Monday
Yesterday on, IDK, Youtube or Facebook, I started watching recorded bits of our diocesan convention, so far, the bishop's address and a fascinating and entertaining presentation by Bertice Berry, PhD sociologist, author https://berticeberrynow.com about stories, telling our stories as Teller, and, as Listener, hearing and being aware of one's internal response.
No sociologist am I, but as priest, pastor and, inevitably, sometime counselor, I have developed listening practice that helps me hear the person who's confiding in me, and also conveys that they have my full attention, that no distractions divert my focus on their story (which can be discouraging and belittling), and that I do not interrupt them. In recent years I also have tried to learn to let them and their story be all the focus, and not come back with similar stories of my own. Trying to be a better listener.
Dr Berry had exercises with the audience, each person to pair up with one other person, two minutes for one to tell the other a personal story of a designated nature, and the other to listen and avoid interruption. It stirs, stirred, personal experiences: we have stories that, not so much "need to be told" as we need to tell them, we need to get them out because they are bottled up inside us, burdensome, sometimes for many years. A few such stories are so personal and private, even shameful and embarrassing to us, that we'd never risk telling them to anyone. But other personal and private stories we may venture to share with someone whom we trust deeply, and we find that getting them out brings immediate and tremendous relief.
Like lifting the jiggly valve on the old time pressure cooker my mother had back in the late 1940s. Telling our stories can be good for our health, if there's someone we can trust. Being trusted with someone's story can deepen a relationship.
In An Exhortation (p.317) (in my eighty-six years as an Episcopalian I have never once heard of this being read aloud to the people!) the Book of Common Prayer admonishes us regarding preparation for coming to Communion,
And if, in your preparation, you need help and counsel, then
go and open your grief to a discreet and understanding priest,
and confess your sins, that you may receive the benefit of
absolution, and spiritual counsel and advice; to the removal
of scruple and doubt, the assurance of pardon, and the
strengthening of your faith.
In my experience the word "discreet" is an apt and cautionary one, as twice in past years I've known parish priests who were indeed not discreet, who blabbed people's confidences: ordination or not, folks unable or unwilling to suppress the compulsion to gossip. Which seemed to me to be the most destructive possible dishonoring of trust, to violate the privilege of Listening.
But stories, our stories, especially those that burden us over the years: it can be important, and even key to mental health wellness, to find ways to let them out. So, though her style was light and entertaining, Dr Berry's presentation was vital.
+++++++++++++
Today: an appointment to have my hearing aids tuned up. I'm having trouble hearing even with them on and adjusted to the situation. Yesterday I could not understand one thing the kids said to me at church.
+++++++++++++++
One other thing still bothering, and seems to be ratcheting up as it looks like Russia may be stirring ways to take offense, here we are again with the screaming and shouting,
Biden: You better not: if you invade Ukraine our response will be swift and severe.
Putin: Whoa, I didn't realize that. Hey, thanks for letting me know. Man alive, am I ever glad we had this talk. Thanks for setting me straight, man, whew, I almost stepped in it that time.
Sanctions are B.S. and only serve to reinforce determination. Nobody is deterred by sanctions or the threat of sanctions, which are taken as insults to national pride. And appeasement: backing away from bullies emboldens them. If we are morally bound (never mind legally bound), if we are morally bound by having assured Ukraine that they can count on us, if we owe anything to Ukraine, we should make it clear that a Russian attack on Ukraine will be met with, as JFK promised Khrushchev, full retaliatory force. Otherwise we are in truth what China called us half a century ago, a paper tiger.
That we are tired of war, that we have no taste for war, that we have just wasted American and other lives in twenty years of war and are sick of war, does not excuse us from morality. Never mind the binding legalities of NATO membership: what promises have been made to Ukraine by the West? When the USSR broke up, what assurances were given Ukraine that they have trusted us to keep, perhaps to convince them to give up the nuclear weapons the USSR left behind? If we have incurred any moral obligation whatsoever to Ukraine, it should be made clear that any attack by Russia on Ukraine will be met with an overwhelming, searing, crushing response on Russia.
Common sense may say that Ukraine and Russia share such close culture and relations that promises should never have been made to encourage Ukraine to take sides against their kin. But here we are.
And we were well along with economic cooperation and interdependence with China: is the prospective quality and reliability of Russian products not so promising? IDK, not Russian, but Eastern European: would you send your daughter off to college in this car?
