Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. No rights reserved.
© New City Press, New York, for permission to reproduce material from Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, vols 1–3, edited by Regis J. Armstrong, J. A. Wayne Hellmann and William J. Short.
Series Introduction
‘Wisdom is to discern the true rhythm of things:
joy is to move, to dance to that rhythm.’
This series of books on various traditions of Christian spirituality is intended as an introduction for beginners on the journey of faith. It might help us discover a truer rhythm as something of the experience of those who follow any particular tradition resonates with our own.
Too much can be made of the distinctions between the different expressions of Christian spirituality. They all derive from the experience of what God has done and is doing in us and among us. While emphases differ, their validity is their congruence with the good news of Jesus Christ in the scriptures. As the various instruments in an orchestra make their special contribution to the symphony, so we delight in the extra dimension that each tradition brings to the living out of the Christian faith.
The present wide interest in spirituality seems to indicate that, in the midst of all the current uncertainties that we meet in contemporary life, despite its relative comfort and technological advance, there is felt a need to reconnect with our spiritual roots and find a deeper purpose for living.
Each volume offers an introduction to the essential elements of the particular spiritual tradition and practical guidance for shaping our everyday lives according to its teaching and wisdom. It is an exploration into the way that spiritual practice can affect our lifestyle, work, relationships, our view of creation, patterns of prayer and worship, and responsibilities in the wider world.
Many books, of course, have been written in all of these areas and in each tradition classic commentaries are available which can never be surpassed. The aim of this series is to meet the needs of those searching for or beginning to explore the journey inward into their inmost being and outward to relationship with people and the whole of creation.
St Francis can be of special help in our attitude to creation, in our relationship with people and in many other ways. His life of contemplation and action is a signpost for all Christians at all times, not least our own. As the author of this book points out, the keynotes of Franciscan spirituality are humility, love and joy. They were lived out in times of violence, greed and interfaith conflict.
As we see the values of the upside-down kingdom of God lived out by Francis, we can be helped to deal radically with the problems of today. They can throw light on questions of suffering, commercialism, conservation of the environment and violence. Franciscan spirituality has much to tell us about peacemaking and attitudes to the disadvantaged and to the stranger in our midst.
The author’s own experience as a Franciscan sister particularly in the inner city lends authenticity to all that she writes.
Bishop Graham Chadwick
Sarum College
March 2003
Introduction
If there is one symbol that can sum up contemporary Western culture, it is probably the mobile phone. Anyone who has ever sat next to a mobile user on a train has received the clear message that this is a symbol of status, busyness, maybe even of arrogance: ‘I’m important and I’m going to make sure you know I’m here.’ It’s also a reminder of our global perspective – practically nowhere now is unreachable – and the pressure on our time. No time, it seems, can be wasted in just being – doing and working are the main justifications for existing. The pace of modern life feels unstoppable. Life, we’re led to believe, has to be loud, fast, commercial, materialist and obsessed with achievement. Nothing else counts. The insistent beep of the mobile has become as much part of the fabric of our lives as the values it represents.
Mobiles also speak powerfully of another aspect of contemporary life: our desperate need for recognition and connection, to be heard and seen for who we really are, if only we can work out who that is. Perhaps they actually speak of insecurity, rather than arrogance. ‘Please acknowledge me,’ they trill. ‘I matter. I’m here. Notice me!’ They speak across a hungry void, trying to communicate, filling the emptiness with sound. Perhaps each individual conversation signifies little except to those most immediately involved, but each one is a small symbol of the universal human drive to make some kind of impact on the world, to communicate something unique, and to be heard.
The events of Tuesday 11 September, 2001, burned themselves into our consciousness in an unprecedented way. That day, too, mobile phones acquired yet another significance. There were a number of stories of people who found themselves on the hijacked planes or in the World Trade Centre, using their mobiles to say to family and friends: ‘I want you to know I love you before I die.’ Archbishop Rowan Williams, in his book of reflections on the events of that day, rightly points out the dangers of making cheap theological points out of people’s suffering. Not everyone’s last thoughts would have been of love – there must also have been fear, hatred, anger.1 Yet, as he also acknowledges, there was a poignancy in the way many people needed to reach out to each other in those last moments, to communicate something of real and lasting importance, to reassert their sense of interconnection and belonging. When you are about to die, money and power lose all meaning. They cannot define who you are as a person. So the mobiles still said ‘I’m important, I’m here’, but we suddenly heard them in a new way.
Any discussion of the nature of the modern world now has to take into account the reality of global terrorism. It has become increasingly clear that there is no immunity from the effects of terror: contrary to what the affluent West may once have wanted to imagine, it is no longer something which only happens to other people in inaccessible parts of the world. Recent rhetoric about a ‘war on terror’ highlights the larger-scale battle for moral and ideological supremacy which has shaped Western cultural identity in the global era. In a climate of general insecurity about what Western culture actually is, that identity has been easier to describe negatively than positively: we may not be too clear about who ‘we’ are, but we know that we are not ‘them’. This defensive mentality contributes largely to the continuing East–West standoff. Such an atmosphere breeds mutual suspicion, confusion and disinformation over core values. It does not encourage the possibility of finding an adequate response to terrorism or to the conditions which have caused it to flourish. Instead, what is desperately needed, if paranoia and hysteria are not to triumph, is a more sustained attempt to understand those it would be easier to demonize as ‘not like us’. Such attempts to understand the roots of terror need not be seen as condoning evil. A sensible and mature approach to the manifestation of evil is very necessary in every culture – perhaps even more so in a culture which has become uncomfortable with conventional religious language and the idea that it might have something to say to us.
Franciscan spirituality is perhaps uniquely placed to grapple with these dominant issues for our culture. In particular, it presents an important challenge to the individualism which also characterizes contemporary culture, and which has contributed to the harmful separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’. The phenomenon of globalism, for example, is not necessarily a bad thing. It does not have to mean a characterless homogeneity, or the automatic subsuming of the small by the rich and powerful. A positive perspective on globalism does not shrink the world but opens it up. With access to more information about the world and its people comes more awareness of what life
