“Those who are accustomed to judge by feeling have no understanding of matters involving reasoning. For they want to go right to the bottom of things at a glance and are not accustomed to look for principles. The others, on the contrary, who are accustomed to reason from principles, have no understanding of matters involving feeling, because they look for principles and are unable to see things at a glance.” – Blaise Pascal
The Jesuit Forum for Social Faith and Justice was established in 2007 to support education and engagement on a variety of social and ecological justice related issues. The Forum focuses on small group discussion and emphasizes listening and developing trust in others as the way to connect, understand and become active in confronting injustices.
Several challenges inhibit our engagement in addressing social and ecological injustices. We live in a chaotic world, full of failing democracies, conflict and unpredictable environmental changes. This creates fear, often unexpressed, and an obsession for personal security. Facebook, Twitter and e-mail compound this fear: they have replaced depth in communication and add to the information overload that overwhelms us. And, despite being social creatures who have always depended on communities, financial independence, easy access to services and a desire for personal success have created a fierce independence that undermines our skills to build trusting relationships.
Growing individualism creates a fear of intimacy and vulnerability that results in us not recognizing our own isolation. Out of this isolation comes loneliness and a sense of powerlessness that ultimately leads to a disconnection in our mind and heart, leaving many disengaged when it comes to the world around us… we are simply turned in on ourselves and can face only our own challenges.
How do we overcome this inward spiral that keeps us from addressing these injustices? One tendency is to employ a Cartesian approach and use reason alone to combat the challenges we face. Western culture is steeped in data and the need for proof and justification and the desire for 100% certainty. While reason is an essential requirement to properly weigh, qualify and categorize the information that we receive in order to identify inconsistencies and gaps, it alone will never solve these problems or abate our fears.
In fact, our efforts to gather more and more information to understand all facets of the problem create even more difficulties for us. We can become overwhelmed in this search for information that is oftentimes conflicting and unclear. This can lead to complete inactivity and despondence; we are more likely to resist engagement and grasp onto any diversionary technics that help us to avoid facing our fears.
The philosopher, Blaise Pascal agrees that reason is required to understand aspects of the issues we hope to address, but he also says that reason alone is not enough. We need to connect with our ‘hearts’, what is core to us, to put aside our lack of control and desire for certainty in order to reengage. We need to balance reason with intuition and with the knowledge that everything cannot be known. We must rely on faith and trust in God. We need to reconnect the mind (reason) with the heart (intuition and faith).
The Forum recognizes this mind-heart split that exists and attempts to employ an approach that reengages the heart in the process of coming to understanding and judgment. The Forum believes that bringing people together in a safe environment and allowing them to express their fears and vulnerabilities is the best way to achieve this. In doing so, we recognize and admit these fears that hold us back; we let go of rigidity and preconceived ideas and create receptivity and openness; we engage in real communication and identify similarities in others, that we are not alone.
When we speak honestly and listen deeply to each other, we soon reach a level of trust and a sense of community. The process of exposing vulnerabilities grounds us in our limitations and helps us to acknowledge that we are not able to know or solve everything. While it may seem counter-intuitive, this ‘giving up’ creates freedom and allows us to risk engaging with others to work together towards solutions. It is not about using reason to access all the answers or process all of the information to arrive at a perfect solution; it is about taking small steps that lead to change.
Listening and dialoguing, rather than debating, are the two critical skills that the Forum helps participants practice in order to put aside fears and actively engage in social and ecological justice issues. These same skills help us to uncover creative solutions that are often only possible when a group works together to solve a problem.
Of course, in all this, the Jesuit Forum’s goal is to help people change the world!
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Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pensées Edited, Outlined, and Explained (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993) 233.
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The Jesuit Forum is the source for all photographs.
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