This was a day of practical work, continuing the work done the day before on the report that is to be presented to the Chapter. It was centred on the specifics of the reality of each unity.
TUESDAY 1 OCTOBER
This was a day of practical work, continuing the work done the day before on the report that is to be presented to the Chapter. It was centred on the specifics of the reality of each unity.
Concepts such as “change of mentality, “conversion” were mentioned during morning prayer which took the form of a parable that invited us to reflect deeply on our attitudes and draw conclusions for our lives. Here is the parable:
There is a certain kind of crab which lives in a shell, but not the same shell for life. As the crab grows it must discard the old shell which it has out grown or it will die. Changing shell is not easy, for the crab becomes very vulnerable until the new one has grown. When the crab’s shell becomes too thick, too tough to crack open, the crab cannot grow anymore. That is when it dies.
Our shells are not as visible as the crab’s, but they are real. Ours are formed by years of habit, shells developed to protect us against others, shells that are shaped by the roles we play. Life is all the time inviting us to change our shell, to risk being vulnerable when, in order to grow, we had to shed one. The alternative is that we hold on to our shell until it becomes so thick that we cannot crack it or grow within it. We may be dead long before we die.
The crab shells which we must shed are the false ideas about love, leader ship, authority, about God and on ourselves that we owe to past influence. These ideas have deep fruits in us and are very real for us. If God reveals something about God’s self or ourselves that is different from these ingrained ideas, we are likely to resist or reject it. If we discover new structures we may reject them too because the old ones feel more comfortable.
If we wish to change, to become transformed tan renunciation is inevitable.