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(4) FEB. 1 1993. PROPERTY OF O'NEILL LIBRA. mH COLLEGE.

(5) RITUALITY OF JESUITS. STUDIES IN. Where Do. We. Belong?. United States Jesuits. And Their Memberships. George. B. Wilson, S.J.. JANUARY. 1989.

(6) THE SEMINAR ON JESUIT SPIRITUALITY A. group of Jesuits appointed from their provinces. The Seminar. in the. United. States.. studies topics pertaining to the spiritual doctrine. American. and. and communicates the results to the members of the provinces. This is done in the spirit of Vatican IPs recommendation to religious institutes to recapture the original inspiration of their founders and to adapt it to the circumstances of modern times. The Seminar welcomes reactions or comments in regard to the material which it publishes. practice of Jesuits, especially. The Seminar Jesuits of the. focuses. United. its. States.. Jesuits,. The. Studies, while. meant. are not exclusively for them. Others cordially. welcome. life. and work of the. may be common religious, laity, men. issues treated. Jesuits of other regions, to other priests,. women. Hence the. on the. direct attention. especially for. who may. find. also to. and/or. American Jesuits, them helpful are. to read them.. CURRENT MEMBERS OF THE SEMINAR L.. Patrick. Carroll,. S.J.,. pastor. is. of. St.. Leo's. Parish. in. Tacoma,. Washington and superior of the Jesuit community there. John Coleman, S.J., teaches Christian social ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley. Robert N. Doran, S.J., is one of the editors of the complete works of Bernard Lonergan and teacher of systematic theology at Regis College, the Jesuit School of Theology in Toronto. Philip C. Fischer, S.J., is secretary of the Seminar and an editor at the. A. institute of Jesuit Sources.. David J. Hassel, S.J., teaches philosophy at Loyola University, Chicago and regularly writes on topics in spirituality. Frank J. Houdek, S.J., teaches historical theology and spirituality at the Jesuit School of. Theology. at Berkeley.. McGovern, S.J., teaches philosophy and Honors Program at the University of Detroit.. Arthur. F.. Michael. J.. O'Sullivan,. S.J.,. is. director of the. teaches psychology at Loyola. Marymount. University.. John W. Padberg, S.J., is chairman of the Seminar, editor of Studies and director and editor at the Institute of Jesuit Sources. ,. Paul. A Soukup,. David. S.. the. Toolan,. S.J.,. S.J., is. West Side. Copyright. ©. teaches communications at Santa Clara University. associate editor of. Jesuit. Community. in. Commonweal and. New. superior of. York.. 1989 and published by The Seminar on Jesuit Spirituality,. 3700 West Pine Blvd.,. St.. Louis,. MO. 63108. (Tel. 314-652-5737).

(7) George. B. Wilson, S.J.. WHERE DO WE BELONG? UNITED STATES JESUITS AND THEIR MEMBERSHIPS. Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits. 21/1 January 1989.

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(9) For Your Information. .. .. .. The one-hundredth consecutive be published. Jesuits will. The Seminar on. in this present year, 1989.. Jesuit Spirituality has just. existence.. During. five issues. of Studies, but since then. its. start-up time,. The Seminar has plans special way.. issue of Studies in the Spirituality of. to. mark. At the heart of. completed twenty years of. took two years to produce the. it. we have. first. published five issues annually.. the occasion of the hundredth issue in a. Jesuit. life is. prayer.. So we hope. to publish as. part of the one-hundredth issue of Studies a selection of "classic Jesuit. prayers" that activities. come out. of the four hundred and. fifty. years of the. is. where we would. have your help.. like to. Do you. example or examples of such prayers which you think ought for inclusion in that special issue of Studies'!. by a Jesuit if. June. in English or in. it. to. me. to. have an. be considered. (The prayer may be written. any other language.. necessary.) Please send 1,. and. of the Society of Jesus.. Here. tion. life. We. shall see to a transla-. at the Institute of Jesuit Sources. by. 1989. Please also include as full a bibliographical reference as. possible, for example, the full. name. of the author, the. year and place of publication of the. found the prayer.. If. you do not have. title,. publisher and. book or other source. in. which you. the details, do not. let. that deter. all. much information as you have. In advance, With it we hope to make that one-hundredth issue. you. Send the prayer with as. thank you for your help.. of Studies appropriate to the occasion.. Of. current interest to you, our readers, will be news of a recent and. special book.. The information came. in a. response to the May, 1988 issue. of Studies, "Symbols, Devotions and Jesuits." Father John Vessels of the. New. Orleans Province, director in. Rome. of the international office of the. Apostleship of Prayer, informed us that that office has just published a small. book,. A. Most Pleasant Mission, commemorative of the three hundredth. anniversary of entrusting to the Society of Jesus in 1688 the spread of. The book (126 pages, paperback) is Paray-le-Monial on July 2, 1988 when some. devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. built. around the celebration. at.

(10) three hundred Jesuits from a dozen different countries gathered to recall the occasion.. At. that gathering, Father General, Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, gave. a homily and a conference.. The book begins with them and then goes on. to give a great wealth of selections. General had referred. The Claude de. la. from. latter include. original texts to. which Father. such items as retreat notes of. Colombiere, texts of the prayer experiences of early Jesuits. (including that of Peter Canisius) in relation to the Heart of Christ, selections. from Haurietis Aquas, the most important. Heart, excerpts from the writings of. Hugo and. and from documents of general congregations,. Lorenzo. Ricci,. on the Heart of. encyclical. on the Sacred. Karl Rahner on the subject letters. from Father General,. Christ as the suppression grew imminent, the. conclusion and "last message" of Fr. Arrupe to the Society from his. "Rooted and Grounded between visit. Fr.. in Love,". and the exchange of correspondence. Kolvenbach and Pope John Paul. to Paray-le-Monial. Copies of the. can be ordered at of Prayer, Borgo. five dollars S. Spirito 5,. letter,. book. II at. the time of the Pope's. in English,. Spanish or French. each (postage included) from the Apostleship C.P. 6139,. Rome. 00195,. Italy.. John W. Padberg, Editor. S.J..

(11) CONTENTS INTRODUCTION I.. 1. THE PERSPECTIVE AND THE ANALOGUE. A cultural analogue. 4. Memberships 6 Memberships can be multiple "Primary" memberships 8 10 Changing intensities. The assistance of others A summary 12 II.. Family. reality. 7. 11. CONTEMPORARY JESUITS The changed. 4. 14. 14. 14 15. Friendships. Professional and ministerial memberships. 16. memberships 18 The Society and the Church 19 A complex new reality 20 Not the same for all 21 Some conclusions 22 Intra-Society. III.. EXCURSUS: THE STARTING POINT FOR A SPIRITUALITY 23 What do people mean by spirituality? The risk of religious ideology The rush to judgment 27. IV.. 24. 25. A METHOD FOR DEVELOPING LOCAL-COMMUNITY EXPECTATIONS Individual. Group. work. 28. 29. sharing. 29. Specific issues. 30. Group needs named. 31. Negotiating expectations Postscript. APPENDIX. I.. 32. 32. MULTIPLE MEMBERSHIPS, INVOLVEMENTS,. RESPONSIBILITIES. APPENDIX. II.. 33. RELATED READINGS. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR. 37. 34.

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(13) WHERE DO WE BELONG? UNITED STATES JESUITS. AND THEIR MEMBERSHIPS George. B. Wilson, S.J.*. INTRODUCTION Since Vatican. II. a huge amount of ink, paper, magnetic tape,. and human energy has been expended toward the goal of building. how explain the many assessments of. local Jesuit communities. In the face of all this,. nagging sense of failure that characterizes so. Can. the subject?. help?. I. there. is. new. am. the expenditure of yet. more ink. possibly. be of. brash enough to suggest that in our ongoing dialogue. a reality not yet sufficiently. named which might provide a. perspective on what has been happening. In the light of this. reality. we might. discover. new methods which could. offer practical. help in the task.. My observation development. is. after studying a. good many. efforts at. that they begin in lofty rhetoric. community. and end. in futile. moralizing. What's missing? The lived reality of the actual bodies in the. room. In an earlier issue of Studies. Joseph Appleyard has observed that. *. Author's address: Management Design,. in the Spirituality. we. Inc.,. find. it. of. Jesuits,. 1. hard to communicate. 110 E. Eighth. St.,. Cincinnati,. OH. 45202. 1. J. A. Appleyard, S.J., "The Language We Use: Talking about Religious Experience," Studies in the Spirituality of Jesuits 19/2 (March 1987)..

(14) WILSON. 2. because. we. are really using different languages arising from different. worldviews.. I. would suggest. that the issue lies deeper than that.. The. changes of the past twenty years have produced transformations in. way we image. the very. ourselves.. These are not simply changes. when we. kind of thing alluded to. between "conservatives" and ly different level. in. our ideological approaches, the. refer to the tension in our houses. "liberals"; they reside at a fundamental-. of the psyche.. Nor can they be reduced. to our era's heightened consciousness. of the existence and significance of different personality types.. may choose. We. among. to schematize our sense of those differences. people by using Jungian constructs or Sufi numbers or the medieval. Or we may. humors.. simply use our untutored horse sense to help. ourselves deal with the differences between the. the one. whose snowblower never. rests. and the one. never reach because his castle wall. will. smooth and the. is. whom. outer snow. totally impervious.. The. The. we. situation. transformations. I. am. patterns that have an impact. our. lives;. deal with today. No,. we may. those differences have always existed, whatever the names give them.. spiny,. genuinely new.. is. speaking of have created basic, stable. on our approach. to. major segments of. hence, they can legitimately be described as being situated. at the level of personal identity.. We have simply become different kinds. we have not fully named that we have yet to find the options. of persons. But since. reality,. not surprise us that. that will help us. deal with to. it. constructively.. We. may be some. confronts almost. all. are.. small consolation to observe that the religious. should. are trying to build consensus on what. do without an agreement on where we It. it. same. communities to a greater or. issue lesser. Some have named the phenomenon more explicitly for themSome have even consciously renegotiated their expectations for. degree. selves.. relationships within religious fully. community. on the potential benefits implied. minimize. its risks.. in order to capitalize. new. in the. reality. more. and. to. Few, perhaps none, have worked out the model for. living effectively in this. new. situation.. Perhaps. it. is. in the. nature of.

(15) WHERE DO WE BELONG? things that there can. be no. 3. lasting "resolution" except in terms of. accepted principles and agreed-upon methods for ongoing negotiation. by those involved. Even after agreement on principles and methods for negotiation, the task of acting. methods. will. still. be unique. on the. and applying the. principles. for each local group.. Now, the members of the Seminar on. Jesuit Spirituality have a. kind regard for you, their faithful readers. They have also patiently. endured the adventure of reading the meanderings of what. my. my. first. draft. and. friends generously call. trying to follow. my. mind. So, in. a gracious effort to spare your energies, they have asked. you a kind of road map for the journey what follows. I. am. me. to give. proposing for us in. in this paper.. name briefly the perspective I am proposing to help us understand where we are. Then we will leave religious life behind and strike off on a detour. We will take some time to observe and First,. I. will. describe another species of the U.S. citizenry.. means of. this field trip. key principles. We. will. it. we. suggests.. examine our. will. My. hope. in. me some. Then we. will return to. Jesuit experience. our Jesuit. with. me. for a while in these fields (in. the accepted rubric was, I. community. will return to the. I. reality.. from the perspective of the. larger issues in spirituality, issues. the narrower focus on local. that by. uncover a cultural analogue and some. analogue and propose some conclusions. Then, because. evoked. is. life, I. an. all. of this has. which transcend. will invite. you. to. roam. earlier Scholastic tradition. believe, to label this. an excursus).. Finally,. narrower question of local community formation. and propose a concrete method arrive at realistic, specific. for actually using the perspective to. commitments or covenants..

(16) WILSON. 4. I.. THE PERSPECTIVE AND THE ANALOGUE If. today,. we observe how we discover that. We. of relationships.. Jesuits. and most other. religious actually live. they are generally involved in a wide range. can,. it. seems, examine what. we. are observing by. employing the perspective of multiple memberships. To put directly, Jesuits are very different. cause they reality. now "belong". from what they were. more. in. very. 1950 be-. in. To uncover all the rich memberships," we need now. settings.. behind the simple tag "multiple. compound and go out. to leave the Jesuit. it. to. meet one of our neigh-. bors.. A. cultural analogue. We. begin by looking at a quite typical. temporary American simplicity's sake. the reality. To. is,. I. life.. happen. I. Our female. man. readers will. to refer to this person as. "he" although. believe, largely gender blind.. help our imaginations. I. would propose. subject as standing within a series of circles, as. neously working. embraces. woman in conpardon me if for. or. many. if. that. we. see our. he were simulta-. hula hoops. They are larger or smaller; each. one other person; some may hold many, many. at least. people.. When we meet our friend we might first discover that he is married. He stands within a relationship, "sharing the hoop," if you will, is. with a particular woman.. utterly unique,. they actually relate to each other. depending on an. ables: histories, cultures ality,. How. all. but infinite number of vari-. and sub-cultures, biology, geography, person-. economics, transient fads and permanent virtues, and quirks of. all sorts.. They may. still. be romantically. in love; they. communicated beyond a grunt or a mumble. how you look. at. it,. they are. it. But no matter. members of a marriage. There. and he and she stand within. Our gentleman,. for years.. may not have is. a circle. it.. turns out, also has a few children. His wife. has them too, of course, but that. is. not germane to. my. discussion.

(17) jr^o WHERE DO WE BELONG. man. here. This. marriage.. It. is. is. And. a parent.. that. is. not the same circle as his. a different circle, a membership with. some other. persons. Let's say. —. since. to stay within the. we. are painting this fellow, although. bounds of verisimilitude. strong allegiance to the parish he belong. —. to.. he has a pretty. that. He. we have. has served on the. parish council for two terms, currently volunteers to assist in the activities. of the food pantry for poor families, and has run the base-. ball-toss. booth. at the. annual. plays golf with the pastor. Did that. he. and a few macho cronies. mention that he. I. festival for, lo, these. is. many. years.. occasionally.. the secretary of his union local?. stays in touch with a college. He. alumni crowd?. And. And. together. with his wife has been bowling with the same eight couples every. week. other. for several years?. A year. and a half ago. his. mother, widowed and quite indepen-. dent for the past thirteen years, had a hip replacement and has not. been. as able as before to get out for her groceries.. shop for. But. time.. it. phone with I. there.. mother and see. his. to. it. It falls. to. him. that her medical bills are paid. does take time each week to review. all. that. to. on. on the. his sister in a distant city.. forgot to mention Shrug, his tired old basset hound. Just about. But. You. there. Contributing to his. get the picture. All in. all,. life,. claiming. some of. nothing extraordinary.. it.. A pretty. normal specimen of late-twentieth-century Americana. Characteristic of our big culture, though the specific shades and contours stem from his set. of particular subcultures.. The. point. has to deal with. is. in. that all of these circles constitute memberships he. some way or. other.. Let us walk around the terrain. of "memberships" and see what principles application. when we. we might uncover. return to our Jesuit starting point.. for.

(18) WILSON. 6. Memberships Memberships are created whenever a person enters relationship with another person or persons in such a. create a set of ongoing, relatively regular expectations.. may. The. into. way. a. as to. expectations. focus around the doing of specific deeds, the sharing of a certain. or perhaps simply personal presence,. level of affective response,. being there.. How. expectations are created. is. a terribly complicated question.. made most difficult by the fact that our conscious ego, that self which we can order and bring under some modicum of. It is. part. of. con-. holds but a small part of the energies with which the self con-. trol,. fronts. We. are. all. more than we can. and analyze. Let us not get. light. the. life.. human psyche. here.. We. consciously hold up to the. into the varieties of theories about. can stay within the realm of experience. directly accessible to the nontechnician. affirming that. some expectations. in. and. still. be confident. in. each of us arise largely out of our. effort to. respond constructively to invitations or requests from others,. whereas. we. we. create other expectations out of our. interpret their origin as. coming from the. own. other.. need, although. We. have. all. had. the (usually painful) experience of trying to respond to another in a certain us,. way because we thought. was what she or he expected of. mean the same we discover that. only to find out later that the relationship did not. to the other. we had. person at. some. offers. all.. Then. in other situations. read the situation accurately; the other party had expectations. identical or close to to. that. what we had anticipated.. We all build. our world. extent on the basis of projections, as well as on genuine free. from others.. In this essay, however, the processes. by which expectations and. memberships are engendered are not our question. Our task outset there.. is. at the. simply that of coming to terms with the fact that they are. Our anonymous. friend. is. a. member. subject of multiple memberships, regardless. or what their foundations are.. many circles; he of how they came. of. is. to. the. be.

(19) WHERE DO WE BELONG? Nor does. 7. may. matter that these networks of expectation. it. not. (indeed, usually are not) spelled out in formalized contracts or bylaws.. It. a serious mistake to restrict our use of the notion of. is. membership. to those entities. which are formally institutionalized and. articulated through legal or quasi-legal instruments.. are is. members. far. there. more. our friendship. —. indeed, this particular membership. significant than almost. any other membership. that. the result of a membership. have. I. my. a claim on. But as a. lost the. how. to decide. will. I. lines. have been drawn. which. is. membership.. I. altered.. respond at any. I. in virtue of the actions. may. I. remain. free.. into play, not. upon which some. took upon entering. subjectively experience the lines as wildly. liberating, or as painfully constraining but. may choose. is. the membership makes, or seems to make,. my. producing, or yet again as unbearably suffocating. In I. although. fact.. my subjectivity. a tabula rasa, but on a field. field. and. that. membership my freedom comes. result of the. fulfilling. is. time, action, affect, or presence. No,. on a. into the. freedom. moment when. particular. them. —. not a single piece of paper which points to that. is. Now Not. in. and my friend. I. at the. consciously or unconsciously. moment. to. bend or. go beyond the them;. distort. I. life-. still. response to lines;. may. I. may, because of. the claim of another membership, simply leave the field altogether. —but none. of those choices changes the fact that there are. lived history has created. into the calculus of. my. them and they are existential choices,. real for if. lines.. My. me; they enter. we may be. permitted. that analogy.. Memberships can be multiple. Our. ability as. humans. to enter into any membership, to cast. — however now way —. ourselves out into our future. present. —and. that future. to say yes. moment. in a. creative. and. that creates a. of then arrives. glory as persons created free.. The. short the term. this. issue. rich, as well as possibly. capacity. is. becomes. more. tragic,. beyond the. new. self. itself part. potentially. when. of our. more. when we confront. our ability to constellate ourselves in a similar posture toward several.

(20) WILSON. 8. many such memberships.. or even. We. are capable of making, and. indeed do make, multiple commitments;. upon a. bilities. single self.. We. we. can "belong" in several places.. Because we are not gnostic ideas but in the limits of. historical beings,. immersed. time and space, multiplicity of memberships obviously. networks of expectations and necessitate our. will lead to conflicting. making choices. place multiple responsi-. in concrete situations.. We. have to choose a course of. action which will disappoint one or other of the persons or groups. whom we. with. To. are comembers.. feels that, since the. more. the case of our typical American, his mother. illustrate: In. coming Saturday. special reason than usual. is. her birthday, there. why he should come. for her; son Billy's ninety-pound football. team. is. is. an even. over and shop. playing for the. championship on Saturday and dad has not been able to see him. once this. all. season; his wife needs special love and presence precisely on. day because yesterday she made the troubling discovery that. become. quite unexpectedly and at a frighteningly late age she has. pregnant, something he cannot explain to either his mother or his son; and, to top tell. him. it all. that they. is. one. for the. which had been scheduled for months and. trip. which no one else was. How. great friend, the pastor, just called to. needed a last-minute-substitute adult guide. Boy Scout camping for. off, his. available.. to deal with these conflicts of genuine. commit-. ments?. "Primary" memberships. One. of the ways people attempt to deal with these conflicting. expectations. is. to establish a hierarchy within the multiplicity of. memberships. There. is. a "primary" commitment and. all. others are. "secondary." In the case of the principal character of our analogy, it. goes without saying that his marriage partner comes. first.. This language undoubtedly expresses an important truth.. memberships are more serious than others, and that. fact. Some. needs to be. held in consciousness. Such principles assist us greatly by creating.

(21) WHERE DO WE BELONG?. 9. the broad lines within which choices are to be made. But important. we have. as they are,. to. remind ourselves that of themselves they do. not provide proximate norms for appropriate moral choice. Let us say that our subject faces serious conflicting expectations. mother and. from both. on a given Saturday afternoon:. his wife. his. his. wife. is. stretched to the limit by her concerns about the pregnancy, while his. mother's eighty-eighth birthday has been. months.. more than. Who. more. real.. particularly significant because she. ordinarily in pain with arthritis the past few. would be so arrogant. "of course" his responsibility. make. Let us. is. the situation even. more complicated. ly.. him where. — and perhaps. Suppose that any "objective" observer would with good mother has. for. this particular. some time been one of. on her part and inordinate acquiescence on clearer. to tell. lies?. reason say that the relationship between particular. presume. as to. now where. his. Does. this recent. reality of his wife's claim did. this. demands. excessive. primary concrete responsibility. That past history does not change the. need did change with. his.. son and. seem even. it. Not. lies?. exact-. fact that the reality of her. pain and depression, just as the. change with the discovery of her preg-. nancy.. Beyond the. limited effectiveness of the broad principle for. resolving the conflict, there. is. confront the insight from the Gospels that absolutize any "primary". membership. en" priority of every human institutions of ly. it. is. to the point. institution,. must. possible for us to. and negates the radical claim of the God of. cates. We. another truth to be faced.. where. it. history.. domesti-. The. "giv-. including the primordial. marriage and the family, has never been more forceful-. critiqued than by Jesus of Nazareth: "Unless you are ready to. leave father, mother, wife [at least in Luke] us to. and. fulfill. still fail. The. It is. possible for. our legitimately accepted and socially prioritized roles. our neighbor at the side of the road.. truth. is. that in the existential order every membership,. we rightly deem primary, can make inordinate claims human subject. It is true that we will not become whole. including those. upon the. ...".

(22) WILSON. 10. except within a of our concrete ing. The. its. human community {Lumen Gentium, no. 9), but each human communities can become totalitarian, present-. claims as automatically and self-evidently prior to. critique. may. yield the. same. specific. all others.. answer as that produced by. an uncritical application of some general principle of. priority,. having some platonic "correct" answer. The. genuine entry into our. finite. human. is. not the issue.. but. issue. is. condition. That involves the risk. of weighing competing concrete attractions and claims and then creating our response in the face of data which will not yield a self-. evident syllogistic conclusion.. And. it. involves the risk of aloneness,. the risk of "missing" what others are sure. but so do. freedom If. we make genuine. is. we. is. the mark.. We. The door of. choices alone.. die alone,. integrity. and. narrow. are to. general principles,. move beyond the limited assistance provided by we need the moral virtue of prudence, which does. not offer the same a priori security as the general principles.. And. prudence. The. is. ultimately genuine only. if it. is. allied with love.. authenticity of our concrete choices within the networks of ships into which initially. we have. we. did not. in) will ultimately. depend. inserted ourselves (and of others. choose but simply found ourselves. on the kind of love we have. for. all.. member-. Whether the man. our analogy. in. decides on that particular Saturday to risk stretching his marriage by. deciding to. visit his. mother or conversely to. staying with his wife,. risk disappointing her. he must ultimately place an act of. trust in the. genuineness of his love for and commitment to the other one will. to. experience his choice as a. judge that. is. ground beneath. Changing. loss.. Any. outsider. by. who. who would presume. an impious intruder unaware of the sacredness of the his. hobnailed boots.. intensities. In speaking of. memberships up. to this point,. we might seem. give the impression that a membership, once entered into,. to. becomes. a thing, a static reality to be placed on one pan of a scale in a test. of weight with others in the opposite pan. Experience. tells. us that.

(23) WHERE DO WE BELONG? memberships are not so tion to pin. them. easily reified. —. like butterflies to the. chies (John Fowles said. it. much. 11. despite our eternal tempta-. boards of our abstract hierar-. better in The Collector.). Memberships are constituted by persons: myself and the other (s). In real life there. is. of the partnership.. an ebb and flow of human energies on both. One. of the invaluable insights. I. sides. gained from nine. years of ministry in the field of marriage spirituality concerned the constantly shifting intensity levels within memberships that were. fundamentally quite constant. The marriage relationship or the parental. one could occupy the center of a person's attention. time;. could be preoccupying and. it. all. but consuming.. for. And. some. then for. The partners were involved in other pursuits and, yes, memberships. The focus of energies moved elsewhere; the marriage became at a certain level almost peripheral, on the margin rather than consciously central. Then again, by whatever evident or more mysterious impulse, it would move back front and long periods. it. could be quite muted.. center once again, perhaps for an extended length of time. Other. matters would again assume lesser significance. Meanwhile the mar-. membership remained quite. riage. solid. even as the "togetherness. quotient" shifted greatly.. The assistance of others. The framework place. All, that. alone. We. is. is,. for. mining some usable principles. almost in. except for one major piece. Although each of us. responsible for his or her choices,. can help each other in the If. is. we. are not totally alone.. difficult task.. the past one hundred years have heightened our awareness of. anything about the. human. pleteness of our self-knowledge.. of course.. No one. is. have underscored the. subject, they. The. basic idea. a good judge in his or her. has raised that primordial truth to. new. is. as old as. own. case.. inr. human. _/,. Modernity. levels of articulation.. We. may. employ Freud's idea of the unconscious; we may prefer Jung's image of the. shadow we cannot see but which. is. always with us;. it. may be.

(24) WILSON'. 12. sufficient simply to note that. genuine. our ego. is. not coterminous with our. self.. When we. member-. relate this truth to the question of a person's. we return to a fact noted earlier, that it is apparently quite human for all of us to misread the expectations others have of us. ships,. We can fail to. perceive messages of real need and proceed to absolve. ourselves of legitimate claims; and. we. can, out of our. be needed, create demands that others are not This brings us to the. human need. own need. to. upon. us.. really placing. for help. from others. in weigh-. ing specific situations or even ingrained patterns of response.. "other" in question or the. may wear. The. the lofty guise of a spiritual director,. more pedestrian one of. counselor; or perhaps in most cases. the other comes clothed in the comfortable old shoes of a friend or. even the motley garb of a group of cronies a question for us. setting or in. who. care enough to raise. The communication may take place. within a formal. an apparently casual encounter. Perhaps. form of a glancing remark: "Are you making that. maybe "How about taking time. to visit. Frank up. at. trip. it. takes the. againl" or. Holy Redeem-. er?" In the final analysis the other cannot really determine the legiti-. macy of a. particular claim or the appropriate weight to place. particular option for response.. That. is. on a. the privilege and the burden. of the free subject. Others cannot assume responsibility for the choices of a genuine subject. reflecting. back the. They. can, however, assist the subject by. validity they experience or the projection they. detect in the weighing of options by the person.. And. any person with. modicum of wisdom, aware of the possibilities of self-deception and seeking to make wise decisions, will stay alert and sensitive to such a. signals. from others.. A summary. We. are. now. in a position to recapitulate. some major assump-. tions that can assist us in a further analysis of the realities of. porary religious community.. contem-.

(25) WHERE DO WE BELONG? 1). 2). We. 13. members of more than one group. The notion of membership is not exhausted by the formalized are. all. statements of our organizational memberships. 3). Each membership. creates. its. own. legitimate expectations; others. have a claim on the subject's time, energies, and personal sources 4). —. as the subject does. on the other member(s).. Every membership contains the tions,. whether they. re-. risk of nonlegitimate expecta-. arise out of the other persons involved or. out of the subject's personal projection of what they expect; this is. 5). 6). true of our primary memberships as well as of others.. The weight and intensity of different stages and moments of life. It. is. a personal. life. claims will vary at different. issue for the free subject to. weigh the. strength and legitimacy of these various claims; no one can do that for the deciding subject, but others can serve the person's. genuine freedom by reflecting back the consistency or inconsistency of the. person's. projections or denials at. assessments. work. and questioning possible. in the process..

(26) WILSON. 14. II.. CONTEMPORARY JESUITS. We now. left. contemporary Jesuits some pages back. Perhaps we are. in a position to return to. them and ask ourselves what we might. on the normal American pattern of mem-. learn from our reflections berships.. The changed. reality. Let us look. What were. first at. the garden-variety Jesuit of thirty years ago.. the regularized patterns into which he had been socialized. and which constituted the network of expectations within which he. made his choices? What were his memberships? To make the case in perhaps too dramatic risk saying that. a form, one might. he had but a single membership, membership. Society of Jesus.. Too. strong? Think about. it. a. in the. bit.. Family Let us take the biological family. For the Jesuit of 1950. mem-. bership in his family of origin was almost reduced to a memory. psychological intensity of the relationship. may have been. The. great,. perhaps even greater in virtue of the lack of physical presence. Behavioral expectations, on the other hand, were almost nonexistent.. Attendance. at a family. wedding was quite problematical, and even. funerals only slightly less so.. An. at. aging parent was no different from. the general category "parent," an alcoholic brother worth an intention. on the. bulletin board,. and nephews and nieces about. as real as. trolls. It. would be possible. came work of it. to. to. examine the origins of. be elaborated from a. policy. set of beliefs into a. and normative expectations,. and legitimacy structures that maintained It. this reality,. it,. how. whole frame-. to analyze the authority. and so. forth.. might also be interesting to explore some of the unexamined. assumptions and unconscious motivations that led religious communities to. create such networks of (non)expectations.. One. might. legiti-.

(27) WHERE DO WE BELONG?. 15. mately ask whether they were authentic manifestations of discipleship. more. or distortions that avoided. demands.. difficult. as the insights they could. Such avenues of research, interesting. produce might be, would take us back into the past and might divert us from acknowledging the reality of the present.. most. most other. Jesuits (along with. The. religious) today. fact. would. that. is. situate. their personal choices concerning responsibility to their families in a. frame of reference than they would have done. different. They. in 1950.. might indeed arrive at the same concrete answer in a specific. in-. stance of conflicting expectations surrounding family and their Jesuit. community; but their starting point, the context of. would be quite. They would experience the need. different.. the competing claims.. their act of choice,. The. to. weigh. care of an aging parent, to use only one. of many possible examples, would not today be automatically excluded. from a. Jesuit's consideration. be easy. and. left to. brothers or. members of the family become persons call for. The. sister.. in. ways not contemplated. Jesuit's family. not a priori clear that he his Jesuit brothers. which. situations in. be ministered. to,. events. membership. is. one he deals with today. in 1950. In a given concrete situation. is. it is. to give a higher priority to presence with. than to a blood brother.. Let us look at another. much. to. trial,. the Jesuit simply to accompany, to walk with, a brother. or. so. would. to think of a host of other arenas of choice: presence at. family celebrations or times of struggle and. which. sisters. It. human arena. in the past thirty-five years as to. in. which we have changed. be. different people.. Friendships It. is. not. all. that long ago that the topic of friendships. have evoked a raised eyebrow. if. not a "tsk! tsk!". would. One need. only. mention the term "particular friendships" and an array of feelings. and associations are raised prior to Vatican. II.. in. any Jesuit who entered the Society. (This piece of lived history, incidentally,. is. some-. thing that younger Jesuits need to be taught in order to appreciate. some responses of. their older confreres.) Friendships. were frowned.

(28) WILSON. 16. upon. the friend was a Jesuit, and the idea of a friendship with. if. someone "not of the Society" was barely on the non- Jesuit might even. male was even. hundred. letters. As a. be— let us try for linguistic historicity — a non(How. less thinkable.. wisdom and daring. did. Hugo Rahner. to bring out of obscurity. of Ignatius to. result of. many. ever have the. and publish those eight. women?). threads once again far too complicated to. unravel here, that reality has changed for. many contemporary. They cherish and nurture often profound Jesuits,. horizon. That the. with lay colleagues, with women.. The. Jesuits.. friendships with other friendships are serious. commitments; they involve the giving and receiving of care and attention, the expenditure. may. and replenishing of personal. get out of hand, but so can any membership.. recognize that they are there.. The. The. They. energies. first. step. is. to. yes which has been said constitutes. a reality to be reckoned with in the individual's decision making.. Professional. and. ministerial. Now we move. memberships. from the more intimate interpersonal contexts of. family and friendship into the realm of apostolic service. just as well. sequence.). (We. could. have started here; there was no priority intended in the. Here we encounter a. new memberships. The. veritable smorgasbord of potential. apostolic Jesuit of 1950. would tend. to have. exhausted his memberships ad extra with either his class (most were. engaged. in teaching) or his sacramental. he was serving. in. one of our. that institutions like schools. parishes).. in the. We. One. (if. have to remind ourselves. and parishes were simpler. contrast to those existing today.. whether. and counseling ministry. in general in. did one's daily round of work,. classroom or parish. The community routine was closely. tied to the ordinary. demands of the regimen. in the institution. — another. experience younger Jesuits might need help to appreciate. In general,. everyone could quite reasonably be expected to be under the same roof at the same periods of time for the better part of the. even the weekend.. week and.

(29) WHERE DO WE BELONG?. 17. Today's picture of ministry and apostolate could hardly be more education at any. different. In the area of. (scarcely. named. level,. of social ministry. as such in 1950), or of pastoral ministry (then. it. would have probably been termed "parochial"), we have witnessed a proliferation of organizations. and. which ministerial profes-. entities to. sionals are rightly expected to belong.. and secondary education have. Institutions of higher. departments, committees, and task forces.. if. Any academic worth. he intends. to. make any kind of. his. and. in a variety of lateral organizations. certification participates. professional societies;. layers of. difference. instead of being simply a passive participant, he accepts and works at leadership roles, striving to affect the policies. and directions of the. organizations.. Let us tour another. world cannot simply al. field. of ministry.. The modern parish many structures for. retire to a rectory.. participation in. setting involves. A pastoral Jesuit in today's or pastorplanning,. coordinating, and carrying out multiple missions. There are staffs and councils is. and boards of. all. The. kinds to be dealt with.. pastoral Jesuit. expected to participate in structures and events involving. all. the. pastors or ministers of the local church, such as presbyterial assemblies,. deanery or vicariate meetings. To open. movement. his. congregation to the. for the unity of Christians prayed for. enter into local ministerial alliances. In the. man may be up. all. one. Jesuit parish. night keeping peace in a shelter for homeless. people in the church basement; another helping uneducated people learn. by law. Merely being present. contemporary parish. same. by Jesus, he must. is all. how. at the. is. out on the streets. to get the assistance. many evening. all. day. due them. activities. of a. but an impossibility. So too for any kind. of social service or advocacy operation; there are multiple ships involved, each claiming. its. own. member-. share of attention, time, and. energy. (I. cannot help but note that the participants in the Seminar on. Jesuit Spirituality. had. to "absent themselves". from. their. own. local.

(30) WILSON. 18. communities in order to hold the discussions leading to the. Jesuit. decision to publish these reflections.). Another. more recently developed memberships as members of our provinces.. set of. identity of Jesuits. affects the. Intra-Society memberships. Many. of us have become different people in relating to each. other precisely as Jesuits.. It. should not be surprising that. we. are not. yet in a position to foresee all the implications of this change, since. phenomenon itself is scarcely named. It involves the apostolic service of many Jesuits "outside the province." What was once a relatively exceptional phenomenon is now quite widespread. For some the. time. has been. it. colleges. and. common. universities to. practice for presidents. and deans of our. be drawn from a national pool of. ready and willing to assume those positions. The pattern out in other areas of our apostolates, and. itself. it. is. is. not. Jesuits. working that. all. unusual to have a Jesuit from one province serving as director of the apostolate or even religious superior in a house of another province. Jesuits have, of course, always. extended service on the missions. to use that. example. It. gone "out of the province". for. would seem a mistake, however,. for interpreting the. contemporary experience. In. the traditional concept of the missions, the man, however long he. may have been on the mission, would still see himself predominantly as a member of the sending province. Something new is happening today.. New. memberships are emerging.. Behaviorally there are to their province of origin,. now many. Jesuits. who, besides belonging. "belong" to (are psychically members of). an as-yet-unnamed national Jesuit province of higher education. —. or. secondary education or pastoral or social or. artistic ministry, to lesser. The open job market and. the desire of institutions. but real degrees.. (schools, retreat or renewal centers, agencies of all sorts) to attract. those Jesuit talents most suitable to their particular mission invite these. men. into a. new membership. When. they. come up. against. missioning situations, the needs of the Church or Society at the.

(31) WHERE DO WE BELONG?. 19. national (or even international) level are liable to weigh as seriously in their. discernment as the claims of institutions maintained by their. "home" province. The point is. that these. individual Jesuit a tension. by entering. "own". his. new memberships can. between the. particular province. members, and the membership he. where he. and. he has embraced. living. with. own. its. other. feels with others at the institution. actually invests himself in apostolic ministry; or. responsibilities to his Jesuits. identification. create in the. between. province and the solidarity he enjoys with. around the country or perhaps even around the world, who. share the transprovincial ministry he Society itself. it is. is. engaged. in.. Even within the. quite possible to experience the reality of multiple. memberships and, therefore, the. possibility of. competing claims.. This change raises issues of a different order. For beyond the existential tension in the life of the individual Jesuit, this shift inevita-. bly raises organizational questions as well. If "the province" remains in. some sense a primary membership, what does. that. mean? Are. provinces to continue in their function as personnel-supplying agencies for institutions. gradually. still. within their care?. the national pool of Jesuits?. fall to. Or will that function Or international? What. happens to a province's identity when ever-larger numbers of those serving within Jesuits. under. its. its. patterns evolve. geographic territory did not originally become. tutelage. we. will. and the influence of. its. ethos?. As. these. probably have to redefine just what the nature. of a "province community" can be.. The Society and the Church If I. may be. permitted to venture out even further,. this. tension. of memberships can occur with respect to institutions not conducted. by the Society.. I. recently visited with a bishop. services of a religious. on. his. diocesan. staff,. who had. to lose the. an invaluable asset to. the mission of the diocese, because the religious. community discerned. the need for the person's service in internal ministry to the religious. community. itself.. The. bishop's quite sincere comment: "I really value.

(32) WILSON. 20. men and women, and. religious. discernment so seriously; but. I. am. delighted to see them taking. sure would like to have seen. I. my. local. church included in the discernment process. Our mission has been set. back a whole year because the replacement. Howard Gray. over." is. have to. will. start all. has recently urged that the issue for the future. not really collaboration with the. as peers in policy decisions.. laity. but codetermination: sharing. Would we be prepared. to let the leaders. of a local church be codeterminers with us of the placement of a. human. valued. A. resource, a. complex new believe. I. member. of our least Society?. reality. it. should. now be. clear in. what sense. I. asserted that. we. have become different kinds of persons, imaging ourselves as subjects in very different. The not. ways from that of most. Jesuits of the '50s.. perceptive reader will also have guessed by. my purpose. now. that. to assess the appropriateness of the realities. I. it is. have. been describing here. In response to a question of this nature,. many of. the. some would claim. new involvements of contemporary. Jesuits. undertaken precisely in response to the vision and Vatican. more. II. that. have been. calls. of both. and our recent general congregations, urging us. to. be. more collegial, more pastoral, more ecumenical, more professional, more involved with the poor and marginal, more dialogic, more sharing of our brokenness, less provincial and more national or international in our worldview, more collaborative with relational,. our lay colleagues or other religious engaged in the apostolate.. Indeed. it. would be. difficult to. take. all. not gradually find oneself involved in a pilgrimage with others. is. those challenges seriously and. new memberships. To. share in. not the same as being a tourist passing. through without committing oneself.. Others might be inclined to loss. of primary commitment in. point out in the. how. easy. it is. stress the risks of overextension. this multiplicity. and. of mutual claims, to. for our sinful selves to cloak their disorders. mantles of pious rhetoric. Those are possibilities deserving.

(33) WHERE DO WE BELONG? serious reflection.. commit the. But the. fatal error. risk in. 21. such considerations. that. is. we. of rushing to analysis (or even to "solutions". we have. something too quickly labeled a "problem") before. for. allowed ourselves the. full. appropriation of the reality. own complex terms. We will return to The picture would be rich enough But there. here.. Not the same. is. this if. on. itself. its. point later.. we stopped. our description. another factor to be considered.. for all. When we. apply. of multiple memberships to the con-. this lens. temporary Society of Jesus in the United. The analogue. that our analogue limps.. when speaking of a. individual; but,. States,. becomes. it. clear. dealt necessarily with a single. religious. course, dealing with several, perhaps Jesuits. could. we. community,. are, of. quite a few, individual. still. working out their destiny and mission together.. That. fact. makes us confront another. not taken place in the same way,. much. reality;. less. with the same level of. intensity or bonding, for every individual Jesuit.. almost every larger house. who. stiil. ways. There are. image themselves. the Jesuit of the '50s, in contrast to others selves in the. these changes have. Jesuits in. model of. in the. who have. inserted them-. have described into multiple commitments of an. I. ongoing, highly involving nature.. Some men. live their lives totally. within the world of the. round of experience under the one roof of "the house." They. daily still. still. carry expectations of physical presence in. meals,. some communal. prayer,. feast days. Their conversation. is. TV. common. watching, haustus, birthdays and. largely local, or perhaps focused. the world of the Society.. They do not know the worlds. men. find their personal, religious,. in the. identity,. community. much. less. activities:. in. on. which other. and apostolic. the mutual expectations generated by these com-. mitments. They live cheek by jowl with others whose calendars seem to. be. filled. It is. up well beyond the parousia.. understandably. difficult for the. behavior of the latter as "doing their. own. former not to interpret the thing." (This. is. an. interest-.

(34) WILSON. 22 ing expression, to. you. if. do "somebody. let. yourself think about. else's" thing?. It. it. a. somewhat. is. bit. Is. one expected. like that other old. unexamined term "particular friendship": did friendship -in-general ever exist?) Conversely into multiple as. may be. it. memberships not. difficult for. again,. not. it is. my. who have moved. to categorize the others as "stuck" or. Lazy-Boy potatoes (couches are not our. Once. those. style).. purpose to place a value judgment on. the lives of Jesuits with a single membership or on those broadly involved.. Each way of. have. living will. its. fulfillment, as well as of difficulty, cost,. point. that. is. we need. to. unique moments of. joy, of. and painful discernment. The. acknowledge that the. starting situation for. discernment has changed radically and that Jesuits living under the. same roof can be. at quite different places in the multiplicity of their. memberships and, therefore,. in their expectations of local. community. living.. Some. conclusions. What does tion will only. own. all this. mean?. In the concrete, of course, that ques-. be answered by the. Jesuits themselves as a group.. My. conclusions from this set of reflections take the form, not of. prescription for. what we should do about the. reality of multiple. memberships, but rather of some implications or consequences that. seem. to flow. The. from. it.. implication. first. calling for recognition; ent.. We. strands. may. try to. woven. it. is. that there. will not. understand. a reality right in front of us. go away.. how. into the tapestry.. is. it all. But. first. We are irrevocably differhappened, to uncover the. we must. let. the real be. real.. The second for the. is. world that. that moralizing or projecting exists. begin one more time. is. blame on each other. We. have to. come a time when we. will not. an inappropriate response.. (will there. ever. have to do so?) with Ignatius's praesuppositwn to the Exercises: to believe that those. who may be. at very different places. than. we. are. on the spectrum of memberships are there as a result of a serious.

(35) WHERE DO WE BELONG?. 23. personal effort to respond to the call of the Lord in their lives at this point.. Third, the reality. means. that the schedules of. community mem-. bers are and will continue to be very diverse, and legitimately so.. This makes most unrealistic any expectation of presence of every. member of. a community at very regular,. Fourth,. it. means. much. that the concrete expectations of local. policy guidelines holding a province or the. each community. will. be different. even that plateau of. specificity will shift as. same. street,. each. from year to year the. member. living out with shifting levels of togetherness. and even negotiating. work out the will. Would. it. skills.. No one. except the. for adult collab-. men. themselves. details of daily living for a particular. Jesuits living together.. and hearts. we call "marriage"?) to new urgency the need. reality. Fifth, the reality raises. skills.. each new. may no longer be feasible or even appro(Remember all those different couples up and down. priate the next.. will. at the level of specific expectations.. possible one year. is. orative. whole Society together,. each existing member moves on, or people grow and change.. arrives,. the. that. body of men. Within a framework of broad values and. particular. What. commu-. be a function of the actual mix of memberships of. nity life will. And. less daily, activities.. Whether they bring. it. off with union of. depend, not simply on personal. be temerarious. body of. virtue, but. minds. on group. to whisper very gingerly that these. have not traditionally been a strong. suit. of members of this least. Society?. III.. EXCURSUS: THE STARTING POINT FOR A SPIRITUALITY. Now. We. let. us take that side excursion indicated. leave the immediate field of community formation and explore. some more foundational ing?. on our road map.. It. may. questions.. Below ground.. Spiritual spelunk-. help the reader to appreciate the approach. in organizing these reflections.. I. have taken.

(36) WILSON. 24. have not spoken. I. cal virtues;. nor have. congregations,. much. I. until. now about God. or Jesus or the theologi-. referred to things like the decrees of general. less. our constitutions or Scripture. There are no. footnotes to provide scholarly legitimation for what has been asserted. These absences may. here.. call for. some. explanation, particularly in. a publication devoted to reflection on the spirituality of Jesuits. So,. with some hesitation (and surely a reliance on the Ignatian praesup-. positum mentioned. earlier),. here are some personal observations on. the subject of spirituality and. its. relationship to the ideas put forward. above.. What do. my work. In ly. mean by. people. spirituality?. as a church consultant. and. facilitator, I. am. frequent-. confronted with comments or evaluations to the effect that "the. assembly was really great; another so honestly;. common. we. ground; but. I. the. it is. first. time. we. ever spoke with one. tough questions and found. really dealt with. wish there had been more. spirituality in the. process ...". What do such comments mean? As. far as. I. can. from trying. tell. to tease out the intent of the speakers or writers, there. a prevailing. is. sense that you do not have "spirituality" until you take "ordinary" reality. and. clothe. it. in the. garb of either Scripture or the foundational. documents of the community or theological concepts. makes a spirituality?. For completeness* sake. I. Is. what. that. should observe that the same comment. might just as easily be coming from someone. who would. assert. vigorously that he or she rejects a two-tiered theology of the supernatural, as. learned. is. from someone consciously espousing that. thinking are. we can change language. more. intractable.. transformation of attitudes. The tip. my. I. rather easily; our ways of into. backbreaking work.. comments. raises serious questions. hand,. What we have. But turning conceptual change. attitude symbolized by. marks above. To. is. it.. about. like those in quotation. how we view. have consciously avoided clothing. my. spirituality.. observations.

(37) WHERE DO WE BELONG? and reflections in. my. in spiritual. language and references.. 25. I. did so because,. experience, there are two occupational hazards to which. reli-. gious people are peculiarly subject and against which they must. continuously struggle.. The. risk of religious ideology. The. first is. the tendency to use arcane language or traditional. documentation to refer to. realities that. might be more. effectively described in simpler, everyday language.. group seems to develop unique in. that. In. own. its. and. tellingly. Every human. "in" language; religious are not. and of themselves such languages are good. They. can represent the best residue of a tradition, tools given to us by our historical family to assist us in. But. life.. it is. also a part of. making sense within the mystery of. human. experience that the development. of such languages can be symbolic of an avoidance or denial of reality.. (Witness missiles. "body counts"; or. all. named "peacemakers"; death. tolls. called. the other manipulations of symbols by govern-. ments that do not want their people really meddling in policy questions).. am, of course, referring to the possibility/probability of ideolo-. I. gy,. which can cause religious language to alienate people from. own. experience.. does, to conceal. When what. "spiritual" language begins, as is. so frequently. actually going on, the risks are particularly. great. Its destructive possibilities. show. up, for example,. people are in the company of "religious" (which optive use of language. it. their. itself). and begin. is. when. lay. an interesting co-. to experience themselves as. ill-equipped or even unequipped to explore the meaning of issues of faith. merely because they do not "talk right.". (It. can take a. lot. of. courage to risk remarking that there are no clothes on the emperor or empress). Thus there are. many. instances. where we use words. like. "charism" when "gift" or "genius" or "corporate culture" would do quite well. Or, to use another example, a lot of "discernment" really rately,. good old-fashioned decision making; perhaps, what actually happens in. all. name more accumany instances, it is. or, to. too. is.

(38) WILSON. 26. a mystification which results either in the avoidance of genuinely. the imposition of. difficult decisions or. some power. bloc's will. If. might venture into a really deep "cave," would. sometimes for a superior to personnel and. we need. say, "Jack,. you," instead. of,. we. we. not be better. it. are really strapped for. "Discernment has shown us. the call of the Spirit"? It. a demanding discipline continually to hold ourselves to. is. authentic appropriation and acceptance of what. The God of. history. finite reality,. forever being manifested in changing forms of. and we remain. conceptual edifices tery.. is. really going on.. is. we. finite sinners. seeking security in the. construct to contain the impact of that mys-. Being genuinely contemplative involves, in the. mute before. the risk of standing. we do what. before. as. reality. first. instance,. name us attempt to name. and allowing. humans we eventually must,. it. to. it.. My. assumption. ually primary task in. we have no words. that presence to reality. is. any Christian. spirituality.. existing reality. become comfortable. —and. confronting the potter.. and our. in creation. we do. This. first. We. who. and contin-. true even. is. is. when. reality holds. forever free to. and forms with which we have. perhaps sacralized as a substitute for continually want to turn. theophany of the ordinary because infinity. the. what we are experiencing. All. for. before us the claim of the creator, the potter. smash the pots of. is. it. away from the. discloses both the creator's. sinful rejection of the coresponsibility offered to us. and baptism; and. "spiritual language". is. one of the ways. The evening news and the morning newspaper do not talk "spiritually." They may be frightfully inadequate, slanted, controlled so.. by commercial or political or social. by which. we. just. elites. Still,. they remain vehicles. might be put in touch with what. the process of creation. —. or what. God. God. is. about in. wants us to be about. To risk. my own. public confession: "Sunday Morning" with Charles Kuralt. prepares. me. al reading.. for corporate worship better than. most pieces of spiritu-.

(39) WHERE DO WE BELONG? At. this. point the astute reader. petard. Isn't "multiple I. am. memberships". only too aware that. language by taking. all. for our I. am. I. The name. reader finds a better one,. am. I. am. common acknowledgement. reminds us that the trying to grasp. The rush. to. map. —on. me. my own. hoist with. a piece of jargon?. introducing. my own. esoteric. the varied forms of relationship mentioned. can only reply that. perceiving.. find. itself. may be. I. above and putting them within the criticism. may. 27. is. its. trying to respond to. a pattern of. itself;. believe. the. if. Alfred Korzybski, the semanticist,. not the territory, and. own. and hold up. reality that I. a tag, insignificant in. fine.. is. "memberships." To that. class of. it is. the territory. I. terms.. judgment. Some time ago I mentioned two risks in approaching the subject of new spirituality. The first had to do with the names we place on what we experience, and the possibility that spiritual language can be an avoidance mechanism. The second. is. our rush to assign judgment,. to praise or castigate pieces of our existential reality before. we have. allowed ourselves to accept them and give them the space to be real for us.. One. of the cultural strengths. we. enjoy as Americans. is. our drive. and capacity for making things happen. Like any cultural strength, however,. Our. this. is. also the locus of our greatest potential for imbalance.. drive to act can. make. us sally forth before getting grounded in. a firm starting point. "Don't just do something; stand there!". perhaps the most. We. difficult. piece of wisdom for us to absorb.. are bred by our culture to be problem solvers; and so. are inclined to define any present reality as a problem, to judge. terms of. its. is. we. it. in. inadequacies (usually by comparison to a fictitious Eden,. namely, the era that immediately preceded. it),. because that will give. us the chance to use our strength. I. believe that the case can be. generally not the result of. ill. will,. made. that. bad decisions are. or even of poor analysis, but rather. of premature abandonment of the presenting data, caused by prejudg-.

(40) WILSON. 28 ment. Often enough. we come up. with excellent answers to the wrong. questions, in other words.. The. been shaped by the events of the past twenty. identity that has is. memberships, of the new. reality of the pattern of multiple. just that, a reality.. in religious life then;. energized. But. It it. may be a different condition than we faced may make some feel anxious and others feel. not a "problem" to be "solved.". it is. years,. It is. a facet of. unfolding mystery to be lived with. Like any other cultural shift. it is. driven ultimately by the human, God-given impulse to search for. more. value.. And. also, like. nated by sinfulness and. any other cultural. self-interest.. Like. shift, it will. all its. undoubtedly produce both wheat and weeds. Jesus had to say about those. and how. up the. to clean. who were. field. .. .. be contami-. predecessors. it. will. And we know what. quite sure which was which. .. A METHOD FOR DEVELOPING LOCAL-COMMUNITY. IV. EXPECTATIONS. We We. return. now. to "the surface". and look back over our journey.. began by examining an American cultural analogue from the. perspective of multiple memberships, drawing out tions. which might guide us. some key assump-. in formulating a strategy with regard to. Then we examined some of the significant which have taken place in the way United States Jesuits image. conflicting expectations. shifts. themselves and the resulting tensions which they create both for local. and. province. approaches that al spirituality. community-formation. risk distorting the. might be. built.. At. raw. this. We stuff. explored. two. basic. on which an incarnation-. point the reader. who. has perse-. vered on the journey thus far might ask, quite appropriately, "But. what can we do with these ideas?". What helpful.. follows. Whether. depend on many. it. is. a. method. that. many communities have found. "works" for any particular local. factors. which would take us. far. living. group. will. beyond what any.

(41) WHERE DO WE BELONG? paper can accomplish by. 29. factors such as the basic trust level. itself,. of the participants, their willingness to be vulnerable with one another,. their. communications and listening. an. invest time in to. effort. produce a tangible. which might. effect,. and the. their willingness. skills,. of the leader.. work. Individual. The process. begins, as all. community development appropriately. does, with personal reflection by all the individual. group.. seem not. in the first instance facilitating skills. to. The purpose of. the reflection. is. to. name. members of. member-. the various. ships which are actually engaging the energies. the. of the individual. members, as well as the network of operational expectations they engender.. want. I. have appended a personal work sheet the members might. (Appendix. to use to guide their reflection. I),. but the questions. are straightforward enough.. The. first. stage. is. descriptive.. point? In each instance what do tions the particular. within. it?. I. What. are. my memberships. perceive as the claims or expecta-. membership appropriately makes on. What have. I. come. at this. me. or others. my. to expect of myself in terms of. energies, presence, or actual deeds vis-a-vis these others?. After the individual has listed. commitments. to. them. in this. all. his. memberships and. way, the process invites him to. the cumulative effect of this situation on himself. at. Does. it. name. leave. peace? Overburdened? Feeling overresponsible? Frustrated. his. him. at not. being able to respond to expectations however they have been engen-. dered? Sensing that the claims of the apostolate and al. development are. like to renegotiate. in. balance? Did. it. surface areas. his. own. person-. where he would. mutual expectations with the other members. any of these memberships, including. his living. in. group?. Group sharing At a mutually agreeable time. all. the. the results of their personal reflection.. members assemble. It is. to share. not a time for intellectu-. alizing the material shared, or for praising or criticizing.. The. initial.

(42) WILSON. 30 effort. human. genuinely to hear and appreciate the. is. disclosing. himself.. In the process of sharing the results of the individual reflections, it is. best to begin by. naming any broad. insights the exploration. may. have engendered concerning the reasons for the present affective state of the person doing the sharing, rather than starting. memberships and. particular. expectations.. after. It is,. all,. their. bers need in the. first. whole persons that are involved. instance. In the contemporary idiom, " where I'm. something for. is. my. fellow. as a person.. know and understand example, a man may report. for. like this: 'This exercise has pulled together a lot of pieces. can handle. When it. me. they need to. understand why I'm always feeling pressured.". Or, "I find I'm pretty widely committed but I. in the. community mem-. an appreciation of. coming from." Thus,. me and made me. whole. concrete network of. resulting. process of creating the community; what. from. all. the. it. and. I. feel energized for. members have. becomes appropriate. for. it. my. ministry.". offered their personal contribution,. one or other. to attempt a. statement of what the whole picture seems to reveal. pretty invested group, but. we seem. summary. "We. are a. generally to feel reasonably. responsible both to others and to ourselves." Or, signs of potential burnout." Or,. on the. feels 'right';. "We. are showing. "There seem to be evidences of. stress. about our lack of presence to each other.". other. members are. ment. until the. And. invited to concur or revise that. so forth.. summary. The. state-. group has reached a basic agreement that they are. viewing the general picture in the same way.. Specific issues. Once. the general evaluation. to explore with the. is. in place, individuals are invited. group particular areas or commitments. They can. be brought up by an individual out of. his. own. personal reflection: "I. have begun to wonder about the real value of. my. serving. on the. neighborhood council; what do you guys think about that?" Or one individual. may. ask for deeper understanding of another's involvement.

(43) WHERE DO WE BELONG? something: "Joe,. in. annual pilgrimage. wonder for. if. I. have to admit that. cannot understand your. They are obviously important. trips.. me. you could help. by. How. telling. me. you?" "Frank, you amaze. parish bingo evenings.. I. 31. me what meaning. with your energy for. do you do. to. you;. I. they have all. those. it?". name his discomfort at another man's seeming indifference to communal events: "Charley, I have to admit that I was upset when you let us know at the last minute that you will not be participating in something we put on the This would be the place for someone to. community schedule months ago.". The. skill. suggesting. needed. some. at this stage. sort of attack. is. to invite response without. on the other man's assessment of. general priorities or his judgment in a particular instance.. Group needs named After exploring the meaning of any individual membership that is. brought up, the group returns to the operating implications of what. they have shared. This. done. is. as a group.. Once. ual. "I get. a sense that. needs of the members. again, the interpretation can begin with any individ-. we. need to plan to spend a months." Or,. in terms of felt. "We seem. are feeling a bit fragmented;. more time together. bit. maybe we. for the next. few. generally to feel supported by one another. in. our commitments, but. we may need. to ritualize that a bit better. in. common. "We. be on the. when. prayer." Or,. need. to. Bill's dissertation is really getting to. to pull. him out of a slump.". indicate. no need. to. It is. alert for the days. him and he may need. us. quite possible that the review will. change any present directions; but reaching that. conclusion together in a conscious process which was free and open. outcome can be a valuable experience worthy of celebraby the members.. to another. tion.

(44) WILSON. 32 Negotiating expectations. The. articulation of needs leads naturally into options for ad-. dressing them. This. is. the point at which the group needs to adopt. a playful, brainstorming approach.. As. the television advertisement. ?" Or, "Maybe we could try ." If the prior "What if moments of sharing have been a supportive experience, the group may sense that a new plateau has been reached but that now is not the time to change anything. They may choose to stop at this point,. puts. it:. .. .. .. continuing in their present pattern but. they have named.. Some needs. exerts a subtle influence. few months. committed. still. depth the ways they might. later in greater. .. .. to exploring. try to address the. needs. are such that the very naming of them. on the. interaction of the group, so that a. later they find themselves in a different place without. ever having taken any "formal" steps to change direction. Still it. in. may happen. that the. need. is. some disagreement on the options they would be. order to improve the situation. They. may need. outsider with facilitating or reflecting. commitment on attempting some. skills to. willing to try in. the assistance of an. enable them to reach. steps that are not fully satisfying to. any of the members. But clearly at that point help to be looked for from this article; of basic. members are. clear, yet the. we. we. are well beyond any. are moving into the realm. of willingness to invest oneself in any effort to find. trust,. common. ground.. might be. said,. And. these are matters about which. but which will remain. difficult to. many. understand. .. things .. .. Postscript. A final word. on an unexplored. trail.. In this last section. examined an approach that might be used. in applying. we have. our principles. to the continuing renewal of expectations at the level of local. munity. life.. At an. earlier stage of our journey. we had. briefly. com-. touched. upon the subject of the changing nature of province community. That is. a cave with stalagmites of a different color. Let us save. another outing.. it. for.

(45) -. WHERE DO WE BELONG?. 33. APPENDIX I. MULTIPLE MEMBERSHIPS, INVOLVEMENTS, RESPONSIBILITIES A Personal Worksheet Family. The. Friendships. the. memberships. Local Jesuit. which. this. community. represent. rings. person. all. to. is. ac-. countable.. Ministry. groups. Ask. yourself what. is. le-. Professional. gitimate for the various. colleagues. persons in each ring to. Province. expect of. Cross. terms of time, energies,. province re-. money,. this. person, in. etc.. lationships. Universal Society of. Jesus etc. etc.. List your. memberships below:. Describe what people in each of. them may legitimately ask of you..

(46) WILSON. 34. APPENDIX Although. know. I. RELATED READINGS. II.. of no other readings that focus directly on the. some. issues treated in this article, the reader interested in exploring. facets of the mind-set titles. of. some. from which. it. emerged may. find the following. value:. Lynch, William. F.,. SJ. Images of Faith:. Imagination. Notre. Dame,. An. Exploration of the Ironic. Indiana: University of Notre. Dame. Press, 1973.. Lynch. offers a healthy critique of the universalizing tendency. of the mind cut off from the concrete stuff of history and experience.. Hopewell, James F. Congregation: Stones and Structures. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1987.. Hopewell, originally an Islamicist and missionary in Western Africa, brought his interest in. examination. of. myth and. contemporary. Drawing on work of. United. community. in a. way which. Victor. at the particular. challenges. its. idiom to the. congregations.. States. Geertz,. Clifford. Northrop Frye, he makes us look local. literary. Turner,. and. idiom of any. prevailing ideolo-. gy-. Duncan, Hugh Dalziel. Symbols. in Society.. New York:. Oxford Univer-. sity Press, 1968.. Coming out of an English variables but rather. sociology focused not on statistical. on observation and. critical reflection. on the. Duncan opens up the whole symbolic and dramatic nature of human social life. Each human community is the enactment of a drama, so that the key quesactual behavior of social groups,. tions for understanding. it. are:. What. actors are. making what. speeches, on what stages, with what audiences in view, in the interest of bringing. what. conflict to resolution?.

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