There are days that you shoot out of the gate at top speed, a perfect gallop, perfect form. Just when you're making good time, you trip and end up riding crooked in the saddle for the rest of the race. By the time you spot the finish line, you're bucked clear off and dragged the rest of the way. You curse your steed, you blame the muddy terrain and the occasional pothole and the groom who failed to handle the tack properly. But you know it, in your gut, that feeling, when things go wrong, that if you raise your eyes, they will all be shaking their heads and concord that you failed... again. No matter how you look at it, every spill is an indictment of your inadequacy.
So today, I found the courage to let go of the reins. It is time I brush off the dust and spit out the dirt collected in the ungraceful career toward the finish line and step out of the hippodrome.
I had a choice. As I looked back at the day, I chose to see the bends I leaned into, when, gripping firmly with my knees, I stayed on course. I remembered the obstacles I skillfully dodged and the ones that shook me, yet didn't throw me. Sure, I lost it and had my fit, you can call it royal if you want, but I chose to see what I did right and gave myself grace for the rest.
Grace didn't erase the mistakes, I've got the scars to prove it. I'm not proud of them, and I'm still responsible for them. However, Grace said, "Your mistakes don't define you."
While sitting with my tea, after all the tack has been hung back in place and the world is a little quieter, I realize the power of that grace. If I can give grace to myself, I find it easier to give it to others, to be more patient, to love more, to read beyond the bluster. I have a hunch it has to do with relaxing the grip on those reins and dropping the faulty axiom that one's value is directly proportional to how much one accomplishes on any given day without a hair out of place.
It's time for sleep, this day has worn me slick.
I'm showing up again tomorrow.
Monday, March 23, 2015
Friday, July 18, 2014
One Cold Day in July.
July used to be arms sticky with sugary popsicle juice. That is, July days of my childhood, loud with cicadas, drenched in sweat. The memories feel good. On this July day, it's dreary and relatively cold. Go figure, 66 degrees in the middle of summer. So, potato soup on the stove, the Japanese version of Wicked playing in the background, a bit of puttering, a tad of playing marbles with the boys, my mind wanders. Maybe it's the lack of sunshine, but I feel a bit morose today. Sometimes you can't help but think when you find yourself in that stuck place. The dryer's timer croaks. I methodically pull out socks, underwear, shirts. I fold them with slow deliberate movements. I try to apply my yoga stuff, you know, the "breathe in and out slowly and intentionally" thing. Just to see if I can get unstuck, free of this way of living that is taking me nowhere. All I come up with is question after question. No answers in sight in this blasted wilderness of the soul.
A body's gotta wonder if it is worth it to live up to an ideal. Why be honest, upfront, forthright? Why seek to expose the problem to facilitate a solution? Why hope at all that things might change if only you follow the higher road? The air is so thin on this higher road. The problem was laid bare only to be allowed to fester with new hypocrisy. And honesty? It's just a lonely word... thanks Billy Joel.
It's been asked before and I doubt I'll be the last to wonder why the mean ones, the jerks of the world always seem to get away with stuff and live a happy life. Careless of the hurt they've inflicted, getting away with character assassination, and enjoying all the perks life can offer.
There are plenty of answers. I've been through them all:
1. "Oh, but are they're really not happy inside." (If the outside is any indication, I beg to differ)
2. "It will catch up with them some day." (They seem to be pretty fast outrunning whatever it is that's supposed to catch them)
3. "It will help you grow." (I would have rather remained naive about certain things)
And on and on the platitudes go. The fact remains that things are broken and I'm tired of being the one to have to tip toe through the shards of busted relationships as others shut the door and go their merry way. I don't want to be a victim, I do try to keep a positive outlook, but I don't seem to be getting over it. Tough some say, I should just get over it and move on. As if it were easy as skipping your way down the sidewalk without stepping on cracks.
It's a human thing, N.T. Wright says, to long for justice, relationship, and things put to right. On this July day, sipping hot tea while watching the drizzle hover outside, I long for things to be fixed, relationships mended and justice served. In the big things and in the little things. I notice a shift in my perspective, though. The answers given to my questions by society, seem to spring from a deep sense of vendetta and they don't satisfy my craving. Frankly, I don't wish them unhappiness, nor that the same evil they've perpetrated will come to bite their rear, and I definitely don't care to vanquish them on the ground of being a better person, morally or spiritually or ethically. I desire something different. I wish that maybe once in a while I could enjoy smooth sailing, too.
Ultimately I have to realize that it rains and shines on the bad as well as the good. So, no praying for floods on others who may have wronged me, just asking for a little ray of sunshine in my patch of sky. I hope my change of perspective is a step in the right direction.
A body's gotta wonder if it is worth it to live up to an ideal. Why be honest, upfront, forthright? Why seek to expose the problem to facilitate a solution? Why hope at all that things might change if only you follow the higher road? The air is so thin on this higher road. The problem was laid bare only to be allowed to fester with new hypocrisy. And honesty? It's just a lonely word... thanks Billy Joel.
It's been asked before and I doubt I'll be the last to wonder why the mean ones, the jerks of the world always seem to get away with stuff and live a happy life. Careless of the hurt they've inflicted, getting away with character assassination, and enjoying all the perks life can offer.
There are plenty of answers. I've been through them all:
1. "Oh, but are they're really not happy inside." (If the outside is any indication, I beg to differ)
2. "It will catch up with them some day." (They seem to be pretty fast outrunning whatever it is that's supposed to catch them)
3. "It will help you grow." (I would have rather remained naive about certain things)
And on and on the platitudes go. The fact remains that things are broken and I'm tired of being the one to have to tip toe through the shards of busted relationships as others shut the door and go their merry way. I don't want to be a victim, I do try to keep a positive outlook, but I don't seem to be getting over it. Tough some say, I should just get over it and move on. As if it were easy as skipping your way down the sidewalk without stepping on cracks.
It's a human thing, N.T. Wright says, to long for justice, relationship, and things put to right. On this July day, sipping hot tea while watching the drizzle hover outside, I long for things to be fixed, relationships mended and justice served. In the big things and in the little things. I notice a shift in my perspective, though. The answers given to my questions by society, seem to spring from a deep sense of vendetta and they don't satisfy my craving. Frankly, I don't wish them unhappiness, nor that the same evil they've perpetrated will come to bite their rear, and I definitely don't care to vanquish them on the ground of being a better person, morally or spiritually or ethically. I desire something different. I wish that maybe once in a while I could enjoy smooth sailing, too.
Ultimately I have to realize that it rains and shines on the bad as well as the good. So, no praying for floods on others who may have wronged me, just asking for a little ray of sunshine in my patch of sky. I hope my change of perspective is a step in the right direction.
Friday, May 16, 2014
Silence.
There is no music in the house this morning. The chattering of the children at breakfast has ceased. There is only crying.
We live in a world of death. Death is everywhere. Always. We don't think about it much, otherwise what would we get accomplished? Some will tell you that you can't live that way, thinking about possibilities all the time. But death is there. You can drive by any hospital and rest assured someone in there is fighting for their next breath, doctors are trying to keep connected the gossamer thread of life of one of their patients. You can drive on any road for that matter and know that it has seen some life slip away. We don't think about death much, until the phone rings and the world goes all topsy turvy when someone on the other end of the line says the word.
And so it was this morning as one of my sons' coaches called to let us know that one of the girls on the team was killed in a car accident. The world is sitting askew. We're all reeling badly from the blow. One child went back to bed. One child roams the house aimlessly. I cry.
They're learning young that life is fragile and can shatter swiftly. Just yesterday, at the end of the year party, they laughed, they played and bantered and a few short hours later one of them passed from this life.
There are really no words for a family that has just lost a daughter, and it's not just rhetoric. There really aren't. No amount of words can heal the gaping, horrid wound that gashes their souls at this time. Words won't stop the hemorrhage in their broken hearts.
In our humanity we try to make sense of this as our inner parts try to grasp the workings of death. Death is unpredictable, random. So we don't believe it, we get angry at it, we bargain with it, we get sad, and somehow we try to accept it. Then we do it all over again, in no specific order.
There will be time to reflect and let reality work its way into life, but for now we must live in the chaos of unwanted change.
We live in a world of death. Death is everywhere. Always. We don't think about it much, otherwise what would we get accomplished? Some will tell you that you can't live that way, thinking about possibilities all the time. But death is there. You can drive by any hospital and rest assured someone in there is fighting for their next breath, doctors are trying to keep connected the gossamer thread of life of one of their patients. You can drive on any road for that matter and know that it has seen some life slip away. We don't think about death much, until the phone rings and the world goes all topsy turvy when someone on the other end of the line says the word.
And so it was this morning as one of my sons' coaches called to let us know that one of the girls on the team was killed in a car accident. The world is sitting askew. We're all reeling badly from the blow. One child went back to bed. One child roams the house aimlessly. I cry.
They're learning young that life is fragile and can shatter swiftly. Just yesterday, at the end of the year party, they laughed, they played and bantered and a few short hours later one of them passed from this life.
There are really no words for a family that has just lost a daughter, and it's not just rhetoric. There really aren't. No amount of words can heal the gaping, horrid wound that gashes their souls at this time. Words won't stop the hemorrhage in their broken hearts.
In our humanity we try to make sense of this as our inner parts try to grasp the workings of death. Death is unpredictable, random. So we don't believe it, we get angry at it, we bargain with it, we get sad, and somehow we try to accept it. Then we do it all over again, in no specific order.
There will be time to reflect and let reality work its way into life, but for now we must live in the chaos of unwanted change.
Friday, March 28, 2014
All the way back.
It's a slow day. Not that there isn't anything to do. Believe me, if I only opened my eyes enough to care I'd be assaulted by a cluttered home and a raging river of laundry. Nor is it that I am bored. Today I am slow, as I live in this surreal time of grief, jet lag and a hard to swallow diagnosis. Nothing threatening, just out of my control to resolve, nothing I could have done to prevent it. Nothing. And in this nothing, I snuggle myself tight on the damp earth at the bottom of the pit. I don't even think it's depression, but just the need to glide quietly through this world for a time. The bottom of the pit with its warm humid odor-of-dirt feels comfortable. It's the consciousness that you can't go any lower and you can rest before resuming the struggle to get out, because I foresee that it will come. For now it's comfortable, I'm at the bottom and content to be there.
I haven't stopped, I've just slowed down. My mind is on "strictly necessary" mode. I breathe, I walk, I do things that must be done, without prioritizing, without order. Not thinking brings relief, it's not suffering. Don't feel sorry for me. I want this, I need this. I disengage in order to conserve my soul's energy, which is precious and approaching empty. The normal noise of whiny children, crying, laughing does not reach me, does not touch me. There's a birthday to prepare tomorrow, yet I don't fret, I don't worry and over think. It will get it done, somehow, I will use the strength I have.
It's funny to not feel the struggle that is so much part of my life.
A close friend's death is a considerable blow, compounded by the fact that you always wish you could have said or done more. It begs the question, "More of what?" Compounded more yet by the realization that you can't be there to pick up the pieces, hold hands, cry and listen to the desperation of a mother who has lost a daughter at such a young age and is now left with a son-in-law and two grandsons, as old as they may be, who still needed their wife and mother. Then you add the thought that your own mother leaned so much on this friend, who was part of her daily life and her life as a whole. Thirty years. A long time. It could have been more. We wish it'd been more.
Having to leave the day of the funeral and not being able to participate and follow the protocol of closure was difficult. It was even more difficult to know that I could not support my own mother; she could not lean on my arm and rest her grief there. As the shock wears off, I cannot be there to help her deal with the daily, at least for a while, knocking next door and not having her friend open and ask her inside.
So I am back to this place that is nominally home. It is comfortable to be back in my own house. Comfortable because of familiarity, not that visceral connection to my own roots that still surprises me every time I get off a plane and head for the hills, literally. Even with all its idiosyncrasies, the home of my youth, the origin of me, is comfortable. That valley hemmed in by mountains and hills, dotted with houses I know by heart, is home. In its stifling heat and sticky air, it's still home. Crazy drivers and all.
It was hard to come back this year. I got too comfortable. With friends who cared enough to want to see me, and friends who drove in from another country to spend a few days with us. An uncharacteristic impromptu decision that pleasantly surprised me and made me long for those relationships even more intensely now that time and space separate us. Yes, I miss it. I miss talking at a subsurface level, a second nature we developed growing up I guess, a cultural training, maybe a product of gregariousness, of the endless hours spent talking about anything and everything that inexorably led to knowing each other, and developing a level of comfort beyond the small talk. It was all recaptured in the one on one visits with friends of long ago and newly made friends. Focused friendship is what I lack, what I desire.
It is a day to rest, to lie away from the filtered rays of sunshine. I don't want to think of getting up and going, although I know at some point I must and I will, but not yet. Not quite yet.
[Note: this post was written after I came back from my home last October. Just hadn't gotten around to posting it.]
I haven't stopped, I've just slowed down. My mind is on "strictly necessary" mode. I breathe, I walk, I do things that must be done, without prioritizing, without order. Not thinking brings relief, it's not suffering. Don't feel sorry for me. I want this, I need this. I disengage in order to conserve my soul's energy, which is precious and approaching empty. The normal noise of whiny children, crying, laughing does not reach me, does not touch me. There's a birthday to prepare tomorrow, yet I don't fret, I don't worry and over think. It will get it done, somehow, I will use the strength I have.
It's funny to not feel the struggle that is so much part of my life.
A close friend's death is a considerable blow, compounded by the fact that you always wish you could have said or done more. It begs the question, "More of what?" Compounded more yet by the realization that you can't be there to pick up the pieces, hold hands, cry and listen to the desperation of a mother who has lost a daughter at such a young age and is now left with a son-in-law and two grandsons, as old as they may be, who still needed their wife and mother. Then you add the thought that your own mother leaned so much on this friend, who was part of her daily life and her life as a whole. Thirty years. A long time. It could have been more. We wish it'd been more.
Having to leave the day of the funeral and not being able to participate and follow the protocol of closure was difficult. It was even more difficult to know that I could not support my own mother; she could not lean on my arm and rest her grief there. As the shock wears off, I cannot be there to help her deal with the daily, at least for a while, knocking next door and not having her friend open and ask her inside.
So I am back to this place that is nominally home. It is comfortable to be back in my own house. Comfortable because of familiarity, not that visceral connection to my own roots that still surprises me every time I get off a plane and head for the hills, literally. Even with all its idiosyncrasies, the home of my youth, the origin of me, is comfortable. That valley hemmed in by mountains and hills, dotted with houses I know by heart, is home. In its stifling heat and sticky air, it's still home. Crazy drivers and all.
It was hard to come back this year. I got too comfortable. With friends who cared enough to want to see me, and friends who drove in from another country to spend a few days with us. An uncharacteristic impromptu decision that pleasantly surprised me and made me long for those relationships even more intensely now that time and space separate us. Yes, I miss it. I miss talking at a subsurface level, a second nature we developed growing up I guess, a cultural training, maybe a product of gregariousness, of the endless hours spent talking about anything and everything that inexorably led to knowing each other, and developing a level of comfort beyond the small talk. It was all recaptured in the one on one visits with friends of long ago and newly made friends. Focused friendship is what I lack, what I desire.
It is a day to rest, to lie away from the filtered rays of sunshine. I don't want to think of getting up and going, although I know at some point I must and I will, but not yet. Not quite yet.
[Note: this post was written after I came back from my home last October. Just hadn't gotten around to posting it.]
Friday, February 14, 2014
Life's torches.
The Olympics are proceeding fast and furious among major upsets, unbelievable wins and breathtaking ski tricks...wardrobe malfunctions aside.
I would like to celebrate the quitters. Not because the quit, but because they knew when to quit. So I salute Evgeni Plushenko for choosing to bow out of the competition last night. Yes, he could have gone on and inspired millions by suppressing his pain and risking his wellbeing for the chance to give Russia another medal. While all that is noble and romantic, his choice favored the long run. Because after a few years and maybe even much sooner the throngs of people who went to see him, camera in hand and went home disappointed, feeling shorted one miracle of skating, will forget about last night. They won't even remember how to say, let alone spell his name.
By his choice, he has gained more than a golden disk to hang on a wall, he has gained years of enjoying running and playing with his children, dancing with his wife and living a life with no regrets.
Thank you Mr. Plushenko for showing the world that you don't have to win it all the time and that some things are more precious than gold.
I would like to celebrate the quitters. Not because the quit, but because they knew when to quit. So I salute Evgeni Plushenko for choosing to bow out of the competition last night. Yes, he could have gone on and inspired millions by suppressing his pain and risking his wellbeing for the chance to give Russia another medal. While all that is noble and romantic, his choice favored the long run. Because after a few years and maybe even much sooner the throngs of people who went to see him, camera in hand and went home disappointed, feeling shorted one miracle of skating, will forget about last night. They won't even remember how to say, let alone spell his name.
By his choice, he has gained more than a golden disk to hang on a wall, he has gained years of enjoying running and playing with his children, dancing with his wife and living a life with no regrets.
Thank you Mr. Plushenko for showing the world that you don't have to win it all the time and that some things are more precious than gold.
Tuesday, August 13, 2013
Dark Waters
It's summer and all summery things pop up all over social media. So you scroll down, through images of watermelon, recipes for tomatoes (lucky dogs those who got more than the puny one on my vine), ads for swimsuits, articles on modest swimsuits, TED speeches on swimsuits...
While scrolling I came across an article (you can read it here in its entirety). It kind of stuck with me, maybe because of the terrifying memory of falling off (read being pushed out) of a boat when I was six years old and watching the water close over me, maybe because it resembled something else far deeper that I have seen around me a lot lately. Yes, the drowning description in the excerpt from the article, posted below for your convenience has a striking resemblance to depression.
“Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs." Most of the time, people who are depressed, can barely breathe and keeping their head above the murky darkness they're steeped in takes all the energy they've got. Calling for help is not something they are capable of doing.
"Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water." It is almost as if opening their mouth to cry out for help the darkness would engulf them for good.
"Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe." Depression can be a very physical feeling. Getting out of bed to manage the minimal survival requires all the energy possessed by a depressed person. Seeking help is beyond the scope of possibility.
"Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment." This is equal to telling a depressed person, "I'm here if you need me." "Help is just a phone call away." and expect him or her to reach out to take your offer.
"From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.” Often a depressed person looks fine on the outside, as if he or she were just floating through life.
While scrolling I came across an article (you can read it here in its entirety). It kind of stuck with me, maybe because of the terrifying memory of falling off (read being pushed out) of a boat when I was six years old and watching the water close over me, maybe because it resembled something else far deeper that I have seen around me a lot lately. Yes, the drowning description in the excerpt from the article, posted below for your convenience has a striking resemblance to depression.
“Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. The respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled before speech occurs." Most of the time, people who are depressed, can barely breathe and keeping their head above the murky darkness they're steeped in takes all the energy they've got. Calling for help is not something they are capable of doing.
"Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water." It is almost as if opening their mouth to cry out for help the darkness would engulf them for good.
"Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe." Depression can be a very physical feeling. Getting out of bed to manage the minimal survival requires all the energy possessed by a depressed person. Seeking help is beyond the scope of possibility.
"Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment." This is equal to telling a depressed person, "I'm here if you need me." "Help is just a phone call away." and expect him or her to reach out to take your offer.
"From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.” Often a depressed person looks fine on the outside, as if he or she were just floating through life.
I pray that we all become more perceptive in this area. Last year four young lives were tragically lost in our school district to this specter. I see many more young and old who are keeping upright, but are slowly sinking. I pray that I can do more than just stick my hand out; I pray I can grab someone before the darkness snatches his or her last breath, even if I have to jump into the blackness with them and with the help of God yank both of us out of it.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
The Great Disconnect
We're approaching a full moon and I get pensive. The great orb in the night sky, hanging etherially, bearing messages of signs and seasons, gently beckoning the ocean to itself, is just an excuse for me to do more thinking than usual. Its pale light sneaks into my room at night and so I awaken and the breath of the little one comes shallow from the bedroom down the hallway. I don't toss, I don't turn, I don't exhale forcefully to protest against a sleepless night. I welcome this rare moment of solitude in this full house. It's not quiet even at night, beds creak, dogs saunter to the porcelain throne for a drink, crickets chirp below my window. Yet, quieter is restful, more than dead stillness.
I slide into my thoughts and follow a path within them that I don't particularly relish, but thoughts are cathartic in that sense. Think it out and wrestle with it to make sense of this wacky journey of life.
I think of the great disconnect tonight, and how I feel it strongly these days. How in the world are generations supposed to connect?
Having stood for the past two months on the periphery of a group of people ten to twenty years my junior, the distance shrieked at me, the grain grated my very soul as I went against it and even small talk was labored and painful. And it daunts this foreign introvert with already these two major obstacles to face daily, to get up in the morning and see that another looms closer and, seemingly at least, gargantuan out of the front door.
My heart wants to make a difference, but how? How do you make a difference in this barrage of social media that deconstructs relationships to their very core? How, when communication has been reduced to frantically tapping minuscule buttons on a phone? People say things and we swallow them whole. They hurl their passionate responses to current events into cyberspace careless of the fact that measured words would serve them better. The premise, "I don't usually..., but..." cannot hold in the consequences of verbalizing judgement, of any kind. There is no slowing down as the retorts come fast and furious and so it goes in this cycle of "fast food" thinking. Funny how we're all up in arms about McD's health hazards, while our engorged minds swell out of proportion.
We live a marginless life, gliding on top of it, never delving into the most basic forms of communication. The nourishing cultivation of healthy relationships, accompanied by the exchange of ideas that would cross the trenches we've dug in this society has been swept aside. We insist on compartmentalizing life and the trenches creep ever closer to chasm size. The well established trend of separating people by age in all institutionalized parts of life, including and especially church, exacerbates the disconnect between generations. We're leery of each other. I confess it, teenagers terrify me. I have no idea how to connect with them, because simple talk seems to no longer have a place among human beings of recent vintage. I've also found that often participation across the age line is by invitation only, and more often yet, the exuberant extrovert is welcomed in because of his or her vocal personality, while the unassuming, quiet types are relegated to the "nothing to offer" side of the fence.
The pitfall of this accepted status quo is that the lethal mix of pride and forceful opinions is branded as wisdom, values that transcend time are deemed negotiable and we dig our trenches deeper in the intoxicating race to being right. Relationships become relics.
I long for community. I am genuinely interested in learning about others, to somehow connect...but after two epic fails in trying to "adopt" a college student through our church, I wonder if my place is in some other corner of community.
There was a time, not even that long ago, when children didn't sit at the kids table. They went shopping with their parents. They conversed with other adults of all walks of life in real life situations in the course of the day. Their day was not hyper scheduled and there was time to be bored and therefore employ that time in constructive or destructive ways with relative consequences, lessons learned either way. But, before I wax too romantic about "the old times" my eyelids get heavy and I drift off thinking that, as hard as it would be for a Gideon at heart like me, I would really like to walk up to some of those young types and talk to them. Really, we're not that different, we're all flesh and blood. I'd take my toe and erase that line drawn in the sand between us. I'd like to tell them that there is more behind the veneer of opinions, that pointing a finger at someone else's fast-held belief, has three fingers pointing back at their own, that really the unhealthy fumes created by the heated exchanges in a forum that is rife with low blows and cheap shots, can be dissipated by face to face interaction. A place where opinion is encased in flesh and that engenders relationship. Disagreement and respect become inextricable because all of a sudden you see a person in front of you and not some avatar in a little square. And it's a lot harder to insult someone with whom you have a genuine relationship. No matter how 3-D you perceive the image to be, a screen is flat and, ultimately, it does flatten a living breathing multifaceted interaction with others.
I adjust the pillow and exhale heavy, the thought has run its course, but it snags on the fear that I'd probably get my skirt caught trying to climb the fence that divides us.
I slide into my thoughts and follow a path within them that I don't particularly relish, but thoughts are cathartic in that sense. Think it out and wrestle with it to make sense of this wacky journey of life.
I think of the great disconnect tonight, and how I feel it strongly these days. How in the world are generations supposed to connect?
Having stood for the past two months on the periphery of a group of people ten to twenty years my junior, the distance shrieked at me, the grain grated my very soul as I went against it and even small talk was labored and painful. And it daunts this foreign introvert with already these two major obstacles to face daily, to get up in the morning and see that another looms closer and, seemingly at least, gargantuan out of the front door.
My heart wants to make a difference, but how? How do you make a difference in this barrage of social media that deconstructs relationships to their very core? How, when communication has been reduced to frantically tapping minuscule buttons on a phone? People say things and we swallow them whole. They hurl their passionate responses to current events into cyberspace careless of the fact that measured words would serve them better. The premise, "I don't usually..., but..." cannot hold in the consequences of verbalizing judgement, of any kind. There is no slowing down as the retorts come fast and furious and so it goes in this cycle of "fast food" thinking. Funny how we're all up in arms about McD's health hazards, while our engorged minds swell out of proportion.
We live a marginless life, gliding on top of it, never delving into the most basic forms of communication. The nourishing cultivation of healthy relationships, accompanied by the exchange of ideas that would cross the trenches we've dug in this society has been swept aside. We insist on compartmentalizing life and the trenches creep ever closer to chasm size. The well established trend of separating people by age in all institutionalized parts of life, including and especially church, exacerbates the disconnect between generations. We're leery of each other. I confess it, teenagers terrify me. I have no idea how to connect with them, because simple talk seems to no longer have a place among human beings of recent vintage. I've also found that often participation across the age line is by invitation only, and more often yet, the exuberant extrovert is welcomed in because of his or her vocal personality, while the unassuming, quiet types are relegated to the "nothing to offer" side of the fence.
The pitfall of this accepted status quo is that the lethal mix of pride and forceful opinions is branded as wisdom, values that transcend time are deemed negotiable and we dig our trenches deeper in the intoxicating race to being right. Relationships become relics.
I long for community. I am genuinely interested in learning about others, to somehow connect...but after two epic fails in trying to "adopt" a college student through our church, I wonder if my place is in some other corner of community.
There was a time, not even that long ago, when children didn't sit at the kids table. They went shopping with their parents. They conversed with other adults of all walks of life in real life situations in the course of the day. Their day was not hyper scheduled and there was time to be bored and therefore employ that time in constructive or destructive ways with relative consequences, lessons learned either way. But, before I wax too romantic about "the old times" my eyelids get heavy and I drift off thinking that, as hard as it would be for a Gideon at heart like me, I would really like to walk up to some of those young types and talk to them. Really, we're not that different, we're all flesh and blood. I'd take my toe and erase that line drawn in the sand between us. I'd like to tell them that there is more behind the veneer of opinions, that pointing a finger at someone else's fast-held belief, has three fingers pointing back at their own, that really the unhealthy fumes created by the heated exchanges in a forum that is rife with low blows and cheap shots, can be dissipated by face to face interaction. A place where opinion is encased in flesh and that engenders relationship. Disagreement and respect become inextricable because all of a sudden you see a person in front of you and not some avatar in a little square. And it's a lot harder to insult someone with whom you have a genuine relationship. No matter how 3-D you perceive the image to be, a screen is flat and, ultimately, it does flatten a living breathing multifaceted interaction with others.
I adjust the pillow and exhale heavy, the thought has run its course, but it snags on the fear that I'd probably get my skirt caught trying to climb the fence that divides us.
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