From what I read on his blog it was the other people who mistreated him. I thought their comments were just rude. Also as for Grandmere complaining about him posting e-mail's she is just out of line. Those e-mails were incredibly rude.
Jonathan was amazingly insensitive in responding to two priests who both happened to be in distress and under great stress at the same time. I wrote and posted a small piece about it this evening which is just my reconstruction of what happened.
Jay Simser- while that is how it might appear on the surface, the reality is that there was much more to that.
Both women were at the farthest edges of their pain and despair. I know that there is no way that you could know all that, which is the only reason that I say this.
The ultimate point, which I had correspondence with both women about, is that Mad Priest is as in need of our prayers and love as much as anyone.
Prayers are desperately needed for the women and their families, for MP and for others. It is that simple and that hard.
Prayers are desperately needed for the women and their families, for MP and for others. It is that simple and that hard. Wise words and true ones, Fran.
At this point, it seems to me that it's not a matter of who was right or who was wrong. It's that people are hurting and they ALL need our prayers.
However, common sense tells me that receiving a nasty, swearing email is not like getting shot - not at all the same thing. Of course, I could be wrong.
Hopefully everyone will take a step away from the computer and breathe in and breathe out.
It's so, so, easy to misunderstand the actions and intent of others on the internet. More then once I have read hostile intent into something that later I realized was innocent. As I have gained more experience I learned to think twice before responding.
Agreed, it needs time away and quiet. I'm sure everyone regrets the escalation and I hope that (being priests all) they can step down and away and forgive one another and themselves. O course it would help if the inflammatory posts were simply removed.
Or, at least, never hit the "send" button when typing irate e-mails.
I must admit to being more than a little astonished at this kind of behavior from priests all around. I just hope everyone backs down and backs away before this escalates any further.
Though priests are really like everyone else. It's easy to put them on a pedestal and assume they would handle these situations differently, but in my experience they wouldn't.
Let me tell you that NOBODY has greater PAIN than anybody else...got it? ALL of us are touched by great pain and sadness.
We´re ALL concerned about the WELL BEING of others here and beyond here...it´s evident, it´s been evident for years both here and at other blog gatherings that WE CARE ABOUT ONE ANOTHER!
Supporting one another, offering our prayers, volunteerly, each doing so appropriately, for them, is different than listening to the clammouring tangents of ¨my hardship/pain is worse¨ than yours and then attacking if you don´t agree with me or if you didn´t UNDERSTAND ME EXACTLY or as I expect/insist that YOU MUST!
But then, I´m used to accepting everyday miseries, dangerous/tainted righteous egos running riot and everyday ignorance too (no matter how educated).
I live in a tiny indigenous village in Central America and a few strides to the right or left of me out my front door I can see/know unthinkable suffering.
Last week a dear friend and uncle of MY murdered loved one (ten years ago) was also murdered (46 years old)...hundreds of busdrivers have been shot in cold blood this year in this country (by gang thugs)...shoulder carried coffins pass down the middle of my street in route to the Plaza Church and then to the Cemetery regularly...often little coffins, children, sometimes rape victims sometimes active alcoholics or plain lost souls, theifs or terminally ill (little medicine).
Getting RIGHTSIZED is important and I would agree that overblown, me, me, me, vicious outbursts are not easy to stand still and receive.
Erasing the pertinent email threads is one thing, dealing head-on - "everyone has their reasons," as Jean Renoir said - is another. Sweeping them under the rug don't cut it as if a disappearing act will lead to resolution. Who's ministering to whom, as we chime in with our own feelings?
MP has every right to do whatever he wants to author/manage his blog and obviously has freedom of speech and not one person need monitor his integrity, priest or no priest...he can delete whomever/whenever but has most always allowed FREEDOM TO COMMENT!
Forgetting ones manners, and SWEARING at him, in HIS OWN HOME is like, as Jake always says, a reason ¨I´ll show you the door¨.
The truth is the ¨offended¨ party controls/moderates her blog carefully and non-stop. Many comments are never published (certainly hers wouldn´t have been if someone else had written them to her).
OCD is hard to deal with... I was talking to a priest friend who had to leave the Altar area and square up the position of the casket at a funeral recently. It's not all funny like watching Mr. Monk walk to the door and touch the umbrella on the way to and from 10 times. I'm glad I don't have it.
I pray for all parties involved.
Sorry, CL, but I just found this thread and felt compelled to make a comment.
I agree that MadPriest should maybe not have posted those comments. On the other hand, while we all know what pain everyone else was in we have no idea what's going on in his life. That tends to cloud judgement a bit.
As for "neither is backing down", we can only say that if we know what's happening behind the scenes.
A little less speculation and criticism from us lot would help a lot and might even have stopped the situation from escalating.
No anonymous comments will be accepted. If you wish to say something dissenting or unpleasant, then do so. But, you must identify yourself either with your own name or a fake name. "Anonymous" comments will be deleted without exception.
I stand by my comments. I expect you to do likewise.
From what I read on his blog it was the other people who mistreated him. I thought their comments were just rude. Also as for Grandmere complaining about him posting e-mail's she is just out of line. Those e-mails were incredibly rude.
ReplyDeleteI, Counter, for one, am incredibly puzzled. And worried.
ReplyDeleteJonathan was amazingly insensitive in responding to two priests who both happened to be in distress and under great stress at the same time. I wrote and posted a small piece about it this evening which is just my reconstruction of what happened.
ReplyDeleteTime will tell.
ReplyDeleteWell I just did catch-up on
ReplyDeleteall of this via Allen's blog.
Whatever's amiss, I hope it
gets better.
I found myself praying the Pharisee's Prayer: "I thank you, Lord, that you have not made my mental illness like others' mental illnesses."
ReplyDeleteThere's nought I can do but pray...
Jay Simser- while that is how it might appear on the surface, the reality is that there was much more to that.
ReplyDeleteBoth women were at the farthest edges of their pain and despair. I know that there is no way that you could know all that, which is the only reason that I say this.
The ultimate point, which I had correspondence with both women about, is that Mad Priest is as in need of our prayers and love as much as anyone.
Prayers are desperately needed for the women and their families, for MP and for others. It is that simple and that hard.
Prayers are desperately needed for the women and their families, for MP and for others. It is that simple and that hard.
ReplyDeleteWise words and true ones, Fran.
I don't know what kind of hole MP dug for himself, but it looks to me like he's digging it deeper this morning.
ReplyDeleteI hope reason and charity prevail soon.
It is me Fran, I am at work so am commenting as "anonymous."
ReplyDeleteOh boy, this is not good. There are at least two highly inflammatory things up there. I do hope that healing comes quickly.
Fran
At this point, it seems to me that it's not a matter of who was right or who was wrong. It's that people are hurting and they ALL need our prayers.
ReplyDeleteHowever, common sense tells me that receiving a nasty, swearing email is not like getting shot - not at all the same thing. Of course, I could be wrong.
Hopefully everyone will take a step away from the computer and breathe in and breathe out.
ReplyDeleteIt's so, so, easy to misunderstand the actions and intent of others on the internet. More then once I have read hostile intent into something that later I realized was innocent. As I have gained more experience I learned to think twice before responding.
Prayers for all involved.
Agreed, it needs time away and quiet. I'm sure everyone regrets the escalation and I hope that (being priests all) they can step down and away and forgive one another and themselves. O course it would help if the inflammatory posts were simply removed.
ReplyDeleteNever, ever send an email when upset.
Wishing healing to all.
Or, at least, never hit the "send" button when typing irate e-mails.
ReplyDeleteI must admit to being more than a little astonished at this kind of behavior from priests all around. I just hope everyone backs down and backs away before this escalates any further.
Exactly.
ReplyDeleteThough priests are really like everyone else. It's easy to put them on a pedestal and assume they would handle these situations differently, but in my experience they wouldn't.
(and I am back to blogging again... sigh)
Priests are indeed human and that is often hard to reconcile.
ReplyDeleteAll I can keep thinking is prayers all around... All of us are broken, we all need healing, we all need each other.
Fran
Ha, Dan! You lasted a bit longer than I did, but not much. I'm glad you're back.
ReplyDeleteAnd for crying out loud,I am so out of the blogcycle that I did not know Dan had stopped.
ReplyDeleteGod help me!
Glad you are back Dan!!
Fran
Let me tell you that NOBODY has greater PAIN than anybody else...got it? ALL of us are touched by great pain and sadness.
ReplyDeleteWe´re ALL concerned about the WELL BEING of others here and beyond here...it´s evident, it´s been evident for years both here and at other blog gatherings that WE CARE ABOUT ONE ANOTHER!
Supporting one another, offering our prayers, volunteerly, each doing so appropriately, for them, is different than listening to the clammouring tangents of ¨my hardship/pain is worse¨ than yours and then attacking if you don´t agree with me or if you didn´t UNDERSTAND ME EXACTLY or as I expect/insist that YOU MUST!
But then, I´m used to accepting everyday miseries, dangerous/tainted righteous egos running riot and everyday ignorance too (no matter how educated).
I live in a tiny indigenous village in Central America and a few strides to the right or left of me out my front door I can see/know unthinkable suffering.
Last week a dear friend and uncle of MY murdered loved one (ten years ago) was also murdered (46 years old)...hundreds of busdrivers have been shot in cold blood this year in this country (by gang thugs)...shoulder carried coffins pass down the middle of my street in route to the Plaza Church and then to the Cemetery regularly...often little coffins, children, sometimes rape victims sometimes active alcoholics or plain lost souls, theifs or terminally ill (little medicine).
Getting RIGHTSIZED is important and I would agree that overblown, me, me, me, vicious outbursts are not easy to stand still and receive.
Lord Have Mercy on us all
Glad to see that Maddy erased the eruption and things are sensibly back to where they should be on the blog.
ReplyDeleteI suspect the hurt feelings will take a bit longer.
As of this AM, MP and Elizabeth Kaeton are still publicly very angry, and neither is backing down.
ReplyDeleteFrom my point of view, it looks like both of these proud and stubborn individuals owe each other an apology. I'm disappointed in both.
It appears to me that what should have been a simple misunderstanding got out of hand, and everyone way over-reacted.
ReplyDeleteAgreed- so many prayers for one and all.
ReplyDeleteYeah. It's sad to see this get so ugly and so public. Prayers for everyone.
ReplyDeleteErasing the pertinent email threads is one thing, dealing head-on - "everyone has their reasons," as Jean Renoir said - is another. Sweeping them under the rug don't cut it as if a disappearing act will lead to resolution. Who's ministering to whom, as we chime in with our own feelings?
ReplyDeleteIt´s absurd.
ReplyDeleteMP has every right to do whatever he wants to author/manage his blog and obviously has freedom of speech and not one person need monitor his integrity, priest or no priest...he can delete whomever/whenever but has most always allowed FREEDOM TO COMMENT!
Forgetting ones manners, and SWEARING at him, in HIS OWN HOME is like, as Jake always says, a reason ¨I´ll show you the door¨.
The truth is the ¨offended¨ party controls/moderates her blog carefully and non-stop. Many comments are never published (certainly hers wouldn´t have been if someone else had written them to her).
Let´s try and stay in the REAL.
I agree that MP -- and I -- can do whatever we like with our blogs. I also agree that the torrent of abuse dumped on him was totally uncalled for.
ReplyDeleteBut then, publishing private emails by people going through extreme distress was also beyond the pale.
These are good people on the same side with the same antagonists who are not serving themselves at all well with a personal feud.
I think this is the longest comment thread I've ever had, and frankly, I'd rather go back to posting about art with just 1 or 2 comments.
ReplyDeleteI'll leave it to all concerned to work things out for themselves.
Ah, yes, Counterlight, go back to your art. It's healing balm for the soul.
ReplyDeleteOCD is hard to deal with... I was talking to a priest friend who had to leave the Altar area and square up the position of the casket at a funeral recently. It's not all funny like watching Mr. Monk walk to the door and touch the umbrella on the way to and from 10 times. I'm glad I don't have it.
ReplyDeleteI pray for all parties involved.
Sorry, CL, but I just found this thread and felt compelled to make a comment.
susan, I think you may be right.
ReplyDeleteYou're always welcome to comment here.
I found that Susan S.'s comment really touched my heart - I am so glad that it was left.
ReplyDeletePrayers ongoing for all.
I agree that MadPriest should maybe not have posted those comments. On the other hand, while we all know what pain everyone else was in we have no idea what's going on in his life. That tends to cloud judgement a bit.
ReplyDeleteAs for "neither is backing down", we can only say that if we know what's happening behind the scenes.
A little less speculation and criticism from us lot would help a lot and might even have stopped the situation from escalating.
I just hope everyone can cool down and find time to heal.
ReplyDeleteThis should be old news ... is it?!?
ReplyDeleteI understand where Elizabeth is, because I have been in THAT PLACE also!!
Not only is she worrying about her brother, but herself no doubt, because Alzheimer's is hereditary.
Theses places are surreal,..if you have never been here!!
As for posting the comments, I did, ..when a situation like this happened to my in the late 90's, ...many things where learned then for me.
ReplyDeleteI don't CONDEMN anybody, ...I let them do it for themselves!!