Cromey Online

The writings of author, therapist, and priest Robert Warren Cromey.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Disparate Views Held at the Same Time in the Same Mind

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I realize that I can hold seemingly opposing views in my mind at the same time. I want James Tramel to fail as rector of Trinity, San Francisco. I want Trinity and James Tramel to flourish. (See Feud article below.)

I told this to a friend and he said, “It was an astonishing admission and telling the truth as he had ever heard. I felt happy that he said that. He went on, “Most of us feel that way but seldom admit it to anyone else.” I replied, “The nice thing about being retired, I don’t worry much about what people think of me and what I say. It is an amazing freedom.

Many people think they have to choose sides; things are black and white, right or wrong, good or bad, perfect or imperfect. However, we need to hold disparate views in our minds. I can love my country and hate the U.S. wars in Ira and Afghanistan. I can oppose the Israeli policies toward the Palestinians and love my Jewish friends who disagree with me. I can feel sad that someone I care about hates me and still remember the good times we have had together.

This is a learning that come from experience and aging. Some cane learn it early in life, some of us need more time to mature.

A similar idea is reflected below in this blog in a piece entitled Lois.

RWC

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Lois and Forgiveness

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Lois.

I have a friend named Lois. She knows how to love people. She and I had a mutual friend named Bosco. I had a big disagreement with Bosco and he left the church where I was rector and Lois and Bosco were members. Lois loves Bosco and stays friends and is close to him. She is also good friends with me and we have breakfast once a month whether we need to or not. Lois can love two people who do not like each other very much. She can hold in a dynamic tension two friends of widely different points of view. She is intensely loyal and supportive of both.

We live in a time where duality is the name of the game. People are seen as winners and losers, right or wrong, good or bad. That is the bad part of competition. But human beings are always a mixed bag of right and wrong, good and evil and so on. We tend to want to take sides and make people one side of the dichotomy or the other. Mature human beings are able, like Lois, see through the fake duality and see the good and bad in people, the winner and loser and love them just the same.

Those of us who are followers of Jesus, the revolutionary, are called upon to love our enemies, to love one another, forgive each other endlessly. It is hard to do, it takes constant work. However, it is our Christian vocation.

-RWC

Friday, January 05, 2007

Best Sex Principle

Sound Sex Report from Englad- Fifty years old

2007 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Wolfenden Report, a
British government inquiry into homosexuality and prostitution which
profoundly shaped public debate on the regulation of these sexualities (and
others), both in Britain and beyond.

Most famously, the Report recommended
that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private ought not to be an
offence and 2007 also marks the fortieth anniversary of the passage of this
recommendation into law in the Sexual Offences Act of 1967 [for England and
Wales only].

(-Off the internet)