Tenison Woods and MacKillop Centre News: The common sense

God spoke all these words. He said, ‘I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.

‘You shall have no gods except me.

‘You shall not utter the name of the Lord your God to misuse it, for the Lord will not leave unpunished the man who utters his name to misuse it.

‘Remember the sabbath day and keep it holy.

‘Honour your father and your mother so that you may have a long life in the land that the Lord your God has given to you.

‘You shall not kill.

‘You shall not commit adultery.

‘You shall not steal.

‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.

‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his servant, man or woman, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is his.’

Exodus 20:1 – 3, 7 – 8, 12 - 17

There are fundamental laws, both natural and human-made which are necessary for living long and healthy lives. For example there is the great Decalogue given to Moses at Sinai, and the further 603 mitzvot recorded in the Books of Moses – aids to good lives, good community, fidelity to God.

There are other things we just ought know that might not make it to the list of laws in the Bible, state or commonwealth: keeping to the left on the footpath and walkways; eating the food put in front of you; returning borrowed objects before being asked; forwarding mail for people who have moved on; sneezing into your shoulder; carrying a hanky, vacuuming under couches; pairing up socks and taking up jeans before they fray at the bottom. Well, the list is endless. If these were enacted it would make a lot of lives much easier.

There is a common and necessary foundation: honour and respect – of God and of one another. It is a matter of caring about what others do for me and giving them their due. They may cook for me, clean my house, wash my clothes, teach me, supervise me, coach me, befriend me, love me. This foundation is summarised by Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel (22:36 – 40), ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'

When you and I have such a foundation, we possess a strength that will not waver, if much of our world collapses about us, we have our feet planted firmly on solid ground.

I know we often flag ‘commonsense’ as being the guideline for much of what we do in getting along with each other, yet there is research that claims that common sense decisions are only successful in 50% of cases. The Law of Moses has served the Jewish people for in excess of 3,000 years, Jesus’ summary has served Christians for 2,000 years. The remnants of the Justinian Code are alive 1,400 years later, and the Napoleonic Code for just over 200 years. Parliamentary democracy continues to thrive in Australia. None of these codes and systems can claim success if the foundations upon which they are built are faulty. Honour and respect. And like many aspects of life, it begins in the family: Honour God; honour your father and mother, and it will flow easily into caring for your neighbour.

Peter Douglas

HEAD OF SCHOOL SERVICES, NORTH

PETER'S WHEREABOUTS FOR THE NEXT TWO WEEKS:

MEETINGS COMING UP:

TOURING THE NORTH WEST

John’s commitment to visit the North West and West Coast primary schools was fulfilled when I accompanied him from school to school. Beginning on Wednesday, John visited St Patrick’s, Latrobe where he met Rod, students and classroom teachers in every room. That evening we dined at Pier 01 in Ulverstone with Fathers Mike Delaney (Mersey Leven) and Phil McCormack (Circular Head).

With a 6.30 am start we made St Joseph’s, Queenstown in less than record time but our tardiness did not prevent a warm welcome from Christina, staff and students, though our departure was speeded by a thrashing of hail.

We arrived on time at Rosebery, but lost an hour of travel time from rain, snow, distance and poor time keeping! We also had the pleasure of catching up with Archbishop Adrian who had just finished celebrating Mass. Peter was his usual welcoming self.

With our timetable in tatters we arrived an hour late at St Peter Chanel, Smithton, missing students by 15 minutes. More delicious food appeared after a thorough inspection of the school’s facilities, and introductions to staff. We hit Devonport just after 6.15 pm after 585 km, 11¾ hours and only three schools.

After changing everyone’s plans we began our third day by reversing the order of visits, beginning at Wynyard at 8.30 am. Every class was visited, including music. Annette was in fine form as she introduced us to staff and students. We made excellent time to Stella where we found an excellent host in Julia. There were too many wonderful classes to visit, so we took a squiz at a few representative classrooms.

At Sacred Heart we heard Michelle’s plans for upgraded playgrounds and refurbishments, visited classrooms, the Stephanie Alexander garden before lunching in the new kitchen/dining facilities at the Tenison Woods Centre.

Our final visit saw us ahead of time at Our Lady of Lourdes. Being Friday afternoon – and with children disembarking from their camps and packing up, we did a tour of the facilities before calling John’s ‘Progress’ across the North Best both completed and successful, with John and I both exhausted and talked out!

KITCHEN/DINING REFURBISHMENTS AT TENISON WOODS

SEEING OUR SHADOW by Richard Rohr

Friday, March 6, 2015

Jesus and the other Jewish prophets were the "seers" who always saw what needed reforming. They helped Israel to see what it could not see before: both its corporate and individual shadows. The shadow is that part of the self that we don't want to see, that we're always afraid of and don't want others to see either. Our tendency is to hide or deny it, even and most especially from ourselves. Jesus, quoting Isaiah, describes it as "hearing but not understanding, seeing, but not perceiving" (Matthew 13:14-15). Addicts today call it "denial."

One point here is crucial: The shadow self is not of itself evil; it just allows you to do evil without calling it evil. That is why Jesus criticizes hypocrisy more than anything else (eleven times in Matthew's Gospel). Something that is shocking to many religious people is that Jesus is never upset with sinners; he's only upset with people who think they are not sinners!

Archaic religion and most of the history of religion has seen the shadow as the problem. Isn't that what religion is about: getting rid of all our faults? This is the classic pattern of dealing with the symptom instead of the cause. We cannot really get rid of the shadow; we can only expose its game--which eventually undermine its results and effects. As it states in Ephesians, "Anything exposed to the light turns into light itself" (5:14). Low level religion almost always attacks the shadow instead of the ego, the symptom instead of the cause. And the narcissistic structure of the self remains totally in control and unexposed. This is the clever, demonic game of smoke and mirrors so we do not have to surrender our actual false selves.

Jesus and the prophets deal with the cause itself, which is the separated, autonomous ego self; and this can take negative or positive forms, which are equally delusional: self-hatred or self-inflation. Frankly, the separated self ping-pongs between these two hiding places, and neither of them can handle the wonderful truth of Divine Identity. Our problem is not our shadow self nearly as much as our over-defended ego, which always projects its own faults onto other people and hates them there, and thus avoids its own conversion. Jesus' phrase for the denied shadow is "the plank in your own eye," which you invariably see as "the splinter in your brother's eye" (Matthew 7:4-5). Jesus' advice is perfect: "Take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly enough to take the splinter out of your brother's eye." If we do not see our own "plank," it is rather certain that we will hate and attack the exact same thing in others, even if there is faint evidence for it, like a tiny "splinter." Greedy people spot other greedy people in a heartbeat. Ambitious people accuse other people of gross careerism. You do know, don't you, that the people you are most threatened by are invariably just like you? Jesus showed us how to get out of this dead end prison, by acknowledging, "My main problem is always me! Something does need to change, and darn it, it's me!"

Adapted from Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality, pp. 76-77

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