Hope for Today

 “Faith is the foundation of the hope that we have.” [1]

– St. John Baptist de La Salle –

Many of us were very much taken by Amanda Gorman’s poem at the recent inauguration ceremony. It’s simplicity, rhythm, authenticity, and hope reverberated in the hearts of those witnessing the scaled-down, isolated ceremony on a cold day in Washington, D.C. Another of her poems is entitled “The Miracle of Morning.” It gives a description of what hope can look like, even today, to those who pay sincere attention. “I see a dad with a stroller taking a jog. Across the street, a bright-eyed girl chases her dog. A grandma on a porch fingers her rosaries. She grins as her young neighbor brings her groceries.” [2]

These are expressions of what may be called a sacramental sensibility, fostered I should think in some small part by her family’s ties to St. Bridget’s in Los Angeles. Amanda looked beyond and through the world around her, with a wider, larger, more inclusive perspective. One might say that she saw with the eyes of faith.

De La Salle writes that “Faith is the foundation of the hope that we have.” And scripture has it that “Faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see.” (Heb 11:1) Those are rich statements, but it’s harder to know what they might mean in the daily world of pandemic life. Where and how does one live hope today? Chesterton wisely wrote “Hope means hoping when things are hopeless, or it is no virtue at all. … As long as matters are really hopeful, hope is mere flattery or platitude; it is only when everything is hopeless that hope begins to be a strength.” Hoping for the best is certainly different than hoping for truth, justice, peace, and genuine goodness in one’s life and relationships. The first is wishful and the second takes work. The first is easy and the second is hard. The first is impersonal and the second is very personal. Jonathan Sacks writes, “Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief that we can make things better. Optimism is a passive virtue; hope is an active one. It takes no courage to be an optimist, but it does need courage to hope.”[3]

One good illustration of this kind of hope comes from Ronald Rolheiser. In 2011 he underwent 168 chemotherapy treatments for colon cancer, and he kept a journal, vowing “I’ll get through it! I’ll endure it!” His hope was focused on getting to the end of the treatments, ignoring all other matters of importance. About halfway through these many weeks of treatment, he had a revelation. “…I woke up, I woke up to the fact that I was putting my life on hold, that I wasn’t really living but only enduring each day in order check it off and eventually reach that magical 168th day when I could start living again. I realized that I was wasting a season of my life. Moreover, I realized that what I was living through was sometimes rich precisely because of the impact of chemotherapy in my life. That realization remains one of the special graces in my life… The coronavirus has put us all, in effect, on a conscripted sabbatical and it’s subjecting those who have contracted it to their own type of chemotherapy. And the danger is that we will put our lives on hold as we go through this extraordinary time and will just endure rather than let ourselves be graced by what lies within this uninvited season. Yes, there will be frustration and pain in living this through, but that’s not incompatible with happiness.”[4] Lived hope, real hope, embraces the graces that lie within reach. In fact, these are the only ones that God truly places before us at each moment of each day in each circumstance. Our trust / faith lies here.

Hope “is congenital, in the gut, a trust, not deflected by anything, that our lives are not mere accident, that we are more than brute chips fallen off the conveyor-belt of chance, that we have individual significance and destiny, that every small act of conscience and fidelity has meaning within the eternal schema of things, and that the tiny rivulet of our lives is flowing into the great ocean of meaning and eternity where, far from being absorbed or obliterated, we will enjoy perfect, self-conscious mutuality in love in an ecstatic, communal, yet individual, eternal fulfilment. This is hope, as we feel it practically.”[5]

Hope does not need to be dour or resigning. Hope needs to be alive and engaged. “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” (Rom 12:12) For those of us involved in Lasallian educational ministries – in whatever capacity – remember De La Salle’s inspired insight that “[The students] are your hope, your joy, and your crown of glory before our Lord Jesus Christ.” [6] That is certainly enough to keep us grounded and motivated to look for and see the graces hidden within the very real challenges and difficulties associated with the current pandemic.

How do these final lines of Amanda Gorman’s poem echo in your life, ministry, mind & heart?

Let every dawn find us courageous, brought closer;
Heeding the light before the fight is over.
When this ends, we’ll smile sweetly, finally seeing
In testing times, we became the best of beings.[7]

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A PDF of this reflection is HERE

[1] De La Salle, John Baptist, Meditations by St. John Baptist de La Salle, trans. Richard Arnandez, and Augustine Loes, eds. Augustine Loes and Francis Huether, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1994), Meditations 40.3

[2] https://www.treatsforthesoul.org/the-miracle-of-morning/

[3] Sacks, Jonathan. Celebrating Life (Continuum Press, 2004) p. 175

[4] https://ronrolheiser.com/love-in-the-time-of-covid-19/#.YByZA-hKguW

[5] https://ronrolheiser.com/practical-hope/#.YBxF3OhKguU

[6] Meditations, op. cit., 207.3

[7] https://www.treatsforthesoul.org/the-miracle-of-morning/

Lasallian Reflection - Advent & Daffodils

 

“Because you have to prepare the hearts of others for the coming of Jesus Christ, you must first of all dispose your own hearts to be entirely filled with zeal, in order to  render your words effective in those whom you instruct.” [1]
–  St. John Baptist de La Salle  –

This has been a good training year for the season of Advent, for waiting and waiting and waiting a little longer. A vaccine? An upcoming election? A change in systemic racism? Reform of Church clericalism, among other things?  A visit to friends, relatives, neighbors, even strangers? A county COVID-19 status to a better color? An in-person, three-dimensional, messily immersive Mass?

But Advent is not about the “let’s get back to some kind of normal” sort of waiting. It is a more appealing and optimistic kind of waiting because it is “a season to get in touch with our deepest yearnings. Like Mary, we wait patiently, preparing a womb within which Christ can be born.”[2] It’s more like waiting for spring, for the re-emergent flowering of deep, rich, wonderful things, bringing their glorious fragrances, complexities, colors, and sheer beauty. It is a springtime for our souls.

For each of us, we remember different life-moments of such springtime experiences, dotting the landscape of our lives like a field of daffodils. The conversation with a professor in college, who took your stumbling attempt at a question about his presentation, articulated the question better than you ever could, and then kindly explained why your assumptions were wrong. The visit to a museum where you turned a corner and a single El Greco painting, isolated in its own space, stunned you with its quiet intensity and drama, elevating the power of art to a whole new level. An encounter with a small group of students on retreat, for whom you were able to be the attentive listener they craved for, an experience that deepened your appreciation of accompaniment — by you, by others, by God — as graced opportunities. The sermon or reading that answered a burning question or shaped a difficult decision. The reluctant response to a request to do, to go, or to be available for something, which led to unexpected shores and brand-new horizons. All these are manifestations of the deeper yearnings, harbingers of what this year’s Advent spring may yet bring.

Advent essentially means staying awake “to the truth that God is with us even when most everything in our lives and in the world seems to belie that.”[3] For those in Lasallian education, staying awake invites us to “dispose our own hearts to be entirely filled with zeal, in order to render our words effective in those whom we instruct.”[4] Recall teachers who were not effective and put us to sleep, not because they lacked knowledge, but because they lacked zeal, which is not found in loud gestures and shouting, but in an intensity of purpose and attention that burns into hearts.

For most of us, it is a zeal awakened and fostered through conversations that we regularly have. David Brooks has tips for deepening conversations, such as open-ended or elevated questions. But genuine attention and approaching others “with awe” make the real difference: “It’s best to act as if attention had an on/off switch with no dimmer. Total focus.” Why? Because “deeper conversation builds trust, the oxygen of society, exactly what we’re missing right now.”[5]

Perhaps it is the recently deceased Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who said it best: “Conversation is a kind of prayer. Because in conversation, by reaching out to the human other, we begin the journey of reaching out to the divine other.”[6] Some twenty years earlier, his description of a conversation that he had when he was much younger, traveling 3,000 miles to visit a quiet, rather non-charismatic international Jewish rabbinic leader makes the same point from the listening side. “As I left the room, it occurred to me that it had been full of my presence and his absence. Perhaps that is what listening is, considered as a religious act. I knew then that greatness is measured by what we efface ourselves towards. There was no grandeur in his manner; neither was there any false modesty. He was serene, dignified, majestic; a man of transcending humility who gathered you into his embrace and taught you to look up.”[7] What a fine way of talking about the graced teaching encounter, animated by what De La Salle calls the Spirit of Faith & Zeal.

During this Advent season, perhaps we can – in our conversations, reading choices, online habits, prayer practices, and perceived deeper yearnings – look up a little more and look down a little less. Because then, the daffodils buried deep within the soil of our lives will have a chance to grow, emerge, and bloom once more, soaking up the sun’s bounty and enhancing the inherent beauty of our local vistas.

That is indeed something worth waiting (and working) for.

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A PDF of this reflection is HERE

Photo by Laila Gebhard on Unsplash

[1] De La Salle, John Baptist, Meditations by St. John Baptist de La Salle, trans. Richard Arnandez, and Augustine Loes, eds. Augustine Loes and Francis Huether, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1994), 36 (Meditation 2.2 – The Second Sunday of Advent)

[2] Rolheiser, Ronald. Liturgical Press, “Give Us This Day” November 2020, 298-299.

[3] Rolheiser, op. cit.

[4] This is the opening quotation from De La Salle, slightly altered.

[5] Brooks, David. The New York Times, November 19, 2020. “Nine Nonobvious Ways to Have Deeper Conversation.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/19/opinion/nine-nonobvious-ways-to-have-deeper-conversations.html

[6] Sacks, Jonathan. On Being Studios. https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/rabbi-sacks-conversation-is-a Retrieved November 30, 2020

[7] Sacks, Jonathan. The Tablet, 1 April, 2000, 451.

Lasallian Reflection - Lived Details Are Important

“It is surprising that most Christians look upon decorum and politeness as merely human and worldly qualities and do not think of raising their minds to any higher views by considering them as virtues that have reference to God, to their neighbor, and to themselves.”
–  St. John Baptist de La Salle [1] –

My parents moved the family to the U.S. when they were 41 and 40 – five kids, one a baby. My father died of cancer when he was 68. My mother had cared for him in his last years. Suddenly alone in a different country, with only my youngest brother at home, she felt adrift. But she knew she needed to do something to get things back in line. When I asked her later how she coped, she said, “I pulled weeds.” Each day, she went into the backyard, and on her hands and knees would pull weeds. That is what worked for her.

The lived details of what we do influence how we see things and how the world fits together, shaping the larger experienced reality of something, personally or collectively.

In the Lasallian world, such details are focused on schools, classrooms, and teaching. Three essential books by De La Salle, one with his teachers, were all “granular” in their level of detail: The Conduct of Christian Schools (How to start and run a Christian School), The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility (How students should be and act like a Christian person), and the Meditations (How to reflect and pray as a Christian teacher).

In The Conduct, the details of teaching methodology served the lesson’s purpose. One historian wrote, “De La Salle required the students to explain what they had read. … The teacher must have carefully read and studied in advance the material the students would be asked to read. … Above all he was to question the students to determine whether they could apply to themselves what they had read, something they could do only if they understood it.”[2] In Christian Decorum, one’s behavior referenced God, neighbor, and oneself through the details of daily life. There is a whole chapter on yawning, spitting, and coughing, and sections on dressing and undressing, how to eat soup, and how to have conversations with others: “You need not refrain entirely from spitting. … It is necessary when you are … in places that are usually kept clean that you turn aside slightly and spit into your handkerchief. … After spitting into your handkerchief, fold it immediately without looking at it, and replace it in your pocket.”[3] And at the end of each of the Meditations, it is directly applied to the teacher’s practical life and daily disposition: “Do not, then, be so foolish, so unreasonable, and so unchristian as to expect to have nothing to suffer from your Brothers, for this would be to ask for a most extraordinary and unheard-of miracle.”1[4] De La Salle was a fan of the practical. His regular question was, “Do the schools run well?”

There are implications of this approach today… especially today. What practical protocols do we share – either directly in our interactions with students or in terms of our modeling – about phone and technology use, for example? Pope Francis recently said that getting young people involved in the practical details of Christian life, to do works of mercy, helps them become grounded in “concreteness” and to “enter into a social relationship.” “It worries me that they communicate and live in the virtual world,” he said, noting that on a recent visit with youth, instead of extending their hands when they saw him, they “greeted” him with their phones held up, taking photos and selfies. “Their reality is that… not human contact. This is serious,” he continued. “We have to make young people ‘land’ in the real world. Touch reality, without destroying the good things the virtual world can have.2[5]

Regularly touching the plain surface of reality applies to all of us because doing so tends to realign the other details of our lives. One Trappistine postulant – now an abbess – speaks of how she had sought distraction from monastic routine and boredom, which masked an escape from confronting the self. She asked a visiting monk for advice. “His advice to me was simple and concrete: and to this day it helps me to come back to the place where my life is called to bear fruit. He said, ‘Just get up and wash your socks.’ He did not say go and do your laundry! He just mentioned one small action to shake boredom, sadness, laziness, inertia, lassitude. One single action can cure all this.”3[6]

What is that single action for you and your unique world? What is one thing that you do, or that you could do, to shake your attention awake in a simple, explicit way? It may change. It should change. But it should not be dismissed. God is present in the promiscuously eclectic encounters of daily life. None of them are worth missing. All of them carry the soft, silent whisper of a genuine, even intimate, encounter with that which transforms the rest.

And if things get difficult, perhaps we should go out and pull weeds, or wash our socks.

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A PDF of this reflection is HERE

[1] De La Salle, John Baptist, The Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility, trans. Richard Arnandez, ed. Gregory Wright, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1990), Pg. 3.

[2] Ferdinand Buisson, quoted by Gregory Wright in his introduction of Christian Decorum, Ibid., Pg. XV.

[3] Ibid., Pg. 29.

[4] La Salle, John Baptist, Meditations by St. John Baptist de La Salle, trans. Richard Arnandez, and Augustine Loes, eds. Augustine Loes and Francis Huether, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1994), Med. 73.2 (Pg. 161)

[5] Adapted from a CNA article: https://bit.ly/2Kot3sI – Retrieved October 15, 2020.

[6] From the Summer 2020 Redwoods Monastery (Whitethorn, CA) Newsletter – Sr. Karen Arce (redwoodsabbey.org)

Lasallian Reflection - What Captures Your Attention?

“You must win them over to practice the maxims of the holy Gospel, and to this end you must give them means that are easy and accommodated to their age. Gradually accustomed to this practice, when older they will have acquired these maxims as a kind of habit and will practice them without great difficulty.”
–  St. John Baptist de La Salle[1] –

Certain things “capture” our attention. It could start out small enough – something read, seen, exposed to, experienced, or undergone. But we are either well and truly hooked immediately, or we are drawn more and more into its embrace. Vocations, life interests, and relationships result, or perhaps vices, addictions, and obsessions. The difference lies in what gets the “face time,” what you return to again and again and again. Recall the story of the grandparent telling a grandchild that there are two wolves fighting inside a person. One is anger, envy, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, pride, and ego, while the other is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, compassion, and faith. When the child asked which wolf would win, the grandparent answered, “The one you feed.”[2]  It is a good example of De La Salle’s advice in the quote above.

In fact, what attracts or captivates us may over time shape much larger interests and behaviors. When I was in college, some Brothers invited me along to a Russian Byzantine Catholic Church in San Francisco in order to help sing in the small choir. That led to a deep appreciation for the music, liturgy, and theology of that tradition to this day. Similarly, years ago I read an historical novel by Patrick O’Brian. Now, his 20-volume Aubrey-Maturin series has become my go-to relaxation read. I just started my 4th journey through them, listening to Patrick Tull’s audio versions for variety.

So let’s agree that some little things can be really important in shaping people’s habits and lives. Now combine that with current realities surrounding politics, social media, mass advertising, online “get eyes” tactics, pervasive exposure to “emotions on acid” shows,[3] and an unavoidable use of virtual environments for educational purposes. There are a lot of hooks in the water here.

Thankfully, young people are generally much more intelligent and discerning than people believe. What is less prevalent is the experience and developed habit of choosing well. The first will come with time; the second is where parents, teachers, and mentors come in. Paradoxically, kids often appreciate it when they are given the structure to do well, when they are invited to reach more deeply, when they are motivated to help others in significant ways. High school student-led retreats are a privileged experience of this reality. In one high school from my past, the student-body president used to show up to student parties with a six-pack of Pepsi. And don’t think that this didn’t make an impression; but he was perfectly sincere in his choices, and the kids knew it.

Look at the opening quotation again. What relevant Gospel maxims can we make available to today’s students in “means that are easy and accommodated to their age”? Young people like a challenge, especially if it involves their growing character and identity. Perhaps there should be a modern equivalent to the daily universal exercise that was historically part of each Lasallian classroom: The Reflection.[4] This was a time when the Brother shared a story, news item, adage from scripture, etc., and “spoke directly to his pupils in a way which showed his concern for them and for their lives.”[5] It was designed as a moment for teaching the heart, for touching the heart. It was when “heart spoke to heart” in an otherwise highly organized classroom. Here, the teacher quietly led a path through the jungle of the students’ daily experiences, shared guideposts that deserved consideration along the way, was the grandparent who told a story about wolves. Others pay attention when you do that. It’s a nearby, shiny, personal hook in the water that is irresistible.

These short times of shared “reflection” can be either spontaneous or well planned. You can try to rely on the spontaneous version, but my vote is for the well planned one. “Being creative involves hard work … If you seek sudden inspiration, then work at it every day for a year or a lifetime. That is how it comes. As every famous golfer is said to have said when asked for the secret of his success: ‘I was just lucky. But the funny thing is that the harder I practice, the luckier I become.’”[6] Martha Graham, famous for her creative, spontaneous dancing style, once said to an interviewer, “It takes at least five years of rigorous training to be spontaneous.” There are no shortcuts.

Teachers compete with social media and tightly scripted, well-designed “emotions on acid” shows; all bright, pervasive, raw, and immediately accessible. Thankfully, genuine human encounters may yet pierce through such artificial mist with piercing clarity and power. This is the genuine touching of hearts that we so frequently talk about. And it still deserves to capture our greatest attention.

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A PDF of this reflection is HERE.

Photo by Jed Owen on Unsplash

[1] De La Salle, John Baptist, Meditations by St. John Baptist de La Salle, trans. Richard Arnandez, and Augustine Loes, eds. Augustine Loes and Francis Huether, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1994), Med. 197.2

[2] The story was first published in a 1978 book called “The Holy Spirit: Activating God’s Power in Your Life,” by Billy Graham. He admitted that he invented the story for a sermon some 40 years earlier.

[3] This was an online comment about “Euphoria” – a show that I have not and do not want to watch but that is very popular among young people. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/wjvwkn/we-asked-teens-if-euphoria-is-realistic

[4] https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2213NaO-cODeGNrRVBlX19MRDg/view

[5] https://lasallian.info/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Resource-6-Catechetics-and-Heart-Rummery.pdf

[6] https://rabbisacks.org/inspiration-perspiration-tetzaveh-5776/

Lasallian Reflection - Finding Simplicity & Focus

 

“The more uncomplicated your view of faith, the more surely you will be disposed
to simplicity of action and conduct, which is the disposition God wants of you.”     
–  St. John Baptist de La Salle[1]

Artists, mystics, and children have an advantage over most of the rest of folks. They naturally gravitate toward simplicity, and they naturally adopt an irritatingly narrow focus on the most basic and immediate kinds of things. Distraction – according to our general view – is their unwelcome handicap, whereas to them “distraction” is simply the way they encounter the real world, seen as a granular daily friendship with each moment, each encounter, and each person they meet.

A more calculating and less benevolent application of the same principle occurs in politics, where each moment, each encounter, and each person are opportunities to draw others into a certain view of things. And while such talents need not necessarily be used for nefarious purposes, they may serve the “disposition” that lies behind their use. An example of this happened to me many years ago when I briefly met a former popular mayor of San Francisco who attended the funeral of one of the Brothers. He was in his late 80s, and after the funeral he was introduced to me. Firm handshake, direct eye-contact, natural smile, genuine interest, and total focus and conversational engagement for 20-30 seconds. When he walked away, I was ready to vote for him. In this case, it was simply an old politician who now used his talents for immediate engagement from a genuine disposition of companionship, with no political ends in mind.[2] But I could see the power behind it.

St. John Baptist de La Salle falls more on the mystical side of “disposition” when he urges others to pursue simplicity: “Strive earnestly to give up worldly ways: adopt a simple demeanor along with manners and conduct that reflect the Spirit of God.” “Do not torture yourself with frequent acts of penance; they could injure your health. A simple view of God from time to time suffices.”[3] Where does such disposition come from? What did he see as the transformative perspective that would move the soul toward depth, toward starkly revealed daily encounter, toward God? Here it is:

“Look on everything with the eyes of faith. You must never fail to do this, no matter what the reason. Viewing things with the eyes of faith will earn for you in one day more good, more interior application, closer union with God, and greater vigilance over yourself than a month of those penances and austerities to which you are attracted. Believe me, you will see its effect, although perhaps for the present you will not understand it. Let me repeat: the more uncomplicated your view of faith, the more surely you will be disposed to simplicity of action and conduct, which is the disposition God wants of you.” (Letter 117)

Here is another way of saying that: Look at everything from God’s perspective. Never forget to do this for any reason. Seeing things like God does can in one day do you more good, give you more enthusiasm, help you understand yourself and others and God more deeply, than all of those pious works, popular distractions, and personal “sacrifices” that you like so much. You may not see results right away, but I guarantee that this simple change of viewpoint will lead you to a simplicity of action and conduct in everything that you do. Why? Because God is now really a part of it all.

For all those trying to cope with new realities, fresh challenges, unforeseen needs, frustrating daily distractions, and an irritatingly narrow focus on the most basic and immediate kinds of things, De La Salle’s words may be helpful, for they come from 40+ years of dealing with challenges that, on balance, were much greater than ours are today. When many others would have thrown in the towel, he persisted. And that has made all the difference to millions whom he would never know.

As Lasallian educators, we shape a future that is not our own.[4] It is our avowed vocation to persist, and to do so with a genuinely deep faith, and with a simplicity that emerges from that deep faith, focusing on each moment, each encounter, and each person we meet. It is our privileged role to be artists in learning, mystics in relationships, and children in wonder. Not a bad vocation, that.

A more recent voice articulates this same “big picture” of what we do, albeit using different words. “When life is stripped down to its very essentials, it is surprising how simple things become. Fewer and fewer things matter and those that matter, matter a great deal more. … [E]very life serves a single purpose. We are here to grow in wisdom and to learn to love better. Despite the countless and diverse ways we live our lives, every life is a spiritual path, and all life has a spiritual agenda.”[5]

Let’s let De La Salle have the last word, however, in a quote that has Zoom implications: “If you show a simple and serious exterior, people will soon conclude that your inner life too is well-controlled and that there is reason to believe that you are fit to educate your disciples in the Christian spirit.”[6] Pursue simplicity and focus with “eyes of faith.” The rest will take care of itself.

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A PDF of this reflection is HERE.

Artwork by Ad Arma: www.adarma-art.com

[1] De La Salle, John Baptist. De La Salle, John Baptist, The Letters, Translation, introduction, and commentary by Colman Molloy, FSC. Edited with additional commentary by Augustine Loes, FSC, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1988), 236 (Letter 117).

[2] Okay, since you’re curious enough to look at the footnotes. His name was Frank Jordan.

[3] The Letters, Op. Cit. Letters 18 and 119.

[4] Based on something written by Fr. Ken Untener that you should read, if you don’t know it, because of its encouraging tone. https://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/prayers/prophets-of-a-future-not-our-own

[5] Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, MC – Quoted in Richard Rohr’s daily reflection, Dying as Disorder (August 20, 2020).

[6] De La Salle, John Baptist, Meditations by St. John Baptist de La Salle, trans. Richard Arnandez, and Augustine Loes, eds. Augustine Loes and Francis Huether, (Landover, MD: Christian Brothers Conference, 1994), 152 (Med. 63.3).

Lasallian Reflection - And Then There Are The Details

When the students begin to write, it will be useful and appropriate to give them
a stick of the thickness of a pen to hold. On the sticks, there will be three grooves,
 two on the right and one on the left. These grooves indicate the places
where the three fingers should be placed. This teaches the students to hold the pen
properly in their fingers and makes them hold these three fingers in a good position.  
–  St. John Baptist de La Salle[1]

It is one thing to say that you are concerned about something, but it is another thing to know how to practically live that out. Any experienced teacher will tell you that students very quickly and intuitively sense the slightest whiff of hypocrisy, intentional or not. At the same time, they are quick to “give a break” to someone genuinely struggling to find the best way forward. So perhaps in today’s new educational containment field, the best we can do is to say, “Look guys, I’m working hard to find out how best to work out the details of how we’re going to proceed. And I could use your help in figuring this out. So let’s work together to make sure that everyone benefits. You let me know what works or doesn’t work, and I’ll do my part as your teacher to figure out how we can best work as a class. We won’t agree on everything, but I’ll guarantee that everybody will have a fair shot at succeeding.”

Before you say that this is hopelessly idealistic, read the above quotation from the 1720 manual of Lasallian schools. Teaching writing in 17th century France was forbidden for anyone other than the Writing Masters, yet De La Salle and his teachers were convinced that “… however limited the child’s intelligence, the child that knows how to read and write will be capable of anything.”[2] They even went to court over it, because they knew that this was a crucial, transformative skill that would benefit their students in ways unimaginable. And then there were the details, which included practical things like the quotation above.

These days, even the word “Welcome” on a door requires more details than most care to read. Yet it is exactly those details that live out the larger intent. Convictions without details are empty vessels of words.

One of the Brothers in my community – now in his nineties – likes to give this response to any question that he cannot answer: “Details are lacking.” It reveals an integrity / humility about what is true and meaningful. This sort of approach is consistent with our teaching vocation and with our Lasallian vocation. A teacher without integrity or humility inevitably scatters seeds of deceit and pride, largely without realizing it. Whereas those who intentionally pursue integrity and humility end up sharing a love of, and a respect for, all that fosters wonder, integral complexity, mystery, the priority of people and relationships, and so on. Near the end of his life, a great Jewish teacher recalled something he had written years earlier: “I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And You gave it to me.”[3] Teachers cultivate wonder, engagement, and connections, all of which help students process the snippets of knowledge that they discover every day. Having run into some of my students 40 years after teaching them, I can say that they don’t remember the quadratic equation, but they do remember my stories, personality, approach, care, and personal attention.

What lies behind such an approach? One aspect was best expressed by a Russian nun who died in 2011 and spoke about her monastery’s “one innermost battle-cry … , the austere demand of refusing to discuss what is not lived, and the impossibility of living this ourselves: back into the revolving wheel of repentance … .”[4] What the early Brothers and De La Salle pursued relentlessly in their teaching vocation was talking about what was lived, building on their own and others’ experience, and constantly evolving. The 1706 Preface of The Conduct – it wasn’t published until 14 years later – noted that “Nothing has been added that has not been thoroughly deliberated and well tested, nothing of which the advantages and disadvantages have not been weighed and, as far as possible, of which the good or bad consequences have not been foreseen.”[5] The book’s first edition took forty years of shared, cumulative experience to write. And even then, it was changed and adapted for the next 200+ years and went through at least 24 different editions.[6] If anything, this illustrates that the details really sometimes do take a long time to develop, if you care to do a good job.

So what do we do today? First, let’s acknowledge that “Details are lacking.” There is no 3-ring-binder awaiting discovery. “Knowledge makes a bloody entrance,”[7] and we will need to become first-year teachers once more, figuring out with our students and one another how best to fulfill our educational goals. Second, make sure that we are asking the right questions. Beyond the simply practical and method ones, which are certainly not unimportant, there are other key questions that I’ve heard from Lasallian educators; “How do you establish relationships and community online?” “How do you deal with Lasallian Catholic identity online?” Asking the right questions will shape the capacity to answer them. It’s the first step to a first edition. Third, stay calm and focused. Yes, I know that it’s easier to say than to do. But saying it, and recalling it in difficult moments, gradually builds up a habit of resilience, of focused intent, of comfort even.

What else can our Lasallian heritage teach us that may be helpful? Here are a few:

• You’re Not Alone. This whole enterprise came about because of De La Salle’s conviction that doing it together is much more vibrant, supportive, cumulative, and enriching than doing it alone.
• Prayer / Meditation. Look beyond yourself, and within yourself, for depth and perspective, for right relationships with people and things, for an appreciation of grace in your life. Take time to just be.
• Gardens. Prime Video’s The Gardener reminded me of DLS’s care that the Brothers had gardens where they could replenish their spirit. This really works. Visit a garden. Do a hobby. Be creative.

And amidst all the details, problems included, let’s not forget the main thing. Can you guess what that is?

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PDF of this reflection is HERE.

Photo by Br. George Van Grieken, FSC.

[1] De La Salle, John Baptist. The Conduct of the Christian Schools. Translated by F. de La Fontainerie and Richard Arnandez, FSC. Edited with notes by William Mann, FSC. Romeoville, IL: Lasallian Publications, 1996. Pg. 79.

[2] The Conduct, ibid. Pg. 161.

[3] Heschel, Abraham Joshua. I Asked for Wonder. Edited by Samuel H. Dresner. Crossroad, NY. Pg. vii.

[4] Louth, Andrew. Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology. IVP Academic-Intervarsity Press. Downer’s Grove, IL. Pg. 17.

[5] The Conduct, Op. Cit., Pg. 26.

[6] By the early 1900’s, it looked completely different, and appropriately so. In the 1960’s there was a U.S. Region effort to revise it into an 11-Volume “High School Management Series.” But this was abandoned after five year as “a vain attempt to impose an unwanted uniformity upon the rich diversity of teaching methods in American high schools.” The Conduct. Op. Cit., Pg. 32.

[7] A proverb whose earliest citation I could find was in a 1891 book by Percy Wynn. Some say it’s from the early Greeks.

Lasallian Reflection - The Threads That Remain

Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash

Take care not to let yourself be discouraged by anxieties and ailments; life is full of them.
Leave aside all your worry about the present and all your anxiety about the future; occupy yourselves with what you have to do at each moment as it is given to you, and do not burden the day which is passing with doubts about the day to follow.
God gives us not only the will to do what is right, but also the grace to accomplish it.
–  St. John Baptist de La Salle[1]

There is no lack in opinion surrounding the current world COVID-119 pandemic. The most honest assessments – such as those by Anthony Fauci or Andrew Cuomo – appear to be the most successful in providing reliable, fact-based, and personable perspectives. They remind me of how De La Salle himself dealt with the legal, ecclesiastical, inter-personal, and administrative challenges that confronted him on a regular basis and all throughout his 40-year relationship with the Brothers and with many others in France. His approach was invariably decisive, consultative, honest, and generous, fueled by his deep life of faith and powered by his tremendous zeal to respond to the needs that regularly reached his ears or desk. In one of his letters, he had good advice about this: “Do not let the opportunities you might find slip away, but do not hurry things.”[2]

We tend to forget that there were a number of active wars that France was engaged in during De La Salle’s lifetime: Franco-Spanish War (1635-59), Catalan Revolt (1640-59), Beaver Wars in the U.S. (1640-1701), Cretan War (1645-69), Fronde (1648-49, 1650-53), Anglo-Dutch War (1665-67) Second Anglo-Spanish War (1657-59), War of Devolution (1667-68), Franco-Dutch War (1672-78), Scanian War (1675-79), War of Reunions (1683-84), Nine Years’ War (1688-87), King William’s War (1689-97), War of Spanish Succession (1701-14), Rákóczi’s War of Independence (1703-11), War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718-1720), and the various revolts that happened inside of France.[3] These ongoing wars and social upheavals must certainly have strongly impacted many people of the time, especially in Reims in the case of wars with the Dutch, and not only when it came to the obligation to house soldiers, but also with the various taxes imposed to support these wars, not to mention the series of famines that occurred during the same time period.

When you combine all this with the political situation in different parts of France – plus Jansenism, Gallicanism, & Quietism – along with the intrigues of social position, wealth, and power in society and the Church, it’s a wonder that he was able to do so much good with so little for so many.

As all of us continue to face the direct challenges in maintaining our Lasallian institutions and relationships during these pandemic times, it is well to remember that we are not the first people that have circumstances thrust upon us, ones where we must figure out how to deal with immediate and long-term needs both personally, professionally and societally. Recalling what others have faced – and faced successfully – should give us some comfort and convince us that by drawing on our best and deepest connections, we will most directly benefit those near and far.

Over the last few days, some general thoughts have come to mind. They may be of help to you. Here they are either in verse (below) or by way of a very simple musical setting (bit.ly/Threads-GVG).

Every choice, every gesture, every action that we take;
They are all part of the fabric of the shared lives that we make.
Woven close to one another by the frail threads we contain.
Let us care for and deliver on the best threads that remain.

As the breeze in the forest reaches every smallest place,
As the bright sun in the heavens touches gently every face,
Let the warm love that we harbor be released in every case,
So that all that makes us human may each silent need embrace.

We are all tied together in a world that is our home.
In the silence of the night stars, we are bright stars of our own.
If the small drops in an ocean move as one and move alone,
So the things we do for others are both shared and still our own.

With the grace of our nature, with the deep love that we bear,
With the strength that lies within us, with unbroken power to care,
Nothing truly can destroy us, whether found both here and there.
What’s within is what has made us. Let it shine out everywhere.

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PDF of this reflection is HERE.

Photo by Rosie Kerr on Unsplash

[1] This is a combination of two quotations from De La Salle – first sentence and last sentence – and a section from the biography of De La Salle by Jean-Baptiste Blain where he quotes his speech to the Brothers on the topic of Providence.

[2] De La Salle, John Baptist. The Letters. Translated by Colman Molloy, FSC. Edited by Colman Molloy and Augustine Loes. Romeoville, IL: Lasallian Publications, 1988. Pg. 75.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars:_1500%E2%80%931799