{"id":4815,"date":"2024-09-01T07:50:48","date_gmt":"2024-09-01T11:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/?p=4815"},"modified":"2024-09-01T08:12:08","modified_gmt":"2024-09-01T12:12:08","slug":"being-known","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2024\/09\/being-known.html","title":{"rendered":"Being Known"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
There is something about St. Augustine that I have always loved. His writings come alive in a way few other father\u2019s of the Church are able to do. This came home to me this week as I was praying the Office of Readings on both his own feast day and that of his Mother\u2019s, Monica, that proceeds it. In both offices the second reading is taken from Augustine\u2019s Confessions<\/i>. The readings are alive with their author. The candidness and personal revelation of Augustine\u2019s Confessions<\/i> is refreshing and moving. He shares of his relationships to others and his relationship to God with vulnerability. You see into the man\u2019s heart.<\/div>\n
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Being allowed to see another\u2019s heart is a rare gift. The tendency of many in our world today is to harden the heart, showing only a curated image of ourselves. Vulnerabilities and failings are so quickly exploited by those who seek to climb the social ladders of our world by pushing down those around them. From the bullies that prowl the playgrounds all the way up to the stump speeches of our aspirants to national office this discourse of destruction stifles the discourse of disclosure in every arena but the most intimate of our lives.<\/div>\n
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This week I read a really excellent book by David Brooks \u2013 How to Know a Person.<\/i><\/div>\n
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In a way this book is a handbook on how to discover the heart of those around you. It\u2019s richly layered, wonderfully written, well-research and incredibly practical. I have the feeling this will be the first read of many for me. At one point Brooks puts a flag in the ground and tells us that there is a sickness in our culture that has turned dialog into verbal combat and damaging our ability to see the humanity of our interlocutors. Brooks writes:<\/div>\n
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\u201cWe live in a culture that is paradigmatic rich and narrative poor. In Washington, for example, we have these political talk shows that avoid anything personal. A senator or some newsmaker comes on to offer talking points on behalf of this or that partisan position. The host asks gotcha questions, scripted in advance, to challenge this or that position. The guests spit out a bunch of canned talking-point answers. The whole thing is set up as gladiatorial verbal combat. Just once I\u2019d love to have a host put aside the questions and say, \u201cJust tell me who you are.\u201d It would be so much more interesting, and it would lead to a healthier political atmosphere. But we don\u2019t live in a culture that encourages that.\u201d<\/i><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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I found this reality to be very much at work in many of the recent interviews of political candidate\u2019s that have been in the news. Perhaps most notably the National Association of Black Journalists conference, where Trump and Rachel Scott crossed swords, but also in many ways in less confrontation interviews with friendly journalists, as seen in the recent Dana Bash interview with Tim Walz and Vice President Kamala Harris. In each of these cases curiosity wasn\u2019t driving the conversation. A surprising example of a different interview was the appearance of Donald Trump with Theo Von. Von was curious and vulnerable as an interviewer and the result was one of the more interesting conversations with Trump that I have seen. I imagine there will always be a need for journalist that ask the difficult probing questions, but Brooks is onto something. We may discover more when we put aside the rehearsed line of questioning and lean into following the path of curiosity.<\/div>\n
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Another way this need to know a person that has recently come home to me is as I\u2019ve begun to interview dozens of candidates for open positions at the Pope Francis Center in Detroit, where I serve. My friend Aaron Hrcka recommended an interview process by ghSMART outlined in the books Power Score <\/i>and Who. <\/i>I decided to lean into it and it\u2019s been eye opening. In this model, candidates are interviewed three times, but you don\u2019t really get into the nitty gritty of the job itself until the third interview. Instead, you spend the bulk of your time asking trying to understand each step in the job prospect\u2019s professional journey. I\u2019ve found it eye opening how much more of the information that I struggled to discover through focused questioning is revealed through strategic curiosity.<\/div>\n
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All of this came home to me this weekend. In today\u2019s Gospel reading. Jesus is approached by religious leaders who have a \u201cgotcha\u201d mentality themselves. They seek the disqualify Jesus\u2019 ministry because some of his disciples didn\u2019t live up to the tradition of the Elders in the matter of washing his hands. In response Jesus quotes Isaiah 29:13 stating, \u201cThese people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.\u201d He reminds the leaders that if they are looking at the surface for what is good or evil they are missing the point. Instead, it is more important to see into the heart. This week I am praying that I might be more like St. Augustine. May I have such a radical confidence in God that I can open my heart without fear and approach others with such love and hospitality that they are freed to be known as they meet with me.<\/em><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is something about St. Augustine that I have always loved. His writings come alive in a way few other father\u2019s of the Church are able to do. This came home to me this week as I was praying the Office of Readings on both his own feast day and that of his Mother\u2019s, Monica, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1678,"featured_media":4818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-liturgy","category-weekly-round-up"],"yoast_head":"\nBeing Known<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There is something about St. Augustine that I have always loved. His writings come alive in a way few other father's of the Church are able to do. 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