Finding One's Way to Freedom

We have a strong desire for the 'real' but are captivated by 'show', says a religious sister writing in the Kyeongyang magazine. She often lectures and conducts retreats, bringing up the topic of Truman, the protagonist of the film The Truman Show. Truman was imprisoned on a stage set for 30 years and didn't know it. All his movements, 24 hours a day, were being telecast live to a world audience of millions. The desire for reality the public seems to want to experience was offered to them in Truman, but it was only a virtual reality, and yet the audience was enthralled.
 
He was living in a large dome on an island, and everyone he met--neighbors, friends, postmen, police, and so forth--were actors. Every scene or happening he encountered from birth onward--including the death of his father, another actor, by drowning when Truman was  a teenager--was scripted by the director of the Show. The only person who didn't know that the events and people around Truman were not real as he imagined them to be was Truman.

Are we autonomous human beings? the sister asks, or have we accepted what is presented to us by others? Are we, like Truman, living a phoney life because it has been scripted by others? This is the world of the variety show in Korea, she says.  We are being manipulated like Truman was and, like him, most of the time we don't know it.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger said the lion in the zoo is not a lion, only in the jungle is he a lion. When we look at a monitor of a TV set and see the movements the camera show us, we are dealing with staging, editing and make-up. Though what we see cannot be said to be fake, they are artificially managed. Truman didn't know the truth about what was happening around him, though it was real enough for him. But can it be said, in any sense, she asks, that what Truman experienced was real.  Those who are behind the manipulation are trying to make what is presented to the audience more real than reality.

Living in the digital world, we see the real and the virtual real, often feeling the virtual attempt is more real than the real. We  leave our own reality and seek the manipulated reality of the digital world for vicarious satisfaction and pleasure. Why are we seeking the real and our  healing from the TV screen? she asks. Instead of going to TV programs dealing with children and their world, why don't we go into the world of the children we know?  Why give more attention to the situations and characters we see on TV than we give to those that surround us?

Are we not like the audience in the movie The Truman Show? she asks. Are we not being used in our modern digital world, as Truman was used, as a pawn for the ultimate satisfaction of commercial interests? The bottom line being higher viewer ratings and increased profits. Though the virtual reality we are given frequently gives pleasure to its intended audience, she wonders if it also makes our daily reality boring and uninteresting.

Truman did finally realize what was happening to him and, despite all the blocks put in his way to keep him from realizing he was being used,  did find his way out of the virtual world and to freedom.

Senior Citizens Within the Church

The Catholic Church of Korea needs to establish a Sunday dedicated to the elders, says a professor who has made a study of the problems of the aged. In an interview with the Peace Weekly she claimed that "The Church has no interest in the old," shaking her head repeatedly as she spoke, according to the interviewer, and noted that we will have to prepare for a society, in 2026, with 20 percent of its citizens over 65.

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The Peace Weekly mentioned that in the year 2000 the percentage of those over 65 was 7 percent. In the year 2050 over 37 percent, one of the highest in the world. Some dioceses don't have an apostolate for the aged, most of the concern limited to providing educational programs for senior citizens. And yet many of them, unlike seniors in the past, are in extremely good health and should not be seen, she said, primarily as needy elders requiring help, but as contributing members of society, using their talents in the service of others.

We have Sundays for the young, for the military, for the sanctification of  families, she pointed out, but no concern for those who mostly attend our Sunday Masses, the aged. There is no diocese, she says, with a department set aside for the aged, though subdivisions of departments are set aside for this apostolate.

The Seoul diocese, she says, with its bureau for the aged, has done the most to work with the elderly, and she hopes they will raise it to a department to better focus on the needs of this apostolate. Which she says, can develop along three areas of need: Education, Culture and Service. Education, to develop the capabilities of the aged; the cultural aspects, to strengthen their sense of self worth; and service, to enable them to be of service to others.  There are few parishes, she says, with classes set aside for the aged to instruct them in meeting the challenges to the faith that come as we age. And this is becoming more urgent, she reminds us, as the number of seniors within the Church is increasing faster than within the larger society.

Even those who are not well can be motivated to develop their spiritual lives and pray for the community and others. When we consider the great wealth of talent that is present in the community of senior citizens, it becomes our duty, she says, to use this talent for the benefit of all.

What is Spirituality?

A priest with a doctorate in spirituality from the Gregorian University in Rome, now teaching spirituality and its history, says we are all called to live the spiritual life. Writing in the Kyeongyang magazine, specifically about the layperson's spirituality, he does not like to see, he says, the word 'spirituality' discussed as if there were many types of spiritualities, as if it could be divided into a variety of technical subjects to be studied. 

We are called to follow the one way. God is holy and we are called to be holy.  "In a word, you must be made perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect " (Matt. 5:48).  
 
He does however admit as valid the division into clerical, religious and lay person's spirituality, as long as we remember this is not a theological division but one recorded in the history of the Church. In the beginning of the Church, there was no distinction in this call to holiness. During the middle ages, the religious began to take a leading role in the spreading of the good news, and spirituality came to be associated with the monastic tradition. In the article, he uses the Second Vatican Council and its documents to explain his understanding.

It is commonly understood, he says, that speaking about spirituality means discussing what's holy and what's worldly, holiness as being separate from worldly concerns. If we are tied to this kind of talk, he believes we will fail to understand the proper teaching on spirituality.

In the "Constitution of the Church," a document of the Second Vatican Council, in chapter four, it says: "The laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God....They are called there by God so that by exercising their proper function and being led by the spirit of the gospel, they can work for the sanctification of the world from within, in the manner of leaven. In this way they can make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity. The layperson is  closely involved in the temporal affairs of every sort " (#31).

This work of sanctification is accomplished wherever the layperson finds himself: in the family, in the work place, or anywhere else in society. The priest then spells out the threefold mission, received at baptism, of Prophet, Priest and King, that is, of teaching, offering sacrifice, and ruling, which in some manner, he reminds his readers, is the mission of all the baptized.

In the past, the layperson followed the spirituality either of the priest or the religious, or gave up the idea completely. Today, it is understood that it is precisely within the world that the laity are to work for their own  and the world's sanctification. The priest, religious, and laity are all called to travel the road of spirituality.

No More than 5 Minutes and Yet--

 

"50 cents gave him 5 minutes of resting time" were the words that headlined a priest's column on spirituality in the Catholic Times. On his way home from hearing a lecture, the priest heard his stomach growling for attention and something to eat, but he had only 50 cents. Up ahead of him was a street stall selling fish cakes, where he could buy one for the money he had.

Inside, he saw a woman making tteokbokki, spiced Korean rice-cakes. He entered the stall, paid for one fish cake, poured soy sauce over it, and took a bite. With a paper cup he took some of the fish cake soup and began to eat slowly, one bite of the fish cake and a sip from the cup.

Chewing slowly on his fish cake he took his time looking around at the surroundings. He gazed at faces of those passing the stall, the cars on the street, those who were waiting for one reason or another with unease, an elderly women using her baby carriage to help steady her steps, the face of a child registering pain as the child was being dragged along by his mother. The sky looked ominous with dark clouds and pending rain. A couple, seemingly lovers, entered the stall and ordered a dish of tteokbokki, which they shared feeding one another, a beautiful sight to see, he mused. Two high school girls, dressed in their school uniforms, entered, sending out their text messages, and finally sitting down to eat a fried dish in a hurry.

It was no more than 5 minutes, he guessed, that he was in the stall, enjoying the time immensely--and all for 50 cents. He had stopped himself long enough to look at the world passing by, with a restful heart and without words.  All by himself, with no special motive, he had enjoyed a simple, yet precious, moment of time. He got up and went on his way with his stomach now satisfied, along with his thoroughly satisfied mind and heart. But it wasn't long before the concerns of the day came back: the things that needed to be done and had not been done. Quickly, he found himself back in the past he had left behind for a brief 5 minutes in the fish stall.

He thought that with another 50 cents he would be again at rest, looking at the world from his seat in the street stall. Though it was only a 5 minute view of a world that seemed not to exist for him, that brief view had freed him for a few minutes from his own busy world. The much quieter world was always there, he knew, but because of his other concerns he had not seen it.

He was grateful for those moments in the stall when he became conscious of this different, slower paced world existing alongside his own, which had for a few brief moments flitted by so quickly in the same place and time as his own world. It was, he said, a very precious experience, one he is not likely to ever forget, when his own thoughts surrendered to another, more comforting reality.

Catholic Mission Stations of Korea

To raise a child requires more than a family, says Hillary Clinton in her  book It Takes a  Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us. The Catholic villages of the past have been good examples of the effect they can have not only on the children raised there but on the other inhabitants as well.

A professor of Korean history, in the "View from the Ark" column of the Catholic Times, writes that the early Christians lived in these villages, and pasted on the walls of their homes were liturgical calendars specifying the feast days of the year, which gave a direction to their daily  activities.  Each morning and evening, the sound of prayers would come from their homes and often the evening prayers would be said in common. On Sundays they would have the mission station liturgy.

The children grew up without knowing any  great difference between their daily life and their religious life. They would play their games to the accompaniment of hymns they had learned. The food left over at mealtime would be shared with others, knowing that  they would receive it back in kind. Talents and knowledge were also shared. The village was an inexhaustible storehouse for living, sharing, and spreading the faith.

Many of these village mission stations have produced vocations for the Church. One mission station over the past 60 years gave the Church 14 priests and 16 religious. Another produced 1 bishop, 15 priests and 11 sisters. Overall, counting the bishops, priests and religious who have retired, the number is quite large of those who after being raised in these villages then went on to dedicate their lives to the Church. 

Looking at the villages from the viewpoint of the greater society, the villages would be seen as very insignificant places on the map. Some going back to the persecution, but most of them beginning after 1890, at the end of the persecution. And gradually non-Catholics moved into these villages, the Sunday liturgy became the Mass, the mission stations became part of the parish, and the stations began to disappear.

The writer tells us about a trip to one of these old village mission stations, with a friend raised in the village. A number of grandmothers were selling apples at the entrance to the village. The professor had a desire to eat an apple and was told that a container of apples would cost 10 dollars. After much haggling, his friend was able to get the cost reduced to 5 dollars. When it came time to pay, however, the woman wanted 10 dollars--no doubt responding to the influence of a commercialized society, the professor mused.

Society does change us, the professor laments. When it comes to losing a small benefit we hesitate, and have little patience when it comes to trifles. She would like to see a return to the spirit that was present in the Catholic villages of the past, and have this spread throughout society.  

Knowledge vs Understanding

Efforts to move away from preparing students for specialized roles in the marketplace are being replaced, according to recent media reports, by efforts to educate the whole person for the many challenges of life. Though the attempts to express this latest trend may be different, the idea is clear: a person is more than the head and mental faculties. A priest, profiled in a recent issue of the Peace Weekly, is doing more than just talking about these efforts; he has started his own research center to help in the process (pess.kr/rb/). "The goal of PESS," he says, "is the harmonious development of the physical, emotional, spiritual, and the study/service dimensions of a person. Such development," he believes, "will prepare teenagers to become whole persons actively creating their futures, living spiritual lives, and contributing to a future society we all would like to see."   He bases his program on the teaching of Jesus. The hint, he says, came from I Thess. "May the God of peace himself sanctify you through all things, so that your whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved without blame unto the return of our Lord Jesus Christ." Though currently retired, the priest is still involved in efforts to make this happen by changing the thinking about what education should mean.   For many years he was a principal of a country high school where he developed his ideas with great success. Bullying disappeared, and with the renewed interest in the aptitude of individual students and by providing programs that met their needs, the atmosphere in the school changed.  Students who hadn't shown an interest began to appreciate education and find satisfaction in its pursuit.   The money spent on education in Korea, he says, is enormous but the more money spent the more problems appeared.  The direction we are going in and the current efforts expended will only make, he says, the breakdown come quicker. The central need to be appreciated, he stresses, is to help students increase their capabilities.  When their creativity is unleashed, when feedback and the joy of learning is experienced, they will come to terms with what they can do. He would like to see this effort applied more consistently and aggressively in the Sunday school programs.   Another matter that needs to be addressed, he added, is that students are presented with too much to learn. Reducing it by half will help them, he believes, to internalize what they will learn. And when they become aware of the potential consequences of what they are learning, the learning becomes living, and they will be better able to take possession of what they have learned. What about memorizing? he asks. Will we lose this ability? His answer: "We all have smartphones." What is critically important, he says, is not knowledge, but raising our awareness--understanding.

One World Language

October 9th of this year was proclaimed a national holiday, commemorating the invention, in 1443, of the Korean alphabet by King Sejong the Great.  

A professor of foreign languages, writing in the  Catholic Times, discusses some interesting facts about languages. Going back to the story of Babel in Genesis, where God punished humankind for their pride and freed the world from one language. The professor shivers at the thought of a world with one language. We would tend to forget others, he believes, and sow the seeds of a world mired in fundamentalism.
 

In one way, the lack of a world language makes communicating on an external level more difficult, he believes, but liberates us from arrogance and actually enables us to speak to others at a deeper level. 

A Spanish grammarian, Antonio de Nabrija, in 1492, when presenting his new grammar to Queen Isabella, said, "Your highness, language is the companion to internationalization." A few years later the Italian explorer Columbus, sponsored by the queen, landed in a new and distant land with a new weapon, language. Spanish would, it was thought, replace  all the native languages in this new world, which would have created another Tower of Babel, according to the professor.

A few years before Isabella was born, in 1446, a wise king of Korea, who loved his people and wanted to help the less educated to read easily, put together the new language, Hangul. Those who work with languages appreciate the merits of what King Sejong had done.  However, with globalization, and the need to learn English as the common language of commerce, the influx of other languages, the cultist  language of the Internet, the vulgarity that supports much of popular culture, and the self-serving, partisan language of politicians, the Korean language, the professor says, is being destroyed.

We often can't distinguish between globalization and the spread of the  English language, he says. The learning of different languages helps us to extend our knowledge, but if this doesn't help us to sympathize and meet the other heart-to-heart, we are building up walls that will militate against communication and lead us again, he insists, to the arrogance of the Tower of Babel.

Does that mean learning our own language and a foreign language can't co-exist? he asks. He assures us they both can thrive together. He mentions that at an international meeting of scholars, he met with a linguist who spoke 10 languages fluently. When he asked him for the secret to learning so many languages, the linguist said,"Knowing your own." An answer the professor wholeheartedly agrees with, having devoted his own life to the study of languages. Being able to speak and write your own language well is the seedbed, the professor says, to learning any new language.

He concludes the column by asking readers to take time out to read something in Korean slowly, savoring the beauty and simplicity of the language created by King Sejong out of love for his people, and to thank God for the fortuitousness of the destruction of the Tower of Babel.