Browsing tag: raising children

  • Say Sorry

    If someone commits a fault…he must at once come before the abbot and community and of his own accord admit his fault and make satisfaction. (Rule of St. Benedict 46.1-3)

    Piety is honesty plus contrition. Religious exercises become void if in interactions with other people you never admit to having done wrong. Self-deprecation before God is a farce if you’re too proud to apologize to another human being.

    Christians must practice as a steady habit the willingness to admit when they’ve messed up and the readiness to say sorry. It’s impossible to overstate the worth of these habits for maintaining relationships, or the destruction that results from refusing to practice them. Far more serious than the fault itself is the denial of it. Infinitely more harm comes from the haughty refusal to say, “I’m sorry” than from the original offense.

    To err is human. No one expects you to be perfect. But if you refuse to admit a fault, you sever the bond of trust without which no relationship can survive. The one who proudly refrains from saying, “I’m sorry I offended you” places self-esteem above the worth of the other person. There’s nothing so corrosive as dishonesty. There’s nothing so repellent as pride. Now you have not only injured but insulted the other person.

    Certainly it’s all right to say, “I didn’t mean it.” Very rarely do we offend other people on purpose. Most lapses are due to a bad mood on a bad day. Usually there’s some sort of miscommunication. Almost always there are mitigating factors. How easy, then, it should be to say, “I’m sorry I did such-and-such. I’m sorry if I offended you.” It should be easy, and yet, how many adults have never learned to do this simple thing!

    Owning up is important because, first, it shows that the mistake was unintentional. Second, it shows remorse. Third, it shows willingness to take responsibility. Together, these are signs of good character. And integrity is worth more to a relationship, a family, a society than any material asset. Conversely, a deceitful, remorseless, irresponsible person cannot but cause harm to everyone.

    Therefore children should be trained always to say, “I’m sorry,” whenever they’ve given offense. Afterwards they can relate details of intent, blame, and circumstance. First apologize, then explain.

    There are tones of voice that can contradict an apology and make it sound insincere to the aggrieved party. Then the person becomes furious at feeling manipulated. So children must learn to say sorry in a voice that is loud enough to be heard and that may be sullen but must not be insolent. This effort made, the offended person must accept the apology and cannot reject it as insufficiently contrite. If possible, the offender should make restitution. All parties should resolve to do better next time. And then forever the point is moot. Never drag out a past offence. Once addressed, it is dead and done with.

    Don’t wait to be confronted with what you suspect you may have done, but hasten to volunteer an apology. The humility, honesty and good will evident in such behavior make all the difference to any relationship. These habits keep friendships alive, marriages happy, children thriving. Without them, intimacy, trust and peace wither away.

    It’s true that there are vindictive people who will punish you for honestly admitting a fault. They walk away guilty before God for refusing to forgive. But you will have saved your soul from the rot that eats away the interior of dishonest people. You will have done everything you can to make peace.

    Sometimes, for any number of reasons, people cannot speak to a situation directly. So, they make some other gesture to show remorse. Be alert to such efforts at reconciliation. Be ready to accept any gesture that expresses an intent to make amends.

    As human beings we don’t convince anyone when we pretend to forget the bad thing that we did yesterday. We must apologize when we’re able to speak at all. Little kids can learn to say sorry. They learn to say it before they mean it. They learn to mean it.

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  • Choose Your Destination

    Their law is what they like to do, whatever strikes their fancy.  Anything they believe in and choose, they call holy; anything they dislike, they consider forbidden (RB 1.8-9)

    So . . . if you’re thinking that this is a description of our culture today, actually it’s not.  This is Saint Benedict describing corrupt monks in the sixth century.  The mentality that surrounds us now was already an option then.  

    The monks that St. Benedict does approve of are the coenobitarum, which is Latin for koinos bios, which is Greek for common life, which is English for what I aim to discuss here. Life in community is the focus of St. Benedict’s Rule.  He invites us to choose community with our fellow human beings in this world, but it’s clear that the community depends on each individual’s commitment to follow Christ. St. Benedict’s Rule explicates the practical living out of “the communion of saints” of the Apostle’s Creed. This communion joins those on earth with those in heaven, but those on earth are the ones who need help trying to figure out how to live.

    There is another kind of monk that St. Benedict refers to: the eremitarum, which is the Latin transliteration of the Greek eremitēs, which means “one who lives in the desert” and gives us the English word hermit.  He himself lived as a hermit for three years.  He describes the hermit as ready with God’s help to grapple single-handed with the vices of body and mind (RB 1.5).

    When I first started to think of the housewife-mother as a domestic hermit, it was because of the sense of isolation I experienced.  I faced many struggles that didn’t seem to be addressed by the Church.  I don’t think my experience is unusual.  I think that many people flee the domestic life exactly because of the combination of exterior harassment and interior aridity that afflicts people whose vocation is neither respected by the world nor adequately addressed by religious authorities.

    My goal here is to provide some support for this double challenge of Christian families who are attempting both to sustain a personal spiritual vitality and also to create community within a materialistic, competitive culture.  I’m going to write from the perspective of someone who finds Christian goodness difficult and not always attractive.  If you don’t feel that you need help in this area, nothing I say will be of much interest.  But if you’re hanging on by your fingernails and thinking of letting go, I have a few tips for how to claw your way to survival.

    Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” John 14:6.  But his way of life is one among many options, in the post-Christian West, and not the one that the cool people choose.  Many nice people are rushing off along other paths, and they certainly don’t intend to destroy themselves.  But Jesus insists that only his path leads to life: Matthew 7:13-14. If you’ve watched as dreadful consequences play out around you, it’s already clear that not all paths are equally good. But it’s not necessarily obvious either how to live out the life that Christ talks about.

    If your desired destination is eternal community with those you love and with your Creator, then you’re in the company of St. Benedict.  What follows will be my interpretation of some of the principles he wrote about.

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  • Zip It

     I said, I have resolved to keep watch over my ways that I may never sin with my tongue.  I have put a guard on my mouth…. [Psalm 39:1-3]  (Rule of St. Benedict 6.1-6)

    Keep your mouth shut? It’s awfully hard to do.

    It’s especially difficult in a competitive environment, where talking is part of the game, and the loudest ones seem to win.  Across languages and cultures, human beings exercise dominance by imposing verbally over others.  The powerful say whatever they want.  Everyone else has to be careful, and whisper.  Sometimes speaking at all can feel like a fight for survival.  In this as in everything else, the Christian message is paradoxical.  Do you fear being completely ignored, if you keep quiet while everyone else has a say?  Then trust God, and hold your tongue.

    If you follow this teaching, expect to spend many hours of your life listening to other people declaim nonsense.  There are some who will talk at full speed as long as anyone will listen, never pausing for breath.  Curiously, though, as soon as you try to reply, the intense focus of which they are clearly capable dissolves into wandering attention and distracted mannerisms.  They have the energy to speak, but not to remain silent.  Talking requires much less effort than listening.

    Do not imitate them.  In the short term, they seem to dominate the group.  But in the long run, the verbose end up deleted.  Just because people have no choice but to hear you doesn’t mean they are persuaded.

    The goal is not to seal yourself into hermetic isolation, however.  There is a time to communicate what you think.  The monosyllabic sphinx is a tiresome companion too.  When people are sincerely interested in you, don’t weary them by making them guess what’s going on.  It’s on you to communicate in a coherent way.  But what thoughts are actually pouring forth from within you?

    For some, it’s perpetual dissatisfaction.  They can complain about anything, and they will.  If the temperature drops, they complain about the cold.  When it warms up, they complain about the heat.  If it rains, they complain about getting wet.  If it doesn’t, they complain on behalf of the parched vegetation. Keep your mouth shut? You wish you could tell them!

    Others spew malice.  They sidle up, masquerading as sociable.  Beware those who insinuate nasty things about people behind their backs, while attempting to draw you in with flattery.  As soon as you’re out of earshot, they’ll be hissing derogatory remarks about you too.  If you must comment on someone who’s absent, try to think of something positive to say.  Malicious gossips will learn to avoid you, because it repels them to hear others praised.

    Good words come from the good within you.  If only this were enough!  But the thing is that dishonesties characterize the social conventions of every society.  Cultures define themselves by the peculiar sorts of dissembling they require.  Figuring out what you’re not supposed to say is one of the biggest challenges of a foreign environment.  Some are so hateful that you live in fear of tripping a mine whenever you open your mouth.  You have to be careful about speaking the truth.

    It’s safest to refrain from asking questions.  But if you see someone making a potentially dangerous mistake, you must in good conscience speak out.  The other person will likely reject your advice.  Sometimes your intrusion will provoke such resentment that the chill will never thaw again.  But you’re not actually doing anything wrong, if you’re motivated by love.  It’s just that not everyone will want to hear it, even if you’ve got it right, even though you care.

    There are also, inevitably, moments of personal struggle, when you simply must express how you feel, whatever the consequences.  Every human being needs friends.  When another person hears and understands, there’s an enormous relief, quite apart from solving any problem.  Just remember that those who love you enough to listen also need support from you.  Listening is a mutual comfort.

    Sometimes in acute distress we lash out at the person closest to us.  This is human, but it’s also terribly unfair.  Pull yourself together and apologize.  Even in the most loving, most intimate relationships, you’ve got to maintain a proportion of courtesy.  Honesty, like vinegar, is unbearable on its own.  More oil than vinegar goes into a salad dressing, and the same is true for relationships, even close ones.  Try to balance your honesty with some balm for the feelings of the other person.

    Cherish those who care enough about you to listen.  And with strangers, keep your mouth shut.  You won’t get into trouble for what you don’t say.

     

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  • Trust And Obey

    The first step of humility is unhesitating obedience, which comes naturally to those who cherish Christ above all.…  [T]hey carry out the superior’s order as promptly as if the command came from God himself.…  This very obedience, however, will be acceptable to God and agreeable to men only if compliance with what is commanded is not cringing or sluggish or half-hearted.…  (Rule of St. Benedict 5.1-14)

    Sheer cussedness is not a Christian virtue, even if you are from Texas.  None of the translators feature “stubbornness” anywhere in the lists of fruits of the Spirit.  “Perseverance” comes close, but perseverance implies that you’re going in the right direction.  Going the other way just because it’s your way is called “perverse,” and that’s not in there either.

    If you can’t tell the difference between persevering and perverse, ask yourself when was the last time you were wrong.  If you can’t remember ever being wrong, or admitting it, you’ll belong in the short word crowd.

    Watch out, because perverse can slide into “perverted” when you reject all correction, on principle.  The day comes when even your instincts are destructive, and so are all your friends.  That population does not perceive that the impulse carrying them over the cliff is their own ill will.

    Rebellion gets attention, but rebellion for its own sake only tears down existing systems.  The perpetual objector doesn’t contribute anything positive.  At school, at home, at work, waiting in line and anywhere else, the person who just won’t do what anyone asks makes life tedious for everyone else.  The worst part of leadership, when you are the one in charge is dragging along the grudging trudger.

    All human authority rests on the authority of God (Romans 13:1-7).  Where a derivative power contradicts the sustaining source, we surely should question that rickety racket.  So do open your eyes, prick up your ears and wrinkle your nose before going along with anyone.  But on the other hand, you can’t expect to develop sensitivity to divine cues, which are spiritual, if you refuse to heed human instructions, which you understand just fine.  Obedience to human authority is a way of expressing obedience to God’s authority, when the one does not contradict the other.

    This is why the goal of the Christian cannot be to rebel and get away with it.  The Christian goal must be to establish a just society, so that there’s no moral dilemma opposing obedience to God and obedience to authority.  In all ordinary occasions of everyday action, obedience to intermediate authorities is the Christian default.  Not snide reluctance but willing participation is what we offer to those in positions of responsibility.  If you are habitually helpful, when a truly moral dilemma comes along, most authority figures will be well-disposed to listen to you.  Even tyrants run low on energy and resources.  They lean on the person they can count on.  Ten to one they would rather accommodate your objection on that day, since you frame it in a respectful way.

    And if they refuse to listen, you will be able to mount an effective protest only if you can work with other people.  Working with people always does end up requiring systems of authority, hierarchy and delegation, because perfect unanimity in all things is a divine quality, not a human one.  Deferring to each other is the closest we can get to harmony.

    Of course, the ultimate question is whether we can trust God, to want to obey him at all.  In order to trust someone’s leadership, you need to feel confident both in the goodness and in the competence of the person in charge.  God is good, but is he good enough?  It’s the longing for goodness–to find it somewhere in the mess, to retrieve whatever’s left of it from annihilation, to set it back on its feet–that keeps driving us to throw in our lot with someone who does not guarantee that we will not suffer.

    We do accomplish something.  It is worthwhile.  Risks are worth taking for a life worth living.

    Obedience is trust taking that risk.  We trust the God who created the universe to figure out how to fix it.  He has a plan.  No one else does.  Christ is the only one offering redemption.  He is the one who climbs into the rubble of the world to rescue those trapped in the wreckage of ruined lives.  We follow him into dangerous places because we trust him to lead us through death itself into eternal life.

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  • Help The Troubled

    You must relieve the lot of the poor, clothe the naked, visit the sick (Matthew 25:36), and bury the dead. Go to help the troubled and console the sorrowing. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 14-19)

    There’s all the trouble in the world, and there’s what you can do about it.

    Not much.

    You don’t know the name of the neighbor who suns himself on his back steps in the cool of the morning in his briefs, but you’ve seen him up close once. He was nearly naked and mostly drunk then too. You let him know his fence was on fire, and he did get up to throw some water on it, not another cigarette butt, so you probably don’t need to worry about him. That was the fence on his other side: not your problem. Lower the shades so the kids don’t get another visual of the bulging briefs over breakfast.

    The friend down the street is going back to her maiden name after her husband left her on her own with two little girls. All you volunteered for was carpool, but she looked so worn out at the end of the week that you went back and handed her your lasagna. You made it from scratch: the meat filling, the ricotta layers, the tomato sauce. It took all afternoon to put together, and parting with it does still hurt some, but not as much as watching their lives splatter.

    You never even met the woman who signed up to teach Sunday school and then just didn’t show, for whatever reason. You thought you were going to be the aide, sucker. Shouldn’a been there. Here’s the roster: now it’s on you. A dozen innocent, willing faces are counting on you to explain the gap between earth and heaven.

    It’s a fine day for a picnic. Release your children into the park and let them run around while you listen to the regulars vent their grievances. They have everything the world has to offer, and no end of complaints. They’ve achieved the American Dream: a house inside the Loop, private schools, and two food allergies in every kitchen. They will rant as long as you will listen, but you’ve reached your outside limit. Time to hit the zoo and see some animals at feeding time.

    Funny how all the kids’ legs give out as soon as they pass the zoo exit. They can run for hours, but they limp, cramp, blister and drag their feet when you try to hurry them through marijuana plaza on the corner of Cambridge and Fannin. If you could make the light before someone hustles you for cash, you’d be at the Metro Rail station across from Hermann Hospital.

    Now there’s a wild sight: on the train platform, a girl wearing nothing but a hospital gown sits in one of the logo wheelchairs from a different hospital up the street. The I.V. line is still stuck in her vein, and the drip bag is still dangling from the rolling pole. Everyone else knows to walk around these impeding objects. Do you really have to stop and ask if she needs help?

    Turns out she doesn’t. Her boyfriend comes over when he sees you talking to her and tells you so. He’s been working out a lot lately, from the look of those muscles. His tattoos proclaim something you don’t have time to read, because he’s too edgy to stand still in one place for long. The vibe you get from him is rage. She looks like she’s about to slump out of the wheelchair, and she can barely nod her head: yes. When he circles back around, lights up a joint and hands it to her, she can still reach for it, though. Maybe you’re witnessing an exchange of loving devotion.  Or maybe he’s the one who put her in the hospital, and now he’s retrieving his property, along with a couple of items of equipment that they do not give away when they discharge patients.

    You stopped, so a bright, competent intern stops too. Yes, the boyfriend does look like an explosion about to happen. Yes, the escaped girl does look like a wreck. One of you keep an eye on him, and one of you put in a call to the hospital with the missing wheelchair and the absentee patient. Wait till half a dozen EMS guys his own size are carefully closing in. Someone with backup is talking him into letting her get lifted into an ambulance.

    Mom! What’s for dinner?

    Not lasagna, actually. Maybe scrounge night again. Be glad you have a dad who’s happy to see you when he comes home.

    Fall into bed. You’ve done what you could. It’s all a human being can do. Let God spell you on holding the universe together.

    Domestic Violence Hotline U.S.A.

     

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  • Curb Your Urge

    For this reason Scripture warns us, Pursue not your lusts Sirach 18:30.  (Rule of St. Benedict 7.25)

    We live in a culture where it’s supposed to be fun to let yourself go.  People announce that they’re about to let themselves go, and then they do it.  Not only do they not feel shame: they expect you to pat them on the back.  Most of the time they act with good humor, and with no thought of harming themselves or anyone else.  The binge is benign these days.

    Until it’s not.  The fact is that we have countless people who are suffering the tragic consequences of their own impulses–or worse, of someone else’s.  Some of them refuse to admit responsibility.  But others are discouraged, because they’ve tried and failed to change.

    Self-control is not an instant thing.  It’s the work of a lifetime.  It’s the practice of a life well-lived.

    If you want to be an athlete or an artist or any sort of skilled worker, you start at the beginning and practice basic moves first.  Checking your own impulse is one of the most basic moves of all.  It’s an element of any future action.  It’s not just that refraining from one action frees up time and energy for an alternative.  Curbing your impulse also builds strength and skill.  These in turn open up new possibilities that would otherwise have remained out of reach.

    A century of Freudian psychology has led us to assume that checking an impulse means repressing desire.  When you repress a desire, you don’t act on it, but it comes out in some other, weird way that you don’t control and that you may not even be aware of.  So you might as well let yourself go.

    Suffering the consequences?  That’s someone else’s specialty.  Next, please.

    The difference between self-control and repression is that self-control does not suppress desire.  Self-control nurtures and trains desire.  While the binge lets desire loose, without regard for other people, self-control keeps desire on a leash and exercises it with consideration for others.

    The lure of the binge is easy pleasure fast.  But the thrill tends to decrease with repetition.  You work harder to get less.  And you suffer the side effects.  With self-control, on the other hand, you start small, but the enjoyment increases with practice.  And the horizons are infinite.

    The best the binge can claim is not to have harmed anyone else.  But self-control allows you to do good to others actively.

    People who can’t control their impulses only get along with others who want to do the same thing at the same time in the same way.  When a whole collection of individuals are all out of control together, they meld into a mob.  The mob tramples any divergent individual.  But then the frenzy burns out, and the mob disperses.  The same individuals go back to competing ruthlessly against each other.  They separate, each alone with an ungoverned desire.  The endpoint is a life without any relationships at all: just interactions that serve the appetite.

    But self-control allows you to live in community.  Christian community aims not to meld but to harmonize individual desires.  It’s a complex challenge, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we do make a life together.  This calls for active participation on the part of each one, rather than a passive letting go.

    Life in a family is a training ground for harmony.  Baby learns to sleep at night long enough for Mom to get the rest she needs.  Baby learns to go for longer without eating, so that eventually the child’s habits match the habits of the family.  In practice this effort takes years, and every time a new baby arrives, another individual process is thrown into the mix.  Easy is not part of the deal.

    But the endpoint is paradise, which Jesus describes as a banquet Matthew 22:1-14; 25:1-13.  A banquet is a fancy dinner where people dress their best, eat together and enjoy each other’s company.  When you have a family sitting down to a meal together, you have a foretaste of heaven.  The food may be simple.  The clamor around your table may not sound divine.  But consider what you’ve achieved: you’ve taken human beings from a state of chaos to a state of sociability.  Even if it’s not yet heaven, it is the foundation of civil society, and that’s something no one should take for granted.

    Ultimately: heaven.  Here and now: a functioning society.  Earliest of all: a family meal.  But it all begins with harmonizing individual impulses.  And so, each one of us must achieve a measure of self-control.

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  • Housewife Manifesto

    Housewife Definition

    And finally, never lose hope in God’s mercy.  (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 74-77)

    Despair is a housewife with a television
    peering through channels at the world passing her by.
    She seeks hope, but what a difficult decision
    to turn off the screen and go sing a lullaby.

    So, what do you do all day, Ms. Smith?  Do you play
    with them, the tedious darlings—what sort of game?
    How sad for you, when you could have had (and with pay)
    lovers, success, fame and letters after your name.

    Are those stretch marks on your breasts we see (not real ones!?)
    that nursed babies.  We can fix that for a small fee
    reverse the decline in your value.  A man runs
    from paying bills, sagging flesh and mortality.

    It’s true, she replies with a sigh.  After dinner
    diapers and dishes, it’s only games, day and night:
    Play Fair, Tell The Truth, You Can’t Always Be Winner
    Don’t Pull Your Sister’s Hair, Say You’re Sorry, Don’t Fight.

    It wasn’t my intention with the marriage vow
    to fail pitifully, give up ambition, beauty.
    I made kids, not money.  But thirty years from now
    thanks to me, there may yet be a society.

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  • Bless Those Who Blast You

    If people curse you, do not curse them back but bless them instead. (Rule of St. Benedict 4. 32)

    Sadly, the right to retaliate is not an inalienable right.  It may be necessary to fight your enemies and to defeat them, for the sake of the common good.  But the Christian must not inflict harm merely for the satisfaction of revenge.  Yes, it’s hard.  And unfortunately, this isn’t just St. Benedict’s idea.  This is Jesus himself Luke 6:28.

    Can we give them the light-activated puzzle map of the United States?  If they fail to replace Montana, Alabama and Arizona, they’ll be learning about Helena, Montgomery and Phoenix every time the headlights of a passing car flicker through a chink in the curtains.  If they bury it under blankets in the closet, in the middle of the night a strangled voice will say, “New Jersey: Trenton.”

    Not only are we not allowed to give their children motion-sensitive, musical toys with no OFF button: God requires us to pray for them as well.

    When we suffer an insult from another person, we have a reaction, anger, which is as natural as the body’s inflammatory response to injury.  If you didn’t feel anger at being wronged, it would be an emotional failure, just as it would be sick for your body not to react to a wound.  But just as your inflammatory response can itself become a problem if it doesn’t subside, so anger can become destructive to the person who feels it.

    St. Paul describes anger as the devil’s foothold Ephesians 4:26-27 (also translated “place,” “room,” “opportunity.”)  Anger serves as the devil’s foothold because it’s not in itself wrong.  All the other vices are absolutes.  Only anger has this ambiguous quality of being at the same time justified and harmful.  St. Paul tells us, “Be angry but do not sin.”  This means that anger itself is not the sin.  The sin is what the devil tempts you to do when you’re angry.

    Your anger is just.  The wrong is real.  To dismiss the offense would flaunt the law of God.  But because the anger is justified, the devil can easily slip in temptations to vengeful acts which are against God’s law too.  So, anger functions as the gateway through which righteous people can be tempted to do things which normally would repel them.

    When the thirst for revenge sets in, it’s like a bacterial infection that develops in a contaminated wound. If it isn’t addressed immediately, it can become chronic, like vengeful feelings that persist for years after an offense.  The infection can invade your entire body and ruin your health.  Vengeful feelings can obsess you even after the perpetrator is dead.

    It’s true that revenge can attain to the level of tragedy.  There are wrongs that no mere mortal can bear alone.  But usually the vindictive person is shallow and selfish.  It’s the conceited person who punishes someone for an honest remark.  It’s the spiteful person who exacts retribution for a petty grievance.  You don’t want to become that person.

    This is why God prescribes such a horse-pill.  Praying a blessing on the person who has wronged you is like swallowing one of those enormous pills.  The prayer operates like an antibiotic within the soul to combat vengeance.  You don’t have to be enthusiastic about it, not anymore than you have to like those pills.  It may take you more than one try to get it down.  Your natural gag reflex might seem at first insurmountable.  But even a nauseated blessing through clenched teeth will begin to alter your interior state.  Whenever you have vengeful feelings, say, “God bless [so and so].”  That’s all you have to do, but you may have to do it many times, every three hours for weeks. Daily for months. Weekly for years.

    You’re not requesting on their behalf a life of luxury, flippant and carefree.  Still less are you asking for evildoers to continue to do harm with impunity.  When you bless those who’ve mistreated you, you’re asking God to intervene in their lives.  You may have detailed ideas for how exactly God could proceed. He will consider your suggestions fairly.  But at the end of the day, you surrender judgment to Christ.

    Who is the person who does inspire respect?  It’s the one who can laugh off an insult and make a joke of it. The one who sticks to principle in the face of harassment is inspiring, not the one who lashes out in fury. The one who gets back up after being knocked down and keeps right on running toward the goal: that’s who you want to be. Outmaneuver your opponents. Leave them in the dust, and leave revenge in the hands of God. “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.‘”

     

     

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  • Hallow Your Speech Or Hollow Your Home

    When my first child asked me if Santa Claus was real, I told her quite frankly: “No.” She didn’t believe me. She argued with me. On Christmas morning she rebuked me: “See, Mommy! Look at all these presents. Where do you think these presents came from, if Santa isn’t real?”

    With my second child, I patiently explained that Santa is based on a real person, Saint Nicolas, who lived a long time ago and started the custom of giving presents to poor children at Christmas. Then I got a phone call from my mother: “Do you realize that Anthony is going around telling people that Santa Claus is dead?”

    With the third child, I decided to let my husband handle this issue. Shamelessly he played along with the whole charade. Not only Santa but the Tooth Fairy was real. He snuck presents under the tree and put absurd amounts of money under her pillow, inflating the value of teeth and provoking competition.

    With the fourth child I avoided the whole problem. I agreed that it was too bad the Tooth Fairy didn’t show up, but she might try selling her tooth to her dad instead. I told her to ask her siblings about Santa.

    I recognize that there’s a vast chasm of difference between enjoyable fictions that everyone participates in and, on the other hand, corrupt systems in which the innocent are manipulated by the selfish. It’s one thing to let Santa live on in everyone’s imagination. It’s another thing to lie to your children in order to induce them to do what you want, quickly and without protest.

    There is a place in a child’s life for a teller of tall tales. The tall-tale-teller wants the children to grow up knowing how to distinguish truth from falsehood. Nothing tickles a tale-teller so much as the efforts of a knee-high pipsqueak to put one over on him. And sometimes the pipsqueak wins this game, to everyone’s delight. It’s a game that sharpens the wits, just as tossing balls in the back yard develops athletic skills.

    But then there are adults who hate to see the children maturing, because they no longer believe the little white lies we tell them. How nasty these teenagers are, and how sweet they used to be, back when they still believed everything we said. We used to monitor them electronically. Now they know more about technology than we do, and we can’t even figure out how they’re evading our surveillance. We still track their phones, but they never take our calls, so in the end we don’t know what’s going on in their lives, because they don’t want to talk to us.

    The thing is, if your children can’t trust you to tell the truth about an inane character like the Tooth Fairy, how can they trust you on more important topics?

    If you actually do care about your children, no doubt eventually trust will return. Terminal deceit, from which there is no return is the pretense of love on the part of a parent who is essentially selfish. The friendly father who abandons his family is hollow. The effusive mother who neglects her children is hollow. There’s no need to wonder whose façade is fake. When the perfect-looking marriage collapses, and the hollow family splays out in the open, you’ll wish you didn’t get that sickening glimpse inside.

    The opposite of hollow is to be truly, through and through, what you claim to be. It means actually taking care of your children, and part of that job is to teach them the truth. Fiction can play a role in this, because truth is complex. But your teenagers won’t confide in you if they’ve learned that you rate your immediate convenience above their ultimate good. They’ll have learned your deceptive strategies and will apply them back to you. So consider which sort of parent you’re going to be.

    In the short term, manipulation gets results. But in the long run, integrity stands.

    (Rule of Saint Benedict 4. 24-28)

     

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  • Let Go Of Your Grudge

    A grievance can be like a splinter in the sole of your foot. You don’t want to stop to deal with it. You hope it will work its way out by itself. But it doesn’t work its way out: it wriggles in deeper. It causes more pain, and you think maybe you’ll get used to it. But not only does the pain intensify, it begins to spread, so that the whole area around the splinter becomes hypersensitive. You must take action to get rid of it, and even for just a splinter you might need help with the extraction.

    But not all grievances are like splinters. If you had a bullet in your chest, you wouldn’t hope it would extract itself. You’d know you’d need a surgeon urgently. The more serious an offense is, the more urgent it is for you to let go of your grievance. Refusing to let go of it because it’s the other person’s fault is like refusing to let the surgeon extract a bullet because someone else shot you. Yes, it’s the other person’s fault. But you are the one who has been injured. Therefore you are the one who must undergo treatment. It will be a painful and difficult experience, but in the long run you’ll be much better off than the person crippled by a lifetime’s worth of retained grievances.

    How do we distinguish a grudge from everything else roiling inside?

    A grudge is not horror at evil. If someone who was supposed to be good harms you, what you may feel, more intensely than rancor at the offense is horror at the evil of which you are now aware. Horror is not something you can let go of, not anymore than you can let go of the shadow cast by darkening clouds overhead. Only God can clear the skies for you.

    A grudge is not grief at love spurned. If someone you’ve loved cuts you off, what you must let go of is the grievance at the injustice of it. The sorrow will endure.

    A grudge is not fear of future harm. If someone hurts you who has the power to do so again, you can’t let go of the past while still eaten up with anxiety at what might happen next. Pray for deliverance from your enemy: the Psalms are full of such prayers.

    A grudge is not the memory of what occurred. If you have the sort of imaginative memory that serves up again and again not only the details but all the original feelings, so that you relive the experience over and over, you may dearly wish you could let it go, but you can’t escape your own mind. Consider this: Jesus when he visited his disciples after his resurrection still had holes in his hands and a gash in his side—but the wounds didn’t bother him. So too will yours be, if you commit them to God. Forgiving doesn’t have to mean forgetting.

    Unlike these living emotions of horror, grief, fear and pain, a grudge is a cold, hard, dead thing within you, impervious to change. It wants revenge and will always want revenge, long after you’ve ceased to feel anything else.

    When the thirst for vengeance sets in, it’s like a bacterial infection that develops in a contaminated wound. If it isn’t addressed at once, it can become chronic, like vengeful feelings that persist for years after an offense. The infection can invade your whole body and ruin your health. Vengeful thoughts can obsess you even after the perpetrator is dead. You become vindictive and spiteful. You can’t punish the person who harmed you, so you lash out at someone else nearby. You exact retribution for every petty offense, because everything irritates your sensitive area, and eventually every area is sensitized, because you go through life collecting grievances. Rancor is the only emotion you know anymore, but the word is unfamiliar, because the spiritual state is so normalized that no one names it.

    Jesus tells us to pray, “Forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors.” The phrase rolls off the tongue easily, but living it may involve a long, hard ordeal. It’s what you’ve got to do, though, if you want to live.

    How? You have to accept what God said a long time ago: “‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay.’” This isn’t forgiveness yet: but it’s a necessary step on the way to forgiveness.

     

    (Rule of Saint Benedict 4.23)

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