Yeah, I know....

It's been way too long since I've blogged here. Here's a list of my excuses, in no particular order:
• it's summer and I've been busy
• I've been spending my free time reading and writing elsehwere
• I've not really had anything that I wanted to write about recently.
• I'm still not sure if I've painted myself into a corner with this blog, which originally had a very limited focus.

Anyway, as noted, I have been writing, albeit not here. I wrote a feature article on the centenary of Frida Kahlo's birth that got published. (yay me!) And I've been doing a lot of journaling, mostly about cognitive distortions (of which I seemingly have many). So, hopefully I've redeemed myself somewhat and you won't take away my blogging credentials.

So, what else of interest has been going on? On July 22 we celebrated the feast day of St. Mary Magdelene at our church. For years, this has been an opportunity for the women of the parish to take a strong leadership role. I was skeptical this year when they decided to celebrate with a priest officiating, rather than a woman. We agreed on this decision because the feast fell on a Sunday this year, so we celebrated it during the usual 10am mass — which offered an opportunity for more people in the parish to become familiar with MM's story. And women played a strong role in the mass, so all said and done, it was really nice. Just different. I wonder what Delle would have thought of the big change this year. And I'm hopeful that next year, we'll return to our usual form -- with a woman at the helm and I will once again be able to participate in the multi-generational "consecration" of the bread.

I've also found myself pondering questions of empathy and healing lately. I'm wondering to what degree does empathy play a part in a person's healing? Does "feeling" the pain of another make you a more effective healer, or is more detachment what is required? Or are these just different approaches, inherent to the healer's gifts/traits/personality and neither is more effective? And if you are the empathic sort, I'd love to hear stories about how to protect yourself from becoming overwhelmed. I have several friends in healing professions. Some have described becoming "the machine" to get their job done, while others have told of crying while giving an elderly person in pain a massage. This intrigues me, as I often wonder if I'm too empathic for my own good.

Yeah, I know, this is a rather rambling post, but I just wanted to get the ball rolling again. Thanks for indulging me.

Why o why

Well, I haven't had much of a desire to write anything here for awhile. Recently, another blogger asked me just what was the purpose of my blog.
I honestly couldn't answer, accept to say that after my friend Delle died, I felt compelled to do what she asked of me: write more. And Delle wrote so beautifully, so prophetically. She had a real gift for it. She was convinced that I could be a pretty decent writer if I put my mind to it. High praise from someone I deeply respected -- and who had earned the respect due her as a published author, screenwriter, and frequent preacher at St. Gertrude's Catholic Church.
So, I'm trying to fill some pretty big shoes -- shoes that I know I never can fill.
I know that she would want me to be writing about faith -- and I'm doing my best to do that here. I don't think it's any coincidence that a good deal of my readers (and friends, for that matter) are agnostics and atheists, not to mention fallen-away Catholics. Do my words resonate with them, even if we do not agree? I hope so.
But perhaps I'd like to expand my topics a little. There are so many other intersting things that I observe and parts of my life that I'd love to write about. I've always had trouble nailing down just what to write about, which is why I set such narrow paramaters here on this blog. Am I ready to expand? Write about more? Would anyone even care? Or would this blog just devolve into a daily navel-gazing diatribe -- as if anyone would want to read about the minutae of my daily existence.
So, for now, I'm not sure where I want to go. Anyone got a map?

Energy whore?

Recently a friend not-so-delicately pointed out that I am what she considers an "energy whore." Not happy about the implications of such a label, I pressed her for clarification. What she meant to say was that I am very clearly reliant on obtaining energy from sources outside of myself. In that way, we are opposite, as she much prefers more solitary pursuits, and is thusly energized.
Intrigued at my inability to relate to her need for so much alone time and what seemed like a conservative approach to life, as well as her implication that I was somehow "needy" in my seemingly endless desire for social interaction, I decided to dig a little farther.

As a fan of Jung, I turned to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to get a clearer picture of my particular personality traits. The test confimed what we both already knew: I am a "very expressed extrovert." But it gave a lot of other fascinating information.

To be specific, I'm an ENFJ type, or "Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Judging" type — along with an estimated 2-3% of the population. I'm in the company of Oprah Winfrey, Abe Lincoln and Margaret Mead. We are known as the "Teacher Idealist" personality type -- the pedagogues of humanity.

Among our characteristics are an ability to get other people to live up to our very high expectations, usually through our charismatic encouragement, an abstract approach to thinking and speech, a cooperative style in achieving goals and an approach to our personal emotions that is both direct and expressive.

I feel a lot better about what I initially suspected was viewed as a burdensome personality flaw, and see that it's actually a source of considerable strength. I also see how such a high output of personal energy and reliance of sources outside of myself often leave me somewhere between drained and longing. And suddenly, I'm feeling a little pressure to do something a little more monumental -- if that is indeed what I'm here to do -- than fritter away my thoughts in this blog.