Page 19 - Priorities #53 2012-June/July

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and those experiences taught me to fix my mistakes quickly. It is in the nature of guilt to eat away at your self-respect. There is nothing more demoralizing than shame. If you are ashamed of who you are, or what you’ve done, it can destroy all confidence in the Self. On several occasions, I have tried to override my conscience by trying to be “bad.” I tried to force myself not to tell the teacher he or she forgot to mark me off for a mistake I made. Just a few weeks ago, I realized that Mrs. Paulson didn’t notice a mistake I made on my AP Music Theory Final exam. Since I knew the point difference couldn’t change my overall grade, I figured it didn’t matter and told myself it was okay if I didn’t tell her. But that night it was all I could think about. Those five points which I didn’t deserve haunted me the next day at school. Eventually, I just couldn’t
stand it anymore and went and told Mrs. Paulson that she’d given me too many points. She laughed and told me that when she was my age, she would’ve kept quiet and taken the extra points. She appreciated my honesty and let me keep the points. And I got to keep my integrity. I could feel how honesty created internal power, and that nothing makes my heart as light as being free from guilt.
Overall, the attributes of honesty, integrity and compassion uphold the quality of life. I’m not motivated to be good by guilt, fear, reward or punishment. I’m motivated by the intrinsic nature of the virtues. Virtues make my life more enjoyable, more fulfilling, and more rewarding. I believe in God, but He is not the reason behind my morality. My philosophy is simply to live my life as a contribution to world benefit.
Preface - Continued from page 17
Mahatma Gandhi advocated for religious pluralism with a very astute analogy that has abided with me, and in and through my ministry at the Woodside Priory School. He maintains that our spiritual houses must be built upon the solid foundation of our religious or philosophical traditions. We must attend to the anchoring of our spiritual lives in the discipline, education, and practice of our own faith. However, this house has very large doors and windows that must be wide open to the great winds of other faiths to bring fresh air and insight into our lives. Even though my grandfather was navigating the intra-religious difference of the twentieth century, just as these winds did for my grandfather’s faith, so may it be for all of us who face interreligious diversity in the twenty-first century.
Priory’s World of Theology – Diversity on the Menu/Diversity the Vision
by Dr. Ben Owens
I’ve had the honor and privilege of seven years at Priory, six of them as Chair of the Department of Theology. This coming school year Mr. Matthew Nelson will be taking on the Chair’s role. The changing of roles gives me a chance to look back and to look ahead. It gives me an opportunity to take stock and to evaluate the role Theology plays in the Priory’s life.
My reflection here focuses most particularly on the Priory’s religious and spiritual diversity and pluralism. The Priory community’s religious and spiritual diversity, its spectrum of faith practices and traditions, its welcoming and respecting the positions of seekers and questioners and doubters – all these together make the Priory a real-world experience. The believer of whatever spiritual tradition, the atheist, the agnostic – all together make the Priory’s theological environment a true-to-life experience. And our search for trutb makes us free!
I believe that the Priory’s Benedictine character and charisms facilitate the openness of our theological education. We affirm time and time again in Theology the spirit and wisdom of Benedict’s Rule – “to listen with the ear of the heart.” We prize and treasure the individuality and integrity of each family’s and each student’s spiritual path. We take pride in the fact that our Priory community and its spirit of hospitality are warmly inclusive, as exemplified in the traditional hymn we sing at the beginning of every school year – “All are welcome, all are welcome in this place.”
The Priory’s living tradition in the spirit of Saint Benedict places our school and our teaching of Theology securely in the best of the living tradition of Catholicism, in the tradition of “Fides quaerens intellectum,” that is, faith seeking understanding.
Theology and Campus Ministry together remain firmly and gladly committed to the ideals and values of spirituality Priory-style. Seeking and finding, honoring the questions as well as the answers, praying and meditating, and sharing the truths of our personal stories – all of this represents the legacy of the diversity and pluralism we are so fortunate to experience here at Priory.