Commitment

Most of us are so busy we jump from one thing that must be done NOW, to the next.

I tick off plenty of achievements - but somehow, when I look back on my week or month, or even when I reflect on my career or my life, I get the feeling that I have been so busy that I have somehow missed my life.

Life seems to be absorbed by doing things.

American writer Wayne Dyer makes a point that means a lot to me: I am a human being, not a human doing. Don't equate your self-worth with how well you do things in life. You aren't what you do. 

As I say, we are all really busy; we have so many things to do - and sometimes, because of that, we miss out on our lives. In our rush to do, we miss out on being - being alive, appreciating the world and people around us, the tastes and smells and textures of seemingly ordinary things around us. We gulp down coffee, wolf down food, scan headlines, glance at the snow-covered mountains, and are satisfied if we can just touch base with people we love and who love us.

Last weekend I was reminded of that very strongly. I was honoured to be asked to sponsor one of our teachers when she was received into the Catholic Church - and this weekend I will be there again for her Confirmation and First Communion.

That really made me think. She clearly appreciates working in a Catholic environment. But the thing that made me think is her next step: making a commitment to be an active part of that Catholic environment, a commitment to find out more about it, a commitment to become one of the standard-setters of Catholic values and expectations.

WOW!

Commitment may be one of the most important things about being human. Maybe the most fully human people are those who purposefully gather data, examine it, and then make a conscious and deliberate decision to act on that, to live their lives based on that. It is this that makes the difference: gathering and sorting information is not the same as taking the next step - committing to change ourselves in the light of our new perception.

I read somewhere recently that 90% of people who are told to change their unhealthy lifestyle or they will die, do not change their lifestyle. Nine out of 10 of us cannot commit even to saving our own lives!

So when we see a person commit to a new way of seeing, a new way of being, we are in awe! And we should be: we are in the presence of one of the most important and defining characteristics of being human. We are in the presence of someone who has taken Jesus at his word: he came to to offer us the "fullness of life". He offers it to each one of us - but not all of us make the commitment to accept a life more full.

Jesus' only pass/fail test

I know we are in the middle of Mahi Toi - and the whole school is immersed in creativity and imagination, but this week I have found myself thinking about some of the ways we put ourselves to the test. 

I love our arts festival. Of course, part of that is my love of imagination and creativity. Part of it is my Catholic educator's heart, delighted to see aspects of our Creator's whole person emerging in all sorts of surprising places. And part of my delight is my teacher's satisfaction watching young people put themselves on the line: testing themselves to see if they can face their fears and stand up in front of their peers and perform - or not.

I have always been a fan of high-stakes assessment - a fan of students preparing for a pass/fail test, sitting the assessment on a particular day at a pre-set time, for a limited number of minutes - and then passing or failing.

There is plenty to learn about ourselves and our gifts from passing or failing, and what we learn is much more important than what we studied. The lessons last a lifetime - and they are often more potent life-lessons than we learn from internal assessment which teaches us more about teamwork, following instructions and perseverance. Nothing wrong with that - but there is something special about an important timed exam with no second chance. 

We will practice that in an academic environment next term, and do it for real in term 4 - but this week we also see it happening with individual students fronting up to an audience and putting their work and talent on the line. Succeeding, but risking failure and ridicule.

Jesus (and I) believe in high-stakes pass/fail assessment - but his truly was life and death. He presented us with only one test.

Jesus' only high stakes assessment, his only pass/fail test for us (with more than feeling ridiculous at stake!) is outlined in Matthew 25, 42-46 where he clearly sets out the criteria for passing and failing.

I was hungry but you would not feed me, thirsty but you would not give me a drink; I was a stranger but you would not welcome me in your homes, naked but you would not clothe me; I was sick and in prison but you would not take care of me.’ 

Then they will answer him, ‘When, Lord, did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and we would not help you?’ 

The King will reply, ‘I tell you, whenever you refused to help one of these least important ones, you refused to help me.’ 

These, then, will be sent off to eternal punishment, but the righteous will go to eternal life.

Fail or pass.

He sets no other assessment that allows failure. That passage is why we keep providing opportunities for us all to grow in awareness of social justice  - and opportunities to make a difference. It is a more important test than any school can offer. It is an assessment we must allow no-one to fail. All that schools can do is create awareness of social justice issues - and build our individual confidence of success when we test ourselves. 

The whole person

In Catholic schools I often hear the phrase educating "the whole person".

Church documents seem to use the word "integral" or "integrated" to refer to much the same thing. I thought this week, with Mahi Toi just around the corner, I would try to start and unpack the idea - especially for our new parents.

As soon as I started I knew it would be a challenge!

What makes up a "whole person"? And why would a school even consider the issue? Surely schools are about the intellectual development of each student - why would we look further?

Catholic schools have always looked further. At the core of Catholic education is a belief that we exist to train the mind first; but that it is also our role to address the development of all the other things that make us fully human - other gifts from our Creator.

So, what are the key attributes of a fully formed and mature human being? Right up there we need an mind capable of focused attention; an intellect with strategies to solve problems, to work things out, to predict accurately based on perceived data, and to learn from mistakes. That is what schools do - so we need to do it well.

We need to be healthy and fit. Most schools make a good attempt at this, often having to fight society's example of poor exercise and eating, and the unhappiness our complex world often causes.

Most people can see mind and body as fitting into schools. But we try to go further. One of the most important aspects of being a happy, mature human being is the ability to love; the ability to form stable, faithful long-term relationships with other individuals, and with communities. We all need to respect each other and treat each other well. This is a key part of education in any Catholic school.

One of the most important (and often overlooked or minimised) aspects of mature humanity is the ability to appreciate and create beauty.

If we want to enhance our lives, our satisfaction with our lives, to deepen our humanity, we all look for beauty. In our society where ownership is so important, that can mean to own a seaside section, a classic car or a painting. But ownership is not the key – God throws beauty at us everywhere: when we go for a walk, when we pick up a baby, when a friend smiles. Beauty is lavishly bestowed – but too often we take it for granted and do not really see it. That is why appreciation of beauty is part of holistic education.

Next week we have Mahi Toi. We will see beauty in movement and art. We will hear beauty, we will even taste and smell beauty!  And we will have the opportunity to take part in one of the things that  proves we are created in our Creator’s image: creativity. We will never be perfect creators like our God – but creativity is another of the higher gifts we have been given. Next week we will practice and appreciate that. Students and adults alike will say “Wow!” and be in awe of the gifts we see. And the creativity won’t be limited – there will be many opportunities in all sorts of areas because beauty and creativity should not be limited to certain categories, or placed in pigeon-holes. We will see both in surprising places.

Each experience will be part of our goal of educating the whole of each person God created.

(And, of course, a mature and whole person is not limited to mind and body, relationships, beauty and creativity. That is all I have space for today – but our Creator has a far larger canvas and many, many more colours!) 

Charity fulfils the law

Last week student Board rep Paddy Ferris used Google Docs to ask students about projects for Work Day. The first $1600 brought in is used to support our ChildFund children - and the rest is traditionally used to provide resources for students. 

Paddy was probably expecting suggestions like our recent student projects: water filters and chillers, outdoor seating, basketball scoreboard, an outdoor basketball hoop. One thing he was possibly not expecting was a series of requests to spend more money on third world children. 

Maybe he should not have been surprised - it was just a fortnight ago when students donated more than $800 to support the people of quake-stricken Nepal: Garin's most generous mufti day ever.

I had explained to students my reasons for disliking mufti days: chief among them a worry that students seemed happy enough to wear mufti - but too many took food off the plates of poor children by not contributing to the associated fundraiser. 

Then they made me look silly! And now a week or two later, I was feeling silly again.

And also more than a little proud!

St Paul is very clear about how to be Christian - how to live a Christian life. In his letter to the young church in Rome (13:10) he wrote to love is to obey the whole Law. A simple and very clear summary! 

Or, as John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote: All you need is love.

In his old age St John kept repeating: My little children: love one another. When asked why he kept repeating this sentence, he replied that love was enough, if we really love!

So I am proud of your young people. Maybe what these signs show us is that we are becoming more mature as a Christian and Catholic community. Thank you.

What are you going to do with your life?

We are just winding up to that stage of the school year when we will ask senior students which subjects they need to study next year. That is a whole long process and will not conclude until a month into next term - but early this week senior students visited a Careers Expo in Richmond - and on Wednesday evening parents visited the Careers Roadshow, hosted this year at Nelson College. 

Over the next ten weeks students will be doing a lot of research exploring what they are good at, what they like doing, looking at personal preferences (working indoors or outside, with others or on their own, thinking and problem-solving or physical work - and all the other foundation questions).

Then parents and students will gather with teachers and sort out the courses our young adults will need to reach their career goals.

That process is often called "vocational", a word from the Latin vocare "to call" which leads to "called" or "calling". That comes from our understanding that God creates us with a purpose, and fully equipped with the seeds of the gifts we need to fulfil that purpose - and so God "calls" us.

Society narrows the word to mean "job", and Catholics have sometimes further narrowed the concept of "vocation" to priesthood and religious life - and certainly that is one calling. 

But God calls each one of us - and in all sorts of directions. 

For example, I was called to be a teacher (not necessarily in a school), to be a husband and father, to lead and to follow. I believe I am called to work my way through difficult concepts and make them accessible for people - one of the things I was best at as a teacher. I am called to be a friend, an idealist, a member of different communities ... you get the picture.

The important thing to remember is that EACH ONE of those things is done in partnership with God - so each one is important (and holy).

Thinking of God being limited to calling people to jobs is lazy thinking; thinking of God only calling priests and religious (and apparently not caring so much about the rest of us) is verging on the ridiculous! 

God made each of us, loves each of us as only God can love, gifted each of us, and expects all sorts of things from each of us. We are called to be all we can be in many, many areas!

Over the next ten weeks New Zealand secondary schools focus on career-based callings - but for the rest of the year Catholic schools like Garin work hard on all the other things we are called to: becoming the whole people our Creator created us to be.

All shall be well

In previous ages people with real passion and love for God did outrageous things to live their commitment to our Creator. You may have heard of people who lived for decades on top of pillars of stone in the desert - or went into the wilderness to get away from the distractions of the world around them and focus entirely on prayer.

In the Middle Ages there were a number of people who stayed in cities, but also cut themselves off from the world. Unlike hermits, they took a vow to stay in one place - and had themselves walled into a small cell attached to a church. 

An interesting historical note: they went into their cell prior to the opening being walled in with a ceremony very like a funeral - so they were "buried" in their cell and, for the rest of their lives, received food through a small hole (and send out waste products the same way!) and spent their days in prayer and contemplation. Not a way of life that appeals to us today!

One of these really committed Christians was a woman known now only by the name of her patron: Julian of Norwich. She wrote ...

In my folly, before this time I often wondered why, by the great foreseeing wisdom of God, the onset of sin was not prevented: for then, I thought, all should have been well ... But Jesus, who in this vision informed me of all that is needed by me, answered with these words and said: ‘It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.'

Many modern people (including myself) find this wisdom very helpful. When things go wrong in our lives, when the actions of other people cause hurt and distress, when misguided people do stupid things (and sometimes really stupid things - just watch the news tonight), I can say with Julian of Norwich ... 

It was necessary that there should be sin; but all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.

Just a short reflection this week - but hopefully something helpful! God bless.

Heirs of Pentecost

In many ways Pentecost (celebrated next week) is the birthday of Christianity, the birthday of the new church. So Pentecost is our heritage, we are the heirs of Pentecost.

Certainly Jesus' friends didn't see themselves as starting a new church - they were loyal Jews following the example of their leader who had died because he refused to accept second best worship or respect or commitment for his God and religion. The people of the original Pentecost lived for the renewal of their religion - not its overthrow and replacement.

The beginning of Christianity

But maybe the Holy Spirit wanted a more universal church - a church able to touch the hearts of all people, a religion better able to evolve as the human spirit grew, one not limited to what had become a very codified and inward-looking religious observance centred on a small area at the eastern end of the Mediterranean.

So those early leaders were empowered to reach out. It took another 20 years before early Christianity really established itself outside  Palestine - mainly in towns of Turkey, Greece and Italy - and then centuries to reach out to the rest of the world. But that day was day one of the movement we know today as Christianity. 

Empowered with sudden confidence, and a range of gifts that got them noticed and made them effective, the disciples started their work. The most useful gift for their time, the one emphasised in Acts 2, was communication: everyone got the message no matter what language they spoke.

I'm not sure how that worked. Did the passion and commitment of Peter spread to his listeners? Did the listeners receive the gift of being able to understand? What was the understanding - the intellectual concepts, or the emotional and spiritual understanding? Or both?

But however we understand the actions of that day, the result was a surge of commitment to the good news of Jesus, to the message that death was not the end, and that the kingdom was available to all.

The ideal Christian community

There are two parts of Acts 2 that have always made it real for me. First, among all the enthusiasm and passion there were still the cynics stepping to one side and snidely asking if the speakers were drunk! and then, at the end of the chapter Luke takes a small step a few months into the future to show the actual real world effect of the good news on those almost mythical disciples ...

they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people.

I have always been able to feel the passion and idealism of those first Christians in this description. They created havens of peace in every town. They absolutely KNEW how to live their lives. They were afraid of nothing, indeed they looked forward to the last judgement and resurrection in the next month or so.

Christianity's foundation principles

For me that is a vision that tells me very clearly that these people were completely committed and living the message. 2000 years ago there was no such thing as social security, but one of the wonders of the world was the way the Christian communities took responsibility for the care of the poor and marginalised in their towns and cities. 

They still do. It was, and is, the first (and possibly only) sign of true Christianity. The sheep and goats were certainly Jesus' only pass/fail assessment! (Matthew 25, 45-46)

Pentecost is celebrated to remind us of what Christianity is all about: it is about communication and that intimate and idealistic form of community outlined above - and - as the first leader of the early Church challenged us:  

Do any of you think you are religious? What God the Father considers to be pure and genuine religion is this: 

• to take care of orphans and widows in their suffering and 
• to keep oneself from being corrupted by the world. (James 1)

Happy Pentecost!