Traffic control systems occasionally cause me to feel a little frustrated.

It’s as if the traffic lights sense that my car is approaching and deliberately change to RED to stop me from progressing further to my destination.

As I was waiting at a set of traffic lights on my way to work earlier this week, I thought about this concept of control in the traffic light system, and how it had something to teach me about managing my own propensity to push through in situations where it would have been better to wait and think.

On Sunday, I made a resolution during Mass to tell a choir member that I was fed up with his condescending tone to me which has been irritating me in recent weeks and then I planned to go and resign from the choir.

Lovely Christian thoughts surfacing in my over-wrought mind during Mass.

But something else was at work too.

It was an inner voice of control, demanding my attention to refrain from such a course of action.

I know this second voice – it is my new-found inner control traffic system and it is my friend.

Deep down, I knew that I wanted to create a scene, to let off steam, put people in their place and alleviate the tension building up inside of me.

At the end of Mass, I went to light a few candles (a normal activity – part of my routine) and I told myself to walk as the light in my head turned GREEN.

Tonight, as I write this post, I am grateful for the control I exerted over my desire to rush through my inner traffic lights.

I am grateful that the control within me turned my inner momentum to make a situation worse, momentarily RED.

The time to think averted an embarrassing episode which by now I know I would be regretting.

The issue itself is not resolved, perhaps some words will have to be said, but perhaps they will be delivered calmly, friendlier or with humour which averts a fall out and a scene.

My next blog will be: Love or Need

William Defoe

I am in the unenviable position of being able to let you know that I failed the Advanced Level Economics paper on 5 separate occasions when I was a young man.

I think I understood the concepts of the subject, but I could not translate these into coherent responses to the questions in the exam. These skills took a little longer for me to master.

A few of the terms which I picked up in my unsuccessful study of economics have a certain resonance in my life and the term “opportunity cost” is one of them.

Opportunity cost refers to a benefit that a person could have received, but gave up, to take another course of action.

In recent years, readers of my blog will know, that I have been journeying through Integral Coaching techniques to unravel the intertwined aspects of my life which were causing me to be unhappy, unsatisfied, frustrated and in difficulty in the relationships with members of my family.

At the heart of these difficulties was the truth about my gay sexuality and its apparent incompatibility with being married.

On my journey I have come to know and love self in much deeper and life fulfilling ways, but despite the huge movement forward to a deeper, calmer life, I have been struggling to live a life which does not consummate fully my sexuality.

Throughout it all, I have wanted to maintain my marriage, and although there are ways I am sure, of having my cake and eating it, to betray my marriage vows of thirty years duration seems to me to be totally incompatible with my moral compass and values.

To put it in economic terms, the opportunity cost I have given up to remain in my marriage is the fulfillment fully of my intensely gay sexual feelings.

In recent weeks, finding time anew to think over this inner dilemma, I have found it helpful to think of my choice coming at a cost.

To have made the alternative choice would not have been cost free and would I believe have been at a cost which I am not prepared to pay.

So, despite a full and active and happy sexual life within my marriage, I experience my sexuality in its fullness in my mind through the acceptance and acknowledgement and enjoyment of it without fear or loss.

My next blog will be: Traffic Lights

William Defoe

Last weekend I dropped my adult daughter off at a major regional airport for her 7 hour flight to Abu Dhabi. She was travelling alone.

When I arrived home, I connected to a flight app which enabled me to track the movement of her plane as it left the UK over The Wash and flew over continental Europe, over Turkey, and Iran and the Gulf before arriving at her destination.

Of course, she was able to let me know that she had arrived safely and had been met at the airport by her friend.

During the week we have had an array of photographs and messages indicating the highlights of her holiday.

It is strange how when we create a physical distance between us, there is something within us which draws us closer together.

In a strange way, I have felt more connected with her during this absence than I would normally have experienced in the everyday  normality of life.

Its not that I don’t love her deeply, it is just that I am not normally so conscious of it.

The experience deep within, has somehow been forced up to the surface throughout this separation and reminded me of the enormity of my love for all my children, now grown into adults and how, despite occasional difficulties which we experience in our family, my ability to experience and demonstrate my love for them will never fade.

My next blog will be: Opportunity Cost

William Defoe

Dear Dad

There has been so much that I wanted to say to you which has remained unsaid.

In recent times, I have felt within me a necessity to hold back the things about me which, if are already known to you, are unacknowledged between us.

Sometimes when I am in your company, I feel a sense of anxiety because between us there is a gulf which I have created in response to an unmet need which I have perceived.

I have been curious in recent visits to see you, to quietly traverse that gap, to focus on you rather than me. It is the only way that I can heal the unspoken rift between us.

I see in you, a man of immense courage, deep gentleness and humility and I have come to appreciate the limits to your capacity which I have previously failed to recognise or acknowledge.

I needed a father who would confront my gay sexuality at a time when your intervention would have helped me to bear its weight, but to blame you for not doing so, as I have done, is to have missed crucially the support you have offered me in ways which you were capable of.

I have come to understand that this gulf between us, of my making, is the gap between my needs and your capacity , which were limits imposed on our relationship which were not designed by you to hurt me.

Whilst driving home from work one night last week, I experienced the very essence of you, strongly in my heart.

Of course, I felt ashamed for holding you at arms length from me, in a slightly superior way,  which had hitherto failed to credit you in my mind and heart ,for all that you have done for me.

The example you have set before me during your long life, and your many virtues of honour, faithfulness in marriage, faith, modesty, strength, gentleness, patience and above all love.

My truth unspoken will not be a gulf between us of my own making in the time we have left, be it long or short, rather it will be accommodating in experiencing your life as a gift from which my own life has its origins and its onward path.

My next blog will be: Flight App

William Defoe

Last Friday, a male colleague finding that we were alone at our desks asked me about my faith in God.

His question surprised me, because although it is widely known that I am a practising Roman Catholic, I rarely discuss my faith at work.

He said to me, “Did you never have any doubts about the existence of God?”

In response, I told him about a row I had with my mother in 1978 when I was 14 years old.

In the argumentative exchange between us, I told my mother that I would not be going to Mass tomorrow – the ultimate and most daring rebuke to her imaginable – or so I thought.

The following day, being Sunday, I remember walking past a launderette on the way to Mass and suddenly remembering that I was supposed to be boycotting Mass.

I stood in the street for a few moments and I recall thinking, you’re not going to Mass for her (I wasn’t very nice in those days!) I was going for myself.

I told him of a second particular moment when, aged about forty in 2004, I drove to Mass and as I pulled up, I had this very strong feeling of faith.

I recall sitting outside my place of worship that I have attended all my life, and saying aloud in the car to myself “this is it, there is no need to struggle in matters of faith, I am a believer.”

In recent years I have had to come to terms with my gay sexuality  – this I did not disclose to my colleague – but I have to my wife and to you, my dear readers of this blog.

There was a time during my journey to fully know and accept and love self when I wanted to keep God out of it.

I didn’t lose faith, but I loosened its hold on me.

I needed to explore intimately the person who is me, and to do that I needed space.

I have come to realise that when I suffer, it is often because my mind is closed in.

My anguish and isolation and fear is manifest in my emotional state because my focus is too narrow, and that to liberate myself from those feelings I need to think expansively.

I think that my belief in God is  a sign of infinity – my infinite faith.

I told my colleague, I could flip a coin tomorrow and say “there is no God” but I choose to live in a state of mind big enough to include my infinite faith.

I think this approach, which is underpinned by my deep love for Jesus Christ and my firm belief in His Divinity, His Passion and His Resurrection, is a way of being in the world bodily, emotionally, intelligently and spirituality, and is a sign for me, of the greatest possible expansiveness that I can bring to my truth.

My next blog will be: Letter to My Dad

William Defoe

This time last year a 20 year old male friend of my daughters died in tragic circumstances.

My daughter was telling me that a school re-union which she had attended recently, her friend was sorely missed and quite a few tears were shed once more at his absence.

A favourite song of her friend was played and my daughter told me that after the tears and hugs and conversation she wanted to enjoy the song, but it was not possible because one of her friends wanted to continue crying and hugging and reminiscing.

I was struck by how each individual deals with loss and separation differently.

The song being played had provoked a response in my daughter to be quiet, to listen and to reflect, whilst for another the song had provoked more tears, more need for conversation, more despair.

Of course, each response to a vehicle for memory, on this occasion a song played at a disco, is valid and right for the individuals involved.

The difficulty arises when there is a clash of approach to handling our grief and our memories and our respect and love for those whom we have loved and lost.

My daughter, put her arms around her friend and listened more to what she had to say. In that moment, she said, although I wanted to enjoy the song and be still, her need was greater for comfort and support.

I haven’t always being able to defer my own needs for those of another, but this empathy and groundedness displayed by my daughter towards her friend reminded me of what a beautiful gift it must be, to be able to respond from that place.

My next blog will be: Infinite Faith

William Defoe

I am a member of a church choir.

Sometimes when I am singing a hymn, my eye will be drawn to the hymns which are located before and after the hymn which we are currently singing.

It seems strange to me to see a Christmas Hymn next to a Lenten Hymn or an Easter Hymn.

Wouldn’t it be better, I muse, if the hymns were placed in seasonal order and this way my hymn book would not look so randomly organised as to make it appear out of order.

Of course, I then remember that my hymn book is ordered in the alphabetic sequence of the first line of each hymn.

There is within it, an inherent logic and an organised approach to the order in which the hymns are prioritised in the hymn book.

This craving for order in my life, at times, is illustrated well in the fact that sometimes what seems out of order and following a path of no apparent logic, can be ordered in our minds if we pay attention and give enough thought to the pattern of our lives.

The logic for me in craving an organised life, is that the apparently competing elements of my life, which demand my time and attention, need to be given a focus in their turn to allow them to have a context which is balanced and reasonable.

My next blog will be: She Wanted To Enjoy The Song

William Defoe

Last Friday evening I went to see an amateur production of “Fiddler on the Roof”.

I was drawn to the theme of the importance of tradition, particularly within religious communities.

The daughters of Tevye (a hard working, but poor Jewish milkman), in their turn seem to spurn the tradition within the community that it is the matchmaker who arranges a marriage, and the father who accepts the arrangement.

His first daughter, has secretly planned to marry a tailor and pleads with her father to retract his promise for her to marry the butcher. Tevye loves his daughter and compromises his view of tradition to accept his daughters plea.

His second daughter falls in love with a revolutionary, and he tells Tevye that they are to be married. Tevye loves his daughter and compromises his view of tradition and gives his permission for the marriage despite not having being asked for it.

His third daughter falls in love with an Orthodox Christian and this situation creates such conflict with his view of tradition, that Tevye cannot accept it, however, as the family prepare to leave their village, forced out by ethnic hatred, he utters a blessing “God be with you” to his estranged daughter.

I was moved by the conflict which tradition can bring between the generations and particularly moved by the example of this poor faithful man to put love above tradition.

The choices which my own adult children have made, have come at a price which for a long time, I could not accept, but which I have learned through coaching and quiet reflection and prayer to accept.

My mother said to me when she heard that my daughter had chosen to live with a man rather than to marry what I thought of the situation – in other words, what was I going to do about it?

I turned to her and I told her “I am going to accept it, because to reject it would be to risk alienating my relationship with my daughter and drive a wedge between us.

So, Tevye, like me respects tradition, but is prepared to put love above all else.

My next blog will be : Hymn Book

William Defoe

I’ve been giving some thought, in response to a recent comment on my post “Problem Solving” from a very much appreciated supporter of my journey to know and love self.

Here is a scenario which has played out in my life recently.

X is very enjoyable and good for me, but it involves and requires the tacit support and inclusion of another person.

Y is also enjoyable, it has a very similar outcome to X, and it does not have the tacit support of another person or the inclusion of another person.

Z is me, accepting who I am and looking for ways to be present in the world, less isolated and fearful.

In recent months, gaining the support of another person for X has been complicated and difficult.

It has been easier to reach for the solution called Y, but this has had a very destructive effect on my well-being, and it has become a problem which has caused me to feel unhappy, with low moods and ashamed.

The person who needs to help me with X is very aware of Y and feels hurt at this substitute solution, which although I acknowledge its existence, I will not give a running commentary.

In recent weeks, I began to feel that it would be easier to give up on X and accept Y as being a reflection of being Z, but this potential solution was unlikely to provide any sense of lasting happiness, unless I made a decision to leave all possibility of X behind me for good.

In a very lucid moment in my life, after weeks of reflection I came to a resolution to invest all my energy in exclusively pursuing X.

This, is on the face of it, is a much harder choice to make, but ultimately this course of action keeps me close to another person, and in place of sorrow and despair with Y, there is a sense of hope and fulfillment and an end to isolation and fear.

This choice, means that there is a risk that Z, the person I am, is not fully integrated into the solution of X, so in the absence of Y, I was concerned that I would not be able to sustain my chosen course of action.

I decided to consult the other person involved in X  and I explained the reason I had chosen X and how it was my intention to fulfill my sense of  self as Z in other less destructive ways  – softer, less intense ways which, through the expansion of my capacity to be all I want to be in the world, does not come at the expense of my happiness or any other person connected with me.

So, this blog is saying, I have chosen a tougher course in X, which needs the love and support of another who understands the choice I have made in giving up destructive Y, and in the solution I have not lost my identity as Z.

My next blog will be: Tradition

William Defoe

Whilst out jogging a few weeks ago, in the early morning darkness before day break, I became alert to the presence of a strong parfum as a woman walked passed me in the opposite direction.

I could not see her, in the morning twilight, but her strong parfum drifted on ahead of me for quite sometime alerting me to her presence in the world.

I am intrigued by how all our senses connect us to our inner and outer life.

I am not an island, I am connected, and I am connected through all my senses to others.

I am embarrassed to think that the woman passing by me with her strong parfum, whilst I was running, was possibly alerted to the less pleasant strong parfum of my bodily sweat as I ran passed her.

This image in my mind of being able to leave a scent, which is so important in the animal world, makes me appreciate my sense of smell, because at a very basic level it is a sense of utter truth and at an intellectual level, my sense of smell is romantic and creative.

The knowledge that we leave our mark on the world as we pass through is important in a whole life sense, because it helps to give a purpose to our existence and the causes we involve ourselves in during our life.

The knowledge that we leave our mark on the world as we pass through, is important in a present sense, because it helps us to consider, in the moment or in reflective practice, the  impact of our actions on those who come into daily contact with us.

My next blog will be:  X and Y and Z

William Defoe