BEING BOLD AND CREATIVE
“Pastoral ministry in a missionary
key seeks to abandon the complacent attitude that says: “We have always done it
this way.” I invite everyone to be bold and creative in this task of rethinking
the goals, structures, style and methods of evangelization in their respective
communities.”
Pope Francis
The Joy of the Gospel, 33
The Joy of the Gospel, 33
"In a quantum logic, it is impossible to expect any plan or idea to be real to people if they do not have the opportunity to personally interact with it. Reality is co-created by our process of observation, from decisions we the observers make about what we choose to notice. It does not exist independent of those activities. Therefore, we cannot talk people into our version of reality because truly nothing is real for them if they haven't created it. People can only experience a proposed plan by interacting with it, by evoking its possibilities through their personal processes of observation."
Margareth J. Wheatly
Leadership and the New Science
The invitation to imagine something as if it were to be true.
(ANTI)-SLAVERY CAMPAIGN AND NON-DUALISM
(ANTI)-SLAVERY CAMPAIGN AND NON-DUALISM
BIBLICAL QUOTES INSPIRING LAVIGERIE
"Where there is no distinction between slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all" (Colossians 3:11).
"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10, 10).
“Whatever you do to the least of my brethren you do to me” (Matt. 25:40).
NON-DUAL SEEING: ENOUGH TO CHANGE THE WORLD
I would like to illustrate four moral equivalencies that I see
as the foundational message of Jesus. This might help us understand the whole
reason for non-dualistic thinking.
1. Jesus creates an equivalency with himself and the Father.
“The Father and I are one” (John 10:30). Because we made Jesus different than
ourselves, we thought Jesus was just talking about himself. We did not
understand Christ as the corporate personality wherein he is the stand-in for
all of us. He really meant for us to follow him on this same path. We are
supposed to be able to say at the end of our spiritual journey that we, too,
are one with the Father.
2. The second moral equivalency is with Jesus and other people.
“Whatever you do to the least of my brethren you do to me” (Matt. 25:40). This
is a mystical way of knowing. A dualistic mind cannot understand this thinking
because dualistic thinking usually excludes those who are “least” by my
definition. With a non-dual mind we are able to see each and every person as an
“Alter Christus,” another Christ.
3. The third moral equivalency is with any person and God. “The
Spirit is with you. The Spirit is in you” (John 14:17). Jesus closes the gap
between God and us. As St. Paul says, “You are all temples of the Holy Spirit
and the Spirit dwells in you” (1 Corinthians 3:16). This levels the playing
field of humanity. Theologically, we are all of equal dignity and importance.
Only a non-dualistic mind can get this, however. The dualistic mind will always
make distinctions at a lower level and cannot usually get beyond them.
4. The fourth moral equivalency is between yourself and any
other person. “In everything, do unto others what you would have them do unto
you” (Matt. 7:12). How you love one person is how you love every other person,
and how you love other persons is how you should love yourself, and how you
love yourself is how you should love other persons!
Such non-dual seeing of everything really is enough to change
the world.
Richard Rohr
"I have found in people’s hearts the echo of the sentiment expressed by the ancient poet: Homo sum, et nihil humani a me alienum puto (Quote from Terence: Heautontimoroumenos, v. 77) 'I am a man and nothing of what is human is foreign to me.' It is a cry that came out from Rome and which, also, has its echo through the whole universe. I am a man; injustice towards other men revolts my heart. I am a man; oppression fills my nature with indignation. I am a man; cruelty against so many of my fellows inspires nothing but horror in me. I am a man, and what I would want done to give me freedom, honour, the sacred bonds of family, I want to do to restore family, honour, freedom to the sons and daughters of this unfortunate race."
Charles Lavigerie
Church of the Gesù
23 December 1888
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| Artist: Gaia Orion |
RADICAL INTERCONNECTEDNESS AND RELATIONAL IDENTITY
“The inner self, relationships and the world are all aspects of the same community process.”
Arnold Mindell
Strategy is a high level plan to achieve
one or more goals under conditions of uncertainty. Strategy generally involves
setting goals, determining actions to achieve the goals, and mobilizing
resources to execute the actions. A strategy describes how the ends (goals)
will be achieved by the means (resources). Strategy can be
intended or can emerge as a pattern of activity as the organization adapts to
its environment.
Components of strategy:
Professor Richard P. Rumelt says that a good strategy has an underlying structure he calls a kernel. The kernel has three parts: 1) A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge; 2) A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge; and 3) Coherent actions designed to carry out the guiding policy.
Professor Richard P. Rumelt says that a good strategy has an underlying structure he calls a kernel. The kernel has three parts: 1) A diagnosis that defines or explains the nature of the challenge; 2) A guiding policy for dealing with the challenge; and 3) Coherent actions designed to carry out the guiding policy.
Strategic planning is an organization's
process of defining its strategy,
or direction, and making decisions on
allocating its resources to pursue this strategy.
Strategic planning is a process and thus has inputs, activities,
and outputs. It may be formal or informal and is typically iterative, with
feedback loops throughout the process.
The way that a strategic plan is developed depends on the nature
of the organization's leadership, culture of the organization, complexity of the
organization's environment, size of the organization and expertise of planners.
The purpose of planning is not to write a plan. It is to
increase your ability to serve your mission.
Organization and management sciences today are placing a great
deal of attention to naturalistic approaches to development. One of the
most prominent approaches is called “self-organizing” systems. These are
systems that develop primarily according to certain values, rather than
according to specific procedures.
Biological systems (people,
plants, animals, etc.) are fine examples of self-organizing systems. They
might grow in any variety of ways – ways which are rarely sequential in
nature. However, these biological systems always develop according to
certain key principles or values, such as propagation of their species and
self-preservation.
What is an Organic Approach to Strategic Planning?
This is a rather unconventional
approach to planning – certainly, an approach that some might argue is not
strategic at all. However, the value of this approach is that it can
match the nature of certain types of organizations much more closely than the
traditional, linear approaches. It might even be argued that the linear
approaches can even hurt these types of organizations as their members struggle
to conform to a planning process that is quite contrary to their nature.
To become a master strategist, you
must develop strategic intuition.
The best decision-makers in chaotic
“fog of war” conditions seem able to call on intuition – knowing what to do
without knowing why or how they know.
Pattern recognition, by the way, is
a key indicator of whether someone has begun to develop a “Zen” way of knowing
about his or her field of expertise.
R. Rohr
"Humanity is going to require a substantially new way of thinking if it is going to survive. Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.”
Albert Einstein
STRATEGIC CORE PRINCIPLES
to achieve the Vision
to achieve the Vision
1. CHARITY: LAVIGERIE'S DYNAMIC FORCE
“If we
want to discover the dynamic force that drove Lavigerie during his campaign, we will not find it
in theological principles, but in one single word which he had chosen as his
Episcopal motto “Charity.” Above all else, Lavigerie
was an apostle driven by love.”
Francois Richard
However, this history also teaches us that works of charity alone cannot eliminate slavery from our society. Lavigerie himself noted this, saying: But I repeat, my dear brethren, that charity, however great it may be, will not suffice to save Africa. A more prompt, more efficacious and more decisive remedy is needed. To achieve this, therefore, works of charity have to go hand in hand with works of justice. We further learn from our Founder that evangelisation has to go hand in hand with social activism if it is to become an effective anti-slavery instrument. We need laws and social structures (cf. antislavery laws and societies / associations) to prevent and eliminate the root causes of slavery
Richard Nnyombi
2. CONVINCED OF VICTORY BEFOREHAND: BEGINNING WITH A "YES OF BASIC ACCEPTANCE"
“Nobody can go off to battle unless he is fully
convinced of victory beforehand. If we start without confidence, we have
already lost half the battle and we bury our talents.”
Pope Francis
The Joy of the Gospel, 85
The Joy of the Gospel, 85
“The great teachers are saying that you cannot start seeing or understanding anything if you start with “No.” You have to start with a “Yes” of basic acceptance, which means not too quickly labeling, analyzing, or categorizing things in or out, good or bad. You have to leave the field open.” This is a lifetime of work and honest self-observation to stop judging or starting with “no.” You really know only that which you first love. Once you have learned to say a fundamental yes, later no’s can be helpful and even necessary: without them, you have no protected boundaries or identity”
Richard Rohr
The Naked Now
The Naked Now
3. JESUS, THE DECONSTRUCTIONIST
Link interview with Diarmuid O'Murchu >>
“The first
page of the bible is a powerful antidote to negativity. “He looked...and found
it very good.” With the same eyes Jesus looked at every person and he saw
goodness in the most wicked. The substratum of all reality is goodness, evil is
put on later. But it takes effort and discipline to constantly return to the
divine view of people and search for their basic goodness.”
Wolfgang Schonecke
5. QUALITY OF PRESENCE
6. BEING IN CONSTANT SEARCH
7. TEAM WORK
8. (ANTI)-SLAVERY CAMPAIGN IN AN EVOLUTIONARY UNIVERSE
Pope Francis
to the Union of Superiors General
(Rome, 27th-29th November, 2013)
"We can’t avoid conflict but we
mustn’t remain stuck in it either: we need to tackle it and behave like wise
people trying to find possible solutions. Patience and tenderness are
the virtues we need. It is painful but it’s the only way forward."
Richard Baawobr
9. CHARACTERISTICS OF CHANGE IN AN EVOLUTIONARY UNIVERSE
Link interview with Joanne Lauterjung Kelly >>
“it is interesting that Jesus identifies
forgiveness with breathing, the one thing that we have done constantly since we
have born and will do until we die. He says God’s forgiveness is like
breathing. Forgiveness is not apparently something God does, it is who God is.”
Richard Rohr
10. INVISIBLE STRUCTURES (fields, systemic thinking)
A methodology does not set out to
provide solutions but offers the theoretical underpinning for understanding
which method, set of methods or so called “best practices” can be applied to a
specific case.
See Butterfly Model >>
Integration of Practice, Theory and Research
Principles of Liberation Theology in Lavigerie's Thought
(Source: Laurenti Magesa)
In his struggle against the Slave Trade, Cardinal Lavigerie based much of his argument on the authority of the Scriptures and the Great Tradition of the Church, emphasizing what we would today call the hermeneutical or pastoral circle/spiral, or the process of See, Judge, Act. In this he anticipated in practice the praxis of Liberation theology which proceeds on the basis of four key moments: Insertion, Social Analysis, Theological Reflection, and Pastoral Planning.
Lavigerie's Insertion
The moment of insertion implies practical experience and
familiarity with the situation at hand. Thus Cardinal Lavigerie
did not just imagine or read about the horrors of the slave trade; as is clear
in his speeches and letters, he had personal first hand experience of the trade
or knew about it through his missionaries all over the continent. It was on the
basis of these experiences that he gained authority to speak about the horrors
of the trade with confidence. He provided in his speeches and addresses vivid
illustrations of the situation so that he was uniquely able to directly touch
the minds and hearts of his hearers.
Lavigerie's Social Analysis
As is clear from the sources available,
Cardinal Lavigerie's campaign demonstrated the social and
moral implications of the trade. He thus took into account the second moment of
the circle, the moment of social analysis. In this moment, the experiences obtained
at the moment of insertion must not be considered in an isolated way. “These
experiences must be understood in the richness of all their
interrelationships,” as Joe Holland and Peter Henriot point out. “Social analysis examines
causes, probes consequences, delineates linkages, and identifies actors. It
helps to make sense of experiences by putting them into a broader picture and
drawing the connections between them” (Holland and Henriot
1983, 8). Cardinal Lavigerie used much space in all of his
presentations to show these connections, linkages and consequences.
Lavigerie's Theological Reflection
Data experienced and analysed
in a comprehensive way must be interpreted at the third moment “in the light of living faith,
scripture, church social teaching, and the resources of tradition” (Holland and Henriot
1983, 9). As Christians, we must allow everything that we do to be interrogated
and judged by the word of God.
Lavigerie's Plan of Action
Cardinal Lavigerie exhibited sufficient familiarity with
this teaching so that as a result and in the context of this teaching, he did
not fail to present his audiences with a plan of action, namely, pastoral approaches to
eradicate the trade. True to the method of Liberation Theology, Cardinal Lavigerie
combined together academic and activist processes (Wijsen, Henriot and Mejia 2005, 108ff.). Even more
importantly, he concretely identified himself with the situation of oppression.
RESOURCE MATERIAL: STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) Link Interview with Elaine Zook Barge >>
RESOURCE MATERIAL: STAR (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience) Link Interview with Elaine Zook Barge >>
