There is story from Nepal. A bandit meets the Buddha in a forest and
threatens to kill him. The Buddha says, "May I first ask you to do two things
for me before you do so?" The bandit puffs out his chest and roars, "Of course,
I am so mighty and powerful that I can do anything you ask." The Buddha says
"Please cut the lower branch of the tree over there," which the bandit does
with one sweep of his huge sword. He is clearly pleased with his strength and
power. He asks, "what is your second request?" Quietly and respectfully the
Buddha says, "My second request is that you now put the branch back on the
tree." "You must be crazy," explodes the bandit. "No," says the Buddha, "you
are the one who is crazy, because all you know is how to destroy. But the
mighty and the powerful are really those who know how to build, create and
heal."
Like so many teachings from spiritual guides, modern society mostly
rejects this message. We seem to have the almost addictive need to have to
repeat the errors of generations past while ignoring the wisdom of the ages. We
know that violence leads always to more violence. Throughout history, all our
great prophets of peace have said so. Yet still we seek violent solutions to
social needs. As we speak, the parable of the bandit and the Buddha is being
played out yet again in so many places - in Iraq, in Israel and Palestine, in
Darfur, in Afghanistan, in Chechnya, in many countries not making the news. And
within communities all over the world where slums, crime and poverty aided by
guns and fuelled by drugs makes for a life of terror for its citizens. In such
cases, power is defined by the ability to destroy, to kill, to maim with
pre-emptive strikes, when what is needed is pre-emptive non-violence,
compassion and wisdom.
Strangely this is something all the great religions teach. For example,
the Prophet Mohammed was once asked "what actions are the most excellent?" He
replied, "To gladden the heart of the human being, to feed the hungry, to help
the afflicted, to lighten the sorrow and the sorrowful, and to remove the
wrongs of the injured. These things are the most important." In Judaism, the
prophet Micah advises "there is only three things I require - to act justly, to
love tenderly and to walk humbly with your God". Jesus taught, "love your
enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who persecute you." What a
huge pity the worldwide followers of these three important traditions cannot
all bring themselves to practise what their founders taught. What a pity that
few now listen to the great spiritual teachers in our history and learn from
them!
The story is told of the Rabbi Hershel, a famous teacher in Judaism, who
had lived to be very old and was venerated by all who knew him. A young
disciple came to him one day and said, "Rabbi, you have preached many fine
sermons in your time. You are known for your wisdom and knowledge. Tell me, if
you had to preach just one sermon in your entire life, what topic would it be
on?" The rabbi thought for a few minutes then quietly replied, "If my life"s
work was to preach only one sermon, I would preach on forgiveness."
The response of the rabbi may surprise many. It certainly would not be
the choice of someone formed by our modern consumer society. Forgiveness is not
given any space or media time in a culture dominated by the values of
acquisition and greed, by status and vengefulness, by violence and abuse. There
is in fact no place in the modern consumer culture for the spiritual dimensions
of people to be addressed or recognised. It is heartening that within much of
Maori and Polynesian cultures, there is still room for the spiritual to be
recognised. Regretfully it its harder to see within the dominant Pakeha culture
with its emphasis on acquisition, individualism and competition.
Our modern consumer culture is dominated by global business
conglomerates, which have acquisition, avarice, control and violence at their
spiritual base and status, greed, racism and domination as their principal
values. Their flag-flying cousins are the handful of corporate media
multi-nationals, which control most world media outlets and whose content
reflects the interests of their handful of super-wealthy owners. Their primary
aim is to protect their investors" money and promote the values that expand it.
For these world movers and shakers, making profit is the bottom line. Indeed,
for most, it is the only line. It doesn"t matter how it is made.
The same values apply to the world of industry. With labour needs now
directed globally, workers in most countries, especially third world economies,
are exploited. They are treated as little less than economic slaves. Thus the
division between those in control with power and money and those who have
little of either grows by the day. In desperation many turn to violence. This
in turn often leads to war and its pernicious effects - massive civilian
casualties and deaths, the destruction of crops and livestock, the wrecking of
social infrastructure and family life.
It is no coincidence that the corporate media is dominated by
advertisements urging us to buy and buy more. This promotes the insidious
notion that ownership equals happiness and that if we can"t have something
legitimately, then we are entitled to take it by force. "The more stuff you
own, the more successful you are," screams every advertisement. "Buy me and be
happy." What a nonsense! The past 50 years has provided the first generations
in the history of the world to actually think like that. No wonder we are in
pain. No wonder consumeritis is killing peoples" souls everywhere.
I believe most New Zealanders know that the so-called "war on terror" is
as much a war about accessing more resources, especially oil, as it is of
conquering Saddam Hussein or capturing Osama Bin Laden. But it is dressed up in
consumer advertising and slick "news" presentations, and we go along with it.
Thus violence through crime and war become normal dimensions of our lives, even
if we would rather they weren"t there. Such propaganda appeals to the "shadow"
side of our human nature, the prurient side whose needs are insatiable and
whose fruit is death.
I share an example to illustrate. In December 2002, Winona Ryder, a
B-grade drug addicted actress, went on trial in San Francisco for shop lifting.
On several nights, the story appeared on TV "news" channels here, and each of
the daily newspapers carried successive days coverage and pictures of her
trial. It was a relatively important story according to them. During that same
week, one of the world"s great 20th century prophets, who ranks with
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, lay dying - and finally passed away on
the Friday morning. I suspect few could name him. Yet Phillip Berrigan was a
founder/leader of the Ploughshares resistance movement in the US which has
conducted in 25 years more than 100 symbolic disarmament actions against
warships, B-52 bombers, missile sites and the like. He lived an alternative
lifestyle in a radical Christian community, was a married Catholic priest for
30 years and father of three children. Like Gandhi, he was a practitioner of
non-violence and had been arrested more than 100 times and sentenced to prison
on numerous occasions for non-violent opposition to the nuclear arms race and
the wars in Vietnam, Central America and Iraq. All told he served 11 years in
prison. He remains a legend among peace activists, is recognised already by
many as a saint, and is the figurative grandfather of the American peace
movement and justifiably so. Phil Berrigan is respected in every sphere of the
struggle for justice both in the US and around the world. In every sense, he
was a modern prophet. Yet upon his death, he did not rate a mention in the
corporate media, either here or overseas. That was being dominated by Winona
Ryder!
When we have a culture that trivialises important people like Phillip
Berrigan and thousands like him, and devalues their actions and lives so
readily, there has to be a fall-out somewhere. It comes most directly in the
souls of people, which wither and become barren and bare. "Without a vision the
people perish" wrote the Jewish psalmist nearly three thousand years ago. He
meant an holistic, just, life engendering, peace filled vision, shalom in its
fullness. If the vision is based merely on material possessions, the people
will quickly perish. Sadly, that is the vision global capitalism presents.
And the world"s people are in crisis. Make no mistake about that. When
30 000 die each day in Africa from preventable disease and malnutrition, we
have a crisis. When one in three children in the UK, 30 percent in New Zealand
and 40 percent in the US and Russia live beneath the poverty line, we have a
crisis. Indeed, we have a crisis of epic proportions. We have a crisis of distribution.
We have a crisis of justice. We have a crisis of political will. We have a
crisis of meaningful spirituality. Who is my brother? Who are my sisters?
A purely material vision leaves most people with an ache in their hearts
for some type of fulfilment that never seems to come. A yearning for a peace of
mind and heart. A deep desire to achieve more that is different. What St
Augustine called a restlessness of heart that only the divine can fill. Isn"t
part of the problem the fact that we don"t quite know what it is we want or
need and we know even less about how to get it? Isn"t the rise of many New Age
philosophies and fundamentalist religions an indication that something is
seriously missing from the mainstream? Isn"t the widespread use of "party" drugs
among young and middle aged alike a sign that something deeply significant is
missing? Recently on a trip to Ireland, I was shocked to see so many lovely
young men and women in Dublin and other Irish cities, weekend after weekend,
smashed out of their skulls on drugs and booze - and trying to have a good
time.
Franciscan priest Richard Rohr calls it "the hole in the soul." The
quest for a meaningful spirituality today is directly related to the need to
fill that "hole in the soul." Many now sense that real success in life in found
not in what one acquires by way of status, power or material possessions, but
in how well one fills "the hole in the soul." Perhaps we need reminding that, in the words of New Zealand
author Joy Crowley, "we are not human beings on a spiritual journey, but
spiritual beings on a human journey." She likes to think of herself as "a human
becoming, rather than a human being."
That makes for an interesting departure point in the quest to "fill the
hole in our soul". How do we live a life that is holistic, positive, respects
our neighbour, sustains us, and fulfils us? It is beyond the competence of any
one person to answer that question fully. There is also a danger that a person
from one tradition may leave the impression that their particular tradition has
all the answers. I would hate to do that. There are many more questions than I
have answers.
But of one thing I am sure. That the more we work at the coalface of
life, the deeper our spirituality has to be. It doesn"t matter whether we are
teachers, police, prison chaplains, social workers, clergy, nurses, and
ambulance drivers, whatever. We either regularly nourish ourselves spiritually
at a commensurate level to our involvement, or we run the risk of becoming
cynical, blasˇ, burnt out. It is that simple.
As resource teachers of learning and behaviour working with students
with special needs and their teachers, you have chosen to work in a
field with huge potential for good. It is a wonderful place to be. The work you
do is invaluable. It can be terribly rewarding. I understand from knowing some
of you over many years that the call to this field of work can indeed be a
special vocation within the teaching profession. Appreciate it as such. You are
attempting to somehow integrate the learning and behavioural needs of each
individual child into what is often a difficult background of family and
community, mental health and social needs. It is fantastic work.
But I also presume that you are under no illusions about how draining
and difficult it can be at the same time. It is a field full of pitfalls for
the unwary and the blasˇ. Recognise that your need for sustenance of your own
inner self can often be greater than that required for teachers in the
mainstream. It simply goes with the territory.
What I hope to do is simply highlight that your needs, especially your
spiritual needs, are integral to performing as best you can for your students
and their families. I hope to open up the area of spiritual nourishment and
take a peek at it. The nourishment itself will have to come from you and your
response to spiritual sources. Spirituality is essentially how each of us
nurtures our own inner spirit or soul.
I can merely point to a possible framework where this can be seen in
relief.
We are blessed in that there are some things we know from learned
teachers and from life"s experiences that may help. I am indebted to a Canadian
spiritual writer, Ronald Releaser (www.ronreiheiser.com), for providing a
framework for a holistic spirituality that has helped sustain many on the long
haul. It is not complete and may not suit all. But I strongly suggest to you
that we do need to have a framework that covers the bases if we are to be
spiritually fulfilled to any degree in this life. The wisdom and teachings are
there. We don"t have to re-invent the wheel.
In this framework, he gives us four dimensions to consider, what I call
four commandments for the long haul. They are like the legs of a racehorse. The
horse is only fit and races well if all four legs are being used together,
working in harmony. The horse will limp if only three are used. It will be
totally crippled if it has only one or two in working order. Spirituality is
like that. It needs to be holistic.
The four commandments then for the long haul are (in no particular
order): firstly, personal integrity, private morality and private
prayer. The second is social justice. The third is a mellowness
of spirit and generosity of heart. The fourth is, membership of a group, which shares
similar aims, (or in church terms, an ecclesial community).
Personal integrity, private morality and personal prayer
I would like to start with personal prayer. One essential
thing to understand about our own spiritual journey is that we are responsible
for it. It is something we can"t rely on others or blame others for if things
aren"t right. A spirituality for the long haul understands some sort of
transcendent Higher Power, larger than the individual but accessible. Personal
prayer in some form is essential as daily food for the soul. It is as important
as breakfast. It can take the form of prayer to God, or Yahweh or Allah or our
Higher Power or whomever. It can be meditation, contemplation, verbal, silent,
prayed standing up, lying horizontal, in bed, out of bed, on our knees, sitting
in the garden. It doesn"t matter. We all need to spend sometime each day
nurturing the "inner me" - one"s soul or personal spirit, however that is
understood.
"Have a care for justice; act with integrity," says the Jewish prophet
Isaiah. Yet woe betide anyone who dares to stand and proclaim personal
integrity and private morality in today"s climate of relativism. Is there
anyone among us who can say that he or she has lived a life of full integrity?
Or consistently kept high standards of personal morality? I wonder. Certainly I
know I could write a large volume about my own personal failures in these
areas. Some may say, who am I to be even writing about spiritual nourishment
and strength? Yet sometimes when someone has been to the brink and peered into
the abyss, he or she can be in a stronger position than those who have not been
tried by such fire. As I have grown older, I can see that unless we maintain a
clear firm commitment to personal integrity and private morality, we run the
great risk of undermining everything else we have done or seek to do. How many
potentially great people do we know who have been marginalized and sidelined
because of a weakness in one or other of these areas?
Personal integrity, private morality and personal prayer are
cornerstones of a truly holistic fulfilling spirituality and lifestyle for
today.
Whether we like it or not, we are social beings. The great spiritual
traditions teach that all things are interconnected. All human beings form an
inter-connected family. The joy of one is the joy of all. The pain of one is
the pain of all. For those who grow in the Spirit, my neighbour is not just the
man robbed on the roadside who was attended by the passing Samaritan in the
gospel. It is his whole family, his tribe and these days, his nation. This is
what it means to know and love our neighbour. We no longer live in a world
where the needs of our neighbour are unknown to us. They appear on our TV news
every night. Many of us have visited their communities and their countries.
Social justice demands that we come to understand what it is that keeps our
neighbour in poverty, in a war zone, starving, dying of thirst. What affects
one affects us all. We cannot have an integrated spirituality which fails to
recognise this.
My father"s
under educated generation saw charity as the way to help the needy neighbour at
home. Little was known of overseas needs. That has all changed. My baby-boomer
generation have grown up with university education, overseas travel and instant
electronic communication. Our neighbourhood is much larger than my dad"s. It is
global. We have access to greater resources and knowledge than any previous
generation. My generation was conscientised by the television images of wars in
the Congo, Angola, Mozambique and Vietnam, by the starvation of famine victims
dying like flies in Biafra and Ethiopia while we ate like royalty. We can"t say we don"t know. We cannot
have an integrated spirituality which fails to recognise this unfairness, this
injustice.
Because many of
us cared, we dug beneath the surface and learnt an essential truth: that much
of what was happening was preventable. We discovered the causes. That it was
unfair exploitative trading practices which were largely responsible for much
of this devastation. We found corrupt governments were pouring valuable
currency into arms manufacturers" purses while their people starved. We found
that racial discrimination was almost universal and created poverty and war. We
found that the worldwide prison industry basically locked up poor people, and
that indigenous restorative justice practices which could resolve a lot of
offending had been marginalized or abandoned completely. We found that the
already wealthy would sacrifice everything and anything on the altar of profit.
We found that western banks, especially the IMF and the World Bank, were
locking poor nations into economic slavery. We found most but not all of these
corporate criminals were westerners. We knew that social justice was needed so
that if just policies were implemented, policies that looked to the common good
of all and did not merely feed the greed of the few, many of these disasters
would be resolved. Charity wasn"t enough. Social justice was essential.
We have more
recently found that we cannot sustain the depletion of resources currently
occurring, nor the lopsided distribution of those resources. We discovered that
our planet is a rather fragile entity, capable of being destroyed by pollution
and nuclear weapons. We cannot maintain the continuing destruction of Mother
Earth and still love God and our neighbour. It"s a matter of social justice for
all.
Seeking justice is an integral part of the journey for the mature spiritual
seeker. Most major religious traditions teach that it is in our neighbour that
we meet the divine. Without an abiding and sustained concern, indeed a passion
for social justice, we cannot have a fulfilled spirituality in tune with the
divine. It is that simple!
This sounds a rather odd component for an holistic spirituality. But it
is an essential one. It is about being inclusive. It rules out fanatics and
fundamentalists. It rules out one-issue people. It rules out the purely
secular. It simply says that out hearts have to be bigger, more generous, more
embracing than such narrowness allows. Anyone who has worked politically knows
that narrow ideologically constipated people are a scourge in most political
movements. It rules them out. Isn"t it also a truth that because of uncertainty
in a mobile, pluralistic society, narrow-minded religious people from all faith
persuasions bedevil the world? You only have to look at religious television
programmes to see what I mean. Narrow fundamentalism means that only a tiny
slice of the truth is allowed to emerge. How can such a person live
holistically with their neighbours when such is the case? Such fundamentalism
is a recipe for dissension, bigotry, prejudice, and judgmental mistake among
people.
Most of us in our better moments would like to think that our values and
desires are better expressed by the apostle Paul in his letter to the fledgling
Church in Ephesus, where he lists the fruits of the Spirit as being love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness, generosity, forbearance, gentleness, faith, courage,
temperateness and purity. Mellowness of heart, generosity of spirit - what fine
values, what wonderful gifts to bring to any relationship or social setting.
This is the one that many will balk at. It teaches that we cannot make
this journey alone. If we try we will be like the racehorse limping. We will
never win the race. The reason to belong to such a grouping - what the church
calls an ecclesial community - is that a group contains so much collective
wisdom and knowledge. It also supports and sustains us on the journey.
Remember, we are on a journey for the long haul. The long haul means a lifelong
journey. Without others, we can easily fall into a trap of thinking we know
something and having it wrong. We can easily get discouraged, and who is there
to help support us? We can easily miss the wood for the trees and there is no
one handy to point this out. We need each other. We cannot exist without one
another. The future is in a group setting of some form or other. It always has
been.
To illustrate its importance. Where does one take personal suffering if
there is no likeminded group of individuals to share with? Most people have a
reasonable amount of suffering in daily life. As Thoreau said rather darkly,
"the mass of people live lives of quiet desperation." The worst of it can
distort most things we do. It can quickly become the dominating characteristic of
our personality and our lives. How do we face such difficulties? Where does one
make any sense of such things? The best place is among friends in a group,
where one can share the spiritual journey. There is a mystery to much suffering
- the "why" of it, the meaning it might have. But carrying a burden alone can
make it a very rugged journey. We need each other. Solidarity with others who
suffer is part of any spiritual journey.
To belong to such a group is counter cultural in this very
individualistic age. But it is very necessary. We cannot sustain a long journey
without one another. Knowledge based on love will be the power that is shared
within such a group. I know. I belong to one. The love is palatable. It is
real. It is respectful, always supportive, sometimes challenging. It is a
delight to be enjoyed. It is in the group that the great spiritual virtues like
hope, respect, compassion, mercy, justice, wisdom and love can be held,
nourished and shared.
I have taken the opportunity to be a somewhat proscriptive. But there is
no point in sharing about spirituality - our connection with the Divine and
with one another - if one is not practical. As you can see, spirituality is a
way of life. It is not something we tack on to everything else we do. It is an
outer garment, a cloak, Te Kahu-o-te-ora. It contains a vision, and practical
ways to keep that vision before us in everything we do. Nothing exists outside
the ambit of our spirituality. It is the cloak that covers all, that nurtures
us, gives meaning to our existence.
I would like to finish with two quotations, one from a group of Catholic
sisters, the other from a famous Buddhist.
A group of Catholic sisters recently wrote, "Non-violence is a way of
living. It"s a call. It"s an action. It"s a voice. It"s about caring for each
other. It"s about education. It"s a change in your heart. It"s a change in your
world. It"s a change in the system. It"s risky. It"s visionary. It"s about
sustainable living. It"s the only way to be just. It"s a choice. It"s
peace-filled. It is prayer-filled. It becomes who we are. It"s what we do. It
is the only true road to a meaningful spirituality in our time."
And Aung San Suu Kyi, the famous Myanmar/Burmese liberation leader
currently under house arrest, says, "Freedom means choice. It is of the utmost
importance to make the right choice. We can choose either to gratify narrow
selfish interests or expand our hearts and minds to encompass the needs and
aspirations of others. We can strive to build better lives not just for
ourselves or our own people but for all humanity."
Such is the road to a sustainable spirituality in our time, to a
meaningful way of life in union with one another and the divine. The choice of
which road to follow rests with each of us.