November 6, 2009
Taking the Time to Make a Difference
Challenge today: Observe, judge, act
BY PAUL R. LEINGANG
(Listen to Paul read this column | Weekly podcast)
It’s a favorite story of mine, one worth repeating. It’s a story about Cardinal Joseph Cardijn as a young priest in Belgium during the early years of the Industrial Revolution.
I find a lot of parallels to today’s age of information revolution, but you can make your own observations about such a comparison.
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As mechanized factories were opened in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the sons and daughters of many families left hearth and home to find employment.
The shift took many young people away from family farms and family trades. It was a time of physical danger from the metal machinery of the factory, and of spiritual challenge as factory schedules took workers away from the past connections with family, community and church.
Canon Cardijn in his early years was concerned about the physical and spiritual health of young people. He organized groups of women from the sewing machines of their factories into circles of support. He gathered young men into similar societies.
According to stories told about these years of upheaval, some factory workers told Cardijn that their workplace was dangerous.
Cardijn did not disagree, but his response was to challenge the workers to see first before they made just a judgment.
The workers returned to the factory with open eyes, and returned to tell their priest what they had seen. A machine guard was missing from a set of gears. Oil dripped from another machine onto the floor beneath it. These were facts, not conclusions. They were observations, not judgments.
But with such clear and objective facts to study, there was no doubt about the conclusions that could be drawn. An unprotected set of gears could take a hand or an arm from a hurried worker. Oil makes a floor slippery, and those who walk on it could fall. Conclusions such as these are drawn not from fear or pre-conceived notions nor from the views of others. Conclusions such as these are drawn from reality, from first-hand experience, from eyes open to see the truth.
Precisely because the specific problems were identified, factory safety could be improved. The gears could be protected, the oil dripping could be stopped or controlled.
For Cardijn, this was the challenge for every Christian in daily life — to see first, then to judge, and in the end, to act to make things better.
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I believe it takes a mighty discipline to see without judging, but I know that seeing is not enough.
I believe that only through unbiased observation is there hope that sound judgment will be possible, but judgment is not enough.
I believe that clear sight and sound judgment must lead to action.
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What do you see in your world?
I see a society whose members are increasingly more connected on the Internet but paradoxically isolated from each other. Once again I see that children are drawn away from family and community into new forms of society, where there are new dangers and new opportunities. And where ministry is essential.
In particular, I see a society where many millions have little or no access to health care, where the turning gears of disease or accident may catch the health or the hand of the unwary and the unprepared.
And I also see a path towards justice made slippery by shouts and slogans.
These are not judgments, but observations. Your conclusion may differ from mine, but I know that any action that comes forth must come from clarity and not prejudice, from eyes open and not blinded by bitterness, from values formed in the following of the life of Jesus — the only reality that truly makes a difference.
Comments are welcome at office@cfm.org or the Christian Family Movement, P.O. Box 925, Evansvsille, IN 47706-0925