Theos-Talk Archives (December 1994 Message tl00139)

Nicholas and Dara,

First, thank you for your lovely post of yesterday.  How
wonderful to see such an attitude expressed in the midst of some
rather nasty stuff over the last few days.

Second, I think this is may be merely a matter of symantics, so
perhaps not very important.  When you remark of "the other half"
of making a kindly society, you say that one must learn to
"absorb anger, hate & other negatives...."

I wonder if "absorb" is the right word? I'm asking because I
spent several years as a university administrator and spent quite
a lot of my time trying to subdue and arbitrate
differences--often rather ugly ones.  As I reflect on those
years, I think that I did absorb the anger, hate, etc.  of
others.  To some extent this worked (from the administrative
point of view--getting people to go on with what the institution
regarded as their proper and important work).  But, I think that
absorbing those negatives made me ill--ill enough that I had to
get out of administrative work.  Perhaps if one is a truly
developed leader then one has powers within to neutralize the
absorbed negatives.  For myself, however, I now realize that what
I should have been striving for was to repel them.

I'm not sure any of this makes sense.  But, would the ability "to
repel anger, hate & other negatives" change the meaning of what
you said?

Again, thanks.
Best wishes,
William