In Search of our Dream

In Korea like many other countries the daily papers have horoscopes that are a must-see for many. The four pillars: year, month, day, and hour of birth are the foundations for the zodiacal house that determines, it is said, our future.
 
In the mission station bulletin, the writer tells his readers that the pillars do not make a house. There are many other parts that are necessary to have a house to live in. The future is not determined by one of the parts, he stresses, but by the efforts we make in life to prepare for the future.

Whether the four pillars say something good or bad, it is of little importance. It is all in the eyes of the beholder, he says, and the attitude one has in seeing life.

We can't retrieve what has passed. We can't practice for the future but we can prepare for it. We should not live like the mayfly that has no understanding of the morrow or the cicada that doesn't understand what will occur next year.

Jesus gave us an example of what it means to live by following his way. The writer, using the words of an ancient Chinese philosopher to corroborate the teachings of Jesus, outlines ten ways to live without regret.
 
1) If we don't respect our parents after they are dead, we will have regret. 

2) If we are not kind to our relations when near them, when separated we will have regret. 

3) If we don't learn when we are young, when old we will have regret.

4) If we don't think of failure when all is going well, we will have regret.

5) If we don't save when we can, when poor we will have regret. 

6) If we don't plant in the spring, in the fall, we will have regret.    

7) If we don't fix the lock on the front gate, when the thief comes we will have regret.  

8) If we don't take care of the body when healthy, when sick we will have regret.   

  
9) When we drink to excess and say something stupid, when sober we will have regret.

10) If we  are not hospitable to guests, when they leave we will have regret

Water that doesn't flow putrefies, air that doesn't circulate suffocates; there is no aroma from an old tree and dry earth doesn't produce flowers. We are more concerned for today than yesterday, and for tomorrow than today. The thoughts of most  are not in the here and now but on dreaming a new and better tomorrow. What is my situation  today? My fate is not determined by the stars nor determined, as some would have us believe, by our genes. Where should we turn, the writer asks, to realize our dream? We should turn to God  and  go in search of the  dream.                                                                           

Is it the Head or the Heart?

On the opinion page of the Catholic Times, the columnist recounts a meeting with his son, a diocesan priest, and his  wife's brother who is a religious brother. They met at his house and were discussing the spiritual life. The columnist decided to be the 'dignified on-looker," but that was not to be the case.

Since he had made the 30-day Ignatian Retreat, he joined the conversation by saying that during the exercises he had a new appreciation of the power of the imagination in reflecting on the activities of our Lord. The religious brother did not accept the columnist's idea that the imagination could serve as an approach to God. He didn't pay attention to what the brother was saying and maintained his contrary opinion.

The columnist acknowledged the difficulty they both had in accepting each other's opinion.  Since the columnist was a poet, refuting the power of the imagination seemed an impossibility, while yet understanding the brother's difficulty.  He explained briefly what he meant by using Catholic philosophy and Jacques Maritain as support for his opinion.

The brother said that the only way we can approach God is by intuition. Because the columnist got involved in an exchange of  pros and cons, it made for an awkward situation. The meeting with his son the priest, and his wife's brother, ended on this note, and they left.  Without  any decision, the curtain came down on this particular event. This is life.  Most of  life goes on without many of us agreeing to most things, except, perhaps, agreeing to disagree.

The priest later gave his father an understanding of what happened that evening. The mainstream of Catholic thinking goes along with Thomas Aquinas and St. Ignatius of Loyola. They both acknowledge the intellect and the imagination but the Franciscan school: St. Francis, St. Bonaventure, St. John of the Cross, and others, see the way to God by the intuition and distrust the other ways. This  made the relationship with the Church a delicate one.

 
When the columnist later went to a restaurant and ordered a blow fish, he saw the discussion in a different light. The blow fish, he says, as we all know, has a poison that can kill, but once controlled the fish is a delicacy.  There are  those who stay  away from the fish because of the dire possibilities; they want to play safe.

The way of the imagination is a place of splendor but can be the devil's playground when indulged in to the point of aestheticism. Writers such as Baudelaire, Edgar Allan Poe, and Oscar Wilde would be of this school.  Just hearing the names of these geniuses we know what is meant. Like the blow fish, poison is lurking in their writings.

...Yes, not to eat the blow fish is the safest way but, the columnist tells us, he is accustomed to its taste.

Church Always Reforming

"To live is to change and to be perfect is to have changed often." These words of Blessed Cardinal Newman are heard often;  a priest historian writing  in the Kyeongyang magazine introduces us to  St. Bridget of Sweden who pointed out a similar message to the Christians of her time: change and reform.

The priest wants Korean Catholics to become more familiar with St. Bridget. He tells us that the pope who canonized her only 18 years after her death asked, when first hearing about the Saint, can anything good come from the North (referring to Sweden).  She is not only the patron of Sweden but also one of Europe's patron saints.

Bridget was born in 1302 and married at 14. She had eight children, one of them also becoming a canonized Saint. A Saint begetting a Saint: Catharine of Sweden. After 28 years of marriage and the death of her husband, she devoted the rest of her life to the spiritual life, founding a community. She traveled within the world of that time to all the pilgrimage sites and saw the world of Catholicism first hand, using what she saw and the revelations of the Lord to speak about the conditions of the Church.

Europe of the 14th century had been devastated by many tragedies: earthquakes, contagious  diseases, hunger  and war. The Black Death killed 80 percent of those with the disease. It was a great tragedy for Europe and the Church. Part of the Church of that time became very worldly. There were those who overcame this temptation but many were the object of criticism. Many intellectuals of that time were clerics in search of pleasure and comfort; the problem was that the Church accepted the situation, which had a great deal to do with money, excommunications for non-religious reasons, and selling of religious offices--all these abuses were the object of criticism. Abuses among the clerics and the lay people were wide spread.

It was during the life of Bridget that the Church went through a period of 70 years, known as the Avignon Captivity, in which the papacy was in France. This was not only a period where the papacy moved but a period where the leadership in the Church was more concerned with their own comfort and well-being than with spirituality and the poor. It was not able to function as Church. St. Bridget began the work of  changing the secular concerns of the popes to taking more care of the needs of the Church, a work that was continued by St. Catherine of Siena.

She scolded the priests and bishops for their way of life. A prime example was the bishop of Milan, Giovanni Visconti, but it was all the popes, bishops and priests who were not  leading the life as a  follower of Jesus that met with her words of disapproval.

Our writer returns to the days in which he studied Church History and remembers vividly the constant refrain: "Church always reforming". It is not the comfortable life.  This is not becoming conformed to the world but the way of Jesus. When we are not conformed to the ways of Jesus, it is a problem of great consequence.  Every day has to be a renewal  of our life. He quotes the words of a famous Chinese saying: "if you want  renewal, then everyday must be renewed, day after day renewed and again renewed."

To Live is to Pray

Prayer is considered by some as useless and yet by others as the most important activity of the day. Writing in Bible in Life a priest recalls his impressions of a discussion he had with a priest friend who spent a great deal of time in its practice. An experience of meeting with Jesus.

Hearing his friend talk about prayer made him envious. He was talking about meeting Jesus in prayer. It was a personal encounter with Jesus. It was, we would say, like meeting Jesus in a dream. However, not everybody has that kind of experience. It is the kind of gift given to those who prepare for it.

The writer asks himself why is he not adept in the practice of prayer. A requisite is  to know what prayer is, and he uses Henri Nouwen's words to explain prayer. "To live is to pray. To love is to pray and loving  is  serving." Another theologian explained, "Prayer is not like an emergency fund which you draw from in need. Prayer is the soul's place of rest, the soul's house. All living things have a place of repose. Birds have nests; foxes have dens; bees have hives. Prayer is our place of rest. The soul without this place of rest, wanders."

Prayer is like water to a fish, and air to us. Without prayer, we are living without a most important ingredient for life. Many of us believe that prayer is difficult when it is not. When we invite God to be with us, we have a prayer. When we have love within us, we are praying. When we meditate on the Gospel, and it moves into our life that is prayer. And when we want good things for others and the world, that is prayer.

In prayer, there is also great joy. It is being together with the beloved. Isn't that what heaven is? It is being enraptured with God's love. When the antenna and frequency are correct, we experience God with the whole body. Those without the taste for prayer will find it more like hell.  One has to know what prayer is, have a taste for it and enjoy it.

He concludes the article by telling us there is no royal road to prayer. Without effort, prayer comes rarely. We should go to those who are 'elders in prayer' for help. There are no persons with this gift from birth, he says; it's something acquired and he recommends that we make the effort to achieve prayer by starting with a period of 10 minutes a day.

Facing Problems Head On

We often  hear as parting words: 'don't over do it.'  Writing for the Seoul Diocesan bulletin a novelist introduces his article with these words that his doctor uses with him. He is being treated for cancer and reflects on his situation. His response to the doctor was: "Are you telling me to lay down and live the role of a sick person. If I do that I will be dead; if I do the opposite I will be living."

He tried to follow the doctor's advice: lying down, sleeping, reading, watching TV but found that he became more listless and depressed. He felt more like an invalid. So he decided to keep on moving as long as he could.

In front of his apartment, he walked the corridor which was about 100 steps. In the beginning, he had no desire to do this, but he came to a point where he could walk 10,000 steps. Any free moment he would go to the corridor and walk. In the beginning, it was with great difficulty, accompanied by dizziness and weakness but things changed;  he even left the apartment and started climbing a nearby mountain, resting often,

He tells us the story of a wise man  who was asked how does one escape from the cold and heat. Go to a place without cold and heat was his answer. Where in the world can I find such a place? the person asked. Why are you so uncomprehending? the wise man retorted. When you're cold you find a place that will make you colder, and when warm go to a place that will make you warmer.
 
When we go to a place that is warm to escape the cold, we are temporarily avoiding the cold. We are not getting rid of the cold. This is true also when we have pain and worries. We try to get rid of them by drink or by other means, but find that we are not able to do so. As the wise man said, to get rid of the pain and worries, or anything that is bothering us, we must face them head on.


A person wanting to learn archery was told first to learn how not to blink. A famous Korean general was known to have said that in order to live you have to die--words similar to the words used by our Lord.

He finishes the article with the words of the angels to the shepherds. "You have nothing to fear! I come to proclaim good news to you--tidings of great joy to be shared by the whole people." Even though it is more than we can bear, let us stand up, the writer says. Although difficult, if possible let us crawl. If we can walk let us walk; if we can run let us run--like the shepherds to the crib of our Lord.

Growth in Spirituality

Growth in Spirituality is an important subject, and the two Catholic papers give us many articles in this area for us to ponder. One of the topics in the Catholic Times' page on spirituality discusses a 'blue print' we  have been given from creation. What does it mean to be a human being? What does God want us to be?

The foundations of God's master plan are the development of the intellectual, physical and spiritual dimensions of our humanity. These are the areas of growth; not to be done alone but in a dynamic relationship with  society and in history.

The writer distinguishes three different aspects of our life forms:outer appearance, the mental  form and  the core form. The body presents us with the outer appearance, the intellect with the current form and the spirit with the core form.

The example he gives is dancing. The dancing would be the outer appearance, the joy that comes from the dancing the current form, and  the sense of fulfillment is the core form. Or when singing: the singing of the words of a song is the outer appearance. The relishing of the words and music is the current form, and  the oneness that I have with what I am doing is the core form.  How much are we conscious of the core form? We are usually conscious only of the first two forms.

Our efforts in life usually are directed to changing  our physical, intellectual and spiritual forms. It is in the failure to do this that we fail to understand the meaning of life and live with an emptiness and inflict pain on our self and on others. The writer even mentions a few individuals who made this clear in their teachings on happiness; even the hedonist would agree, since it is something embedded in the laws of nature.

When we  live not only in the physical and  mental dimensions but in the spiritual dimension, we maintain a relationship with what we have received from God. And those with a consciousness of God and an understanding that these inclinations come from God will desire to be united to the will of God. By "giving thanks and being at one with the God who made us," he says, "will make us more merciful and willing to help others, and when necessary, to be reconciled with our situation whatever it may be, and to work to the limits of our capabilities."

Getting to a Point Where She Could Forgive

A woman well-known in Korean society writes in Bible and Life of an experience she had recently on meeting the person who had been her supervisor in the tax office where she worked after high school. As soon as he saw her, he turned to those who with him and said, so all could hear: "You all know who this woman is. I helped make her what she is."

The writer reminisces on the short time she worked in the tax office and her boss, who had little authority but wielded it with her harshly and whenever he desired.  She flunked the exam for college, and besides the tax office job had an evening job at a tea room as a classical music disk jockey. She would leave work at the tax office and go on to her disk jockey job and often, because of the importunate requests at the tax office, would be late. Her boss at the tax office had ridiculed her for thinking that she, a high school graduate, knew anything about classical music. And she would have to be always ready to prepare the morning coffee, and the way he would get her attention was by a 'Ya'.

Although it was her boss's superior who hired the three girls in the office, he spoke as if he was the one responsible for her success, which annoyed her greatly. Even after she left the job, whenever she thought of him she would get angry, and now he had the gall to say he made her what she had become.

In the brief meeting with him, he said he knew she would make something of herself and recalled  that he urged her to use the  money she earned to go on to college. She found his words self-serving and didn't want to hear any more. His hand shake was as if they were old friends; this added to the annoyance and she found a way to excuse herself and left.

When she reached home, she went to her diary and looked over some of the entries to recall more clearly those days at the tax office. One of the girls working with her quit because of his treatment. She recorded that she was also thinking of quitting but in another entry, she wrote that all these trials would make her stronger.

There was another entry about a boy she met, at a tea room, that she grew to know well and was even invited to his home to meet his mother. When the mother asked her what university she attended and she answered that she was not attending any, the mother's face showed her disappointment. Since the son was a student at an elite university and in the law department, she easily understood the feelings of the mother: a tea room disk jockey interested in her son must have been 'a punch in the stomach.'

However, on more reflection, she analyzed the Korean word for forgiveness and the English word to forgive. In English, it is made up of the word for and give. It is to give completely. It is not something that is 'earned' by what is done by the one who is forgiven but something you give, regardless of what is done or not done; the one who can give is the one who forgives.

These two people--her former supervisor in the tax office and the mother of the boy who invited her to his home--didn't do anything to destroy her future or anything that made it hard for her to forgive; she knew that.  They did something that we all have experienced, and she considered it 'no big deal.'  They helped her, she said, to take the ordinary  slings and arrows that come our way in stride, and made her stronger because of  them. "I have no reason to hate them but to thank them for what they have done for me," was how she summed up the situation. So the next morning  she took out the card that her old boss had given her when they parted recently, and sent him a text message thanking him for what he had done for her. And, she said, she meant it.