Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
About Me
- Michael J. Bayly
- Born and raised in Australia, I now reside in the U.S. where from 2003-2015 I served as the executive coordinator of the Catholic Pastoral Committee on Sexual Minorities (CPCSM). During this time I also helped found both The Progressive Catholic Voice and the Catholic Coalition for Church Reform.
I established The Wild Reed in 2006 as a sign of solidarity with all who are dedicated to living lives of integrity – though, in particular, with gay people seeking to be true to both the gift of their sexuality and their Catholic faith. The Wild Reed's original by-line read, “Thoughts and reflections from a progressive, gay, Catholic perspective.” As you can see, it reads differently now. This is because my journey has, in many ways, taken me beyond, or perhaps better still, deeper into the realities that the words “progressive,” “gay,” and “Catholic” seek to describe.
Most Popular Posts
Recommended Links
Even though reeds can symbolize frailty, they may also represent the strength found in flexibility. Popular wisdom says that the green reed which bends in the wind is stronger than the mighty oak which breaks in a storm. Tall green reeds are associated with water, fertility, abundance, wealth, and rebirth. The sound of a reed pipe is often considered the voice of a soul pining for God or a lost love.
– Source
.
Past Wild Reed Posts
of Special Interest
of Special Interest
Catholicism
Conscience
Sexuality and Spirituality
Catholic and Gay
The Vatican and Homosexuality
The Courage Apostolate and NARTH
Vatican II
Women and the Church
Perspectives on Natural Law
The Rainbow Spirit Interviews
Catholic Scholars, Theologians, and Commentators
In the Garden of Spirituality
In the Footsteps of Spring
The Journal of James Curtis
Film
Creating Safe Environments for LGBT Students: A Catholic Schools Perspective by Michael J. Bayly (Haworth Press, 2007).
(For reviews, click here, here, and here.)
On September 24, 2012, Michael Bayly of Catholics for Marriage Equality MN was interviewed by Suzanne Linton of Our World Today about same-sex relationships and why Catholics can vote 'no' on the proposed Minnesota anti-marriage equality amendment.
To watch this interview, click here.
Updates
Proposed Anti-Marriage Equality Amendment Defeated (11/7/12)
Marriage Equality Comes to Minnesota (5/13/13)
Honoring the Catholic Role in Achieving Marriage Equality in Minnesota (7/24/13)
On the First Anniversary of Marriage Equality in Minnesota, a Celebratory Look Back at the Important Role Played by Catholics (5/14/14)
To watch this interview, click here.
Updates
Proposed Anti-Marriage Equality Amendment Defeated (11/7/12)
Marriage Equality Comes to Minnesota (5/13/13)
Honoring the Catholic Role in Achieving Marriage Equality in Minnesota (7/24/13)
On the First Anniversary of Marriage Equality in Minnesota, a Celebratory Look Back at the Important Role Played by Catholics (5/14/14)
© Michael J. Bayly
2006-2021
5 comments:
Excellent, excellent, excellent!
Careful, love! People are already sick and tired of seeing the picture on the right. (Like it or not, "compassion fatigue" is real.) It's only a matter of time before they start to get sick of the other picture as well.
I am unaware of any conclusive evidence put forth in multiple and replicated peer reviewed studies appearing in reputable scientific journals that unequivocally prove that "compassion fatigue" is in fact "real."
The mere fact that it is referred to by so many different names in the literature---secondary traumatic disorder, secondary victimization, vicarious traumatization, secondary survivor, a form of burnout, etc. may be an indication that what we call compassion fatigue is really mostly a figment of the imagination of those who feel compelled to try to create an illness that may really just be the result of the medicalization of contemporary culture. Medicine is a demigod in most western societies and because of this there is a desire in such cultures to mask conditions that may more accurately be social or personality conditions under the cloak of "medical" science.
I personally believe that in reality what we refer to as compassion fatigue is in reality the combination of a social and spiritual disorder resulting from a persons or even an entire cultures failure to deeply understand how inseparably interconnected all human beings are and the subsequent desire to address this dishonestly.
When an individual or an entire culture suffers from this type of "ailment" it is easy to see why it would be preferable to come up with some pseudo medical condition to explain it away because the same mentality and consciousness (selfishness, individualism, disconnectedness) that wishes to believe there could *truly* be limits to human compassion would also, logic would inform us, desire to fool itself about any number of other things.
This is not to say that everyone needs to believe they can help every single person in need. I believe this is another thing that is going on with so called compassion fatigue. People don't know how to set appropriate limits when faced with real life difficult situations. The remedy, in my opinion is to teach people coping skills and how to put their own "oxygen masks" on first when appropriate rather than simply manufacturing something like "compassion fatigue" which means they can go through life from an external locus of control, blaming everything on forces outside oneself instead recognizing internal locus's of control when those are called for.
@sage - great job taking apart the incomplete notion of "compassion fatigue". It is much appreciated. I think the picture is right on point.
'[T]he combination of a social and spiritual disorder resulting from a persons or even an entire cultures failure to deeply understand how inseparably interconnected all human beings are and the subsequent desire to address this dishonestly'? Sounds like a pretty good definition.
I also sounds a lot like being a fallen human being.
J G Ballard wrote presciently about the pornography of violence. Western TV audiences got hooked on the pornography of "compassion" during the 1980s, when the likes of Bob Geldof got them to feel good about themselves by watching pictures of starving black children on the evening news. For comfortable, middle-class, "liberal-minded" First Worlders it was like all their favourite gruesome, mawkish, sentimental Holocaust movies put together, only better, because the TV pictures were in colour, and you could pretend the people in them were actually real!
People have of course now got bored with black babies starving and moved on to gay rights. But eventually they'll get bored with that as well and move on to something else. It's the way the media work, I fear - by speakig to the dark side of man's soul.
Post a Comment