Sanctuary of Divine Love, Krakow, Poland (Lolín Menéndez rscj)

When I was preparing this topic what I found helpful was the parable about the father who takes from his treasure-box “the new and the old”. It helped me to look at this issue openly, without fear or prejudice.

Modernism in the historic-philosophical sense is what has happened in European philosophy and culture from the XVI-century onwards. And postmodernism is the specific reaction against modern movements. “Post” means that this epoch has nothing to do with what was before. But in fact we live now in the inter-post-modern world. Postmodernism does not come after the death of modernism. Modernism is still alive. Postmodernism is in process now so it is very difficult to analyse it.

In short, we can say that modernism glorified the mind and the constant growth of humanity. Postmodernism speaks about the weakness of mind and glorifies spontaneity.

I will try to introduce the types of the personality in both: modernism and postmodernism. It will help to recognise the characteristic signs of these two periods.  For this, I studied the work of the Polish philosopher Zygmunt Bauman. According to him the best metaphor of the modernistic person is

The pilgrim.
Life is a pilgrimage. The place, which the pilgrim is going to reach, is well known. But usually the pilgrim has never been there. He or she has to follow his or her own vocation and with a very clear mind look for the shortest and most certain way. The life has to be rational, the mind has a lead on the emotions and the goal is more important than the means. In the life of the pilgrim there are not indifferent acts. Everything serves the goal or not. We can see clearly the similarity with Exercises of Ignacio where it is said: The human being is created to glorify, to praise, to serve the Lord and all creation helps him to reach the goal.

In religion the goal is the salvation of the soul. In the secular world the goal is to get to know the possibilities of human nature and to use them, to create the pilgrim’s identity. The pilgrimage can take place in the world where there are some unchangeable rules and rights. The pilgrim has to plan and the plan is for life. The effort is constant, coherent and consequent, dependent on the goal. What the pilgrim wins or achieves is important as a good investment for the future.

But the world has changed:

It is more difficult to plan the life as a pilgrimage.

How to prepare yourself for the job for life when the qualifications you have got, are not valued any more?

How to put money into assets when the pilgrim knows that sooner or later they will lose their value?

How to find my own place in the world when love and its consequences last only as long as both partners likes?

It is difficult to live life as a pilgrim now but always there will be people who will make this decision and they will stand up for it.

Nowadays it is impossible to describe the postmodernist personality type so clearly, with one metaphor. Postmodernism is very complicated and not coherent. So Zygmunt Bauman proposes four metaphors to describe the postmodernist personality. These are: the gambler, the tourist, the tramp and the walker.

These four types existed in the modern world but they were marginalised, not accepted or not well known.

The Gambler

• he lives in the world where the rules changes all the time
• he does not treat life as the whole so it is difficult to make life commitment
• in the world without the rules the main rule is risk and to be clever
• in this game he is not sure of the end
• the world, the player lives in, itself is as unpredictable as the player
• when he loses there is always the possibility to play again and to win

The Tourist

• he doesn’t need to travel but he chooses it
• the most important rule for him is not to reach the goal but to keep moving
• the place where he stops is camp not home
• the relationships he makes are not planned so he doesn’t take responsibility for them
• he looks for adventures, experiences, impressions
• this constant readiness he calls freedom, autonomy, independence
• in his vocabulary there appears the expression: “I need more space” – it means I want to be the owner of my life and no one will tell me what to do
• he doesn’t know how long he will stay in one place and where his next stop will be
• he doesn’t belong to the people who live here and he is proud of it
• he “eats” the world but he himself is not “eaten” by the world – it means that he takes from the world and he gives nothing back
• he feels safe abroad because he has money and a place, a house where he can always return

The Tramp

• he has to travel, he has no choice
• the world doesn’t welcome him
• he is homeless
• his way is created while he is making the next step, he has no vision about his life
• he bows to the people amongst whom he lives
• from each stop he takes as much as possible
• he doesn’t belong to the people who live here and he would like to hide this fact
• he doesn’t feel safe abroad

The Walker

• he has some money and time
• he can see everything but he himself is invisible
• he hides in the crowd but he doesn’t belong to it (the walker in the shopping centre)
• he feels like the lord of the creation
• he has power without a sense of duties and consequences (the walker on TV channels)

These are the metaphors of the post-modern life. To be the tourist, the gambler, the walker, and the tramp we do not need to travel. It is even possible not to move from one place. This type of personality has always existed but is more common now. Today there is a little bit of the gambler, the walker, the tramp, the tourist and the pilgrim in all of us. How does it influence our religious life?

The post-modern person hasn’t a clear vision for life. He creates life from the episodes. An example: a young man with an earring came to one of the Polish seminaries. The priest looked at it carefully and the young man said that he also had a tattoo. And he was going to show it to the priest. The priest asked him: “why did you come here?” and he said: “I would like to do something good and I thought that maybe as a priest I can do that”.

This post-modern person is a spiritual seeker. From time to time he will enter the church but doesn’t like to hear about regular practise. He is looking for the emotional religious experience not for the demands oh faith. So the walker, the tourist and the tramp we can meet in Taizé or in the World Youth Meetings but he is rarely seen at the Sunday Eucharist. He always looks for something new and he is asking himself: Is anything else I haven’t tried yet? And maybe the same person will go to another huge youth gathering in Poland called Polish Woodstok. But here there is the different excitement in the form of drug, alcohol, free love, and techno music. The main message of this gathering is: “Anything goes”.

We can look critically at the “inter-post-modern” culture but we also must be aware that we cannot reject this reality. We need to be open to this new culture and the invitation to proclaim the Good News. How do we do this practically? How do we share the Gospel with the people who are products of inter-post-modern culture (not forgetting that we are also products of this culture)?

The dialogue
First of all we ask ourselves: What kind of relationship do we have with post-modernistic thinking? Is it constant confrontation, which leads to fundamentalism, or it is a dialogue, which leads to faith?

There are some aspects of post-modern culture which are similar to some aspects of Christianity for example plurality, which is cultivated by postmodernism, and in Christianity we have plurality of theologies, traditions and rites. But we know that plurality needs unity. The best example is the Holy Trinity.

Post-modernistic culture is antirationalistic In Christianity we also cannot solve the mysteries of faith with only the mind.

A characteristic of post-modern culture is anti institutionalism and in Christianity from the beginning there has been a creative tension between spirit and the institution.

Postmodernism says about freedom: “anything goes”. Christianity praises freedom as well. St Paul says: I can do anything because I am free but not everything is good for me or for others. Tolerance is a value but it is not enough. Love is needed with tolerance.

For postmodernism the present moment is very important and Christianity speaks about the mysticism of a daily life.

This dialogue helps to start many creative pastoral initiatives For example,  the Dominicans organise huge meetings of young people in Lednica, Poland. Creating some mixture of prayer, dance, singing and mystery they help thousands of young people to find Christ. The evangelisation group is also present at Polish Woodstok gathering.

Voice from inside
Sometimes we say that the post-modern generation is the “generation X”. In mathematics “x” is something unknown where we can put everything. Some young people received a lot but they do not value it. They are less open to the voice from outside but they are open when they listen to music alone in their room or at concerts. There is one heavy metal group called 2Tm2,3. They play a very heavy music and afterwards they read the Gospel and they ask people to find themselves in these parables. After these concerts about 500 people found their way back to Christianity not because they go every week to the concerts but because the singers invited them to join the Christian communities in the parishes where they live.

Life sharing
Christianity is supposed to show a direction, a light. But how to do this in our world? When there are so many directions it means that there is no direction? For many people in Poland Christianity is no longer as important as it used to be. So it is necessary to try to understand the person in the place where she/he is, to accept him with his knowledge and values and to understand that I am in the same place where person is. I only look at the world in the different way. This is the moment for sharing, how do I look at reality.

Because I am touching Polish reality I am convinced that the witness of John Paul II, his life sharing is very important for us. Through his life he was saying: “Do not be afraid of the world, of the contemporary culture”. This old, bent man attracted many people by his witness of love supported by struggle with the suffering. In the dialogue with the people of postmodernism we need the same courage, trust, faith and openness.

No doubt there are many aspects of postmodernism which cannot be accepted by Christianity (for. eg. nihilism, “the anything goes” culture). But in postmodernism there is the small stream where we can dialog.

If we look carefully we can see not the negation of objective values but an effort to avoid violence. Postmodernism doesn’t have to be opposition against the truth but for us it could be questions about the truth. Postmodernist lifestyle, which sometimes we describe as “endless happening” could be real searching for how language, prayer, liturgy, the institution can be rescued from the routine and from being artificial and false.

NaBibliography:

• Z. Bauman, Ponowoczesność jako źródÅ‚o cierpieÅ„. Warszawa 2000.
• Z. Bauman, Dwa szkice o moralnoÅ›ci ponowoczesnej, Warszawa 1994.
• D. Kowalczyk, MiÄ™dzy dogmatem a herezjÄ…, Warszawa 2003
• J.B. LibanioWpÅ‚yw rzeczywistoÅ›ci spoÅ‚eczno kulturowej i zakonnej na życie konsekrowane w Am. Å�aciÅ„skiej
• J. ŹyciÅ„ski, Wyzwania duszpasterskie w kulturze postmoderny, „Wi” 2002 nr 1.