? Yes, you are there along with the others, but in religious life as in life in general there are stages and they are lived one after the other once one has a strong hold on what is essential. It is difficult, certainly, inasmuch as today community life which is the fruit of what is essential as well as the means of living it is something we are still attempt-ing to pin down. But the fact that we are still seeking cannot leave us in doubt as to the essential: to die and to be resurrected. The following experience invites us in a very simple way to self-forgetfulness: Community life is so "up-in-the-air" at this time that one doesn't really know what to say about it. From my own experi-ence I feel that the real benefit of living a vowed life in com-munity has been a difficult but rewarding school of self-forget-fulness. ,When this seed is planted and when it finds the soil healthy and productive (that is, a living, fraternal community) the vows enable us to develop and unfold with no danger of repression. Don't many of the problems we face today stem from the fact that we forget' the essential "virtues" common to any life in society, to any life lived in common? We neglect them because other things said to be more important have been given priority: dialogue, responsibility, "adult" religious life. . And so we set.aside the small favor done with a smile, the concern of making conversation at table interesting for the one next to us, in a word, a good disposition, and an ease, nothing more, which we all need. I may be tklking too down-to-earth here but it does seem to me that we can fool ourselves so easily. The vows are like a delicate flower which will not give forth it.s full bloom unless the sap runs into the stem and the stem is rooted in good soil. From the very first step we take in religious life until such time as we reach the summits it is always a ques-tion of this unique mystery: to die and to be resurrected. But the more we advance the more the question be-comes more precise and insistent: how do we die and how are we resurrected? I will attempt to tie to-gether the ends of everything said so far so as to focus on this one question. What I have to say doubtlessly presulSposes that a certain amount of ground has been covered. Nevertheless the question and the reply can be understood by each one according to the point he has reached. In the spiritual life there isn't a time for "more practical virtues" and a time for "more radical experiences"; those making their way through the former need, at times, the enlightenment provided by the latter--even if they are not exactly their own experi-ences-- and the latter still need the former as well. To Die and to Be Resurrected Religious life, as in the case of marriage though in a different way, enables us to discover litde by little that we must die. Chastity is mortifying as are poverty and obedience. When with the experience gained over the years the religious comes to feel to what extent his state in life dooms him to die the real danger, the only one for him, is not to know how to die or not to be able to die sufficiently. The resurrection comes only through death and no one is resurrected until and un-less he dies. Even though the religious committed him-self freely to this way of renunciation the death he must undergo does not depend on his good will. This impossibility for a man of good will to die to himself in Jesus Christ is at one and the same rime the problem and the key to that problem. It is the problem in that the price of the resurrection is death and if this death is impossible for him he is not resur-rected and his vows place him in the dangers men-cloned above. It is also the key to the problem in that the impossibility experienced in dying to self, namely to change and convert oneself so as to live the perfec-tion of the gospel message, is the basic condition for decisive progress along the road which leads to death and resurrection in Jesus Christ. Christ said this very clearly to His Disciples who, disturbed and confused by His teaching on poverty, asked Him: "In that case. who can be saved?" And he replied: "For men it is + + + fMaence and th~ Edouard Pousset, REVIEW FO, R.R~L~GIOUS impossible., but not for God, because everything is possible to God" (Mk 10:27). The question, then, is not to know if the vows are practicable or not. In all their strictness they are not. Nor is it whether there might not be a risk of "dehumanizing" man. The vows do, in fact, 'admit of this risk. The only question is to know if once one has reached the realization that he is unable .to live the perfection of the gospel message the Christian consecrated to God by vows is going to allow himself to be taken by his Lord, to die in Him so as to be resurrected with Him. Or better still, the question is to know how this can be accomplished. First of all, to reach this realization that "for men it is impossible" indicates that one has follov~ed Ghrist for a long time and sought to imitate Him with all the zeal and generosity which said "yes" without reserva-tion to His call. It is here that the importance of a certain inner asceticism is evident even if this asceticism is not, in itself, decisive. Many do not enter seriously ¯ into the paths of union with the God who is responsi-ble for their death and resurrection because they have not been energetic enough with themselves. This asceticism will mortify the desire to dominate and to possess which troubles the living sources of our nature. But there is more to it than this. Because of the religious state itself, these living sources are contradicted by the very fact that the vows impose a renunciation on vital poir~ts. But by itself this asceticism will not result in ~forgetfulness of self or humility; by itself thi~ renuncia-tion .will, not assure us of a peaceful balance nor will .it bring about the joy of being resurrected with Christ in this world. What the religious seeks actively by asceticism and renunciation can only be received as a gratuitozts gift. For of themselves neither asceticism nor renunciation through the practice of the vows make us die sufficiently. What we can learn from them and .what is their most authentic contribution is the ad- .mission that the perfection of the gospel message is im-possible. But before this precious fruit of the spiritual life has .matured by long experience the religious is exposed to certain serious errors along the road on which he so generously set out. If he remains negligent, not meas-uring sufficiently the importance of asceticism and what his vows require or, more correctly, what the Lord requires of him, it is evident that he will never die to self. Nor will he do so if he goes ahead courageously along a road of voluntary self-denial. At least it will .not be because of his courage. In the first instance he runs the risk of practising an abnegation which is on a merely human level and in addition there is the danger of falling into a voluntariness which is always in-operative when it is a question of killing our own will, our ego, that desire so essential to us of loving and be-ing loved,ix An abnegation which stems too unilaterally from man's good will and courage runs the risk of end-ing up in a violent forcing of the will by a suppression of desire. In addition to all these reasons find to many others weakness or, on the contrary, poorly guided energy can slip quickly into all the complications which accompany a mishandled psyche: The years pass and it happens that a kind of spiritual heaviness settles in and the beginnings which were so full of promise empty out in insignificance. Little by little the feeling of a half-failure or an incurable mediocrity spread through one who so generously gave himself to God. Then he reaches the critical hour of possible discouragement or of "wisdom" which, from then on, will keep him on a "good middle course." Most fatal of temptationsl But it can also be the hour of setting out anew, the hour of a "second conversion," for it is then that he fully realizes from personal experience that he is unable to convert himself, he is unable to die so as to be resurrected. This, then, is the hour of gracel The need to die remains but now we understand that the only way we can die is by God's hand. We must die on the cross and it is .Jesus Christ who carries the cross and who dies upon it. It is in Him and by the same death that we must die. Strictly speaking this is not the result of asceticism or voluntary abnegation. When it is a ques-tion of asceticism and self-imposed abnegation, our capacities are limited; they offer no solution other than the personal determination of going against our-selves. They are necessary, certainly, but we know how difficult it is for us to practice them with faith and good sense without a giving in on the part of some or a voluntariness on the part of others. The death out of which we are reborn implies the passivity of the creature under God's hand, and this is very different from an ascetical effort and quite the opposite of psychological depressions. God takes it upon Himself to have us live this passivity by means of the trials of existence but there are a thousand and ¯ one way~ of taking the trials of hfe poorly~ and there is very little chance that one look upon them and ac-cept them with peace of soul. If one has not [so disposed himself well in advance it is very difficult io keep the n It is important not to forget that in killing our own will and desire we do so for a very precise purpose: so as to be r~surrected and not so as to destroy them. Existence and the Vows VOLUME 29, 1970 $4. REVIEW FOR REI.IGIOUS kingdom and this death which leads to resurrection always in mind. What disposes to this passivity in faith is the realization we experience that the perfection of the gospel message is impossible for men. Coupled with this awareness is prayer.12 The cross which brings about our death is not within the reach of our initiative; prayer is. Prayer is both to take and not to take the initiative. Experience, as painful as it is beneficial, of our radical incapacity to imitate Christ in His chastity, His poverty and His obedience bears fruit in patience and simplicity, In this climate prayer leads us to union with Jesus Christ carrying His cross; it establishes us in Him and makes us die His death. He who prays in the peaceful admission of his weak-heSS is no longer he who lives, it is Christ who lives, dies, and is resurrected in him. First, it is Jesus Christ who lives in him--not yet in the fullness of transforming union which is the full par-ticipation in His resurrection but by a loving adhesion of the creature to his Creator and Lord by whom he is encouraged and sustained as he progresses. This loving adhesion reproduces in each one the experience of those who, in the history of Israel and later those who gathered around Jesus, attached themselves with all their force to the Lord. It is not yet the resurrec-tion; it is the life shared with the Lord made man along a road leading to the cross. At the price of this shared life the disciple, by a direct experience, enters into the mystery of his relationship of creature to Creator. Plung-ing himself in prayer and patience he hears the word of God as if it were being spoken to him: "In these words the Lord spoke to Jacob whom he created and to the Israel whom he himself fashioned: Do not be afraid; I have paid for you, I have called you by your name, you belong to me" (Is 42:1). Prayer not only enables us to realize that we are creatures, it also brings us in contact with the Lord as Beloved. There are those who know the Lord through the intermediary of people or books and there are those who have met him in another way, having been found by Him. They allowed themselves to be taken and from then on they belong to Him. The love of Jesus Christ penetrates into all the zones of personal-ity, intelligence, will, affectivity; and one day or an-other they understand that this love has become the X~Not just any form of prayer but certainly not discursive medi-tation which is still much too "active"; rather a very simple, loving prayer such as I have described elsewhere ("Pri~re perdue, pri~re retrouv~e," Vie consacrde, 1968, pp. 148-64). This form of prayer is possible only to someone who has at least begun to realize that the life of the Gospels is impossible for man. ver,y substance of their .being. They feel sure that the objections raised against their vow of chastity have little by little lost all their force as far as they are cdncerned. This universal availability which some will claim does not bind them to anyone in particular is, in f~ct, a. passionate adhesion to Someone. There is, they realize, no risk of being deceived or betrayed by this Someone and yet in spite of the certainty of their relationship with Him they .do not feel "settled in." The love of God is to .be created every dayl God is someone who has his views and his ways of doing things ~nd this sbmetimes adds a note of the unexpected to life. Those, then, who allowed themselves to be taken by Him do not have the feeling of "having been put i.n a position where nothing and no one will affect them." Having grown used to God a day comes when, in a silence which fulfills them, they sense the first signs of transforming union. This feeling of Presence which is not so much felt as it is experienced as something beyond all doubt is the beginning of this death and resurrection as they are lived conjointly, one within the other. For they know--and 'they live it in very precise encounters--that life with the Lord leads them to His' cross and on to the joy of rising with Him as well. This death of Jesus Christ in which baptism plunged them sadramentally now becomes their very existence. It is at this moment that they die to their immediate desire to love and be loved, to .their fleed to possess, and to their own will. What neither voluntary abnegation' nor interior asceticism--ivhich they prac-tice continually--could do, loving prayer accomplishes within them. They are in the morld, dead to the world, to themselves, and to others, and yet in direct propor-tion to this death they "are renewed, resurrected by an intense presence to the world through service, friendship, and love: I shall give you a new heart, and put a new spirit in you; I shall remove the heart of stond from your bodies and give you a heart of flesh instead. I shall put my spirit in you, and make you keep my laws and,. sincerely respect my observances (Ez 36: 26-7). Resurrection The vocation of those who have embraced chastity, poverty, and Obedience is to anticipate the resurrection here in this world. It is likewise the destiny personally pro-posed to all. Let those accept it who canl Dead and resurrected, the religious--and every Chris-tian as well "to whom it is granted" (Mt 19:11) by God-- receives the outpouring oi universal charity. The Lord first .became for him the Beloved who introduces him ÷ + ÷ Existence and VOLUME Zg, 1970 by faith into the secret of an intimacy which is his joy. He has heard the word of the Psalm: "Listen, daughter, pay careful attention; forget your nation and your an-cestral home" (Ps 45:11). He listened and the Lord spoke to his heart: "I have loved you with an everlasting love and so I am constant in my affection for you. I build you once more; you shall be rebuilt, virgin of Israel" (Jr His joy is not his joy, it is God's joy; and he can in-crease it merely by allowing himself to be loved and filled. From that moment on the promise of God is no longer a promise: "I shall be their God and they shall be my people"; x3 it is a present reality: "I am my Be-loved's and my Beloved is mine" (Sg 6:3). The others, according to the diversities of divine grace, become his beloved as well.x4 The religious loves them dearly. The friendship which he vows them is no longer something in addition to his love for God; it tends, at least, towards total unification with this love. These others are not enveloped as it were in a universal charity which would deny them any particular atten-tion. He loves them all and he loves each one for what he is. He does not love Peter and John in the same way. And it is only fitting that God placed this preference for one or another in our hearts. Because of this exceptional grace he reaches almost without effort the end he hoped for and worked so hard to attain. In one and the same act he loves his unique Savior and the creature who truly becomes for him the sacrament of the presence of God. He was obliged to live his consecration to God in renouncing human affections because, in fact, his heart was divided. From now on he lives only one love and it seems to him that he understands the friendship of Ignatius for Xavier, of Francis of Assisi for Clare, of Bernard for William. He does not need someone to tell him this marvelous story; it has become the story of his own life. He is poor and yet he possesses the earth. He no longer has his own will and yet God Himself does what-ever he requests: "If you ask for anything in my name, + + + Edot~ard Pousset, $.1. REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS ~ This phrase is found throughout the Old Testament. u Friendships and human affections can and do exist in those who are consecrated to God by the vows but have not as yet reached that intimate knowledge of Love. Ordinarily these commitments are not very profound and this is for the better for as long as the heart is, in fact, divided between God and creatures. There are other friendships and human affections which are, however, quite differ-ent from those just described. I am speaking of those which have God Himself as their initiative: those where He has made Himself the principle, the bond, and the end. These presuppose the intimate knowledge of Love and they take possession of the whole heart so that there is no division whatsoever between God and creatures. ][ will do it" (Jn 14:14). He seeks only the kingdom of God and yet everything else is given to him over and above this. At this stage joy and the cross are lived as one. He does not talk about it because he knows that he can hardly explain it to himself. Some will see only his suffering; others will not see beyond his surprising free-dom. But his hope knows no limits; he does not see that what he has been given gratuitously should not be given to all. He reveals his secret without telling it: it is to have believed. I do have faith, Lord. Help the little faith I havel 4. 4. 4. £~ten~e and VOLUME 29, 1970 237 cYRIL VOLLERT, S.J. The Interplay of Prayer and Action in Teilhard de Chardin ÷ ÷ ÷ Cyril Vollert, S.J., is a professor of theolob, y at Mar-quette University; Milwaukee,. Wis-consin 53233. REVIEW,FOR RELIGIOUS The theme underlying Teilhard de Chardin's ideas concerning the interplay between prayer and action is well stated in his essay, "The Heart of the Problem." a He wonders why Christianity, with its tremendous power to attract, is not more successful in the modern world. Not only have energetic missionary efforts in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere produced meager results, but the great masses of workers over the earth, as well as most scientists, have found little to interest them in the Church. Teilhard believes that he knows the answer. Any at-tempt at solution must take into account the changes that have marked men's thinking for over a hundred years. We now know that the universe is not static; our cosmos is a cosmogenesis. And man himself is involved in the evolutionary process; mankind is an anthropogenesis. Man is still being shaped, and the human race is heading toward social unification. In the past, religion has sought to perfect man by directing him upward, toward God, and has been little concerned with purely human prog-ress. But men of our time are convinced that they can complete themselves by moving forward. So the vital question is this: is the salvation of man to be achieved by looking above or by looking ahead---or by both to-gether? Failure to face this question squarely results in religious apathy. Teilhard proposes to face it. Why should anyone wish to choose between the Up-ward and the Forward? Teilhard contends that we must not make any such choice. We must combine the two 1 In The Future o] Man (New York: Harper and Row, 1964), pp. 260-69. movements. If Christianity were to ignore the new aspira-tions of mankind, it could not hold its own adherents, much less win over the unconverted. Without human faith and love, Christianity is cold and unattractive to contemporary man. The Christian faith must be intensely interested in the values of the world and of matter, for the simple reason that it is rooted in the Incarnation. In pre-evolutionary ages, Christianity perhaps assigned too subordinate a function to man and the earth. But just as the Incar-nation did not take place until our planet was socially, politically, and psychologically ready for Christ, so now, in the evolutionary perspectives opening up before us, we can see that the kingdom of God will not come until mankind in its anthropogenesis has reached collective maturity. The supernaturalizing Christian Upward must be incorporated into the human Forward. In this way faith in God will recover all its power to attract and convert, for we can believe wholly in God and in the world. We can do this because Christ, Savior and Re-deemer, is carrying evolution both forward and upward to its final goal. Teilhard thoroughly believed in his own program and, while stir a young man, consecrated himself to it: As far as I can, because I am a priest, I would henceforth be the first to become aware of what the world loves, pursues, suffers. I would be the first to seek, to sympathize, to toil; the first in self-fulfilment, the first in self-denial. For the sake of the world I would be more widely human in my sympathies and more nobly terrestrial in my ambitions than any of the world's servants. That is why I have clothed my vows and my priesthood (and it is this that gives me my strength and my happiness) in a determination to accept and to divinize the powers of the earth? Christians have different but complementary voca-tions; they devote themselves in varying degrees of in-tensity to action or to prayer or to both together. God's call, which Teilhard likens to the star of the Magi, "leads each man differently, by a different path, in accord with his vocation. But all the paths which it indicates have this in common: that they lead always upward." a The world, too, has its vocation; it is destined to attain its perfection in the fullness of the incarnate Word, in the cosmic Christ. Teilhard's own vocation was manifested in two truths which God had let him see: the universality of God's magnetism and the intrinsic value of man's undertakings. He was eager to spread far and wide a knowledge of these two truths. And so, on the day after ~Hymn o] the Universe (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), p. 128. 8 The Divine Milieu (New York: Harper, 1960), p. 120. + Prayer and Action VOLUME 29, 1970. 239 ÷ ÷ ÷ Cydl Voll~t, $.]: REVIEW FOR RELIGIOUS 2,4O his final religious profession, in a meditation on his priesthood, he offered his life to God: "And I, Lord God for my (very lowly) part, would wish to be the apostle --and, if I dare say so, the evangelist---of your Christ in the universe." ~ This he regarded as his "special vocation," and he was faithful to it to the day he died. Such a vocation is carried out in action. Teilhard in-sists that all Christians have the duty of building the earth. Even the increase of leisure, fostered by technical. progress, ought to be consecrated to research. Teilhard tried to show that human efforts to promote intellectual, technical, and social advances must bring about the nat-ural conditions of maturity necessary for establishing the kingdom of God. But the urge to action must be directed and sustained by prayer. The Christian must work; but he must Christianize his work. The supernatural con-summation of the world cannot be accomplished by merely natural powers; the world must be sanctified and supernaturalized.5 Therefore a life of prayer and con-templation has a high efficacy, indeed, a "creative power': for the world. Seeing the mystic immobile, crucified or rapt in prayer, some may perhaps think that his activity is in abeyance or has left this earth: they are mistaken. Nothing in the world is more intensely alive and active than purity and prayer, which hang like an unmoving light between the universe and God. Through their serene transparency flow the waves of creadve power, charged with natural virtue and with grace.° The health and integrity of the Church depend on the care exercised by its members in carrying out their functions, which range from worldly occupations to vocations that call for penance or the most sublime contemplation: "All those different roles are necessary." 7 Christians .who devote themselves to prayer have been singled out for the task of carrying the world above its concern for pleasure and enjoyment toward higher goals. They are like miners laboring in the depths of matter; or, to change the figure, they supply the air which their brothers need to breathe. Along with the sick and the suffering, they become "the most active agents in the very process that seems to sacrifice and crush them." s Purity (here understood as the rectitude brought into our lives by the love of God), faith, fidelity, charity, and hope must accompany the most earthly of our actions. But these virtues flower in contemplation ~ Hymn of the Universe, p. 151. s H. de Lubac, S.J., Teilhard de Chardin: The Man and His Mean-~ ing (New York: Hawthorn, 1965), pp. 123 f. O Hymn of the Universe, p. 154. ~ The Divine Milieu, p. 75. ~ L'energie humaine (Paris: Seuil, 1962), p. 64. which, in spite of its apparent immobility, is the highest and most intense form of life.9 In response to God's grace, which is "always on the alert to excite our first look and our first prayer," we are led "to posit intense and continual prayer at the origin of our invasion by the divine milieu, the prayer which begs for the fundamental gift: Lord, that I may see." On saying this, Teilhard at once utters his petition: Lord, we know and feel that You are everywhere around us; but it seems that there is a veil before our eyes. Let the light of Your countenance shine upon us in its universality. May Your deep brilliance light up the innermost parts of the massive obscurities in which we move. And, to that end, send us Your Spirit, whose flaming action alone can operate the birth and achievement of the great metamorphosis which sums up all inward perfection and towards which Your creation yearns: Send forth Your Spirit and they will be created, and You will renew the face of the earth?° Teilhard is quite cognizant of the prayer that is in-herent in the duties of a person's state of life. Such duties, faithfully and well performed, put us in contact with God: Let us ponder over this basic truth till we are steeped in it . God, at his most Vitally active and most incarnate, is not remote from us, wholly apart from the sphere of the tangible; on the contrary, at every moment he awaits us in the activity, the work to be done, which every moment brings. He is, in a sense, at the point of my pen, my pick, my paint-brush, my needle--and my heart and my thought. It is by carrying to its natural completion the stroke, the line, the stitch I am working on that I shall lay hold on that ultimate end towards which my will at its deepest levels tends.'~ However, in addition to the prayer that may be in-volved in our work, explicit prayer is indispensable if our action is to be effective for constructing the kingdom of God. Teilhard is very insistent on this truth. He pgints out that unless we maintain direct contact with God by prayer and the sacraments, "the tide of the di-vine omnipresence, and our perception of it, would weaken until all that was best in our human endeavor, without being entirely lost to the world, would be for us ~niptied of God." But if we safeguard our relation to .God who is encountered in prayer, "there is no need to [ear that the most banal, absorbing, or attractive of oc-cupations should force us to depart from Him." Be-cause of the creation of the universe by God, and par-ticularly in view of the Incarnation, "nothing here below is profane for those who know how to see." Teilhard strongly exhorts us: "Try, with God's help, to perceive ~ H. de Lubac, La pensde religieuse de Pdre Teilhard de Chardin (Paris: Aubier, 1962), p. 318. Io The Divine Milieu, pp. 111 [. v. Hymn oI the Universe, p. 83 f. ÷ ÷ ÷ VOLOME 29; 19~0 241 4- 4- 4- REVIEW, FOR ,RELI~IOU$ the connection-~even physical and natural--which binds your labor with the building of the Kingdom of Heaven." We should never do anything without realizing its constructive value in Christ, and pursuing it with all our might.12 In line with his perception of the harmony between faith and science, Teilhard endeavored to integrate his own prayer and his work. He became increasingly aware that he had to develop in himself and impart to others "the sort of mysticism that makes one seek passionately for God in the heart of every substance and every ac-tion." He saw dearly that "God alone, and no personal effort, can open our eyes to this light and preserve this vision in us." He well understood that the "science of divinizing life calls for the diligent co-operation of every form of activity . It needs the sacraments, and prayer, and the apostolate, and study." 18 If we wish the divine milieu to grow around us, we must steadfastly "guard and nourish all the forces of union, of desire, and of prayer that grace offers us." 1~ Success cannot crown so great an enterprise unless prayer issues in work: "I know that the divine will will only be revealed to me at each moment if I exert my-self to the utmost." 1, The Christian must preserve his union with God by prayer; but he must also respond to all the demands of grace: "To win for himself a little more of the creative energy, he tirelessly develops his thought, dil
Lærere er svært viktige for barns oppdragelse og sosialisering inn i samfunnet. De underviser og bedømmer våre fremtidige samfunnsborgere, og lærernes kompetanse, evner og ferdigheter har en klar effekt på barns skoleprestasjoner. Det har også vist seg at andre aspekter ved læreres undervisning, slik som læreres adferd, oppførsel og tro på egne ferdigheter har stor betydning for elevenes resultater. Nyutdannede lærere er ikke nødvendigvis sosialisert eller innordnet i skolens og profesjonens tradisjoner og vaner, men må likevel opprettholde profesjonelle standarder for lærerarbeid. Å rette oppmerksomheten mot nyutdannede lærere gir derfor en mulighet til å peke på hva som er spesielt for lærerprofesjonen. Gjennom mange år har lærere og lærerutdanning blitt viet mye oppmerksomhet, og lærerutdanning har blitt reformert og endret i mange land i den hensikt å bedre lærernes prestasjoner. At norske elever har prestert under gjennomsnittet og dårligere enn forventet på internasjonale sammenligninger, har gjort at oppmerksomheten mot lærernes kvalitet og kompetanse har blitt enda større. For lærerne sin del blir overgangen fra studier til arbeidsliv ofte gjenstand for kritikk. Forskning har vist at nyutdannede lærere er lite tilpasningsdyktige og regelstyrte i sin undervisning. Overgangen beskrives som vanskelig, til og med som et sjokk. Forskningsspørsmålet i denne avhandlingen er: Hva kjennetegner nyutdannede læreres tanker, handlinger, mestring og deres kunnskapsforståelse? Avhandlingen består av et innledende essay og fire artikler. Det teoretiske rammeverket i prosjektet er hentet fra profesjonssosiologiske teorier og det man med en samlebetegnelse kan kalle læringsteori. De profesjonssosiologiske tilnærmingene gir mulighet for sammenligninger på tvers av profesjoner. Felles for de profesjonssosiologiske tilnærmingene er at de ser profesjoner som kunnskapsbaserte yrker som utøver spesifikke oppgaver i det moderne samfunn. På bakgrunn av sine kunnskaper og vilje til å arbeide til fellesskapets beste er profesjonene gitt en stor grad av autonomi i sitt arbeid. Dette gjelder både den individuelle profesjonsutøver og profesjonen som helhet. Spørsmålet om hvordan profesjonsutøverne blir tilstrekkelig kvalifiserte for sitt arbeid er lite diskutert i profesjonssosiologien. Dette er derimot et kjernespørsmål i teorier om læring. Mange har diskutert forholdet mellom teori og praksis, overføring og rekontekstualisering av kunnskap, og forholdet mellom lærerutdanning og klasseromarbeidet. Mange av de læringsteoretiske tilnærmingene og den tidligere forskningen på lærere har mangler: metodologisk har de sjelden et design som gjør det mulig å kunne diskutere spørsmål omkring validitet og generaliserbarhet; de er sjelden longitudinelle og kan derfor ikke si noe om konkrete sammenhenger mellom lærerutdanning og arbeid i skolen; og de kan ofte karakteriseres som forskning på lærerutdanning fra innsiden av lærerutdanningen. I fire artikler går jeg derfor i dybden på fire mer konkrete forskningsspørsmål: 1. Hvordan opplever nyutdannede lærere sin autonomi, service‐orientering og profesjonskunnskap, og hva kan dette fortelle om lærerprofesjonen? 2. Hva kjennetegner nyutdannede læreres strategier for læring i arbeidslivet? 3. Hvordan vurderer nyutdannede lærere sin mestring, og hvordan er mestring relatert til samarbeid og støtte i arbeidslivet? 4. Hva vurderer nyutdannede lærere som viktig kunnskap for å lykkes som lærer, og hvordan vurderer de normative sider av lærerarbeidet? I alle de fire artiklene brukes begrepene fra profesjonssosiologien (kunnskap, autonomi og vilje til å jobbe til samfunnets beste) som analytiske begreper, og operasjonaliseres på forskjellige måter. Læringsteori og tidligere forskning på lærere brukes til å utvikle det analytiske rammeverket videre og diskutere funnene. Den metodiske fremgangsmåten er hovedsakelig bruk av forskjellige spørreskjemaundersøkelser. I artikkel 1 og 2 brukes StudData, som følger studenter fra ulike profesjonsutdanninger fra starten av utdanningen, gjennom utdanningen og ut i arbeidslivet. Dette gjør det mulig å koble utdanning og arbeidsliv empirisk. Nyutdannede lærere sammenlignes med nyutdannede sykepleiere (artikkel 1) og leger (artikkel 2). Sammenligningen gjør det mulig å diskutere de spesifikke trekkene ved lærerprofesjonen. I artikkel 3 og 4 brukes LU‐data, en spørreskjemaundersøkelse av lærerutdannere og lærere ved praksisskoler i lærerutdanningen. Lærerutdannere, nyutdannede lærere og erfarne lærere har blitt stilt de samme spørsmålene, og dette gjør det mulig å sammenligne gruppene. I tillegg er det benyttet data fra intervjuer og observasjoner i skolen i artikkel 3. Artikkel 1 heter Aspects of professionalism. Collective nursing–personalized teaching? I denne artikkelen diskuteres service‐orientering og profesjonskunnskap som grunnlaget for profesjonsutøvernes autonomi. Den empiriske undersøkelsen sammenligner sykepleier‐ og lærerprofesjonens autonomi, service‐orientering og profesjonskunnskap. Både lærere og sykepleiere kan beskrives som svært orienterte mot å hjelpe andre under studiene, og de får også i stor grad utløp for dette i sitt arbeid som nyutdannede. Nyutdannede lærere oppgir å ha mer kontroll over eget arbeid enn sykepleiere. Det argumenteres for at dette til en viss grad kan sees som uttrykk for forskjellen mellom skoler og sykehus som arbeidsplasser, men at svaret også kan finnes i utviklingen av sykepleie og læreryrket som profesjoner. Opplevelsen av en høy grad av autonomi hos den individuelle lærer kan også sees som et uttrykk for individualiseringen av lærerarbeidet, som er et trekk ved organiseringen av skolen som har blitt påpekt jevnlig i undersøkelser av læreres arbeid. Lærere holdes individuelt ansvarlig for sin egen faglige utvikling, og bruker i liten grad kollegaer som faglig støtte. Dette har man forsøkt å endre gjennom reformer og andre tiltak, men norske og internasjonale undersøkelser viser fortsatt at lærersamarbeid ofte foregår på en faglig lite forpliktende måte. I artikkelen kommer dette også til uttrykk i diskusjonen omkring kunnskap hos nyutdannede lærere og sykepleiere. I starten av utdanningen ser lærere fagkunnskap som lite viktig for profesjonsutøvelsen, og enda færre anser det som viktig mot slutten av utdanningen. Flere av sykepleiestudentene anser fagkunnskap som viktig i starten, og enda flere anser det som viktig mot slutten av studiene. Det diskuteres i artikkelen hvorvidt dette kan sies å gjenspeile en generell holdning til fagkunnskap i de to yrkene, og hvorvidt dette også kommer til uttrykk i artikkelens siste funn: mangelen på oppfølging av nyutdannede lærere i arbeidslivet. Mer enn 50 % av lærerne sier at de ikke har mottatt noen form for oppfølging som nyutdannede i skolen, mens kun 25 % av sykepleierne oppgir det samme. Lærere, i motsetning til sykepleiere, har heller ikke et lovpålagt krav om faglig utvikling og oppdatering. Forskning har også vist at lærernes profesjonsorganisasjoner har hatt en strategi der praksisbasert og personlig kunnskap har blitt vektlagt, i tillegg til å sikre en høy grad av autonomi over eget arbeid. Strategien har vært tilbakeskuende, i det at oppmerksomheten har vært rettet mot å gjenreise læreryrkets tidligere status og innflytelse. Artikkel 2 heter Teachers' learning activities in the workplace: How does education matter? Spørsmålet som undersøkes er hvilken rolle nyutdannede selv kan spille i sin egen profesjonelle utvikling, og hvor mye arbeidsplassfaktorer betyr. Tidligere forskning på læreres arbeidslivslæring har ikke kommet frem til klare resultater på hvilke faktorer som har betydning, og det undersøkes hvorvidt dette kan skyldes at individuell læringsorientering og utbytte fra lærerutdanningen har vært utelatt. Individuell læringsorientering kan også sees som noe lærerutdanningen kan være med på å påvirke og utvikle. Nyutdannede læreres læringsaktiviteter (hva de gjør når de trenger mer kunnskap for å løse krevende situasjoner) sammenlignes med nyutdannede legers. Betydningen av opplevde krav, kontroll og støtte fra kollegaer og ledelse på jobben sammenlignes med betydningen av studiestrategier under utdanningen og opplevd utbytte av utdanningen. Nyutdannede lærere er jevnt over mindre aktive enn nyutdannede leger, noe som kan tenkes å være uttrykk for både trekk ved arbeidet og arbeidets organisering, samt også en svakere kunnskapsorientering i lærerprofesjonen, slik det diskuteres i artikkel 1. Ved å ta inn studiestrategier i analysene blir modellene sterkt forbedret, noe som peker på at lærerutdanning kan spille en viktig rolle i å danne fremtidige lærere som er aktive kunnskapssøkere i sitt eget arbeid. Artikkel 3 heter Novice teachers and how they cope. Nyutdannede læreres møte med arbeidet som lærer i skolen beskrives ofte som en vanskelig opplevelse, og til og med som et sjokk. I artikkelen sammenlignes nyutdannede og erfarne læreres mestring av yrket ved hjelp av kvantitative og kvalitative data. En teoretisk modell for mestring av læreryrket utvikles og testes i artikkelen, og resultatene viser, i motsetning til hva man kunne forvente fra tidligere forskning, at nyutdannede og erfarne læreres mestring ikke skiller seg mye fra hverandre, og beskrivelsen av et sjokk støttes ikke. De detaljerte analysene viser at støtte fra kollegaer er viktig for både nyutdannede og erfarne, men viktigst for nyutdannede. Samarbeid med kollegaer, derimot, påvirket nyutdannede læreres mestring negativt, men erfarne læreres mestring positivt. I de kvalitative datakildene fremkom det at dette kunne være et resultat av nyutdannede læreres manglende evne til å uttrykke sine egne profesjonelle behov, og at dette gjør det stressende og vanskelig å involvere seg med kollegaer på en faglig forpliktende måte. Skoleledelsen var også viktigere for erfarne læreres mestring enn nyutdannedes. Samarbeid som ikke var faglig krevende eller forpliktende var mest vanlig. I artikkelens siste del drøftes det at når forholdet mellom utdanning og arbeidsliv ikke diskuteres skapes det forventninger om at nyutdannede skal være i stand til å gjøre det samme som sine erfarne kollegaer fra første stund. Dette kan også se ut til å være en forventning nyutdannede lærere i skolen møter. Artikkel 4 heter The valuation of knowledge and normative reflection in teacher qualification. A comparison of teacher educators, novice and experienced teachers. Lærerutdanningen beskrives ofte som i utakt med kravene som stilles i skolen. Nyutdannede og erfarne læreres vurdering av hva som er viktig kompetanse for lærere sammenlignes i artikkelen med lærerutdanneres vurdering. Læreres beslutninger er også formet av deres normative vurderinger. Gruppenes syn på et av de viktigste normative dilemmaene i skolen, inklusjon av elever med særskilte behov i ordinær undervisning, sammenlignes derfor også. Resultatene viser at lærerutdannerne hadde et noe mer positivt syn på inklusjon, men alle tre gruppene fremholdt at både fagkunnskap og praktiske ferdigheter var svært viktige for å være en god lærer. Det var altså få indikasjoner på utakt mellom lærere i skolen og lærerutdannere på disse spørsmålene, selv om noen forskjeller ble funnet. Nyutdannede lærere var noe likere sine erfarne kollegaer enn lærerutdannerne, noe som kan tyde på at de nyutdannede raskt er sosialisert inn i skolekulturen, eller at de aldri har vært like sine lærerutdannere. Lærerne i skolen var noe mer praktisk orientert og opptatt av å holde kontroll enn lærerutdannerne, som på sin side i større grad vektla å kunne begrunne sine valg og vurderinger, og læreplananalyse. Til tross for disse forskjellene er hovedinntrykket at beskrivelsen av lærerutdannerne som i utakt med den virkelige verden i skolen må nyanseres. Et viktigere spørsmål er hvorvidt lærerutdanningen bør være i takt med kravene i skolen på alle områder? I artikkelen diskuteres det om lærerutdanningen kan ha en viktig rolle ved å vektlegge områder og tema som lett blir skjøvet til side i en hektisk skolehverdag, og om endringer og reformer i skolen og lærerutdanning skjer på bakgrunn av forskningsutviklingen eller andre initiativ. Jeg argumenterer for at det viktige spørsmålet ikke er hvor store forskjellene mellom utdanning og arbeidsliv er, men hvilke forskjeller som er passende og hvilke som ikke er det. I alle fire artiklene diskuteres det om idealene som møter nyutdannede lærere er realistiske. Ideen om at en nyutdannet skal kunne gjøre alt det en erfaren lærer kan gjøre kan knyttes til et tradisjonelt bilde av læreren: Kunnskap sees som det eneste formålet med utdanningen, og moral og normative vurderinger knyttes til tradisjonelle forestillinger om dyd og kall. Hvis dette er forventningene nyutdannede møtes med, er det lett å finne bekreftelse på at lærerutdanningen er utilstrekkelig eller ute av takt. Dersom andre læreridealer gjøres gjeldende, vil også nye perspektiver på forholdet mellom utdanning og arbeidsliv, og på kvalifisering av lærere, bli mulige. De profesjonssosiologiske kjernebegrepene gir et rammeverk som gjør det mulig med komparative studier av profesjoner og dermed få frem de spesifikke trekkene ved læreryrket. I avhandlingen trekkes det frem at læreryrket kan se ut til å ha en svak kunnskapsorientering, og dette er igjen med på å undergrave de nyutdannede lærernes mulighet til å utføre sitt profesjonelle arbeid på et tilfredsstillende vis. De profesjonssosiologiske begrepene blir nyttige analytiske verktøy i studiet av lærerkvalifisering og lærerprofesjonen. Samtidig har profesjonssosiologien også sine klare begrensninger, fremfor alt i at forholdet mellom utdanning og arbeidsliv i liten grad er gjenstand for diskusjon. Læringsteorier utfordrer og kritiserer dette, og diskuterer hvordan ferdigheter for profesjonell yrkesutøvelse utvikler seg i forskjellige kontekster til forskjellige tider. I avhandlingen kan artikkel 2 trekkes frem som et spesielt tydelig, empirisk, eksempel på dette. Det longitudinelle designet gjør det mulig å undersøke den spesifikke påvirkningen fra lærerutdanningen, samtidig som arbeidsplassens betingelser for læring tas hensyn til. ; Teachers are among the main agents of socialisation and upbringing. They are the ones who teach, judge and evaluate the future citizens of our society, and their competence, abilities and skills affect the outcome and experience of an individual's education. Their behaviour and belief in their own abilities influences student performance. To learn more about how the teaching profession and teachers organize and develops their work, the spotlight is thrown at novice teachers. Novices are more clearly exposed to the specific characteristics of the organization and profession, as they are new and not necessarily socialized or aligned with the habits of the profession and organization, at the same time as they have to uphold professional standards. Research has indicated that novice teachers tend to adopt inflexible, rule‐based ways of teaching so as to cope with the uncertainty of their work. The meeting with work in schools is often characterised as troublesome or even as a shock. The main empirical research question in this thesis is: How do novice teachers think, act, cope and perceive knowledge? The thesis consists of an introductory essay and four papers. How novice teachers think, act, cope and perceive knowledge is seen as expressions of professionalism, and how professionalism is accommodated in teaching. Sociological approaches to professions and professionalism provide a comparative framework, and have in common the understanding that professions are knowledge‐based occupations that perform specific tasks in modern societies. Professionalism is seen as a normative‐value system, where professionals are granted autonomy to perform their work (individually and collectively) as they are competent performers with a will to use their competence for the common good. Professionalism is at the same time also an ideological tool, providing professions with opportunity to develop and strengthen their position (professionalism from within), but also using the arguments of professional standards and accountability to steer professions in certain directions in line with broader political trends and reforms (professionalism from above). Qualification (the development and acquisition of professional knowledge, skills and values, and the relationship between education and work in terms of preparing for specific tasks) is rarely discussed in sociological traditions. This is a key omission, given that education and professional knowledge is seen as the important vehicle for upholding a status as professions. In theories of professional learning, in which most research on teachers finds its theoretical framework, the nature of knowledge and learning is more frequently questioned, and different theoretical positions and metaphors have been used to frame the problems that novice teachers face. Some have referred to this issue as an encounter with the difference between theory and practice. Others have referred to the problems of transferring knowledge, or recontextualising knowledge, from teacher education to the classroom. Research has also suggested that teaching as a profession lacks a knowledge base that can support teachers in their work and provide teachers with the necessary tools. Although much research has been undertaken on novice teachers, and the research‐based knowledge has accumulated steadily, it has it has been pointed out that there is a need to address challenges in terms of validity and generalisability, and to approach teaching as a research subject with new theories and methodologies not inherent to teacher education. The main empirical research question of this thesis is analysed through four papers, addressing four more specific research questions: 1. How do novice teachers report on their self‐assessed levels of autonomy, service orientation and professional knowledge, and what can this tell us about characteristics of the teaching profession? 2. What characterises novice teachers' professional development strategies? 3. How do novice teachers' assess their own coping, and how is coping related to collaboration and support? 4. What do novice teachers perceive as important knowledge and how do they value the normative aspects of teachers' work? In paper 1 and 2, StudData is used, a survey following teacher students from the end of their education and into their first few years of work. This makes it possible to examine novices' situation and experiences, while also empirically linking together the education and the subsequent working career of the respondents. Teaching is compared to nursing (paper 1) and medicine (paper 2) in order to point out the specific characteristics of teaching as a profession. In paper 3 and 4 TeData is used, a survey of teacher educators and teachers in school. Teacher educators, novice teachers and experienced teachers are compared, making it possible to point out any differences or similarities between the groups. Interviews and observational data are also included in paper 3. Paper 1 is called Aspects of professionalism. Collective nursing—personalised teaching? The results showed that both teachers and nurses can be described as service‐oriented or other‐oriented during their studies, and both groups find opportunities to realise these other‐oriented values in their work. The results also showed that teachers have more control over their own work (i.e., technical autonomy) than do nurses. The paper argued that this result could be explained in part by the differences in work organisations (mostly hospitals versus schools) and in the development of teaching and nursing as independent professions. High technical autonomy could also be interpreted as being in line with the individualism that is typical in teaching, i.e. the teacher is held individually responsible for his or her own professional development, and seldom seeks advice from colleagues. This is partly due to the legacy of teacher work, which traditionally has been undertaken by one teacher in one classroom, reinforced by the architecture of schools. Although efforts have been made to change the way teacher work is organised, it is again and again pointed out that collaborative teacher work, however fruitful, is rare and often not undertaken in a binding way. Finally, the concept of professional knowledge, or expertise, in teaching and nursing was also discussed. Previous research has shown that teachers beginning their education place a low value on formal knowledge, and the percentage of students who value formal knowledge actually decreases during education. By contrast, nursing students placed a high value on theoretical knowledge at the start of their studies, and even more nurses deemed it important at the end of their studies. The paper suggested that this disparity reflects a general difference in the understanding of professional competence in teaching and nursing. This difference was also manifest in a systemic lack of follow‐up and professional training programmes for novice teachers. More than 50% of the teachers reported having received no systematic training during their first three years, whereas only 25% of the nurses reported the same. Unlike nursing, teaching has no statutory provision for CPD. The professional association of teachers has chosen a professional development strategy that emphasises practicebased and personal knowledge, as well as individual autonomy and individual decision making, and a restorative strategy that focuses on reinstating lost power and influence. Paper 2 is called Teachers' learning activities in the workplace: How does education matter? and focused on questions of professional knowledge and development. Novice teachers' role in their own professional development was examined and compared with workplace characteristics. How are variables describing autonomy and collegiality (support) related to what is referred to as knowledge strategies, i.e. what novices do when in need of additional knowledge to handle situations at work? Ambiguities and a lack of conclusive results in a specific line of research on teachers' learning are addressed. The models used by others were developed further, mainly by the inclusion of educational outcomes and study strategies during education. Novice teachers were shown to be overall less active than novice physicians in seeking out new knowledge, suggesting a difference in the professional knowledge culture. The inclusion of study strategies in the analyses of workplace learning substantially improved the explanation of workplace learning behaviour, also in the knowledge‐weak teaching profession. This points out a role for teacher education in terms of preparing teachers as knowledge seekers, and it also emphasises the effect of individual knowledge orientation that goes beyond professional boundaries. Paper 3 is called Novice teachers and how they cope. A novice teacher's first encounters with working as a teacher are often referred to as a shock or as a particularly troublesome experience. In this paper, novice teachers' ability to cope with their work was compared with that of more experienced teachers, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. A model for coping with teaching (measured as perceived self‐efficacy and teacher certainty) was developed. The most striking finding, contrary to common reports of a shock among novices, is that novice teachers do not differ much from their experienced colleagues in self‐efficacy, and have only slightly lower certainty. These small differences do not support an interpretation that novice teachers have extra low levels of coping, which is assumed to be implicit in the description of a shock. It may very well be that novice teachers experience the transition from education to work as stressful in the initial phases, but the effect seems to diminish rather fast. Collegial support, an important coping tool for experienced teachers, was found to be even more so for novice teachers. Collaboration with colleagues was found to decrease coping in novices but had a more positive effect among experienced teachers. The observations and interviews suggested that this might be because of the novices' lack of ability to express themselves professionally, which makes interaction with colleagues stressful. Superiors at the school seemed to become more important for coping as teachers gained experience. Lower commitment forms of teacher collaboration were also more common than forms demanding more involvement (such as deliberation on the consequences of teaching instead of just organising and sharing the workload). Newer contributions in learning theory have theoretically discussed and analysed the potential troubles when individuals cross the boundaries between the different contexts of education and work. The metaphor of a shock seems to rest on expectations that novice professionals should be able to perform their work as well as their more experienced colleagues, and neglect the fact that these troubles are an inherent part of the transition from education to work. They also implicitly suggest that problems are due to a teacher education that did not prepare them sufficiently. The responsibility of schools for introducing novices in an appropriate way should not be neglected, and the findings indicate that colleagues are an important factor in these processes. Again, as supported by the findings in paper 1, novice teachers seem to receive less attention than novices in other professions. Paper 4 is called The valuation of knowledge and normative reflection in teacher qualification, and is a comparison of teacher educators, novice and experienced teachers. As teachers' professional practice also is dependent upon normative judgement, the views of teacher educators and teachers on one of the important normative dilemmas in teaching — the inclusion or exclusion in classes of students with learning challenges — was compared, along with their understanding of what kind of knowledge and skills are important for working as a teacher. Surprisingly, and again contrary to common reports and beliefs, also within research on teaching, the differences between the groups on their understanding of what constitutes important knowledge in teaching were very small. The description of teacher education as being "out of step" with the real world of teaching should be nuanced. Furthermore, the often‐discussed tension between an academic discipline orientation and a practical occupational orientation was examined at an individual level, and the findings indicated that both teacher educators and teachers in schools saw both parts of the professional knowledge base as important. The clearest difference found was that teacher educators generally had a more positive view on inclusion than did novice teachers and experienced teachers. School teachers were somewhat more practically oriented and more concerned with keeping control in the classroom than were teacher educators, whereas teacher educators emphasised being able to give reasons for choices, actions and curriculum analyses. The discussion was framed by pointing out the tension between ideals and goals for teacher education set from the outside (such as the introduction of the Qualifications Frameworks) and the integrative purpose of teacher education in terms of developing academic knowledge, practical skills and ethical/normative judgment in the students. It was argued that the goals for teacher education should be set with such integration as a goal, not on transferability, compatibility, measurability and transparency primarily. Thus, the paper highlights an area where a battle between professionalism from within and professionalism from above might take place in the future, by pointing out the importance of setting the right goal for teacher education. ; Doctoral thesis without published articles
Glatfelter, Charles H.; Oral History Collection To read the transcript and access the audio/video (if available) of this interview at the same time, first download the pdf of the transcript by clicking on the link at the top of this screen. The transcript will open in a separate window. Next, select the or option to the right of the screen to access the media player. Special Collections & College Archives Musselman Library Interview with Michael Birkner Interviewer: Rebecca Duffy Interview Date: November 22, 2013 Interview with Michael Birkner Rebecca Duffy, November 22, 2013 1 Rebecca Duffy: [Today is November 22, 2013. I am Rebecca Duffy and I will be interviewing Professor Michael Birkner in Special Collections at Gettysburg College's Musselman Library.] We will start with you as a student here, so that we can get some insight. I think that's really special that we have an alumnus [that is so accessible] from the 1970s. You graduated in 1972? Michael Birkner: Yes. Duffy: Did you start here in 1968 and go straight through the four years? Birkner: Yes, I did. Duffy: You were a History major. Did you have any other majors or minors? Birkner: Actually, I was a back-ended History major. I was a Political Science major for three years and I intended to go into political journalism. That was my interest. I was always a politics junkie, so it was a natural for me to be interested in that. If you know anything about American History from 1968 to 1972, you know it was a very tumultuous time. Being interested in history as it was being made was particularly attractive to me. But by the time I was finishing my junior year as a student I looked back and thought about what I had done in Political Science and what I still had to do and I wasn't impressed by the coherence of the Political Science major. Specifically, I also had been avoiding a particular faculty member who was terrible and who taught a required course in International Affairs. I thought about it and I said [to myself], "I don't want to take this person's course just for the sake of getting a major that I'm not even convinced is worth having. So I went over to see Dr. [Charles] Glatfelter. I said to him, "I realize I am a second semester junior, but I think I would rather major in history. Is that possible?" [Pause] I don't want to make myself out to be special, but the people in the History department knew me and I had taken courses in history because I had liked history. They [Norman Forness, George Fick, and Charles Glatfelter] pitched to me that I should switch majors and become a history major. The important thing was they said, "if you just take this and this and this, you have got your major." So I did. I had probably seven or eight courses in Political Science, but I didn't [think well enough of my 2 experience to] declare it a minor. I just left and became a History major and then wound up going on to graduate school. Duffy: What were some of the courses that you took in History while you were here? Birkner: Well, I won't go into all the details because that will bog you down, but I will say that the program in History at the time was Euro-centric. If you look at the catalogue you will see that there really was very little World History. You took courses on the western historical tradition, you took courses on the European and British history, and you took courses on American history. There was no Africanist in the department, there was no Latin Americanist, and there was no Middle Eastern person. We did have a person that did Asian history, but half of that person's courses were focused on American diplomatic history which was not unusual at that time. So, essentially outside of the West we actually had half of a person to do anything else in the world. It was a provincial kind of historical learning. I did take a course in Chinese history, but I cannot say I had a good grounding in anything more than the Western traditions. The other thing I can abstract for you about my experience is that I was again unusual in that my interests were American history, but I took more non-American history than American history. My attitude- and I think it was justifiable- was that if I went to graduate school in History, I would be doing almost all American history and why should I not have the opportunity now to get a little wider range. In retrospect now there are all kinds of ways I could have broadened my education in college [with]. I was not adventurous and the college wasn't particularly adventurous in its curriculum. When you think about it, the one smart thing I did was not do all of that American history when I was going to get [plenty of] it in graduate school. Duffy: That Professor that you had for Chinese history, was that Professor Stemen? Birkner: Yes, Roger Stemen. Duffy: He was in charge of anything East Asian, sometimes even Indian history, I think I noticed? 3 Birkner: He might have done that once and that was it. He wasn't really interested in Indian history. We had a woman named Janet Gemmill [whose maiden name was Powers], so [after her divorce] she is Janet Powers. She taught Indian Civilization, but for reasons I have never really understood- this is before my time as a faculty member -I think she and the History department were not on the same wavelength, so she didn't teach it through the History department, she taught it through IDS. Mr. Stemen was the Asianist. He came in 1961 and he was the first to teach that. Duffy: I noticed that. I also noticed that the courses at that time [during the 1960's primarily] were dual courses, such as 201 and 202. Were you required to take both of them if you took one? Birkner: No, but you are right, they were sequenced. I'm guessing a lot of that was because a good percentage of undergraduates in those days went on to social studies education. They probably wanted to fill out a card of having the 201, 202 of History. That wasn't anything that affected me as a student. That wasn't a requirement. [Pauses to collect thoughts] The only requirement where we had to go through both parts of the sequence were interdisciplinary courses called "Contemporary Civilization" and "Literary Foundations of Western Civilization." Duffy: What was required by the History department [when you were a student] was passing a few three hundred level courses, the Methods course and Senior Seminar, right? Birkner: Right. Duffy: So you completed all of those? Birkner: Absolutely. Duffy: Did you have Professor Glatfelter for Methods? Birkner: Absolutely, everybody took Methods with Dr. Glatfelter. Except for the semesters when he was on sabbatical, he was it. Duffy: What was that experience like? How would you have described it when you were in the class? 4 Birkner: Maybe, it was a lot like what you experience with me. However, Dr. Glatfelter was a very different personality than I am . He was very Germanic. He had been trained originally to be a high school social studies teacher. Now he was a very smart man and wound up getting a PhD from Johns Hopkins. You don't do that unless you have some brains. He was one of these people who went by categories--one, two, three- which is not the way I do things. His approach to teaching was not very exciting to me. Just to give you an example of the way he taught Methods, one-third of the course he lectured about the historiography of Western Civilization, the writing of the history of the West from Herodotus until the Progressive Era in the early 20th century. Each day he would come in for seventy-five minutes and lecture about Herodotus or Livy or Gibbon or Voltaire- who was a historian not a very good one, but a historian [none the less]- [hand motions and voice indicating droning on], Prescott and Parkman and Bancroft. Your first big paper in the course was to read three of these historians--one from the Ancient World, one from Early Modern Europe and one from the 18th or 191h century--and write a comparative [paper]. He did that every semester. I benefited from it, though I have not read those historians since. But [in general] this was dull. The second part of the course was more "Nuts and Bolts." That's where he talked about doing footnotes and bibliographies and reference books. Of course [this was] the pre-computer age so he would bring in a cart and show you reference books. Again, it wasn't too exciting. The third part of the course was the "Philosophy of History'' in which he would talk about a range of things from why we do history to the discourses of history. It was very conservative. As I may have said in class, we read one article about Oral History and he basically said, "I made you read this because it is possible this may be interesting, but it is also possible that it may just be a fad." We didn't do anything more with that. We did the same thing with Psychohistory; maybe we read an article on it. Now Psychohistory came and went really, it is not much today talked about. But he was not an adventurous person. So why is it that he is remembered? Because Dr. Glatfelter had extremely high standards and he challenged you to be the best that you could be. He was a very demanding task-master. 5 When you handed in a paper, he read every line and corrected every line. You got away with nothing. He was a person of tremendous integrity and he wanted you to be. That's what really affected me the most, to be honest with you. The specifics of what he was teaching didn't grab me much, but his ethos, that's what really grabbed me. I don't know what students think about me, but I would guess I am considered "old school" and that's okay, because you need to authentic. Dr. Glatfelter was authentic. And I like to think I am. Some students probably think it is good and some maybe think I am too hard [and demand too much work]. Again, I don't know what the word on the street is, but you've got to be what you are as long as you're nice and fair and all those things- some [professors] can be mean and that's not a good thing [chuckles], but I don't think I am that! [In the end] I think I took away [Dr. Glatfelter's] sensibility about doing history and that has always had an impact on me- [even] forty years on. If you talk to other graduates, I bet you would get similar responses. Duffy: That he was a challenging teacher, but certainly worth it in the end for [the experiences] you get out of it? Birkner: Yeah, sure. Duffy: More than [simply] as a historian? Birkner: [Thoughtful] Yeah, absolutely. [Pauses to collect thoughts] He and I were colleagues for a year when I was back in the late seventies teaching here. When he retired [in 1989], I took his job. We became close [friends] and for the last 24 years of his life- he died in February [2013]- we did a lot of things together. For [many] years I brought him into the Methods class to talk to the students about a specific project or brought the students down to Weidensalllobby to talk with him if they had questions about a particular topic. He was wonderful. Duffy: What was that like when you first came back here having Professor Glatfelter and I can't remember exactly who was still here then who had been here when you were a studentBirkner: Everyone 6 Duffy: Everyone? Birkner: Everybody. Duffy: [So then,] what was that department dynamic like when you joined, having your old professors [as colleagues]? Birkner: . As a student was I was very close with faculty, more close than I think [most] students are today. Just to give you an example, there was no Specialty Dining in those days, there was the Bullet Hole- [though] it was in a different part of the CUB- and there was a group of about 8-10 faculty that ate there every day and talked politics- remember, it's a very interesting time- and they talked campus business as well. They invited me to eat lunch with them. So, I ate lunch in the Bullet Hole every day with the faculty. Now, you say you already know a creepy amount of information about me, but one thing [is that] I belonged to a fraternity. The fraternity I belonged to only ate dinner together in our house; we didn't eat breakfast or lunch together. We were on our own for lunch. Most of my fraternity brothers after class went back to the house and ate lunch together; probably watched Jeopardy or something and just hung out. I never did. I always went to the Bullet Hole and ate lunch with the faculty. Secondly, I was the editor of the Gettysburgian. At the time newspapers were different then they are now. They were really newspapers as opposed to mostly opinion. [Pauses to collect thoughts] The paper [during my years in college] was well respected. So, faculty members wrote for it, faculty members called me up. I had a kind of elevated sense of myself. To answer your question, it wasn't a hard transition to come back in 1978 to teach because people had always treated me collegially as opposed to say you were simply a student. Duffy: As a subordinate71 Birkner: Yeah, well [Pauses to collect thoughts] I hope I don't treat you [quite] like that. We all have different roles to play. It was an easy transition is the short of it. 1 Intended to say something which more conveyed the mentor-student relationship 7 Duffy: What about the transition that we started to talk about before- when you took over the Methods class? What was that like? Did you see that you wanted to make a lot of changes? Did you make them right away? Birkner: That's a good question. Dr. Glatfelter was not a controlling person, but on the other hand he was a very "tracked" person. As I said there wasn't a lot of change [over time] . I was hired, in some measure, because [members of the History department] felt the Methods course was an important course and they felt that I would be the person who could make it matter in the future. When I came back, Dr. Glatfelter said [something like], "You do what you want with the Methods course, but here's the way I do it." The first year I tried to teach it along the track he laid out. I used some different books, but I basically had the same structure he had. I was bored teaching it! Teaching about Medieval historians and giving students bits and pieces about historians -I could see that nothing was going to stick with them. I just said [to myself], "I can't do this!" That's when I said to myself, "this course is going to need re-tooling." That's how you have more or less greater extent what you are experiencing [this semester in Methods]. Dr. Glatfelter was the one who had the three projects and I have three projects, but he never would have assigned an Oral History! Here's the other interesting thing, he didn't assign any manuscript, original material research because we didn't have an archive for the students to work in! We really couldn't do a lot of that. Dr. Glatfelter's laboratory was the Adams County Historical Society where he was the director. He never had the students [go there]. I was surprised about this because we could have done that. We had an archive [at the college]; it just wasn't a place where you could work. He could have assigned us to have stuff to work on and under controlled conditions we could have done it. He just never did it. The part that really surprised me was that here he is the director of the Adams County Historical Society, which has tons of great [material] to work on. I've used it many times in my Methods class- just not this semester because they have had some difficulties moving out of the old Schmucker building [and into a much smaller facility]. So, one of the things I said was that 8 were going to start doing this! What I did [was encourage the creation of a facility for storing a working with archival material on Gettysburg College's campus]. I had something to do with the fact that this [special collections research room] exists because [as department chair] I was able to get a very unusual bequest which had not originally been directed to Gettysburg College. I was able to convince Homer Rosenberger's executor [Attorney William Duck of Waynesboro, PA] that Gettysburg College would be the place to house the Rosenberger Collection, with the idea we would get his estate. The money we got from that estate allowed Robin Wagner, the library director, to hypothecate into other money which enabled them to build this room- which is an enormous asset to students of history, and not just in Methods. Plus we have all of these great internships etc. which we didn't have before that. So, [to go back for a second] in 1990-1991, which was my second year here, I revamped the course really along the lines of what you are taking now. Duffy: So has it not changed so much in the past few decades? What would you say has changed? Birkner: What has changed in part is that the discourses in history have grown increasingly focused on anthropology. The opportunity for students to do more intensive work in Special Collections has probably been the biggest change. They can do much more in Special Collections than they could when I first started teaching here. The idea is always to give students opportunity to work with the stuff of history and be historians rather than just write about [secondary works]. I'm a little off sync with some of my colleagues who are so emphatic that what students need to learn is historiography and what I think is what students need to learn is to feel confident about doing history and that means doing it, instead of writing about historians doing it. I want you to do it. Now, of course the two are not mutually exclusive. You should learn that history is an evolving discipline and there is always an on-going dialogue -that's of course important. But to me, for the Methods course, what's really important- if I can put it this way- is to get your hands dirty doing it, [for example] have that one-on-one experience doing an Oral History with a senior citizen; it will stick with you for a long time. 9 Duffy: Definitely. I think I have noticed that. I feel like I live in Special Collections sometimes! Birkner: And that's a great thing because it is your laboratory! You may have friends that are Environmental Science majors, they're working in a lab. Your lab is right here. Duffy: [Pauses] [So then,] If we could just go back one moment to when you were a student and there weren't as many opportunities [to research in-depth on campus]. I know the senior seminar was molded into a course throughout the sixties Uust before and during your time here as a student]. so I was wondering about your experience in the senior seminar and how you were able to do the research you needed to do [without the facilities here]? Birkner: That's a good question; I think it was only in the late 1960s that they developed the senior seminar more or less the way we know it. Until then, students had to take comprehensive exams and they also wrote a senior thesis, [but there was no senior seminar]. The problem with that program is number one: camps terrify students. A high percentage of the students were not capable of engaging them very effectively, which depressed the faculty. [Further], the quality of the senior theses was generally pretty low, in part because there was little faculty supervision. If you have say forty seniors who are majors and you've got the faculty you have, they just weren't [able to] give the time to the students on an independent study basis to do the senior thesis. So that is when they came up with the seminar notion. As far as being able to do the research- it was unusual for you to be able to spend time doing anything original. Today, more and more of our students [are doing original research]. I was talking to Lincoln Fitch the other day, he's a senior and he is doing his senior thesis on Reconstruction and he's going down to the Library of Congress and working with the papers there and he is making some interesting finds. We wouldn't have thought of that because nobody was encouraging us to do that. I wrote my senior thesis on Christian Humanism in England in the early 16th century. I read a lot of first-hand accounts, they were printed, but they were still primary sources. I read secondary sources about the Humanist movement, which is part of the Renaissance, as it affected life in England. 10 Duffy: So you feel that students now have a better opportunity to delve in deeper? Birkner: Yeah. The other thing that should be emphasized is that our faculty are more "teacher-scholars" or "scholar-teachers" than was the case in the sixties when their primary emphasis was on teaching. Again, you can't draw with too broad a brush because Dr. Glatfelter was always doing scholarship of a kind. He was very productive, but his focus tended to be narrow--on Adams or York counties or religions of York and maybe Pennsylvania. Few people in the department were pursuing active research agendas because they didn't have the same emphasis on scholarship and mentoring students as scholars as we have today. I think having a teaching faculty that is also a scholarly faculty is going to make for better mentors at the senior level or any level. Think about someone like David Wemer, who is a senior History major and just won a prize for the best paper by an undergraduate in the United States. [The prize was sponsored by the American Historical Association.] It was published in a student scholarly journal. What a great recognition for Gettysburg College. He is an exceedingly talented person, but having someone like Dr. Bowman advising him and mentoring him made it [possible]. I mentored three students [over the past several years] who were [George C. Marshall] Scholars. Each was invited down, at my nomination, to become an undergraduate fellow in Lexington, Virginia [under the auspices of] the George C. Marshall Foundation. Each of them did outstanding work and each was recognized for that work. By coincidence, I had lunch today with one of those students. He was a History major and now works as an archivist for the CIA and wanted to come back and talk to me about graduate school. That kind of mentoring I don't think would have happened forty years ago. [However,] I have a certain reputation in the field, I know people, I know what my students are doing and I can then recommend them. The sad thing with the Marshall Program is that they blew through all their money. So, after the program existed for four or five years they ran out of money and I can't recommend students to it anymore because it doesn't exist. The two other students who I recommended for it and got accepted, 11 one is now working on his PhD in Cold War History at Ohio State and the other one is doing a PhD in Early American History at William and Mary, so clearly they moved on and did good things. Duffy: So you would say that the faculty dynamic today- [a group made up of a dozen or so] individuals each scholars and, I would say talented, teachers is creating these opportunities for students? Birkner: I think it enhances and enriches the environment for our History students; hence, it gives them an extra boost toward having a valuable college experience. Dr. Glatfelter had the right standards and the right spirit. But I think that what we have today, is not only that among most of our faculty -I wouldn't say everyone does because Dr. Glatfelter was pretty much the top of the line in that- but they are committed on both the teaching and scholarly side and that's good modeling for students. When you are a senior taking a seminar you will be asked to attend a seminar session in which you will read a faculty member's paper in advance and then go in and hear that faculty member describe how he or she got into writing that paper and then you will be able to ask questions of that member about it. We do that every semester. That's a bit of modeling. You can see what the faculty member does and say to yourself, "Maybe that's how I can do it." That didn't exist forty years ago. We do a lot more stuff you would take for granted, but didn't exist then. Such as, Career Night, Grad School Night, bringing in alumni who are successful in the field of history to talk, the Justin DeWitt Lecture. How about two student journals? The Civil War Journal and The Gettysburg Journal of History again didn't exist forty or even, fifteen years ago, but they do now. That's how David [Wemer] got this national recognition, because he published his article in the History journal. [Earlier today] I was talking to Sam Cooper-Wall today about his thesis for me and I was saying how he really had potential to publish it or expand it as his master's thesis. "Don't forget," he said, "I published it in the Gettysburg Historical Journal." That's right, he did. That's the kind of thing that gives you value added. 12 Duffy: I guess my last question is just going back, once again in a more comparative way, you said the time that you were here was a very [tumultuous] time. Did the faculty use any of those current issues as teaching moments in the classroom? Birkner: Not really. I think one faculty member who taught American Cultural History picked up on environmental issues, which was one of the pieces of the puzzle in the late sixties. Earth Day started when I was college student. He tried to connect Post- Civil War environmentalism, Darwinism, with the new environmental ethic of the late sixties- early seventies. I thought that was good, but he was the only [one]. Professor Stemen, who taught Chinese history, was teaching at the very time that Nixon made his initiative to open doors to China, and he would mention it, but it wasn't integral to the teaching. We were aware of it. I think people made a definite effort not to politicize the classroom. It's not a good idea for teachers at any level to voice their ideas about politics to students. So, that didn't happen really. People were very focused on the subject matter. Duffy: I think that is about it for the questions that I have- Birkner: I think that the one piece of this you are not getting is the student side. You don't want to assume that everything is always [better each year]. I think, today, our students are more sophisticated in many ways about history. You are much more cosmopolitan and you are much more adventurous than our generation in many respects. Just think about that fact that students take courses in fields I never took courses in because they weren't even there, but nobody is afraid to take a course in Middle Eastern history or Australian history or African history. [Today's] students are interested. That's a very good sign. On the other side ofthe coin, I wouldn't disparage students from the late Sixties who were, like me, first generation college students who had a hunger for education and were willing to work hard . . , , There were a lot of people in that circumstance. So, the students were a little bit more aggressive for their education in the late sSxties. Now I will tell you also, that when I came back in the late Seventies the students were not what I remembered them being. They were very self-focused and 13 [pauses to collect thoughts] uninterested it seems to me in the same kinds of issues I had been interested in in college, so that was a little bit of a disappointment. Duffy: I read that I think in one of the oral histories with Professor Glatfelter. He had realized a shift around the mid-Seventies. [He noticed] students were changing what they wanted out of school and how they felt about school. So, I think he saw as well, a decline in the level of learning or [rather] interest in learning. Birkner: I think this is not just a Gettysburg story. Duffy: Right. Birkner: I think it would [have been the case] at you name the place. I remember when I taught my first class at the University of Virginia. This is almost hilarious in a way because I taught a course in [19]74 at the University of Virginia as a grad student. It was a seminar and we read a book on the Sixties. The kids were all like [Raises voice, indicates excitement], "What were the sixties like? What were the sixties like?" and I was thinking [Chuckling between words], "Whoa, whoa!" [To them] It was like "what was World War One like?" It was 1974 and I thought, "Whoa, how quickly the gestalt of the times changes." So, what Glatfelter noticed is certainly what I noticed. Now, particular students, of course, were terrific. They are wonderful and friends of mine now, but the mentality [gestalt] of the campus was very different. Just as an example, the fraternity that I was in had disappeared by the time I came back to teach because it was a more alternative, non-conformist fraternity [and there was no market for that at Gettysburg after 1975]. We didn't do hazing and hell week. We invited the faculty to our parties and they came. Duffy: [Laughs] Birkner: Seriously! It was kind of an admixture of fraternalism, but not the dopey stuff. Obviously, to each his own, but I never had a use for anything [like that]. I remember Dr. Glatfelter- he was not a funny man- but I remember one of the funniest things he ever said. I once said, "Charlie, I know when 14 you were a student at Gettysburg College they still had traditions during orientation where they would punish [underclass] students [for infractions of the rules]. They would cut men's hair off, make women wear side-boards over their front and back with their hometown and phone number on it." Duffy: [Laughs] Birkner: Oh yeah, absolutely! And I said to him, "What if you had ever been brought up by the Tribunal for some infraction when you were a first year student?" Without missing a beat he said to me, "I know exactly what would have happened. I would have packed up my suitcase and gone home because I wouldn't have put up with that nonsense for one second!" That was Charlie. I can't claim that I was as individualistic as he was. For all I know I would have accepted [hazing], but it was nice to find a home [in a fraternity] where it really wasn't practiced. But by the late seventies students weren't into that. They didn't want an alternative fraternity, they wanted a gung-ho fraternity experience. Again, that's okay. I would wish that a fraternity like the one I was in would exist again today because I think there is something to be learned from living in a house with people from different backgrounds [with] different values in some cases. Learning how to live together, learning how to keep a place up [is important]. I don't regret for one minute that I did that. I also had a [fine] experience in that I was a free agent to do what I wanted. Duffy: You got to go to lunch! Birkner: Yeah, I got to go to lunch and I got to eat dinner with my fraternity brothers and party with them and make those horrible road trips down to Wilson College. You did the things that college students do, but you also did it on a slightly different track. When I came back in the late eighties the college was in transition. It had become by then a more national institution, so students were coming from a larger swath of the country, which was a good thing. [It reflected] a more cosmopolitan view. [The population] was still very white, not as diverse as it is today, but moving in the right direction, I think. I would honestly say that your generation of students on the whole is a lot more fun to teach than 15 any generation I have taught before. Just take for example class yesterday on the "Cat Massacre." You are willing to buy into reading something challenging, thinking about it and then talking about it. To me that is learning. But that wasn't really the pedagogy [in the 1960s and 1970s] and when the transition was made a lot of students just wouldn't buy into it because they were [satisfied] being more passive. Learning should be active. It seems to me we have got that buy in from our majors and more generally, too. Hopefully, what you do in my class and your other history classes carries over into Poli Sci and the other courses you are taking, because again, why should it not? [From here we continue to talk for the next few minutes about the intersections between disciplines in the case of myself and my partner Ryan, as well as the possibilities of support from the government for public history and the National Park Service]. 16
The Philippine Economic Update (PEU) provides an update on key economic and social developments, as well as policies over the past six months. It also presents findings from recent World Bank studies on the Philippines. It places them in a longer term and global context, and assesses the implications of these developments and policies on the outlook for the Philippines. Its coverage ranges from the macro-economy and financial markets to indicators of human welfare and development. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in the Philippines. Poverty reduction is expected to continue if the country is able to maintain the relatively high economic growth and the more positive job trends in recent years, despite recent shocks to agriculture. Recent trends show an improvement in the country's growth-poverty elasticity, which means growth is becoming more inclusive. However, the recent increase in the underemployment rate and weak agricultural output in 2016 will need to be countered by sustained increase in per capita income growth and a continued focus on supporting the structurally poor through effective social protection programs. Under these assumptions, extreme poverty is projected to further decrease from nine percent in 2014 to 6.8 percent in 2018.
This report provides an overview of the municipal debt market as it exists and has evolved over the past ten years. It provides an assessment of trends and patterns from both bank and bond sources covering all types of municipal governments. The overall objective of the work is to assess the regulatory environment pertaining to municipal borrowing in the country and to generate recommendations to improve this in a manner which expands municipal access to private debt finance while ensuring that risk is appropriately allocated and properly priced. More particularly, this report: 1) outlines the need and rationale for expanding access to credit finance on part of municipalities in India; 2) provides an overview of the existing municipal debt market; 3) provides an overview of the chief characteristics of the regulatory environment pertaining to municipal borrowing in India, places the existing regulatory system in international context, and outlines a suggested overall direction for reform; and 4) provides specific recommendations to improve the regulatory regimes over which the state and union governments have respective control.
This chapter begins with a brief summary of the long history of national distortions to agricultural markets. It then outlines the methodology used to generate annual indicators of the extent of government interventions in markets, details of which are provided in Anderson and appendix A. A description of the economies under study and their economic growth and structural changes over recent decades is then briefly presented as a preface to the main section of the chapter, in which the nominal rates of assistance and consumer tax equivalents (NRA and CTE) estimates are summarized across regions and over the decades since the 1950s. These estimates are discussed in far more detail in the regional chapters that follow. A summary is also provided of an additional set of indicators of agricultural price distortions presented in chapter eleven that are based on the trade restrictiveness index first developed by Anderson and Neary (2005). In chapter twelve the focus shifts from countries to commodities, and all the various distortion indicators are used to provide a sense of how distorted are each of the key farm commodity markets globally. Then chapter thirteen uses the study's NRA and CTE estimates to provide a new set of results from a global economy-wide model that attempts to quantify the impacts on global markets, net farm incomes and welfare of the reforms since the early 1980s and of the policies still in place as of 2004. The chapter concludes by drawing on the lessons learned to speculate on the prospects for further reducing the disarray in world agricultural markets.
This paper outlines the methodological issues associated with the task of measuring that actual delivered direct protection or taxation to individual agricultural industries, as well as the direct protection or anti-protection to non-agricultural sectors. It begins with a guide to what elements in principle could be measured. There are two key purposes of the distortion estimates being generated by this project are: 1) to provide a long annual time series of indicators showing the extent to which price incentives faced by farmers and food consumers have been distorted directly and indirectly by own-government policies in all major developing, transition and high-income countries, and hence for the world as a whole; and 2) to attribute the price distortion estimates for each farm product to specific border or domestic policy measures, so they can serve as inputs into various types of partial and general equilibrium economic models for estimating the effects of those various policies on such things as national and international agricultural markets, farm value added, income inequality, poverty, and national, regional and global welfare.