"When in a 'high seat' one imagines leading others, revenge on one's enemies, people are afraid and will flatter me and keep me happy. I can drop a person to the ground or raise them to the heavens. I can help people that come to me pleading their sorrowful situation. Those who receive help will praise me and like me. I will outwardly take pains to refuse the praise" D. Pantoja. (Diego Pantoja was a Spanish Jesuit and missionary to China who is best known for having accompanied Matteo Ricci in Beijing) The first paragraph of an article on 'Lowest Seat' in the Kyeongyang magazine by a teaching psychiatrist.
In our present society pride is rampant: a feeling of one's extreme importance, exaggerating one's accomplishments and abilities, a desire to receive acclaim. It's often seen in our leaders and accepted as a necessary 'virtuous trait' of a capable leader. It is not always easy to distinguish between a healthy dignity and unhealthy pride. The pride that controls us, we call in psychological language narcissism.
Those who are in search of worldly values are not the only ones where we find narcissism. Also, we see it with those who are fastidious in their feelings of superiority in the acquisition of virtue and laud it over others. When they don't reach their goal they condemn those who don't meet their expectations and lack toleration and understanding. They devalue others and don't realize how far they are from virtue. In the Christian tradition, pride was considered the queen of the vices.
In describing personality often we use the words humble and honest. The meanings are different but they point to a similar quality. They both hate pretense and search for justice and avoid luxury and a self-indulgent lifestyle. There are many different personality types depending on those who make the studies, the writer selects the following six: Honesty-Humility, Emotionality, Extroversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness to Experience.
From way back in history in Far East Asia, humility was an important virtue. Lowering oneself and raising the other was the attitude of the gentleman. We have thrown away the virtue. Making money and social position are the opposite of poverty and simplicity.
Heinz Kohut an American psychoanalyst is quoted as saying to break the hold that narcissism has, one needs to silently accept the pain and acknowledge and understand narcissism. How many are able to accept that pain? Enduring the uncomfortableness of unhealthy self-love, makes it easy to tear down others and build up their own lying self. Shamelessly deceiving themselves and hiding in that self-made illusion.
What can we do to make sure humility does not disappear from the face of the earth? He recommends when we meet the humble and can do it with joy, we should secretly help them. Help them without anybody knowing even the individual.
We have more people who are making themselves known in our society. Bluster, pride, boasting but we also have those who shine like jewels. Those who are in the low seats need to be raised. The rest of us need to raise them without any fanfare and unbeknown to all.
In the Catholic Peace Weekly, a professor with a doctorate in education reveals some interesting information on student efforts to enter a prestigious college. As a result of analyzing the successful candidates, they found the ratio of those who entered after high school in 2019 decreased and the repeaters (taking the exam one or more times because of failure) have increased. 43% percent passed on their first try, 40,2% passed on the second try and 15.3% passed on the third try.
College admission experts said that the college scholastic ability test in 2019 was easier for those experienced in taking the test than those who were taking it for the first time and this showed in the results.
2020 academic college entrance exams are expected to be easier. The Institute that oversees the SAT test, said it will work towards this end. For this reason, students who received a low grade in the college entrance examination are attracted to the academies. These institutes were crowded with applicants and classes were filled quickly preparing for next year's test.
Those who have failed in their first try require determination and self-confidence. If you lived with an amateur spirit during your school years, you have to become a professional. You have tasted failure once and don't want a repeat. "If I try again will my grades go up?" According to the data analyzed by an academy, 9 out of 10 students' grades have gone up. This is a fact that those who have experienced failure know.
The professor gives us his own experience of failure. At that time, his classmates who passed the entrance exams and were attending prestigious universities wore uniforms and school badges on their chests. In order not to encounter these classmates from high school he took the first subway from Incheon Station to the academy in Seoul. After class, he would take the last train.
He remembers Mao's tactics. It was a 1-foot retreat to move forward two feet. In the end, he received a high score in the college entrance enabling him to enter the three most prestigious universities in South Korea: Seoul National University, Korea University, and Yonsei University.
At that time, Korea University had a special screening system based only on the grades from the SAT and he passed. The joy was too great for words. He studied hard and was at the top of his class.
However, the eyes of those in society don't look too warmly on those who have experienced this failure in their young lives. This needs to change. They are an important human resource to lead the country. The schools, community, and the government should all be concerned in their guidance and mental health. Also a concern for those who fail and continue to fail and find it difficult to come to a decision that college is not the only future for a young person. Here we have a need to change the way society looks upon life and its meaning.
In a recent article in the Catholic Times, a journalist reminds readers in the era of industrialization, the 'humanities' have been neglected but now a craze in our time. Books and lectures on the humanities are now popular.
The church is also involved in this opening to the 'humanities'. The organizations and groups within the church are taking a lead in its spread. Is it not possible to see it as a means of cultivating a rich life of faith?
What are the humanities? We can define it as referring to human origins, thought, and culture. The natural sciences approach the phenomena of nature and society empirically; the humanities— the meaning of existence—is approached speculatively. In other words, a discipline that seeks meaning so that we can live like human beings. This is the present interest in the humanities.
In the UN World Happiness Report released last year, Korea was 57th out of 157 countries. Among the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) member countries, it was 32nd among 34 countries. Considering that Korea's gross domestic product (GDP) was the 12th largest in the world in 2017, the feeling of happiness has not followed economic development. Proof that many cannot find meaning in life even with material abundance.
President of a Catholic University said: "Study in the humanities are necessary to regain what it means to be human. I think it grows when you eat barley rice, but many have thought that it came when we were able to eat hamburgers." The study of the humanities teaches us that is not the case.
Today, humanities are considered to be separate from faith. But historically, theology and the humanities have been inseparable. The Fathers of the Church in their sermons on the teaching of the apostles have had a profound impact on faith and church life and are representative humanist scholars. From that time on the Church has developed the humanities and given us many scholars.
Thomas Aquinas said that grace does not destroy nature but completes it. Here, nature refers to characteristics unique to humans, such as reason, emotion, and conscience. God respects the human nature of each of us; God leads us by grace, we cooperate with God through the power of nature. The role of the humanities is to cultivate and enrich human nature.
A professor at a Graduate School said that the Church Fathers brought the gospel to the people in their culture and thought—indigenized the gospel to the culture. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) is called one of the teachers and great humanists of the West.
Humanities are still an important tool in religious education. St. Pope John Paul II, in the encyclical Fides and Ratio said: "Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth, and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth." Philosophy is the indispensable means of communicating this to those without belief.
In the church, educators say the humanities can be a good way to reeducate believers who have a tendency to separate life from faith. We can connect life and faith based on our understanding of humanity and ourselves. Many believers in the modern world are accustomed to rational criticism, so if we do not systematically train and cultivate faith in the humanities, many will lose interest in religion itself.
Although the importance of the humanities in education is emphasized to believers, there is a danger that if you emphasize only the humanities, you may fall into materialism and atheistic thought. According to Pope John Paul II in Faith and Reason— "some philosophers have abandoned the search for truth in itself and made their sole aim the attainment of a subjective certainty or a pragmatic sense of utility." Criticizing philosophical thought that accelerated the separation of faith and reason.
Though delicate attention is needed, fear and unconditional rejection is not the answer. It is necessary to have an attitude of dialogue, critical confrontation and respect for a difference of opinion.
Since the church has always played a role in embracing and protecting the humanities, they are an area the church needs to advance. With the humanities, we can work together with all religions and all people to protect the dignity of the human person made in the image of God. We need to protect these human values.
Today again we hear about a small girl who was killed violently. Hearing this news the writer felt a blow to her breast. Who could possibly do such a deed? She was on her way to see a scholar who has made a study of crime. The journalist has an account of her interview in the Bible And Life magazine.
It was vacation time and few students were on campus. The journalist had made an appointment to meet the professor and was greeted kindly. The professor has been working with criminals for over 20 years studying their proclivities and thinking. She is the first one in Korea to have taken up the study of the psychology of criminals. It was only in the past 2 or 3 years that she felt a need to make her studies known to the public.
From her studies the use of electronic tagging, criminal justice policies have been influenced. She is busy with advising those in the field of criminal justice and answering questions for the media.
She gave the example of stalking and the reasons for its prevention for often it results in harm to the women pursued. She uses this to show the steps that need to be taken to prevent acts that often precede the crimes.
Why aren't we able to help the defenseless children facing sexual abuse and violence. She is filled with shame and recalls the case of a criminal who violated an eight-year-old child that was playing in the morning before attending school because both parents had to work.
The child was assaulted brutally and even her internal organs were damaged. She was fortunate to be alive. This incident became known to the public and many things began to change: electronic tagging, making known the criminal publicly, abrogated was the need to file a complaint before legal procedures could begin. A big step in protecting the rights of victims
The professor emphasized that the environment in the family is important. If we can learn why crime does not arise we will have the answer clearly for why it does. The reason I am not doing something criminal is that I am able to control myself because as a child I was taught how to do this by parents. When a child commits a crime in the United States they investigate the family and punish the family when warranted. Children are often sent to institutions that will give them the moral training they lack. The professor feels this is missing in our society.
She has made studies of thousands of prisoners and the number of sexual crimes are few and sentences from 2 to 3 years. In Korea, the average numbers of sexual crimes in a year is about 30 thousand and with children about 3,000. It is not lower than other countries. The problem is that society doesn't realize that sexual crimes are as terrible as murders. The victims have to live with the pain which society doesn't see.
She wanted to have interviews with those in prison for sexual crimes to understand better her studies but being a woman and a private individual was refused. She felt that she wasn't able to do everything possible and got a replacement in teaching and went to Texas in the United States where the prisons were many, to continue her studies. She prepared herself to return to Korea and begin interviewing prisoners. Results from the interviews have helped many in their work.
She left the ivory tower and books to hear those in prison not as a lawyer but like a mother or an aunt. She has never received a threatening telephone call and has received letters from those who have been released from prison explaining what they were doing. Her work is to help the many defenseless people in society with the knowledge that she has acquired in her work. She is speaking to those who have ears ready to hear and the interviewer prays she will continue in her work for many more years.
This year is the 10th anniversary of the death of Cardinal Stephen Kim Soo-hwan. A priest sociology professor of a Catholic University writes about the Cardinal and his consciousness of history in the Catholic Times.
In the modern and contemporary history of Korea, Cardinal Kim was a living conscience and a cornerstone in the history of democratization. During his tenure, the Catholic Church of Korea became a respected religion despite the few members.
When we think of the shameful history of the Catholic Church, in the way they treated Ahn Jung-geun as a criminal, and during the Pacific War holding hands with the Japanese Governor General and helping in their war efforts, the changes in our church seem close to a miracle.
This year is also the 100th anniversary of the March 1st Independence (from the Japanese) Movement. Of the 33 members, no one was Catholic and the writer feels sick and confused remembering that fact.
Although understood that the Paris Foreign Missionary Society, the leaders of the Church at that time, did suffer from the aftermaths of the French Revolution, contributed much to the East Asian missions. However, we can't overlook that Bishop Mutel, the bishop at that time, his only focus was the saving of souls. He wrote in his diary that the seminarians who engaged in demonstrations during the March 1st protest were ruffians.
When the church does not participate in the suffering of the nation it will not be the light and salt of the world and will lose the respect of the citizens. The Catholic Church of Japan, which suffered persecution and produced countless martyrs, tolerated and was silent on worshiping the emperor. The public status of the church was greatly weakened. How then should the church participate in the suffering of the poor and oppressed people in the midst of history?
Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan did not ignore the suffering people in the midst of military dictatorship, but suffered with them and carried with them the cross. In his "authenticity" he had many sleepless nights on ways to express the unfairness in the live broadcasts against the government. His amazing leadership was accomplished in human agony, constant reflection and prayer.
The Second Vatican Council said in the first chapter of the Pastoral Constitution: "The joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of the men of this age, especially those who are poor or in any way afflicted, these too are the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties of the followers of Christ." Cardinal Kim was an "adult" of God in our day who fully realized the spirit of the Council and embodied it in life.
Remembering Cardinal Kim has a meaning beyond the commemorative events in displaying his photographs and relics but a hope we can imitate his life and spirit among us today. "I have never thought of myself as a progressive or on the left during all the troubles. I only wanted to be with the poor, the suffering people, and the weak to protect their dignity "(Cardinal Kim Soo-hwan).
In Korea as in many other parts of the world, efforts are made to conscientize world citizens on global warming and climate change. In a diocesan bulletin a parish priest, the head of an enviromental committee in the diocese writes about the issue for the readers on what we can do right now.
This year we saw little snow and real cold weather. Many think it's the results of global warming. However, the fact is that in America and Europe, they experienced heavy snowfall and cold weather like nothing in the past. Those who argue that global warming and the dangers of climate change are spurious continue to forment controversy.
However, everyone is aware that the current situation is very different from the situation we knew in the past. Climate scientists argue that what we experienced in the past and the different situations of the present in the global ecosystem are proof of climate instability caused by global warming. In Belgium, high school students have gained the attention of the world by absenting themselves from school and demanding a proper response to global warming and consequently climate change.
One student who participated in the protest said in an interview with the press: "The adults left us a broken earth. It's our job to change it. Adults can not do it, but we can. We have the spirit to change the climate and change everything."
What can we do? Unexpectedly small changes can change the world. Walk for health and use public transportation, do not use elevators when not difficult, turn off lights in unused spaces, use energy-efficient products. Keeping the right temperature in summer and winter, wearing warm underclothes in the winter, refusing disposables and have the habit of using a personal cup (tumbler) will help cope with global warming by reducing carbon emissions.
Also, do not purchase over-packaged products, use a shopping bag to buy the least-packaged or completely unpackaged food, cook with fresh ingredients instead of packaged fast food. We can solve the microplastic problems, save energy, respond to climate change, and start dealing with the hunger problems that arise around the world.
Fast food consumption must be reduced if we are to protect the local areas that produce the food, and reduce the cutting down of trees. Multinational corporations and their household goods and foodstuffs consume enormous amounts of energy, and are burdensome to the environment in their distribution. Using food products produced in the area where we live will protect the ecosystem and prevent the occurrence of environmental refugees. Farm markets in these areas are a good response to global warming and help environmental refugees.
The pros and cons of global warming are far from obvious, considered more a political issue than ecological by many. Fear of what it will do to the economy. However, the efforts to work towards a minimal or a simpler life style may not only be healthy for the environment but good for the psyche now and in the future.
A member of the press staff of the Catholic Peace Weekly writes in the Word and Silence column about the dream he had of a library full of books. The day never came and even after moving over ten times, the bookcase stands on one side of the living room.
When someone turns on the TV, the gleaming light and sound dominate the space. The bookshelf is in the wrong place. He spent the New Year holidays throwing away his books. Books were scattered throughout the house. The solution was to thin them out.
Books are not just a treasure house of knowledge and a fountain of wisdom. Ready to throw out a book memories come back. The coffee stain on the page, the words underlined, remarks in the margins, the memory of the book on the beach, summer, do you want to erase all these memories?
He thought the selection of the books would take only a few hours but continued until the next day. In front of the books, reasons for their survival made the trial stretch out indeterminately. When appeals for survival came from certain books they were put on a list to be read. He was forced to set up a strict standard for the slaughter. A book unlikely to be read is boldly discarded. He ignored the memories, passions, and virtues of youth. Only books he would read would remain.
So he ended the Chinese New Year with this slaughter. He filled three bookshelves and got some free space. Looking at the books that survived, the trial was never fair. Another hidden criterion exerted its force. It was a camouflage to hide his lack of knowledge. This was vanity, he wanted to show off the books he had read. Maybe merely an excuse for oneself. What was left on the bookshelf were not books, but lies and greed? It was the size of his desire and obsession that he still had not forsaken.
Looking back, not just books, things are scattered all over the house. Objects he wont use and regrets throwing away; clothes that he won't wear again, bowls not seen in years, a gift unwrapped never used, and the giver just a flickering memory.
Many things should have been given away. Things that did not go to the person who needed it lost value and became one of his odds and ends. Not a sign of thrift and diligence but a token of stupidity and egotism.
Space becomes bigger the emptier it is. The more you throw away, the more space you have. Objects encroach upon space and gradually infiltrate the mind. The soul overcome with a desire for gain does not contemplate heaven because of its eartly weight.
Obsession is a property of fragile souls. Greed reveals the emptiness of the mind. A person who has not accumulated treasures in his heart is obsessed with wealth. The less a person has to show the greater the ostentation. He wants to begin to get rid of what he has.
He is not far from retirement both from work and society. He will no longer be on active duty or given a role to fill and should be learning the wisdom of emptying and abandoning. He'll be throwing things out one by one, no more collecting. He wants at the end of life to pray in an empty room with only a Bible on his desk.
