Now is not the time to point out how this is in direct conflict with everything I believe about the world, the Creator, to say nothing of Scott and my recent Anniversa-Ganza Facebook Love-In. I have never pretended to be consistent.
This resistance to cheerleading enthusiasm for life has its cousin in a squinty cynicism. This is why I mock these guys and love these guys.
I won't lie - I like the laughs I get for saying the cynical parts. No quicker giggle-getter than confessing to use of the word mother-effer while parenting. They laugh, but they worry. They worry that I'm ruining my kids. They worry that I'm depressed. I like to think they worry that I might be right.
This would be where two recent posts collide: Not Me meets I'm A Universalist. I share this world of mine with friends who's kids get cancer, with friends who are lonely even though they're married and "have it all", with friends who got shitty parents and with friends who chose poorly and seem to be paying more for that bad choice than the rest of us do for ours. I know that Life Is Hard, even if it is not, Right This Minute, hard for me. And because I'm a Universalist, I'm pretty sure that if it isn't yet, it's going to be hard for you too.
The people who only talk about how Great It All Is make me nervous because I just don't believe it is. I mean, I know it's Good. All is Well. That's a for sure. But it isn't Great! Amazing! Wonderful! Because even if my world is all of those things Right This Minute, it sure as shit isn't for all the people I love and what kind of ass celebrates their own Fantastic! while their friends are pushing through Sucks?
But while swearing is good for a chuckle at the moms' bible study, it fails me because it makes light of the pain that I think is True here. And that's why I'm glad for the wiser men and women who write and think and share my world view, using better language.
In my recipe box, I have at the back about a dozen recipe cards with quotes that were really important to me about nine years ago. Some are things I think that I didn't want to forget I thought ("make decisions that affirm and confirm the presence and participation of God in my life" - that's good huh?); some are things friends and family have said ("You can either spend your energy making a decision or you can spend it living in the decision you make" - Thanks Dad!); others are gleaned from books and TV. In the garden this morning, my wandering mind tripped across the phrase "the insufficiency of all attainable" and knew it wasn't my own brilliance. Sure enough, there in the back of the recipe box, I found the quote and almost wept with the familiar comfort of it. Nine years later and it still moves me in its Truth. It is true, happy people, that life has lots of great and amazing and wonderful and fantastic. But never enough. That others know that too takes the edge of the loneliness.
Karl Rahner, quoted in Ronald Rolheiser's Against an Infinite Horizon:
In the torment of the insufficiency of everything attainable we come to understand that here, in this life, all symphonies remain unfinished.
Motherf-cker.
2 comments:
I say the positive things aloud because it helps the gazillion negative things in my head go away. My negative self-talk is really suffocating some times.
And if I say the positive things aloud then I feel thankful or that at least, nodding in God's direction, He might be pleased that I realize some things are good. Because if He only heard what goes on in my head, He'd think I didn't realize anything was good.
Your Dad's quote - I don't get it.
It's a good point Jenn: maybe all the Happy Clappy people are actually plagued by negative self-talk too and are just trying to limit it's power, or volume.
For me, saying things outloud, or writing them down takes some of the wind out their sails. And I guess I don't think of you being a person who only says good things without acknowledging the hard and I hope that I similarly don't forget to mention the good and find reasons to be thankful.
But I do think that the people I'm thinking of who only announce The Great! Amazing! Fantastic! somehow raise the expectations of those in their hearing that all that goodness is How It Should Be. That's the part that I think I react to, since I'm pretty sure that's not How It Should Be. Exclusively.
Still liking you a lot friend.
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