Unravelling the veils
"It's not fair!" screams my 12 year old daughter. Such is the common refrain around our house these days. The most (un) profound answer that I can give her is "Who said life was fair?"
Praying and meditating on this for weeks, I have been stymied. I haven't had the right frame of mind to come up with a new twist to an old thought. All I came up with is, what my parents said. This was simply not good enough. Why? Because secretly I was feeling the same thing.
She and I are both in transitions. This makes living with each other a little difficult. I have transitioned from unemployment to a new job to learn. She from girl to young woman. She has been beating off the inevitable cocoon, that has been trying to wrap around her so she can blossom into the butterfly she will be. It's not fair, she says, that she should feel these weird sensations in her body and not feel quite right all the time. "I just want it to stop!" she yells with a frustrated grunt. I have to tell her that she'll probably feel like this for most of her 7th grade year and maybe even going into eighth. That doesn't go over too well. I, on the other hand, am trying to keep the cocoon around me, never to emerge. Dreams seeming to never come to fruition. The feeling of time running out. And the desperate feeling that my life is going around in circles, not progressing.
As I was complaining to God as I frequently do, first of course, after thanking Him for all the good things, like having income, a roof over my head, plenty to eat, and health etc. And as I played out my own "it's not fair" scenario, I realized the arrogance in my own world and a sense of entitlement. The very things I've accused my daughter of having. What makes me think I should be successful as an artist? What makes me think I should have a significant other? What makes me think I should have all my friends and family healthy? The truth is everyone is going through their own struggles, even if at first appearance they seem not to be. How do we stop our own inner temper tantrum, when counting blessings just doesn't work? I was asking God that very thing and a conversation came up that I had recently, with a new acquaintance.
It happened to be that I was passing around coupons for the new job I have, and I met a fellow artist with whom I had a connection, instantly. She recently lost a dear friend to cancer. She's married and has 4 kids. This dear friend was a man and she shared a connection with him that was beyond words. She stayed by his side until he left this world. She suffered not only the heartache of this, but also judgment and ridicule because of her friendship with him. She said because of the chemo and pain killers he wasn't always nice. But her love for this man kept her going and caring for him. I knew exactly how she felt. He left her a cabin and property on a mountain that is dedicated to artists with any proceeds going toward cancer research. These thoughts kept repeating in my mind when I was praying(and complaining) about my life as a whole.
What I realized is that life is disappointing if we only have one scenario in mind when it comes to what we deem a successful life. I may not ever be a famous artist in New York, or ever have a traditional secure and comfortable lifestyle, but I can try to make a difference with my art and my heart. I truly see the value in this.
help us to see things
in a heavenly way,
not measured by dollar signs
or decimal points.
Help us to see a task
that we're sure we've done
a hundred times before--
in a different way.
May we not gage our lives
by what we think others have,
or what we don't,
but be grateful for what is.
Give us the impetus to
use our talents in a selfless way,
not limiting our love
or what we have to give
rather,
know the limitlessness
of the Godhead
for which we can tap into
to make this world a
better place.
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Comments
annaliese, not my most profound or deep piece, but real nonetheless. Glad to know I have been missed by you. I long for the slower times I had this summer, and the time to read you and others more thoroughly. This job is physical as well, and it'll take a while to get in shape. Right now I'm just exhausted. Peeling away layers indeed!
Vanessa a new avatar too! Pretty pic of you!
Rated.
I have been to the place you describe and am trying to remember how beautiful life is when you remember all you are.
rated with love
It is a difficult time for any twelve year old, but with a mother like you, she may be luckier than most. Best wishes to both of you. ~R
When we follow the path God has set before us, He can see the entire path we are about to take.
Who would we want driving a car under those circumstances?
Well done once again!
r-
Fair does not mean that you get what you want.
Meanwhile, thanks for your prayer.
Success isn't what matters, anyway. Raising that daughter: teaching her. And expressing your beautiful art. Those matter.
You may want to say Life Is What It Is: We Make Our Own Fair, and It's Good as Long as We are Fair to Others as Well. r.
Thanks Bonnie.
Suresh, thank you and that was where I was coming from when I painted it years ago.
Romantic--yes, I think we all have some of us more frequently than others. I find I just am to hard on myself and I need to quit that. Love going your way too!!
FunSunA: yes I wrote the poem. It's much better to turn things around toward the positive. It's way too energy sapping to live in the other realm. I remember that age very well myself, and I remember mostly being in my room and crying. So on the one hand I have great empathy, but I wish someone would have given me some tools to get past it. This is what I'm trying to do for my daughter.
JD: you are so right! My friend, who is very wise, the one who is going to win this cancer battle, is so much more at peace this go round. He gave the wheel to God on such a deep level. This is not something we have to do just once, but it is a constant thing. Letting God lead in the dance is much more graceful then us stumbling over our feet!
Divorce: That's a good one and so true. We don't always get what we want, atleast not the in package we have visualized. Often we get more if we just have a little faith.
Alyssa: That is so sweet....that touched my heart. Thank you!
Pilgrim: You're right, but sometimes in the role of parenting, our self our personhood outside of being a parent seems to get lost in the call of duty and responsibility. The trick is to keep accepting the new definition of self.
Jonathan: You may want to say Life Is What It Is: We Make Our Own Fair, and It's Good as Long as We are Fair to Others as Well. I like that. I'm sure that is a model for God. We just don't know who is being considered that is touching our lives perhaps in the future that makes their fair and our fair meet in the middle!
Rita: You are so right. I hear of and meet many young people, who think they should make a high hourly wage with no work experience, if they are willing to work at all. All of them from this time until they've moved out of the house pull the "but she has this, why can't I?" card. Sharing with her that things are probably not as hunky dory as they seem, falls on deaf ears in heat of a moment. I have had better success showing her how to look at our situation from a different perspective. The other thing is to teach her to toughen up. I'm afraid she has been a little babied since she's an only. I'm not doing her any favors on that note. She seems to be stepping up to the plate rather nicely. And likes to see in retrospect how strong she was in certain situations. I'm telling you, girls can be really mean to one another at this age, and she's in a Catholic school. I can't imagine what it would be like in public.
And you know I am a non-believer.
With respect: I will join with you for the sake of argument that petitioning with prayer actually works, contrary to the results of some excellent studies designed by believers themselves. Let's see what this really means.
In a world where prayer works, what should pious humans do with this proxy power? I suggest there is one, only one, moral answer. One prayer alone, that should be uttered, offered, repeated, during all waking hours: save suffering children in (Congo, Darfur, the slums of Rio, etc).
If one believes in prayer, Anne, and can live with its mysterious and indirect results, then one accepts that all such results are small and incremental. But this would make it all the more urgent, to not waste a bit of prayer on self-improvement, a new car, one's sick Aunt in comfortable Cinncinnati.
One would have to put maximum effort to heal the world of young boys kidnapped and forced to carry Uzis in central Africa. To prevent rape and maiming of girls in Darfur. To overcome the squalor and filth in Rio, and give orphans and teen prostitutes in Brazil's cities a better life.
I submit no one really believes, deep down, that prayer works. Because we would see different behavior than we see. All who understood this as actual power would immediately pray constantly for these children, eating and sleeping just enough to sustain the prayer effort. They would organize scientific testing to see exactly what prayers and prayer behavior would be most efficacious for this, and recruit us all to do so.
No other use of prayer is moral or ethical or kind until prayer first solves the problems of children suffering and dying in hellish, hopeless circumstances.
But we don't see this. Whole communities are organized for prayer that is mostly aimed at after-death redemption, or just to praise the Lord, etc. Protestants are encouraged by uber-rich pastors to pray for personal wealth.
Prayer is affirmation, self- or otherwise. I understand that. It reinforces for us our best intentions and hopes, reminds us of better ways to live and feel and think. Makes us look outside ourselves to the well-being of others. To be forbearing, benevolent, compassionate. We have power over ourselves, and exercise it, with some kinds of affirmation prayers.
But a personal God who listens to us is an idea that comforts us, makes us feel less helpless. No one who deploys prayer routinely for personal gain for themselves or others has a genuine belief that He will Do, if we but ask correctly. They simply Want, Yearn, Need. Fear for their loved ones.
But if it really worked? If people at least genuinely believed it did? Even the most ordinary among us, folks who are not especially good, would routinely kick in some prayer time for suffering children, because it feels good to be effective, to make things better, and society smiles on us when we do.
Among some Catholics there is a longstanding tradition of asking orphans to pray for the them. Some orphanages in China and elsewhere relay on contributions for such prayers from Americans and Europeans to stay solvent, so there is the good that comes from such money. But the whole idea is profoundly amoral, and creepy, and should be a revelatory example of what prayer really is, the role it plays in believers' lives. To buy access to God through the "extra-effective" prayers of suffering children is awful, but a logical extension of Christian ideas about prayer and the after-life. And it has nothing to do with compassion.
I hope you understand the non-combative nature of this. I strongly challenge the ideas, but I don't wish for a personal fight about this.
When my daughter's teacher lost her baby,yesterday, it deeply effected her, to the point that she went to the doctor's office and I was called at work. What I could do for my child in that moment was pray, and yes it comforted her. Does it work on a grand scale to really change things? Maybe it would if that's all we did. But I would venture to guess that the sincerity of prayer would then drive that person to take action and they would have a better direction, through prayer, on what they could do.
God works through all of us if we listen and act. The trouble is we're too busy, usually, pointing the finger at the other guy as to what they should do, instead of doing it ourselves.
If you have a better idea as to what would make a difference to alleviate the atrocities in this world and I was able in body, it would not harm my family, and financially equipped, I would do it.
As you can see from the simplicity of my plea in this blog and others, that I am hardly capable, or intelligent enough to give you an answer that would satisfy, let alone give a real solution.
Am I grieved by all that you have listed? You bet I am. This evil is all around us, especially against children. Just the other day, two family members in a fit of hostility and road rage, took to battling each other on the road, when one car was smashed against the other on to on coming traffic and killed an innocent family who happened to be in it's path. How could I have prayed to prevent that? How could I have known? Am I as a Christian bound to pray against and try to stop all inequities? I can pray for the families that survived these loved ones, that they may find peace. (which I did)
Does prayer work? I would say that any time you put your thoughts and heart in the direction of love, into the universe, it makes a difference, if for anything else because you did your best, with the tools you have, to make the world a better place. Does that goodness get swallowed up by the evil down the lane? Sometimes it feels that way, yes. So I pray harder. And, every once in a while I feel peace in my spirit, that yes I did overcome.
Unfortunately I have no personal scientific proof. There have been scientific studies in the power of prayer for healing. As you can see from this article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/23/AR2006032302177.html
even trying to study it scientifically is controversial and met with skepticism.
Thank you for your thoughts and time in commenting here, Greg. Much to think about.
enjoyed it.
Caroline, I know it is my comeupance for the hell I put my mother through at that age!