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?

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!

An orphan indeed

I thought I had one remaining member of my family of origin who wasn't completely hopeless as a human being, either giving up and entombing their heart away from the painfulness of messy relationships or becoming a social parasite sucking the life and being out of unwitting friends and family, but I don't.  I finally figured out my last remaining sibling is a narcissist, I've ignored the symptoms, hoping maybe he could change, had escaped my family's legacy, but alas for his family, it just isn't so.  As a teen I'd ponder who might come to my funeral and actually be sad, let's just say my dance card was empty.  I consider that scenario anew, a whole lifetime later, and while there are actually people on the list now, not a single one is a biological relative.  It's something my heart has known forever but which my mind is still trying to wrap itself around: I'm truly an orphan, biologically speaking anyway.

There's a passage in scripture where Jesus says if you don't 'hate' your father and mother, and follow Him, you can in nowise be His.  The hate actually means 'to love less,' He isn't advocating hatred by any means, but that you must love Him more than your parents or anyone else.  Some people struggle with that, I never have.  What's it like to be loved, accepted, wanted by your parents?  How can I comprehend the love of God when I can't understand mortal affection and kindness?  I know what it is to love but not how to be loved.  There's another passage that I also don't understand like most normal human beings ought to, the part about love others as you love yourself, that no man hates his own flesh...I was never taught to love myself, I learned that I was the enemy, that all the problems in the world had their origin in me, that I didn't deserve even the least bit of kindness.  How very strange how constant childhood abuse warps what should be natural emotions and ideas about normal relationships!  I must learn the opposite of what scripture teaches everyone else: that I too am a valuable and worthwhile person, deserving of as much consideration as everyone else, that yes, even I can be loved and am worth loving.

He has a special place in His heart for the orphan and the widow, those bereft of everything and overlooked by society and everyone else.  It's just hard realizing that I fall into that category when physical death isn't the tool of bereavement, though I suppose it is a sort of spiritual death, this entombment of one's heart and soul whilst one still draws breath, this willing entrance into Hell while life still lingers.  No matter how wretched my own lot, theirs is worse and willingly borne.  How dreadful a life lived apart from all love and hope and joy, and worse, an eternity away from all Love and Hope and Joy, at least I have that Solace, and you can too, but first you need to realize you need it.  That's the greatest tragedy of all, they don't need anyone or anything else, they are sufficient unto themselves and they don't even realize they are miserable.

The sound of silence

I'm reading through Job right now, it sounds depressing but it isn't, it honestly wrestles with the question 'where is God in the middle of our strife and sorrow?'  I'm also having a bit of a relapse emotionally from childhood trauma triggered by a very dear friend's current struggles with the same, though I think I lived through that to help her live through this.  'Grumpy Cat' dying is news, but the aches and groans of uncountable breaking hearts is just life as usual, unspoken in its agony, but so common we think it's just how life is.  We don't want to deal with it so we'll go scan through grumpy cat memes or videos and anesthetize the agonized parts of our souls until they shrivel into nothingness.  In our world of ultra connectedness we've never been so alone.  But then the comforters that came to help Job out weren't much better than the inane posters on any given message board, mostly extolling themselves and running him down in the process of 'helping.'  They sat in silence together seven days but then they opened their mouths and ruined it.  We can't fix people, that's not our job, but we can give companionship and comfort to those who desperately need it, if we could just put down our phones long enough to notice.

A long awaited movie?-an unwitting guest blogger movie review

There's a new movie out about a much beloved author, here's a little review for you Tolkien fans if you are wondering how it is.

Little bird, little bird

There seems to be an endless parade of holidays and special occasions that I tell myself, 'if I can just get through this day, everything will be okay,' but then Christmas or Mother's Day or a birthday rolls around again and the cycle of grief seems to start all over again.  Is this how Frodo felt, slogging through the Dead Marshes or scrabbling over the rocky wastes of Mordor?  Is this what Job went through, after losing everything and his friends show up to accuse him of some secret evil?  Is this how my grandfather felt after his wife of 65 years died?  Is this how the migrating birds feel, following winter's retreat north through wind and cold and snow and rain, when it seems like spring will never come?

Someone gave me a bird feeder a couple years ago and some really nice bird feed to go with it, but I've been slow to put it out and bad about keeping it filled because we don't live in a place where there are resident birds save in the spring, the winters are too cold and summers too dry.  I've had it out for about a year and have had exactly two birds (a house finch and a hairy woodpecker) anywhere near the thing, though the deer did find it this winter and made short work of what little there was inside.  But occasionally I'd fill it again and hope and watch and wait.  Nothing.  Then the other day I saw an odd bird in a tree near the feeder and finally got to check a pine siskin off my life list.  The day after I had a whole flock and they've emptied the feeder and they seem to have invited their friends, I have five species of sparrows, a couple warblers, and a pair of towhees hanging about, resting and refueling before their final push north.  My usually dead and dull yard is alive with singing and flitting wings, what appeared lifeless and lackluster is proving to be a refuge, a sanctuary, somewhere safe and comforting along an arduous and difficult journey.

Frodo found that in Rivendell and later Lorien.  And we each must find it in our own turn upon this arduous trek called life.  When sorrow or fear beset us, where can we turn to find rest and refreshment?  Where do we look for hope when the night of despair draws about us?  Even Jesus sought such comfort the night before His crucifixion, weeping tears of blood, praying in a night dark garden, but there was no delivery, there was no escape, only strength for the journey.  And it is that final, awful journey that has bought us each hope.  So when you walk through an interminable night, there may be something greater at journey's end than you can begin to comprehend.  Frodo's journey meant life for the world though it seemed only to lead to personal doom.  Where do you turn for hope?  What might lie at the end of your own disquiet night?

And remove all doubt...

There's an old adage about it being better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt, well here's another example of the modern 'feel good' and 'be popular' philosophy triumphing once again over common sense and truth.  I recently cited the makers of the 'Les Miserables' musical movie and their interesting views of that particular work.  Liam Neeson, the voice of Aslan in the Narnia movies, also made a few odd statements about C.S. Lewis's beloved works being applicable to 'all people and faiths,' are also to be wondered at.  But I suppose this phenomenon should not be surprising in the age where the teachers of literature tell us to read into every work whatever it is we want to find there rather than ruminating upon the truths the author is trying to reveal.  I challenge Mr. Phoenix to find an ancient work outside the biblical narrative that treats women with such respect and significance as do the canonical scriptures.  I challenge each and everyone of us to find the actual truth in any given work or production, rather than reading into it only what we want to see.