Meeting God with our Gestures

"Meeting God by our gestures" is the title of one of a series of lectures on religion and culture given at one of our Catholic shrines by a professor of Korean Religious History. The series appears in the Catholic Times.

He begins his lecture on the generally accepted rituals of a culture by dividing humanity into two groups: Those who are not keen on expressing what they have inside and those who feel that more is gained by outwardly expressing what is inside.

In our present society, ritual is not considered important. What we have inside us, whether expressed or not, is what is important. In the West there are many who do not believe we need the formal gestures of ritual to approach God, that the Mass is not necessary, that each of us can go to God with our personal prayers. This was the thinking of the Protestants in the 15th century: there was no need of a mediator; we can meet God directly. The communion service was merely a remembrance  of the Last Supper of Jesus.

We can express our  ideas with  words but gestures are not  easily  given meaning and life by words.  Consequently, the gestures accepted and used by different cultures are varied and unique. Is this not the reason, our lecturer asks, that past  generations have tried to keep this alive with books and teachings and other ways?

But these are not the only ways that a religion is maintained. To make a conviction our own requires actions that make it a part of us. We do this, for example, when intending to show respect by appropriate gestures, and by the way we cultivate ascetic practices. These gestures have to accompany us to  make our religion part of who we are.

In many cultures there are ways of showing a passage from one stage of  life to another, such as the child becoming an adult. One of the most dramatic of life passages is the separation of the dead from the living in our rites for the dead. According to a custom observed in some parts of the country, when mourners leave the room containing the coffin to go to the cemetery they put at the door vessels made of gourds or earthenware that are shattered by the bier as it is taken from the house--a fitting gesture showing the separation of the dead from the living.  Similar rites can be observed at many of the critical stages in life.

There are  many diverse ways that we make ourselves known by employing an appropriate gesture. It's a way of becoming joined with others and of being helped to overcome the different crises in life. The  ritual of gesture gives us information on the way to live. With these sacred movements we dream of becoming one with God, expressing  our  worship and taking ownership of who we are as a believer.
 
In the  logic of gestures we find how religion and culture  are intertwined. The lecturer feels that if we consider and live life as a drama, it will help us find peace. And if we at each stage of life were to live the  role we have been given as completely and faithfully as possible, we could then leave the rest up to God.

Living Simply, Freely, Leisurely with Nature and Dementia

A columnist in the Catholic Times tells us of a visit from a couple who were trying to understand the actions of the woman's father, who had become distrustful and fearful of those around him. He had always been a person in control of himself and alert in his younger years.
 
He told them it may be dementia and that the condition takes many forms. He suggested that they should go to a hospital for help. The woman had difficulty in accepting his recommendation, believing her father was too young to have dementia.
 
The columnist mentions that being in complete control of our actions and living a responsible life in our youth is no guarantee that we will not have trouble once we get older. There are many reasons for the problems of our bodies and minds.
 
When he was working in a mental hospital, he would often hear the family and friends of patients mentioning that  before the strange behavior appeared they were living a normal and productive life.  No one can predict, he says, who will have dementia when they reach their seventies; in his  experience persons who developed dementia, he agrees, most often lived a normal and productive life.
 
Dementia, often meaning a variety of mental conditions, can come to any of us. The columnist reminds us that there are many who live to a ripe old age and have no signs of dementia. Most of them, he says, lived unceremoniously, having a free and leisurely lifestyle, and not far removed from nature. But the key to keeping dementia away, he feels, is finding time for leisure and the absence of stress.
 
He hopes that the families with elders will make it easy for the older people  to live informally, with an easy life style and with leisure and close to nature. This will enable the older people to have a contemplative approach to life, and the break with their surroundings that dementia signifies will be checked  by those who are part of the older person's life.
 
It is not easy to talk in the vain in which our columnists writes for it seems to blame  the  person  for  what happens in the later  years. In many cases this has nothing to do with what is happening, and yet since the columnist is speaking from his experience, which may not be that of many others, it is refreshing  to hear what his experience has brought to his attention.

Giving Young People the Opportunity to Dream and Hope

For many years Korean Society has known that something has not been right with the procedures for entrance to college but the remedies have not come easily. The desire of the people for more and better education and the efforts to improve educational opportunities for all have benefited the country; this is not easily denied. But the human price being paid for this success needs to be addressed. 

With the approach of Youth Sunday, May 29, the editorial in the Catholic Times returns to this controversial issue. In a recent survey gauging several factors affecting youth in China, Japan and Korea, the happiness index of Korean youth was found to be the lowest. Blame was given to the educational system's procedures for preparing students for the entrance exams to college, in effect taking away the dreams and hopes of many of our less competent young people.

The editorial asks what has the  Korean Church done to return the  dreams and hope to the young. Also, in the  OECD list of countries, Korea is near the bottom when rating the happiness index of the participating countries. The first step, according to the editorial, is to have a common awareness of the problem and to formulate programs for change.

There is a  movement in Korea for alternative schools which have a different atmosphere and are not geared for college entrance exams.  The editorial is asking Catholic alternative schools to be an example. They have been set up to be freer, diverse in their teaching, and directed to the whole person. There are many ideas on what has to be included, but they all agree on the education of the whole person.

There are  attempts to  change the thinking that getting into a prestigious school or getting  a good job should be the motivation for education. The alternative schools are the means of giving dreams and hope to our young people, and for the most part are meant for young people who find the present educational system unattractive and forbidding.

The editorial quotes from Pope Benedict's 2011 message to youth: "Dear young people, the Church depends on you! She needs your lively faith, your creative charity and the energy of your hope. Your presence renews, rejuvenates and gives new energy to the Church." And also from the same message: "True enough, it is important to have a job and thus to have firm ground beneath our feet, yet the years of our youth are also a time when we are seeking to get the most out of life. When I think back on that time, I remember above all that we were not willing to settle for a conventional middle-class life. We wanted something great, something new. We wanted to discover life itself, in all its grandeur and beauty."

The editorial ends with a plea that young people again begin to dream and hope, for this will also guarantee a bright future for  the Church.

Visit to North Korea with the Eugene Bell Team

This is a report from the Maryknoll Korean local superior, Fr. Gerald Hammond,  on his recent trip to the North. I am delighted to report that our April 2011 visit to the DPR of Korea was one of the most successful we have ever experienced.           On this visit we were able to confirm that the quality of care given patients by local medical officials is steadily improving at the six multi-drug resistant tuberculosis treatment centers supported by EugeneBell in North Pyongan Province, South Pyongan Province, Nampo City and Pyongyang. Local caregivers we met with on this visit were also enthusiastic about EugeneBell’s training program. The decision to adopt WHO standard MDR-TB mediations last year has increased medication costs more than 50% per patient per year (approximately 1,600 USD). Due to the more powerful prescriptions however, we found that treatment outcomes have improved dramatically. EugeneBell enrolled 55 new patients this visit but sadly, had to turn away hundreds more for lack of enough medication.          It was an honor and blessing to be able to offer the first Easter Mass in the northern half of Korea in more than 60 years. Maryknoll’s work began in North Korea. For more than half a century Maryknoll missioners have prayed for an opportunity to return. Every Mass in North Korea, thus, is for me a homecoming of sorts. I was delighted too that Father Emmanuel Kermoal of the Paris foreign Mission could join me.  The Polish Ambassador, H.E. Edward Piertrzh made the Polish Embassy available for the Mass.          Approximately sixty people from more than a dozen nations from Pyongyang’s small foreign community attended the service. Many of those who came were not Catholic but everyone seemed delighted to have a chance to participate in public worship in North Korea.           Though unused to attend church regularly, everyone did their best to participate with the help of an overhead projector. Their enthusiastic responses to the readings reflected a deep hunger for the hope and peace offered to them through the Easter liturgy. We all enjoyed singing several hymns including “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee,” “O Lord My God” and “Amazing Grace.” No one seemed eager to leave after the service. After the Mass, Ambassador Piertrzh hosted everyone to a traditional Polish Easter breakfast  On every visit to North Korea, it has always been my policy to make a full disclosure of my identity as a priest, as well as the identities of Catholic organizations whose medical work I represent. Thus, the North Korean officials who facilitated our visit were informed in advance about the Easter Mass. No one raised any objections. Instead, our official hosts seemed genuinely pleased that we had been able to arrange this special religious service for the foreign community on our visit, perhaps the first recognized Easter Mass in the history of their country.

Different Levels of Spirituality

A popular columnist who gives advice to readers of his weekly newspaper column, and also to those who go to his website and the more than 40,000 readers of his book, was interviewed recently in one of the secular daily papers and in the Peace Weekly. He admitted, with a chuckle, that he didn't know if he should be sad or happy because there are so many who have a need for counseling.

He is a pastor of a parish in Seoul and, in addition to his weekly  column and his website, lectures once a month in his own parish. His method of counseling is unique. If a woman tells him that her husband is breaking her heart, he asks her why she continues living with him. If a woman is having difficulty with her mother-in-law, he recommends that she put a picture of the mother-in-law on the wall and vent her feelings. If a mother tells him that her son is giving her trouble, he tells her not to worry about him and go on with her life. Many Catholics are suffering, he says, from a "good child complex." When they suffer in silence, believing it to be the 'good' response to troubling incidents, depression often follows, and sometimes serious disease.

Since he writes in this vain some priests criticize him, he says, for advocating anger and  hate. He answers that the Catholic Peace Weekly continues to serialize his columns and has no problem with his approach. There are many who cut out his column and paste it on the refrigerator door. 

He says it is necessary to develop not only the good emotions but also those that are not considered good. If we do not defend ourselves, we can come under the control of the others' emotions, he believes, so at times, the emotions of hate, anger and jealousy are all necessary for the sick and imperfect.

The interviewer then brings up the passage from Scripture that tells us to turn the other cheek.  What is that all about? he asks. He answers that in the spiritual life there is  the diseased level, the healthy level, and the holy level. If you recommend the holy level of awareness to a person who has a diseased level of awareness, there is a big gap. Also one has to be careful when a person begins to complain about their situation--being sympathetic can easily slide into seeming compliance with the complaint. And it may be necessary at times to use shock therapy, he says, to get a person to come out of  their cage of self-imposed limitations and stand on their own two feet.

Jesus told those who were sick and poor to ask and it will be given, to knock and it will be opened. But he told his disciples to give everything away and to follow him. He was asking them to go to another level. If one is to climb a high mountain he has to strengthen the muscles of his legs first. That is true also for the muscles of the spiritual heart; they have to be strengthened to be able to turn the other cheek.

He has decided that the next book he writes will be called "Leave the Bird Cage." He says that when we get angry and realize the reason for the anger is in ourselves, then that is when we will be able to leave the cage we have made for ourselves. The Church is a place where we treat the sickness of the heart. If we have made a cage  for ourselves, then when we go to church we make it a place of judgment instead of a place where we find healing.  A place where we encounter God. A place where we find peace and rest.

Why is Happiness a Mirage for Many?

"Happiness is ridding oneself of power and calmly becoming empty, and suddenly happiness appears. It is not something you grasp but  receive as a gift" These are the words quoted by a journalist of the Catholic Peace Weekly at the beginning of his interview of the Jesuit  chairman of the board of trustees of Sogang University. The title of the article was "By remaining in the presence of the Lord, happiness will come to us."

Today those who are happy are rare, says the Jesuit. As a teacher living with students and as a priest ministering to Catholics, he feels there are few persons who are  really happy. Constantly in competition and seeking to possess, they strive to become what they think they should  be. Absorbed with getting all the specifications necessary for a  well paying job in a good company they realize the happiness was a mirage.

Actually, to achieve happiness is much easier than making money or getting educational accreditation or enjoying power, All you have to do, he says, is adopt a welcoming, non-grasping attitude. He introduces us to a poem that tells us about a child who is told that if he is able to grasp 3 petals falling from a cherry tree before they touch the ground, he will be happy. The child at first  could not do it. When he tried to grasp for the petals, his moving hands stirred the wind around the petals and blew them away. The child of the poem learned that all that was necessary to catch the petals was to stretch his open hands out in front and let the petals fall onto the hands.

Indirectly, it is the search for truth that brings happiness. The only effort required is to rest in God. If we are in a restful state the Holy Spirit will lead us to the truth. When we understand what truth is we become happy, and can directly experience what happiness is. The journalist asks the priest what is the formula for finding  happiness. He laughs on hearing the question. Looking to find happiness, he says, would be going in search of a second-hand, unreal happiness. Happiness does not come with the possession of something but rather with the reception of something by first emptying ourselves, and keeping our eyes wide open.

Those who do not have an anchor cast deep into the meaning of human existence will be like a flame before the wind or a castle built on sand. To have recourse to the origin of existence,  prayer and self discipline is necessary. For those who believe they have no time, are too busy, and find life too difficult for much prayer and self-discipline, he recommends an hour a day of quiet time in prayer. In this digital age we cannot go back, he admits, to a more leisurely time, but this lack of leisure time is one of the reasons that happiness eludes us.                                                       

Muslims in Korea

A priest-professor of patristics (the study of the early Christian writers) at the Catholic University and guest columnist in the Catholic Times this week, reflects on the death of Bin Laden and how his death was received in different parts of the world. He noted that his death was greatly cheered, not surprisingly, in the United States as a victory for justice.

Here in Korea, much of the press were clearly excited and not suppressing their joy that "the darkness was not able to overcome the light." The professor quotes Fr. Federico Lombardi, the Pope's press spokesman, who said that Osama bin Laden was responsible for promoting division and hatred among people, causing the death of many innocent lives and exploiting religions. However, a Christian never rejoices at the death of anyone, he said, but should reflect on the serious responsibility that bin Laden had before God; we should also think deeply on this responsibility ourselves.

Because of bin Laden many think that Islam is a hothouse for terrorists, some even seeing the Crusades as a Christian jihad, a holy war against non-Christians similar to the terrorist activities of the extreme Islamist of today. The Pew Research Center has reported that 23 percent of the world's population is  Muslim. Knowing this, can we continue to say that Muslims are terrorists?

In Korea there are currently 130,000-140,000 Muslims, and of that number about 45,000 are native-born Koreans. We should be careful of the way we think of our Muslim Koreans, many of whom, simply because of their religion, have been harassed and made to feel like outsiders. We have many different nationalities and religions living together in Korea so we should try to understand and share our different cultures.  
Islam and its culture entered Korea during the 13th and 14th centuries. During the Koryo period there was already a thriving community of Muslims with their own culture, and language. At a public ceremony in the time of King Sejong, the Muslims were present, reading parts of the Koran and wishing the King good health. But gradually during the ascendancy of Confucianism in Korea, Islam died out. 

The professor reminds us that we have been living with other people and other religions in our country for a long time. And we should not, without justifiable reasons, criticize others even though their way of life appears strange to us. We should instead try to find the  common elements that unite us. 

Pope Benedict tells us that the commandment of love is what should unite us with the Muslims. They are my brothers and sisters, and they should not be seen as terrorists. The professor, summing up his reflections, asks:  Isn't it often true that we make others terrorists by the way we treat them, by our prejudice and distorted views, and by the violence we use against them?