Education for a Sustainable Environment

Recently we saw the beautiful Notre-Dame cathedral burning, we are appalled by the idea that if we continue to live as in the past our planet earth will end up in a similar miserable condition. We are all part of nature, living in a house called the earth. We don't want to make this house one filled with fine dust and rubbish but transform it into a beautiful and refreshing space. How do we prepare for this? So begins the Peace column in the Catholic Peace Weekly by a member of the Bishops' Committee on the Environment.
  
Attendance at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2007 left her 
with many questions. Why are Koreans unable to take action, even though they are aware of environmental problems such as climate change and global warming? The conclusion we have considered was a lack of values in our environmental education as children. I know from my head, but my lifestyle does not worry about what will happen to the next generation. We want to live comfortably, buy, use, and throw away without
thought.

Fine dust and the garbage problem is serious, but do we think that it's our problem? We are the 11th largest economy in the world, but the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report puts Korea in the lowest environmental sector.

 At present, we use the money to solve environmental problems, but do the opposite in behavior. We can't delay the development of environmentally friendly values and attitudes and need to allow children to see more of nature and raising environmental sensitivity through education.

Japan and Europe, which have a high level of environmental awareness, are also known for their high investment in environmental education. In the past, after experiencing serious environmental pollution in industrialization, Japan has been paying great attention to environmental education and has operated various programs for local environmental issues through collaboration among citizens, businesses and schools. In particular, families, schools,  cooperate in creating eco-friendly awareness. 

In Germany, about 5% of the lessons are taught for sustainable development. The German Federal Ministry for Education and Research, the public interest foundation, and companies invest millions of euros each year in environmental education. Finland has established a national plan to implement sustainable environmental education and is balancing environmental education and awareness with cultural environment education and sustainable development education.

Although the National Assembly revised the Environmental Education Promotion Act in May 2018, it provided the basis for the revitalization of school environmental education. The environmental budget, which is supported by the Ministry of Environment's 16 national environmental education pilot schools, is far below what is needed.

Preventive action is more important than solving the environmental problem. So, all the paradigms of policy need to be changed. Environmental problems are very costly to solve, and hard to recover once destroyed. Education from childhood is important to know the value of the earth. Of course, adults also have to participate.

Environmental education that changes the fundamentals is necessary to pass on clean air to our children. The world changes people, and people are changed by education. Are not these efforts in environmental education for a sustainable tomorrow giving great pleasure to God?

Korean Generation Gap

In a current drama on Korean TV The Light in Your Eyes is a fantasy romantic comedy about a 70 year  old woman dealing with Akzheimer's and a young man who doesn't appreciate  time and finds life meaningless. They get involved with each other and the story follows. In a Catholic Peace Weekly column a professor uses the drama to introduce the problem with the old and young in Korean society.

The drama showed the possibility of coexistence of youth without jobs and old age without support. The drama was a fantasy in which a clock the older woman possessed was able to give her time but that is not life. We see co-existence of the youth and the aged and a beautiful companionship in the here and now.

Today, the tension between the younger generation and the older generation is deepening. These conflicts are seen often by the use of the words: 'has been', old fogey, bossy, curmudgeon. They also add the word from the Chinese character meaning insect to the word old which again shows the feeling towards the old by some of the younger.

Pope Francis in his Apostolic Exhoration Amor Laetitia mentions the alienation of the elderly that has come from disordered industrialization and urbanization of society. The elderly have both in the past and in the  present been set aside in unacceptable ways.

#191 'Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent' (Ps 71:9). This is the plea of the elderly, who fear being forgotten and rejected. Just as God asks us to be his means of hearing the cry of the poor, so too he wants us to hear the cry of the elderly.

#192 Very often it is grandparents who ensure that the most important values are passed down to their grandchildren, and 'many people can testify that they owe their initiation into the Christian life to their grandparents'. Their words, their affection or simply their presence help children to realize that history did not begin with them, that they are now part of an age-old pilgrimage and that they need to respect all that came before them. Those who would break all ties with the past will surely find it difficult to build stable relationships and to realize that reality is bigger than they are. Attention to the elderly makes the difference in society. Does a society show concern for the elderly? Does it make room for the elderly? Such a society will move forward if it respects the wisdom of the elderly.

How are the young and old to live together?  How can the  young  accompany the old? In the final scene when the heroine was  about to die she humbly recites:  "Even if a day is not great and tomorrow  will not be much different, life is worth living. Do not ruin the 'now' because of a past filled with regrets and an uneasy future. Live today. You deserve it. Someone was your mother, someone a brother,  and someone will follow you.
  
We have the old filled  with regrets from the past and the  young facing an unknown future. Would it not  be wonderful to have the old remember and respect the young in their rememberances of the past and the young remember the old in looking forward to the future. They can grow to respect each other.

We hear these days of the trip to Emmaus and wallking together with Jesus. With the grace of God the writer would like to see this day come when the  old and young are living a  new resurrected life in the here and now.

Serotonin: Conductor of the Hormone Orchestra

Grace builds on nature or perfects nature but we need to remember that nature also comes from God. A doctor writing in the Catholic Digest tells the readers that our negative emotions do us harm and the happy ones give us health. He continues with the place of the hormones in our lives. The external stimulation seems to be the reason for the emotion but we are responsible for the response to the stimulant. The Creator prepared the hormones as the key to our human response.

Pleasure, postive feelings, appetite, sex and the like releases from the brain cells the hormone dopamine. When we accomplish successfully something difficult we are overcome with joy which is the result of dopamine. This is also the reason a glass of liquor, tobacco, gambling, success, drugs, releases dopamine and the reason one can get addicted to the good feeling that follows.

Norepinephrine hormone is vital to the 'flight or fight' response by which the body prepares to respond or retreat from a threat. Endophins produced, relieve pain and stress, are more powerful than morphine. When in stress the arousal of the norepinephrine hormone fights against the stress and endophines treat the after effects. When there is harmony between the hormones that increase happiness and those overcoming stress: we have a wonderful healthy body condition. Harmony is necessary, too much and too little of the secretions bring about problems in the body and a reason for health difficulties.

Serotonin is called the conductor of the the hormone orchestra. When we have too little, depression, obsession, lack of judgement, indigestion....However there is an acute situation when too much brings about serious difficulties but this does not happen to those living a normal life.

With secretions of serotonin we can live a good life and the doctor gives us some of the ways to achieve this. First he recommends receiving at least 30  minutes of exposure to the sun every day. Secondly, walk at least 30 minutes a day. Those with depression have found that walking for about 7 weeks had a greater effect than medicine. Thirdly is time spent meditating. Walking in the sun and meditating you have three in the one act of walking.

Fourthly, to chew food well. 5% of the serotonin comes from the cells of the brain the other 95% comes from the gut, and goes  to the brain to give us joy. Fifth, is to  eat  food that raises the serotonin levels: nuts,  beans, bean curd, sesame, milk, eggs, unpolished rice and whole wheat, the less refined the more of tryptophan (least plentiful of all 22 amino acids and an essential amino acid in humans provided by food), refined food is the enemy of serotonin. Sixth, to have many happy memories to look back on, which will trigger the serotonin. Seventh, be interested in others. When we are sharing with others and acting in a loving way, we release serotonin.

The creator has given us two hormones to give us joy. There operation and effectiveness are at different times. At the New Years when we are greeted with "Happy New Year's Blessing" this gives rise to the secretions of dopamine but the returning of the greeting gives us the serotonin secretions. Yes, altruism's love is the trigger to release of serotonin.

God in creation gave us the key to the release of serotonin. When our daily life is filled with love, mercy, sharing, the cup of serotonin is overflowing and leaves us filled with joy.

Seeing the North Korean Refugees as Family

"Have you ever eaten a banana?" "Have you seen anything like this before?" Those who have defected from the North have heard similar questions at least once since coming to the South. Are you on the right or left? Do you hate the North Korean regime? Direct questions asking them to make a choice.

A recent article in the Catholic Peace Weekly is asking the readers to get rid of their jaundiced view of the North Korean refugees. In the South there are now about 32,000 who have come from the North. They are often called new settlers, in a diplomatic attempt not to upset the North. 

These new arrivals felt oppression both in mind and daily life, and came to the South hoping for a new life. Many are here for economic reasons rather than political or ideological reasons. However, life is difficult, they receive pity but discrimination is always present. They often hear the word Communist, Red.  The National Human Rights Commission of Korea reported that 45 percent of North Koreans felt  discrimination in  the South because of birthplace.
   
Young North Koreans the writer met  told  her they hide their hometowns and try to get rid of their North Korean manner of speaking. One North Korean said he felt depressed by people's gaze for being 'helped' even though he was living independently. Many succeeded in overcoming these prejudices and have become self-reliant, and sucessful  but many  still conceal their identities.

The Republic of Korea is clearly a unification-oriented country. We want to be one country again. Reasons  and time for reunification may be different, but everyone dreams for the end of the War. What is the cost of unification, and what order do we follow  to   make  peace?  The controversy that remains among the citizens is necessary and healthy.
 
Eforts to overcome the discrimination towards North Korean defectors is a sign of what will be necessary for unification to work.  It is natural to help them settle into a different culture, but what is not necessary is to add to the prejudice by questioning looks. These are not passive beings, but citizens who are self-reliant and contributing to society. 

Most flee via China, which has the longest border with North Korea and is easier to cross than the heavily protected Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. However, the tighter border controls and the money necessary has increased which has decreased the  numbers going to China and eventually South Korea. China regards the defectors as illegals and often sends them back to North Korea.

There are many who have left South Korea for other parts of the world but  since they are South Korean citizens they are no longer considered refugees when  they go to another country.  A few  of them  found it difficult to adapt to a capitalist way of life and have returned to the North but we have those who had no difficulty and thrived so there are no one easy overview of what is happening with the refugees.  


What does remain are the South Korean efforts to make the refugees entrance into Korean society as easy as possible. They are the test that will show the ability of the South to envision a one Korea and in harmony sitting down at the same table to eat.

Transformation of 'Gap' into Love

'Gapjil' a new word, thanks to the internet, is on the lips of many. Supporting evidence, we are dealing with something common in society—abuse of power by someone towards a person in a weaker position. Not only a present reality but one that goes back into our history, wherever we had inequality and discrimination. A diocesan priest in justice and peace work writes about the issue in the Bible And Life.
 
Do you know what ‘Gap-Eul relations’ are? 'Gap' and 'Eul' refer to people who are in contractual situations. Gap (or A) means someone who is dominant in a contract and Eul (or B), who is subordinate. 'Gapjil' is the verb formed, a neologism, which because of the structure of society is seen often and becomes newsworthy.
 
Put simply: a person with authority mistreating a subordinate. A person who has, towards a person who doesn't, a person with power treating a subordinate with violence. It's violence from above that continues to others. One who has experienced this violence from a superior can continue this with others under them. Those who are in the lower substrate of society can abuse others who they consider even lower. The writer considers this looking for some reward in a relationship and not finding it, resorting to the opposite in a revengeful action—psychological compensation.
 
A common soldier who was often treated abusively when he becomes an officer will, in turn, treat others in the way he was treated.  A daughter-in-law mistreated by her mother-in-law when she becomes the mother-in-law will act in the same way with her daughter-in-law. A vicious circle of abuse, what was experienced is what is done. This type of abuse is not only present in higher society for it permeates all of society.
 
How do we break from this violence in society? We need to first examine ourselves on the reason for violence and our own understanding of inequality and discrimination. Why don't we see the disappearance of this inequality and discrimination? Is it not that we want the situation we have. We don't want to be discriminated against, but do we really want a society with everybody equal? If we examine the situation we see that we want to be treated well. We like to be treated like the 'Gap'. Consequently, we close our eyes to inequality and discrimination  and support the society we have.
 
The writer calls this situation antinomy: a seeming contradiction between two principles or conclusion both which seem justified, a paradox. His way of overcoming the ever-present situation is by love.
 
Jesus invites us all to be family, the Gap and Eul, master and slave disappear, we are called to be friends: even to love our enemies. "You call me Master and Lord, and rightly; so I am. If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you should wash each other's feet. I have given you an example so that you may copy what I have done to you (Jn 13:14-15).
 
Rather than alone from the heights looking down on others; on level ground joined with others in simplicity and sharing the ordinary is what will make 'Gap' love.

Hope In the Resurrection Stronger Than Death

Kierkegaard the 19th-century Danish philosopher, called the Father of Existentialism, said: "anxiety is a disease that leads to death."
 
Uneasiness comes from humanity thinking themselves masters of the world. Strong in their belief they can solve the problems of this age but in the process give rise to obsessions, delusions and a myriad of psychopathological problems for many to carry.
 
Heidegger asserts that death is the terminus of our thinking. In one way, the fundamental reason we think, worry and become anxious is to avoid death. So begins the article in the Catholic Times in the Eyes of the Believer column by a Jesuit college professor.
 
We experience life dying in us when we feel we are in a muddy bog, unable to move and life is leaving us. When I have worked hard and in all sincerity and no recognition and reward follow, there is no courage to stand up against the present reality because of fear of failure. I feel that no one understands me. The righteous in the world are ignored and the worldly and selfish get the high seats, we become frustrated and lose hope.

In Zen Buddhism, however, it is said enlightenment comes when we die. The bigger the death the greater the life (大死大覺).  Catholic spirituality also experiences the present renewal, regeneration, resurrection, only when we fully accept the existential meaning of death. The journey to an adult butterfly begins with the egg, larva, pupa. We are on a similar journey.

The journey we are on means poverty, shamefulness, difficulties, but when we face them head on, hope in the resurrection appears. Jesus' death shows the state of misery that can't be beautified. Loneliness and anguish in Gethsemane, betrayal of the disciples, rejection by the people, mockery, death on the cross... Jesus always lived with the dream he was given by God and endured all that came.

The Pascal Mystery is the Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus to give life to all of us. Jesus taught us that new life can come from death. Meaning can always be found in our lives. Light can be found in darkness. Jesus has given us a new way of living. Death does not have the last word and no longer an object of fear. Hope is always present and helps us to give hope to others. Resurrection faith invites us to do battle to pursue the truth for God will win in the end.
 
Korea has faced many problems and many have fought courageously with their lives. The March 1st Movement and the military dictatorship opposition, and many others who fought for truth and justice have always been opposed by those who lived comfortably with the injustices and in many ways benefited. Consequently a desire to distort history and truth.
 
But the resurrection does not just mean worldly success and victory! The hope of the resurrection is not the fulfillment of desire, but the mystery of God that fills our lives! Resurrection faith is in a heart that can see the truth that no amount of darkness can overcome—the light, hope, and trust that we have in God. We are called to live as 'witnesses of the resurrection' so that 'God's dream and love' will go beyond the boundaries of life and death here in this world.

Misunderstanding the Value of Diligence

"There is no happiness for man but to eat and drink and to be content with his work" (Qoheleth 2:24). So begins an article by a specialist in the science of the mind in the Kyeongyang magazine on confusion surrounding the word diligence.

Honesty and diligence are considered desirable traits, an advisable strategy for life. Those living in this way will enjoy life more than the lazy and listless. A natural law of life that all accept. However, is that the reality? 

In Korea we use a lot of Konglish and recently a new word appeared which in English would be: 'Work+ Life+Balance'. In Korean they have taken the first syllable of the three words and made the word  "Wolabal"(Finding a suitable balance between work and daily living)—not always realized.

Koreans are not lazy and presently have either the first or second place in the hours worked among nations of the world. Speed is also one of the traits recognized both by Koreans and others. But is being busy the same as being diligent? Not having time to look around at our surroundings but always ready to move on to our next spot is that considered healthy and human? Laziness is not the opposite of diligence. Thomas Aquinas considered sadness a part of laziness. The world of pyschology also sees laziness containing spiritlessness. Laziness is one of the capital sins and the distinction in our tradition was not always clear distinquishing between sloth and  melancholia.

Moderns have all their time filled up. They are  busy with many things. Who can call the present age lazy? But they are not present to the moment. At work they worry about the home. At a meeting they are cocerned about other things. Climbing a mountain they talk about their work and miss the beauty of the mountain. In the subway they are busy with their smartphones and even in the bathroom, relieving nature, are not present to what they are about.

Heavy-heartedness and laziness lead to a lack of desire and joy in life. We are busy being busy and forget what the important things in life are and should be. If time is taken away from our own growth, those we love, the family what is gained? It's 'busy laziness'.

We can imagine we were born with a silver spoon in our mouths. What would we do? We would resign from our work we don't enjoy, get rid of the harnesses that prevent us from living the full life,  spend more time with family. But we are faced with something strange, for if we compare ourselves with  our ancestors, we are all born with a silver spoon?

To live a happy life the minimum condition is not  so demanding. To satisfy our expectations we need the leisure of wisdom to enjoy life that we have been given. The most valuable resource that we have is time. When diligence exceeds the degree necessary we are actually wasting valuble time.

In ancent times those that achieved great wealth and power were not always seen by those who went to bed hungry and lacked clothing as people to imitate. But those who are busy about much have much to learn from this. In the past precious time was sold to buy possessions which we mistook as diligence; today with wisdom gained we are diligent in making time to enjoy life. "Vanity of vanities. All is vanity! For all his toil, under the sun, what does man gain by it?" (Ecc. 1:3)