Circles of thought by JOANNA LEWIS

One of the things we talked about at the Social Justice residential in February was some of the theology of justice. In fact, we didn’t just discuss theology, we did it – thrashed it out together, beginning with our experience, aiming for a change in unjust situations, and using the pastoral cycle as our map (ably guided by Marie). The pastoral cycle is a tool for thinking about justice in the light of our faith, and for trying to achieve a balance of reflection and action which is relevant to the situation because it is grounded in experience.

We began by sharing situations from our placements, learning about some of each others’ experiences and the thoughts they had provoked. The aim of this first stage of the cycle is to ensure that everything which follows has its foundations in reality and its feet firmly on the ground. We talked about homeless people, disabled people, church people, displaced people. We told real, concrete stories about the things we had seen and compared notes about how we felt about them.

The next stage is analysis. We asked who loses out in the situations which bothered us, who gains from them and why they continue. Unless we understand how it comes about, it will be difficult to challenge oppression. The questions we asked were a way to start to understand how our lives affect the lives of others, and how the structures of our society affect the people at the edges of it. One of the things which came up was the level of misinformation and ignorance about some marginalised groups of people. The media creates and fosters unhelpful public attitudes towards, for example, asylum seekers and refugees, and this is combined with prejudice to result in a lack of awareness and a fear of the unknown and not-understood. Then there is laziness and indifference – it is often easier to let an unjust situation continue than to think about how it should and could be changed, and so disabled people continue to be treated as children because society is unwilling to wrestle with its own preconceptions. Or perhaps it is easier to meet someone’s short-term needs than to think about what would help them in the long run, so people who find it difficult to remain in conventional accommodation are given handouts instead of the support and acceptance of their abilities which they need. Sometimes an issue may not even be seen as a problem, or not one interesting to those who could make the greatest changes. Elections are not won on issues which affect minority groups. And finally, there may be vested interests in keeping people marginalised.

Having made an attempt to understand the problems we had seen, we asked what our faith has to say about them. Of course we should not try to restrict God’s place, which is in everything we try to do, to this point, but this is the place for listening, prayer and reflection on scripture, particularly from the point of view of the marginalised, to see what insights we gain. Two strands came out of this stage of the process. One theme was anger: the causes we had identified in our analysis were the things which made Jesus angry; the things he spoke out against. And just as Jesus was often angry with the religious authorities of his day, we talked about anger at a church which allows itself to be comfortable with the situation, failing to challenge injustice and refusing to preach on poverty. The other theme we identified was compassion. That morning we had been led in some thoughts on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman by the well, and we noted that he asks her to do something for him. We felt it was fundamental to recognise people’s worth and to let them know that they are loved and accepted. It is also important to see that really helping people is not the same as helping them to conform, and look outwardly “normal”.

The final stage of the cycle is action: what needs to happen in the situations which we have identified, and what can we personally do? What sticks in my mind from this phase is the thought that “the powerful don’t know what it’s like to be poor and the poor don’t speak the language of power”. One of the things we can do, then, is to bridge that gap: to tell stories of our experiences to others, especially to those in power, and to challenge people’s attitudes with love and respect. Even to suggest that social justice should form part of the school curriculum. In our own lives we thought it was important to be aware of which are our wants and which our needs and of what money means, and important to keep integrity, even when it is difficult or goes against the grain – to “jump over our own shadows”. As always to pray, and to become more aware of unjust situations in the world now and in the past by studying history and current affairs.

Because we’ve chosen a cyclical tool for thinking about injustice, action isn’t, in fact, the final stage. There is no final stage to the process. We will, if we carry them out, be able to evaluate our actions – the good points, the bad points and the lessons learned – and celebrate the results. We will finish the action stage with a whole new set of experiences to feed into the next round of the cycle, so that it is not just “going round in circles”, but moving outwards in a spiral as each revolution builds on and adds to the last.

This discussion took place at the social justice residential in February. Jo volunteered to write it up for us which she has done wonderfully but she has to share the credit with everyone for all the brilliant insights they brought to the discussion.

Spirituality and JVC – Communal Prayer by STEPHEN HOYLAND

One of the most difficult parts of the JVC year is communal prayer. There are many reasons for this. It might be that one person finds personal prayer difficult or never prays. Perhaps a common way cannot be found which suits all house members with their diverse religious cultures. There is often a reticence around the kind of sharing, which prayer together involves, so that it is easy to let it slip. The absence of communal prayer does not spoil the JVC ethos because the presence of God does not depend entirely upon explicit religious practice, yet if ways of praying together can be found, the community’s life is enhanced and everyone’s JVC experience enriched.

Prayer in common may respond to all of the challenges listed above. Often prayer with others is easier than prayer on one’s own. The community supports the individual. This is not unlike the experience of being unable to study except in a library when surrounded by other people engaged in the same project. The person finding prayer difficult might be pleasantly surprised by how much more it flows in company.

If a JVC member does not really see the point of prayer but is committed to community then so long as the models used are appropriate it can still work.

This brings me on to a discussion of models or ways or praying together which allow people of different traditions to find common ground in a way which is not irksome and awkward. Let’s invent a hypothetical household that might find it difficult to pray together: Martha is a traditional Spanish Catholic who has never heard of Anglicans let alone Evangelicals and is rather shy.
Lucy is an English Evangelical who just loves to share.
Hans is a lapsed Lutheran agnostic hippy with poor English.
Benedict is an English conservative Catholic who changed his name by deed pole after the last papal election and prays the Divine Office in Latin.

OK, the prospects for the kind of communal prayer that is going to last more than one sitting for this spiritually dysfunctional JVC family might be bleak. What are the prospects?

Each person could take their turn at leading a way of praying that suits them individually. This is likely to be embarrassing and unappealing. “Now then, Lucy”, says Benedict, “This is a rosary. . . ” Or imagine Lucy’s face as Hans reaches for the incense sticks and rolls up a ‘peace pipe’. Lucy takes her revenge with her prayer of exorcism as she sings in tongues, hands raised. Martha wonders how quickly she can get back to Spain.

My suggestion, or one possibility, would be different. Each person takes a turn to lead. Music is played, choosing something to which no one objects. You might have a bank of CDs, which everyone can live with. This helps towards stillness. There could follow a period of silence for personal reflection or prayer, but together, in the same space. Then a short reading: something from the leader’s religious tradition or a favorite poem perhaps, but accessible and inoffensive to everyone. Another period of silence in which to reflect or pray follows. Then the leader could formally end the time of prayer/reflection in a suitable way, perhaps by playing some more music for a few minutes and fading it out gently, after which the prayer is over, or with a prayer said by that leader, or the whole group if appropriate. The whole process could take between 30 minutes or an hour. The length should be agreed beforehand. There might be a little sharing on how that was for people. It is a very good way of further building up the community.

Of course, groups might want some prayer aloud, choose to sing, or to do things differently in all sorts of ways, if that suits them. It might be that a community decides to share each other’s traditions. This can be one of the growth points of the JVC year in that different approaches to prayer are shared within the community and each person learns again that God is bigger than one tradition and can come to us in more than one kind of way.

The strength of the model described above is that it could work with any community and perhaps even in extreme cases where there is little common ground yet there remains a desire to be a fully functioning Jesuit Volunteer Community.

Stephen Hoyland is currently on the team at Loyola Hall Spirituality Centre, a Jesuit retreat centre near Liverpool. He is interested in an approach to spirituality that is truly nourishing for individuals and communities and supports the commitment to social justice and simple living. This is one reason why he likes JVC. The other is the joy of contact with the volunteers who embody those core values, and also play football with him