Sunday, July 3, 2011

"Little" things keeping us from love (of self and others)

I'm laying in Granny's bed with a half dozen posts in my head. This one in particular is cause of my 2.5 month blogging hiatus. The idea seems complicated to translate to others. This idea--more of a HUGE UNIVERSAL TRUTH (at least in my head)--has taken about two decades to take shape,and honestly it's more like a theory that I want to subject to a scientific peer review. That's how much conviction I have about it.

It's the idea that choices and exposures, whether passive or aggressive, that we shrug off as "insignificant" or as "not a big deals", actually have the power to change our character and quality of life and potential to fully and freely love--to love platonically, romantically, and in every other way. I intitially have examined choices or exposures that could be seen as negative (premature, inappropriate, harmful, etc), and their impact upon our dispositions. I think about a number of my own students who I met as freshmen. That group of students who had started their rookie year as bright eyed, curious, respectful, happy, engaged, were suddenly, and for the time being, permanently, sullen, rude (or nasty), "bored with school", incorrigible with parents and other adults. This was not the normal hormonal temporary episodes of teenage melodrama or a shift in personality due to TITANIC losses such as death of a family member or homelessness or victimization of violence. When I would inquire about these subtle and gradual changes, other students or family members would say things like, "Oh, he started hanging with 'so and so'" or "She's sleeping with 'so and so' who's also sleeping with her ex best friend". This high school gossip took me clearly back to my junior or senior year in high school. I remember a boy telling me, "You smile too much. You need to have sex."

WHOA. Smiling = happiness and innocence to him. So, he was telling me to have sex to "numb" that innocence out of me? Scary.

This entry is not about sex. It does, however, make me think of choices, when in the wrong context, and wrong time, and when just the "WRONG CHOICE", can really rob our souls of authentic happiness, innocence, and goodness--can numb us. In the example above, sex is often seen as a "little" thing to teens that is not a big deal as long as condoms are involved. But in actuality, it's often a decision, when made through pressure or coersion and without counsel and discussion with elders, that numbs and hardens young people (and adults too--let's keep it real).

Sex at the wrong time and with the wrong person/people is not the only soul spotter. Insatiable desires for power, money, envy, bigotry, jealousy--in forms that can be easily shrugged off as "little" or "insignificant" also damage us and our ability to love others. You ever know someone who just couldn't stand you? Hated you? But if asked why, they couldn't articulate why, or created some bogus reason that made you want to just stick a pacifier in his mouth? He/she allowed a little bigotry or jealousy or envy or unforgiveness in--an "inocuous" amount--that tainted their treatment of you. But what we don't realize is that when we allow for those negative things to be in us, we begin to radiate negative energy (as hardness, callousness, mean spiritedness) even when we don't intention to!

Any time we are used or use others for power, sex, recreation, money, control, influence, etc, our souls become more spotted, and sometimes, we become less human.

Old cantankerous people don't get that way overnight. As my sister was reminding my niece today, children start as innocent and radiating love and faith, but the grime of the world begins to stick on our hearts. Some things happen to us, and we have no control over those things. We, do, however, have control over how we respond. The "little" things that we tolerate have huge dividends in our souls--when those "little" compromises or poor choices are not addressed, they take a toll on our ability to love ourselves, others, and God.

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