A new way of thinking
MARIST LAITY
ST GABRIEL'S
BEXLEY
Meeting: 12 June 2008
Topic: A new way of thinking
Presenter: Fr Michael Whelan
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Listen, ponder,
search for the meaning of life and act like Mary did Be open, ready, contemplate Mary The Word will take flesh in our lives…. |
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Summary of thoughts presented by Fr Michael Whelan sm at Marist Laity Conference
Our ongoing development and maturity as human beings is:
- a process of emergence rather than imposition - that is, life is an unfolding of our human potential, an inside out process under the sway of grace,
- a process of facilitation rather than mastery - that is, life is a conversation rather than an egocentric project,
- a process of participation rather than control - that is, life is a mystery to be lived rather than a problem to be solved.
Do Whatever He Tells You - John 2: 5 Where do you, in your ordinary daily life, find the call to obedience? Where is the human ground of this central disposition? What is obedience? What makes you obey?
Recall a time when you ate or drank too much, or you overworked, or you slept too little because you wilfully wanted to do this or that, or you got too much sun because you did not bother to take precautions that you knew you should have taken, or you simply did something in the face of contrary messages. Typically, when we do such things - when we overdo it or act against our better judgment or the better judgment of others - we engage in a process that is more or less one of defiance. We know we should not eat this, drink that, work those hours and so on. But we do it. And we pay a price! We should acknowledge one of the paradoxes of life: Some of our best learning occurs in our failures and disappointments. Thus one bad experience with alcohol might stand us in good stead for the rest of our lives. Much depends on the response we make. An experience of our limits is sometimes the way to discover our best possibilities. "What is happening here?" "What should I have done?" I should have paid attention to what my body told me, what experience had taught me; I should have listened to the factors involved in the situation and submitted to what "life" was suggesting to me, or I should have listened to the advice of wiser heads, and so on. Motivation is one factor that can affect the outcome. Social factors can also be significant. We all know, for example, the dour type who always does "the right thing" and the lack of freedom and absence of joie de vivre in them can be sad to see and burdensome to endure. We also know the very likable types who cannot resist a good cream bun and as they eat it they say - as if seeking dispensation - "I really shouldn't!" The point to note is the pattern rather than draw moral conclusions about this or that person's behaviour. I might pass off the occasional incident of eating or drinking too much, for example, with a little embarrassment and some humour; I cannot pass off so easily the fact that I have defied the voice of my conscience and wilfully lived out a script contrary to the deepest urgings of my very being and the genuine desires of my heart.
Life invites and calls us to a pattern - the "obedience pattern." This "pattern" can be characterized as having three distinct and interdependent movements:
- listening,
- hearing and
- submitting to what seems to be true and good.
The obedience pattern is simplicity in complexity - the listening, hearing and submitting - may appear simple. This appearance is in fact deceptive. In the concrete human situation, it is not quite so simple. For example:
- Culture can introduce many "social fictions" and "vital lies" that make it difficult for us
to listen and hear accurately what is actually happening; thus, for example, "respectability" - a more sophisticated version of what we call among teenagers, "peer group pressure" - and perhaps fear of criticism or of not belonging may lead us to think, say and do, or not think, say and do, things that are untrue or unreal.
- Family training and the various forms of idealization that can emerge within the dynamics of the family can sometimes stand between us and what is real; thus, for example, we may
instinctively" react and behave in certain ways because of our learned family experience.
Prejudice of one kind or another is an obvious instance.
- The networks of formal and informal relationships in our lives can develop patterns of deception and pretence that make it well nigh impossible to distinguish the illusory from the real. For example, we may convince ourselves that we are not like the rest of the human race, that we are in fact superior to others.
- The moral choices we make and for which we are responsible as individuals, may be more or less influenced by selfishness, greed, fear and/or pride. For example, we may rationalize a lack of compassion or generosity as "realism" or "teaching someone a lesson" or "not rewarding laziness."
There are many ways, in fact, that "the obedience pattern" - of listening, hearing and submitting - can be interrupted, obfuscated, twisted, blocked, confused and so on. One of the great and sad ironies of life is that this deformation of the fundamental obedience pattern can all take place under the heading of "obedience." For example, men and women who were being tried for war crimes in 1945 as the perpetrators of the Holocaust and related evils: "We were only obeying orders." Perhaps in our own day the soldiers sent to Iraq and those committing war crimes or torturing prisoners in Guantanamo Bay will say that they are only obeying orders. But this has nothing to do with the obedience pattern written into the depths of human hearts. (Jer 31: 31-34) Life formation invites us into and through which we grow to be responsible and accountable adults.
True obedience lies beyond mere social conformity or simply and uncritically doing as one is told, though it may, as a matter of fact, include both of these. Healthy life formation must never be identified with social or cultural conformity. Perhaps the most obvious difference between mere conformity and genuine obedience is that "The obedience pattern" is a process that seeks the true and the good and the real as such, beyond what this or that person or group might maintain. The obedience pattern does not deny or dismiss the given social order, it merely perceives that order in the context of a bigger order.
Conformity, by way of contrast, is a process which seeks the maintenance of a certain social order. Whether that social order be true or good or real is not the point. Consider, the so-called "civil disobedience" - the "social non-conformity" - of people like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Edith Stein, Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King and many thousands of others in that same century who listened, heard and chose to submit to another voice, a higher order, sometimes at great personal cost.
To summarize the "obedience pattern"is:
a willingness and an ability to listen for what is true and real and therefore good,
a willingness and ability to effectively hear what is true and real, concretized in
a genuine desire to submit to what is true and real.
The obedience pattern includes listening, hearing and submitting in all the dimensions of our lives. Depending on how effectively we enter the obedience pattern with regard to these dimensions of our lives, we will be more or less free, more or less true and good and real human beings. To the extent that we simply allow any or all of these dimensions to dominate us uncritically, we will tend, more or less, to lose our freedom and be more or less dislocated from what is true and good and real. The "disobedient" life leads to unreality, the "obedient" life leads to reality.
"Like Jesus, you have to listen and listen. It will take you all your life to hear the Father's word of love for you; indeed it will take you all your eternity."( Maria Boulding, The Coming of God, 83.)
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 Marist Laity Conference April 2008 part2 |
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