JS 423 EDUCATION, SERVICE AND COMMUNITY MANAGEMENT

I found the words of the paper on “A New Way of Encountering God”, inspiring in that it particularly talks about “encountering” God. In my experience it is very important that we experience God in our hearts and care for others not only because we believe it is the intellectually right thing to do but as we are all part of God, then by our compassion and caring for the rest of humanity we also care for ourselves.
Whilst caring for humanity we need to find a balance so that we look at our own needs as well as how we can make the world a better place. As I believe that God is in all of us then if one person is suffering in the world then it is my responsibility to try and do something about it and that is my task. Certainly God is “the God of the poor” (1) but God is in all of us and so we need to honour and respect our own Godliness and that of others. While we are alive we must look to helping others and this can take an enormous number of different paths. “To make common cause” (2) with persons who are suffering is a powerful act and one that intrinsically accepts their human dignity and accepts that we are all in this journey together and that we are responsible for each other. Whilst ever there are persons in need in our society then it is our responsibility to attend to those needs as best we can. If we truly love our neighbour then we are loving God. Our neighbour is any person who is in need and when we look at the state of the world then we see that we have many neighbours as there are so many in need in the world.
Liberation theology as outlined in “ A New Way of Encountering God, “(3) refers to the commitment to the poor and that is extremely important. I believe it is important to connect with our hearts with people in need so that we are moved by their situation and wish to do something to change it. I appreciate the analogy of theology being like a love letter (4) as it keeps the connection to God as something that has a quality of mystery to it which is heartfelt and not something that one thinks about only on an intellectual level.
In 2005 I spent 5 weeks walking on the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain On that walk I met a South American catholic priest who wished to tackle the problems of the poor. I was impressed by his commitment even though he acknowledged the many problems that the institution of the Catholic church is saddled with. Walking for a long distance can be a valuable way of finding the space in which to connect with God and to focus on where to set priorities. I found that the act of walking and having solitary time for myself gave me a way of experiencing and connecting with God on a deeper level. It became something very experiential that I connected to with my heart and not just with my thoughts. Others will find different ways of connecting with God but if one can feel connected to God on a thinking and heartfelt level and do something to honour that connection then God becomes very alive. Then it is possible to do justice in the world and to experience that God is in our midst and is very much alive.
When I look at the difficult situations that exist in the world it is hard to know where we can effectively help to change the world . I believe we need to ask that question in our prayers and to be open to guidance that can come from the spiritual world if we are truly seeking with our heart the path to follow and not trying to abstractly intellectualise or rationalise what we should do.
Liberation theory refers to the importance of the Bible (5) for understanding what is required of Christians. I believe the Bible is an important tool for deepening our understanding of the Christian path and for promoting discussion but there are many ways of understanding and interpreting it and we need to be open to different possibilities. I found the ideas of the interpretation of the Exodus story as outlined by liberation theory (6) thought provoking. It brings aspects of the historical picture to present the bible images afresh. For example the “chosen people” were not called Jews or Hebrews at that time but were the poor and oppressed who were probably a nomadic slave class. In my readings of the historical accounts of the movement of nomadic Jewish peoples down to Egypt, one gets this sense of a group of impoverished people who were trying to survive in difficult circumstances. This particular picture is strong in bible stories such as the story of Joseph and how he rediscovers his lost family in Egypt after he has become a high Egyptian official. I found it helpful to look at an analysis of the historical background and likely scenarios suggesting what type of situation people found themselves in .
When liberation theory looks at reducing specific events to more “plausible and appropriate” scenarios then I find it more frustrating. For example I find the imagery of the parting of the waters as the Hebrews escape across the Red Sea in the Exodus story quite vivid and inspiring . To try and reduce this down to a more likely scenario to find out what really supposedly happened I find frustrating. I believe that the consciousness of people alive at that time would be different to our modern day consciousness and what actually happened may be quite different to what it appears from these words. In these words is some truth though it may not be in a literal sense and it is not that important that we understand exactly what happened as the consciousness of people alive at that time would have meant that they experienced these events in a sense that was important to them and of which we may have little understanding.
There are many different levels of meaning in stories and writing that comes from a spiritual level. We can try to understand these many levels but we may misunderstand many aspects as we do not see things in the same way as people of that time, A reductionist/pragmatist view eliminates other imaginative possibilities and I find that frustrating when I try to comprehend the mystery of these words of the bible and its remarkable stories.
It is an important task to try and reflect on our set ways of seeing the world and to look at it anew and to try and bring to our consciousness new ways of connecting with and understanding the world. In that respect the ideas of liberation theory and the new ways of understanding bible material are very important to how we move forward in the world.
References
(1) Liberation Theory. A New Way of Encountering God, page 51
(2) Ibid, page 56
(3) Ibid
(4) Ibid page 53
(5) Ibid, page 59
(6) Lecture by Michael Elphick, 27/3/07, JS423