A CATHOLIC ADHXNISTRATOR'S NARRATIVE3
OF HER SPIRITUAL EDUCATION
Maureen Elizabeth Dunne
A thesis subniitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto
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Maureen Elizabeth Dunne Doctor of Philosophy Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto 1998
In this autobiographical narrative thesis 1 seek to understand the awakening of my persona1 spirituality as it unfolds within the institutional authority structures in which 1 have lived and worked in a Roman Catholic school system in the Canadian province of Newfomdland and Labrador.
The thesis traces my developing spiritual i ty f rom my childhood
to the completion of the thesis and follows a narrative thread of relationship to authority, The chapters are linked by a structural metaphor'and move through a discussion of narrative theory, provincial narrative history, early transcendent images of God, cocreativity in the workplace, interpretation of the authority issues in the educational political turmoil in Newfoundland, synthesis of spiritual meaning and a narrative of the research process itself. The thesis employs a narrative methodology and a reflective consideration of stories of experience to identify the central dialectics operant in my life: the tension between masculine and feminine ways of knowing and being, the moral authority underlying sacred and secular values in education, the interplay between justice and care in moral reasoning, the shifting balance between external authority and interna1 autonomy. The field texts considered include personal journals, papers, poetry, interview transcriptç, provincial government ref orm documents and local newspaper reports. In exploring the tensions in these dialectics. important
insights unfolded. Learning occurred as reflection on the stories enabled me to tell new stories about the tensions within
dialectics, retellings that restored continuity to my personal narrative. One of my most important learnings was that my
development of self was moderated by my objectification of
authority figures in 1-It relationship and it was not until 1
experienced an 1-Thou relationship with authority that 1 could
claim an inner personal authority that strengthened my spiritual being and sense of self. In so doing, the thesis process inspired
an awakening of a new personal spiritual consciousness. one that embraces both the convergences and the wholeness of the dialectics from which it emerged, and one that is begiming to comprehend the interrelatedness of spirituality and story.
iii Dedicated to my family, Mom and Dad,
Andrea, Kieran, Toby and particularly to Jim
With love and gratitude PERSONAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
1 have been blessed throughout my lifetime by the caring presence of many, many people - family, friends, CO-workers, academic colleagues, Without the love and support of these persons, this thesis could never have been completed. It is difficult to know where to begin to express my gratitude. First of all, 1 wish to thank my employers - the trustees and professional staff of the former Roman Catholic School Board for St . John's and later, the Avalon East School Board. In particular, 1 am indebted to Brian Shortall and Thelma Whalen, Chief Executive Officer and Assistant Director of Personnel respectively, for their patient and positive responses to my repeated requests for leave to complete the writing of the thesis. My colleagues at the former board, Tomi Cleal , Harold Stapleton, Brian Galway, David Locke, Roger Laster were enormously supportive and encouraging, Sister Mary Nolasco Mulcahy, the former Chair of the Roman Catholic Board, was always interested in my work and even on her deathbed invited me to review the structure of the thesis and gave me excellent feedback. The staff of my new school have been friendly and welcoming after a long period of waiting for their new principal to take up her new position, 1 am grateful especially for the cornpetence of my assistant principal, Brendan Rumsey, who energized and sustained the school in my absence. The Loretto Sisters and the extended community of Loretto College in Toronto have provided a wonderful environment in which to live and work. Their prayers, remembranees, kind gestures, and liveiy dimer table conversations offered an unfailing positive attitude that sustained me in the loneliest moments of the thesis writing, as 1 laboured far away from home and family, Especially 1 wish to thank Leslie Crawford who was a companion on the thesis journey and a source of wise advice; Sister Rose Marie Goguely who cared for me when 1 was il1 and who gave me the book The Woman Sealed in the Tower which was to become pivota1 in the thesis structure; Gai1 Fox with whom 1 shared a special Newfoundland comection. Thank you to Dorothy and Katherine for friendship shared over nightly cups of tea and thanks also to Sarah, Shelley, Geraldine, Leona, Santou, Floriane, Donna, Lisa, Mary, Tina, Toyleen, Naomi, Patricia, Yannick, Shirley, and other extended community members for the peacefulness of the life we shared. Thank you especially to al1 the Loretto Sisters with whom it has been a privilege to live: Olga, Elizabeth, Lois, Marina, Betty, Marion, Angela, Anne, Anne Marie, Jeanne. They shared their lives and home with us with love and generosity. Their kind hospitality to me and to my family on their frequent visits to the College will always be remembered. There have been many other f riends who have shared the journey with me: the "club girls" at home, Sharon, Sheila, Lorraine, Kay, Jean, Alice, Gerri, and Eileen who have celebrated every step along the way and whose newsy letters brought me great merriment and the comfort that only life-long friendships can bring; Mary and Aiden Craig who frequently brought sweet treats to my family at home and who cared lovingly for us all; Dick and Sydney Dunne for their interest and Bob and Diane CoIford for their frequent dimer invitations to my 'motherless' family; Mary Smart, whose hospitality and generosity and intelligent conversation never failed to delight me; Father Vernon Boyd, S.J. who made special efforts to spend time with me and who was always interested in the development of the thesis; Heather Reeves who entered into the conversation with me, acting as my Newfoundland academic cornpanion. And there were the friends that 1 made through the Centre for Teacher Development whose passion for narrative knowing bonded us al1: Barbara and Deirdre with whom 1 shared a special friendship developed not only through a common research effort but also wonderful conversation, much laughter, and shared meals; JO-an, Ming Fang, Joann, Deborah, Vicki, Manuela, Isabella, Angela. Marion, Rosalie, Florence, Nettie, Bev, Sally, Linda, whose attentiveness to the mission of the Centre built a very strong community, A special note of gratitude to both Marilyn Dickson and Florence Samson for their careful reading and editing of the thesis text . Among my OISE friendships, two in particular have blossomed into relationships that have become experiences of the 'BetweenR, those with Dolores Furlong and Inez Houlihan. Delores assisted me throughout the months of preparation for comprehensive exams and was invaluable in her assistance in helping me locate and name the focus of my educational passions. She has listened patiently to long essays read over the phone and of fered insightful feedback and suggestions; she edited early versions of the thesis drafts. Dolores has a rare insight into the truth of peoples' hearts and has an uncanny ability to draw it out with affirrning love and compassion. When f think about how I might acknowledge Inez, my heart swells with the effort. We have spent endless hours in conversation, Inez always as intensely involved in rny research as in her own. There were countless conversations which began with her saying, "Ifve been thinking about your thesis and ....* Entirely non-judgmental and constantly 'in the storyr, fully understanding an experience in the multiple perspectives of its historical contexts, she offered perceptive insights into my own stories and constantly challenged quick or superficial responses. Both Inez and Dolores are brilliantly insightful and I am incredibly grateful for the presence of two such companions on my thesis journey. The participants in my research, Mr. Fallon and Dr, Fagan. have been wonderful coresearchers. They were open and honest in the interview process and more than generous with their time in reviewing the field texts. 1 am very grateful for their participation and their interest. Special thhanks are owed to Michael McCarthy who supplied me with historical information and dnswered my many questions about historical details. My thesis committee has provided excellent academic and emotional support. Dr. Michael Comelly has been a superlative supervisor. Patient and responsive throughout several semesters of weekly appointments, he consistently offered reflective insights and asked the hard questions. His challenges forced me to examine the bigger picture, write the larger story. Respectful of my emotional and religious connections to the research topic, he provided gentle but firm direction, always encouraging me to focus on my own story, to become more fully who 1 am. Sister Margaret Brennan provided grounding in the Catholic feminist perspective and was always enthusiastic about my work. 1 felt £rom the beginning that it was Divine intervention that brought us together and am more convinced than ever that it was so. Dr. Jack Miller has been an inspiration in his quiet modelling of the spiritual way, infusing it into the curriculum, activities, and interpersonal interactions of his courses. His comments were positive and very helpful. 1 am grateful also to Dr. David Hunt and Dr, Patrick Diamond who agreed to serve on the final oral committee. Both of these men, through their personhood and through their courses have had an important impact on my academic development . Thank you also to Dr. Margaret Haughey of the University of Alberta who agreed to serve as the external examiner, Her reputation for academic excellence was borne out in her perceptive review of the thesis and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to share academic conversation with her. Father Leonard Altilia, S,J. has been an integral part of the thesis process from its begi~ing. He has been a steadfast supporter, willing to examine and reexamine the themes of the thesis as they unf olded. He has been willing to explore the sources of relational tensions, whether personal, professional, or political, and has provided a safe environment for me as 1 struggled with my own shadows. Over a decade of friendship he has never failed to affirm rny emergent personhood. I am exceptionally grateful to him for allowing our collaborative story to be publicly told. He has been a wonderful friend, mentor and coresearcher. Most importantly of all, 1 wish to thank my family for their love and support. My parents, Toby and Mary McDonald, have off ered unconditional love and financial assistance, They have always demonstrated their love for me and my family and their attentiveness to my family ' s needs during my many absences over the past six years have eased the burden for al1 of us . It is the love, steadfastness and integrity that 1 learned through their modelling that has sustained me throughout the thesis process and helped shape the document itself. My children, Andrea, Kieran and Toby, have sacrificed much to enable their rnother to study. They did without my presence in our home and without the extra things that a second salary is able to provide; they did not cornplain; they were always supportive and encouraging and did not for a moment consider my terminating the study in order to return to work. 1 have been very proud of them and grate£ul for their loving support. About my husband, Jim, what cari 1 say? He has been an unfailing supporter of my academic strivings for twenty-five years, having driven the family ail over the Canada and the United States so 1 could study in various universities. He has borne the financial challenges of the past vii few years with forbearance and good humour; he ran the household single handedly for long stretches of time and became a masterful cook; he cheerfully assumed the major share of our parenting responsibilities. Jim's love has been deep, constant and pervasive, infusing al1 aspects of my life so that it is invisibly woven into its essence of who 1 am. He never lost confidence in my ability to complete the requirements of the degree and refused to listen to discouraging comments from anyone. Thank you, honey, 1 never could have done it without you.
Academic Acknowledgements
1 wish to thank William H. Sadlier, inc. for giving copyright permission to reprint the plate of Saint Barbara which is used as the frontispiece of this document. The picture appeared in The Lives of the Father, Martyrs and Other Principal Saints, authored by A. Butler in 1862 and published by Sadlier and Company, New York.
1 wish also to thank Paulist Press of Mahwah, New Jersey who gave me permission to reproduce the Legend of Saint Barbara as it was published in 1982 by Betsy Caprio in The Woman Sealed in the Tower: A Psvcholoqical Approach to Feminine spi ri tua lit^.
viii Table of Contents
Abstract ...... ii Dedication ...... iv Acknowledgements ...... v
Chapter 1: Questions Introduction...... 1 Political Context ...... 3 Tension Rises: Questions and More Questions ...... 7 Emerging Themes ...... 9 Structure of the Thesis ...... 13 Chapter 2: Narrative Becoming Introduction...... 18 Letting Go of Absolutes ...... 23 Narrative as Spiritual Process ...... 37 Narrative as Creative Process ...... 40 Narrative as Research Method ...... 41 Narrative Form...... 44 Narrative and Autobiography...... 46 Narrative as Moral Process...... 48 A Thesis Journey ...... 51 Life as Myth and Legend ...... 55 Chapter 3: Sealed in the Tower Introduction...... 57 The Central Story: The Denominational Story ...... 66 A Couriter Subtext: Movement towards Interdenominationalism...... 88 Subtext: An Unchanging Sacred Story ...... 93 Reflections and Ruminations ...... 96 Chapter 4: The View from the Tower of the Transcendent God Introduction...... 99 Living in the Tower ...... 102 Leaning Out of the Tower ...... 111 Shifting Landscapes ...... 117 Chapter 5: Opening the Third Window .Discovering Cocreativity Introduction...... 132 Negotiating the Inquiry ...... 135 Connecting Inside the Tower ...... O...... -. Locating a Position Within the Tower ...... Tension in the Tower ...... Dark Shadows in the Tower: Countering the Social Narrative ...... Fighting the Shadows ...... The Changing Landscape as Common Ground ...... Altering the Tower Structure: Expression of the New Story ...... Mutuality and Spirituality ...... Endings ...... Convergences ...... Chapter 6: Thrown Out of the Crumbling Tower Introduction ...... The Missing Heart ...... The Feminine Sou1 Encircled by the Tower ...... 191 The Assault on the Tower ...... 192 Falling from the Tower ...... 201 Perspectives on the Crumbling Towe r ...... 202 toss of Voice ...... 223 Chapter 7: The Mountaintop: Call to Wholeness Introduction...... 227 Discovering the Feminine ...... -.- 229 Shifting Landscapes. Shifting Images of God ...... 231 A Return to the Old Story ...... 234 Validating the Ferninine ...... 236 Speaking with a Feminine Voice ...... 239 Reflections and Rumination ...... 245 Convergences ...... 246 Chapter 8: Becoming the Mythmaker Introduction...... 247 The Mythic Plan ...... 247 The Mythic Tower ...... 249 Sealed in the Tower ...... 251 Narrating Multiple Selves ...... 253 Narrating Others ...... 256 Narrative Continuity ...... 258
Appendix A ...... 262 Appendix B ...... 263
Bibliography ...... 265 Chapter 1 Questions
Questions for God
God, 1 build my world Reflective of Your desires For 1 listen to You As 1 constmct it-
Have 1 pleased You, God? Suddenly, the earth shakes, My heart trembles And the walls corne Tumbling dom.
Why is this happening, Md? 1 am exposed, Naked in my imperfections The veil of confidence Stripped away. Not even gossamer to conceal My fear, Where are You, God?
mm.
(March, 1993) Introduction In this autobiographical narrative thesis I seek to understand the awakening of my ferninine spirituality as it unfolds within the authority structures of the institutions in which 1 have lived and worked over a lifetime, particularly during rny twenty-six years of teaching and administering in a Roman Catholic school system in the
Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Nine of these years, 1988-1997, have been the most tumultuous in the history of
Cath01 ic education in the province, as well as the rnost turbulent years in the provincial hiçtory of the Roman Catholic Church. Out 1 2
of the tensions into which 1 was thrown in grappling with the issues of the times, cornplex questions arose, and within the fertility of questions this search for meaning was conceived and is embodied in this thesis.
The fourteen years 1 spent in school and district
administration were years in which 1 implicitly, and later
explicitly, explored the purposes of publicly funded Catholic schooling, roles of Catholic educational leaders, and sources of authority for Catholic schooling. These were interior conflicts born out of cornmon, routine tensions of the workplace as well as the uncornmon political tensions between the provincial government
and the Catholic Church. In the turmoil, 1 learned that my
spirituality, my persona1 interpretation of the Catholic faith vision and how 1 had lived it in my everyday life, no longer seemed
to be sufficient to accommodate the changes inherent in rny professional and historical contexts. 1 needed to exparid it so that 1 could make sense of the world in which 1 lived, 1 needed to write a new story of being a Catholic laywoman which made sense of the conflicts raging around me. It was in this milieu that the inqui ry was actual ly conceived but i ts period of incubation extended backwards to my own birth. The thesis traces my developing spirituali ty from my childhood to the present day and follows a narrative thread of my relationship to authority. Authority is the lens that mediates my images of God and is the focus of the following seven chapters. 1 move through my pre-birth narrative history, my early transcendent 3 images of God, my experience of cocreativity in the professional workplace, my responses to and interpretation of the authority issues in the political turrnoil in Newfoundland, a synthesis of spiritual meanings and their comection to authority, and finally a narrative of the research process itself. Before the narrative begins, it seemed important to locate the reader in the political context in which the inquiry began.
The Political Context In 1988, Newfoundlanders, Catholics in particular, were shocked to witness the first of over twenty arrests of priests arid brothers for the sexual abuse of young boys. In the subsequent years, the breadth of the scanda1 came into public view through television, radio and newspaper investigative reporting and through publication of trial proceedings, Retired Justice Samuel Hughes led the Department of Justice inquiry into the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy, the proceedings of which were televised daily in their entirety, Concurrently, the findings of a public commission led by former Lieutenant Governor Gordon Winter and initiated and funded by the Catholic Church were published. In July 1990, Alphonsus Penney, Archbishop of the Diocese of St. John's, resigned from his position after Winter concluded that Penney had mishandl ed the reports of sexual abuse by priests. The credibility of the Church as an institution was severely damaged; its criticism had national proportions. As the Church structures began to tremble, so, too did 4 support for Catholic education, Until the 1996 amendment to Term 17 of the 1949 Terms of Agreement of Newfoundlandrs entry into Confederation with Canada, al1 education in Newfoundland had been denominational, Al1 public schools were organized along religious 1ines. Particular denominations, including Catholic, had entrenched rights in the constitution to claim a proportion of public Eunds based on studerit population for the operation of school boards under the supervision of the provincial Department of Education. Elected to office in 1989, Liberal Premier Clyde Wells was a long time opponent of the denominational educational system in Newfoundland, having spoken his disdain publicly as early as 1970 when he was a backbencher in the provincial House of Assembly, In 1990, as Premier, he asked the Lieutenant Governor in Council to appoint a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Delivery of Programs and Services in Primary, Elementary, and Secondary Education to review al1 aspects of education in the province, including the extent of the duplication attributable to the denorninational structure of schooling. After considerable public consultation, the Commission, chaired by Dr. Leonard Williams, was completed in 1992 and offered 211 recommendations. The first was a recomrnendation for a modi fied denominat ional system "which involve[d] the formal integration of al1 faiths" (Royal Commission of Inquiry, 1992:221) and which promised millions of dollars of savings to the provincial government,
Four years of arduous negotiation between the Churches and the 5 government followed the release of the report. Public debate was intense with much anger, bittemess and frustration expressed on both sides. A settlement could not be reached at the negotiation table. In June 1995, Premier Wells announced that in September 1995 a referendum would be conducted in the province asking the population to support an amendment to the constitution to achieve educational reform without the Churches' consent. The Churches' position was that ref orm was needed and encouraged; cooperation had been promised and already achieved among the denominations in many cornmunities. Church leaders believed that the entire denominational system did not have to be dismantled to accomplish the reforms that the government wanted. There was vigourous campaigning by the people of particular Churches, notably Roman Catholics and Pentecostals. Referendum results showed a narrow margin in support of the government's position - 53% agreeing to a constitutional amendment and 47% opposing it. The constitutional amendment was approved by Parliament, refused by the Senate and returned to Parliament for final approval in the fa11 of 1996. On
December 31, 1996, al1 27 denominational school boards ceased to exist in Newfoundland and Labrador and were replaced by 10 inter- denominational boards, In June 1997, after an appeal by the Catholic and Pentecostal denominations, Newfoundland Supreme Court Judge Leo Barry declared the government's reorganization procedures unconstitutional and ordered a halt and partial reversa1 of the actions taken by the Department of Education officials, Frustrated by the court decision, Premier Brian Tobin called another 6
referendum, asking the population to change the constitution to
remove entirely the powers of the Churches to administer education in the province, He received his mandate in a September 2, 1997 referendum with a majority of 73%.
This, then, was the historical and political situation in
which 1 worked from 1988 to 1997. As a committed Catholic
educator, 1: experienced these years as extremely stressful. Both
my Church and my educational setting came under attack. In both my persona1 and professional Iives, Church and schooling had been essentially synonymous terms for me, they had been merged in the
one experience. In my youth, academic success was primarily education in religious faith and academic success was secondary to
the development of good character. In my professional years, 1 had spent my career endeavouring to understand the meaning of
education in the Catholic tradition and to transform my personal
faith and implicit understandings about its nature into explicit articulations and actions in the school system,
Up until 1988, 1 had lived a secure Catholic story. 1 thought
1 knew my comunity and my place within it. Then with the shock of the sexual abuse scandals and the government intent to dismantle
Catholic education, my Catholic story began to unravel. No new story was being written; Catholics were immersed in anger and grief . We lost our sense of who we were. Our dignity was battered by the constant pounding of Catholicism in media reports, both
local and national; bigotry abounded. A sense of shame pervaded our collective psyche. We became 'closet Catholics', for while few 7 Catholics spoke publicly in defense of Catholic schooling, as the results of both the 1995 referendum and the later school registration indicated, the majority of Catholics wished privately to retain Catholic education. Living through this era, attempting to offer leadership to Catholic education in it, was indeed a challenge. My interior questioning intensified as the years moved on and the political situation became more and more complex. Dilemmas and tensions developed.
Tension Rises: Questions and More Questions
From 1983-88, 1 served as assistant principal in a large, 800 student, elementary school , with a wel I-respected and caring principal. It was during this induction into school administration that 1 began to examine the moral and mission issues of leadership: What was the mission of public education, of Catholic education? Was there conflict between the two? What was my mission for this school community? What moral framework did 1 use to discern between 'competing goodsf? What was the role of a wornan in leadership? While 1 began an intense exploration of these questions during these five years, it was not until 1988, when 1 was appointed to the assistant principalship of a public Jesuit high school, that the interior conflicts were externalized and in earnest 1 began the journey to seek resolution. In this high school setting, the questions became more compelling and complex, The same questions regarding leadership 8 followed me but were complicated by additional questions: How could 1 exert leadership in a clerical institution that had a predominantly male staff? How could 1, as married laywoman, work collaboratively with a Jesuit priest? In my role as discip- linarian, how could I demonstrate care while enforcing the school rules? How could we retain our dignity as a Catholic school amidst the shocking revelat ions of Cath01 ic clergy ' s sexual abuse of young boys? How could we engage the whole school in creating caring school community? It was during these five years that several dialectical tensions began to appear in my stories of experience. As a woman working in an historically male school institution, the first woman in administration in its thirty year history, the tensions of the masculine-ferninine dialectic became evident. In the decision-making of disciplinary work and its inevitable conflict between care of the individual and the rights of the group, the justice-care dialectic intensified.
From 1993-1996, 1 served as assistant superintendent of a
Roman Catholic school system. It was during these years that the educational reform debate raged and provincial government of ficials and church leaders were embroiled in intense conflict over denominational educational rights. My experience extended into the political arena and even more cornplicated questions unfolded: How are Catholic school systerns distinct? What do Catholics really understand about Catholic education? What is the relationship between Church and government in regards to education? What sources provide the moral authority for Christian spiritual 9 education if the legislated authority of the Churches is removed? Wi thin these questions, the tension of the sacred-secular dialectic emerged for me. While my district position became redundant in the school board reorganization of 1996, the questions remained.
Emerqins Themes
In constructing and reconstructing my stories of experience and examining the nature of my professional questions in preparation for the writing of this thesis, 1 came to realize that there was a consistent theme echoing in nearly al1 of them. The theme was of identity. both creation and loss. Identity 1 understood as a recognition of self, Wolski-Conn (1996) connected the two: "self means one's own deepest persona1 identity and one's way of understanding and valuing others. . . . self is not only what 1 mean when 1 Say 'me', but aLso how I know and feel my relationships to otherdt(314). Jung (1964) called Self "the totality of the whole psycheN(l62). The story of developing my identity within the structures in which 1 worked, then, was congruent with the storying of my self in the world. Concurrently, two phenornena were conflicting with each other in my stories. At the same time that 1 was endeavouring to find my place, to create a space and an identity as a female person and as an administrator within a Church institution, the identity of the institution itself was being questioned and falling into disarray. The authority structure that had provided stability and nurturance for both my persona1 and professional lives was no longer firm and 10 secure, The moral authority that provided a moral basis for my administrative decision making and for values teaching in my classroom teaching in religion, family living, English literature and language was being eroded, 1 became anxious about the vacuum that 1 feared would be created in its absence. At the same time that 1 was fearing the loss of these ecclesiastical structures, 1 also realized that an emergent theme of my stories of experience was of being in tension with them. There were stories of feeling invisible within these structures, with no discernible space to claim my identity; stories of feeling overpowered by the weight of external authority. But also there were stories of joy and peace when 1 felt in communion with them.
The tensions seemed to arise from the conf lict between the way 1 interpreted events in a particular situation and the way 1 thought they ought to be. The way 1 thought things 'ought ' to be was usually an expression of my faith vision, my spirituality, and how
1 believed 1 needed to live it at the time. The conflict then, as 1 identified it at the beginning of the research process, was between an interior spirituality and an external authority which presented itself as an individual or a group of persons who enforced obedience to a rule or to an implicit way of doing things.
Sources of authority in my life also appeared to be predominantly male: the men in clerical positions in the Church, men in goverment, men in business, Sometimes the sources of authority were fernales working in hierarchical structures, as the many nuns who administered Catholic schools, or women in school district 11
administration. To both genders 1 ascribed qualities that were generally described as being in the masculine domain. Masculine qualities are not understood as gender specific in this thesis; they do not belong exclusively to males but are found in varying degrees in both men and women. These qualities include
the traditional interpretation of the yang image in the ancient Chinese symbol called T'ai-chi Tfuas "the strong, male, creative power .... associated with Heaven.. . . the clear and rational male intellect .... the strong, creative action of the king.., ." (Capra. In Morgan, 1986:256). Jung considered masculine attributes to be
those of " rationality. spirituality, and the capacity to act decisively and impersonally" (Bolen, 1984:41). Caprio (1982) assigns to the male domain such qualities as dynamism, structure, order, action, objectivity, analysis, logic, and doing (93). Sorne
feminist scholars, according to Card ( 1995 :79-80) add justice reasoning and responsibilities for public formal and impersonal relationships to the list.
Neither do 1 understand feminine qualities as gender specific but belonging to individuals of both sexes in varying degrees as well. In the yin representation of the Chinese symbol. the feminine is "the dark, receptive, female and materna1 elPrnent ...- represented by Earth,... Lit] is the cornplex, female intuitive mind.. . . the quiet contemplative stillness of the sage ...." (Capra, In Morgan, 1986: 256) . For Jung, "receptivity, passivity, nurturing, and subjectivity characterized the feminine personality" (Bolen, l984:4l), Caprio (1982) ascribes to the feminine such 12 descriptors as yf elding, co~ected, subjective, unifying, synthesizing, practical , grounded, relational being (92). Feminist scholars include, according to Card (1995:79-80). a f eminine moral ethic of caring and responsibility for persona1 and ififormal relat ionships . While the listing of these qualities in these categories perturbed me somewhat because they revealed a cultural story about the roles of men and women in society that portray the masculine in a position of strength and the feminine in a position of weakness,
1 began with these, endeavouring in the thesis process itself to contribute to a recasting of the gendered stories. Through reflection on my stories of experience, 1 identified the central tension in my life to be the tension between my feminine spi ritual ity and the masculine authority structures in which 1 lived and worked- The focussing question of the research process became, "mat is the nature of that tension and how is it connected to rny sense of who 1 am?" As a practicing Roman Catholic, my sense of who 1 am is spiritually connected to my relationship with the authoritative Being Catholics cal1 God. My concepts of divinity. spirituality, authority and identity are inextricably intertwined, perhaps hopelessly tangled. It is not the purpose of this thesis to argue for or against the existence of God. The purpose of the research inquiry is to offer an account of a life - a womanfs story of a developing spirituality which unfolded within the masculine authoritative institutional structures in which 1 lived and worked and to examine how the interaction between spirituality and authority affected my sense of identity, 1 hope to add my voice to those of other women, with the hope that one more story shared will add to the web of still fragile threads which reach out to join yet another as we weave the tapestry of our lives with the hope that they will make a difference (Brennan, l985:W).
Structure of the Thesis Chapter 2 lays the theoretical foundation for the research study. It explains my initial intuitive attraction to narrative inquiry as the rnethodology selected for the study and my subsequent rational sorting of the competing arguments supporting the quantitative and qua1 itative research paradigms, my Masters ' thesis having been completed as a quantitative study. The chapter describes some of the difficulty 1 have experienced in letting go of absolutes and offers a story to illustrate that struggle as 1 consider the subjectivity - objectivity dialectic in research discourse. 1 attempt to illustrate the congruence between the qualities of narrative research and the qualities being investigated or drawn upon in the process of the thesis writing: creativity, spirituality, morality. The chapter also discusses narrative form, narrative as research method, narrative and autobiography. In the last section O£ this chapter 1 introduce the Legend of St. Barbara, as written by Betsy Caprio (1982), and her use of the legend in a psychological approach to the development of feminine spirituality. The legend is used in Chapters 3 through 7 as an analytical framework for the events of 14 my life. The tower image used in the legend becomes a symbol for external authority structure. Chapter 3 describes the history of education in Newfoundland from its earliest days. In this chapter 1 describe the evolution of the religious denominational educational system in the province as well as the conflicting stories between denominations. A counter sub-text is also presented: the story ûf the growing movement towards interdenominationalism. 1 also found as 1 reviewed the literature in Catholic ed~cation,Church docwnents in particular, that the mission of Catholic education had changed little over the centuries, although the mannes in which it was interpreted throughout history may have varied. 1 called this story an unchanging sacred story. The purpose of this chapter is to give the reader a sense of the complexity and power of the religious history of the province and to illustrate how that cultural narrative created the conditions, the tower, into which 1 was bom and became embedded in the events of my life. Connections between the history and my own life are made through the personal stories 1 named Tendrils - short stories which illustrate how an historical event has wound itself irito my life. The chapter explores 'how 1 have becorne'.
Chapter 4 describes my developing spirituality £rom my early childhood to early mid-life. It relates my stories of experience in terms of my relationship to authority and to my developing images of God. Mainly it describes the times in my life when 1 saw God as an external authority, as transcendent, a distant 15 observer of human life. 1 portray myself as living in a masculine tower of safety and protection, venturing out occasionally for forays into other arenas in order to test my understanding of Catholicism and the secular world, The chapter explores the effect that interaction with authority structures has had on my way of being in the world and unfolds the connectedness between my comprehension of authority and my understanding of God- Chapter 5 is the centre of the thesis and served as its ent- point for it was during this period of my life in high school administration that the inquiry was born of the tensions existent both inside and outside the school. In the working through of the tensions, the chapter became a study of a new understanding of the possibility of cocreative power in the combination of masculine and feminine qualities when applied collaboratively in the prof essional workplace. My stories in this chapter are of my experience working as an assistant principal to a Jesuit priest, Fr. Leonard Altilia.
It describes my struggle to claim an identity for myself on a landscape that was predominantly male both in history and in its contemporary social narrative. It describes the tension created when two strong personalities, opposite in gender, personality and life experience are assigned to work with each other in a professional setting and of the new experience of spirituality that emerges for both, This chapter constitutes the heart of the thesis for the masculine-feminine, sacred-secular, justice-care tensions became so intensified for me in this working situation that my efforts to story them initiated my application to a doctoral 16 program. Chapter 6 presents a description and analysis of the political
forces that worked to dismantle denominational educational in my province. It explicates the sources of the fear that was generated within me when 1 felt that my personal spirituality, and rny lived experience of professional spirituality, were being denied by the external authorities of my life. It seemed as if 1 had no sooner begun to locate a source of imer authority than political forces were seeking to deny it. This chapter examines some of the media's reports and their representation of public opinion and discusses how they affected me emotionally and spiritually. My Church tower of safety and protection had crumbled. In this chapter, too, 1 interview the two key lay leaders of Catholic education in Newfoundland, Mr. Gerald Fallon and Dr. Bonaventure Fagan, who offer their interpretations of the reasons for the decline of support for Catholic education in the province,
In Chapter 7 1 synthesize the major learnings of the spiritual journey and develop more fully my understandings of the links between spirituality and my relationship with authority. Several stories are told which develop themes of discovering and validating the feminine, shifting landscapes and shifting images of God, finding voice and returning to an old story. In chapter 8 1 step outside the thesis and tell the story of being a narrative researcher, In each of the chapters above the unifying narrative thread is that of the relationship between my persona1 spirituality and 17 sources of authority in my life. Each chapter unfolds another insight into my own development. And so the story begins. "When we tell our tales, we give away our souls" (Hillman. In Doty,
1975:94)- f offer the reader my soul. Chapter 2 Narrative Becoming
Formless clay On a potter's wheel - Potential Spi~fXlg . Flesh explores, Questions Seeks substance And form Spinning . Earth responds Meaning emerges Spinning. Creator and Created Enfold each other In spiral embrace Spinning. (October, 1994)
Introduction As I began the actual writing process of this thesis there were many images of spinning apparent in my dreams and thoughts, revealing a common theme of rapid circular motion around a fulcrum. When my dream images finally slowed the speed of their centrifugal motion, I discovered that I had finally achieved the status of the fulcrum itself with a wheel spinning horizontally around me; "when you strive to be quiet by stopping motion, the quiet you achieve is always in motion" (Harris, 1991:39). Then, shortly afterwards, a centripetal image - a gently twirling helix - appeared quite spontaneously from my subconscious.
It fell from the tops of the tall pines at Raglan White Lake, in northern Ontario, one summer afternoon in 1992 as I meditated on the meaning of my life and, synonymously, of my work. In constructing meaning from the image at the time, 1 wrote:
1 realized that David Huntfs guided imagery and Jack Mi 1 ler 's medi tation processes are leading me dom through my own axis, my own core of being, My work and my family, friends, students, and CO-workers are my spiral, emanating f rom my core, my soul, They exist without me but not in this unique configuration. Relationship is the comection - the balance and tension of which are also marvels(Dunne, 1992: 2) . This shift of image from the edges to the centre, from outward to inward, from the spiral to the core, 1 interpreted as my readiness to undertake a persona1 search for the stillpoint of my turning world - an understanding of Truth, of Being, of Self, of God. It seemed that this thesis was drawing me in towards myself, to explore an inner meaning veiled in the centre of my being, my spiritual core, It seemed also to be pulling me outward to examine myself in moral and spiritual relationship to others in the various communities in which 1 lived and worked and had my being: my school community, my religious community, my political community. There was a desise to achieve balance in the natural oppositional pulls of the various dialectics operant in rny life, masculine-feminine, sacred-secular, justice-care, subjectivity - objectivity, to achieve the equilibrium inherent in the structure of the helix.
To examine my self and myself in relationship required that 1 examine rny experience. Experience Polkinghorne(l988)describes as Ifan integrated construction, produced by the realm of meaning, which interpzetively links recollections, perceptions, and expectationsft( 16). Zt is this experience, embedded in the past and in the present and in the person's future plans, that gives rise to 'personal practical knowledge' which Comelly and Clandinin (1988) describe as 'a particular way of reconstructing the past and the intentions for the future to deal with the exigencies of a present situationn(25). This thesis, then, in reconstmcting my past stories of experience, reconfigures both the past and the future and changes the nature of the ' personal practical knowledge ' I hold in the present. The spiral of the helix continues to rotate as the thesis proceeds.
Because we make sense of our lives by telling stories about them, and because the intent of this thesis was to make sense of my persona1 growth in spirituality through the events of my life, the methodology of this thesis is the approach of narrative inquiry, the retelling and the reconstruction of the stories of my experience. 1 chose this method because it had the potential of examining the non-material phenomena of feminine spirituality and its relationship to masculine authority both morally and spiritually. It could investigate not only the subject matter but also had the possibility of replicating the relational phenomena under study. 1 wanted the method to be sensitive to feminine creative ways of knowing, be moral not only ethically, but in a caring, relational sense, and also contain the possibility of achieving spirituality. The researcher, the researched and the research method are therefore embedded in one another: "Creator and Created/Enfold each other/In spiral embrace/spinning."
From the beginning of my interaction with narrative ways of knowing. initially nearly totally confounding to me as 1 worked my way through my first course, 1 have been intrigued by the use of story to uncover deeper meaning. Newfoundland has a very strong story-telling culture and the inhabitants are renowned for both Song and story. Being given the opportunity in an academic setting to tell stories and to explore stories as windows of meaning was both a surprise and a delight. The course assignent for
Foundations of Curriculum taught by Dr. Michael Comelly in the summer of 1991 was the writing of a personal narrative. 1 became immersed in the writing, and dwelled in it for the six weeks of the summer course. As I wrote the story of my life up to that date, 1 realized that 1 couldn't be satisfied with a chronicle of events,
1 felt driven to burrow under the events to understand a unifying meaning, a thematic unity, the source of my forward moving energy.
A chance response from Dr. Comelly regarding a journal entry commented on my use of the word 'mirror', 1 began thinking about that word and realized that it was a key image for me, that indeed my house contained many mirrors, at least one in every room. 1 entitled my personal narrative "Seeking Sanctification in Mirrors" and used two images to develop it - mirrors and Irish tweed. The prologue of the papes explains how they were used.
The recurring themes of my life are Church and family. 1 cannot consider the wholeness of the fabric of my life without visualizing the warp as family and the weft as the Cath01 ic Church. Interwoven, they create the qua1 ity of rny fibre and have sustained me throughout the duration of my life. The metaphor of strong Irish tweed will serve as the structural metaphor of my writing but the unifying metaphor is very different, hence the title of my narrative. In reflecting upon the incidents that form the tapestry of the chronicle of my life, a single thread consistently reappears, and as often as 1 have tried to suppress it and reweave it into the underside of my story, it persistently unravels so that 1 have to address it again and again. Acknowledging its power in my life is a difficult admission, but honesty demands it. The pattern of my life is composed of constantly striving for a continually elusive perfection of Christian character formation, 'sanctification' in other words. MY evaluative standards for my progress in achieving it, however , have not been interna1 , they have been external. 1 have measured my value by looking into mirrors - mirrors held by authority figures in particular - my parents initially and later Church representatives, but also those held by my friends, my students and my marriage family. I have judged myself by the images of myself reflected in others' perceptions (Dunne: August, 1991) . In this single page, 1 discovered in 1997, the principal roots of this thesis were coming visible. "Seeking sanctification" 1
learned much later is a definition for spirituality; even then 1 was writing about the connection between spirituality and authority
although 1 didn't recognize it as such. Such is the intrigue of narrative. The stories of the past are woven invisibly into the story we tell in the present and that tug us inexorably into the
future. Six years after it was written, as T. S. Eliot says, 1 came to "know the place for the first time."
In that narrative, 1 sought to understand my personal myth in the values that underscored my life. McAdams (1993) says that a persona1 myth "delineates an identiéy, illuminating the values of an individual life. [It is] a sacred story that embodies personal truthW(34). What I accomplished in that first narrative was the exposition of the longer story 1 was to tell later in this thesis.
The setting and the major characters were identified; later papers were to disclose incidents that developed the plot; this thesis
1 hope, reveals the theme and illustrates the myth. 23
Lettins Go of Absolutes
When 1 became involved in educational inquiry in the early 19701s, quantitative methodologies were the accepted norm for
educational research. 1 didn't seriously consider any other paradigm because quantitative research set the scient if ic standards
for rigour and academic acceptance. It was sanctified by the
authority of the mainly male academic world. As was rny wont, 1 sought to please authority. Quantitative research is based on an empirical, scientific, positivistic view of the world which regards the world as observable, measurable, and predictable. In this epistemology,
educational theory is "applied science"; it seeks to improve practice by "providing a body of scientific knowledge in terms of which existing educational practice [cm] be assessed and new, more effective practices devised" (Carr and Kemmis,1986:56). It claims that knowledge can only be ascribed to reality as it is apprehended by the senses and subsequently, that value judgments, not being an observable phenomenon, cannot be given the status of knowledge (Carr and Kemmis,1986:61-2). Researchers in the positivistic approach are viewed as objective observers, they stand outside the phenomenon they are investigating. Experimental and quasi- experimental studies are designed to control for a minimum of subjective interference. Quantitative methodology rel ies on strategies and experimental designs that will allow for generalizable results. As in science, this method seeks to control variables, isolate elempnts, observe 24 behaviour, and draw conclusions or establish norms that cm be generalized to a larger population; it seeks to establish cause- effect and to predict future behaviour. The role of the researcher
is to be as detached, impartial, and objective as possible and not to "contaminate" the results through personal involvement with the research subjects. The research method is of prime importance and seeks to control the interference of subjectivity through use of formal instruments and statistical interpretation of data gathered (Glesne and Peshkin, 1992:6-7). Its major aim is to eliminate bias and "unbridled metaphysical speculation" (Howe,1992:239). In this view of knowledge, the subject and the object are distinct and discrete; the knower is separate £rom the known, It was within this paradigm that 1 conducted research for my Mastersl degree in the 1970's.
In completing research for my thesis, "A Study of Topical Reading Interests and Their Relation to the Literature Texts of
Selected Grade Nine Studentsw, 1 worked to achieve what 1 thought was the appropriate research stance of academic objectivity. 1 constructed two instruments, a general topical interest questionnaire which, to guard against subjectivity, 1 based on several sources of literary classifications, and a specific literature interest questionnaire which simply listed the titles of the selections in the textbooks. 1 used the test-retest method of establishing reliability for these instruments. To establish objectivity in the assignment of interest categories to the selections in the textbook, 1 engaged a panel of eight teachers and 25 used a statistical fractional operation to assign a weighting to a category when opinions differed. 1 correlated the data fram both instruments with factors of age, gender, reading ability, and IQ of the participants, using chi-square analysis. Results were presented in table form with levels of significance noted. The thesis met the educational scientific standards of the time; homage had been paid to statisticians Glass and Stanley(l970).
In reviewing the research project in later years, 1 reflected on the objectivity I thought 1 had securely controlled. 1 found 1 had made numerous subjective judgments in establishing objectivity. The first was the choice of the quantitative paradigm itself. According to Schwandt, (1989. In Carr and Kemmis,l992.) "we conduct inquiry via a particular paradigm because it embodies assumptions about the world that we believe and values that we holdn(9) and 1 believed that knowledge could be objectively explored and def ined. 1 based the entire design on a personal assumption that "students do not acquire an interest in reading because their interests are not met or stimulated in the reading experiences they encounter in scho01.'~ 1 had subjectively chosen that variable to investigate because it was accessible and 'do- able'; 1 did not consider or explore any of the other myriad of reasons why students were not reading as much as adults wanted.
The review of the literature was subjective as well because 1 selected only literature that supported my position. The asslgnment of interest classifications to the selections by the panel of teachers was a matter of subjective opinion; students' 26 responses were entirely subjective, although they appeared numerically objective in the statistical analysis and subsequent tables. 1 was able to make a number of general statements about the suitability of the textbook and the nature of students ' reading interests and their correlation to the specified factors, but 1 had to admit even in the study itself that generalizability was limited. So what valuable new information was yielded in that immense statistical effort? Limited by statistical parameters, 1 could only make four minor recommendations for changes in grade nine literature programming in our province. In retrospect, they were probably recommendations 1 could have made on the basis of practical experience even before 1 began. What perturbs me now is the knowledge that probably the only aspect of the study that was truly objectified were my 209 student participants. They appeared in response categories only as numbers in tabular form. MY understanding of scientific objectivity was significantly altered in the process of completing the Masters' research. 1 began to wonder if objectivity was possible to achieve. A large part of my dilemma in coming to terms with the notion of objectivity and my reluctance in letting it go has been connected both to my upbringing and my desire to please those in authority and to my Roman Catholic faith and its basic tenet of the existence of an absolute, objective truth. In my experience gathering of parenthood and adulthood, the boundaries between right and wrong, truth and untruth, have became smudged. 1 have become less certain of absolutes. 1 have found rnyself caught, time and time again, in both my parenting and my professional lives, in having to make decisions between the ' justf thing to do and the 'caring' thing to do, having to differentiate between competing
'goods'. 1 have been caught in the classic justice-care dialectic as it has been identified and described by many feminist writers (Noddings, 1984; Tronto, 1993; Held, 1995). Being caught in that conflict but not having the laquage to articulate the sources of the inner turmoil that were created within it caused me great anxiety as is evident in the following 1980 story.
My high school class and 1 were asked to organize the annual school series of anti-abortion protest marches that were held early every Friday morning during Lent in front of the only hospital in the city that was performing abortions. Fridays were the days the procedure occurred. 1 agreed, although immediately 1 was nervous- 1 feared negative reaction from hospital employees and patients. 1 also thought about the feelings of the women who would be crossing our picket line to have abortions. As well, the media frequently appeared at these marches, seeking film footage and interviews. I spoke to my class about the project, encouraging participation. I told them that if we did it, it wouldnrt be easy and that if we took it on as a project, 1 expected those who said they would show up to actually be there. 1 did not pressure those who did not want to go; 1 respected their opinions and 1 did not want to be accused of coercion. Arrangements were set and placards made. The night before the first march, I slept very little. My anxiety levels were very high and my body was knotted with tension, 1 had never participated in this type of public protest before and it was proving to be one of the most difficult things 1 ever forced myself to do. My own reaction surprised me. Why was 1 feeling like this? Was 1 af raid of the press? Did 1 not want my Catholic values to be seen? 1 was angry with myself for not having the courage to stand up for what 1 believed. Over the five mornings 1 appeared with my small group, 1 found myself searching the faces of females as they crossed Our picket line to enter the hospital. Were they patients of the abortion clinic? 1 found myself not wanting to cause them any more grief than they were already experiencing- The marches were uneventful in that we were not harassed and no media appeared. 1 was immensely relieved when the demonst rat ions were over ( Reconstructed f rom memory, July, 1997) ..
The source of my anxiety 1 realized, over f if teen years later, was in the interior conflict that occurred in making my private beliefs public. In acting as a public representative of a controversial, but clear Catholic imperative, 1 realized that the Catholic anti-abortion story is a sacred story, "which requires that the descriptive lis' of theoretical knowledge be transformed into a prescriptive 'ought' in practice" (Clandinin and Co~elly,
1995: 11). When 1 found myself in this situation, my well developed conscience struggled to separate competing moralities. 1 believed in the Catholic principle that abortion was murder of the unborn and therefore essentially wrong; it was a theoretical belief founded on a justice ethic. What 1 confronted at the hospital entrance, however, was the 1ived abort ion experience . My just ly held principles warred with my concern for the emotional turmoil of the women who had made a decision to terminate their pregnaricies. It was a justice-care dilemma and in that context, it was also a masculine-f eminine dilemma; within the Catholic Church it would be described as a conflict between the rule and its pastoral application. Interiorly for me, the masculine desire to exhibit moral courage and defend a principle was in conflict with my feminine desire to demonstrate case for those who were enduring the lived experience.
In my professional administrative life as well 1 was frequently caught between the wishes of a staff who called for disciplinary justice and the needs of the recalcitrant students and their families who required compassionate care. There was rarely one right way that appeared clearly as a correct course of action.
As Hodgkinson(l991) says, balancing the two in leadership is a
moral art. As my thinking began to shift in my professional life,
it carried over to my academic life. When 1 began doctoral studies, qualitative research seemed more reasonable, flexible and
open to multiple interpretations of truth. 1 t acknowledged the value of subjectivity in educational inquiry.
Still, even throughout the thesis writing, 1 struggled with
issues of the legitimacy of what 1 was doing. The old 'authority' heads with pince-nez and scalpels were torrnenting me with taunts of "scientific is better. " Why does it have to be either/or? Why
cari' t the scientif ic community acknowledge the value of qualitative
inqui ry and narrative in particular? Czarniawska( 1997 ) says the two have a peculiar relationship, ...while science requires the narrative for its own legitimation (there has ta be a story to tell why scientif ic knowledge is importarit at al1 ) , it repays the favour in poor coin, Not only does it refuse to perform the same service and to legitimate narrative knowledge.. . , but it fiercely denies narrative its legitimacy as a form of knowledge(l7).
The conflict between the camps of quantitative and qualitative
research is similar to my experience of the struggle in
Newfoundland over secular and religious education. Why can't both systems live side by side and why does secularism have to deny the legitimacy of the religious and claim al1 rights to legitimacy for 30 itself? Like research methodologies, they are built upon different epistemologies. Qualitative research is built on the epistemological premise that reality is socially constructed and that "social reality cari only be understood by understanding the subjective meanings of individuals" (Carr and Kemmis,1986:86). Researchers seek interpretive understanding of human 'action' which they distinguish from the human 'behaviour' examined by the positivists. Action, they hold, is meaningful to the individual and observation of action requires interpretation of the actorfsmeaning. Action must be observed as occurring within a social context and part of the task of the social scientist is to "uncover the set of social rules" (Carr and Kemmis,1986:89) that makes the act intelligible. Qualitative research, then, seeks to enlighten subjective meaning for the actors and shares the interpretive account with them, thus offering a new way of thinking about the action that may affect practice. The methodology of qualitative research is open, complex and varied, and aims to observe and/or participate in the multiple dimensions of the phenornenon f rom the ' inside ' . Procedures are not standardized or rigid and the research is permitted to evolve, changing and developing along the way. Researchers in this mode use a multiplicity of means to gather data, and concluding reports are written to "exploit the power of forrn to inform" (Eisner,1981:7). Its main purpose is to articulate the " subject ive-meaning structures goveming the ways in which typical 31
individuals act" (Carr and Kemmis,1986:90). Generally, quantitative and qualitative research approaches are seen to represent competing epistemologies: one espousing
objective observation of human behaviour as the path to knowledge construction and the other claiming that knowledge can only be created through subjective knowing. Bruner (1984), paraphrasing Rorty, described the positions in the following way: "one mode is centred around the narrow epistemological question of how to know the truth; the other around the broader and more inclusive question of the meaning of experienceW(98), Howe (1992) says that the natural science mode1 and interpretivism are "irremediably incompatible"(239). If they are incompatible. then, what was the professional 'standard' that could be used to judge the credibility of this thesis if the scientific mode was not to be used? Was there any way to bridge the subjectivity-objectivity dilemma? 1 discovered that Glesne and Peshkin (1992), Eisner (1981, 1992a), Howe (1992) and others advocate a variety of methodological approaches , "multiple methods and many voicesrf (EisnerJ992a) depending upon the topic under investigation. Eisner(l991) says, 'lit is far more liberating to live in a world with many different paradigms and procedures than in one with a single officia1 version of the truth or how to find itN(48). Reading Eisner's statement reassured me that there wasn't just one right way to pursue truth in research.
Some researchers, such as Rosenholtz (1991 ) , have attempted to achieve objectivity while acknowledging the importance of subjectivity in research by using bath quantitative and qualitative
approaches concurrently. But in reflecting on my own experience as a quantitative researcher, and my persona1 discovery of the fragile
nature of objectivity, 1 didn't want to do that. Studying
spirituality quantitatively was not an option. 1 asked, was there another epistemology that redefined the relationship between subjectivity and objectivity?
There appeared to be at least two: one is to blend the opposing epistemologies thereby accommodating the duality; the
other is to merge the epistemologies so that the duality disappears- In both, the notion of objectivity is transformed. Howe(1992) in his critical social approach and Eisner(1992) in his transactive accounts suggest the blend. Comelly and
Ciandinin( 1988 ) in narrative, Moustakas( iWO) in heuristics, and Heshusius(l995) in participatory consciousness purport the merger.
Both Howe and Eisner( L992b) dismiss the notion of empirical objectivity. Howe(1992) says, "positivism is dead as an epistemological doctrineN(240) and Eisner says, "doxa[belief], not episteme[knowledge] is al1 we haveU(l5), Howe(1992) attempts to mend the epistemological split that separates the issues of subjectivity and objectivity. Through acknowledging the difficulty of achieving objectivity, he appears to be arguing for a more rigorous subjectivity.
It is Eisner, however, who clearly locates the dilemma for me so that 1 could understand it bolistically- He explains that experience is the transaction "between two postulated entities, the objective and the subjectiven (1991:52), He explains the concept in the following way: Since what we know about the world is always a result of inquiry, it is mediated by mind. Since it is mediated by mind, the world cannot be known in its ontologically objective state. An objective world is postulated both as a general and as a particular entity. Since what we know about the world is a product of the transaction of Our subjective life and a postulated objective world, these worlds cannot be separated. .. .Hence, what we have is experience - a transaction, rather than independent subjective and objective entitiesn(52-3). Eisner(l992b) acknowledges that the hope for an objective view of truth is useful as long as we recognize that "what we regard to be true is ... the product of our own makingn(14), He says that "belief, supported by good reasons, is a reasonable and realistic aim for inquiry" (15). The quality of a piece of research is judged not in terms of its objectivity, but its 'believabilityf, as assessed by the criteria of coherence, consensus and
What 1 learned in reading the theories of these two researchers is that any attempt to approach objectivity has to be considered within a structure that is subjectively constructed. My empirical , positivistic understandi~g of ob jectivity began to evaporate, 1 1earned also that 1 donft have to think of objectivity and subjectivity as dualistic, but can construe them as a unity, as other authors elucidate as they build on Polanyifs(1967)notions of tacit knowing and 'dwelling inf.
Because "al1 of our experiences take place in Our total being" (26), Comelly and Clandinin( 1988 ) state that "knowledge is neither subjective or objectiven, rather, it is npersonaln(96). Their research is built on the notions of "personal practical knowledge" (1988) and story. Story is embodied knowing, laden with the human qualities of "emotionality, value, and aesthetics"
(198827) and therefore cannot be considered in terms of objectivity, Knowledge is not only in the mind but in the body, they Say, there is a mutual ' dwelling-in' . Knowledge acted upon is practice; practice is theory in action; the two are inseparable in that context . The researchers and the participants are coresearchers in the inqui ry, connected not through subjective- objective interaction but in a reflexive, intersubjective relationship. They mutually construct new meaning, even as the inquiry evolves, exploring each others' subjective understandings. Adequacy of the research is judged, not by its objectivity, but subjectively, through its 'apparency', 'verisimilitude', and 'ttansferability' (Comelly and Clandinin, 1991:134). Moustakas(l990) describes the heuristic research process as a way of knowing. He says, [Heuristics] refers to a process of interna1 search through which one discovers the nature and meaning of experience and develops methods and procedures for further investigation and analysis. ...Heuristic processes incorporate creative self-processes and self- discoveries(9). Drawing upon intuitive processes, heuristic research is autobiographical; the researcher must have had a direct encounter with the phenomenon. Both the question and the methodology must flow out of the "inner awareness, meaning and inspiration"(l1) of the researcher. It is the task of the researcher to "recognize whatever exists in rny consciousness as a fundamental awareness, to receive and accept it, and then to dwell on its nature and possible meaningsI1( 11 ) . The subject is the object of the inquiry. Verification of depictions of meaning are built collaboratively with participants, but what is presented as "truth" ultimately must be accredited to personal knowledge and judgment. Heshusius(l994) views the arguments for "procedural subjectivity" as identical to those of Ivprocedural ob jectivity" ; both separate the knower from the known.(l5) She does not believe in the possibility of a regulated distance from the self and other, a construct which she calls "alienated consciousness"( 16 ) - She advocates a mode of inquiry which she calls "participatory consciousness"(l5) in which the self is not separate from others or from the world. Corning to know is "not a subjectivity that one can explicitly account for, but is of a direct participatory nature one cannot account forN(17). There is a recognition of a deep kinship between self and other. Polanyi(1967) calls it 'tacit knowing' in which we "extend our body to include [what we come to know] so that we come to dwell in itn(16). It is the somatic knowing of which many great scientists speak. It is the union of the knower and the known, of the subject and object of inquiry. To use the dualistic terminology, it is only when the subject 'dissolves' in the act of coming to know, that objectivity can be fully realized in the 'lattentive, nonevaluative movement of consciousness" ( l8 ) . Participatory consciousness ref lects a holistic epistemology that replaces " the traditional relation between ' truth' and interpretation"(18); it does not stand in opposition to the 36 concepts of ob jectivity and sub jectivity: " it simply effaces th-" (Heshusiusf1994:18). Miller(1994) would describe the process as one in which "duality disappearsW(24).
In these narrativist methodologies, 1 have come to realize that the closest a researcher can come to the empirical notion of 'objectivity' is the totally subjective knowing of "reflection-on- action" described by Russell and Munby(1991) as "the ordered, deliberate and çystematic application of logic to a problem in order to solve itn(165), They Say Rwhat control we can exercise cornes through reflection on reflection-in-action, when we think systematically about the f reshly f ramed datatt(165) . This notion of reflection involves a mental 'distancing' of oneself from the action to attempt to consider it from a nilmber of dimensions. However, in so far as the self is considering its own perception of action, the process is entirely subjective. Objectivity cannot be achieved; only a subjective assessrnent of subjective knowing- Northrup Frye. when asked what constituted the quality of great teachers, replied "'They are transparent'" ( In Greenfield,1993:167). They give access to the subject and to the writers they teach; 'they evoke the idea itself and the person who advances it" (Greenfieldf1993:167), This is the similar denial of ego of which Heshusius and Hodgkinson (1978:215) speaks: great teachers become what they teach in the act of teaching. When this phenomenon occurs, theory and practice merge; thought becomes action; awareness matches experience (Rogers.1961. In Miller, (1988:135); subjectivity and objectivity merge in persona1 knowing . Narrative research is personal knowledge research with heuristic and participatory consciousness implications and possibilities. In al1 three approaches, the knower dwells in the known; theory and pract ice are merged, sub ject ivi ty and ob jectivi ty are subsumed in the personal. It is in this unitive convergence within the personal that spirituality becomes possible.
Narrative as Spiritual Process The similarities between Heshusius' (1994) description of participatory consciousness as a mode of inquiry and May's (1982) description of a spiritual unitive experience are clear. Heshusius
Participatory consciousness is the awareness of a deeper level of kinship between the knower and the known-..At refers to a mode of consciousness, a way of being in the world, that is characterized by what Schachtel( 1959 ) calls "allocentric" knowing.. . a way of knowing that is concerned with both "the totality of the act of interest" and with the "participation of the total person" (of the knower)(p.225). It requires an attitude of profound opemess and receptivity. Itinvolves, Schachtel (p.181) states, a temporary eclipse of al1 the perceiver's egocentric thoughts and strivings, of al1 preoccupations with self, and self -esteem. .. Allocentric knowing requires a "total turning to" other (p.225) which leads not to a loss of self but to a heightened feeling of aliveness and awareness (p.181)(16).
May describes a classic unitive spiritual experience in similar terms.
[ In J the classic unitive experience, al1 the activities that serve to def ine oneself are suspended, yet awareness remalns open, clear, vibrant. For the duration of such experiences there is no self-consciousness, no self/other distinction, no trying-to-do or not-to-do, no aspiration, labelling, judgment , or differentiation. Thoughts may occur, but there is no self-defining act of thinking... In true unitive experience the senses are wide open; the world presents itself with utter clarity, but there is no sense of separation of oneself from it(29).
From very different perspectives, these two authors appear to be describing the same phenomenon, the union of the knower and the known with no separation of self and other and accompanied by the sensory awareness of somat ic knowing . May speaks of the disposition towards knowledge which cari lead to this experience as f'atm~~pheret'fHeshusius as "participatory consciousnesst', Harman(1988:15) as "compassionate consciousness~', Polyani(1967) speaks of an obsession that "spurs and guides us, [itJ is about something that no one can tell: its content is indefinable, indeterminate, and strictly personaltf(75-6). These terms 1 synthesize as a spiritual energy that drives us towards wholeness- It is the basic form of a spiritual experience, "one in which a person, however brief ly, actually experiences the real ity of being rooted in oneness with al1 creation" (May, 1982:29). It was the experience of several incidents such as this in schools in which 1 worked that propelled me into a narrative inquiry of spirituality. One is recounted below. It was a lovely autumn Saturday morning in late October of 1989. 1 dropped by my sister-in-law's to have coffee. "Did you hear that there was a terrible accident dom on the Boulevard this moming and a couple of kids £rom your school were killed?" she asked. 1 jumped in my car and drove down to the site of the accident. The debris had been cleared away but 1 met a solitary student walking along the edge of the street. He was a student of ours so 1 stopped and inquired about the accident. He verified it and told me the names of the three students who were killed, two from Our school, one from a neighbouring school. The sole survivor was also one of our students, 1 drove slowly home, my mind racing with a thousand decisions that would have to be made before school reassembled on Monday. "Who can 1 cal1 on to help?" 1 asked myself. The answer came quickly, "The pastoral team," When 1 got home, 1 called the principal but he was already attending to the bereaved parents. 1 called all the staff and arranged for a meeting of the pastoral team the next day to establish our methods of handling the crisis, On Monday afternoon, our school held a eucharistic liturgy for the deceased students and for the survivor. The church was packed- In the entrance procession students carried symbols of their friends' involvement in the life of the school, sports equipment, books, as well as bouquets of flowers draped with their names, the readings were carefully chosen and read by students, the school band and choir performed, eulogies written by their classrnates were delivered by their best friends, the homilist, the principal, spoke on the risk of loving with its consequent pain of loss. At the end of the Mass, when the celebrants had left the church and the music ended, the entire congregation remained standing, not a person moved and not a sound made. The stillness was a moment suspended in tirne. (Reconstructed f rom memory, July, 1991 ) . Captured in this moment was the sense of wholeness, of connection; it was a spiritual experience unitive in the grief that pervaded it. For the school it came a touchstone, a spiritual transformation, commented upon for years afterwards by both students and teachers The sense of spiritual connectedness intrigued me; educational experience didn't seem complete unless it had this spiritual dimension and purpose. Why did it feel so rooted and so right to me? 1 felt compelled to explore the core of its meaningfulness. It seemed as if only a methodology that possessed the potential of being spiritual itself could adequately access the phenornenon. 40 Narrative as creative process
The image of the potter bent over the spiming centre of a potter's wheel absorbed in creative process with the clay is a meaningful expression of the relationship between the narrative
researcher and the research text. We also are bound together in
the creative process, one interacting with the other in a
reciprocal and evolving relationship until meaning Pmerges; for both the potter and the clay, the process is one of becoming. The clay on the wheel in this thesis is persona1 and relational and spins around a centering question: What is the nature of the tension between my feminine spirituality and the masculine authority structures and how is it connected to my sense of who 1 am. This is not only the question of my thesis, it is the question of my professional life.
In my doctoral journey, 1 have sought the location of my own centre of gravity, the central tmth of my work - the axis around which al1 else spins. My practice and my study have sought ultimate meaning - "a life Cthat] serves what a Christian would cal1 God, Jung calls the Self, or [what] we cal1 by the many terms we have devised to indicate that which is greater than ourselves"
(Johnson, l989a: 78). In both my professional and academic work, 1 have been searching for spi ritual meaning. A narrative approach to research gives access to persona1 meaning because the researcher cari examine the earth of ber life and the earth of life is story. Harris (1991) wrote about a teacher who asked ber class to work with clay and instnicted them, "you are to find [form] in the 41 interchange with the clay; you are not to impose some prior vision of what is already therefl(34) - My stories are the clay spiming on the wheel and 1, too, am the potter urging the shape to emerge into consciousness without imposing a shape upon it. My hands on the clay and my foot on the treadle become one in the motion of creating myself. 1 am botb the researched and the researcher. 1 allow myself to free a form from within the stories of my clay, even though 1 cannot predict the form hidden within - and that is both the allure and the danger of the examined life. My whole body is engaged in the act of creation. Creativity is the interactive force that binds potter and clay. artist and emerging art, researcher and researched. It is the force that connects artist and substance; art is born in the space between them. It is a mystical, spiritual process.
Narrative as Research Method
Connelly and Clandinin(l.985) Say that "knowing is an experience. Action and knowledge are united in the actor. ... This practical knowing of al1 teachers and students is cornplex because it embodies in a history, in the moment and in an act, al1 modes of knowing aimed at the particular events that called for the teaching and learning actU(178). They also Say that when modes of knowing become submerged in the learner's mind and body and become part of her narrative, "the modes are lost from sight and are not identifiable in actionW(l84). In a teaching act, "there is no separation of theory and practice" ( 184 ) ; there is only "narrative- 42
in-actionW(l84). Thus there is the need to restory and examine embedded images to bring this knowledge into the full expression of language. Narrative inquiry enters that point of convergence of theory and pract ice and invest igates the phenornenon that occurs within. It offers the possibility of learning the implicit Ianguage in Our persona1 narratives, language which has become
transparent in the learning, and it gives the language form.
Researching the centering question of this thesis requi res two dimensions of thinking: a past orientation towards examination of experiences and understandings of central concepts to ascertain how persona1 theory was formulated; and a future orientation, which in identifying the dialectics still active within the stories, moves
me to understand them more fully so 1 can develop the insight to recognize and hold the paradox. The research itself is in the
present, "in the moment and in the act" (Connelly and Clandinin, 1985:178), an unfolding narrative. Narrative discourse contains "emplotment" (Polkinghorne, 1988:159) because plot is its logic or syntax; it "produces meaning through temporal sequence and progression" ( 160 ) - Clandinin
and Connelly ( 1988 ) Say that " interpretations should be grounded in data made in the context of assumptions and preliminary conceptions and should be offered with an argumentative logicW(273). Findings of the research need to be judged as valid, significant, reliable and verisimilar. Polkinghorne(1988) understands validity as a "well-grounded conclusionn(175) based on the strength of the analysis of the data. Significance he defines simply as 43
"importantW(176), and verisimilitude as "results that have the appearance of truth or reality1'(176). Narrative research does not yield certainty, only likelihood, plausibility.
My stories of experience are examined from within. 1 attempt to dwe11 inside these stories as 1 relive them mentally and emotionally. Details of stories tend to diminish over the years and only the outline remains. What appears to remain central is the emotional response to the events of the story and the persona1 interpretation of these events. In recalling stories from the
past, however, the researcher has to be aware that the human tendency is to shape the story towards an interpretation one desi res . In the retelling, it may becorne altered to suit individual purposes. Versions that are told may also depend upon the listening audience, As a researcher, there is a need for reflexive monitoring, because of "our capacity to turn around on the past and alter the present in its light, or to alter the past in the light of the present" (Bruner, 1990: 109) - Stories are like shifting sands that defy rigidity of structure; the researcher needs to remain responsive to the fluidity within them. In
retelling stories, the teller is not only conscious of her audience but she, herself, hears her stories differently. The present context and new knowledge in which she lives affects the
interpretation. In its repetitions and reinterpretations, storying provides continuity in her life's events. Narrative Form Narrative is both form and method and is the process that individuals use to make rneaning of their 1ives. It is both a personal and an academic process, Polkinghorne(1988) describes narrative as form when he calls it "a meaning structure that organizes events and human actions into a whole, thereby attributing significance to individual actions and events according to their effect on the wholeV(l8). Connelly and Clandinin(l988) define the method of narrative inquiry as "the study of how humans make rneaning of experience by endlessly telling and retelling stories about themselves that both reconfigure the past and create purpose in the futureU(24), Narrative is the ordering structure of the events in peoples' lives and is contingent upon the components of causality and time. The meaning derived from narrative consists also of the significance these events have for the narrative in relation to a particular theme (Polkinghorne,1988:160).
Bruner(1986) says that we know precious little in any forma1 sense about how to make good stories(l4). He accounts for the difficulty in understanding story because story must construct two landscapes simultaneously, One is the landscape of action, where the constituents are the arguments of action: action, intention or goal, situation, instrument, something corresponding to a "story grammar." The other landscape is the landscape of consciousness: what those involved in the action know, think, or feel, or do not know, think, or feel. The two landscapes are essential and distinct .... (14). It is the landscape of consciousness that challenges the writer of autobiography. Effectively conveying my own consciousness to a 45 reader from within that consciousness engages pure subjectivity and the transparency of the knowledge gained from a life lived- One is often unable to see how life has shaped the ideas expressed, and while the writer often thinks that the values and beliefs expressed are outside of oneself and empirically true, indeed they are not.
This issue of external truth is one that plagued me throughout the writing of the thesis and which is discussed later in this chapter. Bruner(1986, 1990) has argued that human beings have two ways of understanding the world, the "paradigmatic or logico-scientific moderrand the "narrative mode". Al1 of my educational training up
to the time 1 encountered narrative research in 1991, had centred
on the paradigmatic mode- My Masterst thesis (Dunne, 1980) had
been a quantitative inquiry and 1 had grappled with the issue of objectivity in completing it, seeking to eliminate subjective bias and to arrive at conclusions that were reliable and generalizable.
That particular type of intellectual rigour 1 had come to accept as the standard for the profession, Finding myself in a course which
chal lenged al 1 of my assumptions about educational research was
disconcerting. Even though the new concepts 1 was learning were intriguing and felt authentic and sometimes even self evident, they also offered a complexity of thought that was intellectually compelling but often incomprehensible in its breadth and depth. It challenged the researcher to investigate the whole of experience, not just a particular fragmented segment. 1 longed for the direct simplicity of the quantitative approach which had come to feei cornfortable and comprehensible. 1 grappled with my inherent desire 46 to pursue objectivity as it had become integrated into my perception of truth. With narrative, 1 could not claixn the 'truth' of the scientific paradigm, and my previous research training, coupled with my Roman Catholic penchant for 'absolute truth', forced me to explore my understanding of objectivity and its daim to truth.
Narrative and Autobioqraphy
Much of the discourse on autobiography as a genre engages the issue of objectivity, an issue with wbich 1 grappled as 1 wrote this thesis. This thesis is not an autobiography in the sense of being "a first person account of a set of life experiences"
(Denzin, 1.989: 34) - It does not attempt to recount or analyze an entire life, rather, it is a narrative of persona1 experiences which focus on the theme of a developing persona1 spirituality.
Recalling and reporting childhood experiences, indeed any past experience, raises challenging questions of what is remembered and why. Invariably, it seemed, I recalled the incident the way 1 wanted to remember it and shaped the past in doing so. In seeking 'objectivity' and 'truth' in the recollection, there didn't seem to be any other way to recall it, with few external references to cal1 upon. The only true 'objectivity' that could be sought was as described by Heshusius, an endeavouring to get completely inside the phenornenon, to dwell within it, and to report that experience as authentically as possible* Rosen(1988) describes several characteristics of the authenticity of accounts of personal experience. Herein 1 discover the 'objective' standards by which
1 wish this thesis to be judged. 1)the power of narrative in general corresponds to a way of thinking and imagining, 2)it speaks with the voice of "commonsense", 3)it invites us to consider not orzly the results of understanding but to live through the processes of reaching it, 4)it never tears asunder ideas and feelings; it moves us by permitting us to enter the living space of another: it is perceived as testimony, 5)it specifically provides for the complicit engagement of the listener (81).
In writing this thesis, I was aware that my recountings of
"facts", empirically verif iable events, and "facticities" , my interpretations of these events, were creating a new story, a fiction of my own. Denzin(1989) cites a series of authors who agree that "autobiography is an imaginative organization of experience that imposes a distortion of truthV(24). Shields(1993) in a fiction which poses as autobiography is more dramatic. She says, "The recounting of a life is a cheat, of course: 1 admit the truth of this; even our own stories are obscenely distorted; it is a wonder really that we keep faith with the simple container of our existencen(28). Denzin elaborates, "autobiographical statements are, then, viewed as a mixture of fiction and nonfiction, for each text contains certain unique truths or verisimilitudes about life and particular lived experiencesn(24).
The recountings of this thesis, 1 hope, form "a truthful fiction (narrative) [which] is faithful to facticities and facts [and] ... creates verisimilitude, or what are for the reader believable experiences" (Denzin, 1989:23). Narrative as Moral Process There are moral aspects of narrative research that make it particularly suitable for this thesis. Narrative respects the inner authority of participants in the research. It enters into persona1 stories in an effort to understand them as they express the reality of persona1 lives, Narrative does not seek to judge the story, simply to examine the life experiences that created its complexities and to assist the participant in making meaning. It seeks intercomectedness between personal and professional aspects of lives,
In the persona1 process of this thesis, 1 examined the stories of my own life to uncover the thernatic thread that bound them together. The substance of this thesis, the narrative of my persona1 growth in spirituality, is contained within my stories of experience. Narrative acknowledges the value of the experience as being authentic knowledge and provides a base from which it can be shared. Telling stories and listening to stories for meaning are themselves moral acts. Frank(1995) says, "Storytelling is or an other just as much as it is for oneself. In the reciprocity that is storytelling, the teller offers herself as guide to the other's self- formation. The other 's receipt of that guidance not only recognizes but values the teller. The moral genius of storytelling is that each, teller and listener, enters the space of the story for the other. Telling stories in postmodern times, and perhaps in al1 times, attempts to change one's own life by affecting the lives of othersU(l8). For the time the act of storytelling is going on, the teller and the listener are in relationship. Upon reflecting and integrating 49 the experience of the storytelling into one another's life, they remain in relationship- For Frank(1995). narrative ethics is "an ethics of commitment to shaping oneself as a human being. Specific stories are the media of this shaping,and the shaping itself is the story of a lifen(158). Spiritual autobiographical narrative research, then, is a process of 'becoming', both in the present action of the research process itself and in its examination of the stories of the past - The researcher has already ' becomet, in examining how she has 'becornef,sfie furthers the becoming and shapes the future person. Narrative research is a process of continua1 moral decision- making. Judgments are made about which stories are to be used and what they reveal about the characters within them. The tendency is to use stories that cast the author in a morally positive light; at the same tirne authenticity requires that they be interpreted as honestly as possible. Moral responsibility also has to be taken for the impact of the stories on the listener and the implications of the telling for the listener, the author and the other characters in the story. One of my concerns in writing an autobiographical thesis was that it would be viewed as a narcissistic, self-absorbed venture.
I have resolved that concern in considering my belief that womenrs stories need to be told (Gilligan, 1982; Belenky et al,, 1986; Haney, 1994); especially of their experience of spirituality (Barbour, 1992); that narrative expression of my experience would be of value to both women and men. Barbour (1992) states that in the field of religious studies autobiography is a valuable
resource. He says, In theology and the fields of religious studies, scholars agree that autobiography provides a valuable source of theological insights and a crucial kind of evidence of the role of religion in the moral life. While numerous thinkers have asserted the promise or value of narrative for ethical reflection, such theoretical proposals and affirmations rarely lead to encouriter with particular texts(2). McAdams(l993) also supports autobiography as the psychosocial quest of the mature adult. He says, "fashioning a persona1 myth is not an exercise in narcissistic delusion, or a paranoid attempt to
establish oneself as God. Instead, defining the self through myth may be seen as an ungoing act of psychological and social
responsibilityf'(35).
There is a difference, 1 also learned, between what Bachelard
(1983) calls egotistical narcissism and cosmological narcissism.
He speaks of an idealizing narcissism, sublimation for an ideal, in
which "Narcissus no longer says: '1 love myself as 1 am'; he
says, '1 am the way 1 love myselfvf(23). In other words, 1 am 'in
the world' in the way in which 1 understand myself interiorly.
Being is a function of self-love; being is determined by self- love. Recognizing inner value is necessary in order to feel
oneself integral with the beauty of the world. If 1 am able to see my own imer beauty then 1 can see the beauty in the universe and in fact add to it . Bachelard, in quoting Gasquet, says, "The world is an immense Narcissus in the act of thinking about himselfff(24). In a theology of cosmology, Berry(1995) says something similar, "Tt is not that we think on the universe; the universe, rather, thinks itself, in us and through us"(21). I extrapolate from these
statements that in thinking and reflecting about myself and my
experience, 1 am in fact part of a cosmological process; integral
to the universe thinking on itself, and that the thoughts that arise in so doing are part of the universal story and need to be
told.
A Thesis Journev The writing of this thesis has been an uncovering of layers and layers of meaning, of seeking the centre of a life. The
journey is never complete, 1 discover, and in the end the writer has to impose some limitations of time and theme. There's an ironic tension between autobiography as narrative research and the
demands of thesis form and structure. The researcher explores years of journals, dialogues, papers, interviews, literature, to uncover
the governing myth or story of one's life; the myth then becornes
the thematic structure of the thesis and the conclusion of the research transforms itself into the starting point of the thesis writing, as if the answer had been self-evident al1 along! The journey that led me to this thesis on the tension between
ferninine spirituality and masculine authority began bef ore 1 was
born, of course, in the shaping and molding of the Newfoundland culture and particularly of the Newfoundland Catholic culture. It was embedded in the story of my childhood and adolescence and young
adulthood and of my persona1 and professional lives in later 52 adulthood. That story is transparent, however, so integral it is to my way of being in the world. Trying to grasp it is ephemerally elusive. And as soon as 1 think 1 have a firm hold, it slips down another path and has to be chased down once again, The story that evolves is never 'objectively truel,only a fiction, a product of its own making.
The serious academic pursuit of the story began in Foundations of Curriculum in 1991 with the writing of my persona1 narrative- It travelled through the personal images of Dr. David Hunt's courses, the holistic, meditative experience of Dr. Jack Miller's courses and the multiple arts based approach of Dr. Patrick Diamond. There was the continuous presence of narrative inqui ry with Dr, Michael Connelly. Through these courses and these professors, 1 came to consider myself within the dialectics of self -Self, self-other, personal - professional. In papers and presentations for these classes, 1 explored and developed my understanding of Catholic education, pastoral care, administrative roles and relationships, transparency, coIlaboration, moral leadership, transformational education. Consistent themes began to emerge. There were themes of caring, of relationship, of morality, leadership- 1 began to move towards research centred on moral leadership and wrote a thesis proposal. A gender split began to appear in my thinking, I had resisted being drawn into feminist critical theory. Then, in examining my own life and stories, 1 began to become increasingly aware of the subversive gender bias that was present in our culture, both secular and religious. The 53 focus shifted towards the feminine as 1 began to realize that my values and beliefs had been patterned by the way 1 had been enculturated as a female. 1 also became dissatisfied with a thesis topic of moral leadership; it didn't seem to be at the centre of what my life was about. 'Why are we moral?' was the question that required an answer, There was a level deeper than moral ity, it was the level that sought to explicate the meaningfulness of life in general, the level of spirituality. The thesis proposal was revised to focus on the exploration of spiritual development in the practice of Catholic school administration.
1 was still dissatisfied, there was a niggling sense that 1 still hadnlt found the centre, 1 became sure it was spirituality that 1 wanted to write about but 1 realized it was feminine spirituality that required voice and visibility, especially in the Catholic world. Feminine spirituality in what context? What was the tension in my life that gave source to the enerqr of the inquiry? After a period of several days of intense concentration, rereading my stories and papers, a word suddenly arose in my consciousness - and 1 read it across my thoughts as if it had been emblazoned on a banner - authority. Like Archimedes, 1 rnentally shrieked If Eureka! " and with pulse racing sat down at my desk to re- examine my stories in this context. 1 realized that al1 my stories were about tension with authority and that in nearly al1 cases the authority was male. Finally the focus was clear. The centering question had been found. The thesis writing could begin. The research for the writing was found in the texts of my 54 personal journals, notes, presentations , academic papers , prof essional wri t ing, ref lect ions on visual imagery and medi tat ion, and a year long dialogue journal between a colleague and me. In exploring the sources of male authority in which I felt in tension in varying levels, 1 interviewed three men, a Jesuit priest who was my former principal, and the two official lay leaders of Catholic education in the province during the period of the reform movement, 1992-1997. These three men characterized for me not only their professional positions but also represented sources of male authority in the Catholic Church.
It became apparent in Newfoundland that the moral authority for the operation of school systems was shîf ting from its religious roots to secular ones. Because 1 am committed to the Catholic faith, 1 felt this shift in power as personally oppressive. 1 felt an intense interior tension between my growing sense of persona1 spirituality and an external force that was seeking to remove my right to develop and apply that spirituality in professional ways. Most of that tension rose from media reports, both written and broadcast. Because it was practically impossible to review the broadcast material, 1 reviewed al1 of the local written newspapers reports regarding educational reform f rom 1990 to 1996. The CathoIic Education Council in St . John ' s, Newfoundland, had archived al1 of this material and gave me unlimited access to it as well as to al l off icial correspondence between government offices and the Roman Catholic Church regarding educational reform. 1 did not use as much of this material as 1 had anticipated at the 55
outset. In rereading and reviewing it, 1 realized that a thorough
analysis constituted a thesis in itself. Instead, 1 chose several key articles and columns that illustrated the social tenor of the times, told the social and cultural story, and intensified the tension in my life.
Life as Myth and Leqend Approaching the telling of my persona1 development in spirituality in a thesis format was a daunting task. It was difficult to find an analytical conceptual framework that 1 could use to interpret my spiritual experiences. In addition, because 1 was seeking to examine spiritual development from a specific perspective, that of ferninine spirituality in tension with masculine authority, the challenge was even more complicated. Then synchronistically, as 1 was grappling with formulating a rational
f ramework to analyze what many would cal1 irrational experiences of a sense of co~ectednesswith God, a friend proffered a book entitled, The Woman Sealed in the Tower: A Psycholoqical Approach to Feminine Spirituality, written by Betsy Caprio (1982). In it, 1 found the story of St. Barbara, a story analogous to my own, to any wDman of today's world. It is a story that is part fact, part fiction, part myth, part legend, part fairy-tale, part rational, part irrational. It is a story of woman attempting to identify herself in a masculine world. Caprio's analysis is both psychological and spiritual. It is Caprio1s framework that is applied to the events of my own life. The historical life of St. Barbara is noted in Appendix A and Caprio's legend is found in Appendix B. In her analysis of the legend, Caprio divides Barbara's life into four quadrants: Barbara is sealed in the tower, her view from the top of the tower, her opening of a third window in the tower, the completion of the story with her death. Throughout the remaining chapters of the thesis, 1 draw an analogy between
Barbara's archetypal life and my own persona1 experience of spirituality. As Barbara grows in her love of God, 1 endeavour to describe how my journey towards spiritual wholeness has unfolded.
It seemed as if both our stories had mythic dimensions. Bolen (1984) comrnented,
Myths evoke feeling and imagination and touch on themes that are part of the human collective inheritance. The Greek myths - and al1 the other fairy tales and myths that are still told after thousmds of years - remain current and personally relevant because there is a ring of truth in them about shared human experience (6). The chapters of the thesis are not completely congruent with the quadrants as Caprio uses them, but each chapter begins with an excerpt from the legend that has a parallel meaning in my own life.
And so my story begins. The clay is centred on the wheel and begins to spin in wet and muddy interaction with the potter's hands powered by the foot on the treadle. 1 trust a shape will emerge.
We shape clay into a pot But it is the emptiness inside That holds whatever we want. Tao Te Ching Chapter 3 Sealed in the Tower Once upon a time there was a young woman named Barbara- She and ber f ather Dioscorus were pagans, and her father had two causes of concern about his daughter. One was that she would meet Christians, and the other was that some man would want to marry her. Barbara was vezy comely, and her father was most proud of her and wanted to keep her to himself. Dioscorus decided to build a high tower, one with only two windows at the top. He said to himself, "If 1 put Barbara in this tower and seal it up, no one will ever be able to see her comeliness or speak to her about this religion called Christfanity.* And so Dioscorus bui lt the tower and surrounded it with beautiful gardens, and when he had finished it he called Barbara to him and asked her to step inside. She did, and before she could turn around, Dioscorus had closed up the entrance to the tower and sealed it over, leaving his daughter al1 alone in the dark (Slightly adapted £rom Caprio, 1982:6). Introduction Barbara's Eather built a tower to enclose his daughter, to keep her in an "undeveloped state" (Caprio, 1982: 11 ) . He wished to isolate her from the world, control her growth, keep her subservient and dependent upon him for her needs; she was earth bound, The irony of the imprisonment was that in his efforts to stifle Barbara, Dioscorus achieved the opposite, Caprio(1982) said, He isolates her in a dwelling shaped like the earliest image of psychological and spiritual wholeness (the circle or the square), strips her of al1 distractions so that she has no choice but to confront her own nature, and thereby inadvertently sets in motion the process which will lead to both faith and love for Barbara, and death for himself. Even more, the father surrounds his prisoner daughter with another image of the growth that lies ahead for ber, the "marvellous gardens," a sign of feminine beauty and fruition(l2). Whi le misguided, Dioscorus ' s actions revealed a benevolent 58
chauvinism. He irnprisoned her, yet also provided for her; he provided food, care, and safety. He constructed a space and within it, Barbara's adaptability created a home, which can be, as DeCarion(l997) described it, "a place called anywhere", a space to
cal1 Our own, a space to experience "an awareness of our
singularity" (Caprio, 12). ft is in the home that wornen can develop their earthiness and their comectedness to their bodies and to the material world. Caprio described this quality as a
strength that provides rootedness for both the woman herself and for others (13). Caprio contended that there may be a time for tower-living.
"What looks like a prison of invisibility can also be an island of safety, a place of such simplicity that we are forced to develop
Our own inner resources for lack of outer ones ( 12 ) " . The validity of this statement has been evidenced in the powerful spiritual writing of imprisoned persons such as Anne Frank, Victor Frankl, Nelson Mandela, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. It was also true of Barbara
in the legend; she developed her i~erresources, and with the support of others, explored her spirituality. Barbara grew used to
the tower, it became her home, "where she learned of her earth quality, and where she learned of her life's work (Caprio, 1982: 14)". The tower became embedded in her conception of the world and perhaps transparent in her understanding of how life in the tower had shaped her.
My life, in retrospect, has been similar to Barbara's. 1 was not placed in the tower during my adolescence, however, 1 was barn 59 in the tower. As a woman born in 1949 and growing up through the
1950's and 1960fs, my social space and its boundaries were clearly defined. Women's social roles were stable and rarely questioned.
Career expectations were 1 imited feminine service tasks seen as appropriate work for women- teacher, nurse, secretary. My father, my principals, clergy, even the women in authoritative positions in my life, acted out of a benevolent chauvinism and endeavoured to keep me safe within the tower. It was a public world shaped and controlled primarily by men but also by women who exerted masculine influence. As a woman born into the Roman Catholic Church, my tower walls were doubly reinforced. Women have been silenced in the Church from its earliest centuries. We have been invisible, encouragedto do service work and to be the 'help-meet' of man; we have not played visible roles. M. Daly (1994) has said, "Although there have been outstanding 'exceptional woment in every period of
Christian history, their existence has had almost no effect upon the officia1 ideology and policies of the churches"(l21). Pope
John Paul II(1995) has stated that "very little of women's achievements in history can be registered in the science of history" ( 12). He has also said that "Women's dignity has often been unacknowledged and their prerogatives misrepresented; they bave often been relegated to the margins of society and even reduced to servitudet'( Il) , Yet in this same letter to women in which he acknowledges the part icular ' genius of women ' , John Paul concludes his message by asking for consideration of "those 60 ordinary women who reveal the gift of their womanhood by placing themselves at the service of others in their everyday livesm(23). Woman's gift to the Church is still mostly spoken of as 'service' and rarely as ' leadership'. Womants place in the Church tower, like Barbara's, has been one of servitude, acquiesence to the will of men.
Like Barbara, 1 became accustomed to living in the tower and the safety it afforded became integral to the way 1 lived my life.
1 accepted the benevolence of those in authority, welcomed it, sought it. 1 was not encased in the tower against my will, although some might Say my will had been shaped into acquiescence by the masculine influences. 1 wrapped the tower around me and for over thirty years, 1 felt protected arid secure. Unconsciously acting out the stereotypical feminine, 1 chose not to be visible;
1 stayed within the walls of the tower; 1 remained in classroom teaching positions or in assistant principalships to male principals. As Caprio(1982) says, What looks like a prison of invisibility can also be an island of safety.. . ." ( 12). 1 chose to live a story of both invisibility and safety. Or did the story chose me? Could 1 have developed in any other way? Taylor(1989) says that "In order to have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become, and of where we are going" (47). In writing this thesis, 1 developed an awareness of the need to know 'how 1 have become'. How did 1 become a tower dweller? Who built the tower and how? What story was being told that constructed the tower in its telling? What was 61 the landscape on which the tower stood? This chapter then is an exploration of the stories that constructed the tower that was ready for my birth. Because this thesis focusses on my professional life as a Catholic educator, the theme that is chosen £rom the myriad that are available is the one that tells the story of denominational education in Newfoundland and Labrador with its entrenched
religious rights. This theme provides background both for my persona1 story and for the provincial political turmoil surrounding educational reform. There are also two subtexts developed - the counter story of interdenominat ional ism and the unchanging story of the mission of Roman Catholic education. The f ollowing chapter relates these stories as competing 'sacred' stories which eventually evolve into conflicting stories. Two of the sacred stories, the denominational story and the unchanging Catholic education story are the stories that created my tower. In the third story, the interdenominational story, are the roots of the secular story which eventually threatened the tower, causing the ground beneath it to quake. As both a religious and a
secular person, then, 1 was caught in the dilemma which motivated the writing of this thesis. Cuban(l992) says that dilemmas are insoluble and defines them as "conflict-filled situations that require choices because competing, highly prized values cannot be fully satisfiedm(6). This chapter endeavours to illustrate how these dilemmas developed.
Until 1988, 1 had been able to integrate my religious story into my secular story because my secular world accommodated my religious world. While sometimes controversial, the Roman Catholic Church held a respectable place on the landscape; Governmental structures accommodated the Catholic school system and validated our existence. The landmark twin spires of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist sat comfortably on the hillside of the capital city, a religious symbol of a secular city; my worlds appeared integrated. Bubbling beneath the surface, however, were multiple counter stories fomenting anger and discontent, stories that were to multiply and gather strength in their collectivity. Stories that were authored within the Church served as yeast to external stories that had lain dormant for years and now were stirred to new life. Competing stories fermented, enlarged, and ruptured the sacred story of the Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundlsnd. Crites(l971) described ' sacred' stories in the following way, -.-these stories seem to be elusive expressions of stories that camot be fully and directly told, because they lie so to speak, in the arms and legs and bellies of the celebrants. These stories lie too deep in the consciousness of a people to be directly told: they form consciousness rather than being among the objects of which it is directly aware.... Such stories, and the symbolic worlds they pro ject, are not like monuments that men behold, but like dwelling-places. People live in them. Yet even though they are not directly told, even though a culture seems rather to be the telling than the teller of these stories, their form seems to be narrative(295). Cultural myths express the values and beliefs that are so deeply embedded in a culture that they are transparent. The Catholic sacred story was a place in which I dwelt; in both its function and in its religious substance, it was sacred; it was my 63
cultural story and my spiritual story; for me, it was a 'sacred'
sacred story. Others live by dif ferent religious sacred stories
and some hold secular sacred stories; 1, too, am a participant in
a secular sacred story. Some of these stories live quietly by mine, others challenge it, still others threaten to subsume it. A challenge for me in writing the thesis was to examine the religious sacred story, elusive by definition; to shade
transparency into obliqueness, at least. The task was to examine
the roots of the religious sacred story to ferret out the origins of its sacred framework, and concurrently to consider the sources
of the counter stories that came bubbling up to threaten it. This task was synonymous with the larger task of the thesis - to move towards spi ri tua1 wholeness by endeavouring to understand the
competing stories of my own life and to seek the points of
convergence. This chapter, then, endeavours to make sense of three of the multiple competing stories in which 1 lived - two of them being religious sacred stories and the third, the secular sacred story,
It was my theory that as a Newfoundland cultural story the secular story evolved from the religious story in our fairly recent history. The roots of both stories are located in the settlement days of the island and extend before that to the histories of the
couritries of the founders, principally England and Ireland, but also France.
While both these stories evolved and changed over the centuries so that they expanded over di£fering locations on the 64 landscape, 1 also detected the presence of a steady, constant undercurrent of a story that changed little despite the winds that buffeted it about - the Roman Catholic story about Catholic education. Its immutability was pointed out to me unwittingly by Dr. Fred Rowe, the Protestant author of the classic book, The
Development of Education in Newfoundland (1964), which 1 used extensively in the preparation of this chapter. One of the excerpts he presented was a Scriptural passage, followed closely by a 1929 papal encyclical . My mind made immediate connections to the current statements made by Roman Catholic authorities. The story had not changed; the mission of Catholic education has always been what the Gospel calls 'metanoia', a radical change of mind of heart through evangelization; a spiritual expression of religious obligation. This then, became the third story of the chapter, the 'sacred' sacred story. It is not within the purview of this thesis to explore in a detailed scholarly fashion the centuries old tentacles of the narrative roots of these stories. While a thorough narrative history begs to be written, this chapter offers historical background sufficient to place my persona1 experience story of spirituality in context and to locate its origin in the larger cultural stories in which 1 lived.
From the begiming of the history of settlement in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, originally a British colony, education has been embroiled in religious controversy. There has been a long narrative history of the tensions between the Roman 65 Catholic and the Protestant denominations in Newfoundland and Labrador, a story that travelled across the Atlantic Ocean with the English and Irish passengers on the first f ishing ships to work off its shores in the sixteenth century. This story has been well documented in the educational and political histories of the province (Gurin, 1966; Rowe, 1964; Prowse, 1895; Smallwood,
1937,1967, 1975; McCarthy, 1987, 1991). As 1 read these accounts,
1 asked myself, "Whose story is this?". For the most part my composite story is written £rom secondary sources, from historians' accounts of the leaders' stories, for these were the stories that were written; sometimes, in the absence of popular media, they were the only written accounts. The mediating historiari's persona is also embedded in the accounts. My persona is embedded in my account of others' accounts of others' accounts. As Polkinghorne(l988) said, "Historical narratives are a test of the capacity of a culture's fictions to endow real events with the kinds of meaning patterns that its stories have fashioned from imagined eventsn(62). An historical narrative is a test of recognizing how the transparent sacred stories of both the historian and the culture under observation are shaping how the events appear in the history. Genuine historical narrative shapes primary sources or first order events into second order meaning when the order of events is developed into a plot or story line. 1 am obliged to caution the reader that the composite story 1 relate in this chapter is derived through a paraphrase of second order meanings and according to 66 Polkinghorne(1988), "the distinctive meaning (of the original history] ...created by emplotment ...is lost when narrative discourse is translated into paradigmatic discourse as
paraphrasew(61). In this chapter 1 enter the plots of other histories and extract £rom them both first order events and second order meanings to emplot my own stories as described.
While there are three main stories in this chapter, there is also a persona1 subtext that developed spontaneously from the development of the historical retrospective. The personal subtext appears in the intervals 1 cal1 Tendrils. Tendrils are snippetç of stories from my own life, mernories of which were evoked in the writing of the chapter, stimulated by specific words or phrases in the reading and writing. The words and phrases are in bold text and act like a window of hypertext into a plane of personal response. Tendrils are extensions of the stories being told in the history, filaments which curled dom through the tangled events of generations and the centuries to wind themselves into my life.
The Central Story - The Denominational Story This section relates the roots of the religious sacred story of how denominational education came to be established in the province of Newf oundland and Labrador. It begins with the discovery of the island in 1497. Within a decade of John Cabot's discovery of the New Founde Land, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Spanish ships were visiting its shores to harvest the abundance of f ish. While winter settlement may have occurred in Newfoundlarid as early as 1527, it is generally thought that when Sir Humphrey Gilbert arrived on the island to claim it for Queen Elizabeth in 1587, there was already a permanent population in St. John's
(Rowe,l964:5). Because of the influence of the West Country fish merchants of England who wanted to maintain ownership rights over the teeming waters off the coast of the island, Britain discouraged permanent settlement and restrictive measures were invoked to prohibit civilized development. It was forbidden to raise a chimey, for example, and no permanent structure could be erected within six miles of the coastline- Despite the regulations, there was a gradua1 growth of settlements around the east and southeast coasts as settlers dispersed along the coastline to avoid
In 1610, John Guy made the first official effort at colonization - a dismal failure. The constant violent friction between the fish merchants and those hardy souls who wished to establish permanent settlement, "aggravated... by the abundance of cheap rum" (Rowe, 1964: 7), is generally agreed to have been a major cause of delay in social and economic development in the province, although it could be attributed in addition to the historic poverty of the fisheries in general. Rowe(1964) said, for more than a century following [a 1698 Act refusing to recognize the existence of a colony in Newfoundland], the settlers at no time had a feeling of security or permanence, and the growth of institutions and organizations which characterized contemporary settlements in Nova Scotia and the Atlantic seaboard was inhibited from the start. Since in theory no colony existed in Newfoundland, the Home Goverriment could not be expected to concern itself with the lawlessness and anarchy reported to exist there (9). 68 In 1662 the French settled in Placentia on the southeast portion of what is now known as the Avalon Peninsula but in 1714 under the Treaty of Utrecht were compelled to give up this permanent occupation and were granted f ishing rights in the area that came to be known as the 'French Shore' on the north coast of the island- According to McCarthy(l991) , the f irst recorded agreement concerning the education of children in Newfoundland was drawn up in the summer of 1686 at Placentia and St. Pierre [a small island off the south east coast of Newfoundland that has remained under French authority]. "Under this agreement the two fledging French colonies promised to support a priest who would make al1 the ecclesiastical functions and instruct the chi ldren for at least four months of the year" (3). Missionaries who travelled around the French Shore in the early nineteenth century discovered that "...communities which had been inhabited for as much as one hundred years had existed without religious, educational and other amenities" (Rowe, 1964A4).
During the seventeenth century there were several battles between the English and the French and many English communities, including St. John's, were systematically destroyed- The conflict between
England and France was also fought on Newfoundland soi1 after the outbreak of the Seven Years' War and during the Napoleonic Wars.
According to Rowe(1964), the effects of French occupation and subsequent incursions were almost identical with those of the stmggle between the permanent settlers and mercantile interests: retardation of colonial development, acceleration of settlement dispersa1 over the rugged coastline and a denial of amenities and institutions which help to establish a semblance of
Tendril., ., The last audition was being held for the drum and fife corps of the Royal Newfoundland Companies' annual sunmrer long staging of the Signal Hill Tattoo, a symbolic reenactment of a battle between the English and the French in the eighteenth century. I encouraged my musically talented, but unpractised, seventeen year old daughter to try out, "1 refuse to Wear those geeky army boots and hang out with cadet nerds!" she retorted. We had just experienced a year of typically intense parent-teen conflict as she had experimented with 'alternative' music and clothing. Her grades were not good and we were not happy that she didntt as yet have a summer job. Over threats of cut allowances and long term groundings, she allowed herself to be driven ta the drill hall. 1 spoke ta the commanding off icer who warned me that three weeks of practice and auditions had already been held and that the last cuts were being made, unfversity music students being the top contenders, Having gotten her there, 1 decided it best not to tell her that and left ber to audition. Several hours later, my stomach in a mot, 1 went back to get her. Sullen, she got in the vehicle, "So how did it go?" 1 asked tentatively. 'It was the worst night of my life,' she said resentfully. What hap~ened?~ nWell, 1 had to go through three rounds of auditions. First, 1 had to play a piece of ancient old music on a fifemn "Did you do that?" "Yeah, Then Jennifer played a piece that 1 had never heard before and 1 had to listen and play it on the fife by earan Vid you do that?n "Yeah.,. Then he asked me if 1 could transpose so 1 said I could. He gave me another old piece and told me to play it in a higher kepmn "My Lord, Andrea, could you do that?' "Yeah, of course 1 couldR she said testily. "And then what?" 1 asked anxiously . Vhen he said, 'Dunne, yodre in.'' 1 hesitated, nDunne, you're in? Does that mean you have a summer job?" she answered as if there had ever been any doubt. 1 squealed with delight. My daughter wore army boots for three summers after that, adapting well to the cadet discipline and loving the lesprit de corps'. Sitting on the hillside of the harbour Narsows, the site of some actual battle skirmishes, my husband and 1 proudly sat through many enactments of the conflicts between the French and the Engl ish amazed that our 'alternative daughter was wearing the red and naop uniform of an 1824 British aoldier complete with army boots and shako. At aga 22 she admitted, *You know, Mom, being in the Tattoo really turned my life around. 1 made new friends and 1 set new goals. 1 got my life straightened out." ( Reconst ructed f rom memory, July, 1997) It is not known with accuracy when the Irish population first began to migrate to Newfoundland but in 1888, Archbishop Howley estimated that by 1763 they made up more than one-half of the total fixed population (Rowe,1964:16). Rowe said that "the presence of Irish settlers was probably a decisive factor in determining the subsequent educational pattern for the countryu(17). The majority of Irish settlers were of impoverished circurnstances, having travelled to the island to work as servants to the fishing masters. Frequently, they could not afford the passage to return home on the fishing ships at the end of the f ishing season, and remained on the island. Tendril .. . My eighty-two year old father tramps dom over the hillside of the centuries old graveyard in St. Joseph's, St. Mary's Bay, past the now empty site of hi8 altar serving, and stops at a wooden fenced plot. Four old marble headstones protrude through the long grass on the uneven soil. 'This is where your great grandmother and great grandf ather and your great, great grandparents are buriedm he says to me solwmly. He reade the headstones, "Mary Kerevan born County Waterford, Ireland, in 1800. Died December 15, 1884, St . Mary1s Bay; Michael Kerevan, bom County Waterford, Ireland in 1804. Died June 29, 1877. Anastasia McDonald (Kerevan), died September 18, 1917, aged 83, St. Maryts Bay. I remember her saying the rosary in Gaelic, Michael McDonell, born in County Waterford, Ireland. Died St. Mary's Bay. Notice the different spellings of the last name,m he says. "Uncle Mike was better educated, you know, and probably spelled it corre~tly.~Then he points towards the lower part of the graveyard, "There's a baby buried somewhere in that area. My father found it floating on the sea on one of hi8 trips to the Grand Banks and brought it here to be buried, he says sadly, %ut 1 forget exactly where. Mother used to go there to Say her prayers." (Reconstructed from memory, July, 1997)
Without law enforcement agencies, St . John's and other larger toms "became centres of unrest and widespread drunkenness, especially during the winter months" (Rowe, 1964: 17). The resulting tension is described by Rowe: The Irish brought with them their Eear and detestation of English "tyranny-" the English settlers maintained their traditional fear of "Popery," and without making very much effort to get at the root of the problem, regarded the Irish element as unstable, quarrelsorne and thriftless. [Sir Humphrey] Gilbert had decreed that the practices of the Church of England were to obtain [archaic:prevail] there, a policy subsequently affirmed by various governors; consequently the early Irish immigrants enjoyed no religious or political rights- [Charles] Pedley, whose [ 18631 history is obviously biased in favour of the English Protestant group, conceded that considerable persecution took place. Priests were forbidden to some to the Island, and those who did corne, either openly or in disguise, were warned of severe penalties, including deportation, if apprehended (17)-
Frequently denied their just wages, many Irish fishermen were perpetually in debt and dependent upon the whims of the dominant English traders and permanent settlers. While religious freedom was finally given to Roman Catholics on the island in 1782, religious persecution and discrimination continued long after. "Excesses on the part of extremists in both groups made reconciliation and tolerance extremely difficult" (Rowe, 1964:18). Rowe outlined several iar-reaching factors in Newfoundland education which resulted from the conflicting interests of the Irish Catholics and the English Protestants. Because of the relevancy of these factors to the current conflict in which 1 became embroiled in the 19901s, they are included verbatim and at length, Rowe summarized these factors in the following way: (i) Both the English and the Irish tended to segregate themselves geograpfiically, the Irish remaining almost a homogenous unit in large stretches on the Avalon Peninsula. The few settlements that they did found outside the Avalon Peninsula retained their pristine purity insof ar as race and religions were concerned. Even today, in some of the bays which are predominantly English and therefore non-Roman Catholic in population, one may find a settlement that has always been Irish Roman Catholic. (ii) The segregation of Irish Roman Catholics in well- defined geographical units facilitated the creation of a denominational system of education during the nineteenth century, since the Roman Catholic leaders could assert with reason that in so Ear as their claim for separate schools was concerned it would mean virtually no extra cost to the community generally, (iii) The restrictions against the Roman Catholic population may have delayed by many decades the introduction into Newfoundland of religious teaching orders such as had been established in Roman Catholic Quebec and in Maryland. Had there been full religious toleration during the eighteenth century, there seerns to be no reason to doubt that the Roman Catholic Church, in conformity with its practice elsewhere, would have assumed a major part of the responsibility for the education of al1 classes in the Catholic community, and this would have accelerated the work begun on a very modest scale by Anglican and Protestant organizations during that period, (iv) The mutual suspicions and antagonisms of the two groups had adverse effects on educational trends during the nineteenth century and at times resulted in deadlocks or ineffective and ridiculous compromises (17-18).
Tendrile,,, 1 listen to my father's still hurtful story of being refused permission by a priest to be the best man at the Protestant wedding of a Navy companion. My mother tells of being refused absolution in the confession box because she attended a Protestant wedding ceremony without permission. At thirteen, 1 attend my f itst wedding as an invited guest. My best friend' s sister ie being marrled at the Anglican Cathedral. It is my first time inside a Protestant church. 1 wonder, as 1 observe the wedding procession, whether 1 am committing a sin by being there. We have not asked a priestls permission. A sense of the forbidden pervades my consciousness amid the grandeur of the place,
Gunn (1966) notes that geographical isolation "served to foster a peculiar outport insularity and a spirit of exclusive sectarianism'' (8). In areas where the religions mixed, there was "an uneasy state of suspicion and aversionn(Gunn, 1966:8) In 1827, P.H. Gosse, a local Protestant inhabitant, wrote that there was l' 'an habitual dread of the Irish as a class which was more oppressively felt than openly expressed and ... an habitual caution in conversation to avoid any unguarded expression which might be laid hold of by their jealous enmity'"(Gunn, 1966:8). This fear actually drove Gosse out of the province. 'It was very largely this dread which impelled me to oresake[sic] Newfoundland as a residence in 1835: and recollect saying to my friends that when we got to Canada, we might climb to the top of the tallest tree.. . and shout ' Irisbman' at the top of our voices, without fear.lw(Gunn, 1966:8). Tendril..... My father-in-law leads us to the broken foundation of his grandfather's homestead in a small outport village: the gently rolling section of land is eplit at the rear by a ravine and a thundering river. Dick stands where the stoop would have been, and tums to face an imagina- fence and gate. He relives his grandfatherts story. "ühen Grandfather bought this land, there were no Catholic Irishmen in the community at al1. The Proteetants were verp. upset that a Catholic aras on theit land. One day, an angry crowd of men from the community stormed hi8 house, shouting threats. They told him to get out. Grandfather stood in the doorway and held a shotgun. 'The f irst one of ye to corne through that gate will be shot!' he warned them. ûne man moved forward and grandfathes shot him in the foot. The others scattered. Because he was a doctor, he brought the man inside, patched up his foot and sent him home, No one bothered him again." In the silence that follows, the wind ripples over the gathered family and sweeps across the fields to the tiny Catholic church that Dr. Dunne built in the years following. In the garden shed graveyard next ta it, he and hi8 family lie in consecrated ground. (Reconstructed from memory, July, 1997)
Gunn(i.966) draws some conclusions about the reasons for the animosity,
The attitude of the Irish can be traced to the factors which led to their influx, to the pre judices they brought with them, and to the conditions they met and aggravated; that of the Protestants was a response to the reputation of the Irish for moving from docility to individual and concerted disorder. Famine and the suppressive laws against Irish industry during much of the eighteenth century, economic and pol itical unrest towards its close, and the hope of high wages and speedy employment during and after the long wars with the French had stimulated the migration from Ireland of thousands of individuals characterized by a very low standard of Iife and by a decided animus against English law, English landlords, and the English Church(8). Religious liberty was granted to Roman Catholics in 1784, an act which coincided with the arriva1 of the first Roman Catholic priest in Newfoundland, the Prefect Apostolic Dr. J.L. O' Donel It was the influence of this man that quelled an Irish uprising in St. John's sixteen years later in 1801. He instructed the priests who had arrived in the interim to "'inculcate a willing obedience to the salutary laws of England, and to the commands of the Governor and magistrates ' '' (Gunn, 1966 :9 ) . Until the early 1800's building construction was severely limited on the island. By al1 accounts the living conditions up to this time were savage, barbarous, and uncivilized, Rowe reports that , St. John's, during the eighteenth century, teemed with vagabonds, law-breakers f rom Engl and and 1 reland who had corne out to escape the rigorous penal laws, refugees from press-gangs, and the derelicts annually left stranded through inability to pay the forty shillings required for their passage home(20). The absence of law-enforcement agencies, of clergymen and teachers ; the cwnbersome and usual ly futile practice of sending criminals to England to be tried; the long period of winter inactivity and the availability of rum, al1 contributed toward a society in which cultural and moral values were virtually non-existent (20- 21).
Despite the deplorable conditions in the province, several societies were formed in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries to tackle the education problem. The principal ones were: the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; the Society for Zmproving the Conditions of the Poor in St. John ' s; the Benevolent Irish Society; and the Newf oundland School Society. The earliest record of the establishment of a school in
Newfoundland is a private denominational school established in
Bonavista by Reverend Jones, a Church of England clergyman and at least partially funded by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel- King William gave a charter to the organization because " 'the King's subjects wanted the administration of God's Word and Sacrament, and seemed to be abandoned to atheism and inf idelity, and others of them to Popish superstitions and idolatry"' (Rowe, 1964:26). Because this proselytizing mission was unattainable without an attendant ability of the recipients to read and write, the clergyman often became the school master.
Tendril..... St. Patrick's Day, on March 17, was a grand holiday. It usually occurred during Lent and was a day of celebratf on punctuating an otherwise dreary season of prayer and fasting. For days before, children salivated for the candy we were allowed to eat on that day having usually 'given it upt as a penitential sacrifice for the forty days of the season. Catholic schools were closed. Our family weat to Mass early in the morning and were greeted at the foot of the Church steps by cheery recitatfons of nTop of the marninf to ye!'. Around the church door men gathered animatedly in srna11 groups wearing fresh sprays of shamrocks pfnned to their lapels or tucked into the grosgrain ribbons of their felt hats. Women and children wore brfght green satin ribbons tied in bows around shamrocks or anchored by an Irish brooch or medal , The 'wearinl of the green 'was taken seriously . Al1 day long the lilt of Irish songe drifted £rom the radio and from social gatherings in homes and pubs where rum, whiskey and beer f lowed freely. Members of the Benevolent Irish Society with their smart green and gold sashes were featured in an Irish parade and the BIS hall, beneath the shadow of the Basilics, was alive with activity - darts and cards and dancing and singing, At night in the packed school hall there was the annual Misses Hayes' Irish concert, featuring an Irish play, Sure, it was always a grand day and we loved it. (Reconstructed from memory, July, 1997)
Zn 1744, the Society established a school in St , John's and by 1824 had established schools in al1 of the larger Newfoundland outport communities, and even in some of the smaller ones (McCarthy, 1991:4). In the very early nineteenth century, the
Society for Improving the Condition of the Poor was established in
St. John's, setting up two denominational schools, one for Protestants and one for the Roman Catholics. These schools were the first to receive a goverment grant as well as being supported by the contributions of the general public- They eventually became non-denominational and served the poor regardless of religion
The Benevolent Irish Society, still currently active in Newfoundland, evolved into a strong Catholic organization but in its founding was staunchly non-denominational; its principal promoters being Protestant, It established an undenominational school and even as its student population grew and became completely Catholic in composition, it refused to allow religious instruction, insisting upon adherence to the undenominational principles upon which it was founded, Bishop Fleming objected vociferously to this policy and insisted upon preparing children for their first Holy Communion after school hours. Eventually the school came under the supervision of the Bishop and was designated as a Catholic school. When a Newfoundland legislature was established it was able to obtain funds from the public purse along with the Charity School and the Newfoundland School Society School . Historically, the establishment of this school came to have significant meaning. Rowe(1964) said it this way: Nominally it started out as a undenominational school, yet right from the first its enrolment consisted almost entirely of Roman Catholic children, therefore giving the Roman Catholic Church an opportunity to assert its right to minister to the spiritual needs of the pupils. Later the Church put forward a claim for complete control, which coincided with the first educational legislation by the local Assembly, The fact that a grant was made to a school, recognized de facto as a Roman Catholic institution, created a precedent that obviously strengthened the hands of those who later advocated full denominational control over education(39). According to Rowe, by far the most influential school society in establishing schools in Newfoundland during the nineteenth century was the organizat ion general ly known as the Newf oundland School Society. Begun by a zealous and enterprising businessman,
Samuel Codrier, a member of the Church of England, it was widely supported by both nobility and the clergy of England. Although it claimed to be undenominational in character, its teachers were expected to be members of the Church of England. It attempted to
educate the masses, provided well trained and selected teachers, built schools of quality construction for the times and "its denominational bias, if it had one, was not allowed to interfere
with its attempts to give an education to children of al1 faiths"
(Rowe, l964:SO). While the Society ran into conflict with the officiais of the Church of England and also with Methodists, it set
up schools al1 over the island and provided and supported husband and wife teaching teams to operate them. The heroic efforts of the teachers of these schools in running day schools, evening schools and Sunday schools in order to provide learning opportunities for the adult members of the community as well as the children is
Tendril... My childhood friend, Bernice, and 1 stand in front of the Wesleyan Church on the corner of Patrick Street and Hamilton Avenue, kitty corner to our school and we contemplate the building. "How close can we go to the Church without committing a sin?" we speculated, "inside the gate? up the steps? inside the building?- The place was veiled in mystery. What goes on in there?" we wondered. We only knew that whatever it was, it wasn't good for Catholics. Better to stay on the sidewalk and not venture near. (Reconstructed from memory, July, 1997)
With the establishment of the Benevolent Irish Society School as a
Catholic school and with the arriva1 of Roman Catholic religious orders in Newfoundland, the education of Catholic and Protestants became separate endeavours. In 1833 Bishop Fleming was successful in getting a convent of
Presentation Sisters to corne from Ireland and in 1842, Sisters of the Order Of Mercy arrived. The Mercy Sisters were brought to the
island to educate the young women of the upper classes. Their founding school, Mercy Convent School, continued in that tradition until it closed in 1992. Tendleil,, . 1 started school in the working class school near my house. When my brother was old enough, my father registered him across tom at his own alma mater, and the most prestigious school for Catholic boys in the city. At the same tinte, my mother wanted to register me at her alma mater, sister school to my fatherls. My father ref used. Leave her where she is . She' s doing fine, So, in our elementary years, my brother received an upper class education and 1 received a working class education. A lingering sense of inferiority remains. (Reconstructed from mentory, August, 1997)
In 1847, monks of the Order of St, Francis arrived on the island to teach the boys of the Orphan Asylum schools and in 1876 they were replaced by the Irish Christian Brothers. Tendril.... Belvedere was the name of the building where 1 worked as assistant superintendent. It was one of the oldest buildings in St . John's and had had multiple uses. A psychically sensitive friend of a staff meer waited for her one evening in the meeting room across the small hall from my office. Afterwards, she connnented, "That room is full of brown robed figures.= We learned later that the building had housad the moaks of the Order of St. Francis. 1 often wondered whether the dishes 1 frequently heard rattling when 1 worked alone in the building were the monks having tea. (Reconstructed £rom memory, July, 1997) Although their nuntbers have severely dwindled, rnembers of the Presentation and Mercy Sisters are still active in the school system in Newfoundland as are the Christian Brothers. In 1962, the
Jesuits were placed in charge of a high school in St. John's; they still administer and teach in that school. In the larger centres of the province and in many of the smaller ones, the presence of the religious orders was significant and the standard of education and culture they provided was considered to be very high for the times. In 1892, regarding the convent school in Harbour Breton on the west Coast of the province, a goverriment inspector noted,
The more advanced pupils did very we11 in grammar, geography, history and arithmetic. Four of them passed a credi table examination for thi rd grade ( teaching certificate) and the fact that some of these did not seem too naturally bright ref lected al1 the more credit on the ski11 of their teachers, The fine arts are also cultivated here with no little success. There were admirable exhibitions of plain and fancy needle-work, of painting on satin, sketches from nature and other drawings and paintings. In this school a really superior education is being irnparted. 1 found nothing to find fault with and much to be commended and admired (McCarthy, 198734). Members of religious orders were not the only Catholics teaching in Catholic schools around the province; there were also lay teachers about whom the Catholic inspector commented late in the nineteenth century, In the ordinary (lay) schools too, 1 have met with teachers whose zeal, intelligence and tact it would be hard to speak too highly of and who are an honour to their profession, no one could expect to witness greater devotion or under the circumstances, better results (McCarthy, 1987 :54). Rowe(1964) speculates that there were three factors which influenced Roman Catholic leaders to introduce religious orders to the island. There was difficulty in securing competent local teachers; there was need for adequate religious instruction for Catholic children; and there was a need to strengthen the defensive position of the Roman Catholic Church in the face of controversy over education(79).
By the time, then, that the f irst representative goverriment was set up in Newfoundland in 1832, and the first educational bill appeared before the Assembly in 1836, an embryonic denominational system already existed (Rowe,1964:79)- Cathol ics , Church of England, and Methodists were in a position to demand legislative aid for their schools, The new government, however, made distinctions in its policies towards different areas of the province and it was a distinction that was to have major repercussions for the future of education in the province- Rowe (1964) says, Thus when the government decided to accept a measure of responsibility its £irst action was to assist those schools already in operation under the direct or indirect auspices of religious bodies. But in areas not served by church organizations the religious affiliations of the inhabitants were ignored in the setting up of district boards. By this action the government laid the groundwork for the most controversial education issue of the nineteenth century (79). The new Education Act ran into dif f iculty almost immediately- Some of the Boards in the newly defined districts had ruled that the King James version of the Bible must be used in schools, but Roman Catholics, unwi Iling to expose their children to Protestant teaching, would not allow them to attend (Gunn, 1966 :40) . Proposed amendments to the act failed to resolve the issue. Roman Catholics had agreed to the undenominational boards in the Act of 1836 and Rowe postulates that the reasons were unclear. He speculates on one possibility, "It is probable that Roman Catholic agreement to accept undenominational boards was founded in the fear that an uncompromising attitude on the part of the church would have meant no government grants whatever" (81). It is interesting to note that the same pressure exists in 1997. Rowe also notes that another reason nmay have lain in the fact that Roman Catholics in Newfoundland had only recently been relieved of their constitutional and civil disabilities, and consequently had not attained that corporate maturity which would have enabled them to assert an independent positionn(81). It is worthwhile noting that the election of 1836 which transformed the Assembly £rom a Protestant majority to a Catholic ma jority was accompanied by violent conf Iicts between the Protestants and Catholics over the election of candidates. Gunn (1966) reports that Roman Catholics were united in their vote and "clerical exhortation, cudgels, stones and threats had their effectw(33). Many householders were afraid to vote in defiance of the priests and one group of Protestant voters who came forward to vote for a merchant candidate were beaten. The violent intimidation that was exercised prompted the editor of a local newspaper the Ledqer to comment that Newfoundland society was not ready for such a form of democratic government, But the history of the last week or two induces us to think that we have not proposed a suff icient remedy.. . and that however limited the elective franchise may be made, the same evils will abound as long as we have for the most part a Catholic population controlled in their every movement by an ignorant, a vicious, and a political priesthood (Gunn, 1966:34). Because of bureaucratic difficulties with the issuing of the writs of election, the November election of 1836 was declared invalid and another election was held in June, 1837. In this election, the merchant class decl ined participation and the Cathol ic reform party swept the seats; the stage was set for conflict between the Assembly and the Governor . Catholic clerical interference with the election process was evident also in a by-election of 1840 and was roundly condemned publicly. Governor Prescott petitioned Rome for the removal of Bishop Fleming; he was unsuccessful in his request; however, after 1841 Fleming refrained from public political interference. Given the tensions between the religions it is not surprising that the Education Act of 1836 ran into difficulties over the use of the form of the Bible to be used in schools. Still, however, the government favoured undenominational schools and an amendment to the Act in 1838 limited the power of the clergy: Al1 ministers of religion shall have power to visit the schools under the control of the Board of Education. Provided, nevertheless, that no minister shall be permitted to impart any religious instruction in the school or in any way to interfere in the proceedings or management thereof (Rowe, 1964:80).
[No board] shall on any pretence choose or select for the use of such school or schools any book or books of a character having a tendency to teach or inculcate the Doctrines or peculiar tenets of any particular or exclusive church or Religious Society whatsoever(81)- The Education Act of 1836 remained in force until 1843, although there was much controversy over the form of the Bible to be used and whether or not two denominational boards could be set up within one district. The 1843 Act represents the beginning of legislative provisions for a denominational system. Finances were divided between the denominations, schools came under the jurisdiction of the Church that was the major denomination in a comrnunity. In larger centres where there was more than one school, the Act designated which schools were Protestant and which were Catholic. Clergy were given representation on the boards. After 1843, the squabble about denominationalism was not between the Protestants and the Catholics, the latter being more or less satisfied with their gains, but within the denominations of
Protestantism itself. There were bitter arguments and violent reactions regarding the sharing of the Protestant grant among separate denominations, particularly the Anglican and Methodists sects, but also the Free Church of Scotland, the Congregational Church and the Kirk of Scotland. The government had clung to its undenominational stance but found itself in an impossible position, unable to f ind unanimity or to strike a satisfactory compromise. Rowe states about the government of this time, On one point the evidence and other records cannot leave anyone in doubt. That is the government's genuine desire to implement a system that would be in the best interests of the country and at the same time would be acceptable to the several religious groups concerned(90).
In time, having trled any nuber of approaches, the government came to decide that the only workable system was a complete denominational system which became entrenched in the legislation of the Education Acts of 1874 and 1876. In the legislation, Protestant groups were to be apportioned funds according to student population; boards could be established to represent individual denominations; new denominational academies with superintendents were appointed. Much later. the Salvation Amy (1892). Seventh Day Adventist (1912) and Pentecostal (1954) denominations were also recognized to have denominational rights .
Tendril-.-, The Department of Education is developing a new Health program for the junior high grades, It has a strong sexuality component and Department officia18 hope that it will be accepted by al1 denominations, including the Pentecostals, Because 1 have so much experience teaching family life education and in-servicingteachers in denominational situations, 1 am asked to give the sexuality component of the workshop to a group which includes a number of Pentecostal teachers. 1 am always nervous giving these sessions, not only because of the natural stress of presenting to my pers but because of the nature of the material itself, In presenting it, 1 find myself encountering peoplest most sensitive values and secret fears, The groups are nearly always nervous and defensive as 1 begin, This group was no different- 1 gave my presentation. The response was good but the Department off i cial was silent. 1 sensed that something was wrong, He asked to speak privately to the workshop coordfnator. 1 asked when she returned, nIs there something wrong?" RYes," she said, "he thinks your presentation is too Catholic. You have too many references to Catholic situations, "But isnlt that the reason 1 was asked, because 1 had experience in simi lar denominat ional sett ings? " 1 asked. "1 only have experience in one kind of situation and that's the experience 1 uselR Concerned that 1 had offended the Pentecostal teachers with biased Catholic views, 1 apologized in the next session, They, however, responded spontaneously that they were not at al1 off ended. One teacher said, "When you Say tCatholicl,1 just subatitute 'Christian1 in my mind-" Another said, "You can only use Catholic examples because that is the nature of your experience- There are so many similarfties between your experience and ours- Your presentation has been fine and youlvegiven us lots of material that we can use with our parents-" At the end of the workshop, confidence shaken, 1 told the coordinator that 1 would not be available to do any more sexuality in-service for the Department of Education. (Reconstructed from rnemory, July, 1997)
According to McCarthy (1991), "The years from 1876-1895 marked the high point of a rigid denominational education system in which the individual churches - recognized for educational purposes in NewfoundIand - worked in isolation from each other with full control over educational policy, and the administration of their portion of the educational grant"(l2). In the intervening years between the turn of the century and Confederation, there was movement towards interdenominationalism as discussed in the next section of the chapter, and there was a restless peace about the governing structures of education. The new found status of the Church, after centuries of persecution, appeared secure. Brome, a writer with a noted Catholic bias, wrote in 1931,
What has been said of the Catholic Church in Quebec may also be said of the Church in Newfoundland, where despite bitter persecution and the obloquy [abusive and de£ amatory Ianguage] of pavonine [ resembling or characteristic of the peacock] officialdom it now holds an exalted place, and wields an influence that is paramount. The secret of this remarkable change must be sought in the aggressive attitude of its prelates and the zeal of an apostolic priesthood; and its most signif icant feature, perhaps, is a school system which has a centurial record of notable achievement (375).
In the long and bitter campaign that preceded Conf ederation with Canada, the preservation of the denominational educational system was a key issue. In an attempt to gain the support of the Churches in his efforts to bring Newfoundland into Canada, J.R.
Smallwood promised protection for denominational education under the terms of agreements with Canada.
Tendril... In 1949, when Joey Smallwood campaigned aggressively for Neoofoundland to join Confederatfon with Canada, Edward Patrick Roche, the Archbishop of St. John' s, was vehemant in hi8 denuncfation of both the idea and the man who psoposed it. From the pulpit of the Basilica he exhorted hi8 parishioners to reject the idea and to stay united with Britain. He must have been bitterly disappointed when the Confederation campai- won the referendum by a narrow margin of 53% to 47%. ûver forty-two years later in 1991, I watch the news coverage of Joey Smal lwood ' s funeral. He is hing buried with an ecumenical cerernony from the Roman Catholic Basilica of St. Job the Baptist at hi8 request, Representatives of al1 denominations are present. The Church is packed with provincial and federal officiais. "Joey, I muse, "you are a master of dramatic f lourish even in your death. The pulpit that was once used to denounce you now commends your life." 1 wonder if the cbngregation feels a trembling in the f loor as the lineage of bishops buried beneath the main altar shudder in their crypts. (Reconstructed from memory, July, 1997)
When Smallwood and his followers won the referendum by a very narrow margin, Article 17 was included in the Terms of Union, It read, Ln lieu of section ninety-three of the Constitution Act, 1867, the following term shall apply in respect of the province of Newfoundland: In and for the Province of Newfoundlëtnd the Legislature shall have exclusive authority to make laws in relation to education, but the Legislature will not have authority to make laws pre judicially af fecting any right or privilege with respect to denominational schools, common (amalgamated) schools , or denominat ional col leges, that any class or classes or persons have by law in Newfoundland at the date of Union. The rights of the classes of people which were protected under this Article were also reiterated in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms Act of 1982 written to ensure the fundamental rights of a11 Canadians. Section 29 of the Charter states, "Nothing in this charter abrogates or derogates from any rights of privileges guaranteed by or under the Constitution of Canada in respect of denominational, separate or dissident schools ." This clause reaffirms the rights of denominational school districts over individual rights. Under earlier Education Acts, the rights of the denominations at the time of confederation appeared to be as follows: 1) The right to set up District Denominational School Boards to operate the denominational schools of each denomination or group of denominations recognized under Term 17. 2) The right to hire teachers on a denominational criteria, and to fire them for violations of church law or pract ices . 3 ) The right to non-discriminatory distribution of funds £rom government grants to education, 4 The right O maintain denominational colleges (McCarthy, 1991: 28)-
A Counter Subtext - Movement Towards Interdenominationalism While the denominational story remained themaster educational and political narrative in Newfoundland and continued to unfold, a few counter subtexts began to be written, not simply as individual rhetoric as was voiced in the nineteenth century but in the f orrnation of actual organizat ional structures - Goverment officiais established undenominational schools under the Education Act of 1836 but in 1843 were forced to acquiesce to various churches' demands to establish completely denominational schooling with separate funding for each denomination. Various amenciments to the original Act to satisfy religious dissension had been unsuccessful in quelling the unrest and finally government members capitulated. In November of 1890, a group of Conception Bay teachers met in Spaniard's Bay and formed a non-denominational Teachers' Association "mandated to work for the common good of al1 teachers, regardless of their denominational affiliation, and to improve education" (McCarthy, 1991:13). This was the humble begimings of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association which is still currently the collective bargaining unit for al1 teachers in the province, regardless of denomination and school district. In 1895, the Council of Higher Education was formed. It was a non-denorninational body made up of denominational representatives but they were appointed by the government and not by the Churches. It was the purpose of this Council to set the educational standards in the colony for al1 denominations through a common public examination and also to determine the curriculum taught in the schools. In 1903, the Amalgamated Schools Act attempted to resolve some of the practical difficulties of operating small schools under a multiplicity of board. It resolved that,
The governor in Council may, from time to time, and upon the recommendation of the Boards of Education concerned, and with the concurrence of the Superintendents of Education. authorize the establishment of amalgamated schools in sparsely populated settlements where the number of children will not warrant the establishment of separate schools (Rowe, 1964: 92). A follow-up act in 1927 liberalized the regulations regarding amalgamated schools and their number began to grow among the Protestant groups. Sharing among denominations had begun. In 1920, the Newfoundland Government created the first
Department of Education. Educational policy began to move away from total control by the denominational educational authorities; a non-denominational Normal School was established: Memorial University College, a totally non-denominational educational institution was founded. While the Department of Education was replaced in 1927 by a more denominationally controlled Bureau of Education, in 1949, after Confederation, the Department of Education was restored and organized the lines of other Government departments. At first the officials of the Department were denominationally represented but by 1969 had been reorganized along non-denominational lines, Tendril.... While 1 attended MemorAal University, 1 seemed to be able to move away somewhat f rom the need for authority approval. While doing well was still important to me, 1 didntt need professors to af f irm my personhood, for most of them did not represent my traditional ideal, and affirmation from them did not hold much credibility for me. My needs for approval were satisfied by my family and my Eriends. . . Academically 1 did well but learned to settle for second class honours to acconmtodate my active social life. 1 was named to the John Lewis Paton Honour Society as an undergraduate, and upon graduation was gf ven various rewards. The irony of these awards disturbed me even then. My intense emotional cornmitment to my Catholic high school and desperation to please authorities had yielded me few rewards, reflected to me little imaging that was positive in comparison to the accolades 1 received from university authorities who were over-compensating me when I had been only having a good time and hadnlt been the least bit concerried about pleasing them! (Persona1 narrative, August, 1991)
In 1964 the first school to be shared between Protestant and Roman Catholic educational authorities was built in Wabush, Labrador, Although Protestant and Catholic students occupied different wings of the school, there were some common facilities. What was significant was that there was a single school campus for both sects.
According to McCarthy ( lggl), the first big breakthrough in interdenominational cooperation came in 1966 when in a Joint Brief to the Royal Commission on Education and Youth, the Roman Catholic hierarchy outlined a new church policy on the principle of interdenominational sharing. Their position was "that in areas where there is a larger school of one denomination and a number of smaller schools of different denominations, the pupils in the smaller schools should attend the larger school, with provision being made for their denominational religious education" (21). This was a transformation in the plot line of the Catholic educational story -it placed the importance of a better quality of education over denominational considerations (McCarthy, 1991:Sl) for the first time in Catholic history in the province. This approach to sharing was quickly irnplemented and for the first time in history Catholic students were transferred into a Protestant school with the approval of the Roman Catholic Church. Joint service schools also began to appear. These were schools which children of al1 denominations attended but which were administered jointly by both Protestant and Roman Catholic Boards. Relationships also improved between the denominations and between the denominations and the Department of Education and Mernorial University. Circa 1964, Archbishop P.J. Skinner wrote, Here in Newfoundland there has grown up, over the years, an active, positive partnership in education between the government and the several denominations. Because of the harmonious and happy relationship thus established, it has been possible for Catholic children to receive their education in public schools which are Catholic, staffed by Catholic teachers and administered by school boards made up of Catholic members with full financial support f rom the State on a non-discriminatory basis. Through membership on the Council of Education, and officia1 representation in the Department of Education, the Cath01 ic Church, together with other religious denominations, is in a position to play its full part in the formulation of Newfoundland's educational policy. This spirit of mutual trust and cooperation carries forward to the University level, where cordial relations exist between the University and the various denominations (Rowe, 1964~96-97). While not al1 denominations were as content with the system as the Catholics were at this time, and opinions were still divided about denominationalism in general, statements from their leaders in the 1950's and 60's indicated a high level of satisfaction among them. In 1969. there was an amalgamation of the major Protestant denominations in the province under a single educational authority called the Integrated Education Council. The Anglican Church, the Salvation Amy, the United Church [the Methodist] and the Presbyterian joined together for purposes of operating schools and were joined 9 years later by the Moravian Church, Roman Catholics, the Seventh Day Adventists and the Pentecostals refused to join and remained independent al though they worked cooperat ively with them. Simultaneously, newly produced documents from Second Vatican 11, suggested Roman Catholic movement towards ecumenism. Tendril, .. It is post Vatican II 1968. The priest's hands tremble as he raises the hast at the Consecration of the Mass. A group of professors and students have gathered around a small table in a university lounge to celebrate Sunday liturgy. The Chancellor is among them. The unexpected arriva1 of a particular professor is the cause of the priestts anxiety. He is a classics scholar who has written several letters to the local newspapers decrying the documents of Vatican II, particularly the change from Latin to the vernacular, and severely criticizing the liturgical practices of the university chaplain who ha8 been very progressive in his adaptation of the new f reedoms. 1, only dimly aware of the professor's recalcitrance, turn to him during the newly instituted 'kiss of peace' and offer an enthuslastic word of greeting. He is startled, but responds. He disappears as soon as the Mass is over. We wonder if he had planned to protest but was deterred by the presence of the Chancellor, (Reconstructed from memory, August, 1997) The 1991 submissions of the three Denominational Councils [Catholic, Integrated, Pentecostal] and the Seventh Day Adventist School Board to the Royal Commission on the Delivery of Programs and Services in Primary, Elementary and Secondary Education clearly state their positions. McCarthy ( 1991) summarizes them succinctly, The Integrated School system sets no limits on inter- denominational cooperation. The Pentecostal school system supports inter-denominational sharing but not at a level that could compromise the Pentecostal world view at the classroorn level. The Roman Catholic school system supports sharing at al1 levels where it is necessary. However, it maintains its right to sole jurisdiction over al1 Roman Catholic students in al1 forrns of inter- denominational sharing ..-. The Seventh Day Adventist School System favours sharing but not to the extent that it violates the denominational validity of their schools(27)- These positions represent the current position of the Churches as this thesis is being written-
Subtext: An Unchansinq Sacred Story
As 1 noted earlier in this chapter, the journey through the denominational history of education in the province brought me to a realization that beneath the flux and change of the educational political and cultural conditions of the province, there were repeated snippets of a story that did not seem to Vary much over the centuries, It was the story, regardless of age, that the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church repeatedly told about the mission of Catholic education. It was the story 1 heard in the elementary schools of my youth and it was the story I heard as an adult; it existed both pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II, The story is not culturally or politically specific for it is written in papal teachings and encyclicals for application in dioceses around the world, with the acknowledgement that the contents be cultural ly and politically interpreted by the local
Bishops. It had its roots in early Christian times and the understanding of Christ as educator who revealed
. a new and transcendent vision of ( 1 ) man' s nature; and (2 ) the meaning and goal of human existence. This gospel, with its emphases upon the primacy of love, the equality and brotherhood of al1 men before God, the proper development of talents and the exercise of self- discipline, necessarily influenced education, which implies an interpretation and way of life.(New Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol 5, 1967:lll).
In 1929, Pope Pius XII positioned Catholic education in the following way: Therefore let it be loudly proclaimed and generally understood when the faithful demand Catholic schools for their children, they are not raising a question of party pol itics but simply perf orming a rel igious duty which their conscience rigidly imposes upon them- Nor have they any desire to divorce their children from the national spirit and way of lie. . On the contrary, they want to mould th- in accordance with it in the best sense and in the way most advantageous to the nation (Rowe, 1964:96). Throughout the history of Church documents comected to education, the tripartite relationship between family, state and Church is acknowledged and the educational goal of good citizenship respected. Parents' right to choose the kind of education they want for their child is a paramount right within the Catholic Church. [Divini Illius Magistri, 1929; Allocutions to the
Congress of European Private Schools, 1957: Letter of the Substitute Secretary of State to the Forty-f ifth French Social Week, 1958; Gravissimum Educationis, 1965; et al. In Benedictine Monks of Solesmes(l960)] In 1957 Pius XI wrote, The mission of the school does not belong to the state only, but first of al1 belongs to the family, and then to the social community to which the family belongs. The formation of the human personality, in fact, springs primarily from the family; and because, to a large extent, the school aims at the same goal, it is only an extension of the family's action; and receives from the f amily the necessary authority for that purpose. . . On the other hand, to the extent that the school communicates the knowledge of an entire body of matters geared to the exterior activities of individuals, it depends also on the community - on its traditions, its demands, its cultural level, the direction of its tendencies (Benedictine Monks, 1960:561-2). The 1965 Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum
Educationis), a document of Vatican II, stated that the proper function of Catholic school is to, ...create for the school community a special atmosphere animated by the Gospel spirit of freedom and charity, to help youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities, and finally to order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith. So indeed the Catholic school, while it is open, as it must be to the situation of the contemporary world, leads its students to promote efficaciously the good of the earthly city and also prepares them for service in the spread of the Kingdom of Gad, so that by leading an exemplary apostolic life they becorne, as it were, a saving leaven in the human community (Paul VI, 1965:12).
One of the principal goals of Catholic schools is evangelization, the spreading of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and according to Paul VI, "evangelizing means bringing the Good News into al1 the strata of humanity, and thsough its influence transforming humanity from within and making it new" (Paul VI, 1965:ll). When the Church evangelizes,
she seeks to convert, solely through the divine power of the message she proclaims, both the persona1 and collective consciences of people, the activities in which they engage, and the lives and concrete milieu which are theirs (Paul VI, 1965:12). Throughout the ages, then, the message of the Church regarding education has been the same; it is a radical conversion of mind and heart through a total interior renewal which the Gospel calls
Zn 1992, after nine years in school administration and a summer spent integrating the principles of holistic education with
Catholic education, 1 developed my own definition of Catholic education as the evolution of a school community in which each adult and youth is growing together in love towards interior transformation. This is the understanding of Catholic education that will be foundational to the thesis, It is further developed in Chapter 5.
Reflections and Ruminations
Several themes began to emerge for me as 1 examined the history that was instrumental in the development of my personal myth. The Tendrils spontaneously appeared, indicating to me the very strong and visible links to the past which shaped me in ways of which 1 was previously unaware. The tendrils had indeed sprouted around the events of history and reached dom through the tangled undergrowth to wind themselves into my life in specific 97 ways . The weight of our history still sits heavily on the
communities of Newfoundland for some of the reasons presented in the chapter. Because of religious and political persecution,
isolated communities spread out al1 along the coast of Newfoundland, hidden in coves and bays. Because of delays in development, few roads, and inadequate public communication until recent years, communities remained undiluted in their heritage. Community culture changed little, and because local economies have been poor, most of the young folk who left to become educated have not returned. The folk who rernain are steeped in the old ways.
Larger centres have become more cosmopolitan, however, and the old rival ries have abated somewhat , but not completely. The history lives on, therefore, in my opinion, probably more intensely than it would in less isolated parts of the world. Certainly for me, in the spontaneity of the Tendrils, it became obvious that my heritage was still very rnuch operant in my life in muted but influential ways. The presence of patriarchy is evident in my stories. The denominational story in its early days was mainly a story of discord between conflicting churches ' patriarchal structures; the later disagreement was between members of the churches, led by their clergy, and goverment officials, In al1 cases, both the protagonists and the antagonists were men.
The stories above, 1 realized, are al1 authority stories. They are stories of authorities in conflict - between denominations 98
and between churches and govemment. The unchanging story of the mission of Catholic education is an authority story as the Church proclaims hegemony on matters of Cath01 ic educat ion through the centuries, 1 was born, then, into a strong patriarchal authority story - it was both a persona1 story and a political story, created by both the Church and my culture. It was the story that constructed my tower. It was in the interior invisibility and silence of this tower, a place where wornen had no face and no voice, that my spirituality began to develop, a spirituality that was to become identified with my own sense of inner authority, The following chapter begins that narrative. Chapter 4
The View from the Tower of the Transcendent God Nw the only connection with the outside world which Barbara had been left was a basket tied to a rope. She could lower this from one of the two tower windows with ber empty dishes and her laundry, and the serving women of her fatherrs household would outfit it with food and clean clothing for her to draw back up- Barbara gradually grew used to her tower. And one day, due to the kindness of a local Christian who had taken pity on the imprisoned pagan girl, she found a book in ber basket. Now Barbara could read - and what she read amazed her, for the book was about Jesus living and dying and returning to life, Barbara read the book over and over with fascination, and fiaally dared to write a note saying she wanted to learn more about Christianity. She slipped the note into her basket, among the dishes and clothing, and lowered it down (Caprio, 1982:6-7).
Introduction
Even though Barbara is encased in an earth bound tower which seals her £rom daily interaction with the everyday world, she has a panoramic, although limited, view of the world spreading around and away from her. Barbara's father does not confine her beneath the ground, but far above the ground. "As though he is the instrument of some higher power, he creates a home for Barbara that reaches upward and suggests aiming high .,. climbing .. .asceridingo-." (Caprio: 1982:17). Barbara is drawn to reach out to the world beyond her tower,
The basket on the rope is Barbara's only connection with the ordinary world. Hidden among her daily basket of ordinary things she one day discovers a book which opens her mind to the new story of Christianity. Among the ordinary the book is a "carrier of sacred mystery in very homely fom" (Caprio, 1982 :19 ) Barbara is 100 intrigued and takes a risk - she asks for a more complete story - she puts her safety at risk in the very act of making the request but feels compelled to do so. Caprio describes it as Barbara's effort to bring her airy tower world dom to earth.
Most of my life has been lived within the tower of masculine authority similar to Barbara's- It has been a tower of protection and safety built for me principally, but not exclusively, by the benevolent men in my life: my father, my husband, clergy, my school principals, other men and women in administrative positions. Like Barbara, I became accustomed ta living in the tower and the safety it afforded became integral to the way 1 lived my life. 1 accepted their benevolence, welcomed it, sought it. 1 was not encased in the tower against my will, although some might Say my will had been shaped into acquiescence by the masculine influences-
1 wrapped the tower around me and for over thirty years, 1 felt protected and secure, Unconsciously acting out the stereotypical ferninine, 1 chose not to be visible; 1 stayed within the walls of the tower; I remained in classroom teaching positions or assistant principalships. "What looks like a prison of invisibil ity can also be an island of safety..,"(Caprio, 1982:12). 1 chose both invisibility and safety.
Yet, in spite of my desire for safety 1, like Barbara, was intrigued by the view outside my tower and 1, also, took risks to investigate it more thoroughly. The story that 1 felt 1 needed to hear was the story of a secular world undirected by the Catholic
Church. 1 never felt the desire to abandon the tower, however, it 101
was too meaningful and powerful a presence in my life. What 1
undertook were short forays, circular journeys that took me out and
away from the tower but designed to bring me back to it again.
Each time 1 ventured out, however, 1 knew 1 was taking a risk with my way of being in the world, that 1 was venturing into experience
that might not lead me back to safety. The ventures were
compelling, however, and as I was to discover much later, any journey designed to uncover truth becomes a spiritual journey, although not necessarily a journey back to the tower,
The passion and desire to undertake a spiritual journey were
awakened early in my childhood and have always seemed to be driven by an energy that is mysterious to me. My persona1 life, my teaching 1ife and rny school administrative life have al1 been
intensely spiritual experiences as 1 have lived and worked within a Roman Catholic culture and structures. Within that culture, the search has been an interior journey towards a closeness to the
Being Catholics cal1 God but it has also become an exterior journey as 1 have tried to integrate my spiritual beliefs into the workplace.
In this chapter 1 trace my own developing understanding of my persona1 interior spirituality. Zt is an understanding of spirituality that has developed on multiple levels over the years from an understanding of God first as transcendent - external,
omniscient, al1 just and punitive yet benevolent, then to an understanding of a transcendent God as an expression of love. Later, it moved to an understanding of God as cocreative, found in 102 interpersonal relationship; and now is a growing understanding of
God that also includes the immanent, a Being who is present in al1 of universe creation. It was not a logical, sequential, rational development of understanding but rather one that occurred through being reflective about my emotional responses to the situations in which 1 found myself in my own life at various locations on my life spiral. It is rneaning-making that has spiralled slowly through an initial mascul ine understanding of God, to one that experienced God in masculine-feminine completion, to one that now boldly attempts to reclaim the feminine aspect of God. It also became, as the thesis progressed, a journey into awareness of the connectedness between my growth in spirituality, specifically my images of God, and my changing relationship with sources of authority in my life. A reciprocal and reflexive connection between the two appeared. This chapter focuses on my first understanding of God - the transcendent God.
Livinq in the Tower
The tower building began well before my birth as is described in Chapter 3 and was solidly constructed by the time 1 was born. 1 was born into it and, Iike Barbara, created a space for myself inside. 1 have had a loving father and mother to whom 1 was a most welcome first child. 1 have always been my 'father's daughter' garnering early in my life the title of 'Princess'. Certainly my mernories of early childhood are happy and secure; 1 have always felt unconditionally loved by both my parents. As the first child of my parents to survive infancy, 1 have lived out the classic psychological impulse of the first born daughter to make decisions that please authority, first my parents, and later other persons in authority positions.
Pleasing my parents, then, was my primary motivator when 1 was yourig. Receiving praise from them felt very aff irming and gave me a high level of self-esteem. As the years went by, it was the trust that they had developed in me that became important. 1 didn't want to do anything to break that trust, to have them think 1 was anything less than the perfect child they thought 1 was. It was this fear of breaking trust that kept me from getting involved in the common illicit and/or illegal activities of the teenage years or anti-establishment activity of any kind for my parents represented the establishment to me, both religiously and politically. . . .Because my parents ' approva1 was always so important to me, and 1 guess to some degree still is, 1 have found al1 throughout my life and even yet that 1 require magnanimous persona1 affirmation from others, articulated and clear, especially f rom those in authority in order to feel good about myself. While 1 know that the need for affirmation is a fiuman commonplace, 1 have realized for years that my need is compulsive. My desire is to progress past the stage of having such a strong need for external approval and rnove towards f inding affirmation within myself (Dunrie: August, 1991).
Seeking to be seen as perfect exteriorly was comected also to developing substance of character interiorly. Our first lessons in the Baltimore catechism urged us to be perfect in the image of God. 'Who made you?' 'God made me,' 'Why did God make you?' 'God made me in His own image and likeness to love, honour and serve Him in this life and to be with Him f orever in Paradise. ' These were my initial learnings in catechism in primary school. 1 was made in the image of God and must strive for perfection in order to please God, in order to be like Him. This was a powerful directive, Because 1 was already striving for perfection in my parents' eyes and felt that 1 was being successful, 1 figured in my imocence that if anyone was going to please God, it would be me! . . .Sin occurred if people were less than perf ect, if they did something to offend God in thought, word, or deed. My parents monitored my external sins, God saw al1 of my interna1 sins. The notions of God's omniscience was powerful. The image of His all-seeing eye left no room to escape f rom even the occasional indiscretion. It was the all-just God and not the all-forgiving God that predominated my religious imagery for much of my childhood and teenage years, but for al1 that, because I tried so hard to be good and to learn to love Kim, 1 felt 1 was pleasing Him. Pleasing God became just as important as pleasing rny parents (Dunne:1991).
In primary, el~mentaryand high school, Church and schooling were essentially synonymous terrns for me. They were totally merged in the one experience- Academic education was primarily education in the faith and academic success was secondary to proper character formation. Church, school and family were CO-const~ctorsof the tower in which 1 dwelt. The tower gave my life structure, clearly def ined boundaries of behaviour, meaning, and safety. L was secure in my place on the landscape. The tower was already evident in my f irst remembered encounter with the powerful physical presence and reality of God in my life. The following is a story that recounts that experience. This story bas been recalled f rom memory and is an adult construction of a childhood remembrance. While many of the details are no longer clear, the elements that seem to have continued to remain vivid over the years are the location of the incident and my emotional response to it. Concrete details have been added to this version to create a visual image that has enough sensate stimulation to make it clear and also to recapture my reliving of the experience as 1 walk through a forty year old memory. My parish church was on my pathway to the elementary school located beside it. The nuns often admonished us not to pass by Jesus1 house without dropping in to Say hello on our way to and £rom school. "If you donlt drop into the church to see Jesus, He won ' t recognize you when you try to enter heaven, " , we were told. Dutiful child that 1 was, 1 did my best to obey and to ensure Zesus' immediate recognition. 1 visited frequently, sometimes daily or double daily. It was a steep climb up the stone steps which was usually the cause of any resistance 1 rnight have, but even that 1 considered a penance and 'offered it up' for the suf fering souls in purgatory or the waifs we had seen in the pictures of the Holy Childhood brochures and for whom we collected pennies or cancelled stamps, Once inside, 1 enjoyed the sol- solitude of the building. 1 was often the only youngster there; if there were others they were older folks, murmuring the rosary in their pews or shuffling £rom pillar to pillar making the Stations of the Cross. 1 would trudge up the long middle aisle, gaiter buckles flapping, and kneel at the marble rail which bounded the high altar, and rest my wet mittened hands on the ivory stone ledge, On one of these occasions, 1 was totally alone in the Church. 1 had stopped by at lunch-time with a request. 1 knelt down and looked up at the crucified Christ and silently appealed for assistance. In the warmth of the sunlight that streamed in from the stained- glass windows above, 1 became suddenly aware of a suf fusion of warmth and light inside me as well. "God is looking down and blessing me" 1 remember thinking, "He is loving me and is thanking me for visiting him. He is pleased with me," 1 carried the certainty of that knowledge back to school with me that afternoon.
Whenever 1 struggle with describing spiritual experience, the mernories of that seemingly insignificant incident flood back and 1
locate it as one of the earliest spiritual touchstones in my life.
While at that age, 1 can't Say that it was an experience of ''the reality of being rooted in oneness with al1 creation" (May, 1982:29), it was an experience of a sense of oneness with a loving God. It is a story that reveals a profound tacit relationship with divine authority as masculine, external, transcendent and benevolent. 106
There were contained in this experience some of the basic elements which I came to identiiy as being common within my
spiritual experiences: there was a receptive mind, there was the Catholic Church as presence and/or mediator, there was an openness of heart, and there was a visceral sense of God's presence. Spiritual experiences for me seem to be lodged in physical reçponses to heart-mind convergences,
There is a strong sense of place in this story. 1 felt very rnuch a sense of secure belonging in my school and parish community. In writing the foreword of Lane's book, Schneiders says that Lane's thesis is that "the experiences of place and space profoundly structure our experience of self and others in relationship to God,
that is, our spirituality. And conversely, our spirituality structures our 'landscape,' that is, Our vision of the 'where' of
our experience" (Schneiders. In Lane, 1988 :xi ) . This Church was the focus of my religious life for many years and was the location of rny reception of the sacraments of Baptism, Eucharist, Penance, Confirmation, and later, Matrimony; it shaped the landscape for me: geographically, it was integral to my neighbourhood; educationally, Tt was integral to my schooling; religiously, it was integral to my understanding of Church. I was very aware as a little girl of the sanctity of the place and was always a little in awe of the immensity of the straight stone walls, the towering vauït of the ceiling, the hugeness of the pillars, the numinous quality of the statues, the mystery of the confessionals. It was appropriate that rny first experience should occur within the 107 physical walls of the building because for me at that time Church was concretely bounded and had a physical reality, In retrospect, it also seems significant that rny place was on the outside of the altar rails, looking up. In 1958 or 1959 it was not women's place to be in the sanctuary; only those fernales, usually nuns, who were designated as sacristans were permitted to occupy that holy space; girls were not permitted to be altar servers. To be within the Church, yet having our access limited, is still characteristic of women's role in the Church. In any case, "the 'where' is as important as the 'how"' (Schneiders. In Lane, 1988:xii) and this childhood bondedness to Church created a comection and an identity that 1 have carried into my adult years both personally and professiona~ly.
Certainly my understanding of God at this stage of my life,md for many years afterwards, was of a transcendent, masculine God, one who was extemal to me, and required 'looking up' . He was a God to whom 1 ascribed the qualities of my own father, loving, benevolent and only occasionally punitive, Spirituality, too, was transcendent and external. 1 did not identify the experience described above as a spiritual experience because 1 did not comprehend that God dwelled in the phenomena of the everyday world; experiences with him were mystical experiences by saints, not attainable by ordinary folk. Spirituality was not anchored in place and human experience, it was a numinous quality understood by few. As Lane(1988) sayç, "The study of religious experience has frequently tended to dis- ' place ' the phenomena it has observed, abstracting an experience from its specif ic context and cataloguing
a whole theoretical spectrum of religious affectionsn (5).
Spirituality was not yet for me an experience that 1 identified being found in the ordinary, it was still a theoretical abstract. The stone walls of the church that surrounded me, literally, in this small incident were the stone walls of the tower that separated me from the dangers of the world but also separated me f rom the fullness of the experience of God in the ordinary of life. They also separated my ferninine self from the masculine world.
In 1991 f wrote in my personal narrative that:
The recurring themes of my life are Church and family. 1 cannot consider the wholeness of my life without visualizing the warp as family and the weft as the Catholic Church, Interwoven, they create the quality of my fibre and have sustained me throughout the duration of my life(Dume, 1991).
The pattern of my youth and early adulthood was composed of this constant striving for a continually elusive perfection of Christian character formation. The standards for achieving it continued to be external , established by my parents and the scrupulous Church as represented by the members of the religious orders who taught me.
This pursuit of proper character formation, 1 was to learn much later in my life, was actually a form of spirituality, The New Dictionary of Theolosy describes spirituality as "souls seeking perfection" (1989: 972). At various times over its history spirituality has been seen to be attainable only through rigid spiritual practice and obedience to authority and affected a scrupulosity that became endemic to various religious congregations. While f don't remember that we were exhorted to bodily mortification as a pathway to holiness, it may have been the stories of the lives of the saints that encouraged us to kneel on pencils when we prayed or to hold our arms straight out in prayer to remind us of the suffering of Christ. In any case, 1 know a few of us practiced it in the name of sacrifice. Denying oneself emotional or physical pleasure in the name of God we saw to be disciplined and character forming; it was physical subjugation to divine authority. Ostensibly, it was undertaken as mortification in the name of loving God; in reality it was appeasement of the just God, the omniscient one who knew al1 of our sins, It was to stave off the vengeful God that we were encouraged to incur indulgences for our sins by making novenas, attending Mass on nine f irst Fridays, wearing scapulars [a religious badge worn around the neck] , reciting specif ic prayers or saying the Rosary. This understanding of the external powerful God was one that was teinforced in the structures of the school. It was in Catholic elementary schools both as a child and as a young adult that f lived the meaning of hierarchical ecclesiastical levels of authority in which the laity were subjugated to religious.
One day in early elementary school, my friend Vicki and 1 were sent by our classroom nun to enquire about the matter of a f looded washroom. We truthfully delivered a message back to the nun that the lay teacber initially said the matter was "none of her businesstf and then supplied an explanation. Later, we were called outside the classroom door and were quizzed by the principal, also a nun, with the lay teacher standing beside her in tears . "Yes, Sister. It is true that she said that-" We reaffirmed our earlier story. The principal looked disapprovingly at the teacher, We were told to return to our classroom. At age ten, we had no way of knowing the serious implications for the teacher of our reporting her comment, but what we had absorbed already was a perception of the inferior status of the 'lay' teachers in a school run by religious. There was a certain straightening of the shoulders synchronized with a pursing of the lips and a narrowing of the voice that accompanied nuns' comments about lay teachers that communicated to studentç very loudly that they were inferior teachers. The message implied was that it was only the religious who could properly be entrusted to provide a quality academic and religious education. It was this view of the
lay teacher as an inferior being that enabled us to report that teacher's comment to the nun and so give approbation to their self- regard. 1 think we even felt a little smug that the teacher was reprimanded; we felt we were on the side of self-righteous authority.
Years later, as a lay teacher in a religiously run school, 1 personally lived the experience of this inferior status.
One morning late in the school year when 1 was still a very young teacher, 1 was called out of class to the nun principal's office and was told that a parent wanted to see me in the nearby convent. 1 was surprised that a meeting would be held in the convent, but knowing that the school had inadequate meeting space and that the parent had relatives who were nuns, 1 dismissed it as a matter of comfort and convenience and walked over to the building. 1 encountered a very angry and vocal mother who accused me of rnaking various decisions that had discriminated against her child, 1 was taken off guard, was very off ended and de£ended myself indignantly, cutting the interview short to return to my classroom. On the way back I stopped at the principal's office to vent my indignation, naively assuming that she had no knowledge of the nature of the encounter. It only dawned upon me afterwards that she must have known; she was the one who had sent me into it. 111 This story tells of the relationship between lay teacher and
religious organization, of the inseparability of my experience of Church and school . As a lay teacher 1 had walked into a staged
confrontation organized by more than one religious, and none of them. not even the principal of a young teacher, had felt an obligation to inform me about the nature of the parent's cornplaint so that 1 could have been prepared, It was also orchestrated to occur on unfamiliar territory for me, in a location in which 1 had no professional status and in which the power of the religious was pervasive.
The phenornenon that occurred in both these stories is the same. The religious exerted authority over the laity but in both cases, the lay people who were the accusers aligned themselves with the power of the religious and reinforced the hierarchical notion of the inferiority of the laity in religious institutions. It was a story in which we were so thoroughly imbued that it had become transparent, invisible, and our actions reinforced an old story to our own detriment. It was a story paying unchallenged obeisance to external hierarchical authority and to prevailing governance structures. Our human behaviours mirrored our human image of the hierarchical transcendent God of justice, Such was my external, controlling image of God until 1 progressed well into high school.
Leaninq out of the Tower
As 1 became older, while 1 remained firmly ensconced in the tower I began to view the varied landscape outside and to expand my understanding of God, In 1963 1 entered high school, a very large al1 female Roman Catholic school , Almost the entire staff of sixty were religious sisters, My grade nine teacher was unlike any teacber 1 had had before. She was interested in the details of Our personal lives, She stayed around after school and talked to us about life issues; a group of us spent countless hours hanging around her desk and walking her back to the convent. She responded to us as real human beings, frequently calling us at home to let us know how we had performed on a test we were worried about, inviting us to movie nights in the student residence attached to the school or sending us birthday cards or notes to mark a special occasion. In class she challenged us, teased us, rewarded us, and cautioned us, as a group of over-achievers, to live a balanced Iife. She was the first teacher to enter my life to whom 1 was more important as a person than 1 was as a student. Ber rnodel of the professional teaching-learning relationship transformed my idea of teaching; 1 experienced authority that demonstrated persona1 love and care. This teacher offered a confirmation of otherness in the manner in which the term 'mentorr is described by Friedman(l984), The good mentor not only helps the young to find their way and gain new skills- S/he enables them to identify with a person who exemplif ies many of the qualities they seek and through this identification to internalize a figure who offers love, admiration, and encouragement in their struggles. The mentor not only represents the skill, knowledge, virtue, and accomplishment that the young hope someday to acquire, S/he also gives her blessing to the novice and the novice's Dream while conveying the promise that in time they will be peers (167)-
1 had many excellent female religious teachers in that school, extremely well educated for the time, and open to the changes that
were occurring in the Church during Vatican 11. There was a strict
code of conduct in the school as well as of dress, but 1 found myself generally feeling so challenged in the classroom that the disciplinary structures didn't feel oppressive, in fact, they seemed to facilitate the atmosphere of learning that pervaded the school. I very much loved attending that school and worked extremely hard at various student activities, campaigning for several leadership positions, winning some at the classroom level but not at the school level.
In retrospect, that school was my tower during my early teen years. It was an extension of the Church, the structures were hierarchical and the rules and regulations had a masculine quality; however, I experienced a core that was decidedly feminine. There was no gender bias in the course selection and no question that we couldn't do well in mathematics and the sciences as well as the arts and the humanities. Our models were women who had already
achieved in these areas. As high achieving students, in fact, we were encouraged to select subjects that were traditionally in the male domain - physics and chemistry in particular. A group of us sit in the physics demonstration room in front of our teacher who is a nun. We are discussing the merits of studying physics. "You know, girls, a useful thing about studying physics is that it gives you something to talk about with men." We giggle. The brightest girl in the class retorts immediately, "Is that why you studied it, Sister?" Sister blushes. Well, I 've never found a conversational use for physics in the company of men, but I think perhaps the point she was trying to 114 make was that studying physics gave us some intellectual equality with men, an implicit goal of the school, While in those times, womenfschoice of careers was still very limited, we never had any sense that there were choices that we couldn't make because we were female. What 1 encountered in many of my teachers in that school, enough to make a difference in my life, was confident femininity, intellectual competence, a sheer love of their content areas and unabashed joy in their teaching, As 1 progressed through three years in this school, and experienced more enlightened teaching about morality and spirituality, I came to disdain my elementary school scrupulosity as incompatible with both sanity and reason, 1 don't remember a specific incident that triggered the rebellion, but rny recollection is that a war was going on inside of me between powerful motions that seemed positive and wonderful and a code of behaviour that denied them. 1 began to long for some freedom from the old strictures of convent schooling. My old cognitive framework for making decisions became too oppressive; life became too complex for attention to scrupulosity; life's issues were new, magical, compelling and needed to be entered fully alive, not half dead with denial and sacrifice. 1 began to look for another way to relate to God .
As a high schoo1 çtudent, 1 experîenced the educational effects of the confusion over catechesis that followed Vatican
Council II. There was an enormous shift of emphasis away from the juridical towards the pastoral, There was less emphasis on 115 strictures that governed the spiritual life and a turning towards loving ways to respond to man's condition in the world. Sanks(1992) says that the Council initiated a massive 'reversal of coursef(143) £rom the pathway the Church had set for itself at the Council of Trent. He comments on the Council that,
it blurred the boundaries between the church and the world, between the sacred and the secular, between clergy and laity, between pastoral activity and pol itical action. . . - The council moved f rom a preoccupation with certainty and the churchfs authority to a concern for truth, understanding and service. The documents legitimated change and freedom of inquiry ....(143) Indeed, the church had launched itself into an identity crisis and the end of the Council marked not an end but a begi~ingas the Church continued the ongoing work of defining itself and its relationship to the world,
Pope John XXIII, the "improbable PopefT(Gardner, 1995: l66), sought reaffirmation and renewal in the Church's teaching. He wanted to recapture the simpler way, to return to the love that was inherent in the original teachings of Christ. His approach was, in fact, a very feminine approach, one based on the primacy of love, care and nurturance and it endeared him to millions of
Catholics around the world. The landscape outside my tower window was shifting drmatically. In the shift, resisted by the Curia of the Church but welcomed by the laity, catechesis fell into disarray for several years. The traditional catechisms were dropped £rom the curricula but no new texts had yet been developed. Religion classes became more discussion oriented, more l inked to student experience, but wi thout 116 a focus that was apparent to us students. While even the sacred ritual of the Mass was reformed and nothing appeared stable, it became obvious to the laity that the Church was making a great effort to become more responsive to the needs of the modern world. For me, personally, through watching John XXIIIts life and listening to his teachings, the oppressiveness began to slip away and a much gentler God began to evolve, and the primacy of the transcendent just God began to transform into the transcendent loving God.
As much as 1 loved my Church, when the time came to make a choice about which university to attend, 1 chose a secular one,
Memorial University of Newfoundland. 1 had been accepted at St. Francis Xavier University, a Roman Catholic institution in
Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and could also have attended Littledale Col lege, a first and second year teachers ' preparation program operated by the Sisters of Mercy, an option my parents encouraged because it was very close to our home. While 1 might have attended
St, Francis Xavier if other conditions had been right, 1 steadfastly refused to go to Littledale. 1 knew 1 had had enough education in the religious context and 1 needed new experiences . 1 knew it was a risk, because Memorial had been touted as ' godless ' by most of my teachers but it was a risk 1 also knew 1 had to take.
Through the university years that followed 1 bridged the gap between the religious and the secular- 1 became involved in leadership positions in the Newman Club, the Cathol ic student group on campus, and made my initial contact with the Jesuits, the 117 Society of Jesus. This was a time of excitement and new growth in the Church; there was much liturgical experimentation and lay involvement and debate. To be with a Catholic group that could discuss Church issues with faith and concern, and sometimes disagree with official Church teachings, was a new experience for me. The changes wrought by Vatican II felt like a fresh breeze blowing away the stodginess of the old Church. The loving God became a stronger image as many of the traditional rules that bound our lives began to dissolve.
Shiftinq Landscapes
Later, when 1 married and had children, rny understanding of my relationship to authority shifted as my persona1 experience of the mothering role began. So, too, did my relationship to God. 1 didn1trealize how much 1 feared the perceived masculinity of God1s authority until the year of my son Kieran's conception and birth. The acadernlc year 1976-7 was one of the most difficult years in my life. My husband's employment was uncertain, our finances were strained and our second child was born with health problems. The benevolent tower, my 'charmed lifet as 1 had dared to name it shortly before, felt as if it was crumbling and 1 felt naked and exposed. Murdock (1990) calls this period in a womanfs Iife the descent to the Goddess; in my need, 1, too, turned to the feminine aspects of God for support, particularly in the issues surrouriding Kieran's health.
There was very little about my pregnancy with Kieran or his subsequent birth that was positive. He was conceived when Jim and 1 were undergoing probably the most traumatic period of our marriage when Jim fowld himself without a job. 1 had to work until, almost the ltast moment because with only one salary coming in we needed the money, having just previously bought a new house. Kieran was under stress, 1 feel now, the whole time he was in utero and then decided to arrive prematurely. 1 had to have an emergency caesarean section, without my own doctor, and even while 1 was lying on the operating room table 1 was saying to myself, "This is not right- My baby is not ready to be born-" 1 knew this instinctively and 1 resisted his birth strongly. Kieran was born with respiratory problems and during his first night stopped breathing several tirnes. The doctor told me in answer to my questions, "Well, most children survive. " Al1 1 heard was the implication, "Some children do not." To a new mother in a highly sensitive emotional state this was traumatic news, Even after 1 brought him home, he had bouts of gagging and lost weight . 1 was desperate and felt so alone. My husband minimized the problems; the doctors couldn ' t f ind anything wrong with him but 1 had a gut feeling there was something wrong. I don't know how 1 struggled through those f irst four months. 1 would stand over hls crib and cry at night- 1 would get up four and £ive times a night to check that he was still breathing. 1 couldn't leave the house without wondering if he would be alive when 1 returned. Finally, one night while standing over his crib, 1 realized 1 couldn't shoulder the burden of responsibility of this child al1 by myself and it dawned upon me to seek the help of Mary, Anne and Elizabeth, al1 of them mothers. 1 closed my eyes and prayed fervently. 1 felt a peace settle over me- 1 asked them to guard him while 1 slept and that night 1 slept soundly for the first time since he had been boni- And 1 slept weltl for the rest of his infancy (Colloquium presentation text, November, 1984) .
For me, this was a new experience of surrender, but I discovered that 1 didn't trust God's masculinity in my mother's need- When 1 stood at the foot of the baby ' s bed, 1 searched in q mind for someone to whom 1 could pray. 1 didn't pray to God or to Christ as 1 normally did; 1 surrendered to the f eminine aspects of
God, the fernale relatives of Christ, 1 was wary of God's masculine 119 motives, even though 1 had experienced the loving God, Didn't God ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac? 1 was willing to sacrifice for my son, but 1 was not willing to sacrifice him, It was the women 1 trusted not to ask me for that sacrifice. This incident represented a mutation in my own spirituality as 1 moved towards the feminine in divine authority. Woodmari and Dickson(l996) see the Abraham-Isaac story as a radical mutation in consciousness in religious history, They explain it as a movement away £rom the
Great Mother of the earth, who embodies both life and death and demands blood sacrifice, andtowards the Goddess who asks only for symbolic sacrifice (18). For me, however, my fear was not of the feminine but of the masculine. 1 also learned in this incident that there were definite limits to sacrifice. There was no willingness on my part to give up rny son to God, whether God wanted him or not- There was a masculine voice inside my head that chided me for my lack of trust and courage, for being unwilling to make the ultimate sacrifice as
Abraham did, but it was outshouted by a mother's obsessive protective love for her fragile child and a steadfast refusal to relinquish him, This interior struggle, which was quieted in rny prayers to the mothers, was a distorted result of the schooling 1 had received in the Christian obligation of sacrif icing oneself for the good of others, and ultimately for God, This was an obligation that 1 had taken seriously al1 of my life and one in which females have been enculturated O their detriment as several feminist theologians have proclaimed (Shaw, 1960; Daly, 1973; Farley, 1975; Andolsen, 1994) . Later in my professional Iife, 1 was to learn that consistent sacrifice of self for other leads to persona1 non- being and 1 was to rail against loss of self as vehemently as 1 railed against loss of Kieran. From the years 1983 - 1986, while 1 was assistant principal at an elementary school, my husband and 1 both became participants in the training team of The Colloquium on the Ministry of Teachinq, an adult faith development program for teachers developed by the
Jesuit Secondary Education Association. It was a four day in- residence retreat program for teams of faculties from several schools to corne together to reflect on their teaching as minlstry. Teachers attended voluntarily in six to nine member teams from their respective schools, approximately sixty teachers at a tirne.
The training team, led by a Jesuit priest and a nun, met weekly during the academic year for persona1 spiritual development and training as facilitators. It was the training I received in this group that was most influential in transforming my conception of God from a Being that acted primarily on justice to one that acted out of love. It was the food 1 needed placed in the basket lowered from the tower. The image change did not occur without difficulty and the struggle is evident in my notes from that time, Ln my first experience of the Colloquium as a classroom teacher in the fa11 of 1982, 1 wrote,
My image of God is a male father image. 1 think of Him as protective, caring, looking out for my best interests.. . . I regard Him as a source of strength. . ,. , He wonft prevent things from happening to you but He will stick by you through them" (Participant notes, FaTl, 1982) . Two years later, 1 traced my changing images of God in a presentation 1 gave to the participants in one of the Colloquium weekends :
God was Judge when 1 was younger. 1 saw Him as a God who exacted penalties for sins against Him, who punished me with a stubbed toe if 1 sauced my mother or a cut knee if 1 hit my brother. "That ' s Holy God punishing you for being bad, " 1 often heard- God was also a merchant, a dealer; He could be bought with nine First Fridays, or a novena for a plenary indulgence, or $1-00 for a Mass. He would also Save the pagan babies if we sent enough money or cut out enough cancelled stamps- My image of Cod eventually settled on Father - through the mode1 of my own father 1 think - always supportive and loving yet firm in his principles and steadfast in bis desires to have his family remain true to these principles. 1 still see God as in some ways 1 still see my own father as a protector- It took me several years of marriage to transfer these thoughts of my father as protector to my husband because that image was so strongly connected to my dad. The image of God as loving protector - one who is always there, one in whom 1 can have implicit trust is the image 1 want to nurture because it gives me such strength. I now also have another image of God and that is of guide, one who is pulling me forward. That is an image 1: have been developing lately as well- 1 almost see myself being tugged along by Him. Sometimes the rope is so long I'm not sure if He's at the other end or not- fn the past two years my life has changed so much and the events have been so unexpected yet so fulfilling that 1 can't help but feel that He's leading me into unknown pastures and 1 ' m not entirely sure yet that 1 want to go! (Training notes, November, 1984).
In these notes, 1 saw God's rope as exerting a horizontal pull- 1 wonder if perhaps the force wasn ' t downwards , towards earth, towards making the connection between the transcendent tower of absolute religious ideals and the reality of earthly life. My images of God are developing over these years, but God is still a transcendent God for me, He is present to me, yet outside of me; he is protecting me in my tower and he is in there with me.
By 1986 when the training was drawing to a close, my concept of God had moved away from his retributive qualities and shifted towards the loving component. but 1 still conceptualized him as transcendent- 1 wrote in a columnar list when 1 was asked to describe God as 1 had come to know him through my own experience and searching: - a waiting God - waits for me to see his will - a beneficent God - even seeming negat ive events are to his will - a loving God - an expectant God - who expects the best you have to offer - a God who is always bringing me further - a relentless God who will always be prodding and poking my consciousness (Training notes, Spring, 1986).
There were several important learnings for me as I stayed with the training process over those four years. From the two religious facilitators, both pastorally trained, 1 came to recognize the God of love and 1 learned how to move into others' stories, to receive them, and to be non-judgmental about their actions. It was my first introduction to narrative as a medium of moral development. Through reflecting on my own stories and listening intently to the sharing of others, 1 began to make meaning of rny moral and spiritual life. 1 learned to interpret the stories with care and compassion, my own stories and others' as well. I learned a morality based on loving action and relationship and an applied theology that was built upon the life-death- 123 resurrection cycle. Major life transitions were interpreted as 'dyings' and 'risings'; through the pain and suffering of death human beings corne to new real izations and new learnings and renewed
lives. The landscape outside rny tower window was changing rapidly,
but 1 stil1 had some adaptation to complete before 1 could
assimilate the view. In many ways, the Colloquium training served to heighten the moral tensions in my life as the conflicting moralities associated with the juridical God and with the loving God clashed disconcertingly. A transformation that moved me along on my way occurred during
the summer of 1987. In the previous academic year 1 had been involved in writing a provincial curriculum for family life
education for grade nine students in Newfoundland and Labrador. 1
also piloted the material in my own school, the only Catholic school in the province to do so. Throughout the writing of the
course and throughout the teaching of it, 7: found myself constantly
thrown into interior turmoil when comrnonly held secular sexual values conflicted with Catholic teaching about sexual behaviours.
How could 1 teach students about homosexuality, for exantple, in a way that respected the teachings of the Church yet was pastorally oriented towards gays? Row could 1 be sensitive to students in my
classes who mîght be grappling with issues of sexual orientation? How could 1 inform students about methods of birth control, locate their use within the morality of the Church and yet remain
respectful of my students' parents' decisions in that regard? It was time for me to take another foray outside the tower. Al1 of my sexual ity education had been gathered f rom inside the Cath01 ic
Church and it was time for me to take a wider view, 1 ventured forth with trepidation. 1 enrolled in a course in Human Sexuality with the Medical Sciences faculty of Southern Connecticut State University, a distinctly secular institution.
1 needed to resolve the dilemma between the juridical and the emotional, between the secular and the sacred, a dilemma which 1 now recognize to be a male - female conflict over competing systems of moral decision-making, one that is at the heart of moral authority, 1 journeyed into the masculine because 1 needed to know what certif ied sex educators and therapists, external authori ties, had learned in their research about sexual functioning and behaviours. What was the scientiiic ' truth' of human sexuality? The following story relates my experience.
In the summer of 1987 my family and 1 drove to New Haven, Connecticut and rented a house for a month to enable my study at the university where 1 had enroI1ed in an Institute in Human Sexuality, 1 was nervous approaching the course because 1 had deliberately chosen a secular university to study sexuality. 1 wanted to study the subject separately from the biases of the Catholic Church which up to that point had been my only source of education in the area. 1 wanted to know what the 'experts' in the field of sexuality were saying ço that 1 could reintegrate it into my Catholic knowledçe. 1 knew 1 was taking a risk with my faith in doing so, but it seemed to be a risk 1 had to take. One of the modules the class had to complete in order to receive credit for the course was a Sexual Attitudes Readjustment Workshop which was conducted over a weekend early in the course. We were told to bring pillows and sleeping bags for comfort. You can imagine my Catholic consternation when 1 arrived the first night in the program to encounter a room full of beds! Clutching my pillow, 1 sat at the very back of the room so 1 could escape quickly if anyone suggested lab activity! We were quickly reassured that this medical examination room was the only one available and indeed we were not to go near the beds because they were set up for medical procedures. 1 relaxed. Over the next two days and nights we participated in an intense visual and reflective experience in sexual imagery which challenged our assumptions and biases and forced us to reexamine our sexual values. There were tears and laughter as individuals in the small groups shared their fears, dilemmas and decisions. On the last afternoon, the f acilitator who was a University professor as well as an Episcopalian minister and a certified sex therapist, gave an ethical overview of sexual mores. He spoke of Theology A and Theology C. Theology A he explained as the theology of earlier Popes, a theology based on the morality of the act; a theology based on rules and principles. Theology Cr on the other hand, he explained as the Theology of John XXIII, a theology whereby the morality of an act is judged by its effect on human relationship. The two theologies could not be reconciled, he stated, 1 was listening intently; suddenly the source of my confusion was crystal clear - 1 was living out of Theology C but teaching out of Theology A! Wow. .. 1 was breathless with the impact of the learning. I asked, What does a person like me do when 1 live out of one and have to teach out of the other? If they're not reconcilable, do 1 just give up in order to maintain integri ty?" "Non,he replied, "people like you have got to keep trying to pull the two together. It's important for students to know that there are dif ferent, but equally moral ways of looking at things. You have to bridge the gap. " As 1 walked slowly home afterwards, contemplating al1 that 1 had learned, I ref lected on my initial fear but interior compulsion to complete the program. 1 had had such a strong need to know . A new learning then also dawned upon me, and 1 heard an interior voice Say, "Whenever you seek truth, there also you will f ind God. " 1 realized that an experience that 1 had deliberately chosen in order to remove myself from the biases of the Church had indeed become one of my most profound spiritual experiences. God had been with me through the whole program. Tears streamed dom my face the rest of the way home (Personal narrative, August, 1991).
1 also realized as 1 walked home that day that it was the new knowledge that 1 had acquired in the Colloquium process that had enabled my assimilation of the sexuality institute. If my mind hadn't been made receptive by the Vatican II thinking of both 126
facilitators, my fear would have prohibited my learning. Ironically, it was a nun and priest, representatives of the institution that had bound me up in youthful scruplosity and helped build my confining tower, who were the agents of my release and the painters of the new landscape. 1 realize, in examining this transformational experience ten years after it happened, that the initial interior tension was so
intense that 1 had no choice but to resolve it, In Jungian psycho1ogical terms, it was a move at age thirty-eight towards self-actualization, the drive of the Self to initiate a dialogue
between the conscious and unconscious ( Woodman, 1985 :2 7 ) and to make meaning in my life, The tension also had its roots in a phenornenon much deeper than the professional one in which it presented itself. The tension between the theologies, as described by Stayton, was the tension between the masculine and feminine ways of knowing and sources of authority, 1 was living a feminine ethic of care but was working under male juridical structures which devalued that feminine way of knowing and making moral decisions, Schneiders might describe the masculine structures as "the predominance of the intellectual over the affective approach to the knowledge of God" (In Wolski-COM, l986:39). The spiritual and the moral in the
Catholic Church have traditionally sprung out of male understandings of asceticism and justice and only recently beguri to shift towards the feminine. There is an irony in this experience for me, as well. In 127 searching for 'expert' opinion outside the purview of the Catholic
Church, 1 was actually seeking the masculine. 1 wanted data, information, rational knowledge that 1 could reintegrate with the mascul ine knowledge and teaching of the Cath01 ic Church - which 1 already possessed. Why that experience remains so mernorable to me,
1 believe, while 1 certainly didn't realize it at the tirne, was that it enabled me to reach through the masculine to reclaim the feminine in the morality of relationship. John XXIII ' s teaching, gentle, wise and loving, has had a profound impact on me because he lived and proclairned feminine virtues, While Jungian psychologists speak of attaining wholeness through development of the imer contrasexual (Woodman,1985 ; Dourley,1987 ) , in this incident a sense of wholeness was attained by reaching through the masculine juridical structures to affirm the feminine, It was an experience of reclaiming the core of the tower and renaming it as essentially ferninine . The identification of the tension accounts for the sense of the spiritual that was attained in the experience and has been described by Franz, "The only way Self can manifest is through conflict. To meet one's insoluble and eternal conflict is to meet God ...." (In Woodman, 1985:27), In this encounter, one of my central life conflicts had been identified and 1, also, met God.
My learnings that whole summer resulted in a much more expansive understanding of human sexuality and the powerful role it plays in human interaction- 1 became acutely aware of the fullness of sexuality as a gift front God, given to us in infinite variety t0 share in creation. In the clarification of the nature of the inner tensions I was experiencing, the view from the tower windows expanded and 1 caught my first glimpse of the immanent God - the God spiritually present in creation. "A spirituality of immanence .... celebrates the profound religious mystery disclosed in sexuality itself" (Holland, 1989:22). Our sexuality workshop facilitator introduced the class to the notion of the possibility of sexual affinity and a sense of union with al1 aspects of
creation, not just human, but also concrete objects, nature, animals, and God. It was a unitive image of spirituality and sexuality that 1 had never contemplated before- This understanding of God as immanent, however, and sexuality as integral to persona1 identity and as a channel of spirituality was not to be developed for several years. Ironically, though, it was a concept that my youngest son, Toby, grasped when he was only four years old.
1 brought our young cat, Mindy, to the veterinarian to be spayed. Shortly after 1 arrived back in school 1 received a cal1 from the vetlsassistant, "Mrs. Dunne, 1 need to inform you that the cat you brought in is not a female, he' s male! " Embarrassed at our lack of knowledge of feline anatomy, 1 instructed her to neuter him anyway. That evening at supper time, the family was laughing about our mistake and we joked about how, "she was a he but now he is an it!". Four year old Toby looked thoughtful. When the Iaughter subsided, he asked me solemnly, "Mommy, if persons get that done to th=, do they become ' nobodies ', too? " (Persona1 narrative, August, 1991) In his fresh, guileless, and exquisitely innocent understanding of his own gender as an integral component of his identity, he recognized that human sexual ity and persona1 identity are 129 intimately bound together. He was asking if, without sexuality, we become ' its ' and 'nobodies ' , and lose our identity as humans. His question was profound, and even then, his insight took my breath away. It took his mother nearly forty years to ask the same question! The tension between theologies as described by the Eaci l i tator was a tension that continued to stay with me throughout my years in school administration. How could 1 bridge the gap between them?
It was a chasrn that 1 identified as having two perspectives that were constantly in opposition to one another - a morality of principle and a morality of relationship; a morality of justice and a morality of care. Which way was the 'right' way, the 'true' way, the spiritual way that led to God?
This conf lict intensif ied when 1 entered school administration as the assistant principal of an 800 student K-9 elementary school, working with a respected, caring principal. There were a myriad of decisions that needed to be made daily that seemed to demand an overt moral system. 1 suffered leadership crises many times, however, because 1 felt that our administrative team had not established clearly articulated principles of leadership, or a vision towards which we were striving. 1 frequently felt lost in the complexity of decision-making without overreaching principles that I could use as guideposts. Decisions were always made in a caring context (Gilligan, 1982; Noddings, 1984) but 1 quickly learned that care and cognition needed to be fused if a decision- making process was to be not only caring but moral. To illustrate: In my second year as assistant principal, the principal became il1 and was hospitalized. 1 took on the principal 's responsibilities for six weeks. While still brand new in this position, 1 was visited by one of the most powerful educational men in our community, a parent with a son in one of Our classroorns. He was thoroughly incensed by the quality of science teaching that his son was receiving in our school. He had concerns about scientific method, evaluation, instructional strategies, conceptual thinking. He and his wife were quite vocal and articulate in their complaints. The teacher, whom 1 had invited to attend the meeting, was non-science trained, felt utterly intimidated by the parents and responded defensively. Caught in an angry exchange and at a loss as to how to handle the situation, 1 adopted an adversarial stance and defended the teacher. The parents left very dissatisfied. 1 was not happy with my own response to the dilemma (Reconstructed from memory, December, 1994).
Intuitively, 1 knew 1 had committed an immoral act but was unabie to identify why. As mediator, 1 found that I had a limited framework within which to analyze the dilemma. Fmbedded in this exchange were power issues, relational issues, curriculum issues, teacher development issues; a clash of competing ideologies . 1 had no idea how to sort the dilemma or bridge the chasm between us. At the time 1 identified the central issue as z relational one and 1 acted out of my most basic instinct - that of preserving the relationship with those closest to me - in this context, my teacher but also the larger community of teachers who knew that tne meeting was taking place and were watching to see if 1 would support the teacher against the parent. 1 acted out of the feminine ethic of caring (Noddings, 1984; Gilligan, 1982) but 1 limited my caring to the teachers. John Dewey would Say that 1 was deficient in "ethical knowledgefr and that the responsiveness to the situation should not have been merely emotional (Dewey, 1909). Thom (1996) 131 says that leaders tend to commit themselves to a position that
their community will support and that is how 1 responded; however, even rny conception of the term community was not very broad; it was limited to my community of teachers.
Unwittingly, 1 had contributed to the imbalance of power in the school, rather than mediating it, and had reinforced the statement that "school is . . . a place in which the division between the weak and the powerful is clearly drawn" (In Clark, 1990:251) . The lesson learned by the school community in the curriculum of
that interaction was that teachers and administrators were more powerful than parents or students, It was a lesson in immorality.
When the principal returned to the school after his period of hospitalization, he asked me what 1 had learned from my experience
as acting principal, 1 replied, "1 discovered 1 cm do al1 the administrative tasks without too much difficulty and 1 know 1 can
lead the school community, However, 1 still haven't the slightest
idea where 1 am supposed to be leading them." The naked truth of that admission precluded my application for a principalship for many years. Indeed the next position for which 1 applied several years later was another assistant principalship, this tirne in a publicly funded Roman Catholic high school operated by the Society of Jesus. It was in this setting that earlier interior conflicts became so exquisitely tense that a search for meaning became
imperative and my academic search for 'truthf in knowledge began. Just as a priest entered Barbara's life, a community of Jesuits entered mine. Chapter 5 Opening the Third Window: Discovering Cocreativity Somehow - we do not know just how - a priest was sent to her (Perhaps he was transported to the tower miraculously, or - some say - her father was told that Barbara needed a doctor. and did not know enough to question the man who came along and said he was a doctor. , . of the soul. of course. ) In any event, Barbara wae instmcted in Christianity, and one day in her tower she was baptized, Now there came a time when Dioscorus had to be away, and Barbara instructed the workmen on his land to climb up and chop a third window in her tower, She was, after all, the daughter of their employer, so the workmen obeyed her, and when her father came home he looked up and saw the tower with three windows in it. What is thfs?" he roared, Barbara leaned out of the new window and said, "1 have added a thi rd window, father, so that 1 can always have a reminder of the Holy Trinity (Caprio, 1982:6)-
Introduction In the segment of her story above, Caprio ascribes to Barbara a new spiritual awareness and a new stage of psychological growth. She acquires new knowledge, begins to develop her inner self and to defy the authority of the exterior masculine world. Her view of the world becomes mucn wider and her choices are no longer limited to either/or. She attempts to transform the limited space in which she lives as she grows towards wholeness both in her i~erlife and in relationship. Irony pervades her rnanner of education, for Barbara's new philosophy is also learned from a man, a priest, who introduces her to Christianity and to a new way of being in the world.
While still encased in the tower of benevolent male protection in my own life, my story of the assistant principalship of a high 133 school uncannily echoes Barbara's story. These were years of growth towards a stronger confidence in my own feminine authority.
It was a tirne in which 1 began to comprehend the importance of morality in leadership, to discern the justice-case dialectic, to understand how a school ' s leadership became its foundational curriculum, and to realize that when a desire to be moral was founded on justice and tempered with care, a sense of spirituality in the life of the schooi was possible. The power of the phenomenon intrigued me and the roots of the central inquiry of this thesis originally sprang from a desire to analyze the dynamics that caused it to occur, to open the 'third window' as it were. Just as Barbara's desire to acquire new knowledge led to a priest being sent to her, my desire to acquire new knowledge in a different educational setting also brought me to work with a priest. From 1988-1993, 1 served as assistant principal in a publicly funded Jesuit high school in St. John's, Newfoundland, It was during these years that the tension between feminine spirituality and masculine authority became sharply delineated for me. When 1 was assigned to the school, I was still very much working out of a spiritual image of God as the transcendent God, one outside of rnyself. 1 had Iittle sense of spirituality growing out of an inner feminine authority, certainly 1 had not articulated it for myself, In working with the priest principal of the school, Father Leonard Altilia, SIJ., this image of extemal spiritual authority was reinforced for a tirne. Then, as the tension between our perspectives and leadership styles intensified and required attention and reconciliation, and 1 was forced to articulate my understanding of leadership and levels of authority,
1 began to hear my own voice, Ironically, it was his subsequent masculine affirmation of my feminine authority and way of knowing that encouraged me to continue to develop my own voice, This chapter is a chronological account of the tensions that were created in my life in the coming together of two very strong characters , opposi te in gender, persona1 i ty and I ife experience, who, by our assignment, were required to live a shared moral story of administration and who, by our dispositions, came to comprehend a shared spiritual story of mutuality in leadership. The new story was born of the tensions between two old competing stories.
Dewey(1934) would cal1 the tension 'com-pression' and the new story
'ex-pression', in which "the thing expressed is wrung from the producer by the pressure exercised by objective things upon the natural impulses and tendenciesV(64-5). He slates,
An impulsion cannot lead to expression Save when it is thrown into commotion, turmoil. Unless there is com- pression nothing is ex-pressed- The turmoil marks the place where inner impulse and contact with environment, in fact or in idea, meet and create a ferment(66). It was in the ferment created between these two strong personalities and leadership styles that something new was created- Furlong(1994) refers to the phenornenon as thesis (the old story) encountering antithesis (the conflictual story) and arriving at synthesis, a new and larger story which encompasses and reconciliates both stories. She says that this new growth is analogous to "the rhythms of life, like the continuous rhythms of body functions necessary for life - inspiration and expiration, sleeping and waking, excitement and relaxation, extension and contraction1'( ll4) . For both Altilia and me, each committed to the writing of the new story, the 'ex-pression' resulted in a new understanding of the possibility of cocreativity in the workplace and a new cornprehension of a cocreative theology. For me, working in this high school was a rebirth, a baptism. Kavanagh( 1981) characterizes the sacrament of baptism with particular interactional qualities: the individual stabilizes her new identity; this identity affects her faith community; and neither the individual nor the community exists as they had before- 1, and my interactions with my school community, are changed.
1 continued to live safely in a tower of male benevolence, but through the tensions we lived and attempted to resolve, gradually came to a dif ferent understanding of authority and subsequently, also of God,
Neqotiatins the Insuiry
When 1 approached Father Altilia about becoming formally involved in my thesis inquiry, he agreed immediately- There were both forma1 and informa1 components to the assimilation of the research text. We conducted two forma1 interviews, each lasting about one and one half hours. One was conducted in a living room of Loretto College in Toronto in 1993 and the other in a visiting room in the Jesuit rectory in St. John's, Newfoundland- The 136 atmosphere in both was relaxed. 1 transcribed both interviews and sent them to Altilia for review and revision. Only the altered texts were used in the thesis. As the writing of the chapter proceeded, Altilia was consulted and we collaborated on the restorying of particular sections. He was sent copies of the chapter in draft form and was invited to alter the text as he determined. If there was disagreement on a point, we negotiated a compromise and he was offered space, in the text or in an appendix as appropriate, to offer additional responses. Because it was impossible to conceal his identity, he also agreed to be publicly identified.
An equally important component of gathering research text was located in our informa1 exchanges. There was the reflective considerations of countless conversations conducted either when we worked in the school together or in the four years following. There was a steady stream of dialogue on e-mail, letters, and a six month dialogue journal. We read and critiqued each otherrs professional and academic writing and listened to each other's f ormal lectures. We worked together to off er teacher workshops and days of reflection. The trust that we shared in our professional relationship, which was also a persona1 relationship, enhanced the quality of the sharing and furthered the purposes of the inquiry. The writing of this chapter was a collaborative venture, the interpretations mutually affirmed. 137 Connectins inside the Tower When the advertisement for assistant principal for Gonzaga
High School appeared in our local newspaper in the spring of 1988, I responded enthusiastically. The position held immediate appeal for a variety of reasons. The job was a direct link with Church because the school was run by Jesuits and 1 felt very cornfortable with priests and Church, which 1 still experienced, in spite of its male hierarchical structures, as "'a place where feminine values are sanctified' " (Walum, Zn Mackie, 1991:202). It was a safe environment bounded by constructions about the meaning of life that were similar to my own, 1 had worked with Jesuits in chaplaincy at Memorial University of Newfoundland, in parish work and in the
Colloquium on the Ministry of Teaching so 1 believed 1 knew what the clergy expectations of women would ber although 1 also foresaw the conf lict, both interna1 and external, that would result if a woman, for the first time in the history of the school, was placed in a position of authority in this ecclesiastical institution. Historically, the role of assistant principal in that school, which up to 1987 had been an all-male schoo1, was seen to be primari ly one of disciplinarian, of maintenance of order. Given that women, and women-within-the-church are storied in Western Society as being "traditionally preoccupied with conflict- resolving, emotionally healing, integrative and expressive functions whereas men are more involved in cornpetitive, differentiating and instrumental activities" (Mol. In Mackie,
1983 :202), there was def initely going to be conf lict in the minds 138 of the mainly male staff between their perceptions of the role of woman-in-the-Church, woman in society, and the role of assistant principal in that school. 1 feared that for some of the men on staff this would be an unresolvable conflict. 1 knew that for me personally, there would be interna1 conflict. 1 would be in the double bind, "forcing a role conf lict between femininity and leadership" (Lips, 1991:160). My first informal interaction with Father Altilia,the Jesuit principal of the school occurred when, as a prospective candidate, 1 made preliminary inquiries to determine his expectations of the role of assistant principal. In this first meeting, the gender issue was pivotal, He admitted that before my telephone inquiry, he hadnlt really given much thought to a female candidate. His greatest concern was how 1, as a woman, would handle discipline with the boys, especially the all-male grade twelve class. He was expressing the core of male concern about females in authority - how can fpmales exert power over males? 1 felt 1 wouldn' t have too many difficulties, given that 1 hadn't experienced any problems with boys up to grade nine, but 1 didn't articulate the reasons very well. After that initial conversation, I made a decision to submit my application because 1 really wanted to return to the high school setting, desiring both the intellectual and the academic challenge. Pearson says that "we are all working out exactly what we need to learn in this life for our growth and development" (1989:12) and 1 was moving towards what I needed. 1 knew 1 needed a new educational experience. At the forma1 school board interview, it was patently obvious to me that it was the principal, Father Leonard Altilia, S.J., that 1 needed to convince. He had gone into the interview
with the intention that 1 was going to look for the most competent person I could find who had some sense of vision of what school can be and who demonstrated a strong competence and if that person were female, that would be a bonus. .. . 1 really wanted to have, if 1 could..., a person who I felt really confident with and cornfortable with and sensed a competence there who was at the same time female - that was going to work really well (Interview, February 5, 1993). At the official school board interview, at least six staff and trustees, as well as Altilia, were present.
1 sat at a large square arrangement of tables and endeavoured to look calm and composed. Each of the prof essional staff of the school board asked questions in turn regarding district policy, school improvement, resource centre management. Each time 1 answered 1 noticed that they glanced at the principal to note his reaction. It was obvious to me that he was the one to convince. It was apparent that it was he who would be making the final decision- In his turn. Father Altilia asked me several questions, but the one that remained mernorable was the same one he had asked in our informal conversation, "How do you think that you, as a woman, will manage the discipline of grade twelve boys?" I responded with a smile, "1 've been thinking about that issue since you inquired when we met in your office." "1 knew you would have," he rejoined. "That's why 1 am asking again." 1 responded by telling him a story. "My practice teacher in 1970 gave me advice 1 have never foxgotten. 1 was teaching in an al1 boys junior high school and one day he observed me disciplining a couple of students. He approached me afterwards and said, 'Maureen, don't try to use masculine tactics in managing boys. You can't win at that. Use a feminine approach. Be gentle and use a soft word or a touch on the shoulder. Boys are used to aggression and are masters at it. Using a gentle approach disarms them; they can't respond to you in their habitua1 way and you'll get more respect, ' So 1 guess, Father, the answer to your question is that 1 would discipline grade twelve boys in the most f eminine way 1 cari manage. " He laughed - A 1 ine had been tossed and caught , A connect ion had been made. 1 got the job. (Persona1 narrative, March, 1993). Tension over gender and authority was evident between us from the begiming. This initial exchange proved to be prophetic.
Locatinq a Position within the Tower From the begiming of this prof essional relationship, then, the tension of feminine perspective encountering masculine perspective was evident. The sources of the tension, however, were not only between Altilia and me; there was also tension early in my tenure in the school between the mainly male staff and me. 1 had heard reports from several sources after my appointment that the staff were not happy with my selection. It was reported that they did not feel that a woman could handle the primary role of the assistant principalship, that of disciplinarian of the school, especially not a woman who was coming directly from an elementary school. In the few days before school opening, the atmosphere was tense. Few dropped by my office to welcome me; introductions were received cautiously; chance exchanges seemed stony, The first staff meeting on the first day was difficult. Nearly forty of us crowded into the staff room for the first faculty meeting of the 1988-89 school year, It was a momentous year. The school had just undergone a four million dollar refit with an extension added; the student population had nearly doubled and become co-educational in three of its grades, and there were seventeen new staff members including me, the first female assistant principal in the school's thirty year history. The atmosphere felt tense as the introductions were made and the routine business of school opening was processed- Very nervous as one of the newcomers, and especially so knowing that my appointment hadnft been well received, I said little; the principal chaired. At the close of the agenda, just as the meeting was adjourning, one of the department heads asked to speak. He said, "1 would Iike to welcome Maureen Dunne to the school in her capacity as the new assistant principal. I wish her the best and 1 promise her my support." The staff response to his welcome was not enthusiastic. 1 was enormously grateful for his generous spirit. It was a gesture of kindness that helped get me started and it was one that he was to repeat several times in the following years. (Reconstructed from memory, May, 1997).
Living in that tension during the f irst few months was very difficult. Support came from a few men, especially my husband and Altilia and a couple of men on staff, but mainly it came £rom female colleagues, both the few inside the school and many outside the school. They very much wanted me to be successful for all women because there were so few women in high school administration in the district. There were a couple of years when 1 was the only one. It became a symbolic struggle. In striving for success in that male world, 1 worked very much out of a masculine justice orientation. 1 really wanted to be seen to be competent managing the discipline policies of the school . 1 disciplined those students who misbehaved in class; kept the detention lists; developed 'tracking' systems for inconsistent attendance; monitored 'lates' and skipped classes; invoked the suspensions and dealt with the parents; patrol led the corridors, bathrooms and smoking areas. 1 came to know every recalcitrant student. Outside of my classroom teaching, nearly every contact 1: had with a student those first months was negative. 1 began to acquire a reputation for strictness; 1 was not liked by the students who barely spoke to me in the halls; when they came to the office on business they invariably wanted to speak to Altilia, not me- If 1 approached them, even in a casual way, they physically adjusted the space between us and a guarded look appeared in their eyes.
1 didn't realize how submersed 1 had become in this shadow side of school administration until one evening in late fall of the first year when I worked late in my office as I usually did, writing up detention lists and calling parents-
As I sat at my desk, I heard music drifting in from the gymnasium. I realized I'd forgotten that the school band was having a concert that night. I walked out to the gym, took a seat at the back and listened. The band played well and the music was confident and strong. I examined each of the faces in the groups and realized I knew very few of them. These were not the kids I dealt with every day in disciplinary matters. Of the few who were, I was surprised. I realized these troublesome students had multiple dimensions and did not exhibit only problematic behaviours; they could be creative, too. A realization dawned. "There are really good kids and really good things happening in this school," I said to myself, "and you ' re not even aware of who or what they are." I resolved to change my perspective, (Personal narrative, March, 1993)
I started to pay attention to students' creative efforts, become more aware of the leaders in the school and became more actively supportive of the music program. It was around this time, too, that my relationship with the staff began to change and the silent vacuum in which 1 had worked for several months finally evaporated.
1 entered the staff room one day to post a notice on the bulletin board. A senior male member of the staff was sitting there alone. As I stood at the board, he broke the silence. "Maureen, there's something I need to say to you." My heart sank and 1 turned, expecting to receive a complaint. When you came to this school," he continued, "I: was one of those who criticized your appointment. But 1 want you to know that I think you are doing a really good job-" 1 was overwhelmed. 1 blinked back the tears that sprang to my eyes al this unexpected affirmation. "Thank you very much. You have no idea how much 1 appreciate your saying that ,Ir As 1 left the staff room, my heart leaped with gladness and 1 felt the tense knot in my stomach ease for the first tirne in months. 1 joyfully reported the incident to Altilia who celebrated with me. (Persona1 narrative, March, 1993)
After that encounter, 1 felt that my relationship with the staff shifted dramatically and their support for my work became more and more overt . 1 began to feel a sense of belonging in the school, of being respected by the staff and subsequently gaining some authority. Until 1 achieved that connectedness, 1 experienced little sense of authority or spirituality in rny work-
Tension in the Tower
During the first year Altilia and 1 worked together as an administrative team, there were many clashes of opinion and procedure as two very strong personalities defined themselves against each other, in an effort to develop a satisfactory working relationship. The enduring conflict that year occurred over our differing perspectives on administrative roles. There was an unusual irony in the struggle over roles. Through his formation as a Jesuit priest, and through his natural inclination, Altilia came to express his persona1 and priestly mission as bringing Christ to the world. In many conversations, he described an important part of his role of principal as having a pastoral ministry, essentially a f eminine role. His image was of Christ caring for the children; students loved him and he created a strong caring connection between himself and the students . There was little student hostility directed towards him in his authoritative role because he genuinely respected the students, listened to their stories and constantly acted as their advocate. This student advocacy was not always appreciated by the staff, many of whom felt that Altilia was 'soft' on discipline. Some of the students affectionately called Altilia "Papa" and "Father Al". The depth of their respect for him became evident in my third or fourth year in the school. One day during school hours, Father Altilia's wallet disappeared from his jacket hanging on a coatrack in a small inside corridor near his office, 1 did my usual investigative sleuthing and in course, called three different boys into my office independently to ask whether theyfd heard any 'scuttlebutt' about the theft. These were not boys whom 1 would suspect of theft but boys who would be privy to the talk around the school. Two of them adamantly expressed the same point of view and one put it this way, "One thing's for sure, Mrs . Dunne, it was nobody in this school that did it, 'cause no one in this school would do that to Father Al." Sure enough, when the police investigation was complete, and the wallet recovered, i t had been a student f rom outside the school who had stolen it. (Personal narrative, March, 1993)
One of the most important learnings 1 gained £rom my administrative time in that school was a new story of authority in leadership. Learning the new story had its embarrassing moments.
One day, during my first months in the school, Father Altilia called me into his office where he was conferencing with a student and asked me for an attendance and detention report on him, 1 retrieved the information and gave it to him. I stood there uncertainly, thinking that he needed support in disciplining the student who had a history of misdemeanours. 1 started to give an account of the difficulties 1 had had with him. "That will be all, Mrs. Dunne " - He dismissed me. The student smirked. 1 retreated. (Reconstructed from memory, October, 1997). The lesson was difficult to take, but 1 learned quickly that the old authority story of adults 'ganging-up' on the students was not going to be the lived experience of that school, For Altilia, the students were undoubtedly the most important people in the school and he treated them as such. He accorded al1 students the same respect; his office door was always open unto the student corridor; no secretarial mediation was required to see him; students dropped by daily. He made a point of standing in his office door nearly every day, coffee cup in hand, and greeting students by name and bantering with them before classes started in the morning and at dismissal times. His joy in being their principal was evident. They returned the respect and gave him authority in their lives, constantly seeking his advice on personal and academic concerns.
The counter side to Altilia's thiaing, however, was that in his traditional Sesuit training and function in Jesuit schools, the role of assistant principal was mainly one of discipline and clerical administrative paperwork . This was a classic hierarchial mode1 of administrative structures. Altilia's notion of administrative structure was vertical, top-dom, He saw it as a structure in which the authority and the power reside in the hands of the individual at the top and that person makes al1 of the decisions or if delegation occurs it's delegation in a downward direction rather than a horizontal direction and ultimately the person who leads is the final arbiter of al1 ..., [This vertical model] tends to be the model that the Society [of Jesus] works with in its interna1 structure and that mode1 gets translated to its apostol ic structure as well (Interview, Feb 5, 1993). 146 In short, he expected me to do discipline, maintain the detention lists and complete monthly reports. This was not my idea of administration but 1 struggled with this load for nearly the entire year, endeavouring not only to prove to the staff that a female could handle this responsibility and thereby win a victory for al1 women, but also to make the school a better place in which to live and work. It was deadly - physically and emotionally exhaust ing wi th 1 ittle opportunity for creative expression - 1 was so tired at the end of a day that 1 could barely make conversation with my family at the dinner table.
1 was acting out of a spirituality that was rooted in the classic feminine self-sacrificial role - suffering to Save others. It was a role that had grown out of my childhood efforts at self- denial to atone for the sins of the world. Tt also had the more typically male characteristic of "working tirelessly and at whatever cost to one's health or happiness for . . [the] cause" (Pearson, 1989: 100) - Pearson would Say 1 was working within the archetype of Martyr, "not trying to bargain to Save itself but believcing] that the sacrifice of the self will Save others" (103).
This was the sacrifice of the Christ story and perhaps in my feminine version of the masculine role 1 was playing that is what
1 was trying to enact. The role was oppressive and self-negating. There were no positive mirrors. In fact, the mirrors reflected Altilia; be was publicly credited with running a 'well disciplined' school. Spiritualïy, 1 was empty. The poem 1 wrote two years later recalls that emptiness: STAR SRINE
A collapsing star Sinking in upon itself With the give of constant shine Expiring with light released and other-absorbed. tight - its reason for being, Rays undirected, uncontrolled, Unfaltering, unf ailing, Arching in a steady course across the heavens, Energy expended, energy demanded, Fa1 ling stars burn out. Imploded star - mysterious vortex In the fabric of space - Death ... creating a new passage To undiscovered worlds. Self-immolating, a star Celebrates the sacrifice. (June, 1991)
1 was self-immolating but 1 wasn't celebrating the sacrifice. It was the common feminine religious understanding of self-sacrifice of which feminist theologians are sceptical. Daly (1973) alleged, There has been a theoretical one sided emphasis upon charity, meekness, obedience, humility, self-abnegation, sacrifice, service, Part of the problem with this moral ideology is that it became accepted not by men, but by women, who hardly have been helped by an ethic which reinforces the abject female situation ( In Andolsen, 1994: 152) - Andolsen adds, "Men have espoused an ethic which they did not practice: women have practiced it to their detriment" (152). Towards the end of the first year, Altilia and 1 formally assessed the interplay of our administrative roles.
At my request, Altilia and 1 met one evening in his office late in the school year. 1 had a decision to rnake regarding my administrative placement for the following academic year. My options were to stay at the high school for another year or return to my former position. 1 really wanted to stay in the high school but the weight of the disciplinary routines was crushing me- In that meeting, 1 drew a metaphor between our administrative partnership and parenting- ''1 feel, Father, that we are the parents of our school, in a sense mother and father to al1 our students. In a balanced f ami ly relat ionship, neither parent leaves al1 the discipline and negativity to the other, they share the joys and the difficulties together. You can't delegate your share of the disciplinary responsibilityto me because you own it as well as 1 do and you do not have the right to give it away." When 1 finished, he thought for a Pew moments, then leaned back in his swivel chair and said, "Nobody explained it quite that way before. You're right," We agreed that the following year we would divide the disciplinary routines of the school* We negotiated my return, The next moming 1 checked with him, "Are you still okay with the decisions we made last night?" "1 am very content with them, " he replied. I called the school board and told them 1 would be staying, (Persona1 narrative, March, 1993 ) It was at this point that our professional level of intimacy moved from surface contact to a minor intersection of mutuality (Levinger, 1977:4). Altilia reported several years later that the conversation was significant. "[ZtJ was actually a very critical insight for sense what role was ; that was important. was mother-f ather relationship this institution ... and couldn't have mother and father pitted against each other"
( Interview, June 21, 1997 ) . The linear hierarchical authority structure was beginning to realign itself. 1 stopped addressing
Altilia as "Father" and began to cal1 him Len. The masculine and feminine stories in this f irst year were strangely contradictory. Altilia played the feminine process role of caring but played it within a male, clerical, hierarchical conceptual framework of school administration. Although female, 1 149 played a traditionally masculine juridical role within the same
f ramework, a role and a context within which my feminine spirit was imprisoned, 1 felt completely oppressed in the power of the masculine strength in that story and in working out of the shadow
side of my personality and began to assert myself by creating a feminine space in which I could breathe more freely- This space took the form of a school pastoral team - a forma1 structure to facilitate caring relations - the feminine attribute that I felt was missing. While Altilia had created a clear vision for the school and established efficient administrative routines, had developed caring comections between himself and the students, and was undisputedly
the 'head' of the school, 1 felt during the first year, to use Sergiovanni's (1992) terms, that the 'heart' was missing. I cannot recall a singular incident that illustrates this feeling but 1
remember that 1 didn't feel 1 was in caring comection with anyone; few people dropped by the office to have an informal chat or to
socialize. 1 missed the inclusive community of the elementary school where the teachers had made conscious efforts to support and
include me, not only in their professional activities but also in the social aspects. There was an affective emptiness in the
school, 1 felt, and the patterns of caring were linear; I felt
there was no sense of interconnected wholeness in the school
community. 1 hoped that the work of the pastoral team would address that def iciency and infuse an explicit caring Christian environment in the school- A initial group of six Iay persons, 150 joined later by some of the Jesuits, monitored community outreach, retreat and liturgical programs and was committed to the caring ethic. In the begiming we went about developing relatedness among students and teachers without a technical-rational blueprint. It was guided by a strong intuitive sense of the destination but was more of an artistic than a scientific expedition. Noddings(1992) says that "caring cannot be achieved by formula; it requires address and response ; it requires different behaviours from situation to situation and person to personn(xi), Caring requires response in the moment. We learned that foundational lesson in a most dramatic way when our school experienced a terrible tragedy when three teenagers were killed in a traffic accident. Two of the students and the lone survivor were our students. This story is recounted in Chapter 2 (pp. 38-9). It was the pastoral team that planned and directed the three-day school response. Students were given permission to grieve and to express that grief in active, caring and responsible ways, supported by the adults in their school community. Seven years later, one of the students present during that time recounted the experience for the Minister of Education in a public forum on schooI reform, saying that he remembered "how our school came even closer together after this tragedy" because it had responded "as a familyn (Kum, 1996:S).
During that second year Altilia and 1 reorganized administrative responsibilities; be took on half of the responsibil ity for discipline; 1 took on the reorganization of special services in the school. We each carved out areas of the school's operation for which we felt we could apply uniquely individual talents and abilities, yet remain interactive with each other- We moved into a deeper level of mutuality - the major intersection (Levinger, 1977:4). Altilia described the process in the following way:
1 can't point to a moment that says okay now, this is the time that we really started to go for it. But there was a transitional process going on there, where we began to see a shift from the vertical to the horizonal but it was a gradua1 shifting, it wasn' t an abrupt change. 1 think Lit was ] beyond the first year certainly, and if not well into the second year when we began to arrive at a sense or' mutuality in the process ( Interview, February 5, 1993). Despite the masculine and feminine differences, the mutuality
was growing out of our similar notions of what school ought to be about, even though our previous experiences and life perspectives were very different. Kelly's Corollary of Commonality explains this phenomenon-
This corollary makes it possible to Say that two persons who have conf ronted quite dif ferent events, and who might have gone through experiential cycles which actually seem to us to be quite dif ferent, might nevertheless end up with similar const~ctionsof their experiences, and, because of that, thereafter pursue pçychologicalIy similar process of further inguiry (Kelly, 1970:22). Now we experienced the same events and developed similar
constructions, not only about the events but about the processes by which we reached new conclusions about them. The quality that we held in common was our passion for good schooling and in particular for good Catholic schooling. It was this quality that transcended the challenges we each found in working with the other. Each of us had brought to our working relat ionship ferocious drive and commi tment . Finding that similarity in the other provided a solid foundational construct that carried us through confrontation and disagreement. Altilia
1 think the confrontations were critical moments in the whole process [but]. . .you demonstrated to me that you really were passionately committed to the school at least as much if not more than myself because 1 am passionately committed to school , as you know . . . - Having sensed the passion that you brought and having sensed the desire to make things better, and the strong support because no matter how often you got mad at me, there was always that underlying commitment and sense of purpose that was there that gave me the sense that this wasn't just a question of antagonism. This was a movement towards something new.. . . we were working together and we were doing what we could do to y to make this a better schooI (Interview, February 5, 1993). The support to which Altilia referred was born from my
feminine ethic of caring; in Noddings'(1984) terms, 1 was the 'one-caring' and he and the school were the 'cared for'. This is a feminine moral ethic, its foundation is relational. Woman "define themselves in terms of caring and work their way through moral problems from the position of one-caring" (Noddings, 1984 :8 ) . 1 cared about the individuals in the school and tried to anticipate their needs, their expectations of me, their points of view. In al1 of these instances, 1 acted not out of principle so much as
"affection and regard" (Noddings, 1984:24). While Altilia cared very deeply about the school and the students within it, his caring seem to grow more out of the masculine rational-objective ethic. It had its limits and its boundaries, while my feminine emotional-subjective ethic didn't seem to have any. 1 had succumbed to the conditioned feminine role of self-sacrifice and living for others. While 1 had yet to understand intellectually the need to grow through heteronomy to autonomy in spiritual development, intuitively 1 knew that something was wrong and interna1 tension was increasing.
Dark Shadows in the Tower: Counterins the Social Narrative Despite our efforts to remain responsive to each othet and to become increasingly collaborative in our decision-making, several incidents occurred which deinonstrated that Altilia and 1 were continuing to live out of our old stories. Personal and social narratives of experience "weave a matrix of storied influence over one another" (Clandinin and Connelly,1995:27), The socio-cultural conditions of the school perpetrated the traditional masculine- feminine split of duties and responsibilities- Students continued to bypass me to speak to Altilia on matters of importance, Parents usually wanted to speak to him, not me, even when 1 had initiated the contact.
One semester 1 noticed that a particular male student was beginning to appear frequently on late lists and detention lists for skipping classes- 1 investigated, did a profile of attendance, spoke to al1 his teachers regarding his academic performance and called home and spoke to his mother to voice my concerns and ask the parents to come to the school so we could discuss his situation. His mother replied that she would speak to her husband, a successful businessrnari, and get back to me. The next day, Altilia met me in the hallway and told me the family had called and asked him for an appointment, "Do you know what thatts about?" he asked- "Yes, 1 do, " I said. 1 passed him the carefully gathered file. (Reconstructed from memory, May, 1997) 1 felt hurt, diminished, and slighted by the parents' passing by of me and proceeding to the principal, 1 had called because 1 had found their son several times on the back lot when he should have been in class, because 1 had noticed his distractibility and because 1 cared about him - he was a student who had a lot of potential and certainly strong family support . Why did the parents cal1 Altilia and not me? 1 speculated on al1 sort of reasons - do successful businessmen not speak to the second in charge? Do they not deal with women if they can deal with a man? Was it my reputation in the school as disciplinarian? Did they think me unreasonable? Was it because Altilia was priest and they could expect a kind, pastoral approach? Did they perceive him to be more authoritative and effective than I? Whatever it was, 1 felt obliterated- 1 made no effort to counter the story, however, 1 succumbed to it, making no request to participate in the meeting. Altilia interpreted the incident this way, 1 don't know that any more should be ascribed to it than the common perception that the principal is the person you talk to with your problems.. . . 1 don't think that people made a conscious decision to talk to Father Altilia instead of Mrs, Dune.... Who's the principal? I've got to talk to him, or her, as the case might be. So 1 suspect a lot of it, because Newfoundland is a very traditional society that way. . .. Newf oundland society is very much caught up in those traditional understandings of authority and structure, hierarchy and al1 that sort of thing. So people identify with that structure very, very closely (Interview, June 21, 1997). Altilia attributes the response to the parents' living out a learned social narrative and therefore not meant to offend; for me, the entîre narrative was offensive and its implicit assumptions about either women or the second-in-charge or both were unacceptable-
Sometimes, even when he was endeavouring to be equalitarian, Altilia also obliterated me. When the pressure was on, he acted out of his old social narrative and 1 disappeared into the edges of his perception as well . 1 don't think that his exclusion of me was conscious; it was an implicit acting out of his sense of the non- being of women and/or vice-principals as he had absorbed it in his celibate formation and his schooling in the administration of
Jesuit hi gh schoo 1S. The following story illustrates one occurrence of this response. One day, two teachers who had been on duty came to me to cornplain about the behaviour of a student and to demand that disciplinary action be taken. The three of us consulted the principal who agreed that the student ought to be suspended* "Will you make the cal1 home or will I?" 1 asked. "You do it", he replied, My heart sank, 1 knew this was not going to be easy. 1 called home and delivered the news to the parents who became very upset- They didn't think the suspension was warranted. The father came to the school to collect his child. 1 intercepted him in the hall and asked him to corne into my office so we could have a conversation. V'm not interested in talking to you,", he retorted angrily and kept moving past me. 1 went into Altilia's office and told him 1 needed help handling this parent. He went to get him. 1 was standing in the frame of his exterior office door, waiting for hirn to return when, with the parent, he re- entered his office y an interior hallway. 1 was answering a student ' s question when unexpectedly Al til ia closed the door behind my back, I was left outside in the corridor. 1 could hear the voices within, Humiliated, 1 returned to my office. 1 was livid, but 1 was more angry with Altilia than 1 was with the parent. 1 hadn't asked him to handle the crisis for me, 1 had asked him to handle it with me. When the parent emerged, Altilia came into my office to tell me what had transpired, oblivious to my perceived sleight. "What's this," 1 asked angrily, "the two big men have a conversation and leave the bitchy little woman outside the door? The two men are going to solve the problem and leave the little woman out of it?" Startled by my reaction, he defended himself , "But he didnlt want to talk to you." "And you let him get away with that?" 1 retorted. "We made the decision to suspend together and then you make it look like my bitchiness is at fault?" Altilia was mystified by rny reaction. "That's not the way it was at allan (Reconstructed from memory, May, 1997)
When 1 retell this story to reconstruct its meaning, I still experience an emotional reaction; my face flushes, my heartbeat quickens and the anger rises once again, even six or seven years
later. 1 attribute my response to the sense of feeling completely
dismissed by two very powerful men, each in his own way representing male success in different aspects of the culture. In the non-acknowledgement of feminine authority, I lived the reality of feminine non-being that day. Every ce11 of my very real, very alive feminine Being rebelled and wanted to exclaim its presence in the world - What about me? 1 lm here. 1 'm real . 1 care. 1 have substance. 1 have authority, too." That experience is still storied in the memory cells of my body and the verbal telling of it stimulates a whole body restorying.
1 felt betrayed by Altilia that day and only now am beginning
to understand the reasons for that response. 1 had moved out of the passive self-sacrifice mode 1 had lived the first year of our joint administration and in the sharing of duties and the deepening
levels of collaborative decision making and professional care we were developing. 1 had moved into a way of acting that some psychologists cal1 'active surrender'. In contrast to passive sacrifice of self -worth and self- interest ..., this wornan willingly gives herself over to the patriarchal forces in an effort to make a contract of equality and shared responsibility for her own pleasure and survival . She will provide or perform in certain ways for men as long as they promise to cherish her and provide for her. The contract is actively pursued in the belief that heroic males ... have in mind the best interests of women and others over whom they hold the power of truth, beauty, and goodness (Young-Eisendrath and Wiedemann, 1987:114).
1 felt betrayed because 1 felt 1 incurred further injury by his behaviour; 1 felt he did not have my best interests at heart. Altilia did not perceive the incident as a persona1 gender issue at all, but was working out of a persona1 narrative of authority. He
Part of it was the express desire of the parent to talk to me personally and at that point 1 think is where the block came in1 have always considered that as principal, 1 was the last court of appeal as it were. 1 guess when 1 think in terms of the structure of an institut ion, you start thinking in hierarchical terms and then how high up the ladder does a person go to get recourse if they don ' t feel they ' ve been adequately attended to on a lower level . That ' s probably where the structural thing took over... [it] was in the gradation of authority in the structure and you Say, well, if bels not satisfied with that level then he goes to the next level, Beyond me he would have had to go to the school board and it was, in a sense, a reversion, 1 guess to the mode1 of administration that we had consciously rejected, but not rejected so much as moved away from, in terms of shared leadership- So ît was a response to his stated desire to speak to me because he wasn't satisfied with what he was getting at your level, 1 guess, 1 certainly wasn't thinking of it in terms of the female issue; it was more a question of hierarchical structure of authority. (Interview, June 21, 1997) The conf lict arose as a result of the competing social and persona1 narratives but the heart of the persona1 conflict was lodged in the transparent core of the social narrative - it was exactly the hierarchical structures ' claim to rat ionality and justice to which Altilia felt dutifully obliged to respond - that had subjugated women for centuries and was now silencing me. At the time, he was oblivious to its impact and was blindsided by my reaction, With its thirty year history as an al1-male bastion, Catholic male traditions, culture and values were thoroughly imbued in the operations of this school. While 1 played a masculine role as disciplinary vice-principal, 1 also felt 1 perpetuated the stereotype of 'bitchy' woman, especially to the students- This function lessened my credibility as a ferninine leader who genuinely cared for the school community. 1 was female and 1 was subordinate - this was the socially correct model. It's 'correctness' and implicit acceptance in the culture of the school, and alarmingly, in the thinking of its students, was illustrated clearly to me one day in the classroom as 1 was teaching a grade ten language class. "Let's brainstorm for ideas for our expository essay," 1 suggested to my language class. "Women's Rights!" one student called out. 1 wrote the topic on the board. One of the boys complaîned- "I'm sick to death of women's rights, Miat about men's rights?" Laughingly, 1 wrote "Men's Rights" on the board. As 1 wrote, he continued, "1 don't know why there's so much fuss about women's rights these days- Women are making their way." 1 turned to him and challenged kim in a teasing way, "Why, thank you, David- You' re giving us permission, are you? You're allowing us to make our way? Just listen to the chauvinism in your comment!". At which point, one of the girls said, ''1 don't know why you ' re so f ired up about women ' s rights , Mrs. Dume, You're doing okay. You're the vice-principal of this sch001- " 1 responded, "But Wendy, 1 am the vice-principal, not the principal." And she retorted, "But the only reason you're not the principal is because you're not a priest." 1 replied, "But Wendy, why can't 1 be a priest?!" (Reconstructed from memory, May, 1997) 159 In the classroom discussion that followed among the members of this
very bright class, 1 was disconcerted to witness a near complete lack of awareness of the myriad ways in which women are culturally oppressed. Their acceptance of the status quo and of the cultural noms of their society was uncritical. Not just me, but al1 women lived in the shadow, including the girls in that class and they were oblivious to it. Another part of the shadow side of working with Altilia was the struggle to maintain persona1 identity and a sense of self- worth. In both his ordination as priest and his position as principal of the school, he carried the masculine authority of both the Catholic Church and of the educational institution.
Almost al1 of his experience in education had been in the male domain. He represented for me, both realistically and syrnbol ically, the power of the masculine in the primary structures
in which 1 existed. He was a powerful physical and intellectual presence in the school. His visibility and importance in the school arose quite spontaneously not only from his competence, self- assurance and charisma but these natural attributes were enhanced by his being male, a priest, a principal and a mainlander, thereby possessing the mystique of knowledge not available to locals ! - Most of the credit for our collaborative successes went to him- According to Bateson(l989) in her study of male-female working relationships, this phenomenon is common in heterosexual collaborative relationships. The woman's contribution is reduced to second rank and "the collaboration may make the woman's contribution invisible like the non-work done within the household. . . " (82). Even when the pair struggle for equality in their relationship as Altilia and 1 did, "external pressure continually destroy the balance. It ' s not easy to stand against the worldfl(Bateson, 1989 :87) . The following story illustrates that point
Shortly after I began my tenure as assistant principal, 1 began to attend the regular meetings of one of our parent groups. They were an enthusiastic and committed group who were active in supporting the school's programs 1 had been attending the meetings for a couple of years when at the conclusion of one meeting, the question of the time for the next monthly meeting was raised. A date was suggested. Altilia noted that he would be out of tom on that date but that was fine, the meeting could go ahead because I was available to attend and could make any decisions that needed to be made. He looked at me for confirmation. 1 nodded. There was silence around the table, One of the women asked, "When will you be back, Father?" . He gave them a date. "Okay, we' 11 have the meeting then'', she stated. When the meeting adjourned, 1 gathered up my things and left the room. (Reconstructed from memory, June, 1997) 1 never returned to attend another one of those meetings, but it was several months before 1 explained to Altilia why that was. 1 don't think the parent group ever knew the reasons, nor did they ask about my absence.
Fiqhtinq the Shadows
By the end of 1990, 1 found the pressure of constantly countering the shadow of the school 's social narrative reaching painful proportions, In spite of our growing colhborative partnership, the strength of Altilia's personhood overshadowed me and in spite of staff support of my work, the socio-cultural 161 conditions of the school were obliterating me. A pervasive sense of invisibility haunted me. I always felt that 1 was working in the shadow. I no longer knew who f was as a professional or what
1 believed. 1 knew 1 had to get out from the shadows and establish my own identity. 1 needed to establish rny equality. It was at this point that 1 applied to the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education to pursue doctoral work. 1 needed to articulate my own meaning and discover my own authority. During that first summer at OISE 1 wrote,
SHADOW Shadow , Inconsequential reality Reflected form Distorted dimension Borrowed life Pallid image. Does it live? Sun gives it birth, But its essence is the other, Extrication is death. 1s shadow substance Or mi rror? Phantom - Tormented, Yearning to be real To own its own soul. (July, 1991)
In retrospect 1 think there were two forces acting powerfully upon me during those first years, one was interna1 and the other was external and Altilia represented both. In spiritual terms 1 was operating out of conf licting notions of God and sources of authority. There was the transcendent God, masculine and external, whom 1 saw as acting upon me in the structures around me. Sources 162 of authority were outside me as well; they were represented mainly
by successful men- What was rebelling within me in my angry
exchange with Alti1 ia over the incident with the closed door, was
the power of my om unacknowledged and unarticulated authority welling up within me. 1 was not consciously aware of that
phenomenon at the time but it is rny perception now that what was stirring was feminine authority, a sense of the power of God within. The anger arose from a denial of that power.
At the same time that 1 was being challenged by rny sense of invisibility, there was a corresponding challenge of acquiring a new identi ty through the possibility of new learning . Dourley(1987) says that the most important movement of the psyche
is towards the "inner contrasexual - the woman who dwells in the masculine psyche, the man who dwells in the feminine psycheN(ll)-
When the ego can enter into a relationship with the inner man or
wornan, the Self, "our inner truthN(l3) is born. 1 saw in Altilia
the qualities 1 wanted so badly for myself: a sharp, analytical mine, a strong sense of justice, boundaries and limits to caring, and most irnportantly for me, a confidence that arose from his natural sense of inner authority. Jungian psychologists characterize this response as the later stages of animus development. My desire to attain development of my masculine qualities might be interpreted as my seeking to attain them by accomplishing goals in the world of men. 1 turned to an institution of higher learning, OISE, to develop these aspects of myself . Young-Eisendrath and Weidemann ( 1987 ) might Say 163
that in so doing 1 joined "in some kind of contract with the
patriarchy in order to achieve [my] individual contribution to society"(ll2).
There was also a more complex psychological phenornenon going on in this interaction. The very qualities that 1 most admired in
Altilia myself were the qualities 1 resented his being admired for
by others, Admiration of the qualities were affirmations of the
correctness and effectiveness of the masculine perspective which f read as a denial of the feminine. When his strong qualities
overshadowed me professionally, 1 railed against them. While it appeared to be an external conf lict, and was sometimes played out externally, the source of the tension between us actually had an interna1 locus within me. In my affiliation to his strong masculine characteristics, 1 felt my own feminine threatened by my own masculine, A moral war went on inside me - 1 was torn between working out of my own natural feminine instincts or working out of my masculine perceptions of what others expected 02 me. Neither seemed satisfactory; 1 laboured under the delusion that there was a single 'right' or 'best' way to decision-make and that somehow 1 was simply not comprehending it. In spite of the pressure to act in masculine ways that 1 exerted upon myself , however, it seemed as if the feminine was determined not to succumb. In the external challenges and conflicts 1 issued to Altilia along the way, there was a strong assertion of the feminine on my part as 1 responded out of a fairly well developed masculine aspect of my personality. 1 was not acting out of bravado, however, or 164 courageous risk-taking. Part of the freedom 1 felt to respond in that way can be attributed to my intuited sense of safety, a safety that was associated with his priesthood. 1 did feel safe with him and trusted him and depended on him not to diminish me in response to my challenges. I knew his pastoral experience would require him to respond compassionately, and that his Jesuit social justice training would compel him to seriously Iisten to and consider women's professional and social issues. Altilia's priesthood, then, was an important component of my tower safety even as 1 flailed around inside of it, seeking the centre of meaning in life and work, seeking to find myself.
The Chanqinq Landscape as Cornmon Ground
The compression of these tensions in the individual and social narratives operant in the school motivated our efforts to articulate them and to understand them. Over the years Altilia and
1 talked frequently about what was happening and why, but even as the tensions were being lived, positive things were happening in the school; a new story was beginning to emerge. We reorganized the delivery of special services, created a new approach to programming for academically disadvantaged grade nine students, began a cooperat ive education program that won national awards, began to share administrative responsibility with the teachers through a circular set of councils, and developed a web of social action and community building activities through the pastoral team, which grew over the years from an initial core group of six lay teachers to a very active and committed group of thirty people, lay teachers, Jesuits and students who contributed enthusiastically to the community and spiritual life of the school. Our common spiritual ground was located primarily in the work of the pastoral team, and particulary in the sharing of the adult faith development group who met regularly during one academic year to participate in the nineteenth annotation of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, comrnonly called the Exercises on Everyday Life. For both men and women on the team, both lay and clergy, it was a unique experience of encountering the gender influenced spiritual perspective of the other. One Sunday night in December of 1990 was particularly meaningful; each member of the group spoke of the integration of the Nativity story into their own lives. The stories were so poignant and some so pain-filled that
1 do not feel free to relate any other than my own in this text. Three women and six men, 1ay and clergy, sit in a cornfortable circle in my living room having gathered to move through the spiritual exercise of the evening and later to socialize. The reading for reflection is the Nativity story. Each person in the group shares their story of the meaningfulness of the reading; 1 feel the emotion starting to well inside; 1 want to cry, My turn arrives. My thoughts are maternal. "1 felt very close to Mary and Jesus when my babies were newborns. The times 1 loved the most occurred late into the night when 1 arose to attend to one of them. Then, after they were fed and changed and were warm and dry and sleepy, I'd love to sit with them in the rocking chair in the silent house and just rock gently, with the baby nestled on my shoulder . I loved the sensation of the baby's gentle breath on my neck and thought about how wondrous a creation of God this little being was. 1 used to think about how Mary felt, knowing that her baby was not only of God, but was God. " The group is silent (Reconstructed from memory, September, 1997). Such stories as these were new experiences of feminine spirituality for the men in the group, the priests in particular. Altilia commented, One of the more enriching experiences of my life began with our [a group of eight members of the pastoral team] trip to Chicago and followed on through that entire year of our prayer group get-togethers on Sunday nights. Just coming into contact with the richness of the spirituality of those people, yourself and. ... al1 of the people who were part of that ,. . . and touching the depth and richness of that spirituality which was quite different from mine in its simplicity, in its beauty, in its energy, in its richness- It was very, very enriching for me, very exciting (Interview, February 5, 1993). Other men in the group, both lay and clergy, reported responding in similar ways. Common ground was being achieved and a sense of mutuality was emerging among the adult menbers of the pastoral team. A new story was being written-
Alterins the Tower Structure: Expression of the New Storv For Altilia, the experience also carried new learning. Working with a woman was a new experience for him and challenged him in many ways; for him it was a first venture into the shadow of the ferninine, both interiorly and exteriorly. He had entered the Society of Jesus at age seventeen and had never had the opportunity to work with a woman, When 1 questioned him about the difficulties he encountered in learning to be collaborative with a female, he responded,
Well, first of all, 1 had to overcome some of the prejudices associated with being celibate. But 1 use that term 'prejudice' advisedly because it's difficult, it has been difficult - not painful by any rneans - but just difficult to find within myself ways of dealing effectively and aifectively in a relationship with a woman in a professional relationship that is also a persona1 relationship, that has some of the conflicts that go along with persona1 relationships - you know al1 that sort of interactiveness- that male-female kind of interactiveness but also the prof essional interactiveness. That's been a real learning experience for me, It hasn't been intimidating or anything, it's just been challenging because itfs new. 1 hadn't worked with women very mucb in that kind of close interactive kind of situation in which there is a certain affective intimacy going on there that is really necessary for the job, for the collaborative mode1 of administration to work well and thatfs an area of inexperience for me. But 1 sure learned a lot in five years, 1'11 tell you that! But 1 think that's been very central to the experience for me.. . , in understanding myself in that relationship ( Interview, February 5, 1993)- In working with a woman for the first time, Altilia was exposed to a dif ferent style of lea~ershipand it challenged him in both active and receptive ways. As he states, he had to leam to enter into relationships that required some emotional response because 1, as woman, worked spontaneously from an emotional base. He admitted that he was frequently at a loss as to how to respond in particular situations, The whole process for me of that inexperience of developing a shared leadership with another male in that situation.. . . because 1 am a male person living in a ce1 ibate environment growing up through al 1 that process, since adolescence, within that structure, 1 think f would have understood the dynamics a lot more clearly but the process of developing shared leadership with a woman in that situation was far more complicated for me. Complicated by my own lack of experience, and by my lack of understanding of the female psyche, the emotional needs and the psychological needs and the whole. . . . in other words, 1 am making decisions and judgments based upon rny expectations of what administrative shared responsibility would look like, but out of a male perspective and not really knowing what the other side of the coin was al1 about- And 1 can think back and Say, "My God, there were a thousand mistakes made .... a thousand mistakes of mis judgment on what really was needed in the situation" (Interview, June 21, 1997).
Sometimes 1 think I contributed to his confusion because 1 was not always clear myself about the behaviour I expected from him in
his role as principal, 1 was aware, even when we were working
together, that as assistant principal, 1 had a choice about when 1
was on the front lines and when 1 could step back and allow him to assume the responsibility. As principal, he did not have that
f reedom of choice. Sometimes, 1 wanted to be the leader and assume
responsibility and sometimes 1 didn't; sometimes 1 expected him to
give me autonomy and sometimes 1 expected to be 'looked after' by
the man-in-charge . The problem was that he had no way of distinguishing the difference. My own confusion over the masculine-feminine dialectic in my own role probably contributed at least partially to his saying, "There were al1 kinds of
circumstances at the end of which 1 'd Say, 'Well, 1 don't know what
1 'm doing here, 1 don't understand wbat's going on here"
(Interview, June 21, 1997). From the age of seventeen, as Altilia emphasized several times in the second interview, he had been inculturated into the
charism of the Society of Jesus and had been formed in the
traditional masculine way, as &@rina (1985) describes it, "to arrive at full mature adulthood through growing individuation, separateness, and the achieving of their destiny and dream, [but] nevertheless not without the hope that these qualities would ultirnately lead to attachment and mutuality"(100). Altilia
commented on his own struggles, So. . . that ' s part of the fact, 1 think, of having entered the society as a teenager and not having a lot of experience of male-female relationships and.... even of just ordinary affective relationships, le alone professional relationships. There was a lot there that 1 was coping with, that . - . . the only way 1 was really able to learn that was through hard experience and making a lot of stupid mistakes and getting nailed for it.. . . (Interview, June 21, 1997).
In spite of his own frustration, Altilia seemed to be committed to
becoming more open to the feminine way of doing things. When 1 asked him about the critical moments, he responded, Well, 1 am not sure 1 can temember what we fought about precisely (laughter). But 1 cari certainly remember lots of moments when you would Say to me, "1 didnft appreciate that" or "1 am really upset about that" or "That's not the way it should be done and 1 donft like it when you do it that way." Those were hard moments for me because 1 am not used to being upbraided for things I do, but at the same tirne they were moments when 1 could see the implicit rightness of what was being said which made it a lot easier to deal with. ... It was the first time 1 felt 1 was working with someone who shared the same passion for Catholic schooling as 1 had. Secondly, you had the courage to Say that what was there wasn't good. And that was important. And to Say it in a way that was at the same time challenging but supportive.... [This interaction] began to tug in me something that I had felt al1 along and believed in, but had never found a way to really put in practice - that was the sense of coequal responsibility where we could literally feel very f ree to have someone else carry responsibi l i ty for something that 1 didn't have to worry about .... And that was a great freedom for me (Interview, February 5, 1993). The mutual passion for good Catholic schooling was the strength of the bond that united us. Garrison(1997) and Schwab(1978) would describe this passion as eros in education - a desire to discern the good and to teach students how to desire the good. It describes the energy of forward movement that is "loving and life-
affirmingn(xix) and at the same time liberating. In Catholic theological terms, we describe the phenornenon as the movement of
the Spirit of God, a sense of being united within a divine energy and moving f orward together . Developing mutuality requires response both in active and receptive ways (Noddings, 1984; Andolsen, 1994). It was not only in the active component that Altilia had to learn to act in new ways; there was also a receptive demand in that he had to learn to receive care in the professional context, In both his masculine and Jesuit formation, he had been trained to be strong and independent, a person upon whom others could lean. He found it difficult to allow others to care for him. He illustrated that difficulty with a story.
One of the things that 1 had to learn over the years was to accept people's solicitude and care for me. Part of my image of myself has always been of being self- suf f icient, capable, and you know, to admit one's need for care was such a weakness or incapacity or whatever. And that was not easy. And it's still not easy, 1 still don't do it easily. But actually you know who broke through that for me most significantly? The moment that sticks in my mind .... had to do with one of the kids. When the two students died, as you know there were so many moments in the school when the kids were talking together and crying together and hugging each other and you or 1 would arrive and wade into the middle of those groups and become part of them. One of the kids, 1 can't remember who, said to me, t'Yeu know, Father, you're so strong for everyone else, who is strong for you?" Wow, what a question, what a brilliant question! 1 don't know what 1 said to her at the time but 1 thought a lot about that afterwards. It really was a very penetrating question (Interview, June 21, 1997).
He grew steadily in that dimension over those five years, and in his interview responses demonstrated "not so much that he has been given something as that something has been added to him" (Noddings, 1984:20). By the end of the five years he was able to say, 1 t really has been a wonderf ul experience . 1 t ' s been for me a real sense of being appreciated, supported, cared for by someone with whom 1 share a very important administerial responsibility in the school and that's been a wonderful relationship. . , . 1 am going to miss the wonderful sense of mutuality that's been there (Interview, February 5, 1993). The mutuality that developed between the two of us during that five years, then, while initially built on a foundation of commitment to Catholic schooling, was developed in our individual recognition of the complementarity of our persona1 qua1 ities . Each of us embodied qualities that strongly represented the traditional attributes of our gender. He brought the intellectual, logical, rational perspective and justice orientation of the masculine and
1 brought the nurturing, affective perspective of the feminine. His gifts were pragmatic and organizational, mine were creative and community oriented* Altilia was quite definite in his opinion about the experience, And 1 say this with absolute clarity within my own mind, that most of the creative energy that went into shaping those things came from you; most of the practical aspects , f iguring out how to do i t , came f rom me. There was that sort of balance of using the different skills that we had. Because 1 dontt have those creative insights, I am more sensate and pragmatic. . . . f iguring out how to make those two things work together and that's why 1 think 1 felt so good about the administration of the school. In spite of the difficulties and in spite of the frustrations that both of us felt, in spite of the sometimes difficult experiences of trying to figure out how to do this, the fact is that 1 look back on that with a lot of satisfaction (Interview, June 21, 1997). Altilia identified creativity with femininity saying,
But 1 guess 1 consider creativity a feminine virtue, a feminine ski11 or capacity. Maybe that 's a stereotypical view that cornes out of women birthing and al1 that, but you see, 1 consider the creative power of God as a feminine reality. Even though it is ascribed to God the Fathet as the Creator, 1 consider it a feminine reality. If 1 put it in theological and Biblical terms, the power of creation in Genesis, is the 'breath of God' and the word that is used is a feminine word, "ruahf'. And then later, in the Book of Wisdom, the power of God who created is Wisdom and that's a feminine word. So 1 am saying, well, God's creative energy in Scriptures is a feminine concept; it's not a masculine concept .... It is this hovering presence which is a feminine kind of reality (Interview, June 21, 1997). Having experienced feminine creativity and struggled with adaptation to feminine ways of doing things, Altilia gained a new understanding of the meaning of shared leadership. The feminine dimension of that shared leadership just seemed to be the natural thing because we were trying to develop shared leadership ,... But it was finding the cooperative balance that allowed us to share the leadership in a creative way - that was what was essential to me. And 1 didn't think of it in masculine- feminine terms at that time and even now 1 don't really.. .. 1 think of it as Maureen and Len trying to do our thing together, right? Because it was a much more persona1 thing than whether it was masculine-ferninine,. .. It's a very real personal thing. These two people doing this work together (Interview, June 21, 1997).
Mutuality and Spirituality The gift of the mutuality that developed in this administrative relationship was an altered sense of spirituality for both of us. While spirituality had always been relational for me, as 1 have experienced my most profound understandings of God through people, for Altilia it was a new experience. He described his learning of a relational spirituality through his interactions with me and the pastoral team in the following way: It has been an experience of learning to be introduced into a kind of spirituality that is rooted in human relationships..., But 1 am beginning to see more profoundly the sense of spirituality that is not just Incarnational but relational. And that there's a vitality in human relations that speaks of the beauty and energy of God which is different, a different statement of God than creation or Incarnation. So the sense of collaboration with someone in an enterprise that is spiritual or that is vocational, the word 1 guess 1 would use, that's beginning to link up with spirituality and prayer for me. That this, this collaborative mode1 of life becomes an expression of Eaith, rather than just a practical way of doing things.. . . But 1 think the thing that is critically valuable about a relationship understanding of spirituality is that it somehow probes the mystery of God in the Trinity. It starts to get in touch with the interactiveness of the different personalities of the Divine Being which you don't get when you just think about Incarnational spirituality, So it 's a dif ferent, more sophisticated, perhaps, or more intuitive sense of the reality of God. It's, 1 think, a more dynamic vision of spirituality. That's a gift 1 treasure (Interview, February 5, 1993). While Altilia's sense of spirituality shifted from the incarnational to the relational, my image of God, specifically of
Christ, shifted from one of powerful authority O one of compassionate humility. From the earliest days of rny tenure in that school, 1 found myself associating the physical Altilia with the physical Jesus Christ. As is stated earlier in this chapter, he saw himself play that priestly role [alter Christus] to which he was called in his vocation, and the image was reinforced for me by a sketch of Jesus Christ by a former student that hung in his office and bore a remarkable resemblance to him.
Sometime during the period 1 worked in that school, 1 realized that 1 no longer prayed to Christ, but principally to God the
Father and to the Spirit, but 1 didn't really consider the implications for my prayer life. Then, in completing the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola on an eight day retreat in
1994, a year after 1 left the school, 1 confronted my Christ image. As an integral part of the Exercises, Ignatius recommends that participants conduct a colloquy, an imaginary conversation with a physical Christ; 1 found myself completely stymied. Every time 1 tried to imagine the physical Christ, 1 would give him the form of a large and powerful man. 1 was unable to pray to that form. Then 1 had an experience that transformed that image. The following excerpt is taken from my daily journal of that retreat. Today is the feast of Joachim and Anne, parents of the Virgin Mary, and the retreatants gathered for daily Mass . There has been something about the priest who said Mass that intrigued me £rom the first time 1 saw him at the opening session of the retreat. His demeanour was not that of the typical Jesuit. There was a vulnerability, an insecurity, an indefiniteness, an endearing shyness about him. Yet there was a strength and a serenity about him as well when he said Mass - a courage that 1 felt came from some place outside of him. He is ço humble - his whole demeanour speaks humility. He gives me the impression that he's personally amazed every time he stands in front of that altar. He seems to be in wondrous awe of Godfs power in bringing hirn to this place. Today he preached on parents. .. he spoke about his own childhood, the poverty and the alcoholisrn of his father, his sitting with his dying father and saying "1 love you, Daddyff,his forgiveness of his parents for the hurts they had caused him. After the homily, as 1 watched his small, humble, indefinite body return to the altar, I recognized the wounded child - thatrswhat 1 had seen there al1 along - his woundedness. Suddenly, 1 felt immersed in his pain, drawn into his pain, and there in the midst of the pain and the love he had expressed 1 felt infused with the presence of Christ (Retreat journal, July 26, 1994).
After that day, 1 was once again able to pray to Christ, because 1 imagined hirn with this priestfs body - small, hunble and unassuming. This non-authoritative wounded Christ 1 could pray to. This incident was extremely important in my spiritual developrnent because for the first time in my life, 1 saw Christ as being more humble than powerful, as one who drew his strength not 175
£rom his size but from the power of hwnility and wonder. This was a shift in imagery from the transcendent sky God to a more immanent, earth connected God. This working relationsnip created a new understanding of the power of the complementarity of the gifts of both the masculine and the feminine in the workplace and was also my introduction into the spirituality of cocreativity in the prof essional context . Indeed, it was a new realization that work has its own spirituality. For both of us, it was a spiritual process that emerged in the pursuit of spiritual goals in the school in which, as Altilia said, the " collaborative mode1 of lif e becomes an expression of f aith, rather than just a practical way of doing things" (Interview, February 5, 1993).
Endinqs
During the fifth and last year of our working together, 1 decided to take a semester to study in Toronto at OISE; Altilia received notice from the Society of Jesus that his appointment as principal would conclude at the end of the school year. While we had worked together well, the tensions had persisted throughout rny entire tenure in this position. However, 1 also experienced the counterbalance of a deep sense of joy and mutuality in having worked collaboratively to move towards achieving a bonded, caring and spiritual community in the school. The dialectic between the old story of 'corn-pression' and the new story of 'ex-pression1 is evident in the following two pieces of writing. The first, written while 1 was on sabbatical in Toronto, was in response to a letter of introduction from the incoming Jesuit principal- It articulated the tensions of the previous f ive years and indicated rny concern that the old story would persist in an altered, but continuously oppressive way. The second piece is a short address 1 gave to the school community at the end of our last liturgy of the school year, the last time 1: was to interact with the school community as a
An excerpt from the letter to the incoming principal:
1 want to be really honest and tell you my concerns about returning to Gonzaga as your assistant principal in September. First, Len and 1 have sustained a really unique administrative relationship that has consumed a tremendous amount of energy and quite frankly, 1 am not sure that 1 have the resources right now to begin a new relationship that by the very nature of the interaction must be intense. The dynamisrn in the school over the past five years has been a direct function of the positive tension that has existed between our administrative and persona1 styles, an interaction that 1 described in a paper as "a fortuitous combination of cognition and intuition. " 1 am not even sure that it is fair to you to begin a similar interpersonal dynamic and then leave it after a year or so, forcing you to begin again with someone new. Secondly, Len has maintained a very high profile in the school and in the community. For the parents in particular, the success of the çchooI is directly attributable to one person -Father Altilia, S,J.- In their eyes, my role has been peripheral, any success 1 may have had simply a corollary to his ability to administer, In his absence, however, 1 fear that as the constant in the office 1 will be expecteO to maintain the school in Len Altilia's image. 1 am finished with images and shadows. It may be in your best interests to begin your administration wi th a new assistant principal, because then the staff and the parents will be expecting change and will be prepared for it because they will recognize the impossibility of maintaining the status quo - You have to put your own mark on the school and the fewer vestiges of the old regime that remain the better. My not being there may free you to do things your own way . Thirdly, af ter ten years of exhausting administrative experience, 1 am not sure that 1 have the energy to take on a brand new administrator. That's blunt but honest.. . 1 have spent ten years supporting principals. Maybe it's time for me to strike out on my own with my own school or in another type of administrative position where 1 may indeed get some credit, either verbal or monetary, for al1 the work 1 do.. . (Letter, Jan 7, 1993). Expressed in this letter are the persistent and recurring enervating authority issues of the five years: the tension in the relationship between the administrators, the pain of working in the shadow, the desire for visibility and affirmation, the search for persona1 identity. On the other hand, my address to the students expressed al1 the joy and love 1 experienced during my years of administration in the school.
1 asked Father Altilia for a little time to address you today because 1 felt the need to bring some closure to my position in this school and tell you a little bit about how 1 feel about the past f ive years and how 1 feel about leaving Gonzaga. My role in this school has not provided the opportunity to interact with you in positive ways that Father Altilia has had and 1 fear that the vast majority of you will have a lasting impression of me as the Wicked Witch of the West! I want to make a last ditch effort to dispel that notion. These last five years have been quite special to me in spite of detention lists, endless SOC'S, baseball bats, food fights on the back lot, the occasional squabble of settling the question who is the cooler dude and various colourful and invent ive descriptions of me on washroom walls. Father Len and 1 have watched this school mature, not just in the studentst growing-up but in the expansion of programs willingly implemented by the teachers and 1 think that as a comunity, al1 of us have grown together to create quite an outstanding educational institution. 1 have personally experienced many proud moments over the past five years: watching you present the Wizard of Oz, participating in national Musicfest and cheering for Matthew when he played with the national honours jazz band, sitting spellbound and breathless in many of Our fabulous liturgies which 1 think have been rare and unique examples of liturgy written by and for high school students; applauding for you in the Drama Festivals, visiting art galleries displaying your work, listening to your thoughtful poetry readings, watching our academic scores on public exams rise steadily over the past years, integrating our Life Skills students into the life of the school, sitting in a packed room in the Metro Centre in Toronto with business executives from across the country and feeling my heart burst with pride when Our Co-op Law program was featured on a video as an example of excellence in business-education partnerships, watching Advanced Placement grow in the school and recognizing that our students are among the top-ranked in the world, observing our modif ied programs grow and have parents tell us that their children are happy and successful in school for the first time in years, winning various sports championships so that the whole city knows that no matter what the sport, the Vikings are a force with which to contend, watching you take responsibility for the operation of the school in Student Council, pastoral team, yearbook, school newspaper and the student advisory council, witnessing the cornmitment O the Viking Volunteers. There have indeed been many proud moments. Al1 of our successes, however, have not been focussed on achievement and 1 think one of the strongest attributes that Gonzaga has developed over its history is its sense of community. This sense of community has enabled us to celebrate our victories but it has also anchored us and supported us through our tragedies. We have lost both students and teachers over the past few years and have emerged a stronger. closer community through our shared grief. There has been a sense of COM€!C~~~~~SSto each other, to Our school and to God that represents the essential spiritual goodness of Catholic education; a sense of Gonzaga as home. Working in Gonzaga has been a privilege. I felt honoured to be appointed to this position five years ago and am even prouder of this school now that it is time to leave. .. . I want to thank you students for being respectful almost al1 of the time and for responding so well to the leadership that Father and 1 have endeavoured to provide; 1 want to thank the teachers for caring so deeply and remaining so committed to the principles upon which this school is built. 1 want to thank the Jesuit community for being so open to lay Catholic Leadership and so willing to understand women's struggle to find our place in our Church. Last of al1 1 want to thank Father Altilia for his visionary leadership, for inviting me to serve at his side and for treating me as an equal . These past five years have been a transforrnative experience for me and 1 will carry my interactions with al1 of you f orever, And rernember, please, when you recall Mrs. Durine, the Wicked Witch of the Office, that the person who disciplined you is among the people who loved you most of al1 (Address to student body, June, 1993).
Expressed in this address is the counterbalancing energizing joy of the bondedness of spirituality, mutuality and cocreativity found in accomplishment and shared community-
1 often wondered, after I left the school in 1993, whether the transformation that 1 believed had occurred in the school was just a wishful theoretical construct on my part, or whether the students and teachers had felt they had been part of something important. Then in three separate and unrelated incidents, confirmation of my hopes was offered. In the spring of 1993, the incoming principal privately interviewed every teacher on the staff in preparation for his assumption of his new position. This was an opportunity for teacbers to express confidentially their perceptions of the strengths and weaknesses of the school. He collated the results and wrote a summary report. While teachers acknowledged several weaknesses in the school, in a summary paragraph to the analysis of their responses to the question "What are your general impressions of the school?" he reported, The overall impression of the staff is that we run an effective school. Gonzaga has created a caring environment for both student and teacher alike, allowing for the transfomat ional educational process that marks a Catholic school There exists a deep sense of belonging, of being part of a f amily experience, which in turn gives staff a greater sense of ownership in the educational experience, Working at Gonzaga is more than a job; it is an experience of vocation and ministry. .-..As one person said, "It's a special place to be". (Crouch, 1993: 5,121
A full year later, 1 attended the graduation ceremonies of the class of 1994. I sat on the stage transf ixed as the valedictorian began his speech with the following paragraph,
Looking at my class gathered in this gymnasium, 1 can't help but think back to four years ago, when we al1 came together for the first time at the first assembly in September of 1990. We were a remarkably diff erent group of people: nervous but eager in our first days of high school. We sat here and listened to the "respect" speech for the first time, got out first taste of the guidelines, and heard what seemed a kind of weird idea - that a high school could be a community, a home, a family. Most of us were shifting in our seats by then and just kind of passed the idea off as "principal's propaganda" and went on our way. Four years later, who of us can deny the spirit of family that drove the class? We have forged some of the strongest friendships, the deepest trusts and friendliest rivalries that, woven together, make us a community. When we triumphed, that family celebrated; when we failed, it helped us back on our feet; when we were joyous, it was shared with others; and when we grieved, it was not alone. . ,. (Schwinghamer, 1994)
Here, unsolicited, was eloquent confirmation of the caring community that Altilia and 1 had worked so hard to develop. 1 t had been real; many of the students had felt it; a transformation had occurred; it had not been just a wishful theoretical construct. For me, these words expressed both persona1 and prof essional confirmation and affirmation of our praxis . Emotion swelled in my throat; it was a very special moment in my professional career. Still later, another confirmation occurred when 1 met a student at a district music festival, "You know what 1 liked best about being in that school?" she asked. "It always felt safe. We knew that when we went outside the school to games or competitions 181
or whatever, and performed, even if we screwed up it didnft matter, because we knew that when we came back you and Father Al would
still love us anyhow." Once again 1 had to blink back the tears.
Converqences These years were a profound example of convergence and praxis - there was a union of theory and practice, masculine and feminine, authority and autonomy. For me, the unity of dialectic convergence is usually experienced as a spiritual moment. There were many spiritual moments. We didn't always achieve our goals and there were many f laws , struggles and fai lures . But an integral component of the spirituality of praxis, 1 discovered, was found in the striving for it - it was found in the intent, the desire to achieve the good, the energy of eros.
In the respectful efforts of a man and a woman to corne to understand one another, to acknowledge each other ' s talents, and to affirm one anotherfs personhood, emerged the joy of cocreative
shared leadership. Altilia and 1: interpreted that joy as the presence of the Spirit of God in our collaborative work, It became a transformative spiritual experience for both of us and reinforced for each of us the potential of spirituality in balanced masculine - feminine relationships, especially when the focus is on a spi ritual endeavour . There was a congruence of authority and spirituality in this experience. This was an initial experience of professional cocreativity, a sense of God being present in human interaction, a 182 sense of the Spirit being alive in the activities of the school.
What I experienced there was a spiritual ity that f lowed both in the collaborative work of the administrative team and of the pastoral team. For me, on many levels, the work in this school was an experience of the 1-thou relation, what Buber calls the "ontology of the Betweenl'which "does not suggest that individual perçons are less than fully real, but it does claim that they find their real i ty again and again through meeting, through the Between"
(Friedman, 1984:3). What 1 learned in my reflection on the
reconstruction of my stories of experience in this school was that until that time, I objectified sources of authority and allowed them tu objectify me. Altilia, as a source of authority and a representative of the Church, learned not to objectify me in our interactions; when he did, my affronted inner authority challenged
him and he, in turn, affirrned my challenges. Be authenticated my feminine authority. In Buber's terminology, I had had an 1-It
relationship with sources of authority until this time, with only a few exceptions, notably my parents and my grade nine teacher . In
the 1-Thou relationship which evolved in the high school, not only between Altilia and me but also among the members of the school pastoral team, we came to regard each other as subjects, and became immersed in each others ' subjectivity. We found ourselves in the subjectivity of the others and in so doing experienced spiritual co~ectedness. In sharing administrative authority, and in confirming each other's inner autonomous authority in so doing, we 183 created a 'Between" and there we found God, One of my most important learnings in the analysis of the stories over the course of the thesis, and particularly in this chapter, was that the development of my Self, "the totality of the whole psyche" (Jung, 1964:162), was rnediated by my objectification
O£ authority figures and that 1 was unable to apprehend a conception of either the cocreative or immanent images of God until
1 experienced authority as a locus of the Between, until 1 accepted other ' s acknowledgement of my natural autonomous authority and 1 acknowledged theirs. The reciprocity of both the giving and the receiving needed to be experienced before mutuality, and also spirituality, could emerge, My sense of spirituality at the tirne was incarnational; the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Christ, felt alive in the activities of the school-
These were the two stories - masculine authority and feminine spirituality - that continuously flexed against one another, like waves on the ocean. 1 was standing in an open boat on that ocean, endeavouring to keep my balance and make progress on my journey. It was the irrepressible desire to uncover the unifying, synthesizing meaning of both stories that sent me on my academic quest to OISE and resulted in the writing of this thesis and it was the irrepressible joy of mutuality in the experience that was severely confounded in my experience of the assault upon Catholic education that was gathering outside my tower of safety and warmth. Chapter 6 describes the desolation that resulted. Chapter 6 Thrown Out of the Crumbling Tower
Dioscorus was furious, for he knew now that Barbara had become a Christian. He flew into a rage, broke open the sealed-off doorway, ran up the steps to the top of the tower and f lung Barbara out of the window by her long hair. But Barbarata guardian angel protected her, depositing her safely in a ravine in the thiek wood nearby . Barbara lived in the woods. One day, her father (who had been hunting for ber ceaselessly) tracked her dom. He dragged her before a local magistrate named Marcian and angrily said to her, mRenounce your God and your faith by offering a sacrifice to our goda, or die! Barbara told her father she would not do this because she had pledged herself to Jesus, and although Dioscorus tore ber flesh with iron hooks and bat her with rods at the order of the judge, she would not change her answer. He brought a rope to hang her, but it turned into a belt. he even lit a fire to burn her, but the fire turned into clay (Caprio, 1982~7).
Introduction
Barbara was unceremoniously removed from her tower of safety and thrown into the wildness of the world below. She needed to plan how to protect herself and survive; she suffered, but it was her reason and her belief in the purposefulness of her life which helped her to meet the challenges she faced, Caprio(l982) said, "Barbara, to survive her wi lderness experience , needs to stay aware of the flame within her. This alone can transform her living and make it worthwhile under such dismal circumstances"(30). Barbara was alone; she had no servants, no workmen, no one to support her. It was a journey into the personal development of the masculine; a meeting of the masculine on its own terms. When Barbarats f ather found her, he dragged her before the courts, seeking approval for her cruel punishment . Caprio 185 represented the judge as "the spokesperson for collective authority" who sanctioned Dioscorus' punishment of his daughter. Barbara refused to yield, she had found her own voice, identified her own passion, and remained convinced of the meaningfulness of her life, refusing to alter her spiritual story.
Like Barbara, 1 also was thrown out of my tower. My comfortable home inside Catholic structures began to tremble in 1988 when the first provincial arrest was made of a Catholic priest charged with the sexual abuse of young boys. Twenty-six others followed over the subsequent years, priests and brothers. The moral credibility of the Catholic Church in NewfoundIand was
seriously eroded and its public power diminished. These events occurred on my public Iandscape, however, and while the tower trembled with the turmoil, it didn't collapse; it was when my private, professional world was threatened with the governmentfs
attempts to dismantle Catholic education and my new employment situation threw me unprotected ont0 the public landscape that my tower began to crumble behind me. Like Barbara, 1 was walking in a dark forest and had to use al1 the inner resources which were brought to life during my tower days. My £lame was a deep persona1 love of Catholicism and a passionate need to understand the dynamics of the competing worlds in which I lived and how my faith could integrate them. It is the same passion that fuels this thesis writing - the basic human need to achieve spiritual wholeness.
From 1993-1996, 1 served as assistant superintendent of 186 curriculum for the Roman Catholic School Board for St. John's, an
18,000 student board, the largest school board east of Montreal, Quebec. These were difficult years to be working at district level for the provincial government was producing its educational reform documents and the recommendations of the 1992 report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Delivery of Programs and Services in Primary, Elementary, Secondary Educat ion were being implemented. One of its major recommendations was the dismantling of the traditional denominational school system in the province; Catholic school ing was seriously threatened . One of my areas of responsibility in the district office was that of nurturing the Catholicity of our 38 schools. Goverment's reform efforts drew me into the political arena as 1 worked with trustees and school board professional staff to respond to the reform proposals regarding curriculum as well as to the political restructuring of governance of our schools.
It was during these years that 1 felt, like Barbara, that 1 had been thrown out of the benevolent tower to which 1 had become accustomed. 1 no longer felt safe and protected. My role changed to one more truly lodged in the masculine world. 1 was writing public reports, making public speeches on Catholic education, lobbying politicians both publicly and privately; was a founder of a political action group which became vocal on both the airways and in print. 1 was no longer the protected, but the protector;
1 worked at the interface of the public and private worlds and 1 found the work extremely lonely and unsafe. During the first year of my district position, 1 wrote, It occurred to me tonight . . . . that one of God' s greatest gifts to me through the men and the Sisters in my life, has been safety. Al1 of my life up until this year 1 have felt safe, protected, secure, able to take risks in an environment that would support me unconditionally, 1 no longer feel safe; my earlier experience with the political action organization in which 1 presumed (took for granted because of my history) affirmation and support has left me feeling very vulnerable and insecure. 1 think 1 have been almost paralyzed with fear in fact. ,..Therets not only the sense of working alone that has contributed to the emptiness and anxiety but in fact a sudden sucking away of forty-four years of feeling loved, protected and safe. ft explains why 1 feel so alone this year . , . . Playing the role of protector has been from my perspective a male role. Males have established structures around me that protected me, nurtured me. No one endeavours, or is able, to do that prof essionally for me anymore- No one should be doing it. Leaming to play that role both for myself and for others has to be part of developing the masculine dimensions of my being (Journal, May 16, 1994).
1 had indeed been thrown ont0 the landscape; the enemy of goverment reform seemed to be al1 around and their supporters were loud; the tower was weak and voices of Catholic supporters nearly silent. 1 felt scared and alone but still committed to the essential goodness of Catholic education because of my lived experience, particularly in the high school. These were years in which 1 felt that my personal spirituality, and my lived experience of prof essional spirituality, were being denied by the external authorities - by goverment of ficials, by the media, by members of the general public who were opposed to separate Catholic schooling.
1 felt that tacit public approval authorized the external ' collective authority ' to destroy Catholic spirituality in schools. For me, once again, the public furore was a recreation of the 188 tension between my persona1 spi ri tua1 ity and external authori ty,
between the feminine and the masculine, but for me personally the weight of the external authority, primarily masculine, was crushing .
The Missins Heart It had often seemed to me during the public debate about educational reform between the Newfoundland Provincial Goverrunent and the Churches that the discourse centred around the legal and econornic issues and that a central point was being missed; the heart of the matter was absent. The heart of education is its mission and for Cathofic educators the mission of education is its spiritual purpose. For us, the question is, 'How can education assist human beings to achieve meaningfulness and connectedness in their lives through the perception of an ultimate reality? ' The reform debate in NewfoundLand focussed on issues of authority and control . Government reforms were based on a rational, technological, scientific, mathematical, achievement oriented framework. It was essentially a masculine orientation. The Church, on the other hand, sought to retain those structures which protected its authority to maintain an holistic, spiritual and religious curriculum, an essentially feminine orientation. One of the reasons for the Churches' apparent failure to protect its constitutional rights lay within itself. Although the core of the Catholic Church is essentially ferainine in that the single greatest Christian cornandment is that of love, it has 189 hidden the feminine from view with a tower of male juridical structures. In its patriarchal and hierarchical structures, i t presents a masculine face to the world. Zn Newfoundland, with the
sexual abuse scandais, the masculine lost its authority. The tower crumbled. The feminine centre had not been given voice and remained invisible; she was unable to speak; feminine values remained silent thxoughout the debate and no one spoke for them. This chapter develops this theory. The years 1992-1996 in Newfoundhnd were fraught with difficult negotiations between the Churches and the provincial goverment over the proposed reforms to education as outlined in
the Williams' Royal Commission on Education. The debate was public with al1 levels of Newfoundland society engaging in the fray.
Newspapers, radio and television were alive wi th heated discussion. Most of the public discussion was in favour of the reforrns being
suggested by Government; most of it was anti-denominational; rnost
of it, in my opinion, demonstrating a lack of understanding of the
deep structures of education. Almost al1 of the debate focused on legal and economic issues; there was almost no public effort to explore or to understand the core issues of religious schooling, or indeed of public education in general.
These years were very difficult for me; 1 resisted Listening to public programming; it seemed that al1 around me forces were gathering to denigrate the Church and the schooling system 1 held so dearly; 1 felt personally attacked but was at a loss to explain why. Having just experienced in my f ive years of high school 190
administration what 1 would cal1 the fullness of Catholic education, and having experienced, though not yet articulated, the energy of cocreativity in leadership, my understanding and knowledge of Catholic education was diametrically opposed to the
reports 1 was hearing on the public airways. My response was so
intense and so stressful that 1 felt compelled to examine its
sources so 1 could understand, if not resolve, the inner turmoil it
caused. What 1 came to realize in considering rny interview field texts, in reviewing the newspaper coverage, and in considering the
intensity of my emotional response over the years of the debate, especially the years 1993-1996, was that the public tension between the Government and the Catholic Church was a mirror of the private
tension 1 bad experienced and was experiencing between the masculine and the feminine. 1 re-experienced the debate as an attack upon the feminine. 1 came to see that the values that the Government was espousing were essentially masculine authority values and that at the core of the Catholic response were feminine spiritual values. Unfortunately, masculine justice values form the nucleus of societal values, and just as in society in general the feminine voice is silenced, so also the feminine voice was silenced in Newfoundland, particularly in regard to education. The methodology in this chapter dif fers f rom the earlier ones.
1 t considers government ref orm documents , field texts of interviews with Catholic leaders in the educational reform debate, and newspaper media reports from 1990-1996. The Ferninine Sou1 Encircled by the Tower
An irony embedded in the Roman Catholic Church bas lain in the tension between its feminine substance and its masculine governance . The Church is characteri zed as ' Mother ' Church and within its bosom are held core values and beliefs that are usually ascribed to the feminine and are those related to qualities of the heart: love and caret These central feminine values have been encircled, however, by a tower of juridical structure that is male governed and which muf f les and silences , or ventri loquizes , the feminine voice within. Feminist theologians are cautious about the use of the word 'feminine' because it has been socially constructed to equate with negative characteristics of weakness, emotional ity, fragility. As Schneiders says, "whatever was characterized by dependence and powerlessness came to be associated with tne ferninine" (1991:23). In so far as love has been described prirnarily as a feminine behaviour, however, it is incorrect to equate the femininity of love and caring with weakness for as Noddings(1992) says, caring "is the strong resilient backbone of human life" (175). Feminist theologians, historians, ethicists, and Biblical scholars are beginning to lay claim to the Eeminine perspective of God. This group, according to Brennan(l985), has spawned a growing volume of Iiterature which attests to a renaming of God arising from a new experience. -.. For ne, such sharing of experience is not intended to produce a separatist movement nor to create a female God who can replace and unseat the male deity of patriarchy. It is rather, to recover, to reclaim, and to rename the God who is not any One or any Thinq but who is the source and the reality of al1 persons and all things (94, 95). 192
There is a growing literature (Andolson,1994; Brenrian, 1985, 1987; BerryJ988; Borg, 1994; M. ûaly, 1994; Johnson, 1993) calling for a reemphasis on an understanding of God that is relational and nurturing, for a return to a sense of the Mother God, Sophia, Wisdom, who is present in and through creation, for a Christology that emphasizes the Jesus of unconditional love, for a transformation of the traditional understanding of self-sacrifice, agape. There appears to be a growing sense within the Church of the ecological necessity for both men and women to return to more gentle, nurturing feminine values. It was within this feminist oriented literature that my spirituality had fourid a home. Concurrently, just as 1 was becoming increasingly aware of the feminist perspective and of the nature of the feminine core of the tower in which 1 lived, the tower itself came under attack.
The Assault on the Tower From the time that Premier Wells called a Royal Commission on Education on August 6, 1990, and the subsequent consultation began in a series of public fora around the province, I felt the assault on my Catholic world gather rnomentum. ft was well known that Premier Wells opposed the denominational system of educat ion; he had spoken on the issue as an independent Liberal back bencher in the House of Assembly as early as 1970, calling even then for a ref erendum on the kind of educat ion system Newf oundlanders wanted .
He had called for a public education system saying, "Al1 of US in the province have for too long been perpetrating a sin against the majority of the children in the province and what is worse we have been doing it in the name of God" (Eveninq Telesram, April, 1970). For those of us who were committed to Catholic education, the pending report of the Commission was orninous. We knew there waç a strong political will to dismaritle the denominational system of schooling and that there was a long, arduous road ahead of us not only to defend our legal religious rights which were entrenched in the Canadian Constitution but to justify our moral and spiritual position on Catholic schooling as well.
For me, personally, the tirnes were anxious. 1 was working in the high school at the time and felt that 1 was just beginning to live the full meaning of Catholic education, one that was becoming deeply spiritual ; at the same time the rational voices of secularism were penetrating my consciousness. 1 was caught in the tension of the dialectic. Over the period of consultation 1041 briefs were presented to the Royal Commission on Education by a variety of individuals and community and educational groups. Nearly al1 of the presentations addressed the denominational system of schooling in Newfoundland in some way. The Commissioners reported, Not surprisingly, the submissions that the Commission received presented many arguments for and against retention of the denominational system, and it was clear that the opinions expressed on this topic were more deeply felt than on any other. That is, in 86 percent of the briefs, some concern was voiced about the denominational structure of schooling. Three quarters of al1 the briefs supported the existing system. Only 90 briefs (9 percent) were opposed to denominational schooling, but half of these (45) stated a pref erence for preserving the spiritual aspects of schooling. Arguments for and against the system were based on parental rights, legal rights, the quality of schooling, the educational advantages of small schools and funding ( Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Delivery of Programs and Services in Primary, Elementary, Secondary Educat ion. March, 1992: 14). In its final report, Our Children, Our Future, 211 recommendations were made to government regarding the reorganization of governance structures, the teaching profession, curriculum, instructional time, equal access, performance and accountability, and finances. Generally, the report was considered by both the public and by educational professionals to be well executed and the vast majority of its recommendations were well received. The subsequent recommendations of the Commission regarding the governance structures of schooling were as follows: It envisions a system which involves the forma1 integration of al1 f aiths and the development of policies and practices which would involve al1 citizens in schooling and school governance, At stake is not only the moral direction of the school system, but the basic quality of education for al1 our children. Recommendation 1 that recognizing the reality of a pluralistic dernocracy, declining enrolments and diminishing resources, the proposed [single, interdenominational] mode1 which is responsive to the needs of al1 constituent grcups, yet recognizes the desire of the majority to retain a school system based on Judeo- Christian principles, be adopted and implemented, Recommendation 2 that where numbers warrant, chi ldren be provided with opportunities for religious activities and instruction in their own faith, and that the school system be sensitive and responsive to children of al1 rel igious groups (Royal Commission Report: March, l992:22l). Despite the egalitarian reasoning behind the recomendations, these statements dismayed the supporters of Catholic education. For us, Catholic education is not limited to "opportunities for religious activities and instruction", it offers a way of being in the world, an orientation to lie, the pursuit of the Christian ideal of love, the living of a Christian story, in every aspect of schooling.
In 1992, 1 had articulated my own definition of Catholic education as the evolution of a school community in which each adult and youth is growing together in love towards interior transformation. 1 did not see much hope for verification of my own vision in the recommendations being made to government officials. In October, 1996, former Premier Clyde Wells delivered the ROT-Orr Lecture to Huron College, London, Ontario- In this paper, delivered from the perspective of an Anglican church man in goverment, he presented his rat ional stance on educat ional ref orm, one that had undergirded his reform initiative. The province can no longer, if it ever could, afford to finance the kind of education superstructure necessary to accommodate the rights of churches with respect to operating separate education systeas .... The result of having these separate systems is that the province has an inordinate number of school boards, an inordinate number of schools, excessive management structure, grossly inefficient busing and in the end, a great deal less value than we should be getting for our educational dollar .... The right to run the education system of the province was vested in the churches prior to 1949, and was specif ically provided for in the Terms of Union- As a result it has been impossible for government to deal with the problems in the education system caused by changing circumstances and severely constrained funding without either the approval of the churches to make the changes, or a constitutional change enabling the government to cause the changes to be made by legislation. Here the position taken by some, but not al1 of the churches, is to resist any diminution of their separate rights to manage the education system, While the position of the churches is essentially based upon promotion and preservation of their right to run the education system, in such manner as they see fit, but entirely at pub1 ic expense, the extremely strong resistance to change by some of the churches, is expressed as an effort to protect minority rights of that denomination. The irony is, minority rights are not involved at alL The changes to existing rights is precisely the same for the United Church as it is for the Roman Catholic Church, or for the Anglican Church or for any of the others presently benefitting from the constitutional provisions. Al1 of the denominations presently benefiting from constitutionally entrenched rights together constitute more than 95% of the total population, Al1 are being treated precisely the same. The only real minorities, the Hindus, 3ehovahtsWitness, Muslims, Church of the Latter Day Saints, Baptists, Jewish and other minorities have no such rights at all. (Wells, 1996). For Wells, the central issues were legal and economic. Wells' position was largely supported in the public discussion that both preceded and followed the release of the Royal Commission report. It was this public discourse that 1 found extremely disconcerting; it seemed to become increasingly vitriolic as the debate intensified over the years. Rationality gave way to emotion.
From the beginning, resentment was expressed towards those Catholics who spoke in the Commission consultation sessions in favour of Cathoïic education, . . .we heard nice stories of how great the Catholic system is, about how much love the teachers have for the students, about the use of prayer in the classroom, and so on. The inference seemed to be that this is unique to the Catholic system, and the others do not have these things .... What we have here is a system of educational apartheid, and just as it is wrong for the South African government to segregate people on the basis of colour, it is wrong for our government to segregate on the basis of religion. (R. Brown, Letters to the Editor, Eveninq Teleqram, November 27, 1990 :5 ) There is no such thing as religious math, or religious science, or religious geography. The entire basis for the separate, Church-run school system is pre judice. . . (R. Hiscock, Letter to the Editor, The Evenins Telesram, January 3, 1992:5) There was much discussion about the 'power' issue during the debate- The churches, the Catholic and Pentecostal denominations in particular (implied but not stated in Wells' lecture above), were accused of attempting to control education in the province. Churches are reluctant to give up control of the denominational school system because it allows them to control 80 per cent of the budget of the Department of Education and roughly 13 per cent of the provincial budget, William A. McKim, a professor of psychology at Memorial University told the Royal Commission of Education Wednesday. Based on the figures Che quotedl he said, "It is little wonder that the chuxches are unwilling to give up this power" (Evenins Teleqram, May 2, 1991:3) The reaction of those currently holding power over the schooI system, whi le not unexpected, is nonetheless dismaying..-. 1 think that we cm recognize what motivates these people. It is the desire to cling to the power that they have accumulated over the years and to protect the authority they presently hold over us all. It is yet possible that they may succeed. The government of the day still appears to hold the church potentates in awe, is afraid, even in the face of al1 reason, to risk offending them. Let us pray that progressive-thinking people can find the courage to move our education system into the 20th csntury before the calendar turns into the 21st (R. Green, Letter to the Editor, The Eveninq Teleqram, May 26, 1992~28) The right of the Catholic Church to represent its constituents was also questioned.
My churcb, with its antiquated beliefs, refuses to open its eyes to realities embraced by civilized peoples everywhere. Birth control, in various forrns, remains a sin, and masried men and women lack the purity to become priests, or remain priests involved in homosexual relationships. And this institution wishes to maintain control over the education of our children? (E,M. Flynn, Letter to the Editor, The Eveninq Teleqram, June 27, 1992) In response to a letter written by a Jesuit priest which made claims about the democratic rights of Catholics, a local columnist wrote, This is a remarkable stand for a member of an essentially undemocratic organization to take. As an of ficial in the Roman Catholic Church you claim the right to make decisions ostensibly on behalf of the Catholic parents of Newfoundland in the name of democracy. Yet you yourself were never elected to the position of influence you hold in their church, and neither was your bishop, nor your Pope. Where then do you get these democratic credentials?, . . , You may attempt to argue that the petitions circulated in your churches are that mandate, but in rny part of the province we don't go to church much anymore. The petitions would have been signed by the stubbornly faithful in whom habit is stronger than reason. The rest of us have voted against the present state of the church with our feet and left, . . the very constituency that you claim to reptesent has disowned you. . . So drop the democracy argument, You speak for yourself, your fellow priests and bishops, and a few functionaries in the education system who will lose their jobs under the new system (P, Fenwick, Party of One, The Evenins Teleqram, January 2, 1993:5). Links were also made between the churchesr patriarchal structures and violence to women and children. . .we are being chal lenged to implement innovative education on relations between the sexes. Some of the worst problems in this area are violence against women and child sexual abuse, both of whicb arise in relations between the powerless and the powerful. Judeo-Christian principles and practices buttress the sanctity of authority figures, and thus have provided hospitable conditions for these problems to occur (J. Scott, Letter to the Editor, The Evenins Teleqram, June 18, 1992). Interestingly, in his coverage [of a charge of sexual abuse against a teacher], the columnist, . . . noted that most of the residents of Englee are regular church-goers. What was the significance of this piece of information, 1 wonder? Was he suggesting that if these God fearing church-going people Say that [the accused rapist] is a good man, then he must be so? Or was he subtly acknowledging the well-documented links between the hierarchical, patriarchal structures of most Christian churches and the incidence of male violence against women and children. Either way, the "Englee fiascor' confirms one point, The "Christian values" perpetrated in some of our denominational schools are not in the best interests of our childrenrt (M, Power, A Question of Values, The Evenins Teleqram, January 20, 19943) One of the most vitriolic of the publications appeared in a column just days after Premier Wells decided to cal1 the first referendum, When Clydius agreed to a referendum it was al1 over but the shouting. You could tell that by the look on Gerry Fallon's face. (Oh, naughty Mr, Guy! you may say- That is no way to be spreading peace, joy and harmony throughout the land- Be nice, you may Say, Jesus wants you for a sunbeam!) Tough titty, The only think more obnoxious than a zealot is a hired-and-paid-for-zeaiot, That look on Fallonrs face was worth suf fering six more of the winters we've just been through. Us against th-, meaning the oid, old story of Catholics against Protestants, Sorry, but not this time, boopsie- It's the ultra-conservative (to use the kinder term) RCfs and Prods against the rest .-.. In other words, the sort of crackpots and zombies who insist that you've got to pay taxes to teach your children that your children are Satanrs spawn and will burn in hell for ever more. . .. But as for most of us, we are sick and tired of paying taxes to teach children 57 varieties of religious claptrap and hatred (R. Guy, The Evenina Telesram, June 4, 1995) Fear of retribution f rom the yellow journalism of regular newspaper columnists silenced many. Hundreds of articles, letters, cartoons, and editorials such as these were published over the years 1990-1997, the majority of them attacking the Churches' position, Issues ranged from cost efficiency, student achievement, equal access, teachers' hiring practices, human rights, to power struggles and democratic representation. Over time, the leaders of the major Protestant denominations came to agree with government officials proposal. In the end, by the summer of 1997, it was only the leaders of the Catholic and the Pentecostal denominations who were actively resisting the loss of denominational rights. Two referenda were held in the province, one in September of 1995 and another in September of 1997. In the first referendum, Premier Wells asked the provincial population for approval of an amendment to the constitution so that church control over educat ion could be diminished; in the second referendum, the new Premier Brian Tobin asked for an amendment that would completely remove the power of the churches to influence education, In the first vote, the government position won by a slim rnargin (54%); in the second vote, the populace having experienced the turmoil of implementing the first set of legislation, cornpounded by a reversal of the legislation by the courts, the governmentrsposition won by a large majority (73%). In neither referendum, however, was it clear how Catholics, who constitute 37% of the provincial population, voted. To many Catholics, it f elt as if our constitutional rights had been voted away by the Protestant and other religiously affiliated or non-affiliated rnajority. To me personally, it felt as if a large part of my personhood had been denigrated and denied. My tower had crumbled. Sister Delores Hall P.B,V.M. described it this way, In the eyes of many, the Catholic church, wbich just over a decade ago gloriously proclaimed a year-long celebration of its bicentennial - the highlight of which was the visit of Pope John Paul II - has fallen much further than irrelevance, into shame and disgrace. And there were referendum voices who said, "Now is the time to get rid of it once and for allu.. . . (Catholic New Times, September 24, 1995).
Fallinq from the Tower
My response to the debate preceding the first referendum in particular was quite intense. 1 was tense, irritable and seemingly always on the edge of nausea. 1 hated to listen to radio or television or read newspapers because news coverage was relent less ; there was no way of getting away from it. Discussions with acquaintances were cautious because motions ran so high around the issue. There was no way of knowing whether fellow Catholics were on the Church's side. 1 found myself feeling dismayed when 1 discovered they were not and frustrated with those who supported the Church stand but who were unwilling to take any public action.
1 no longer knew who formed my cornmunity. In one pre-referendum talk 1 gave to a parish congregation in 1995, 1 described us as a Holy Saturday people; we had experienced the crucifixion, had not yet seen the resurrection and were milling about confusedly in the Upper Roorn. Our fear was compounded by not knowing who was in the
Upper Room with us; we sensed other bodies but could not yet see their faces.
A week after 1 gave that talk and two days before the referendum, exhausted with stress and work 1 fell asleep behind the wheel of my car on the highway. 1 was driving to a friend's cottage with my son and his friend for a Labour Day party. 1 woke up when the right front tire hit the grave1 of an embankment. I regained control of my car; my adrenalin levels soared; my heart 202 raced. 1 frightened myself, not only because of the near accident but because without realizing it, 1 had allowed my fear and anxiety about the political situation invade my li£e to the point where
1 endangered our lives. Zt felt as if 1 had created a predisposition to destruction. 1 resolved to restore the balance.
Perspectives on the Crumblinq Tower In an effort to understand the phenornenon of the crumbling tower, 1 interviewed both key lay leaders in Catholic education during the period 1990-1997. 1 wanted to explore their interpretations of the cultural and political stories that were unfolding during the debate. 1 interviewed Mr. Gerald Fallon, Executive Director of the Catholic Education Council from 1989 to
1997 and Dr. Bonaventure Fagan, Executive Officer of the Catholic Education Council, who assisted and supported Mr. Fallon in the officia1 Catholic response to Goverment proposais for change and later assumed his position when Mr. Fallon retired in January, 1997. Each interview lasted for one and one - half hours. Transcripts were made of the tapes and were returned to the participants for review and alteration as desired. Only the revised texts were quoted in the thesis. In addition, the completed chapter was forwarded to the participants and each was invited to respond to my interpretation of their responses. Space in the thesis was promised for their responses if they so wished. These research procedures appeared to be the most ethical to 203
follow, because it was understood by the participants, the
researcher, and the ethi cal revf ew commi ttee that anonymity regarding the identity of the leaders was not possible and al1 participant leaders, therefore, gave signed permission to be identified. Permission was obtained under the review, alteration and response proviso. In endeavouring to understand their perception of provincial
events regarding educational ref orm, 1 was endeavouring to understand the larger provincial political story and the cultural
Catholic story whicb were interwoven with my own personal, professional, Catholic story. The following section, then, describes both the political and the Catholic cultural stories as understood by these men. Mr. Fallon served as Executive Director of the Catholic Education Couricil, the provincial Catholic education goveming body
for nearly eight years. He bas over twenty years experience as a classroorn teacher, school administrator, and school district superintendent, While together with the Archbishop of St. John's he represented only the Catholic denomination at the negotiation table, he was the person quoted most often in the press as representing Churches' position on goverment reform in general,
particularly at the begiming of the debate. As the discussions extended over time, the Protestant denominations shifted their
position in the spring of 1996, became more allied with the govermental reforrn proposal, and there developed a rift in the earlier united position, although the alliance between the 204 Pentecostal denomination and the Catholic Church remained strong. As the educational professional, Fallon was generally regarded as the spokesperson for the Catholic Church's position on education, although Archbishop James MacDonald was the official legal representative. Mr. Fallon readily agreed to be interviewed and appeared pleased to be asked about his reflections on his experience as a leader in the reform debate. When asked what he saw as the key moral issues in the reform debate, he answered in the following way : 1 saw the whole debate as a conflict, as you will, the playing out of a conflict between two different philosophies of education. The one being a secularist view of education, one tbat is driven by individualism, driven by the notion that achievement is everything and the only thing ... as opposed to a dimension of education that drives our whole Catholic philosophy of education.. . our attempting to deal with children and young people as total beings, dealing with all the aspects of education - the spiritual, the moral, the physical, the intellectual and so forth (Interview, January 10, 1997: 4,5).
This philosophical confl ict was misrepresented as a struggle for power, Fallon stated.
Maziy interpreted our position as a struggle for power, to retain the position that we've held for the last one hundred and fi fty years . They interpreted our phi losophy as a struggle for power and that was really disconcerting and disheartening at tirnes, The kinds of statements made by the Premier and by the Minister of Education were that it was a struggle about who controls the education system. We werentt interested in controlling education. We were interested in ensuring that we had the opportunity to provide an education for our children within a spiritual and moral context and according to the Roman Catholic tradition .... an education which dealt with al1 of the secular pursuits but within a religious, spiritual, and moral context. Government and the media saw it as a struggle for power. There's a tremendous moral struggle between these two forces (Interview, January 10, 1997: 4-5). The core of that struggle Fallon identified as an important distinction between the manner in which the mainline Protestant denominations and Catholics view moral and religious education as an obligatory response to the sacrament of Baptism. Be described it this way: (The expression 'denorninations in Integration' refers to the major Protestant denominations in Newfoundland which became conjoined as a single governing body in 1969 to administer schools in which children of most Protestant denominations were integrated. )
The denominations in Integration see moral and religious education not in terrns of any religious tradition. We see it in the context of the Catholic tradition. ...And Government .,.couldnlt understand why we could not accommodate our philosophy within a secular system, a single system in which we would have the opportunity to provide classes of religious instruction They couldn't understand that. They held that education was basically secular, and if you want to provide religious instruction for children of your denomination, then Government would provide that opportunity, support that opportunity. It was impossible for us to convince the government that there was more to this than just classes in religious education, They interpreted our position or felt it convenient to interpret our position as a struggle for power(Interview, January 10, 19975-6). Goverriment saw religious education as a subject to be taught in the curriculum and officiais were very willing to supply that opportunity, even for a variety of denominations within the same school ; the Catholic Church understood religious education, however, as a process that permeates al1 aspects of the operation of the school; it is a spiritual orientation towards life that has holistic implications for administration and policy making, as well 206 as teaching and learning. A similar dichotomy was evident in the understanding of the provision of pastoral care as permitted in the new legislation. For Goverment, this phrase meant that representatives of various religious denominations could have access to students in the school for purposes of instruction, counselling, etc. For Catholics, pastoral care meant an orientation towards the active pursuit of a spiritual community in the school that is the inclusive responsibility of al1 individuals in the school, adults as well as students. In these two issues, religious educaiion and pastoral care, it is appeared to me that a masculine-ferninine split was operant. Government's position on both is that they can be compartmentalized, structured and time-bound. It reflects an analytical, rational, efficient, delivery of services mode of thinking, a style of thinking that can be characterized as masculine. It cornpetes with the holistic, spiritual orientation of the Catholic point of view which is more feminine. Almost al1 of the public debate about the denominational system centred on two issues - the legal one and the economic one. There was much public discussion about whether Church rights as guaranteed in Term 17 of the 1949 Terms of Union of Newfoundland with Canada ought to be preserved, and there was heated discussion about the purported high costs of operating parallel school systems in a common geographical area. In the centre of that debate, for me, there was a huge vacuum. There was little public discourse on the mission and purposes of public schoo1ing or of religious schooling. Even the Churches did not seem to be bringing the
philosophical arguments into the debate. 1 asked Dr. Fagan whether this was a deliberate strategy on the Churchesf part- He responded, No, we tried. In fact, one of the earliest things we did was to develop a pamphlet on Catholic education. And I remember quite well the long hours that we spent on the section dealing with characteristics of Catholic schools. . From the position that we are here at the Council , we had no choice but to be involved in the legal and economic, We had, by legislation and by being officia1 representatives of the Catholic people, a definite role to play. To abdicate that and to pursue only the communication of vision of Catholic schooling would have been negligence on our part. What we strove for was to address both. We didnft set the agenda- The agenda was constantly being set for us. And so, when we tried to address then, what is a Catholic school, 1 would Say in large part we were probably somewhat dependent at times on where Government was . . . .To go back to whether there was an overt decision not to address the heart of Catholic education - no, 1 donlt think that was the case at all. 1 think where we could, we worked on it. Where we could, we did. Clearly, we had a mandate or responsibility, a legislated responsibility to represent the Catholic people, particularly in the legal issues. We certainly never saw any division in that sense. In fact, we always said, legal rights without the overt commitment to Catholic moral issues and values in our schools, is of little value (Interview, Jan. 10, lW7:g).
It appears that there were two very strong cultural stories being told in the province during this time. One had the theme of excessive Church power in education and other the theme of a poor provincial economy which could not afford the duplication of educat ional services which were attributed to the denominat ional school system. The second theme subtext was woven from the threads of the first. The strength of the second story was commented on by
Fagan : We challenged constantly but were never answered on this, that economical ly, nobody could demonstrate that our system was costing more than if we had a single secular system, or a singular anything system. The Williamst Royal Commission didn't demonstrate it, nor did government. And now, where government had the strength in that argument was in the reality that the economy was bad. Because there were cutbacks and because we had a declining population, then obviously it always looked like we had more in the system than what was required. But that had nothing to do wi th denominational educat ion; that had to do with social factors, cultural factors, general economic factors, in my opinion (Interview, January 10, 1997)
The power of the 'poor econornyt story was so strong in the province, that evidence to corroborate govemment claims of the massive costs of duplication in the system were not required for its substance. In fact, it was reported that one major accountancy f irm, when asked by off icials in Government to estimate the savings to be gained through its proposed educat ional ref orm, reported after investigation that the system was much too complex and reliable estimates were not possible. Yet the story endured.
One of the concerns that 1 had had as a Cath01 ic observing the educational debate was that the Catholic Church, as well as the other Churches, was always portrayed by media and by the Government as a depersonalized institution. There was little sense conveyed in which the Church was described as a living, peopled organism.
The only people who were associated with it were clerics. This was a problem noted also by Fallon, ...the whole notion of power was something that had become ' au courant' . Power became the in-word - the power of the clergy and the power of the Church. These kinds of notions surfaced when the sexual abuse scandals were exposed and clergy were charged. And anybody who had to anything to Say about why al1 this had happened blamed the exercise of power in the Church. It was 'power over'. So yes, it was the institutional Church really that the government kept referring to and they knew they had the upper hand when they referred to 'the Church' rather than referring to the Roman Catholic people. They wouldn't refer to the Roman Catholic people at al1 in any of their written documents, or oral discussions. They wouldn't refer to the Roman Catholic people or the Pentecostal people. We attempted to focus on the Roman Catholic people or the Pentecostal people because we are talking about people as Church, They would refer to 'the Church' as an institution. Now, unfortunately, the Catholic people seem to think of the Church as an institution, too ... Somehow they have this weird notion that you have this institution separate f rom the people. They don't see them as being one. And whenever the Government referred to the Church the Catholic people would see the Church being referred to as the institution, And the Church as an institution in this province has, to Say the least, a very poor reputation at the present time, The Roman Catholic Church as an institution, because of the sexual abuse and because of how these matters were dealt with by the hierarchy, lacks credibility and has diminished in its moral authority. Yes, it's a real problem that we have the institutional Church speaking out on the issues of educational reform and I guess, 1 have been seen to represent , and the Archbishop represents, the institutional Church (Interview, January 10, 1997: 7-8) 1 believe that the Government strategy to depersonalize Church, to speak of it only in institutional terms, was a deliberate strategy on their part to isolate it from the people and to make it appear as the enemy. It is a masculine war strategy. And to a large extent t worked, at least it served to publicly silence the Catholic people, because they were largely silent. The depersonalization was further reinforced by the local television media which consistently televised a photograph of the imposing twin spires of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in St. John's or the building of Mount Cashel Orphanage in association with reports of clerical abuse. As Fagan commented, There's a well known process, means, by which you get your message across and that is by the metaphor you use, the image. And it has been important ... or govemment has capitalized on the image of Church as abstract institution, Abstract... in the sense that it is apart from the people. So that Church has been clergy, bishops or buildings. . .. The image of the Basilica, historically in this province, was always one facing the mouth of the harbour - it was always the beacon of faith, the beacon of hope. For an island people with an island mentality that was powerful. Everything else could go, but the twin towers of the Basilica were there facing you when you came in through the harbour entrance. Now, the result of the promotion or association of the basilica as a negative image is that you can't depend on those towers anymore ( Interview, January 10, 1997 :29 ) While not al1 Catholics have been subsumed by the negative image, the Government position and the media visual approach have worked in tandem to alter our Catholic story by denigrating one of Our central images as it became associated with the criminal acts of individuals within the Church. The understanding of Church as the
Vatican II defined it, as the 'pilgrim people of God', gained little ground, particularly among the forty to fifty percent of Catholics who dontt attend church on a regular basis. Fagan stated, Our Catholic people are like the other citizens of this province; they are largely dependent on the images that the media puts forward and that other people put forward and if you.., donft attend regular Church, then that is your only image.. . there is no other positive image to counter that of the media or government. Thus our image of Church as the people of God went nowhere and after an initial attempt to use that image we abandoned it in favour of simply 'Church' (Interview, January 10, 1997).
There is little doubt that the sexual abuse scandals regarding priests and religious brothers severely weakened the strength and the earlier clarity of the Catholic story in the province. It is 211
my theory that the old story unravelled and no new story was knit to take its place. Just as the twin spires of the Basilica remained stationery, yet altered, in that they suggested a new, but
negative and undesirable story, the people remained still but were also altered. They didn't want to be associated with the negative story, but the truth of it was undeniable. The Hughes Inquiry, the Winter Commission, the subsequent court trials and convictions exposed the ugliness of the abuse for what it was. The landscape was irrevocably altered for ordinary lay Catholics and they had no new story within which they could locate themselves. Without an honourable public story to tell, they claimed no story and were publicly silent. Their voices disappeared from the public
landscape, Privately, however, it seemed as if most regular churchgoers cont inued to attend Church and there was no perceptible change in enrolment of students in Catholic schools.
In the aftermath of the sexual abuse scandais, the power of the clerical, masculine, authoritarian structures of the institutional Catholic Church in the province crumbled. Fallon himself acknowledged this when he noted the loss of the Churchrs moral authority and comments on the low turnout of Catholics at the many meetings that were held across the province when he, as institutional leader was invited to disseminate information about the proposed changes to education in the province. My theory about that, as well, is that to attend a public meeting was to publicly claim one1s Catholicity, and Catholics were not sure ariy more what they were claiming allegiance to. Catholic confusion was bom of at least two factors. One was lodged in the general societal alarm and confusion about the existence of sexual abuse, and that was compounded by the fact that Newfoundland society's first real education about sexual abuse was a result of the scandals caused by the abuse of young boys by Catholic priests and members of religious orders. Secondly, in the strong Catholic communities that existed in the province, the individual shame that was acquired by the convicted clergy seemed to pervade the entire Catholic community. Fagan elaborated on both these points:
The first thing that you would have to Say about our society, and this is true whether you are Catholic or not, but since it ' s corne to roost here with us, you know, the way it did.. . number one, society itself is very confused about sexual abuse. Twenty years ago, nobody would have really knowri what you were talking about. The person on the street in terms of public discussion, would not have known what you were really getting at . 1 work with an advisory committee to the Chair on Child Protection rat Memorial University of Newfoundland] and we see this al1 the time. There is still out there, in spite of all the education, in spite of al1 the massive efforts in this regard, there is an inherent confusion in terms of sexual abuse and what is involved in it. And so there is a certain amount of that, anyway. But 1 believe that was emphasized in the Catholic community because we had a tradition where, no matter what - the priest could be idiosyncratic - but you could live with that. You could live with that because we had this great respect for them and their position as ' alter Christos' [other Christs]. Perhaps we put them on pedestals. And they certainly exercised their leadership role in terms of the Catholic community in social ways generally, not religious ways only. And so there was partly trying to deal with that. Now in terms of the shame aspect, without our knowing it, that cornes out of our strong community roots again. In other words, even when we are shamed and Say such things as. '1 wouldn't have anything to do with someone who did this' , the fact that we have shme indicates to me that there is a sense of ownership there. Otherwise, you would simply just walk away from it. And 1 Ive been in places where people just absolutely rejected ownership. 1 can remember very well a particular meeting that 1 had with one group when one person said it. He refused ownership. He suddenly realized that he didn't belong to the group and got up and left. He really realized that he didn't belong to the group and he left. Arid it only struck me later what he was really rejecting; he was rejecting a lot more than what he thought. It was a sad moment indeed .... And 1 think that was part of the double whanmy really for Catholics. First of all, becoming aware of sexual abuse, period, as a reality in our lives which we really hadn't acknowledged much before and the shock of that reality being associated with the institution of the Church. That was the double whaminy. (Interview, Jan. 10, 1997:24-26)
It was indeed a double whammy. The shock waves reverberated through al1 generations of the Catholic people. The Department of
Justice inquiry into the sexual abuse of children by members of the clergy, led by Justice Samuel Hughes, was televised daily on locâl television channels. In the painful witness of the many abuse victims, thousands of people received a first hand education into the nature and consequences of sexual abuse. For many, especially older women, it was a f irst time introduction to the terminology of homosexual sexual behaviour. They were shocked, not only that men engaged in such acts, but were thoroughly appalled that it was priests and Christian Brothers who had perpetrated such acts upon young boys. The foundations of respect that Cath01 ics had traditionally held for their priests were shaken to the core. Impossible models of 'perfection' that Catholics had been striving for tumbled off the pedestals. Catholics in Newfoundlarid learned, in a very profound way, that "perfection is the unattainable aspiration to be what we aren't" and perhaps "should never be, if human life with al1 its learnings is really to be human" (Chittester,1995:116). ft was the lay people's turn to feel morally superior to the clergy; the power tables were turned, In the resulting confusion, the old story of what it meant to be Catholic became unravelled and the only new story that was being written was a counter story, and was being authored by those outside the institution - the media in particular- Memorial University political scientist Mark Graesser(l990) commented, "the attitudinal impact of these traumatic events on the Catholic community, in particular, has apparently been a profound decline in trust in Church authorities (22)" . In the subsequent weakening of the strength of the Catholic Church, the Goverment saw that the time was ripe to implement education reform. Graesser stated in 1990 that research indicated that "there is little to constrain a more active approach by goverment in response for the calls for review and reform (22)." Subsequently, it was in August of 1990 that Premier Clyde Wells implemented the Royal Commission of Znquiry into the Delivery of Programs and Services in Primary, Elementary, Secondary Education, chaired by Dr, Leonard Williams. In 1992, when the final report was submitted, it was recommended that a single, interdenominational system of school ing be implemented in the province. In the words of the Cornmissioner, it will resolve many of the philosophical concerns raised during its public consultation process (224) [and] ..As a practical means of addressing many of the problems facing education in this province. It allows for the consolidation of resources, the avoidance of duplication of services or effort, equal and universal rights of access and participation, and flexibility in responding to changing needs, yet retains much of the province's religious and educational heritage(224). Separate Catholic schooling was threatened in this recomrnendation. A crisis was created. In the powerful counter story of Catholicism being told by the media and later by Government off icials, the Catholic people did not seem to know how to respond. Fallon said it this way when asked why Catholics did not respond publicly to the educational crisis:
1 guess there are many reasons, many factors at work here. 1 think the most convincing one that 1 cari conjure in my own mind is the fact that Roman Catholics have been beaten down by the way the Church was treated publicly in the media concerning the abuse issue. Then the media took the Church on in the education issue and became extremely critical and saw the Church's position as a power struggle. The Evening Telegram [the only St. John's daily newspaper] editorial took a position against the Church 's position on educational ref orm and never let up. The open line programs [local radio talk shows] took a similar position. The open line moderators, the two on VOCM, took a position against the Church. CBC, bath radio and television, took a position against the churches' position on education reform. So after being bombarded with the contrary view, Cath01 ics became silent. They were silenced. It was a spiral of silence that the more people spoke out against the position of the institutional Church, then the more reluctant Catholics were to speak out in favour of the position of the Church on this matter. They became afraid. Because when you listen to some of these open line programs and when sixty, eighty, well, ninety percent of the calls would be against the system, the tendency is for supporters to be silent. The moderator of these programs would certainly take a biased position against the denominational system. They would use al1 kinds of pejorative terminology, like you know ,... this system fosters separation .... apartheid*,.. And the average Catholic doesntt have an answer to that kind of an assaul t . There was this overwhelming silence that grew, Roman Catholic people began to cower away f rom the issue. They wouldn't corne out publicly; they wouldn't write letters to the editor; few would cal1 in on open line programs. It's not an easy time in Newfoundland to be a Catholic. Few members of the Catholic Church would stand up today and Say I'm proud to be a Catholic. This is because of the way the Church is viewed by so many, many people (Interview, January 10, 1997). 216
Both Fallon and Fagan articulated reasons other than the sexual abuse scandals and the resultant media response, however, that in their opinions contributed to this silent story of lay Catholics. As previously discussed in this chapter, Fallon noted that most Catholics still saw the Church as institution and not as the people- The chariged role of lay people in the Church, a new story, as described and authorized by the documents of Vatican II, had not deeply taken hold. There was still a split between the Church as institution and the Church as people. When the authoritarian story faltered, the lay story was too weak to sustain itself. There were several underlying roots of the weakness of the lay Catholic response to the media verbal assault, according to Fallon and Fagan. One is that the Catholic educational system in the province really hadn't done a very good job over the years "of providing our parents, our people, the parents of the children in our schools, with the knowledge of what it is that we are about in Catholic education" . We took the system for granted and really hadn't examined our roots or our uniqueness in a public way. Both men also acknowledged that we had too many Catholic schools that were really not doing a very good job of rnodelling Catholic ideals. Both had received criticlsm at public meetings for the quality of the schools in the local districts. Fallon said he was asked by a parent in a public meeting, "What are we trying to save? Are we just trying to save the institution and is it just a power stmggle? Are we really trying to Save something that is making a very signif icant contribution morally, spiritually to society?" That parent had seen little evidence of it in his local Catholic school . Fagan made a similar comment, It's amazing, as we went around the province, one of the common messages that ne got was that [Catholic] overtness was missing in many of Our schools. That was one of the very common messages we got f rom the public, f rom the Catholic public of this province (Interview, January 10, 1997).
When 1: asked him what indicators parents were looking for, he responded, . . . intriguing enough, they weren ' t always specif ic about indicators, except when they spoke of the teacher - student relationship. One of the things, for example, that we had taken for granted in Catholic schools was that al1 teachers would be overtly committed members of the congregations, of the Catholic community. And what we heard was that there are many teachers in the Catholic school who are in fact not so committed. Sometimes it wasn't a case of people saying, 'This is a descriptor of a Catholic school' as what it wasn't.,.. We did hear on a nirmber of occasions..., in different parts of the province, the same kinds of echoes. That there were teachers who weren't doing what was expected of th-- Their students, their chi ldren, were in rel igious education classes and the teacher didn't bother to teach religion. Or the teacher had games for them that had nothing to do with R. E. [Religious Education] . That kind of disrespect, that kind of a refusa1 to teach religious education. Now if you pushed it, my question was always, 'Have you pursued this with your principal and your board?' And the answer always came back in those cases, a) 'No, I haven't.' and b) 'There's no point. ' ...and so you have to take certain things with a grain of salt but the echo was still there, strongly at tirnes (Interview, January 10, 1997).
Parental dissatisfaction with some teachers' performance as religious educators was seen as a factor in the lack of response. Perhaps part of the reason for this poor teacher response was inadequate professional preparation for the teaching of relîgion- A major contributor to the weakness of the Catholic education story they saw was the lack of religious education received by the vast majority of our school administrators and teachers. Most had been educated at Mernorial University of Newfoundland, a secular institution, and while some teachers had elected some religious education courses as part of their undergraduate training, most had not, and were mschooled either in the tenets of the faith or in the philosophy of Catholic schooling- Repeated attempts by the Catholic Education Council to develop courses for credit at the local university level were thwarted by university officiais. Fagan commented, Let me Say that from my observation having worked in Catholic school boards for twentysome years, that the vast majority of teachers, in terms of education are what 1 cal1 grade eleven Catholics. They are high school Catholics. Meaning that they have had nothing in an organized nature in terms of exploration of their faith since grade eleven ( Interview, January 10, 1997). Elementary school teachers he saw as being better prepared than high school teachers because they taught religious education as a regular part of their classroom duties and so therefore kept up with many aspects of their faith because of that teaching responsibility. High school teachers, on the other hand, generally were assigned subject specific responsibilities and therefore the number of teachers who taught religious education was much fewer and there was less awareness of current Catholic philosophy or theology. This imbalance in levels of teacher religious education would also account for a much higher level of parental dissatisfaction with the 'Catholicity' of high schools than with elementary schools- Both Fallon and Fagan acknowledged the impact of the shift in Catholic ecclesiology in the new teachings that emerged from Vatican II- Fagan said it this way,
Prior to Vatican II everyone knew where they were. They might not have 1 iked where they were, but they knew where they were. Since Vatican 11 we have not been as dependent on Church discipline. Many of our teachers, therefore, have not retained either their commitment or their pretence to commitment simply from the pressure to conform. If there is no way to keep the faith in the forefront, there is a tendency to let it f al1 . You can ' t stay on even ground, you either go ahead or you fa11 behind. And 1 think, through no fault of anybody's, just general change in the Church, many of our CathoIic teachers fell behind [in their knowledge of Chutch teaching] (Interview, January 10, 1997). Both men understood the impact of ecumenisrn from Vatican II and the resultant loosening of the rigidity of Canon Law surrounding interfaith marriages as having a significant impact on the issue of educational reform. According to Fallon and Fagan there has been a significant increase in the number of interfaith marriages in the province and as a result, many students in many schoois have parents who corne from differing religions. Fallon said, "And these people look at the education issue and Say, 'Well, if we can live together in a relationship as intimate as marriage and we can respect each other, well, why can' t my son here go to school with so and so and both respect each other's religious belief s and practices? ' " (Interview, January 10, 1997) - The family lines, which for generations in Newf oundland had sharply del ineated Catholics and Protestants, were being blurred and within families distinctions between faiths were no longer clear as individuals sought common grounds for the preservation of their marriages. Catholic business people dependent upon the Government for their livelihood were also silent. Fallon reported that many business people chose not to become publicly involved in the debate even though they privately supported the Churches' arguments in the reform debate. They felt if they spoke out publicly, their "own livelihood would be at stake". Some very prominent Catholics in Newfoundland, we were hoping they would speak our because their prominence would add a little more weight to our position on education reform. But they refused to do so because of the position they hold in society. There were those who said to me, 'Look, 1'11 do what 1 can for you behind he scenes, but 1 cannot get out here on the picket line. 1 don't feel like calling in Open Line because people will know who I am. But 1 support you in what you are doing. ...Some very prominent people would cal1 and Say '1 support what you are doing, but 1 can't knock on doors for you. 1 cari' t be up front during the referendum. But 1 support you and what you are doing . ' We ' ve had that as well. Why? Some people refused to get visibly involved because they felt they were beholden to Government in some way. And there were others, for whom politics got in the way. Big P politics. For some people, politics became predominant, more so than their om religious beliefs regarding education reform, There were members of the Liberal party who felt they had to follow the party line and they couldnrt do otherwise; they shouldn't oppose the government (Interview, January 10, 1997).
An important Catholic organization chose not to become involved. When asked directly to assist in the campaign, they did nothing. The answer that Fallon received £rom some members of that organization he paraphrased in the following way, "1 have a business and 1 depend on Government contracts and if 1 were out there beating the drums against the government on this issue, then my whole 1 ive1 ihood could be in jeopardy" ( Interview, January 10, Catholic teachers also did not respond as a group. A few individuals wrote letters supporting Catholic education and sent them to the public newspapers or to the executive of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association which had, for years, supported the dismantling of the denominational school system. As Fallon pointed out, Our Catholic teachers are not organized as a group of Catholic teachers. . . and if any of them were to come forward they were coming forward as individuals- And they would be taking a position that would be contrary to the position taken by their Association- And what Catholic teacher wants to take a position contrary to the position taken by the Association? Even those who support Catholic schools and even those who support us in our struggle to continue constitutional protection for these things, were largely silent. There were a Eew who wrote letters to their Association, published these letters, telling the Association that it was not speaking for them in the position it had taken against the denorninational system. The Association took the position for one system of education .... the brief they presented to the Royal Commission was that al1 the i11s in education rest on the shoulders of the denominational system, the fact that it is denorninational- And that was the position taken by Government as well. So, it is the same thing, 1 think, the silence, the spiral of silence that results from - the more people speak out against the system, the more reticent those who support the system become, That is how 1 see it- It is the psychology of it all, The teachers, the Catholic teachers, reflect the Catholic community. If the Catholic community is indifferent; if the Catholic community is hurt and suffering as a result of the abuses that have taken place within the Church, and as a result the way the Church has handled these abuses and the cloud of suspicion that has hovered over the heads of some Church leaders, the teachers react no dif f erently f rom other Catholics, But there are many that support the system and are af raid to say so, to come out publicly and oppose their association (Interview, January 10, 1997).
An effort by a religious education coordinator of one of the Catholic school boards to organize Roman Catholic teachers into a professional interest group met with massive resistance from teachers of all religions. They saw it as a threat to the integrity of the Newfoundland and Labrador Teachers' Association. It was not the coordinator's intention to organize a new collective bargaining unit, but in the outcry that resulted, the idea was abandoned. While there was some dissension within the Association, although not publicly acknowledged by the executive, teacher loyalty to their professional union remained intense. Fagan commented , ...in terms of the NLTA, 1 think you have to go back 30 years. You have to realize that 30 years ago many O£ our colleagues, in fact, al1 of us, were very poorly paid. We were struggling to have recognized by government in this province that several years university training required a fair compensation in pay and other benefits. And it was the NTA [the earlier name for the Association] at the time who indeed forged a strong bond of support by demonstrating that they were the only force around that could in f act deliver on those issues. There is a very, very, deep-rooted .... commitment and perhaps fear, that whatever you do, you have to stay unified as an Association. In regard to people making comments to the NLTA, 1 find intriguing the differing information you get on the issue of teacher criticism of their Association's position, As 1 have gone around the province, 1 have been struck by the number of teachers who have corne up to me over the last five years and said that they and fellow colleagues have written or called the NLTA to express their disapproval of the stand the Association has taken on the reform issues. But they felt unable to take a negative stand against the Association in public, perhaps because it is against the ethics of the Association. And what 1 am always struck by, in response to queries by the media, is that the Association always says that not very many people reacted in a critical way. There doesn't appear to have been any way that the Catholic comunity of teachers could organize to strongly counter the position of the NLTA (Interview, January 10, 1997).
The voices of Catholic teachers who dissented with the Association's official stand were silenced. Historically, Catholics have never had a separate voice within the Association, although accommodations have been made for the particular religious beliefs of Pentecostal teachers- In an interesting footnote to the interview text, Fagan added, "1 can't help see the same dynamic in motion here, so one conclusion, though not completely accurate, could be that the NLTA replaced the Church in terms of both commitment and fear of not conforming" (Interview, January 10, 1997). This is an intriguing interpretation of the new story that Catholic teachers have written for themselves.
Loss of Voice The spiral of silence for me personally was downward and oppressive; 1 also was drawn into the centre of the vortex of silence. 1 worked hard behind the scenes but 1 did not speak publicly; 1 did not want to be accused of being 'a hired-and-paid- for-zealot " . As a woman 1 felt 1 had little voice in the professional context in which 1 worked; as a rnember of the Catholic church 1 had lost my public identity because Our traditional story had unravelled; as a Catholic rnember of my professional association, 1 felt 1 had no voice; as a citizen, the prevailing societal story regarding educational reform was not my story- There was a profound Catholic silence. Only the leaders and a handful of courageous others deigned to speak out. According to Houlihan (1997), the silence is a place of no story. In Ignatian spiritual terms, the period from 1993-1996 was a time of spiritual desolation for me. This external, public story ran counter to the joy of the high school story. Powerful authoritative forces were gathering outside of me, assaulting the validity of my Iived experience and my growing sense of confidence in my own knowledge of what constituted good education. The political turmoil rendered my cocreative and immanent images of God ineffectual; they dissipated when 1 moved to the district office; only poignant maories remained. 1 could no longer cal1 them into feeling because 1 no longer lived them. God once again reverted to an exterior, rnascul ine, transcendent, objective God. While 1 was receiving spiritual direction during the spring of 1994, the pain of the dilemma surfaced and 1 wrote, CMy spiritual directorf pointed out to me today that there are two groups of men represented in my reflections, those who protect me and those who shut me out. He asked me an interesting question - into which group did 1 put Christ? 1 realized in considering that question that mainly 1 pray to a depersonalized God. I've been aware of that for a long time but 1 cantt recall when 1 started to do that. 1 find it easier to pray to Cod than Christ, maybe ittsbecause 1 can find a place for God in secular spirituality; 1 can know Kim in academic or psychological terms. 1 can integrate this God into theories of education. into philosophical stances. 1 cari cal1 Him Truth, Love, WhoIeness, the Universal Connection. 1 can experience Him in the collective unconscious. He is a secular God, nearly universally accepted as Being, as Life Itself. This God bridges the chasm between the secular and the spiritual. I cm believe in Him and still be accepted and affirmed by those who live wholly in the secular world. 1 think I'm having trouble coming to terms with being a Christian. That description seems too narrow, too limited, too provincial, It asks for too much. 1 am realizing that 1 am having great dif f iculty in letting go of the desire for secular affirmation, of ' dyingt to the values of the world, 1 am having dif f iculty proclaiming my Christianity and Catholicity to the world. That difficulty 1s the source of my paralyzing fear around public political action, 1 am terrified that 1 c-ot articulate the reasons 1 feel so strongly about. 1 fear 1 am tied to Catholic education more out of an intuitive sense of its rightness than out of a rational analysis of its worth (Personal journal, May 18, 1994).
Such was the nature of my dilemma at the time. 1 was caught in the pain of a competing persona1 dialectic: rny desire for persona1 affirmation from secular sources of authority competed with my spiritua1 desire for persona1 spiritual autonomy, to be free of the pull of secular values. At the same time 1 had once again objectif ied God, secularized and masculinized him. My image of God was mirroring my relationship with authority, trying to bridge the gap between the sacred and the secular. I could not recognize or relate to the personal, subjective Christ, because that image is not so well tolerated in the public world. Christ asked for too much. Yet Christ is the central figure of my faith. How could 1 cal1 rnyself Catholic if 1 could not proclaim the divinity of
Christ? It was several months later before 1 encountered a new embodiment of Christ.
While 1 was having difficulty coming to terms with subjective understandings of God, 1 began to try to use the skills I had learned in a Catholic Leadership course at the Spirituality Centre in Guelph, Ontario- 1 tried to read the signs of the times to discern how God was drawing the Catholic Church to wholeness in Newfoundland. In the angry beating we were receiving I saw a parallel to the story of Jesus clearing the Temple of money- changers- Maybe this also was movement towards something new for the Church, in the ashes of the 'clearing out' we were enduring, perhaps there were the stirrings of the hope of a new story. 226 Perhaps, like the money-changers, we too had not honoured the sacred space we had occupied.
In my spiritual development these were years in which 1 learned to regard spirituality in a larger context and began to regard culture as a ref lection of spirituality. 1 was begiming to discern through my coursework, that the 1 ife-death-resurrection cycle of individual humans could also be applied in the larger context to cultures and to organization. The Newfoundland Catholic
Church in Newfoundland appeared to be in the death phase. 1 hoped for resurrection. In narrative terms, 1 endeavoured to corne to terms with the multiple conflicting stories on the landscape, and become politically active because 1 thought the Catholic story was not being listened to, but 1 could not sort the stories sufficiently to clear a space so that the story could be heard. 1 could not quickly write an integrative new story that preserved our Catholic story yet respected others stories nor could 1 conceptualize a God that might serve as the God of the new systm, encompassing al1 of
US. The new story that govemment legislators was writing discounted the old story. The unifying narrative thread of the religious moral authority to make meaning of education had been pulled from the old story and no new unifying thread regarding the subjective moral purposes of education has been spun. Only the objective ends of education were appearing with clarity - improved student achievement and economic efficiency. Chapter 7 The Mountaintop: Cal1 to Wholeness
Finally, the cruel father wrapped hls daughter's long hair around one hand and, with his sword clutched in the other, dragged her off to the top of a nearby mountain. Barbara prayed for strength,and at the moment her father severed her head £rom her body, she was caught up in a vision of Jesus, her Lord and love. Now, Dioscorus turned to go back down the mountain, and as he did so atreniendous thunderstom with lightning broke loose, and he wae struck and ki lled by a f iery bolt (Caprio, 1982:7)- Introduction Even to the end of her life, "the dialogue between Barbara's outer environment and her inner experience goes on" (Caprio: 31).
Her father Dioscorus drags her up the rnountainside by her hair, a symbol of vulnerability and femininity, and beheads her. Caprio describes Barbara as being completed in the moment of her death with "the f eminine functions of her sou1 each developed and blended together and her masculinity claimed for herselfn(31). Her father, Diascorus, was killed not by Barbara or by God, but by the forces of nature because he was not in harmony with them. At the beginning of her journey, Barbara was encased in a tower, symbol of wholeness; her death occurred on a mountain top, a symbol of spiritual growth towards wholeness, a common location for monasteries of various traditions because it was seen to be closer to God. Sometimes in medieval art, as in the frontispiece of this document, Barbara is shown holding her tower; Caprio interprets this image as Barbara grasping the concept of totality, but it is only when she actually achieves this totality of wholeness can she be called Saint Barbara (32) She says that 228 spiritually Barbara models what women may become - women functioning in feminine ways, women in relationship to the maleness both within us and outside of us, women ruled by their passion for wholeness.
Certainly, the completion of this thesis does not imply the conclusion of my spiritual development; nor does it express a subliminal wish for any mamer of beheading, academic, spiritual or physical! The completion of the thesis simply marks a turning of the path of my spiritual journey. In applying this section of
Barbara's story to my own life, 1 altered the metaphorical nature of Dioscorus slightly so that he represented not only external masculine forces, but also my own internal masculine nature. This chapter describes an evolution of movement towards spiritual wholeness, not always conscious, through a developing understanding of the masculine - feminine dialectic in my Iife and of the relationship of this dialectic to authority and spirituality.
Barbara, in f inding her voice, Einds herself isolated in a new way and is rejected both by the collective authority of the courts and the individual authority of her father. She is, nevertheless, in her death, set free, experiencing a unity with God as she dies.
1, also, in beginning to find my voice experienced a new form of isolation, the sources of which were not clear to me, but became clearer as the writing unfolded. In the stories related in this chapter 1 experienced new insights into the connections between internal and external authority and between the immanent and transcendent perspectives of God. For me, it marks an entry into 229 an initial comprehension of an immanent, ecological, creative spirituality.
Discoverinq the Feminine
My doctoral journey began as a conscious effort to develop my masculine dimensions, to strengthen those aspects of my functioning that 1 identified as weak, notably rationality and scientific thinking, 1 came to OISE to hear the 'experts' expound on the
'absolute objective truth' about education. 1 wanted to bridge the gap between religious and secular concepts of schooling. It was a movement f rom a Catholic tower of authority to an academic tower of authority, a movement to objectively assess the value of Catholic education f rom a rational perspective; later, 1 was to realize that it was a movement on the part of my masculine to suppress rny feminine,
It came as a complete surprise to me, as 1: ventured into academia and found myself enrolled in my first four courses with
Dr, Michael Connelly, Dr. David Hunt, Dr, Jack Miller, and Dr.
Patrick Diamond to find myself not separated and 'outside' my experience as 1 expected, but completely immersed in it, totally inside it, learning to examine it critically from within through processes O£ narrative inqui ry, guided imagery, art and meditation. The value of my feminine experience was acknowledged, and within that experience 1 leamed that the purpose and meaning of education possessed feminine qualities, even a central feminine core. One of my earliest persona1 images of myself engaged in my work was that of a living, pumping heart- As a symbol of love and care it was a feminine image and emerged f rom a guided imagery exercise in one of Dr. Hunt's classes in the summer of 1992. 1 wrote at the time,
A heart is central to the life of the body: it establishes its rhythm and pulse. Through the circulatory system, it is connected to al1 parts of the body and must pump with sufficient energy to send blood through the entire system. The heart is interdependent with al1 other major body organs making oxygenation and nourishent possible and thereby sustaining and repairing and restoring. Blood returns to the heart for more nutrients yet it also serves to nourish the heart itself. The heart is controlled by electrical impulses which are a function of both interna1 and external conditions. Rushes of adrenalin cause it to beat stronger; illness and stress alter its rhythm. The interior structure of the heart contains four chambers, al1 with different roles to play - of receiving, of holding, of energizing, of sending. The heart is the universal symbol of love, compassion and caring (Dunne: 1992)- Embedded in this image is the essential feminine nature of my understanding of my professional work - caring, sustaining, nurturing, interconnected. The value of this metaphor for me was also in its holistic applications for it was connected and interdependent with al1 members of the system of which it is a part and it is integrated with its environment in both receptive and responsive ways. The heart is the centre of the body and has been universalized as the centre of love and care. Its impulses have a spiritual source for they spring from the mysterious origins of life.
Having discerned this image for my work in my school, it was immenseiy affirming to read Miller's (1992) comment that "if we are connected to our heart then students will connect to theirs" (49) and also to read his reference to Matthew Fox who wrote:
When 1 'm operating at my best, my work is my prayer It comes out of the same place that prayer comes out of, the centre, the heart- Al1 work is meant to be heart work: it comes out of our heart and goes to Our heart - Al1 authentic work is an effort to move other people's hearts(49).
Miller concludes in that paragraph that spi ri tua1 educat ion is clearly a form of 'heart work' and should flow from our spiritual centre" (49-50). Qualities of heart, then, are at the centre of the spiritual or transformational perspective on education and also of Catholic education, They fom the feminine centre of transformational leadership whether that Leadership is exerted by women or by men, in Catholic schools or in public schools.
Shiftinq Landscapes, Shiftins Imases of God
In spite of having these feminine qualities acknowledged and validated by university authorities as legitimate ways of proceeding in the educational milieu, I still felt frightened when my private, professional world was threatened with goverment attempts to dismantle Catholic education in 1992 and my new employment situation in 1993 threw me unprotected ont0 the public landscape. With the structures of my world weakening, my prof essional Cath01 ic values felt naked and exposed- Secular authorities were wielding more and more influence over my life-
Could values of caring and spirituality survive the educational reform movement? Was there a legitimate place for them on the new landscape that was unfolding? 1 felt my feminine professional core was open and vulnerable. It was my inner masculine that came to 232 rescue me.
1 needed to develop for myself a cognitive, rational framework that supported the affective, spiritual values of Catholic schooling. 1 needed to justify the mission of Catholic schooling so 1 could articulate my beliefs both in the public and private domains. I needed to bridge the gap between secularist and religious schooling. In spite of my experiences with a cocreative
God in rny years of high school administration, my images of God during this time again reverted to an exterior, masculine, transcendent, objective God, 1 no longer knew the form that God took in my li£e. As 1 described in Chapters 5 and 6, 1 could not relate to a human God; 1 found it difficult to relate to Christ; it was a period of spiritual desolation for me- The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius speak of consolation, desolation and hope as the natural life-death-resurrection cycle of the development of persona1 spirituality. It was in rny spiritual desolation of the summer of 1994 when my new position was making unfamiliar demands upon me and CathoIic education was being battered front al1 sides that I made a silent eight day retreat at Loyola House in Guelph, Ontario. It was in the silent solitude of those days that 1 began to perceive a wholeness in the universe, a sense of connection with nature and a synchronicity linking my life and my physical world. The following account is taken f rom my retreat journal of July 24, 1994 and it recalls rny experience of trying to make a connection in prayer with the person of Jesus Christ. It took place beside a small stream on the perimeter of the property; it was my favourite place for prayer and reflection and
1 spent many hours there-
Every day the stream gives me a new gift The f irst day the post and the Stone gave me new insights. The first day also offered the display of the trout and the dragonf lies, The third day off ered another huge trout slipping past me as well as the unexpected appearance of a beaver- Today was the most incredible experience of all. 1 was working on the Annunciation text and, as my spiritual director had directed me, at the end 1 attempted a colloquy [an imaginary conversation] with Jesus, Itve had a lot of trouble with that, Well, 1 closed my eyes in intense effort and was endeavouring to bring Christ near when suddenly a sharp bird cry pierced my ears and when 1 looked up 1 saw the most brilliant red cardinal - he was gorgeous - black chest and face with the classic cardinal plume on top of his head. 1 had never seen one bef ore - He was looking straight at me and called again. Then he flew into the top branches of a dead tree, looked at me and called again. Then in a flash of brilliant plumage he f lew into the trees. It was an experience of time standing still- Simultaneously, as the bird caughtmy attention, a brown butterfly pitched on the ground at my Eeet. It just stood there quietly, opening and closing its wings, The exterior wings were camouflage - browns and beiges and greys so when the wings were closed, the creature was hardly identifiable- When it opened its wings, however, as it seemed to do gently and reflectively, there was a flash of glorious colour - orange and black- The butterfly stayed long after the bird had left and in fact flew ahead of me for a bit as 1 walked back up the road- Incredible! It was definitely an experience of communication with God, specifically Jesus, 1 think, but 1 didn't have that insight until later in the day- 1 went into the chape1 to pray, and closed my eyes, wondering at the significance of the red bird in the dead tree. When 1 opened my eyes a while later, still mystified, I caught sight of Jesus hanging on the wooden cross in front of me. Of course! What a revelation! (Retreat journal, July 24, 1994).
It was several months later that 1 learned that both the cardinal and the butterfly are symbols of Christ's resurrection.
This experience spoke to me of the nearness of the spirit of Jesus even though at the time 1 was unable to relate to him in a persona1 234 way . It was later in the retreat, through the childhood woundedness revealed by a director who was the son of an alcoholic
father the story of which is related in Chapter 5, that 1 came to image Christ as vulnerable and open and was able to assign him the physical characteristics of a humble man. As L sat by the stream watching the cardinal, there was a moment when 1 felt one with the creature; it was as if there was no
space between us AS time hung in the balance, it felt as if nature was speaking to me, was tel ling me what 1 needed to know, if only 1 could hear. Bolen( 1979 ) says that 'rsynchronisticevents offer us perceptions that may be useful in our psychological and spiritual growth and may reveal to us through intuitive knowledge, that our lives have meaning" (7).
A Return to the Old Story
When 1 went back to work, rny old story resumed its hold on rny
life, My feminine intuitive sense of Catholic education still needed the verification of rational protection and justification,
I couldn't shake the old need. My values had been affirmed in curriculum studies which is heavily female populated, would they be validated in the Iiterature of educational administration? 1 set myself to find out by examining the secular literature on moral leadership and moral authority. 1 was endeavouring to write a larger story, to write a story of education that encompassed the
Catholic view but which honoured other traditions as well. 1 continued my search for a cognitive framework for decision making 235 that would be more objective and which would grant me some distance from the emotionality of care. 1 explored some of the literature on school improvement and on moral leadership (Barth, 1990; Beck, 1990; Bolman and Deal, 1995; Deal and Peterson, 1994; Dewey, 1909; Fullan, 1993; Hargreaves, 1991; Hodgkinson, 1983, 1991; Garrison, 1997; Greenfield, 1993; Postman, 1995, 1996; Sarason, 1971, 1990; Sergiovanni, 1992, 1996) and made connections between moral leadership, moral authority, storied ideals of communities, leadership praxis and educational transformation. 1 found myself asking the question, ' But why do humans endeavour to be moral? ' . References to terrns such as 'moral art' and 'covenantal community' intrigued me because they implied the presence of a different level of reality, one that emerged from tensions between dialectics or convergences between persons. They suggested 'something more'. There was a bonding implied in the terms that was not explicated in the literature. My strong religious beliefs made me feel very unsettled with a moral code that was not connected to a higher reality, that was not founded on an inspired reason for being. A search into the much less prolific field of the literature on spiritual leadership (Palmer, 1993; Purpel, 1989; Miller, 1994; Whyte, 1996) followed shortly thereafter and it was in these texts that I found rationality and affection could be integrated. My heart had found a home. There, to use Noddings' terms, 1 could keep my objective thinking "tied to a relational stake at the heart of caring" (1984:36). 236
1 realized I had shaped my own authoritative story of the meaningfulness of education; the person I am directed me dom particular roads and not others; the learning was self-selected. As Garrison (1997) says, Itwebecome what we love" (xiii). 1 loved the nurturing and caring aspects of education and those moral qualities were affirmed in much of the academic literature (Garrison, 1997; Miller, 1988, 1994; Noddings, 1984, 1992, 1993; Palmer, 1993; Purpel, 1989; Sergiovanni, 1992, 1996). That understanding was what 1 was drawn to and that is what 1 found. Without naming it as such, these authors served as the experts of the academy who once again validated my feminine knowledge.
Validatinq the Feminine The repeated pattern of my experience and my persona1 myth unfolded as the thesis study progressed. It was the pattern of my constantly seeking masculine authorities to validate my feminine way of being in the world. It began to emerge in the first personal narrative, ''Seeking Sanctification Through Mirrors" , the theme of which revolved around my "constantly striving for sanctification, a cont inually elusive perfection of Christian character formation". 1 measured my value by looking into mirrors - mirrors held by authority figures in particular - my parents initially and later Church representatives and other authority figures. The stories told in this narrative, many of them reconstructed in chapter 4 of this thesis, reveal a personal myth that centred on pleasing authorities; later 1 came to understand 237 that my pursuit of the making of self was to be perfect 'in God's
image', in the language of our catechism, and God's image for most of my years was male. Deeply embedded in my subconscious was the story that in order to be 'perfect' Z had to develop rny masculine aspects. It was the pursuit of this male image-making that had sent me to OISE/UT to acquire the 'truth' of the predominantly male experts resident there-
It has been the men in the academy and in my professional life who have validated rny feminine professional knowledge. 1 have asked them for permission to honour my own knowledge. It was Altilia's confirmation of my administrative competence that gave me the confidence to apply to OISE for a doctoral program. It was Comelly, Hunt's, Miller's and Diamond's acceptance and positive evaluations of my academic work that encouraged me to go on-
My need appeared to be one commonly felt by females and has been descri bed as primordial and archetypal . Jungian psychologists and other mythologists (Dourley, 1987; Fierz-David, 1988; Woodman, 1983) state that the sexes need each other for spiritual fulf ilment and are thus dependent upon each other . This is a phenomenon that 1 have observed occurring in the Centre for Teacher Development between the student population which is mainly female and with the
Director of the Centre, Michael Connelly. In this interaction, 1 have embodied a shifting understanding of authority. I found myself articulating this understanding during the last in a series of "Works in Progressn seminars in April, 1997. The group was discussing why attendance at the student volunteer seminar series, sponsored and faithfully attended by Dr, Connelly, had remained so high during the semester, and indeed, had been successful for several years. Having considered authoritative roles for the writing of the thesis, many of my new insights came together
naturally in that context and 1 found myself saying,
1 think the seminars are successful for the same reason the Centre is successful . Dr. Connelly's sponsoring of, and presence in, student groups lends them moral authority. The weight of his academic stature validates the existence of these groups and provides their raison d'etre. His presence proclaims to us that it is okay to be who we are, where we are, and to know what we know, as limited as that might be. He validates our being learners not only to us ourselves but to the academic community as well . He gives us a context and sense of safe place in the academic structures. If we were just a group of students meeting on Our own, we would feel directionless, 1 think, unable to locate ourselves either in context or in place. Dr. Connelly provides the reference point. Through his evident respect of the knowledge within each one of us, he creates inclusiveness, confirms us to ourselves, to each other and to the academic community at large. That is a moral perspective but 1 don't think it is just morality that creates community and keeps students coming back, there is a strong bond of caring that seems to be spiritual. Dr, Connelly says that his word is not 'care' but ' inquiry' . 1 think we are linked together through Dr. Connelly's love of inquiry and we receive his love of inquiry as care because we are integral components in his inquiry process"(Reconstructed from seminar notes, April , 1997) . Dr. Comelly became a central symbol of 'love of inquiry' and we related to him and to each other through that symbol. In a healthy response, the symbol was a transitional, mentoring symbol for through the bonds that we created with each other, we were enabled to Eind our own authority and becorne independent and
separate from him and eventually engage in our own inquiries. The
safety of the milieu in which we learned had its own multiple 239
layers of meaning. His authoritative role was very important in his students ' psychological growth, uncovering of meaning and finding of voice; he offered a cocreative authority.
Speakins with a Feminine Voice
When 1 began to synthesize my findings, release my own voice
and use it in professional settings, 1 found myself isolated in an unexpected way. Often, my comments seemed to fa11 into silence.
The silence was mystifying and unsettling for me. 1 could not locate its source and have reflected on its meaning. Perhaps a feminine authoritative perspective is unfamiliar to both men and women and they are unsure of how to respond; perhaps they hear an underlying masculine tone that they reject as unauthentic; perhaps
1 speak with too much certainty and they cannot quickly find a way
into the conversation, as one friend told me. And so a question arises, when a woman begins to find her voice how does she express it so that it invites response? Perhaps in my efforts to be heard,
1 claimed too much certainty and then, paradoxically, defined myself in the masculine terms 1 wished to overcome. 1s the silence another subconscious and subversive way of suppressing the feminine or am 1 being personally disrespectful of others' points of view, a holder of 'animus opinions' which intimidate others? Woodman (1985) elaborated on this conflict. She says that when women are on a search for meaning, "They reject collective masculine values as an intrusive imposition, but their search for a persona1 identity f rom within almost inevitably brings them into collision with the very forces they are seeking to integrate. In the effort to liberate themselves from the very real restrictions of patriarchal culture, they ironically, even at a highly conscious level, tend to become its victimn(33), Woodman is referring to an interior psychological conflict and while 1 experienced that conflict interiorly 1 also experienced it exteriorly when 1 discovered my own voice and began to assert it, unexpectedly discovering in the exchange that 1 was chal lenging traditional Church teachings, This happened in the following way. I was sitting in an educational committee meeting being chaired by a high level cleric when the topic of the new Catholic catechism came up for discussion. "This book ought to be on the curriculum in ouf schools," the cleric declared, then the students would know what it means to be Catholic-" Having already become disturbed by an agenda which 1, and others, did not feel was appropriate for the tumultuous times in which we lived, 1 replied, "With al1 due respect, Father, 1 think that's a very simplistic solution to a very complex problem-" "But, my dear," he continued, "this book is about Truth, objective Truth- Surely be to goodness you believe in objective Truth!" ''Wei1, you know, Father, " 1 responded, total ly unaware at the time that 'objective' truth is a pivot of Catholic teaching, ''the older 1 get, the less sure 1 am that there is such a thing as objective Truth. 1 believe in Truth, but the only reality we have of it is the yearning for it, the need to search for it. 1 don't think humans are capable of finding it- 1 think that Truth is found where the individual soul intersects with God and that's a different place for every human being." A heavy silence fell upon the group. "Hmmrumph. Next item on the agenda!" The priest summarily ended discussion- "Uh oh," I thought to myself. Ttfeels like I'm in big trouble. " When the meeting was over, 1 approached him and said lightheartedly, "You think 1 'm a heretic, don't you, Father? " "You are a heretic, my dear," he replied- " A charming heretic, but a heretic nonetheless." Shortly thereafter 1 received a letter thanking me for my years of service to the committee and telling me that membership on the committee was being rotated and several members were being replaced because our professional jobs had changed (Reconstructed from memory, Spring, 1997). In this encouriter were expressed several classic conflicts: between an exterior expression of truth and an interior one; between the objectivity of rules and the subjectivity of affect; between theology A and theology C; between masculine and feminine; between cleric and layperson; between collective authority and individual freedom. There occurred also a dilemma 1 unwittingly created for myself - 1 used rny masculine strength to speak in a feminine voice. There was a dichotomy in there that was not accepted either by the cleric or by the group. 1 was begiming to hear myself speak differently f rom the traditional male Church, and was begiming to realize that my new understandings of feminine spirituality, largely gathered from women in ministry in the Church and my female colleagues at OISE, were going to be problematic within the structures of traditional Church. Making those statements in the group was itself a spiritual experience for as 1 uttered the words, 1 experienced that physical sense of God within and what 1 articulated was an effort to describe the phenomenon. 1 hadn't heard myself Say it that way before, but it was a perception that 1 had gained through relationship, in making meaning out of significant relationships and events in my life- 1 had discovered that God is powerfully present in human interconnectedness, sometimes exquisitely so. 1 had experienced God in the honesty, truth, openness, and vulnerability of loving relationships. And that God of Truth could not be objectively defined- A similar experience occurred just over two years later. 1 was sitting in a group of Catholic educational prof essionals and we were discussing the Church's role in Catholic school curriculum. There was heated discussion over the teaching of controversial sexual subject matter. Having taught sexuality courses for most of my career, 1 was disturbed with the direction of the conversation.
"Last night we watched a videotape, " 1 said, "which explained a native expression 'whoever tells the story rules the people ' . Well , in Newfoundland, the Church didn't tell the who3.e story about the sexual abuse scandals when they were first reported and when the public found out, the storyteller lost credibility. We can' t tell kids half the story about sexuality, they need to know the whole story. We can't deny them information they want to know, because when they do f ind out, as they will, Catholic educators will lose their credibilitytoo. The kids will throw out the baby with the bath water. We have to present the alternative opinions to the students, giving kids knowledge is the Catholic thing to do. What about the processes of conscientious decision-making? What about Catholic teaching about the supremacy of conscience? How can they do that if they donft have adequate knowledge? There are many legitimate pathways to God; there's other major world religions, native spirituality. Perhaps each has a piece of the truth and the Catholic Church holds its important piece- Kids need to question truth. " 1 stopped. The silence was palpable. 1 felt the energy in the room change; it turned away from me. 1 felt a physical sensation of tingling in my legs and lower body. It was anxiety. Suddenly 1 felt completely alone in a room full of people. "This is what it feels like to have a voice, to speak on your own authority; you've made yourself visible and it feels unsafe", 1 thought . Later, in the group discussion there were implications of heresy (Reconstructed from class notes, January, 1997).
What 1 encountered in the silence that greeted my words that Saturday morning was the strength of the Catholic cultural narrative, one that adherents perceive does not allow for individual dissent with formal Church teachings. Earlier that 243 morning we had been discussing the role of the magisterium, the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, and its obligation to listen to the "sensus fideliuml',the voice of faithful Catholics.
It was an expression of the dialectic between the laws of the community and the rights of individual conscience, What I heard expressed in the group that morning was a story of supremacy of law and the subsequent suppression of individual conscience. There was a group sense of living under the power, and in fear of, external authority which was seen to be omniscient, legalistic, directive and retributive. Coming from Newfoundland, where that sense of fear had been largely destroyed because of the loss of Church credibility, 1 had a different sense of relationship between the Church and the individual, 1 did not defy the authority of the Church in my remarks, 1 was challenging the group to think about authority in new ways - to give some authority to students to make their own moral decisions.
What dawned upon me also that morning as 1 listened to the instruction and to the discussion was that my experience of God was a visceral sense of God; it was an immanent image; God being present within me. My body is a charnel of knowledge through al1 of its facets. For me, this visceral understanding of God, acquired through al1 of the senses, had to be my primary understanding. As McBrien(1994) said, 'Lt is only in and through visible, material realities that we encounter the invisible, spiritual Gad" (1196). Knowledge of God that came to me from external sources and felt discordant with my interior being needed 244 to be held at length and examined cautiously, acknowledging that a characteristic of Catholicisrn is "a radical openness to al1 truth and to every value" (McBrien, 1994: 15). The external, transcendent, authoritative God and the internal, immanent, reflective God cannot be in opposition to one another for they are one and the same God. The human experience of the theoretical God has to approach congruence with the human experience of the immanent God for theology by definition is "a critical reflection of praxis" (Gutierrez, In Mulligan, 1990:36).
In my remarks that Saturday morning, those expressed in the story above and others, 1 was not inferring a defiance of the authority of the Church, i was simply ruminating about a new found perception, perhaps prematurely expressed in view of i ts reception, that if Our perception of God's action through the Church is discordant with how, as faithful Catholics, we think it needs to ber then we need to work to adjust the way the Church mediates God for us. According to Hellwig(1980), "the Gospel lives in the whole Church community and the Spirit in the faithful is one with the Spirit that guides the magisterium" (164). She also notes that
Lonergan suggested that "the development of a dogma follows a spiralling pattern in which there is a 'transcultural change' in the experience and piety of the Christian community, calling for further reflection and leading to 'theological change' in the explanations given by the theoreticians., , . "(165). The process of developing good theology is ongoing, responsive and reflexive. My point was that theory and practice have to converge in order for 245 praxis to occur. How we talk to students about the teachings of the Church has to make sense within their lived experience. The convergence of the course content, the class discussion and my own thoughts that morning gave me an insight which was significant - there needed to be congruence between inner authority and outer authority in order for me to authentically know God within the context of Church structures. There was a new sense of convergence, of God being dynamically present not just in nature, not just within, not just in Scripture and Church teaching, not just in human relationship, not just in cultural transformations, but cocreatively, in al1 of those elements. It was a movement for me towards a different understanding of God as my separate and individual transcendent, immanent and cocreative understandings of God commingled into an ecological and creative one.
Re£ lections and Ruminations
It became evident to me in the reconstruction of these stories of experience that multiple images of God were concurrently operant in my 1 ife, transcendent just and transcendent loving, immanent, cocreative, and ecological to use some of Ho11andfs(1989) terminology. These images did not represent stages of development, but lived side by side in my life as competing and sometimes conflicting stories (Barter, 1997:3). Sometimes 1 lived for long periods out of one or the other, but when particular situations arose, 1 found myself reverting to one or the other as an explanatory story of how 1 perceived the action of God in my life 246 during that time. Sometimes an image was strengthened by a concurrent life experience but when the experience shifted, often the image dissipated as well, and al1 that remained was the rnemory.
Converqences The writing of the thesis has moved me towards wholeness in that it helped me identify the central dialectics of my life: masculine and feminine, subjectivity and objectivity, spirituality and secularism, justice and care, authority and autonomy. Holding the tension in each paradox may gift me with a glimpse of felt truth but rarely with the resolution of the dialectic. The inexorable pull of the opposites remains an integral component of the mystery of life as does the hiddenness of its ultimate meaning. Both my intuition and my interpreted experience inform my religious belief that there is an ultimate meaning. This mystery motivates
the meaning-making that is central to rny human journey and energizes it for "if the recommended path were utterly devoid of mystery, it would cease to fascinate [us]" (Kaufman, 1970:lO). Chapter 8
Becoming the Mythmaker
To be adult means among other things to aee one's own life in continuous perspective, both in retrospect and prospect. By accepting some definition as to who [sjhe is, usually on the basis of a functfon in an economy, a place in the sequence of generatf ons, and a status in the structure of society, the adult is able to selectfvely reconstruct Cher] past in such a way that, step for step, it seems to have planned Cher], or better, [slhe seme to have plmed it. In this sense, psychologically we do choose our parents, Our family history, and the history of our kings, heroes, and gods . By making them our own, we manoeuvre ourselves into the inner position of proprietors, of creators. (Erikson, In McAdams, 1993 :91 )
Introduction
In selectively reconstructing events of the past in this autobiographical thesis, 1 have created a rendition of a Self and made meaning of my life, 1 have acted as a mythmaker, serving as my own Creator in so doing; 1 have played my own god-like role and imposed a mythic plan upon my life (McAdams,l993:92). Was the myth uncovered or created? As a Catholic 1 believe that the Divine energy in the universe expresses a cosmological story drawing humans towards wholeness; but simultaneously, 1 believe that the divine creativity inherent in every human being inspires individual story telllng, meaning making and myth making. Perhaps the answer to the question is found at the point of convergence of the dialectic.
The Mythic Plan
1 imposed a mythic plan upon the events in my life when 1 248 decided early in the thesis writing to use Betsy Caprio's interpretation of the Legend of Saint Barbara as the structural metaphor of the dissertation. I chose this story because it had mythological dimensions and served as an allegory of women's lives in general . 1 considered Murdock ' s( 1990) interpretation of the heroine's journey but it didn't describe as clearly the dimensions of the spiritual aspects of my life that I wanted to illustrate.
1 also considered using the Rapunzel fairytale and the Greek myth of Psyche which are relatives to the Barbara legend but Barbara captivated me because of the religious dimension of the story which so well. suited my own. Structuring the thesis around this legend both facilitated and limited the writing process. It provided a developmental framework which was very useful in interpreting and articulating an ephemeral and elusive topic; it also provided language to articulate it. On its Jungian foundation it also acknowledged and provided for the spiritual; it was built on a secular theory that provided for the religious. 1 used it to stimulate my rnernory of my stories, as 1 search my past for experiences which would illustrate a particular component of the legend, It also limited the choice of stories that could be told in the thesis because if there was no thematic unity between a particular persona1 story and the legend then 1 did not use the story, There was an uncarmy congruence, however, between the stories 1 had earlier reconstructed in my narratives and journals and the themes of the legend. Reconstructing the stories in the light of the myth also challenged me frequently to 249 reconstrue them in new ways. It was when these opportunities appeared that 1 had to determine whether the reconstruing was authentic to my om story, There was always the temptation to create the 'clean' story, one that could be easily interpreted within the myth and the writer self sometimes tangled with the researcher self. Besides being bound by my own research ethics 1 also knew that 'narrative smoothing', as Connelly and Clandinin cal1 it, would be quickly discerned by the keen narrative reader and the credibility of the whole thesis questioned. So 1 opted for authenticity, knowing full well that even when I was endeavouring to represent real ity as honestly as 1 could, as best 1 was creating a fiction.
The Mythic Tower The tower image that was the predominant one in Barbara's story was appropriate for my story for reasons that have already been explicated in the thesis - it represented the towers of both Church authority and academic authority. It was also a phallic symbol arising naturally out of the landscape of my environment - lighthouses are native to my province. The seat of Government in Newfoundland is the Confederation Building, a building with an imposing tower that presides on a hi11 overlooking the whole city and positioned to offer a view of the St. John's harbour entrance called the Narrows. It is juxtapositioned with the twin spires of the Basilica of St. John the Baptist, the centre of the provincial Archdiocese, also facing the Narrows overlooking the older section of the city. The tower then and its significance in my life represented aspects of two of my thematic dialectics, masculine/feminine and religious/secular.
1 became aware as the writing progressed that in choosing this
symbol as a dominant image, 1 had created a central masculine image
against which the feminine defined herself. 1 became aware of the dangers of defining oneself against another being because often the resulting self-def inition will imply what the person is not, rather
than what she is. 1 did not wish to f al1 into the trap of def ining
my feminine self against the masculine world and by so doing assume
the values 1 was trying to counteract. Unfortunately, there is a real danger of that phenomenon occurring in writing or speaking that may be described as feminist. We are in danger, Fierz-David (1988) says, of being overtaken by what she calls our 'animus opinions1, giving substantiality to abstract concepts as "though they were things that belonged to sorneoneN (63). She elaborates, Al1 grown women who have a certain level of education- however this may have been procured- have their pockets full of animus opinions. As soon as these are called into question, they build these opinions around themselves like a solid ivory tower, in which they tben sit, unassailably safe. . . . They entrench themselves behind such concretized abstractions, producing not only an ivory tower, but also a whole bastion with mounted guns(63).
1 did not wish to substitute the masculine tower with a feminine tower, but 1 knew 1 had a strong inclination to speak with certitude, a tendency which Dr. Connelly counteracted al1 along the way. My language was peppered with 'musts' and 'shoulds' and
'absolutes'. 1 have been full of animus opinions. 1 removed one whole chapter of research into the literature in which 1 linked the values of Catholic education and secular educational theory. It was part of my masculine efforts to develop a cognitive framework of understanding but when completed, sounded like a sermon. 1 was trying to be what 1 was not, a masculine authority, Still 1 didn't recognize it, calling it a further development of my feminine voice when it was anything but. It was Dr. Comelly who cautioned me.
Later, when 1 read the following statement of Fierz-David, 1 cringed, for it held a mirror: The fire with which women can defend their animus opinions originates in the deep insecurity in which they are suspended in relation to the reality of the image. They build ever higher a self-made ivory tower of Solomon-like wisdom basically only because they long for true guidance and for their own spirituality; they continue to hope that they will find them in the end (63- 4) My Catholic penchant for absolutes and certitude was an obstacle to genuine inquiry of truly mythic proportions for within it, the
Catholic cultural story was embedded. 1 had to learn not to seek the 'one truef story that promised the safety of another tower.
Through my cultural and religious conditioning 1 was the recipient of positivistic and scientific ways of knowing and 1 had to grow beyond them in order to accomodate a larger world.
Sealed in the Tower History is much more than a chronological listing of names, dates and places. It is a story about how the past came to be and how, ultimately, it gave birth to the present (McAdams, 1993:102). In writing about my life living and working within Catholic 252 structures, it was necessary to give the readers some sense of the social narrative of the province, particularly in the evolution of
denominational rel igious rights in order to set the context , When
1 began to review the historical sources 1 reverted to secondary
sources, not having access to primary oneç. One of the challenges of accurately reporting historical situations from secondary
sources was my awareness that 1 was reporting someone else's story
of someone elsets story. 1 was also aware that 1 wasn't really
accessing the human story behind the rendition of events; that
material was not available to me, What 1 looked for, then, in the
materials that 1 had was evidence of the larger social and cultural
and religious stories that were emerging, Again 1 was aware my
understanding of these narratives was being mediated by someone
elsets perceptions. 1 set out to show the development of the provincial denominational system of education with the expectation
that it would be fairly linear. What 1 discovered were multiple stories, being lived concurrently, competing and conflicting (Barter, 1997:3). The movement towards a denominational system of education in the province was parallel almost from the outset with a movement towards interdenominationalism. The origins of the modem day 1997 story were in fact 150 years old. The sense of continuity was pervasive. My own stories sprang spontaneously from the text as it evolved. Words and phrases evoked memories that became connected to the text. 1 hoped to illustrate how intimately my life was shaped by the events of the past, how the Tendrils wound themselves 253 in my life. This descriptor was chosen for the image it evoked of long thin filaments winding themselves in and about the events of history to reach dom to the present day. The hypertext image was chosen in contrast to the antiquity of the events being described and to serve as a metaphor for the multiple layers of meaning being presented- A subtext also appeared in the writing of this chapter - the unchanging story of the mission of Catholic education, While stories are never unchanging, 1 decided to retain that heading because, al though interpretations of the mission might transform over time, 1 was struck by the seeming immutabi lity of the Church's message about education over the centuries. Not only were the Church documents consistent, historian's interpretations of Catholic schooling seemed to hold a common theme over time.
Narratinq Multiple Selves
In writing this narrative, my multiple selves became apparent as operant on at least two levels of functioning- There were the selves 1 portrayed in the stories themselves and the selves 1 became in the narrative research process, The voices the various stories assumed were very much a mirror of the relational role 1 played in the particular story. 1 told many, many stories and 1 was aware that my voice changed, even my physical demeanour changed as 1 mentally relived and then retold a story. 1 felt often as if 1 was in a house of mirrors, twisting and turning and finding a different self reflected with every move- There were multiple 254 reflections of self: mother, teacher, administrator, child, citizen, Catholic, employee, student, wife, academic. Each self was def ined in terms of relationship to other and the experience of the relationship determined the tone of the voice. When my voice was my mother voice, for example, as in the "Do perçons become nobodies, too?" story in Chapter 4, it was speaking as one captivated and entranced; when it was silenced Catholic laywoman as in the "objective truth" story in Chapter 7, rny voice felt narrow and constricted. The power of the storyteller often posited a moral dilemma, particularly in stories of interpersonal conflict, for the tendency was to use details and a tone that would enhance the position of the storyteller so that 1 shaped the person 1 wanted to appear to be - The narrative researcher selves were more perplexing. Each chapter seemed to draw upon a different academic self. In Chapter
2, it was academic theorist; Chapter 3, historian; Chapters 4,
5, and 7, narrativist; Chapter 6, social scientist; Chapter 8, researcher. There was also the ethicist, the creative writer, the critic. 1 found, as 1 began each of chapters 2, 3, and 6 and the chapter 1 eventually eliminated, 1 assumed a different persona and began writing in the voice of that persona, some of the voices acquired 1 had learned from earlier academic training. Some of the persona felt quite cornfortable, like an old shoe, and were difficult to kick off. There was an intrinsic sense of 'rightness' about them that was compelling, a feeling born of familiarity with 255 the masculine academic paradigm in which 1 had been so well schooled. It was often a beleaguered search to find the narrative voice appropriate for a chapter; there were many false starts and one false finish - the ' lostr chapter. Earlier in the thesis writing, there was a strong compulsion to pull away from the story and observe it detachedly from the outside. It was much more difficult to stay in the story as a participant. Sometimes conf licting selves arose f rom the separate layers and engaged in combat. The government employee self, for example, made judgements about stories regarding effect upon employability and put limitations on the research self; the Catholic self fretted about stories that questioned official Church teaching and cautioned the narrativist who wanted to tell all; the mother self worried about protecting the vulnerabi 1 i ty of her chi ldren and admonished the creative writer.
One of the tensions that 1 had to work out as 1 moved through the thesis as autobiographes was between the author self and the narrativist self. It seemed often as if the demands of good writing were in conflict with the demands of good narration. Narrative as a process is multi-directional, untidy and messy because it represents life. As 1 commented in Chapter 2, as a narrativist 1 waded into the chaos of the personal inquiry surrounded by notes, images, symbols, journals, papers, artwork, dialogue, books. More unt idiness col lected as the process grew broader and demanded more reflection, restorying, reconstruction of stories . There were periods of meditat ion, dialogue, di rected 256 reading, journal 1 ing, unti 1 intuitively some of the patterns finally became apparent and a narrative thread began to surface. The narrativist seizes the thread and the author weaves it into a story. Pulling the narrative threads for me helped weave my myth. The uncovering of the myth was an important part of the growth of the inquiry in many ways, yet in offering the theoretical structure, it became the entry point of the story. It was an ending that became a beginning and in the form it imposed upon the writing shaped the movement towards another ending, To my dismay, it often seemed as if al1 the pain of the inquiry had actually disappeared in the neatness of the finished writing!
Narratinq Others
In this thesis, 1 narratively represent three men, my Jesuit principal and two 1ay leaders in Catholic education. The researcher-participant relationship with Mr, Fallon and Dr- Pagan was a traditional one. 1 had known both of these men for many years and had worked professionally with both of them. Mr, Fallon preceded me in the assistant principalship at Gonzaga High School, so we have had a linked narrative history, Both men were enthusiastic about the inquiry and readily agteed to the interviews which were held at their offices. Neither one had any hesitation about the text of the interviews being made public or in being identified.
1 began the interview with a loosely structured set of questions, but allowed the dialogue to move in any direction in 257 which they wished to take it- 1 interviewed each man çeparately, but the transcripts revealed there was much congruence in their themes, attributable partially perhaps to their close working relationship and shared experience. Giving each man control over the field texts and editing rights in the final thesis text, with opportunity and thesis space to refute or rebut my interpretations seemed to facilitate an open and forthright conversation, 1 was delighted by their frankness and candour and felt a sense of obligation to honour their trust. There were few narrative dilemmas in the selection or interpretation of their comments. Both had extensive experience with media, interviews and public exposure. They went into the interviews fully aware of al1 of the implications of the process - The comments they made were rernarkably non-judgmental of both supporters and non-supporters, in view of the adversarial climate in which they lived and worked. It seemed to me, several times during the interviews that each had made a concerted effort to understand the foundational stories behind others' actions. Each seemed to have found a spiritual purpose for their work and a spiritual meaning behind the unfolding events in education in the province, Narrating Father Altilia's story of mutuality was far more cornplex. 1 found the Gonzaga story was repeating itself in the research process and Dr. Comelly had to keep reminding me whose biography 1 was writing. "This is your story, not his story", he said repeatedly. 1 lapsed frequently into my old authority story and felt 1 had to include more of Altilia's insights and comments 258 than were warranted. So acutely aware was 1 of claiming some authoritative ground for myself in the storytelling that in the f irst several drafts of the chapter 1 overemphasized the shadow aspects of our administration and nearly completely omitted the mutual aspects. It was Altilia himself and a female colleague of mine who independently located that omission for me. When I returned to the text, 1 determined to represent each of us more holistically. In order to represent mutuality in a credible way, both voices had to be heard. The authori ty role reversal provided for further spi ri tua1 development for both of us within the research process; new questions were raised and new opportunit ies developed to resolve di lemmas. We both moved towards developing a shared language to articulate our experience. A spirituality learned and shared in leadership transformed itself into one shared and deepened in research and friendship,
Narrative Continuity Zn discussing the value of an educational experience, Dewey (1938) indicated that a key measure of its worth is its capacity to lead to new growth; each experience is a result of the ones that preceded it and preparatory for those that follow it. When an individual moves from situation to situation, "his world, his environment, expands or contracts. He does not f ind himself living in another world but in a different part of aspect of the same world" (44). The value of a past educational experience can be 259 judged in its capacity to assist the individual to adapt and grow in a new situation. "There is no such thing as educational value in the abstract" (46).
The rhythm of expansion and contraction were evident in my efforts to story the various experiences that developed in my own life. It was when the experiences of the past were not sufficient to integrate the situation of the present and continuity was broken that opportunities for learning arose. The desire to resolve the newly created tensions and restore continuity required forward movement and increased knowledge. 1 believe that this forward rnovement is the energy of life described in Albert Schweitzer's 'will to live', Gerald May's 'spiritual energy', Jim Garrison's ' eros ' . Moving through narratively constructed research 1 found that learning occurred in the constant storying and restorying of the events of my life in order to make meaning, to find the thread of understanding that would reconcile disparate parts of a life, sometimes strewn on different parts of the landscape. Narrative has the possibiity of weaving them together once again. 1 found myself asking time and time again, 'What is the energy that drives this seeking for understanding? What force drives me to seek wholeness, balance and peace?'. Storying is inextricably bound up in that energy - it is an active, grounded search for meaning in experience that is reflective and holistic. For me, that energy is a spiritual energy located in a desire to find union with God, to make ultimate meaning of life. Storying to make meaning requires 260 entering into the complexity and multiple meanings of life; spirituality requires, 1 discover in the thesis writing, a remaining in the story, a remaining open to mystery in the experience of the moment. Ironically, it seems to me, it also requires a moving away from abstracts and absolutes. Attempting to transcend the story, 1 discover for myself, objectiiied both the meaning and me, the selfsame phenomenon that occurred in my nurturing of my images of the transcendent God; 1 externalized and objectified God with the result that 1 denied myself my persona1 inner authority. It was only when 1 gained a sense of living in the midst of an ongoing, cornplex, spiritual story with multiple layers of meaning, multiple ways of knowing, that 1 could pull a sense of authority within and become more fully who 1 am- It is this sense of a storied spirituality that will provide the energy,
1 hope, for negotiating the ever present shifting landscape of tensions and dialectics that already appear on my horizon as 1 move away from the thesis writing but continue with the meaning making.
For protection, 1 cloak myself In my own shadows And assign them Ta others- 1 wrap ntyself Against myself .
Buried, 1 look inward, Nowhere left Ta search. Down and dom 1 go, Deeper and deeper Until 1 find a little hollow And there I rest and wait- Are You here, God? Slowly, peace suffuses the space Flows without shape, Possesses only sensation And Presence. My sou1 wakens tremulously, Light diffuses the shadows Into transparency For a moment suspended in tirne,
1s this You, God? Understanding trickles into consciousness - Light resides within; Shadow 1s internal; Power is embodied; They are mine, They are the Self They are me. Here 1 am, God,
March, 1993 Notes on St. Barbara
The details of Barbara's life are vague, but there are a
few consistencies among the numerous versions- She was thought to be the daughter of a wealthy man, Dioscorus; refused to marry as he commanded; became a Christian and was imprisoned in a tower, tried, and slain by her father who was thereupon struck dead by lightning (Delaney and Tobin, 1961:97), She is also thought to have been a scholar and is variously reported to have been martyred in several different places, but the most likely appears to have been in HeliopoIis, in Egypt, c. 306AD (Butler, 1862:629). Considered a holy virgin and martyr, she is honoured with particular devotion in the Latin, Greek, Muscovite, and Syriac calendars. In art, she is usually represented holding a tower, and with the palm of martyrdom, or a chalice or feather, and trampling on a Saracen (Benedictine Monks, 1989:75). It is thought that the story of St. Barbara evolved into the Rapunzel fairytale and that her predecessor was the Greek myth of Psyche. Barbara is the patron saint of architects and builders and protectress against lightning, fire, and sudden death (Cronin, 1963:338). APPENDIX B
The LeCrend of Saint Barbara
Once upon a time there was a young woman named Barbara. She and ber father Dioscorus were pagarrs, and her father had two causes of concern about hi8 daughter. One was that she would meet Christians, and the other was that some man would want to marry her . Barbara was very beautiful , and her father was most proud of her and wanted to keep her to himself. Dioscorus decided to build a high tower, one with onfy two windows at the top. He said to himself , If 1 put Barbara in this tower and ses1 it up, no one will ever be able to see her beauty or speak to her about this religion called Christianity." And so Diascorus built the tower and surrounded it with beautif ul gardens, and when he had finished it he cal1 Barbara to him and asked her ta step inside. She did and before she could turn around, Dioscorus had closed up the entrance to the tower and sealed i t over, leaving his daughter al1 alone in the dark. Now the only comection with the outside world which Barbara had been left was a basket tied to a rope, She could lower this from one of the two tower windows with her empty dishes and her laundry, and the serving women of her fatherls household would outfit it with food and clean clothing for her to draw back up. Barbara gradually grew used to her tower. And one day, due to the kindness of a local Christian who had taken pity on the imprisoned pagan girl, she found a book in her basket. Now Barbara could read - and what she read amazed her, for the book was about Jesus living and dying and returning to life. Barbara read the book over and over with fascination, and finally dared to write a note saying she wanted to learn more about Christianity. She slipped the note into her basket, among the dishes and clothing, and lowered it dom. Somehow - we do not know just how- a priest was sent to her. (Perhaps he was traneported to the tower miraculously, or - some say - her father was told that Barbara needed a doctor, and did not know anough to question the man who came along and said he was a doctor..,of the soul, of course.) In any event. Barbara was instructed in Christianity, and one day in her tower she was bapt ized . Now there came a time when Dioscorus had to be away, and Barbara instructed the workmen on his land to climb up and chop a third window in her tower. She was, after all, the daughter of their employer, so the workmen obeyed her, and when her father came home he looked up and saw the tower with three windows in it. "What is this?' he roared. Barbara leaned out of the new window and said, .I have added a third window, father, so that 1 can always have a reminder of the Holy Trinity." Dioscorus was furiOUS, for he knew now that Barbara had become a Christian. He flew into a rage, broke open the sealed-off doorway, tan up the steps to the top of the tover and flung Barbara out of the window by her long hair. But Barbara's guardian angel protected her, dapoeiting her safely in a ravine in the thick wood nearby . Barbara lived in the woods. One day, her father (who had ben hunting for her ceaselesaly) tracked her dom. He dragged her before a local magistrat0 named Marcian and angrily said to her, nRenounce your God and your faith by offering a sacrifice to our goda, or die! Barbara told her father she would not do this because she had pledged herself to Jesus, and although Dioscorus tore her flesh with iron hooks and beat her with rods at the order of the judge, she would not change her answer. He brought a rope to hang her, but it turned into a belt. He even lit a fire to burn her, but the fire turned into clay. Finally, the cruel father wrapped hie daughterte long hair around one hand and, with hi8 sword, clutched in the other, dragged her off to the top of a nearby mountain. Barbara prayed for strength, and at the moment her father severed her head from her body, she wae caught up in a vision of Jeeus, her Lord and love. Now, Dioscorus turned to go back dom the mountain, and as he did so a tremendous thunderstom with lightning broke loose, and he was struck and killed by a fiery bolt (Caprio, 1982:6-7). BIBLIOGRAPHY:
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