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Nouveau-Assertiveness
Jacques Tetrault, Quebec, Canada
Today in western culture, social values promote self-assertiveness. It is important to show oneself to be strong, independent, capable, to resist any type of domination. We learn to do our own thing, to make the best of most situations. It is the age of emancipation, of claiming one's rights, of demanding. It applies equally to all individuals--teen-agers, women, the crippled, the aged, low income people, all minority groups. Each individual and each group wants more rights. It also applies to nations and states.
Even though all these claims may be well justified and legitimate, it does create a great number of social tensions and inter-personal conflicts. This tendency to claim, to demand, and sometimes to even steal power, brings us close to various forms of anarchy. As one realizes that his/her demands are answered, or claims responded to, more and more rights and powers are claimed in a ceaseless battle for assertiveness. We enter the "to each for himself" world.
We must admit however that this kind of society, based largely on self-assertiveness, leaves less room for solidarity, co-operation, and brotherhood.
The old traditions of charity, respect, sacrifice, and forgiveness were essentially social values which people tended to obey without much real self-conviction or personal choice. They were basically social values and therefore greatly artificial. They did not endure.
Now came the era of liberation where individuals started asserting themselves and promoting individual rights. Personal values have tended to fluctuate, although largely leaning towards materialism and power. But the Spirit of Truth is functioning, the seraphim are at work and the powerful Thought Adjusters never grow weary.
This interim value crisis will have turned out to be a plus. It has ensured liberation from institutionalized values and made way for more personal sets of values. Presently we assert ourselves. Self is king. But personality assertiveness can only lead, in the end, to the recognition of the Source of all self, of all personality. Patience and insight are needed.
There is great need for truly religious individuals today--people led by spiritual growth and values producing love. This time, there is no question of trying to change global social values and moral standards, nor of condemning the sins of our time. This is not the way.
By the way they love, serve, and live in joyous submission to the love-filled will of the Father of us all, real religious individuals will progressively convert most of these liberated, newly-assertive individuals towards intense consecration to the fatherly love of God and the service of their new found brothers and sisters. Having liberated themselves from collective shallow values and morals, they will eventually the better choose, each for himself, to acknowledge the Father and submit to His will in pure joy.
Surface waves and ripples are not to be feared, even if short term effects are to be suffered. But when the heart has been touched, the soul mobilized, flood tides of permanent changes are created and soon, spiritual fruits appear.
The responsibility for the transformation of the world is individual and personal, while the consequences are collective-- not the other way around.
Each one of us, sons and daughters of God by faith and by act, can, in fact must, become agents of transformation by our total life, total doings, total words, total thoughts.
If the transforming effects are to be enduring, they must first and foremost be deeply and definitely entrenched in our souls. Only then can our lives have any lasting effect on other lives. But never should we be worried or even interested in effects. Our mission is to grow, to get closer to God, and to learn to be better sons and daughters. All plentiful life will produce fruits in due season.
Only individuals who are totally consecrated to doing the Father's will can act as leaven. It is mainly by the way they live, by the power of their love, that they can convert the heart of those newly-assertive individuals, each already spirited by a mighty Thought Adjuster, to finally find their Father and acknowledge their brothers and sisters.
We have witnessed the short-lived effects of mass movements. Soon we will see the lasting effects of living faith as it penetrates deeply into the hearts and souls of people who crave for sure values and authentic spiritual experience.
It may well be that assertiveness must precede freewilled submission to, and joyful acceptance of, the will of God, the Source of all assertiveness. Through submission to LOVE by love, we will, one day, all assert ourselves in Him.
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