Set in the hearts of men

Lately I've run across several comments or articles on social media written by adoptees or adoptive parents about a common theme: the adopted person's search for wholeness in their biological roots.  There was the article about adopted Korean children going back to Korea and finding they had no place in that society.  There were cries of many an angst ridden teen who felt the key to their identity and future lies in their genetic past.  What I find interesting about this yearning, this longing, this feeling that things are not right, that I don't fit in or belong here, is that it isn't just an adoption issue.  What these uneasy young people are missing is the fact that everyone feels that way, not just children with non-biological parents.  I'm not saying that adopted children don't have a unique set of circumstances to deal with, but rather this anguished cry of the longing heart isn't peculiar to the adoption community but wrings the heart of every single human soul.

Look at the popular films of our age.  In 'Dances with Wolves' and 'The Last Samurai' we find this longing is fulfilled only by forsaking the modern culture into which one was born and embracing a different, seemingly more enlightened or peace-loving culture.  In 'Avatar' we discover that it is not even a particular culture that is the problem but rather humanity as a whole, thus the only way to find our place is to abandon not only our culture but our species as well.  It is the same for the adopted child: if I am unhappy in my current circumstances, I must find fulfillment in my biological roots, only to discover that their genetic parents are just as ordinary and unfulfilling as their adoptive parents, both being merely human.  Others, especially young women, look to romance to fulfill them, only to find a love interest or spouse isn't the key for that particular lock.  It may be career, success, family, fortune, fame, or a million other good and worthy pursuits that we look to to make us whole, to complete and fulfill us, to give us meaning and purpose, but nothing satisfies.  After the initial excitement wears off, we yet find that unquenchable longing still there and our hearts more bitter and jaded than ever, until we give up in despair and become so cynical and toxic that life is miserable indeed, not only for ourselves but for all those around us.

If nothing in the physical world can satisfy, if there is an answer, it must lie in the metaphysical, philosophical, or spiritual realm.  Apparently new age spirituality/the occult is gaining popularity again as people desperate for that answer begin turning over old stones that our modern scientific age has long scoffed at, but when the modern scientists repeatedly tell us that we're all one big cosmic accident and nothing matters, it is no surprise our meaning hungry souls begin to look elsewhere for more satisfying answers.  The problem with 'spirituality' is that it is as ill-defined and vacuous as the concept of 'truth' in our post-modern-life is whatever you want it to be age.  Sure, you can have your 'spirituality' like your favorite coffee or burger: exactly the way you want it, but that just makes it another shallow consumer good that is ingested and leaves us hungry and unfulfilled a few hours later; it doesn't give answers to life's greatest questions or fill the longing depths of our soul.  Sort of like going to a rock concert and feeling connected and exhilarated for a few hours, only to get in the car, tired and overstimulated, for a long, lonely drive home or being the one left alone to clean up after the party/wedding/graduation.

So what is the answer, if it isn't in science or relationships or success or foggy spirituality?  Is there an answer?  Why would there be this longing if it didn't have a fulfillment?  Hunger or thirst would be rather odd sensations if we had neither food nor drink to fulfill them or a biological need to have them fulfilled.  It is a spiritual thirst, a metaphysical identity crisis that afflicts each and every one of us.  We may mistake it for a need for more money, a better house, a nicer car, or the latest tech or the longing for a relationship or a job or whatever, but deep down it is 'deep crying out to deep,' the very deeps of our soul crying out to the deepest things in and beyond creation.  There is a Living Water to quench this divine thirst, One who promises to give rest to the weary, and a very Father to the orphan.  We are all of us orphans, we are all searching for our true Parent, in this we are all adoptees, longing for our true Home.  And there is One to whom we can each cry, 'Abba, Father!'  

Parenting in context

"For this child I have prayed."

It's cute, it's catchy, it's a Bible quotation, what could be better?  This little verse is very popular amongst the Christian adoption/infertility community, at least as judged by Pinterest.  I certainly understand the sentiment, having sojourned in that valley myself, but I think they need to finish the statement.  It's a little like the Noah's ark themed nursery decor or putting 'Goodnight Sweet Prince' on your nursery wall: good intentioned cuteness but when taken in the original context, probably not a great choice for the nursery.  Sure, we all love the cutesy animals but that's not the point of Noah's story, rather we so often overlook the cataclysmic judgement on widespread wickedness that had so corrupted the world that only 8 people could be found upon the whole face of the earth who still kept the faith.  And in our SIDS obsessed culture, I'm not sure putting the last words spoken to the dying Hamlet on your little prince's wall would be a great idea.  And then there's the much celebrated Jane Austen ten pound note being released in the UK, except the quote on the pleasure of reading, though nice, is spoken by a jealous Caroline Bingley, who has absolutely no interest in reading except as a tool that might win a little of Mr. Darcy's attention, perhaps Miss Austen might find it amusingly ironic but it is rather disappointing to her numerous fans who otherwise might be rather excited about this honor for their favorite authoress.

So what is the mysterious context of this particular snippet?  We must go all the way back to the story of Hannah in the Old Testament, before David and the Kings, back at the tail end of the period of the Judges in Israel.  Hannah is barren and miserable, though her husband is supportive and accepting of their infertility, he just doesn't get her misery.  One day she is sitting outside the temple praying in such anguish of heart that she is actually chastised for public drunkenness.  But her prayers are heard and eventually she has several children, the first becomes a great Prophet called Samuel.  Here is the whole quotation:

"For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him. Therefore I have lent him to the Lord. As long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord." I Samuel 1:27-28.

This faithful little mother, so desperate for a child, then gives the miraculous answer to her most desperate prayer back to God.  How many that quote the first have the heart to do the whole?  But then is it not the duty of every parent to do just that?  For every child is a gift of God, no matter how easy or difficult was the conception or adoption.  They are not ours to keep, but rather a trust to guard and shepherd into the purposes and plans destined for them ere the stars were lit.  So be bold, parents, pray for a child, but be certain to raise them in context.

Hold it loosely

In a culture that idolizes fame, power, and material wealth, happiness and contentment via any other means is almost impossible to comprehend.  When we act only out of a hope of personal gain or out of fear of accruing shame or guilt, then our misery is assured.  The celebrities aren't happy, those who have attained the pinnacle of our society's definition of success, if judged by their rate of substance abuse, suicide, divorce, and other signs of personal and relational stress and dysfunction.  How much less are the masses, ever in desperate pursuit of this so-called success, ever to be happy?  Is life simply a meaningless striving before an infinite nothingness as the secular humanists would have us believe?  Is there no other option but pointless misery and then death?  Is there a way to fix things?

The good news is that it isn't yours to fix.  Our society glorifies ownership as the highest good, but we were not made to be owners, but are rather stewards.  Yes, we don't reap the glories of ownership but neither do we incur the stress, cost, and worry of being the big boss, the one who must pay or suffer when the market drops or disaster happens, the one left holding the bag when everything collapses.  We are given a physical body, a personality, skills and talents and interests, relationships, and the material necessities to make it through each day and those necessary to accomplish whatever tasks that are required of us.  Anything more is beyond our scope, interest, and abilities and reaching for it only leads to depression, burn out, pride, and ultimately failure and misery.  'Ye can be gods,' said the Serpent, and our forebears reached out and took the forbidden, and indeed we became gods: the gods of Ancient Greece and Rome, of Babylon and Canaan.  Unhappy, wretched, unscrupulous, capricious, fallen gods.

Then God became Man, the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us.  When man wanted to be God, the only remedy was for God to become Man.  We face the same choice as those in that ancient garden: will we abide within our appointed sphere, content to 'work and keep it,' or will we reach for the forbidden and ruin it all?  That ancient serpent promises happiness, our culture whispers the same, but of all those who have taken that fatal bite, none have yet tasted the promised nectar, finding only a bitter and wormy apple as a reward while their world collapses around them.  Let it go, whatever it is.  No material thing or human relationship is the answer to your problems or current misery.  Only by letting go can we potentially keep it.  Lose your life to find it, lose the world to inherit heaven.

Abraham trudged grimly up a hill, seemingly to destroy a miracle and decimate a promise, but up he went only to discover a greater miracle still.  In giving up his son, he kept both the son and the promise.  God gave up His son too, for us, but that Son was not spared at the last moment and we are the inheritors of that promise, the greatly blessed, though not of our own doing.  We didn't pay the Price, for we aren't the Owners.  We are called to shepherd Another's sheep, tend Another's vines, mind Another's store.  Your children aren't yours, neither is your body, your house, your car, your bank account.  You are born with nothing and nothing follows you beyond the grave, just your own naked soul which will one day give an account of how you used all that was given into your keeping. Will you find a proud and smiling Father on that Day, or a grim and severe Master, disappointed in your poor stewardship?

Put down the phone and pick up the shovel

If the nineties were cool, our current cultural atmosphere seems to be ruled by equal parts fear and anger.  We're all afraid to say the wrong thing and make someone else angry which in turn makes us angry...world without end.  I ran across this article about a new book addressing this very problem and I hope it will help people see the world we've created for ourselves and that each of us will do what we can to resolve it.  It has nothing to do with fixing someone else or changing someone else's viewpoint, rather, as the book urges, we must each look at ourselves and ask, 'how am I contributing to the problem and what can I do to change that?'  I think that's what the whole problem boils down to: we're all angry about something, blaming 'it' for our current disappointments and frustrations in life, somehow thinking that if 'it' was resolved to our liking or had been different, life would be far better.  So we hop on the internet and complain about 'it' hither and yon, until we've plastered our comments all over cyberspace from the trendiest site to the most obscure blog, while we may feel a sort of satisfaction, grim and cold as that may be, we really haven't done anything to resolve the actual problem and we're still miserable, so we complain some more.

What is this dreadful 'it' that has ruined so many lives?  It varies dramatically between individuals.  For my sister-in-law, she thinks the current presidential administration is the key to solving her problems and anyone who thinks otherwise is held in utmost contempt (like us).  For the insecure mothers among us, it could be diapers or breastfeeding or vaccines or organic or whatever, somehow feeling that shaming and bitterly criticizing how other parents do things somehow justifies your own parenting choices.  For my father it was his parents, they never gave him enough money or did X or Y that would have made his life better.  For some it is 'saving the planet,' and those of us who don't live in tiny houses or walk everywhere are little better than Hitler.  For others it is food: pick your trendy diet or avoid certain ingredients or only eat things from a certain source and all other ways of eating are completely unethical and amoral.  It can be anything, absolutely anything you are or aren't from race, gender, neighborhood, religion, money, politics, a rock band, a TV show or movie, family of origin, favorite color or pizza topping...anything that serves as the great excuse as to why your life isn't what you want it to be.  Anything you use to belittle or judge or criticize others to elevate your own value or blame for your current less than ideal circumstances is 'it.'  And everybody has one or more lurking under the bed or in the back closet, just waiting to leap out at an opportune moment.

But the truth is life isn't great or ideal, ever, for anybody.  It doesn't matter who you are, what you do, what you have (or don't), where you live, or what you like, life is hard, period.  Just look at celebrity culture if you think money or fame or success is going to make you happy: addictions, broken relationships, ruined lives, misery...  Sure, you can spend your whole life blaming your parents or the divorce or the adoption or your education (or lack thereof) or an addiction or some group of 'other' people that make it impossible for you to accomplish your dreams, but does that actually help you?  No, all it might accomplish is making others afraid or angry or discouraged when we lash out at them in frustration at our own wretchedness.  It isn't their fault, so let's leave 'them' out of the argument for a moment.  All this negativity does nothing but add to the seething mass of hatred and uncertainty already drowning our world and only furthers our own misery.  What can we do then?

Instead of lashing out against 'them,' let's turn inward and focus on ourselves for a moment.  Why are you angry, frustrated, discontent, or bitter?  Stop, falling back on 'it' as your go-to excuse won't resolve anything.  Dig past the obvious and get down deep, into the very knot in your soul.  It's tender, it hurts, that's why we instinctively lash out at others when they get too close, like an injured dog snapping at anyone who gets too near the wounded leg, even if they are trying to help.  Gently, gently, no judgement, no shame, just dig, dig, dig, and it may take a while.  We tend to bury it deep, shroud it in darkness and mist and obscurity, so much so we don't even know it's an issue.  We've all been hurt, we all carry some secret sorrow or shame, but we're all so busy pointing fingers that we don't understand we're all wounded and should be helping one another heal instead of wounding each other further.  What is it?  Bring it out into the light in all its ugly glory and let it go.  No, not forget it, acknowledge it but no longer let it hold sway over all your thoughts and actions.  Begin to heal, far easier said than done, but it is possible.  But it takes work, patience, and honesty.  Be gentle with yourself, and with everyone else too, they hurt just as much, they just don't realize it.

And someday, no matter how much it hurts now or in the interim, you will find Joy again.  Need some encouragement?  Go read Jane Eyre or Anne of Green Gables or Mansfield Park or Les Miserables or Lord of the Rings, wherein the main characters face external circumstances that range from the uncomfortable to the horrific, yet each understands, though often through much personal struggle, that it is who we are and the strength of our character that determines our happiness rather than our history or lot in life.  Bashing others over the head won't make us happy, it only makes them miserable too, so instead, let's bash our own secret sorrows, disappointments, injustices, and shortcomings over the head with all the vim we once used to scathe our 'enemies.'

Another author to read?

I've never read any Flannery O'Conor but this article makes me quite eager to do so!

In the dog house

"Let them own dogs..." was the astonishing statement from Ms. Antoinette before she was made to pay the ultimate price for her heartless remark by the maddened hoard of infertile women.  Yes, my history is a bit revisionistic, not that many amid the tech generations would notice or care how badly I abused and manipulated historical fact to fit my own designs.  But it is a question that has puzzled me of late, not fake news and revisionist history, that would be too timely and prominent a topic to discuss on this blog reserved solely for obscure philosophical maunderings, but rather the role of dogs in society.  Stay your giddiness and warm fuzzies, we are not discussing the various merits and anthropomorphic characteristics attributed (fairly or not) to our canine companions, rather this modern notion that dogs are people, or even better than people, has been one that puzzles me significantly.  Don't get me wrong, dogs are wonderful and amazing creatures, but they are not people.  They are not a substitute for children, friendships, or good human society.  But why are so many determined that dogs and people should be interchangeable, at least on a social level?

Yes, in your theoretical vacuum inspired by cute animated stories and heartwarming CG marvels, even a pig could be good company, but then in that happy land everybody can sing and dance and the sun always shines and the bad guy always loses.  But that is not real life and no matter how many Disney flicks you imbibed as a child, I think on some level, everyone knows that to be fundamentally true.  But why does it persist?  Why do childfree couples expound upon their dogs the way society used to extol their children: complete with birthday parties, doggie spas and day care, cutting edge medical treatment, specialty foods, adoption/birth announcements and showers, countless pictures on social media...  But none of it is real, it doesn't mean anything; in the end it is all shallow, vapid, and short lived.  The dog doesn't care, he's as happy eating roadkill as that Organic Caribou and Tibetan Leeks diet you special order from those monks that hand mix each batch according to some ancient secret recipe handed down from heaven ere the worlds were made.  The owner (pet parent, really?!) might get a short lived thrill out of it, and there's nothing wrong with having a little innocent fun, but to obsess about your dog the way others obsess about their children (which also isn't healthy for either the kids or the parents but that's a whole other topic) and insisting that the whole world care likewise is the epitome of self-indulgence.

And that might be the answer right there.  Dogs shape themselves quite naturally to our personalities, behaviors, expectations, and treatment of them, in effect we create them in our own image, whereas children and people in general tend to have wills of their own which will inevitably conflict with our own.  Dogs are the easy way out.  You can kennel a dog, sell a dog, breed more dogs, train your dog to do whatever, and even euthanize your dog if necessary (no I am not advocating for human euthanasia!) but you can't do that to a child, spouse, boss, friend, neighbor, or parent, no matter how tempting, rather you must deal with the conflict and resolve it in a way that accounts for the wellbeing of all involved.  We've become such a culture of 'have it your way' that we even want our children to be as we want them rather than as they are, and in lieu of this or in fear of it, we forgo having kids and substitute 'fur children' or avoid actual human relationships in favor of our pets, it is so much easier that way but far less rewarding.  Our focus is inward on our pets, they adore us and we enjoy them, we become small and insular.  Other people annoy us, frustrate us, challenge us, humble us, they force us to grow and look outside ourselves.  The love of a good dog is a wonderful thing, but to conflate it with the relationships between people is to diminish the value of both.  Let's have our dogs and people too!

A tale worth the hearing?

My favorite stories are full of people doing the hard thing, the right thing, of sticking to the right and the good and the true even when the road seems impossible and the personal cost staggering: Jane Eyre's flight into the night, Jean val Jean turning himself in to spare a man wrongly condemned in his place, Rebecca and Ivanhoe parting ways amidst a budding romance, Elizabeth Bennet spurning her presumptuous suitors, the astonishing conclusion to a 'Tale of Two Cities,' Sam and Frodo plodding hopelessly into Mordor, Luke Skywalker taking on the Empire, when God became man to pay a debt He did not owe...to quote Sam (from the movie):

"It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the ending, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened. But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr Frodo, I do understand... I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only the didn't. They kept going, because they were holding onto something...

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's some good in this world, Mr Frodo... And it's worth fighting for."

Society once held that there was such a thing as right and wrong, a standard of goodness and truth apart from any individual, cultural, or national preferences, opinions, or ideas.  Now everything is relative, based on individual inclinations, emotions, or whims at some particular moment, do what feels good or seems right to you and everybody will just get along fine...until my whims interfere with yours and then we have anarchy.  And though our cultural mood seems to say there is no truth or right or wrong, practically however this is ridiculous, imagine how you would feel if I just happen to help myself to your $100 you left sitting there, because obviously if it makes me happy I should do it, not that it makes you very happy, but hey, there is no wrong, right?  Right and wrong, moral truth, and virtue have not changed, merely our cultural observance of them.  Perhaps that is why all the stories have died.  I have yet to find a modern author that can captivate me like those who wrote the tales above.  And our modern storytelling venue, the movie, has not only fallen flat on its face but continues to sink into the murky depths of the fen it now occupies with each passing year: remakes, obscure comic book characters, sequels and prequels galore...not one good, memorable story in the bunch.  Why?

We do what's easy rather than what's right.  We must have things now (on credit) rather than saving and working and earning to own it later.  Our consumer mentality has infected not only our moral lives but our stories as well.  Sam's right, the tales worth telling and remembering are the ones where the characters stick it out through the good and bad, doing what they know is right rather than what's convenient or expedient.  Will our own tales be worth remembering someday?