"Alcoholism is a disease cured only by death." Lament of many families who have members addicted to alcohol. View from the Ark column of the Catholic Times has an article on the issue by a person working with alcoholics.
After many years of hearing lies, frustration builds up and despair appears in the form of a pitiful scream. A hopeless disease gives birth to frustration. Alcoholism makes the life of the victim a mess, and brings depression and insecurity to the family. They can't blame each other leading to the break down of the family. Often the alcoholism is handed down to other members of the family.
Even the doctors who have tried to help the sick person have a feeling of failure. The sick persons, tears in their eyes, stopped drinking and leave the hospital and within a few months completely drunk return to the hospital and threaten the doctor. On occasion when a family member returns to report the death of the person the bewilderment of doctor is hard to imagine. In fact, the death brings the end to the addiction.... Efforts to help the alcoholic seems meaningless.
However, those who have achieved success and the doctors with one voice say there is hope with alcoholism. In a local Korean study 50 to 60% of those who have been treated in a hospital return to drinking within three months. Only 15 % stay off drink. Out of ten only 1 or 2 stay off drinking. Another study showed that 80% of those that stay away from drink for two years continue.
Those who are addicted to alcohol have a difficult road to travel: " I consider my years as an alcoholic as a blessing." Words uttered by a middle-aged person who was freed from alcohol for the last two years. Before he became an alcoholic he was not a happy person. He worked hard and made a lot of money but was not able to handle the stress and no direction to his life.
When he hit bottom and started to change, his way of life changed giving new direction. Relationship with family and friends all changed for the better. If the drinking problem was not there he would not have changed and he would not have found the joy he now has.
Christians not only remember the failure, suffering, and death of Jesus but the new dawn the Resurrection. We need to overcome the momentary failures. As long as one does not despair there is hope.
In the deep recesses of a mountain area of Korea, a little church stands out like a star. Three miles from the main road lined with wild pears and peach trees, you enter a small village of 30 houses. Fruit trees were planted by the community from which they make a drink they sell. The village leader is a 54-year-old Protestant minister. A daily newspaper recently had an article on the life of the minister which was recopied for a bulletin written for Catholic priests.
He dreamed of a missionary life in Africa and went to Australia for training where he stayed for 4 years. During this period instead of learning about mission life, he was exposed to conflict. Each was only interested in their own church and didn't care if the others existed or not. He wanted community and decided to return to Korea in 2002.
He went to this area to live and the community thought that he was going to be working with the handicapped and even tried to stop him from entering the village in his car. He asked for a village meeting. At the meeting the village leader made him promise not to visit the houses asking them to believe in Jesus. He promised and meant it. He would not speak about Jesus and do only what Jesus wanted.
Since he was the youngest in the village he was the one they asked to solve their problems and he took care of the odd jobs of the community. He was addressed like everybody else, no titles.
Although he didn't build any church the thought didn't quickly disappear. The community was still abusing him and believed he would eventually show his true intentions.
He and his wife were busy living the Christian life in the village and one day one of the villagers asked: "Who is cleaning the road of the rocks? Another villager responded: "Who in the villager would be doing this kind of drudgery?" From that time the abuse stopped and instead praise. They made him the village leader unanimously. He was busy.
During the New Year's Celebrations, they put a pig's head, steamed rice-cakes, pollack, and fruits on the road and had a welcoming sacrifice for the New Year. They called the village head to be present. They asked him to represent them in prayer. In that desolate country place: "Sun, moon, stars all created things that God has made, we thank you" these words resonated loud and clear. All the grandmothers and grandfathers answered with 'Amen'. It was hard to believe.
At the seventieth birthday of one of the grandfathers who had a little too much to drink suggested that since we work during the day it would be nice in the evening to get together to pray and sing hymns. He was the first to be baptized. The church began with him 8 years ago. Four years later the village leader who called him a Jesus freak was baptized and today of the 45 villagers half come out to the church and on the feasts of Easter and Thanksgiving all attend the church service.
The church has some peculiarities: no tithing, there is only one service on Sundays, in the afternoon work of service for others.
He often hears a fisher needs to go to a place where there are a lot of fish. He is happy to light a little spark in his part of the world. He feels people are not happy because they do not have intimate personal relationships in the society in which they live. He has found happiness with the villagers and together with nature in a close relationship doing God's work, how could he not be happy!
In human society, important factors are the common feelings and skills to communicate and build friendships. This common feeling often means common sense. A seminary professor in the Catholic Times begins his article in View from the Ark with these words on 'Rationality of Common Sense and Reason, and the Art of Consensus'.
Presently in society, we see much that doesn't make sense. Parents abandon their children so they can live alone, children kill their parents for failure to help them, using friendship to deceive another, lovers who fall out of love threaten and kill, blacklisting people with whom you don't agree to secretly push them out of society, buying people with money to do your will. These things, of course, have always been present in society, the mass media, the social network, and the smartphones have possibly just made it easier to access what is happening.
It's important to remember that much that determines common sense is not rational but public opinion, manipulated statistics and news and gossip. We have different ideologies pushed, refusal to dialogue, unconditionally criticizing others irrationally, makes a society that's not interested in common sense.
The German philosopher, Jurgen Habermas, emphasized that when we work searching for consensus and freed from ideologies we have a community that allows free discussion and rational dialogue. He believes that when you have an honest dialogue between persons who are equal and trust each other consensus can be reached without this thinking we have only violence.
Last year, society's common sense and through reasonable examination of the hidden long-standing irregularities and inconsistencies a change took place. "Righteous anger" was expressed peacefully as we learned the truth that was disguised and concealed. Coming up against the lies of long-held power we experienced what true freedom, justice, and peace were. Habermas's common sense and rational dialogue help us in the first step to solve the problems present with different opinions and values with constant dialogue and discussion.
According to the Samsung Economic Research Institute, Korea spends 27% of GDP per capita on conflict cost. Conflict is a part of every society but efforts are necessary to resolve them and they are not attained overnight. They must begin with the individual person. It begins in the family, the attitude of the parents and the children. Listen carefully to each other and from where each is coming. We learn perseverance, respect, and skills of persuasion, and learn to communicate to coexist.
The Church needs the same skills. For the Christian, this should be more vital and important. If we as a Church are not open to dialogue, communication, fellowship, and common sense it's a sign we will have problems in dealing with some long-standing evils.This is what Martin Luther was speaking about 500 years ago through the Reformation for renewal something we need to remember.
Recently in Korea, there has been a controversy over harmful effects of women's sanitary napkins. A college professor writes a column for the Catholic Peace Weekly about the problem and mentions that chemical products and electronic devices have some undesirable effects and since we can't return to primitive life, it's not possible to eliminate all the harmful elements living in modern times.
Sanitary napkins, however, should be looked at from a different perspective. It is used from girls in their teens to middle age. There are differences but it is not like scrap paper which we use and throw away. Women use the sanitary napkins two days to one week during the menstrual period and it is dangerous that they have not been tested for toxicity before sold in the market.
Women's groups have called for proper inspection and announcement of results. Of course, it is not an easy matter to determine the degree of harm that comes with the contact with the skin of these substances. The whole issue is not one easily understood. She hopes that this incident will help us to be more sensitive on the harm that may be caused.
However, this sanitary napkin problem is not only a consumer problem but a women's human rights issue. There are many concerns about the substances that come into contact with the skin.
One step beyond this is concern for the harmfulness of the contraceptive pill that women take directly and is not properly tested. In the case with emergency contraceptives, the so-called morning-after pill, which contains high levels of hormones is a dangerous drug. The fact that there is no such discussion on the hormonal contraceptive pill is a violation of the human rights of women.
Compared to the sanitary napkins the risks from the contraceptive pill are so serious that they are unimaginable. In Korea, it is tragic that the only information they have received is from the advertising of the pharmaceutical companies. Does the birth control pill really make our bodies beautiful and the life beautiful like the advertising says?
A society that respects women has an obligation to provide proper information to women. And women should assert their rights. This is our right to a healthy life. Not only sanitary napkins but also the risks of taking contraceptives should be a human rights issue. It's a violation of their rights to recommend a hormone preparation to a woman without any tests of the harmfulness.
Without taking the proper steps to guarantee the safety of the drugs used is this not an example of discrimination towards women when they are told to eat dangerous birth control pills?
In Korea recently mass media has carried the stories of religious
people involved in con schemes. This upsets the religious people in
society and a question to the Catholic Peace Weekly on the feelings of a
reader when he hears these stories and wonders about his own faith life
when those who are leaders in religion show this kind of behavior.
The
columnist begins by telling the reader that one mud fish can easily
muddy the water. Crooks are present in religion as in all
the other areas of life. Moreover, in religion it's actually easier to
con a person for the victims are more open to believing the person is
speaking the truth. In many other fields persons are quick to doubt but religious people when they encounter priests, ministers or Buddhist monks are ready and conditioned to believe, making religion an easy place to
deceive people.
Since a con person is asking for money
it is rather easy to determine and distinguish the motive but since they
are clever even when they succeed their followers don't quickly
decrease in numbers. We have a number of ways in which they do their
deception.
The defense mechanism they often use is speaking in a way that is just opposite to what they are
truly about: reaction formation. An example would be speaking about
justice and the poor and acting contrarily. Love for the poor is a natural trait of a
religious person and when this is done to an extreme one's
antennas go up.
When
justice and welfare and the like are overly stressed there may be a search for material
things and honors. People have difficulty
criticizing their actions. Externally they are just persons showing
an interest in the welfare of the poor and this image is not easily
attacked.
The second category are those who use treats
in their approach. You feel their energy when they approach you. This is
seen in the new religious groups but also in the traditional groups,
where prayers are asked to a degree that is beyond a persons possibility
and asking for donations and thanksgiving gifts.
In
this case believers find it difficult to reject for they are afraid
that something will happen if they refuse a person who is doing so much
good. These persons know the weak points of the common person and
manipulate their anxieties for their benefit. They make
threatening prophesies about the family and the souls of the dead because
of their sins and push people into a neurotic state.
They
are not the object of rejection but of respect because people think that
rejecting them they are rejecting God. In conclusion he recommends
what to do to avoid being caught in a religious fraud. We need to be mature Christians
and know the teachings of the Lord. When you have a integral
understanding of the Gospels and their flow you will feel an instinctive
rejection of the behavior of these con artists.
A university professor writing in a diocesan bulletin recalls a meal he had with an old classmate from high school he hadn't seen for some time.
Friend 1: Did you have a dinner engagement yesterday? You look tired.
Friend 2: I guess I drank too much liquor.
Friend 1: You are too caught up in drinking. You need to cut back.
Friend 2: I really don't enjoy drinking.
Friend 1: Why are you then always the last to leave a group?
Friend 2: It's not because I enjoy the booze.
The friend opened up to his companion. " Over the years I noticed that when a person leaves the group we begin talking about the faults of the person who left. We were all enjoying each others' company, laughing and praising each other but once a person leaves it all changes.... I am afraid the same thing will happen to me so I stay around to the end and drink."
His friend was surprised at the remarks. In his group when a person gets up and leaves it's just the opposite, everyone has some nice words to say about the person who left.
The professor was always envious of his friend for all the bonuses that he received in his place of work. Hearing the words of his friend he was thankful for the environment in which he was working. In his environment when a person is not there the words are always kind which is a bonus that can't be exchanged for money.
In many cases, the reason a person doesn't enjoy the company in his place of work, in the group he belongs, or in meetings is he doesn't experience any bonuses from the encounter. Is this not the reason to avoid future contacts when possible?
Isn't this the case also in our church community? What a blessing to be a member of a community without any backbiting. A person when he leaves is missed, and when we enjoy the encounter to the very end.
We are all very sensitive to hurts and enjoy being well thought of and the hurts that we have in community living make for some challenges. We are all a little broken with faults that can develop into conflicts with others. Empathy and compassion and a good portion of humility will allow us to accept the difficulties and to work for reconciliation and peace.
"Treat everybody with equal kindness; never be condescending but make real friends with the poor. Do not allow yourself to become self-satisfied. Never repay evil with evil but let everyone see that you are interested only in the highest ideals" Romans 12:16.
One of the dioceses in Korea recently finished evaluating a questionnaire that was sent to 140 parishes as work on their synod continued. Participants were divided into three groups: (A) believers' awareness, (B) (tepid) nonpracticing Catholics, (C) examination of parish life. An overall conclusion of the diocesan family was a desire for change in the way religious life was lived. Catholic Times Weekly gave much space to the results of the questionnaire.
The feeling of belonging and satisfaction within Catholicism was high, however, interest in diocesan plans and parish life was relatively low. Concern for this world's goods was more important than religious concerns and personal concerns over community interests.This was also the condition found in other religious groups, an area where the Catholic Church of Korea needs to work.
Although parishes have shown concern for evangelization the believers are passive. Pastoral workers have not shown an interest in getting the laypeople involved in the concerns of the parish. Priests among themselves have shown a high degree of communication but this has not been extended to the laity.
Interest in small community meetings in the parish is present but the young show no interest. Other age groups are more concerned with fellowship than with religious concerns, and a sense of obligation is the motivation of many.
Priests and the lay people were asked what they wanted the diocese and the parishes to do. The priests thought the most important issue for the diocese was the renewal of priests 25%, education of the parishioners 24%, concern for the tepid 14%, establish a vision for the diocese. The laity were concerned mostly with the tepid 45%, educational programs 17%, priests' renewal 8%, programs for the young 7%.
On the parish level: priests wanted renewal programs for the laity 25%, interest in the youth 26%, concern for those who have left the community 17%, training of volunteers for service 14%. The Laity considered work with the tepid important 27%, liturgical education 14%, evangelization 14%, education for service 14%.
Laity's areas of concern was lack of interest in parish life 23%, lack of community concern 20%, separation of faith life and daily living 19% and a mature religious life 13%.
Desires of the laity in regards to the clergy: to see a humble clergy who would listen to what others had to say to the very end 37%. Living a simple life and not concerned with material goods and careful with Church funds 16%. Not to come across as self-righteous and to work together with the laity in the running of the parish 11 % and priests who prayed 10%.
The Catholic Pastoral Institute of Korea has made a study of the catechumenate in our parishes and have made some suggestions for change. The Catholic Times and Peace Weekly had articles on the study and a list of areas for change. They have studied the Protestant and a diocese in the States to help in the evaluation of the situation present in Korea.
The reason for the study is to help prevent the falling away of the believers after baptism. In a survey that was made 73.9% of the baptized did not have any experience of religious life during the period of study. The problems that were uncovered were five in number. The most serious were the lack of experience of prayer and the spiritual life. It was all in the head.
During the catechumenate, the time needs to be spent not only in teaching doctrine and transmitting information but a time to begin an encounter with Jesus and begin the journey of faith. What we learn during the period of study should help us to experience the spiritual life and find joy and hope in the way we live our lives. Many have never moved from the head to the heart and experienced the joy of the Gospel. A reason why so many leave after baptism,
A program of study needs to include teaching, fellowship, worship, and service. They have become familiar in their Greek original expressions: Didache, Koinonia, Liturgia, and Diakonia. All four need to be considered and experienced during the period of the catechumenate.
Stressed was the programs after baptism a period called Mystagogy where the newly baptized reflect on their new life as Christians and continue to learn about the Scriptures and the Sacraments and how they will help in the Church's mission and experience their place in the community of faith.
Mentioned also how often godparents of the newly baptized are not taken seriously. They need to be with the newly baptized and help them along the new path they have decided to follow as a disciple of Jesus.
Most of the catechumenates last for about 6 months, 56%. 35% go from 8 to 10 months only about 2% go for a year. 102 parishes were surveyed and 1400 teachers and catechumens were questioned. The number of those baptized continue to decrease and the tepid continue to increase. The hope of this study is to see a change for the better in the future.
Office of statistics recently published their figures for the number of suicides for the year 2016. Numbers for teenagers has been dropping from 2011 but the 2016 statistics show an increase from the previous year from 4.2 persons per 100,000 to 4.9. All the other age groups except for the teens and those in the twenties showed a decrease.
A religious sister in charge of a center for the prevention of suicides writes about the issue in the Catholic Times for this week. She mentions that those who have studied the issue see the problem emerging because of a large number of young people out of work, the break up of families, and the lack of hope in the future.
Internet and dramas on TV have contents that incite this kind of thinking. Studies bring stress, no longer do they believe that with success in their studies they are guaranteed a good job and a good life. The dream is disappearing and they are faced with big challenges for the future.
Problems arise for the young since they are maturing, they are not adults and do not have the experience to accept the negativity in their life and the strength and knowledge to overcome what they face. They do not find it easy to rationalize and intellectualize what they encounter and can easily blame themselves for the situation they face.
Whether this is coming from others or oneself they have difficulty facing the situation and the stress urges them on to end it all. She has interviewed many adults at the center and not a few when they were in their teens contemplated suicide. This is reason enough to work in the prevention of suicide among our young people.
The ranking of the Korean youth in comparison to other countries in the OECD on the level of happiness is at the bottom. They have been there for the last 6 years but also ranked high for violence in the home, and both physical and emotional abuse. This is often expressed with others and can turn towards oneself and suicide.
Adults need to see the potential and possibilities of our young people and not be quick to evaluate and condemn them. They need to be respected and helped to find themselves. Adults need to empathize and help them find their dreams.
She ends her article with a few lines of a poem by a Korean poet:"I have failed, misfortune was present but again I go toward hope for in me there are still flowers that have yet to blossom. I have worked to give bloom to the flowers that others wanted and neglected the flowers that I wanted and are still waiting to bloom" (Literal translating of meaning).
A few years ago a high school student left a note for his mother just before he jumped to his death from a high-rise apartment. The note was only a few words: "I did it." He succeeded getting the grades his mother desired and ended his life.
Success and competition as a standard have put Korea at the bottom in ranking for happiness and high in the number of youthful suicides. A teacher and authority in the field of education gives the readers her ideas for the education of the whole person in an article in the Kyeongyang magazine.
Whole person education is a topic whose sphere is immense. However, there is a loud cry to center it on the virtue of empathy. It includes understanding another person's situation, sympathizing and going beyond to empathy. Responding correctly to the situation with sentiments that will enable a heart to heart meeting with the other.
Surprisingly the ability to empathize with another is not that common. Gender, environment, genes all influence our actions and often fosters quarreling and conflict. Living within a community without resolving these problems we will not find happiness.
The differences between us and the other is a reality we have to acknowledge if empathy is to enter. The pivotal point is how to overcome the differences.
There are programs used in different countries at present and the Canadian experience was mentioned where a kindergarten teacher has worked with nurturing empathy among children with the results that after a year even the frailest of the children were not exposed to aggression or any type of serious bullying. These programs are being spread to many parts of the world.
Need to understand we are beginning from different values and moral points of view. By discussion, communication we can narrow the differences. This is done with words. With verbal and nonverbal means we can succeed in interacting with one another.
Secondly, there are those who with words can communicate with another. They have read a lot, experienced much, and have feelings that are common to many. A person that gets along with others has a wide field of understanding and is able to express this in his dealings with others. This requires reading and experience.
Empathy is different from sympathy. Sympathy is vertical while empathy is horizontal. It's walking in the shoes of the other and wanting to experience what the other experiences.
"Don't live so fast!" The priest writer remembers these words of a shopkeeper on a visit to a market with his mother when he was a seminarian. On the way home, with a smile on her face: "The stranger seeing my son for the first time, sized you up correctly didn't he?" With these words, a seminary rector gives us a meditation on habit written up in Bible Life magazine.
Impetuosity was one of his faults. From a young age, he always found it difficult to patiently work on anything for any period of time. A habit that influenced his life negatively and he wanted to gain control.
He looked for tangled messes of thread and patiently unraveled them. Did this cure his impetuosity? No, it continued to be present but working with tangled messes, he was able to tame his old friend.
We should never underestimate the power of habit. On television, he recalls a program using hidden cameras that followed some performers during a whole day picking out their good and bad habits. The cameras highlighted: habits of eating salty and spiced foods, eating fast, drinking liquor at night, missing eating time, exercise, breathing deeply, and their way of sitting. We are ruled by our habits.
A habit found at three will go to eighty. A Korean proverb which shows that children under three are not conscious of themselves but this changes. Scary is the knowledge that the habits we pick up at that age will last a lifetime.
From Latin, we have the word 'fortune and virtue'. Fortune is good luck, experienced without preparation, while virtue is the selection of the good with deliberate practice and repetition, a continual choice that becomes a virtue.
Evil acts, whether it is today or tomorrow we don't know, the results will not be good. Like the evil acts, good acts that are repeated countless times will become part of who we are.
At a meeting, the writer mentions they were talking about the healthy teeth of an older gentlemen. In the conversation that followed the gentleman gave his secret which very simply was to brush your teeth with devotion 3 times a day. Doesn't seem a very serious secret method but after some thought, he did agree.
My habits will determine my future. Not only physical health habits but also spiritual health habits. The habits of prayer, thanksgiving will make the future one of hope. Do our spiritual health habits have the same weight as brushing our teeth? They should.
When priests make their opinion known on the pros and cons of specific government policies some of the believers feel the priests are getting involved in politics and criticize them. Writing in the Catholic Peace Weekly a lay staff member of the newspaper mentions that he also gets questions on the issue from the readers.
He answers: "It would be a problem if the priests were to make political statements or take a political position. But I don't think it is right to oppose the remarks as political if it is a statement for the common good and social justice."
It's clearly a problem when priests support a certain political party but reasonable to expect a priest to make clear the Church's teachings on various political, economic and social issues to help people make right choices. Of course, judging and deciding is the conscientious choice of the believers.
How many political parties meet the ideal values that the church teaches? "It is difficult for the concerns of the Christian faith to be adequately met in one sole political entity; to claim that one party or political coalition responds completely to the demands of faith or of Christian life would give rise to dangerous errors. Christians cannot find one party that fully corresponds to the ethical demands arising from faith and from membership in the Church. Their adherence to a political alliance will never be ideological but always critical; in this way, the party and its political platform will be prompted to be ever more conscientious in attaining the true common good, including the spiritual end of the human person" (Compendium of the Social Doctrine #573).
Change of government started five months ago and still has a high approval rating with the citizens in its efforts for reform and getting rid of corruption. Many citizens approve but there are those with expectations who are concerned and waiting to see.
Our columnist doesn't like the direction the government is going and is concerned. Seven high-ranking candidates failed to be confirmed for government positions. The thinking among many in government says those appointed must have the right national philosophy.
The problem is that with this sharing of the national philosophy those who have helped give birth to the new regime are preferred over those with expertise in their field, competence, and morality. If the help the candidate gave the party is more important than qualifications for the job then the columnist feels we are just bringing more corruption into the system and asking for trouble.
The American futurist Jeremy Rifkin, in his book "The Age of Empathy" reminds us: 'Humans are basically a sympathetic species' recalling the history of humanity's loss of empathy in the civilization of competition and exclusivity. We need a new paradigm of empathy and networking that we have lost and need to regain. So begins an article by a seminary professor in the Catholic Times.
Empathy is not merely sympathizing with another, understanding with the mind another's feelings and situation. Rather it is to participate and share in the feelings and to want to become one in the experience of the other. He personally has come to use the word often and realized that in the last century humanity experienced exclusion, conflict and selfish greed making it difficult to practice living together with others harmoniously.
In the past, the traditional society rejected values and ways of life that were not passed down. Modern society does not reject the different and what one considers error but wants to engage with the other in dialog and cooperation.
This new spirit of empathy in society has a great effect on the sense of faith of the believers living in the community of faith. Our journey of faith is different, we have a sense of sin, suffering, love and hate, wounds inflicted and conscious of the world's deception in moving us towards death: determined to seek freedom, peace, joy, holiness which is no different from others.
Our spiritual senses, in daily life, naturally go in search of what feels good, doing what is beneficial is done repeatedly and becomes second nature, a virtuous act. Helps me make the right decision in life and reinforces my intuition and makes it grow.
Isn't this what happens with those who read the Scriptures, attend the liturgy with joy, and enjoy praying alone? They will take the difficult tasks in the parish, spend time with the community, look for ways of being of service. This is because they are at peace internally and experience joy in their life.
Not all believers, however, express this sense of faith. There are those who do not go along with the expression of the faith of others and prefer to discriminate instead of empathizing."I am different from them," individuality and interest become predominant and in community, complaints become commonplace. It's not easy to accept differences whether from a feeling of superiority or inferiority.
In society, we have the explosion of conflict on the international scene instead of a desire for coexistence with dialogue and consensus. What is true in society is also found within the church community. We are a spiritual community led by the Holy Spirit if we are to be a sign of joy to the world then in our Christian communities we need to develop a spirit of sympathy and cooperation.
A mature community needs to develop and to experience this life of faith if we are to be a leaven in society. Is this not what Pope Francis wants to see in our communities, where God's people testify to the gospel and become a community of communication and fellowship and light and salt to the world?
"Once bullied you will come to your senses!" This is a statement that comes from the past. A professor at a university writes in the Kyeongyang magazine about exclusion from a group and a just society. He mentions a younger student at the graduate school he was attending who was always smiling and liked by all his seniors.
At the end of the year, new students entered the graduate school and the popular young student had juniors under him. One of the entering students was not following the norm of the graduate school and his individuality stood out among the students. The popular student addressed the new student with some harsh words on his strange behavior which changed the atmosphere of the graduate school.
In our structured society taking circumstances into consideration and admonishing and criticizing is a common procedure when persons do their own thing and don't understand the atmosphere. This is an attempt to discipline them to join the group. It's no big deal. This is the reality not only in schools but in the military and the workplace.
The one being bullied knows there is a reason for the bullying and is slow to make it known and those who join in the bullying have a reason to justify it.
A special word is used for bullying in Korea which did not make its appearance until the 1990's although other expressions were always present. The professor wants us not to use the ambiguous word but to express what is being done by calling it 'violence' towards the person and 'ostracizing' the person.
In the last section of the article, he tells the readers that our society is cruel to those that don't follow the crowd and show this by disciplining the person. Consequently, persons who are different find it difficult to exist within a group and are left out in the cold.
In Korea, there is yet to be a Nobel Laureate in the sciences and he feels that one of the reasons is the way the culture continues to level the playing field. Those who stand out in the crowd for one reason or another are considered to be unlucky and odd balls. They find it difficult to continue being who they are.
Those who have changed the world in which we live have been creative thinkers and have done things differently from others and were considered 'unfortunate persons' but in the long run, have helped the larger society to which they belong.
Creativity is a personal quality but also a gift to society. When people in this mold are allowed to live like everybody else we will have a just society.
This year was the 25th year of the formal beginning of the Small Christian Communities in Korea. The movement had already been incorporated in parishes but the Seoul diocese was the first diocese to make it part of their pastoral planning.
Last year a questionnaire was given to a number of the participants to find ways to improve and examine the reality of what has happened.This has been done before but this is the first time they have made an in-depth study. The results of the study have been reported in both Catholic Weeklies, much space was devoted to the survey and the results.
The Small Christian Community movement was imported from South America. The four elements of community: fellowship, sharing the word of God, prayer and service all have their place.
The results of the survey showed a need to adapt it to the life in the city. A symposium on the results proposed the meeting of different age groups and different interests groups but the fear of dividing the community was strongly expressed. The younger groups have shown a decrease in attendance and the elderly have increased.
Comparing those who participated in the monthly or weekly meetings and those who did not, in most cases there was a difference in the participation in parish life. Participants were more active in difficult works, more active in church activities, read the Scriptures more often, and had a better understanding of the liturgical year. More interested in the poor, helping others, and helping financially, however, the difference was slight.
The issue that was noticed and commented on was the lack of interest in social matters where those who did not attend the weekly or monthly meeting showed a higher interest in social concerns, although this was only a minimal difference. This was unsettling in what it was saying to the diocese. The church has not been living the teachings of the Second Vatican Council.
Materialism, individualism, and worldliness has influenced the church greatly. The Holy Spirit has been with the movement and in the years ahead efforts will be expended to make it a leaven for the whole church community.
Crisis are opportunities for change. It takes time to change our physical condition so also the change for the better in the small community meetings. By a process of trial and error this will improve. The problems discovered will be the fertilizer that will help the movement to improve.
