GROWTH IN COMMUNITY LIVING
By
Fr. Charles Serrao OCD
PROFILE
Fr. Charles Serrao, OCD was ordained priest in 1978. Specialized in Pedagogy and psychology in the in the University of Salesianum, Rome. He has obtained a diploma in Religious life in the Institute of Claresianum, Rome and another diploma in counseling and formation in the InstituteSt. Anselm in London. He worked in the formation of priests for 13 years both in India and Rome. 12 years he was the General Definitor and now he is the Rector of the OCD InternationalTheological College in Rome. (http://www.ctiocd.org/padrifot_2003.htm) of
With love,
Fr. Charles Serrao, OCD
Piazza S. Pancrazio 5/a
00152 Rome, Italy
Tel: +39-06-58540.407
Mobile: 340 599 1533
Fax: +39-06-5810.226
email: serraoocd@hotmail.com
FORWARD
Our Carmelite spiritual formation is incomplete without the three fundamental elements. they are:
- Christian Formation
- Carmelite Formation
- Human Formation
Coming together as a community is a must in our Carmelite formation. “human formation” is very much involved here to develop the:-
- capacity for introspection, interpersonal dialogue, mutual respect and tolerance among members,
· awareness of one’s true self.
· ability to collaborate with one another to achieve understanding, peace and unity in our community.
There Is A Saying: “Practice Makes Perfect”. One Important Question We Must Ask Here. Are We Giving Members The Correct Principles In Community Building?
If Wrong Principles Are Being Practised, We Will Be Perfected At The Wrong Direction. This Will Not Only Hinder Our Personal Growth; The Whole Community Will Suffer Too.
With His Vast Experience In Community Building, Rev. Fr. Charles Presents Here A Very Basic But Fundamental Principles For Building A Genuine Community. Most Of His Principles Are Simple And Easily Understood. It Is The Practical Aspect, Which Requires Much Of Our Effort And Time To Work Toward A Genuine Community.
If Members Sincerely Pray To The Holy Spirit And Strive Their Very Best To Live The Principles (Growth In Community Living) Presented In This Little Booklet, We Will Have A Community That Radiates Christ. Action Speaks Louder Than Word.
National OCDS Formation Team - Malaysia
Introduction.
This article presents basic requirements necessary to build up the community; few obstacles that can block the growth or destroy it. At the end tips to foster growth of the individual as well as that the community as a whole being a member of it.
The goal of human development is that we should become fully ourselves. The psychiatrist (Carl Jung named this goal of human development "individuation". The process of human
development is one of 'becoming fully individual.
- We are called to be individuals. – We cannot pretend who we are? i.e. We cannot put on two “images” of ourselves a) True image and b) Projected image that we are not.
- We are called to be unique and different
- We are called to wholeness
What does it mean “we are called to wholeness” or to be ourselves
In order to be whole or fully ourselves we need to be whole or fully ourselves in the 3 elements :- 1. Spiritual wholeness,
2. Physical wholeness,
3. Psychological wholeness
Ø We should use God given talents and resources and develop ourselves as fully as possible.
Ø It is true that we are called to wholeness. Most of us never totally complete the process and may not reach the goal. The reality is that we can never be completely whole in and of ourselves.
Ø We are called to wholeness and simultaneously to recognise our incompleteness
Ø We are also called to both individuation and inter-dependence.
Ø Human beings have within them a natural yearning and thrust towards health and wholeness and holiness.
Ø Community life is a means to reach that Wholeness.
PART - I.
THE GROUND RULES FOR COMMUNITY BUILDING
The word “communicate – (verb)” and “community – (noun)” comes from the same root.
The principles of good communication are the basic principles of community-building.
Why is this so?
- Because people do not naturally know how to communicate,
- Because human have not yet learned how to talk to each other, they remain ignorant of the laws or rules of genuine community.
Community making is always an adventure?
- In the community individual interact and inter-relate in a face to face manner around the common goal.
- They learn how to communicate honestly with each other, influence or affect one another, established clear identification of membership and act in a uniform manner.
- Their relationship go deeper than their “skin” and masks of composure.
- They will develop some signification commitment to “rejoice together, mourn together,’ and to delight in each other.
Principles to take note in Community Building ?
- When we come together for a common goal, we don’t come with our own agendas; because they can come in conflict with the common goal – A group becomes a community in somewhat the same way that a stone becomes a gem – through a process of cutting, rubbing and polishing.
- The principle “You need me and I need you” is very important for community building.
- The community should be animated by faith in God, - Believe that God can help us built this community that we belongs
- Love for Christ in living out His commandments of loving our neighbours
- Let the Holy Spirit functions and work in and through us.
The above principles should urges us to live in the community with it’s own style and charism the experience of beatitudes of:~
1. “Koinonia” – sharing of talents and recourses,
2. “diaconia” – service – to avail oneself for the service of others.
However this life (Community Living) is meant only for those who are called by God.
The spirit of community is inevitable the spirit of
Ø Peace
Ø Harmony
Ø and Love
Community-making requires time as well as effort and sacrifice from each member of the community. It cannot be cheaply bought.
The following basic conditions or ground rules must be present if a community is to achieve its potential for growth, healing and change.
1. Commitment to Attendance. – Community meeting is a forum where we come together to analyse, decide, verify, share the life, disclose each other, listen , discover, grow in social and affective dimension. Community is always changing, becoming, interacting and reacting. Unless members of the community make a commitment to be present for schedule meetings on time, it will be difficult to make progress towards dialogue among the community members.
2. Members feel they truly belong - the person entering the community comes with an expectation to receive from the community and the community receiving the person also has a set of expectations for its members.
Ø A community would benefit from taking time early in its life for members to explore and clarify expectations of one another at both the communal and the personal level
Ø A sense of feeling is to be created from the beginning that the community is a safe place in which to explore relationship and learn more about ourselves and the situation that we face in the community.
Ø The feeling of belonging is strongly felt when the support for one another is provided by the community members. In such situation the members enjoy the freedom to share their dreams, hopes, joys, sorrows, fears and anxieties.
Ø They experience a sense of being at home, of being welcomed and cared for
Ø Our sense of belonging is related to our experience of universality with others. It is enhanced when we experience ourselves as a community of committed Christians struggling together to discover the Lord’s constantly evolving will.
Ø As the community develops, members commit themselves to being open.
Ø No growth can take place in a community until one person is able to trust another. (TRUSTWORTHY)
WARMTH + UNDERSTANDING + PATIENCE + LOVE IS A MUST, NEEDED TO BUILT A GOOD COMMUNITY.
3. Members Speak for Themselves -
Ø Always speak “I” and not “we” to describe feelings, opinion and experiences.
Ø All participate actively and each member speak for herself / himself. It is more risky to make general statement such as “we all feel” or you all make me feel”. Use of first-person pronoun puts responsibility on the speaker.
Ø members speak “in the here and now” – the principal focus should always be on the present, even though the event being discussed may have taken in the pas. The event is past, but the feelings are present as they are recounted.
4 Members begin with a commitment to discuss problems openly.
A climate for open discussion requires that members of the community
Ø Feels that they are important
Ø Feels secure in the group before they are willing to discuss issues that need to be explored
Ø Without this open discussion the group experience if of little benefit both to the community and to the individual.
Ø No progress can be made until all members believe that difficult but necessary issues can be discussed and that other members of the community can be trusted in such a discussion.
Ø Members must be willing to discuss openly the issues/problems for the growth of the community.
Ø Members should have the conviction that there are areas in which they must grow personally, spiritually and in their apostolate.
Ø This conviction must be accompanied by a belief that the community will assist them in identifying areas of needed growth, which however, is possible only if they are willing to articulate their needs and problems.
Ø We cannot assist others in the changing process unless we know them more closely.
Ø If we appear to expect too much of persons and refuse to allow them to be themselves, we cannot realistically hope they will be ready to take the risks involved in trust and self-disclosure.
Ø We accept the suggestions and advise of others only when we feel they sincerely care about and accept us with genuine understanding.
Ø We must be constantly sensitive to those moments when other members feel attacked or fearful of raising questions and issues important to them and to the group.
Ø We must pick up signals of defensiveness in our community discussions, such as attacks on others, and we must take the initiative to boldly suggest time our for privately reflecting on what is making us us feel defensive.
5. Responsibility for the group –
Ø Everyone is responsible for the community.
Ø Each member of the community is responsible for what happens in the community.
Ø Nothing should happen that the group does not wish.
Ø If one or two members acts as if others do not exist, all members have the responsibility to intervene.
Ø Whatever happens in the group should remain in the group. This is absolutely essential if trust is to be develop. Persons will be reluctant to share at any depth if they feel that what is said will be leaked out.
Ø Members accept responsibility for helping to develop and maintain a therapeutic climate. In their research, Charles B. Truax and Robert R. Carkhuff found that effective therapists established warm, accepting and understanding relationship with their patients. We belief that for any group to be effective helping people feel free to share what they think and feel must be established.
- Members must accept the group norms. –
Ø When members of the community accept the established norms, there is a greater
Ø cohesiveness and better commitment to them.
Ø Periodically, community members should stop and ask themselves how their work together is progressing.
Ø Member should make individual statements regarding their own observations and feelings about what is happening in the community.
Ø Certain norms could be evaluated annually because the circumstances can change.
Ø When the members are involved in making new norms the feel a sense of ownership and commitment to them.
- Members experience enough tension to want to change-
Ø When they are people there are problems. It is not true that tension free community is the best one. Certainly the big problems are bad both for the individuals and for the community.
Ø Even the problems teach us good things. They keep us in touch with reality
Ø Communities, like persons need tensions if they are to grow.
Ø Some communities are afraid to make any changes in the life-styles, even though they are convinced of what they are doing is not the ideal, due to the fear of tensions among members.
Ø By and large people resist change. Change is an everyday and necessary part of our lives, yet resistance to change seems to be one of the greatest problems in community life.
Ø We all resist personal change. Our commitment to community implies a dependence and an interdependence that is an affront to our basic need for interdependence, and we live with fear that community life is robbing us of our individuality
Ø Tension are inevitable and a fact of everyday life. The challenge is to learn how to deal with them effectively, i.e., to learn to make tension work for us instead of against us.
Ø Tension challenges the community members to change and grow.
Ø Tension can be faced with a negative or positive approach.
Ø Positive ways are - face the reality of the issue, give time for reflection on the causes of tensions, spend time in prayer, on relationship, dialogue and other constructive ways
Ø Negative ways are – drinking alcohol, engaging in genital activities, fight or flight responses, superficial conversations ….etc.
PART – II
OBSTACLES IN COMMUNITY BUILDING
- DEFENCE MECHANISMS
o Defense Mechanisms are tricks of the mind that keeps us from seeing what we don’t want to see.
o When we use defenses, we are trying to escape the truth.
o Defenses can be unconscious and all of us occasionally use them to avoid issues we don’t want to deal with.
There are various kinds of defenses, but we often use those we learned in our particular family patterns.
Few common defenses mechanisms describing how they operate and influence us in our common living.
Rationalization - rationalization is the justification of opinions or actions by fallacious reasoning.
- It is giving believing reasons instead of the real reasons, hiding unrecognized motives. Since it is deceiving self as well as the listeners, rationalization is potentially dangerous.
- Blaming is another form of rationalization. The person who blames, generally does not examine his/her own behaviour. Their reasoning supports their own perceptions.
- Rationalizers will always invent causes beyond their control to safe-guard themselves.
- The essence of the rationalization lies in finding self-satisfying reasons for what we do.
- Rationalization cover up a lack of Growth and keep us from truly coming to terms with our real personalities. We keep a community from open and honest dialogue since we cover up what is really going on inside us..
- When we are rationalizers, we reject criticism and insist on our own explanations. These people in a community can be trouble and a big block for growth because they do not want to face the truth. They pretend to be good people and to be victims of understanding
- Real friends can help us for hearing what our feelings are telling us and able to express them. Then only we begin to understand ourselves and life. To be able to face ourselves means to make these real experiences available to others
Denial of Reality – it is a person’s refusal to face painful thoughts or feelings.
1. It is not lying, Lying is a conscious process and denial is unconscious. In using this mechanism, the individual turns away from facing personal failures and faults.
2. The person denies because the feeling is inconsistent with his/her way of thinking. In this denial it is not only the words they utter but the tone of voice and the anger shown on the face are important. The words say one thing but the body expression say the other.. Thus double message is communicated to the listener.
3. In community life, we can escape the need to face reality by procrastinating
Regression - is inappropriate behaviour to avoid responsibility and demanding the same from others and to engage in self-indulgence.
1. Regression can be seen in a persons indulging in temper tantrums or uncontrolled emotions expressions.
2. One of the common sign of regression is withdrawal . It does not mean physical distance. It can be looking sad or disinterested attitudes. This moods we use to communicate something, could be to show that we are the victims. We find pleasure in conveying the message of suffering.
3. These unconscious use of moods to control others and withdrawal express two needs:
o The need to punish
o and the fear of being punished.
4. Withdrawal behaviour gives the message that the person no longer wants to accept the responsibility or to cope with problems
5. The responsibility is shifted to others, yet the withdrawn person gains the advantage of not being recognised as the aggressor.
6. Sometimes these withdrawals can be masked by keeping busy or simply being silent. These people are generally, sensitive, lonely and self-centered and there is less co-operation with others
7. Persistent and deep inferiority feelings seem to be present but seemingly submissive.
Passive Aggression - This is the mechanism through which we hurt others by not doing anything at all.
1. It is an indirect but extremely effective form of aggression. Here the response is withheld at a certain time and in certain situations. For example, not talking to someone or absenting from the community act.
2. Through these behaviors a great deal of hostility has been released to poison other members of the community.
3. These persons are difficult to deal with because the conflict never surfaces and they are unwilling to cooperate.
4. They try to maintain a serene and controlled picture of themselves.
5. They are not peaceful and loving and lovable personalities. Often they remain remote and inaccessible to healthy relationship.
6. These personalities are very common in religious communities. The tactic is to assert superiority by putting the other person down.
Fight Or Flight
– It takes a great deal of work for a group to achieve the safety of true community. When people confronting each other with their differences lose sight of the goal (our Carmelite goal) of being together.
1. They begin to act as if their purpose is being “together” is merely to fight with each other.
2. The reality, however is that the proper task of communicating is to create love and harmony among the members
3. In some communities one or two always fight . It can be against one person ar against the whole group. In such situation some others take flight from the community.
4. A group of human become healing and converting only after its members have learned to stop trying to heal and convert.
5. All attempts to convert and heal are not only naïve and ineffective but quite self-centered and self-serving.
6. Community is a safe place, precisely because no one is attempting to heal or convert you, to fix you, to change you. Instead, the members accept you as you are.
7. You are free to be you.
8. You are free to discard defenses
9. You are free to discard masks,
10. You are free to discard disguises,
11. You are free to seek your own psychological and spiritual health.
12. You are free to become your whole and holy self,
- The person expecting attention and sympathy will be hurt and confused by seeming indifference and rejection of companions who are embarrassed by what they see as the weakness of the sufferer.
- Often the prejudices could be the cause of such fights and flights and probably more often unconscious than conscious
- Prejudices are the judgments we make about people without any experience of them whatsoever; more common are the judgments we make about people on the basis of very brief, limited experience
- Dependence
Dependence is a defense against the frightening encounter.
1. We don’t want to face the reality. Sometimes rather than accepting their differences, members allow themselves to be taken over by a leader and for the sense of false peace give up their individual responsibility for the leader.
2. When a person have an inferiority complex or is threatened, the reaction is a sense feeling that he/she is not capable of acting by one-self. In this case, they look for someone in the community to depend on for their safety and security. It can also happen, the saviour could be certain norms of life – like the Constitutions, Church documents, which will provide the answer to all the problems
3. Conflict is an extremely difficult issue for most people living in community. If a community is unwilling or not able to deal with it, the community cannot grow.
4. Members must develop the ability to confront one another.
5. Conflict is productive when it is resolved.
6. It is not conflict but the fear of conflict that is destructive.
7. Conflict is inevitable if the member are truly involved. Unfortunately, most people in communities feel they are incapable of dealing with it and go to great length to avoid it.
8. If we expect people to be like us, we will act in a way that they will.
9. If we expect people to be trustworthy, they will probably turn out to be so; if we expect people to take advantage of us , They probably will. We set up conditions to bring about the behaviour we expect.
10. Only when the individual is forced to look at the cause of dependency, he/she will be able to let go of dependency and be free from the fear of inability.
- Scapegoating
Scapegoating is projecting on a person or an object, something within us we find distasteful, denying its existence in ourselves.
1. This is driving our victim away, in the unconscious hope of removing what is unacceptable about ourselves.
2. This term has its root in the OT. The early Israelites atoned for their sins by selecting an unblemished goat, sheep or animal, killing it or driving it out into the desert. This act symbolically represented the removal of sins. Nothing can be more destructive to the feeling of safety in the community that the use of Scapegoating to deal with difficult issues.
3. Each member of a community who grows in love and wisdom helps the growth of the whole community.
4. Each person who refuse to grow, or is afraid to go forward, inhibits the community’s growth.
5. All the members of the community are responsibility for their own growth and that of the community as a whole.
6. When we are at peace, when we have assumed our own deep wounds and weakness, when we are in touch with our own heart and capacity for tenderness, then actions flow from our true selves.
7. Growth begins when we start to accept our own weakness.
8. If we are to grow in love, the prison of our egoism must be unlocked. This implies suffering constant effort and repeated choices.
9. Always we can find someone or something to blame for all our problems. Often we project onto objects because we are more comfortable in dealing with them than persons.
10. Behind the objects there is always some people. We use this Scapegoating because we don’t want to confront the real issue or change.
11. On of the interesting aspects of Scapegoating is that the scapegoted person or the community permits it.
12. The principle is that no one can be scapegoted unless he/she or the community permits it. The problem is the passivity of the victim or of the majority of the community.
- Control.
Power is the key ingredient in almost all human relationship, some people wants to control others.
1. No body can control us unless we allow ourselves to be controlled; maybe sometimes we allow this because we have some gain. We say for the “sake of peace”; for God’s sake”,
2. Don’t allow yourself to walk “walk over you”.
3. Members test out their influence in the community, unless at a unconscious level.
4. People exercise control with the asset of academic degree, age, verbal ability, progressive or conservative attitude.
5. We can find here a strong spirit of influencing and being influenced. In such a situation, members enter into a relationship with careful assessment.
6. Competitiveness is always exclusive; genuine community is inclusive.
7. To achieve genuine community the designated leader must lead and control as little as possible in order to encourage others to lead.
8. In so doing, she or he must often admit weakness and risk the accusation of failing to lead.
9. A community cannot exist if the members depend upon a leader to control them or carry all the responsibilities of the community members.
10. Each one of us has no more and no less responsibilities than any other for the success of our living together. It is far easier for us to teach and preach than to act.
11. Continually we must empty ourselves of our need to control. The process by which a group of human beings becomes a community is a lawful process.
12. Whenever a group functions in accord with certain quite clear laws or rules it will become a genuine community.
PART – III
HOW TO FOSTER GROWTH IN COMMUNITIES
After having explained the ground rules for community life and the aspects which block the community growth I come to the third part with few proposals
The followings are suggestions essential for building up a community. These suggestions are based on the research and findings of Dr. M. Scott Peck as well as with my own experiences working with religious communities in various part of the world for ten years,
1. UNCONDITIONAL ACCEPTANCE
The key to community is acceptance.
Individual comes with
their own personality,
· history character,
· strength and limitations,
· pattern of behaviour learned from childhood, wants to be accepted
· At the deepest level of their lives, all person need acceptance, recognition and affection.
· Persons need to share their successes and failure.
· They need stimulus and support and a minimum of interior stability and security.
Is this possible in a community where many people from different cultural backgrounds and various behaviors live and work together?
Ø It is possible because of the common Carmelite goal for which they stand
Ø They learn to sacrifice the differences to achieve the end for which they live without giving up their own values and convictions.
The key to this is to accept the persons with their differences.
Luis Gorge Gonzalez suggests the following 4 steps to achieve this end.
1. an end to assumptions
2. challenge the focus of attention and sub-modalities
3. separate the person from the differences
4. re-frame differences
When we see differences that harmonize with our beliefs, assumption and goals, there is no difficulties.
Thus we are able to celebrate of our individual and cultural differences.
We need to learn in living in the community
Ø how to surrender some of our likes and dislikes,
Ø manage to maintain respect for each person
Ø how to appreciate others and the truth, instead of holding on to our opinions and assumptions.
Then we will appreciate the saying
“Life is not a problem
to be solved,
but a mystery to be lived”
When we feel accepted by the community members will hang in together through periods of doubt, anxiety, anger, depression and even despair.
Every community member must make an effort to leave enough room for each individual person as well as the whole group to grow.
Ø This can only be achieved when individuals in a community are valued and accepted for what they are,
Ø taking into account, their past and present,
Ø their values and limitations.
This is the basis for working with someone, concretely and realistically.
What makes a persons potentially communitarian –
Ø is their openness to relate to others.
Unless new members are assertive, they will find themselves excluded from much of the ordinary dialogue going on in the community and begin to experience a sense of loneliness. This is especially true in the light of Freud’s theory that when individuals are excluded from a group, they are compelled to replace group formation with neurotic formations.
People who feel that the group excludes them and cannot meet their needs may revert to neurotic behaviour to attend this need satisfaction.
We hardly ever feel wholly accepted and acceptable. Consequently, everyone enters a community situation with his or her guard up.
In some that guard goes very deep. Even is a conscious attempt is made to be open and vulnerable, there will still be ways in which unconscious defences remain strong.
Each member of the community has to feel acceptance.
Do we really accept each other with their weakness, immaturity and flaws?
Our own failings are not easy for us to accept, and as defence we develop a perfectionist attitude towards others.
We refuse to accept them as they are and project an attitude of nonacceptance.
Too often we want to see the community at an ideal point. The frustrations of many people in communities comes from the fact that the community is not where the member would like it to be.
It is only when we are able to accept ourselves, with our shadows, darkness, and immaturity that we will able to reach out and accept the same weaknesses and faults in others.
When we can accept God’s forgiveness of ourselves, then we can accept and forgive others.
It is not merely a matter of living with people of different cultures and countries. It is also inclusive of the full range of human emotions, tears and laughter, fear as well as faith.
In the process of community – building, individual differences must first be allowed to surface and be fought over so that the group can ultimately learn to accept, celebrate, and thereby transcend them.
In the process of transcending their individual differences, the most necessary key is the appreciation of differences
In community, instead of being ignored, denied, hidden or changed, human differences are celebrated as a gifts.
A community intellectualizing or discussing the problems in a superficial way or afraid of personal communication can not reach the goal of achieving community.
In pseudo-community a group attempts to purchase community cheaply by pretense; they withhold some of the truths about themselves and their feelings in order to avoid conflict.
What is diagnostic of pseudo-community is the minimization, the lack of acknowledgement, or the ignoring of individual differences.
The essential dynamic of pseudo-community is conflict avoidance.
The absence of conflict in a group is not by itself diagnostic.
Genuine communities may experience lovely and sometimes lengthy periods free from conflict. But that is because they have learned how to deal with conflict rather than avoid it.
Pseudo-community is conflict avoiding;
True community is conflict-resolving.
A religious community is not a family, neither is it an ethnic, professional, or social group; it is not built on affinity and friendship.
A religious community is a group pf people who have been called to the same vocation and who understand and live their calling by faith, where love and truth walk hand in hand, creating a space for personal relationships that enable the proper exercise of freedom.
As the love and acceptance escalates, true healing and conversion begins.
Old wounds are healed, old resentment forgiven, old resistance overcome. Fear is replace by hope.
2. COMMUNICATION
Dr. Scott Peck explains how the quality of community can improve through good communication
It consist of:-
Ø verbal and
Ø non-verbal networks
It is through this network that keeps members of the group in relationship. It is also through this network that members exercise a positive or negative influence on one another.
Ø Communication is not just to give and take information. It implies additionally the participation in the life and actions of other members
Ø Community must contain communication and relationships
Ø Communication is the bedrock of all human relationship. Good communication helps us to grow because we got the facts right.
Ø Poor communication brings pain and sufferings in the psychological and spiritual life. Cut-off communication causes spiritual and psychological death.
The rule of the community-making are the rules for effective communication.
Communication takes many forms:-
· written and oral,
· verbal and non-verbal
Some of the non-verbal communications that are more effective are:~
· facial expression,
· eye contact,
· body posture,
· gestures,
· voice tone and rhythm of breathing.
Members who speak not a word may contribute as much to the group as the most voluble.
In communication, it requires no experience to ascertain whether a silent member is participating emotionally in the group.
Simply his or her facial expression or postures over time will be enough to let you know.
If communication improves, the quality of the relationship improves between the members.
On the other hand, if communications creates confusion, misunderstanding, distortions, suspicion, or antipathy in the human relationship, we must conclude it to be ineffective.
Good communication:-
- means, the capacity to listen attentively.
- should come out of love for – oneself, God and others.
- means direct. Inferring from behaviour is not direct; as well as communication through a third person is not direct.
- needs to be immediate. Why? Because we may digest within and we brood over the negative feelings, not communicate to a wrong person. Here we need prudence too
- must be clear and precise.
- must be pure. Stated purpose must be the same as real purpose. (Fox tongue)
- does not command, only suggests.
- must be free from emotional turmoil but not of emotions.
- tolerates disagreements. When disagreement comes don’t become defensive; Disagreement could be constructive. Disagreement is not to be understood as winning or losing. It is not important to win the argument rather to win the person.
To initiate, maintain and develop relationship
The following three elements are important
- Harmony.
- Agreement.
- Flexibility.
A. We need to have a loving relationship :-
Ø with ourselves,
Ø with God,
Ø with nature
Ø with others.
When we are deprived of this relationship the suffering come.
What was God’s plan with regard to relationship?
God created persons to be loved and things to be used; but we human reverse the order.
Due to this, many people are afraid to love, for fear of being rejected.
We try to substitute things;
Ø because they don’t hurt us
Ø because they don’t make demands – e.g. dogs, plants, cars, TV, …etc.
People are less important than the work they do.
Structures are more important than persons.
Persons in the community are to be loved. They resent it, when they feel abused, feel hurt. When we use persons, we poster a process of alienation, destruction and separation. When we seek love, we loose it because we use them. When we constantly use them, they want to go away from us. How to get out of this dilemma? Only through love and trust.
Our life depends on welcoming, caring, warm network of relationship. Each of us becomes a more complete person through loving and being loved, through relationship.
When a person is in sorrow the most loving thing we can do is share that pain – to be there even when we have nothing to offer except our presence and even when being there is painful to ourselves. as illustrated in the story below.
(- a woman who just sat silently without even uttering a single word next to her friend in the funeral parlour whose husband had just passed away. Many friends came to consoled her with words of sympathy etc. When evening came this woman went home without uttering a single word. Later the widow told a priest that of all her friends who gave her the most comfort was this particular woman – her friend, who sat next to her without saying a word . )
.
Learning can be passive or experiential.
Experiential learning is more demanding but infinitely more effective. As with other things, the rule of communication and community are best learned experientially.
For growth, it is essential that we open to:-
Ø to ourselves,
Ø others,
Ø environment,
Ø future
Ø to God.
If we don’t open, we say that God is dead.
Some people die at the age of 40 and wait to be buried at 80.
When there is no communication:-
Ø community fails,
Ø tensions arise,
Ø people react more than acting.
It is intended to foster communion among members through the sharing of feelings about common experiences and values
Communication and communion involves risk and trust..
3. ACTIVE LISTENING.
Listening is a process that brings us to the point of knowing what is going on in other persons’ lives at a particular moment.
It is more than a physical hearing of verbal messages.
It is an act of positive focusing of an attention on the message being offered rather than a passive act.
Listening requires :-
Ø attention,
Ø reception,
Ø perception.
Learn to pick up non-verbal communications. E.g. A person smiles but inside there is lots of anger.
In the process of Listening, three things are to be attended to get the complete message from the person to whom you are listening.
Ø facial expression,
Ø tone of the voice
Ø actual words.
In some cultures, eye contact with the person who is speaking is also important. This kind of listening “with the third ear” – not taking the words literally but finding out what they want to tell you is important to get the complete message. At the same time, if the listener’s hearing is limited by a physical impairment, the quality of the listening will be affected. However reception is also influenced by the degree of attention that the listener chooses to give to the listened. This means trying to see things through the eyes of the speaker, keeping in mind that another’s reality is what that person perceives it to be.
Sometimes there is no incongruity between our thinking, emotions, our words and body language. E.g. a beautiful girl says – I am ugly, that is why no one loves me.
We become skilled at listening and understanding:~
Ø where we respect each others’ gifts and accept each others’ limitations,
Ø where we celebrate our differences,
Ø where we commit to a struggling together rather than against each other.
”
Obstacles to listen.
Ø we are disturbed within while someone is talking to us – because something triggers us – inner disturbance.
Ø Judgmental listening – get in before the communication is finished. we listen only to a few words of disagreement and immediately we become defensive or we pick up the issues and make comments on them.
Ø authoritarian attitude – “I know, you do not know” attitude.
Ø anti-authoritarian approach – whatever the authority says is wrong. In earlier times, when the superiors or the Church said something, no more arguments; today, at least in some societies, whatever the Church says is nothing for them.
Ø misunderstanding silence – a pause can communicate much more than many words. e.g “this person X is like this ….. …… (long pause) “ I think I better not say about him/her.
Ø sarcastic vocabulary. It blocks the communication
Ø bringing in unrelated things
Ø comparing.
Especially in our spiritual life, listening is a risk and is painful.
When we listen to God, God asks radical things. Why we don’t listen? If we listen, we need to change. We don’t want to change, because we are comfortable with the present, even though we know that is not the best. Therefore, we become more rigid, more ritualistic. E.g. We use notice board or pass a slip of paper to give information to the members. Another reason why we don’t listen – we assume that we already know what that person thinks and feels even before he/she describes.
In building up the community, one of the primary way is establishing this climate of developing the ability to listen to one another. The difficulty in listening is well describe by John Powell: “To understand people, I must try to hear what they are not saying, what they perhaps will never be able to say.”
Genuine love for the other helps to listen. True love purifies the heart, heal the hurts.
The obstacles of true love:
- Lack of personal depth – The people of superficial and instinctive nature, the cerebral type of people who reach others only with ideas, cannot understand profound love.
- Self-centered – person, who are too much pre-occupied by themselves, psychologically can not attend to others. Before them they have their own problems, their activities, their interests, efficiency, prestige, personal security, fear of projecting a bad image.
- Lack of time – we are always very busy; even when we have to listen to others, we do it in a haste
- Difficulty in appreciating others – This could be due to the negative attitude of themselves projected on others
4. SELF EMPTYING
It means to
Ø sacrifice or
Ø re-formulating some ideas,
Ø opinions,
Ø privileges and
Ø even rights
in view of living happier in the community.
Self emptying is essential for building up the community as well as to grow in our spiritual life.
Emptiness is the hard task. Scott Peck says, “there is no other way into community except through emptiness.”
We need to empty ourselves of barriers that hinder our self realization and communication.
The process of emptying ourselves of these barriers is the key to the transition from “rugged” to “soft” individualism. This does not mean to give up all the sentiments and understanding.
The most common barriers to communication that people need to empty themselves of before they can enter genuine community are:-
Ø prejudices
Ø expectations,
Ø ideologies
Ø convictions,
Prejudices – when we have prejudices we fail to see the reality or the actual facts. These prejudices are more unconscious than conscious. Often we pass judgments on others with partial or little knowledge or on information which we got years age. New events of life might have changed the situation totally. When we have prejudices we fail to evaluate things and persons objectively.
The process of entering emptiness – exercise what Keats called the “negative capability” – is necessary an ongoing one. Jesus processed that capability and used it to overcome prejudice in healing empathy and love transcending culture”
Expectations – today, especially the young people go for adventures. Community-building is an adventure, a going into the unknown.
Some people come to the community with false or too high expectation. They try to have the experiences in conformity with their expectations. Occasionally this is useful behaviour, but it is destructive because they can try to monitor everything towards their expectations. Until such time as we can empty ourselves of expectations and stop trying to fit others and our relationships with them into a preconceived mould we cannot readily listen to the truth in others.
Ideology and convictions – ideologies and convictions should be based on certain principles –
v Gospel Truth,
v approved rule of life or norms agreed upon by the community itself.
It is not discarding suddenly one’s own ideologies rather gives a listening ear to other’s views and see if you can find truth in them. My own experience of working in religious communities is – one or two people always speak, they have all the truth and only the truth. They hold on to their own convictions and impose them on other members. This one of the way of colonizing the community members. In such a situation, a group can never become a community. This process of giving up or to surrender is an agony of sacrifice and death to self. In this process people can become defensive, protective and self-righteous. All attempts to heal or convert one another are useless. The process of attempting to heal and convert instantaneously end up in fighting.
Solitude, silence and meditation are best facilitators for reaching this self emptying.
v Through solitude we can put ourselves in the right deposition to listen.
v In silence we can get into ourselves, into others and into God;
v through the process of meditation we can empty our minds
The ultimate purpose of emptiness is to make room or others and for God – He that saves his life shall lose it, and he that loses his life, for my sake, shall find it.”
Ultimately emptiness is openness to the Other.
Openness requires of us vulnerability – the ability and the willingness to be deprived and wounded.
The only reason to give up something is to gain something better.
What is that something in the community?
Peace, joy, brotherhood /sisterhood and serenity of heart.
Hence each member of the community should ask of what do I have to empty myself in order to gain peace?
v do I have to empty my attitudes?
v do I have to empty my styles or behaviour?
v do I have to empty my viewpoints?
v do I have to empty my policies?
v do I have to empty my understanding?
v do I have to empty my resentments which I am still carrying around?
We can’t live a life of serenity and peace, unless we are willing
- to suffer repeatedly,
- experiencing
- depression and anxiety,
- grief and sadness,
- anger
- the agony of forgiving,
- confusion and doubt,
- criticism and rejection
A\life lacking these emotional upheavals will not only be useless to ourselves, it will be useless to others.
We cannot heal without being willing to be hurt.
The transformation of a group from a collection of individuals into genuine community requires little deaths, in many of the individuals as well as in the community.
Jesus, the healer, taught us that the way to salvation lies through vulnerability. Our vulnerability makes others think of our authenticity. When we are invulnerable we rid ourselves with psychological defenses and pretend that everything is within the control of ourselves.
If the other person also acts in the same manner our personal relationship becomes very superficial and empty.
Our vulnerability can also be a risk – either of total rejection or of having others take advantage of our vulnerability.
The risk is always there. Here we can apply the words of St. Paul “ my power is made perfect in weakness”. The truth is that there can be no vulnerability without risk; and there can be no community without vulnerability; and there can be no peace ultimately no life – without community
Human beings are all essentially manipulative and self-serving. When we grow towards this stage of emptiness the members of a community comes to realize that their desire to heal, convert and their interpersonal differences are self centered desire for personal comfort and happiness. Then they are able to appreciate and celebrate personal differences. Such giving up is a sacrificial process. Consequently the stage of emptiness in community development is a time of sacrifice. Such sacrifice hurts because it is a kind of death but this death is necessary for rebirth, for building up the individuals and community.
CONCLUSION
The growth of the community ultimately depends on the members who live in it. When the goal of the community is clear and acceptable to everyone, individuals have the chance to make a choice to be part of it or out of it.
Other ingredients for the building up the community are :~
- Flexibility,
- attitudes
- Understanding the dynamics within the community.
One or two members of the community cannot change the living style of the community.
In this way, every member is able to obtain from the community their three fundamental psychological needs namely :~
- To love and be loved – through community life and fraternal life;
- To produce and be useful – through the work and apostolate one does;
- To understand the meaning of life – through community dialogue, reflecting, living faith and good discernment.
These are the only the important and basic elements for building up the community and personal growth.
Do your utmost to put these guidelines into practise, you and your community will have the ability to grow.
Fr. Charles Sarrao. OCD
On the Solemnity of Christ The King (20th November 2005) four members (Alice Chew, Adeline Ann Lee, Juliana Lim and Stephen Tai) of the Secular Order of Discalced Carmelites (OCDS) in Kuching made their 1st Promise in the presence of Rev. Fr. Aloysius Deeney, our General Delegate and Spiritual Assistant, in a simple ceremony during the Sunday Mass at the Carmelite Monastery of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church .
