Want to know what A Good Discourse is about?

The first rule of growing a Good Discourse, recognizing we're part of the problem.  

Here's the registration, and you can join even if it's already started.  I'll be there taking notes.   
Sign up and we'll see you there.

A Good Discourse

 This post requires homework.  First, watch this talk given by Fr. Steve Grunow of Word on Fire.  

Fr.'s words strike me as hitting at the core of what we're trying to do with this conference, trying to remember we need to be active rather than reactive in ministering to the world by our words.  

I've seen it in the demand that we condemn everyone who ever voted for the current President.  I have family and friends I love, who didn't want to vote for the President Elect and who felt strongly that there wasn't a good choice.

The rage at anyone who didn't feel happy voting against one or for the other (and in this respect, it doesn't matter who the other is), was a dupe, a useful idiot, or worse is systemic.  Everyone feels justified in their rage.  Everyone feels that it's time to rage.  It's necessary that the other, feel the rage we feel and know it is directed at them.  That's the problem.  When there is great wrongness, great evil, there is great temptation to feel justfied in rage.  We're not good at righteous anger, we don't stay there. It's too quick and too easy to fall into wrath.  It's why Christ tells Saint James and Saint John they should not reign down fire on the towns that rejected them.    

There's a great struggle in our lives, how do we love someone with whom we disagree, and not lose hold of our values in the process? 

The reality is that social media creates an untrue binaryness of conversation that precludes any both and, and demands instead a fealty to an either or, but declares itself as authoritatively correct.  Real relationships go beyond the binary. Real relationships are messy, hard, and yet forgiving even when we don't want to, not because we wish to be dormats but because we wish to extend the opportunity always for something better than what was.   

The demand that those who are in the wrong beg for forgiveness before offering mercy is itself rooted in the eye for an eye and not the turn the other cheek. People may want to point out, "They had it coming, they deserve it," but this likewise glories in the suffering of others not as merely deserved but richly so. We are spiritually always in danger when we proclaim it safe to enjoy someone suffering, especially if the consequences are really bad. Being on the side of angels means grieving that souls were this wrong, and praying for them with a whole heart that they somehow, through God's grace, heal.   

BUT THEY'RE WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG --They did bad things.  They're evil evil evil evil...we can name their sins.  We know they sinned. We can prove they sinned.   

Yes...but they are also as hard as it is to remember, both and.  They are humans we must encounter. They are enemies we must love. 

If we cannot out mercy God, then we cannot be too merciful to others.   It's a reality we were supposed to really wrap our hearts around in the year of mercy. We still haven't, not by a long shot.  Those who stormed the capital and smeared it and swore to hurt people and did these wrong illegal immoral things, they will face consequences, both in this world and the next.  But we don't get to hate them.  They are the most pitiable of people, showing they lack pity themselves.  

I go back to the reality of how Mary responded to Christ's crucifixion.  If anyone only human could justly rage at the crowd for their wrong thinking, for their group thinking, for their stupidity, it would be her.  She who had not sinned, did not rage at them for crucifying her Son.  If anyone could justly condemning all of the crowd for refusing God's friendship, it would be Christ, and yet even here he offers.   It's beyond us absent grace, great grace.  Yet here, we aspire. 

I'm reading a fantasy novel series to my youngest daughter, and in the denouement, the main protagonist, Taran, Assistant Pig Keeper is shocked that the king, Lord Gwydion declares he will raise a barrow to King Morgant who had betrayed them all in a quest for power. 

"...Gwydion replies, "It is easy to judge evil unmixed," but alas, in most of us, good and bad are closely woven as athe threads on a loom; greater wisdom than mine is needed for the judging.  King Morgant served the Sons of Don long and well," he went on.  "Until the thirst for power parched his throat, he was a fearless adn noble lord. In battle, he saved my life more than once. These things are part of him and cannot be put aside or forgotten. And so shall I honor Morgant," Gwydion said, "For what he hused to be, and Ellidyr Prince of Pen-Llarcau for what he became." (The later had sacrificed himself to rid their world of an evil despite a lifetime of selfishness). --The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander.   

Or, to use a more current favorite fantasy fiction, "The world is not divided between good and death eaters."   

Loving your enemies mean not wishing them anything other than reformation, than restoration, than finding themselves surprised by joy, not abandoned.   If we can see no good in the people around us then we will find ourselves surrounded by monsters, and we will meet the enemy and it will be us. 

Want to be part of the work for a better dialogue, for a stronger sense of how to infuse social media with charity in truth and truth with charity?  Come to "A Good Discourse," and be a part of the dialogue.

A Good Discourse...Register today!                                                      

A Good Discourse in the Nation, How we Begin Again

 The first requirement in healing our nation, is to stop labeling ourselves as us and them, because we are one people, even if divided by politics, by religion, by income, by education, by race, by values, by experience and by background.  We are still, a people, and the first thing we must see, is that what we want from this country, is for everyone to hear and for everyone to feel they've been heard.  When people don't feel like they matter, or like their lives matter, they stop listening.  When people don't feel important, they stop caring.  When they don't think anyone will hear them, they get angry.  

Dismissal of anyone, is just that, a dismissal, and it's something that builds walls, something we don't want, that makes more discontent more likely.  It makes reactionary policy also more likely, which is the least likely to satisfy for anyone.  We need to find a way to reconnect across the digital, intellectual, political, economic and personal divide that's been expanding as a result of the nationalizing of every race, the politicizing of every issue, that precludes ever granting the presumption of good faith to anyone who doesn't already agree with whatever outcome we desire.   

A house divided does not stand, and I would say, as a country, at this point, we're on our knees.   

It will take statesmanship, it will take courage, and it will take humility and it will take work, to begin the process of restoration in our national dialogue.  Rather than having individual channels that cater to what we prefer, we need to find the people who are working on the problem, and willing to discuss what they hope, what they know, and where they agree, and be committed to working to find as much as possible that can be done.  There is a lot of work to be done, and less of it completed when everyone is competing to show how whoever isn't doing what we're doing, is failing at humanity.  Whenever we see someone else as less than, we are failing at humanity.  We need to be aspiring to something better, and somehow putting love where little or none is.   

A good discourse allows for listening as much as talking, for giving and forgiving, as much as asking and receiving.  We need to pray for all of us, to have receptive hearts for each other, even those with whom we disagree...and whoever we can think of that we would ask the question, "Even them?" "Even these?" the answer is...and it's hard to recognize, because it would be oh  so much easier if it weren't, "Yes, even these."  

"But they are lepers.  They are sinners.  They are tax collectors."  my brain says in some format, and I'm sure everyone's does..."They did X" and "X" is horrible, and was horrible, and will always be horrible.  However Christ forgave the most horrible of acts from the most horrible of places, and we cannot be more merciful than Christ.  

So if we want a better discourse, a better reality than the one we can all point to, from the beginning of fallen and ordinary time, then we must ask for the peace the world cannot give, and give it to the world.  It will fall on those who hear it, it will return to us on those who do not.   Be the words "Peace be with you," and peace will be with your spirit, even in the hardest of times and you will have "a good discourse," if not with those around you, always with God and that will be sufficient.  

Let us go and make our visit.  

A GOOD DISCOURSE CONFERENCE JANUARY 22, 23 and 24th

We began creating this conference as the result of a nag in the heart, over the loss of community that should be and for a multitude of reasons, isn't. Four women met virtually to discuss the ideas, and our goals with the conference. We needed a name and came upon the quote, "A Good Discourse is that from which nothing can be retrenched without cutting into the quick." It was attributed to Saint Francis de Sales, patron saint of Writers and Doctor of the Church. We shortened it to "A Good Discourse," and thought how perfect and carried on. Seeking speakers to delve deeper into how we could forge a "good discourse" amongst the community of Catholic writers, one of our potential speakers researched and found, the quote to be misattributed to the saint. Saint Francis de Sales said plenty of things about governing one's words, and about writing and witnessing, but "a good discourse" wasn't one of them. Now we faced a decision. Change the name or own the error.

Thus the name stuck, but with proper attribution and thanks to Erin Arlinghaus for the research! What will our conference cover? 1) The Call to Universal Witness (there is no off time). 2) Fraternal Correction (what it is and isn't)

3) Gossip/Slander/Calumny 4) Strategies for Talking about Hard Stuff (panel). 5) Humility: How to be a light put on a pedestal and yet humble. 6) Humor 7) Community, remembering always our audience.

The Conference "A Good Discourse," isn't a traditional writers' conference. We won't be discussing pitches or formats or how to improve your writing as a craft or 1,000 writing prompts for when the well runs dry. We will be (hopefully), preparing writers' hearts for the ministry of writing itself.

Think of it as a retreat for writers who are Catholic about being Catholic first, last and always, with the written and spoken word. It means being couragous --when you say something that is hard, it means being willing to bear the cost, it means being humble, when you've said something wrong, it means being truthful, but always with charity. These are hard things, and all of us have memories of when we've done this poorly, and all of us know, when we've done well, it wasn't us, but the Holy Spirit that worked through us.

The goal of this conference, is to see faces, to help foster fellowship and prayer across the spectrum of Catholic writers in all things. Hoping you'll join us at the conference. (It's virtual and it's free). Here's where you can find out more: https://agooddiscourse.wixsite.com/mysite