Tag Archives: priesthood

In My Gut, I Don’t Believe: A Memoir by Joe Armstrong

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My memoir, In My Gut, I Don’t Believe, will be published on 19 December.

It has been 25 years in the making. I’m proud of it and a bit scared about its publication. Honesty is the best policy, and I have been honest, very honest. I wrote things in my personal journal while I was a student for the priesthood that were for my eyes only. Yet, on 19 December, much of what I thought would never be read by anyone else other than perhaps my spiritual director will be in plain sight for anyone to read.

If a book is to be any good, especially a memoir, the author has to become vulnerable. Well, I did. So my apprehension is, I think, a good sign. I feel a bit like I felt some 30 years ago when I was leaving the Marists. You make a decision and there is no going back.

What kept me for so long in the Marists was my ability to see 360 degrees of any issue I faced. Even the week or so before I finally left, my mind could still glimpse another interpretation of my life – the religious one. Called by God. Remaining true to your vocation. Sacrificing yourself.

In my mind, I really could see both sides. And my cure was to get out of my head and into my gut.

‘In your gut,’ asked my counsellor. ‘What do you believe in your gut?’

It was the turning point of my life. A scary prospect. Was I to determine my life, not on my mind, but on the solution offered me in my gut?

Then, as now, it was scary. Literally, I could have been making the biggest mistake of my life, leading to my unhappiness and a lifetime of regret.

Decide on the basis of my gut?

What was ingenious about my counsellor’s question was that my gut doesn’t give a damn about what anybody else thinks. My gut isn’t swayed by other people’s opinions. My gut, it turns out, knew the answer.

You can get the book here

What does your gut say?

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Twice in my life I have been asked by a woman: ‘What does your gut say?’ The first time was when I was about to leave my nine-year path towards the priesthood. My gut said: ‘Leave!’

And I did. Not easily, of course. More recently, another woman asked me precisely the same question, using precisely the same words, regarding a professional decision: ‘What does your gut say?’ I was stunned by the precision, the duplication, the verbatim repetition of those five words.

In my late 20s, faced with what I considered was the first adult decision of my life – to leave my priestly path – it may be appreciated the difficulty of that choice. But now, in my late 40s, I am struck, and humbled, by my facility to duck and weave from my gut. Asked so recently what my gut said, I had no doubt what I should do professionally. And yet I lingered, dallying with the possibility that a solution less messy than going with my gut might work out.

Why is it that we are so willing – at least I confess I am – to trade that for which we were born for the sake of the false god of ‘security’? Why are we willing to give up on that which we believe to be our core mission in life for the sake of a few shekels and the continuity with the familiar – even when we are being beckoned, again, to be true to who we are?

Last week, for the second time in my life, I knew the answer to that question: ‘What does your gut say?’ And yet, days later, I was juggling with all sorts of other possibilities. I’m not proud of it. We have one very short shot at life. Must we be dragged screaming to do that for which we are best suited? Or run out of time – the ticking clock and waning sun ever the catalyst of authentic action. I pray that it may not be said of me at my death that I died without ever having lived.

I have lived and fulfilled much of my life’s purpose. But I have now the gift of time and opportunity and I pray, I intend, to proceed along the uncharted pathway of my gut.