It's really a relief when you can share a sorrow or worry with someone you can trust- trust to keep it confidential, trust that they are strong enough to help carry your burden, trust that they will be honest with you enough to tell you when you're over-reacting, trust that they will offer you encouragement when you need it- to do what is right even if it's hard. That person can be a friend, or spouse, or any family member you feel comfortable with. They are truly a blessing in life. It can be a great relief just to speak out loud the weight you feel on your soul or the whirlwind of worry in your mind. Even if your confidante can't really help in any concrete way, it feels good to just "get it off your chest", being the heavy weight that it is.
But sometimes, there really isn't anyone you can share with- either the issue is too close to you or you fear the burden may be too much for anyone else, or you are at a time and place devoid of a close friend. Others who care about you may notice your pain to the degree that they comment that you don't laugh like you used to or you seem preoccupied. It is tempting to just blurt out what's bothering you, but sometimes it could do more harm than good. Sometimes you can fear opening a Pandora's box, so to speak. Sometimes you may want to avoid "spreading the battle" so others are forced to take sides.
I am truly grateful for prayer. I am grateful to know there is someone bigger, smarter, and more powerful than I am who knows EVERYTHING. I am grateful to know there is someone who can see in my heart and mind to know me as I am, to know what my sincere intentions are, without prejudice or misunderstanding. I am grateful for the opportunity to seek greater insight and wisdom that I lack. I am grateful for the peace and comfort I can receive when I am lonely and cry desperately in the night. I am grateful for God.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Sunday, February 17, 2013
What is "normal"??
I have been struggling lately to understand how to define "normal". For ages if people acted strangely enough in public, they were eventually taken, by force if necessary, to live in institutions where they were sometimes caged like animals. Over time, mental illness came to be better understood so unusual behavior was determined to require treatment rather than simply separation from society. In the very recent past, it seems that more and more people are being diagnosed with everything from schizophrenia to OCD (obsessive-comulsive disorder) to autistic spectrum to dementia spectrum to manic depressive or bipolar. Most people with these diagnoses are people you see every day and may not know it. On brief, casual observance, they appear "normal" but if you spent more time with them you may observe how they count everything or repeatedly wash their hands or have mood swings like a teenager. We're all different. That's actually pretty amazing when you consider the number of people living at any one time on the earth. We may share hair color, color preferences, talents, or intellectual abilities but no two people- not even identical twins!- are completely exactly alike. So, how many times can you wash your hands each day and still be considered "normal"? I guess it could depend on your occupation or the activities you pursue in a day. Even taking that into consideration, I have seen laborers eat their lunch with much dirtier hands than I would want to have when handling my food. So does that make me OCD? I see children acting up in public places and, now that I have very personal experience with autism, I wonder if they are autistic or just spoiled or rebellious. Mental health professionals have issued basic guidelines to help determine if you are clinically depressed or just sad. Even basic guidelines really can't give you totally accurate definitive diagnoses. When you have a teenager that shows rebellion, how can you know if they are going to get a gun and enter a school or theater and kill a lot of people? If someone seems to have a negative personality (anger at self or others, constant criticism of self or others,etc.) how do you know when they need professional counseling or even some form of chemical medication to alter their thinking patterns? When is it just their personality? If a person speeds in their car, the police stop them and they get a ticket to pay a fine for breaking a civil law. If a person rants and raves at people, how bad does it have to get before they are breaking some kind of law so there needs to be intervention and possible "punishment"? When are we correcting others and when are we abusing others? What standards apply when we are all different? Some people are more tolerant and understanding toward other people so their standards as to what is normal or okay would be different from someone who demands that everyone live by their standards.
On a deeper, or higher, level- what are we accountable for? The scriptures are guidelines to live by in order to comply with God's laws. God is perfect and cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Yet He loves us so He provided a Savior to balance judgement by atoning for the things we repent of but can't possibly pay full retribution for. If you are schizophrenic and you kill someone, I don't think God will judge you the way other "normal" people would be judged. We are to follow God's commandments if we want to be with Him eternally. I get that. How can a perfect society work if the members are not perfect, or at least striving to be so? When we are done with these imperfect tabernacles of clay, we will be resurrected with perfect bodies. Not a hair of our heads will be lost. If you are blind in mortality, you will see. If you are crippled, you will be whole. If you are crazy, you will be able to think clearly. So, as a mortal, if you are depressed and can't seem to get out of it enough to serve others, how much "sin of omission" are you accountable for? If you have sexual inclinations outside a marriage between a man and a woman married to each other, when are you considered "sinful" in the eyes of the Lord? (In that case, I personally feel it has to do with performing sex acts not just holding hands or even hugging or kissing someone with whom you are not married- but I know there are lots of people who don't agree with me. For them, God would not condemn people who had same-sex attraction or indulged in sex without formality of marriage when the involved parties "really love" each other and are "faithful" to each other.) It seems that more and more people are being judged as somehow not in the mainstream- even to the point that many think the mainstream should be enlarged to include behaviors formerly outside the spectrum. In the scriptures it warns of one of the aspects of the last days being "calling evil good and good evil". We know that Satan is really wanting us to fail at being able to return to Heavenly Father's kingdom. Satan is hoping that he will be successful in gaining a larger army of followers so things will go the way he wants rather than the way God wants. He uses deception very well to lead away those who might otherwise be repulsed by his principles. (In the scriptures it's called a flaxen thread to carefully lead us down to hell.)
I guess the best answer I can come up with is personal revelation and making sure we don't judge others. We may not be able to know in this lifetime if someone we know is off-balance mentally enough to not be fully accountable for their behavior. God knows. He will be able to look them in the eye and they will know that they COULD have behaved differently. They just didn't want to make the effort. It won't matter what other people think. I won't be anybody else's judge and, boy!, am I glad of that! As for how to behave ourselves, we can communicate directly with God. After all, He did promise that all we have to do is seek and we shall find or knock and the door will be opened to us. There are as many interpretations of religious belief as there are people, with some large areas of overlap. But we can each, as individuals, know what is sin (omission or commission) by asking God. A good friend once defined sin as anything that interferes with the eternal progress of ourselves or others. If you are doing, or neglecting, something that interferes with your development of God-like qualities, you are sinning. You can know that for yourself but not always for others because you don't know what others are capable of accomplishing or avoiding.
I'm continuing to learn. I want to be as loving, compassionate, merciful, patient, and kind as Jesus. I've got a long way to go but at least I'm on the right path. I'll get there eventually. I have eternity to work on it!
On a deeper, or higher, level- what are we accountable for? The scriptures are guidelines to live by in order to comply with God's laws. God is perfect and cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Yet He loves us so He provided a Savior to balance judgement by atoning for the things we repent of but can't possibly pay full retribution for. If you are schizophrenic and you kill someone, I don't think God will judge you the way other "normal" people would be judged. We are to follow God's commandments if we want to be with Him eternally. I get that. How can a perfect society work if the members are not perfect, or at least striving to be so? When we are done with these imperfect tabernacles of clay, we will be resurrected with perfect bodies. Not a hair of our heads will be lost. If you are blind in mortality, you will see. If you are crippled, you will be whole. If you are crazy, you will be able to think clearly. So, as a mortal, if you are depressed and can't seem to get out of it enough to serve others, how much "sin of omission" are you accountable for? If you have sexual inclinations outside a marriage between a man and a woman married to each other, when are you considered "sinful" in the eyes of the Lord? (In that case, I personally feel it has to do with performing sex acts not just holding hands or even hugging or kissing someone with whom you are not married- but I know there are lots of people who don't agree with me. For them, God would not condemn people who had same-sex attraction or indulged in sex without formality of marriage when the involved parties "really love" each other and are "faithful" to each other.) It seems that more and more people are being judged as somehow not in the mainstream- even to the point that many think the mainstream should be enlarged to include behaviors formerly outside the spectrum. In the scriptures it warns of one of the aspects of the last days being "calling evil good and good evil". We know that Satan is really wanting us to fail at being able to return to Heavenly Father's kingdom. Satan is hoping that he will be successful in gaining a larger army of followers so things will go the way he wants rather than the way God wants. He uses deception very well to lead away those who might otherwise be repulsed by his principles. (In the scriptures it's called a flaxen thread to carefully lead us down to hell.)
I guess the best answer I can come up with is personal revelation and making sure we don't judge others. We may not be able to know in this lifetime if someone we know is off-balance mentally enough to not be fully accountable for their behavior. God knows. He will be able to look them in the eye and they will know that they COULD have behaved differently. They just didn't want to make the effort. It won't matter what other people think. I won't be anybody else's judge and, boy!, am I glad of that! As for how to behave ourselves, we can communicate directly with God. After all, He did promise that all we have to do is seek and we shall find or knock and the door will be opened to us. There are as many interpretations of religious belief as there are people, with some large areas of overlap. But we can each, as individuals, know what is sin (omission or commission) by asking God. A good friend once defined sin as anything that interferes with the eternal progress of ourselves or others. If you are doing, or neglecting, something that interferes with your development of God-like qualities, you are sinning. You can know that for yourself but not always for others because you don't know what others are capable of accomplishing or avoiding.
I'm continuing to learn. I want to be as loving, compassionate, merciful, patient, and kind as Jesus. I've got a long way to go but at least I'm on the right path. I'll get there eventually. I have eternity to work on it!
Friday, February 01, 2013
Are families important?
Recently I read an article about the trend toward the single lifestyle, as a parent or just solo. Here are a few statistics: in 1950 there were about 22% of adults single, today that's up to 50%, in 1950 four million Americans were single, today that is 32 million, in Sweden 47% of households are single people with Stockholm in particular standing at 60%, in Taiwan 30% of women between 30 and 34 are single while just 30 years ago it was 2%. There are, of course, endless opinions as to why this is happening and whether it is a good trend or a bad one. I remember back in the 1960's there was serious concern about zero population growth because we couldn't sustain life for an endlessly growing population. Russ and I were, at first, determined not to have any more than 2 children.
My perspective has changed as I have gained more knowledge and experience. (thank goodness- it would be a shame if we DIDN'T mature from what we were in our teens and early twenties!) I read an article, several years ago, about the increasing problem in Japan with less than zero population growth. As our medical awareness increases, our lifespan increases. Japan has senior centers full of people too old to work and needing support by others. At the other end of the spectrum, young people are feeling the pinch of having to support the older generation, either through taxes or personally, so they feel they can't afford to have children. The result is a "top-heavy" population where there are fewer and fewer wage earners needing to support a larger aging population. I suppose in the long run it could work itself out. Eventually all the old folks will die off. So in the meantime, we have buildings being built to house those who are choosing to live, increasingly, alone. As the population ultimately dwindles, there may be fewer aged people to support but the buildings will gradually become vacant. That will include stores because there are fewer people shopping, as well as every other type of business that supports humans. Don't get me wrong. I'm not proposing that the solution is to all just jump in and have as many children as we possibly can. That would be disastrous. Besides, not everyone is really effective at parenting and we don't want a surge of untaught, un-nurtured citizens to ransack the world.
Actually, my biggest concern isn't even about the economics. I am worried about the increase in self-centeredness. I know that, as a mother, I learned pretty quickly that I could NOT put myself first. When there is a helpless infant that requires food or a diaper change or some other kind of attention, it didn't matter what I had been planning to do or how I was feeling. But that is not a bad thing. Self-sacrifice truly does build character. You are a better world citizen if you are capable of recognizing the suffering of others, especially when compared to your own. Sometimes we can look at ourselves and think, "I really need attention right now". For instance, when you have been in an accident and are bleeding profusely or if you are lost and need help finding your way or if you are intensely grieving over an unexpected loss. But sometimes we get carried away worrying about how our hair looks or how well our car runs or whether we can afford the vacation we want to take when there are people in the world who have lost their hair due to chemo treatments or don't own a car or have a home, much less a chance to go on vacation. Families are a little microcosm of society in general. In your family you can learn how to get along with people who have different ideas from yours. Your life can be really miserable if those closest to you are unhappy or suffering. You learn that the world doesn't revolve around you. You experience the reward of sacrifice for others and seeing how important you are to others. I guess we would all get along alright if we all lived alone. But I think it would, in the end, create less tolerance. If you are accustomed to only being concerned about yourself, why should you make the effort to understand or help others? I'm sure single people spend time doing good work, volunteering at places and making donations. But you always have the choice to do that on your own terms. If you are alone, you never HAVE to get up in the night for a child who has had a nightmare or stomach ache. You never HAVE to give up the new dress or concert tickets because your child needs braces. You end up having more sympathy, even empathy, and yes- tolerance. You learn that you can love a really obnoxious human who throws tantrums while they're learning to be more pleasant. You learn that rules are the only way things can work effectively. If everyone lives with different rules, there is constant resentment, anger, frustration, and misery. It's hard to learn to live with others. But it's a good kind of hard. Opposition is required to build any kind of strength. When we avoid opposition, we become weaker. That doesn't mean we have to go out looking for a fight. It just means that the more we avoid sacrifice, learning to compromise to get along, and responsibility, the more hollow we are. Any strength we exhibit on the outside is shallow and eventually we'll break.
Nope. I can't condone the trend toward being single. I really don't think it's good for us.
My perspective has changed as I have gained more knowledge and experience. (thank goodness- it would be a shame if we DIDN'T mature from what we were in our teens and early twenties!) I read an article, several years ago, about the increasing problem in Japan with less than zero population growth. As our medical awareness increases, our lifespan increases. Japan has senior centers full of people too old to work and needing support by others. At the other end of the spectrum, young people are feeling the pinch of having to support the older generation, either through taxes or personally, so they feel they can't afford to have children. The result is a "top-heavy" population where there are fewer and fewer wage earners needing to support a larger aging population. I suppose in the long run it could work itself out. Eventually all the old folks will die off. So in the meantime, we have buildings being built to house those who are choosing to live, increasingly, alone. As the population ultimately dwindles, there may be fewer aged people to support but the buildings will gradually become vacant. That will include stores because there are fewer people shopping, as well as every other type of business that supports humans. Don't get me wrong. I'm not proposing that the solution is to all just jump in and have as many children as we possibly can. That would be disastrous. Besides, not everyone is really effective at parenting and we don't want a surge of untaught, un-nurtured citizens to ransack the world.
Actually, my biggest concern isn't even about the economics. I am worried about the increase in self-centeredness. I know that, as a mother, I learned pretty quickly that I could NOT put myself first. When there is a helpless infant that requires food or a diaper change or some other kind of attention, it didn't matter what I had been planning to do or how I was feeling. But that is not a bad thing. Self-sacrifice truly does build character. You are a better world citizen if you are capable of recognizing the suffering of others, especially when compared to your own. Sometimes we can look at ourselves and think, "I really need attention right now". For instance, when you have been in an accident and are bleeding profusely or if you are lost and need help finding your way or if you are intensely grieving over an unexpected loss. But sometimes we get carried away worrying about how our hair looks or how well our car runs or whether we can afford the vacation we want to take when there are people in the world who have lost their hair due to chemo treatments or don't own a car or have a home, much less a chance to go on vacation. Families are a little microcosm of society in general. In your family you can learn how to get along with people who have different ideas from yours. Your life can be really miserable if those closest to you are unhappy or suffering. You learn that the world doesn't revolve around you. You experience the reward of sacrifice for others and seeing how important you are to others. I guess we would all get along alright if we all lived alone. But I think it would, in the end, create less tolerance. If you are accustomed to only being concerned about yourself, why should you make the effort to understand or help others? I'm sure single people spend time doing good work, volunteering at places and making donations. But you always have the choice to do that on your own terms. If you are alone, you never HAVE to get up in the night for a child who has had a nightmare or stomach ache. You never HAVE to give up the new dress or concert tickets because your child needs braces. You end up having more sympathy, even empathy, and yes- tolerance. You learn that you can love a really obnoxious human who throws tantrums while they're learning to be more pleasant. You learn that rules are the only way things can work effectively. If everyone lives with different rules, there is constant resentment, anger, frustration, and misery. It's hard to learn to live with others. But it's a good kind of hard. Opposition is required to build any kind of strength. When we avoid opposition, we become weaker. That doesn't mean we have to go out looking for a fight. It just means that the more we avoid sacrifice, learning to compromise to get along, and responsibility, the more hollow we are. Any strength we exhibit on the outside is shallow and eventually we'll break.
Nope. I can't condone the trend toward being single. I really don't think it's good for us.
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