Thursday, June 23, 2022

I started writing a journal in December 1964. Ironically, I didn’t set out to chronicle my life. I intended to write a magazine article. For fame, or glory, or something.  

            That autumn, I had taken a night-school course taught by author and ghost-writer Raymond Hull, co-author with Lawrence J. Peter of the best-selling book, The Peter Principle. I never completed that course, because I got a new job in Prince Rupert, far up the northern B.C. coast. 

            During my first weeks in that rain-soaked, rock-hewn, isolated city on an island in the Pacific, I compiled my impressions into a magazine article, following the conventions Hull had taught me. I sent it to his class. 

            I never heard anything more about it. But that article established a habit of writing down my impressions. And so I continued. 

            The 58 volumes of my life now take up about an 8-foot shelf in my office. They’re not a complete record. One year, I took Pitman Shorthand in another night-school course, so I could take faster, more accurate notes when doing interviews. 

            My shorthand efforts are now unintelligible, even to me. 

            And for at least one year, when I was simply overwhelmed by the demands of what I thought was my destined career, my journal entries were skimpy at best.

            But over-all, they’re a long-term study of who I think I am. 

Multiple facets of “me”

            I’m sure you’ll understand what “I” mean by that, even though it’s “I” who’s examining the “I” who’s writing about the experiences that “I” am having. Almost like several persons -- one observing from outside what another is doing and feeling on the inside. 

            Jeremy Lent, in his book The Web of Meaning, suggests that that dual personality characteristic has marked us humans since we climbed down out of the trees in Africa’s Great Rift Valley.

            We have two kinds of consciousness, he contends. 

            There’s a consciousness of our animal needs. We’re hungry; we go look for food. Thirsty, we seek water. Hot, we find shade. And so on. 

            Our bodies, Lent says, form their own intelligence network. Several trillion cells, all functioning independently, inform us of our needs. 

            Our brains process those messages, and tell us how to act. 

            But at the same time, our brains observe what we think we need, and how we react. They balance our animate instincts against our idealized image of ourselves.

            Lent calls these two different reactions the “I” and the “self.” 

            It’s not a new idea. 

            In his book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman argued that “fast” thinking is the gut reaction, the survival instinct, the instant recollection of every similar situation. And it is often wrong, according to Kahneman. “Slow” is the more reasoned response, that evaluates multiple factors, including moral codes, religious beliefs, and social pressures. 

            Franciscan priest Richard Rohr’s books explore the same duality between one’s True Self and one’s False Self. 

            The “I” in each of us, says Lent, is “continually engaging in autobiography: weaving the story of the different parts of yourself into a continuous narrative, explaining how things got to be the way they are…and making meaning of the whole affair.”

            Hah! Finally, I understand what I’ve been doing with my journal, for so many years. 

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Last week’s column tried to draw a line between guilt and shame. 

Long-time classmate Jane Wallbrown commented, “As a psychologist, yhis is the stuff we deal with every day in our practices. Guilt and shame. Feeling unable to come up with a distinction our profession makes, I went to my trusty Google because what it says is what psychologists say.” 

            She quotes, “Guilt is an uncomfortable feeling resulting from the commission or contemplation of a specific act contrary to one's internalized standards of conduct." And "Shame is a painful feeling we all experience at one time or another. It often involves a deep-rooted fear that someone is going to find out about a mistake we made or a character flaw we have [or think we have told us by another person] . When we feel shame, we want to hide from everyone. And it can lead to isolation and suffering." 

            Janie continues, “Many, many, many people feel shame which is rarely shared with others. I think young parents are doing a better job but ‘Shame on you!’ was often used by parents of other generations. It had consequences.”

Randy Hall also recalled that “Shame on you!” treatment: “I once read that the distinction is that guilt corresponds to what one has done. Shame corresponds to who you are. If that is true, shame is deeper.

            “One of my favorite cartoon drawings pictured a prototypical psychiatrist in a chair with his patient reclining on a sofa. The psychiatrist comments to his patient, ‘Shame on you for feeling guilty!’  Talk about a double whammy!

            “It seems to me that Jesus often offered people not just forgiveness that absolved guilt but also addressed their sense of shame.”

John Finlay offered another perspective: “One of my longstanding understandings stems from an Adlerian (Individual Psychology) perspective, that guilt is, quite simply, the substitute for the good intentions we never had in the first place. And we express guilt because it feels good to feel guilty.”

Laura Spurrell: “I was taught guilt is what I did wrong. Shame is I am the wrong. We are assured in our absolution each Sunday that God removes [both] our guilt and shame.”

I had some lines about the futility of finger-pointing at historical people, and toppling statues.

Karen Oplt: disagreed: “By leaving names & statues up we continue to give them honor. I know we in the US go overboard with this. But Confederate General statues are honored for committing treason. Others, like Columbus, are honored for exploration & opening up the Americas to Europeans etc. Yet Columbus was a slave owner; his character left much to be desired, but he is not honored for that . . .”

Beth Richardson, owner and editor of The Chautauqua (I like to plug other publications when I can!) thought it was the consequence of toppling statues that mattered. Quoting my line, “But if enough people feel ashamed of the system we still benefit from, we might change things," she added, “I completely agree!”

Cliff Boldt liked the idea of separating guilt and shame: he endorsed the view of my friend who said, “I don’t feel any guilt for the actions of early colonizers. I wasn’t there. I had nothing to do with it. But I am ashamed of a cultural mindset that saw nothing wrong with what they were doing.”

“As soon as I started reading,” Tom Watson wrote, “I thought of the father who drowned his daughters in the Rideau Canal --  and a bit later there it was in your column. 

            “In a lot of ways, we're still tribal people. We see it in racist acts. We see it in religion. We see it in politics as well (my party, right or wrong). For tribal reasons, we create insiders and outsiders, us and them. I long for the day when we see there's not us and them, there's only us.”

Frank Martens also quoted a line of mine: “In certain cultures, an individual may feel pride -- not guilt -- for committing a murder.”

            Frank applied that line to the Palestinian situation, about which he has strong feelings: “This applies to almost every nation with a standing army. You may have heard about one Israeli sniper who boasted about the number of defenseless Gazans he had killed from his position on their border. Because the Israeli commanders sanctioned such killing, he was probably held in high esteem by his comrades.

            “This was nothing less than murder.”

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Psalm paraphrase

In Grade 6, as a frail and undersized kid, I got picked on a lot. For some reason, another boy named George Penna took me under his wing. With him protecting me, I felt supremely confident. This paraphrase of Psalm 77 picks up on that image of protection.

11        When I am in trouble, I recall what God has done in the past. 

12        I remember your achievements, God; 
I ponder your actions. 

13        Because you are holy, God, everything you do is holy. 
Can any other god make that claim?

14        You created the world, and saw that it was good. 
You created us, and said that we were good. 
You still shape us for good. 

15        When we stumble and fall, you hold us up. 

16        When we are in danger of drowning, you give us buoyancy. 
Even the waters obey you. 

17        For the winds rage, the torrents pour from the skies; 

18        Thunder crashes, and lightning splits the skies; 
Frozen by its flash, we see ourselves clearly. 

19        Your spirit tosses us like surf; 
in the tumult of our souls you come to us, as if walking on the waters, 
But when the storm ends, the water shows no sign of your passing. 

20        You gather your people together 
And lead them safely through their troubles. 

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

                  I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom. She also has lots of beautiful photos. Especially of birds.

                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)