I met F at the bus-stop not long ago and we had an interesting conversation on our bus ride to town about rules and what is right and wrong. What should we do when we see that someone is engaging in what we perceive as wrong behaviour, and to what extent do we go in attempting to speak truth in this person's life?
She was faced with a situation where someone was resisting her persistent correction and avoiding her, and she was wondering if sterner measures should be taken?
This is a tough one for there is a fine line between offering the truth in humility and being intrusively self-righteous. Even if we are right, it may not be judicious to insist too much for it may have the opposite result and drive people away.
And yet, we must also not shrink from speaking the truth if indeed someone is bent on the path of destruction, even as we know the message may not be well received as soon as the words leave our mouth.
So how does one preach the truth without being preachy? How does one one speak the truth without judging the other?
There are no blanket or fail-proof answers for every situation is nuanced by different personalities, histories and motivations. However, we can be guided by God's law of love which stresses respect for the dignity of the other, so that we love our neighbour as we love ourselves.
In order that we ourselves can live upright and honest lives, we must first grasp the spirit behind the commandments or rules for expert knowledge of the rules alone is inadequate. We would only be like children engaged in rote learning, parroting truths without understanding, until we ourselves break them without much provocation.
Or we adhere to the rules but experience no joy in living a circumscribed life born out of duty alone. And because we have such joyless souls, we perpetuate a prevailing view of Christianity: institutionalized religion is for killjoy, moralistic, guilt ridden prudes who are unable to enjoy life.
That could not be further from the truth of the Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God made incarnate in His Son, Jesus, who gifted us with the Holy Spirit.
He wants us to have life to the full, something we can only know and experience if we listen and talk to Him frequently, in tender, intimate relationship. And when we are fully alive, then others around us can be dazzled by His glory and therefore attracted to Him through us, His ambassadors. They will be drawn to the abundance of joy, love and peace that radiates from our personalities. And that, folks, is how we become legitimate fishers of men and women.
True moral choices come from an adult, incisive understanding of self and an educated, well-developed conscience that has digested the philosophy behind the rules, especially Divine-inspired ones for they breathe truth, goodness and beauty into our lives, being rules of love.
But knowing right from wrong does not mean we point fingers or judge others. For we are also called to live lives of virtue, what Aristotle defined as excellence at being human. Thus the virtues of wisdom and compassion would qualify as knowing when, what and how to say something.
To speak truth with the right words, at the right time and in the right place for the right reasons so that it can be received openly, and in the same spirit of love as it was given. This requires both humility and courage.
I like what Father Timothy Radcliffe says in the Afterword, Beyond silence, in his book Seven Last Words:
The courage to speak is ultimately founded on the courage to listen. Do we dare to listen to the young with their doubts and questions...to people who have other theological opinions than ours...to people who feel alienated from the Church...to those whose lives may appear to place them on the edge, because they are divorced and remarried or gay or living with partners? We will not have the courage to do so unless we have listened in silence to the most disturbing voice of all, that of our God. If we can be silent before God and hear his Word which rose from the dead, then silence will no longer imprison us in any tomb.
His words echo what my SD told me last week. It is more often enough that we are available to people and listen, for that listening ear may just be what is needed to give truth the space to emerge and coalesce into a concrete reality.
She was faced with a situation where someone was resisting her persistent correction and avoiding her, and she was wondering if sterner measures should be taken?
This is a tough one for there is a fine line between offering the truth in humility and being intrusively self-righteous. Even if we are right, it may not be judicious to insist too much for it may have the opposite result and drive people away.
And yet, we must also not shrink from speaking the truth if indeed someone is bent on the path of destruction, even as we know the message may not be well received as soon as the words leave our mouth.
So how does one preach the truth without being preachy? How does one one speak the truth without judging the other?
There are no blanket or fail-proof answers for every situation is nuanced by different personalities, histories and motivations. However, we can be guided by God's law of love which stresses respect for the dignity of the other, so that we love our neighbour as we love ourselves.
In order that we ourselves can live upright and honest lives, we must first grasp the spirit behind the commandments or rules for expert knowledge of the rules alone is inadequate. We would only be like children engaged in rote learning, parroting truths without understanding, until we ourselves break them without much provocation.
Or we adhere to the rules but experience no joy in living a circumscribed life born out of duty alone. And because we have such joyless souls, we perpetuate a prevailing view of Christianity: institutionalized religion is for killjoy, moralistic, guilt ridden prudes who are unable to enjoy life.
That could not be further from the truth of the Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God made incarnate in His Son, Jesus, who gifted us with the Holy Spirit.
He wants us to have life to the full, something we can only know and experience if we listen and talk to Him frequently, in tender, intimate relationship. And when we are fully alive, then others around us can be dazzled by His glory and therefore attracted to Him through us, His ambassadors. They will be drawn to the abundance of joy, love and peace that radiates from our personalities. And that, folks, is how we become legitimate fishers of men and women.
True moral choices come from an adult, incisive understanding of self and an educated, well-developed conscience that has digested the philosophy behind the rules, especially Divine-inspired ones for they breathe truth, goodness and beauty into our lives, being rules of love.
But knowing right from wrong does not mean we point fingers or judge others. For we are also called to live lives of virtue, what Aristotle defined as excellence at being human. Thus the virtues of wisdom and compassion would qualify as knowing when, what and how to say something.
To speak truth with the right words, at the right time and in the right place for the right reasons so that it can be received openly, and in the same spirit of love as it was given. This requires both humility and courage.
I like what Father Timothy Radcliffe says in the Afterword, Beyond silence, in his book Seven Last Words:
The courage to speak is ultimately founded on the courage to listen. Do we dare to listen to the young with their doubts and questions...to people who have other theological opinions than ours...to people who feel alienated from the Church...to those whose lives may appear to place them on the edge, because they are divorced and remarried or gay or living with partners? We will not have the courage to do so unless we have listened in silence to the most disturbing voice of all, that of our God. If we can be silent before God and hear his Word which rose from the dead, then silence will no longer imprison us in any tomb.
His words echo what my SD told me last week. It is more often enough that we are available to people and listen, for that listening ear may just be what is needed to give truth the space to emerge and coalesce into a concrete reality.
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