Some confusion has risen concerning the Hunter Warrior conversations being used in the College section of the Ecclesiola this quarter. Perhaps a word is in order. This is a rational or intellectual conversation. It is as though you are describing a stick or a rock. The elm is to put this Hunter Warrior, this hero out in front of the group and have them describe him. These conversations are and must be very objective. They are not the time to go deep Into yourself. Rather, they are talking on the mythical figure of an "eschatological" hero. The Intent of the conversation is to get to know him.

At the some time, it is not a normal art form, nor is it like a scripture conversation. That's why you don't do this conversation on the book. The flow is something like this.

First, read the assigned passage from the book(see Ecclesiola manual).

Second, spin. briefly to create a transition to the reading of one of the twelve Interpretive frames on the Hunter Warrior (pick one that is disrelated from the passage in the book, since the focus is on the hero, not the particular content of the passage.

Third, converse with the group using questions like those which follow:

1. (optional) What were some words or phrases that grabbed you?

1. How would you recognize this guy? If you saw such a man on the street, what would :he be doing or thinking about?
2. SUBSTITUTE WORDS (point out words Hunter Warrior) What word might you substitute for Hunter Warrior?

Finish the sentence: The Hunter Warrior is a What is another term for the qualities he embodies? (NOTE: This question is optional as a substitution question.)

4. When have you seen a man like this? When have you last seen a man who manifested this authority of his own being?

1. (this question is an offstage not really meant to be answered) When was a time that you spoke with the authority of your own being? (Get offstage with: Well, we can leave that one for you to answer on some other occasion.

This is a recommended flow. Obviously, the guru will need to alter those specific questions for particular situations and readings. The guru Is the key to this conversation. Do not let the apparent simplicity fool you into unpreparedness. Preliminary brooding through the conversation Is the best preparation.

The Ixtlan conversation is designed to appropriate the account of a spirit journey in secular terms. This is a rational or intellectual conversation. It is as though you are describing a stick or a rock. The aim is to put this Hunter Warrior, this hero out in front of the group and have them describe him. These conversations are and must be very objective. They are not the time to go deep into yourself. Rather, they are to hinge on the mythical figure of an "eschatological" hero. The intent of the conversation is to get to know him.

At the same time, it is not a normal artform, nor is it like a scripture conversation. That's why you don't do this conversation on the book. The flow is something like this:

First, read the assigned passage from the book.

Second, spin briefly to create a transition to the reading of one of the twelve interpretive frames on the Hunter Warrior (pick one that is disrelated from the passage in the book, since the focus is on the hero, not the particular content of the passage.

Third, converse with the group using questions like those which follow:

1. (Optional) What were some words or phrases that grabbed you?
2. Where would you recognize this guy? If you saw such a man on the street, what would he be doing or thinking about?

3. SUBSTITUTE WORDS (point out words Hunter Warrior). What word might you substitute for Hunter Warrior?

Finish the sentence: The Hunter Warrior is a . What is another term for the qualities he embodies? (NOTE: This question is optional as a substitution question.)

4. When have you seen a man like this? When have you last seen a man who manifested this authority of his own being?

5. (This question is an offstage not really meant to be answered.) When was a time that you spoke with the authority of your own being? (Get offstage with: Well, we can leave that one for you to answer on some other occasion.

This is a recommended flow. Obviously, the guru will need to alter these specific questions for particular situations and readings. The guru is the key to this conversation. Do not let the apparent simplicity fool you into unpreparedness. Preliminary brooding through the conversation is the best preparation.

1. The hunter warrior has "stopped the world." He has stopped the world of convention, stopped the world of reason, stopped the world of all "taken for grantedness." The mystery and the wonder beyond the realm of the immediate has broken in. He sees the mystery in everything that is and feels the same wonder in himself. He knows that a different reality has found him and every creature seems to affirm the reality he beholds.

2. The hunter warrior has no personal history. For him it is as if "before man I am." Because he lives his unrepeatable uniqueness he need no longer concern himself with it. He has nothing any more to defend. He has surrendered the necessity for importance. And since he no longer has to be somebody, he can neither be offended nor insulted. He has simply given up the privilege and luxury of despair, hurt and hostility.

3. The hunter warrior walks with his own death. He has seen the face of his unique dying. He has chosen the space in which he will pass and has rehearsed the solitary dance of that passing. He journeys always in the company of his own death which has become his most trusted companion because it alone always tells him the truth. Here is the secret of his sadness, of his loneliness, of his sympathy and of his courage.

4. The hunter warrior exists in the boundaries of being. He knows and does profoundly but he is beyond knowing and doing. He "be's" his life. He understands the knowing of "not" knowing and the doing of "not" doing. He has the strength of one who does not have to accomplish everything he knows he can do. What he does do, however, he does with passion of believing that this act is his very last act on earth. And when he speaks, he speaks with the authority of his own being.

5. The hunter warrior is tied to nothing. He feels the claims of time but nothing for him is absolute. He knows that absolutes are phantoms that exist only in the world of illusion. In his world of reality he is related to everything, yet it is the wonder in all things that has seized his final loyalty. Though the phantoms ceaselessly lure him to return, he has severed all ties to immediacy. He journeys on single­mindedly and alone.

6. The hunter warrior creates his own life. He senses himself as uncircumscribed freedom. He has seen that life is sheer decision, not big decisions or little decisions, just decision. He knows that he alone bears total responsibility for his deciding, that no thing and nobody can choose for him. So he puts his whole being behind each decision that creates him-without explanation, without defense, without excuse and without justification.

7. The hunter warrior lives the equality of all. He has been grasped by the reality that he is neither more or less than any other creature. This he knows, because all die. He sees that everything contains the mystery and all are equally wonderfilled. It is as if everything belongs to him and he belongs to everything. Furthermore he is willing to use all and willing to be used by all. And this profound mutuality he embraces with dignity and in sorrow and gratitude.

8. The hunter warrior is a man of strange reserve. He is detached in the midst of passionate engagement. Because he cares, he is not available to everything that happens, nor does he allow himself to be drained by every being that passes by. To be sure, he gives himself completely to every situation, but only as he himself determines. Again he can play any role required and do any necessary deed, but only at his own initiative and in his context of unlimited concern and final expenditure.

9. The hunter warrior is a relentless strategist. I n every moment and in each life episode he calculates. He sizes up the given. He seizes its inner meaning. He grasps its relation to every other moment and, in this awareness, he forges his own creative intent. And then he lets go. He does his deed and surrenders himself within it. He freely offers it to history without question or regret. This control and abandonment at one and the same time define his very mode of being.

10. The hunter warrior is possessed by strange power. Though this power is not his own, he knows that it is at his disposal. All of his qualities are somehow the sign of this. The real secret is that the last of all his enemies, the terrifying mystery of life itself, has turned ally. He has wrestled the dreadfilled wonder of existing to the ground. Now as friend, it walks the way with him staying off the illusions which wait to consume him at every turn in the path of his living and dying.

11. The hunter warrior is on a journey without end. He appropriates himself as doomed to tread the razor's edge balancing between "the terror of being a man" and "the wonder of being a man." It is an endless trek because it is itself its own endless end. He knows there is no goal and no ultimate finish. The walk itself he believes to be his completion, his perfection, his final fulfillment. So he journeys on forever, on this way of dread and glory in the world of no illusion.

12. The hunter warrior avoids the last temptation. He knows that when his real world abstracts from the immediate world, it is no longer reality. He ever watches for this treachery of the real that turns itself into just one more illusory absolute. So he never allows himself to forget that having seen all, he is still nothing. He is careful to remember that he dies just like all who have never beheld the "other world." This is why he treads the endless way, willingly sharing the doom of all, without pretension.

Every reconstruction of society rests on a recovery of the Holy Life. The values, images, models and methods out of which a new social order emerges spring from man's grasp of his relation to the Final Mystery of life. It is the Religious who explore that relation They devote themselves to consciousness of man before the Ultimate Reality and so express in their life and thought the fulfillment of human authenticity. Social structures attempt to make this authenticity accessible to Everyman. Theirs is the Holy Life-the life of intensified consciousness and radical integrity, the life of responsibility to God for the world, tale lifts which finally Everyman is seeking. As a model of the human possibility, the Holy Life is the invisible foundation of society.

Today social reconstruction has begun. Man has decided to move beyond future shock and to face his new possibility in a kind of resurgence of human vitality. He is looking now for the symbolic universe which translates his interior Perceptions into historical possibilities. He is looking for tire exercises which sustain his motivity in a lifelong task. He is looking for a way of grasping the awesome Mystery in the midst of life. He is looking for the style of fully human existence by which selfhood and society are measured. He is looking for the Holy Life.

But not the Holy Life of some other age. False piety today is as repugnant and pretentious ins it has always been, and even more capable of destruction. The task of the Religious is to confront the wisdom of the past with contemporary experience and to forge out of that dialogue the shape of a modern Holy Life. The following pages provide resources and practical methods for engaging in that task. The reconstruction of a humane social order for our new age depends on its completion.