Peace Catholic Radio Station had a contest for original hymns and one of the prison inmates entered his compositions, he was not able to be present but was giving special recognition by the judges. The chaplain of the prison wrote about his feelings in an article for the Pastoral Bulletin.
The prisoner was a very zealous Catholic and the leader of the Catholics in the prison. He was taking a correspondence course offered by the school of theology; an exemplary prisoner who was determined to change his life.
In a meeting of pastoral workers for the prisoners he heard about the family of those that our exemplary prisoner had inflicted harm. Family members were not able to rid themselves of the hurt that was experienced. As a chaplain he never forgot the victims of the crimes perpetrated, but hearing what was said about the prisoner did make him feel uncomfortable.
He remembered a film, Secret Sunshine, and the meaning of forgiveness. The heroine of the movie lost her husband in a automobile accident and she moves with grief to the small hometown of her dead husband. She becomes interested in Christianity. Shortly after becoming a Christian, her son was killed by an owner of an academy. After some time, moved by her new found faith, decided to go to the prison to forgive the man who killed her son. With difficulty she told the prisoner that she was there to forgive him for what he had done. However, the prisoner calmly and easily responded that he had already been forgiven by God.The mother, the person the prisoner should be asking for forgiveness, and hearing him say that God had already forgiven him was too much for her. The mother promptly lost any semblance of faith she had, and our writer sees the question of forgiveness in a new light.
This situation is not only seen in movies, but often in daily life. There are many who have suffered, been hurt and to whom much harm has been inflicted in our history and in the present day, and yet we have few who ask for forgiveness.
In the past when our country was taken away from us by the Japanese we have many in those days who have benefited by their relationship with the Japanese and their children have important positions in our society, but few have asked for forgiveness. During the totalitarian rule many were killed but few have expressed any need to be forgiven.
In the recent Sewol tragedy there are many who have caused great harm to the victims and their families but few asking for forgiveness.
Forgiveness is a means of healing. Those who have been hurt need this for healing.Many have been forgiven who have not asked for forgiveness, and those that need to ask for forgiveness don't.Those that ask for forgiveness are those that really are forgiven. Why do we have so few?
The Catholic Times' bishop's column on Faith and Economics has a partial list of the 10 tips for happiness the pope mentioned in his interview with the Argentine magazine Viva.
+“Live and let live"--move
forward and let others do the same. + “Give of yourself to
others”-- people need to be open and generous toward others. +“Proceed
calmly” in life."+"A healthy sense of leisure"-- turn off the TV when you sit down to
eat. + "Sundays should be holidays"--Sunday is for family. + "Respect the environment and work for its care." + "Work for peace," and of three others, the bishop selects the need to find innovative ways to +"create jobs for your young people and give them the opportunities to work."
Pope Francis has already on many occasions expressed the need to help solve the problem of work for the young. His attendance at the Asian meeting of the young people shows this interest. Last year at the end of the World Youth Day in Brazil, talking with the journalists he mentioned the danger of the large number of young people without jobs, and criticized the inhuman elements in the labor market.
The pope mentioned we are preparing for a society without jobs. A person finds satisfaction from the work they do which gives them a sense of worth. In the work force the young people are often seen as disposable. We are becoming accustomed to a throwaway culture-- habituated to throwing away so much in the culture in which we live. The pope sees these young people managing our future, and wants to communicate with them.
He direct our attention to the poor and the minorities in society.They need to receive hope and courage.We are not only facing an economic crisis but one of values. The pope is seeing the issue as a pastor and not as a specialist in economic matters.
When the young are not able to have a place in society to complete themselves they are drawn to drugs and despair.The problem for Korea is serious and has been for some time.The number unemployed is over 1 million. With the young the percentage is over 40 percent. We know overcoming difficulties is not always a negative but there is a limit to this. Here in Korea we have 3 areas of life in which many of the young have given up-- romance, marriage and having children.
Like the Pope we need to see the need for work for our young people if we are to have a healthy Church and society. This hope is not only for a certain time in our history but for the future of humankind.
Creativity and imagination are two assets that help us live a full life. Our attachment to the internet world is seen as a diminishment in our ability to relate with the real world and to engage our brains. A religious sister who has made media ecology her interest writes in a series of articles in the Korean Times about the problems we face in this new world.
Many of our young people hate to read, think and write. Reading helps us to think, thinking helps us to discuss and to write. Frances Bacon said: "Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man."
She feel that if the students realized that reading makes one a more complete person, they would see reading differently. The way they see reading in school is a rite of passage to get into college. Once they get into college they can do away with it.
The smart phone for the young people is a pathway to freedom and deliverance. She doesn't know what comes first. Whether they become attached to the smart phone and don't read or they don't read and become attached to the smartphone. What is clear is that when one's attention is taken up with the stimulation that comes from the games and the smartphone, reading will be difficult. Middle school children are the ones mostly affected: 30 percent of the students find their text books difficult. To read and understand is the problem.
The sister mentions professor David Levy who coined the word: 'popcorn brain' syndrome — a brain so accustomed to the
constant stimulation of electronic multitasking making one unfit for
life offline, where things pop at a much slower pace. We become indifferent to our reality, our attention span is reduced.
When the smart phone becomes like another appendage we become lethargic to the outside world, lose sensitivity to our surroundings, find it difficult to express our emotions and read the emotions of others. When this happens, she says, it is difficult to expect human instincts and virtuous living to follow.
She recommends in the home to keep the interchange with the children open. She would like all to keep a diary of the use of the smart phone and in the evening have a place in the living room to keep them. Before they go to sleep, as a form of prayer she advises to review some sentences they read during the day. Hopefully, she says this will become a habit, similar to the one they have with the smart phone.
In
Korean the word for 'different' and 'wrong' have a similarity that in
speech fosters their incorrect use, says a professor of philosophy and
ethics. In the diocesan bulletin he writes about the differences and
how it is an obstacle to communication.
We
use the word 'different' when we compare two or more subjects that are
not the same. An example would be the difference in the appearance of this person and
that person. On the other hand we use the word 'incorrect'
when we
want to express that something is wrong or contrary to what it should
be. When these two words are not given their proper meaning we have the
death of communication.
When I should say your opinion is different from mine and instead say you are wrong we have a fight.
Different = wrong
was the thinking of the past when interchange with others was
infrequent, travel difficult and contact with other
countries was rare. The Chinese idiom: 'Frog in the well' would be one
way of describing the person who would not be able to grasp the
difference between these two words. People who have lived together for
years in the same spot, the word different in accordance with their
experience would be understood as incorrect. This would follow from
being a racially homogeneous people. However, the professor reminds us
that according to the study of genes, Korea is a composite of 60
percent from the Northern countries and 40 percent from the South. He
regards the understanding of a homogeneous people as a myth.
Those
who are similar to us are normal. The different are abnormal and
wrong: different=incorrect. This understanding has come to us from the
past and we are influenced by it to this day. Blood, region, school ties
all come to the fore when we have an election. Mixed blood, different
races, foreign workers, the handicapped, the weak, minorities-- realities we find difficult to accept into the
nation-family. We are unyielding in this exclusive, cliquish, and
unhealthy behavior, a black and white logic which concludes the
different, without discernment, to be wrong.
We
want all to be the same, but we are different. There are seven billion
people on the face of the earth: similar but different. Each one
is an unique person. That which is different in each one of us is what
distinguishes us from the other. What makes us different is not
abnormal but normal but important as it is we do not want only to stress
the difference because what is similar is greater. What makes us
different has to be in harmony and balance with what is the same. When
this harmony and balance is broken or separated we all suffer. Same and
different are the prerequisite for communication. In our relations rather than
stressing the different and wrong we should be more concerned with the different and the same.
There
are positions that are objectively not correct and those that are
correct, but when we communicate with others if we go directly to what is
different and consider it wrong then the doors to communication are
closed. We are all searching for truth. Working with what is the same
and what is different we keep the doors open and the possibility of agreeing in our search for truth.
In a contribution to the Chosun secular daily newspaper, one of the
elder clerics, Monsignor Tjeng Eui-chai, who has a teaching chair at
Sogang University, reflects for his readers on the meaning of Pope
Francis' visit to Korea.
Pope Francis was a
non-European and from a land that was for 500 years a colony of Europe.
We have a movement in the 3rd millennium evolving to a common culture
and the monsignor sees the pope's visit to Korea in this light.
At
the airport we have the pope in the 'Kia Soul', a small car followed by
highly placed dignitaries in their big cars. This rare sight is a
forerunner of what the future holds in store: power to serve the
citizens, wealth to serve the poor, and the strong to serve the weak.
In the third millennium we will have the rule that has come down to us from God's creation.
What have the two millenniums of
the past shown us? In the first we moved from the Roman Empire that
dictated to the whole world to a little town in Bethlehem where a baby
was born, like us a human, but worshiped as God; the roads that led to
Rome moved to Jerusalem.
In the second millennium we
had the religious reformation, and the industrial revolution, and at the
same time the dehumanization of humanity with totalitarianism and
colonization. With the rise of communism, atheism appeared at its
zenith. The two world wars brought us to edge of life and death, but at
the beginning of this century we had the example of love in Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and the apostle for the new millennium in Pope John
Paul II.
One of the Christians saw the appearance of
Pope Francis from the colonized continent on the world's stage as
Christ for our times. Pope Francis can be seen as the beginnings of a
common culture. He sees the North/South Korean situation as the noble cause
of our time and whether we progress or regress will depend on the way
we deal with it.
The monsignor sees the popularity of
Francis coming from the way he listens to everybody and tries to
understand their situation. He sees the problems of others as his own.
The poor, the handicapped, the comfort women of the Japanese military,
the families of the Sewol tragedy these were all a concern of his. He at
the same time showed a great deal of wisdom. On the plane back to Rome
he was asked a question about the comfort women and gave a shrewd
answer: "Today, the women were there and despite all they suffered they
have
dignity, they showed it in their faces."
For the monsignor the words the pope addressed to the young people were for him the most memorable: "Stay awake." They are being addressed, the monsignor wants to believe, especially to the young people who are going out to the developing countries of the world
on a mission as members of the Korean Peace Corp. They have in less than
50 years come from a undeveloped country to a developed county and have a great deal to teach others in the underdeveloped countries of the world.
The
monsignor has been a strong proponent of a Korean Peace Corp for many
years and our previous president promised to send young people
overseas each year and we have many of them now working in different
countries of the world. He finishes the article by hoping the young people will continue to expand their presence all over the world.
One of the shadows on the educational system in Korea
is tutoring-- private academies take much of the families money
and time from the students preventing them from enjoying their youth. A researcher
at the Catholic University Learning Center puts some light on the problems
associated with private tutoring.
“Four hours of sleep and you pass, 5 hours of sleep and
you will flunk.” These are the words that have been around for many years.
Academy buses are easily seen on the streets. Our college students work part
time teaching in these academies and those who want to teach, but can’t
find work, are employed by these academies. Entrance examinations to college
are the problem, and she doesn't want parents to see this as inevitable, but to continue to search for remedies.
Efforts have been made with free compulsory education, free
lunches, and after school programs that have decreased the expenses on the
parents for public education, but the private keeps going up. The academies
are following the same programs as the public schools and for that reason
called 'shadow education'. The reliance on private education decreases from the
81.8 percent in elementary school, 69.5 in middle school and 55.9 percent
in high school. In the lower grades we have concern for the students interests,
cultural pursuits and aptitudes while in high school it is preparing for
college entrance.
The conditions in many of the academies are worse than the
regular school situation but the main reason for attending is to raise the
grades of the students. If the students don't go to the academies, they are
left alone during after school hours, another reason for going to the academies. Many believe the private
academies are supplementing the teaching in the schools, but those who have studied the
situation feel it is to increase the competitive ability of the students.
Family expenses are going up. Educational
levels are being determined by money, nurturing more dissatisfaction, and building a culture that
sees grades as all important. The meaning of
education is distorted, the place of education in the home is belittled, and fostering a need for separation from
family in search of learning. These elements which are distorting the
education of our students is making parents forget to develop the gifts children have received.
She recommends that the school decrease the number of
students for each teacher. Stop the classification of jobs as
high or low, and ranking them according to prestige. Efforts are necessary to change the cultural need to relate with others according to their rank in society: not judging only by externals. Without this liberation we will not be freed from the need for private education. There is a need for the parents to stop
looking for ways to better the education of their children. She asks is the
education for the good of the child or the good of the parent? Are the academies helping the
children to be more vital or are they oppressive and preventing growth? Is it not happiness and vitality that the parents want for their children?
The diocesan bulletin finishes the series of articles on communication with the place of mutual understanding as an important quality in leadership. The professor uses the words of Pope Francis asking when we give alms to a beggar do we look into their eyes? If not do we at least grasp their hand? With these gestures we are meeting the person to whom we are giving alms. We need to be at the same level of the person with whom we are trying to communicate and be sensitive to their situation. The pope's method of leadership in understanding is not what we usually see in society, but rather the 'follow me' bulldozer type of leadership.
Korea's economic and educational level is that of a developed country, and with the changes we have in society the bulldozer type of leader is not what we need. No matter how capable a person is the lone-ranger type of approach does not easily solve our problems. What we need is respect for the other, sensitivity to another position. We want all to participate and ask those in leadership to be sensitive and have respect for the others within the community.
Communicating requires that the leader does not reign over the community but stand together with them, and look into their eyes.This is the first first requisite of a leader. Dialogue to mediate and manage the conflicts and misunderstandings, to encourage, praise, assist the members of the community to spontaneously judge their situation and take the initiative in finding solutions. Changes from outside are many and efforts to correct and harmoniously deal with the problems that arise are necessary.
In every society we have the progressives and conservatives, the left and the right, conflict and misunderstandings. We have those that agree and those opposed, those who like and those who don't: a very normal situation. We take this for granted. The means we need to follow require we persuade those who are involved. This does not mean we try to have others on our side or overcome them, but to remain in dialogue. Success or failure in persuading depends on the opening of the hearts of the others. The effort expended requires a great deal of energy and is a difficult process. All parties have to see the result of dialogue as a victory, and be able to live with the results. From this understanding we have leadership by persuasion and co-existence.
Leaders try to manage, be administrators of people. They need to read the hearts of those in their community, and read their own heart and emotions. To do this, their EQ index (Emotional Quotient-- measure of a person's adequacy in such areas as self-awareness, empathy, and dealing sensitively with others) has to be raised and to help those in the community to raise their own index. We need to smooth over the sediment from emotions that are not helpful, and harmonize the feelings that come from sensitivity, and help the members to relate gently with one another, which means sensitive leadership.
This does not require a need to speak well. What is needed for communication, concludes the professor, is the meeting of hearts. Without sympathy we will not have communication. This leadership sensitivity is what we mean by communication leadership. This kind of leadership is not only for the individual, an organization, a company or a community, but for all of society.
