In our listening at deanery meetings, we heard several tensions raised. We felt no compulsion to reconcile these tensions, but simply to name them in hopes of holding both sides of each question.
Some of the tensions we heard (in no particular order):
• the importance of naming Benedictine core values and maintaining the malleability of the Benedictine identity in its local context
• involving external groups (alums, donors, parents, etc.) and setting boundaries for how much they drive the school's agenda
• giving our students technological education this century demands of them and helping them understand that technology is a means, not an end
• being a Benedictine school and a Catholic school
• maintaining the identity of the monastic community and maintaining the identity of the school
• identifying what globalization means from a southern perspective and from a northern one
• asking the world-wide scale justice questions about globalization vis-à-vis political/economic/social situations and asking questions about local context
• working to keep education apostolates viable and being attuned to when they no longer are
• talking about ideal values and the practical doing of them
• living with the not knowing and acting with surety