There really is a place for the bad attitude…
Or, at least, so I think.
The last clergy group I belonged to, back in Massachusetts was strictly restricted to folk who by the common agreement of the existing group, had “bad attitude.” Yes, this was a group of people who had vowed their lives in service of the power of some greater, to use a placeholder that isn’t completely satisfactory to name it, love.
As I think about it, it seemed mostly this meant one had to have a sense of humor that leaned more or less toward the dark.
Preferably more…
I think it has to do with that word love.
Love can be simpering, love can be maudlin, love can be sentimental, love can be a great way to cover over the nasty bits of life. Love can facilitate lots and lots of avoidance. Love without a sense of the ironic, of sense of shared woundedness, of taking itself too seriously totters into the realm of the pure.
And everyone knows what happens to a fish that tries to swim in pure water…
If one falls for one of those kinds of love, well, the chance of being useful for people and their communities, well, well…
But like the great Tai Chi, the famous YinYang symbol that looks like two tadpoles nestled up together, one black and one white. In the eye of each is a spot of the opposite color.
So, praise to the bad attitude, the eye in the tadpole, the bit of impurity that gives life…
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