Habits of Solidarity

"Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change. We lack an awareness of our common origin, of our mutual belonging, and of a future to be shared with everyone. This basic awareness would enable the development of new convictions, attitudes and forms of life. A great cultural, spiritual and educational challenge stands before us, and it will demand that we set out on the long path of renewal."

Pope Francis, On Care for Our Common Home, par. 202

Our future depends on our capacity to live together well. This capacity grows through habits—habits of dialogue, empathy, collaboration—and through dispositions, especially a willingness to learn from one another and to take the holiness of our lives seriously, sincerely, and earnestly. What Pope Francis calls above “our mutual belonging” is not a concept. It is a reality that we can learn through habits of solidarity.

As Peter-Hans Kolvenbach once suggested, "Solidarity is learned through 'contact' rather than through 'concepts.' When the heart is touched by direct experience, the mind may be challenged to change. Personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection."

Change can be difficult, but connection to others provides both the impetus and the support we need for change. A simple first step is simply to allow ourselves to “be touched by direct experience” through encounters with others that invite us to think, to feel, to reflect, and to change.

What are you currently doing to contribute to a better world and how could you be more creative about it? What do you still have to learn and how and from whom will you learn it?

Each day holds a surprise

“Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it, can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let us not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy. It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.”

Henri Nouwen, Bread for the Journey

Henri Nouwen’s simple observation can provide us with a straightforward, three-step way to order our days.

1) Expect a surprise each day. “Expect” here can mean anticipate, hope for, and be ready for it, by watching for it but also by opening our minds and hearts to it. Our own dispositions can condition how we understand, interpret and even experience our lives. If we succumb to undue skepticism and suspicion, for example, we will see bias and deceit everywhere. But bias and deceit, even where present, may not be all that is available to us to see, perceive and process. Anticipating surprise is really a way of allowing life and those around us to speak to us afresh.

2) Receive the surprises of each day from a space of greater inner neutrality, noticing them without moving immediately into patterned behaviors. When we have chronic stresses or long-standing relational patterns, it is easy to respond to a surprising situation in ways that do not allow us to view it afresh. In fact, our own patterns of interpretation can keep us from seeing something as it actually is. A surprise should encourage us to take note more carefully of a situation; it should be a signal to be aware and sensitive to a new situation, filing it away for reflection later.

3) If it is true that each day holds a surprise, then we should review the events of the day at the end of our day, asking ourselves “what surprised me today and why?” This simple practice allows us to notice the surprising features of the day, to consider how we handled what surprised us, and to reflect on how we want to continue to respond.

Surprise is the spice that adds flavor to our lives. It can certainly enhance the intensity of our lives, and surprise is not always a positive element. In these senses, Nouwen is wise to remind us that surprise can and should be shared. Even when a surprise brings sorrow, it can also bring greater solidarity. Sharing our surprising moments with others can help us to build and deepen our connections with others, creating empathy, compassion, meaning, and hope.

Francis and Clare: A Rich Legacy

A fundamental element of Francis and Clare’s way of life is its relational orientation.

Nothing created is complete in and of itself; it is created by, from, and for relationship

with all that is. Further, each and every person is a manifestation and a mirror of the

divine presence that loved it into being. This grounding in love makes a certain vitality

possible in each of us—a vitality that is quickened into life by the spark of the divine in

all creation.

Francis and Clare’s relational way of life shows us how to live together fruitfully in the

human community and in the web of life in which we participate. It corrects us of our

self-centered way that craves attention, control, and ownership. Instead, it invites us

into a way of responsible stewardship, generosity, and care for all things great and

small. The strength of the love that grounds this way of being can dispel the idolatrous

ways that we so often conceptualize and enact power in our world.

Francis and Clare show us that meaning, purpose, and joy can be found when hopes,

dreams, challenges, and all the things that make us human are shared, with God and

with one another. They show us how to pray and strive for communion in all things,

empowered by the presence of the One whose love gives life.