Comments on: Oops, anger

By: Feelin’ pissy | Pilgrim’s Moon

Feelin’ pissy | Pilgrim’s Moon — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:53:29 +0000

[...] This was a comment by Kate on my recent post about online community. I think it’s really important (in fact I wrote about this topic a couple of years ago on my last blog, here). [...]

By: Sharon

Sharon — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 11:33:45 +0000

Lol @ blonder. In truth I am blonder but as the years go by I’ve been ‘dumbing’ it down a bit, also partly to cover a rather attractive badger like gray stripe that is slowly make it’s presence known right at the front of my hair. If I’m gonna do gray I’d rather just do it all at once, not stripe by stripe lol. I think you caught me on a ‘day after dumbing down’ day hehehe. As I don’t use anything permenant I’m now back to ‘blonder’ sadly with a hint of stripey……..

I don’t remember a comment but will check my spam just in case. xx

This whole issue of ‘shiny blogs’ and ‘healthy debate’ v’s ‘deliberate rudeness’ is very thought provoking. Certainly got my brain going the last couple of days or so……

with much love

S xx

By: Tess

Tess — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 10:19:53 +0000

@Sharon, thanks for your comment, and I had read your last couple of posts with great interest. I thought I’d commented on one, but obviously imagined it! It’s really interesting getting your perspective as a new Catholic, and I may well get the book you mention. And good to meet you the other day also, although my less than sophisticated greeting of “I thought you’d be blonder” is a sad example of how in real life my mouth often runs ahead of my brain!! It’s just that in your photos you look, er, blonder.

@Kel, the other pressure about blogging that I find (although I guess it’s self-imposed) is all the advice – often conflicting – about how to increase your readership. If I do anything, including blogging, I want to do it well, but I think consciously trying with blogs can lead to a feeling of slickness. Not that I’m trying to sell financial advice or anything!! I do think, though, that the exchange of ideas is still important, and perhaps blogging will become more divergent: the wholly commercial blogs and the “town square conversations” I wrote about in this post: http://www.anchormast.com/2009/02/08/reaching-out/

@lucy: I love the way you spot things I hadn’t. Authenticity is perfection indeed, in all its messiness. Or to put it another way: we’re all gloriously cracked, in every sense of the word! And as if I’d go somewhere else without telling you…

@SS: I think we need to welcome and encourage debate, but ignore deliberate rudeness. I’m pretty sure your comments would never fall into the latter category! As I said above in response to Barbara, I love the comments sections of all the blogs I read. And I completely agree I have some great readers

By: Sunrise Sister

Sunrise Sister — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 03:50:30 +0000

I think blogging in general is too squeaky clean. The few times I have ever had the nerve to question a blogger or one of their commenters, I have been met with – I believe righteous indignation – would be the appropriate description. I was berated for disagreeing with the writer and coldly ignored by a commenter. Certainly the commenter had every right to ignore my questioning the blogger but my mere question or response seemed I had fired a bullet instead of asked a question. I would like to see more conversation between bloggers and commenters w/o lighting firebombs but engagement in different points of view. Oh well…..

AND, I would hate to see you disappear Tess. Your posts are inspiring, text and delivery!! …………..and you have some great readers too:))

By: lucy

lucy — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:24:37 +0000

i’m posting before reading the other comments…this really jumped out at me:
“Authenticity over Perfection. Perfection is so destructive, in my opinion.”

why not consider authenticity AS perfection??? it’s all about how we define things, is it not? if perfection is all squeaky clean then it is destructive, because life is MESSY! people get angry – righteously and not. although if the anger is covering up something else then it might be righteous after all. if a person kicks the dog because her boss kicked her because her spouse yelled at her because his father beat him because his mother berated him….do you see where i’m going? now, of course, this implies a certain amount of self and other awareness…but, hey, what if authenticity is perfection? now i have the cat stevens song in my head “if ya wanna sing out sing out!” i’ll stop now

i adore this blog, tess BECAUSE you make me think and get me fired up and challenge me…not because you’re all nice and sweet (which you are, of course), but you’re sassy too. please don’t go away. i will find you if you do!!!! much love.

By: Kel

Kel — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 05:33:15 +0000

i agree with rowena
blogland has become a bit too shiny
originally blogging was the domain of alternative thinkers
but there comes a point where the alernative thinking tribe starts exhibiting characeristics of the conservative powerholding status quo we all originally decried so vehemently
as james goldsmith once said, if you see a bandwagon, it’s too late
blogging has become mainstream
and as a result, is getting blander and shinier
perhaps that’s why many of us are feeling it might be time to let the bandwagon roll on without us . . .

By: Sharon

Sharon — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 22:39:01 +0000

Dear Tess

Ahhhh yes anger, funny you should mention that. I’ve done a few posts on that lately so no, not shiny or pretty in blogworld all the time. In fact I had to go back and edit one post to avoid feeling more guilty than I already did [ok so a bit shiny and pretty then lol]. My blog has been less than positive of late and I admit to feeling a bit guilty about that, but it is real.

Funny also you should mention the Catholic Church [and its dysfunctionalism] and consider writing a post about why you’re still a Catholic as my last two posts were directly relevant to that very subject and I’ve just read the book “Why I Am Still A Catholic”.

Anger is not a sin, it is a God given emotion. I suppose if we express it unkindly or innappropriately then that could be viewed as a negative but on the whole it can be a very positive emotion. It’s a major part of my grief process just now as many of my family will testify ;o). If you don’t express it somehow it’ll only bubble over somewhere else.

Nice to see you back on here and great post. Hope you do decide to continue or I’ll miss you xx do understand tho’ that sometimes things just need to move on.

Great to finally meet you at TA the other week btw.

with much love

Sharon xx

By: Barbara Anne

Barbara Anne — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 22:08:12 +0000

Hi Tess,
How interesting that you’ve read Dissident Daughter. I’m beginning the 4th section and got it from the library but knew from about page 3 that I needed my own copy, to refer back to for myself, and for the daughters-in-law and granddaughters I may someday have.

I haven’t read Bees yet but plan to.

Hugs!

By: Tess

Tess — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:06:45 +0000

@Typhonic: welcome here and thanks for your comment. Separate words for anger – that’s a good concept. It’s strange that English is in many ways one of the most flexible of languages, but our shadings of meaning have to come in combinations of words, not in separate words. I like the way you separate the two kinds of anger in your final sentence.
@Barbara: yes absolutely cultural differences. In the UK we definitely bottle things up, although we are not quite as stiff upper lipped as we were. I completely agree with you re the comments. Sometimes in lieu of something “profound” (what a burden that is!!) I just want to say a quick “great post” but then I think that will sound trite…
@Barbara Anne: I LOVE Dissident Daughter. I think I probably read it about a year ago, and coincidentally I had it in my hands yesterday when rearranging some books. I may read it again. Have you read her novel, Secret Life of Bees?

By: Barbara Anne

Barbara Anne — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:41:12 +0000

I may have mentioned this before, but I’m reading The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, by Sue Monk Kidd, and agree that within the church and at home in the American South, I was praised for being a good little girl and for never being any trouble. Like that’s good???????? It wasn’t until recently I questioned that and suppose like a good little girl I waited until my parents were gone to do this for myself.

So much of what’s in this book resonates with me, from what the author calls the paternal church, full of texts extolling the male and songs like “Faith of Our Fathers”. What about Faith of Our Mothers???? She says many of us in the western world and church have a wound from there being no feminine side of God for us to identify with. Hence, anger at the stifled left-out feeling that’s somewhere deep inside. Surely any God worthy of worship is an equality minded God of he-she-it nature.

Yes, some anger is good.

Thanks, Tess!