The Challenge to be Adult Disciples

Wednesday November 29, 2006

… a recent address to a group of priests and lay ministers in the Diocese of Detroit.

Tom, thank you very much. That was a moving
introduction. I’m not called insightful very often,
and so thank you for that. And thank you for coming
this afternoon. I cannot tell you how pleased I am to
see so many of you here, when you have so many other
things that you could be doing. But it is a great
sight simply to look upon you. We began by singing,
Lord of the Dance. And as you people came into this
room, I thought to myself that God dances in you, and
you need to keep dancing. There’s a television
commercial that uses technology and animation to
depict an elephant dancing. Have you every seen that
commercial? The music to it is just great. I am so
honored to be here with the Elephants and to see you
elephants dancing. Now you either do that well or not
if you’re an elephant, but you do know how to dance;
and it is God’s Spirit in you dancing. And I’m hoping
that our conversation this afternoon will sustain the
dance and keep it going. There’s something about an
elephant that is endearing. It’s a huge, huge animal;
and yet it seems to be, to me, a humble animal. I’ll
leave that up to you whether or not an elephant is
humble. But I heard there’s another group of people
here in this archdiocese, whether they’re still
together or not, I don’t know; but I was sitting next
to one of them at lunch, and I think this group was
called The Cockroaches (laughter). Now any Church –
and if the Church of Detroit has groups who love the
gospel, who are ready to call themselves Elephants and
Cockroaches – they’re my kind of people. And I’m just
very, very glad to be with you here this afternoon.

I was speaking to Tom Gumbleton. He said the title of
my presentation would be Freeing Celibacy, and I will
say something about that in relatively few minutes.
But that is not the real focus of my remarks this
afternoon. I would like to talk about the challenge
you and I have to be adult disciples. And in the
context of adult discipleship, I will be making some
remarks about celibacy and its relationship to some of
the scandals and trials and crises we are faced with
today.

I do a fair amount of speaking to groups of priests,
and let me tell you, that whenever I meet them, there
are always priests who know how to dance; and they
have hope and courage, and these men give me hope and
courage. But there are also other men whom I would
like to describe as simply surviving. You ask them
what’s going on in your life and they’ll say “Things
are okay;” but you get the impression that what
they’re really struggling to do is simply to survive.
Many of them have had it with downtown and diocesan
headquarters. They’re discouraged that the insights
and promise of the Second Vatican Council seem to be
rolled back in many significant areas of the Church,
and some of these men seem to have withdrawn their
world to the boundaries of their parish. And they’re
counting the years until they can retire. Now I wish
they had a group of Elephants and Cockroaches nearby.
These men need a shot in the arm.

On Serious Conversation: Blessed Communion
We’re here today because we know that if we are only
surviving then we really have not heard the gospel,
and we’re not doing what we can to speak to this
Church that we love so very, very much. When we
gather, when you gather for your monthly meetings of
the Elephants, I think what you are about is serious
conversation leading to blessed communion. That line
that I’ve just shared with you is from Walter
Brueggemann. I believe you will find it in his book
The Prophetic Imagination. But Walter Brueggemann
says, when we gather for meetings like this, what we
are about is: serious conversation leading to blessed
communion. Serious conversation means that we know
that a lot is at stake, and we might be dancing
elephants, but we need to have serious conversation.
We need to listen to each other. We need to listen to
each others experiences of what it means to be
disciples of Jesus. And if our conversation is real –
in others words, if we listen to other people without
simply being polite – then serious conversation
occurs.

As a priest, I’ve heard people say, “You know the
trouble with the clergy is: you don’t listen.” And
when I share that with some of my brother priests,
they get very upset and they say, “We listen very
hard!” I’ve heard bishops say that, when they have
been accused of not listening. “We listen very hard,
I resent that remark!” But what do we pastoral
leaders listen for – lay pastoral ministers, religious
pastoral ministers, ordained leaders in our Church?
Often, we listen for a question, ‘cause we clergy are
the teachers. So, we listen hard to your question;
and that’s good, because that’s part of our
responsibility. But we listen so that we might offer
an answer to you. And then sometimes we listen for
your problem – we who are your pastoral ministers.
And we listen hard to your problem, so that we might
help you with a solution. And that’s another
important part of listening. But where we clergy
sometimes fail is: that we don’t really listen to be
informed. And because we don’t listen to be informed,
we are not transformed by the conversation.

How many times do we really listen to your experience
– those of you who are not directly involved in
pastoral ministry – of your experience of being a
disciple? I know a number of bishops who don’t really
listen to their priests’ experience of pastoral
ministry and what 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and sometimes
70 years of priestly ministry have taught them. In
one way or another you are all in ministry. Listen to
your own experience of trying to bring the mercy and
the goodness of God to other people. So if we enter
into serious conversation, that means, at times, we
will listen for a question, so that we might respond
with an answer. We’re going to listen to problems, so
that we might suggest a solution to the problem. But,
let us also listen to each others experiences. That’s
where God’s grace is working. And when we do listen
to another person’s experience, to their joys and
sorrows, their struggles and successes, we understand
that God’s grace is alive in the world. And that
prompts us to dance. That keeps us from losing hope;
and that allows us to have a vision.

We can’t be adult disciples unless we are about
serious conversation. And that serious conversation
will lead to communion – not necessarily one mind, but
one mind in the important things: that Jesus is the
Christ; that God’s Spirit is to be found in our
assemblies; that God’s word is always fresh and
relevant to our struggles and to our journey. Blessed
communion doesn’t mean we all have to agree; but it
means that we do respect each other, and we
acknowledge that the Spirit of God can be working
through all of us – and very often the least among us. For God’s Spirit is loose in the world and sometimes
we Church people want to control that Spirit and speak
the final word about what the Spirit is doing: serious
conversation leading to blessed communion. Within
that word communion we find the word union, and I
think the cultural divide that we find in our Church
today needs to be overcome: it’s sapping our energy.
When people accuse us of being disloyal to the gospel,
they accuse us of being disloyal to the Church. And
that’s hard to receive that criticism, because you are
here today because of your great love of the Church.
And I would not be surprised that there are some
people in the Church of Detroit who feel you are less
than loyal by your very presence here today.

And then, if we are people of union and communion,
we’re also people of reunion. Try to really be the
people God wants us to be so that other people will
say to us: “What is it about you that keeps you
dancing, even in difficult times?” And so here we
gather, trying to enter into serious conversation,
looking for people who want to say to us:
•“Tell me your story about being a faithful
disciple.”
•“What has it been like for you to be married all
these years?”
•“What has parenthood taught you?”
•“What do you really want to say to your
grandchildren and to those who come after you?”
We have a marvelous story to tell, ordinary folks that
we are, and so seldom do we have an opportunity for
serious conversation. And without it there’s no real
community. And without it, our hearts will not be
primed to hear God’s word.

The Feudal System
Why is adult discipleship so difficult; and why are
some of us – not many in this room – but why are some
of us simply surviving rather than thriving? Well,
I’ve tried to say it one time: it’s because the Church
can be understood as the last feudal system in the
West. And if you understand the Church’s’ structure
as a feudal system – as fundamentally a feudal system – that can help us to understand why serious
conversation is always such a challenge.

Now let me take you back to your world history years,
either in grade school, or high school, or college. A
feudal system is based on the benefice system, where a
sovereign grants territory, or benefice, or fiefdom to
a chosen person. If we were to think of the Church as
a feudal system, we might understand the sovereignty
the Bishop of Rome, our Pope; and we could understand
the diocese, for example, the archdiocese of Detroit,
a benefice, as a feudal system; and the Archbishop is
named by the Pope as the one who is to lead this
particular benefice. And then we might even think of
a parish as a benefice, where a bishop names a priest
as pastor to a given parish.

Now Louis Brueyes, a very important French theologian,
when he wrote about the Church as a feudal system, he
reminded us that at the heart of the feudal system is
what is referred to in Latin as Dominium; and it
really means what the English word Dominion indicates. When a man is given a diocese, and when a man is
given a parish, of course, there are many
responsibilities that he accepts at that time: very
serious responsibilities of maintaining union with the
Universal Church, and making sure the word is preached
and reaching out to those who are unfortunate. But a
person, who enjoys dominion, has discretionary control
over the money, the personnel and the resources of the
benefice – same can be said, to a certain extent of a
pastor: a pastor enjoys dominion. If he pays his
assessments, and more or less stays out of trouble, he
has discretionary control over the finances, personnel
and resources of the parish. Now, of course, canon
law tries to say its not quite that simple, because
there are finance councils, both on the parish level
and the diocesan level, that are meant to make sure
that things are done right. But, you know, the next
major wave of scandals to overtake the Church will be
in the area of finances, because a feudal system begs
for abuse. It’s not that there are necessarily
crooked people who are in charge, but it’s so easy to
abuse a feudal system. Now, if the bishops can be
thought of as lords of the manor, and if our pastors
can be understood as vassals, I think you know how we
might understand the laity: the laity could be
understood as the serfs. Now, feudal systems worked,
and in fact it was to the Church’s wellbeing that we
more or less followed a feudal structure; and it
worked very well when the serfs were not educated.
But the European feudal system started to break down
when the serfs were able to leave their particular
land and move to the towns which were just emerging at
that time, and further their education, and become
merchants and skilled craft persons.

The laity in this room, I hope you know, that people
have described you as the best educated Catholics in
the history of the church. And you see, when you are
educated, you learn how to think critically. And that
doesn’t mean you are not loyal. But it means you
learn how to think critically. And of course that
changes everything, because a hundred years ago, we
had a different kind of laity in this country: smart
people, intelligent people, but for the most part, not
blessed with the benefits of a formal education that
teaches us the discipline of thinking critically. I
think we’re finding the feudal system of the Church – and I ‘m talking here about structure – the Church
always need a structure – but I think one of the
things we’re looking for is a healthier structure for
the Church. Now some people might say: “Well, there’s
a feudal system, don’t forget that a feudal system is
really grounded on loyalty.” And I’d like to suggest
that’s why some people feel that we who gather here
this afternoon are not completely loyal to the Church. Lords of the manor had to be loyal to the sovereign;
vassals/pastors have to be loyal to the lord of the
manor/bishop; and the laity, the serfs, had to be
loyal to the pastor, to the bishop, to the Church.

Pray, pay and obey reflects a rather passive attitude. Believe, behave, be saved is the same connotation.
So the role of the laity is fundamentally passive.
But, you know, its not working anymore. And because
the feudal system is breaking down, if every so
slowly, adult disciples, laity, religious, lower
clergy were acting like adults. And adults ask
questions – not just for answers or solutions – they
ask questions to enter into serious conversation.
Some of you have heard me speak of a wonderful book
written by a New Zealand bishop, his name is John
Heaps, and he wrote a book entitled, Love That Dares
to Question. You see, some people who feel that even
if you ask questions of your pastors, that’s a sign
that you’re not really loyal. But questioning is a
part of adulthood. I published a book in the year
2004 entitled Faith that Dares to Speak. I took that
title from Bishop Heaps book, Love That Dares to
Question. You dancing elephants keep daring to
question; it’s a sign of loyalty, not disloyalty. You
dancing elephants dare to speak from your experience.
Pray for the right voice so it isn’t shrill and
uncharitable. Pray for the right voice, but dare to
listen, dare to question, dare to speak.

On Celibacy
When we become adults, and it’s possible for some of
us older clergy not to be really fully adult, because
in some ways the system keeps us at an adolescent
level; and I think that’s one of the negative aspects
of mandatory celibacy that is being lived by a person
who has not been blessed with the charism of celibacy
– we’re not quite fully adult. And I’m suggesting
today, what the Church needs very much at this
critical time in its history is adult discipleship on
the part of the hierarchy, the clergy, the religious,
the laity. An adult is somebody who is integrated,
has integrated his or her sexuality, his or her
intellectual life into a meaningful whole, has
integrated his or her spiritual life into a meaningful
whole, that makes up this person’s personality. An
integrated adult is a person who is filled with peace,
especially if one is a Christian; it’s the very peace
of Christ. There’s a certain calmness that we find in
truly adult people. We might say that the fully adult
person, especially if that adulthood has been
enfleshed by the Gospel, is a person in secular
language who is happy – and that’s why it’s good to be
a dancing elephant. We have to show to each other,
and everyone whom we meet, that we are not just
surviving; that Christ is at the heart of our lives;
that we believe the Holy Spirit is loose in the world. And yes, these are difficult times; and they will
probably become even more difficult; but our spirit
will not be broken. We believe that God dances in us,
and as long as we have the strength, we are going to
keep dancing.

Now what allows a person to be an adult, integrated
individual who is happy? The philosophers and the
psychologists say you find no adulthood without
freedom. We have to acknowledge that we have been
destined for freedom. We read the New Testament; we
hear about the spirituality that allows us to be free. We preachers of the word are meant to be liberators.
We go around telling people that even though they
might be very insignificant in the eyes of the world,
they are God’s beloved, and they are precious in God’s
eyes. But, so many people don’t see the Church as the
great liberator of the spirit; they see the Church as
the great controller of the Spirit. And whether it’s
founded in reality or not, they see the Church as
somehow trying to limit their life and restrict their
life, so that they might not be lead into temptation,
and then, sin. And, of course, we have to be careful
about being led into temptation and sin; but the
greater danger is not to understand that our heritage
is gospel freedom.

But what’s beneath freedom? Well the philosophers
tell us there’s no real freedom without courage. You
and I are called to be men and women of courage at
this time: to listen to each other, to listen to the
teachings of the Church, to listen to our bishops, to
listen to our pastors, to listen to our theologians,
to listen to our scholars; but at the same time listen
to them out of our own experience. And for some of us
that takes courage.

Some of you, I know, have heard of the book by Paul
Tillich, the great Lutheran theologian and
philosopher, called The Courage to Be. And Tillich
said: “Just to be an authentic adult person takes
moral courage.” I think I’m looking at an awful lot
of very, very brave people – the courage to maintain
your vision of the Church; the courage to enter into
serious conversation, so that your vision and my
vision can be affected by the vision of others.
Because we could be confident we’ll find the Spirit in
the communion of believers. And that’s why serious
conversation is so very important. And then what lies
under courage. Well for you and me, what lies under
courage is our faith in Jesus the Christ, and in the
power of the Holy Spirit to be here in our midst, for
we began this meeting this afternoon in prayer, and in
praise, and in song, and in listening to God’s word.
When we have adult disciples, we have disciples who
are free, courageous and faithful. And when that is
the situation, then our tendency to denial seems to
just melt away.

We elephants are here because we looked around a few
years ago and said, “Why can’t people see the elephant
in the living room?” Well, sometimes seeing the
elephant in the living room is very, very difficult,
and it takes great courage; because, then, we’re going
to have to say things aren’t really as they might be,
and that we have to make some changes. We have to
renew. We have to reform. And for some of us, that
is very threatening. And so we literally do not see
the elephant in the living room. The book, Sacred
Silence: Denial and the Crises in the Church, tried
to take a look at that. Why is it so difficult for us
as individuals and as an institution to see the
elephant that other people can see? Now denial is not
simply a problem of the Church, every institution
really has to deal with this temptation of denial. We
see it in government; we see it in business; we see it
in education; and, yes, we see it in the Church. But,
I think, we expect more of the Church because the
Church brings this message to us that says you don’t
have to be afraid to look at reality – you do not have
to be afraid. So, I expect more from our Church. And
while I understand the denial, it is at the same time,
so very, very difficult.

Now, if we are going to be adult believers, I think
there are certain qualities of life that we need and
here I’m going to speak to the priests present this
afternoon. If we’re going to be adult disciples,
there has to be intimacy in our lives. Now, I realize
intimacy is a loaded term. In our culture it very
often is a code word for sexual intercourse. I’m not
talking about sexual or genital intimacy; I’m talking
about another dimension to life that, I believe, God
has destined each of us for; and I’m referring to the
kind of intimacy that we have with profound
friendship. We enjoy intimacy with a few people, and
it’s really impossible to enjoy intimacy with 748
people or 125 people but we enjoy intimacy with
another when we cannot only share with them our fears,
and our weaknesses, and our insecurities; but when we
can share with another our dreams, and our hopes, and
our ideals. A lot of priests live lives that are
strangers to the reality of intimacy.

Tom mentioned that I was Vicar for Clergy and
Religious for a half dozen years in the Diocese of
Cleveland, and as a matter of course, I met with the
priests who were believing that God was calling them
to leave active ministry – not because they didn’t
like active ministry ; they liked it very much. In
fact, I found myself after a while asking a priest,
who was in the process of leaving, “What will you miss
the most about being a priest?” And most often they
would say two things: “I will miss celebrating mass
and preaching.” When the priest said that to me, I’ve
often felt tears coming to my eyes. This man had the
charism of priest; this man had the calling of priest;
but he knew something was missing in his life,
something vital and real. It’s one of the things that
motivated me to write this short reflection, Freeing
Celibacy; because, if celibacy is going to work – and
I argue in this book celibacy is a great gift to the
Church if you possess the charism for it or the gift
for it – but what we have done for the last 900 years
in the Latin Church is to legislate a charism, and say
to every man who presents himself for ministry as a
Latin Rite priest since the middle of the twelfth
century: “Then God will give you the gift of
celibacy.” I think that’s very interesting.

Do we know God’s mind – God, the great mystery, so
well – that we can speak for God? Say, “You will be
blessed with the charism of celibacy, if you accept
it”. Why hasn’t God given the same gift of celibacy
to Eastern Rite Catholic Churches that are in full
communion with Rome? What about the Orthodox Churches
that have always had a married clergy? What’s going
on here? In Freeing Celibacy I try to speak very
positively about the charism and the power of gifted
celibacy, and then critically of the practice of
legislating a gift. Sandra Schneider is a marvelous
scripture scholar that many of you know of, has taught
seminaries herself for a number of years, and she
said, “From my experience in the seminary, when you’re
trying to teach men to lead healthy celibate lives,
who do not have the charism, it’s like trying to teach
people who can’t dance the two-step to be ballerinas”. (Laughter) You can work as hard as you can, but it is
tricky.

Now, half of the world isn’t married – almost
literally half of the world is not married, when you
consider adolescents, teenagers, children, widows,
widowers, divorced, celibates. You don’t really need
to be married to be an adult disciple; but what you do
need to be is someone who has the capacity for real
intimate friendship. You see, intimate friendship is
a gift, and there are some people who really do not
have intimate friends – their spouse isn’t an intimate
friend – but they have the capacity for it. That’s
the issue! Do we have the real capacity to receive
the gift of intimate friendship? That makes us
adults. And I think one of the crosses that the
priesthood is wrestling with today is a mistrust of
human friendship and human intimacy.

I’ve been ordained a long time now – I’m in my fifth
decade as a priest – and we’ve come a long way in our
seminaries in terms of addressing celibacy, human
sexuality and intimacy. In my day it was simply:
numquam solus cum sola. My brother priests know that
simply means – never be alone with a woman.
(Laughter) Now today we understand that it also should
have been: numquam solus cum soli – but never be alone
with a man, if your orientation happens to be towards
the same sex. So, it was more of a negative: just
don’t get too close to people.

I think there are a number of priests whose souls have
shriveled up because, in the name of celibacy, they’ve
kept everybody at a distance. And I’d like to suggest
that if you don’t have the charism of celibacy, in
trying to be a celibate priest, you can arrest your
psychosexual-development at the level of adolescence.
We have a lot to learn from the clergy sexual abuse
scandal. I think many of you know that most of the
people who have been abused by clergy have been
teenagers – and not only that: mostly teenage boys.
We have true pedophiles; thank God they are few. But
we do have pedophiles in the priesthood! You don’t
have to have a clinical background in psychology to
know that a pedophile is an adult whose primary sexual
interest is in a pre-pubescent boy or girl. And with
a true pedophile, the gender of the little boy or
little girl is not that significant. Most of the
clergy that have acted out against minors have not
been pedifiles, or pedophiles, in the strict sense of
the word; they have been drawn to teenagers. And the
psychological community could say that even though the
priest who did the offending might have been in his
thirties, forties, or fifties or sixties, from a
developmental point of view, he was a teenager himself
emotionally. You see, if you are not an adult
disciple, if you are not truly an adult, you’re going
to find adult relationships with your own age cohort
somehow threatening.

I think this area of concern that I’ve just tried to
outline needs further study. We need to find out, if
unwittingly, mandatory celibacy for diocesan priests
of the Latin Rite has contributed sadly to the clergy
sexual abuse scandals that we find ourselves
struggling with today. If you control a person’s
sexuality, you really control a person. And for the
priest whose gift is celibacy, then he doesn’t see the
discipline of celibacy as in anyway constricting.
But, if a man does not possess the gift of charism,
only God’s grace, and a sincere struggle to lead a
spiritual life, will keep him out of harms way. I
realize that most pedophiles are married men. Well,
of course, most pedophiles are married men! There are
far more married men in our society than there are
priests in our society. But we have to take a look at
what the incident rate is for abuse against minors of
priests compared to the population at large. And
while there have been some studies along this line, we
need many more of them.

Conclusion
So I am suggesting today, that is: we gather together,
and praise God, and acknowledge that God is the Lord
of the Dance, and that we are called to be adult
disciples; that God is calling us to spiritual
leadership, especially those of you who are in
pastoral ministry. God is calling you to be a
spiritual leader. What does that require of us? We
must be men and women of prayer, first of all. And
that prayer very often has to take on a contemplative
dimension. I think we all know people say a lot of
prayers, but they’re not really a prayerful person.
David Stendalrath says, “The reason that we pray, the
reason we say our prayers, is so that we can be a
prayerful person; that something happens to our
awareness and to our consciousness; that we have a
different kind of sensitivity.” If we’re a prayerful
person, we’re going to be able spontaneously to enter
into serious conversation; we’re going to listen
differently. And we’re going to find our right voice;
and when we speak, we will be inviting other people to
speak. And then, if we are going to be spiritual
leaders, we have to be people who read. In other
words, we have to have an interior life.

I met with a group of priests last night in Cleveland
– I won’t say anything more about who they were – but
most of these men do not read – and they’re not
embarrassed to acknowledge that. There’s a certain
kind of anti-intellectualism still prevalent in the
priesthood. They don’t even read America or
Commonweal, or the more popular magazines and
newspapers dealing with the Church. They don’t read
literature. They don’t read poetry. And for some of
them, they’re just too exhausted at the end of the day
to read. But for others, there’s no real interest, no
hunger for this kind of expansion of soul. So, if
we’re going to be spiritual leaders, we have to have a
vital interior life. If you have a vital interior
life, you’re not going to be discouraged, and you’re
not going to lose hope, and you’re going to truly be a
beneficial presence; and wherever you go, you’re going
to be doing the work of the Spirit.

So I hope that as you continue to meet here regularly,
you will be challenged to understand that, ordained or
not, vowed or not, you are called to spiritual
leadership. And that means that you begin to
cultivate an interior life, because then you very
witness of discipleship will draw people to Christ.

The other challenge I would like to leave with you
this afternoon is this: that a true spiritual leader
tries to live a life of gospel simplicity – and I
almost choke on the words, because I’m afraid I know
the least thing about gospel simplicity. It’s a very
difficult thing to define. It doesn’t mean that you
have no possessions; I do think it means that your
attitude toward your possessions is very, very
important. If we ministers try to lead lives of
gospel simplicity, clericalism would just dissolve
like ice cream on a hot afternoon. And then we would
not be triumphalistic. And then we would really be
bonding with our people. And then so many things that
are difficult would take on a completely different
panorama.

So I know there will be a question and answer period
following our break, and I look forward to entering
into serious conversation with you good people. But,
believe me, God is dancing in you, and God blesses
you, and right now is sustaining you in faith and in
courage. So thanks very much. (Applause)

____

Donald Cozzens is the former president-rector and professor of pastoral theology at Saint Mary Seminary and Graduate School of Theology in Cleveland, presently ‘writer in residence’ at John Carroll University where he teaches in the religious studies department.

He the author of: “The Changing Face of the Priesthood”, The Liturgical Press, Collegevile, MN, 2000.

“Sacred Silence, Denial and the Crisis in the Church”, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, MN, 2002

“Faith That Dares to Speak”, The Liturgical Press, Collegevill, MN, 2004.

Recent Articles

Sixth Sunday of Easter 'C'

In all things, charity It continues to astound me how the Scriptures come to life over and over again under different…continue reading...

Sixth Sunday of Easter 'C'

In all things, charity It continues to astound me how the Scriptures come to life over and over again under different…continue reading...

Fifth Sunday of Easter 'B'

Let’s stay connected. It’s not unusual to hear family members or close friends at the departure gates of life say to…continue reading...

Fourth Sunday of Easter 'B'

Watch out for the leopards! When my sister and I were kids, my father would whistle for us when it was…continue reading...

Third Sunday of Easter 'B'

Suddenly our eyes were opened… in the Breaking of the Bread. It’s interesting how some life incidents and experiences can be…continue reading...