ISA launches Volume 4 Journal: Joins International Peace Week

Five of the seven authors spoke during the launch held at the Teresa of Avila Building on February 2, 2019 (Saturday).  They and sixty participants were welcomed by Fr. Sheldon Tabile, O.Carm,, ISA’s Academic, Research and Publication Director, who spoke on the 3Rs of a good journal – rigor, relevance and fostering relationships to spirituality.

“May you have a fruitful and meaningful discussion this afternoon,” he added. 

Overview

ISA Executive Director Fr. Rico Ponce, O. Carm, Ph.D./S.Th.D., co-editor of Volume 4 and author of its lead article “Spirituality as Locus for Peace-Work,”, wrote that looking more closely  at certain spiritual traditions will show peace-work at the heart of their teachings.

“For example, Islam means establishment of peace, and a Muslim surrenders to the will of Allah and establishes peace through his actions and conduct. And Sikhism preaches that if a man sings and nurtures the love of God within him, all his sorrows shall vanish and his mind shall receive abiding peace. Judaism holds that the purpose of the Torah is to teach peace. Lastly, Christianity teaches, `Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called children of God.’ “

Fr. Ponce anchors peace-work on the idea that spirituality is a dynamic relational process between the human being and the Divine Being. He also identified four  important components of this process geared towards transformation: one, grounded-ness in prayer; two, on-going resistance to forces of violence and death; three, the need for a community  whose members share a passion for the attainment of peace; and four, listening to the voice of the victim.

He pointed out, “I would like to base the challenges to peace-makers on the story of Naboth in the Book of Kings. For the Carmelites it is important because Prophet Elijah, whom we consider as one of our fathers, confronted Ahab just as the king arrived at the vineyard which he had acquired from Naboth through the scheme of Queen Jezebel.”

She wrote to the elders and nobles to proclaim a feast and to place Naboth at the head of the table, but to accuse him falsely and to have him stoned to death as the villagers looked on. But she and King Ahab were charged with murder by Elijah and received a capital sentence.

“If Elijah were to visit ISA’s Summer Course on Asian Spiritualities,” said Fr. Ponce, “he would have exposed our collaboration with Jezebel and the different violations of the rights of the poor, the least, the last and the lost. And he would have made us look at modern-day Naboths living at the margins of society and dying as we go about our concerns.”

Fr. Ponce urged, “We must speak up and make a stand in favor of the victims of injustice. Genuine peace that is based on justice will be achieved with our solidarity with the oppressed and also with the will of God. As Thomas Merton prayed at the US House of Representatives on Holy Wednesday 1962: `Almighty and merciful God, … in your will is our peace.'”

Indigenous Filipinos

Also at the launch was Prof. Marcela Octaviano of Notre Dame University of Marbel, author of the paper “Building Peace through Understanding Indigenous Peoples’ Culture and Spirituality”.

A T’boli-Bilaan from South Cotabato in Mindanao, she has worked in community development in her home province and in two other provinces of Mindanao, areas wracked by secessionist conflicts in which indigenous peoples remain caught.

“My thesis this afternoon.” Said Prof. Octaviano, “is that indigenous peoples can achieve peace and resolve conflicts without lawyers. They do these based on their culture, which I hope others will try to understand so that there can be peace.”

One way is the wogu (big brother or sister) and woli (little brother or sister) system of the Tboli. “Outside the family, one can be a sibling to members of the community. The wogu  looks after the woli; is a model mentor for the latter; and is there to listen when a woli feels reluctant to confide to his own family.”

Another practice for lasting peace and friendship: kesebila. In a ritual two warring parties swear to consider each other as real brothers, to protect each other, and to accept that if either betrays the other, one will die. While taking the oath, both hold the ends of a piece of rattan, cut it in the middle and then take a part of it. Thus, they are addressed as `Father Rattan’ by each other’s children, for whom they assume responsibility if anything happens to the other’s family.

This practice was designed to avoid clan wars as tensions used to occur primarily because of disputes on land, which symbolizes life and survival, and on women, who symbolize wealth. And yet in her paper, Prof. Octaviano also noted how peace was restored by women negotiators.   

The Tboli also believe that they are living with spirits who can assure them of a healthy and productive life if they co-exist peacefully with these `beings’. Spirit-guardian of the living and of the other-than-living, the fu ensures that everything is in order and unharmed, and is angered if a tree is cut or if something is taken from the forest without permission.     

 “Always leave something for others to survive on – this is one of the precepts related to a virtuous life. Often, we are asked why we do not use the abundant resources of Mindanao and enrich ourselves. But we have been taught to respect and use them responsibly.”

Catholicism

The next speaker was Maria Teresa Guingona-Africa, Ph.D., who teaches Muslim-Christian Dialogue for Nation-Building and Conflict for Peace among Religions at the Ateneo de Manila University and who co-founded in 2001 The Peacemakers’ Circle Foundation, Inc. (TPCFI).

At the launch Dr. Africa explained the title of her paper  (“Being, Becoming and Building Peace in the Love of Christ”) by pointing out, “By virtue of being followers of Christ, we Christians are compelled to reach out to find new ways of being and becoming Christ-like in our ways of loving God and loving our neighbors as ourselves.”

She added that she finds the verse “I am the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14:6) central to her Christian faith and inspiring for its inclusive message. At the same time she is challenged to accept that Truth is also in the hearts of people who are not Christians.  

Dr. Africa has been involved in peace-work for twenty years, starting in 1998 when she saw a T-shirt with the image of a globe surrounded by symbols of the different religions of the world.

“The image conjured a god big and powerful enough to hold without breaking the diversity of thoughts, beliefs and ways of being in the world,” she recalled. “I was led to a newfound and deeply-held conviction that the Triune God is THE `big enough God’ I was seeking.”

God the Father, according to Dr. Africa, “is the Lover, Creator and Source of all things. To this LOVE Jesus Christ the beloved son bears witness, being truly human and fully divine. He shows us that being fully human is the WAY to realizing the TRUTH … that we are `in this world but are not of the world’ and that there is LIFE eternal. This is a universal message to all humankind regardless of culture and creed.”

Indeed, peace is an ecosystem, she learned from a Buddhist friend when she felt that fourteen years of work had been wasted by the still-unsolved killing on Good Friday 2017 of the president of the Muslim-Christian Peacemakers Association in Barangay 188, Tala, Caloocan City.

She surmounted depression, diabetes and weight problems as she came to realize that interfaith peace-building calls for deep conviction, faith, hope, patience and commitment. She also became aware that these challenges need a nurturing spirituality arising from faith in the Triune God.

The spirituality can cut across faiths, Dr. Africa pointed out, saying she has come to be humbled in her travels and seeing how Catholicism can be a minority faith in some countries. But her message at the launch was universal: “Let us be organs of dialogue and instruments of peace.”

Hinduism

The fourth speaker at the launch was Dr. Shakuntala Vaswani, co-founder and officer-in-charge of TPCFI and trustee and later president of the Hindu Temple Bharati Women’s Association and of the Indian Ladies Circle. 

In “Hinduism and the Quest for Peace”, she averred that Hinduism – the oldest of the world’s great religions – teaches that harmony is created when people follow eternal laws and thereby achieve a positive outcome for life. Hindu saints and sages of old have also articulated norms and standards of behavior that stress individual duties and obligations as well as living as part of a greater whole. In Sanskrit these noble aims for living in peace are called Purushartas.

Another set of books, the Vedas, recorded circa 3000 BCE the wisdom transmitted for generations, making it the first book of humankind. In her paper Dr. Vaswani wrote, “The Vedic rishis (teachers) taught a spirituality of non-difference of self and of others. All living beings are the same and from the same God (Ishvar); this calls for a sense of equality and an effort to harm or hurt no one. The divine is symbolized by the sacred syllable Om.“

“Peace is the ultimate objective of human life,” she emphasized.” In Sanskrit, shanti literally means to be peaceful, non-violent, calm or undisturbed. It denotes abstention from mental and physical violence and disturbances. We recite Om Shanti Shanti Shanti  to calm the mind and the environment and to plead that peace and harmony may prevail in the universe.”

The first Shanti is to purify the body from suffering; the second Shanti, to purify the mind and the soul of one’s spiritual burden; the third, to protect oneself from accidents and calamities.   

The Vedas regard peace as the foundation of all morality and teach that it must be performed on three levels – mind, speech and action. These books see collective peace as not only for humanity but also for animals and plants.

“All our actions impact on the environment and on our fellow beings,” Dr. Vaswani also wrote. “As we live with reverence and respect for them, we will surely see how the universe of God will reciprocate and send peace our way… In recent times the voice of Vedanta (concluding part of the Vedas) can be felt in movements like Save the Planet, Conserve Forests, Preserve the Ozone Layer, Stop Cruelty to Animals, and One World One Family.”   

In recent history also, the message of Vedanta was brought to the West by charismatic Hindus like Swami Vivekananda at the Parliament of World Religions (Chicago, 1893) and from 1920s to the late 1940s, by Mohandas Gandhi with his spiritual weapon  of satyagraha where truth is the end, nonviolence is the means, and self-suffering is a self-purifying discipline.

Dr. Vaswani also noted that Gandhi’s ahimsa (passive and nonviolent resistance movement) had   inspired Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to lead the civil rights movement in America, and Nelson Mandela to lead the struggle against apartheid in South Africa.

Dreams

The last speaker was Lucito de Jesus, regarded as the country’s foremost dream expert and awarded by his alma mater, Trinity University, for embodying Trinitarian education as a “Person for Others” and for achieving distinction in advocating dream interpretation on print and   broadcast.  For his undergraduate degree, he majored in mass communication.

Mr. de Jesus has hosted a radio program on dreams and has written for major newspapers, magazines and the electronic media. He has published two books on dreams and a number of modules on aikido, which he practices and teaches.

“I sell God in the media,” he said at the launch. “My name translates into `Little Light of Jesus’ and my middle name is Vergel de Dios.”

Mr. de Jesus has an M.A. Guidance and Counseling for his graduate degree at De La Salle University. For eleven years he gave workshops to seminarians of the Society of the Divine Word on such topics as basic psychology, psychiatry, Jungian issues, sexuality and psychoanalysis through dreams.

In “Dreams and Spirituality” he wrote, “We do not understand some dreams and do not bother to dwell on them because of lack of time, effort and energy. But it is wise to do dreamwork to hasten our relationship with God. If we are willing, our dreams can help us discern his will.”

At the launch he said, “Dreams are free and always available. In Biblical times, God used them to speak to characters like Jacob who dreamed of angels going up and down God’s ladder.  Angels are always a symbol in dreams. The number 7 is also important and is used repetitively.”

For example, God sent the Pharaoh a dream about seven fat sheaths of corn and of seven lean ones as well as of seven fat cows and of seven lean ones. This was interpreted by Joseph to mean seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine, whose consequences could be managed. And since he had already earned the trust of the Pharaoh, he was the one appointed.

God sent the Pharaoh a dream, but we can also ask God for a dream in response to our life situation, said Mr. de Jesus.

“It’s important to have always ask a question in dreams,” he explained. “It is part of knowing our will, our relation with God.  Discernment can further our will and teach us what to do. Were not Jesus and the Buddha alone when they were given lessons about enlightenment?”  

A dream is more powerful when looked at as a question, rather than as an answer, Mr. de Jesus wrote in his paper at ISA’s Summer Course on Spirituality. When approached for the meaning of dreams, what he does is to listen and then asks about an action or inaction in the dream.

“Dreamers find the question sensible to the matter to be dealt,” he said. “And when our unconscious mind contributes wisdom through our recalled dreams and when we work on our dreams, we get to act on facing daily challenges through these dream tasks.” 

Absent were the two other speakers at the Summer Course on Asian Spirituality: Dr. Maria Majorie Purino (“Humanistic Buddhism: A Quest for Peace”) and Fr. Sebastiano D’Ambra, PIME (“Peace-Work in the Tradition and Context of Islamic Communities”) who was in his worksite, Zamboanga City, to mark World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW) with his organization, the Silsilah (dialogue) Movement.  

For his part Fr. Ponce said, “This launch is ISA’s humble contribution to the WIHW declared by the United Nations in 2010 and by President Benigno Aquino III in 2012.”

Open forum

 A nun asked why the peace negotiations are snagged (“one step forward and two steps backward as if we cannot overcome the madugong usapan” or bloody, talks).

 “What element in spirituality do we access so that we reach the right agreement?” she asked.

Mr. De Jesus referred to the active nonviolence being done by women, including a friend of his. He urged nongovernment organizations to believe and be rooted  in local realities, which might not always be the case if NGOs  are funded from abroad.

“I do Jungian analysis and refer to mythology and rituals. I talk about embracing the shadows and going towards the light. In 1896 our Katipuneros  had such  rituals  to go to the spirit and really go for change,” he said about the members of the secret society which ended 300 years of Spanish rule over the Philippines.

Dr. Africa was struck by the words madugong usapan and offered against such emotionalism the subject of her two years of training with the Mennonites headed by Dr. John Paul Lederach – conflict transformation through the use of moral imagination. 

“We went to Uganda, Ethiopia, India and here, the Philippines. We learned about educating people on relationships on the ground. It is important to see the other side as not your enemy but to ask about his story, wonder about his needs and of the oppression of the Bangsa Moro, the Indigenous Peoples, and the farmers. This is dealing by the attitude of the heart.”

She also spoke of the Mindanao Solidarity Network which was aiming for actions more sustainable and transformational than before, and which started by listening in dialogue. 

Dr. Africa explained, “Sitting down in quiet time connected with the Divine and thinking of   creative ways of addressing the issue means not being dualistic but seeing the third side, the people who  will form a container to mitigate the conflict.

“The  Bangsa Islamic Freedom Fighters split from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front but we can ask people. `Can you talk to your cousin?’  Peace is an ecosystem of reaching  out. Maybe other sectors  have been  hurt  and so, we have to be organs of dialogue and instruments of peace.”

She referred to her dissertation at the Asian Social Institute where she used the concept of adequatio –  of being equal to the task at hand.  She wrote in her paper for ISA’s summer course:

“Dialogue can build relationships, address conflicts and promote respect. But the heart must have an attitude of deeply listening beyond words so that it can humbly honor the presence of God in the other person and can also make one Christ-like with a true and humble love.”   

For her part Prof. Octaviano asked of the peace talks,  “The question  is,  are we equal? Are you going to listen to us? In my experience   this is not the meaning of equality because despite dialogue, the killing continues.” 

She also endorses the personal approach: “Yes, ask relatives to speak with the warring parties. We lived next to Muslim communities in Cotabato during the war and  we know that this is a cultural custom we can use. Let us not suppress it. Interaction leads to negotiation which leads to humility  to act so that all parties are heard.” 

Fr. Ponce agreed that sensitivities to cultural differences are important, saying that the advocacy for peace which he has developed the spirituality is one of prayers against forces of evil around us.

“This advocacy must be expanded and sustained. Sister mentioned how some people back out from peace and become discouraged. Yes, it is hard to share your views and to listen to the victims of injustice. But genuine peace with justice comes only with solidarity with the oppressed and with the will of God.”

Closing

 To end the afternoon, Fr. Tabile offered tokens of appreciation to the speakers, who received a round of peace claps led by Dr. Carmen Alviar of ISA.

To much applause they then unveiled the latest volume of Living Flame and autographed copies for members of the audience who took advantage of the reduced launch price.

Everyone sang the much-beloved “Let There Be Peace on Earth” to mark ISA’s celebration of World Interfaith Harmony Week (WIHW).

Perla Choudhury