The Wild Reed: John Neafsey

Showing posts with label John Neafsey. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Has Archbishop Nienstedt's "Shadow" Finally Caught Up With Him?

The Archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis is under investigation for “multiple allegations” of inappropriate sexual conduct with seminarians, priests, and other men.

Well, for John C. Nienstedt it all appears to be unraveling. I take no pleasure in sharing the latest news about the Archbishop of St. Paul-Minneapolis, largely because I believe, based on observations and insights I share later in this post, that our brother John is a psycho-sexually stunted individual in need of professional help and heartfelt prayers. Hopefully he will get the help he needs in the aftermath of the current investigation, the findings of which could end his clerical "career." For as Grant Gallicho of Commonweal reports:

Archbishop John Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis is being investigated for “multiple allegations” of inappropriate sexual conduct with seminarians, priests, and other men, according to the archbishop’s former top canon lawyer, Jennifer Haselberger. The investigation is being conducted by a law firm hired by the archdiocese. Nienstedt denies the allegations.

The investigation was spurred by information the archdiocese received late last year, according to another person with knowledge of the investigation. (This inquiry is not related to a December 2013 accusation that Nienstedt touched a boy’s buttocks during a confirmation photo shoot. The archbishop denied that allegation, and, following an investigation, the county prosecutor did not bring charges. Reportedly the case has been reopened.) Near the end of the year, it came to light that a former Twin Cities priest had accused Nienstedt of making unwanted sexual advances.

The archbishop agreed to hire an outside law firm to investigate the accusation. By early 2014, the archdiocese had selected the top-ranked Minneapolis firm of Greene Espel. Nienstedt, along with auxiliary bishops Lee Piché and Andrew Cozzens, flew to Washington, D.C., to inform the apostolic nuncio of the allegations. Over the course of the investigation, lawyers have interviewed current and former associates and employees of Nienstedt—including Haselberger, who resigned in protest in April 2013.

“Based on my interview with Greene Espel—as well as conversations with other interviewees—I believe that the investigators have received about ten sworn statements alleging sexual impropriety on the part of the archbishop dating from his time as a priest in the Archdiocese of Detroit, as Bishop of New Ulm, and while coadjutor and archbishop of St. Paul and Minneapolis,” Haselberger told me. What’s more, “he also stands accused of retaliating against those who refused his advances or otherwise questioned his conduct.”

To read Gallicho article in its entirety, click here

You know, over the years, as executive coordinator of CPCSM, I received a number of communications, some anonymous, some not, from people alleging that Archbishop Nienstedt was gay and sexually active. The late David McCaffrey and I even met with a reporter from the Star Tribune in 2009. She expressed interest in pursuing the story but only if at least one of those making the accusations would be prepared to "go on record." Unfortunately, none of them were prepared to do so. I later explored this rather frustrating situation through the writing of "The Note," one of the installments of my Journal of James Curtis series.

Nienstedt's "shadow"

More recently I shared my thoughts on what I called Nienstedt's "shadow." This discussion was inspired by the words and insights of author and psychologist John Neafsey as they relate to the Jungian concept of "the shadow" – those parts of ourselves that, says Neafsey, "don't neatly fit with our ideal mental image of the person we think we should be, our idea of what a 'good' or 'holy' person is like." In talking further about the shadow dimension of the human psyche, Neafsey notes that:

[P]roblems . . . develop when we get caught up in . . . denying or repressing the shadow side of ourselves. Defensive denial of our inner reality reflects a lack of psychological honesty. When it is based on pretense and denial, being a "good person" can also mean acting as a kind of false self. If we are too defensive, too controlled, too good all the time, we lose touch with our authentic feelings and all of the vital life energies they contain. When we are out of touch with [for instance] sexual passions, our capacity for authentic emotional and spiritual passion can become blocked.

Unconsciousness of our shadow also makes us more prone to hypocrisy and judgmental attitudes toward other people. . . . We end up criticizing in others what we are actually ashamed of and afraid to look at in ourselves.

Many will read this last paragraph of Neafsey's and immediately think of Nienstedt's words and actions around the issue of homosexuality. After all, as David Gibson of the Religion News Service notes, "Nienstedt has earned a reputation as a leading culture warrior in the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and his signature issue is homosexuality."

Indeed, from the very start of his tenure as archbishop (in fact, even well before he was appointed coadjutor archbishop) John Nienstedt has been in the news for making what many consider to be outlandish and hurtful statements not only about gay people but also those who love and support them.

In 2007, for instance, he wrote that "Those who actively encourage or promote homosexual acts or such activity within a homosexual lifestyle formally cooperate in a grave evil and, if they do so knowingly and willingly, are guilty of mortal sin." In December 2007, over 300 Catholics, many of them parents of LGBT people, gathered on the steps of the St. Paul Cathedral to both stand in solidarity with their LGBT loved ones and voice their disagreement with Nienstedt's words.

Nienstedt has also been obsessed with demonizing consensual sexual relationships of same-sex couples and working to ensure that such relationships are not legally acknowledged or recognized. In terms of the latter, he has failed completely. The anti-gay "marriage amendment," which he tirelessly championed, was defeated and, shortly after, both the Minnesota House and Senate passed marriage equality legislation. Same-sex couples now have the same civil right to marry as opposite-sex couples. During the often contentious marriage amendment "battle," many Minnesota Catholics opposed Nienstedt's anti-gay activism. In 2013 they celebrated the victory of marriage equality in the civil sphere.

Obsessive and misguided

Many local Catholics were scandalized and angered by the amount of time, energy and money that Nienstedt expended on demonizing gay relationships and attempting to deny them legal recognition in civil law. Such resources, these Catholics contend, could and should have been focused on creating a local church reflective of gospel values, including confronting and dealing with the many issues relating to clergy sex abuse within the archdiocese; issues, which Nienstedt openly admitted in his recent deposition, he was "out of the loop" about.

I believe that Nienstedt's cluelessness about so much of the external crisis around him stems from his inner unconsciousness of his "shadow," and I believe that Nienstedt's shadow is to do with issues related to his own homosexuality and its integration (or lack thereof) into his life. Remember, according to Neafsey, the shadow is comprised of those parts of ourselves that "don't neatly fit with our ideal mental image of the person we think we should be, [and] our idea of what a 'good' or 'holy' person is like."

It's also important to note, especially when we are talking about a situation of repressed homosexuality, that "the word shadow does not necessarily mean that these aspects of ourselves are bad or sinful, but rather suggests that some dimensions of our inner experience . . . may not comfortably fit with the kind of self we aspire to be in the light of day."

As has already been mentioned in relation to Nienstedt's obsessive and misguided focus on same-sex relationships, people who are unconsciousness of their shadow are more prone to judgmental attitudes toward others. They often project their shame, fear, and anger about the reality they are denying and/or repressing out onto those who are successfully integrating into their lives this same reality.

Also, credible studies suggest that those who harbor and/or express negative feelings and hostility toward gay people may themselves be struggling with suppressed feelings of same-sex desire. (See, for example, here, here and here.)

Today's news, however, takes things to a whole new level. Nienstedt is being investigated for “multiple allegations” of inappropriate sexual conduct with seminarians, priests, and other men. In the worst case scenario, the word "inappropriate" in this context could mean that he expressed his same-sex desires in ways that coerced and exploited others. He is also accused of "retaliating against those who refused his advances or otherwise questioned his conduct." It thus could be that the "inappropriate conduct" of the archbishop that is under investigation largely comprises an abuse of power. And then, of course, if these allegations are proven true then there's the sickening level of hypocrisy that must be faced: As Nienstedt was tirelessly working to demonize consensual sexual activity between two people of the same sex and to deny legal recognition of same-sex relationships, he himself was engaging in (or attempting to engage in) sexual activity with other men.

Not unique

When are we going to learn that we can't suppress our sexual desires? They'll find a way to surface, and when the attempt to suppress is overlaid with shame and the language of sin, they often surface in inappropriate and damaging ways. I have no doubt that Nienstedt is a damaged individual, in the sense that he is largely unconscious of his own sexual energy, how he acts it out, and how others experience it. Accordingly, I believe he may well be incapable of recognizing, let alone accepting and integrating, the God-given gift of his sexual orientation. It's tragic that the church's clerical caste and is dysfunctional sexual theology, to which Nienstedt has devoted his life, is largely responsible for this damage.

Nienstedt's situation is certainly not unique. I've written previously about how closeted and self-loathing gay men in the church's clerical caste are "giving the rest of us a bad name." I've also joked with friends that it often sounds as if these closet cases are experiencing more sex than I am as an out gay man. But as a friend pointed out, why would you want that type of sex – compulsive, guilt-ridden, and often dependent on abuse of power. And it's true: I don't want that type of sexual experience; no self-respecting gay man does.

But then gay men who have integrated their sexuality into the totality of their being don't possess the type of "shadow" that leads to such unconscious, unhealthy and, I'd argue, ultimately unsatisfying sexual experiences; the type of "shadow" that Nienstedt may well have cast for many years but which is now catching up with him in the sense that he's becoming conscious of it as a result of the complaints against him and the investigation these complaints have prompted. Perhaps up until now he wasn't even aware that certain actions on his part have been experienced by other men as attempts at flirtation and/or sexual advances. How terribly sad it would be if he really is that unconscious of his own sexual desires and how he is acting them out! And if this is indeed the case then my prayer is that the archbishop will recognize in the current crisis an opportunity to deal with his sexual desires in a fully conscious and healthy way. His clerical "career" may well end as a result, but his journey as an authentic human being will continue (perhaps in some ways begin) and hopefully be an ever-fuller expression of what God invites all of us to embody – a life of self-awareness, compassion and integrity.

2015 UPDATES:

• Twin Cities Archbishop Resigns
After Charges of Abuse Coverup
– Jean Hopfensperger and Chao Xiong
Star Tribune
June 16, 2015

• Investigators Explore Personal Ties
Between Nienstedt and Defrocked Priest
– Jean Hopfensperger
Star Tribune
June 17, 2015

• An Isolated Nienstedt Tried to Limit
Investigation Into Himself
– Madeleine Baran
Minnesota Public Radio News
June 19, 2015

• Fall from Grace: Why Nienstedt Had So
Little Support Among Twin Cities Catholics
– Tim Gihring
MinnPost
June 16, 2015

• In His First Remarks Since Resigning,
Nienstedt Denies Allegations in Affidavits
– Jean Hopfensperger, Tony Kennedy and Paul McEnroe
Star Tribune
July 19, 2015

Sunday, April 20, 2014

A Discerning Balance Between Holiness and Wholeness: A Hallmark of the Resurrected Life

The Wild Reed's 2014 Holy Week series concludes with a final excerpt from John Neafsey's 2006 book A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal and Social Conscience. (To start at the beginning of this series, click here.)

Unlike the previous four excerpts shared in this series, today's focuses not on suffering but on the authentic life or, as Neafsey puts it, "living as though the truth were true."

Why have I chosen to share this particular part of Neafsey's book today, Easter Sunday? Because I believe that another way of talking about the authentic life is to talk about the resurrected life.

After all, if we are truly to be followers of Christ then we must follow Christ out of our various tombs – tombs of fear and of hubris, tombs that cause isolation and inaction – and into the new life of resurrection. It won't, of course, be the full life of resurrection as, obviously, we're still living with our finite bodies. Nevertheless, we're called each day and in all kinds of situations to open ourselves to the transforming love of God and so die with Christ and rise with Christ.

Put another way, we're capable of experiencing and embodying intonations, aspects, qualities of the resurrection in our daily lives; capable of being – indeed, called to be – people of the resurrection.

In the following excerpt from A Sacred Voice is Calling, Neafsey explores wholeness and holiness. He contends that the call to a life of authenticity requires us to discern balance between being ourselves (wholeness) and behaving ourselves (holiness). Seeking, finding and embodying this balance is an aspect of the authentic life or, as I like to say, the resurrected life.

In discerning and embodying this balance we must be prepared to acknowledge and take responsibility for the shadow dimensions of ourselves, those parts of ourselves that, as Neafsey puts it, "don't neatly fit with our ideal mental image of the person we think we should be, our idea of what a 'good' or 'holy' person is like." I think it's possible to view the story of Jesus' descent into hell, between the time of his death and his resurrection, as a powerful metaphor for acknowledging and dealing with the shadow. Of course, exploring such an idea could comprise a whole post of its own! For now, though, I share a fourth (and final) excerpt from A Sacred Voice is Calling, one focused on holiness and wholeness in the call to a life of authenticity.

In the call to authenticity there is an inherent tension in our strivings for wholeness and holiness. The tension centers around the complex moral task of finding a discerning balance between being ourselves and behaving ourselves.

Holiness and wholeness have different associations in the minds of most people. They seem to be organized around different principals, oriented toward different aims, motivated by different values and ideals. Holiness is usually associated with our aspirations toward moral perfection or self-transcendence. It has to do with rising above our human weaknesses and limitations so that we can live up to certain standards of righteousness and good behavior. From this perspective, holiness requires efforts to tame or conquer our unruly, disordered, sinful selves, which might otherwise incline us in unholy directions if we are not careful to keep them in check and focused in the right direction. Wholeness, on the other hand, is associated with strivings for integration or completion or self-realization. Instead of focusing on overcoming the self, the emphasis is on embracing or accepting or expressing ourselves in all our complexity and imperfection. In a nutshell, wholeness is about being ourselves and holiness is about behaving ourselves.

We are called to both wholeness and holiness. Although they have different emphases, it is possible for these seemingly contradictory aims to work together in harmonious and complementary ways. Perhaps the most complex moral challenge we face in our discernment of these simultaneous calls is the problem of what to do with all the aspects of ourselves that don't neatly fit with our ideal mental image of the person we think we should be, our idea of what a "good" or "holy" person is like. In psychoanalysis, this is referred to as our ego ideal. For example, if our ego ideal centers around the idea that we should always and everywhere be loving and compassionate, we are likely to experience considerable discomfort when we experience feelings and inclinations in ourselves that do not seem particularly "nice" or loving or compassionate.

The shadow was Jung's name for all of the dimensions or parts of ourselves that do not conform to our ego ideal. The word shadow does not necessarily mean that these aspects of ourselves are bad or sinful, but rather suggests that some dimensions of our inner experience are darker or morally ambiguous and may not comfortably fit with the kind of self we aspire to be in the light of day. In my clinical practice I have worked with many idealistic, conscientious people over the years (especially those from Christian backgrounds) whose shadow side is often associated with thoughts and feelings related to anger, sex, and personal emotional needs. For example, feelings of anger that are perfectly appropriate in certain situations make some people extremely anxious and guilty, usually because anger conflicts with their idea of what it means to be a loving person. Natural sexual feelings and desires can also create inner conflict and tension because they are perceived as self-centered or sinful. In a similar way, normal human needs for attention and love from others may be perceived as "selfish" because they do not seem to be sufficiently generous and other-centered.

The shadow is perceived as emotionally, spiritually, and morally dangerous for good reasons. If we act out our shadow side thoughtlessly or irresponsibly, we are likely to get ourselves into all kinds of unhealthiness and trouble. Anger that is not carefully sorted out and expressed properly can be hurtful to others and damaging to our relationships. Irresponsible acting out of sexual feelings, of course, can also have disastrous consequences for ourselves and others. Likewise, an excessive and unbalanced focus on gratification of our own needs is a manifestation not only of egocentrism but also of a poorly developed conscience. And so a discerning attitude, common sense, and self-restraint are called for in all of our dealings with the shadow side of ourselves.

On the other hand, the seemingly dark and destructive feelings and inclinations associated with the shadow can also potentially play an important and constructive role in our personal growth and development. While impulsive action has its dangers, problems also develop when we get caught up in the opposite problem of denying or repressing the shadow side of ourselves. Defensive denial of our inner reality reflects a lack of psychological honesty. When it is based on pretense and denial, being a "good person" can also mean acting as a kind of false self. If we are too defensive, too controlled, too good all the time, we lose touch with our authentic feelings and all of the vital life energies they contain. When we are out of touch with our anger and our sexual passions, our capacity for authentic emotional and spiritual passion can become blocked.

Unconsciousness of our shadow also makes us more prone to hypocrisy and judgmental attitudes toward other people. If we are unable to admit our weaknesses to ourselves, we are more likely to project them onto others. We end up criticizing in others what we are actually ashamed of and afraid to look at in ourselves.

. . . And so the call to authenticity requires psychological honesty, which means that we need to acknowledge and take responsibility for the shadow dimensions of ourselves. . . . Just because something makes us uncomfortable does not mean that it is bad. From God's perspective, things might look very different.

The challenge centers around finding the proper attitude to take toward our shadow, the right kind of discerning consciousness with which to regard our inner experience. In psychoanalysis, this complex attitude or state of consciousness has been referred to as "conscious, loving self-restraint." The basic ingredients of conscious, loving self-restraint are psychological honesty and a commitment to loving care and respect for ourselves and others. We must be courageously honest in acknowledging our own inner truth, including shadow feelings and inclinations that may seem objectionable, while also being very conscientious and responsible about our attitude and behavior with others.

In the Zen Buddhist tradition, something comparable to "conscious, loving self-restraint" is summed up by the term "mindfulness." The essence of this attitude or state of consciousness is a relaxed, compassionate, non-judgmental awareness of whatever we may happen to be experiencing at any given moment. This includes our experiences of events and people in the external world as well as the thoughts and feelings that enter into our awareness within the internal world of our own mind.

. . . The great emotional and spiritual challenge of the call to wholeness is learning to acknowledge and accept and love ourselves as we are. . . . [The] humbling awareness of our own weaknesses helps us to be less judgmental and more forgiving toward other imperfect human beings. Paradoxically, the capacity to love and care for our imperfect selves is exactly what enables us to develop a more mature and generous love for others. The calls to wholeness and holiness come together in a right love for ourselves that frees us to be more just and compassionate in our dealings with others.

– John Neafsey
A Sacred Voice is Calling
pp. 51-62

For previous Easter reflections, see:
A Girl Named Sara: A Person of the Resurrection
The Triumph of Love: An Easter Reflection
Easter: The Celebration of the Sacrament of Transformation
Jesus: The Revelation of Oneness
The Resurrected Jesus
Jesus: The Breakthrough in the History of Humanity
Resurrection: Beyond Words, Dogmas, and All Possible Theological Formulations
The Passion of Christ (Part 11) – Jesus Appears to Mary
The Passion of Christ (Part 12) – Jesus Appears to His Friends

See also:
There Must Be Balance
Prayer of the Week – October 28, 2013
"Then I Shall Leap Into Love"
The Soul of a Dancer
Seeking Balance

Related Off-site Link:
In Easter Message, Pope Remembers Areas of War, Conflict Around World – Joshua J. McElwee (National Catholic Reporter, April 20, 2014).
"Every Life is Different Because You Passed This Way and Touched History": Easter Meditation Points – William D. Lindsey (Bilgrimage, April 20, 2014).
An Interview with John Neafsey – Programs for the Theological Exploration of Vocation (PTEV).

Opening image: Subject and photographer unknown.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Suffering and Redemption

Continuing with The Wild Reed's 2014 Holy Week series, I share today a third excerpt from John Neafsey's book A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Justice. (To start at the beginning of this series, click here.)

As with all the excerpts from Neafsey's book shared so far in this series, this third one focuses on suffering, a key theme in the Gospel narratives of Jesus' final days and a reality which, to some degree or another, we all experience in our lives.

Suffering does not always have a redemptive outcome. Painful life experiences have the potential to deepen and mature us, to make us wiser and more compassionate, but this is not always how things work out. Pain can also make us numb or bitter or self-absorbed. It can make us so preoccupied with our own discomfort that we have little energy or interest left over for anyone or anything beyond ourselves. Suffering can soften the heart – or it can turn it to stone. And so we should be careful not to romanticize or spiritualize suffering too much, to assume that it will inevitably have ennobling or transformative effects upon consciousness or character.

One factor that determines whether suffering will have a redemptive outcome is our attitude toward it. "Suffering by itself is no cure," says author John Sanford, "it only cures us when we have the right attitude toward it." From this vantage point, the issue is not the particular form the troubles takes (e.g., illness, injury, depression, poverty, persecution) or even the degree of pain associated with it. Rather, what makes the difference is how we look at the difficulties life sends our way. How we see our problems has a profound impact upon how they are experienced, including the degree to which they are felt to be either meaningful opportunities for growth or meaningless obstacles that are better avoided.

The "right" attitude enables us to discern meaning in our sufferings. Meaning is what makes it possible for us to make spiritual sense of what otherwise seems senseless, to bear what would otherwise be unbearable. According to Victor Frankl, whether suffering becomes an occasion for spiritual triumph or defeat depends entirely on our capacity to discover a meaning or purpose in it. Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who wrote of his personal experiences of extreme suffering in the Nazi concentration camps in the class Man's Search for Meaning, emphasized the human capacity to choose our attitude toward suffering regardless of external circumstances. "Everything can be taken away but one thing, " he wrote, "the last of human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. . . . Fundamentally, even in the worst of circumstances, we can decide what shall become of ourselves mentally and spiritually, retaining our human dignity even in a concentration camp."

– John Neafsey
A Sacred Voice is Calling
pp. 115-118

NEXT: A God With Whom It is Possible to Connect

Monday, April 14, 2014

The Way of the Wounded Healer

Continuing with The Wild Reed's 2014 Holy Week series, here is a second excerpt from John Neafsey's book A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Justice. (For Part One of this series, click here.)

As with the first excerpt, this second one focuses on suffering, a key theme in the Gospel narratives of Jesus' final days and a reality which, to some degree or another, we all experience in our lives.

Sometimes callings originate in painful life experiences that serve as a kind of initiation into the way of the wounded healer – the person whose sufferings become a source of healing to others.

The vocational theme or pattern of the wounded healer can be discerned in many religious traditions through the ages. It is perhaps most dramatically illustrated in the spirituality and healing practices associated with shamanism, an ancient, primordial form of religion that is still practiced in many indigenous cultures today. Parallels to shamanism are found in many of the world's major religious traditions. The theme of the wounded healer can be detected in the life pattern of the historical Jesus as well as in the lives of many people in the contemporary world. Henri Nouwen's well-known book, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society, is centered around the idea that the minister's own wounds, if tended properly, can become a source of healing for others.

Although a great diversity of spiritual beliefs and healing practices exists among shamanistic cultures throughout the world, certain patterns are encountered whenever shamanism is practiced. One of the most striking is the phenomenon of the "initiatory illness" in the calling of the shaman. In many cultures, it is common for the shaman-to-be to experience a painful physical illness or psychological crisis at some point during childhood, adolescence, or young adulthood. During the initiatory illness the young person typically has vivid visions and dreams (often while in a state of unconsciousness or delirium) that contain striking religious imagery centering around images of death and rebirth, spirit journeys, or encounters with various kinds of good and evil spirits associated with illness and healing. Black Elk, for example, received his calling through a complicated and remarkable vision during his own illness experience, which occurred when he was only nine years old and lasted over a period of twelve days while he was deathly ill in a coma-like state of unconsciousness.

Eventually, the shaman recovers from the initiatory illness and begins a period of formal training and apprenticeship in preparation for healing work with others. Significantly, the illness experience is interpreted by the community as a sign that the young person has a special calling to the work of healing. After Black Elk recovered from his own severe illness at the age of nine, an older shaman by the name of Whirlwind Chaser said to his parents: "your boy is sitting there in a sacred manner. I do not know what it is, but there is something special for him to do."

. . . There are many parallels to shamanic themes in the life of Jesus. Although there is no evidence in the gospels that he experienced an initiatory illness, Jesus' forty-day ordeal in the wilderness prior to beginning his public life as an itinerant healer and teacher can be likened to a kind of shamanic initiation during which he personally "worked with the spirits." From the perspective of shamanism, Jesus' assertive dealing with the temptations of the Satanic spirit in the wilderness would likely be seen as the source of his later power and "authority" over unclean spirits – which are often noted in the gospel accounts of his healings of tormented people. Jesus' visionary experiences in the wilderness (e.g., journeying with Satan to the top of a high mountain or to the pinnacle of the temple) are also reminiscent of the "soul journeys" or "spirit flights" of the shaman.

The gospels also suggest that, from the beginning of his public life, Jesus strongly identified with the mysterious "Suffering Servant of Yahweh" figure (the one who brings good news to the poor, heals the brokenhearted, brings liberty to captives) from the writings of the prophet Isaiah. In Christianity, there is a long tradition of belief that Jesus was the fulfilment of this countercultural redemptive figure foretold by the prophet: the "man of sorrows" whose wounds would become a source of healing and redemption for others.

– John Neafsey
A Sacred Voice is Calling
pp. 115-118

NEXT: Suffering and Redemption

Saturday, April 12, 2014

"To Die and So to Grow"

Here at The Wild Reed I have a tradition of sharing a special Holy Week series of posts (see, for example, here, here, here, here, and here). This year I'll be sharing excerpts from one of the books I've brought with me on my current visit home to Australia from my other home in the U.S. This book is John Neafsey's A Sacred Voice is Calling: Personal Vocation and Social Conscience, about which the following has been said:

Both younger and older adults will find in John Neafsey's thoughtful, often moving, and inspiring excavation of vocation, social conscience, and the prophetic tradition a compelling tug to the Center – an awakening to the cry of those who bear most of the social cost and to the sacred within, among, and beyond us.

– Sharon Daloz Parks, author,
Big Questions, Worthy Dreams

A gentle, winsome reflection on the call of God. . . . This book will serve well those who hope for and engage an alternative way in the world.

– Walter Brueggemann

Drawing widely on the wisdom of saints and sages, John Neafsey describes a path to living in the place, as Frederick Buechner has put it, "where our deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet."

– Orbis Books

The part of A Sacred Voice is Calling that I'll be drawing from for this year's Holy Week series focuses on suffering – which is, of course, a predominant and important theme of Holy Week. And I believe it is such an important theme because it's an important reality of human experience, including Jesus' experience.

I start today with Neafrey's thoughts on the call to authentic personhood and, in particular, the commitment to continual growth and change and the associated willingness to undergo emotional and spiritual pain and discomfort that such a call involves.

"Life is difficult" is the first line of M. Scott Peck's popular and influential book The Road Less Traveled. the "road" to which he is referring is the path of emotional and spiritual growth. The title implies that most of us prefer to take the easy way because the path to genuine growth and maturity can sometimes be so rough, so rugged, so difficult. It is not easy to change and grow, to honestly face our problems, to be loving and authentic persons in an egocentric, artificial culture.

Because of our egocentrism, all of us are inclined to resist the process of growth. Something in us doesn't want to change, and so we cling to the known and familiar rather than take the risk of following the Voice into the unknown. This is completely natural and understandable because there are no guarantees that we won't end up hurt and disappointed when we allow ourselves to be led into the new or the different. Sometimes letting go of an old way of being so that something new can come into being is so painful it feels like dying. This, I think, is what Goethe is talking about in his poem "The Holy Longing": And so long as you haven't experienced this: / To die and so grow, / You are only a troubled guest / On the dark earth.

The call to authentic personhood involves a commitment to continual growth and change, which requires a willingness to undergo the emotional and spiritual pain and discomfort that are a necessary and inevitable part of the process of coming to know ourselves. Self-protective, defensive efforts to avoid the pain of self-knowledge almost always end up bringing us other kinds of trouble. "Neurosis," says Jung, "is always a substitute for legitimate suffering." The neurotic misery of an inauthentic existence, it seems, is the price we pay for refusing to embrace the pain and risk of living an authentic life. We end up living as "troubled guests" on the earth, spending our precious time and energy anxiously trying to escape from the risky business of becoming the persons we are meant to be.

The call to love also entails pain and risk. We experience growing pains with every step we take in the direction of becoming more loving persons, with every increase in our capacity to give and receive genuine love. Mature love requires that we find the energy and will to make the moral effort to extend ourselves on behalf of others – even when we don't feel like it. "I am sorry I can say nothing more consoling to you," says Father Zossima in The Brothers Karamazov, "for love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams."

– John Neafsey
A Sacred Voice is Calling
Pp. 110-111

NEXT: The Way of the Wounded Warrior

The Wild Reed

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Has Archbishop Nienstedt's "Shadow" Finally Caught Up With Him?

Sunday, April 20, 2014

A Discerning Balance Between Holiness and Wholeness: A Hallmark of the Resurrected Life

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Suffering and Redemption

Monday, April 14, 2014

The Way of the Wounded Healer

Saturday, April 12, 2014

"To Die and So to Grow"

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