Global Research Centrum: Chicago

6/20/74

In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I want to speak first, on the Practicalization of Globality; second, on the Actualization of Xavierism; third, on the Sociologicalization of our Strategy; fourth, on the Transparantization of time itself; and lastly, "But the greatest of all is Love."

I would like to read you a poem, which will be the essence of our Trinitytide card this year:

"If I speak the tongues of men and even angels but have no love,

I am no better than blaring brass or a clanging cymbal."

There are just three things in life: one is faith, one is hope, and one is love. (How come we never knew that before?) But of all things that are significant in life, such as faith and hope and love, LOVE is the greatest of all. Amen. A potbellied, bald, myopic Jew wrote that poem a long time ago.

Segundo says, "Authentic love builds the new Earth," He also says "The Church is an undreamed of possibility for love."

The Lord willing, in 1976 the Movement will have its first Global Council. This trip was for nothing else than to prepare for that Global Council, The meeting of the global priors, the first week in September this year, will probably be the most important meeting we have ever had; for at that time, profound decisions relative to 1976 will be made. The trip was necessary to prepare for this September in order that we might prepare for 1976.

I don't think the word "practicalization" is in the dictionary, but it ought to be, you cannot have people in history like us without a word like "practicalization" in the dictionary. The Practicalization of Globality has to do with the fact that we have become Global. Becoming global is an interior state; it is not something external.

This is the first trip I have ever been on during which I never at any time felt that l had left my own country, And that is not simply because I have been out of my own country those times before. If you do not have some kind of a map whenever you fly into a city, especially at night but even during the day), you would not have the foggiest idea of where you are. Perhaps Hong Kong would be an exception, but Tokyo no longer, Seoul no longer, Sydney no longer, Nairobi no longer, Paris no longer. Each of them looks like the others. The buildings that have gone up in the Loop have utterly changed the whole picture of Chicago. That same kind of building has gone on in other cities. They all look like Chicago, to me, that is a sobering thought.

The sense of being global is something which happens down inside all of us. It is a state of being which has to do with feeling globally. I want to be modest here; we have a long way to go, but we have begun to feel globally. However modestly, we have also begun to think globally.

The most difficult is the third point, and that is we have begun to decide globally. One of the finest things I became aware of down inside myself was during the political upheaval. Now, I voted for the Prime Minister in Australia. I not only voted for him, but I campaigned for him with my whole being, I believe he is the greatest thing that ever happened to Australia since their inception in 1901. He is a man who could dare to risk by calling an election, and made it. He barely made it, but he made it. I figure it was my vote that did it.

I could go on with Germany or with France, I made a little mistake there. For the life of me, until the final election, I could not make up my mind which of those two men I wanted. Then, after it was over and they had put Jean Jacques Servan­Schrieber on the cabinet, I decided who I was going to vote for ­­ two or three days later they hired my favorite man. I am deciding about France. The most humiliating thing was that I did not know enough about Iceland to take a firm stand. But the very fact that I am ashamed of myself is itself evidence of the fact that I am concerned to decide the destiny of the people of Iceland. It is what I mean by learning to decide globally.

I think what I am saying here is the experience of all of us. We have, however modestly, become global. The time has now come to practicalize this state of being. And it throws me! I tell you that I am so opposed to organization, that that is why I think there needs to be a word like "practicalization." When I start to think what it means, now, to practicalize this globality which has happened, I am overwhelmed.

A few summers ago, some of us got a brand new education (at least I did), and it had to do with social theory of the post­modern age which saw the social process as economic, political and cultural dynamics. Once you know that, then you know that the practicalization of globality has to do with commonizing our fiscal existence, and commonizing our polity, or political existence, and commonizing our cultural existence. The three lectures we gave on the trip to all our colleagues were on the finances of the global 0rder, the polity of the global Order, and common battleplan, or practical vision of the Order.

The intent of these lectures was to get the show started, so that by 1976, we will have the new form for this fresh outbreak of globality ­­ of trans­nationalism, trans­religionism, in the People of God where the concern is all and not part. Around the globe we discovered that without a single exception, your colleagues are not only ready to move but they see the absolute necessity. When you meet them again you are going to find that they have taken the stew way down the road.

l think I will stop with that and go to the Actualization of Xavierism. This is the first trip I have been on in which there were absolutely no problems. One of my colleagues says the reason I did not find any problem was that this was the first trip I started out on without problems. I have talked about problemless living for the past twelve months, and my colleague has a point, I don't think until this trip, that I was aware Problemlessness had a kind of sociological extension to it. However, I mean something different than that, too. I did not find messes needing to be cleaned up. Even situations brought on by Ugly Americanism, are slowly being healed.

Now we had some help because, since that term was invented, other countries discovered that truth about themselves as well. This is actually a time that we are becoming brothers in a new way.

But it is not simply this Ugly Americanism; believe me, we are not yet totally cured. Something is happening to us as a body of people, and we have to thank God for that. More important perhaps than that is the remark Hilliard made over a year ago when he said, "Joseph, I want you to know that I am not simply the Prior of the London House; I am in charge of this Global Order!" Now, whether or not someone lives up to that, it has something to do with each of us deciding whether we are going to be a little fish in a big pond or a great big fish in a little pond, I know not what course others may take, but as for me, I want to be a minnow in all of history, if that is all I can be. Now, let us never forget that going Areal is going Global. Going Areal is not dealing with Houston. It is Houston learning to deal with the globe. Going Areal is not dealing with Paris. It is Paris learning to deal with the globe. That is Xavierism. Indeed, for those who have eyes to see, Houston is the globe, Paris is the globe, London is the globe, Billings, Montana is the globe.

This is what has happened, in every place we went, your colleagues are deciding to do Japan, and Korea, and the Philippines. You would not believe what the people in India are doing. They had their first Continental Congress in the Movement. There were over 50 attending and over 30 of those were Indians. They had the first Continental Congress in Europe with over 70 people there. You remember the first summer we had in 1965. There were 60 people. Now, on the Continent you have more than that who are able to gather together for a Congress, and by far, most of those were local people. This is what I mean when I say your colleagues around the world are operating out of the Xavier principle. One of the most exciting things that happened on the trip (and this has been blood, sweat and tears) was in Australia, Australia has gone global like I never dreamed it could go global at this particular point in history. That globalism is what I mean by Xavierism. They are doing the job as if they were in charge of the whole globe at every point.

I want to talk next about the Sociologicalization of Strategy. This is an old thing for us. It has to do with the term geo­social we have used to help us keep our feet on the ground. We divided the world into nine continents, calling them geo­social continents. We were trying to say that had to do with geography, but the delineation of the continents also had to do with human sociality at the same time. A first­rate revolutionary thinks first in forms of geography. We have basic operating principles that if you are going to do something effective in the way of radical alteration of a given situation, then you do not want to use a rifle, you want to use a shotgun. I still believe that one reason why tertiary recruitment for courses has not happened is that the shotgun approach has not been applied. You do it all at once in forms of geography, and that, of course, involves applying inclusive rationality to a given hunk of space.

Then, you also have to do the social job. The socio job, as we have conceived it in the past, had to do with analyzing the civil and religious establishments of the world, then, just as systematically as you attack a hunk of geography, with a shotgun, you attack this scheme of sociology in terms of the whole globe.

I had been worrying about our getting around to thinking it through but on this trip I discovered that this had already happened. I would point to it, fundamentally, through the category of authorization. The ecclesiastical establishment has, through overt acts, put their shoulder behind us. The civil establishment is now beckoning to us. Not to us as people or as a Movement, but for what contributions we represent that have to do with their own ends. This trip I put up trial balloons with the colleagues out there about going to see heads of state. When I got there, I became very clear that this was not the time, but a year from now may very well be the time we visit the signal heads of state around this world.

We can do this in the trust territories right now. We can do this in South Korea, in Japan, in Taiwan, in the Philippines and in India. We can do that in three different countries in Africa, and perhaps, in Germany.

When you tear down a building, that ball swings back and makes a hole through a big thick wall. Well, it is like our effort in the last twenty years has been a hammering away at the walls of the establishment, and a hole is in it. My analogy breaks down now, but those inside the fortress are welcoming us in, not as enemies, but as friends.

That means we have to take with a new seriousness the fact that we are structural revolutionaries ­­ revolutionaries from the inside. We are not the kind of people who refuse to associate with a government until it becomes decent. A structural revolutionary does not simply operate as a protester, he operates as a creative force who uses the establishment to get his job done by pushing his job into the slot that has to do with that government's own concern. He moves into that government as a creative edge, not to compromises but to find that spot. In Korea, President Park wants to do a New Village Program of community reformulation in every village in Korea. He does not know how to go about it, but we do. In this, we do not have to be visible. We need no credit, we need no glory; we already have our credit and our glory in the grace of God. That is our glory. Therefore, it is unnecessary for us to receive the awards and rewards of this world. This is what I mean by the socio already happening practically, and not theoretically. It we had not been so concerned in the past with the socio, this would, of course, not have happened.

Now, I would like to talk about the Transparentization of Christianity, and the transparentization of religion itself. No, usually, when we do something now, we have to use a pickax to pound away day after day; but this time I went into Colombo and thanks to one of our colleagues, saw the foremost Buddhist and two others in one day, going from one appointment to the other with absolutely every thing set up, it was like going a thousand miles in one day. I want to take a whole hour some time to lay out for you what I learned about Buddhism relative to the transparentization of Chrtstianity, and even beyond that in the transparantization of religion.

It occurs to me that you might have to call this moment in history "the transparentization of Time Itself." I am not clear on this, but I recognize that Western Civilization is built upon the rubric of Space, not time­­that is Hellenism. The Hebraic mindset, which has been in conflict with the Hellenistic mindset for 2000 years, represented the rubric of Time. The Hebraic mindset, in our hour of history, in the modern world, defeated the Greek. That is why there is silence. That is why there is so much concern with the future. That is why man discovered, as if he never saw it before, the concept of freedom. The Hebrews won. When I was teaching in seminary, that was not at all clear. But the modern world is built on that picture.

Civilization, which came out of the East, existed under the rubric of Space, in the rubric of the eternal. The West, in this broad category, represents Time. In our lifetime, East and West met for the first time authentically on equal battlegrounds ­­ and the West won. This is what you mean by the technological revolution, if you look at the West itself, you see that now that Space that was overcome, was not defeated; transparentization means the transparentization of Time. This is a brand now moment in history but it is still with those basic forces if you please.

Joseph W. Mathews