Obstacles in Building Small Christian Communities

Setting up small christian communities has been an important goal the Church in Korea has been endeavoring to achieve for the last 20 years. The results are not as favorable as many would like, and efforts have been made over the years to improve them. Recently, the Bishops Pastoral Research Center conducted a workshop for priests from nine dioceses; 23 priests attended whose specialty and expertise were working with small communities. They  discussed the problems and aimed to draw up a Korean model for what these communities should be. The Catholic Times had an editorial on the workshop and two articles that summarized some of the ideas that were shared during the workshop.

Several presentations on the small community concept, and the discussions that followed on what has already been accomplished, dealt with diagnosis and assessment. Important as these were, more interest was shown over the proper role of the pastoral leader in the small community.

Is it possible to build small christian communities in Korea? was a question that was often raised during discussions. The clergy in Korea have been so central to the work that to overcome this thinking and the secularization that has been experienced by the Christians will make a return to the Gospel message very difficult. The place of small communities in the  pastoral vision is not helped by  the understanding of the common good held in our society. But more to the point: the Church has not  stressed enough the place of fellowship in community. Consequently, as one of the participants suggested, if we look at our situation dispassionately will we not agree that we have built a middle-class Church?

The small communities were to be the future, a new way of doing pastoral work--a variety of different expressions were used to describe our intentions, but most turned out to be little more than empty words. On the parish level, where they were working with the small communities, there were serious problems in their successful implementation. We were not able to have a model for our people that fit the situation. The attempts at inculturation and making it fit our Korean situation have been slow.

The Church has been more intent in facing and coming to grips with our everyday challenges, according to the Catholic Times, than having a Christ-like vision for the work. We have to make our own a common vision of pastoral ministry, and do away with the imperial authority structures for the proper evangelization that is the mission of the Church. When this problem is acknowledged, this will be the first step in the shortcut that will facilitate the building of successful small communities and constructing a workable model for small communities here in Korea.

Janitor in a Korean Sauna

In the Kyeongyang magazine, a man who retired from his government job writes of his recent experience as a janitor in a Jjimjilbang, a gender-segregated public bathhouse furnished with the traditional Korean saunas and massage areas, and places to eat and sleep, all for a reasonable price. It was not what he expected to be doing after retirement; he saw himself doing some kind of volunteer service work. 

However, after his severance pay was gone and needing pocket money, he looked around for work. Though he appeared to be in his fifties, his life history made it clear he was at that time in his late sixties (now 75). Nobody was  interested; if an accident happened there would be serious problems, he was repeatedly told.

For a couple of years, he continued to look for work without any results. He then heard there was work available in a Jjimjilbang; without any thought of what kind of work it would be, he accepted the job. Not only did he have to sweep and clean the premises but all the accumulated trash had to be separated and readied for disposal, which was difficult to do at his age. Even using a mask, he found the smell awful. And in the winter his fingers would become ice cold, and in the summer he would perspire so much it felt as if he were in a sauna. But he did manage to stay with the job,now going on for three years.

During this time he was the secretary of the parish purgatorial society, but found he could no longer manage both jobs and told the priest he had to leave his parish work. He said he was doing the janitorial work for money, but it was also penance for the sins in his past life. He had been very active in the parish over many years, serving as parish council president and the president of many parish groups. 

Because of his work in the Jjimjilbang, he met many Catholics and workers that he knew from his past work places, and felt embarrassed, he said, to be seen doing janitorial work. One visitor to the Jjimjilbang was a subordinate he used to work with; the man told him he found it difficult to continue coming to the sauna and seeing his old boss working as the janitor.  Overcoming the problem of 'saving-face', he realized, was also a problem that others had to deal with when they met him in this situation. He remembers reading that humility is a difficult virtue to practice, and without God's help difficult also to understand.

Whenever he's asked now about his work, he answers without hesitation: a janitor. Putting into practice what he has learned about humility, he is perfectly at peace and has no problems with the work. Jesus used the word peace, after the resurrection, to greet those he met. Without God's help, it is difficult to experience this peace. He ends his article with a request: asking his readers for their prayers as he continues to work to clean his own interior of the garbage that is still there.

Learning to be Friends to the Disabled

A priest recently assigned to head a center for the disabled writes about an incident that brought sadness to the inhabitants of the center, and vividly shows the difficulties the disabled have to face in society.

A middle school child whose disability was not serious came to the center to attend one of the programs. After the introductions were over, he said he wanted to go to the toilet. When he did not return to the class, the priest sent someone to find out what happened and  was told they found the boy in the flower bed in the back of the building. The priest called for an ambulance and the boy was taken to a hospital. There was no danger to life, but he would have  a long period of treatment and convalescence.

The priest asked him why he threw himself out of the small window of the fourth-floor toilet, and was told he no longer wanted to live. The priest on the way to the hospital was filled with a thousand different feelings. Why would the young man want to kill himself? He felt miserable.

The boy had a problem with tics, which made it difficult to control certain bodily movements, provoking misunderstanding and causing his classmates to shun him, and some of the rougher students to beat him. The world  he had to face was filled with exclusion and avoidance, alienation and loneliness. These experiences left the boy with distrust of others and fear of the world.
 
In the introduction on that day of the accident, the boy expressed his despair by the way he introduced himself, which the priest found deeply moving. To live in such circumstances, the priest knew, would be difficult for anyone to accept.

Even though the center is separated by a large road from residential apartment buildings, there was opposition to building a center for the disabled. The main reason was  the belief that such a center would change the atmosphere of the neighborhood, and property values would decline. This is the way society looks upon those they consider losers in life, the weak who can't compete successfully with others.

Adults are the mirror for the young. When adults have little sympathy for the weak and the disabled, the children will very likely have the same feelings. Rather than embracing the weak, the delicate, the disabled among us, and helping to defend them; we are more likely to find that living with them is uncomfortable, and sometimes give vent to our feelings by using violence against them.

The priest mentions that he found it difficult, at first, to accept the assignment to the center, acknowledging feelings of resentment for having to accept such an assignment. However, living among the disabled, he was able, little by little, to appreciate the depth of the sadness they have to live with daily. His heart has been changed, he says, to one full of gratitude, and he asks for prayers that he may continue to be a good friend to them.

Learning from Water

The possibility of less water for human use, some are predicting, could be a concern for future generations; some even stating it could be the reason for the start of the 3rd World War. This warning begins an article by a research philosopher at the Sogang Philosophy Research Center. The World Water Forum is currently trying to solve the problems associated with having less available water in the future. The research professor attempts to add to the suggestions, in her article in the Peace Weekly, by recalling the way Asians traditionally viewed the attributes of water, and the lessons that were learned.

Looking at water resting in a washbasin, the ancients were reminded, she says, of the needs of the body and spirit and the desire for purification. In the Analects, Confucius says that those who are wise love water and those who are gentle love the mountain. In this tradition, water is the sign of daily renewal, a sign of wisdom. When water stagnates, it putrefies and is not able to give life. When water continues to flow, however, it continually renews itself and is then able to give life. The strength of water comes from its softness.There is, in this traditional view, an intimate relationship between softness and life.

In the philosophy of Lao Tzu, the softness of water is the origin of its vitality. Humans while living are soft; at death they become stiff. The world in which we live is always changing and if our thoughts and heart become hardened, we will have difficulty adapting. If we are careless about disciplining ourselves, we also lose our flexibility and our ability to communicate with others. Inability to communicate means death. Flexibility allows us to communicate well with all manner of persons, and tends to nurture the life of all creatures. Consequentially, she advises, if we are to keep on going along the way of softness and flexibility, we have to fight to maintain these life-nurturing qualities.

When water enters dry objects it makes them soft: land, trees, any dried up plant, when water is received, they become soft and return to vibrant life. There is nothing softer than water, and yet it still is able to overcome the hardest objects on earth. Wisdom, she says, is having the freedom to communicate like water.

Water is the visible aspect of the way (virtue) in Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching. In chapter 8 there is the verse:

The highest good is like water.
Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures
without contending with them and settles where none would like to be,
it comes close to the way.

In a home it is the site that matters;
In quality of mind it is depth that matters;
In an ally it is benevolence that matters;
In speech it is good faith that matters;
In government it is order that matters;
In affairs it is ability that matters; 
In action it is timeliness that matters.

It is because it does not contend that it is never at fault.

There were other sages who expressed similar ideas, the professor reminds us; she ends with chapter 66 of the Tao Te Ching.

"The reason why the River and the Sea are able to be king of the hundred valleys is that they excel in taking the lower position. Hence they are able to be king of the hundred alleys." When a statesman follows this wisdom and lowers himself and works for the benefit of the people he very naturally takes the position of leader.
 
When we realize that these thoughts on water are all from reflections on life without the benefit of revelation, we can appreciate how these wise men of the East prepared many for accepting the teachings of Jesus. The professor sees the possibility of solving the problems we are likely to have with water with  the lessons these wise men passed down to us. Simply put, she says we must learn to think like water, and to live like water.

Living What we Believe is Evangelization

"Those who study the teaching of Jesus and want to be his disciples receive baptism. All those who are baptized are missioners. All believers can do it and must be missioners. However, the majority feels that all that is necessary is to attend Mass and become a member of a parish religious group."

A priest, a professor of missiology interviewed by the Catholic Times, summed up his views on missionary work with the above words. To be a missioner, he added, is to speak like Jesus, to act like Jesus, and to live like Jesus. A missioner is one who wants to imitate Jesus. Most Christians, he said, see this work as belonging to others who have made a life commitment to do it. Although they have a vague idea that as Christians they are called to this life, they find it a great burden, which he feels results in many fallen-away Catholics. That the catechumenate does not make this an important element in its teaching, he said, is another crucial factor why evangelization is not properly understood.

Another reason, he noted, is that many who become Catholic do it as an expediency, a convenience, merely as a change in their way of thinking. They have little interest in the Scriptures and the teachings of the Church. They do not see the importance of the faith-life and lack confidence in the teachings, so the missionary aspects of their call as disciples is bound to be missing. The first thing that is necessary, he said, is to believe with a firm faith. 

To fully understand what is meant by evangelizing, he explained, it's necessary to change how we think about missionary work.  To evangelize one-on-one or to go to the streets to proclaim Jesus is okay, but what is most important in the evangelizing process is not the word but the life of the evangelist.  When we live the Christ life we are evangelizing. In our daily lives when we relate with our neighbors in harmony with them, concerned not with my 'I' but with the "I" of each of them, then my love will express His love--that would be true evangelizing.

The logic of our faith-life will change the logic that controls the structures of society, he said, so we will then search for those who are at the margins of society and begin to do something about it.

Though it's difficult to  convey the meaning of belief to those who do not believe, their being no special way that this can be done, we can be there for those who most need our help.Evangelization is going out to everybody with love and  living this daily. Briefly, the  essence of evangelization is to live what we believe. 

The One Korean Nation

Has there ever been a family that has not experienced pain? Writing on the opinion page of the Catholic Times, the writer recalls his own family difficulties experienced some 20 years ago. Its aftermath is still influencing the family, he said, and he looks back with gratitude to God for the strength to overcome the problems. He wonders about those who were brought up in luxury and done all they wanted--whether that kind of life is more insipid than we generally suppose.  Without the trials and failures of life, he wonders, if it's possible to experience the joys and happiness that life offers?

The Korean family of one nation, he reminds us, has now been separated for the last 60 years with violence and misery. One-tenth of the population were killed, property was destroyed, and the animosity still continues with the poor suffering the most. Is there any reason to hope that the future will be any different? he asks.  Each side stresses their dignity and their claims, and yet the feeling of helplessness and frustration continues to grow. In the last 10 years there have been glimmers of hope, as North and South have come together to dialogue. Will the day of peace and happiness ever come? is a question the people of this separated family are still wondering.

The writer introduces us to Prof. Lyubomirsky, who has studied happiness for most of her professional life, dividing it into three constituents: our genes, our life circumstances, and our intentional activities. The first, our genetic makeup, we receive from our parents, accounting for 50 percent of our happiness: our positive outlook, humorous disposition and  health. 10 percent would be dependent on our life circumstances: our age, gender, education, our place in society, income, family and children, our physical attractiveness. 40 percent would be determined by our intentional activities, our willed actions. According to this thinking--since we cannot control our genetic makeup, and the circumstances in our life are thought to have little to do with our happiness--it is our intentional activity that is going to have the greatest influence on our happiness.

Acknowledging the present North-South relationship between the separated factions of our Korean family, and realizing we can't change the history of the past 60 years, we can, however, make intentional changes in our thinking and the way we deal with each other.

In the Old Testament book of Tobit, the angel Raphael said to Tobit: "Take courage! God has healing in store for you; so take courage!" The writer prefers to see the two-nation Korea, as a blindness that has to be healed and as demons that  have to be expelled. The lack of trust has to be changed to trust, hate to forgiveness, anger to embracing, fighting to dialogue. And trust that God's grace will be there for the change.

It is only a widow, it is said, who can understand a widow. And only those who have experienced pain and conflict, and have been at the bottom, can give hope to those who live without hope. The bitter experience we have undergone as a divided nation, when healed, will go a long way to passing along, in God's providence, what has been learned to other struggling nations of the world.

Internet Game Addiction

The addictive behaviors of  the young, and yes even those of others, is a serious problem within society. A  priest writing in a bulletin for priests mentions that in his work among the young, he has come in contact with many who, finding it difficult to adapt to society, have resorted to violence. And today, the addiction, more often than not, finds its outlet in internet games.

In  Korean society with its digital environment, the young are easily exposed to the allure of internet games. In the  homes, public  PC rooms, and the easy availability of smart devices, it is all very natural and easy to enter the gaming world of cyberspace. The writer delves into the question whether it's easier for Korean youth to be addicted to the gaming world than it is in other cultures. He feels that it is, and presents a few of the reasons why.

First, the young face the pressure of studies, and have few ways of ridding themselves of the stress, gaming on the internet provides them with one way of overcoming some of the stress. Second, the games are enjoyable, easy to access, and the social networking game is inviting and technically well-constructed, enabling the players to react with one another with ease. Third, without a familiarity with the gaming world, the young would be alienated from their friends.

In addition, in the home where there is a lack of proper care, with the young finding themselves unclear about the future, games tend to fill this lack in their lives. It is when the problem appears that parents then begin looking around at the other children to find the answer. When it comes to this point, the priest says, the children are usually already addicted to the games, and the only thing that can be done is to help free them from the addiction. The priest says that all those who are knowledgeable about the addiction process understand that more important than any therapy is to prevent the addiction in the first place.

The writer recommends that the older generation uncover the reasons why young people find the cyberspace world of games so enjoyable and entertaining, in order to better help them re-enter the real world.  To do this, it is necessary, he says, to change a few of the ways we think. Games are not unconditionally bad; elders have to be able to speak about the games, and the young  have to be told  of ways they can find joy in the world outside of cyberspace.

We all need to be concerned, he says, but those in pastoral ministry, especially, have to give this problem much thought, not forgetting the importance of nurturing a life of faith as the basic solution for overcoming not only this problem, but all others as well.