Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Seed Moon<\/p>\n
Agency.\u00a0 There’s been a lot written in psychology and history about agency.\u00a0 We have agency when we can affect the flow of events in our own lives or in the world around us. (No, I’m not going to get into the subtle no-free-will arguments floating around.)\u00a0 A lot of the historical work has concerned how those without agency–say women, slaves, workers–get it or why they don’t have it.\u00a0 In the case of the individual agency refers to our capacity to direct our own life.<\/p>\n
A sense of agency underwrites our sense of self, or our sense of group identity.\u00a0 Note that our agency or our group’s agency can be positive or negative.\u00a0 A more negative sense of agency, that is, sensing that others or factors outside your control influence your life or your group, leads to a feeling of diminished capacity or is a feeling of diminished capacity.\u00a0 A positive sense of agency promotes a feeling of active and successful engagement with the world, the ability to act in ways congruent with your self-interest or your group’s self-interest.<\/p>\n
Here’s where I’m going with this.\u00a0 In my regression back into the ministry after 8 or so years out I made the move because my writing career had not produced the hoped for results.\u00a0 I had lost a sense of agency in the work area of my life and moved backwards on my psychological journey to retrieve it.\u00a0 Going backwards to pick up something left behind is a key element of regression.\u00a0 Its flaw lies in a return to a previous reality no longer relevant.\u00a0 The ministy was what I had done, a minister what I had been.\u00a0 The experience of return to the ministry produced missteps and a low level of energy for the actual work.<\/p>\n
Now, about ten\u00a0 years later,\u00a0 once again I have reached back into my past, this time even further, to retrieve a sense of agency, the ur-agency, for me, the political.\u00a0 This is the work with the Sierra Club. (hmmm.\u00a0 just realized I did the same thing two years back when I studied Paul Tillich.\u00a0 That was a return to life as a student, a potent form of agency for me.)<\/p>\n
What the work with the Sierra Club, the study of Tillich and the ministry have in common is an attempt to regain a positive sense of self through a form of agency already well-established and presumably easily recaptured.\u00a0 None of these activities in themselves is a bad thing, but that is the lure, the\u00a0 seductive call of regression.<\/p>\n
Back there, if only I could go back in time, and become the captain of the football team again.\u00a0 Prom queen.\u00a0 College radio jockey.\u00a0 The actor I became after college.\u00a0 My successful years as a bond trader or nurse or carpenter.\u00a0 Back there I was strong, able.\u00a0 I had a way with the world, a position of respect and self-confidence.<\/p>\n
It’s not difficult to flip all this language and see what underlies regression.\u00a0 A lack of self-confidence. A dimished feeling of agency.\u00a0 True for me out side the family.<\/p>\n
A slippery slope, a desire to find in a past activity a renewed confidence.\u00a0 Lash me to mast men, so I can hear the Siren but not respond.\u00a0 Easier said than done.<\/p>\n
The journey does not lie in retreat, rather in moving forward, becoming who I am today, not who I was yesterday.\u00a0 The question then is how can I find and sustain a new sense of agency, one based on the person I have become rather one I have been.<\/p>\n
The components of this new sense of agency are all around me, but I’m having trouble drawing them to me in an effective manner.\u00a0 The work of the docent at the MIA is a part.\u00a0 The permaculture, horticulture work at home is a part.\u00a0 The biggest part though is the path I began so long ago when I left the ministry, a path I have never abandoned, writing.<\/p>\n
How though do I knit these things together to create a renewed sense of agency?\u00a0 How do I integrate these activities, really integrate them, into my new sense of self?\u00a0 This is the question I face now, have faced for over 12 years and one I have not answered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Seed Moon Agency.\u00a0 There’s been a lot written in psychology and history about agency.\u00a0 We have agency when we can affect the flow of events in our own lives or in the world around us. (No, I’m not going to get into the subtle no-free-will arguments floating around.)\u00a0 A lot of the historical … Continue reading This Is The Question I Face Now. One I Have Not Answered.<\/span>