It All Begins By Loving Oneself.

A College Professor writes of his experience in getting students to submit a profile of themselves, at the beginning of each semester, by asking: Who am I? The question is believed easy to answer but many find it's not as easy as they thought. The question not only tends to bring up troubling negative self images, as well as positive ones, but tends to reveal how much we identify with our superficial personality traits. Not content with most of the answers, many students had difficulty in meeting the deadline for the report.

In these difficult times, there are students, fortunately, who are able to have positive self images, but also, unexpectedly, many who see their existence negatively and pessimistically. The professor mentions that he repeatedly tells students to have a positive view of life. However, they are not able to do it. Some constantly belittle themselves, can't forgive themselves for being dropouts or for their inferiority complex, for feeling guilty of something and being alienated from family and neighbors, for worrying about jobs and the future. These are some of the negative profiles received by the professor. .

He uses the moral writings of Hans Rotter, a German theologian, to stress that most of the problems that determine how we react with others and God result from a poor self image. The remedy is to forgive and to love oneself and to realize our dignity. One cannot do this by oneself; help is needed.

He recounts his own difficulty with achieving a positive self image: poverty of his family, problem meeting registration fees, frustrations in not doing well in studies, facing puberty, feeling out of place, no self-confidence with women--all leading to low self esteem and a period of drifting. About 30 years ago, thanks to his wife, he went to church and found himself. It brought confidence into his life, his negativity disappeared, and he now lives with a grateful heart.

A proper self image is necessary to understand our relationship with God and others. The students who saw life positively and had a correct image of themselves were, for the most part, those who had a relationship with God.

The professor stresses that even Catholics may not have the proper understanding of who they are. The love of God and others must start with oneself by acknowledging our dignity and being able to forgive ourselves. Our movement towards the other and to God will then follow.

Another Reason to Enjoy Life

Today is the Church's birthday, a Feast with great meaning for Christians. Wind, fire and tongues have enough information within those words to give us a clear idea of what the Feast can reveal to us, as well as providing thoughts for meditation that can last a lifetime.

A priest of the diocese, reflecting on the Feast of Pentecost, recalled a poem he once read, the poet noting that the oceans are vast and thinking that boats should then be able to travel in any direction, when, in fact, there is a direction each boat must follow. And noting also that the sky is vast, and thinking that planes can then travel freely in any direction, but they too have a route to follow. In the same way, we think we are free, but we also are moved, unknowingly, in most cases, in certain directions by our habits and life patterns.

Although he does not know the reason many of us live with our hearts closed off to this truth--suggesting that it might be because of emotional scars, fears, pain, anger or spite--he names it the chaos before God's creation. God's Spirit, when accepted, changes all of this. The direction that is mapped out for us by the Spirit brings joy into our lives. To achieve this, we have to break the unhealthy patterns and habits we have nurtured over a life time and now determine how we live.

The Christians meeting together on that first Pentecost had been washed and tried in a baptism that they never expected--they died with Jesus. All their dreams, plans and beliefs disappeared. It was not what they expected; they felt lost and demoralized, and showed it by their actions, until the emptiness was filled with the Spriit.

The Catholic Times editorial for Pentecost tells us we have to change. There are divisions we see developing in Korea between the young and the old and between different social levels. If this unnecessary and divisive thinking is not to harm society, we need to empty ourselves so our prejudices, even our stubbornness, do not prevent us from hearing the Spirit. We have to fight against greed, and especially against the manipulations of society when they don't benefit all of its citizens. Unless we make an effort not to be compromised in any way, the Spirit will not find a welcoming home in our hearts.

'Common Good' More Than A Word

Many years ago before coming to Incheon, I lived in a country parish, Yong Dong, with a mission station called Hak San, The Peace Weekly recently had an article about the mission's pharmacist, Lee Henry,who is also the parish council president and has been for most of the past 43 years.

There are many devoted Christians who have worked for the Church. Lee Henry and his wife Colomba are such a couple.

He was baptized many years ago in a parish where a Maryknoll Missioner, Fr. Mike Zunno, was pastor. Henry at that time was a student at Chungbuk College, studying pharmacy. He brought his fiance to meet Fr. Mike who told Henry that he was thinking of starting a mission station near the college and asked him if he would be willing, after his marriage, to become the catechist. He accepted the invitation and began his new life working for the Church.

Henry and Columba found accommodations in the area and began the new assignment without having even one Catholic. He was a busy man: catechist, student, husband and father.

It was a difficult time in Korea and the family struggled during those years. In 1967, he was asked again if he would go to a mission station of the Yong Dong Parish where Fr. Zunno had been newly assigned as pastor. He went to the mission station, took over the duties of head catechist, and opened a pharmacy, the only one in the area. Because there are also no hospitals or doctors in the area, the pharmacist is allowed to prescribe medicine.

During the 43 years in Hak San he lived a full life, raising a family of 5 children and sending them all to college; one daughter is now a sister of St. Paul of Chartres.

His concern now is to find a replacement. He has a heart condition that requires constant care, so he wants to move to a city where he can be near his children and a hospital. But he will not leave until he finds a suitable replacement. In the Pharmacy he added benches so that people waiting for their prescriptions could socialize, and in difficult times he would often destroy the books of credit. This is no longer necessary; many believe that buying medicine on credit affects the medicine. A certain sign that life has gotten better.

I lived in this parish for 6 years and know that everything in the article was not embellished. It was through efforts of the couple that the mission station was made a parish, fulfilling a desire the Christians had for many years. There are many working in service to others that are not only looking to do well for themselves but working for the common good. May their numbers increase.

Happy Buddha's Birthday

In Korea, Buddha's birthday is celebrated today, May 21. It is a national holiday and celebrated in much the same way Christians celebrate Christmas values.

Buddhist monks in Korea are for the most part celibate, so celibacy is a value that Koreans have little difficulty in accepting. Ascetics play a major role in the training of a monk, and there is no end to study and devotion to one's faith. Meditation on greed, on suffering and the nature of the self, and the impermanence of material things is an important part of their life. Integrity and simplicity are stressed. These are values that most religious people acknowledge.

In a recent interview in a daily newspaper, a well known monk was asked, Why did Buddha come? "We have within us," he answered, "unknown to us, a treasure house of jewels which allows us to live a truly full life. In the West, there is the separation of the 'you' and the 'I', the separation of God and humanity. In Buddhism all is one, all connected, the past, present, and future, the big and the small, existence and non-existence, good and evil, the strong and weak points, we do not distinguish. With this teaching, the Buddha came to bring us happiness." Quotation marks are used even though the translation-interpretation may not have fully captured the intent of the monk's words. However, the monism that is apparent here is quite different from the views of Christians.

Reading the interview I was attracted to much of what was said until coming to a section in which the interviewer mentioned that the monk was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1998. He conquered it with prayers of penance and devotion to his faith. The disease was retribution, he thought, for some fault in a past life, a karmic debt that must be paid. With his penance, it has disappeared and he doesn't think of it any more. As Christians, we would have difficulty accepting his explanation.

The monk recalled an incident that happened to him as a child. He had the job of preparing the porridge for those visiting the temple that day. While he was preparing the porridge,

a centipede fell into the pot. What was he to do? It was lunch time, and he couldn't throw the whole pot away. Not knowing what to do, he asked the head monk who told him to remove the centipede and bring the porridge to the table. It was eaten not only by the visitors to the temple, but by the head monk, who thanked the young boy for a job well done. A humble person has a big heart and can accept anything that happens, were the concluding remarks of the head monk. This consoled him and gave him strength to continue with the training.

The relationship of Catholics and Buddhists in Korea is harmonious. There are visits and exchanges during the year at each others' big events. Today, the archbishop responsible for ecumenical matters will visit one of the temples to give his greetings. In matters that relate to life and in caring for nature, they will continue to work together as closely as possible.

Another Way to Overcome the 'Ego'

The history of the saints tells us that many have acted strangely, not only to our modern sensibilities but to the customs of their time. One such saint was St. Philip Neri. He gave bizarre penances and performed crazy antics to humble his own pride.

He would meet people with his clothes turned inside out, danced through the streets with his beard half shaved, carried a bunch of brooms which he sniffed like a bunch of flowers, appeared in public with a cushion on his head, seen in church with his biretta cocked on one side. He was pleased to draw ridicule for his antics. He acted as the clown for very unclownlish reasons.

We also have this kind of priest in Korea. We will wait until he dies to make a judgement about his sanctity. He writes about his experiences in parish work in the Catholic Peace Weekly. At a seminar for diocesan priests, they commented on his hair style. "Father, you're really chic, please no more of these antics." His hair was long and slightly in a permanent.

In keeping with his unpredictability, each spring, he shaves his head; he can feel the wind on his head and have a light heart.

His eccentricities have led to difficulties in parish work. "Mom, a Buddhist monk has come to the church." This was the reaction to the pastor after arriving at the parish. A girl who had returned home from studies overseas said to her mother that she was hoping to see a classy priest. However, with his head looking like a Buddhist monk and his fluent sermon delivered like a Protestant minister, she didn't know what to think.

The priest mentioned that one day a group of nuns came to see him. He showed them around the area and left while they prepared lunch at the beach. He was dealing with an annoying problem in the parish and was looking for another way of seeing the issue. He went to a nearby beauty shop, had his hair shaved off and soon returned to the sisters. When they saw him, they thought he was a monk down from his temple in the mountains, but it didn't take long before they realized that this was their host. It was difficult to eat lunch in the usual manner, and they remained bewildered.

In Korea in recent years many have their heads shaved in protest to what they see in society. This is a common sign of protest both in the East and in the West: the skinned-head look without the ideology. It is a sign that they are willing to look strange, to look different, giving up something many think important--our physical appearance--to make a point. Our priest if it is a protest it is against himself, perhaps very much in line with the motives of St. Philip Neri.

Attraction to the Natural Life

Many of the emails I receive are written by people I do not know. One email discussed the Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka, author of the acclaimed "bible of natural farming," The One-Straw Revolution. He was an organic farmer who believed that traditional organic farming did not go far enough, that the ideal food producing land had to be kept as close as possible in its natural state.

One day, when young (he died a few years ago at the age of 95), feeling the emptiness of life, he quit his work and began to drift. In his journeys, he came to the ocean where he sat down to rest and heard the song of a bird which gave him a jolt into a new way of looking at life. He returned to the family farm and began to farm naturally, as well as eating and living more naturally, based on the principles of natural farming he spent the last 30 years of his life promoting.

He was trained as a soil scientist but very early in his career began to doubt the wisdom of modern agricultural science. His family farm was on an island and his method of farming--"do nothing farming," he called it--was to do little of what is considered important in farming. In fact, he succeeded in getting yields that were at times even greater than yields from the use of modern farming methods. His method evolved from observing, over many years and through trial and error, the natural requirements of different plants. He learned that they could do very well without our help. The less a farmer did to disturb the natural ecology--no plowing the soil, no chemical fertilizers or prepared compost, no weeding or use of herbicides or pesticides--the better the land would respond. It was a step, a big step, beyond the usual way of doing organic farming. He spent the last years of his life speaking out and writing about his discoveries.

Masanobu Fukuoka was a mystic and a philosopher whose ideas have influenced not only farmers throughout the world, but many others who have applied his ideas to rethink other aspects of life. "A vision offering an ideal to strive for," said one review of his written work. "Indispensable to everyone hoping to understand the future of food and agriculture," said another review. But the review, "Reflects a deep faith in the wholeness and balance of the natural world," perhaps best echoes his own assessment of his work: "A way of farming and living fully integrated with nature."

One wonders what would happen to our society if this revolutionary way of doing things naturally became the accepted way of living. Though the chance of this happening on a large scale is remote, each of us can apply some of the principles of living more naturally in our own life. It was Fukuoka's conviction that we must make this effort if we are to avoid the spiritual decay that permeates much of modern society, caused, he believed, by our lost intimacy with the unseen world.

Not Only Sticks and Stones But Words Hurt

"Children will be children." It was true in our day and will be so in the future. A teacher, writing in our Diocesan Bulletin, expressed his concern for the way the children use foul language today. He feels they have no thought of the harm they are doing, to themselves as well as to others.

This is not only true when they are speaking to others but when alone and overcome with emotion. There is no thought that what they are doing is wrong. Their conversation starts and finishes with foul language. When talking to children, one realizes very quickly that the inclination is there to use this kind of language. Why did they pick up the habit? Their language often reflects family language.

The following week the writer, a teacher, also noted that not only children but young people are in the habit of using abusive language among themselves. This is not only when they have ill feelings towards another, it has become an accepted way of communicating; he was surprised to see how much they enjoyed "trash talking"--what some of the younger generation are calling it.

Often in daily life we tend to use this language when faced with an unfair situation and emotions take over. Venting feelings is a relief--to us--but it does damage to others. Most young people, it seems, have accepted and even enjoy this way of dealing with one another and see it as a natural and "cool" way of relating.

What is sometimes forgotten, and not only by the younger generation, is that the language that we use shows our character, our attainments, our cultural level. But perhaps more important, as the writer notes, the way we speak is going to determine how we act. He feels that the older generation has to set a better example in their own speech. And to help accomplish this, he urges that society should take more of an interest in esthetics, including what is often neglected in this study--language as a means of expressing the beauty in life. It will have a great deal to do with the society we will leave for those who come after us.

Language will always be important for it comes from us and ultimately teaches us who we think we are. It is said that we convey more of this self by our non-verbal communication than by the verbal, words giving only a partial expression of the non-verbal. As children, people of my generation, often heard: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me." Obviously, a defense reaction; we know that words, even when used lightly or in jest, can desensitize us. When they become ingrained as an accepted way of communicating, they not only harm others and ourselves, but society itself will tend to take on the same characteristics and become callous and harsh.