clumsiness

“Why do we have the desire to tease the innocent? Is it envy? ” (GG) Why do we point out flaws in others just to feel good about ourselves. Shouldn’t we be able to know our strengths without crushing someone. We should, I want to, I will. I will from this time forth (of course I will mess up) not step on another to feel better about myself. CSL says that following the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves does not mean we have to like our neighbor, there are many times we don’t like ourselves. This not liking ourselves is as important as loving ourselves, it should go with self esteem. We should call it, well I am not sure, but it should be something that counters the self esteem myth that we are beyond mistakes and that somehow our mistakes are somehow not part of us. Mistakes may be more apart of us than our talents and good points. How much stronger would we be, how much stronger would our families be, if we could incorporate “that was stupid”, or “I am not doing that again”, into discussions as readily as we say “that was awesome. And with the criticism is a kind of silly laughter. “you silly goose” or “sometimes I do the dumbest things” . The recognition of our weaknesses releases us from criticizing others. When we are honestly aware of our strengths and flaws then we see others’ strengths and flaws. We see others as we see ourselves and the world can breathe a sigh of relief that we are flawed and we are awesome. If I am a child of God and he loves me, then he himself enjoys my mistakes and enjoys my awesomeness. He is simply asking in my clumsiness to lean on him, but I can only do this if I recognize my clumsiness.

clutter

I spent most of the morning cleaning the house after being gone last week. My husband and I are both ‘people of clutter’. The difference between my clutter and his is two fold; mine is much more colorful and he can’t see his. I picked up the following items of his this morning: a toolbox, a model airplane, a box of mail that hasn’t been opened (not a small box by the way), a briefcase (which hasn’t been used in 3 years), a pair of work shoes, forestry flagging, a pair of sunglasses, various papers and a set of keys. Now this clutter doesn’t seem all that important except that when he walks in the door he never sees it. He sees the wedding dress that I have to return to a friend laying on the chair but doesn’t seem to see any of his piles of to-dos. (He also doesn’t seem to see the dishes he dirties.) My mother has a similar problem, she is more of a hoarder than a clutterer, but until someone comes to stay at her house for any longer than a week, she doesn’t seem to notice the mess. Not only after a prolonged stay by the vistitor does she notice the mess, and then mess becomes the visitor’s fault. I don’t know what this illness (if it is an illness) is called and I don’t know if it can be changed. What makes us not see our own messes? What makes others’ messes bigger and more important than our own? And keeps us from recognizing our messes until we have someone else to blame them on? Maybe it is because in our entire marriage my husband has never deep cleaned a room. When you have scrubbed every corner, taken apart every cupboard and tidied back up you have a better appreciation for the cleanliness of the room. My husband had his mother to maid for him and my mother had a maid for most of my growing up. So maybe there is a cleanliness detachment. They are both artists and maybe their mess is actually a ‘work in progress’ and should not be interrupted. I don’t know.

Give and Take

You see I don’t have mentors in this small mountain community of 4,ooo. Not that this town is void of them, the mentors haven’t yet found me. Found me, how pompous can I be? I have sought for few and I have found none, but I don’t know if I sought for any I would find one. I am cynical, I have been spoiled by the environment I taught in. My students, my colleagues and my mentors fed me , I don’t know if I fed them. I don’t think that we have to feed those that feed us with the same food they feed us. Maybe that is one of the lessons that motherhood teaches us, our children and our husband do not feed us with the same food that we feed them. Mothers, many times, look at feeding their children as a boring chore, and many times it is, but what if it is simply an investment into the energy stash for the food they feed us. And does this change if we eat out? I don’t know. But in the give and take of associations we should not expect to receive exactly what we give; we should be prepared to receive something completely different, surprised by a gift that we could not have guessed, that we could not have orchestrated, that we could not have given ourselves. So each person we meet is simply a giver of gifts. What will they give you? I knew a family that gave money to a women seemingly in need. The women needed cash for medicine, gas and groceries. There was no accountability for the money that she spent. It just so happens that the money was spent to pay the cable bill and support her adult son’s video gaming habit. What the needy women gave the giving family was a sense of righteousness, a sense goodness and sense of ‘being needed’. But this is not what our relationships should be giving us, this is not the purpose for which we were created. I am not saying we shouldn’t help people, but the association created when you are giving to either receive the same thing or receive nothing but a feeling of righteousness is not giving at all; it is actually taking, and in taking there is no creating. So in your associations, which include partners, children and colleagues, are you accepting what they are giving you? Are you fully enjoying what you are giving them? This give and take is simply common sense and the only environment where pure charity can thrive.