VERSE

...These people, and there are many of aU kinds, ate the renewal...

...to rouse the reaction he wanted...

...Where they are is where it's at...

...But it has to be real and personal, therefore--in practice--it hurts...

...He was rather shy, but warm and intelligent and humble...

...He didn't denounce anyone, he just knew he had to leave it all and look for a way of life closer to the Gospel one...

...But it was apparently necessary for her self-respect that her talents should find a cash value in competition with other women, and that she should prove this by the quality of her clothes and possessions...

...He was living with a group of young people who were trying to start a farming commune...

...What is wrong with the Christian scene can be righted only by those who are hurt by what is wrong, who mind the harm that is being done, and seek new ways with humility and compassion and a longing for truth...

...There was the nice little Sister with spectacles who talked for half an hour about her need for fulfillment, and how the new freedom from hypocritical submission to superiors meant that she could now find self-respect and use her God-given talents as a witness to the Word...

...Commonweal: 43...

...Not all of them were very interesting or impressive people, and clearly a lot of self-restraint was required to put up with the garrulous, the self-pitying, the crotchety, the naively enthusiastic, the over-emotional...

...As there were men and women in the group, and they had to sleep wherever they could find a barn or a floor, they had taken temporary vows of celibacy, in a perfectly unpretentious and matter-of-fact way...

...He felt out of place, restless, he couldn't explain exactly why...

...Why me?' his expression seemed to say...

...So what's wrong...

...He roared with indignation, and poured out wrath on the callous, the indifferent, the peddlers of false psychology and of selfishness disguised as public spirit...

...are all about...

...There was, finally, a charismatic group whose leading characteristic was the extraordinary variety of its mere...

...There was the young man who said, looking still a little bewildered, that he had suddenly found he couldn't go on in the University, though he enjoyed it a lot...

...OOO0 O OO0 OO0000 ERNEST KKOLL MIDWINTER SPRING How saxifrage can tell This mildness out of season Is but a winter spell To bait a winter treason Makes matter far too nice For science to surmise Beyond an inner clock...

...He was quite right-- but it was a playing on feelings, a using of personal charm and a calculated dosage of blue jokes (we're not prudes nowadays, are we...

...bers, in age, race, calling and income, but who shared a cheerful seriousness that was never pretentious, and seemed able to do what so many religious groups apparently feel is not even necessary--respect divergences and live with them, rather than trying to find the ideally 'like-minded' community...

...Only the same old thing--the sad notion that having the right ideas is a substitute for radical personal repentance...

...There was the family in a battered frame house with worn linoleum in the bedrooms, who seemed to provide a place for every sort of local activity and need, from meditation sessions to playgrounds and marriage-counseling, with usually a few youngsters staying in the house because of trouble at home, or an illegitimate baby on the way, or just loneliness...

...But it's where the real growing starts...

...But saxifrage is wise And to its time precise, And waits beneath the rock The second age of ice...

...And there was another group of young people, whose idea was to travel around the country with their guitars, preaching Chrht with Gospel songs, and talking about him in a quiet, gentle and slightly humorous style...

...We need to analyze, and experiment, and find new ways to understand and express (in words and lifestyles) what God is telling us in changing times...

...And there was the group of young married couples, buoyantly dismissing the entire Catholic past in favor of a free, informal community style...

...She had all the right phrases but what they amounted to was a rehash of the values of commercial society, with a frosting of radical theological-cure-psychological jargon...

...But then that is what brotherhood, and reconciliation, and freedom, and witness, and community (etc., etc...

...And there was another who talked about the goodness of ordinary people, the sense of God to be found in a holiday crowd, the Spirit at work in every place--and the effect was not to waken people to that vibrant and~shattering presence, but to lull them with the feeling that they've got it all already, no change of heart is necessary...

...They met to discuss and to worship, with the help of any swinging cleric who would come along, and they talked a lot about sensitivity, consciousness-raising, and the moribund condition of the Church and how great they had felt last week when someone read a passage from Isaiah, about the suffering of God's servant...

...That's how it is when it's Christian...

...It isn't enough to remove oneself from outworn, destructive institutions, if this is done merely because they are distasteful and boring...

...Only there was not much suffering going on, everyone being comfortably incomed, with good quality carpets and well-fed children...

...He got it--the audience was fawning on him, but I doubt if much real repentance was going on...