HEARING CRITICISM

Fr Jim Cogley

Why is criticism or any form of feedback so hard for any of us to take? So often it makes us feel uncomfortable and we become defensive. We search for excuses for our behaviour when we can’t find reasons. Sometimes we want to shoot the messenger rather than hear the message. Even when someone is considerate and kind in what they are saying we so easily try to convince them that it is they who are in the wrong and what right have they to question us. Perhaps this is because we tend to hear criticism as children rather than as adults. If as children, we were often blamed and received more criticism that encouragement we will have developed a strong inner critic as a result. This is something that we are largely unaware of until we hear something said that smacks of criticism and suddenly it awakens, often with a vengeance that surprises us. It’s useful to notice how we react to even critical love? Can we hear it and be grateful to the messenger or are we so defensive that we can never be told anything? If the latter is the case, we may silence our critics but we control our friends and them wonder why we are losing them!

Two of our greatest fears can be failure and criticism. Do they ever completely disappear? Probably not, they keep reappearing every time we face our next challenge. But, we can overcome them. Every time we give into fear we retreat deeper into our so-called comfort zone but in the process make it smaller until eventually in the words of TS Eliot, ‘we measure out our life with coffee spoons’. We get caught up with trivialities and make molehills into mountains. At the edge of our comfort zone, we always encounter fear and shouldn’t expect anything else. However, if we place courage in front and act in spite of our fear we learn to conquer it. This is really faith in action, otherwise its just a dead belief. A useful anacronym for FEAR is Face Everything And Recover. Every time we successfully face our fear, we expand our comfort zone and enjoy the new life that can only be experienced when we live at the edge.

The journey of the ancient Israelites was out of Slavery in Egypt and towards the Promised Land. Led first by Moses and then by Joshua, they were seemingly given a divine mandate to exterminate the enemies they would encounter on the journey and claim as their own the lands that were previously inhabited. The modern state of Israel would be happy to take this very literally and apply it particularly to the Palestinians! A surface reading of their exploits and battles would point to a god who only favoured his chosen people and was happy to be totally unmerciful and ruthless towards all others. However, if we can read the text as an unfolding image of God that reflected their primitive understanding, it makes more sense. This is especially true when we see the image of God presented by Jesus as the one who was merciful to all, and who called us, not to exterminate, but to love our enemies. This represented a paradigm shift that separates the Old and New Testament.

When Joshua took over the leadership mantle from Moses and was preparing to enter and take possession of the Promised Land, the Lord spoke and said ‘every piece of ground that your foot threads on shall be yours.’ Their mandate was to enter and take possession of the land. They were to press on regardless of the obstacles, the fierce resistance of the earlier inhabitants and the giants they would encounter. As we read these stories it makes so much sense not just to see them as historical narrative but to explore their powerful symbolism and apply it to our own lives. Egypt is really our ego where we so easily become enslaved by illusion and the worship of false gods. These are everything that promise much but deliver little. The Promised Land is our true selves where our identity is in God. The journey is never easy. Along the way we encounter the giants of our fears that appear so much bigger than us. So many resistances and obstacles need to be overcome. Many will retreat in fear and possibly settle for a more comfortable traditional religious practice. A few courageous souls will persevere on the journey, no matter what they encounter, and discover the wonderful truth that every piece of ground that their foot had thread on has become theirs.

My late bishop Dr. Brendan Comiskey had a wonderful saying that ‘the last thing any of us needed was unloving criticism, while the thing we most needed was critical love’. Our criticism of another, no matter how we justify it, if it doesn’t come from a loving space, can cut very deep and damage self-esteem. While we are still in a judgmental space, our words and demeanour will carry the energy of anger. Thus, the validity of what we need to say will be undermined by our anger and get lost. On the other hand, if the other person knows we truly have their welfare at heart, and are speaking for our benefit, and not simply because out of annoyance, then we have the best possible chance of being heard. This is not an easy truth to hear for those of us who are serial critics – I only have a right to offer criticism when it is purely for the good of the other person and not just because he or she has ruffled my feathers! To fix the blame out there is easy, while to confront my own lack of love, before confronting the other person, is much more challenging.