2. The living charisma

"Ricollocare" seems to include "finding a new place" while "keeping the first place." The key word, in this second experience which I would like to offer, is the "while"; the idea is to find out how criteria really work; and the story opens with the apparently simple activity of riding a bicycle.

Often people think of balance or stability as boring and associate tension with "feeling tense". In fact, movement is a matter of dynamic balance, the fruit of my effort and my knowing how to appropriate or resist the forces involved. Strength is not the absence of tension but rather consists of tensions in a sensitive equilibrium thanks to my always adapting to whatever new circumstances occur:

The faster I run, the more I have to lean. If I lean but don't move, I fall on my face; were I to try and run without leaning, I'd tumble backwards.

On my bicycle, the quicker I take a curve, the more "off balance" I may look but, in fact, the further I lean, the more stable I really am ¾ if I'm always adapting to the road which is always changing. Whereas the straighter up I sit and the slower I go, paradoxically, the more likely I am to fall.

I move, I run, I ride: my stability comes from moving and leaning at the same time, from gravity and energy and friction in ever-changing tension ... and from my skilfully if habitually (without paying attention) managing all of these.

Words like "inertia" and "stasis" seem dull and lifeless, but elementary physics shows them to be lively and energetic terms. Similarly, good engineering does not design systems which avoid or eliminate tensions, but which allow them to interplay dynamically. Motion, stability, elegance, strength are the sum of many forces in dynamic balance or synergy.

What then is tension? A tension combines activities (like running, riding, leaning, balancing), combines values (motion, speed, stability, strength) in dynamic ways. Each element or factor is important, but how to put them together or keep them together is not obvious or clear, nor does it always remain the same.

A "tension" may therefore be a polarity, dilemma, choice, gap, friction, tendency, emphasis, stretch, urgency, stress (accent or worry or strain); "standing question" or "apparent opposition" or "turning point" or "permanent challenge" or "dynamic balance". There is nothing "tense" intended here, nor any desire to "harp on the negative". Tensions are essential and, lived positively and prayerfully, are sources of dynamism. But not automatically, and that is why we make this reflection, with the hope that it may be fruitful.

We recognize that an original intuition, if it is to have life and be fruitful (charismatic), must be in on-going tension with reality which changes. Remaining faithful to what is original/essential/unique in the Founder and the first companions, must be kept in tension with the known features and unknown challenges of new contexts.

What is at stake is neither to repeat the charisma (such repetition proves to be sterile) nor to reduce it to current fashion or mere context (such novelty rarely proves to be charismatic).

Each religious family, under the Holy Spirit re-reads the early experiences to rediscover the original idea (as Vatican II sent us "back to the sources"); but re-enacting the original intuition proves not so immediate, simple, obvious, or literal as we first thought. Culture is a key to this problem. Even the first configuration (location, arrangement) of the charisma is culturally defined and conditioned ¾ simply to copy or imitate today what was done 50/500/1500 years ago, is a form of folklore or nostalgia. The passing years put each earlier renewal to the test.

We are discovering the significance of tensions in religious life. We are learning to perceive them, to pray about them, to find the important ones and face the choices they entail. We begin to see how tensions, which penetrate our way of praying, living and working, are occasions of encounter with God and sources of apostolic vitality. "Ricollocare i carismi" means finding out how best to discover the tensions, express them, share them, live them, communicate them ...

Tensions involve two or more good things which are difficult to keep together, which cannot be resolved by reasoning (logic) or overcome by blending into something new (dialectic) but which require discernment, dialogue and continuous re-adjustment, and which tend, if lived prayerfully, towards the greater good asked of us by God and by His people.

Some of the many and great difficulties faced by religious life over the years are not to be overcome or resolved once and for all, but are rather to be subjected over and over again to dialogue and discernment. These are on-going tensions and they are found at different levels in our life and work; if continually discerned and balanced, they prove to be a source of vital energy.

Practically every tension applies to "me" and to "us": the tension in "me" engages my preferences and inclinations and keeps nudging me to grow in integrity; the tension in "us," given the kind of work and community we are in, has us continually checking the emphases we both make and neglect. We can hardly help favouring one side and neglecting the other. In fact, at the risk of talking psychology: where one feels resistance, may be where one is to find what one needs. This would be true of a community or working group too.

When we submit bicycle-riding to analysis, we realize how many factors go into it; but with or without analysis, every rider sooner or later falls off the bicycle. A living tension can degenerate. Each pole of the tension has its truth but, taken in isolation and ossified, it becomes sterile. Perhaps we want to defend one value and thereby eliminate the tension, but the result may be narrow or ideological. In the past, such one-sided emphases have given rise to frictions, conflicts and divisions in religious life. Dogmatism or ideology sometimes led us to treat each other more as adversaries than as companions. We can exaggerate our failures or get tired of maintaining the tensions; or we can be too busy to pay them any heed; or we can be timid in challenging ourselves and our institutions.

We betray our charisma when we choose/stress one part of a tension and neglect other(s), clinging to the past or adapting too easily. One remedy is to identify the narrowness, defensiveness or ideology with which we try to avoid tensions; another is to notice the destructive results and work our way back to the causes. We learn to face the tensions, contemplate them, embrace them, and discover under what conditions they usually prove fruitful.

It would be a mistake to try and suppress these tensions. Allowing them to emerge proves to be stimulating. They question and enrich what we do as religious immersed in contemporary society and culture. They jostle the whole Congregation and the participating members. Tensions are giving new vitality, new meaning, new hope (and new image!) to our religious life.