« on: October 30, 2007, 06:14:05 PM »
Wayfarers of old, in the course of their journey, would occasionally go up a high ground from where they could review the distance they have covered, take stock of their present location, and determine the direction they would henceforth take.
Today, with Google Earth and latest GPS technology rendering all that unnecessary, the measure is still wisely applied to our undertakings. For our spiritual journey, it is called a retreat. For our progress as an organization or as a department within that organization, it is called evaluation and planning.
During the semestral break, I had the occasion to participate in both.
Retreat masters usually invoke, at the end of the retreat, the image of Mount Tabor, the mount where Jesus was transfigured, as an appropriate symbol for the experience. Recharged, the retreatants could now descend to the market place to continue the work, to engage the journey afresh. Rogationist priest Fr. Eric Raveza, retreat master to some 40 Recollects gathered for the annual retreat (October 15-19) at Talavera House of Prayer in the high grounds of Pardo, Cebu City, used the same symbol after re-charging us with fresh insights and timely reminders of the demands that our priestly and religious consecration make on us, the retreatants.
Talavera is itself a powerful sign and symbol for Recollects of all times and places, for it was in the Augustinian convent of Talavera de la Reina, in the Spanish province of Toledo that, on 19 October 1589, the Recollects established their first community as reformed Augustinians. On 5 December of the previous year, their radical aspirations for perfection had been approved during the chapter of the Augustinian Province of Castile. Talavera is therefore symbol of rebirth, of evangelical radicalism, of loving dedication to and intimacy with the Lord, within the tender climate of family.
Fr. Raveza’s valediction was no less refreshing. “Solvitur ambulando”, he proposed, culling from Saint Augustine’s vast treasure trove of wisdom. We solve things by walking. In walking, ideas pop up, solutions present themselves, new perspectives emerge. I know this from experience, as my particular form of exercise in this last decade has been, for an hour or so, several times a week, bipedalism. Furthermore, our walking has to have the communitarian dimension: in journeying together, friendship happens, stories are retold, dreams are born, the community is revitalized.
The Institute of Religious Education and Philosophy faculty also took to higher grounds -- on four wheels, though, not on foot -- for our semestral-break pause in the road. At the Saint Ezekiel Moreno Novitiate in Antipolo we did our mid-year evaluation and planning on October 22-23, graciously hosted by the Recollects of that community. Our operative symbol was not the mountain, but it spoke of heights nonetheless. Ma’am Reggie Nacional unwittingly launched it when she said that the department publication “Vox Sapientiae”, of which she is current editor, aims to hit, not two, but five birds with one stone! It came as no surprise that Sir Jay Ramirez concocted an avian acronym for our department’s goal: BIRDS. That is Building and Improving the Religious Development of our Students.
That might not sound too impressive to the facilitator of the next evaluation and planning workshop I attended, but mention “birds” to any of the IREP faculty and he/she will glow with the recall of those two days – not excluding a boisterous night of ribbing and chatting fueled by drinks and chicherias – in Antipolo in which we rejoiced and affirmed our being in charge of, well, the “birds”!
The third pause in the road I was privileged to have was the “Expanded Operational Planning Program” seminar-workshop for Recoletos Education last October 25-27. Organized by the Secretariat of the Educational Apostolate of the Philippines (SEAP, the body tasked to inform, initiate and implement programs of the educational apostolate of the Philippine Recollects), the workshop-seminar took place at the University of Negros Occidental - Recoletos in Bacolod City, with participation by religious and lay administrators from all the 8 Recollect schools of the country. To facilitate the gathering, Fr. Raul Buhay, president of the secretariat, had employed the services of organizational consultant Dr. Mila Mendoza. In a new language that had some of us, especially the new entrants into the educational ministry, occasionally reeling like storm-tossed seafarers, the participants had to outline “waves of innovations and corresponding experiences curves” that we would make prevail in Recoletos education in general and in our individual institution in particular. From there we identified the strategic forces at play in the extended enterprise we had crafted for our schools. Finally, we drew the operational action plans of Recoletos education and our individual institutions.
Not unlike a vastly improved computer operating system and its integrated applications, the workshop-seminar gave us a powerful tool for heightening the organizational effectiveness of Recoletos education in the country. Naturally, what use is the tool if you do not know how to operate it? Or, as we asked years ago, why buy an expensive laptop when you are just going to use it as a typewriter? One has to master the tool and maximize the use of its myriad features.
The pause in the road is meant to recharge one’s forces and directions, so that the desired destination will be more surely reached. After the pause, one goes back to walking and working. But you have acquired a new and powerful tool.
And if you need a quick energy booster on the road, you might want to chew on a sweet and juicy stick of Negros sugar cane. That, by the way, was the operative symbol of the workshop-seminar.
