As I said before, saints’ days, most holy days and special topics (movies, books, gender, TC, synod) are and will be collected elsewhere. These posts are taking it month-by-month. More links at the end of the post.
Nothing New Under the Sun (7/2)
If you wanted to offer young people (who are open to it! Black and white movies! Oh, no!) a little mini-course in the truth that Human Nature and Social Dynamics Don’t Really Change, you might show them this, Ace in the Hole, His Girl Friday (or The Front Page) and Sweet Smell of Success.
They’re a useful mirror – to see people acting in misguided or outright terrible ways sixty or seventy years ago, shake our heads at it, but then have the mirror held up to us – and to see that we’re no different, and in fact it’s worse, since, like nuclear weapons and the human urge to dominate – we can do so much more damage with the tools we have today.
Progress!
You’re Great, I’m Great, We’re all Great (7/15)
In every part of life, there seems to be the need to find the sweet spot – some might call it the happy medium – between scrupulosity and laxity.
We lurch back and forth between them in our lives as individuals and culturally as well. Religiously, too – obviously.
It’s an aspect of the modern parenting narrative, too.
For it’s all over the place isn’t it?
Don’t worry, Mama! You’re doing great! You’re doing your best!
Well, guess what?
You actually might not be doing your best. You might be doing a terrible job, as it happens.
This is where the sweet spot comes in, and I’m on a search for the best way to express what that is and how to settle into it.
For certainly, constant guilt-ridden second-guessing anxiety is a drain on healthy parenting. It hurts the parent, the child – everyone. And can do lifelong damage – to everyone.
But no, the necessary response is not – Everything you’re doing is GREAT!
That’s not healthy, either. And it’s not realistic.
Every time I run across one of those You’re doing your best, Mama! posts on social media, the same string of questions races through my mind, cynically, I admit:
Has she never heard of abusive mothers?
Neglectful?
Manipulative?
Has she never heard of mothers who ignore their children’s needs, dominate them, harm them by commission or omission or are generally clueless?
I mean, if Mama is always doing her best (just because she’s Mama, apparently), why are so many of us out here still working through our parenting issues well into adulthood?
A Narrow Fellow in the Grass… (7/15)
Vale, Rocky!
But here are those shelves, yes? I did carry them. Of all the stuff in my parents’ home that I could have taken or could have left behind, I did, indeed, keep those yellow shelves.
We are who we are, and we can’t deny it. These are our fathers, these are our mothers, this is us.
But we’re not fated. We have a choice – what will we do with what we are?
What will we carry?
What will we do with those bookshelves?
Where will we put them?
What will we use them for?
How, exactly, will they fit into our lives?
What will go?
What will stay?
And what will we pass on?
Charlotte was Both 