Suchergebnisse

Issue 51.4 of the Review for Religious, July/August 1992. ; for religi.ous Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1992 ¯-VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 4 Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-535-3048 ¯ FAX: 314-535-0601 Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP ¯ 5001 Eastern Avenue ¯ P.O. Box 29260 Washington~ D.C. 20017. POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ° P.O. Box 6070 ° Duluth, MN 55806. Second-class postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional offices. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Single copy $5 includes surface mailing costs. One-year subscription $15 plus mailing costs. Two-year subscription $28 plus mailing costs. See inside back cover for more subscription information and mailing costs. ©1992 Review for Religious for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Assistant Editors Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Michael G. Harter SJ Elizabeth McDonough OP Jean Read Mary Ann Foppe Mary Margaret Johanning SSND Iris Ann Ledden SSND Edmundo Rodriguez SJ Se~in Sammon FMS Wendy Wright PhD Suzanne Zuercher OSB Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living JULY-AUGUST 1992 ¯ VOLUME 51 ¯ NUMBER 4 contents evangelizing and witnessing ° 486 Church of the Poor Juan Ram6n Moreno sJ reflects on the implications of seeing the poor as central for the identity of the church and religious life. 496 Women Missioners amidst Violence Annmarie Sanders IHM reflects the questions, fears, and chal-lenges facing foreign women missionaries in Peru. 504 School of Terror Roy Bourgeois MM speaks on behalf of the poor as he voices his concern about a particular military training camp called the School of the Americas. inculturating 508 Women Religious and the African Synod M. Gerard Nwagwu offers her thoughts on the evangelization of Africa in an article originally presented as the keynote address at the National Day of Celebration of the Nigerian Conference of Women Religious in January 1992. 519 Rerooting Religious Life in South Africa Jennifer Mary Alt OP reflects on how native African spiritual values might become better integrated into the religious-life vocation. 527 54O 545 living religiously Religious Life and Religion Albert DiIanni SM calls attention to the religious core of a belief in God and of our relationship with God which cannot be reduced to a personal~ social, or ecological morality. Detachment in Our Psychological Age Eileen P. O'Hea CSJ explains detachment as a way of freeing ourselves from our compulsive behaviors and opening ourselves to God's healing. An Ache in My Heart Bernard Seif SMC witnesses to the continuing call and direction of God in bringing forth new forms of dedicated life in the " church. 482 Review Jbr Religious focusing religious life 550 Religious Life in Church Documents Patricia F. Walter OP presents some aspects identifying religious life in conciliar and postconciliar documents of the magisterium. 562 The Ignatian Charism of the Sisters of St. Joseph Joan L. Roccasalvo CSJ shows how the Spiritual Exercises per-meate Jean-Pierre M~daille's Maxims of Perfection and so fire an Ignatian spirit for the Sisters of St. Joseph. 575 Envisioning Associate Identity Rose Marie Jasinski CBS reflects on the status of the associate movement in the light of the second national conference held 5-7 May 1991. 581 Musings about Vocations James E. Claffey CM finds vocation ministry a stimulant to a broader understanding of how God breaks into our history. 585 595 600 614 484 625 632 ministering Pastoral Leadership beyond the Managerial (XL*~ Matthias Neuman OSB stresses the role of spiritual leadership in the midst of ministry challenges. Scarcity and Abundance in Parishes Thomas P. Sweetser SJ compares the parish to a desert of scarci-ties, but at the same time a desert beautiful with hidden wells of life. Marian Community and Ministry Patrick Primeaux SM combines data from both the theological and businessomanage.ment disciplines to distinguish a Petrine and a Marian way of ministering and of living community. Three Images of Priesthood Henry J. Charles proposes the images of priest as collaborator, mystagogue, and holy man for a renewed understanding of priesthood. departments Prisms /~ Canonical Counsel: Involuntary Ex~laustration Book Reviews .l~uly-Augu.ct 1992 483 prisms History happens. We human beings can write our history books and, by emphasis and omission and sometimes by romanticizing, make as if we are mas-ters of our history. It may take only some seventy years for the rewriting of the Communist history of Russia or it may take five hundred years for the European discovery of the Americas to be reevaluated. But it happens. We say that Pope John XXIII made history when he called the Second Vatican Council. We are well aware that the church experienced, through the actions of the bishops present at the council, something that has been likened to a second Pentecost. For our own availability to the God of history, we need to return again and again to the happening of that first Pentecost and the subsequent events as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. God's Spirit makes things happen, even when the very persons involved seem so little capable of being the crafters of history. Most recently Pope John Paul II has expressed his own desire to make history by his call for a new evangelization, partic-ularly occasioned by our entering into the third millen-nium. This call to a new evangelization holds the promise of another moment of this second Pentecost that came with Vatican II. It is history happening, in which none of us is the master or control-artist, but every one of us plays an important role--with the Spirit's direction. Evangelization--new evangelization--demands much of us all. A paradigm of evangelization and inculturation captures our attention anew as we reflect upon the events in the Acts of the Apostles. It means that no one can hold himself or herself exempt from the call of this second moment of the second Pentecostqthe call to a new hear- 484 Review for Religious ing of good news. This is not the time for new rules or the impo-sition of old ones--the Judaizers tried that two thousand years ago. It is the time for Cornelius, his wife, and household to invite Peter once again to proclaim the gospel so that new conversion on everyone's part can take place. It is the time for Peter to dream new dreams and hear God telling him that old restrictions do not apply in a new creation moment. One of the deepest meanings of Pentecost lies in the fact that all peoples heard the good news in a way that they could under-stand and respond to. It goes beyond the language barrier to breakthroughs involving customs, heritages, and rituals. In the Pentecost beginnings, Jesus Christ and the gospel message needed no inculturation. In the new evangelization as in the original one recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, it is not Jesus Christ who needs to be inculturated; he is already a confidant of people's hearts. It is his church that must be inculturated by being evan-gelized anew as well as by evangelizing others. The Acts of the Apostles--the story of the first evangelizing time--portrays the exhilarating and somber picture that inculturating a church does not come without cost--a cost which everyone must bear in lis-tening to ~hocking good news, in experiencing a certain amount of turmoil, in suffering the pain of differences expressed vigorously by people who serve or are served. John Paul II has said that "we need an evangelization that is new in its ardor, new in its method, new in its expressions." That ' is what we--always the disciples--must allow to happen to our-selves first: to be evangelized anew in order to be the new evan-gelizers. We need to rethink how to inculturate a church, not a gospel. If the original Jewish and pagan converts to the new Christian faith seemed to share little common religious heritage and ritual and yet, with struggle, came to form the Body of Christ, can we today not recognize the imperative of a new evangelization demanding the same kind of breakthrough for traditionalists, lib-erals, feminists, or whatever modern-day version an appeal to the party of Apollos or Paul takes? A new evangelization brings the excitement of discovery into our own lives and so into our church. Let the Spirit lead. It has happened; it will happen again. David L. Fleming SJ ~uly-Augu~t 1992 485 JUAN RAMON MORENO Church of the Poor evangelizing and witnessing Juan Ram6n Moreno SJ was one of six Jesuits mur-dered along with an employee and her daughter by Salvadoran military forces at the Jesuit residence of the Central American University, San Salvador, on 16 November 1989. He was widely known as a spiritual director, teacher, preacher, and giver of retreats and conferences and was the founder and editor of the spirituality journal Diakonfa. Besides holding other responsibilities, at various times he was novice director for the Jesuits of Central America, local superior, university professor, and president of the Panamanian and Nicaraguan con-ferences of religious. This article was first published in Diakonfa 7 (1978): 17-28 and republished in a collection of Father Moreno's writings, Evangelio y misidn (San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1990). The translation is by James R. Brockman SJ with the permission of UCA Editores. The footnotes are the translator's. The term "church of the poor" is meant to express a new awareness of what it is to be church, an awareness that is growing in force among Christians in Latin America. The following thoughts are proposed as a help toward under-standing the foundation and principal traits of this way of viewing the church. Church of the Poor and Vatican II The schema on the church elaborated by the precon-ciliar doctrinal commission brought together the ecclesi-ology traditionally taught in recent centuries, and the 486 Review for Religious that allow one to recognize in Jesus the hoped-for Messiah are that "the blind see and the lame walk., and the good news is proclaimed to the poor" (Mt 11:5), what should be the traits that make recognizable Jesus' church? Church Born from Below Vatican II has allowed us to pass from a church that becomes conscious of itself and is organized and structured fr0m within, from itself, to a church that seeks to understand and structure itselffr0m without, from the world that it has been sent to in order to make God's kingdom grow in that world. Nevertheless, the reality that the world is a divided world had not yet made its full impact on the council. Consequently, the challenges to which it more directly proposes to respond are those of a world seen too much from above, from the angle of the learned and the skilled, from the culture and the perspective of the dominant classes. But at Medellfn2 the Latin American bishops began to express in an inspired and probing manner the conflictive reality of our world. The cry of the impoverished majority of the continent found an echo. The church began to become aware of itself and to organize and structure its life and pastoral action not from an abstract world or from just any part of the real, concrete world, but from below, from the world of the poor, and from there to fashion itself as the true church of Christ. Church of the Poor One must not confuse church of the poor with church3'br the poor. A church for the poo~r would be a church that is constituted in a first step that is logically prior to its encounter with the poor and then, in a second step, seeks out the poor to serve and help them. But the church of the poor is a church that in its very con-stitution has the poor as its center. There is no doubt that the church, as the historical body of Christ, must place itself in the world to transform it and to make present in it the reign of God. It must be incarnated, that is, take a body, become a visible and acting institution. But the problem is, what are the criteria that are to determine its institutional shape? What body will it take? Faithful to the incarnational logic of Jesus, the church must take the body of the poor, incorporat-j~ uly-.4ugust 1992 489 Moreno ¯ Church of the Poor ing the poor, making the poor to be those who make up what is characteristic and determinant of its body, which is structured and takes visible form from the cause and the interests of the poor. Let us take a Gospel passage that graphically illustrates this, which is the particular way of acting of Jesus. I choose the short scene with which Mark begins his third chapter. He describes a Jesus situated within a determined sociocultural-religious con-text. But Jesus is situated in it concretely, and he is situated in a way which is perceived by one of the parties as threatening to its interests--"they wer~ watching him closely" (3:2)--and which provokes a conflict so sharp that "they plotted together to see how to eliminate him" (3:6). What is indicative is the place where Jesus is situated and from which he faces the situation: solidarity with the actual man, the man in his poverty, the man oppressed by his paralyzed hand and forsaken by the institution. He has him step into the middle of the synagogue. And he obliges the others, the representatives of the grand institution, to face up to their own presuppositions: Is it licit or not? What is more important, the institution or the person, maintaining the institution or free-ing a man from what concretely oppresses him? What is the cri-terion to act on? "But they were silent" (3:4). Jesus' reaction is, "Then looking at them with anger . . ." (3:5). Countless times the Gospels speak of Jesus' look--always a loving and compas-sionate look. Now he looks "with anger." At whom? At that group of wise, prudent men who are respectful of the institution. Why? Because they refuse to commit themselves to the man, they refuse to make a decision in regard to a poor person, they refuse to take a stand in a situation that questions their rigid institutional schemes. Jesus says, "Hold out your hand" (3:5). Jesus chooses the poor person, the man in a situation of concrete need. The institution is either at the service of human beings orit does not reflect the true God. The Gospels contain many even more radical expressions about the poor as the fundamental criterion for discerning whether we are following the path to God's kingdom. Perhaps the most awesome and disquieting is the words contained in Matthew 25:31-46: "Come, blessed ones of my Father, inherit the kingdom . . . for I was hungry and you gave me to eat. depart from me, accursed ones., for I was naked and you did no~' clothe me . " There is not much room here for sociological or 490 Review for Religious theological lucubrations about who are the poor that are spoken of and what is the determinant criterion for measuring God's nearness. Crucified Church As we can see in the example of Jesus, taking the side of the poor supposes having the courage to get involved in conflict. The history of the Latin American church since Medellfn confirms what has been true all through its existence: insofar as it empties itself of power and prestige so as to enter the world of the poor and be identified with them and their cause, it has also had to suffer their lot--crucifixion and death--and it has come to under-stand why it cannot follow Jesus without denying itself and car-rying the cross. It is because the immense majority of the poor are not poor simply because of nature, but because of other persons. In reality, the poor are the impoverished. Hence, their mere pres-ence is an accusation, a questioning; it creates conflict. The poor are a cause of division, a division whose theological meaning is apocalyptically described in the eschatological discourse I have mentioned: "He will separate one from the other, as the shep-herd separates the sheep from the goats" (Mt 25:32). Jesus him-self, poor and in solidarity with the poor, appears as "a sign of contradiction" (Lk 2:34); and when he takes his place actually at the side of the poor, he provokes conflict and repression, and he suffers death. For this reason the church of the poor is the crucified church, the church of the martyrs. It is so insofar as it is a church of the poor. As long as it preaches universal but abstract love, as long as it is a church from above, the world's powerful praise and respect it; they consider it their church. But when it begins to translate love into historical terms, when it begins to take the side of the poor and it plans and organizes its pastoral work with them in mind, then it begins also to be the church that is slandered and persecuted. If we look at this fact in the light of the Beatitudes (see Lk 6:22-23, 26) there is no doubt which one is the church of Jesus. Church in which the Poor are Evangelized The poor are the privileged consignees of the good news of .~ly-Aug'ust 1992 491 Moreno ¯ Church of the Poor salvation. That does not mean they are the exclusive consignees. Partiality is not the same as exclusiveness. Jesus comes to bring sal-vation for all. But he comes to bring it from the poor, and fi'om them he confronts the changes that must come about in the world; he makes specific what it means to be converted, what it means to become brothers and sisters. This is not a matter of mystifying the poor, as if they were the good and the rich were the bad. It is that objectively God's identi-fication with the poor, the defense of their cause, is precisely where it is revealed what God is, a God who is love that saves, love that creates a brotherhood and sisterhood of sons and daughters, love that makes all things new. And so it is from there that salva-tion is offered to all. The Beatitudes proclaim, not the goodness of human beings, but the goodness of the God who identifies with the little ones of the earth. The Acts of the Apostles describes for us a church that under, stood this very well and where for that reason the poor find their place in such a way that they cease to be poor: Among them no one was needy, because all those who pos-sessed land or houses sold them and brought the price of the sale., and distribution was made to all according to their needs (Ac 4:34-35). It is the very gesture of him who "being rich became poor for you in order to enrich you with his poverty (2 Co 8:9). Church in which the Poor Evangelize Us This is another of the traits that characterize the church of the poor. St. John declares: Everyone who loves . . . knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love (1 Jn 4:7-8). But those who from their objective condition teach the church what true love of God, Christian love, consists in are the poor: If someone has material possessions and sees a brother in need and yet closes his heart to him, how can love of God dwell in him? My children, let us love not just with words, with our lips, but with actions and in truth (1 Jn 3:17-18). The poor reveal to us what the demands are of that love which, because it is Christian, seeks efficacy and a real change in the conditions of suffering and injustice of the poor. They makd us discover who God is: the one who takes the part of the orphan, 492 Review for Religious the widow, the stranger, the one who becomes their goeL They make us understand the Jesus who has compassion, who casts out demons, who looks with anger. They reveal to us the demons that must be cast out today, what the sin is that today stirs up the Lord's anger, what it is that today negates brotherhood, that kills our brother or sister. It is from the poor we must learn what grace means, grace that is manifested in powerlessness, that makes possible the impossible, that bursts in as pure gift. In short, they keep on making us discover the Gospel in a new dimension. On the other hand, if the poor are the privileged consignees of the good news of the kingdom, that means they must also be privileged in understanding and interpreting what that good news signi-fies. The Gospel is understood through the lens of the poor and from their per-spective. Therefore, it is in them before all else that the Spirit becomes present, From the poor we must learn what grace means, grace that is manifested in powerlessness, that makes possible the impossible, that bursts in as pure gift. and from there the Spirit speaks today to the church. There is a hierarchical magisterium in the church, but it only makes sense if it is rooted in the reality of those poor who make up the church's rank and file. The good shepherd's sheep follow him because "they know his voice" and "he knows his own sheep" (Jn 10:4, 14). The hierarchy of the church of the poor is a hierarchy of service, not of domination. It is a hierarchy that knows its sheep in dia-logue and solidarity, that is ai~tuned to their concrete needs, their sufferings, their longings. Precisely for this reason, because it can hear and understand the people's silent cry, it is able to speak with a language that is recognizable, and in the hierarchy's voice the poor find their life, their cause, their hope, their own voice. The theological reflection of the church of the poor is done from below also, tuning in to 'the awareness and the feelings of the poor. Those poor have had their voice taken away--within the church as well--for so long that they have forgotten how to speak and must learn, to express themselves; but they must increasingly acquire a voice within the church. And that voice must be heard, because in it is revealed the Spirit of Jesus that guides the church. Thus will arise a church where things are considered, struc-at~ dy-./lugust 1992 493 Moreno ¯ Church of tbe Poor tured, and carried out from the perspective of the poor. It is they who say how the institution should function, what new ministries are required for a better service, what ministries and functions they need so that they themselves may be active participants within the church's life. Church on Its Way We must not forget that this church of the poor is also a pil-grim church, a church that must keep forming itself through hard-ship and conflict. I am not referring now to conflict with the powers of the world; I am talking about the world and the sin that are still found within the church itself, about conflict that arises from the church's limitations and from different models of church. The church's unity--that unity for which Jesus died--is eschatological unity, a unity that will come about beyond the church itself as fundamental gift of the kingdom that will burst forth into fullness. The church has a mission to go on building that unity--which is universal brotherhood and sisterhood--by attacking at the root what keeps that unity from being realized. That is not achieved by denying the reality of the conflict, but by facing up to the lack of love and Folidarity that produces it. The mere existence of the poor exposes that lack of love and sol-idarity- which is why there will be protest, conflict, and division as long as there are poor--and it reminds us that salvation, the fullness of God's reign, has not yet arrived. The Religious Life in the Church of the Poor What place do we religious have within this church of the poor that I have just described? The religious life arises as protest against the values and struc-tures of the world. It arises as a search for what is radical in the Gospel, for the "one thing necessary" (Lk 10:42), which tends to be obscured in a church tempted to become worldly, to stop being the distinct event that it ought to be within the world. With its special form of Christian existence, religious life ought to be prophecy that points continually towards the church's true mean-ing and calls on it, not to settle down, but to seek ever to go for-ward. That is the eschatological meaning of the vows, as they show us a beyond that urgesus to transform the present. 494 Review for Religious But what is the natural place for religious life to flourish? Where is the root that makes our life radically evangelical? If what I have said about the church of the poor is true, then there is no doubt that the poor are the place par excellence where the reli-gious life should be located in order to carry out its charism of prophecy. In point of fact, the Spirit is stirring up a notable move-ment among religious towards a real and concrete insertion among the poor. From there the Spirit provides light for a reinterpreta-tion of religious life itself. The religious vows are seen before all else as ,consecration to the Christ who is poor and identified with the poor, as vows that consecrate by freeing us from fixity and exclusiveness so as to form Christians who are available for all and approachable by all, but with an availability and approacha-bility whose universalness is shown precisely in being dedicated by preference to the poor and effectively committed to their cause. It means being detached in order to go where the institution can scarcely reach because of the difficulty and poverty of the condi-tions. Jon Sobrino expresses it very well as a going to the desert, the periphery, the frontier: to the desert, where no one is, where no one wants to go; to the periphery, where everything is seen through the lens of the powerless (not to the center, where the powerful are, where things are seen from above); to the frontier, where risks are greater and the task is harder, where there are no trodden paths because no one has trod them and the walkways are made by walking. What better way to fulfill religious life's prophetic function within the church than to help it read the signs of the times from that insertion into the world and struggle of the poor? What bet-ter way than to point out the new paths that the Spirit of Jesus is having us discover through the poor, in whom that Spirit becomes so specially present? The challenge offered us is, how to bring this about? To what conversion does the Lord call us as religious within the church so that we may help it become increasingly a church of the poor? Notes 1 The Documents of Vatican H (New York: The America Press, 1966), pp. 23-24. 2 The 1968 Latin American bishops' assembly at Medell~n, Colombia. July-August 1992 495 ANNMARIE SANDERS Women Missioners amidst Violence efforts of two insurgency groups, drug lords, and a military that violates more human rights than the groups it seeks to suppress. Through the country more than sixty percent of the people are living in emergency zones, and a great deal of these areas have been placed under military control. Many of the towns have lost their leaders, doctors, teachers, and development workers and even their police. Often only Catholic church workers remain, the great majority of whom are women religious. The situation has called us who serve here to a new way of liv-ing and ministering among the people and to a new spirituality. Following Christ and living Christian values can no longer be done as in the past. The reality in which our spirituality is lived out is now radically different. In speaking with various foreign women missionaries through-out Peru, I see that we struggle with many of the same new chal-lenges, are asking ourselves the same questions, and are recognizing similar patterns in our lives of prayer and relation with God. Our situation is unique because of the state of the country in which we work. The complexity of problems plaguing Annmarie Sanders IHM, a member of her congregation's vocation and formation team, has been in Peru since March 1989, She also works as associate editor of Latinamerica Press/Noticias Aliadas. Her address is Apartado 18-0101 ; Lima, Peru. 496 Review for Religious Peru does not follow any pattern in the history of other nations, and thus we have no precedent to follow. To understand our questions, fears, and challenges, one must better understand the context of the violence we face. Peru's two terrorist groups, the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Move-ment, hold as their primary goals the takeover of the country. So far their efforts since 1980 ¯ have resulted in 23,000 deaths, 5,000 disap-pearances and US$18 billion in economic damage. Sendero has declared its willingness to wade through a "river of blood" to expunge foreign influence in Peru and establish a peas-ant society. It rejects competition from the church, the state, and the private sector. The methods of the two groups include bombings, intimidations, blackmail, torture, and ruth-less murder. The terrorist groups are known to be linked with narco-traffic rings, and in return for the security which the terrorists provide coca traffickers, they receive an esti-mated $40 million a year. Although the current government of Although the terrorist problem has been present in the country for over a decade, only recently has the church been directly affected. President Albert Fujimori attempts to control the drug trafficking and terrorist situations, it also battles cholera, endemic corruption, frequent drought, eighty-percent underemployment, and a deep economic depression leaving 13 million of Peru's 22 million inhabitants in extreme poverty, a figure which has doubled in three years. The government must also contend with the Peruvian military and police forces, which, according to the Washington Office on Latin America, are among the worst violators of human rights in the hemisphere. The U.S. State Department's 1990 human-rights report notes "widespread credible reports of summary executions, arbitrary arrests, and torture and rape by the military, as well as less frequent reports of such abuses by the police." The United Nations Commission on Human Rights noted that in 1991, for the fourth consecutive year, Peru had the highest number of disap-pearances of all the countries in the world. Although the terrorist problem has been present in the coun-try for over a decade, only recently has the church been directly affected. Between the church and the terrorists there had existed .~dy-August 1992 497 Sanders ¯ Women Missioners amidst Violence an "understanding." Generally, when terrorists entered to take over a village, if church workers complied with terrorist expecta-tions they were left unharmed. The church work often had to be significantly curtailed,.'but the religious could remain as a presence to the people. The recent direct destruction of church projects and prop-erty; the deaths of Irene McCormack, an Australian Sister of St. Joseph, in Junin in May 1991 and of Zbigniew Strzalkowski and Michael Tomaszek, Polish Franciscan priests, and Alessandro Dordi Negroni, an Italian priest, in Chimbote in August 1991; and the attempted assassination in July 1991 in Chimbote of Miguel Company, a priest from Spain, changed the scene signif-icantly. More religious encountered terrorist demands that their works--especially food aid and development projects--be stopped, and many received direct threats on their lives. Rather suddenly priests and religious became direct terrorist targets. Sendero Luminoso proclaimed that the church was the enemy of the peo-ple and an obstacle to revolutionary triumph. As the Rev. Robert Gloisten, a U.S. missioner and a staff member of the Peruvian Episcopal Conference for Social Action, stated, "We have become a church under fire with no idea of what will happen day to day." For several years, denial of the serious-ness of the situation was possible. Life was carried on with a vague knowledge that terrorists were active in a few isolated areas; as long as their activity did not directly touch us, we could continue peacefully. Those days are past. ~ The level of awareness and acceptance of the reality of this sit-uation naturally differs for each person. Much depends on one's personal experiences. For example, Pittsburgh Sister of Mercy Rita Harasiuk, who works in the diocese of Chimbote, was jolted by the death of her three colleagues into a new view of the situation: Although I began seeing things differently with the attempted assassination of Miguel Company, it was really the deaths of the two Franciscans that affected me the most. The two, along with two mayors from nearby towns who were also killed, were laid out together in coffins--all open-- and one worse than the other. For some of us, it was the first time we had seen what a human body looked like after having been shot in the head with weapons designed to destroy and mutilate . When Sandro [Alessandro Dordi] was killed two weeks later, we could see that more killing might go on. That's when we really began to strug-gle with what our response to this situation should be. 498 Review for Religious For California native Teresa Avalos of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, an incident directly involving her community played a significant role in making the situation more real for her and her sisters. In July 1991 a group of Sendero Luminoso ter-rorists entered Moho, where five of her community members lived and worked. They dynamited several buildings, executed six people, and ordered the townspeople to break into and ransack the convent. "This brought the fear of violence that is directed toward us much more into the open," Avalos said. Others of us have grown in our acceptance of the seriousness of the situation from our hearing such accounts by our colleagues. We stand in solidarity with them, aware that the problem is no longer isolated. An important task most of us have faced has been the admission of our feelings in the midst of such turmoil. Fear, nat-urally, is among the most common emotions, and, unfortunately, sometimes very difficult to accept and share with others. "We are all at different stages of being able to accept the real-ity, and some are still in a stage of denial," said California native Liane Delsuc of the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur. "This leaves me often feeling alone and sometimes I don't want to share my fears because others don't feel them. I start to think--is it only me that feels this way? Does that mean I should leave? That I am not able to handle it? But I do not feel that is the case. So I look for people with whom I can more freely share because in sharing it I feel stronger and as if I can continue living this." The sharing has helped us understand the wide range of emo-tions we feel. "Reflecting with others enables me to sift through real fears and imaginary ones," said Pauline Maheux, an Edmonton, Canada, native of the Ursuline Sisters of the Chatham Union; "in sharing we help one another admit to our fears and face them." The emotions one feels get mixed up when one watches the sense-less killing and destruction of years of work. Feelings include shock and anger. Often what is hardest for us to accept is the distrust we now feel towards others since we know that we must be aware of terrorist infiltration into our parishes and workplaces. An important task most of us have faced has been the admission of our feelings in the midst of such turmoil. July-August 1992 499 Sanders ¯ Women Missioners amidst Violence Harasiuk received a shocking revelation of this after the funeral for the slain Franciscans. At the offertory two gifts were quietly brought in procession to the altar: the rope used to tie the hands of those killed and the blood-covered cardboard left on their bodies with messages from the assassins. "We later dis-covered that among the young people bringing the gifts to the altar were persons who belonged to Sendero." Our situation naturally causes us to reflect on death--that which we see around us as well as our own. "I think much more about the possibility of my own death," said French native Anna Ingett of the Sisters of Christian Education; "not that I think death will come in the next few days,,but I am more conscious of its nearness." Given this stark reality, we are constantly asking ourselves on personal, communal, local, diocesan, and national levels: How do we deal with this personally and how are we to respond as church workers? One of the greatest challenges we face is receiving accu-rate information about what is happening in the country. The media in Peru are severely restricted and often rely on third-party sources; great doubts remain. Although organizations such as the Religious Conference of Peru work hard to gather facts, the dis-semination of information is very difficult, given the lack many religious have of telephones and reliable mail service. Many reli-gious, however, felt aided by the Religious Conference's meet-ings and workshops on violence and also by programs dealing with situations and problems in the various dioceses. What seems most useful to us are open, honest dialogues with our community members and other religious working in our areas. Many of us have listened to the facts, tried to process our feelings, and then asked ourselves some hard questions: How much more of this can I take? Will I leave if one more religious or priest is killed? Can I live with this tension? Can I remain a sign of hope in what looks like an apparently hopeless situation? Once some sense of peace was reached about our presence here, we began reexamining why we are staying. Many of us, espe-cially those working the emergency zones, began looking at our work with very different eyes. "After the deaths here, most of us slowed down and started thinking, evaluating, praying, and talk-ing together about why we are here and what we should be doing," said Harasiuk, who has been working for ten years as a pastoral team member in Chimbote. She recalls a meeting of priests and 500 Revlew for Religious sisters where someone asked, "Do you think you should continue working as you have been?" Not one person said yes. Many pastoral workers have reduced their work to simple presence in their parishes. They no longer lead groups, distribute food and aid, or attempt to organize the people. They maintain a low profile and lead quiet lives of simple accompaniment. For Delsuc, who is principal in a Lima barrio of a Fe and Alegrfa School, one of forty-three institutes set up by the Jesuits to educate young people in Lima's shantytowns and in the provinces, the questions about work are many: "I wonder if we are presenting relevant, peaceful alterna-tives that will allow the people to respond with Christian values to the violence around them? I wonder if it would'be better not to be involved in a certain work and just live alongside the people? I wonder if our commit-ment to the people is valuable even if it brings death?" Many of our ques-tions must be left unanswered. But we recognize that simply by asking them we have allowed our lives to be changed. For many of us, before we could accept the change the situ-ation calls us to, we had to let go of the past. Harasiuk says that this was a common experience for the religious in Chimbote after the deaths. "Our grieving process was not just for persons, but for a whole way of life that is passing. This situation has taken away from us a freedo~n to move day and night without fear, to speak openly without worrying about what we say or to who~n we are talking." For Harasiuk this experience also helped her to evaluate her life and her activity and to decide what really matters. "So many of the things I had been involved in suddenly did not seem so important." Maheux, who has served as a pastoral worker for eight years in Chiclayo, had a similar experience. "The situation has enabled me to sift through what is of essence and what is truly insignifi-cant. Relationships have taken on profound meaning . . . to be nourished and cherished." The change in relationships extends for most of us also to I wonder if we are presenting relevant, peaceful alternatives that will allow the people to respond with Christian values to the violence around them ? j~t~-Aug'u~ 1992 501 Sanders ¯ Women Missioners amidst Violence our relation with God. Many have noted that prayer is more dif-ficult, little ecstasy is experienced, much more anger is expressed, fewer words are used, and often God becomes the scapegoat for all of Peru's problems. Christ, for many of us, reveals himself in new ways in Scripture. "I experience Christ more in his passion, where he ends up in the midst of violence, mistreatment, and ridicule but stands strong to his values and commitments," said Delsuc. Many seek a sense of consolation in their relation with God--an assurance that they are loved and that God is still in control. Many, feeling lost in the confusion of these times, turn to God as a source of wisdom. For Lia Finnerty, a Canadian Holy Cross sister working in Juli, prayer is now more integrally connected with what is hap-pening in the news and in her village. "My prayer is the time when I can try to integrate our reality with God's word and see how our community is touched by all that." That need to connect our prayer with the wider community and to pray with others is co,ninon among us. Many note that the desire for communal peti-tionary prayer is much stronger and that it is a helpful experi-ence to bring to God each day all that we see and experience each day. Ingett, who serves on a pastoral team in Sicuani, notes that her community's time of petitionary prayer is also a time for asking pardon for all that these women experience in their daily inter-action with the people. Living in the midst of so much violence and structural injustice has clearly revealed to many of us the anger and violence present within ourselves. "Sometimes it's so hard to hear that the police have attacked innocent victims or tortured young people," admitted Finnerty. "My first reaction is often a violent one, even though I want to be nonviolent." We all seem to struggle with the anger we feel and our desire to be compassionate, and we ask ourselves many questions about how we can be more nonviolent people. We are trying different approaches. Massachusetts native Carmen Foley, a Halifax Sister of Charity serving as a spiritual director in Lima, is looking at her interactions with others and her judgments and is trying to be more merciful in her attitudes. Avalos, a pastoral worker in a Lima barrio and formhr.vice-provincial of her congregation, is look-ing at violence in her speech and her reactions. Finnerty, a pastoral worker among the Aymara people, is returning to the Aymaran value of solidarity and community as a block to violence. Delsuc 502 Review for Religious is practicing communication techniques to become more skilled in conflict resolution. Probably most important for all of us, however, is an openness to learn from the Peruvian people, who seem to know better than any of us just what hope in the midst of crisis is all about. As Maheux concluded, "My greatest source of hope for the future is the women, men, and children with whom I live. Their faith-fulness to the daily struggle to just live--to being able to eat, to the one-day-at-a-time facing of tremendous obstacles--teaches me that justice, peace, and life will endure and win out." Coming Out one shall know as dawn disentangles morning from night if one's desert spell was purgation or vacation was awakening or escape when one emerges anointed in power or scorched and spent Andrea Wild OSF July-August 1992 503 ROY BOURGEOIS School of Terror write from the Federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida, where am serving a sixteen-month sentence for an act of civil dis-obedience to protest the training of Salvadoran soldiers on United States soil. As I look back, I feel my being here is no accident, but rather the result of God's grace at work in my life. Growing up in rural Louisiana, I was a Sunday Christian and gave little thought to issues of peace and justice. I studied geology in college with the hope of getting rich in the oil fields of South America. After college I became a naval officer and volunteered for duty in Vietnam, feeling it was. my patriotic duty to fight communism. There I met a missionary who, amid the war, gave me a vision of Jesus as a healer and peacemaker. I left Vietnam wanting to be a missionary and entered Maryknoll, whose work is in twenty-eight countries overseas and in the United States. I was ordained in 1972 and went to serve the poor of Bolivia. A slum on the outskirts of La Paz became my home for six years. In Bolivia, as in Vietnam, the poor became my teachers and challenged me to grow in my faith. I then returned to do educational work in the United States. My involvement with E1 Salvador began in 1980, after Archbishop Oscar Romero was gunned down at the altar and after four church women from the United States were raped and killed by Salvadoran soldiers. Two of the women, Maryknoll sisters Maura Clarke and Ita Ford, were friends of mine. Their death forced me to confront what was happening in this small Central American country. Roy Bourgeois MM writes that prison can be a good place to read Scripture, pray, and do ministry. His address is Register No. 01579-017; PMB 1000; Tallahassee, Florida 32301. 504 Review for Religious After several trips to E1 Salvador, it became clear that the problem was not "communism" or "subversion" but hunger. As is the case almost everywhere in Latin America, the wealth, power, and land of E1 Salvador are in the hands of an elite few. While these live in huge mansions where they are waited on by servants and enjoy frequent vacations and shopping sprees in the United States and Europe, most Salvadorans live in dehumanizing pover.ty and die before their time. The poor, once told that their suffering was the will of God, now know better as they gather in small groups to read and reflect on the word of God. They now real-ize that their poverty and suffering are the result of exploitation, greed, and irresponsible stew-ardship of God's creation. In May 1983, five hundred Salvadoran sol-diers arrived at Fort Benning, Georgia, to undergo U.S. Army training. At the time, I was speaking at churches and colleges in New Orleans about the injustice of U.S. military aid to E1 Salvador. I felt it was no time for business as usual, so I went to Columbus, Georgia, the home of Fort Benning, and began meeting with local residents. After two months of meet-ings, talks, and prayer vigils, three of us decided to enter Fort Benning at night, dressed as U.S. Army officers. Armed with a.high-powered cassette player, we climbed a tall pine tree near the barracks that housed the Salvadoran soldiers. At lights out, we tuned the cassette player to its highest volume and played Archbishop Romero's last homily, given in the cathedral the day before he was assassinated; in it he called on the military to stop the killing and lay down their arms. We were arrested, tried for criminal trespass ~and impersonating military officers, and sen-tenced to eighteen months' imprisonment. After serving my term I sought a few months of silence and solitude at. a Trappist monastery, then returned to the pulpit and classroom. On 16 November 1989 six Jesuit priests, their coworker, and her fifteen-year-old daughter were brutally murdered in E1 Salvador. According to a U.S. Congressional task force sent to El Salvador to investigate the massacre, five of the nine soldiers arrested for the slayings had been trained at Fort Benning. Today, hundreds of Salvadoran and other Latin American soldiers are being trained at Fort Benning's School of the Americas. The The problem was not "communism" or "subversion" bu t hunger. .y~dy-August 1992 505 Bourgeois ¯ Scbool of Terror School of the Americas (SOA) was located in Panama before mov-ing to Benning in 1984. Since 1946 this training ground for Latin American soldiers has quietly readied some 45,000 officers and enlisted men for right-wing Latin American governments. Manuel Noriega is a distinguished alumnus, as is General Hugo Banzer of Bolivia. In 1984, when the SOA was forced out of Panama, then Panamanian president Jorge Illueja described the school as "the biggest base of destabilization in Latin America." The foundation of the course work at the School of the Americas is low-intensity conflict (LIC), which, by military ana-lyst Michael Klare's definition, is "that amount of murder, muti-lation, torture, rape, and savagery that is sustainable without triggering widespread public disapproval at home." Students of LIC learn that the enemy is not just an opposing armed force; rather, the enemy can include anyone, armed or unarmed, who threatens the stability of the existing order. Hence, priests, teach-ers, health-care workers, union leaders, cooperative members, and human-rights advocates are among the victims of the School of the Americas. On 3 September 1990, ten of us--Vietnam veterans, Salva-dorans, a teacher, and members of the clergy--began a water-only fast at the entrance of Fort Benning to protest the training of' Salvadoran soldiers. When our fast ended after thirty-five days, our bodies were weak but our spirits remained strong. Miguel Cruz, a Salvadoran in our group who had been forced to leave his country because of a death threat, said, "We have the option to end our fast. However, the poor in my country do not. For them hunger is an everyday occurrence." On November 16, when we had recovered from the fast, three of us--Charles Liteky, a former army chaplain who had received the Medal of Honor for heroism in Vietnam; his brother Patrick, who had trained at Fort Benning's Infantry School, and I-- returned to Fort Benning to observe the first anniversary of the killing of the six Jesuits and the two women. After a prayer service, we entered the post, placed a white cross with photos of the eight martyrs at the entrance to the School of the Americas, and poured blood in one of the school's main halls. We wanted to impress on our country that we cannot wash our hands of the blood of inno-cent people killed in E1 Salvador by soldiers trained in the United States. We were arrested and tried. A jury found us guilty of dam- '506 Review for Religious aging government property. The Liteky brothers received six-month sentences, and I received sixteen months because of my previous conviction at Fort Benning in 1983. "Was it worth it?" I am often asked by friends and critics alike. Prison is hard and very lonely at times, even with the support of family and friends, who also suffer. My dad cried when I called home to tell him of my sentenc-ing. Yet I feel I did what my faith and the poor called me to do in the face of such violence, death, and suffering. As a Christian I feel I must try to relieve the suffering of the poor and integrate my faith in a loving God with action. It is indeed tragic what our silence did to the people of E1 Salvador over the past twelve years as our po!iticians fun-neled billions of dollars (hard-earned tax money) to a military regime that killed thousands of innocent people. ~ The recent peace accords in E1 Salvador now bring new hope, and it is a time for rebuilding after all the death and destruction. It is also a time for the hundreds of Salvadoran soldiers who continue their training at Fort Benning to go home--along with the troops from Guatemala, Honduras, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Colombia, Bolivia, and other Latin American countries. I am convinced that we can relieve some of the suffering of the poor in Latin America by closing down the School of the Americas. It is a school of terror and should be shut down. While I am in prison, friends in Georgi~ are carrying on the peace-and-justice work. To learn more about our efforts, write to School of the Americas Watch; P.O. Box 3330; Columbus, Georgia 31903. Archbishop Romero said, "We who have a voice must speak for the voiceless." I pray and hope that we will speak clearly and boldly. As a Christian I feel I must try to relieve the suffering of the poor and integrate my faith in a loving God with action. j~dy-August 1992 507 M. GERARD NWAGWU Women Religious and the African Synod inculturating Following the initial enthusiasm with which our people welcomed Pope John Paul II's announcement of a special assembly for Africa of the Synod of Bishops,l an accom-modating attitude of tolerance for whatever might result from the event seems to have settled in. In such a frame of mind, any document coming from the synod will proba-bly be treated like any other Vatican document---it will be gratefully accepted and respectfully mentioned, but lit-tle else will follow. If, however, the document were to grow out of our experiences and be developed from our contributions, then its contents would have a better chance of being well received and more fully observed. The introductory chapter to the Lineamenta2 speaks of the period of preparation and celebration of the synod as the "tempus acceptabile," the favorable hour, the hour of Africa. This is the hour we have all waited for. It offers us a unique opportunity to bring about some of the changes and modifications religious life in Africa needs. It is a time for religious women in Africa to state our vision of commitment and involvement. This favorable hour con-tinues until the synod is actually celebrated and concluded, As part of this process it is important for us to raise issues and speak out about the problems that women religious encounter as they try to contribute to the work of evan-gelization in Africa. Indeed, for Africans this synod truly M. Gerard Nwagwu does much of her teaching at the Catholic Institute of West Africa; P.O. Box 499; Port Harcourt, Nigeria. 508 Review for Religious promises to be a "third Vatican Council" in what it could accom-plish for us. Consequently the initial period of intense preparation needs to be followed by a continued interest in the synod that fosters a receptive disposition of willingness to adopt its directives. The next generation of religious is likely to question how we made use of this opportunity, criticizing chances wasted and applauding those utilized. The older generation in their turn will be less critical insofar as they have never experienced such an event during their active days and therefore cannot be blamed for not effecting changes. Our contemporaries themselves could point accusing fingers at us if, for all our ideals and foresight, we achie~ced nothing when the circumstances were most opportune. Accepting facts as they are can be a mark of virtue on occa-sion. However, if we were to do that in the present situation, it would indicate complacency and inertia exactly when the action of working toward objectives that will benefit our people is demanded of us. Accepting the status quo just when the church calls us to make a move could indicate a cowardice and portray a fear of "launching out into the deep waters and laying out the nets for a catch," as Christ challenged the Apostles to do at a point when all hope seemed lost.3 We need an openness among ourselves to help us discover our weaknesses, our duties, and our obligations of evangelization--duties that the Code of Canon Law itself demands of religious in canons 211 and 758. Aware of these challenges, we can begin searching for an effective strategy. The Lineamenta presents a good number and variety of themes for our consideration. In any of these themes, the African reli-gious woman-has a role to play, not simply because she is an African or works in Africa, but because her religious life is directly intertwined with the life of the church. Vatican II witnessed to the fact that at no time in history has the church lacked some form of religious life.4 Religious life, in other words, is a con-stant and inseparable feature of the church. This universally his-toric fact is no different on African soil. However, it would take us too far afield to dwell on all of'the proposed themes as they relate to women religious in general. Rather let us consider those that focus strictly on the life of women religious in Africa, their apostolates, and their relationship with the world around them. Presently, most of the countries in Africa have celebrated the centenary of the arrival of the early Catholic missionaries. The few July-August 1992 509 Nwag-wu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod who have not will do so in the near future. Mmost everywhere the native indigenous clergy have assumed the direction of the particular churches, on both the diocesan and parish levels. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for all congregations of religious women in Africa.5 These factors and others highlight the growth of the church in Africa. Specifically, religious institutes are not left behind in the development. The momentous rise in the number of vocations to the religious life, especially in women's congregations, attests to this growth. Indeed the problem for many religious commu-nities is not so much trying to attract candidates but finding ways of adequately training and forming them in the spiritual and apos-tolic life. It is no wonder that foreign religious institutes endeavor to recruit girls from Africa to fill up their depleted ranks. Such recruiting, however, has been limited and conditioned by the authorities since it has often left a trail of disillusioned women who believed they were sent abroad for further studies, only to find that they were meant to supply domestic services. Though the road remains open for taking candidates abroad, yet some condi-tions must be fulfilled.6 The obvious growth of the church in Africa is one of the "signs of the times" that determine the form evangelization should assume in our midst. The evangelization that starts first with inte-rior conversion of hearts, matures to a personal witness of life, and finally develops into external commitments and service is the type that best suits the vocation of religious women. Before evan-gelizing others we must evangelize ourselves, for only after we have been converted can we support those around us.7 We shall be witnesses, yes, but only after an interior transformation of heart. Through such an authentic witness of the life of the evan-gelical counsels, we can make our own contribution to the new stage of evangelization required in Africa. With regard to reli-gious life, this first stage of evangelization involVes modeling to our people the values of total dedication and consecration to God with a hope of evoking a corresponding response from young women and men to embrace religious life. The second stage of renewed evangelization which suits our time is that of deepen-ing the faith of those who already believe and are baptized, We are already experiencing an influx of vocations, but how deep is their faith, how reliable is their commitment? Religious women, particularly, must ask probing questions, 510 Review for Religious admit the facts, and make worthwhile proposals. The point at issue is whether we realize that the effective contribution of women religious in the evangelization of Africa depends first on the genuine and generous commitments of our communities and second on the spiritual and apostolic formation we give our younger members. The vitality of religious life in Africa depends on these elements and on its being a true witness of the presence and love of God among our people. Such an objective compels us to examine some of the negative currents that undermine our abil-ity to evangelize our people in the manner referred to above. Primary among the negative currents is the wind of secularism that has blown through the world from the 1980s to the present day and has begun to register its presence in Africa. Some see it as materialism, others as atheistic humanism. Secularism, as Pope Paul VI has pointed out, views the world as entirely self-explanatory without any reference to God, who thus becomes unnecessary and is, as it were, an embarrassment. Secularism of this kind seeks to assert the power of humankind and leads to a situation in which God is ignored and denied.8 An allied expression is secularization. Where secularism is a theory and an ideology leading to denial of God, secularization is, instead, the fact and reality of experiencing life with a secular-ized mentality and attitude--that is, evaluating life from a worldly point of view. This, then, is the new form of atheism by which God is perceived to be less present, less necessary, less capable of providing a valid explanation of personal or social life experi-ences. In its undiluted form, secularization should not find a stronghold in Africa, given the characteristic spiritual vision of life within an African society wherein the divine permeates all aspects of life. However, what has invaded this sense of the sacred is the aftermath of secularization, revealed in such characteristics as superficiality, the desire for power and domination over others, autonomy and individualism, and a pleasure-loving orientation. Within our religious circles, when we lack an original experience of God and consequently fail to lead others to a similar experience, the evangelical counsels are confused or glossed over in various attempts to describe, them. We shall be witnesses only after an interior transformation of heart. j-~uly-August 1992 511 Nwag~u ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod Poverty is explained away in the tendency to acquire and accu-mulate in the name of the congregation; chastity in the necessity of having the comfort, convenience, and satisfaction of personal fulfillment; obedience in the assertion of autonomy and individ-uality as marks of our uniqueness and originality. In the maze of such ambiguity, the question for religious women to answer is whether at the present stage of their religious experience they can lay claim to preserving in full the religious sense and charac-ter of their consecration. Where secularization has made its mark, it is difficult to be a witness of the Gospel message. Secularism holds out to us the values of the world and urges us to conform; the Gospel offers us the mind and values of Christ. If we examine our situation and find out that our choices are secular in character, it is important for us to admit it, and so be able to discover what strategy to adopt con-cerning it. The type of choices we make and the attitudes we have clearly show whether we are evangelized at heart or not. On a secondary level the way we treat each other and the interpersonal regard we nurture in our communities would truly show if the Gospel values were operating among us. For when we continue to make discriminatory preferences between persons or congregations, then our witnessing cannot be anything but counterproductive to the task of evangelization. When we are carrying out a common objective, what should matter is the appre-ciation of a sister as a religious and the virtues she possesses for her to be entrusted with an undertaking which she will accomplish in the name of all, not whether she is a member of one congre-gation rather than another, or whether she has occupied a position of importance in her institute, or whether she has important con-nections, and so forth. Evangelizing witness on the community level is likely to be rendered nugatory as ~vell if, instead of the communion and unity which religious life signifies, we have the division and disunity of uncoordinated activity. The difficulties occasioned by lack of cooperation and coordination are most often seen between dif-ferent congregations rather than between members of the same institute. How often have we witnessed the complaints and dis-enchantment of institutes whose services are unceremoniously terminated in a place in favor of another institute--especially when the institute that takes up the apostolate in question may be completely ignorant of how the first institute left the scene! Such 512 Review for Religious a practice is exploitive and appears to be based on the availability of women religious. Apart from the circumstance related above in which two con-gregations of religious women are made to be victims at the same time, division of opinion among institutes is certainly a question that needs to be considered if the challenges of our times are to be adequately addressed. The church regards women religious as experts in communion both because of the communitarian quality of our consecration and because of our natural tendency to bond ourselves closely to oth-ers. Our best field of operation, therefore, is to work for unity and communion within our African church in all its various components. Women have a great capacity for personal adaptation in the face of the varied and often unexpected needs of the real life of societies and churches. We are thus often in a better position to ensure not merely the survival but even the development of evangelization.9 A determination to form deeper and stronger bonds of solidarity and sharing between our various institutes is the best way to confront the changing political, economic, and social conditions of our times. Such operative and meaningful solidarity will happen if various congregations are able to evolve while each institute retains its unique identity and character. As Pope Paul VI told us,'° we are missionaries to ourselves at this stage of the evangelization of Africa. We Africans are cat-echizing and witnessing t6 our own people in our home missions. We are also undertaking the evangelization of other African coun-tries outside our homeland--not overlooking, of course, the invaluable assistance offered by our foreign missionaries. Taking into account the greater number of women .religious, these foreign missions are mostly operated by religious sisters. We must ask ourselves, therefore, whether there exists a corresponding mis-sionary cooperation between the various religious congregations whose members labor on these foreign missions, or whether mis-sionaries carry along with them to the missions the lack of coop-eration and perhaps rivalry which possibly exists at home. We need to remember the call of John Paul II as he spoke about the problems facing evangelization in Africa: secularization has made its mark, it is difficult to be a witness of the Gospel message. July-August 1992 513 Nwagcvu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod Let all form one unity. Let everything be done to smooth and multiply the ways of mutual esteem, of fraternity, of collaboration. May anything that might be the cause of suf-ferings or casting aside, for one group or another, be ban-ished! May all be penetrated with sentiments of humility and of mutual service! For Christ! For the witness of the church! For the progress of evangelization!'~ With a unified front, we religious could more easily discover new approaches to problems that arise in the apostolate. These problems include the challenge of Islam and the determination of Muslims to spread the Koran from coast to coast by whatever means available. Carrying arms and matching violence with vio-lence is definitely not what the church expects religious women to accomplish in this regard. Neither is it possible to close our eyes and imagine that the friction and conflict with Muslims will even-tually ease off while we do nothing. We must, however, evaluate our strength and discover unobtrusive ways to reduce the threat of Islam for our people. In the face of such an offensive, the church has in the past usually adopted the practice of intensified prayer and a rigorous asceticism lived with generous hearts. Some apostolic religious institutes were founded to labor in countries of Islamic faith. But there are relatively few, if any, contemplative orders founded exclusively for the propagation of faith among Muslims. Such contemplative orders, which by their i~rayers, works of penance, and sacrifices labor to effect the conversion of souls, are crucial for the growth of Christian faith amidst the increased onslaught of Islamic hostility. It would be a welcome endeavor if the tendency our religious folk have to found new religious institutes is allowed to mature into communities that will pitch their tents among the Muslims of our country despite foreseeable opposition and even death. If such an inspiration of the Spirit were to happen, it would cer-tainly respond to the needs of the times. The challenge of Islam requires a radical religious decision. It calls for active institutes to reawaken their consciousness of the value and practice of the con-templative dimension of religious life. The Sacred Congregation for Religious and Secular Institutes exhorts: The contemplative dimension is the real secret of renewal for every religious life. Being a reality of grace, it preserves in the religious the commitment to bear witness before the world to the primacy of a personal relationship with God. They can thus avoid the constant danger for apostolic work- 514 Review for Religious ers who often become so much involved in their work for the Lord as to forget the Lord ofalI work,~z Another area of concern is the proliferation of sects and evan-gelical movements. The increase in their adherents means that some other churches--the traditional Christian churches includ-ing the Catholic Church--are losing members. The sects usually direct their proselytizing toward those who are already Christians and offer them what they apparently cannot get from their mother churches. Again Paul VI sounded the alarm when he noted: It is well known that in some places the church in Africa runs the risk of the fidelity of its sons and daughters being subjected to dangers and struggles, and to being tempted by false teaching. Indeed, Christian faith must become some-thing interior like a personal possession of each individ-ual.' 3 In the face of such phenomena, congregations of women reli-gious can be of immense help to the church if they include this ground among their fields of apostolate for the second stage of evangelizing Africa. By identifying the reasons Christians are attracted to these sects and the group of Catholics that are easily influenced by them, they can develop a strategy for deepening the faith of those most affected. Often a shallow faith, which offers no reply to the vital questions of suffering and pain, poverty and misery, doubts and fears, insecurity and emptiness, sickness and death and so forth, is quickly abandoned for what seems a better way out of problems. Such defections occur where people seek a church that'proffers some human warmth and mutual con-cern, an experience the larger churches cannot easily provide.'4 Even if religious themselves do not minister directly to the sects and their adherents, they can train the Christian laity to assume their role of searching out and reevangelizing their brethren. Similarly, it is important to examine the variety of means of social communications available in order to determine the ones best suited for evangelization in Africa today. Every institute is able to evaluate the effect of each of the means on individual members and on the community. For while it is necessary to know what the world around us is saying through the media, we must not allow it to monopolize our attention and dictate our conver-sational exchanges. Growth in religious commitment does not follow from an indiscriminate and sometimes imprudent use of the mass media, or with the exaggerated and extroverted activism the 3~uly-August 1992 515 Nwag-wu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod media can generate, or with an atmosphere of dissipation which contradicts the deepest expectations of religious life. The search for intimacy with God needs silence, never involving noise and confusion.~s Presently, however, our discussion on the media is not how much we adopt them in our communities, but how well we use them for evangelization. Since the various means are each an effi-cacious tool for communication, the message of faith can be divulged to millions of our people at the same time with their aid. What prevents us, for example, from publishing a magazine that focuses on African religious life? Other Christian groups take the lead in the use of media while Catholics lag behind. Sacred songs and music on the thousands of audiocassettes that flood the market are ahnost always produced by Protestant evangelical groups. In the past there used to be a festival of the arts for Catholic schools. Now the competitions organized for parish choirs do not seem to generate the same interest. When an institute chooses to engage some of its members in apostolates using more contemporary methodologies, the initial difficulty will be lack of trained personnel. Requisite educational competence is important; however, some religious superiors are reluctant to send sisters for further studies that take time to com-plete and cause financial constraint, especially in the face of past disappointments. All the same, such reservation should give way before the conditions of our times and the needs of the church, which demand specialized training in some fields of study. No field of study can be superfluous if it furthers the mission of the institute. And since evangelization is a common mission for all, then adequate preparation is necessary for its realization. We cannot meet our contemporaries handicapped. For priests and religious to grow in requisite skills and maturity, it is essen-tial for them to receive the type of formation usually done in cen-ters of study at the university level or in institutes of higher studies. Specialized studies undertaken by religious should be prompted not by a misdirected desire for self-fulfillment with a view to achieving personal ends, but with the sole intention of meeting the apostolic commitments of the religious family itself in the context of the needs of the church.16 In view of the renewed call to evangelize, some significant changes may have to be made in the initial stages of formation. This sensitive area touches the autonomy and identity of insti- 516 Review for Religious tutes. Nevertheless, some general criteria may be adopted on the intercongregational level while the exact details can be left to the creativity of each institute. A rereading of the conciliar guide-lines for renewal shows that there is no question of simple adap-tations of certain external forms such as the habit. There is question, rather, of a deep edu-cation in attitude and in lifestyle that makes it possible to remain true to oneself even in the new forms of being present--a presence as con-secrated persons who seek the full conversion of people and of society to the ways of the Gospel through personal witness and service.~7 The challenges presented to religious women by the forthcoming synod will demand prayer, discipline, and sacrifice. It will not be easy to effect changes because part of the pattern of life and action we have grown used to will have to be renounced. Though renun-ciation may be spiritually rewarding, it is never gratifying to the ego. All the same, the changes need be made. The "signs of the times" are ripe and they offer us incentives to renew and revise our pattern of life and to give a preferential treatment to the duty of evangelization. The traditional ministries carried out in hospi-tals, schools, and social centers remain important, but their rel-evance in meeting the people of our times and engaging them in faith encounters has diminished. Women religious who are solidly founded in faith and suffi-ciently prepared and who can use their feminine qualities of devo-tion, refinement, faithfulness, and patience and their great capacity to adapt to the unexpected demands of real life can transform sit-uations which would intimidate others who lacked the weapons of faith and culture. In conclusion, let us remember the call of John Paul II and our obligation to respond to his invitation: We cannot meet our contemporaries handicapped. You have lived a first great stage, an irreversible stage. A new stage is open to you. It is no less an exalted one, even if it necessarily involves new trials, and perhaps the temp-tation of discouragement. It is the stage of perseverance, in which it is necessary to pursue the strengthening of the faith, the conversion in depth of souls and ways of life, so that they will correspond better and better to your sublime Christian vocation.18 July-August 1992 517 Nwag-wu ¯ Women Religious and the African Synod Notes i The exact date for the synod has not been set, but observers do not expect it to take place before 1994 or 1993 at the earliest. ~" Lineamenta, General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops, Vatican City, 1990. 3 Luke 5:4. 4 Lumen Gentium §44. s Some congregations of women religious still have nonindigenous administrative personnel. 6 This includes the establishment of a local community in the area, which in turn requires.that a diocesan bishop invite the institute in ques-tion to his diocese. 7 Luke 22:32. 8 Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, §55. 9 Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Dans le Cadre, The Role of Women in Evangelization, in Vatican Council H Postconciliar Documents, vol. 2, p. 322. l0 Paul VI, Inaugural Session of SECAM, Kampala, 1969. llJohn Paul II, Address to Zairean Bishops 3 May 1980, in Origins 10, no. 1, p. 6. 12 SCRIS, La Plenaria, The Contemplative Dimension of Religious Life, January 1980, §§ 2, 4, and 30. 13 Paul VI, Address at the 4th Plenary Assembly of SECAM, September 1975. 14 Paul V-I, Evangelii Nuntiandi, §58. is SCRIS, La Plenaria, §14. 16 SCRIS, Mutuae Relationes, §31 and §26. ~7 SCRIS, La Scelte Evangeliche, On Religious and Human Development, January 1981, §32. is John Paul II, Address to Priests and Religious, Zaire, 1980. 518 Review for Religious JENNIFER MARY ALT Rerooting Religi ous Life in South Africa the dialogue has been to develop a religious-life spirituality that would be less foreign and more of a special flowering and inter-pretation of African human and spiritual values. These values encompass all of human life. The spiritual is never seen as apart from the material, and people are seen as depending on other people, and therefore on the Divine, for life and meaning. Outside of their social relationships, individuals are less than nothing. If religious life became better integrated with native African spiri-tual values, it would witness more clearly and bring greater hope to South Africa's strife-torn people. Religious life is not foreign to Africa. In fact, its cradle is to be found in North Africa in the early centuries of Christianity. Organized religious life took its conception from the life and work of the Desert Fathers and was rooted in the form of Christianity found among the rural tribal people of North Africa. This rural tribal Christian expression was eventually declared heretical and has since been known as the Donatist heresy.- St. Augustine, the well-known urban African, a man cut off from his Jennifer Mary Alt OP, a member of the Cabra Dominican Sisters, is director of the Catholic Centre for Spiritual Growth sponsored by the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference. With her doctoral research in cross-cultural personality studies, she has worked with religious in developing an African religious spirituality. She may be addressed at the Catholic Centre for Human and Spiritual Growth; P.O. Box 53 505; Troyeville (JHB); 2139 South Africa. ~uly-August 1992 519 Alt . .Re~roo~ng Religious Life cultural roots, was chiefly responsible for the suppression of the Donatists. Early North African Christianity was predominantly rural. These rural Christians had been formed by their own primal reli-gion. This religion revolved around being in harmony with the spiritual in life. The Ancestors--important good people who had died and who then lived on in spirit in the living--were seen as important mediators of the spiritual. Life among humans was seen as essentially social, and people got their meaning and pur-pose from living and working in harmony with other people. To be in a group was part of life. Over fifteen hundred years separate us from these earlier times, and Africa south of the Sahara is in a different position today. Yet it too moves from a very strong primal religious back-ground. In parts of Africa, for instance South Africa, much of the primal past has disappeared, but the beauty of its spirit remains. Unless one pays attention to it, one will find it difficult to under-stand the modern movements in religious life in Africa. A primal outlook on life in terms of human values is'a profound way of looking at it. The work of the Divine is easily seen in it. The connectedness between this outlook and the teachings of Jesus is easy to recognize. Unfortunately, modern religious life has been presented in Africa south of the Sahara as something foreign and Western, as something that has nothing to do with African values. In fact, African values had to be somehow discarded as one entered a reli-gious order. Westerners find the intricacies of life in Africa very difficult to understand and, without ill will, have misjudged much of what they saw, dismissing it as primitive and pagan. It is exceedingly important for people entering religious life to realize the continuity between the values they were given in their families and the values outlined in their religious rule. African religious largely see religious life as divorced from their past, as something quite other. They see the rules and regula-tions of religious living as something totally new which has to be learned. Because of this the rules of religious life remain largely outside of them. The rules have little effect on their feelings and attitudes. The result is that religious life tends to lose its mean-ing and become more a drudgery than a life-giving program. There is a saying which is practically ubiquitous in Africa. It runs in South Africa: "People are made people through other 520 Review for Religious people." In Swahili a similar saying is: "I am, you are, and because you are, I am." This circular statement sums up the insight which Africans have about people depending on one another and the insight that without people the individual is nothing. This aware-ness of dependence and interdependence is a far cry from the individualism of the modern. Western outlook. Dependence on God is the source of all spir-ituality and is clearly discernible in the African outlook. Africa has a strong belief in the spiri-tual life. Death is seen not so much as an ending, but as a passing into a spiritual way of being. In Africa everything material has its spiritual equiv-alent. In fact, nothing exists without its spirit. It follows that religious life is seen as essentially for the purpose of bringing people into contact with the Divine in a special way. If this does not happen, then religious life for the individual tends to remain on a material and self-centered level. The religious vocation is a call to a special relationship with the spiritual realm. Religious with their vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience are marked as essentially different from others, for they are in a sense outside the primal group of family, clan, and nation. They live in an area of liminality in life and in this area make contact with the Divine. Everywhere in Africa the call to the spiritual is treated with great respect and reverence. The call is seen as mysterious and very important. It is not questioned. Take, for example, persons who discern that they are called to be a sangorna, to be one who understands the relationship between the material and the Divine and who is specially equipped to interpret rifts that occur between the human and the Divine, rifts that are seen as the cause of all mental and physical illness. Such calls will not be dismissed lightly, and people will undergo rigorous training to equip themselves for their special task as a sangoma. The religious call is seen in this context. It also comes from the Ancestors of the family, and therefore no one should interfere with it. The Ancestors will protect the person so called. Africans believe that when outstanding members of the family or the nation die, they join the living dead. They live on in spirit in another member of the family. As a human being casts a shadow, so each human in the flesh represents the spirit of an Ancestor. A parent 'People are made people through other people.' 3n-uly-Augus~ 1992 521 who first refused to allow a daughter to enter a convent remarked on her behavior: "I was fighting with the Ancestors." In Africa the spiritual revolves around the Ancestors, who mediate the Divine in life. The blessing of the Ancestors needs to be invoked in all circumstances. This ancient method of prayer might seem fundamentalist to a Western person, but it suits many people in the indigenous churches. They invoke God in all cir-cumstances: when getting up in the morning, at the beginning of all jobs--nothing, in fact, is done without prayer to the Ancestors. MI church services center on asking the Ancestors for blessing and healing of any rifts between the living dead and the humans in the flesh. Prayer then centers on the spirit of reverence and respect: through prayer, healing and forgiveness are brought to ordinary human relationships, and rifts with the Ancestors are healed. In this way the negative effects in our lives are resolved, and we become healthy again. Religious in this context are people who are especially moved by the spirit, in a charismatic sense. Prayer then is warm, spon-taneous, and real. But if religious life is seen by Africans as a bureaucratic organization in which material advantages follow the keeping of the rules, even though many of the rules may cen-ter on saying prayers; then it remains outside the person and will not lead to a true conversion of heart. Young people who enter often see a religious house as a house protected by God. They see religious as being protected by God, and the convent as a place of shelter from the storms of life; God will protect the people whom he has called. Many young people enter to be protected from the violence in the streets. Young girls come to escape being raped. Parents send children to convents in order to prevent .them from joining gangs. As people turn to sangomas (the spiritual healers) to protect themselves from the chaos around them, so they send their young girls to convents for the same protection. They feel that no evil can enter a reli-gious house. They also feel that God protects his religious from economic disaster. Young people and their parents see religious houses as places where people will be educated, fed, and housed; as places where the chaos of grinding poverty and ignorance will be kept at bay. Religious will be protected from thes~ material disasters. It is essential in these circumstances to help young people, through self-reflection, to an acceptance of their African values in 522 Review for Religious the light of the Gospel values. This helps to bring about a con-version of heart in which the person is moved to choose Jesus and break out into the wider world of other people and their needs. Young persons, in answering their call, answer it on behalf of their entire family and the Ancestors whom they embody in their life. Therefore, when young people join a religious order, they do not come as mere individuals with little significance. They come as deserving of great respect. They are not alienated people of no back-ground. They are not nobodies. God calls people through an entire network of relationships. Young religious who respond are responsible, therefore, for answering the call of the entire network. This gives the religious a great sense of sup-port and responsibility. To know that one bears the spirit of a beloved grandmother or grandfa-ther in one's life makes the path less precarious, less lonely, and more meaningful. Second, it gives the religious a great sense of dignity and worth. Religious need to respect their own call, and others must respect it too. Without this sense of reverence and respect, the young reli-gious fails to have any sense of liminality. Religious life then becomes more a question of obeying external laws which do not touch the heart and of obtaining an education. Instead of reli-gious life being a development or an exploration of the spiritual, it can become monotonous and meaningless. When the crises come, as come they must, the religious will not choose Jesus, but will make an easier, more selfish choice. A common saying in Africa expresses this lack of conviction and choice: "That person is a Christian by day and an African by night!" A difficulty inherent in the above outlook arises when a reli-gious wishes to leave the convent. Leaving is looked upon as a disaster: the religious loses her ties with God. Her relationship with him is broken. It is in the light of this broken relationship that all future troubles will be judged. The following example is typical: A young'sister left a religious congregation and then failed to pass her nursing examination. She moved to teaching and was equally unsuccessful. This was seen to be the result of leaving the convent, not the result of lack of sufficient talent. It is important to stress, therefore, that the divine call arises out of our baptismal God calls people through an entire network of relationships. j~ly-August 1992 523 Alt . Rerootin Reli "ous Life call. It is this call that must be answered, whether it is lived out in the context of religious life or not. In Africa, to be in a group is part of life. The richness of the human exchange in a community enriches the individual. The individual who is not included in this exchange is drained of life, so to speak. Group living is full of all that is human. Contentment, excitement, joy, happiness, and security are part of that living as are tensions, fears, suspicions, and disharmony. But the underly-ing attitudes of loyalty and respect can keep a group together through major emotional upheavals. In Africa, people truly live community. In the West, people tend to theorize and talk about community, but find it difficult to live it. Both lifestyles have their problems. In Africa, people are meant to live in harmony with one another and with the Ancestors. The individual is meant to enrich the lives of others and to be enriched in return. A religious group thatis not living a life filled With the Spirit will tend to exhibit the spirits of discord and chaos. In such close-knit and complex living together, the individual can feel very vul-nerable. Fear of one another, fear of authority figures, is a natural component of such living. Unless the group is living in the Spirit, fear instead of acceptance and warmth can dominate the group. Community life is held back by fear. Individuals will keep quiet at community meetings, for example. Many opinions which could build up a community are not stated. This can lead to seri-ous mistakes being made. Superiors can go unchallenged and do irresponsible things. Individuals who choose to live a life which is not in accordance with their vows are also left unchallenged because others are afraid to say anything. Those who have this fear feel humiliated and inferior; they grow depressed; in the end, tension shows itself as an illness. Such fear of disharmony, of expressing conflicting opinions, can cause great problems to social and group life in Africa. If disharmony and conflicts arise, the group tends to split and quickly polarize. This process is very evident in the histories of many of the African Independent Churches. African political leaders have generally chosen a one-party style of government in order to avoid disharmony. In so doing they have introduced a totalitarian system which in practice is marked by tribalism and greed. Modern urban societies demand that we learn to live with some disharmony and difference of opinion. In fact, differences of opin- 524 Review.for Religious ion can lead to positive growth, for without differences adaptation to changing times and circumstances cannot take place. In Africa the method of handling differences is for the entire group to°come together and to discuss fully the pros and cons of the different opinions. In these long conversations each person is listened to, and the conversation does not end until consensus is reached. This is like methods of conflict management in the West. The Gospel message of Jesus enhances and brings to fruition the message which Africa can give our world in terms of the interdependence of humans and their dependence on the Divine. The message of Jesus is close to the heart of the African experience of human living together. The message of the great religious founders like St. Benedict finds spontaneous resonance in Africa. The message of religious life, which strives to express the values of the Gospel of Jesus, is not much different from African value systems. The message of Jesus helps people choose less selfish values. In Africa, choices are made according to how a person feels. They tend to be made in terms of present time. A person might, there-fore, at one time choose some abstract Christian value and at another time choose against the same value. But people who are moved by the Spirit choose more responsibly. For instance, peo-ple might not feel like helping when help is needed, but if they are filled with the Spirit, they will go against that feeling and help nevertheless. Or, again, people may feel like getting revenge by not sharing, but if they are filled with the Spirit, they will share. The transcendent message of Jesus helps people to consider beyond this present moment. Christians need to think about the consequences of present actions: Would the future be better, more Christian, as a result of choices we might make now? Often enough, thoughtless pragmatic choices can bring immediate sat-isfaction in terms of money, goods, or pleasant feelings, but the long-term effects of these choices can be extremly destructive. Africa is full of examples of people who pragmatically and selfishly participated in their own destruction. Africans took part in the slave trade. African leaders have greedily plotted the economic ruin of the countries they govern. Tribal rural people have taken The message of Jesus is close to the heart of the African experience of human living together. AI~ o R~'ng Reli ~ou~ monetary handouts from the West, which have led to the destruc-tion of their way of life and to a dependency on further hand-outs. Other cultures can be less utilitarian and selfish by taking their heritage very seriously and protecting it. The Chinese, .Japanese, and Indians have not allowed Western materialism and individualism free access into their cultures, and they have been less enthusiastic in terms of cooperating with the West. Africa can be rather like Esau, who sold his birthright for a mess of pot-tage, because Africa does not appreciate the richness of its social and spiritual heritage for itself and for the world. The message of.jesus builds deeper trust. Christ has through his death and resurrection conquered death and despair. He is above all spirits. He is above all ancestors. There is no need for Christians to fear curses or sangomas or their neighbor. Life for Christians is secure because .jesus has already overcome the spirit of death and chaos. .Jesus speaks a message of love of one's neighbor and of one's enemy. Christians have to consider people who do not belong to their group or clan as nevertheless belonging to the family of .Jesus. Such "outsiders" are not objects, and they must be treated with love and respect. In this way the Christian message brings peace to the troubled area of ethnic and tribal violence--some-thing which has brought misery and death to many millions in Africa and has impoverished whole nations of people. If Christ's message is allowed to bring to fruition the values which the African people received from-God through the Ancestors, much that is unauthentic can be removed from African life even as its contact with the West increases. 526 Review for Religious ALBERT DI IANNI Religious Life and Religion Some recent discussions on "refounding" religious life in which I participated were passionate and at times ended in discord. Admittedly the groups involved were tired and overworked, but this was not the whole explanation. The heat manifested in exchanges about potential cures for the ills of contemporary religious life springs from a deeper source, from a basic disagreement about the nature of Christianity and of religion. When I first encountered the notion of"refounding" currently in vogue, I welcomed it as an improvement over "renewal" because it seemed to demand a deeper conver-sion and a more radical rebuilding. It brought to mind the Carmelite reform at the hands of Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross through an inventive retrieval of the spirit and discipline of the founders. Refounding seemed to invite us to set out once again upon a religious adven-ture demanding both great sacrifice and an engagement with the world that remained in some way separate from the world. Resistance to the notion mounted, however, with the repeated calls to identify "change agents" in the group who might encourage creativity in ministry and develop alternative community lifestyles. The more speakers lim-ited their discussions to talk about "delivery systems" for Albert DiIanni SM serves as vicar general of the Society of Mary (Marist). His address is Via Messandro Poerio 63; 00152 Rome; Italy. living religiously ~-uly-dug~_st 1992 527 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion change, namely, leadership models derived from anthropology and from corporate-reflection techniques borrowed from busi-ness psychology--the more they discussed only means--the more I felt I was being bundled down some primrose path. Before I discuss means, I want to discuss goals; before I accept help to move forward, I want to determine where I, where we, should want to go. This is possibly because I suspect that I do not want to go where some speakers want to lead me or that their advice about means carries some hidden freight about goals with which I do not concur. In a recent conversation about refounding, I found myself suddenly compelled to ask some strange, basic questions, not about religious life but about religion: What, for you, constitutes the heart of the Christian religion? What is its basic meaning or purpose? What engenders religion in the first place? Such ques-tions came to mind because I suddenly realized that our dis-agreement lay at a deep level, that we could not simply assume we would all answer such fundamental questions in the same way. This was not because anyone had expressly denied any belief which I held, but becaus{ they seemed to deflect or sidestep cer-tain ideas as old-fashioned or not in line with the particular action steps being recommended. The urge to ask fundamental questions comes upon me espe-cially when I sense that religion is being reduced to sociology, psychology, or even to morality, be it personal, social, or ecolog-ical morality. In fact, any tendency to reduce religion to morality fires me up more than sociological or psychological reductions because it is more subtle and plausible and thus more seductive. But let me put my own cards on the table. What do I believe is at the heart of the Christian religion? (I will ignore the eso-teric distinction drawn by some between faith and religion and the theory that Christianity is not a religion but.a faith.) Though Christianity like other religions is an amalgam of many compo-nents, I believe that its strictly religious aspect lies in its being an answer to the experience of human contingency and the con-tingency of the world. Most people at some time in their lives have felt wonder that the world exists at all and have faced into the void of their own death. They moved beyond the taken-for-grant-edness of the world and became frightened by the thought that nothing at all might have existed and no possibility of anything. They wondered if there were an ultimate meaning to life or if 528 Review for Religious humans were but a sport of nature. Christianity's central doctrine is that the world need not have existed and that it was the object of creation by a good God. A Christian believer is convinced that at the center of the universe is not a surd but a personal Love. The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein was not a believer. Norman Malcolm, his former student and biographer, says that he could not be called a religious person, but that he was passionately interested in religion and always seemed close to the possibility of religion. Wittgenstein once produced two examples of what he consid-ered bona fide religious experiences as opposed to moral or aesthetic ones. He respected them even if he thought that in entertaining them he was running up against the limits of language. One was the experi-ence of uncanniness that the world exists at all. The second was the conviction he some-times had that, whatever might happen, he would be safe. Neither of these experiences points of necessity to the existence of some transcen- The urge to ask fundamental questions comes upon me when I sense that religion is being reduced to sociology, psychology, or even to morality. dent reality, but they provide, the experiential ground from which many people move to affirm the existence of God. In such feelings and experiences, the affirmation that God exists is existentially grounded, becomes more than an intellectual proposition, takes root, finds a home. The first experience is the sense that a fleet-ing world must be rooted in a stable fundamental Reality. The second bespeaks a trust that cannot be explained without the pres-ence of a loving center of the universe. My own thoughts about religion center on experiences of this type. Admittedly my idea of religion has strong mystical over-tones; it is our response to radical contingency and, in its most primitive and deepest meaning, has little to do with morality. Religion refers primarily to a "holy" space out of which we and the world spring and gives rise to the imperative that each of us become holy, living our life in and for God. Beyond this I know that religion and morality are intimately intertwined and that a religious or holy person must also be morally good. One can hardly be holy and evil. Holiness means in part being extraordinarily kind, socially just, honest, temperate, a ~dy-Augvmt 1992 529 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion peacemaker. Yet it cannot be reduced to the practice of these moral virtues. For it is conceivable that someone could be morally good, could follow punctiliously the rules of a moral system, fos-ter social justice, be chaste and kind, and yet not be a religious per-son. He or she could be moral out of personal taste, by temperament, for aesthetic reasons, or out of natural sympathy toward others, and not because of his or her relationship to God. Philippa.Foot, an Oxford moral philosopher and avowed atheist, once told a seminar group that she was such a moral person and that she refused to be patronized by being called an "anonymous Christian." A Christian religious person not only acts morally, but also sees the world in a new way--that it is dependent for its very existence on a transcendent reality and that this makes all the dif-ference. Because it is focused upon the transcendent, the Christian vision has specific ethical implications different from Enlighteflment theories which place the human person or freedom at the center of the moral endeavor. For the Christian the pri-mary response to the world is not that of owner and Promethean creator, but of humble and obedient creature; not an entrepreneurial relishing of power and freedom, but a Marian gratitude before God for all that God has wrought. From this Christian gratitude is born the imperative to love God and God's creation, to allow God to express the divine mercy through us, especially toward the weak and the abandoned. This Christian gratitude and its ethical implications are nourished and deepened through a close union with God in prayer. It is this vision, it seems to me, which should be at the heart of the life of consecrated religious. If they are to be prophetic, it is in this: that in their lives they point constantly to the tran-scendent moment of the universe and try to develop what it means. It is up to each group to decide how it will express this. Christian meaning exists in--and is to be found in--religious sis-ters, brothers, and priests when they are rapt in contemplation of God as well as when they are picking up dying persons from the streets. When people see one of them unremittingly engaged in both, they believe they are in the presence of a saint. Some contemporary Catholic lay people and members of reli-gious congregations seem to have lost sight of the transcendent pole of Christianity. Their model of Christianity has become what Charles Davis labels "pragmatic." The pragmatic version of 530 Review for Religious Christianity arose, he says, when "the Christian religion ceased to function mythically as an overarching totality . The emphasis therefore shifted to Christianity as a practical way of life or eth-ical system. This is still conceived in religious terms, such as the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of God's children, the kingdom of righteousness . But all these expressions are different ways of formulating the moral imperatives gov-erning human existence." ~ Both conservatives and liberals have made this pragmatic shift in Christianity. Conservatives stress per-sonal and family morality and such questions as abortion and euthanasia, and progressives stress social justice, ecology, and women's rights. Future historians may judge that the Vatican itself, but to a lesser degree, has been drawn into what I am characterizing as an overemphasis of morality. They may well remember Pope John Paul II as the "morality pope" because of his repeated statements about both per-sonal and social morality. In practice if not in theory, love of neighbor and enemy seem to have taken precedence over con-cern about union with God. Today's heresies all seem to be moral heresies. Not many Catholics seem concerned about dogmas, about trinitarian, soteriological, or Christological errors. And yet the history of the early church reveals that this was not always so. (I am at times tempted to fashion a brand-new trinitarian heresy to spur people to think more about God and less about themselves!) In this excessive emphasis on morality, the modern church reflects our secularized times, the age that mistook the world for God. In the late sixties, a time noted for its air of revolution, our seminary faculty once gathered the seminarians for a discussion on the question: W'hat are the most important qualities for being a priest and religious today? Some suggested approachability, oth-ers learning and competence, still others kindness or some other human virtue. I was surprised that no one spoke of holiness--a sure candidate just ten years before--and I pointed this out to Someone could be morally good, could follow punctiliously the rules of a moral system, foster social justice, be chaste and kind, and yet not be a religious person. ~dy-August 1992 531 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion the group. One of the seminarians fixed me with a stare and said with an air of disdain: "Just be human, Father!" Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Kiko ArgOello, the Spanish layman and artist who founded the Neo- Catechumenate movement, which offers a series of steps, a way, for modern Catholics to rediscover their baptism and be com-mitted to evangelization. I played the devil's advocate and asked whether his way (camino) of training lay people over a period of years did not produce an arrogant elite and end up creating more division than unity in parishes. His answer was in strict contrast to the seminarian's. He insisted that becoming a Christian today was not easy, regardless of what many priests trained since Vatican II seemed to believe. It did not suffice to simply shout the love slo-gan. Belief that God exists and that Jesus is in some way the son of God was difficult in a secularized culture. Besides, our world of drugs and violence, suburban adultery and abortion, euthana-sia and consumerism, was full of snares. It would not be suffi-cient simply to limit our preaching to a form of positive reinforcement. People had to be called to a public confession of their belief in God and Jesus, be brought to a felt need for con-version, be tested in their resolve, b~ supported by a tightly knit community, and be nourished by an adequate participative' liturgy. Needed, in his view, was a method, a way, a structure, a catechu-menate, 'to bring people squarely before their baptism and its implications for their lives. In so many words he was saying that it was simplistic for the 1968 seminarian to have said: "Just be human, Father." Yes, Christ is at work in the world wherever human good is being done, and we have to recognize and foster such work wher-ever we find it; but we must be aware, too, that fostering human-istic values and being a Christian are not in every way identical. Besides demanding that we be thoroughly moral, Christianity demands belief in many strange things, like the incarnation, the need for redemption, the resurrection, the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and the role of Mary. For a time in my adolescence, I wished I had been brought up neutral vis-~a-vis religion so that at the age of twenty-one I might consider all the major religions and choose among them without the prejudice of early Catholic training or brainwashing. But I know now that this is naive, for I have recognized that young people who have not been brought up in any religion end up by 532 Review for Religious having no religious sentiment or religiosity. They tend to remain religion-neutral, unable to make a choice in favor of any religion. George Lindbeck, a Protestant theologian, believes that, unless some religion is taught to us when we are young, unless we are brought up in some religious prac-tices, we might not even be capable of religious experience. This may be exaggerated, but I am sure it contains a grain of truth. One thing is certain: People are never brought up in a vac-uum of vision and values. If they do not absorb religious vision and val-ues, they absorb the secular vision and religion-neutral values of the movies and television. Especially in Europe several new lay Christian movements and reli-gious orders have been born in full awareness of this: the Focolarini, the Sant' Egidio community, the Neo- Catechumenate, the Lion of Juda, the Legionaries of Christ, and so forth. They all believe that becoming Christian in a secularized world is especially difficult and demands a way, a method, an entry through a kind of Christian subculture. It means leaving behind a lot of things that can seem very important from the world's point of view, but really are not. It demands kenosis, emptying oneself, in preparation for a radical decision in favor of Christ and God. Karl Rahner once declared: "A Christian in today's world will be a mys-tic or else he will not exist." And he went on to speak of mystagogy, the need of a method to lead people to see everything in God. I believe that one reason why religious congregations are in a mere survival situation today is that, in their admirable effort to take a positive view of the world, they have identified religion too strongly with a humanistic morality that tends to be secular-istic, individualistic, and overly egalitarian. History shows that almost all religious congregations enjoyed strong growth at their beginnings. They were exciting and attractive in part because they were new, but part of their attraction lay elsewhere. The early members had a sense of a religious adventure and cause larger than themselves which rendered them willing to forgo many personal rights and privileges.~They were members of what Besides demanding that we be thoroughly moral, Christianity demands belief in many strange things, like the incarnation, the need for redemption, the resurrection. July-August 1992 533 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion have been called "intentional" communities as opposed to various "associational" and "bureaucratic" ones that have come into exis-tence since Vatican II.2 They were quite unconcerned with self-expression and equality, not because they were naive and subservient (today's caricature), but because they were caught up in a higher religious vision that enhanced and focused their ener-gies for God and the church. Most religious congregations were founded for three main purposes, the salvation of the members, the salvation of others, and dedication to a devotion or a way of the apostolate. Their charism did not lie only in the third element but in all three. Their purposes were decidedly religious and eschatological as well as incarnational. Today the eschatological has been pushed aside by an incarnational theology interpreted too secularistically and humanistically. Transcendent themes have been toned down in favor of an emphasis on egalitarian rights, on a type of justice interpreted not only as equity but as evenness, a kind of unifor-mity without differences. Everyone knows that only in unity is strength. But egalitarianism, by its very definition, effects an atomism and separateness within a group inasmuch as it deems individual rights and desires more important than the group's religious cause and adventure. Such stress upon egalitarian and humanistic ideals is an ide-ology. It is one way--and only one way--of interpreting democ-racy and justice in society and in religious groups. To oppose that ideology is not to give up democracy but to give it another inter-pretation. This was brought home to me recently as I overheard a conversation between an Mnerican priest--a born-again egali-tarian- and a young female member of the lay Sant' Egidio com-munity in Rome.3 Describing how the community functioned, she mentioned that in her particular community, because of its makeup and history, only certain men and no women were asked to speak at the prayer services. The American priest objected that this was a grave error, that it was supremely important--as a sym-bol and sign to others if not for her personally--that women be allowed to preach in every community. She answered that the Sant' Egidio community did not approach questions ideologi-cally, but pragmatically. Some of the other communities did have women preachers, but because of its particular history and tal-ents, her group preferred not to have them and she was happy with things as they were. She explained that for the Sant' Egidio 534 Review for Religious group three things were of paramount importance: (1) prayer together over the word of God, (2) friendship or mutual support, and (3) work for and with the poor. All else must cede before the achievement of these goals. The American priest's voice rose as he insisted that she was wrong and that the American interpretation of women's rights was correct. But she stood her ground and deftly changed the sub-ject. We have come full circle. In the 1960s, after many years of repression and an exaggerated supernaturalism, we needed to stress personal free-dom and responsibility and a true equality among the races and sexes. We had to recognize our duty before God to take responsibility to build up a world of justice and peace. But this did.not mean that such concerns should come to prevail in reli-gious congregations and sweep all else away in their wake. Now that we have seen the shadow side of such emphases in religious life, we can bet-ter take stock and rediscover that our involvement with the world must begin beyond the world. While the psychological and political agendas were very important for religious life, neither of them was the "one thing necessary." Religious life should center upon that in Christianity which relates our lives to the transcendent. It is here that we must seek its prophecy. It is in reminding people of the divine enchant-ment of the world that it must be countercultural. It is upon this that reflection on refounding religious life must insist. In her arti-cle "Religious Life and the Need for Salt,''4 Joan Chittister asks the right questions regarding contemporary religious life. She wisely concludes that the project of encouraging self-expression in traditionally repressed religious has now been achieved. She says we must now move to questions about the group and how it can be prophetic in today's world. But her answers, giving her interpretation of prophecy, are still too much centered on ecology, social assistance, and human rights and thus, by remaining within a pragmatic model of Christianity, seem but another reiteration of the program of liberal politics. These liberal concerns are impor-tant and must be addressed by the church: the laity, the clergy, and the religious. But addressing such issues, in my opinion, is not going to be the salvation of religious life. Its problems do not 'A Christian in today's world will be a mystic or else he will not exist.' .July-August 1992 535 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Relig4on arise from a neglect of them. Religious lack, not moral outreach, but religious centering. They fail to realize what the poor them-selves realize and express in their popular religions, that our union with God through Jesus is central, that we must work at it, and that it is primarily in this that we will be countercultural. Which is more countercultural--to say we must strive to save planet earth or to say we truly believe that the dead are with God because Jesus rose from the dead and that this makes all the difference? I have made some hard remarks and asked some hard ques-tions, and I would welcome a dialogue about them. I am sure I have not expressed them adequately, but I am convinced that they contain at least a grain of truth. I am encouraged in uttering them by the swing of young people in both Europe and North America toward an interest in the mystical sense of religion. In the 1960s the young were caught up in the humanistic values of psychol-ogy and sociology, but today's youth exhibit a great interest in mysticism, religious cults and movements, apparitions and heal-ings, the afterlife; and even reincarnation and the satanic. Does this not indicate that they are experiencing a deep void of mean-ing in an anorexic and bulimic world where money, notoriety, power, individualism, and equality have become the primary val-ues? Does not this cultural change signal that secular humanism for all its ethical achievements has also been an impoverishment by reason of a dearth of religious imagination? Is it not a sign of the times when people living in sophisticated technological cul-tures begin to be attracted to religious beliefs interpreted in a most .simplistic fashion? I know the good responses to the distinction I draw within Christianity between morality and religion. Most will describe it as dualistic--for contemporary pundits the most damning of epi-thets. They will say, "You are separating things that are essen-tially linked." Love of God and love of neighbor are two aspects of the same thing. If you do not care for the person you see, how can you say you love the God you do not see? Those who love God should find their love's primary expression in their dedica-tion to caring for their neighbor, whether friend or enemy. Prayer is missionary and missionary activity is prayer--and on and on. Others will say that I give a false description of the present sit-uation of religious life; they will deny that those engaged in social justice and ecology tend to pray less and to be less interested in the transcendent, in sacraments, and in the eschatological. 536 Reviezv for Religious I know these rejoinders are partly true, but also that they are partly false. I know that the two aspects of Christianity, religion and morality, love of God and love of neighbor, are very closely intertwined, and I am aware of Karl Rahner's brilliant attempt to conjoin them.5 But I know too that they are conceptually distinct because I have seen them separated in the history of the church. At times the church has experienced the extreme of quietism, an overem-phasis on faith without good works, and other times the heresy of action, a hectic involvement in important works of justice and charity to the detriment of prayer and interiority, the soul of the apostolate. It is up to each of us to examine our life to determine where we are. But I am convinced that the problems of religious life stem only partly from a lack of adequate delivery systems and from ignorance about psychol-ogy, social systemics, and anthropo-logical models in an age of rapid change. I am convinced that their deeper source lies in the confusion between religion and morality and in an insistence upon moral-ity because of a loss of faith and interest in religion. If Christian religion is centered almost exclusively upon doing the moral good, upon promoting social justice and ecology, or upon fighting pornography and abortion, then what is the mean-ing of doctrines and dogmas? Are they but religious, accouter-ments? If so, why not be honest and simply drop them? What is the meaning of the redemption through Christ for a religion reduced to morality? What is the meaning of the Eucharist? Are these dogmas and sacraments only stimuli for action, stories and symbols subtly swaying us to do what is truly important: foster-ing the construction of a socially just and ecologically sound world, creating the. kingdom of morality? Is the resurrection just a story whose real cash value is all those smaller resurrections which can occur in a society, in history, or in each human life? How is a religious congregation which centers so strongly on morality to be differentiated from such groups as UNICEF or the Which is more countercultural - to say we must strive ~ to save planet earth or to say we truly believe that the dead are with God because Jesus rose from the dead and that this makes all the difference ? ~dy-Augzlst 1992 537 Dilanni ¯ Religious Life and Religion A life steeped in prayer will produce something we may have lost: a solid number of holy men and women whose life clearly is centered on God. FAO wherein men and women devote themselves to humanitarian causes at times for wages far lower than they could obtain else-where? I know that, since Vatican II, theologians including Rahner and Schillebeeckx have highlighted the thesis that Christ is at work in the world wherever good is. being done and humane causes are fostered. I am acquainted with the theories that the work of building up the kingdom of God is primarily a matter of our present life in the world, that salvation is not only after death but begins here, that the glory of God is man and woman fully alive. I am in sympathy with such emphases, but must also admit that they do not set me on fire; and judging from the vocation statistics of "progressive" congregations, I know that they have not stirred the young. For in my heart I suspect that such emphases are quite incomplete and were (in part) born of a loss of faith in the transcendent. For me Christianity centers not on us but on God. It demands a different vision of the world and reality, which generates a humble gratitude to the God who is responsible for all that is. One of Christianity's concerns is our inborn tendency to distort our freedom, arising from what Luther called the "in-curvedness" of our will. Christianity is about God and sin and the need for God's grace-ful hand to help us make proper use of our freedom. Christian religion must be about God and our relationship with God not only implicitly but also explicitly. It is from a union with God in prayer that light will emanate on how we are to relate to God, the world, and each other. And if a life is to be devoted to religion in a special way, if it is to be a consecrated religious life, it must be lived primarily in view of this relationship to God, not only in ideal but also in structure. It must be structured in such a way that the life of,the group abets in its members this concern about each one's relationship to God and gives witness of it to others. Such a life steeped in prayer will produce something we may have lost: a solid number of holy men and women whose life clearly is centered on God. If this proves true, young people will surely again be attracted to this kind of life, not so much because 538 Review for Religious it is relevant or more interesting than the world, but simply because religious life so construed and so lived is what it purports to be--religious. Notes ~ What is Living, What is Dead in Christianity Today? (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986), p. 39. -' See Patricia Wittberg SC, Creating a Future for Religious Life (New York: Paulist Press, 1991

We present the first measurements of femtoscopic correlations between the KS0 and K± particles in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV measured by the ALICE experiment. The observed femtoscopic correlations are consistent with final-state interactions proceeding solely via the a0(980) resonance. The extracted kaon source radius and correlation strength parameters for KS0K− are found to be equal within the experimental uncertainties to those for KS0K+. Results of the present study are compared with those from identical-kaon femtoscopic studies also performed with pp collisions at √s=7 TeV by ALICE and with a KS0K± measurement in Pb–Pb collisions at √sNN=2.76 TeV. Combined with the Pb–Pb results, our pp analysis is found to be compatible with the interpretation of the a0(980) having a tetraquark structure instead of that of a diquark. ; A.I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep) and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Brazil; Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC), National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) and Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), China; Ministry of Science and Education, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research Natural Sciences, the Carlsberg Foundation and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Indonesia; Centro Fermi – Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI and Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education and National Science Centre, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Romanian National Agency for Science, Technology and Innovation, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation and National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA), Suranaree University of Technology (SUT) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America.

Transcript of an oral history interview with William Sawyer Gannon, conducted by Joseph Cates at Gannon's home in Manchester, New Hampshire, on 18 July 2016 as part of the Norwich Voices oral history project of the Sullivan Museum and History Center. William Gannon was a member of the Norwich University Class of 1958; his family history, experiences as a student at Norwich University, seminary education, and post-Norwich career as a church priest are all discussed in the interview. ; 1 William S. Gannon, Class of '58, Oral History Interview July 18, 2016 Bedford, New Hampshire Interviewed by Joseph Cates JOSEPH CATES: This is Joseph Cates. Today is July 18, 2016. I'm interviewing William S. Gannon. This interview is taking place at his home in Bedford, New Hampshire. This interview is sponsored by the Sullivan Museum and History Center and is part of the Norwich Voices Oral History Project. Do you go by Rev. Gannon? WILLIAM S. GANNON: Rev. Gannon, Father Gannon, Mr. Gannon or Bill. JC: [Chuckles] Or Bill. Okay. WG: (Chuckles) JC: Well, I'll tell you what, tell me your full name. WG: William Sawyer Gannon. JC: And what's your date of birth? WG: May 30, 1936. JC: Okay. And where were you born? WG: In Manchester, New Hampshire. JC: Okay. And what Norwich class are you? WG: Class of '58 JC: Tell me about where you grew up and what you did as a child. WG: Well, I grew up in Manchester, New Hampshire for the first 6 years. And being born on the day that the whole country celebrated Memorial Day, which was always May 30th, whenever it fell. We lived opposite Stark Park. And there were cannons at Stark Park. The Gannons lived by the cannons. And the parade ended at Stark Park. And when I was three years old, they shot their guns off three times. So, I of course, assumed that that was in honor of my birthday. And when I was four and they still shot them only three times, I was upset. JC: (Laughs) 2 WG: (Laughs) So, that was the first part of life here. I still have my three-year-old nursery school report and I'm very impressed with the quality of the thinking of the writer of the report. It was a page and a half. And I was amused by some of the comments that every dog I met I thought was my own. And, that when I was asked to do something I didn't understand, I would cry. But once it was explained to me, I was alright. I love to say, "And nothing has changed." JC: (Chuckles) WG: (Chuckles) And I guess I feel especially blessed by both my early – my preschool education, which started at the age of three and my musical education which started before I was born because my mother was a concert pianist and the church organist and a teacher of piano. So, I was hearing Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin, and Romanov and Debussy before I was born. And much later in life is when I had a very deep and still do have, a love of progressive jazz. That's the jazz from the 40s, 50s and 60s and 70s I'd say. I read somewhere something that lead me to realize that my hearing Debussy early on had set me up for the cords that are present in modern jazz. And recently some social psychologist was telling me that when babies are adopted at the year of one year old from Russia, they come to this country, something that is often unanticipated by the parents is, all they have heard, even though they aren't speaking yet, are the sounds of Russia, the Russian language. They have to pick up on the sounds of English language. As adults, we tend to think that language is only important once you start speaking, but clearly, it's important even before you're born, you're hearing sounds from people's speech. So, I really thank my mother. She started me on the piano at age five and I still play but not publicly, on the piano. It never took with the seriousness that I wish it had. And I went on later, that was 11 or 12 to a piano teacher, another teacher in high school and nothing really got started until I took up the trombone in high school. But, my mother was very important to my early life, I now know, in ways that I didn't always appreciate when I was growing up and when I was an adult. We moved to Concord when I was six. I went to the first grade in Manchester. And, then we moved from Concord to Chester, New Hampshire, when I was ten and that would have been 1946. My father had always been, or for a long time, a grain salesman and he also owned a couple of grain stores. And he had bought a coal company in Derry, New Hampshire, and stopped his traveling. He worked for a grain company, a national company that sold to grain stores called, Park & Pollard. And their slogan was Lay or Bust and on his stationary, there was a picture on one side, at the top, of a chicken laying an egg. And on the other side, of a chicken busting apart. And in between was the slogan, "Lay or Bust." And, I kind of felt delighted in realizing how profoundly in the 20s, 30s, 40s when he was on the road as a salesman, agriculture was where most people earned their living and got their sustenance. And it was coming to an end that was probably part of 60, 80 maybe 100-year decline in this country. So, that was partly brought home to me, as I think back. When I was 11, I believe it was, he bought a chicken coop and got 25 little chicks, and grew them. And, I became 3 their keeper. And, I had an egg route. And then the next year, we added onto the garage and I had the use of a horse and it was borrowed from a company that rented horses out during the summers; summer camps and places like that. And I'm surmising that we did them a favor by feeding and boarding the horse for the winter. And they did us a favor in giving me a horse to ride. And that was all part of the fact that my father had been in World War I in the cavalry, which sounds amazing. And that's partly probably why Norwich's cavalry past had some appeal to him and to me. And that's partly how we got the horse. So, in high school, which was Pinkerton Academy in Derry, New Hampshire, I guess I had a somewhat uneventful time. I played football on the varsity team, beginning my junior year and also my senior year. And then, when I came to Norwich, it seemed as if everybody was too big on the football team and I was heavily into the trombone. And I had practiced eight hours a day, as I noted in a piece that the Norwich Record had published, because I was afraid I wouldn't make it into the Norwich band. And – but I did. And, the trombone was the important thing to me and I can remember, and I think I mentioned this in the article, being at an alumni reunion and standing at the old SAE house, where I had been a member, with three or four other alums who I didn't know until that moment, and they were talking about the sports they played at Norwich. And they turned to me and said, "What did you play?" Then I said quite proudly, "The trombone." So, I started thinking I was going to be a businessman in my father's business. I'd worked part time, and on Saturdays for him, from the age of 13 on up to when I left for Norwich. And, it turned out that an ambition of my mother took over. So, in my sophomore year, I changed my major to history in preparation to going to law school. My grandfather had been a New Hampshire chief justice and the William Sawyer in my name was his name, William H. Sawyer. So, that lasted through a couple of years at Norwich, even up into my senior year. I'd been accepted at law school, but changed my mind at the last minute to go to seminary. And that was the influence of an episcopal church chaplain who was also a professor at the school of a number of courses that I took, and I just had a very deep interest in the subject matter, and those courses included Old and New Testament, one course for each. And, ethics and there was a political philosophy class that I took that was also, I would say, in the philosophy direction. And it was basically a love of the subject matter that brought me to seminary. I was commissioned in the signal corps. So, that was deferred for four years. Normally a seminary education is a three-year event, but I stayed for an extra year and got two master's degrees when I graduated. Actually, one was – the first three years was then a bachelor and was later changed to a master's degree. It was a Master of Divinity. But, I had some sense that I wanted to be like my mentor. His name was Hershel Miller, Father Hershel Miller. And he had an extra year of seminary. And I discovered when I was in full time church work in Manchester, that the extra degree, I guess, helped me get a part time teaching job at St. Anselm College, and I think I was the first Protestant in their religion department. And, that went on for a couple of years. And, it led me into full time teaching, which 4 was first at the Groton School in Groton, Massachusetts. And then at St. Paul's School in Concord, New Hampshire. And from there, I went to being a head of a school in Peekskill, New York, and later, briefly, the head of a New York City private school. And about that time, I got divorced and needed to make more money, so I went into the business world in New York City for 13 years. And, I enjoy telling people I worked for 10 years for a company, American Credit Indemnity, selling a product to businesses on their business to business transactions in which we insured the transactions so if their customer didn't pay them, and we'd insured it, we paid them and we went after the debt. And, at a certain point, my boss, who in many ways was a real scoundrel, but I enjoyed working for him, he retired. And, for some reason, I didn't have the same feeling for the new sales manager and began to think that I was really better at the church stuff than at the selling game. Although I think I was pretty good at it. And, I sort of euphemistically say that I made a lot of money in New York, but I got no respect. And then I went back to being the church priest where I got a lot of respect and no money. And a friend of mine, who is an Episcopal bishop, when I told him that he said, "Well, if you were a bishop, you'd make no money and you'd get no respect." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: That was only partly true, all that stuff. And, the church I went to was a – named Christ Church. It was in Glen Ridge, New Jersey. And, it had a reputation of being a rector, that's the position I had, a rector killer church. My immediate predecessor had been in there only three years. He was fired by the bishop because he first divorced his wife, kicked her out of the rectory and brought in some other woman. And, of course, enraged the congregation with that behavior. So, the bishop did what he should do and fired him. And, 30 years prior, this was 1991 when I went there, the rector had had some involvement with, probably a parishioner. He was married with children. And in a New York City hotel, he killed himself. JC: Oh, my goodness. WG: And it was – in some ways it was as if that event has still clung to the walls of the church. Its impact was so profound. I met somebody that had attended the church for eight months after that event and did not know about it, indicating that nobody talked about it. It was too painful to communicate. So, I was taking – I knew I was taking on a church that was a tough place and it took, I would say, a good three to four years before things really calmed down and we got going again. And, when I retired in '03, I continued to do part time interim work as a priest in Episcopal churches. And I realized very quickly that when you come newly into a leadership position, whether it's a church or something else, you are inheriting a great deal and the trust relationship that either did or didn't exist with the prior administrator, is going to bedevil you or bless you. And, places where there's been a profound leadership, I discovered it was very easy to come in and I 5 would be immediately trusted and we'd get going and have fun. And places where there had been a succession, would have to be more than one succession of bad leadership, it was going to be a battle of sorts to exert any kind of leadership. And, at this point, I'm just a pew sitter. (Laughs) And enjoying it. JC: Well, we're going to back up a little bit – WG: Sure. JC: -- and we're going to fill in some questions. You talked a little bit about why you chose Norwich. Can you elaborate more on that, why you chose to go to Norwich? WG: Well, I think I chose mostly because of my father. I'd had relatives that went to Dartmouth, and perhaps – and UNH. Perhaps that would have been my mother's choice. But, it was the military that intrigued me. I had a cousin who had been in World War II and I worked with him – he worked for my father. He was about 10 years older and I had, just a high regard for him and I would guess that it was the military side. And I had a classmate, Harry Parkinson at Pinkerton who also got interested in Norwich. And, I remember him saying that he had had an uncle who'd been a soldier in World War II and had died. And I think that was part of his interest in going to Norwich. JC: And you said your major, you majored in history and you kept with that? WG: Yes. JC: Why do you think you chose history, particularly? WG: Good question. I think I had a love of history born of my mother and she had genealogy interests. We were – I learned early on we were descended from Mayflower people and – on her side, not on my father's side. In fact, my ancestors on my father's side fought on the other side during the Revolutionary War. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And went from New York City to Canada (chuckles) – came back through New Brunswick, through Maine at a certain point later, several generations later. That kind of had something to do with it. And, I guess other than I'm – I still love history, read a good amount of military history. I sort of think I may be drawn to military history as one who hadn't served because when I got out of seminary there was nothing happening. And, I think if I had thought I should go into the service, it wouldn't be as a chaplain, it would be in the signal corps where I'd started out. I'm not sure if that would be true. And, where was I headed with this – what was the question again? 6 JC: Why you chose history as your major. WG: Oh, why I chose history as my major. I just – I'm not sure. Oh, I was talking about military history. Oh, and I think I had in the back of my head -- When I was a priest in Harrington Park, New Jersey, in a second church, I had a celebration for Veteran's Day in November, whether it fell on Sunday or one of the days before or after. So, I had a breakfast for veterans and their families. And the World War II veterans have a great reputation that no one ever talked about their experience. Well, this was in between an 8:00 and a 10:00 service and I discovered that when the veterans got together, whether it was World War II or later, you couldn't shut them up! (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And it made sense that they were talking because they knew the people they were talking to would understand where they're coming from. That was their military service. And I wonder if maybe my father's – he was in every battle in World War I, in Europe and was never wounded. So, I sort of grew up with hearing all that kind of stuff. JC: Was he in the first division or was he in the 76th? WG: The 76th Field Artillery Horse Drawn Cavalry. That's where the cavalry part came out of there. But he trained with horses. JC: Who were your roommates at Norwich and where did you live? WG: It was Jackson Hall. I can picture them. I'm not sure I can remember their names. Harry Parkinson was one. And there was a kid from Vermont that went on to West Point after the first year. And we were all bandsmen. And there was a guy, Lemons was one of the guys. He was an upper classman. That was in a subsequent year. But that leads me to an event that happened, I think, in my junior year, when there was a shooting in a room. I think I was on the first floor of Jackman. And across the hall, a guy named Tony Reddington, was with a roommate who had a .45 pistol. And an upperclassman of mine, Norm Elliott, came in the room and saw it and said – the two guys being rooks, "Let me see that." Pick it up. Took the clip out of the handle and aimed it at Tony Reddington and pulled the trigger. And it hit him in the body somewhere. Just unthinkable behavior. You would think. So, he, Tony was taken by ambulance to Hanover. The first successful aorta transplant kept him alive. He was able to survive about an hour's trip at least. However long it took the ambulance to get there and he came back to the school I think the next year and graduated. I'm pretty sure he graduated. And just recently, last year, I think it was last year. Or the year before. No, it was last year, I think, at a Saturday evening dinner at the hotel in Montpelier, I was 7 sitting at a table with my wife and I heard this voice saying, "Who are you?" And I didn't recognize him. And he said – "I'm Bill Gannon." And he said, "Bill Gannon?" And it was Tony Reddington. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: First time I was seeing him I think, since Norwich. And there he was. JC: Now, you were in band company. WG: Yes. JC: What can you tell me about band company? WG: Well, I'm sure we had – I'm trying to think if we ever played our instruments. I think we did. But I'm not sure when we might have done that. We got to play quite a bit, as a band. And, I think that was daily, which is important to do. I still play the trombone every day, because I play in a couple of concert bands. And I also play in a swing band. A couple of different ones. So, that was an important aspect because you have to keep your armature up if you're a brass player. And we would be playing for the bringing of the flag down. And that would be a daily event. And one of my favorite stories and memories of a time when our band had a major leader, not the professional guy but the cadet, determined that he was going to have a yacht cannon that would shoot, just a blank, and it was positioned under one of the real cannons by the flag pole, and nobody knew that he was going to be doing this, that we were going to be doing it. And he had explained to us, probably about this time, that the bass drum was always hit, this was something we did to simulate a cannon going off. And then we would start with the National Anthem. And on this occasion, I remember seeing a rook standing at attention, holding a string. His arm was up, he was holding a string and he was going to pull the string on – connected to the yacht cannon. So, he was given the command. And he pulled the string. And there was this huge roar and blue or black smoke and we started playing. And I remember looking because the trombones are in the front line, so I remember seeing both columns of cadets down the parade ground. And I was looking at the ones on the left as we faced east, I guess, and the whole column jumped at the cannon sound. And I'm sure the same thing was happening on the other side. There were three regimental officers in the middle and the cannon was sort of aimed at them. I'm not sure of this, but I believe I saw them leave the ground. JC: (Laughs) WG: And, the best part is, they came down saluting. (Laughs) 8 JC: (Laughs) WG: And held the salute for the duration of the National Anthem. (Chuckles) Well, our leader got fired from his – he was reduced from a sergeant to a private. And, (laughs) was discipline. I'm not sure how else he was disciplined and eventually became a leader again. That's a story worth – and, that was the beginning of a tradition of a 105 howitzer being deployed in the things that take place with the flag coming down on the parade ground. JC: Okay. Now, you said you didn't play any sports, you just played the trombone. WG: Right. JC: And, did you participate in any other activities? WG: I skied, but not on the ski team. And, I think that was part of the appeal of Norwich. And back then, there was a ski slope right across from the school. And, on a Saturday for sure and on Sunday, you could just walk across with their skis and just ski. And I remember that those of us in the signal corps course were a part at Mt. Mansfield, of setting up a communication system for some ski races that occurred there and to do that of course, we all got free skiing (laughs) as part of our setting of it up. JC: What did you do to relax when you were at Norwich? WG: Well, I think an important part of my Norwich experience was the fraternity life which we – we joined fraternities – was it our freshman year? I think so. And if it wasn't, it was the sophomore year. Because we ate in – the mess hall is the current chapel, and after the chapel mess hall, it was in the fraternities that most, but not all, that most of the school had their meals, lunch and dinner. And, the social life of the fraternity, I think, was very important. We had parties just about every Saturday night and we had a beer keg. And the commandant came around to make sure we weren't drinking. And the word went out ahead of his visiting, to the first fraternity. There were six, I think. And, that fraternity spread the word around the others that he's on his way. And when we got that word, we all had paper cups, so that by the time he got there, the keg was behind a two-part door. When it was open, the top part was open, but when he was coming, the top part was closed so you couldn't see the keg. And he would come down, this was in the basement, and he'd come down and we'd all start singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And I'm sure he knew what was going on. And I would have to say, I would expect that the benefit in part was, and I don't know if anybody's studied this, but I'll bet there was a minimum of drunken driving accidents on the highways if all 9 the drinking was happening at the school. So, the social life centered – and Vermont College was a place where we got dates. Sometimes we went south, I can't remember the name of the school or the town, but it was in south Vermont. Some guys went to New York state for drinking purposes, because you could drink at 18 in New York state. And I remember one – I had a very close friend, Carl Haskell, who was a year older. And I remember on one occasion he had a musket and he and I went out to a nearby bridge and I got to fire the musket and the fun part of that was learning that you pull the trigger and then you wait. (Laughs) JC: Yes. (Laughs) WG: And I swear I could see the bullet flying through the air! JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) And I know that there were some others who – I didn't go hunting. I hunted squirrels when I was growing up in Chester. But some guys were hunters and that was part of the relaxing. I played the trombone in a dance band, The Grenadiers. There was some pick up jam sessions. I remember a classmate who has become a famous military historian, Carl Estes, Este, I'm not sure which it is. JC: I think it's Este1 WG: Este, right. And he played the jazz guitar in the group. So that was – I've always been a big reader. Tony Reddington told me when I saw him that he started reading Soren Kierkegaard because he saw a copy in my hip back pocket of the paperback, by that Danish existentialist philosopher. JC: What fraternity were you in? WG: SAE. Sigma Alpha Epsilon. JC: Okay. And, tell me a little bit more about The Grenadiers. WG: Well, it was a dance band. I think there were – there's a full sax section or if not full, at least almost. Which would mean four saxes, full would be five, usually. And there were either two or three trumpets. There were two or three trombones. Maybe there are four, I'm not sure. Double bass, stand-up bass, drums and I'm not sure if we had, we probably had a pianist. And that was the standard – maybe also guitar, I'm not sure about that. That was the standard makeup of dance bands in those days. Still is for that matter. And, I don't remember – we must have 1 Carlo D'Este 10 played for dances. I don't remember doing it. But, the music was fully, I would have to say, at the top of my relaxing moments. I can play the piano. When I was 12, I had lessons from a jazz piano player who taught me the chords and I had – as I said, this was on the piano, of all the chords. So, what happens is, you can get what's called a fake book which has the melody line and the chords. Guitar players use them, of course. But on the piano, you can play the chord with the left hand, melody with the right. And, I used to do some of that stuff in the fraternity house on the piano. And I remember one fun time at the fraternity house, at a party, they had – I didn't have anything to do with this – but they had taped the girl's restroom. And at the conclusion, after all the dates had been taken home or left to however they got home, I mean, I think it was around 12:00 or 12:30 at night, we gathered in the kitchen to listen to the tape. And we roared with laughter when we heard one girl say, "This party shits. Let's go down to Dartmouth where they really know how to party!" JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) JC: Do you remember any particular song that y'all would play? WG: Songs? Well, the songbook back then, which is still true for me now, "How High the Moon," "Sunny Side of the Street," "Body and Soul," "There Will Be Another You," "The Very Thought of You," and all those. I mean there are about – there's got to be over a thousand of them that are in my head. JC: What about some Norwich songs? WG: Well, there is the school song, which I don't think I ever fully learned the words to. JC: (Chuckles) WG: It doesn't really impress me, musically. (Chuckles) JC: Most alma maters don't. (Laughs) WG: Right. JC: What about "On the Steps of Old Jackman?" WG: Is that a song? JC: Do you remember that one? 11 WG: No, I don't. JC: Oh, okay. WG: I think that's since my time there. And I remember it being sung at some reunion recently. JC: That's one a lot of people sometimes mention. What instructor – who were the instructors who were most influential to you during your time at Norwich? WG: Well, Rev. Hershel Miller was one, and he was the priest of a small Episcopal Church in Northfield as well as on the faculty of Norwich University in the religion department. There was a Roman Catholic priest who taught courses in the religion department and Hershel and that was the makeup of the department. In the – the head of the history department was a Dr. Morse, who was a Harvard graduate, I'm pretty sure. And, my – I took a number of courses, and the name is escaping me, but he was published. He was Eisenhower's historian. [Albert Norman?] And probably the name will come to me. And he lived a long time after retiring, and always sent me Christmas cards. And, I wasn't always an "A" student in his classes, usually a "B" student, I guess. But he seemed to have taken – I think he liked the fact that I went on to seminary. Eber Spencer was the government professor that I had in philosophy – political philosophy course. And he wrote my recommendation for law school. I was very fond of him. There was an English teacher who was the – this was a big part of my life were the Pegasus Players. And the advisor for the Pegasus Players, I think his name was Nelson but I'm not sure. But, in my sophomore year, a friend got me involved in the Pegasus Players and a play called "Time Limit." And, for some reason, I got to lead. I don't know why. And that was the beginning of – that changed my life. My first year I was basically a "C" student. And my second year, I became a dean's list student. And I think that was true for the rest of my life at Norwich. And it was theatre that did it for me. And I found that after getting involved in theatre that I studied less and got better grades. So, I was being more purposeful and with it in my studying. And, in my junior year, I think, I was playing King Creon in the Sophocles play "Antigone" and I think it was somewhat influential in my life. I had a line that I gave in the play. I was speaking to a subordinate person in the play, and the line was, "You dazzle me." And it was a put-down. And the mostly cadet audience roared. It was a total surprise to me that that would happen. And I think I grew to like hearing people laugh. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And it's been true in my teaching and church (?) [0:47:04] life since I tended to be somewhat entertaining. 12 JC: What were your favorite classes and least favorite classes? WG: My history classes were – that was one of my favorites. The philosophy classes were all my favorite. I took economics and I would say that had less interest to me but money had less interest to me later. Biology was okay and my first-year math class was so-so. I had had everything in high school, including calculus and I think I could have gone on and majored in math if I wanted to, but the math class was business math. And, much later in life, this could be the reason I didn't like it as much, I got tested for what I should be doing which really didn't provide any surprises. Part of the test was a math test and I'm surprised to have the guy tell me, this was a phycologist that administered the tests, that I'd gotten all the easy questions wrong and all the difficult questions right. (Chuckles) JC: (Chuckles) WG: Which, I guess, means if I'm not entertained, my mind goes to sleep. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And I don't pick up on stuff, which could mean I should never fly an airplane. JC: (Laughs) Probably so. What do you remember about being a rook? WG: Well, I remember being yelled at. I remember, I almost didn't come back. And, I think that that was partly – I got one – I remember getting 16 demerits one month. 12 was the limit. And for every demerit over 12 you had to march with a rifle for an hour around the parade ground. So, when I was doing my four hours, I was saying to myself, "This will never happen again," proving that harsh punishment can educate. I remember, but this was true later on too, but I remember feeling somewhat awed and admiring of the senior leaders in the barracks. The company commander and the first and second lieutenant. And I remember in the junior ROTC summer camp, which was Ft. Gordon in Georgia for me in signal (?) [0:50:43] corps, finding one of my first-year cadet officers who had inscribed his name in the firing range. When you were firing, you were behind the targets, underground, the bullets flying over your head, and it was a great pleasure that I saw that. And I have since made a great deal, I think, in my own mind, and to a few people who are considering Norwich, of the importance of the cadre that first year. And I believe that it is somewhat rare today for young people whose peer group up through last year of school, is their age group, and that's somewhat adjusted by the Norwich experience because your peer group at Norwich, your first year is your age group and then the rest, older cadets who are teaching you and that makes a lot of sense to me. And whether they're being nice about it or not, you still learned how to make the beds the way they wanted you to and shining your shoes and polishing your brass, pressing your pants and shirt and where to keep 13 stuff in a drawer, in a bureau drawer in the room. And the other aspects of getting ready for a daily inspection. And I think, generally, post-Norwich thinking, that most people, it's not until they hit the work world, that their peer group is other than their age group and it makes it, in my mind, much more important to have intergenerational experiences. This is true in the music world. And I think when you learn an instrument you have a non-parent teaching you how to play something, that's different. And parents are probably not so good at teaching because they have such an emotional investment. And when I was teaching in my private schools, three of them being boarding schools, I always thought that we teachers were doing a better job of parenting because we didn't have the emotional investment that the parent has. And very recently I've read that up until the 1970s, the nurturing community in a family wasn't just the two parents. It was grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, older kids, non-relatives that were functioning as aunts and uncles and somehow, at some point, maybe it's not the 70s, maybe it's the 50s, who knows. Life changed in the nurturing experience growing up, which could make the Norwich experience that much more important. JC: Now, you said you got 16 demerits. Do you remember what you did? WG: I don't. It was sloppy, whatever it was. I didn't – I may have missed a class. That was worth two. And, I don't know, if I didn't shine my shoes or something. But it was dumb stuff. JC: What was the hardest part of attending Norwich? WG: I would guess the first three months was the hardest part. And what you learned over the four years was – and I retained this in my head at least – is the non-military person is just clueless about what's happening in the military. And what's happening is you're gaining mastery over a whole culture and living in that culture. And once you gain the mastery, you're just doing what you knew how to do. And, that's relaxing. (Laughs) And the – I can remember coming back as the sophomore and how happy everybody was. And when we visit Norwich, we – and they mix the cadets up with the visiting people, it seems as if the cadets all have a very high spirit of being at ease and happy and on top of things and I think that's part of, that's part of the musical experience, is gaining mastery at an early age over something. And somebody's written a book recently called Grit, I don't know if you know of it. JC: I've heard of it. WG: You've heard of it. And she's a social psychologist. And her main point, which is present in advertising for the book is, it's not the smartest people who become 14 the most successful. It's people who've learned perseverance. And I think that's part of the Norwich experience for those who don't drop out. JC: What was your favorite part about Norwich? WG: Going back. (Laughs) And not being part of the cadet corps. JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) I guess the mess hall was a favorite part. The fraternities were a favorite part. I loved the parading, in the band. That was a favorite part. Still, when I hear a marching band drums, I get a special tingle. And the two bands that I play in, we're playing mostly serious and semi-serious music. Stuff like medleys from Duke Ellington or Broadway show medleys, that kind of stuff, but we also play marches. And I always enjoy playing the marches. And, I think the dance band is the direct descendent of the marching band. JC: What was the most important thing you think that Norwich taught you? WG: Good question. I would think it was perseverance. Now, that's somewhat influenced having just read this book. But, I tend to – well I'll tell you a musical story. I was living – I was single, living – having broken up with my wife, in Peekskill, New York and all – forever after Norwich, I was always active as a musician, mostly in jazz swing bands. So, I had a job at a New York City college, Hofstra I think, but I'm not sure that that's in New York City, but there's one that is in New York City. And, I was to play, I also play the double bass, I was to play there one night and my car broke down. I was to play both instruments, trombone and bass. So, I determined that I would try, by taxi and then by train, to get into the city with a standup bass and a trombone. Most of my playing in these swing bands is without music because it's usually improvised. So, I got myself into the city. Got through the subway turnstile, was standing on the subway, bass in one arm and trombone being held by the other, and a Chinaman came up and looked at me and twisted around me, and I was saying to myself, "Is this guy going to steal one of my instruments and run off and how will I chase after him?" And it looked up, and in sort of broken English, he said, "You musician?" (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: Which, of course I was. And the thought now of the effort I went to get from Peekskill to the gig and back, was rather extraordinary. But it has been true of my life generally that I push hard. JC: Norwich's motto is "I Will Try." What does that mean to you? 15 WG: Well, I always thought it was a dumb motto. I thought they could do better. Even "Lay or Bust" is a better motto, maybe. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: I mean, it's clear that some ad man hasn't designed it. But I actually think, my second and third thoughts about it is, it's pretty good. And I just read that infants – we saw a 12 month or 14-month-old boy in a restaurant waiting room with grandparents, parents surrounding it and he was standing with his arms out, back and forth as he maintains his balance. Is he going to take a step, or isn't he? That being hugely entertaining to the family and everybody else. That infants have to try again and again and again and they don't experience shame or failure. So, that could say that one of the more inhibiting aspects of adult life is when we fail and get all hung up over it, rather than trying again. And, it turns out, in science and in life generally, so much of the best stuff that happens, happens because you don't give up. JC: What does Partridge's idea of a citizen soldier mean to you? WG: Well, it means that I would vote for universal military training. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: I think that there is a national community that is being addressed by that identity. And the contributions that we make as citizens to our national life are going to all be happening locally, to be sure. But, we are citizen soldiers in any – in many of the contributions that we make whether it's in the military or not. And, I just think – especially at the late adolescence early adulthood stage of life, there are advantages to the military experience. I had a cab – a driver from an automobile company give me a ride home while they fixed my car and she'd just gotten out of a four-year air force stint and she told me – I asked her if she'd gone back to college because she had gone into the air force after high school. She said she had tried community college but it just didn't take, and my sense of it was that she couldn't stand the people she was going to school with. That they didn't have the dedication and seriousness that (inaudible) [1:05:21] the air force had had. And I've also read recently, I don't know if you've read Sabastian Junger's book Tribe but I can recommend it. It's short. The pages are short. And it's about our society and its brokenness and how people coming out of the military, coming from such a self-sacrificing, dedicated community oriented life into a me-too-ism, lack of community life in our country generally. And he's attributing that, rightly or wrongly, I'm not sure, but it makes some sense. Attributing to that, the post – PTSD depression. He points out that after 9/11 in New York City, the murder rate was cut in half, the suicide rate was cut in half because it was such – it was a greater sense of community. And I think Norwich has that sense of community that he's saying is missing. So, maybe Norwich 16 people should be prepared for the dysfunctional world they're entering and how to cope with it. JC: Now, after graduation, you went on to seminary. You never did join the military. WG: Right. JC: How did your training at Norwich prepare you for life? WG: Well, I think that's the same question as earlier. I think it prepared me for perseverance. I was a preacher at Norwich after I graduated from seminary. And, Herbert Spencer, my philosophy politics teacher, told me after the sermon that he was just amazed at how much more mature I was than I was at Norwich. And I believe that this may be true of graduate study generally that you learn to think in a more disciplined way than you did in college, which is not a commentary on Norwich necessarily but perhaps on our expectations of what college is supposed to do. And my experience in graduate school was reading a – I'm a big reader – and when I got there I took a speed reading course knowing that a huge amount of time was going to be spent reading. And it was very effective. But I believe part of what was happening to me was, in seminary I was learning how other people of great skill think. Doesn't mean that I bought their thought, but I knew how they were thinking. And I think that's – that was something that I – I would have to say that whatever I learned at Norwich, that deepened the thinking aspect of life that I received. JC: How do you think your professional life would have been different had you not been a Norwich graduate? WG: Well, that's good. I don't know. It could go back to perseverance. I've been a very outspoken person in my professional life. And, I think that could have been nurtured at Norwich, calling a spade a spade when I would see it, regardless of the consequences. And I think I sort of have a reputation in that way. Some people tell me that they are amazed at my courage, that I don't seem to be scared by what other people are scared of. And I think I was a very fearful person my first year at Norwich. And that may have – when I went to the summer camp training, I had what I regard as a very important experience. There were about 750 or 800 cadets. And we were taken into a field and told to yell as loud as we could. And so I was chosen of the three to be the regimental cadet colonel for marching all of the cadets from the barracks area to a parade area and doing the parade thing and marching back. And a regular army lieutenant took me – I didn't have any misgivings about this because part of the Norwich experience, even if you weren't in a command position, I was a private all first three years, was that you've seen people do this over and over again. So, you're ready to mimic what you see. And – but he took me over the trip I'd be taking, so we rehearsed. I knew what the commands were going to be but I'd hadn't known where I'd being going. So, we rehearsed the whole thing. 17 Now, I can tell you, as a priest, it became – that inspired me always to have wedding rehearsals. (Laughs) JC: (Laughs) WG: And the value of rehearsing is huge in my head. And I think that could be part of the Norwich experience. But, by the time I got to Ft. Gordon, Georgia, I was relatively fearless at, I think, a lot of the military stuff that other people were probably somewhat wary of because of the Norwich experience. And when I didn't go in the military, my feeling was, because of Norwich, I've done that. I'm not interested in doing it again. (Chuckles) JC: (Chuckles) WG: I want to get onto other things. JC: Do you think being a Norwich graduate opened doors for you that wouldn't have been open otherwise? WG: Well, that's a good question. I don't know. I also would say, and I think it's important to know this, that when I was there, partly the influence of this religion teacher, there were a high number of Norwich guys that went to seminary, and it could be partly the military because a big part of Sunday morning life is ritual. But – and I think it could be the emphasis on surface that the military had and Norwich has. And I don't know what the situation is now. I don't think being a minister today has the social significance that it once had. It's not something everybody's dying to do. But that, I think there was a – I would think that probably more people were going to seminary in those old days from that school than perhaps from others. JC: Do you think Norwich graduates have a special bond that other military or civilian schools don't have? WG: I don't know. JC: What about band (?) [1:14:33] company? Now I've heard – WG: Oh yes. Yes. Yes. JC: -- that kids have very close knit bonds. WG: Yes, yes. That's also true in my jazz life. You meet a jazz musician anywhere, you're totally at ease. And he may be totally untrustworthy but you don't know that and you're willing to trust him until he proves otherwise. And, yes, I would guess that the Norwich – certainly the band's people at Norwich this is true of. And it's just partly because you know – you both know what the other one has 18 been through. And, to a certain extent, I wouldn't be surprised if the same thing is true for all of the Norwich graduates. JC: Now, have you been involved with Norwich since you graduated? WG: I was part of the alumni association in the 80s. I was asked to be the baccalaureate speaker at a graduation in '86, when the president was – JC: General Todd? WG: Yes. General Todd. And, I've occasionally gone to the send offs of, and to the occasional (sic) when Schneider came to Bedford within the past year. And, that's what I think. JC: Do you stay in touch with any of your classmates? WG: I've got one that I stay in touch with, who has been forbidden from coming to the school because he threatened to tear off the veil of a Muslim – JC: Oh! (Laughs) WG: -- cadet. And I just don't agree with that at all. I think there's a lot of stupidity at work in the anti-Muslim feeling. And the real situation is that Saudi Arabian Wahhabism which merged the tribal culture of Saudi Arabia with Islam and which has been exported both to this country and to other parts of the world which has resulted in ISIS and such a bad reputation for Muslims. But, there you go. JC: What advice would you give a rook today on how to survive and thrive at Norwich? WG: (Laughs) They should try. JC: (Laughs) WG: Whatever it is. Keep trying. JC: Now, did you have any other relatives that attended Norwich? WG: No. JC: Is there anything else you'd like to add or have a comment? WG: I'll probably think of it after you leave. 19 JC: (Laughs) WG: (Laughs) JC: That's generally the way it goes. Alright, well I thank you very much for this interview. WG: You're welcome. It's been very enjoyable. JC: Thank you. (end of audio)

We report on the measurement of the size of the particle-emitting source from two-baryon correlations with ALICE in high-multiplicity pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV. The source radius is studied with low relative momentum p–p, pbar-pbar, p–Λ , and pbar-Λbar pairs as a function of the pair transverse mass m_T considering for the first time in a quantitative way the effect of strong resonance decays. After correcting for this effect, the radii extracted for pairs of different particle species agree. This indicates that protons, antiprotons, Λ s, and Λbar s originate from the same source. Within the measured m_T range (1.1–2.2) GeV/c^2 the invariant radius of this common source varies between 1.3 and 0.85 fm. These results provide a precise reference for studies of the strong hadron–hadron interactions and for the investigation of collective properties in small colliding systems. ; A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences, the Villum Fonden and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America

Social Class in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things TomyPriyoUtomo English Literature Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Surabaya tomy.priyo@gmail.com Prof.Dr. FabiolaDharmawatiKurnia, M.Pd. English Department Faculty of Languages and Arts State University of Surabaya fabkurnia@gmail.com Abstrak Karyasastraadalahrepresentasikehidupansosial.Di dalamkehidupanmasyarakattertentu, seperti India, adasebuah system yang dinamakankelassosial.Kelassosialmembawamasalahsebagaidampak yang tereflekisdalam novel The God of Small Things karyaArundhati Roy.Tujuandaripenelitianiniadalahuntukmengungkappenggambarankelassosialpadatokoh-tokohdandampaknya.Dalamskripsiini, data yang digunakanadalah novel The God of Small Things karyaArundhati Roy yang diterbitkanpenerbit Flamingo.Dalammenyelesaikanmasalah yang sudahdipaparkan, penggunaanteorikelassosialmilik Karl Marx akandiaplikasikan. Penggambarantokoh-tokohkelassosialdianalisadenganmenggunakandefinisikelas yang didukungolehpelbagaiaspeknya.Sedangkandampakdarikelassosialdianalisadenganmenggunkankonsekuensidarikonsepkelassosial.Tokoh-tokohsosialkelasdigambarkanmelaluibeberapapoin yang mencangkupkekayaan, pekerjaan, danpendidikan.KelassosialatastergambarpadasosokPappachi,Mammachi, Baby Kochama, danChacko.SedangkanKelassosialbawahtergambarpadasosokAmmu, Velutha, Rahel, danEstha. Olehkarenaitu, kelassosialpadatokoh-tokohtersebutmemeberidampakpadakesehatanfisik, kesehatanjiwa, kehidupankeluarga, pendidikan, agama, dansistemkeadilanpadakasuskriminal.Jadi, halinisepertiduridalamdaging yang sudahmengakarpada system kehidupansosial di India. Hal ininampakpadakasusAmmu yang haruskehilangan status sosialnya, hargadiriPappachiterhadapMammachi, dantokoh-tokohlainnya yang meenghadapimasalahkelassosial. Kata Kunci: India, masyarakat, kelassosial. Abstract Literary work is the representation of social life. In a particular social life, such as India, there is social class. The social class dribbles the ball of problems as the impact in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is one of the representation of it. This thesis is aimed to reveal depiction of character's social class and impact of their social class. In this thesis, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things published by Flamingo is used as the main data source. In answering the statement of the problems, theory of social class based on Karl Marx's view is applied. The depiction of the characters' social class is analyzed using definition of social class and supported by aspects of social class. The impact of the characters' social class is analyzed using the consequences concept of social class. The main characters' social class is portrayed through several points. They are wealth, occupation, and education. The Upper social class is portrayed on Pappachi, Mamachi, Baby Kochama, and Chacko. Then, The Lower Social class is portrayed on Ammu, Velutha, Rahel and Estha. Therefore, social class on the characters gives impact on Physical health, mental health, family life, education, religion and the criminal system justice. So, this thesis portrays the intimate enemy of the system that has been rooting in India that always brings problems caused by it, the social class. It can be looked at the fall of social status of Ammu, the dignity of Pappachi toward Mammachi, and other characters who face the same problem of social class. Keywords: India, society, social class. INTRODUCTION In social life, people are demanded to live in integrated individuals where each individual delivers different characteristics. These differences finally construct a problem within the social life, especially economic problems. Economic problem has been classic problem that cannot be avoided in modern life, thus people are categorized by their capability in economic status or class. This categorizing unconsciously creates a phenomenon where society is sorted. The sort of society based on the economic capability seems to have been articulated by Karl Marx, where society with low capability to product will be dominated by the society with high capability to product. Marx exclusively distinguishes three major classes, each of which is characterized in its role in the productive system by 'the factor of production' it controlled –the land-owners, obviously, by their ownership of land; the capitalists ('bourgeoisie') by their ownership of capital; and the proletariat (working class) by their 'ownership' of their labor-power (Worsley, et al., 1970: 302). Finally, social class turns to be tight and the distance among classes go further. In modernism, construction of society is shaped by the demands to live better. This way indirectly emerges competition that a one should defeat the other one just to earn the economic status. This also becomes the base of Western to colonize and dig the domination to Eastern and African. Indeed, colonization has been passed, and all people has freed, but it has not been clear at all. Behind this fact, colonization has leaved behind the effects toward the people who have been colonized. Sometimes, this fact slaughters keenly the problem of the post-colonized people, for instance in India. In India, there is known system of caste, Brahman, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Sudras. Some 3500 years ago invaders from the north, known as Aryans, imposed the caste system; there is no conclusive evidence that they originated the idea of caste in India, but it seems to be the most likely explanation. The Hindu religion divides the population into five basic groups. The highest groups are known as Varnas (colors) and beneath them come a group without caste, the Untouchables. The four Varnas consist of: Brahmans (a priest caste), Kshatriyas (a military caste), Vaishyas (a merchant or agricultural caste), Sudras (a laboring caste). These caste has been like a stamp to people's destiny and it impacts to their statues in society. These statues are not decided by what they have economically but from what caste they are. Then, it turns to be interesting thing when this system is faced with the problem of economic in modern life (Nobs, 1980: 30—31). As modern people, ability of delivering feeling is not only through direct utterance. The freedom to think, to articulate what they feel finally reach the world of literacy based on the experiences. In the literacy, meanings are accommodated with the beauty of words. Hence, in literary work, especially novel, the view of society including the problem of class can be mediated. It is added by Richard Taylor's Understanding the Elements of Literature, he says that literature is art that essentially created by imagination of the author's experiences (Taylor, 1981: 1). Wellek and Warren even assert that literature can be treated as a document that contains of historical idea and philosophy (Wellek& Warren, 1984: 111). Subsequently, literature work can be something important, crucial, and even interesting thing to dig up with interpretation. The crucial things can be seen in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. TheGod of Small Things depicted the life Indian society. The setting of the story takes place in Kerala. The story tells us that comunism or even religion which teach us about equality in human rights in the reality it can not change discrimination and patriarchy in society. The main characters in this novel are Estha and Rahel. They are twins. Their grandfather is the owner of a company from Christian which is very high class (touchable). But their mother has marry with the Hindust man, it means she must change become lower class (untouchable). Max Weber stated that the social class is divided into trhree layers- the upper class, the midle class and the lower class. The higest level is held by educated and wealthy family. This includes Pappachi family. Their social classes are in the high social classwhich gives the member of this class has different life styles,attitudes, educations, and opportunities in the society. The next class is lower class (untouchable), untouchable person can not touch high class. They are uneducated person. They are not allowed to work in high position. In this novel untochable personis Velutha. Velutha is a paravan. Paravan is the lowest caste in Indian. Furthermore, the richness of this novel has glimpsed on the awards that attaches on Arundhati Roy herself and hers. It needs to know that The God of Small Things has won The Man Booker Prize for fiction in 1997. Arundhati Roy herself is a famous Indian novelist and social activist. In 2002, she won the Lannan Foundation's Cultural Freedom Award for her work "about civil societies that are adversely affected by the world's most powerful governments and corporations," in order "to celebrate her life and her ongoing work in the struggle for freedom, justice and cultural diversity". In 2003, she was awarded 'special recognition' as a Woman of Peace at the Global Exchange Human Rights Awards in San Francisco with Bianca Jagger, Barbara Lee and Kathy Kelly. Roy also was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in May 2004 for her work in social campaigns and her advocacy of non-violence. In January 2006, she was awarded the Sahitya Academy Award, a national award from India's Academy of Letters, for her collection of essays on contemporary issues, The Algebra of Infinite Justice, but she declined to accept it "in protest against the Indian Government toeing the US line by 'violently and ruthlessly pursuing policies of brutalization of industrial workers, increasing militarization and economic neo-liberalization". In November 2011, she was awarded the Norman Mailer Prize for Distinguished Writing. It shows that she is one of important writer in India. Her literary works always tell about social and tradition also symbols to be analyzed. In the instance Roy shows Indian culture as the identity in her literary work. Most of her master piece is showed about social class, tradition in Indian culture. She wrote many books such as an ordinary person's Guide to Empire, War talk, Public Power in the Age of Empire, Power Politics, The Checkbook and the Cruise Missile and The Cost of Living. After all, it is unarguable to be questioned that Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things is full of crucial issues. Based on those facts, the crucial issue that emphasizes on this thesis is in the social classes, thus the potential title that can be put on it is "The Intimate Enemy of Social Class in Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things". RESEARCH METHOD The used method is descriptive quality; it means that the essence or the quality of the data becomes the reference to work rather than the quantity of the data. With interpretation toward the data, the analysis can be worked. Interpretation becomes crucial step because with regardless this, the analysis cannot be maximally operated. It is also as the technique of the study. Then, the approach of the analysis sharpens to mimesis where the universe is used as comparative literature toward the result of the analysis. Indirectly, it includes in extrinsic approach where the sociality is referred as the universe. SOCIAL STRATIFICATION In social life, they always have something that is appreciated. That can be wealth, knowledge, education or economic. In Narwoko&Bagong'sSosiologi: TeksPengantardanTerapan, SoerjonoSoekanto states that in rural society, land and livestock are often considered more valuable than education. On the contrary, it does not happen in modern society. In society, people who have valuable goods in large quantities will be more appreciated rather than people who have a small amount. Thus, they will be considered as low class (Narwoko&Bagong, 2004: 152). This low class construction, because there is characteristic of "not" low class. This construction finally creates categorizing that can be called as stratification. Sorokin states that 'Stratification' is a term used to characterize a structure of inequality where individuals occupy differentiated structural positions and the positions are situated in layers (or strata) that are ranked hierarchically according to broadly recognized standards. The implied reference to sedimentary layers from geology reflects the relative permanence of the posited structure and the long history that is assumed to have generated it. Stratification researchers focus primarily on the empirical study of the sources of the rankings that generate the hierarchy of strata, the mobility of individuals between strata, and the mechanisms of integration that allow societies to cope with the existence of persistent inequalities between strata (Narwoko&Bagong, 2004: 153). Aristotle observed two millennia ago thatpopulations tended to be divided into three groups: the very rich, the very poor and those between. It shows that in ancient times people have come to know and recognize the hierarchy system in society. Social stratification can basically be distinguished into three kinds. They are Class, Status and Power (Worsley, 1970: 288). SOCIAL CLASS According to Karl Marx's Theory of Class, as quoted by Chris Livesey, it is stated that class is the motor of social development. Marx argues that society has developed through four main epochs ("period time"). They are Primitive Communism, Ancient Society, feudal Society, and Capitalist Society. For him, only the first epoch (the "primitive communism") is free from some form of social stratification on the basis of class. This is because, for Marx, class forms of social stratifications only come into existence once people start producing more goods than they require fulfill their everyday needs and gatherer society are basically subsistence societies; that is people can only manage to hunt/ gather enough food for their everyday needs (sociology.org.uk). To describe in detail this theory, it needs to be classified based on the definition, aspect, and consequences of social class. Karl Marx is one of the first writers who analyzes class differences. He sees class as a phenomenon of any society where the ownership of wealth and the means of production, factories or land, gives an economic basis for stratification. Marx also outlines different stages in history in which the ownership of property gives one group control over others. The group, which controls and owns the means of producing food and goods, is the dominant class. Furthermore, Marx argues that there is a constant struggle, a class struggle, and this conflict between the different classes brought about changes in society (Nobs, et al., 1980: 28). Therefore, the conflict among classes are grounded by the domination of a high class over the low class. Class itself, as Lenin says, is large groups of people differing from each other by the place they occupy in a historically determined system of social production, by their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated by law) to the means of production, by their role in the social organization of labor and consequently, and by the dimensions of the share of social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring it (Collected Works, Vol. 29: 421). Furthermore, Karl Marx divides social class into two classes. They are Capitalist class (or "bourgeoisie") and Working class (or "proletariat"). Capitalist class is those who own and control the means of production (which involves ownership of such things as land, factories, financial institutions and the like). And working class is those who own nothing but their ability to sell their labor power (that is, their ability to work) in return for wages (Henslin. 2003: 284). Similar to Karl Marx in discussing about social class, Max Weber tries to generate it with defining social class as a large group of people who rank close to another in wealth, power, and prestige. These three elements separate people into different lifestyles, give them different chances in life, and provide them with distinct ways of looking at the self and the world (Henslin, 2012: 276). Aspects of socials class are classified referred by wealth, by occupation and by educational level. Each can be used for different purposes or they can be combined (Worsley, 1970: 292). According to Henslin, the primary dimension of social class is wealth. Wealthconsists of property and income. Propertycomes in many forms, such as buildings, land, animals, machinery,cars, stocks, bonds, businesses, and bank accounts. Incomeis money received as wages, rents, interest, royalties, or the proceeds from a business (Henslin, 2003: 276). Furthermore, the spread of material resources among the population is an important indicator of social inequality, while changes in this distribution over time indicate whether society is becoming more or less equal. The investigation of the spread of personal income and wealth, however, is fraught with difficulty because of inaccuracies in the data, the problem of deciding the relevant unit of analysis (whether to use individuals, families or households), how to assess the non-monetary benefits derived from government expenditure, and the way individuals' positions may change over the life-cycle (Abrecombie, 1994: 120). Occupation is another aspect of class that definitely can be included as the ground of belonging to a class.People give less prestige to jobs that are lowpaying, require less preparation or education, involve more physical labor, and areclosely supervised. For example, people in every country rank collegeprofessors higher than nurses, nurses higher than social workers, and social workershigher than janitors. As soon as people develop of being specialized kinds of work, they also get the idea that some kinds of work are more prestige than others. The high prestige occupations generally receive the higherincomes; yet there are many exceptions. The next is factor is education. According to Lindemann, as quoted by Sharon Link & Alexandra Howson in Sociology Reference Guide: Defining Class, it is stated thateducation plays a significant role in one's social position, that is, to aperson's place in the social hierarchy and ultimatelyin stratification. Education also can provide equalityof opportunity and contributes directly to social mobility (that is, to one'sability to move upwardly from one's social class of origin). Social and economic indicators such as income and occupation are typically used to measure social class, and education plays a significant role in determining one's employability, employment, and income (Danziger& Reed, 1999). Education therefore plays a crucial role in the likelihood of people being able to improve their social class location by moving into higher occupational classes. Education is seen as having different functions. Within a consensus or functionalist perspective, associated with the work of Talcott Parsons, education is seen to have a role in socialization; it contributes to ensuring that children are 'trained' to comply with the demands of the social system. Indeed, for many people, education exists to ensure that individuals learn how to be good citizens and thereby maintain an efficient, stable social order. Consequently this view of education emphasizes merit, ability and effort and the needs of society or the economy. Such a view also expresses in the idea that education is about individual opportunity (Raines & McAdams, 2006). When social class exists in society, there will be many impacts given. According to Henslin (2003: 288), consequences of class are divided into six categories. It is very good to be applied as the impact of the social class in The God of Small Things. They are: (1) physical health (2) mental health (3) family life (4) education (5) religion and (6) criminal justice system. SYSTEM OF CASTES IN INDIA India is a country where system of caste grows basically. There were four original castes, separately created by Brahma: Brahmans, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. This fourfold division has its origin in the Vedas, the sacred books of the Hindus, and one of the 'most ancient books in the library of mankind'. They are admitted by all the adherents of the Hindu system to be the primary and infallible authority on the origin of the castes (Keanne, 1978: 24). Senart defines a caste as a close corporation, in theory at any rate rigorously hereditary : equipped with a certain traditional and independent organization, including a chief and a council, meeting on occasion in assemblies of more or less plenary authority and joining together at certain festivals : bound together by common occupations, which relate more particularly to marriage and to food and to questions of ceremonial pollution, and ruling its members by the exercise of jurisdiction, the extent of which varies, but which succeeds in making the authority of the community more felt by the sanction of certain penalties and, above all, by final irrevocable exclusion from the group. While, according to Sir. H. Risley, a caste may be defined as a collection of families or groups of families bearing a common name which usually denotes or is associated with specific occupation, claiming common descent from a mythical ancestor, human or divine, professing to follow the same professional, callings and are regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community (Ambedkar, 1916: 3—5). In India, there is known system of class based on the caste. Thus the caste is having seemed to a thing that is flown in people's blood. Hindu religion divides the population into five basic groups. The four highest groups are known as Varnas (color) and beneath them come a group without caste, the Untouchables. The four Varnas consist of Brahmans (a priest caste), Ksathriyas (a military caste), Vaishyas (a merchant or agricultural caste) and Sudras (a laboring caste). Within these groups there are thousands of subdivision; among the Brahmans there are more than 500 subdivisions and there are over 200 divisions of people without caste (Nobs, et al., 1980: 31). India's majority population is Hindu (although it is worth noting that Hinduism is highly variable). Caste is often regarded as a social structure arising from Hindu practices and ideas. But, other religious groups in India also make caste distinctions. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Jains have historically recognized and reinforced caste and/or varnadistinctions (Mines, 2009: 67). SYRIAN CHRISTIAN AND KERALA HISTORY Kerala provides a particularly interesting case study on race because religions are divided from each other based on caste. That is, not only do Hindus follow the caste system, but Christians as well (Sonja, 2001: 129).The Syrian Christians pride themselves on being one of the earliest Christians in the world and trace their conversion to the year 52 AD, when the Apostle of Jesus, St. Thomas arrived on the Kerala port city of Malankara near the bustling trade hub, Muziris.19 According to Syrian Christian communal history, after the death of Christ, the apostles went to different lands to spread the Word of God. St. Thomas went east through Babylon, present day Iraq and onto India. On arriving at the Kerala coast in 52AD, St. Thomas reportedly performed a miracle in front of Brahmins taking a ritual bath. He threw the water in which the Brahmins were bathing into air and it stayed there (Chittilaphilly, 2000:14). Then, The Brahmins impressed by this miracle, immediately asked to be baptized. St. Thomas established churches at Kottaickal, Kokamangalam, Paruetta, Chayel, Kurukkanikulam, and Palloor. He also established chapels and erected crosses at Niranam, Pallipooran, Vattamarry, Cranganore, Palloor and Kuthamana before he was martyred outside Chennai. During St. Thomas's tenure in Kerala, he performed miracles and acts of penance that draw pilgrims to St. Thomas sites to this day (Sonja, 2011: 31). "When I was young, low-castes had to get out of the way of an upper-caste. They would know to get out of the way because the upper-caste would travel with a servant. Every now and again, the servant would call out "hoi". When I was a young girl, I would hear that. "Hoi…" and then a little while later, "hoi". If the low-caste was on the path, he would hide off the path until the upper-caste passed. They used to get out of our way too. My mother told me that us Christians would have servants to sweep the ground before us as we walked so we would not step on any bugs. We were just like upper-caste Hindus" (Sonja, 2011: 36). Restrictions were also placed on worship—lower castes were not permitted to worship the 'high' Hindu Gods (Shiva, Vishnu, and Krishna) but were relegated to demon worship. Temple entry for low-castes was denied. Low-caste Hindus and Christians were prevented from obtaining and education and excluded from public service and government positions (Sonja, 2011: 36). Namboodiriswere exempted from land taxes while low-castes had to pay taxes and fees for even the right to use an umbrella or a palanquin. Namboodirisalso controlled the informal judicial system. While they were exempted from the death penalty, low-castes could receive the death penalty for ordinary offenses such as theft. The sentences of low-caste criminals were brutal: death by elephant trampling, blown from mouth of cannon, hung for 3 days, and mutilations (Sonja, 2011: 36). Historians have conjectured that regulating the oldest son to marry within the caste ensured that the illam(Brahmin property/residence) was kept caste pure (Sonja, 2011: 38). Only converted upper-caste Hindus would be accepted as part of the Syrian Christian fold (Palakunnel, 1999: 221). THE UPPER CLASS Characters who are Upper Class in the God of Small Things are: Pappachi, Mammachi, Chacko, BabbyKochama, Estha and Rahel. The novel tells us about social life in Ayemenem, a rural area in Kerala, India. Pappachi is one of the richest people in the area. He lives in a good wealth. Every single thing that he does shows that he is a rich person. Thus, Pappachi belongs to the upper social class. The higher class people, such as working class women or women who has rich husband usually have a higher life-style. It can be seen from the way of their life. Appearance becomes the most important thing for upper class women. They usually wear expensive clothes or expensive stuff to show off to other people that they are upper class. Mammachi here, in the novel, in the reality of the novel, is told as the wife of Pappachi, a Syrian Christian with high social class. Becoming a wife of the man from high class, indirectly, will lift up her status in front of the society's eyes. With that fact, Mammachi "should" have a life as upper class, with glamour life style, exclusive life, and everything with highest quality. Expensive, that is the proper word for her jewelries, as been exposed to this statement, "Margaret Kochamma took Mammachi's hand. The fingers were soft, the ruby rings were hard" (Roy, 1997: 83). There, the fact is barely exposed, how Mammachi's passions and desires toward jewelries, especially for the expensive ones. Wherever her body exists, wherever her feet step up, wherever her life strolls up to her social life, the jewelries never go to waste to be leaved, it is always following to decorate herself to become "like" upper or high class as usual. Probably, it can be related to the characteristics of women universally, that they likely to show off their jewelries to appear the impression of their status, class, and wealth. Chacko is the first child of Pappachi. As the oldest child, plus a fact of his sex is men, Chacko has privilege. Furthermore, in India, men are having high position especially in social life. It can be understood that India is Patriarch Country where men must have privilege to control everything including women. Going back to Chacko's fact, in the family system, Cahcko can claim to own all properties in the family. As Mamachi's Pickles company, the controller, the manager, the one who has major right is the oldest men child, and he is Chacko, it can be read on this statement, "Legally this was the case, because Ammu, as a daughter, had no claim to the property" (Roy, 1997: 28). Based on that fact, it can be supposed officially that Pappachi's and Mammachi's wealth will be inherited on Chacko, while Ammu, as the women child, has no right on that privilege above those wealth or properties. It presents that Chacko has a govern of Pickles Factory. It is strengthened with the statement of Chacko confesses that the factory is his own. That is clear factually that Chacko has good wealth that means he is a high-class man. Actually, it is important to add that Chacko also has a potential to manage the factory because Chacko has been educated, he has good level of education. Thus, it drives his brain being clear of thinking cleverly, managing something in a god way, and giving good profit. For additional information that supports it, "Chacko had been a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford and was permitted excesses and eccentricities nobody else was (Roy, 1997: 19). Baby Kochama is the sister of Pappachi, John Ipe. She is the most famous person in Kerala. "He was a priest of the Mar Thoma church. Reverend Ipe was well known in the Christian community as the man who had been blessed personally by the Patriarch of Antioch, the sovereign head of the Syrian Christian Church—an episode that had become a part of Ayemenem's folklore" (Roy, 1997: 12).John Ipe is not common priest, she becomes famous because she has been blessed personally by Patriarch of Antioch. Patriarch of Antioch is the Head of Christian Syrian Church. Because of that, after John Ipe has been blessed by the the Head of Christian Syrian Church, John Ipe is respected by the people around her. It means that John Ipe has high social class, especially for people in Ayemenem. Ammu is the last child from Pappachi's family. As the child of high-class family, Ammu automatically belongs to be high-class one. Her life, lifestyle, and education have shown that Ammu is high-class one. Education is something important for a one with high social class. It is usually considered as he step of a one to be high-class one. It is also a factor that can support a one to be high-class one because it can influence the sight and the view of people around him or her to consider as high-class one. Ammu is drawn as a woman that has good education, this educated woman continuously affects her status. It is seen by this statement, "Ammu finished her schooling the same year that her father retired from his job in Delhi and moved to Ayemenem." (Roy, 1997: 19). After finishing her education, Ammu marries to someone. Ammu marries to someone with good wealth. Ammu meets with her husband in a party, the party where rich men jostle and show their wealth off. It is accepted when it is called as a party where rich men assemble, because the irrational thing must be happening when the party is for poor men or low class because the Touchable and the Untouchable must not be touched each other. While Ammu is high-class one, and she comes to a party. The party logically must be a party for high class, and the man that marries to Ammu must be a man from high class. Several weeks pass, Ammu marries with him. "He was on vacation from his job in Assam, where he worked as an assistant manager of a tea estate. His family was once-wealthy zamindars who had migrated to Calcutta from East Bengal after Partition." (Roy, 1997: 19). THE LOWER CLASS Characters who are Lower Class in the God of Small Things are: Velutha, Ammu, Estha and Rahel. Lower social class in this novel is strongly drawn in Velutha's character. Velutha is black but he is so smart. Social class rises strongly through his life. He lives in poverty. As the main character, Velutha belongs to the lower social class. Life background has significance role and it makes his having lower class level as poor people. "He was called Velutha-which means White in Malayalam-because he was do black. His father, Vellya Paapen, was a Paravan. A today tapper (Roy. 1997: 35).The quotation shows Velutha's life background. Velutha is a son of Vellyan Paapen whom a Paravan. So, it automatically makes Velutha become a Paravan too. Paravan is the lowest caste in India. It is also called Untouchable. A Paravan contains of poor people because usually Paravan only work as a lower labor. Velyan Paapen works as a maid in Pappachi family, it means that he cannot deserve his son to get a good financial condition. It brings Velutha living under poverty. Social class rises through his poor condition, because the economic condition he has, indicates that Velutha belongs to lower class people. Ammu is a Christian Syrian from upper class. However, after she gets a divorce with her husband, her status also changes. From being a high class, he turns it in to lower class. After divorcing, Ammu comes back to Pappachi's home in Ayemenem, Pappachi welcomes it because of his compassion toward Ammu, his daughter. But, it does not take to many time for Ammu to decide to get off of the home. Because Ammu "secret" love with Veluthe has been revealed up, thus it drives Pappachi angry and Ammu gets off. Ammu has to fulfill all necessity for her life, she has to work to earn money. Before that, she works at the Pickle factory of her family, but when she has been dropped out of her home by Pappachi, Ammu search for other job in other place. Job is the important factor in dragging the strata in front of the eyes of society socially. People from high class usually have prestige job with good salary. Because it can influence to what life they choose, by buying everything, shopping everything, and establishing their arrogance of the wealth. Following that, the impression of being an upper class can be sought and decided. However, behind that fact, the lower class only has lower jobs, those lower jobs jail their economy. The limited economical conditions will never change their status and strata in front of the society's eyes, thus, their status will keep being lower and never being changed. Ammu, then decides to work at a hotel as a receptionist, and working as a receptionist is not a prestige one. Additionally, the hotel is not five stars hotel, it is only a small hotel with low standard, as has been quoted on this statement, "Ammu had lost the latest of her succession of jobs—as a receptionist in a cheap hotel—because she had been ill and had missed too many days of work." (Roy, 1997: 76). Nevertheless, working here has dropped the health of Ammu down. Probably, it is caused by her changing life, from living in good house with good treatment to living in a low life. His illness finally sharpens to the way she works, she often gets the absences on working, and it makes her getting the fire as a receptionist in that small hotel. Furthermore, working at a small hotel will not give gret significance of changing for a woman like Ammu, particularly for what she gets on his salaray. This quotation can be regarded, "On that last visit, Ammu spent the morning with Rahel in her room. With the last of her meager salary she had bought her daughter small presents wrapped in brown paper with colored paper hearts pasted on." (Roy, 1997: 77). 'Meager salary' explains clearly how small the salary that ammu gets, and it must not fulfill enough for her necessity. The work of Ammu like this is not the prestige one and the salary is too small. That is the main point of this talk, it is concluded that Ammu becomes a lowe class after facing divorcing. The divorcing is added by her love with a low class, Velutha, that facts slap her status in front of the society. Socially, her status collides and becomes one of low class masses. Estha and Rahel are the twin of Ammu with Baba. Estha and Rahel have unique life in this novel. When they are still child, Estha and Rahel are treated by Ammu in her family life that is from upper class. However, although they are live there, there is an unsaid rule that sets Ammu and her children have no right anymore to live in Pappachi's house. But, Pappachi's commission breaks that rule, so that is why they can still enjoy to live in Pappachi's house. It is clear to be understood that Estha and Rahel can be put in to a detail that they are children from upper class. Estha and Rahel can enjoy a trip with family private car that for low class that is the most greatful trip. The trip that they will ever enjoy. The trip they never imagine. The trip they never fantasize because they have been adapted to jostle in the public transportation with the bad smell and disgusting sweat of poor people. Their life is painted in that public transportation and tripping with privacy car is only a part of their fantasy. Estha and Rahel also often go to cinema, it is even told that they have watched film entitled "The Sound of Music" three times. After watching it, they go home to Ayemenem, with one night over sleep in a great hotel. Plus, the smell of food, their trip becomes perfect. The fact like that, is something that is only for upper class, it is important for low class of having it. This lifestyle, indeed, need much money, thus it belongs to upper class with good condition economically, besides that, it is also becomes the viewpoint of valuing the strata of a class. Rahel is a daughter of Ammu. After being left by her brother, Estha, who is sent back to his father, Rahel becomes sad, the sadness grows peaking up when she has to be leaved by Ammu. Rahel, then is treated by Mammachi. All the need of Rahel is fulfilled by Mammachi. As the grand daughter who grows in upper class family, Rahel gets good education. "She spent eight years in college without finishing the five-year undergraduate course and taking her degree. The fees were low and it wasn't hard to scratch out a living." (Roy, 1997: 9). Rahel then continuous her school to a university, and it is not a big problem for Mammachi to pay all the charge of the school. Rahel spends eight years in that university and ends it with no graduation, or it means that Rahel drops out. She even decides to marry to a man from America and go with him to America. Actually, that is not good marriage for Rahel. She is too hurry up to marry. "Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts towards an unoccupied chair in an airport lounge. With a Sitting Down sense." (Roy, 1997: 10). After deciding to marry and move to America, Rahel does not enjoy her life, because she is not treated as an upper class. Because Rahel has married, her life burden goes to her husband's own. Thus, Mammachi does not pay anything of Rahel's life anymore. However, the age of the marriage is too short, not long after that, the marriage is broken down. Rahel divorces with her husband, and it insists Rahel to work to stay alive and fulfill all necessity for her life in America. It is clear to see that Rahel live in the circle of low class life. She works as a waiter in an Indian restaurant in New York. It is easy to be classified that working as a waiter is one of low class job, it has no any prestige. That job just give little earn for her life daily. Life he has to pass is different with the life he gets in Ayemenem. Rahel also ever works as an employee in a gas station. This job is not a job that can give her good earn in salary. This fact, one day, makes a procure offers Rahel to become a sexual worker where she can get more money. This is simply clear to understand, how low Rahel life in America, and she can be put in to one of low class people. THE IMPACT OF THE SOCIAL CLASS In this section, the impact of social class will be explained. The impact of the social class will be revealed through several characters that have connection each other. The consequences of social class by Henslin (2003) will be used to analyze the impact of the class. The consequences of class that will be used to explain are family life, education, religion, and criminal justice system. Pappachi, the character who is drawn as Upper Class has some impact in his social life. Those are family life and mental health. Papachi has good education, he has prestigious job, besides that, he also has good wealth. It makes him becomes a character or a one who is upper class. The wealth and the prestigious job he has makes him always looks prefect. He desires to be looked as the perfect one around the people. As a man with upper class, Pappachi becomes very famous in Ayemenem. It can be seen to the quotation above, when Pappachi passes away, Indian Express, a newspaper with English letters, writes the news about the death and the funeral of Pappachi. It means that, Pappachi is not only an upper class one, he is more than that. However, the important part that can be informed in this fact is, the class of Pappachi. It is not easy for low class to be put on the newsletter, only important information that can be considered as the important news to be informed, and low class does not belong to. Mammachi is an Indian woman character. As an Indian woman, Mammachi receives all things happen to her. Mammachi marries to Pappachi who is an upper class. Thus, it can be seen that it is not easy to have a couple from different class, especially upper class. However, Mammachi has been ready of facing all the risks, the risks that bring the consequences of social class.Mammachi is accustomed to get hit from Pappachi. Mammachi does not do anything because for Indian women, women, as a wife,have to serve their husband. So whatever her husband does to his wife then his wife must accept it. "He never touched Mammachi again. But he never spoke to her either as long as he lived' (Roy, 1997: 23). So, Mammachi is never really touched or talked at all to Pappachi until Pappachi died. Besides family life, Consequence of social class also influences to the religion. People who are Christian Syrian, are supposed to be upper class than Hindus. In an intriguing chapter of Modernization and Effeminization in India, Anna Lindberg discusses how jobs within cashew factories in Kerala are dependent on one's caste. The dirtiest job, shelling the cashews, is done by the lowest castes of the factories. Shelling is the most unhealthy job as it involves removing the roasted nuts from the corrosive black oily shells. The next step up is peeling, or removing the brown skin from the cashews and is performed by both the scheduled castes and the Ezhavas caste (Linberg, 2005: 55). That quotation explains indirectly how caste affects the job of people in India. People with upper caste will throw the obligation and duty of the job to the lower caste, and people with upper caste prefer choosing clean and light works. Thus, the lower caste, people with the lower caste always works with dirtiness job, and low class job. Chacko is the first son of Pappachi and Mammachi. He was born from upper class family, and it makes the life of Chacko is surrounded by the wealth that can sink himself in the sea of this life. Upper class is portrayed clearly in this novel and it is reflected by Chacko's character. It can be looked at the background of education and of lifestyle of Chacko. The background of education of Chacko that is laid on Oxford and marries-divorces-re-marries, and gets back to Ayemenem, and ends it with heading the Pickle factory, have proven that it is the interesting life to have. However, this social class, finally affects his mental health. As the head of the Pickle factory, Chacko actually can do everything he wants, he has that chance. As has been exposed on this follows statement, "He would call pretty women who worked in the factory to his room, and on the pretext of lecturing them on labor rights and trade union law, flirt with them outrageously." (Roy, 1997: 31). Chacko has a habit of calling all beautiful women who work at the Pickle factor. He invites them with reason to teach them about the rights they have to have. However, Chacko does not do that, it is just a reason. Chacko tries to sleep those women with giving them money. For Chacko, spending much money for sleeping with women, is not a great problem. The condition of his economy, especially money, can guarantee it. Baby kochama is a character who has upper social class in the novel. Her social class then gives impact toward criminal justice system. One with upper social class is usually respected. Once, when Baby Kochama arrives at a police station, she is treated as if a queen. The police treat her very well, with great attitude, and so much respect that is never hidden in the police's mouth. She ever sells a lie to the police, and the police trust it by taking it for granted. Based on that fact, it can be articulated that the impact of Baby Kochama as the upper class is really affecting to her life, her life that is full of respect by the people or the society around her. For the support to proof it, this statement can be supposed to, "Baby Kochamma misrepresented the relationship between Ammu and Velutha, not for Ammu's sake, but to contain the scandal and salvage the family reputation in Inspector Thomas Mathew's eyes." (Roy, 1997: 122). It is clear when it is known that Baby Kochama sells the lie to the police just because she does not want her family gets down of reputation. The way Baby Kochama utilizes her status in the society is very tricky. She reconstructs the story of Ammu and Velutha because the relation between the two is such a shame thing for the family, especially for Baby Kochama's family that is from upper class. With no having any choices to save the reputation, Baby Kochama finally does the lie, with regardless the value of lying is lower than lower class status. Impact of Ammu as lower social class is drawn in physical health and criminal justice system. Ammu suffer from many diseases after he gets out of Ayemenem's house. As has been exposed on this follows statement, "Who came back to Ayemenem with asthma and a rattle in her chest that sounded like a faraway man shouting" (Roy,1997: 76). Her weak economical condition grave illnesses suffered by Ammu. There is not much that can be done by Ammu. Eventhought she is sick, she still has to work to meet all her needs. Living in poverty make Ammu can not treat her disease. Her physical changes occur from groomed Ammu and beautiful become Ammu who has disease and ugly. Ammu physical changes that profoundly changed drastically make her looks very different. When Baba, who is a Hindus, marriage with Ammu that makes the church doesn not want to bury Ammu. because for the church Ammu has different class from them. So, Chacko dicides to bring Ammu's bodies to the electric crematorium. Ammu's bodies are treated very badly, they wrap the body of Ammu on a dirty mattress. How Ammu's bodies are treated very clearly illustrates how Ammu's social class. Her marriage that is considered wrong, living in poverty and disease she has, it all led to Ammu suffer until she dies. Cremation place that is used to burry Ammu's bodies is very dirty. From the above quotation clearly seen what people is burned in that place. Only the bodies of beggars, criminals and police custody are burned on the ground. It is impossible for bodies of people wiyh high social class and have good econmomic condition is buried in that ground. Unfortunately again, no more families are present in addition to the ground except Chacko and Rahel. Impact on the character Velutha great looks of the criminal justice system. Velutha as a lower social class is treated badly in the criminal system. When velutha is accused of making a mistake then the police catch him in a bad way. They do the violence which is not a procedure of arrest. They woke Velutha with their boots (Roy, 1997: 144). The police wake Velutha who is asleep with their hard shoes. The police do not want to touch velutha because he is a lower class. Velutha gets injustice. The police directly commit violence on Velutha without asking first what happen actually. On Estha's character, social class gives impact on his mental health. Estha who is accustomed to luxury living in Ayemenem's house. One day he has to move because his mother send him bank to his father. Where the condition of his father is different with condition in Ayemenem's house. Estha finished school with mediocre results, but refused to go to college. Instead, much to the initial embarrassment of his father and stepmother, he began to do the housework. As though in his own way he was trying to earn his keep. He did the sweeping, swabbing and all the laundry. He learned to cook and shop for vegetables (Roy, 1997: 6). His mental health is disturbed after he decides not to continue his education into college. Estha starts doing what he should not do. He does all the homework that should be done by women. And since then Estha starts rarely speak until one day he really stop talking altogether. Estha performs regular activities without spending a single word. He does not care what the people around him are doing. He will still silent. Although his twin sister, Rahel, is next door and talk, then Estha still keep silent. This condition sometimes makes Rahel think whether Estha become mad, as has been exposed on this follows statement, "Had be seen her? Was be really mad? Did be know that she was there? They had never been shy of each other's bodies, but they had never been old enough (together) to know what shyness was" (Roy, 1997: 44).EStha's mental condition shows that social class can also give impact on mental health. Rahel is raised by mammachi after Ammu die. Of course being raised by mammachi will make life in very good socio economic condition. Raised by Upper class lifestyle makes an impact on family life of rahel. Rahel who has been abandoned by both parents become a very naughty girl. Because she never get a good attention from all her family. Uncle Chacko and Mammachi just give her all the material only. Rahel gets all the facilities that she need so she can reach high education. it is clearly explained how Rahel who are not given attention by all her families. They are just busy with their own affairs without considering the love that needed by Rahel. She is just given all the material she needs such as clothes, food, and money. That all makes Rahel become a naughty girl. Rahel is actually a beautifull smart kid, but she often makes the act that make her eventually are punished and expelled from the school. In the above quotation illustrated how Rahel delinquency in schools. Rahel is first convicted when she is at the Convent of Nazareth. She is caught decorate dorm room door with a flower head. And the next day she is tried and given punishment by the head monastery. Six months after, Rahel is expelled from school because she is already given many punishments and she still keeps naughty. It is all because of Rahel ever caught smoking, she also ever steal and burn bun of Houseministers. Rahel becomes naughty because of she never gets a good attention. Here, it clearly shows that social class olaso give impact to family life. Rahel eventually grows into adulthood without attention and affection of a family. As an Indian women, Rahel's future is determined also by her marriage. CONCLUSION Based on the recent analysis of the data, the result can be concluded that all the issues that have been revealed by statement of the problem can be drawn. There are two conclusions which can be concluded. The first is about the depiction of the social class, the second is about the impact of the social class on the character. The first conclusion is about the existence of social class experienced by the character in the novel. Karl Marx divides social class into two classes. They are Capitalist class (Upper Class) and Working Class (Lower Class). The existence of social class can be seen by wealth, occupation and educational level. As Worsley says that each of the aspects can be used for different purposes or they can be combined. So the character in the novel is divided into two classes. Upper class's characters are Pappachi, Mammachi, Chacko, BabyKochama. And the lower class's characters are Ammu, Velutha, rahel and Estha. The social class can be identified by their economic background, their way of life, their way of dressing, and the standard of living. The second conclusion is about the impact of social class on the character. The impacts of social class are divided into six categories. They are: physical health, mental health, family life, education, religion, criminal justice system. Every character has different social class impact. 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Measurements of the inclusive J/ψ yield as a function of charged-particle pseudorapidity density dNch/dη in pp collisions at √s = 13 TeV with ALICE at the LHC are reported. The J/ψ meson yield is measured at midrapidity (|y|<0.9) in the dielectron channel, for events selected based on the charged-particle multiplicity at midrapidity (|η|<1) and at forward rapidity ( -3.7 < η < -1.7 and 2.8 < η < 5.1); both observables are normalized to their corresponding averages in minimum bias events. The increase of the normalized J/ψ yield with normalized dNch/dη is significantly stronger than linear and dependent on the transverse momentum. The data are compared to theoretical predictions, which describe the observed trends well, albeit not always quantitatively. ; A.I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; Danish Council for Independent Research Natural Sciences, the Villum Fonden and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA, UNAM), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Center "Kurchatov Institute", Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America.

The elliptic and triangular flow coefficients v2 and v3 of prompt D0, D+, and D*+ mesons were measured at midrapidity (|y|<0.8) in Pb–Pb collisions at the centre-of-mass energy per nucleon pair of √sNN = 5.02 TeV with the ALICE detector at the LHC. The D mesons were reconstructed via their hadronic decays in the transverse momentum interval 1

In this paper, the first femtoscopic analysis of pion–kaon correlations at the LHC is reported. The analysis was performed on the Pb–Pb collision data at √sNN = 2.76 TeV recorded with the ALICE detector. The non-identical particle correlations probe the spatio-temporal separation between sources of different particle species as well as the average source size of the emitting system. The sizes of the pion and kaon sources increase with centrality, and pions are emitted closer to the centre of the system and/or later than kaons. This is naturally expected in a system with strong radial flow and is qualitatively reproduced by hydrodynamic models. ALICE data on pion–kaon emission asymmetry are consistent with (3+1)-dimensional viscous hydrodynamics coupled to a statistical hadronisation model, resonance propagation, and decay code THERMINATOR 2 calculation, with an additional time delay between 1 and 2 fm/c for kaons. The delay can be interpreted as evidence for a significant hadronic rescattering phase in heavy-ion collisions at the LHC. ; A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research Natural Sciences, the Villum Fonden and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Sciences, Indonesia; Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT), through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America.

The invariant differential cross section of inclusive ω(782) meson production at midrapidity (|y| < 0.5) in pp collisions at √s = 7 TeV was measured with the ALICE detector at the LHC over a transverse momentum range of 2 < pT < 17 GeV/c. The ω meson was reconstructed via its ω → π+π−π0 decay channel. The measured ω production cross section is compared to various calculations: PYTHIA 8.2 Monash 2013 describes the data, while PYTHIA 8.2 Tune 4C overestimates the data by about 50%. A recent NLO calculation, which includes a model describing the fragmentation of the whole vector-meson nonet, describes the data within uncertainties below 6 GeV/c, while it overestimates the data by up to 50% for higher pT. The ω/π0 ratio is in agreement with previous measurements at lower collision energies and the PYTHIA calculations. In addition, the measurement is compatible with transverse mass scaling within the measured pT range and the ratio is constant with C^(ω/π0) = 0.67±0.03 (stat) ±0.04 (sys) above a transverse momentum of 2.5 GeV/c. ; A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC) , Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences, the VILLUM FONDEN and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology , Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Cooperación Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COMSATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA) and Office of the Higher Education Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the United States of America (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), United States of America.

The first measurements of dielectron production at midrapidity (|η_e| < 0.8) in proton–proton and proton–lead collisions at √sNN = 5.02 TeV at the LHC are presented. The dielectron cross section is measured with the ALICE detector as a function of the invariant mass m_ee and the pair transverse momentum p_T,ee in the ranges m_ee < 3.5 GeV/c^2 and p_T,ee < 8 GeV/c, in both collision systems. In proton–proton collisions, the charm and beauty cross sections are determined at midrapidity from a fit to the data with two different event generators. This complements the existing dielectron measurements performed at √s = 7 and 13 TeV. The slope of the √s dependence of the three measurements is described by FONLL calculations. The dielectron cross section measured in proton–lead collisions is in agreement, within the current precision, with the expected dielectron production without any nuclear matter effects for e+e− pairs from open heavy-flavor hadron decays. For the first time at LHC energies, the dielectron production in proton–lead and proton–proton collisions are directly compared at the same √sNN via the dielectron nuclear modification factor RpPb. The measurements are compared to model calculations including cold nuclear matter effects, or additional sources of dielectrons from thermal radiation. ; A. I. Alikhanyan National Science Laboratory (Yerevan Physics Institute) Foundation (ANSL), State Committee of Science and World Federation of Scientists (WFS), Armenia; Austrian Academy of Sciences, Austrian Science Fund (FWF): [M 2467-N36] and Nationalstiftung für Forschung, Technologie und Entwicklung, Austria; Ministry of Communications and High Technologies, National Nuclear Research Center, Azerbaijan; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos (Finep), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP) and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Brazil; Ministry of Education of China (MOEC), Ministry of Science & Technology of China (MSTC) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), China; Ministry of Science and Education and Croatian Science Foundation, Croatia; Centro de Aplicaciones Tecnológicas y Desarrollo Nuclear (CEADEN), Cubaenergía, Cuba; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic, Czech Republic; The Danish Council for Independent Research | Natural Sciences, the VILLUM FONDEN and Danish National Research Foundation (DNRF), Denmark; Helsinki Institute of Physics (HIP), Finland; Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique (CEA) and Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3) and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France; Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (BMBF) and GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH, Germany; General Secretariat for Research and Technology, Ministry of Education, Research and Religions, Greece; National Research, Development and Innovation Office, Hungary; Department of Atomic Energy Government of India (DAE), Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (DST), University Grants Commission, Government of India (UGC) and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India; Indonesian Institute of Science, Indonesia; Centro Fermi - Museo Storico della Fisica e Centro Studi e Ricerche Enrico Fermi and Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Italy; Institute for Innovative Science and Technology, Nagasaki Institute of Applied Science (IIST), Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI, Japan; Consejo Nacional de Ciencia (CONACYT) y Tecnología, through Fondo de Coop- eración Internacional en Ciencia y Tecnología (FONCICYT) and Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Academico (DGAPA), Mexico; Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO), Netherlands; The Research Council of Norway, Norway; Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South (COM- SATS), Pakistan; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Peru; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, National Science Centre and WUT ID-UB, Poland; Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information and National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF), Republic of Korea; Ministry of Education and Scientific Research, Institute of Atomic Physics and Ministry of Research and Innovation and Institute of Atomic Physics, Romania; Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (JINR), Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, National Research Centre Kurchatov Institute, Russian Science Foundation and Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russia; Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic, Slovakia; National Research Foundation of South Africa, South Africa; Swedish Research Council (VR) and Knut & Alice Wallenberg Foundation (KAW), Sweden; European Organization for Nuclear Research, Switzerland; Suranaree University of Technology (SUT), National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSDTA) and Office of the Higher Edu- cation Commission under NRU project of Thailand, Thailand; Turkish Atomic Energy Agency (TAEK), Turkey; National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukraine; Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC), United Kingdom; National Science Foundation of the USA (NSF) and United States Department of Energy, Office of Nuclear Physics (DOE NP), USA.

Issue 57.5 of the Review for Religious, September/October 1998. ; f,o r r eltg ous Christian Heritages and Contempora~ Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER1998. VOLUME57. :NUMBER5 Review for Religious is a forum for shared reflection on the lived experience of all who find that the church's rich heritages of spirituality support their personal and apostolic Christian lives. The articles .in the journal are meant to be informative, practical, bistorical, or inspirational, written from a tbeological _or spiritual or sometimes canonical point of view. Review for Religious (ISSN 0034-639X) is published bi-monthly at Saint Louis University by the Jesuits of the Missouri Province. Editorial Office: 3601 Lindell Boulevard ¯ St. Louis, Missouri 63108-3393. Telephone: 314-977-7363 ¯ Fax: 314-977-7362 E-Mail: FOPPEMA@SLU.EDU Manuscripts, books for review, and correspondence with the editor: Review for Religious ¯ 3601 Lindell Boulevard ° St. Louis, MO 63108-3393. Correspondence about the Canonical Counsel department: Elizabeth McDonough OP 1150 Cedar Cove Road ¯ Henderson, NC 27536 POSTMASTER Send address changes to Review for Religious ¯ P.O. Box 6070 ¯ Duluth, MN 55806. Periodical postage paid at St. Louis, Missouri, and additional mailing offices. See inside back cover for information on subscription rates. ©1998 Review for Religious Permission is herewith granted to copy any material (articles, poems, reviews) contained in this issue of Review for Religious for personal or internal use, or for the personal or internal use of specific library clients within the limits outlined in Sections 107 and/or 108 of the United States Copyright Law. All copies made under this permission must bear notice of the source, date, and copyright owner on the first page. This per,nission is NOT extended to copying for commercial distribu-tion, advertising, institutional promotion, or for the creation of new collective works or anthologies. Such permission will only be considered on written application to the Editor, Review for Religious. for religious Editor Associate Editors Canonical Counsel Editor Editorial Staff Advisory Board David L. Fleming SJ Philip C. Fischer SJ Regina Siegfried ASC Elizabeth McDonough OP Mary Ann Foppe TracT Gramm Jean Read James and Joan Felling Kathryn Richards FSP Joel Rippinger OSB Bishop Carlos A. Sevilla SJ David Werthmann CSSR Patricia Wktberg SC Christian Heritages and Contemporary Living SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1998 ¯ VOLUME 57 ¯ NUMBER 5 contents 454 feature Learning Communities: A Spirituality of Work for the Information Age Michael Skelley proposes that a spirituality which focuses on creating learning communities promises to be especially appropriate for work in the info~'mation age. He integrates theological concepts with ideas from organizational development research. 472 484 491 ignatian spirituality The Parables of Jesus and the Ignatian Exercises John J. Begley SJ offers a contemporary understanding of Jesus' parables that inserts their use within the Ignatian Exercises and so facilitates a retreatant's entering into the experience of Jesus. St. Ignatius and My Piano Anita J. Baly reflects on how her experience of the Ignatian Exercises gave her insight about playing the piano and praying as complementary processes that call on remarkably similar skills. consecrated life The Experience of God in Consecrated Life during the 20th Century Joseph A. Tetlow SJ sums up the differences between the pre-Vatican II and Vatican II approaches to consecrated life in terms of the postmodern understanding of experience as constructed, derivative, intentional, and dialogic. Review for Religious 513 Gathering the Fragments: Associate Leaders Reflect on Their Experience Roberta Archibald SSJ, Joanne Bauer SBS, and Jean Ustasiewski OSF share the experience of a group of associate leaders who meet regularly in the Philadelphia area. 522 529 536 prayer Unceasing Prayer: Romancing the Divine Jerry D. Keeney develops the image of romancing the Divine for shaping our relationship with God. Prayer Joseph McCloskey SJ draws upon his experience as a pray-er to describe some necessary elements in a prayer life. Renewal of Prayer Mary Terese Donze ASC explores ways in which the word of God inspires and nourishes our prayer life beyond and above every book on prayer. departments 452 Prisms 541 Canonical Counsel: The Evangelical Counsel of Obedience: Key Current Legislation 547 Book Reviews September-October 1998 That they may be one, as we are one. prisms Rpe John Paul II wrote the encyclical That They May Be One (Ut Unum Sint) in 1995. This document, dealing with our Christian commitment to ecumenism, took its title from the petition spoken by Jesus in his Last Supper discourse as remembered in the Gospel of St. John. Jesus prayed that all his followers would be blessed with the unity, the oneness which his Abba-Father and he enjoyed: "That all may be one as you, Father, are in me, and I in you; I pray that they may be one in us" On 17:21). A most pervasive tendency among us is to make a divi-sion of any grouping into "them" and "us." It happens in families, between those "siblings or relatives who are "out" and those who are "in." It occurs in the way male and female differences have become "them" and "us" in the gender movements of our day. It is evident in the struggles caused by racial, ethnic, or religious distinctions. Witness our contemporary history of the United States, Bosnia, Sudan, and Rwanda. It is found in the church whether between hierarchy/clergy and laity or between liberal and conservative/traditionalist. Even an official church action like excommunication pronounced by local bishops or by Vatican congregations seems to divide off members into a "them" against an "us." Historically it has been true that religious congregations vied with each other within the church, for example, the competition between branches of 14th-century Franciscans and between 17th-century Dominicans and Jesuits--something in consecrated life, Review for Religious thank the Spirit, which seems less a problem in our time. It is writ large in the struggles in our economic world between east and west and between north and south--the "have's and the have-not's." The "them" and "us" (or, at its personal ultimate, "the world" and "me") mentality seems to be in the very air we breathe. What does this year dedicated in a special way to the Spirit call forth in us? Our desire could well be that the Spirit gift us with various prisms through which to view life and our relation-. ships with others in more accepting ways. We might pray that the Spirit become for us the pervading atmosphere in which we live and move and have our being. We need to stir ourselves to take the first few steps away from "political maps" that divide everything into a "them" and "us." We could decide to take action by our daily examination of conscience~ We begin our examen by thanking God for the small ways in which we have allowed the Spirit to unite ourselves with others in our thinking about them and in our acting towards them. We then examine ourselves and note the occasions when we have succeeded in avoiding a "them" and "us" attitude and the occasions when we have not. We, moved by the Spirit, beg God's forgiveness for the obtuseness of our minds and the hardness of our hearts in choosing and reinforcing the deadly worldview of division in our behaviors of this day. Finally we ask ever more fervently for the outpouring of the Spirit upon us to strengthen us in our mission. Empowered by the Spirit, we dedicate ourselves anew to struggle at eliminating the "them" and "us" mentality in our family, in our community, in our parish life, in our work life, and in whatever other areas it seems to pre-vail. The Spirit is the Love-Reality, the very communio, of God's life. The Spirit, we might ~ay, is the Love-touch of God's life in us, and so the Spirit's presence in our lives means our communion of life with our Trinitarian God. The Spirit's activity is God's cre-ating the communio among all of us here and now. Christ's prayer, then, becomes more insistently our prayer and moves us so to work to bring about a world that is at once more human and more divine--that all may be one. David L. Fleming SJ September-October 1998 feature MICHAEL SKELLEY Learning Communities: A Spirituality of Work for the Information Age Many spiritualities of work have been developed by the world's religious traditions. The differences between these spiritualities come not only-from their various theological presuppositions, but also from the various economic and social realities they address. As the nature of work has changed over the course of human history, so too have the religious interpretations of work. We have entered a new era in the history of work, the information age. The new realities of the workplace pose an immense challenge to workers and to the theologians, pastoral counselors, and ministers who want to help them develop a spirituality of work. How can we articulate, fos-ter, and practice a spirituality of work appropriate to the information age? We may not simply assume that a spir-ituality deduced from past theologies will fit our present situation. If the nature of work truly has changed, then a different kind of spirituality will be required.~Nor can we assume that theologians have the competence by them-selves to develop a new spirituality of work. This task requires ~hat we dialogue with a wide range of scholars who study contemporary work organizations. The potential number of partners and possible agen-das for such a dialogue is immense, and we cannot engage Michael Skelley is a full-time faculty member and the director of the undergraduate program at DePaul University's School for New Learning. His research and publications have focused on spirituality, worship, work, and learning. His address is DePaul University; 243 S. Wabash, #700; Chicago, Illinois 60660. Re~iew for Religious them all. Nor will we survey the historical development of the theology of work; that has been done quite well elsewhere.~ We will integrate some insights from this tradition with a few ideas from scholars of information-age work. The growing consensus in the latter field is that the primary challenges and opportunities of the information-age workplace revolve around learning. In the Christian tradition, coincidentally, learning has long been seen as a path to holiness. This paper, therefore, will explore how a spirituality focused on transforming our workplaces into learn-ing communities might be an apt spirituality of work for the infor-mation age. The Spirituality of Work Throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition, work has been seen as both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, we some-times experience work as an opportunity to display our talents, develop our gifts, contribute to the common good, and exercise our creativity. When work is like that, it is joyful, engaging, and fulfilling. Such work experiences return intrinsic rewards that far outweigh their extrinsic compensations: they satisfy some of our deepest needs and highest aspirations. But, on the other hand, we also experience work as overwhelmed by impossible demands, torn by interpersonal conflicts, dehumanized by trivial proce-dures, and oppressed by unjust practices. Such work causes frus-tration, anger, and despair. Whatever compensation we receive, then, cannot repair the damage done to our spirits and bodies. When our work is like this, it poisons us and our family, friends, and communities. Work brings out the best and the worst in us. We need a spirituality of work precisely because work is so ambivalent. As our spiritual predecessors did in their own cir-cumstances, we search for ways of working which might help us taste more of work's blessings and fewer of its curses. We search, in other words, for ways to transform our ambivalent experiences of work into a consistent experience of God. Our positive expe-riences inspire us to believe in the goodness of work. Can we, then, find ways of working which regularly evoke the best in us and our work? Our negative experiences test our character and challenge us to change. Can-wE find ways of working which will liberate us from the destructive aspects of our work and our work-places? This transformation is the task of a spirituality of work. September- October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities A spirituality of work is a way of working that helps cowork-ers to achieve together our fullest development as human beings. Three points are important about this definition. Thefirst is that a spirituality of work is a way of working, not a way of promot-ing religious ideas and practices. Work can be integrated into spirituality without being interpreted in explicitly religious ways. We need to challenge that ancient legacy of dualist thinking which still conditions most people to assume that secular activities can-not, by definition, be sacred. That is why P~re Marie-Dominique Chenu, a pioneer, in the modern effort to develop theologies of work, said that the question of the relationship between nature and grace is fundamental to the spirituality of work.2 When people see grace and nature as separate and opposed realities, they think that the task of a spirituality of work is to make work explicitly religious. Spirituality then becomes the intrusion of something foreign into the work. Unfortunately, most of what is touted today as spirituality of work suffers from vari-ous degrees of this dualistic thinking. Such spiritualities impose religious ideas, language, and practices on work. The vigorous resistance that many working people have to these intrusions is justified, not simply because these spiritualities discourage humane work, but also because they encourage questionable theology. But when grace and nature are seen as inseparable, the task of a spirituality of work is to enhance something that is already pres-ent in the work. Spirituality then becomes a matter of making explicit what is already implicit. If, as Karl Rahner said;, our world is permeated with the divine self-communication, we can experi-ence God and achieve our fullest human potential even in the most ordinary kinds of work.3 Work becomes spiritual, not by becoming religious, but by becoming more truly work, by being true to the spiritual dimensions already part of its character. This does not diminish the important and proper place of religion; rather, it points to religion's roots in daily life. Such a spiritual-ity of work is concerned with fostering human development in ways which are appropriate to the workplace. It supports the potential we already know work possesses to engage our gifts and contribute to the common good. ~ Second, the definition above implies that a way of working is a form 6f spirituality to the extent that it supports our complete human development. Holiness is a matter of wholeness, and so whatever fosters our holistic human development leads us toward Review for Religious spiritual maturity as well.4 Or, as Irenaeus taught, God is glorified when human beings are fully alive. The major religious and spir-itual traditions of the world have proven successful at furthering the kind of human development we seek. They provide us with a wealth of complementary images of the breadth and depth of our potential as human beings. Obviously, each of these traditions has been guilty at times of fostering narrow-minded notions of virtue that highlight only some aspects of what we are capable of becoming. But, when they are seen together, it is clear that they share some fundamental values, attitudes, and standards that lead people toward fulfilling their human poten-tial and help them understand this effort,s The task of a spirituality of work is to root our ways of working in these basic understandings of holistic human development. This second point does not con-tradict the first one, namely, that the spirituality of work is a way of work-ing and not a way of promoting religious ideas. To say that a spir-ituality of work needs to be rooted in the values of the world's religious traditions is simply to propose that we need to be reflec-tive about the assumptions we bring to our work. The ways we work necessarily presuppose certain ideas, frequently muddled and usually unarticulated, about the values that guide our lives. The question is not whether we want to have a spirituality of work or not; everyone already has some sort of spirituality of work, although we are rarely conscious of this fact. Nor is the point to advocate the values of one particular religious tradition, no matter how emi-nent they may be. To do so would be to presume a consensus in the workplace about religion that is unlikely to exist. The goal is to be reflective about our fundamental values and to ensure that they support not only efficient and effective work, but fully humane work as well. We can do so by rooting our work in the most uni-versal possible expressions of basic human values. The third point we need to notice about the definition above is that a spirituality of work is about achieving our full human development together, in common, not just individually. It is a Work becomes spiritual, not by becoming religious, but by becoming more truly work, by being true to the spiritual dimensions already part of its character. Septentber-October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities way of working together with our coworkers for the transforma-tion of our work and our workplaces so that all of us can develop our full human potential. In other words, we need to challenge another kind of dualism, that between our private, individual selves and our public, communal selves. Popular spiritualities today typically identify the spiritual with an individual's interior experience. People seldom connect work with spirituality, for it is associated with the public and exterior dimensions of our lives.6 Popular attempts .to develop a spirituality of work typically assume that their task is to enhance our individual, interior development. They rarely reflect on how the spirituality of work could and should be something that all workers share. This dualistic think-ing does a disservice both to work and to spirituality. It ultimately reinforces the kind of depersonalized, mechanistic approach to work associated with Frederick Taylor, the inadequacies of which are now widely recognized.7 And it misses the critical insight of liberation and feminist theologies that transformation of the social, political, and communal dimensions of our lives is an essential part of spiritual development. Work in the Information Age: Organizational Learning After this review of the task faced by a spirituality Of work, we now need to explore how the information age has changed the nature of the work we do. This will prepare us to think about how a spirituality of work needs to be different today. At the beginning of this century, most workers in the United States were either farmers or domestic servants. By 1950 the com-position of the workforce had completely changed, and most workers were engaged in some form of industrial labor.8 The the-ologies and spiritualities of work that have appeared in the last fifty years focus on the issues of that industrial age, not recognizing how work has changed.9 At the end of the 20th century, it is clear that we have entered an entirely new age in the history of work. We live in a postindustrial society of "knowledge work," the infor-mation age. A significant but steadily shrinking number of work-ers are still employed in the industrial sector, and many others work in service jobs, but the largest portion of the workforce now consists of knowledge workers. By the year 2000, only ten percent of the workforce in the United States and other postindustrial countries will be directly involved in making things.19 Review for Religious While our parents and grandparents usually worked with their hands, moving and making things, most of us work with our heads. The work we do involves knowing, thinking, and learning. Our jobs do not simply require more educational preparation than the work of previous generations did. They require us to do some-thing fundamentally different: to create, interpret, organize, apply, transfer, and manage knowledge. Knowledge work radically changes the nature of a market economy and redefines the rela-tionship between workers and the means of production. This is a new kind of economy and a new kind of work.1~ As Peter Drucker has said, "The social center of gravity has shifted to the knowledge worker. M1 developed countries are becoming postbusiness, knowledge societies. Access to good jobs and career opportunities in developed countries increasingly requires a university diploma. Looked at one way, this is the !ogical result of a long evolution in which we moved from working by the sweat of our brow and by muscle to industrial work and finally to knowledge work. But the development also represents a sharp break with the past."12 Knowledge work requires new abilities to continually learn from and think with one's coworkers. In the past, tasks that required thinking could typically be carried out by individuals using general knowledge. Much of today's knowledge work, in contrast, is too complex for any generalist to accomplish alone. It requires the coordinated efforts of a variety of specialists. People must be able to share their expertise with one another for the work to get done. The primary agent of knowledge work, there-fore, is an organization, not an individual. This fact need not diminish the importance or dignity of the individual worker. It is a consequence of the highly specialized expertise that individ-ual knowledge workers have. Together they are able to create some-thing that none of them could create alone: Knowledge work is a multifaceted task that requires the collaboration of a variety of experts and specialists. It must be done by an organization con-centrated on a particular task. Effective organization, then, is a necessary condition for knowledge work.13 Consequently, as knowledge workers we must work not just for an organization, but at it. That is to say, we must work con-tinually at growing with our colleagues into a community that can do real knowledge work. The organization is not just where we work; it is an essential outcome of our work itself. The task of cre-ating an effective organization where knowledge work is possible Septe~tber- October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities is an inescapable part of each knowledge worker's creative efforts. The nature of knowledge work requires us to deal continually with organizational change, development, and transformation. The academic or professional discipline which concentrates on organizational change is commonly called organization develop-ment. L4.Organization development systematically applies behav-ioral science knowledge to the planned development of organizational strategies, structures, and processes in order to improve an organization's effectiveness.~s Organization develop-ment is practiced in many different ways. Most recent approaches, however, emphasize increasing the organization's capacity to learn.~6 For example, Peter Senge, director of the Center for Organizational Learning at MIT's Sloan School of Management, focuses on creating learning organizations, "organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where peo-ple are continually learning how to learn together."~7 Organizational change experts focus their efforts on organi-zational learning for many reasons. They hope that learning will simultaneously foster the development of the people in the orga-nization and provide superior economic performance. They see it as an extension of the movement to improve the quality of prod-ucts and services. They see it as a way of managing the increas-ingly rapid pace of social and technological change.~8 But, most basically, they recognize that there cannot be any consistent change for the better in work organizations unless these organi-zations are able to learn. All planned change presumes learning, and so leading change is a matter of facilitating learning. Argyris and Sch6n speak of this "learning imperative": "Now in the mid-1990s, it is conventional wisdom that business firms, governments, nongovernmental organizations, schools, health-care systems, regions, even whole nations and supranational insti-tutions need to adapt to changing environments, draw lessons from past successes and failures, detect and correct the errors of the past, anticipate and respond to impending threats, conduct experiments, engage in continuing innovation, build and realize images of a desirable future. There is a virtual consensus that we are all subject to a 'learning imperative,' and in the academic as well as the practical world, organizational learning has become an idea in good currency.'''9 Review for Religious But it is not proving easy to transform our work organiza-tions into learning communities. Organization-development spe-cialists agree that our work organizations have handicaps that prevent them from learning effectively. Senge thinks that funda-mental difficulties most organizations have in becoming learning communities can be traced in part to traditional Christian spiri-tualityd° He says that our work organizations have been rendered dysfunctional by three problems: reactiveness, fragmentation, and competition. These problems reflect deeper cultural problems that are due in large part to a tradition of dualistic thinking in Western society. From his reading of Thomas Merton, Joseph Campbell, Raine Eisler, and Elaine Pagels, Senge thinks that Christianity insti-tutionalized this dualistic thinking. Obviously, Senge's critique of Christianity would need to be more carefully nuanced and solidly supported, but in its broad outlines it is consistent with the critiques made by lib-eration, feminist, and ecological theologians.21 The problem is not spirituality per se,. but the consequences of dualistic, hierarchical, and patriarchal spiritual-ities. Dorothee Soelle, for example, says: "The tendency to isolate Christian faith from the social order has meant, among other things, that mainstream theology has failed to address work in the context of creation and redemption. It has ignored the worlds of pain created by the structural organization of our work. It has unconsciously or often even cynically obscured our creation as workers in the image of 'the great artist.' Christianity has a long record of complicity in bad, meaningless, or harmful work. This is the result not just of insufficient ethical reflection, but also of the inability to perceive Christ's work in returning the world to its people. Resurrection from sin's power happens in good work. We still wait for good work. Through good work we are revealed, in our creative empowerment, as children of God.''22 Senge is one of many organizational-change experts who see a pressing need for a new, holistic spirituality of information-age work.23 Senge's comments about spirituality and organizational change are particularly striking both because of the wide accep-tance his approach to organizational change has gained and because of the scholarly foundation that supports his work. The "Christianity has a long record of complicity in bad, meaningless, or harmful work." September-October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities fact that Senge and his colleagues stress spirituality so strongly, albeit clumsily, indicates that this area is being given more and more serious consideration by professionals in the field of orga-nization development. It is clear, therefore, that the only certainty amidst the turmoil in our workplaces today is that we must learn how to learn. A host of inexorable forces such as the explosion of information, the shrinking of the global marketplace, the reordering of social priorities, and the emergence of new technologies is reshaping every sector of the working world. Both the environment and our work requirements are changing, and changing more and more rapidly. In times of such pervasive change, neither individual workers nor work organizations are likely to be effective unless they can learn easily, quickly, and well. An important part of all knowledge work today is the transformation of our work organi-zations into learning communities. The Spirituality of Learning Learning is not only a critical issue for the information age; it is also a fruitful theme for spirituality. Learning has often been seen by the spiritual and religious traditions of the world as a path to holiness. Jean Leclercq's classic work on medieval monas-ticism, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, beautifully cap-tures one manifestation of this intimate relationship between learning and spirituality.24 We do not have space here to sample all the rich and varied ways theologians have interpreted the role of learning in spirituality. We will focus instead on just one the-ologian who has had a widespread effect on contemporary Christian theology, Karl Rahner. Epistemological concerns are at the foundation of Rahner's understanding of Christianity, and in that sense his theology is a theology of learning. His insights can readily be translated into a spirituality of learning which deep-ens the way we see the purpose, process, and products of learning. First, Rahner changes the way we see the process of learning by showing us that learning always involves self-transcendence.2s For Rahner, learning is an activity which is necessarily rooted in our nonconceptual awareness of God. We can know finite things only because we can transcend them and experience God. Learning is possible for us because we are embodied spirits (Geist-irn- Welt) capable of self-transcendence. We are able to learn about Reviezv for Religious our material, temporal world precisely because we can reach beyond it and open ourselves to the infinite horizon of absolute mystery. This preapprehension (Vorgriff) of God is the condition for the possibility of any and every act of learning. Every time we learn anything, we experience our transcendental openness to God. When we explore the spirituality of learning, we are not introducing a transcendent element to the learning process, but rather affirming one that is already there. This means that we can never entirely understand, much less hope to control, the process of learning. We generally think of learning as a skill that we can direct and develop, and it is. Most of us expend energy throughout our lifetimes not only learning but learning how to learn. As teachers, parents, colleagues, or friends, we are also regularly called upon to direct the learning of others. We even assume that some people are such proficient learners that they will inevitably be master teachers. But the fact that our ability to learn depends upon our transcendental open-ness to the horizon of absolute mystery means that the learning process transcends our control. All learning requires that we sur-render ourselves to our capacity for self-transcendence. And, if we want to help others learn, we have to support their self-tran-scendence. We will generate very little new learning if we restrict or manipulate the learning process. Ultimately, learning is not a skill to be mastered but a mystery to be loved. Practicing a spir-ituality of learning, then, means creating space for the experience of self-transcendence to happen. Second, Rahner's theology of freedom changes the way we see the products of learning by showing that learning always involves our free self-creation.26 Learning is an expression of the capacity we have as embodied spirits to act freely. The prod-ucts of our free acts are not simply choices between particular goods. Freedom is also a process through which we create our-selves. Whenever we exercise our freedom, we not only make a choice about a particular good; we also make a choice about our-selves. The decisions we make determine who we are as persons in relationship to God and the world. Some of our free acts so totally engage us that they constitute fiandamental choices about who we are. Other acts engage us less completely and serve to confirm or,deny the fundamental selves we have chosen to become. But every exercise of our freedom in some way is an act of self-creation. Septentber-October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities Since we exercise our freedom whenever we learn, every act of learning is an act of self-creation. We usually assume that the products of learning are new ways of thinking and acting. But, for Rahner, our own self-creation is also a product of every act of learning. Whenever we learn, we not only learn about something particular; we also help determine who we will become as per-sons. Learning is not just a process through which we adopt new behaviors or ideas; it is a process of creating ourselves. Each choice we make about what, why, or how we will learn contributes in some way to our self-realization. The criteria by which we assess the products .of our learning, therefore, need to include the question of whether we are becoming more fully human, Measured by this criterion, learning which does not support holis-tic human development is fundamentally flawed. People who resist learning risk dehumanizing themselves just as much as those who resist loving. This is not to say that our value as persons is depen-dent upon how bright we are. Learning can no more be reduced to intelligence than love can be reduced to emotion. But learning and loving are critical to our self-realization because both are ways we fulfill our human potential for relationship with the world and the mystery of God. Practicing a spirituality of learning, therefore, means honoring this process of self-creati0n. Third, Rahner's theology of grace changes the way we see the purpose of learning.27 For Rahner, our transcendental orientation to the holy mystery has been universally graced by God's self-communication. Grace is not a gift from God but the gift of God, In our "natural" experience of transcendence, the absolute.mystery of God is present to us as the horizon which we can only approach asymptotically. We believe, however, that God has not remained the distant horizon of human transcendence, but has graciously drawn near to us as free and forgiving love. We never experience our transcendence, therefore, as purely natural and ungraced. The transcendence we actually experience has been radically trans-formed by God's self-gift, which is always present at least as an invitation made to our freedom. Grace is the fulfillment of our deepest human potential as embodied spirits to be filled with the infinite God. Grace makes possible for us the immediate experi-ence of God, which is always mediated by our historicity and mate-riality. But God becomes closer, not less of a mystery, in the experience of grace. Grace is the self-communication of God as the absolute mystery who remains absolute mystery. Review for Religious This theology of grace implies, then, that the ultimate purpose of learning is not to know more, but to be known more.28 When we learn, we do not simply gather new information or master additional skills; rather, we open ourselves to the self-communi-cation of God. The deepest purpose of learning is that it leads us to the point where we surrender to God's knowing of us. Learning is a privileged opportunity to enter more deeply into the abyss of the absolute mystery of God. Learning is at its best not simply when it is rooted in good principles of pedagogy or andragogy, but when it is a form of mystagogy. The process of learning, then, develops our potential to be mystics. Rahner believed that everyone is called to be a mystic.29 Mysticism is not primarily about paranormal experiences, but about attending to hidden experiences of the mystery of God in daily life. It is difficult to be a mystic, not because God is so distant, but because. God is so present. The challenge isto find ways to notice the gracious presence of God in the midst of everything in our lives, This is easier to do in some expe-riences than others. Oddly enough, our experiences of the goodness and beauty of life are not necessarily the best places to look for God. Rahner believed that we perceive the presence of God most clearly in those events in which we struggle with our limitations. Our experiences of lim-itation bring us right to the threshold of the presence of God. To the extent that we can attend to how we transcend the limita-tions we face, we open ourselves to the mystery of God. The pro-cess of learning offers abundant opportunities to struggle with limitations and experience God. Whenever we really attempt to learn, we strain to see beyond the limits of what we currently know. If we have the courage to face the limits of what we know, therefore, we invite God to enter more deeply into our lives. Rahner shows us that the process, products, and purpose of learning have spiritual depths that we normally overlook. Learning is not a neutral process of inquiry that only takes on a spiritual character when we choose to focus it on religious phenomena. Learning is intrinsically spiritual and is one of the most impor-tant ways we have to experience God. It is not surprising that tell- Learning can no more be reduced to intelligence than love can be reduced to emotion. September-October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities gious traditions throughout the world have revered learning as a path to holiness. Whatever enhances our capacity to learn fosters our spiritual, development, whether we recognize it as such or not. Disciplines for Creating Learning Communities As the 20th century draws to a close, we are beginning to glimpse how our lives will be different in the information age. But, because this new age of work is only now coming into focus, it is impossible to see yet what all of its spiritual opportunities and challenges will be. Nonetheless, we can be certain that learn-ing will become increasingly important to the work we do. The growing significance of learning makes a new way of integrating spirituality and work possible. The most effective spirituality of work for the information age will be one based on helping us transform our workplaces into learning communities. We defined the spirituality.of work above as a way of work-ing which fosters the transformation of our work and our work-places so that together with our coworkers we may achieve our fullest development as human beings. This means that a spiritu-ality of work should be a way of working, not a way of practicing religi6us activities or enjoying esoteric experiences. It should sup-port our complete human development. And it should foster the transformation of our work communities, not just our growth as individuals. A spirituality of work which is based on creating :learn-ing communities meets these three criteria. First, since it focuses on learning, such a spirituality advocates a way of working which is not explicitly religious, and which is appropriate, even vital, to the information-age workplace. Second, since the learning process engages the fundamental basis of our human identity, our capac-ity for self-transcendence, the process of learning is a particu-larly powerful way of supporting holistic human development. Third, such a spirituality of work draws us beyond caring for our individual growth into building learning communities with one another. But, if it is to help us engage in the difficult process of con-version and growth,, this spirituality of work needs to be incarnated in particular disciplines. The major spiritualities of the West have generally encouraged disciplines such as meditation, prayer, fast-ing, reading, and service as concrete means of achieving spiritual growth. There is no qu~sti6n that such disciplines will continue Review for Religious to have an important role in a fully developed spiritual life. But, since the spirituality of work attempts to engage us in a different and more specific kind of transformation than that of traditional spiritualities, it will need to encourage some additional, new dis-ciplines. The disciplines for a spirituality of work in the infor-mation age will be the disciplines for developing organizational learning. Organizational-learning researchers have over the past fifty years advanced our understanding of what those disciplines are. Peter Senge, for example, has organized them into five sets: per-sonal mastery, shared vision, mental models, team learning, and systems thinking. Each of these disci-plines has to do with helping us develop the skills to learn effectively as individ-uals and groups. There are three distinct levels to these disciplines: practices, principles, and essences. The practices are the specific activities which con-cretely express the discipline. They are the primary focus for those beginning to follow the discipline. The underlying principles are the theoretical bases for the practice of the disciplines. Progressing in the disciplines requires following the practices and understand-ing the principles. The essences are the state of being which comes to be experienced by individuals or groups that have mastered the discipline. At this level Senge's learning disciplines are united by a common sensibility: that we are learners in an intrinsically interdependent world.3° Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively. It involves learning to expand our personal capacity to create the results we most desire and to create an organizational environment that encourages all its members to develop themselves toward the goals and purposes they choose. The practices of this discipline include various techniques for clarifying our personal vision and for holding a creative tension between the results we desire and our grasp of current reality. Senge sees the discipline of personal mastery as the spiritual foundation for a learning organization. The disciplines for a spirituality of work in the information age will be the disciplines for developing organizational learning. September-October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities The discipline of shared vision is the collective version of the discipline of personal mastery. The discipline of shared vision builds a sense of commitment in the groups we work with by developing shared .images of the future we seek to create and the principles and guiding practices by which we hope to get there. The practices of this discipline involve techniques for helping groups both acknowledge their current realities and develop a shared picture of their future that fosters sincere commitment. This discipline assumes that, when there is genuine shared vision, people excel and learn because they want to, not because they are told to. Like the discipline of personal mastery, the discipline of men-tal models is an individually oriented dis.cipline. Senge sees men~ tal models as the deeply ingrained assumptions and generalizations that influence how we understand the world and take action. The discipline of mental models helps us reflect upon, clarify, and improve these internal pictures of the world and see how they shape our actions and decisions. The practice of this discipline also helps us learn how to carry on "learningful" conversations that get us to expose our own thinking effectively and make that thinking open to the influence of others. The discipline of team learning is the collective counterpart of the discipline of mental models. This discipline transforms conversational and collective thinking skills so that a team of coworkers increases its collective intelligence and its ability to take coordinated action. The heart of this discipline is the theory and practice of dialogue. Dialogue challenges team members to suspend assumptions and enter into genuine thinking together. Team learning also involves recognizing the patterns of interac-tion in teams that undermine learning. The most critical learning discipline for Senge is the disci-pline of systems thinking. He sees it as the discipline that inte-grates the other disciplines into a coherent body of theory and practice. Systems thinking is a way of thinking about and a lan-guage for describing ~he forces and interrelationships that shape the behavior of systems. It makes the full patterns of a system clearer and helps us see how to change them effectively. Systems thinking helps us shift from seeing problems as caused by some-one or something external to seeing how our own actions create the problems we experience. Once we discover how we create our reality, we can then change it. Review for Religious When they are used together, the methods of organizational learning represented by these five disciplines have been proven to have great potential for transforming our workplaces into learn-ing communities. They provide us with the concrete theories and strategies we need so that together with our coworkers we can not only learn, but learn how to learn. By virtue of the fact that they expand our capacity to learn, these disciplines also foster our spiritual development. The disciplines of organizational learn-ing help us to learn in new ways and so broaden our opportuni-ties to experience the spiritual depths of learning. The most effective spirituality of work for the information age will focus on transforming our work organizations into learn-ing communities. It will do so by integrating disciplines of orga-nizational learning with insights from the spiritual traditions. This paper has contributed to this integration. New approaches to organizational learning such as the ones we have mentioned here provide the spirituality of work with the concrete disciplines it needs to develop learning communities. At the same time, the insights which our spiritual and religious traditions can provide deepen our understanding of what is at stake in the transforma-tion of work. We will be able to create meaning~l spiritualities of work in this new era only if we continue to engage in this process of integration. Notes ~ William E. May, "Work, Theology of," in The New Dictionary of Catholic Social Thought, ed. Judith A. Duryer (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1994), pp. 991-1002; Karen Ready, "Work," in The Encyclopedia of Religion, ed. Mircea Eliade (New York: Macmillan Publishing Co, 1987), vol. 15, pp. 441-444; Edward C. Sellner, "Work," in The New Dictionary of Catholic Spirituality, ed. Michael Downey (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1993), pp. 1044-1051; Francis Schiissler Fiorenza, "Religious Beliefs and Pr'axis: Reflections on Catholic Theological Views of Work," in Work and Religion, ed. Gregory Baum (New York: Seabury Press, 1980), pp. 92-102. 2 Marie-Dominique Chenu, "Work," in Sacramentum Mundi: An Encyclopedia of Theology, ed. Karl Rahner (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970), vol. 6. 3 Karl Rahner, "Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace," in Theological Investigations (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961), vol. 1, pp. 297-317; "Nature and Grace," in Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1982), vol. 4, pp. 165-188; Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Chr#tianity (New York: Crossroad, 1978). 4Walter Principe, "Toward Defining Spirituality," Studies in Religion Septentber-October 1998 Skelley ¯ Learning Communities 12 (1983): 127-141; Sandra Schneiders, "Spirituality in the Academy," Theological Studies 50 (1989): 676-697. s Hans Kiing and Karl-Josef Kuschel, A Global Ethic: The Declaration of tbe Parliament of the World's Religions (New York: Continuum, 1993). 6 Joseph Holland. Creative Communion: Toward a Spirituality of Work (New York: Paulist Press, 1989), pp. 24-26. 7 Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Bros., 1911); Marvin R. Weisbord, Productive Workplaces: Organizing and Managing for Dignity~ Meaning, and Community (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987), pp. 50-69, 8 Peter Drucker Post-Capitalist Society (New York: HarperBusiness, 1993), p. 5. 9 "John Paul II, On Human Work (Laborem Exercens) (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1981); Dorothee Soelle with Shirley A. Cloyes, 7~ Work and to Love: A Theology of Creation (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984); Joe Holland, Creative Communion; Lee Hardy, The Fabric of This World: Inquiries into .Calling, Career Choice, and the Design of Human Work (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1990); Miroslav Volf, Work in the Spirit: Toward a Theology of Work (New York: Oxford University, 1991); John C. Haughey, Converting 9 to Y: A Spirituality of Daily Work (New York, Crossroad, 1989). l0 Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society, p. 5; Charles Handy, The Age of Unreason (Boston: Harvard Business School, 1989), pp. 34-35, 50-51. *~ Drucker, "The Age of Social Transformation," Atlantic Monthly (November 1994): 53-80. ~2 Drucker, The New Realities (New York: Harper, 1989), p. 173. ,3 Drucker, Post-Capitalist Society, p. 49. 14 A large and important segment of experts in this field prefers to call.the discipline "organizational transformation." See John D. Adams, ed., Transforming Work: A Collection of Organizational Transformation Readings (Alexandria: Miles River Press, 1984). ,s Thomas G. Cummings and Christopher G. Worley, Organization Development and Change (Minneapolis: West Publishing, 1993), p. 2. ~6 Chris Argyris and Donald A. Sch6n, Organizational Learning II: Theory, Method, and Practice (Reading: Addison-Wesley Publishing, 1996), ~7 Peter Senge, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of Learning Organizations (New York: Doubleday, 1990), p. 3. 18 Peter Senge et al., eds., The Fij~h Discipline Fieldbook: Strategies and Tools for Building a Learning Organization (New York: Doubleday, 1994), pp. 9-12. 19Argyris and Sch6n, Organizational II, p. xvii. 20 Senge, "Communities of Commitment: The Heart of Learning Organizations," in The Learning Organization in Action: A Special Report from Organizational Dynamics (New 'York: American Management Association, 1994), pp. 9-15. Review for Religious 21 Holland, Creative Communion, pp. 18-42, and Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Vision of Livelihood for Our Time (HarperSanFrancisco, 1994). 22.Soelle, 7~ Work and to Love, p. 112. 23 Adams, Transforming Work; Peter Hawkins, "The Spiritual Dimension of the Learning Organization," Management Education and Development 22 (1991): 172-187; Peter Block, Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler, 1993); Alan Briskin, The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996); Harrison Owen, Spirit: Transformation and Development in Organizations (Potomac: Abbot, 1987); and Tony Smith, Parzival's Briefcase: Six Practices and a New Philosophy for Healthy Organizational Change (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1993). 24 Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (New York: Fordham University Press, 1961). 2s Karl Rahner, Spirit in the World (Montreal: Palm Publishers, 1968), pp. 57-383; Hearer of the Word(New York: Continuum, 1994), pp. 1-54; and, Foundations of Christian Faith, pp. 14-23, 26-35. 26 Karl Rahner, "Theology of Freedom," Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1982), vol. 6, pp. 178-196; Foundations of Christian Faith, pp., 35-39; "The Dignity and Freedom of Man," Theological Investigations (Baltimore: Helicon, 1963), vol. 2, pp. 246-263. 27 Karl Rahner, "Concerning the Relationship between Nature and Grace," pp. 297-317; "Some Implications of the Scholastic Concept of Uncreated Grace," Theological Investigations (Baltimore: Helicon, 1961), vol. 1, pp. 319-346; "Nature and Grace," Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1982), vol. 4, pp. 165-188; Foundations of Christian Faith,. pp. 116-133. 28 Parker J. Palmer, 7b Know as We are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1993). 29 Karl Rahner, "The Experience of God Today," Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1982), vol. 11, pp. 149-165; "Experience of the Holy Spirit," Theological Investigations (New York: Crossroad, 1983), vol. 18, pp. 189-210; "Christian Living Formerly and Today," Theological Investigations (New York: Seabury, 1977), vol. 7, pp. 3- 24. 30 This and other ideas below are developed in Senge, The Fifth Discipline, and in Senge et al., The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. Septe~nber-October 1998 gnatian spirituality JOHN J. BEGLEY The Parables of Jesus and the Ignatian Exercises This article~ proposes a contemporary understanding of Jesus' parables, and it shouts their importance for the dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises. Those familiar with St. Ignatius's book are aware that he does not propose the parables for prayer during the Exercises. Several reasons, however, prompt the exploration of this relationship. First, contemporary scripture studies stress the importance of the parables in the Jesus' teaching, and including them within the Exercises can enrich that experience. Second, we take the New Testament seriously as the starting point of our prayer, and we want that prayer grounded in the best understanding of the New Testament that solid con-temporary scholarship can provide; Third, the parables make up a full third of Jesus' teaching, and so any attempt to "put on the mind that was in Christ Jesus" (Ph 2:5) cannot afford to overlook them. Finally, for retreatants who are troubled by doubt concerning what Jesus really said, the parables deserve our close attention. As a pio-neer of modern parable study has said, "We are standing on a particularly firm historical foundation., part of the bedrock of tradition. We are standing right before Jesus when reading his parables" (Jeremias, p. 5). Later we will discuss the dynamic of the Exercises in some detail. For the moment it will be useful to recall John J. Begley SJ teaches in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies; University of Scranton; Scranton, Pennsylvania 18510. Revie~ for Religious both the purpose of the Exercises and the purpose of the parables. Their similar purposes will readily appear. The purpose of the Exercises is "the conquest of self and the regulation of one's life in such a way that no decision is made under the influence of any inordinate attachment" (§21). Behind the somewhat archaic phras-ing is the understanding that the Exercises have as their purpose to lead "a person to true spiritual freedom, so that we make no choice or decision because we have been influenced by some dis-ordered ,attachment" (Fleming, Spiritual Exercises, §21). Similarly, the. parables' "purpose is to effect a change in the hearer, to lead to decision or action" (Boucher, p. 16-17). We begin with the parables. As Raymond Brown has remarked, "The study of the parables has generated an immense literature and sharp debates" (p. 132). We' will try to make the most of recent scholarship and to avoid controverted issues. Given the literature and the debates, it is difficult to capture the mean-ingof the parables in a single definition. J.R. Donahue in his Gospelin Parable (p. 5) cites approvingly C.H. Dodd's inductively derived definition; it will serve our purpose well. "At its simplest the parable is a metaphor or simile drawn from nature or common life, arresting the hearer by its vividness or strangeness, and leav-ing the ,mind in sufficient doubt about its precise application to tease it into active thought." As metaphor, the familiar and better known--a mustard seed, for example--is compared to the less familiar kingdom of God. The kingdom is compared to and illuminated by something bet-ter known and more readily imagined. In the context of a retreat, the astonishing growth of a tiny mustard seed into a large bush illumines the growth of the retreatant's relationship with God, which is God's work in the retreatant. As a metaphor, it moves people, to greater participation in the more obscure retreat mate-rial being described or explained. Metaphor talks of the familiar so that one can participate in the less familiar (Crossan, p. 16 ). We may note that there are parables in the Hebrew Bible: the trees (Jg 9:7-15), for example, and the ewe lamb (2 K 12:1-4). The rabbis used parables for the normal pedagogical purposes of illustrating and illuminating their teaching. The listeners of Jesus were familiar with the genre. Jesus subordinated the familiar uses of the parable to his primary purpose of proclaiming the king-dom, of sounding the call and challenge to embrace the conditions of living in the kingdom. The parables of Jesus transcend any September-October 1998 Begley ¯ The Parables of Jesus and the Ignatian Exercises previous use, for he thereby expresses what cannot be expressed by any other means than symbol and metaphor: the kingdom of God. The parables, like other, symbolic expressions, are polyva-lent. No single meaning exhausts their content. Parables cannot be reduced to a proposition. Modern parable study begins with several commonly accepted suppositions. First, the early church supplied the context of the parables as they appear in the narratives of Jesus' ministry, and we must bracket off that context if we wish to hear the parable as Jesus spoke it. For example, the command "Go and do likewise" (Lk 10:37) presently concludes the parable of the Good Samaritan. The common judgment, however, is that it does not belong to the parable as Jesus taught it, and so we exclude it from consid-eration. As we will see, the bracketing changes the parable's mean-ing dramatically. Second, the tradition has at times changed a parable of Jesus into an allegory. For example, in Mark's Gospel the parable of the sower appears both as Jesus taught it (4:3-9) and as the early church preserved it as an allegory (4:13-20). This is not to say that allegory is improper. However, to recover the para-bles as Jesus taught them, we avoid the allegorical interpretation. Other parables, such as that of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10:29-37), have in their transmission become example stories. As the message about Jesus was proclaimed in a non-Jewish culture, its second generation non-Jewish listeners were unfamiliar with the mean-ing of Samaritan, priest, and Levite. The parable became an exam-ple story, lessening the challenge of the original parable. We are not suggesting a single interpretation to the exclu-sion of all others, whether that interpretation is traditional or contemporary. The parable of the prodigal, for example, is fre-quently understood as a parable of God's mercy. As the First Week progresses, a retreatant may suggest to her director, as the result of her own understanding and experience, that she would like to spend some time during the First Week praying over The Prodigal as a parable of God's merciful love. The director must respect the retreatant's freedom and the gift of her prayer. In days to come in the retreat, as discretion suggests, the director can pro-pose the parable once again with a different interpretation drawn from modern parable study. Both interpretations are valid. Retreatants find two contributions of J. Dominic Crossan particularly helpful. First is the manner in which he has located the parables in Jesus' own experience. To a previous observation Review for Religious that parables move people to greater participation in the matter a parable illustrates, it is important to add that "Jesus' parables are radically constitutive of his own distinctive historicity, and all else is located in them" (Crossan, p. 33). They proclaim and they establish the historicity of Jesus' response to the kingdom. There is an intrinsic bond between Jesus' experience and his expression of that experience in parables. Parables are cause and not effect of what Jesus said and did (Crossan, p. 32). Retreatants find it very attractive to pray over the parables and thereby to enter into the experience of Jesus. Second, Crossan's classification of the various parables as expressions of the kingdom's temporality (as advent, as reversal, and as action) is most help-ful. As we'will see, the parables of reversal in particular have an important role to play in the Exercises. One final observation is important. For some few commentators, Crossan among them, the urgency of the para-bles is related to the ever present now of the kingdom. While it would be interesting to consider the range of scholarly opinions on the relation of the kingdom to the end time, it seems better to avoid the confusion which could result. One scholar, Donald Senior, has preserved the urgency of the parables without enter-ing into the controverted question of eschatology. He writes, "The kingdom may be future but the choice is now" (Senior, p. 93). The temporality of the kingdom in terms of advent, reversal, and action appears in two paradigmatic parables which model all three modes of the kingdom. "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mr 13:44). "The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls; onfinding one pearl of great value, he went and sold all that he had and bought it" (Mr 13:45-46). The parables are simi-lar in structure, as revealed by the three verbs common to both. To unpack but one, in the parable of the treasure hidden in a field, we hear of a man whose nor.mal past-present-future is rudely but happily shattered. The future, which he has presumably planned and projected for himself, is totally invalidated by the finding (advent) of the treasure, which opens up new worlds and There is an intrinsic bond between Jesus' experience and his expression of that experience in parables. September- October 1998 Begley ¯ The Parables of Jesus and the I~natian Exercises unforeseen possibilities. In the force of this advent, he willingly reverses his entire past and acts to sell all that he has. From this advent and this reversal, he obtains the treasure that now dictates his future history in a most concrete way. It gives him a new life that he could not have planned for~himself and a new world in which to live this life (Crossan, p. 34). Advent parables are fewer than parables of reversal, ~which in turn are fewer than those of action. The frequency distribution probably reflects later tradition's needs rather than the frequency with which Jesus spoke them. Later generations experienced the advent of God in the paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of Jesus and so felt less need to preserve the parables of advent. Advent parables stress one or another of three themes: hid-denness and mystery, gift and surprise, discovery and joy. For example, in the sower and mustard-seed parables, there are sharp juxtapositions of two states. In The, Sower, three instances of sow-ing loss are contrasted with three instances of harvest gain. In The Mustard Seed the contrast is between the small seed sown and the ample shade of the fully grown plant. The parables are not concerned with growth but with miracle, "not the organic and biological development but the gift-like nature, the graciousness and surprise of the ordinary, the advent of the bountiful harvest despite the losses of sowing, the large shade despite the small seed. In these ways the kingdom is advent. It is surprise and it is gift" (Crossan, pp. 37-51, emphasis added). To turn now to the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises, con-temporary experience of both directors and retreatants under-scores the advent character of the First Week. It would be impossible to number the retreatants who have summed up their First Week experience by saying, "It is all gift." In whatever man-ner the topics Ignatius proposes for prayer are treated--topics such as sin and punishment in the history of the world and in the self, past and present--the result is not a self broken by sorrow and remorse, but rather a self healed and given new life and freedom. It is an experience of one's own sinfulness, to be sure, but it is much more an experience of God's love embracing me with all of my sinfulness. The darkness of my sinfulness is shattered by the brilliance of God's reconciling, healing love. The modern mind reading the Exercises understands Ignatius's "cry of wonder" (§60) to rise from the felt awareness of God's love as experienced in the wonder of creation, in the wondei" of Review for Religious others who have been sources of life for me, in the wonder of myself as gifted, graced, and loved. The retreatant realizes, in the phrase that has become a familiar experiential reality for those who have made at least the First Week of the Exercises, that she is a "loved sinner." Mthough memories of the past, or feelings of inadequacy, fear, or self-rejection may have gripped the retreatant, now the redemptive love of God has set the exercitant free, desirous of reordering her life more effectively "to the end for which we are created" (§23). At this point the retreatant has experi-enced what in Crossan's language is called advent. To the retreatant have been revealed the hiddenness and the mystery, the gift and surprise, the discovery and joy of the king-dom. One or another of all these parable themes describes the retreatant's experience as she concludes the First Week. What had remained hidden, the mystery of the self as loved by God, has been discovered with joy as the surprising gift of God's love. In the manner of the discovery of a pearl of great price--which cannot be explained by either the skill of the direc-tor, the dispositions of the retreatant, or natural psychological development--the retreatant experiences the sheer joy of one who is loved and affirmed in the depths of the self, not despite who one is but precisely as one is. This is the important meaning of the advent parables of Jesus, and the retreatant can profitably pray over them during the First Week. From the first meditation of the First Week, the retreatant's attention has been focused on the crucified Lord, whose love for-gives and frees. In his presence the retreatant has asked, "What ought I to do for Christ?" (§53). Having experienced advent, the retreatant is now in a position to consider what return she shall make to the Lord whose love has opened for her a new way of life, more abundant than she ever thought possible. The loved sinner desires to be a loving servant. The retreatant is ready for the Second Week, in which parables of reversal and action have an important part to play. These parables have. as their purpose "to effect a change in the hearer, to lead to decision or action" (Boucher, pp. 16-17). More To the retreatant have been revealed the hiddenness and the mystery, the gift and surprise, the discovery and joy of the kingdom. Septentber-October 1998 Begley ¯ The Parables of Jesus and the Ignatian Exercises dramatically but not less surely, the parables of reversal look to the situation where "the last becomes first and the first becomes last, We have a polar reversal, When the north pole becomes the south pole and the south the north,, a world is reversed and overturned" (Crossan, p. 55) The world that is meant here is the inner world of values, priorities, and motives. It is the inner world of atti-tudes, dispositions, habitual judgments, This reversal is very much what Ignatius proposes to the retreatant at this point in the Exercises. The readiness to turn my familiar world upside down is the necessary predisposition for a good election. Ignatius underscores this in his singularly important consid-eration on the Two Standards. In an introduction to this medita-tion (§135). Ignatius reminds us that the following of Christ in loving service admits of various degrees; the sincere following of the commandments, which has been considered in meditating on Jesus' obedience to his parents, and the state of evangelical per-fection, which was considered in the youthful Jesus remaining behind in the temple. Now the retreatant, while continuing to investigate his life, is to begin to consider and to pray for a knowl-edge of the kind of life to which the Lord summons her. In the Two Standards Ignatius asks the retreatant to imagine Christ mak-ing an address "to all his servants and friends whom he sends on this enterprise." In his address he reverses the strategy of his adversary, "the chief of all the enemy," who stands beneath the first standard. As Ignatius sums up what the retreatant is, to con-sider, he says, "Hence there will be three steps: the first, poverty as opposed to riches; the second, insults or contempt ~as opposed to the honor of this world; the third, humility as opposed to pi'ide (§146, emphasis added). The .colloquy that concludes the Two Standards meditation is to be repeated at the end of each of the five periods of prayer every day until the election has been made. This threefold collo-quy addressed first to Mary, then to her 'Son, and finally to the Father is for the grace to be received under his standard, where the disciple of Christ can expect to bear poverty and humiliations in imitation of him. In a note to the subsequent Meditation on Three Classes of Men, Ignatius advises the retreatant: "It should be noted that when we feel an attachment opposed to actual poverty or a repugnance to it. it will be very helpful in order to :overcome the inordinate attachment, even though corrupt nature rebel against it, to beg our Lord in the Colloquies to choose Review for Religqous us to serve him in actual poverty" (§ 157). As Ignatius makes clear, such a disposition does not come easily: "We should insist that we desire it, beg for it, plead for it, provided of course that it be for the service and praise of the DiVine Goodness" (§157). At the critical time of making a decision that will define the self in relation to the Lord, to others, and to the contingencies of experience, the parables of reversal will serve the retreatant's need very well. It is helpful to recall that the parables represent a call which is absolute (the kingdom cannot be subordinated to any other concern) and that this absolute call is not specific (as the command to love is not specified for each particular circumstance of human life). Indeed, it is the absolute but nonspecific nature of the call of Christ to "follow me" (here and now, or later?) that requires discernment in order to come to a properly ordered deci-sion. The absolute but nonspecific call of the parables is empha-sized in the Exercises as well. The call of Christ in the Meditation on the Kingdom is abso-lute: "Whoever wishes to join me in this enterprise must be will-ing to labor with me, that by following me in suffering he may follow me in glory" (§95.). However, the manner in which one "labors with me" is not specified. Ignatius, in the oblation which concludes the Kingdom, speaks of poverty, humiliatiqns, and humility, but ~does not specify the manner in which "those who wish to give greater proof of their love, and to distinguish them-selves in whatever concerns theservice of:~the eternal King" (§97), will incarnate the proof of their love. The specification is the goal of the retreat and requires the prayer and discernment of the retreatant. Second, the change in the "world" of the retreatant, which the First Week begins and the Second Week develops, is precisely the retreatant's world of values and judgments, of desires and priorities, of hopes and dreams. The parables of reversal chal-lenge this world of the retreatant, who, through the reciprocal process of praying the parables and "reflecting on myself," begins to investigate and ask in what kind or state of life God wishes to make use of me (§135). The retreatant enters into "the mind of Christ" (Ph 2:5) and prays to make his mind her own. The parables, which communi-cate the experience of Jesus and not conclusions or admonitions, assist the retreatant to enter into her own experience of the Kingdom and to draw from that experience her own way of life. To accept the parables and the experience they offer is to take on September-October 1998 Begley ¯ The Parables of Jesus and the Ignatian Exercises a new personal perspective, a new way of interpreting and valu-ing, of deciding and acting. In a word, the retreatant develops a different and more refined set of principles, insights, and critical judgments which can be termed a personal hermeneutic. It is to grow in faith. It is worthwhile to note that the theme of reversal is an essen-tial theme of the teaching of Jesus and of the parables. The beloved Good Samaritan parable (Lk 10:25-37) has tradition-ally been heard as an example of neighborliness. In the wake of Jeremias's study, commentators today suggest that the parable has been reconstructed in the course of transmission. The con-text (Jesus' conversation with a lawyer) and his concluding com-mand ("Go and do likewise," §37) have been provided by the early church and have to be removed from consideration if we are to .come closer to the parable as Jesus spoke it. At a distance both geographical and temporal from the world of Samaritans, priests, and Levites, the story lacked the immediacy that it had for the first listeners of Jesus, and this parable of reversal has been changed by the second-generation of Christians into an example story. Once the parable is allowed to stand on its own, it is no longer simply a story of the neighborliness that fulfills the law, but becomes a parable of reversaL Crc;ssan has brilliantly noted that, if the parable is primar-ily to provide an illustration of neighbor love or an indictment of heartless religious leaders, then help offered by a Jewish layperson would have made the proper point. The shock is that it is the Samaritan who stops. At the remove of centuries, it is easy for us to overlook the hatred that existed between Jews and Samaritans. During the period of the Exile, the Samaritans had intermarried with non-Jews, had opposed the restoration of the Jewish temple, and in the 2nd century B.C. had actually helped the Syrians in their wars against the Jews. The Jewish high priest had burned the Samaritan temple on Mount Gerizim, and the Samaritans had scattered the bones of a corpse in. the Jerusalem temple, thereby defiling it and making it impossible to celebrate Passover. The Samaritans did not accept the whole of the canon-ical Jewish Scriptures. They refused hospitality to Jesus and his disciples because they were on their way to Jerusalem (Lk 9:52- 53). The Jews believed they had insulted Jesus by calling him a Samaritan (Jn 4:7-10), and Jesus himself warned his disciples to avoid the Samaritan territory (Mt 10:5). Review for Religious The shock of the parable, calling for a reversal of attitudes on the part of its hearers, is that the one who helps the Jewish victim and fulfills the law is the enemy and religious apostate. The parable reverses our understanding of who God is and whom God approves. It destroys a narrow, legalistic under-standing of the law and reveals the hatred and divisions which had become institutionalized. The world of the lawyer and his fellow listeners is turned upside down. They are to speak the unspeakable; they are to join the apparent contradictories "good" and "Samaritan." Another parable of reversal that can be useful during the Second Week is that of the Prodigal Son. It is lengthy (Luke 15:11-32) and so well .known that we need not retell it here. In Crossan's interpretation the reversal is located in the presence of the prodigal at the banquet while his dutiful older brother is out-side pouting (Crossan, p. 75). Merely to state the reversal in this way is to grip the imagination of the retreatant. It calls for a rever-sal of mind and heart that must be prayed over until it is interi-orized and can then move the retreatant toward her election/decision with gratitude and enthusiasm. Another approach to the Prodigal Son (Donahue, pp. 151- 157) may be even more helpful to the retreatant. Here the rever-sal is in our understanding, of what constitutes a relationship to God. Both sons define sonship in terms of servile obligation: "Treat me as one of your hired servants," says the younger son; "I have slaved for you," says his older brother. Each in his own way destroys the family. "As the younger son felt that the way~ to restore the severed relationship was to become a servant, the older brother maintained it by acting as a servant. Between the dutiful son and the prodigal is a bond much deeper than is visible on the surface . A relationship . . . worked out in terms of servility leads to destruction. The relationship as redefined by the father leads to joy" (Donahue, p. 157). Some women may find it difficult to pray with the images of "father" and "sons." Sandra Schneiders has captured the power of the parable from a feminist perspective: "Jesus' parable about the father actually constitutes a radical challenge to patriarchy. The divine father who has been understood as the ultimate justification of human patriarchy is revealed as the one who refuses to own us, demand our submission, or punish our rebellion. Rather, God is the one who respects our freedom, mourns our alienation, waits Septentber-October 1998 Begley * The Parables of yesus and the Ignatian Exercises patiently for our return, and accepts our love as pure gift" (cited by Donahue, pp. 161-162). The parable conveys the essential mindset for understanding discipleship and for making the decision that leads to more faith-ful discipleship. Crossan has expressed it perfectly in his discus-sion of the primary issue between Jesus and the Pharisees: "Obedience does not lead to God, God leads one to obedience" (Crossan, p. 80). The Two Standards! Ignatius focuses the retreatant's attention upon the activity of the poor and humble Christ, and so the prayerful consideration of the action parables may be somewhat less necessary than those of advent and reversal. The action parables, though, do portray cru-cial or critical situations that demand prompt and energetic deci-sion, firm and resolute action, that are very much in line with retreat purposes. They summon us to commit ourselves in response to the advent of the kingdom regardless of the reversal they demand, and so they, can prove helpful in the later days of the Second Week. They reflect the situation of the retreatant as she moves towards free self-disposition in response to her experience of the advent of the kingdom. Parables of action portray three different responses to the urgency of action (Crossan, pp. 84-85). As examples of one response (see the parable of the friend at mid-night [Lk 11:58] or the unjust judge [Lk 18:2-5]), we meet persons who accept the inevitability of what must be done and take action. In other parables (for example, the rich fool in Lk 13:16-20), the person fails to recognize the urgency of the situation and so fails to act. A third set of action parables (for example, the bridesmaids, Mt 25:1-13) describes those who respond adequately and those who do not. These parables of Jesus can effectively move the retreatant to overcome her natural hesitancy to choose what is beyond the strength of her own resources: to choose, with faith in the advent of the kingdom within her, what "would be more for his praise and glory" (§180). The explanation of the relationship between the parables of Jesus and the Ignatian Exercises has been long. A director may well question the advisability of proposing such an explanation when Ignatius expects the director to "adhere to the points, and add only.a short or summary explanation., for it is not much knowledge that fills and satisfies the soul, but the intimate under-standing and relish of the truth" (§2). Despite the length of this article's explanation, experience has shown that it is possible to l~eview for Religio~a give retreatants a "summary explanation." Retreatants easily grasp the primary idea of the different parables, are comfortable with the understanding proposed, and experience an unexpected delight in praying the parables of Jesus. A Selection of Parables Advent parables: The leaven, Mt 13:20-21; the sower, Mk 4:3- 8; the mustard seed, Mt 4:30-32; the lost sheep, Mt 18:12-13; the lost coin, Lk 15:8-9. Reversal parables: The Good Samaritan, Lk 10:30-37; The Prodigal Son, Lk 15:11-32; the rich man and Lazarus, Lk 16:19- 31; the Pharisee and the tax collector, Lk 18:9-14; the wedding guest, Lk 14:1-24; the great supper, Mt 22:1-14; the sheep and the goats, Mt 25:31-46. Action parables: the wicked husbandmen, Mk 12:1-,12); the doorkeeper, Mk 13:33-37; the talents, Mt 25:14-3 O; the unmerciful servant, Mt 18:23-38; the unjust steward, Lk 16:1-7; the workers in the vineyard, Mt 20:1-16. Bibliography Boucher, Madeleine I. The Parables. Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1981. Brown, Raymond E. An Introduction to the New Testament. New York: Doubleday, 1997. Crossan, John Dominic. In Parables. New York: Harper and Row, 1970. Donahue, John R. The Gospel in Parable. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988. Fleming, David L. The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading. St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978. Henog, William R. Parables as Subversive Speech. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994. Jeremias, Joachim. Rediscovering the Parables. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1989. Puhl, Louis J. (trans.). The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1951. Senior, Donald. Jesus: A Gospel Portrait, 2nd ed. Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1991. September-October 1998 ANITA J. BALY St. Ignatius and My Piano One of the best things I got out of making the thirty-day Spiritual Exercises was learning I could play the piano. That is not all that I experienced in the long retreat, by any means. And Idid not know I was taking away that particular fruit when the retreat ended. At a distance of two years, however, I sense that that.gift of musical empowerment is closely linked with my spiritual journey. What would St. Ignatius think of my response to his Exercises? Would palm slap forehead in pained frustration at my lack of com-prehension? Would he laugh--or cry? Would he sharply insist that I had trivialized the meaning of his work--and knew it? Would he smile ever so slightly and nod approval? I would not presume to read back into the saint's mind. I am even clueless as to how oth-ers who have completed the Exercises would react. In the silent and solitary conduct of the Exercises, it is impos-sible to know for sure what other retreatants derive. One can make some guesses based on body language and apparent changes, but there is no way to check out assumptions orhlly. At the con-clusion of my retreat, half a dozen of us retreatants sat and tried to share with one another what had occurred for us. What impressed me that evening was how different the perceived fruits seemed to be for each participant! It was also pleasing to see how diverse outcomes seemed to comport with the Exercises. Anita J. Baly JD, MDiv, PhD, is interim pastor of the Lutheran Church of Our Saviour and an adjunct faculty member in theology at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia and the Presbyterian School of Christian Education. Her address is 3001 Libby Terrace; Richmond, Virginia 23223. Review for Religious The Spiritual Exercises are not a map that points in only one direction via a single route. The end desired is surely the same for all Christians: that we grow continually in faithfulness to the Lord's person and work, approaching more and more the fullness of the fruits of the Spirit; that we grow in the capacity to attain, relish, and express the love of God. Or, as St. Paul says so suc-cinctly: the end (telos) the Christian seeks is "eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rm 6:22-23).~ The means to achieving that end, however, clearly differ according to God-given differences in per-sonalities, capacities, and experiences. No means are excluded automatically since "all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose" (Rm 8:28). The Exercises affirm, support, and foster individual wrestling with God's individual graces, to attain the end that is at once universal and also particular. The Exercises, that is, attune to the fact that the Spirit blows how, as, and where it wills. Each exercitant's task is to meet that universal Spirit in the exact par-ticularity of who he or she really is. Were this not to occur, the positive effects of the Exercises in fostering "the salvation of souls and their spiritual profit" would likely be severely limited.2 Theologically this makes sense: incarnation is God's presence and manifestation only in what is really there. God does not meet us inthe past, in the future, or in the way we wish things were. Incarnation means that God meets us precisely here, immediately now. It is, I believe, out of respect for God's ways of working dif-ferendy with different individuals that St. Ignatius urges the direc-tor to be brief in explaining the meditations and contemplations (§2). The saint seems to find it acceptable that exercitants work out much of the matter of the Exercises alone, with God's help. In this way, inevitably, exercitants will surely miss some details and fine points. Ignatius's sense of the compensation for this loss is clear. He says: "It is not in knowing much, but realizing and rel-ishing things interiorly, that contents and satisfies the soul" (§2). My own journey with the Exercises involved the discovery that I could play the piano. As I see it, that was not just a nice My own journey with the Exercises involved the discovery that I could play the piano. September- October 1998 Baly ¯ St. Ignatius and My Piano thing--though it is wonderful! Studying piano has actually become a major support of my continuing spiritual journey. It was a dis-covery I in no way sought, envisioned, or wanted. It came about in response to the circumstances of my long retreat. I made the Exercises at one of the large houses that groups retreatants together with multiple outside directors for one or a few events each year) Our group of retreatants and directors numbered close to seventy people, with an overall director who is a musician. He wanted music provided for the daily liturgies and asked for vol-unteer music leaders. Although there were one or two profes-sional- quality musicians among the group, they, understandably, wanted to retreat from musical production. That left canvassing the rest of us for volunteers, and five or six of us agreed to "do something" according to our capacities. In my case that was to mean simply leading hymns and responses and functioning as a cantor. I could sing and read music, but I played no instruments. As the retreat went on, the strain of producing coordinated music in an atmosphere of total silence showed on some of the original musical volunteers, who quit. That left fewer of us respon-sible for more liturgies. So I was providing music leadership to liturgies every few days with nothing but voice--and boring myself. Besides that, the various celebrants wanted different set-tihgs of liturgical responses. In order to be able to lead those, I had to try to hear them. In the silence, no one could sing them to me beforehand. There was, however, a brief daily period when all retreatants had access to the lone piano. I managed to find the notes to plunk out the melody lines of responses. I knew where the notes were on the keyboard from years of finding singing melodies with a one-finger, hunt-and-peck .method. It was, however, a sort of desperation for variety and for beauty that prompted me to take the next step. I finally made a few attempts to play a melody line under a hymn or two and once even attempted to play something as postcommunion meditation music. Those attempts resulted in poor music that did not enhance the services, in my opinion, and embarrassed me. I suppose I would have quit trying and that would have been the end of it, were it not for the movements of a few people there. One of the directors saw my embarrassment at the poverty of my tries at accompaniment. He managed to honor that pain by helping me try again in a safer way. And, when the retreat ended and we could speak, I learned that a few of the retreatants actually assumed I was Review for Religious a professional music minister! I suppose it was that small amount of affirmation and the serendipitous discovery of pleasure in a new "skill" that prompted me to continue. Once home, I had access to a piano--through the grace of two other friends. For a year I tinkered with that piano on my own, trying to teach myself, sensing in some vague way that for me the piano was a way of continuing to connect with the graces of the retreat. A year after the retreat, I began taking formal lessons. Those have now con-tinued for over a year. The piano is one among those created things that Ignatius would urge using or discarding according to its effect--for the individual pianist--in fostering or detracting from the praise, rev-erence, and service of God (§23). Music can be perverted in var-ious ways. Of itself, though, it does seem to enjoy divine approbation. The Bible in many places, especially in the Psalms, enjoins us to sing to the Lord, to make a joyful noise, to praise our God with timbrel and trumpet, voice, dance--and strings.4 Why would music be so privileged? Maybe God just likes music. That is, the use of music for religious expressions may be linked to something in God's being. Maybe music is special because it is always a common expression, a community endeavor. Even solitary composers or musicians do not invent their instru-ments. Neither do they create the musical notes and their fun-damental relationships--though composers group in "new" ways and patterns the notes and chords they have .been given. The musical givens are built right into~the world. One who discovers them is in dialogue with God the Creator. Because I only play the piano, and do not compose music for it, I dialogue with the Creator about music at one remove. My communion with the composer provides a way for me to make my musical connection with the Directing Source. When I attend faithfully to playing that music as it is written down, I know something too of God's conducting. That faithful attempt to connect with the composer's aural "vision" helps me understand and even "hear" that my studying and playing piano is connected also with my spiritual journey. For me, both praying and piano playing seem more satisfying and closer to hitting the mark when I approach them with a certain kind of discipline. Ignatius illuminates the fact that successful meditation involves the integration of memory, reason, will, and feelings (§50). And the good progress of the Exercises seems to verify that pro- September-October 1998 Baly ¯ St. Ignatius and My Piano found insight. To me, it proves the saint was truly a spiritual genius, As one who .once scored a hundred percent on the feeling compo-nent of the Myers-Briggs Preference Test, my psyche is perpetually on the edge of drowning in emotion. Besides that, my imagination is so strong that I could almost live in it. Now, imagination and feeling are essential for getting through the Exercises. It is difficult to see how an Application of the Senses meditation, for example, could progress without them (§123). The same is true for music. Without feeling, it is lifeless and powerless. Imaginative hearing certainly helps in the process of learning music. Feeling and imagination are good things in moderation. As an extreme "feeler" and "imaginer," however, I cleave to the Ignatian system because of the constant pressure it exerts on me to think and to perceive what is actually there in the world. Overly enthu-siastic thinkers and sensers probably value the Ignatian system for the opposite reason: the pressure it exerts on them to feel and to imagine. One of the supreme marvels of Ignatius's method is the way it teaches, inculcates, presumes, and honors balance. Such balance and integration are often difficult, to keep up in daily life. They are particularly hard to sustain at times of stress when the temptation is to fall back into the ways of reacting that are most automatic and comfortable for us. Our customary responses may be too lopsided to be effective--or holy. It is aware-ness followed by practice, building habits of mind and heart, that can help us to redirect our responses away from the habitual and into more prudent directions. The practice of Ignatian prayer helps with this. In a very similar way, the study of piano also teaches me to strive for balanced, integrated responses. Playing piano, like praying in the lgnatian.mode, requires using memory to aid the intellect, engaging the will in the endeavor, and aligning feelings with the will. My teacher, thus, emphasizes for me the importance of learning chord relationships and learning and remembering proper fingering. In this way my memory assists my reasoning about how to play a new piece of music. And only when my will controls my~ feelings can I keep my enthusiasm from ruining the dynamics and phrasing of com-positions. For me it is truly useful discipline to have to count continuously, thereby exercising a form of reason. My teacher also patiently reminds me that I must play the piece as it is writ-ten-- not as I may prefer or wish it to be, nor as I would find it easier to play. Those reminders are echoes of incarnation! When Review for Religious I lose the balance and proper relationship of memory, reason, will, and feelings, the pieces do not sound right. They cease to please the ear. In a profound sense they are no longer "good." In turn, that reminds me that, when I lose the balance in my spiri-tual life, it too is swerving from the best direction. One particular place where Ignatius urges balance and indif-ference is in making an election (§179). The single criterion of election is that a given alternative seems to lead more to the glory and praise of God and to the salvation of one's soul. The ideal choice, thus, is very pure and very disciplined. In a similar way, the best choice in playing music will be to put aside any personal inclinations or biases or even technical insufficiencies. The goal is to play the piece as near as possible to the composer's intention. The search for that intention can be like discerning the will of God. Sometimes neither the one nor the other is apparent on the surface. It is in both cases openness, dialogue, respect, fidelity, and persistence that create the atmosphere in which disclosure becomes more likely. Within all the balance and indifference in prayerful elections, however, it does seem that reason takes primacy (§ 182). Ignatius seems almost to anticipate the Kantian ethical principle about acting in ways that would please you if they became universal law. The saint counsels us to imagine advising an unknown person whose sanctification we desire, within the context of our own sense of what best conduces to God's glory. Having determined that advice, we are ourselves to follow it (§185). So too in music, where it is hard to imagine advising anyone to play a work other than as it is written. Once reason has helped us to know the goal for living well or for playing music well, the honorable course is to set about engaging the other parts of the personality to col-laborate in moving to this end, and in practicing and honing needed skills for doing so. Relaxation and trust enhance both instrumental playing and prayer. At a recent lesson, my piano teacher watched and heard me struggle through a work white-knuckled, tight-shouldered, gri-macing, and gritting my teeth. She then inquired, sweedy, whether I found it easier to play tense or relaxed. That reminded me of the priest at my last directed retreat who kept urging me to pray in Imaginative hearing certainly helps in the process of learning music. Septentber-October 1998 Baly ¯ St. Ignatius and My Piano peace and serenity--until I finally did. Tension and trying to retain control do not facilitate progress in either prayer or piano. Humility certainly helps in both spheres. Ignatius specifically counsels cultivating the attitude of humility at those times we contemplate our sins. He says that we are then to "lessen" our-selves via various imaginative comparisons (§58). The whole envi-ronment of the Exercises, moreover, induces humility. Much in the system cooperates to encourage the exercitant to esteem God's control and another's direction over what comes from the self alone. For me the Exercises went best at those times when I was most teachable and directable. The same is true of piano study: I play better by attuning to what is there musically and to the teacher. Playing the piano and praying are complementary processes that call on remarkably similar skills. As I hone technique in one area, I also seem to position myself for advancement in the other activity. A kind of cross-leavening seems to occur. As I attend con-sciously to what happens, it seems as though piano learnings tend to foster px:ayer learnings, not vice versa. I think that is because progress in piano happens in an external realm where any who wish may hear, measure, compare, iudge, criticize, and so forth. The no-less-real results of prayer exist in' an internal sphere fully accessible neither to others nor even to myself. Whatever helps someone to understand more of what occurs in personal prayer and to be able to communicate that has to be a boon to progress in prayer. Piano does those things for me. Piano also intimates to me and gives me the hope that King Hezekiah expressed: "The Lord will save me, and we will sing to my stringed instruments all the days of our lives, at the house of the Lord" (Is 38:20). Notes 1 Scriptural citations are from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible. 2 The quoted words are from the Papal Approbation of St. Ignatius' Spiritual Exercises in 1548, as given in David L. Fleming SJ, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius: A Literal Translation and a Contemporary Reading (St. Louis: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1978), p. xxiii. Other citations (§) are standard paragraph numberings used in this and other modern trans-lations of the Exercises. 3 Jesuit Retreat House, Los Altos, California. 4 Psalms 33, 68, 81, 92,144, 149, and 150 all direct the use of musi-cal instruments in praising God. Review for Religious JOSEPH A. TETLOW The Experience of God in Consecrated Life during the 20th Century In this article I try to describe the experience of God, not to prescribe for it. I begin, first, with the meanings of the terms spirituality and religion and the content of the term experi-ence. Second, I characterize modern times just before Vatican Council II under three headings: aggressive realism, methodi-cal universalism, and rugged individualism. I do this because modernity has marked consecrated life deeply and in some mea-sure still marks it, and because, when conservatives talk about the past, this is the past they mean. Third, about the council, I note only that the reform of church structures and the renewal of consecrated life brought out deep problems with authority and with our concept of the self. Finally, coming to today, I urge that we can appreciate consecrated life well in terms of the postmodern understanding of experience as constructed, derivative, intentional, and dialogic. I hope these somewhat scattered theoretical points will deepen our reflection on what the experience of God has been in consecrated life during the cen-tury that is now ending. Spirituality. For us spirituality means the experience of God in Christ. For others it means other things. The Communist government of China, for instance, has begun Joseph A. Tetlow SJ makes available here a talk that he pre-sented in Rome at a workshop attended by members of the union of major superiors of men religious; it retains something of that provenance. No newcomer to these pages, he is director of the Secretariat for Ignatian Spirituality; C.P. 6139; 00195 Roma Prati; Italy. consecrated life September-October 1998 Tetlow ¯ The Experience o[ God in Consecrated Life promoting what it calls a "spiritual civilization." Alcoholics Anonymous acknowledges only a "Higher Power" but has a spir-ituality. So has the New Age pseudo-philosophy. In this article the word spirituality is used in none of those vague senses. Here it means the experience of God in Christ, always incarnated in a tradition of prayer and interior discipline.~ A spiritual life, consequently,is the ongoing, cherished, fos-tered experience of God in Christ in one of the great consecrated-life traditions.2 Shifting "from the former stress on the rational to the experiential," serious theologians now recount "the in-break-ing God of personal experience.''3 Karl Rahner, certainly a spec-ulative theologian, was deeply stirred by Ignatius's conviction "that he had in fact experienced God directly and that others may do so as well.''4 Rahner wrote many prayers like this one.- "Thanks to your mercy, O infinite God, I know somethingabout you not only through concepts and words, but through experience . Yes, really you yourself, not just a concept of you, not just the name which we ourselves have given you.''5 John of the Cross experienced God, not an idea or a poem, and so did Don Bosco, St. Benedict, the author of the Cloud. Each experienced God in the specific way God chose~ All those who follow each of them adopt the perspectives, perceptions, and values of their masters, desiring and determined to know God as their tradition knows God. This is what we mean by spirituality. It differs from religion. Religion. Religion is the experience of creed, code, cultus, and culture and, in and through these creatures, the experience of God. Hinduism; Buddhism, Islam, even animism yield the expe-rience of God in the experience of creed, code, cultus, and cul-ture. 6 Islam, for instance, holds faith in Allah and in the prophet Mohammed, follows a moralistic code, practices cultus six times a day and a month each year, and has spread into a vast poly-morphous culture. Each Muslim experiences these creatures directly and, in them, God. The "ordinary Christian" who spent three hours worshiping in St. Peter's Square on Palm Sunday felt the presence of God in the liturgy. True, many ordinary Christians may have momentary "mystical experiences"; Andrew Greeley reported in one survey that perhaps eight in ten American Catholics have had such experiences, and we have no reason to think Americans more mystical than any other people. But those "mystical experiences" come as a surprise, for religious people Review for Religious experience God indirectly, through the created creed, code, cul-tus, and culture in their everyday lives. Religious leaders need to note two points connected with this: first, about the apostolate. The people we serve, the "millions in the middle," in Cardinal Joseph Bernardin's phrase, experience God in and through their religion. When the powerful or the super-spiritual despise these people's religion, the people suffer; for their special experience of God seems despised and degraded. Perhaps the church harmed them inadver-tently when it swiftly and almost wordlessly dismantled the liturgi-cal use of Latin and quotidian laws about fasting and communion on the tongue, Yet for centuries the church had called the full, whole-hearted living of religion, just reli-gion, "spirituality." Only a few centuries ago did theologians begin using the word spirituality for the life lived by an active, dedicated, religious elite, and only in the last two centuries did theologians begin separating the experience we call spirituality from the experience we call religion. We who find ourselves in this "elite" run the risk of so raising up spirituality as to depreciate religion. This is wrongheaded. The second thing superiors might note here concerns our own congregational lives. Are there not men in every congrega-tion who live the charism in wholehearted ways and yet cannot say they know God? We all know men who have pictures of the Holy Father, of saints and holy places, all over their rooms and offices. Perhaps they are living religion--creed, code, cultus, and cul-ture- as religion is embodied in a congregation's way of life, with all its pious practices. (Somebne told about a man who was watch-ing television and reading his breviary during the commercial breaks. He explained that Jesus had instructed us to "watch and pray.") Above all, perhaps we should consider whether the strongly conservative among us may live their interior lives in this way of religion. How do they experience God? Experience. Our topic is experience. As everyone does today, I have been talking about experience as though we all mean the same thing. But we do not. Some say experience includes just what Only in the last two centuries did theologians begin separating the experience we call spirituality from the experience we call religion. September-October 1998 Tetlow ¯ The Experience of God in Consecrated Life happens; some, that experience includes only what I am conscious of happening; some tinsist that human experience always includes language. Every one of. us, also, varies what he includes in the term. What does our topic mean, "The experience of God in con-secrated life"? Obviously, we cannot work out a perfect descrip-tion of experience here and now. Also obviously, we are probably not going to talk about it the way "scientific" philosophers talk about it. We are going to talk about experience, most likely, as Vita consecrata does.7 Perhaps, though, we need to notice, on a slightly theoretica,1 plane, that today people regularly talk about experience by using seven categories. A sort of common philosophy holds that each and every experience unfolds in seven dialogically inter-related elements: context, perspective, perception, value, desire, decision, and habit. We tend to think that any and every experi-ence is adequately described when each of these elements is accounted fo~, both in itself and in its relationship with each of the other elements. So, biographers get the concrete details of their subjects' time and place and recount how their context shaped their perspectives, how their values shaped their perceptions, and so on. Scripture scholars try to recapture the context of Jesus' life and the perspectives, perceptions, and values with which his context would have imbued him. When we look at a man's expe-rience to see whether he has the capacity to govern, we weigh his decisions and hal6its, how he perceives, what he values. Things like these constitute our view of his experience. So, at least for now, let that stand for what experience is. The description is hardly .satisfactory, so why did I raise the question? For two reasons. Fil:st, we whose main task is listening to .others must keep in mind that there is no such thing as a naive appeal to experience. The man who says, "Well, my experience tells me such-and-such" has not ended discussion, but just begun it. As philosophical theologiaJ~ John Smith argues, every appeal "carries with it a theory of experience, some principle indicating what expe-rience is and how much it is supposed to contain.''8 Conflicts between superiors and consecrated men, between individuals and their communities, commonly grow from different appreciations of experience. The second reason we need to be aware of the con-tent of experience is that the teaching church is changing its approach to experience, but is no more consistent than any of us in what content it puts into the word. Review for Religious Now let me turn to the three topics I mean to open: the pre-conciliar and modern, the council, and the postconciliar or post-modern. Preconciliar and Modern Times I begin with a story. In 1947 a young man of sixteen boarded a train on his way to a novitiate. Answering the questions of the novice-master, his back straight and shoulders squared, he explained his call. He felt drawn to a military life (his father had sent him to a military school). But he thumped the oak arm of his chair--absolutely, God wanted him to be a religious and a priest. Fifty years later, he remains both. The year 1947 came in the evening of modern times. What is modernity? How had it affected our experience of God in Christ? Intellectual historians generally concur on certain qualifies. Albert Borgmann, for instance, identifies as marks of modernity an aggressive realism (we experiment to know and we intend to con-trol life and nature with our knowledge); methodical universalism (any empirically established truth is true in every realm and in any culture); and rugged individualism (the person comes to be over against the community). Aggressive Realism. In the 1950s we perceived the modern uni-verse, unlike the medieval Christian cosmos, as impersonal and governed by regular laws that had to be understood mathemati-cally. We felt free to tear out forests, dig up mountains, and blow a hole in the earth's atmosphere. As we grew absorbed in this aggressive realism, in Richard Tarnas's words, "God was now dis-tantly removed from the physical universe, as creator and archi-tect, and was now less a God of love, miracle, redemption, or historical intervention than a supreme intelligence and first cause.''9 1 have the clearest recollection from the early 1950s of being instructed by a spiritual book written by a Frenchman and translated by a North American to turn at the end of a period of prayer and with whole heart and great fervor pray to "my First Cause." 10 This kind of realism seriously trammeled our experience of God, in part because that realism was magnified by a centuries-long failure in the church to develop anything like an adequate theology of creation,~ as John Courtney Murray argued in his book, The Problem of God. In modern times we spoke about God's Septonber-October 1998 Tetlow ¯ The Experience of God in Consecrated Life providence or God's will, both exercised, in some measure, in dis-tans. But we had lost the strong sense of God continually, con-stantly creating us and personally calling us.~2 Most religious are still surprised and delighted to hear that we are in an intimate relationship with God the ongoing Creator. In truth, our God had some of the aspects of the rationalists' Great Watchmaker who created the earth and spun it off to do its own work. Notice that the experience of God in consecrated life in the West has been countercultural and is an important gift to the Western church, as Vita consecrata points OUt.13 It also has to be the source of a renewed theology of creation for the church (one thinks of Teilhard de Chardin). Rugged Individualism. Just a century ago the West gave scien-tific sanction to individualism in social Darwinism's "survival of the fittest." So the powerful grabbed oil, railroad lands, monopolies in finance, and so on; the less than powerful were taught to blame themselves. Between Vatican Councils I and II, between the first automobile and the first manned space vehicle, the socioeconomic program of the West, in Roberto Mangabeira Unger's words, was "to turn all society into a world of patrons and clients.''~4 Furthermore, this was certainly the methodical program of the Communist elites (only six percent of China's population) and arguably the established program of the rest of the world. Princes and rich landowners lavished patronage; their clients begged help. Colonial powers favored a native elite (that now rules seventy-five new nations); the natives depended on them. Bosses ruled "their" workers; bishops had "their" priests; religious superiors had "their" subjects. All these were "clients," including the reli-gious, who leaned on (the Indo-European root of "client" is klei, to incline to or lean on). their superiors. This patron/client relationship flourished in the church, which Catholics were taught to conceive of as a "perfect" society, that.is, a visible society fully equipped for its purposes with autonomous rights and resources, with powers of jurisdiction, legislation, and administration, and, in words of Pius XlI in Mystici Corporis, a society lifted "above the whole natural order [by] the Spirit of the Redeemer, who., penetrates every part of the church's being and is active within it.''~s We religious exhorted one another to dependence on our superiors. I do not speak critically here. We must empathize with this earlier perspective on authority. Authority was felt to be, in itself, profoundly benevolent to the Review for Religious subject, creative, and ultimately successful in making people what God wished them to be, Modern people simply did what they were told by superiors, and if some of them acted immorally-- remember Eichmann--many others flourished under good lead-ership. And tens of thousands of consecrated men lived holy and productive lives by doing what they were told. It was in this con-text that a young man (just like the one who took that train in 1947), when told .by his master of novices to tie his hands to his bedstead to avoid nocturnal pollution, at first obeyed confidently. I say "at first," for there was a shadow side to this embrace of authority. As Donald Gelpi has written, "submission of one's own will to a superior [was] subtly trans-formed from a means into an end in itself." 16 The religious subjects had an. easy way to personal holiness, and, superiors could ask them to be instruments of our congregations, instruments, we confidently believed, in God's hands. Very commonly it is this instrumentalism that conservatives yearn to recapture. One man said as much to me as he was planning a par-ticularly egregious action against some liberal Christians: "I just want to be a hammer in God's hands." What did he think he is? Who had responsibility for his harmful activities? Authority, and its instruments, were experienced as univer-sally valid until the very late stages of modernism. This century's experiences--the Holocaust, the Soviet Union's Gulag, Idi Amin, My Lai, terrorism, governmental lying, the totalitarian habit of "disappearing" people---have changed our appreciation of author-ity. In earlier modernity it was perceived as benevolent; at moder-nity's end, it has come to be perceived as malevolent or at best deeply ambiguous. Even consecrated men may nowadays won-der, at a letter from superiors, What do they want now? At the end of modernity, as Hannah Arendt argued, we have to study what authority once was to come to any realistic appreciation of it. This situation is, in part, the fruit of rugged individualism. Methodical Universalism. If the secular world gladly embraced empiricism as a universal method, the church embraced scholas- We had lost the strong sense of God continually, constantly creating us and persona, lly calling us. Septentber-October 1998 Tetlow ¯ The Experience of God in Consecrated Life ticism as gladly. Before Vatican II, the teaching church was insist-ing on a unique philosopbia perennis, a single intellectual approach to meaning in human life. This insistence expressed a methodical universalism; it belonged more to modernity than to revelation. Scientists rigidly adhered to what they considered induction; Catholics rigidly adhered to deduction. One reviewer in 1949 called a masterwork by Garrigou-Lagrange "an outstanding exam-ple of the ability of a master scientist to draw a whole system of practical conclusions from a single principle.''17 The book was The Three Ages of the Interior Life, and the reviewer resonated with the book's methodical universalism.18 Integral to that methodical universalism was the firm con-viction that nature had an intrinsic order, put there by God and functioning flawlessly. Unaided reason could perceive this order with certitude (one of my philosophy professors liked to cite the Letter to the Romans). This modern trust in reason unrelated to God'.s "ongoing revelation transmuted the church's philosophical commitment to a "natural law." The trust in reason and law affected consecrated life, too: "Keep the rule, and the rule will keep you." As the 20th century progressed, we learned that nature ordered itself by evolution--having been so created by God at the time of the Big Bang. Catholics were quicker than most to accept that scientific theory as fact. Then we learned also that each person evolves, comes to be, grows, from some interior prin-ciple. The combination, grew to an insistence on "authenticity." Hence, as one author summarized the development, "in contrast with the medieval Christian worldview, modern man's indepen-dence- intellectual, psychological, spiritual--was radically affirmed, with increasing depreciation of any religious belief or institutional structure that would inhibit man's natural right and potential for existential autonomy and individual self-expres-sion." 19 He has caught most of the shibboleths of the 1960s, the pseudo-ideas, the decaying core convictions of modernity: inde-pendence, radical, institutional, structures, natural right, auton-omy, self-expression. These are the "plastic words" that many of us used when pushing far in the conciliar reforms.2° Vatican II and the Return to Roots Here is another story. Around 1967 a man from a religious com-munity made a workshop-retreat. He had been busy running a college Review for Religious and raising funds; he had never made a directed retreat or listened to one of the well'known spiritual gums. About a month a#er his expe-rience, he told another man in his community that the retreat had been powerful. He had never known, really known, that God accepts him, that God loves him as he is. He wept as he recounted the experience. In complex and varying ways, modernity had shaped the con-secrated life before Vatican II. Now we were called by the great decree Petfectae caritatis to return to our roots, to leave nature alone for a w, hile and go back to history. We needed to re-create our communities, an immensely conse-quential effort, which meant recovering ¯ our history. Some of us found that our communities were hardly living our full histories. I was astonished, for instance, to find out that St. Ignatius Loyola did not found the Society of Jesus all alone, but led a committee of friends in the Lord. to found the Company. (I have never been sure what that committee tells us about Jesuits.) One of the great consequences was a deep shift in leadership style from hierar-chical power to discerning authority, a genuinely splendid achieve-ment. Superiors decided that they were called, in Ann Ida Gannon's bold phrase, "for the service of [their] fellow religious.''~ They learned to be servant-leaders, adopting a leadership style that rejects power and governs by authority. So we began to reha-bilitate authority, and to reconnect the modern individualist to the community. Authority, which humankind always needs, is the ability so to arrange a lifeworld that those served by authority desire in great freedom to follow its decisions. Fully exercised, leadership by authority elicits and empowers the authority of every individual. For in its roots--note the Latin nounauct0r (originator, doer, author) and verb augere (increase)~authority names a human per-son's self-actualization and growth, which cannot happen to a person except in connection with a community. We need to pur-sue a difficult notion here: the concept of the self. Under the weight of modern individualism, we came to think of the self as isolated, estranged--all those anguishes of existentialism. We came to appreciate the self as having no extension, independent Fully exercised, leadership by authority elicits and empowers the authority of every individual. Septentber-October 1998 Tetlow ¯ The Experience of God in Consecrated Life not only of our bodies but even of our experiences. We have all heard people say that they can "use their experience," as though it were a computer program. We have heard that a woman "has a right over her own body" as though it were something like a suit-case. Charles Taylor summarized all this as "the punctiliar self.''22 The self has become like a little point floating through our life-world, our own life history, our experiences, convictions, body parts. For our topic, the important thing to notice is that, when the conciliar renewal arrived, we were all thinking of the self detached from our own experience and over against the commu-nity. When one of us said "I personally think." he really meant "I individually think"--that is, over against the rest of society. For person had come to mean individual and had been cut off from society. Only during postmodernity, with its search for commu-nity, did we recover the truth that no human person can exist apart from the human community. We are not angels. We might note one final rather abstruse but intensely conse-quential point. The modern concept of self, split off in Catholic life from any adequate theology of ongoing creation, let us conceive of our autonomy as almost divine. That concept entailed both the "denial of death" that philosophers have noted in some cultures and also an attempt at repudiating creaturehood. Thus, many could retract their permanent commitments and their priestly vows: "It was not my true self." At the beginning of this century, theolo-gians wrote of a triad: God, man, and creatures. Listen to the incompleteness of the modernist expression in Canon Four of the Roman Missal: "You have created man and set him over all crea-tures." Not "over all other creatures"; just "over all creatures." After the council we in consecrated life once again began to hear all other creatures "speak to us in 'their own right," and it is not an accident that consecrated men and women have been leading the so-called "ecological spirituality" movement.23 Postmodernism and Expe~ience A thirdstory. In 1987 more thanfifty men from oneprovince made a retreat together. They listened to briefpresentations during the day and prayed in silence. In the evenings they sat around and talked about themselves: How did I get my vocation, what was the hardest obedience I ever faced, where has the cross been in my life? Each said what he wished to say, the young and the 6ld; no one answered another; no one Review for Religious was forced to speak. Ten years later the men still remember that expe-rience. It drew them into communion. They even found out that they liked one another. Describing postmodernity is like describing where you are in a vast desert. There are markers, of course; but they are very hard to discern. I particularly like a triad developed by philosopher Albert Borgmann, whom I have already cited: "For each of the modern principles a counter possibility is emerging: information processing in place of aggressive realism, flexible specialization instead of methodical universalism, and informed cooperation rather than rugged individualism.''24 This is a description of global culture, but perhaps you recognize these emerging experiences: Information processing: Once we worked by the rule; now we read the signs of the times and discern. Flexible specialization: Once we legislated apostolic work; now we inculturate, make the option for the poor, and try to keep faithful to our charism. Informed cooperation: Once our ideal of obedience was the blind man being led; now we dialogue, discern, and even as we are given a mandate we remember that we are, each of us, free men. This is conse-crated life in a postmodern world. We are not likely to comprehend the experience in any seri-ous way unless we accept that postmodernity sees experience as a construct of many elements. This construct is intentional (of and by and for and with other persons and things); derivative (from other experiences and other things); and dialogic (moving in and out, back and forth, between old self and new self). Let me take each of these marks of experience and suggest a thought or two about consecrated life. Constructed. Experience is constructed. It incorporates a past and moves into a future; it combines social, cultural, intellectual, emotive, aesthetic; it entails sensations, memories, desires, and perceptions. Thus, even Descartes's insight Cogito ergo sum--one of the deepest roots of modern individualism--was in a language (Latin) that many past and present spoke. He had the insight with a brain incorporating DNA from two other persons. He felt emo-tions and conviction. Every experience is thus constructed, so that George Schner can correctly claim, "There is a sense in which no experience is strictly 'mine.'''25 The experience of living a consecrated life is also, quite obvi-ously, a construct. Each of us had a unique experience when tak-ing vows, yet we used a formul~ used by thousands before us. And September-October 1998 Tetlow * The Experience of God in Consecrated Life we promised to live these vows accordi