Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World: Essays in Honour of Roger C. Hutchinson

12. Spirituality and Justice-Making in a City Context

SPIRITUALITY AND JUSTICE-MAKING IN A CITY CONTEXT This essay seeks to make connections between the search for a deeper spirituality and the quest for social justice in an urban context. First, I want to articulate the basis for being inclusive of social justice when speaking about spirituality. Second, given that my context is the city of Toronto, I want to address social justice issues related to the state of this particular city. Lastly, I want to describe the urban spirituality that is arising within social movements addressing justice issues in the city of Toronto. The Basis for Social Justice within Spirituality The movie The Hurricane, about Rubin “Hurricane” Carter’s imprisonment and struggle for freedom, reflects the three stages of the classic understanding of spirituality. The first of these can be described as “waiting and going inward.” There are several periods of Hurricane’s prison confinement during which he focuses on his interior self and a search for meaning. During these periods, he works at night and sleeps during the day. While he is in the “hole,” in solitary confinement, Hurricane has no choice but to go inward in trying to keep his spirit together. When the hope for freedom is distant, he speaks of trying to Notes to chapter 12 are on pp. 249-50. 239 12 JOE MIHEVC find that place within himself which lies beyond the hurt that others can cause him. This is Hurricane’s inward search for spirituality. Hurricane’s spirituality is also nurtured through healing relationships ––with the Canadians, and with the young boy, Lesra Martin. Through these relationships, he begins again to love and trust others. Developing trusting relationships helps Hurricane overcome the debilitating spirit that prison life affords. He learns to hope again. This second approach to spirituality is a healing one, and derives from trusting and loving relationships. Lastly, there is the work for change. Hurricane cannot be spiritually whole until he is physically free, until he is out of prison. To free him from prison is a spiritual task in and of itself. Along with grace, it requires truth, conviction, focus and persistence on the part of the prisoner , and a similar spiritual drive from outside the prison by a willing community. It requires an action plan with a detailed strategy. These three stages––going inward, nurturing trusting relationships and actively working for justice––all need to be held in balance. It is important to be holistic in the development of spirituality. There is reason to caution against a hyperactivism that lacks a calm centre and an inner spirituality. At the same time, however, an equal and opposite danger is present in the tendency to journey inward without any regard for the communal. We cannot create islands of happiness in oceans of despair as we develop our spirituality. As Gregory Baum asserts, “Contemporary religious experience will not allow that people create for themselves, through gifts of consolation, islands of happiness from which the memory of the afflicted has been banned.”1 Spiritual integrity demands that the other, particularly the suffering other, never be excluded from the path of spiritual development. There is justice to be sought within the urban environment of the city of Toronto, and this work must never be separated from the spiritual task. Being holistic in spirituality means different things to different people. Not everyone is suited to direct social justice work; not everyone is suited to be a monk. It is interesting and revelatory that Thomas Merton, a monk, was the spiritual guide and correspondent of some of the continent’s greatest social activists: Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement; Daniel Berrigan, the peace activist; Ernesto Cardinal of Nicaragua, one of the practitioners of liberation theology; and Rosemary Ruether, the pioneer feminist theologian.2 It Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World 240 bespeaks the holistic approach that weaves together a spirituality of the interior life, that of trusting relationships and that of being present to the justice issues in our world. Social justice and spirituality are rooted in a particular context. A holistic, socially engaged spirituality has as its first reference point the concrete historical-social-political situation in which people are living. This reference point is always changing, always in process, just as our historical context is always shifting. When we talk or write about spirituality , then we are seeking to put into words the experience that we have...