Knowing in Community

I really liked this chapter. I liked Palmer’s focus, his critiques and his vision for community. A few thoughts…

“The therapeutic is the model most often implied when we use the word community (Palmer, 2007, p.92). Oh how this is especially true when we speak of community in the Christian context. My experience of many ministerial contexts, particularly those for the purpose of forming ministers (like M.Div. programs and seminaries) have all too often fallen completely into this model. I’ve experienced this as well within the context of Catholic schools, diocesan offices of education and in parishes. I do not believe it is humanly possible to form the level of intimacy that is required by the therapeutic model with the large number of people involved in schools, communities or parishes.

“This model makes intimacy the highest value in human relationships, because intimacy is regarded as the best therapy for the pain of disconnection (Palmer, 2007, p. 92).” There is no denying that Christian community should support the healing of individuals, but as Palmer points out, if community is equated with intimacy, our openness to so many encounters with the stranger may very well be closed off. I find such therapeutic communities to be rather self-focused, with the greatest value being the sustaining of the group and its heightened sense of intimacy. If we intend to turn a classroom of 25 young people, or a school community of 900, into a therapeutic community, we are destined to fall short of the mission of education and, I believe, the mission that is specifically Catholic. There are, no doubt, therapeutic components of what we do, but I support Palmer’s critique of the therapeutic vision of education. Such realties often devolve into the most relativistic of experiences.

“Openness to transcendence is what distinguishes the community of truth from both absolutism and relativism (Palmer, 2007, p.109).” This resonates with me and what I believe is a Catholic vision of education. While Palmer does not speak of transcendence in the context of faith, I take his words as resonating with the core values of Catholicism. As Palmer stated in an earlier section of this chapter, “I know of no field, from science to religion, where what we regard as objective knowledge did not emerge from long and complex communal discourse that continues to this day, no field where the facts of the matter were delivered fully formed from on high (Palmer, 2007, p. 107).” How many councils of the Church have there been? (21) When was the nature of Christ settled upon? (451 for Catholics) My point is this; we believe that revelation is on-going and that it is most often for us, communal. To see education as a community of truth is really very Catholic (if one can qualify the word!). We seek the truth in light!