Driving rain, expanding waistline…

Extract from my 2nd memoir

I resumed my audio diary on 4 January 1994: ‘Good morning. It’s extremely late. Twenty-five past seven. Holy fuck! And I’m only coming out of New Hall! I’m fourteen bloody stone. I get married, contentment arrives, I buy a car, ditch me bike. My waist used to be thirty-two, it’s now thirty-six!’

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If you see your feelings as unacceptable, you see yourself as unacceptable

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Coping with a dysfunctional parent

Gerry Kelly, host of Late Lunch on LMFM Radio, chatted to me last Tuesday, about coping with a difficult parent, having spotted my recent article, Difficult Mothers: the last taboo?

You can listen to the interview here:

I loved the phrase ‘kindred spirits’, which a recent reader of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe used about us. He felt a connection with me because he, too, had a difficult relationship with his mother.

‘My relationship with her was the most complex relationship of my life. If anyone listening to this takes away anything that is helpful, I hope it will be that there are no unacceptable feelings or thoughts. If you feel hatred, accept it. Because if you don’t accept it, then you don’t accept yourself and you can’t grow.’

Kids pick up tensions at home

‘I grew up too close to my mother,’ I told Gerry. ‘Probably because she didn’t have a great relationship with my father or with his two sons. She probably put too much emotionally into our relationship.

‘As a kid, I was aware there were all kinds of tensions in the house. You pick it all up like a sponge. Sometimes, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Even up to my early twenties, I dared not mention the names of my two brothers. It would be a huge no-go area with my mother.

Most complex relationship of my life

‘My relationship with her was the most complex relationship of my life. The joy of writing a memoir, or, in my case, being middle way through writing my second one, is it’s a huge opportunity to examine myself.

‘My mother’s mother died when my mother was two. So she never had a mother to model her behaviour. She got married in her late 30s. My father had two sons from his first marriage. It was a huge shock to her system to go from being an independent woman with no responsibilities to suddenly having a husband and two little boys.

‘It didn’t work out. She didn’t’ get on with them. They had a really hard time. Far harder than me. My challenge was trying to grapple with the emotional and intellectual task of trying to disengage from whatever strong mother–child bond I had as a kid.

Exasperation of trying to talk to her

‘I found it exasperating trying to reason with my mother. My father would take me aside and say: “Joe, there is no point talking to her.”

‘Obviously, that was a very sad thing about his own relationship with his wife. I don’t know whether my mother might have had some psychological issue that was undiagnosed.

‘A huge part of my choosing not to proceed with the priesthood was trying to disentangle myself from all the messages and learnings that I picked up from my mother.

Undermining my thoughts and feelings

‘She always seemed to undermine not only my thinking but my feelings. I’d say I feel something and she’d say: “Oh you can’t feel that.” Or I’d say I think something and she’d say: “Oh, you can’t be thinking that.” Or I’d remember something and she’d say: “No, it didn’t happen like that at all.”

‘So she was constantly undermining my confidence. She was doing the opposite of what a good parent is meant to do. A parent is meant to be encouraging the child to think for themselves, to feel their feelings etc.

Admitting feelings of hate

‘I remember in my late teens going to confession and confessing to the priest the negative feelings I had towards my mother. I had this love–hate relationship with her. But it was hard to admit the hate aspect of it – that there were times when I just hated her. And my dad would be going on about the things she did, but he didn’t always tell me what things. But I knew she had done stuff that had made his life pretty miserable.

‘But that priest – and as you know I’m not a believer – he was a man of compassion and he had wisdom and he was human. And he was able to tell me that’s OK. You feel as you feel for a good reason.

If you can’t accept how you feel, you can’t accept yourself

‘And, to fast forward, after nine years in the seminary, when I went to counselling, I remember the counsellor saying: “If you feel that your negative feelings towards your mother are unacceptable, then, you feel you are unacceptable.”

‘And if anyone listening to this take away anything that is helpful, I hope it will be that there are no unacceptable feelings or thoughts. If you feel hatred, accept it. Because if you don’t accept it, then you don’t accept yourself and you can’t grow.

Dawn Chorus Meath Ireland

Dawn Chorus Meath Ireland 28 April 2022
Sounds of Dawn Chorus
Magnificent sounds of birdsong, dawn chorus, Ireland

Dawn Chorus, Meath, Ireland 28 April 2022

I recorded the dawn chorus this morning at 5.15am using an ordinary Android phone. It’s extraordinarily rich in sound, birdsong, an occasional bellow from a cow, and a very distant and barely audible plane, drowned out by the rich variety of birdsong.

How lucky we are if we live in the countryside, surrounded by nature; and how often we take it for granted. What a gift that we can hear! And that we live in a land at peace.

No doubt birds still sing in Ukraine, suffering the invasion of puny Putin’s deluded mind and his uninformed or blinded population.

I wish for the people of Ukraine that they too will sing the song of freedom and that all of their land will be liberated from the invading army of the autocratic dictator, the pariah Putin.

International Dawn Chorus Day is the first Sunday of May each year. Don’t miss it this Sunday 1st May. Derek Mooney on RTE Radio One will be doing his usual great job, celebrating the dawn chorus. For details, click here.

Disaffection with HAI aired in Newstalk interview

IN an interview with Andrea Gilligan on Lunchtime Live on Newstalk, Wednesday 23 March, 2022, I aired my personal disaffection with the Humanist Association of Ireland.

No Church has a monopoly on Christian weddings

I said: ‘Just as, for example, within the Christian community, there are loads of different churches and denominations, and the Catholic Church isn’t going to say no the Lutheran Church can’t do a legal wedding and Baptists can’t do a legal wedding. It would be outrageous.’

No Humanist body should have a monopoly on Humanist weddings

‘And in the same way the Humanists should also welcome other Humanist groups to have the same legal authority to legalize weddings.’

‘They shouldn’t seek to have it as a monopoly for themselves because that would be really against the values of equality and inclusiveness and reason.’

‘It should be an open thing. More groups should be allowed to do it.’

‘It shouldn’t be something that’s a monopoly of the Humanist Association of Ireland. And it would be a shame for Humanism if they were to grasp and hold on to that for themselves.’

The General Register Office should recognize other Humanist bodies, since the rich tradition of Humanism stretches over continents, cultures and millennia and cannot be the exclusive right of just one registered company in Ireland.

If and when the GRO recognizes other Humanist bodies, as I hope they will, it will be good not only for Humanism but also for the Humanist Association of Ireland.

Difficulties with direction of HAI

Interviewer Andrea Gilligan asked: ‘How is business, Joe, for you?’

I said: ‘To be honest, Andrea, I’m kind of on my way out of ceremonies.’

‘I’ve been doing it a long time. I was nine years studying for the priesthood (and as long as a Humanist celebrant) and the longer you’re at it, you see different things.’

‘I feel it’s gone too commercial’

‘So, to be honest with you, I would have difficulties with the direction being taken by the Humanist Association of Ireland. I feel it’s gone too commercial.’

‘For example, if I were do a free ceremony – every so often I would do a free ceremony – and the HAI want their cut. And I just think that’s ridiculous.’

Need for other GRO-approved Humanist bodies

‘So I feel increasingly uncomfortable within the Humanist Association of Ireland, which is why I would like there to be other Humanist bodies which were authorized by the General Register Office to conduct legal marriages.’

Trust your Doubt

Speaking of my indoctrination into religion from childhood, I said that I wished that someone had said to me to ‘Trust your doubt’.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom, not faith in an imaginary god.

Beast from the East

There has arisen in the East a brutal tyrant

There has arisen in the East a brutal tyrant. Humanity quakes – not because Putrid Putin is a great and powerful man because he is not. Far from great, he is an ogre, a cancerous growth that must be excised. Nor is he powerful since the great threat he poses to humanity has nothing to do with true human power.

Puny Putin is inadequate

Like any tyrant, he is dangerous because he is so inadequate as a person. Puny Putin inflicts pain on millions only because of his inhumanity.

Hitler and Putin

Puke Putin is far from terrifying. Far more frightening is our repeated capacity as a species to allow Hitler and Putin to attain and retain political and military power.

And in the decades between the two to forget what humanity had to learn the hard way.

Humanity on trial

This story ends only with the decimation of human values and humanity or in a bunker in Moscow.

There is no room for moral ambiguity. Here, there is no neutral space between good and evil.

Hitler Youth restored

He has his Hitler Youth. He has his criminal apologists. He has his bombs. He has his deluded supporters who cannot or will not see the truth.

His legacy: death and destruction

As you read this, millions are fleeing from his tyranny, his delusions, his lies, his bombs. Women and children are dying. Lives are being wrecked, ruined, ended.

Wake up humanity!

Wake up! We are at war and humans of goodwill cannot rest in Russia or in the world until this cancer of humanity has been excised.

What are you prepared to do?

And there has arisen in the East a brutal tyrant. What are you prepared to do?

Pariah Putin

How can any Russians in the West support Putin?

We can understand that Russians in Russia are being lied to by Putin and his cronies. But what are we to make of Russians in the West who defend him?

I cannot understand it. Is it that identity clouds reason? I should know. For years I believed in Catholicism. I identified with Catholicism. I maintained that sense even when reason undermined my childish beliefs.

It took me so long to see the light of reason.

Is that how it is with national identity too? In a crazy world, do Russians cling to Putin and his mythology rather than face the unfathomable reality of the catastrophe he has unleashed on Ukraine and in the world?

How long did it take Germans to recognise the twisted logic of Hitler? Will it take Russians as long?

School Yard Bully

I used to be a teacher. I’m trying to imagine a school yard bully with such power that even teachers wouldn’t intervene to stop him beating up a smaller pupil.

That is the dilemma facing the West right now. A bully so powerful that people of reason are afraid to defend the bullied pupil. Why? Because the bully has threatened to massacre the family of any teachers who intervene to save the pupil who is being beaten to a pulp.

What can the teachers do? Nobody wants their families to be treated like this battered child is being pummelled. And we know that this psychopath would carry out his threats on the families of any and all teachers who intervened.

NATO’s cop out

NATO says: ‘You are not a member. I am not obliged to fight for you. If I fight for you, our cities will be laid waste by this madman.’

It is an understandable response. Our first duty is to protect our wives and children, our homes, preserve peace in our streets. We do not want war to spread to our homelands.

We watch the child being beaten to a pulp, almost to the point of death.

We feel impotent. We cannot make love to our wives. We are limp when we try.

We let the bully continue his unprovoked assault, his rape of the child.

But is our peaceful neighbourhood, our sanitised life, worth living, if we stand by and let this child be bullied, beaten, crushed, raped, killed?

What humanity do we preserve by saying ‘I can do no more’?

Heroic Bullied Child

We watch as the child heroically fights his aggressor, his enemy, the Arch Bully of Humanity. We watch.

Limp-organed, we do things from the sidelines. Radical things, like reducing the bully’s social welfare income. We won’t sell him sweets. We won’t play with him or let our children play with him. We ask him to stop.

But the Arch Bully, the mafia boss, the untouchable, goes on beating the life out of the pupil. The pupil begs for us to help. We say sorry. We can’t. Because if we do, he will do that to our wives and children too. And he will wreck our lovely homes and our happy lives.

The child has been pummelled almost to death. The pummelling continues. The child can barely breathe now.

‘Please, please, please help me,’ he manages, in stuttered gasps, almost inaudible now.

‘I cannot,’ says Boris the Brave. I cannot allow my brave British boys to be beaten like you are being beaten. I’m sorry, child, you must die.’

#Ukraine #NATO #Bully #Humanist #Russia #PariaPutin


Life’s Great Leveller

Death is life’s great leveller

Creates in us an edge like a beveller

Destroys every holy and secular prelature

Razes to the ground every predator.

Don’t shoot the messenger!

(c) Joe Armstrong 2022

All who hold power will cease to hold power. Every oppressor the world has ever known (except the living ones) has died. In time, everyone who wields power unjustly over others will die. They will become a skeleton, like everyone else. Their legacy? Shame. Hurt. Injustice. And the truth usually comes out in the end.

Death truly is life’s leveller. Knowing that everyone dies, myself and the oppressor, the oppressed can find within themselves an edge, just as a beveller creates an edge on a cabinet. Knowing our mortality and that of the oppressor can create in the oppressed an edge, a vitality, an insight, an energy.

All humans were created and will always remain equal, despite the injustices meted out by many who wield power.

Just as death creates in us an edge, so too does it destroy every prelate, king and unjust ruler; be they ‘holy’ or secular.

Every predator will be laid low, razed to the ground, sooner or later. Time and truth favours the oppressed. The truth will out in the end.

Those who wield power don’t like these truths. Some may be tempted to shoot the messenger. But that won’t save them from their inevitable end.

Audiobook of In My Gut I Don’t Believe, narrated by author Joe Armstrong, just published!

I am delighted to announce that the audiobook of my memoir In My Gut, I Don’t Believe has just been published! Narrated by the author, the audiobook has been a labour of love. It helps to grasp the meaning and flow by listening to the book read by its creator. Especially when it’s a memoir. The book is also available as a paperback and Kindle eBook on Amazon and elsewhere. Click here for the link to the audiobook if you’re based in Ireland or the UK.

Difficulty of breaking free from religious thinking, commitment & organisation

It can be incredibly hard to break away from religious thinking, a religious commitment and religious organisations. I found it very hard to learn to think for myself and harder still to trust myself enough to make a decision based on religious doubt and carry it out. I continually allowed religious people to undermine my decisions. Until I didn’t. I am happy that I narrated the audiobook of my experience. Just published.

Sample audio from In My Gut I Don’t Believe

Here’s the Audible summary of the book:

Summary of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe

Searingly honest coming-of-age memoir

Joe Armstrong spent nine years studying for the Catholic priesthood. He no longer believes in God. This is his acclaimed, searingly honest coming-of-age memoir of his nine years in the Marist Fathers seminary in 1980s Dublin, Ireland.

Procrastination

A case study of procrastination and self-discovery, it is of interest to anyone who has ever fluctuated this way and that and struggled to make a big life decision. It shows the author’s gradual transition from lack of confidence in himself to finally knowing what he wanted. It shows how he found the courage to make the hardest and best decision of his life.

Doubt is the beginning of wisdom

It champions the wisdom of doubt, and sees doubt as the beginning of wisdom. It charts the author’s inner movement from obedience to a church to learning to obey himself. He learns to trust himself, think for himself, and be true to himself. 

Authentic insight into celibate seminarian & priestly life

This is a rare authentic insight into the true lives of celibate seminarians and priests.

Co-dependency

It is also of interest to those struggling with co-dependency, giving a frank portrayal of a complex relationship with a dysfunctional mother. It is also a fascinating portrayal of an experience with counselling, and how it can help us to break destructive patterns and gain authority for our lives.

Very well-written & performed, with humorous moments

Despite the profound theme, it is a compelling, easy-to-listen-to memoir, with many moments of humour. Superbly written, the audiobook is performed with panache by the author.

Here’s a recent review of the book by Canada-based Dr Nick Overduin, whose doctorate is in memoirs and biographies, so this is high praise coming from him:

Recent review of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe

Extremely well written

This book is extremely well written. For example, the constant combination of abstract notions with concrete imagery is delightfully articulate and amazingly agile also in its grammar. As a personal journey, it represents a huge accomplishment in staying faithful and true to oneself, one’s innermost spirit.

Struggle for freedom from sense of religious calling

It deals with two crises simultaneously. First of all, the author struggled with the enormous tensions involved in extricating himself from a constraining sense of religious calling in Ireland. He spent nine years training for the priesthood before deciding definitively that this was not a good pathway for himself.

Freedom from complex family relationships

But secondly, the author also needed to process very complex family dynamics during those nine years, particularly in relationship to his mother, but also an uncle, two brothers and a father, not to mention many formative relationships with friends and mentors.

Authenticity of memoir from author’s seminary journals

Since all the events recalled in the book’s decade happened quite a few years prior to this narrative production, the memoir’s accuracy and self-discipline profits greatly from the fact that the author made extensive forays into journaling while he was in that seminary long ago. He is therefore able to look back from the vantage point of age, more than thirty years after the events, but without re-casting things in his own reconstructed terms. The actual facts are constantly before him, and therefore also before the reader.

For people who struggle with demise of religion & complex families

It is clear that the author needed to write this journey down, not just for his own benefit and self-understanding, but so that readers anywhere who struggle with the widespread demise of religion alongside the prevalence of dysfunctionality within family systems will be able to recognize their own souls in the mirror of this book.

Ireland and Doubt becomes vivid

Ireland comes alive, and the nature of doubt becomes vivid; but more importantly, the world becomes alive, and the reader experiences an awakening of their own heart.

For other great reviews of In My Gut, I Don’t Believe, click here.

Audiobook coming soon of In My Gut I Don’t Believe

I am delighted that the audiobook of my memoir In My Gut I Don’t Believe will be published shortly. I feel it’s an important part of my legacy, showing my life’s lesson. I learned, the hard way, that I needed to make decisions for myself – not accept decisions about my life made by others.

I learned that nobody knows me better than I know myself. I learned to trust myself – my hunches, thoughts, feelings and gut feelings. I learned to make and act on the basis of my honest judgement – not the decisions of others. I learned to stand alone.

I extracted myself from my old pattern of shelving my opinions and judgements because I gave undue respect to the opinions of others. I learned the importance of Aesop’s tale about the father, the son and the donkey: we should not act on the basis of other people’s judgements but only on ours.

Learning that very hard lesson, I made the biggest decision of my life when I was 27. I left my priestly path, even though I was only six months or so away from being ordained a priest. I became free. I learned to cast off the ideas that had influenced my life from childhood and I began to trust my doubt.

Trusting your doubt is the origin of wisdom. Attending to doubt is what brings about discovery – in science and in our personal lives. Doubt is wisdom. Doubt is your inner wisdom, whispering to you that you are bigger and better than the fairytales you were taught to believe were true.

I walked through glass – metaphorically. Leaving behind my self-containment. I learned to accept myself as I am. I grew beyond the myths that I had been taught were true: they were not true. I learned to base my life on what I knew, not on silly beliefs, which remain silly regardless of how many people believe in them.

Where are believers in Odin now? Where are the believers in the Greek and Celtic gods? They are few and far between. Yet their beliefs are as far-fetched and nonsensical as the beliefs of the current fashionable religions of our day. Today’s religions, cults and deities will go the way of the Norse, Greek and Celtic gods.

Don’t spend your life believing in myth. Trust your doubt. Trust yourself. Live your one and only life to the full.