3. The Disease is Adolescence: and the symptoms are Violence, Suicide, Drugs, Alcohol, Car Wrecks and Poverty A headline of a recent Rolling Stone article
9. The way I see things... The way I envision life and the choices I make that is what makes the difference!
10. What should I do? Do I choose life of death? There is much in the world that is good but there is also much that is evil. It is a MATRIX Goodness brings life! Evil brings death.
11. What is Life? Ultimately the answer to that question is a FAITH response.
13. F a i t h a s Ma t r I x . . . F A I T H . . . C H O I C E . , , , V E R B . . . . . . . G I F T . . . F A I T H A S .
14. The Faith Matrix Community Attitude to life Service Identity Spirituality (living consciously)
15. “ Choosing” the Faith Matrix Love be happy belong believe be for others
16. 4 ways to “reload” the Faith Matrix Belong to church Reach out to others Believe in yourself Find the fun Spirituality: Living in love
Hinweis der Redaktion
The Matrix movies are NOT movies I like Indeed I avoided them at all costs for a long time I am not into sci-fi, nor am I high tech to the max However a student of mine who was studying for his MA in Theology and was also teaching High School religion told me that I had to watch the first He went so far as providing me with the DVD – free! Guess what? I didn’t understand what it was going on about most of the time but I was drawn into the whole paradoxical thing that rises again and again through the movie I decided to do some reading about the whole thing
What I would like to present to you today is something of the fruit of my reflection I offer this not as something that has all the answers but as something that can get us all thinking and sharing our own thoughts and ideas I feel the movies have a message Will I rush out to Part 3 on November 5 th Well that’s for you to guess
Chronologically adolescence extends from ages eleven to seventeen and on Early adolescence (to 12) – ceases looking backwards and reworking a familial past Middle adolescence (13-15) Late adolescence (15-17 and onwards) – begins to look and move towards the future From the standpoint of the larger social system, adolescent behavior is often best understood as a symptom of the larger society and not primarily as an invasion of it Adolescents disclose in bold type and vivid colors the latent patterns of social disorganization that lurk always under the surface of polite society In confronting adolescent behavior, adults must confront outwardly what they are continually dealing with internally in their personal, family and institutional lives Adolescent behavior is a two edged sword: what appears to be social non-conformity is often a dramatization of the underside of the large-scale social conformity Adolescent identity is built on: Body axis Ideological axis Authority axis Love axis Work axis On all of these axes the adolescent t ego is striving for a balance that transcends the extreme of rigidity on the one hand and diffusion on the other When balance is achieved, diffusion becomes flexibility, and rigidity becomes reliable ego boundaries
Society tends to translate the energy and enthusiasm and desire for freedom of the human spirit as a threat to the world they have created and they are trying to maintain at times against all odds In other words the first statement is a defensive one As people look at young people and their desire to be free they see at times the things that they deny in themselves – the propensity to violence, to despair, to a lack of love and they speak out of their discomfort over the compromises they have made You unnerve the older generation with your idealism and search for truth, with your desire for love The Pope’s view instead is one regarding all these things within you It is a different vision – one that sees within the human heart and seeks to acknowledge what the human spirit is calling forth from within you
Faith is a set of beliefs Faith is a verb Faith is about action Faith is what I have set my heart on