Griesing Post Transitions To A New Home

NEIL YOUNG (in caricature by Sebastian Kruger)

As favorite rocker Neil Young once remarked, “You can’t control the back end of the donkey,” but you do have a shot at figuring out where the front end is going. In that spirit, I’ve been making some changes that you’ll all see in coming days at Griesing Post.

The blog is moving onto a stronger foundation that will support its expanding reach and enable me to do a better job of keeping current with you. In that regard, here are some suggestions going forward:

-Are you are already subscribed and getting Griesing Post in your mailbox? You don’t need to do anything. You will continue to receive it as you do now. 

-Did you bookmark Griesing Post, mark it as a favorite, or save it in your browser, on your desktop or in an email? If so, delete the old entry and add this new one: http://www.griesingpost.com

-Are you a new reader? Continue to find the great content you’re looking for at http://www.griesingpost.com and make sure to subscribe so that new posts will come to you directly.

When you visit Griesing Post you will notice some immediate changes, as well as some new ones that will gradually be introduced in coming weeks. You will also see that Griesing Post is now part of a larger site that hosts not only the blog but also information about my other writing, teaching and speaking.

Check it out, and continue to let me know what you think of it!

Thanks for following me here, and on Twitter @worklifereward.

On Having Courage & Dignity Under Fire

You pursue work that matters because you want to leave the world a better place than you found it. By doing so however, you inevitably run afoul of those who want to keep everything more or less like it is.

Attracting controversy also pushes you into the spotlight. With the lights in your eyes and a welter of voices clamoring around you, the heat of the moment calls upon you to say and do things that can either advance your goals, or set them back.

How you’ll respond at such times is important. It’s helpful to think about it, start visualizing how you want these moments to play out before they arrive. 


While there are many who have handled these situations badly, there are also those who have summoned up the kind of amazing grace we can learn from. This past week brought just such a lesson.

Margaret Farley is a nun, a member of the Sisters of Mercy, and the emerita professor of social ethics at Yale Divinity School, where she has taught for 40 years. Throughout, she has been a celebrated teacher as well as the author of numerous books and articles, including Just Love: A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics (New York, 2006).

Last week, after concluding an investigation that had lasted 3 ½ years, the Vatican’s Magisterium (or Teaching Office) condemned Just Love, because it “affirms positions that are in direct contradiction with Catholic teaching in the field of sexual morality” and therefore “cannot be used as a valid expression of Catholic teaching, either in counseling or formation, or in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue.”

In other words, the views Margaret Farley expressed in her book put her outside the boundaries of her faith. Her teaching itself—through argument and discussion in her book—was found to be an improper path for believers to follow in seeking either truth or understanding.

A half century ago, Margaret Farley chose to commit her life to a religious vocation of teaching within the Church. Since then, her work and her life have been united by this spiritual purpose.


Given her choices, the judgment she received last week is different than the rebuke of an employer, on the one hand, or the criticism of vested interests you are challenging, on the other. In each instance, what she has faced is more extreme. 

The leaders of her own community of believers have publically found that her work is incompatible with those shared beliefs. They have defined her as standing separate and apart from them. For a citizen, the word would be “traitor.” In a community of believers, it is usually “heretic.” Imagine standing where she stands today.

My aim here is not to take a side in this controversy but to comment on how Margaret Farley has conducted herself and continued her work in the midst of it. It is her courage and dignity—not her scholarship—that is teaching us today.

Her response was: Simple. Straightforward. Clear. Amidst a blizzard of media commentary (including in the New York Times and Washington Post) Margaret Farley issued one statement and gave one interview. She said her book was never intended to express “official Catholic teaching" but rather to help people "think through their questions about human sexuality." It was an effort to move away from “taboo morality” and bring “present-day scientific, philosophical, theological, and biblical resources” into the discussion.

Not Angry or Contentious, but Disappointed about issues never addressed and opportunities lost. The Church said: "Sister Farley either ignores the constant teaching of the Magisterium or, where it is occasionally mentioned, treats it as one opinion among others." She, in turn, asked: "Should power settle questions of truth?"

If we come to know a little more than we knew before, it might be that the conclusions we had previously drawn need to be developed, or even let go of. [To say that wasn't possible] would be to imply that we know everything we need to know and nothing more need be done.

Not Seeking the Spotlight, but Standing her Ground once she was in it. Because the Church "is still a source of real life for me, it's worth the struggle. It's worth getting a real backbone that has compassion tied to it."

Margaret Farley was my teacher at Yale. I know her as humble and earnest: engaged like the best teachers, careful like the best scholars. I sense enormous reluctance in her notoriety: for her to be taken as a champion for divorce or gay marriage, or even as a spokesperson for believers who are drifting from their Church because of its difficulties addressing questions of gender and sexuality. But her reluctance does not preclude her resolve—and this is where we find her today.

Once Margaret Farley was thrust into the spotlight, she knew what to do.

What Work Is

          I’m not afraid of poetry, but I don’t read it as often as I should. Somebody mentioned What Work Is, a poem by Philip Levine on the radio today. 

        I read it, then heard him read it, then wanted to share it with you for what it has to say about the work we do. Here it is:

       We stand in the rain in a long line

waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.

You know what work is--if you're

old enough to read this you know what

work is, although you may not do it.

Forget you. This is about waiting,

shifting from one foot to another.

Feeling the light rain falling like mist

into your hair, blurring your vision

until you think you see your own brother

ahead of you, maybe ten places.

You rub your glasses with your fingers,

and of course it's someone else's brother,

narrower across the shoulders than

yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin

that does not hide the stubbornness,

the sad refusal to give in to

rain, to the hours wasted waiting,

to the knowledge that somewhere ahead

a man is waiting who will say, "No,

we're not hiring today," for any

reason he wants. You love your brother,

now suddenly you can hardly stand

the love flooding you for your brother,

who's not beside you or behind or

ahead because he's home trying to

sleep off a miserable night shift

at Cadillac so he can get up

before noon to study his German.

Works eight hours a night so he can sing

Wagner, the opera you hate most,

the worst music ever invented.

How long has it been since you told him

you loved him, held his wide shoulders,

opened your eyes wide and said those words,

and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never

done something so simple, so obvious,

not because you're too young or too dumb,

not because you're jealous or even mean

or incapable of crying in

the presence of another man, no,

just because you don't know what work is.

      

       You can also hear Philip Levine introduce his poem and then read it.

       Levine is a Pulitzer prize-winning American poet, who is currently the poet laureate of the United States.  He frequently writes about life in working class Detroit. His life story left me thinking about a different era in American life, of dustbowls and Woodie Guthrie and photographs by Dorothea Lange. About waiting for work and the opportunity to be productive. 

We are in our own hard times.  There is no less nobility in the work that we’re doing, and waiting to do.