Good Morning Everyone,
So, I have decided to use my blog as a true “blog” (web log), an electronic journaling device of sorts. My teaching as a priest will be offered at the Temple and online through Blogger.com and our Order’s Yahoogroup, “ClearMindZen.” This raises interesting questions as I will, if it is at all really possible, take off my priest’s hat as I both write entries and reply to comments. One such question is how to address morally and ethically ambiguous thoughts and feelings? Another is how much to reveal of my actual life? Still another is what to do with obnoxious, insulting, or attacking comments?
As a priest, I have an obligation to use myself as a teacher or advisor. I should try to understand and contextualize the thoughts and feelings of those addressing me no matter how crude, rude, or abrasive. I have to one degree or another been successful at this, but always have felt inauthentic in the process. It’s as if I have thought priests should not be angry or hurt, and most certainly not respond in-kind. What would people say, after all? Sometimes an asswipe is just an asswipe and needs to be dismissed as just the toilet paper they present themselves to be. As Vonnegut used to say, “So it goes.”
We seem to dislike moral ambiguity. People like clear cut solutions to clear cut problems. The trouble is, most of the most interesting aspects of our lives reside in ambiguity. Yet, for me, this ambiguity has been a lifelong associate. Sometimes an antagonist, but more often than not, a true friend. I once wrote a chapter in a social work textbook about working with moral anguish. Life’s moral problems form the backdrop tapestry of rich and fulfilling life, it seems to me.
Sidney M. Jourard once wrote a compelling little book called, “The Transparent Self.” In it he argued that most of psychology was flawed because it was based on skewed data. The data, he argued, came from people who were trying to out think, out smart, or otherwise influence researchers because we are, as a rule, people pleasers. To get truthful answers, he stressed, we need to do some degree of self disclosure. In my clinical experience I saw this was a profound truth. If I shared a little bit of my wartime trauma story, people let the “Dr.” part of me slip away as they began to see me as a real person. Yet, it is important also to maintain boundaries. The question is where and how to set them.
So, my writing will take a turn. I hope for the best, but I will say right here, I have no clue how this will work its way out. As my late friend, Bernie Schmidt used to say, “Hilbert, it’s a bag of shells.”
Be happy.
So, I have decided to use my blog as a true “blog” (web log), an electronic journaling device of sorts. My teaching as a priest will be offered at the Temple and online through Blogger.com and our Order’s Yahoogroup, “ClearMindZen.” This raises interesting questions as I will, if it is at all really possible, take off my priest’s hat as I both write entries and reply to comments. One such question is how to address morally and ethically ambiguous thoughts and feelings? Another is how much to reveal of my actual life? Still another is what to do with obnoxious, insulting, or attacking comments?
As a priest, I have an obligation to use myself as a teacher or advisor. I should try to understand and contextualize the thoughts and feelings of those addressing me no matter how crude, rude, or abrasive. I have to one degree or another been successful at this, but always have felt inauthentic in the process. It’s as if I have thought priests should not be angry or hurt, and most certainly not respond in-kind. What would people say, after all? Sometimes an asswipe is just an asswipe and needs to be dismissed as just the toilet paper they present themselves to be. As Vonnegut used to say, “So it goes.”
We seem to dislike moral ambiguity. People like clear cut solutions to clear cut problems. The trouble is, most of the most interesting aspects of our lives reside in ambiguity. Yet, for me, this ambiguity has been a lifelong associate. Sometimes an antagonist, but more often than not, a true friend. I once wrote a chapter in a social work textbook about working with moral anguish. Life’s moral problems form the backdrop tapestry of rich and fulfilling life, it seems to me.
Sidney M. Jourard once wrote a compelling little book called, “The Transparent Self.” In it he argued that most of psychology was flawed because it was based on skewed data. The data, he argued, came from people who were trying to out think, out smart, or otherwise influence researchers because we are, as a rule, people pleasers. To get truthful answers, he stressed, we need to do some degree of self disclosure. In my clinical experience I saw this was a profound truth. If I shared a little bit of my wartime trauma story, people let the “Dr.” part of me slip away as they began to see me as a real person. Yet, it is important also to maintain boundaries. The question is where and how to set them.
So, my writing will take a turn. I hope for the best, but I will say right here, I have no clue how this will work its way out. As my late friend, Bernie Schmidt used to say, “Hilbert, it’s a bag of shells.”
Be happy.
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