Author: Doug Harrison

Have you noticed the uptick in the broad use of the words empath, empathy, empathetic over the past several years? Honestly, in a lot of ways, it feels as if the recent rediscovery of the word allows one to hint at being psychic …ish… without sounding all too irrational, metaphysical, or pseudo-sciencey. Calling one’s self empathic evokes something much closer to a Myers-Briggs personality type than a super-power, but still carries with it an extra air of authority. Does it not? It certainly seems like a more interesting, if not a more powerful claim than merely being a sympathetic person. I am not sure how I would begin to count the number of acquaintances I have online who have suddenly announced to the world that they are an empath, almost always using the noun form, because who cares if I post something that hints I am sympathetic…that just seems menial if not somehow snobby and insensitive.

The word empathetic itself connotes sharing an other’s feelings as if they were your own, being like-minded, or even taking on another’s feelings and experiencing them personally. It is sympathy 2.0 on steroids. Right? And if you do it all the time, then, well, you are kinda special.

I certainly see the appeal, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to personally reading through more than one list about “self-care tips for the empath,” with hopes for some great personal insight might inform why my specialness makes the world just so burdensome to me. (And before you accuse me of not being empathetic to empaths thus far, not, I am just not being very gentle. That is different). I just find myself wondering why all this empathy talk has managed to invent a whole new form of entitlement or even narcissism. And yes, I am speaking for myself a little here…  The question I am left with is, when we have tweaked something so important beyond recognition, what do we do about it?

I have to admit to you, somewhat reluctantly, that I have a rebellious streak in me.   I am slow to admit it because everyone in my family that watched me insist on never matching my socks for 25 years will say “duh,” and others of you will know that when I see a sign that says keep of the grass, I ardently and deliberatively…

….comply and keep walking without trampling the grass even a little.   I am a “good kid,” but the kind of good kid who likes to break very specific sorts of things.  One of the effects of the rebellious streak, however, is that whatever behavior or thing I swear of entirely on Monday, is probably exactly what I will order for lunch on Tuesday.  I just don’t love rigid rules. 

This is one of the reasons that New Year’s Resolutions have not only been a waste, but I also dread the conversations that asks us to consider them. They stress me out.    But it turns out that it is not just because I have a particular kind of personality.   I actually keep having the kinds of conversations with others about resolutions that not only make me concerned for the little tiny bit of damage we do to ourselves when we promise to be better, at just about anything….  But it makes me concerned because there is something in those empty promises that seem to be driving most of what is driving us all crazy in the moral and political climate of our day.    (There.  I said it.  Now I have to beg you to keep reading because I used both moral and political in the same sentence.. hang in there… I promise I will eventually talk about sex. )

Advent: Introduction- Hospitality of the Heart.

This year in Austin, our group – Austin Parable- has been meeting regularly in the hope of starting a community in the spirit of L’Arche, Jean Vanier, Sue Mosteller, and Henri Nouwen. So much has emerged and grown this year and we are taking some leaps of faith in the near future to set some concrete things in motion. As it happens, one of the biggest challenges in front of us is not fundraising, legal loopholes, non-profit status, “recruiting” members and assistants, CPR training, nor even securing real estate. The greatest task in front of us as a group is to develop the character and the culture of L’Arche that makes L’Arche communities so different than the group homes, residential facilities, and intentional communities in that exist in the world today. This is so challenging because so much of what it means to be L’Arche is ineffable, impossible to state. So how on earth can we take the first steps and what does that have to do with Advent?

I  am happily reintroducing the Outpatient Monk blog after a long period of consideration. We have redesigned a few things, and even more importantly, I have taken some time to cultivate a heart and voice capable of speaking clearly in a time of awful and intentional muddiness. We can do better.

I am thrilled if you are willing to read any of the upcoming posts, but I am honestly much more drawn than ever to developing a conversation with you. I am convinced that listening and thinking matters and is one of the acts of rebellion of our day. So if you have a thought or topic you would like to see the Outpatient Monk think about, address, or just sit with, please send me a direct message or email. I will respond as soon and as best as I can, but only once there is something Good to be said. You can help the conversation along by sharing posts and engaging people who read them. Ask your friends questions about their reactions and let’s reconnect with people over the hard stuff and allow ourselves to be earnest, gentle, …and uncertain

… as certainty is so easily a precursor to violence.

See if you and your community can collectively forge a more Truthful, Beautiful, and Good response that I can. I will work for you. Also, I am committed to being prayerful for you, so let me know what that needs to look like for you. So in short, it seems I am literally offering you my “thoughts and prayers…

Almost exactly 30 years ago, in the fall of 1988, I was attending high school in a suburb of Los Angeles when I caught the acting bug.  In that part of the world, wanting to be an actor was more of a rite of passage than a particular vocation.  A lot of us went through some kind of acting phase. Nevertheless, I took myself quite seriously at the time, so I dropped out of high school, took an acting class, and landed my first paying gig saying two lines in a sex education movie for high schoolers and youth groups.  While my performance was… ahem… not Oscar worthy, the crew took a liking to me and was generous enough to invite me to the movie set every day while they were shooting. One afternoon we filmed an interview with a man who would become the first person I would actually meet who was living with HIV/AIDS that I knew about.  His story moved me, (and haunted me, and inspired me) in a way all the vague and ominous news reporting about this thing called “GRID,” the “gay cancer,” “ARC,” and AIDS had not. And it was a bout to cheange the entire direction of my life…

December 1st Release Date

I promise you this, Rigel Thurston’s new recording, We Sing Together, is your new favorite Christmas album. Thurston has crafted something scarce here merely by having faith in the music he is playing and his ability to play it. Because of that faith, his songs are generous and endearing without any of the sentimentality and cheap manipulation that plagues almost every other Christmas recording of the last few years. If you aren’t already sold, keep reading. I am willing to make my case.