Whether the
material wealth of a nation brings happiness to its citizens is a
question not easily answered. For many countries, however, it clearly
does not bring happiness. Korea, for example, has become an economic
powerhouse. Back in 1960, it had a gross national product per capita (the wealth distribution of a country showing the dollar value of its goods and services in a year, divided by its population) of 100 dollars. Today, with a GNP per capita of over $20,000, Korea is the envy of many developing countries, but despite the remarkable increase in the material wealth of the country, there has been no increase in the level of happiness.
Writing the recent opinion column of the Catholic Times, a professor with a doctorate in education introduces us to the Easterlin Paradox: poor
countries, like Costa Rica and Columbia, have a higher happiness index
than the economically advanced, OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development),
countries.
If
this is true why do countries continue to praise themselves, he asks,
for their economic achievements. There are many countries
that have gone from a colony to independence, having received a great deal
of help, but have not been able to leave poverty behind.
Although Korea has made great strides economically, she still has a large foreign debt, the middle class is disappearing, the number of the poor is increasing, and, with the acceptance of neo-liberalism, there is increased polarization within society.The upper 20 percent has 13 times more income than the lowest 20 percent and many families are in debt. At the beginning of 2013, the competition is intense and employment is difficult to find. The
disparity between the haves and have-nots is increasing. Moreover,
Korea leads in the number of suicides among OECD countries and has the
lowest birth rate and happiness index.
The professor, using the United States as an example, says that after a GNP per capita income of over $10,000 is reached the influence of economics on the happiness
of citizens decreases. Now that Korea has reached $20,000, there will
be little influence on the happiness index of the country, the professor
says. The Saenuri party expressed an interest in equalizing the income
of 99 percent of the citizens in comparison to the 1 percent of the highest income earners. The Saenuri Party could read the pulse of the citizens, noting that the middle class was less interested in the right or wrong of issues but rather in earning enough money to eat, live well and pursue happiness.
The promises of the Saenuri Party will be their political platform for the next five years. They have promised to help more workers enter the middle class, and they have indicated that they will report on how successful they have been in keeping that promise each year. The citizens will be eagerly waiting to see if the Saenuri Party can deliver on their promise.
Today there
are many unorthodox theories and remedies to alleviate medical problems,
though most of them the medical profession considers old wife's tales
and superstition. The
Catholic Times recently interviewed a searcher, also known as a dowser
or diviner, who goes about the country intent on finding subterranean
water veins or streams. He has begun a research service to study the
radiation from these water veins to neutralize them.
Many
Koreans are willing to believe that underground water does harbor
radiation that can seep to the surface to harm them. This belief is easily
confirmed by media advertisements for beds that promise to prevent the
radiation from reaching them during their sleeping hours. Many ill
persons whose illnesses have not been helped by medicines will change
the location of their beds to avoid what they believe are the harmful
radiation. Since dowsing is so widely accepted in Korea, there is a
general acceptance that this unorthodox approach to curing some medical
conditions may be valid.
When
the French foreign missioners came to Korea back in the 19th century,
they introduced dowsing to find underground water for wells. This
practice was continued as a result of some well-known priests who wrote
on the subject. However, the subject is still surrounded with
skepticism, and the scientific community has little sympathy for it.
Water
diviners will often determine before building a house where the water
veins are located in order to avoid them. This way of thinking is a
throw-back to the days of the geomancers. During the interview the research head said he began his study of water
radiation after his wife became sick. He spent most of his money for
treatment, and she was close to death. After her recovery he decided to
devote himself to the study to help others with his research center.
Today, he is a firm believer and promoter of dowsing for water, and what the practice can do to help alleviate medical problems.
He has traveled to different parts of the country to discover water veins and to neutralize their
effects. His research center will train dowsers, he said, with the knowledge
necessary to discover and prevent the effects of the radiation. He has
given lectures at the Catholic University of Pusan in the life-time
study program. He intends to prepare lectures on water radiation, its history and why it's harmful to health.
The
center head admits that many who come to him have all kinds of doubts
but are looking for the last piece of straw to grasp, after they tried
everything else. He wants to be a missioner for this message.
Many ideas concerning health, long popular in the East, have been accepted in the West; acupuncture, for example, is no longer dismissed, but largely accepted as a valid medical remedy. Whether dowsing to discover underground veins of water seeping radiation up to the surface will eventually become as popular, we will have to wait for the future to tell us.
A questionnaire was sent to 626 college professors to choose a motto for the year 2013, and the motto chosen was 除舊布新"Blow
Away the Cobwebs." Do away with the old and extend the new would be
another and more literal translation of the 4 Chinese characters that were
chosen. Our columnist in the Catholic Times uses these words as a
meditation on the new year.
The
wise of the past, according to the columnist, were not interested in getting rid of all
that is old, nor did they believe that the new is always good. Wisdom tells us to keep the
good of the old and to block the evil practices of the new. This is
what it means to blow away the cobwebs.
To
rid ourselves of abuses and unhelpful old ways is one means to be renewed. In
our present society we talk a lot about renewal, says our writer, but he feels that this talk has little to do with interior change, but is an
easy way of escaping our present crises.
The
columnist recently interviewed the president of the Bishops
Conference and was impressed by his comments on this crisis: "There
are many who are talking about the crisis in the Church. We see many
who separate life from faith. Can we describe this as a pattern of
secularization and relativism? Our faith life is not being changed by a
desire for renewal and a change of heart. We have a desire, a
prerequisite for renewal, to believe and to confess Jesus, but many do not
know him. There is a strong desire to know him. Many Christians know
what we are to believe with their heads, the way to receive grace as
something of habit, and the commandments seem to mean little. The
commandments should be embodied in us, but we remember only the words. They have not become part of us but separated from life."
If we believe that faith
is one thing and life another, this is not a sign of a Christian. Renewal means to become what we are. Faith is to make what we
believe a part of our daily life. We are not to think that our parish can be used by us like a lifeboat, a Noah's ark; we need to be continually
renewed. The first step is to see ourselves as sinners. We have to set
aside our own opinions; expedients only weaken our ability to face
the challenges.
We often act like the squirrel on a treadmill, going around and
around, making little progress. This is not what our faith life should be. We should make
the crisis of faith into a challenge, an opening to a new way of living
our religious lives.
Catechetical programs in the rites of Christian initiation in Korea
take different forms and are an important part of the pastoral work of
any parish. The catechumens hear the words of the Gospel message, "The
Holy Spirit opens their hearts, and they freely and knowingly seek the
living God and enter the path of faith and conversion."
The
response of the catechumens to this Gospel message, as they prepare for
baptism, is important not only to the catechumens but to the whole
Church. Without this concern, even if baptized, they will soon lose
interest and fall away, which makes it a concern of the whole Church.The community needs to be a welcoming community and this has to begin with the programs of initiation.
A
sampling of those participating in the catechetical programs revealed
that many found them boring. The cramming method of teaching was not
helpful, and many did not find what they were learning connected with
their daily lives. The memorizing of the prayers for some was tedious.
After baptism, they forgot everything they learned. One person said he
tries to attend Mass weekly but wants to know how to find the motivation
and passion for what he has received.
A catechumen who dropped
out of the program said he lost hope when he was told he should increase
his offering at Mass. He was under the false impression that
Catholicism did not put a financial burden on its members. Having his
own money problems, he felt he couldn't give any more than he was
already giving.
Another
person baptized at Christmas said that the Catholicism she knew was
different from Protestantism; she was surprised at the lack of warmth
within the Catholic community. Even
though many congratulated them at baptism, it didn't seem full hearted,
she said.
The godparents they were given, possibly because of the age difference,
seemed inappropriate. She would have liked someone assigned to them
during
their period of study, and afterward,:someone to be a mentor.
A
list was made of what most of them felt about the program: difficult text,
the length of the program, the memorizing and cramming method of
teaching, the strangeness of the liturgy, and the lack of time for
fellowship.
A teacher in the catechetical program said that it
was necessary for teachers to be able to teach in a way that would
accommodate what they learn to their daily lives. And to teach in a way
that would be easy to understand. Programs are necessary to improve the
teaching ability of the catechumens. The teachers have to be able to
give life examples of what it means to be a Christian.In conclusion,
the article mentioned that in these programs, it was imperative that
they be shown the way to live the Christian life. Every possible means
should be used to enable the catechumens to adopt the new way of living
they have been taught.
"We should be
lenient with the faults of others for they were our faults yesterday.
None of us is perfect, and we should remember this in dealing with
others." These Shakespearean words, as translated into Korean, prompted
the desk columnist of the Korean Times to explore a topic, which he
believes deserves more attention in today's world: concern and respect
for others.
He begins with the example of automobile drivers who
have good reasons to be upset when the driver in front of them suddenly
makes a turn without using the turn signal, concerned only with getting
to their destination. However, the columnist admits that when he's in
a hurry, there's a lot that he does that upsets other drivers.
An
African proverb says, "In a hurry, travel alone. If you are on a long
trip, go with others but go as fast as the slowest, and lighten their
load." This appears to be a sacrificial concession on the part of the
fastest, but it's meant to maintain good terms with the slower persons,
which in turn is helpful to the faster ones on a long trip. This
demonstrates, he says, concern and respect for others.
If we
look at those who have been notably successful in life, we see that many
have certain traits in common: the obedient type, the leader type, the
analytical type and the adaptable type. According to circumstances,
there is a need for different types but the columnist prefers the one
who can fit in smoothly with others, usually the one exhibiting concern and respect for others.
In the present
society of cut-throat competition where one is expected to outdo the
other, the adaptable type does not
find it easy. We all want to have the concern and respect of the other
but we also have to ask ourselves how much concern and respect do we have
for others.
We have the belief, says the columnist, that our
concern for others will be detrimental in achieving our goals in a
highly competitive society, despite the findings of psychology, which
show that we are happiest when we are concerned for the welfare of
others. The essence of concern, he says, is to be able to put ourselves
in the shoes of the other. If we think that everybody is the same our solicitude for the other may be doing the other harm. Respect and concern for the other is what is required by love.
As
Christians we have the example of God, says the columnist, who bestowed
on us the greatest amount of concern possible by sending us his son. We
in turn should give this same concern and respect to his children. It will bring great joy into our own lives and turn our dream of a better world into a possible reality.
A famous movie
director, who would begin shooting his film before having a completed
scenario, was asked by a journalist why he did not complete his
preparation before beginning the camera work. He said that there is no
time at any beginning where you have a perfectly complete picture of
what you want to do. Writing in Bible & Life; a poet tells us
he had difficulty in understanding the words of the director, as
conveyed by the journalist, considering them wildly wrong-headed. He
reveals in his article how he came to a new understanding of his words.
He
doesn't know when but he came to realize that the beginning of
something is actually part of the preparation. Nowadays, the words of
the director give him courage: the beginning of anything, he realized,
is when you commit yourself to do something, for then you are preparing
for whatever comes after, which takes courage and a trusting attitude.
With this kind of thinking, you tend to have confidence in the work and
your expectation becomes greater.
Poets often say that a poem
came to them. The writer says that this has not been his experience; he
is always in search of a poem. If he had to wait for a poem to come, he
said he would never have anything. It is only in the beginning, armed
with the intention to write, that a poem comes to him. Song writers and
other creative artists, he also mentioned, have had the same experience.
The director is right by noting the importance of the
beginning, he said. To begin when everything is prepared is perfectly
alright; beginning and preparing is equally alright. If in the moment a
person wants to see some beautiful flowers and decides to plant flower
seeds, it is then too late. When you do not see the flowers, is when you plant.
It is not rare that a great deal of time is spent in thinking and in preparation and never beginning.
Like drawing water from a well, you have to decide first to go to the
well. It is said that to make a tablespoon of honey the bee has to
return to a flower to gather its nectar about 4,200 times: the doing is
what makes the honey.
The Japanese winner of the Noble prize in physics said that if you don't try, you will
never know what you can do. He also said "Look for any work that
you can do, don't be afraid, and do it." The writer also mentions a
famous industrialist who would often say to his workers, "Did you try
doing it? Do not say it is difficult without trying it."
The
writer reminds us that we are usually more sorry for what we haven't
done than for what we have done. We should do, he says, whatever it is
we set out to do and do it to the best of our ability. When you want to
drink some water and can't find the water cup, you don't give up
drinking but use whatever is available, be it a whiskey glass or a food
dish. That is doing something to the best of your ability.
Nothing
in life is done perfectly. When we want to do something, it is best
not to wait for the best of times, but to begin doing it now.
Many organizations are busy trying to make the transition to life in
Korea less hectic and difficult for foreigners. A religious sister of
the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent De Paul starts her column in the
Peace Weekly with the words of our Lord: " At sunset, all who had people
sick with a variety of diseases took them to [Jesus] and he laid his
hand on each of them and cured them."
The sisters manage a
medical clinic free of charge for foreign workers. Workers from many
backgrounds and races come to the clinic asking for help, often using
the only language they know: their own. With joyless, weary faces they
find their way to the clinic. Each one in his
or her own way making known their ailment.
"Auntie,
this thing here hurts." Pointing his finger to his stomach: "What's
wrong?" asks a man from Uzbekistan.
"It is not auntie, say, sister, sister." the sister added a new word to his vocabulary cheerfully.
Another,
a Chinese woman, asks if it's possible to be recycled. Sister tells her
the clinic is not a department of rehabilitation facility. The woman,
who works twelve hours a day, says that her shoulders hurt, and she came
for acupuncture.
Most of the foreigners who come to the clinic
are illegal foreigners who have no medical insurance, and when sick,
they can't go to a hospital. When there is strict enforcement of the
law, these workers are in serious trouble; as an illegal they can be
forced to leave the country. They often work long hours doing work most
Koreans would shun. The work is difficult and the pay poor, the sister
says, and their language skills are minimal. But there is little they
can do to redress the situation, the sister adds. Only if they are in
good health can they make a go of it.
We
listen to their complaints, the sister says, and prepare them for an
examination, taking blood pressure readings, examining blood, and giving
medicine. And at all times extending the hand of love to them, in
this lonely and cheerless place. When they call us auntie, she says,
there is no
problem. Hopefully, they will receive a little warmth and consolation
from
their encounter with us.
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