For some months now I’ve been looking forward to the film “Lemon Tree”. I’d heard good reports; I’d read the book by Sandy Tolan and thoroughly enjoyed it – so all was promising when I went to see the film last week.
Possibly I should sometimes, perhaps, have taken heed of it is simply that we the fact that there don’t want to see the was only one other reality in front of us; person in the sometimes we don’t theatre; possibly I know how to look at should also have things differently. read the reviews a little closer.
At the Council meeting this month, What I got was a the reading that wasfilm that was reflected uponalmost the complete contained a quotereversal of the book from Arthur I’d read. There was Schopenhaeur: The indeed a lemon tree task is not so much to (in fact, in the film, see what no one yet a whole grove of has seen, but to think them); it was about a conflict between Palestinians and Israelis; it was based on a true story (as is the book).
But the book and the film were not related other than by coincidences. Both are excellent; both are well worth seeing/reading; but one is not the other.
And that fact was initially quite disconcerting. Having gone to the theatre quite confident I knew what I’d be seeing I was completely disconcerted in the first five minutes and it took a while to change gears, so to speak.
We can sometimes find ourselves falling into the trap of presuppositions and assumptions – we don’t see what is actually in front of us because we think we already know what’s there before we look.
Sometimes that’s a result of familiarity; sometimes it’s a matter of over-familiarity;
what no body yet has thought about that which everyone sees.
That may sound a truism but I think it contains a fair degree of insight – and it’s actually very difficult to carry out in practice because it requires us to step outside our comfort zones and the security that’s offered by the familiar.
The third section of the Vision Statement from last year’s Chapter is also asking us to think differently about that which we all see when we look at our future ministries.
The Statement says that by 2012 New Zealand Marists will have a ministry which:
- with lay people, promotes the sharing of our charism
- recognizes the original call to mission among the tangata whenua
- focuses on young people and “foreign lands”
- prefers missionary parishes
There are, I’d suggest, a fair few lemon trees amongst all that! It’s quite possible to scan the list and say Yes, we’re doing all that -or, ask what’s meant by “foreign lands” or “missionary parishes” and because it may not be immediately clear we distance ourselves from the Vision Statement.
In fact, we are using terms we are largely very familiar with – but they won’t necessarily mean in 2012 what they might mean now. Or, to mix the metaphors somewhat, they are lemon trees but not as we thought they were.
We know that we have a steadily decreasing number of men able to carry on with full-time ministry; we know that we are physically unable to maintain all the ministries we currently have; we know – at least theoretically – that we are going to have to cut back in some areas.
And there are various ways of achieving that reduction in focus and energy.
One way is to adopt a “sinking lid” approach and let things work themselves out in a natural way by attrition.
But the Chapter, through the Vision Statement, has rejected that approach.
Rather, it has opted to ask us as a Province to not necessarily think what no one has previously thought about that which we all see but to begin doing what may have been thought about. In other words, to be proactive and to focus our energies.
That will mean that we have to ask some very serious questions and make some very significant choices that will impact on ministries in general and on individuals in particular.
If we are gojng to promote the sharing of our charism with lay people then we need to develop systems which both enable them to learn about the Marist spirit to a deeper level than previously and which also hand over in some cases responsibility for some ministries to appropriately prepared lay people.
If we are going to recognize the original call to mission amongst the tangata whenua then we will have to be prepared to commit men and resources to such areas as Okaihau and South Auckland.
If we are going to focus on young people and “foreign lands” we are going to have to ask ourselves how do we increase the numbers of Marists working in those areas?
If we are going to prefer missionary parishes then inevitably we are going to have to withdraw from some others (and perhaps even take on some new parishes).
These are challenging questions and they do in fact signal priorities for where men and resources will need to be committed over the next three years. They also need to be addressed in the context of the rest of the Vision Statement and particularly the focus on the preferred size of communities.
Most of all, the Vision Statement calls us to look with new eyes – more focussed eyes – on what we are already doing and to ask what might be other ways of doing things.