It is a very difficult business to separate words from identity. Experience has taught me that who I am and what I believe is shaped by what I say. Most persons naturally assume that what they say is shaped by who they are. But it is circular as well as dynamic, I suppose. We are always a work in progress or so it seems.
When I have a vague inkling something might be true, articulating it is the first step in bringing it to life. Leaving a thought to indefinitely ping pong around one’s mind protects it from the scrutiny of dialogue where it is shaped into something able to be examined, dismissed or embraced, and finally refined into a part of who we are.
My blog attempts to be a place where ideas can be brought to light, explored, tested, tried on for size and worn should they fit- comfortably or not. As the world of our ideas grows, we become, we evolve, we grow, we change.
What an interesting collection we are!
I write in order to understand. I suppose most might suggest that one writes to demonstrate understanding. I’ve learned that the itch of curiosity rather than insight, compels me to write. In time, my writing leads me to further insight or, perhaps, a dead end. Even when I have developed an outline of what I think I want to write, my writing invariably winds its way first one way, then another; a journey with a map whose built in obsolescence I have come to respect.
My writings are not about any one thing in particular but reflect the practice I learned as a parish priest. Very simply put, part of my job as a priest was to help make sense of things. The discipline of doing this on a regular basis cultivated a sharpened sensibility to observation of all things, big and small. Because I was a professional observer for a sizable community, I witnessed more of what I would call “the big things” than most do. It was my job to be a witness to the times in a person’s life that caused them to wonder about life’s meaning and purpose- times like births, deaths, falling in and out of love, illness, loss, growing up. The big things often demand from us changes to the way we live and understand the world. The small things, which occupy the majority of our time are often dismissed as less important and not worthy of intense reflection. Yet, in a world hungry for meaning, to be nourished only by the extraordinary means you are bound to miss the vast majority of life itself. It is the small things that dominate our lives and as such in much subtler fashion are too making and remaking who we are. Because small things change us in small ways those changes often go unnoticed until they don’t. As a professional observer, I like to write about these in ways that enhance the value of the undervalued.
I hope you will have a look at these experiences and my observations and reflections about them. If one doesn’t resonate, I invite you to move on to another. My writing horizons are sufficiently broad to believe you will find something within this blog that falls within our shared experiences. Whether you agree or disagree with me is not as important as whether it causes you to mine the riches of your own experience. That, to me I count as success.
I also publish on Substack. Come visit at davidlheaney.substack.com
David L Heaney
Something to Say 