Monday, September 16, 2019
Monday, September 9, 2019
Behind that perfect family picture
We've all fallen afoul of it, even before social media, the internet has just made it that more pervasive. I finally have a great family photo (mostly because I didn't try taking it myself), looking at that beautiful picture (even with me in the photo!) I can't believe that lady has such a nice, beautiful family and such a great life! Wait, that's me! Yep, it's my family and I think that lady's life (mine!) must be all sunshine and roses, but even taking that picture wasn't sunshine and roses, let alone getting to the place where our family could actually look like that! How often do each of us see something that triggers that sort of thought and the inevitable jealously and disappointment with our own lot? How often have we configured our pictures and social media content to portray the ideal life rather than being real, most especially with ourselves. Even my son's school pictures offer me the ability to pay extra to airbrush the kid, that we can remember him as he's never really looked?! Can this culture, and we ourselves, get any more feckless, insipid, shallow, and utterly focused on the externals?
Take our perfect picture for example. I just wanted a family snapshot, taken by a friend of mine with my camera. She's a photographic perfectionist and decided she'd do a mini photo session approximately 20 minutes before our husbands and sons had to leave! We trekked all over her woods, getting bit by mosquitos, my toddler crabby and uncooperative, her unsatisfied with anything so far. Finally she plopped us down on a hillside and a cat miraculously appeared over her right shoulder some 20 feet behind her, enchanting my otherwise unenthused daughter, and there it was, a family picture worth smiling about, but you wouldn't guess the trouble and effort and pure good luck that went into that shot. Nor would you think about the abuse, neglect, infertility, job loss, chronic illness, debt, adoption, and the other thousand little sorrows and tragedies behind those smiling faces, the stuff that never makes it onto facebook. We're just another smiling family that has it all together and has never suffered even a rainy day, let alone a life of struggle and pain, except there is no such thing! But if we never admit we have problems, we never have to deal with them, we never have to face the messiness that is life, yet neither can we heal and learn what it is to actually live and love.
There's nothing wrong with a nice photo, but there's everything wrong if that photo is what you've convinced yourself that your life or someone else's is. Behind those smiling faces are sleepless nights, tears, disappointments, grief, and loneliness. But we don't need to live like that, pretending we have it all together when inside we're falling apart. Forget airbrushing your life, be real, especially with yourself and allow others to do the same, that's where real friendships and relationships and love can thrive, healing those things we thought we'd carry the rest of our lives, chronic and unhealed. But it's messy, it's slow, uncomfortable, and we can't even pretend to be perfect, but that's what reality means. Our thoroughly edited virtual reality has about as much in common with real life as that airbrushed photo portrays who you are on the inside, or who you are when no one is around to make you smile on command. Let's make the real thing more interesting and three dimensional than your latest social media post; be real with yourself and others, and allow them a safe place to do the same.
Take our perfect picture for example. I just wanted a family snapshot, taken by a friend of mine with my camera. She's a photographic perfectionist and decided she'd do a mini photo session approximately 20 minutes before our husbands and sons had to leave! We trekked all over her woods, getting bit by mosquitos, my toddler crabby and uncooperative, her unsatisfied with anything so far. Finally she plopped us down on a hillside and a cat miraculously appeared over her right shoulder some 20 feet behind her, enchanting my otherwise unenthused daughter, and there it was, a family picture worth smiling about, but you wouldn't guess the trouble and effort and pure good luck that went into that shot. Nor would you think about the abuse, neglect, infertility, job loss, chronic illness, debt, adoption, and the other thousand little sorrows and tragedies behind those smiling faces, the stuff that never makes it onto facebook. We're just another smiling family that has it all together and has never suffered even a rainy day, let alone a life of struggle and pain, except there is no such thing! But if we never admit we have problems, we never have to deal with them, we never have to face the messiness that is life, yet neither can we heal and learn what it is to actually live and love.
There's nothing wrong with a nice photo, but there's everything wrong if that photo is what you've convinced yourself that your life or someone else's is. Behind those smiling faces are sleepless nights, tears, disappointments, grief, and loneliness. But we don't need to live like that, pretending we have it all together when inside we're falling apart. Forget airbrushing your life, be real, especially with yourself and allow others to do the same, that's where real friendships and relationships and love can thrive, healing those things we thought we'd carry the rest of our lives, chronic and unhealed. But it's messy, it's slow, uncomfortable, and we can't even pretend to be perfect, but that's what reality means. Our thoroughly edited virtual reality has about as much in common with real life as that airbrushed photo portrays who you are on the inside, or who you are when no one is around to make you smile on command. Let's make the real thing more interesting and three dimensional than your latest social media post; be real with yourself and others, and allow them a safe place to do the same.
Monday, August 26, 2019
Monday, August 5, 2019
Dear woke community
Are you a woker (one who is woke, have I coined a term?)?
I don't know much about the 'woke' movement, but out here in the hinterlands it seems to be a bunch of self-congratulatory people who have the 'right opinion' about all the different sorts of people and this right opinion makes them better and more wise and sensitive and kinder than everybody else, so much so that they can lecture the rest of us on our lack of wokeness. Here's my question to the wokers, with all your cultural/social sensitivity and positivity, when was the last time you were intentionally kind to another human person who was neither a good friend nor close relative? In all your sensitivity and wokeness, have you seen and addressed the needs around you? Have you comforted the mourning, listened to the anxious, encouraged the disheartened, bought a meal for the hungry, reached out in friendship to the lonely, welcomed the outcast, visited the ill...talked to someone who isn't 'woke?' Or has all your piety been in condemning those who aren't themselves enlightened?
This isn't new, though it has a different trendy name at the moment, two thousand years ago it was the Pharisees, today it the liberal, academic, and social elite who talk big about their care for the poor, the outcast, the under appreciated, the race or social minority of the moment, but who in reality have done nothing for the weak, the lonely, the needy around them. They are all 'for' the oppressed but know neither their names or true situations, but they are a champion of 'the cause!' If elected, they'll do this or that for those wretched individuals, but as a private human person, they would be hard pressed to name even a single individual of this oppressed social subclass that they have an actual relationship with or have helped with a single moment of their time or resources, but hey, they'll spend other peoples' money on any social cause that will get them elected, published, or otherwise benefit their own cause. Worse, they don't see the strange irony in treating all their 'opponents' as they insist their opponents treat the 'special' group, of whose cause they are the most outspoken social champions.
As Shakespeare was wont to say:
“Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.”
I don't know much about the 'woke' movement, but out here in the hinterlands it seems to be a bunch of self-congratulatory people who have the 'right opinion' about all the different sorts of people and this right opinion makes them better and more wise and sensitive and kinder than everybody else, so much so that they can lecture the rest of us on our lack of wokeness. Here's my question to the wokers, with all your cultural/social sensitivity and positivity, when was the last time you were intentionally kind to another human person who was neither a good friend nor close relative? In all your sensitivity and wokeness, have you seen and addressed the needs around you? Have you comforted the mourning, listened to the anxious, encouraged the disheartened, bought a meal for the hungry, reached out in friendship to the lonely, welcomed the outcast, visited the ill...talked to someone who isn't 'woke?' Or has all your piety been in condemning those who aren't themselves enlightened?
This isn't new, though it has a different trendy name at the moment, two thousand years ago it was the Pharisees, today it the liberal, academic, and social elite who talk big about their care for the poor, the outcast, the under appreciated, the race or social minority of the moment, but who in reality have done nothing for the weak, the lonely, the needy around them. They are all 'for' the oppressed but know neither their names or true situations, but they are a champion of 'the cause!' If elected, they'll do this or that for those wretched individuals, but as a private human person, they would be hard pressed to name even a single individual of this oppressed social subclass that they have an actual relationship with or have helped with a single moment of their time or resources, but hey, they'll spend other peoples' money on any social cause that will get them elected, published, or otherwise benefit their own cause. Worse, they don't see the strange irony in treating all their 'opponents' as they insist their opponents treat the 'special' group, of whose cause they are the most outspoken social champions.
As Shakespeare was wont to say:
“Foul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome; therefore I will depart unkissed.”
All of modern politics and academia has become a blame game, helping no one, merely elevating oneself by demonizing the 'other.' And as Beatrice declared, I too would depart unkissed, save that you cannot escape this noisome atmosphere save by escaping the planet by some means or other, which I am at present unable to accomplish. Perhaps if we ignored the most vitriolic of these verbal crusaders, instead of lauding them as noble heroes intent on our cause, and rather demanded that they prove their words by their actions or else remain silent, instead of throwing more money at education perhaps they could tutor kids in their own neighborhood? And can we not, each in our own little worlds, propagate kindness for those about us, whether they are of the 'special' class or not? That merely for the sake of being human, they deserve our consideration and respect, they have an innate dignity and the right to be treated with such? Kindness must begin with us, only then will we undermine the culture of hate and vitriol upon which our social leaders perch like contented vultures atop the carcass of personal virtue.
Thursday, August 1, 2019
Look back and laugh!
I was glancing through someone's adoption blog the other day, the writing dating from the time before the infamous call, when their child finally came home. She seemed rather distressed at others' use of the word 'exciting' to describe what her family was going through during the long, unpredictable wait. Being now two years out from our second placement, I am almost a little wistful about that so-called excitement. For nothing in life compares to the exhilaration of 'the call,' that moment you find out you are finally parents, it makes me almost want to go through it again, almost. But this young lady does have a very good point, while excitement is certainly a part of it, the whole experience can hardly be summed up in that word. There's so much of doubt, fear, worry, impatience, frustration, grief, and a hundred other emotions tied up with it that it is impossible to distill it down to one word.
I'm sure Frodo's flight from the Nazgul might have been considered exciting or the experience of a soldier in any given war, at least to those on the outside, those only hearing the tale; it is quite another creature altogether to actually be in the midst of it. But even our own stories come to look that way in our own remembering thereof with enough time and distance. Scripture tells us that the woman soon forgets the pain of her travail in the joy that a human being has been born into the world, and that concept applies to so many things in life, even the adoption process. During the waiting, the doubt, the fear, the what ifs, the grief, the interminability, the frustration it seems like it will never happen, that you'll never be free of this endless swamp. But whatever happens, eventually you look back and wonder what all the fuss was about, hopefully you laugh at yourself and how silly your impatience was, for in the end, the trouble was worth it, the struggle was not in vain for it was just another chapter in that great book called your life, which is but one minor volume in a great and boundless library, and that book but the introduction of an endless volume containing a story that will never end. Like the children at the end of the Narnia series, they all look back and laugh, will we? What's your story about? Are you trying to write your own or is there a vastly experienced Author penning your tale?
I'm sure Frodo's flight from the Nazgul might have been considered exciting or the experience of a soldier in any given war, at least to those on the outside, those only hearing the tale; it is quite another creature altogether to actually be in the midst of it. But even our own stories come to look that way in our own remembering thereof with enough time and distance. Scripture tells us that the woman soon forgets the pain of her travail in the joy that a human being has been born into the world, and that concept applies to so many things in life, even the adoption process. During the waiting, the doubt, the fear, the what ifs, the grief, the interminability, the frustration it seems like it will never happen, that you'll never be free of this endless swamp. But whatever happens, eventually you look back and wonder what all the fuss was about, hopefully you laugh at yourself and how silly your impatience was, for in the end, the trouble was worth it, the struggle was not in vain for it was just another chapter in that great book called your life, which is but one minor volume in a great and boundless library, and that book but the introduction of an endless volume containing a story that will never end. Like the children at the end of the Narnia series, they all look back and laugh, will we? What's your story about? Are you trying to write your own or is there a vastly experienced Author penning your tale?
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Of freckles and fecklessness
We live in a social utopia where if something bugs you (your nose, your biological sex, your name...) you can pretty much change it and be happy, happy, happy...but if we are so happy, happy, happy, why are there record levels of suicide, depression, drug use, social unrest, loneliness and the like? We're trying to update the interior by painting the outside of the house! Ask any millionaire or famous person if they're happy because of their millions or fame, the answer will likely be a resounding no, if they're happy, it is for a whole other reason. While that stuff is nice, it doesn't make us happy. Neither does swapping out some physical defect or personal accessory, redefining 'your brand' doesn't do squat for your sense of purpose, confidence, or contentment. So why do we think it does? We don't, deep down but we like pinning our hopes on something that may never happen, even if it does, we'll then pin it on something else when the first attempt fails. But why chase false hope? It hurts less. It's easier. If we can pin our happiness and dreams on something else. it isn't our fault that it never happens and we don't have to go through any uncomfortableness in the process.
Anne (of Green Gables fame) spent far more time worrying about those seven freckles on her nose and her red hair rather than learning to curb her fiery temper or learning to appreciate the real people around her rather than idealizing characters who could never exist only to be disappointed with the real thing. Elizabeth Bennet spent so much time laughing at the foibles of others that she completely overlooked her own. It isn't a new problem, it's as old as humanity, modern culture has just given us more excuses and cultural support: if you are dissatisfied with life, there must be something wrong with life or those around you, it can't be a character defect. Yep, character, that old fashioned word for who we are on the inside, who we are when nobody is looking, the part of us that has nothing to do with culture, race, sex, occupation, socioeconomic level... The part of us we can change, if we want to, the part of us that really matters, the part of us that determines our level of happiness, contentment, and meaning. But we'd rather take a pill or have surgery or do yoga or not eat certain things, it's easier that way. Easier yes, but futile. Like trying to reach the summit of a mountain by camping at the base and complaining about the weather or your arthritis or the price of rope. You may feel like you're being productive or making progress, but unless you actually make the attempt, you might as well have stayed home.
The local school district told my cousin's daughter that her alphabet soup of mental and emotional and social disorders lay at the feet of her hidden transgenderism, not in the broken home, the lack of any family support, structure, and encouragement, the indifference of all who should love and care for her. Her 'coming out' hasn't done anything for her other problems, except maybe made her even more confused, did I mention she's 12? Let's put a band-aid on a severed leg! You can't treat the mind/soul/heart/spirit of a person by focusing on the physical and material aspects, you have to treat the whole person, but you can't do that if you think we are merely chunks of flesh, born only to die. But no one save the hardest core atheistic humanists believes that, and I wonder if they even believe it at 3 in the morning, alone in the dark? We were made for so much more, but the growth and shaping is painful, it's hard, it hurts, and we, as a species, tend to be averse to pain and hard work. But would we rather sit at the base of the mountain and fuss or ascend the peak we came to climb?
You can't be happy moldering, festering, rotting as you are. Like a fertile egg, as C.S. Lewis said, "you must either hatch or go bad." We have all sorts of handy modern excuses and the support of the entire culture to simply rot, if not get worse, but we'll never be happy, content, or fulfilled that way. The only option is to grow, to change, to improve, to grow daily more like the One who made us. It isn't easy, it isn't quick, it isn't painless, but it is the only way. Our culture says 'all roads lead to all destinations' but just try that with your gps sometime; if you are trying to get to a certain place in a certain amount of time, you take the most efficient path, not cut across country, certain that this or any detour will get you there just as quick, how much more so in our lives? Both Miss Anne and Miss Elizabeth did eventually find their joy, but it was not painless or easy, and it was not without addressing their personal flaws in the interim. Will we do the same, or merely sit in base camp complaining about our lot our entire lives?
Anne (of Green Gables fame) spent far more time worrying about those seven freckles on her nose and her red hair rather than learning to curb her fiery temper or learning to appreciate the real people around her rather than idealizing characters who could never exist only to be disappointed with the real thing. Elizabeth Bennet spent so much time laughing at the foibles of others that she completely overlooked her own. It isn't a new problem, it's as old as humanity, modern culture has just given us more excuses and cultural support: if you are dissatisfied with life, there must be something wrong with life or those around you, it can't be a character defect. Yep, character, that old fashioned word for who we are on the inside, who we are when nobody is looking, the part of us that has nothing to do with culture, race, sex, occupation, socioeconomic level... The part of us we can change, if we want to, the part of us that really matters, the part of us that determines our level of happiness, contentment, and meaning. But we'd rather take a pill or have surgery or do yoga or not eat certain things, it's easier that way. Easier yes, but futile. Like trying to reach the summit of a mountain by camping at the base and complaining about the weather or your arthritis or the price of rope. You may feel like you're being productive or making progress, but unless you actually make the attempt, you might as well have stayed home.
The local school district told my cousin's daughter that her alphabet soup of mental and emotional and social disorders lay at the feet of her hidden transgenderism, not in the broken home, the lack of any family support, structure, and encouragement, the indifference of all who should love and care for her. Her 'coming out' hasn't done anything for her other problems, except maybe made her even more confused, did I mention she's 12? Let's put a band-aid on a severed leg! You can't treat the mind/soul/heart/spirit of a person by focusing on the physical and material aspects, you have to treat the whole person, but you can't do that if you think we are merely chunks of flesh, born only to die. But no one save the hardest core atheistic humanists believes that, and I wonder if they even believe it at 3 in the morning, alone in the dark? We were made for so much more, but the growth and shaping is painful, it's hard, it hurts, and we, as a species, tend to be averse to pain and hard work. But would we rather sit at the base of the mountain and fuss or ascend the peak we came to climb?
You can't be happy moldering, festering, rotting as you are. Like a fertile egg, as C.S. Lewis said, "you must either hatch or go bad." We have all sorts of handy modern excuses and the support of the entire culture to simply rot, if not get worse, but we'll never be happy, content, or fulfilled that way. The only option is to grow, to change, to improve, to grow daily more like the One who made us. It isn't easy, it isn't quick, it isn't painless, but it is the only way. Our culture says 'all roads lead to all destinations' but just try that with your gps sometime; if you are trying to get to a certain place in a certain amount of time, you take the most efficient path, not cut across country, certain that this or any detour will get you there just as quick, how much more so in our lives? Both Miss Anne and Miss Elizabeth did eventually find their joy, but it was not painless or easy, and it was not without addressing their personal flaws in the interim. Will we do the same, or merely sit in base camp complaining about our lot our entire lives?
Tuesday, July 16, 2019
Lemonade for the mind?
I think C.S. Lewis is one of the most perplexing people ever to set pen to paper. He can take these lofty and complex ideas and reduce them to simple statements using common words that anyone can understand or even make a fairy tale out of them and impart them without seeming to even try. I forgot I had a copy of 'The Four Loves,' and happily sat down to peruse it the other day. He makes it look so easy, but it must be pure magic. I'm not much of a nonfiction person, but Lewis is different, I can read anything he writes again and again. As a person who has to learn about love and relationships as one might study birds or mathematics, I found his insight upon the topic quite invaluable. But then he too was a student of the same subject so it is no surprise he knows how to write for those of us who never learned it firsthand from our families of origin. His autobiography, 'Surprised by Joy,' is a worthwhile read as well.
The first thing I noticed was how intellectually stimulating his writing is. In the world that grammar and spelling forgot, it is fun to discover words I must actually look up and literary references I must google. It is rather depressing how much our cultural intellect has atrophied in the last few decades, ugh!
The second, was how timely his writing is, or perhaps I should say timeless, as there is something that applies to every age of the world and culture, as he's dealing with issues of the human heart, which changes little between times and places, no matter our technology or customs. Personally, I found his chapter on 'Affection' most applicable to my messed up family of origin and to my husband's family issues likewise. But his chapter on 'Eros' is very timely, even more so than the day he wrote it. In a world where romantic love is everything and cannot be denied, it was refreshing to find someone who didn't think that was quite the case. It didn't work for Romeo, Lancelot, or a hundred other characters out of history and legend, why do we think it has suddenly changed? On a professional level, I think he's spot on in his diagnosis of something that has puzzled me for years: people who baby their pets to the point of inducing ill-health, physically and or mentally, in the poor, wretched creatures. You never know what you are going to find when you pick up a book written by Lewis! If your brain is feeling a little squishy or you've finally grown tired of cat videos, maybe pick up a little something to perk up your mind and enlighten your soul at the same time, enjoy!
The first thing I noticed was how intellectually stimulating his writing is. In the world that grammar and spelling forgot, it is fun to discover words I must actually look up and literary references I must google. It is rather depressing how much our cultural intellect has atrophied in the last few decades, ugh!
The second, was how timely his writing is, or perhaps I should say timeless, as there is something that applies to every age of the world and culture, as he's dealing with issues of the human heart, which changes little between times and places, no matter our technology or customs. Personally, I found his chapter on 'Affection' most applicable to my messed up family of origin and to my husband's family issues likewise. But his chapter on 'Eros' is very timely, even more so than the day he wrote it. In a world where romantic love is everything and cannot be denied, it was refreshing to find someone who didn't think that was quite the case. It didn't work for Romeo, Lancelot, or a hundred other characters out of history and legend, why do we think it has suddenly changed? On a professional level, I think he's spot on in his diagnosis of something that has puzzled me for years: people who baby their pets to the point of inducing ill-health, physically and or mentally, in the poor, wretched creatures. You never know what you are going to find when you pick up a book written by Lewis! If your brain is feeling a little squishy or you've finally grown tired of cat videos, maybe pick up a little something to perk up your mind and enlighten your soul at the same time, enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)