Hard to believe it has been well over a year since I last published a post on this blog.
I am using it now as a vehicle for disseminating Brother Donald Bisson’s most recent reflections concerning our current pandemic era.
Pandemic Reflection: Revolution
by Donald Bisson, FMS edited by Hildegard Pleva May, 2020
These weeks of lockdown have created for many of us the opportunity for deep reflection which has challenged the way we live and the way we perceive reality. As a spiritual director, listening to folks while experiencing the pandemic has clarified and also challenged many beliefs I have held to for a long time. These weeks of waiting, the slowed pace and isolation along with the inability to receive comfort from the usual rites of public grief reinforce the sense that our lives will be permanently changed. I believe the temptation issued by the evil one in our midst is to magically turn the clock back to pre-pandemic times, as if this has been a shady dream. Evil stagnates, freezes and results in rigid egocentricity. Change and transformation are of God, especially when I have not chosen them but had them foisted upon me by reality. The growing public demand, beyond all reason, is to return to normal is an echo of the tempter’ voice saying, “Don’t see the truth.” Obedience to this command brings us back to inflationary selves acting out in flag waving and cultic assemblies of adoring crowds. We are tired of struggle, failures of leadership, and thousands of innocent men and women dying in our midst. They declare, “So what, if we lose 2-3% of children who return to schools, we can’t afford to wait any longer!!!!! “
I have noticed that in spiritual direction, especially over a long period of time with a directee, that God is at work in the slow evolution taking place through daily prayer and fidelity to the emerging True Self. The change is so subtle that it is hardly recognizable to ourselves and others. Like a slow drip of grace, day by day we emerge out of ourselves in greater freedom. Our yearly retreat gives us a greater clarity as to the shifts that touch our souls and how to incorporate these shifts into our reality. In my practice everyone is experiencing some kind of breakthrough or even breakdown which I now refer to as inner revolutions projected into consciousness and radically upsetting the status quo. It is revolutionary when the ego has not made the choice, but rather, the ego submits and becomes its victim. This is “a harsh and dreadful love” which disrupts, disturbs and potentially creates a crisis in which the old world has vanished, sometimes in minutes. These personal revolutions eradicate what seems to be years of slow evolution now ushering us into a new world. It may be a call in the night announcing an accident, a doctor’s diagnosis of stage 4 cancer, a partner suddenly walking out or a descent into a depression without knowing its roots. I have heard accounts of an endless variety of revolutionary moments. It feels like a test from God in which the old God feels distant and unavailable. The fruits of a spiritual retreat now feel trite and inconsequential. Revolutions touch us all and the change ahead is unknown and feels impossible. Personally, I have had three such moments in my 71 years of life and now realize that this pandemic is initiating me into the fourth season of instability. But unlike the other great moments of personal change the whole world is experiencing this revolution at the same time; the people I live with, the community to which I belong, the city I live in, the society and church of which I am a member.
The revolution I am reflecting on is not simplistic or merely individual or political. I deeply experience this moment, dark yet numinous, as a call; a religious, spiritual and moral call to mature as a species. The call is universal and not uniquely American, though we have particular challenges at the moment. I am in contact with friends and colleagues around the world all locked down, who know victims of the virus and are adjusting to a radical new world of technology and distance learning. There is a need to articulate that the changes ahead have potential for conversion of heart, mind and spirit much deeper than mere adaptation to new technological demands. We cannot waste the potential of spiritual energy that is being released in the midst of all this suffering and loss. It must be channeled into a new way of being.
Easter is not merely an event in objective history. It happened two thousand years ago and it transformed a group of frightened men and women into an emerging charismatic community about to confront the Roman Empire. This is not the Easter of fuzzy bunnies and Easter egg hunts which our country has adopted as celebration of the spring equinox. The Easter of the past created community and martyrs of faith and an explosion of compensation for the greed, power and immorality of the empire. This force was a revolution which could not be capped and contained. The Easter event is still spiraling and speeding throughout the world where there is love, peace and joy in a community dedicated to the most vulnerable. We see in our midst the ongoing battle for power waged between the world of money, finance and oppression of the poor on one side and, on the other, the world of sacrifice and compassion present in our emergency rooms, food pantries and all those charitable acts which touch the heart and remind us of our humanity. The revolution is not in denying the evil but in celebrating and aligning our will with the Good. Jung said that in the face of evil we must use all of our ego strength to choose the Good and not succumb to the archetypal darkness exploding in our midst.
Lucifer means” light bearer”. The natural evil of the Covid19 virus is casting a beam of light on our collective darkness, our cruel histories and social injustices. The revolution of self, born in this time of pandemic, first looks at the reality and does not forget what is seen. The historical immoralities of the past are made clear and repeated before our very eyes in the present crisis. They are legion. The social conditions which have acerbated the crisis are now visible and manifest. Evil doubts the holocaust; evil hides the truth exposed. African Americas are disproportionally affected by the virus due to collective racism, underemployment, uneven health care and the kind of jobs which place them in harm’s way. The history of slavery is still here and the pandemic makes it clear once gain. Those fighting the reality of pandemic make present in our time the ugly racist minority carrying nooses, confederate flags and Nazi symbols. So called “good people” have become the embodiment of darkness, ignorance, anger and hatred, representing the underbelly of this country. We cannot allow these violent men with automatic rifles to take over and intimidate society, especially those who are most vulnerable. Four hundred years of history will repeat itself until there are amends and proper reconciliation. This movement will continue to spread into the next generation as a virus of the soul which is more damaging than any physical virus, harming both victims and victimizers souls.
The light bearer pandemic reveals the totally inadequate level of health care for a large number of our citizens. Pope Francis has articulated that health care is a human right not an arena for competition and generation of profit. He also proclaimed that building walls is sinful. The poor at the border are Christ amongst us. We see the results of income disparity and the immorality of corporate greed in forcing the poor to work in dangerous health situations without protection. Latin X families are caught in the bureaucratic battles for those who are legal and illegal in their family effort to care of the sick. Native Americans who have poor or no health facilities at all are dying at much higher rates than those in the overall population. Poor people of any color are pawns of society making minimum wages while serving on the front lines for our food security. Any old testament prophet would be screaming at those in power, accusing them of criminal treatment of the poor in the sight of God!
In our present revolution it must be the reign of God which takes over. Yet, we are far from fulfilling God’s vision. The conflict between the reign of God versus the values of the world are made clear in Mark: 6-29. The banquet of the world is Herod’s party where John the Baptist loses his life. It is the assembly of the powerful, the wealthy and those who compromise themselves in flattery and lust. Herod’s guests represent the “world” and the brand of values echoing in our experiences today. The status quo is the goal; preserved only by not disturbing the social order lest the freedom of the people be liberated. Collusion with Rome guarantees the status quo for the powerful and supreme control of their puppets. The prophet is silenced through violence. In contrast to that world, the second part of this Gospel passage reveals the presence of God in the person of Jesus and his work, the multiplication of the loaves and fish. Here we see the reign of God made manifest in Jesus’ compassionate gesture of multiplying a small amount of food into abundance, with baskets of leftovers. In God’s world there is an abundance when all gifts and resources are shared. Prayer, community and justice thrive in the space of the kingdom. There is joy, freedom, peace, equality and nurturance. Dorothy Day states this kind of revolution is “one of the heart”, a conversion to God’s world, God’s reign. The transformation brings a new way of seeing reality, a new conscious awareness of our interdependence and union in God’s sight. Political parties, both on the left and the right, are not totally representative of kingdom values. The gospel and God’s blessings are not one or the other.
It is the prophet who speaks to truth to power. For a political party to present itself as the sole true representative of the will of the Almighty is an abomination before God. Jesus is the only one who can say, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. I am totally distressed by those religious leaders who remain silent in the face some of the most enormous moral issues ever brought before humanity. Their silence is tacit approval of the status quo and their lack of ethics will be our downfall. We cannot abandon our personal religious freedom which allows us to bring Christ into all aspects of society.
For a short period of time in the 1960s Thomas Merton, the widely published Trappist monk, was gagged by his major superiors in speaking or writing publicly on political issues, which he saw as questions of morality. Yet, he continued to write, though only clandestinely, privately distributed essays which came to be known as the Cold War Letters. In those letters, he defined his vocation as a protest against war and political tyranny. Here is a quote that is very applicable to today: “It seems a little strange that we are so wildly exercised about the murder of an unborn child by abortion or even prevention of conception which is hardly murder and accept without a quandary the extermination of millions of helpless and innocent adults. One would certainly wish the Catholic position on nuclear war would be held with the same vehemence as its position on birth control. With the race troubles in the South one can see the beginnings of a Nazi mentality in the United States. There is a powerful alliance of business and military men who consider everyone who disagrees with them to be a socialist, a traitor and a spy. The atmosphere is not unlike what I remember of the Germany of 1932.” This statement is exactly what is happening in the present moment. A priest associate of mine says that if he speaks from the pulpit of any moral issue other than that of abortion, he is judged as being political. However, if he should promote voting on the basis of the abortion issue alone, he would be judged as being religious and not political. What has happened to the beatitudes, the good Samaritan, the prodigal son, the woman at the well...? These gospel images are rendered invisible by a myopic view of morality and conscience. Pope Francis is being dismissed as merely a socialist reformer because he welcomes the homeless and the immigrant into Vatican City. Has pomp and power once again replaced the poor carpenter from Nazareth?
I have lost all patience with religious leaders and those in the pews who identify themselves as pro-life while so many already out of the womb are in danger. Figures like Cardinal Bernardin and Pope Francis present the full scope of moral leadership which speaks when walls are built at our borders, when the Environmental Protection Agency is systematically unraveled and when the evil of global warming is denied. I have committed myself to respond in place of those who remain silent. In the future when abortion is presented in a homily as the only life issue to vote on or when there is no reference the process of election discernment, I will either speak to the homilist after Mass, or write a letter in protest to the rectory or diocese. The gospel is held hostage but we should not be silent in the presence of injustices of the poor, the sin of racism, rejection of the least favored, and growing numbers of those on death row, etc. The underlying roots of unwanted pregnancies must also be faced and a program of assistance created for women in poverty and despair, suffering sexual abuse and income inequality. Such a program would offer access to birth control, prenatal and pediatric care, and support in all aspects of childrearing and child care. Beyond the issue of abortion, the lives of all women and the lives of their children, especially those in poverty, are at stake.
Before the pandemic I saw a very moving and disturbing film called the “Hidden Life”. It is the story of a simple famer who underwent a profound conversion experience as he entered marriage and family life. Franz Jagerstatter prayed dangerously. He seriously discerned that his faith and the gospel could not be reconciled with the Nazi Party. He was not looking for martyrdom, but he could not compromise his faith and his stance before God. Even if others could do so, he could not. The church had taught him well, but they could not follow his example. For institutional security, churches compromised their allegiance to Christ for the Fatherland. As a lay Franciscan, he lived the passion of Jesus and Francis. Too often the institution condemns and abandons those who, only many years later, are held up as models of faith and canonized. Thousands of lay people, priests, ministers and religious, including Franz Jagerstatter, paid the price of martyrdom, while the containers of faith, our very religious institutions, were unable to challenge the underpinnings of the system. We seem to be in the same situation.
Cardinal Spellman, then archbishop of the diocese of New York demanded that Dorothy Day, servant of the poor, remove the term “Catholic” from the masthead of her movement’s newspaper, “The Catholic Worker”. She refused in obedience to God. But she would not have wanted to be regarded as a saint since she rejected anything that would differentiate or separate her for the poor and their needs. How do ministers and priests as well as those who sit in the pews continue to teach the essence of the Gospel in season and out of season? The Letter of James 1:22-24 states, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only. Otherwise you are deceiving yourself. For anyone who hears the word, but does not carry it out is a like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.” We must not forget who we are as we stand before the challenges of today. We must ask the question, “Where can we no longer compromise?” There must be a moment for all of us to raise our voices.
The isolation and distancing of the worldwide pandemic is causing both interior and exterior revolutions. As a spiritual director, supervisor and mentor to many women and men, I am witnessing the stirring of a revolution of heart which needs expression in the outer world. Listed here are 10 general observations about the phenomenon that I am witnessing; that I see, feel and acknowledge. The spirit is moving mysteriously in the depths so this is merely an attempt to put some language to a movement of the soul observe in these times.
1. Revolution erupts from a holy space beyond the old securities of the ego. The reality of loss of power, experience of anxiety, pain, prescribed personal limitations and the discomforting sense that we are moving into the unknown are initiating us into something new.
2. Revolution is the collapse of a view of life which had become very comfortable but now seems impossible to return to. Who and what is drawing me into other choices and a new pattern in life?
3. Revolutionary times demand a psycho -spiritual response to an unknown meaning and untrustworthy future. We must choose life under radically different circumstances detached from the outcome.
4. The old agendas and plans are shelved and the new question is where am I being led and by whom?
5. When revolution takes place it is a shock to realize how well conceived my life had been and how little I knew or wanted to know about the realities of life and its consequences.
6. Revolution ends the old vision of the “shoulds” in life. Accepting change gives meaning and purpose for a new vision.
7. Revolution allows us to see our old addictions and coping mechanisms and the opportunity now to let them go for a new life.
8. Revolution and prophesy are interrelated when a person can no longer live in a trance of collective sleep. As disturbing as it may seem, our eyes can no longer be closed to the truth before us.
9. The pandemic has awakened us to the human cry for help around us and everywhere on the planet.
10. Illness and death have reawakened our hope and faith in eternal life, the spirit which transcends the present moment and propels it into true life beyond.
However, religion itself can be a road block for growing in consciousness or a vehicle to awakening. It can abdicate its responsibility to stand with the “widow and the orphan” as defined in the scriptures or be a witness of the kingdom. It rallies too frequently to the defense of amoral political positions in order to assure its welfare in the name of religious liberty, a fearful concern emerging from the least consciously aware in our society. As racism, bigotry and prejudice spread as a moral virus among us, religious institutions worry too often about institutional religious liberty. But where are the religious voices speaking for the abandoned in our society? When religious leaders publicly connect with the party in office in a planned effort to deliver Catholic voters or those of other denominations, we in the pews must revolt. We would express horror at such collusion by revolting against such manipulation, a revolt born of a new ethical consciousness. The gospel is being scandalously mocked by powerful forces of money and ignorance. This November does not bring merely an election; it brings a moral test, a call to revolt against the lies which are uttered daily and to stand in conscience not political allegiances. The constant presentation of truth as being a relative rather than an absolute concept must be challenged. Our disaffection with fascism must be registered in response to all attempts to suppress the vote, which is designed to permit permanent possession of power in the hand of a few. These movements, unaligned with Gospel values as they are, must be considered a dangerous moral problem as it spreads throughout the world. These are dangerous times.
In 1948, Erich Neumann challenged the world by declaring that a new ethic was necessary for the emerging global community. The old manner of containing the shadow in religious institutions had failed drastically in the Holocaust and the advent of nuclear warfare threatened a similar disaster. The required new ethic would demand a growth in consciousness which would not merely abide in superficial goodness. I am constantly shocked by ‘good people’ who can, nonetheless, choose to support amoral governmental regulation and legislation and remain blasé́ about decisions motivated only by concern for stock market ratings.
Since the end of World War II there has been no greater call for unity. The pandemic has issued the call for unity, the requirement to come together for a common goal and purpose. Yet while we are bombarded with the propaganda of our greatness, we reject signed treaties, alienate our allies and withdraw from global health organizations in the midst of the greatest health crisis in a century. Some protect their goodness as in a secret compartment untouched by the suffering of those at the margins in numbers outpacing general rate of poverty. Again, Lucifer’s evil light points to the hardness of heart of good folks who are asleep. What will wake up the masses? The word “good” has been toxified when it is identified with gun totting angry white men and women sporting idolatry of white privilege and a notion of liberty which is far from God and consciousness. How will this new era force us to face the dawn with a new way of understanding ourselves as a global community with God? How do we allow the mystical traditions of all religions to speak to the radical interdependence of life with God? The supposed ‘good’ are now indefensible before the new ethic. Profound shadow work is necessary to awaken the most powerful country from its addictions to inflation and lies. Most people in the world now see us as the greatest danger to humanity. We have fallen from the height, no longer a light on the mountain top, but rather, a third-rate nation of incompetents trying to save money not lives, to save the stock market, cavalierly dismissing tens of thousands of deaths as mere collateral damage in favor of the economy. Will we too need a new ethic after the pandemic to guide our reorientation of values and lifestyles? How are our unconscious projections of shadows of politicians effecting our collective souls? How inflated are we in our view of conscience as pure and innocent? How are the powerful identifying themselves as victims while the true victims continue to suffer from social structures designed to keep them poor? How much pain do we have to endure before we wake up and push aside the perpetrators of distortions? How are conspiracy theories of division actually expressions of corporate sin?
For decades theologians, psychologists, and scientists have studied and discussed social transformation. Three specific areas of transformation have slowly appeared out of this movement bringing us to a new understanding of our reality. The pandemic is now forcing these slow-moving reflections and their conclusions into revolutionary high gear.
Revolutionary Religious Thinking
We are the largest fundamentalist Christian country in the world. This is not a neutral fact. Scriptural fundamentalists support an anti-soul view of the world. The nature of this mentality leads to a view of reality which denies scientific findings and favors alternative facts in political discourse. Their beliefs undermine the movements of God being revealed by the sciences in our time. The mysterious movements of evolution and the universe story are the new mythology, the new story, powerfully enhancing our experience of God in the 21st century. The new story challenges the biblical view of humankind as holding total power over nature rather than existing in concert with all nature. Denial of global warming fits into our inflated view which allows abuse of nature. The pandemic itself is a reminder that we are in and of nature, subject to its laws therefore, at times, being its victim who has no control at all. The rule of human domination is derived from literal interpretation of not only sacred texts but also the documents which serve as the foundation of our democratic system, particularly the second amendment to the Constitution. As Jesus so aptly expressed, the law is created for mankind, not mankind for the law. When mass killings affect New Zealand and Canada via individual possession of destructive killing machines, within days the country comes to grips with the evil done by passing legislation prohibiting ownership of military style weapons. The fundamentalist mentality says we cannot change the written constitutional word just as they would not change a word of sacred text. There is a willingness to sacrifice thousands of dead bodies yearly for the sake of literal obedience to an outrageous God, an interpretation that our forefathers could never imagine.
Our medieval notions of God must be met with a revolutionary response. The secular world will not confront the evil but real spiritual men and women must speak out against a bizarre marriage between religion and violence. In many denominations new ministers are formed to regurgitate old formulas and the churches are emptying. Seminarians in their 20’s are preparing for a 1950’s church they never knew and seekers of God are leaving in droves. We must revolutionize or die by our lack of relevance in the eyes of the next generation of young people who are intelligently inquisitive and deserve more. Clericalism like political fascism is an attempt to control by intimidation an ideology which ignores the truth.
Revolutionary Compassion
The death and suffering around us is an invitation to feel and be touched by the experience of loss and grief. Death initiates us to our fundamental smallness within the great story. Compassion is the invitation for the world to stop the objectification of loss in the numbness created by unbelievable numbers of victims. The revolution proposed here is one of compassion in which emotional connection and empathy are allowed expression. Those in revolt must display a warmth of spirit and possession of true soul, while no longer holding on to productivity as the supreme goal of policy. As we attempt to enter the new normal, we must hold in tension both the health of the people and the need to return to work. The resulting balance is lost on fringe far right voices, who through the safety and comfort of the internet, wish to seduce the masses to spend, shop and quickly recover for the sake of the political and economic expediency. People are considered pawns, especially those dwelling at the lowest rung of society, and therefore expendable. Their fate is to fulfil the requirement of society to bounce back at any cost. Consistent with the seamless garment position in Catholic ethics regarding the right to life, the dignity of human life must be honored no matter the age of the patient. This calls for a level of compassion necessary to know and feel the experience of others, to take it seriously and serve it passionately. We must be moved by human stories and not allow the statistics of lists and graphs to be distorted to support a full reopening of society. This must be a dance for competent physicians and scientists in partnership with thoughtful leaders who can hold the tension between two goods simultaneously and cannot drop one in the favor of another. Society must return with more compassion and feelings for all those who have been affected most.
Revolutionary Commitment to Truth
Truth is really a mystery as well as allegiance to facts. I have never encountered a system so dominated by blatant lies as we have seen in recent years. Fascists of history were creative geniuses weaving half-truths, encouraging existing prejudices, injecting a nuance of doubt in regard to authority, and mixing concoctions of distortions and hatred. Conspiracies are created daily as cover and distraction for believers to willing accept all without question. The cult of lies has ascended to the highest places of honor rendering followers frozen and cold to the truth. An alternative universe has been created in which reality is subjectively recreated each day. Truth is arbitrary and totally neglected. It is crazy making in its power to confuse. We know that fascist systems around the world are helping each other to distort reality. The Gospel has become a pawn in the mix. The saying that even Satan can quote scripture is corroborated daily. In this environment of alternative facts and distortion of reality, the revolution in discussion here is a revolution of Truth, a revolution of Jesus. He not only possessed the truth but in the Gospel of John he is identified as being the Truth. “I am the way, the truth and the life. When a group chooses to pursue a program of continual truth mitigation, it does so in collusion with darkness itself. I now believe that the evil one who lives in chaos, division and hatred has taken up residence among and around us. This is even scary to admit to myself. This is not a political choice. Political parties are imperfect human creations; in their weakness they chose what is considered a lesser evil in order to maintain in control at this time. Since I am in contact with people from all over the world, who worry about us and worry about the planet because of us, this upcoming election is for me the one of the greatest moral struggles of my life. I will do anything to participate in this change for the sake of all. God will not magically solve this; our consciences must be activated for real change to take place and to choose life.
Sometimes a passage from scripture heard many times comes providentially to the fore with new meaning and purpose. Jesus, in Matthew 23: 29-32 challenges the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. ” Woe to you scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrites. You build the tombs of prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous and you say If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we wouldn’t have taken part with them in the shedding the prophet’s blood. You testify against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up then the measure of your father’s sins….” Jesus must have been so frustrated with the blindness around him and the endless cycles of treachery in contrast to his idealism. Is it not now the time, in this revolutionary moment, to stop the horrific cycle of glorifying voices from the past and take this present moment seriously? So many directees have come to see that their whole lives have been prepared for this moment. Let us live into it with our eyes wide open.
