Detour!

I am minded of a scene in the live action version of 'Beauty and the Beast,' wherein Belle's father is trying to find the castle again and mulling over a certain tree, originally a lightning strike knocked it over, forcing him down a path he didn't want to take, but now it was again strangely upright.  How many times does lightning strike in our lives to force us down the path we should go but which we'd rather not tread?  This is not to say that every negative event in our lives is of this sort, we live in a fallen and broken world after all, evil and suffering are an innate part of our lives, but there are certain events seemingly hardwired into our story or at least sent to push us in the direction we must go, and in the end, they turn out to be a blessing, if not for us, then certainly for others.

A misplaced college application (on their side) prevented me from going to the school I was determined to attend, forcing me to go to another school that turned out to be exactly what I needed for many, many reasons.  I showed up for a tour and they had no idea who I was and it was well past the date required to qualify for financial aid; the other school had given me a very good scholarship, it was closer, and much, much smaller and very well respected in my field of interest.  So I went and it turned out to be an excellent choice.

I had a friend who was getting married and they were having a little celebration for the happy couple.  I didn't want to go, I was busy, socially awkward...I got kidnapped by another friend who wouldn't take no for an answer and met my future husband there.

I was engaged and ready to graduate from graduate school in a couple months.  I needed a job close to by future husband's place of employment.  I knew I should send out resumes to every business of that sort within an easy drive, but I was rather embarrassed and nervous to do just that.  Instead, I drove all over the countryside interviewing at half a dozen places which were hiring, none of which were even thinkable as options, but I thought I knew better!  Finally hitting a wall, I did what I should have from the first (thus saving myself much time, effort, and money!) and the next thing I knew there was a message on my answering machine wanting to do an interview at a place just half an hour from where my fiancé worked.

We were thinking about having kids, but recently I had started taking a particular medication for a genetic condition, the side effects of which prevented us from even thinking about biological children.  We immediately started the adoption process, bypassing all the pain and heartache and lost years of infertility that we otherwise would have gone through before doing just that.

I became something of a workaholic, I had a ton of student loans to pay back, my job required fifty plus hours a week, not including being on-call, and I had been raised to think that if I just worked hard enough someone might love me (it didn't work by the way).  It was difficult manual labor at all hours, often outdoors in dreadful weather (winter lasted a minimum of 6 months).  The aforementioned medication along with the stress of my job and childhood abuse triggered a nameless inflammatory disease.  I was sore all the time, everything hurt, I had no energy, even sleeping 10 hours a day, and I could hardly eat anything without it upsetting my gut, but still I pushed myself, determined to do what I thought was my duty, even if it killed me.  I was a zombie at home, no help to my husband and baby son.  Then my job went south, nine months later I was unemployed, living with my in-laws wondering what was next.  Three weeks later we were living in another state, I was a stay-at-home mom, and my husband was working full-time in his profession.  I got off the medication and my stress load dropped by 90%.  Bam!, I was a person again, while I'm still not free of my disease, I can at least function in daily life and I've never been happier.  We've since adopted again and I've been able to start healing emotionally from all the junk I lived through as a kid.

What sort of roadblocks have you run against that turned out to be blessings in disguise?

The Few, the Brave, the Eaters of Tripe?

We've all been there, having to endure a lecture or awkward question or skeptical attitude when facing someone who doesn't happen to agree with a situation we're in or a decision we've made.  Whether it is Great Aunt Mildred nagging you about your singleness at a family gathering or that annoying guy at work that still can't believe you vaccinate your kids or the neighbor that is convinced anyone who isn't a vegan is a cannibal or the nosy lady behind you in the checkout line interrogating you about the items in your cart.  It is uncomfortable and annoying and awkward, especially upon certain personal and sensitive topics, worse if there was one word to describe our fractured and insane  societal mentality of the day, it just might be Justification.

From our choice in cat litter to colleges, hairstyle to gender transition, we feel that everything must be weighed in the court of public opinion before embracing it, as if every busybody on social media or in the marketplace is suddenly an expert and a judge, all rolled into one.  We can't simply make a decision and stick with it, rather we hem and haw, make vague excuses and go with the flow, anything rather than to be found wanting in some aspect of social awareness.  We can only chew organic, free range, culturally approved gum.  We have to pretend to like whatever unpronounceable concoction the guy on TV recommends because obviously his taste is the only one that matters.  It's a phenomenon as old as humanity, though never has it been so readily available and publicly painful with the advent of social media and the 24-7 internet and TV services: the court of public opinion now never sleeps.  We have also all become experts in everything, thanks to our magical phones and the internet, so obviously we should have a say in everyone else's decisions, no matter how little we understand their circumstances or know them personally.

But why do we feel the need to justify everything?  Why do we feel the need to do the popular thing rather than what is right or what we personally prefer?  We want to fit in, feel comfortable, feel accepted, not stick out except in those socially acceptable ways that mark our individuality, say the breed of our dog or the color of our hat or the maker of our shoes.  And we wonder why our lives are dull, colorless, and void of meaning!  How could it be different when we are all sheep, except some have green hats and others have pink?  Oh for a little uniqueness!  As Screwtape so nicely put it, "I have known a human defended from strong temptations to social ambition by a still stronger taste for tripe and onions."  Now there is a man firm in his faith, or at least in his digestion!

Are we willing to stand against the flow, step out of the crowd, go against the grain?  It is the only way to be unique, to be an individual, to be remembered, but it may well be in infamy and disgust, yet are we willing to pay such a price to be truly ourselves? 

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few."

Lost in the Dark of Enlightenment

When I consider how my light is spent, 

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide, 

And that one Talent which is death to hide 

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent 

To serve therewith my Maker, and present 

My true account, lest he returning chide; 

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?” 

I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent 

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need 

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best 

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state 

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed 

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest: 

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

~Sonnet 19: John Milton~

I ran across this poem while reading an article on living with a chronic disease.  I never learned much about poetry in school, my English teachers (or more likely the overseers of the curriculum) thought a heavy emphasis on Modern Lit and Higher Criticism were of much more benefit to our mental development; it must have worked because everybody on social media now has an opinion about everything and each and every one of them is right and Heaven help you if you think to tell them otherwise.  I guess from that vantage point, this poem can mean exactly what you want it to, but then what is the point of writing, poetry, stories, or anything at all?  If I'm just discovering something I already know, of what benefit is that to me or anyone else?  But if I take it as a meditation by Milton on his recently acquired blindness and what that means for the work he intended to do for God's glory, it might actually mean something after all.

But then this is also the age wherein we tell God who/what He/She/They is or is not and what said deity will do for us including the when and the how.  And when that doesn't happen, we simply declare God irrelevant, if not a fairy tale, and move on with our more enlightened lives.  Do we even have the mental capacity to understand a poem like this?  I did google the poem and came across the wikipedia entry, which had nothing under 'meaning' except to mention the Talent mentioned was referencing the Biblical parable of the Talents, not Milton's ruined tap-dancing career.  Wikipedia hardly ever shies away from explaining everything else, but here we have perhaps one of the most famous sonnets from a renowned poet and yet there is silence?  I am hoping their silence only means they do not wish to give students an easy answer for their poetry homework, but I fear it is simply more higher criticism: they can't give a meaning because only you can do that because their meaning wouldn't be right for you and therefore it would be wrong, or at least grievously insensitive to you the reader.  What about Milton?

The poor man has lost his sight and now an entire civilization is losing its mind!  He wrote this sonnet for a reason and that reason is lost upon modern readers.  We who can tell poets what their poetry really means and God who He is and expect Him to take us seriously: the pot telling the potter who to be!  Milton suffered a mild case of hubris, thinking he could do anything great for God that God could not do for Himself or one of His thousands of other servants couldn't do better, sighted or not.  We treat God as the servant and think Him blind when He fails to do our bidding.  Creatures of dust believing the ancient lie that 'ye can be gods!'  But today we don't even question it, rather we question a master poet and tell him what he means.  Though blind, Milton could truly see, we are the ones who grope in darkness and know it not.  

Happily ever after!

It is true folks, it isn't just a fairy tale, well I guess it is, but it's a true fairy tale!  Here is a most excellent description.