On the Margins

Stories & spritual reflections from meeting those on the margins of society.

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  • A Matter of Time

    Friends and neighbours of Paul Doyle remain incredulous at the reality of his behaviour and from my experience, I think some professionals will be thinking the same.

    I’ve never met the man, but I cannot and never did for one moment doubt the murderous intent he acted out on that day in Liverpool. Given my experience of assessing and working with men and women who have behaved in similar ways to Paul, it comes as no surprise to me that in his history there is evidence of previous concerning violence, some of it extreme. This known and documented history had seemingly faded from awareness. To the wider world he was no longer defined as the once violent person he was. The impression was that he was ‘sound’, ‘friendly’, ‘kind’, ‘helpful’, a’ diamond’. Whilst Paul showed to the world around him this impression, it was just that, an ‘impression’. It was absolutely not the whole picture.

    My clinical froensic and criminal justice training, much like Paul’s violence, happened many decades ago and it’s has never left me, much like Paul’s violence. It is deeply grounded in my psyche and has informed all the encounters I have had with men like Paul. It was a training that held as a basic principle, a tenant of truth, an all-encompassing wisdom, that early histories of violence need to be considered when assessing risk and dangerousness, no matter how long ago they may have occurred. The passing of time cannot be and should not be used to interpret that the risk of repetition is over.

    The risk of repeating past violence is increased of course if the initial violence has never been worked with, its causal factors explored and, its often many meanings made conscious. In the absence of consciousness history has revealed to us, times over, will repeat. Paul, the most recent example among many indeed.

    Highlighting the risk of a violent presenting past is not a popular thing to do and especially so in the context of the current police, prison and probation services. Frighteningly, in these services risk has become a dirty word. Risk means more resources are needed. Risk means that skilled practitioners are called for, and risk means accountability. All of these things are in very short supply indeed.  To be the messenger of risk, to be the one who names it and speaks out about it makes you a very unpopular person indeed. Times over in the last few years I found my assessment of risk was being called into question, often by managers who had never actually worked with highly dangerous individuals, who relied on manualised risk assessment and were more concerned about there spreadsheets than the reality of protecting the public. On occasions and along with other policing colleagues who shared my view, we were even barred from case discussions, not allowed into meetings. The presenting past, they did not want to know about.

    I can understand why neighbours and friends of Paul are shocked to discover the full picture of the dangerous man he has always been, they knew no other. For professionals in the criminal justice system to minimise factors that contribute to risk and choose to ignore them, there is no excuse. Those who refused to take into account my, always thorough, risk assessments often referred to me as being ‘risk adverse’ an insulting term when used to minimise and disregard my sound clinical knowledge, judgement and experience.

    But less of me ….  important to return to this latest lesson and reminder of risk. It’s not only Paul’s history that is cause for concern but the comments he first made when still at the scene of his crimes also reveal much. “I’ve ruined the lives of my family”. In the face of the hundreds of lives he had just ruined his words communicate an immense callousness, self-concern and narcissism. Like his past his words also reveal much about him and his thinking. This too would not escape my assessment.

    The passing of time did not make any difference to the risk held within Paul. It was, and always has been, a matter or time.

    Br Stephen Morris FCC

  • A Dangerous Victim

    Being a victim does not make someone a safe person. Fact is that being a victim, can make someone very dangerous indeed. The wife of the sadistic predator John Smyth is no exception; she is indeed a chilling example.

    The excellent documentary, ‘See No Evil’ makes very clear the manifest evil that was John Smyth an Anglican evangelical. His perversion of morality just as disturbing as his barbaric sadism, I actually found this case more disturbing than some of the satanic abuse cases I have worked on. I exaggerate not!

    Smyths reign of terror created many young male victims over many years. Lives damaged forever. Smyth escaped justice for two reasons. One, the bastard had a heart attack and died before anything was done and two, those around his colluded with and covered up all his perverted criminal behaviour.

    Collusion and cover up can sound slightly removed from the criminal act, making it crucial to remember that those engaging in such behaviours are in fact playing a very active part in the commission of offences. It is they who are enabling, giving permission and must thereby be considered totally complicit. In the case of Smyth, Mrs Smyth, in particular, stands out as an individual who did just that.

    There appears not to have been a time when Mrs Smyth was not aware of the sadistic abuse occurring in her garden and in her home. Her role, cleaning up the boy’s blood as it seeped from the wounds inflicted by the beatings, some of which lasted for 12 hours. Mrs Smyth washed the cushions she put on the chairs to make sitting more comfortable for them. She also brought and gave them ointment. She did this, not once or twice but many hundreds of times. In addition, when Mr Smyth took groups of boys, for hours on end, to the garden shed, his torture chamber, she never once ventured there herself. No, what Mrs Smyth did was to never mention any of this to anyone. Mrs Smyth stayed silent. It takes some special kind of mind to know what she knew and not do anything to stop it. It’s a mind not unlike the mind of a sadist.

    Towards the end of the documentary the focus shifts to Mrs Smyth. Her role in the crimes become frighteningly clear, including also the horrendous and equally sadistic treatment of her two children. We see them sitting by her struggling to make sense of her and then horrifically falling into the trap of once again becoming victims of their father and indeed victims of their mother. Like so many, they fail to see that as well as their mother being a victim, she is also an enabler of sadistic abuse. Her own victimisation does not absolve at all her responsibility for what she did by not doing.

    Victims of a whole variety of abuses hurt others all the time. Not all victims, but many. Such repetition cannot be excused just because it is repetition. It can be understood as a causal factor, but it does not change the fact that someone who is hurt has also hurt another and in so doing is guilty of a crime and needs to face justice.

    We in criminal justice do not always get things right, but what we do very well indeed is to work and think in a way that enables us to accept the fact that someone who has experienced danger can also be very dangerous indeed. That someone who has been hurt can also hurt others. That pain so often becomes violence. Just like Mrs Smyth. Is she deserving of punishment? Yes. Is she deserving of treatment and healing? Yes. For a true experience of justice, both are crucial. One or the other? NO! that is not justice.

    At some point in the documentary one of the male victims describes how following a beating by Smyth, Smyth, naked, would lay over the boy across the bench on which the boy had been beaten and caress him in his arms and kiss him on the neck. Later, towards the end of the documentary, Mrs Smyth is asked if she would like to say anything to the victims? ‘Yes’, she says, ‘I would like to hold you tight in my arms and kiss you’…… In that instant a number of people came into my mind and further told me all I need to know about Mr and Mrs Smyth; …. Myra Hindley and Ian Brady, Fred and Rose West, Ian Huntley and Maxine Carr, Marc Dutroux and Michelle Martin, to name a few.

    Br Stephen Morris FCC

  • The Evil that is Humiliation

    “The evolution of culture is ultimately determined by the amount of love, understanding and freedom experienced by its children… Every abandonment, every betrayal, every hateful act towards children returns tenfold a few decades later upon the historical stage, while every empathic act that helps a child become what he or she wants to become, every expression of love toward children heals society and moves it in unexpected, wondrous new directions.”

    The above quote by Lloyd deMause holds an immense truth that goes unheeded by a significant number and with disastrous consequences. Failure to recognise the abuse of a child or worse, to recognise it and collude with it, results in, as deMause indicates – repetition.

    Whilst sexual crimes against children are more widely recognised other abuses involving psychological and emotional abuse of children are not. Television programmes, adult comedy and often on FB, it is possible to witness repeated acts of the humiliation of a child for no other means than the ‘entertainment’ of adults.

    Even when the process of humiliation is staged, it serves to reveal the ability of some adults to engage in, collude with and support the objectification of children. To gain pleasure from witnessing the emotional distress of a child is sadism and needs to be considered perverse.

    Research tells us that repeated humiliation of a child is even more psychologically damaging in the long term than sexual abuse. Yet when such abuse is challenged it is often met with derision or dismissal. The fact the FB does not have a category to enable psychological abuse to be reported is an indicator of how collusive adult society remains in relation to the abuse of children.

    It was not that long ago (1980’s) that I, as a young clinician, when pioneering the need to recognise child sexual abuse, along with others at the time were totally derided. Many attempts were made to silence us and discredit us. In relation to sexual abuse, that thankfully would seldom happen now – we all paid a cost but it was worth it.

    However , It is woefully tragic and an indictment on adult society that other abuses remain acceptable by many. So, as in the 1980’s, children need voices that will not be silent. The issue of the psychological and emotional abuse of children is demanding the same. There is now in 2023 every need to speak for and voice for the voiceless – we must ! The cost of silence is ignorance and more, made clear in this closing quote from Alice Miller;

    “It is not true that evil, destructiveness , and perversion inevitably form part of human existence, no matter how often this is maintained. But it is true that we are daily producing more evil and, with it, an ocean of suffering for millions that is absolutely avoidable. When one day the ignorance arising from childhood repression and humiliation is eliminated and humanity has awakened, an end can be put to this production of evil.”

    Our prisons and probation departments are full of adults caught in the cycle of abuse always, always, always defined by shame and humiliation. I see and hear their stories everyday. It is a powerful reminder that I am privileged to have a role in breaking repetition. No matter how many times I’m invited to repeat that shaming and humiliation, I always resist. Yes, that invitation can come from those who are its victims, often it’s all they know. But more often it comes from others, the wider public and even at times other so called professionals. It also can come from political figures who want to name and shame or view broken lives as a “lifestyle choice”. How perverse and inhumane is that!

    Truth is we are all responsible for breaking cycles of abuse. By our shared humanity, we are all called to not repeat shame and humiliation. We are all called to live our lives awakened and not to repeat the evil that is shame and humiliation.

    Br. Stephen Morris FCC

  • After Darkness We Are Never the Same

    Darkness has been on the agenda this week. With the changing of the clocks we lessened it in part but also increased it . This manipulation of nature only works for a short while, in a few weeks, darkness will take us all into its experience.

    Yes, the days will grow shorter. Seldom is the process of equinox met with joy. This year, much like last, our journey into natures darkness is occurring alongside a range of dire warnings that could make even the most optimistic want to cling to the dying light. There is however every reason not to despair. Darkness, if we dare to go beyond our dread of it holds much for us.

    The themes of light and darkness feature large in the living of faith and at times in associated celebrations. Our attention is drawn to this fact at this time of year more than any other. The equinox itself is an invitation for us to think differently and consider developing a different relationship by which we favour and value the darkness just as much as the light. It is the Pagan, or in reality not so Pagan, festival of Halloween that puts this particular paradox firmly on the agenda.

    The symbolic significance of Halloween for people of all faiths and spiritualities can easily get lost in its commercialisation. In addition, misunderstanding of the festival has also done much to distract us from its real meaning. From ancient times until now Halloween invites us to recognise that this is the time in the cycle of the year when light and darkness are balanced., Halloween occurs within this annual period which, for us all, heralds’ transition.

    All Hallows Eve, as Halloween is also known, proceeds of course All Saints Day, a time when we in the midst of life pause and remember those who have died. Across cultures and faiths Halloween and its position in the cycle of the year once again presents us all with the paradox experiences of night and day, light and dark, the life and death experiences at the heart of every faith. Indeed, at the heart of every life.

    We often deal with experiences of paradox by choosing or favouring one or the other, it is our biggest mistake. Our failure to go to the middle ground, to bring the oppositions together always takes us into conflict. Yes, we avoid the struggle and yes, we create a comfort zone and preferring such over an opportunity for faith tells us, we miss out, we miss the point and we miss the opportunity for faith to teach us and enlighten our lives.

    With Halloween putting darkness onto the paradox agenda in the particular way it does, it reminds us we can take a different approach. Rather than banishing the approaching dark season we can start to think of the approaching winter as an important time for our experience of faith and our struggles with life.

    Darkness is the winter of the soul, a time when it seems that nothing is growing. We also know that winter is the fallow time of the year. The time of the year when the earth renews itself. It is also exactly this process which sits within struggle. Unbeknown to us, struggle is the call and the signal that we too are about to renew ourselves. Whether we want to or not.

    Halloween and its ancient symbols remind us to reflect on aspects of life we would often rather avoid. Darkness like winter we think holds nothing of promise. But faith, once again via the experience of our struggle with paradox, tells us something different. Faith tells us that the approaching darkness of winter is a lesson about the fine art of loss and growth. Its lesson is clear; there is only one way out of struggle and that is by going into its darkness, waiting for the light and being open to new growth. That sounds of course like the very last thing we would want to do. Faith as always tells us different.

    This Halloween like all those gone before from ancient times until now is, as ever, occurring at a time of struggle. 2025 does not in fact have the monopoly on struggle, or on faith. Throughout our ages, struggle is what forces us to attend to the greater things of life for ourselves and yes, at times for others.

    Day after day in the prison and probation service I and colleagues are confronted with lives at their barest, we are presented with people’s pasts shaped by the harshest of the winter of life and the darkest of nights. It is often an act of nothing but faith when we give the message that the task is to begin again. An act of nothing but faith when we ask the men and women we work with to take the seeds of the past and give them new growth. But over time it is faith in humanity that enables us to see that indeed, given the chance, people do.

    So as the ancients believed that Halloween was the time when the boundary between opposites was thin, we too can, for those we work with and for ourselves, recognise that it is growth that is the boundary between the darkness of unknowing and the light of new wisdom, insight, vision, new life.

    Faith tells us that life begins on the other side of darkness. That life does in fact begin again after the particular winters of life, after the losses, rejections, the failures. Life goes on. Differently, but on.

    After darkness we are never the same again. We are only stronger, simpler, surer than ever before that there is nothing in life we cannot survive, because through life and its changing seasons are come to accept that life is bigger than we are and in it we are meant to grow to our fullest dimensions.

    As Og Mandino says of darkness and light “I will love the light for it shows me the way, yet I will endure the darkness because it shows me the stars”

    Br. Stephen Morris fcc

  • An Affinity with Trauma

    I didn’t realise at the time, but for me, the impact of Aberfan set in motion of what has been a lifelong affinity with trauma. I guess it was the first mass trauma that I was old enough to understand, the first I could identify with as I was the same age as those children killed and my school looked just like the one crushed under the mountain of coal waste. It was also the first time I could understand the injustices that soon came to light and that had caused it. The process of cover-up, denial and collusion all adding to the trauma. I did not know at that time I would spend decades of my working life as a clinician working with injustice and trauma – for me the two are seldom separate.

    I have now, in the years that followed Aberfan, worked with many individuals caught up in trauma of different kinds from the glaringly obvious as; Kings Cross, 7/7, Admiral Duncan and also the slow. slow, slow drip by drip trauma such as the war in Ireland, the AIDS crisis and in more recent times the increasing trauma’s linked to chemsex. Although my involvement has been as a clinician, trauma involves me to the very core of my being, as indeed it does you.

    Sadly the term ‘trauma’ has become normalised, the word is banded around with little meaning. One of the consequences for this is that an authentic experience of trauma is then minimised, it not recognised for the havoc it causes and it’s debilitating effects on daily life. Trauma is treatable and can be recovered from but one of the most difficult barriers to this is that because of its very nature, everyone else knows the traumatic experience is over but the person having experienced does not know this. A radical new approach is needed in how we recognise trauma and how we respond to it.

    Trauma is not only an individual experience it is also a collective experience . Couples, families, groups and whole communities can share in collective trauma , even when they have not been directly involved.

    The very nature of trauma is that it breaks through, it disrupts and invades all that we know to be protective and safe. In this process trauma has the capacity to disconnect, to separate and cause those suffering to feel and be regarded as other. From this disconnected place new vulnerabilities evolve as, often desperate attempts, are made to seek relief and reconnect.

    Trauma cannot just be overcome and worked with in the consulting room. Healing and recovery from trauma needs to take place in the community, after all this is where it happens, this is where it is lived and this is where it can be addressed.

    I knew, without reading any reminder, that today was the anniversary of Aberfan, I will also know, without reminder, the anniversaries of other trauma’s. Will I know so readily the anniversaries of individual traumas that sit in the hearts and lives of my friends? The tragedy is that I won’t and don’t. Until this can be achieved, much more is needed.

    I will go so far as stating that in a connected community trauma is not possible . A sense of security, a secure experience of attachment and a knowing that we are not alone provides without doubt resilience. Resilience won’t stop traumatic events but it certainly enables us to be resilient in the face of them.

    I am reminded of two people who were at the heart of the 7/7 bombings. Gill Hicks, who died several times and had both legs amputated and Aaron, a Police Officer who walked into a carriage and witnessed the vision of hell that he would never be able to remove form his memory.

    Gill describes a childhood and experiences of community that were all we would associate with secure attachment, experiences of belonging and community.

    Aaron’s childhood and life had sadly been the opposite. In response to their experiences Gill never developed or experienced symptoms of any trauma, quite the opposite, she worked to achieve and created even more experiences of safe community. Aaron, withdrew and community withdrew from him, in his isolation and loneliness he developed a full blown traumatic response. His pain and suffering hidden for a long time took much recovery.

    The experience of the inspirational Gill and Aaron, the experience of those in Aberfan and indeed may be your own experiences, are powerful reminders of the importance of connection and community and the role we all play in that and need to play in that.

    Br Stephen Morris fcc

  • The Things We Push Away

    A friend has made a film, its him talking with a friend of his who is dying. He’s posted it and I may have shared it, I don’t remember.

    Right now, I don’t want to check that or even attempt to share it again because, since I watched it, I’ve remained with it, it’s been with me and I don’t want to disconnect with what it has given me, what it has connected me to and how it is still speaking to me.

    The film is about a life and life, it’s about things that don’t get talked about, it’s about lived experiences and depths of pain, longing, despair and madness that nearly all the time we push away and do so in a million of ways and for most of our lives, until we reach the moment where, as in this film, all the pushing in the world does not make it go away. Most of us don’t know what happens then, for me, my friends film is about that moment.

    The two men in this film and in the situation which life has visited upon them, as it will do eventually with me, are doing something radical and revolutionary in the face of it and I don’t know if I will or can do the same.

    In a very calm almost understated way and with great dignity they are talking about it, they are being with it, they are naming it, they are sharing it. They are not pushing away, its horror, its pain its madness and they are allowing it to be lived.

    Several times whilst watching the film I wanted to stop, I wanted to fast forward, it was uncomfortable, it brought back memories and it was painful and I cried and I hurt. But as I allowed it, as I didn’t push it away, something else started to happen and only in writing it now can I name that.

    What started to happen was not what I expected and the words that eventually came to me to describe it, were even less expected and to the point of shock…. here are those words …

    ‘The peace that passes all understanding’.

    That’s what happened.

    A depth, a breadth and an overwhelming sense of peace beyond my understanding and transcending even the ‘religious’ type language my simple mind resorted to describe the experience.

    I have had this experience only once before, many years ago, in the home of two very young friends, both were dying and both were naming it, not fighting it, not pushing it away and both were living it. Their home previously filled with the conflicts, despairs and pains of life was transformed into an experience of a peace beyond understanding, I remember it filling the air, in every room and over days and throughout long nights. Even having experienced that whilst still very young myself, I still chose to forget it, to push it away, until now.

    I’m not sure what I will push away today, I’m not sure what I will chose not to name, or not to talk about today. I don’t know what life will visit upon me today. that I will deny or seek to avoid and self-medicate as so often before. Right now, all I know is my friends’ film and his friend, who is now at peace, are inviting me to do something different. I love you David and I love you Stephen, even though I never met you Stephen, and thank you both for this experience of peace.

    Coda: Since writing this peace, David has also died and in a way which he decided for himself. I can only hope, can only pray that, for him, it was not an act of pushing away but an embracing of a peace that the world could not give… Sometimes I guess it is like that.

    Br. Stephen Morris FCC

  • Delusions of Safety

    Outrage can achieve many things one of which it would seem is to prevent intelligent thinking. Look no further than the front page of the daily papers. They are often full of outrage in relation to the latest murder or threat to life.

    Along with such headlines, comes calls for a whole variety of measures to be taken. These measures can range from replacing key figures within criminal justice, building bigger prisons and if this Government is in power for much longer Braverman and her like will be calling for the return of the death penalty. Fact is, such suggestions are nonsensical for the very fact that they are informed by delusion and a distorted belief that the world is a safe place .

    The buy in, to the delusional belief that the world is a safe place and, on the occasions when it is not, that we can make it safe is delusional in the extreme. Such, has never been possible and never will be possible. Of course, as with many delusions its seductive, it sounds nice and many buy into big time.

    ‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ has been brainwashed into our thinking every time we board any form of public transport. In the face of occasions when we are reminded that mass murder can and does happen, ‘See it, Say it, Sort it’ quickly becomes delusion in action. Its purpose, to have us all seduced quickly back into the sense that we were still in control and safe. It does not require much intelligence to recognise that in the face of seemingly random bombing, backed up by a belief system and carried out by those sacrificing their own lives, safety is not possible and we are most certainly not in control. The delusion would, at best, last until the next bomb goes off, as indeed they do and will. The mantra is now so frequent that I doubt if anyone really hears it anymore and given that intelligence gets suspended so readily, they may also have well forgotten what it’s all about.

    The expressions of outrage no matter who they are about are so without insight that if applied, then no one, absolutely no one is to be ever trusted again. How mad is that!

    There is no analysis in the news headlines of today, just emotive re-action. No invitation to consider how or why people come to be a threat, arrive at being dangerous, and present to the world as high risk. Also fact is, murderousness and other dangerous actions fit totally within the range of the human condition, that also includes you and I.

    To refer to recent examples, Lucy Letby and Benjamin Field are not unique or alone. Allitt, Dr Chapman and others all went before and others will be, as I write, engaged in similar behaviour, just not yet known about. Within noble professions the esteemed or in positions deemed less professional odd jobbers like Fred West , will be at it right now…. prepare to once more be outraged.

    It is not just the fact that the world is a dangerous place that we are constantly invited to deny. We are also invited to deny the full reality of those who murder. This is especially so when those who murder come into conflict with idealisations and saintly archetypes held within us.

    Just because someone is an enforcer of the law, a nurse, a priest, a doctor, a mother, does not mean there are without the capacity and motivation to murder. Some do and some will. Experience tells me also that it is many who are never discovered, that being because our upheld belief which goes something like ‘they could just not’. In terms of permission giving, that is a gift.

    A delusion of ‘safety’ rather than connection with reality is not the only investment such denial invites us to make. We are also told to think that those who murder are ‘monsters’. To sight another case, how quickly was the identity of ‘police officer’ removed from Wayne Cousens and replaced by ‘Monster’. You could almost feel the collective relief, with the application of just one word, he was no longer one of us, he was no longer like me. Another lie. Another delusion.

    The truth remains that Wayne may have done something monstrous and criminal, but that does not make him a monster. He remains, as you and I, deeply human and with all that implies. I don’t know if I will meet him in the coming years, but I know for certain that, if so, he will sit opposite me in his entirety, the full picture and I will listen to that full story, albeit too late.

    The human condition is raw and primitive. Combinations of factors, conscious and unconscious come together in the immediacy of murder and other behaviours. All of us are vulnerable to this. These are the dynamics and features that do not get talked about and for which the media headlines like those of today and no doubt tomorrow do not allow. But the dynamics of murder can be much closer to home that many would like to acknowledge.

    Failure to be able to embrace this truth is the greatest danger we face. Such failure gives rise to the delusional thinking writ large in the headlines today. Delusion stops our capacity to see, hear and to discern. We buy into it at our peril and the stories when they need to be told then remain untold, unheard and in time honoured fashion are then tragically acted out.

    Br. Stephen Morris FCC

  • The Soho Stations

  • Talking Difference is Exhausting

    Talking difference can be exhausting, it can wear you down and wear you out! Here I share some reflections that can help us to keep talking …….

    ‘Talking Difference’, these two words convey so much. At a deeply personal level I know I have spent much of my life doing just that – talking difference. Many others reading this will have had the same experience and in a myriad of different ways. Our lives are not all the same. It is our many uniqueness’s that make the world we inhabit rich beyond measure in its diversity and creativity. There is much to recognise and celebrate when we talk difference.

    Talking difference is also for many a very specific experience. There are contexts of life that can make difference a day to day struggle. When a particular context values one way of being, identity or culture as preferable over another then such valuing can often and does render anything different as devalued, rejected, unacceptable, less than. When life is lived outside of the accepted and valued then, as well as being characterised by difference, such an experience of life is characterised by struggle. The struggle is often manifest in the struggle to have a voice. A voice that is often required to address assumption, denial and sometimes hatred.

    I came out as gay when I was in my early teens. I’ve been coming out ever since. Having initially thought of it as a ‘one off’ thing to do, life soon taught me that the process is never ending. Like many, that difference is not the only difference that makes Br.Stephen Morris who he is. I sometimes also need to come out as being Irish, people are usually more shocked about that! These two aspects of my identity have required me to have a voice and often to struggle to have that voice heard. When talking difference is a daily experience because of who you are in the world it can be tiring, literally exhausting. It requires resilience.

    If two ‘coming out’s’ were not enough. I have a third. I often need to come out as a Franciscan Brother, especially when my work does not permit me to wear my habit. Coming out as a consecrated Brother requires me to have faith and it requires me not to lose heart. We are all in some way engaged with the world and its many discouragements. So we are all required to have faith in something and not to lose heart. I’m not alone.

    If you are concerned about the environment, equity, the welfare of refugees, social justice and those we work with, it is very easy to lose heart. Recognising the very real risk of losing heart poses the question; how do we not let ourselves spiral downwards into hopelessness? or, if we’re finding ourselves going downhill, how do we pull ourselves up?

    Well, having faith helps but, faith alone will not change anything. Not losing heart requires action and thankfully that is something we can all do. The reason we may start to lose heart is that we allow ourselves to get hooked by our emotions. No matter who the target of our emotion is, it’s usually someone or some situation that hooks us. Once we get worked up we start to lose our effectiveness. We lose our skill to communicate and in so doing we lose our ability to do the one thing that is most often within our reach – to uplift ourselves and those we encounter. We can observe this process times over in the interview room, on the prison landing and of course in the many different areas of our own lives.

    When we fall onto the hook of our emotions; anger, resentment, whatever, we disconnect, we start to go a little unconscious. So, the first step of not losing heart is to become aware of when this happens. Once we are hooked we lose our sense of everyone having the same vulnerability, of the shares human desire to know happiness and avoid pain. In this cut off state we can fail to recognise the basic goodness in people and within ourselves. Becoming more aware of when our emotions get in the way of connection, keeps us conscious and from that place we are more able to see and experience the wider picture which is seldom a complete reflection of our emotions.

    When we are losing heart because of our own struggles in life, one of the best antidotes is to put things in a bigger context. I always find it a profound moment when, after listening to a service users account of their offence and often horrendously destructive behaviour, they stop and looking directly at me say “but I am good person”. I always experience that as a plea. A very human request of ‘now you have seen the worst me, please also see the best of me’. Seeing the wider picture, no matter what they have made me feel, is crucial if I, if we, if they, are not to lose heart.

    Widening our perspective and becoming more conscious individually also has a positive effect on wider society. It can have a massive impact on our ability to embrace and value difference.

    When we are continually faced with aggression, violence, greed, injustice, insensitivity to another’s pain the invitation is always to close down, to polarise and in that process lose heart. These experiences, can if allowed, take the ground from under us and if we’re not careful we too can find ourselves not caring, not connecting, losing faith in others and in ourselves. It is in these moments of vulnerability that the task is to remember how everything we do matters and that includes talking difference.

    Talking difference from the vulnerable place of being fully conscious can help us stand tall and resilient without resorting to defensiveness, striking out, closing down or polarising. One less person doing that in the world is going to make a difference.

    One more person taking a wider perspective and being willing to see beyond all that which would make us want to turn away, will make a difference. One more person having faith in our own and others basic goodness wont suddenly remove all that which would make us lose hope and neither will it suddenly make us certain.

    Constant certainty in the work we do, with others and on ourselves is seldom, if ever, possible. But the opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty. So, it’s absolutely ok not to feel certain when we talk difference. A lack of certainty does not stop you or me from, in faith, making important contributions to the world. If that means talking difference then there is every reason for us to start to practice not losing heart and …. to keep talking.

    Br. Stephen Morris FCC

  • Going to the Places that Scare Us

    It’s not unusual for me to receive enquiries from people interested in working in the field of crime and criminal justice. They often ask with great excitement ‘what do you do?’ ‘what does your work involve?’ Their excitement often visibly diminishes when I explain:

    “It involves approaching what I find repulsive, helping the ones I think I cannot help, and going to places that scare me”.

    My explanation is spot on, truthful and does indeed reflect the reality, but they are not my words. They are me owning the wise words of Pema Chodran in exhorting us all, when faced with the chaos and darkness of life, to live more fully, more humanly and more courageously by; “Approaching what we find repulsive, helping the ones we think we cannot help, and going to the places that scare us”.

    Her words also explain my absolute admiration for all those I have worked with over the years who, despite having done terrible things and scared others in the process, are willing to go to the places that scare them. They, of all of us and Pema, know that those places are always, always, always, within ourselves.

    You don’t need to work in prison, probation, police or secure hospital and you don’t need to have committed any crime to also respond to Pema’s encouragement to, when faced with the chaos and darkness of life:

    “Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you”…. Then the task is, to see what happens.

    Br Stephen Morris fcc