​Familiarity breeds….
 
Those who study family patterns have long suggested that humans are prone to repeat family patterns.  There are a couple of reasons for this tendency:
 

• Humans will always find a way to take care of themselves.  How us humans take care of ourselves may promote the sabotage or the health of an individual and a new family.
• Humans can only use the tools for taking care of themselves that they have learned from their family of origin or which they have consciously shopped for as adults.
• Humans learn to associate dynamics of family of origin with love and emotional health.   Many who grow up in an abusive family setting think that abuse is a normal part of love.
• Humans may focus on selecting partner and friends with superficial differences from members of family or origin, but core characteristic will often be the same.

 
If one is lucky, one learned the above at a fairly young age and began to shop for tools to adopt new ways of thinking and behaving in relationships.  Perhaps one was shocked to learn that abuse has nothing to do with love to learn that healthy individuals and families do not get drunk or high every weekend.  One may learn that healthy families consider the needs of all family members before making decisions.  
 
Most of us learn a mixture of healthy and unhealthy ways of taking care of ourselves in our family of origin.   For example, in my family of origin I learned:
 

• One does not think about doing chores. One just does them. The fact that I grew up in home which depended on well water, wood for heating and cooking, and the growing and often canning of food did not allow the “luxury” of procrastinating about chores.  If one did not do chores one did not eat, bathe, drink, cook, or have heat.
• One has to be creative about learning and even play.
• What one person in the system did or did not do affected everyone in the family system.
• Neighbors shared and helped each other.

 
I also learned:
 

• Punishment trumps teaching.   If one made a mistake one was severely punished.
• Pretend as if all is okay even if there is serious abuse in the family.
• Love equals anger, blame, and disappointment.
• One was defined by one’s mistakes and not by one’s achievements.
• Adults did not have to like each other to love each other. In fact love meant that one could be very mean to each other.
• Children were a burden to parents and ruined their lives.
• Women were not to be respected.  The work of males was always more important then that of females.
• God was very disappointed in one’s humanness.

 
Obviously, I learned a lot more about how to behave as an adult and what it meant to be a husband, father, and worker.  I learned from my parents, other adults, peers  and the limited media which was then available – books advertisement, and occasional magazines and the radio. 
 
No one suggested to me that once I reached adulthood much of what I was learning needed to be carefully examined and then consciously retained or discarded.    Thus, I did not have a non-judgmental self- examination system and I blindly went about pretending to be an adult while using my very mixed bag of survival tools.  In some area of life, I was relatively successful.
 
In the most important aspect of my life – personal relationship with self and others – I was a dismal failure.  I tended to repeat the most unhealthy patterns of my family of origin - -particularly that of my immediate family.
 
I said to a client last evening, “Oh, you married your mother.”   He was shocked, but as we began to compare his mother and his wife it was obvious that their survival tools – positive and negative – were very similar.  Although it was painful and a bit embarrassing for him to accept this fact, he is now in a position to begin to sort through what he learned as a child; what he now needs to retain and what he needs to discard. He can also share this process with his teenage son.  Although he may still, at times, feel emotionally attracted to those who would duplicate his family origin he will learn how to separate those initial emotions from the reality of the dynamics of a future relationship.  He will not need to judge members of his family of origin. They did the best that they knew how to do. 
 
Written June 19, 2018
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​The new normal
 
I often use the term “the new normal” but I am 99.9% sure my friend Dr. Becky Johnen first used the term. Dr. Johnen publishes a weekly blog at “authorbeckyjohnen.wordpress.com” which one can sign up to have delivered to one’s email box every week.  One’s life will be enriched by doing so.
 
This morning she used the term in reference to a young mother whose “new normal” is a life which must be designed and choreographed without her husband and the father of her children. 
 
Many of those for and with whom I work have to learn to choreograph a life of recovery from active addiction. Often these individuals feel overwhelmed with all the responsibilities which recovery, jobs, home care, child care, personal relationships and community relationships entail.  Sometimes one must also return to school.  Others I know are choreographing a new life dance following severe industrial or combat related accidents.  This new dance may involve living without one or more limbs and not being able to do a job for which one had years of preparation.
 
As many of us age, we will also face a “new normal” which closes some doors and opens others. 
 
One man I know who was a highly trained, competent and very physically fit professional whose job often took him away from his family suddenly was very limited in what he could do physically and was officially declared disabled.  His new normal has been a much more active and present role with his children, wife and extended family.
 
For some, labeling one’s dance as the new normal could evoke a sense of hopelessness, despair and even giving up.   One may have a difficult time envisioning this new life dance.  One may have such a close identification with one’s current life dance that one cannot imagine a different life dance which is satisfying or about which one can feel passionate.
 
If one asks Dr. Johnen she would suggest that a new normal opens as many or perhaps, at times, more doors than it closes.  As is true for all of us, Dr. Johnen has had to adjust to a new normal many times as “life has shown up” in her personal and professional life.  One can rest assure that she does not recommend any changes in attitude or self- talk that she has not had to practice.
 
One can plan for some changes. Others, such as the death of a young spouse, may be a huge shock.  One may not have had any time to prepare.   
 
Yesterday three long time members of the Pittsburgh Symphony were recognized for their service as they played their last performance with the symphony prior to retiring. (Actually, only two of them were able to be present yesterday.)  I have no idea of what changes this will entail for them in terms of their relationships with their musical instruments.   Perhaps, as seems true for Emanuel Ax the world famous concert pianist, they will be able to keep playing even as their gait becomes slower.  There is no evidence that Mr. Ax has any restrictions in terms of the flexibility and agility of his fingers.  Perhaps their playing will change as a result of some age related restrictions.
 
Life will continue to show up for all of us.  Our choice is to make peace with the new normal while making our way towards the new doors of possibility or to forever kick and scream because the old normal is no longer possible.    I do not mean to minimize the necessity of grieving the loss of the old normal – the loss of people, limbs and abilities – but giving ourselves time and space to grieve does not mean we have to refuse to see the outlines of the new doors.
 
Perhaps we can all resolve to open our arms to each arrival of the new normal.
 
Written June 18, 2018
 
 
 
 
 

​Sunday Musings – June 17, 2018
 
Happy father’s day to all of us who are biological dads, dads by choice to non-biological children (including adult children), mentors, sponsors, wise uncles, and grandfathers who are increasingly filling both the role of father and of grandfather.
 
This morning I would like to say to our sons and daughters:
 

• I hope you will lovingly hold us accountable and let us know when and how we have failed you.
• I hope that you will see and accept your own humanness reflected in us just as we see and accept our humanness reflected in you.
• I hope that if you are a parent you have learned something from our mistakes and shortcomings.
• I hope that you know we love you unconditionally.
• I hope that you have figured out that loving unconditionally is only possible when one loves oneself unconditionally.
• I hope that we have left you curious about this life journey and open to new experiences.
• I hope that we have showed you that it is not mental illness, addiction, post- traumatic stress, depression or other disorders which are our primary enemies, but that our primary enemy is our fear of being vulnerable and asking for help when we need it.
• I hope that we have taught you that worth is not measured by the size of our adult toys, our titles or the size of our bank accounts.
• I hope that we have taught you that strength is best evidenced by the size of our hearts, the tears that we shed and the laughter we share.
• I hope that we have taught you that “we” is always better than “I”.
• I hope that we have taught you that we are a very important piece of a universal whole no matter what one calls that universal whole.
• I hope that we have taught you to love and appreciate the beauty of all that is and all we can envision and dream of.

 
Happy father’s day!
 
Written June 17, 2018
 
 
 
 
 
 

​No rehearsals
 
I am a reasonably educated man and some might even suggest that I am passably articulate.  Yet, often what I think I am communicating is not even close to what the other person hears. It is equally true that what I hear others saying is not even close to what they are intending to communicate.  I was thinking of this too often repeated experience when I was unable to hear what a friend was saying this afternoon.  I was hearing arrogance and a not very subtle suggestion that his experiences of gaining wisdom comes from teachers spanning many life journeys while mine is very limited.   Not wanting to engage in a verbal contest of who was right I told him I was hanging up.  A little later we talked again and assured each other of our respect and love for each other.   
 
There are times when I allow the content of the conversation to take precedence over the relationship. 
 
As we approach the day set aside in the United States to honor those who fumble and stumble their way through their role as father,  I often think a better plan would have been to have a dress rehearsal until one was at least age 40 or 50.   Looking back in makes no sense that young people whose brains may still be developing or, if physically developed, are often caught up in proving their worth become parents.  It does not matter whether one is attempting to earn one’s place in a corporate law office, in a factory, in the fracking business, or on the streets. It is the rare young father who has any real idea of how to balance practical needs, the “need” to prove oneself, and to assume the role of a father who models that how we love and take care of each other easily trumps these other goals. One has to make enough money to pay one’s bills – to provide basic housing, food and other true necessities – but relationships can still come first.
 
Whether it was an argument with my son’s mother – my wife and then my ex-wife – or with my son about it was hardly ever about anything important.  In retrospect, I know this, but at the  time,  so many arguments seemed to be about the need to prove one’s point – even if one was not sure of the point.
 
I was 31 when I became a father.  I was finishing my last year of theological seminary, working as an intern at a prison, substituting for pastors on Sundays, writing a thesis and preparing for ordination exam.  I was much too busy with “important tasks” to be fully present with my then wife or with she and my son when he was born.  Oh sure, there were moments when I was present to the miracle of this gift of our son.   There were probably even fewer moments when I was present to my wife who was attempting to survive a severe the postpartum depression.  Despite the fact that I was in seminary and writing a thesis of some aspects of ethics – how we treat each other – I had no real idea of how to walk the talk on a daily basis.   Conceptually I would wax on for hours or pages and pages about what it meant to be live one’s values/core beliefs, but when it came to living them I badly needed a very long dress rehearsal which did not inflict the sins of my lack of preparation on any other human, especially my son.
 
I did have a very good role model of what it meant to show up with love on a daily basis.  My Uncle Harold was a pro.  Of course, he was old. I suspect he might have been 40 or older!  Yet he more than any other adult male I knew had figured how to walk the talk.
 
I see fathers in their twenties, thirties and forties still in need of a dress rehearsal.   Far too many are still struggling to prove their mettle and, thus, find their children a major inconvenience and a nuisance.  
 
Yet when I noticed the advertisements for gifts for father’s day this year I noticed a wider variety of options. Not every gift idea was about sports, guns, or fishing.   Many were about reading, the arts, education or other aspects of what it means to be a father in 2018. This is progress.  Still we must be very intentional about raising males to be fathers or to choose not to be fathers from a very early age.   Sadly, there is no dress rehearsal.  We can, however, be there to mentor and support each other  - reminding each other what really matters.
 
Written June 16, 2018
 
 

​The  law
 
It is not unusual in this and other countries to quote religious teachers to justify behavior which is designed to keep power in the hands of a selected group of people.  In the United States there is a long history of using various passages  of the Christian bible to justify abuse of others.   Some examples include:
 

• Laws such as the thumb rule which stated that a husband should not beat his wife or children with a stick larger than his thumb.
• Laws which punished homosexuality between consenting adults with prison time, job loss and other loss of rights as citizens.
• Laws which protected slave owners.
• Laws which came to be known as the Jim Crow Laws.
• Laws which allowed husbands to commit wives to mental institutions for the “sin” of wanting a divorce (often from an abusive husband).
• Laws which continue to jail those suffering with the disease of addiction.

 
Thus, it should come as no surprise that Attorney General of the United States in a speech in Fort Wayne, Indiana on June 14, 2018 was reported by KOCO News and others to have said regarding the separation of children and parents attempting to enter the United States:
 
“I would cite you to the Apostle Paul and his clear and wise command in Roman 13 to obey the laws of the government because God has ordained them for the purpose of order, “ he said. “Orderly and lawful processes are good in themselves and protect the weak and lawful.”
 
As many commentators have pointed out since the honorable Mr.Sessions quoted from Romans 13, he might also want to address what else St. Paul says in other parts of Romans, Chapters 13 and 12.  As any student of the New Testament knows there have been many books dissecting what is said in the New Testament as well as the Old Testament.  If one is a “biblical scholar” one can certainly find a passage to justify just about any opinion.
 
I will not bore the reader with quoting various “learned  brethren” who have wrote thousands of words agreeing with or disagreeing with Mr. Sessions  defense of the zero tolerance policy towards “illegals”.  Bear in mind that it has been determined by our esteems leaders that domestic violence does not qualify one for political asylum because fear of domestic violence or gang violence does not, in the opinion of the current administration, fit the definition or of persecution.   (One can read thoughts and opinions by legal experts of whether persecution needs to be more broadly defined by Congress.)
 
Personally, in my very simple thought process, it seems axiomatic that:
 

• Families do not risk the lives of themselves and their children by traveling hundreds or thousands of miles in impossible conditions because they feel safe and able to provide for their family in the country they have left.
• We need to make it very easy and simple for those seeking asylum to enter this country legally rather than creating laws and interpretations of laws which automatically create criminals.
• The United States needs to do all that is possible to work with organizations such as the United Nations to address issues of injustice, poverty and all forms and types of violence in all countries.
• The only laws I need to obey are those which are dictated by common human decency, empathy, and what any thinking person knows is morally right.
• If we cannot put ourselves in the shoes of “the least of these” we have no business in any political, social, or religious leadership position.
• If we cannot be humbly grateful for the blessings of our lives because we think we have pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps we need to look at the accidents of our birthplace, time and the subsequent opportunities available to us.

 
Perhaps Mr. Session, Ms. Sanders, and Mr. Trump could daily recite a portion of the confession contained in the Book of Common Prayer used by many Christian Churches:
 
ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind In Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.
 
Written June 15, 2018
 
 

​Accepting the invitation 
 
Someone asked me what I thought of the comments of Robert De Niro at the Tony awards, June 10, 2018.  I had no idea what he was talking about, but was sure I could find a video of the event.  Sure enough, there is a You Tube video in which Mr. De Niro comes out on the stage and says “F____K” Trump. It is no longer “dump Trump but F...K trump.”    The audience clapped and jeered him on.
 
I am  well aware that the current President of the United States seems to thrive on making very public, negative statements about people worth whom he disagrees or who not feed his ego.    I am also aware that many people accept the invitations to publicly spar with Mr. Trumps, stopping just short of acting like street juveniles who feels compelled to prove their manhood by impinging the integrity of someone’s mother.    I am also well aware that some of our most pious politicians, famous clergy and other righteous leaders in private use language and engage in behavior for which they publicly denounce others.
 
I am also aware of the fact that in many cultures the use of the F word or its equivalent is common.  
 
It is also true that reacting instead of acting is not limited to those living in the United States.  I do think that the public nature of the instantaneous reaction of many in the public sector is somewhat new.  It is, after all, the first time in human history when our ability to publicly tweet, message, email, Facebook, Instagram or use some other app is new.   Never before in human history could anyone, including our president, instantly shout out a reaction to the word or other behavior of another  and have it go “viral” in a matter of minutes.
 
I can very clearly recall saying to my son or having adults say to me when I was young, “I don’t care what Johnny or Susie is doing, in this family we do not …”
We were taught that it is our responsibility to strive to be intentional about our words and other behavior and to base them on our core values.  Blaming another person for my behavior, even if it was a sibling, simply was not acceptable.   
 
The fact is that I have a choice.  Is someone invites me to engage in a dumbed down version of the dirty dozen I have a choice of whether or not to accept that invitation. No one can force me to name call, hurl obscenities, make racist or sexist statement or engage in any other behavior which is not consistent with my values.   At age 13 it might have been understandable that I though it appropriate to accept an invitation to engage in a nasty, disparaging verbal battle and blame in on the person who “started it”.   As an adult, I am expected to a strong enough sense of self to choose behavior of which I can be proud.  
 
Obviously, I have no control over the behavior of another person.  I might or might not have some influence over employees, children or other whom I am honored to lead or guide.


I have no control over the behavior of Mr. De Nero.  I have no control over the members of the Tony Awards audience who loudly clapped and cheered the verbal behavior which mirrored that of President Trump which mirrored that of the street juvenile who is attempting to prove or establish his place- manhood or womanhood.  I do know it is tempting for me to react instead of taking responsibility for behaving in a way which is consistent with my core values. Throwing verbal barbs or physical knives is not consistent with my goals. 
 
I suppose this is another way of reminding myself of the teaching of many spiritual leaders who admonished those who were without “sin” to throw the first stone.”
 
Written June 14, 2018
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

​Gender and Ego Development
 
I was talking with a woman the other day who is one of those individuals who knows she does not need a partner, but she wants one. In her case the partner is a male.  She remarked that she realized early on in her marriage that her husband did not feel as if she needed him.  This led to her deciding to downplay some of her skills so he could feel as if he was needed – had something to contribute. She went on to assert that it is a genetic trait of males to be needed in very practical ways.  This was not a setting which lent itself to a discussion of this assertion of fact. I was quietly attempting to “actively listen” to her opinion and question my own bias.  My own biases are:
 

• Healthy men and women know that they do not need a romantic partner to take care of them.  They are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves by doing tasks themselves, hiring tasks done or bartering with others.
• Everyone one has skills and possibly expertize which they bring to relationships -  romantic and non-romantic friendships, work teams or community teams.
• They’re very few gender specific skills/abilities. Pregnancy, birthing and nursing a baby are, of course, gender specific.  Science has clearly debunked most myths about gender specific skills.
• All healthy males and females need loved and nurtured (some individual may be born without the ability to feel that need but that is a small group of individuals).
• Males are perfectly capable of learning that emotional support and sharing the maintenance and running of a household are well within their ability, even if they were not taught these skills as a child.
• There may be some generalized differences in the average or male and female.  For example, my understanding is that that many males move faster but most females had longer endurance.
• Historically, myths about gender specific abilities have been paired with customs designed to reinforce the myths. For example, the costumes of women (skirts, heels, cresset) were designed to restrict the movement of women and make them more dependent on men in many situations.
• When societal needs outweighed the need to propagate the gender myths as in wartime, females were assigned roles and jobs traditionally assigned only to males.  Thus, was born Rosie the riveter or Ruth the long-distance truck driver during World War II.
• In same sex relationships, all roles are divided according to interest or ability.
• There are no male jobs or female jobs except as previously mentioned.  There are only tasks which need to be completed. Each couple can decide who is more skilled, has more interest or is available to do specific tasks.
• Each of us may have task preferences which may have seemed “natural” to us” us because of temperament, learning or some other ability or limitation.
• If one has a need to prove they do not need anyone then they may want to refrain from living with another person or entering into a romantic relationship.
• Future studies may or may not provide reasons or evidence for the often-observed difference in the social functioning of males and males – particularly junior high and high school students.
• Although general style may vary, both males and females often seek external proof of their worth.  For example, both genders are often equally skilled in bullying. 

 
I strongly suspect that we have choices in how we choreograph relationships between/among males and females.
 
 
Written June 12, 2018
 

The art of active listening
 
I have previously written about the art of active listening.   When a friend, a colleague, or someone else we care about is emotionally upset we want to be helpful. This may be particularly true when that person is talking as if they might do something which we know is potentially harmful to themselves or someone else.   Our natural tendency is to attempt to make or help them see how illogical they are being or thinking so that they will not do anything which they will later regret or, worse still, something which results in their injury or death. 
 
I am often faced with this situation when I am working with/for someone who is struggling with early recovery from active addiction or who is in the midst of a bipolar delusional/paranoid episodes.   Kevin Hines, one of the few people to survive a suicidal jump from the Golden Gate Bridge spoke at a conference I attended last week.  One of the lessons he wanted members of the audience to most hear was that when someone is in the midst of a life threatening mental illness episode, the person needs to know that someone cares enough to listen.  Whether that person is a family member, a colleague, a mental health professional or even a stranger does not matter as long as the ill person feels or believes that the person cares about his/her hurt.   If it feels as if the person is actively listening they will normally feel cared for/about.
 
The act of actively listening is simple, but is also incredibly difficult for most of us.    Active listening requires that we offer no opinions, advice, judgments or “facts”.  The goal is for the person to be heard.  It may be very important for the listener to repeat back to the person what they heard and then wait for the person to either confirm that the listener heard or correct the listener.  Sometimes the speaker may be so upset that they get even more upset because they think that the person was not listening.   The listener then merely confirms that they were wrong and did not hear as well as thought that they did.  They may even need to apologize.   If the listener is not clear about or with their role as listener they might get upset with the person talking. They might expect the talker to be logical; to be talking as a person who is not ill or upset.
 
The listener is not concerned with the content of what the person is saying unless, of course, the person is clearly about to do something immediately dangerous to themselves or someone else. 
 
In general, but not always, females are much better at active listening than we males.   Often we males want to fix the upset or troubled person.  Many females partnered with males get very frustrated with we males because  when they “just” need us to listen we offer advice, attempt to fix, tell them “it is okay” when it is clearly not okay (although they know that they will be okay).  I am not convinced that this is an unchangable genetic trait of  males. Generally by the time we are adults we have practiced fixing or advising for a very long time. We have “learned” that it our job as males to take care of the female.  While in any important relationship  each person has particular skills, very few of those skills are gender specific.  Listening is not, I believe, a genetic gender specific skill.   It is a learned behavior. Learned behaviors can be unlearned/changed – not easily but we males can change.   Obviously, some females are also more comfortable in the fixer/advise role and some males are more comfortable in the active listener role.
 
On must not underestimate the value of the active listener. Although it may not feel as if one is doing anything important folks such as Kevin Hines report that is often an enormously helpful action.
 
I urge all of us to practice active listening.  Then we need to practice some more.
 
Written June 11, 2018

Success?
 
I was listening to a report on NPR this morning which reported a study in a very prestigious New England community high school where a majority if the students are taking honors or college classes and are headed to some of the colleges which graduate many of the leaders in government and the private sector. These are the young people who are slated to be elected to public office, become CEOs or CFO, and “successful” entrepreneurs.  Yet, the study found that the rate of substance abuse, anxiety and depression is as high in this school as it is in many inner-city schools where it would seem that the daily life stressors are much higher.  As a result of the study the school is exploring additional counselors, reducing pressure to participate in so many extra-circular activities and providing other resources to help students cope more effectively.  Only near the end of the report did they discuss the option of helping students redefine success.  One young woman, for example, talked of following her passion of attending culinary arts school to become a baker. She seemed to feel okay with the fact that she would not be living the same lifestyle as her parents.
 
Certainly, when I was a high school student there was pressure on many to “do better than one’s parents”.  This generally meant to do better financially and to get an occupation or career which allowed one upward mobility in all areas of life.   I was pretty much protected from such expectations since it was assumed that I would not amount to much or at least that is the message I heard from my parents and school personnel.  No one suggested that college should be a goal.  Yet, I felt a lot of pressure from the culture at large to succeed.  Success was identified with financial success.   I do not recall that I had expectations of becoming rich, famous or the CEO of a Fortune 500 companies. (At that time, I had little to no awareness of such companies although I had heard of the Melons, Rockefellers, Carnegie’s, Fords and others.)  No one we knew had obtained such success although some cousins did also eventually attend college.  One or two even lived in a large home in a very “prestigious” communities. 
 
Even though our family was not very religious some of us children did attend a very conservative Christian Church which impressed on us that success in this life journey was directly related to the number of sin points one accumulated.  This often resulted in acute stress since one secretly always knew one was accumulating many sins points and headed to hell for eternity.   That is a terrible burden to give to one’s children.  Yet, no matter how shaming and stressful this pressure there was an underlying message that success had to do with how we treated ourselves and each other.  Of course, there were many who were excluded from equal, kind treatment – people of different religions, cultures, races, sexual orientations and other apparently unrepentant sinners.   Yet, as has been pointed out by many, out of that very cruel, exclusive “Christian” club came not only some of the unhealthiest people, but also some of the most courageous leaders for social justice.   
 
The Martin Luther Kings and many other strong leaders for social justice lived and worshiped alongside of those who used the religious leadership to amass external wealth and often to abuse others emotionally, physically and sexually.
 
Moral success – feeling as if one is living a life which one daily attempts to align with one’s status as a sacred part of the sacred whole – move one toward internal peace and satisfaction.  This does not mean that one is exempt from long work days, feeling discouraged, meeting deadlines or other sources of stress.
 
Success which depends on finances, prestige and other externals is never enough.  As is true for any addictive behavior the goal is more.
 
One again I find myself wondering if we need to introduce moral philosophy as a primary and required subject beginning in pre-school to ensure that our children at least question the meaning and purpose of success.
 
Written June 11, 2018

​Sunday Musings – June 10, 2018
 
As I wrote in yesterday’s blog it has been a week in which I was blessed with a lot of mind stimulation and challenges to my often-narrow way of viewing the world.    It has also been a week in which I have been acutely aware of both the resilience and the fragility of all sorts of friendships including that with our own body.   This morning I am particularly aware of the fact that today several people I know are attending the funeral of a young man who lost his sense of hope and committed suicide. I did not know this young man but after speaking to many who did it was obvious that he was loved and admired.  Two very well-known people lost hope, energy or both and decided that they would no longer force themselves to struggle to live.  This week I was also reminded by several people that I am in that generation when the remainder of this life journey may be measured in weeks, months, or years. 
 
At the same time, I could not avoid the fact that as a nation the United States seems to be isolating itself more and more.  I fear that many perceive the leaders of this country and, thus, this country, as even more arrogant and self-serving than it may have appeared in the past. There are, of course, others who suggest that it long past time for the United States to put itself before the needs of other countries.  They seem to believe that it is possible to put one’s own needs first without feeding a negatively spiraling system which insures that in the end all will be worse off.
 
One of the last session I attended at the conference was on cyber bullying.  This morning while at the gym I listened to several Ted talks on how we learn to hate and how we learn to make that hate an action word by bullying or otherwise terrorizing an individual, a group, a community, a gender, or a country.  
 
We all know that we learn to hate. While some of us may be born without the ability to experience the other as a mirror image of ourselves (some perhaps on the autism spectrum for example) and some may be born or develop brain disorders which force the brain to become paranoid and delusional  (tumors, some cases of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, dementia, and others) most of us systematically learn that we need to booster our self-esteem/self-worth by convincing ourselves we are better than, more than, superior than, smarter then, or more powerful than. We use physical strength, myths about color, gender, sexual orientation, age, health, religion, appearance and a variety of other constructed externals to convince ourselves of this enhanced worth.   
 
We fail to have the sight, insight or courage to accept our own temporary, limited and very flawed humanness.  We learn that just being us is not enough.  We than look for others who will join us in our search for a mythology of self-worth based on the lies we have learned.
 
It is not surprising that emotional and spiritual healing – claiming that peaceful, strong, center of our being which is not dependent on comparisons to others – requires humility.   Humility, of course, requires a simultaneous letting go of hate, judgement, arrogance and of the fear that it is not enough to be us.
 
Humility dictates that I see myself in all other humans; to see the “I” in the other.  Thus, when teachers such as Jesus suggests that we must love our enemy, those teachers are suggesting that we love the whole of us which is reflected in the other.   Humility first is a cognitive exercise. Then it must become an action word.
 
Today I will notice when I am judging others rather than embracing that part of me which is reflected in others.  Today I will notice the potential in others for unconditional love and courage which reflects that very same potential in me.
 
Just for today.
 
Written June 10, 2018