Meeting 2. - Deconstruction
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Introduction for the animator and goals
=======================================

The purpose of this meeting is to enliven and awaken faith by inviting
people to leave, in a controlled way, what is known and familiar.
This does not come easily to us -- even when we know it is worthwhile.
Yet it is impossible to design this meeting in such a way that we can be
certain of reaching that goal. Whether someone decides to take that step
does not depend on us.

Focus on what is truly within your reach. Come to this meeting with
personal conviction and with readiness for the deconstruction and
reconstruction of your own faith. Your example, your attitude, and your
inner freedom can become for someone an invitation to 'join' this road.

During the meeting we work in two dynamics.

The first consists in bringing closed boxes. During the meeting you will
open them one by one and take objects out of them -- **without comment**.
Each object will have a slip of paper attached to it, but its content is
not read until the very end. In this way we want to awaken in the
participants a sense of curiosity about what lies beyond the horizon,
to remind them that by nature we are explorers, that footsteps lead
farther than thought can see. This dynamic becomes an icon of the whole
meeting -- a second, parallel track of influence, working on the level
of emotion and intuition.

The second dynamic is a personal exercise of working with a timeline
(described in detail in the outline). Each participant looks individually
at their own history of faith, discovering the process by which their
understanding of God has gradually widened.

Alef
====

Retreats have their high points. At our retreat the first one is already
behind us -- the evening adoration.

- What are you taking with you from that experience?
- How did you find yourself in such an obvious 'stagedness' of the vigil,
  where you nevertheless decided on your own when to move forward?
  (Alef)

Must a climax be 'built up,' 'prepared,' and unfolded gradually over
many hours of entering the topic? Not necessarily. We did not need long
preparation. Sometimes it is actually easier to enter depth ad hoc than
by building expectations.

*The animator opens 'box 1' and takes out a set of cups and some tea.
On them there is a covered note: 'Alef meeting'.*

- How do you prefer to experience important things -- with preparation
  or simply 'just like that'?

Bet
===

Besides prayer, we also had a conference.

- What in what Kasia said is closest to me? Why?

*The animator takes a sheet of paper and draws the letter Bet.*

The letter Bet is a tent. This tent is open. It is good to have in
ourselves readiness to meet what comes to us. Yet we also see in it
an 'active' openness: action so that there is more 'with us,' 'within.'
One could picture this not so much as opening the
door on the left side of the letter wider so that someone may come to us,
but as extending the upper and lower lines of Bet broadly in order to
widen the scale of its influence.

Let us read:

    Sing, O barren one, who did not bear; break forth into singing
    and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor. For the children of
    the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is
    married, says the Lord. Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the
    curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back;
    lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread
    abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess
    the nations and will people the desolate cities.

   -- Is 54:1-3

*The animator opens 'box 2' and takes out a tent-building set.
On it there is a covered note: 'Traveling'.*

- What is your space?
- What widening of your space has taken place recently?

God wants us to 'lengthen our cords' and 'stretch out the curtains of our
dwelling.' This is important to him. It is a constant motif of every
history of faith. God gradually leads us from a small scale to a large
scale, but he constantly returns to this readiness to 'widen the heart':

    I run in the path of your commandments,
    for you have set my heart free.

   -- Ps 119:32

For example:

#. **[family scale]** Abram is to leave Ur of the Chaldeans and broaden
   his world.
#. **[tribal scale]** Egypt, although at first it gave much good to the
   Jews, in time became too confining, and so with Moses they go to the
   Promised Land.
#. **[national scale]** Many cities and settlements bring joy and peace,
   but God awakens the desire for identification with a nation.
   Therefore David and Solomon build the temple.
#. **[scale of humanity]** The Chosen People are a blessing for the
   world, but God wants people of every language to be united.
   Therefore Jesus founds the Church.

The widening of the heart takes place on two scales -- macro and micro.
The macro scale is salvation history. God gradually teaches us an ever
greater capacity of heart. The micro scale is what happens in the heart
of each believer.

- Which example of the 'widening of the heart' on the macro scale is
  closest to me?

.. note:: There are many more examples: the Second Vatican Council
          widened access to the liturgy through national languages,
          for some time we have been ordaining permanent deacons,
          which widens the pool of experiences of those preaching,
          the ecumenical movement widens our thinking about the Church,
          and so on. The animator should choose examples closest to them.

- What do you learn from the person who widened their heart?

Let us read:

    The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;
    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

   -- Ps 16:6

Space is a gift from God himself. We need to 'have space.'
And we do not receive it only from God.

- Who gives me space?

We want others to give us space. There is no division into those who
give space and those who receive it. That means that those 'others'
are us.

*The animator opens 'box 3' and takes out a set of various seeds,
from small to large. On them there is a covered note: 'Scale'.*

Our widening
============

Let us read such a thesis:

*If Alef answers the question 'why?', then Bet tells us 'how?'*

- How do you understand that?

Alef speaks of being a link between the visible and the invisible world
(the conference and prayer on Friday). That is our mission here on earth.
Bet says that we can be intermediaries only when we have in ourselves
curiosity about what lies beyond the horizon, when we are not too
attached to anything. We must know how to be in between.

- What is difficult in widening thinking?
- What is difficult in widening the heart?
- How are those two different for you?

Let us return to Abram.

Let us read:

    The Lord said to Abram, 'Go from your country and your kindred and
    your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make
    of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great,
    so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you,
    and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families
    of the earth shall be blessed.' And Abram was very rich in livestock,
    in silver, and in gold.

   -- Gen 12:1-3; 13:2

*The animator opens 'box 4' and inside there is peat.
On it there is a covered note: 'Hope'.*

There is not a single word there about conflict, compulsion, or escape.
He was not being persecuted. He was wealthy. Ur was one of the most
important cities of Mesopotamia, one of the most developed regions of
the world. We may assume that Abram was truly doing very well.

Someone might say: in such conditions, why go into the unknown?
This is one of Abram's strongest traits -- readiness to change at God's
call even when things are going well.

- What is my Ur of the Chaldeans -- the home I like, know,
  and do not want to change?

Deconstruction and reconstruction
=================================

That takes great courage. Abram is ready for something that works well
to be 'broken open.' He consents to deconstruction so that there may
later be reconstruction. Only a person of great hope can do that:
someone who trusts that what is ahead will be even better than what
exists now.

*The animator opens 'box 5' and takes out a sheet with a text.
On it there is a covered note: 'reconstruction'.*

Let us try to face this. In the conference, Kasia spoke to us about
certain names of God that could be called communal. Let us now look
at three additional names referring more to an individual relationship.

Let us read:

    The angel said, 'Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to
    him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld
    your son, your only son, from me.' And Abraham lifted up his eyes
    and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket
    by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as
    a burnt offering instead of his son. So Abraham called the name of
    that place 'The Lord will provide.'

   -- Gen 22:12-14

**Jireh -- The Lord provides.**
The meaning 'The Lord sees' or 'The Lord provides' has deep sense in the
context of this story.

Let us read:

    Moses made Israel set out from the Red Sea, and they went into the
    wilderness of Shur. They went three days in the wilderness and found
    no water. When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of
    Marah because it was bitter. And the people grumbled against Moses,
    saying, 'What shall we drink?' And he cried to the Lord, and the Lord
    showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water
    became sweet. There the Lord made for them a statute and a rule.
    And he said, 'If you will diligently listen to the voice of the Lord
    your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, I will put none of
    the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord,
    your healer.' Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs
    of water and seventy palm trees, and they encamped there by the water.

   -- Ex 15:22-27

**Rapha -- The Lord heals.**
They go three days without water, then they have bitter water.
God makes it drinkable, and then lets them experience as many as
twelve springs.

Let us read:

    'Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high
    as heaven.' But Ahaz said, 'I will not ask, and I will not put the
    Lord to the test.' And he said: 'Hear then, O house of David!
    Is it too little for you to weary men, that you weary my God also?
    Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin
    shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel.'

   -- Is 7:11-14

**Emmanuel -- God with us.**
A worried nation needs a sign in order to be sure of God's presence,
and receives the announcement that God will be among them.

*The animator opens 'box 6' and takes out a bandage.
On it there is a covered note: 'The One who provides'.*

In this way we have spoken today about seven names of God:
Elohim (God), YHWH (I Am), Adonai (Lord), El Shaddai (Almighty),
Jireh (Provider), Rapha (Healer), Emmanuel (God with us).

- In practice, how many different names for God do you use in prayer?
- What does using many of them give you?

Let us now do an exercise. Open your notebook to page 42.
Draw a scale on a line, marking 0 years on the left and your present age
on the right. Now let us think about when we came to know a given
'aspect of God.' 'Came to know' in the biblical sense!

Let us read:

    I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
    the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

   -- Hos 6:6

*The animator opens 'box 7' and takes out a slice of good bread.
On it there is a covered note: 'Experience'.*

In the Hebrew original, the word *da'at*, translated as 'knowledge,'
means an integration of knowledge, relationship, experience, and action.
It is knowledge that is lived, not only read from a book.
We do not have to place all the names on the line -- only those that
we have truly 'come to know.'

*The animator gives time to do the exercise.*

Each of us has drawn the path by which our understanding of the
Unfathomable has widened. If we have more than one aspect of God marked
on the line, that means that our thinking about God, our experience of
God, is becoming more spacious.

- What do you take for yourself from what you see before you
  when you look at the line?
- How did you react in the past to changes in your image of God?
- What can we do so as not to concretize our spirituality as though it
  were already finished?

Care for space
==============

*The animator tears off the slips from the objects lying on the table.
All of them except three. The group is given a little time to react
spontaneously. If someone on their own removes the missing three slips,
let it happen.*

Let us not abdicate concern for the space around us -- both the space
already entrusted to us and the space that will still be entrusted to us.
Let us not sit in our own Ur of the Chaldeans. Let us allow ourselves to
be led into new areas that are waiting for us. Space is not only square
meters. It is relationships. It is a way of thinking. It is the
boundaries we have set for ourselves. It is our convictions about who is
'inside' and who is 'outside.'

Every prayer invoking the Holy Spirit carries a certain risk.
The risk that the Spirit will come and begin to widen our heart farther
than we had planned. That he will begin to question our boundaries.
That he will show us people whom we have so far avoided.
That he will challenge what we have built over many years.

Imagine that you are a devout Jew in the first century.
You keep the Mosaic Law scrupulously. You know what may be eaten and what
may not. You know with whom you may spend time and with whom you may not.
Your identity is clear. The boundaries are clear. The world is ordered.

And then this happens...

Prayer
======

.. note:: The calling of Cornelius the centurion is a long passage,
          but we suggest reading it as the final prayer.

Let us read: Acts 10:1 - 11:3

What matters most is what comes at the end:

    While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on
    all who heard the word. And the believers from among the circumcised
    who had come with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy
    Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles. For they were hearing
    them speaking in tongues and extolling God. Then Peter declared,
    'Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have
    received the Holy Spirit just as we have?' And he commanded them to
    be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to
    remain for some days. Now the apostles and the brothers who were
    throughout Judea heard that the Gentiles also had received the word
    of God. So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcision party
    criticized him, saying, 'You went to uncircumcised men and ate with
    them.'

   -- Acts 10:44 - 11:3

Peter arrives with doubts, begins a long explanation, prepares himself
and his listeners. It is as if he is still not sure what must be done.
The Holy Spirit did not wait until he was ready. 'While Peter was still
speaking, the Holy Spirit fell on all.' On the uncircumcised!
On the unbaptized! The coming of the Holy Spirit preceded baptism.
Then St. Peter 'catches up' and quickly baptizes them. And yet even so,
the early Church greets him with criticism. Their mental world was
collapsing, being deconstructed ... and in truth being reconstructed.
Fortunately...

*After reading this passage, the animator naturally develops it into
prayer for a broad heart and readiness to rebuild everything in the heart
if the Holy Spirit should want it.*

Application
===========

Find someone whose hand you can take, and together take one step forward.

This is not a joke. Toward the horizon!