Huller 1 Theo Helm Moreau FYE 3 December 2021 Forming Community Amid Conflict Notre Dame is comprised of a diverse group of students, each with their own personal experiences and backgrounds. These experiences strongly influence the way everyone sees the world; therefore, on the surface, Notre Dame is a harmonious, unified group of students, yet each individual person sees Notre Dame and its community in a different way. Each of us has the ability to see issues or flaws within the community that another would not initially be able to point out. Coming to a place where everyone has different backgrounds, I have been able to engage in discussion and advance perspectives that I had never previously considered. Our discussion in week ten most closely relates to this idea. It is so imperative that we don’t close ourselves off from absorbing and listening to other’s experiences. By listening to other members of the community, especially those we don’t agree with, we prevent polarization and stagnation; “If we can solve the problem of hatred, we have a chance to come together and solve all the others” (Wesley Theological Summary 2012 Commencement Address by Father Jenkins- Moreau FYE Week 10). Improvement and betterment of a community can only be achieved through the willingness to understand other perspectives; in order to form a community, we “must embrace even those we perceive as the ‘enemy’” (Thirteen Ways of Looking at Community by Parker Palmer – Moreau FYE Week 11). This section goes on to further discuss that “community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives” (Thirteen https://president.nd.edu/homilies-writings-addresses/wesley-theological-seminary-commencement/ http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/ http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/ http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/ Huller 2 Ways of Looking at Community by Parker Palmer – Moreau FYE Week 11). Living in community with someone by no means requires that there is no conflict; however, it does indicate that conflict should be engaged in through productive discussion and used to better the community as a whole. Looking more specifically at the Notre Dame community, there was a very recent example of this type or moral conflict and hatred on our own campus. The Rover article published last month resulted in a huge emotional reaction in our community, and rightfully so. As much as I myself disagreed with the moral alignment and arguments presented in that article, I am still forced to remind myself that all of us represent the same Notre Dame community. As stated in the commencement address from week 10, “to avail itself of the most effective disguise, hatred often hides in self-righteous conviction” (Wesley Theological Summary 2012 Commencement Address by Father Jenkins – Moreau FYE Week 10). While I and many of my fellow students are deeply disturbed by the material published in the Rover, we must be able to use that publication as an opportunity to respond with an outpouring of love and support for our friends that identify with the LGBTQ+ community. Further, we must use it as an opportunity to identify grave flaws in our culture and work to address those underlying issues in a way that does not confront people with hatred. Notre Dame is situated in a unique position in that it provides highly rigorous academics while at the same time providing a transformation of the heart and mind to its students based upon Catholic teachings. With this exceptional combination of higher education and religion also comes conflict between the two, especially considering Notre Dame is not comprised exclusively of Catholic students. The community here often comes under much religious criticism, as seen in the overwhelming student response to the Rover article. By virtue of these conflicts, it is http://couragerenewal.org/parker/writings/13-ways-of-looking-at-community/ https://president.nd.edu/homilies-writings-addresses/wesley-theological-seminary-commencement/ https://president.nd.edu/homilies-writings-addresses/wesley-theological-seminary-commencement/ Huller 3 extremely important that we respond in love rather than hate. The uniqueness of the integration between religion and education in the Notre Dame community makes our university extremely special, as religion and education are so intertwined in our campus and community. A Notre Dame education, “... requires a particular type of dying to self. Whenever we have to shed old ways of thinking, viewing, or perceiving the world around us and ourselves, a conversion of both heart and mind must take place” (Holy Cross and Christian Education by Campus Ministry at the University of Notre Dame – Moreau FYE Week 12). The irony in this is that religion is the facet that encourages love and acceptance in community while at the same time it is often the source of division in that same community. More specifically, we face a divide over what the Catholic church deems as acceptable, how social teachings have modernized, and if we even need to consider these social teachings at all in the campus community. The religious aspect of Notre Dame is both a divisive instrument and unifying factor in the Notre Dame community. We are religiously divided among topics like the rover article, parietals, and gender relations in general; however, religion serves to unify us through the transformation of our hearts and minds, and the overwhelming sense of community present on campus and even throughout the alumni network. Overall, we as students have to remember that, even in the face of conflict, we are all part of the same Notre Dame community and a lot of us even share the same struggles. For instance, in the week nine Moreau discussion we talked about imposter syndrome. All of us here are exceptionally high achieving individuals, yet most of us still struggle with imposter syndrome (Advice from a Formerly Lonely College Student by Emery Bergmann – Moreau Week 9). Sometimes, simply reminding ourselves that we all face the same internal struggles can make the conflicts we encounter from living in community much easier to face. Instead of treating a person as an opinion, we need to treat them as a sum of all their parts: mind, heart body, and https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/09/well/family/advice-from-a-formerly-lonely-college-student.html Huller 4 spirit. Reducing someone to only view them as their opinions is detrimental the concept of community, regardless of how much we disagree with someone. Instead, we need to engage in fruitful, productive discussion in efforts to solve one issue at a time. The realization of our commonalities along with our own unique perspectives and backgrounds will enable us to communicate effectively and mesh to form a more perfect community at Notre Dame.