Organization: The American University
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.catholic
Date:         Tue, 15 Dec 1992 01:53:09 EST
From:         Jim McIntosh <JIM@AMERICAN.EDU>
Subject:      Re: Nature of the Church
              30 Nov 1992 11:39:35 EST from <tillman@SWDEV.SI.COM>

On Mon, 30 Nov 1992 11:39:35 EST Brian Tillman wrote:
>W. Fred Rump (fred@COMPU.COM) writes:
>>Well ... I am having a bit of a hard time with this. Are you saying
>>that it matters more as to 'how' we travel than that we get there?
>
>My opinion is that the journey is everything. I feel that it does matter
>more how we travel than where we arrive. The journey itself will
>determine our destination. If we take proper care of the journey (that
>is, how we demonstrate our love for God and for each other), the
>destination will take care of itself.

I really agree with you, Brian. I think your point is key to
understanding Christianity. It's hard to work for any period of time in a
shelter or soup kitchen and not come to appreciate the wisdom of your
statement. If you are looking for some accomplishment, you'll never see
it. Day after day of the same thing. Hungry, cold and sick men and
women needing care and love.  Just when you think you have someone
on their way off the streets, they'll fall off the wagon or get killed.
(As a friend of mine told me, "Working with the homeless can be very
rewarding except that they keep dying on you.") Eventually you realize
that the goals aren't important at all, it's the faithful service that
counts. The journey itself is the end.

This is a hard lesson for Americans to learn. We are trained to set goals
and achieve them before setting off after higher goals. Our business
lives are driven by "Management By Objectives". We place a lot of value
in obtaining the ends, and are sometimes willing to fudge the process so
that a sucessful conclusion is reached.

Once you accept the fact that the ends don't justify the means, it can
places quite a burden on you. Take Somalia. Yes, people are starving, but
does the goal of feeding them justify killing other people? I remember
the astonishment I felt when I read that Dorothy Day was arrested for
protesting against our participation in World War II. I had been taught
that this was the great war against the anti-Christ, Adolf Hitler. How
could she have been for concentration camps and world domination? It was
only later that I learned to appreciate both the reasons for her
protesting any violence, even for worth goals, as well as the incredible
pain this mandate must have caused her. It would be so easy to ignore the
means for a really good end, but to do so would not be Christian.

This does not mean that we have to accept an evil. Certainly the
situation in Samalia is terrible and something has to be done about it.
Our religion, however, teaches us that that something cannot be itself an
evil. Instead we need to look for creative, non-violent solutions to
problems such as these.  As people have pointed out, we have military
colleges where people are trained to respond to problems with violence.
We have no peace universities where people are trained on how to respond
nonviolently.

It's sad. It's so easy to call in the marines and shoot a couple bad
guys to solve the problem. It would be so tough to try and figure out
how to deal with the problem in a nonviolent manner. But that is what
we are called to do by our faith.

Jim McIntosh, SFO (jim@american.edu)
The American University
Washington DC 20016-8019 USA
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