It’s a rather broad generalization- “what we say is who we are”- but for me, it is very difficult to separate words from identity. Experience has taught me that who I am and what I believe is shaped by what I say. It is as if I have a vague inkling that something might be true and articulating it is the first step in bringing it to life. Leaving a thought to indefinitely ping pong around one’s mind blocks it from the scrutiny of the light where it is hammered on the anvil of dialogue and shaped into something able to be picked up and 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 after they understand as a way to memorialize their understanding. I’ve learned that curiosity or an itch rather than an insight, compels me to write. In time, my writing leads me to insight (or not). 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 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 nearly a daily basis (as services requiring a sermon, a short homily, or simple reflection occurred multiple times each week. The discipline cultivated a sharpened sensibility to observe all of life- both big things and small things. 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 its 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 much subtler fashion they too are making and remaking our lives in ways that we choose to remain unaware. 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 