Poor So-And-So, He's So Understood

The title is one of the funny little sayings we have among the brothers. The joke is this: in the common life, it is less likely for someone to suffer from being misunderstood, and more likely that the aspects of his self that make trouble for him in community--and we all have them--will be obvious to everyone but him.

This makes for one of the hardest and deepest acts of obedience: to admit that sometimes, and especially with regard to our faults and imperfections, others will see us with more clarity than we have about ourselves.

Some of this condition is due, no doubt, to denial and distraction. But I also think God permits us the blind-spots we have about ourselves so as to give us the opportunity of learning humility in our obedience to the confessors, spiritual directors, elders, and brothers and sisters we are given on the journey.