Tag: The Bible

Conversation Starter

My youngest son called me up the other day, with a nervous tone in his voice. One of his best friends from high school, a boy whom we all adore, but who definitely has some wilder tendencies, was visiting my son at his university last weekend. (they go to different schools) I held my breath wondering what my son’s confession was going to be, and I instantly was wracking my brain as to what the boys might have gotten themselves into, in their youthful exuberance.

“I don’t want you to be disappointed in me,” my son stammered.

This is the time in the conversation when I wanted to scream, “Just spit it out, dammit!!” Many times in previous years, I have screamed those very words to all four of my darling children, during times of high hormonal content in my bloodstream mixed with bad sleep from the previous night, but this time, my son actually caught me at a calm, post- relaxing, meditative moment, so I remained quiet and patient.

It turns out that my son wants to change his major to a less practical major, one which really interests him much more. Phew. Exhale. Sigh of relief.

“You could NEVER disappoint me, except in moments that you would deliberately hurt yourself or hurt other people from bad intentions and actions,” was my first and instant response. We then had a nice conversation, weighing the pros and cons of his decision to change his course of studies. Me, being the forever dreamer/optimist, focused a little heavy on the “pros”, whereas his father, who is visiting the boys this weekend for his brother’s annual fraternity “Dads’ Weekend” and is far more practical and level-headed, will probably focus a little bit more on the “cons”, when he has breakfast with my youngest son this morning. (My husband and I balance each other out quite well, in that way.) Still, in the end, it is my son’s decision with what direction that he wants to take his life, and I trust that he will find the right answer for himself.

“Honor thy father and mother” is one of those biblical edicts that has caused stomachs to churn for centuries. It cropped up in my head, as I felt the disappointment in myself, that my son feared talking about his major change with me. Everyone has a different idea of what “honor thy father and mother” actually really means. Now that I have been a parent for almost 24 years, I have seen this edict from all different angles and I feel more firmly in my ideas about that edict, than I ever have before.

My husband and I chose to bring four children into this world. We did this for us. We wanted the experience of parenting. We wanted to build a family together. My children’s beautiful souls graciously accepted the challenge of being our children, despite not asking to be born. They have fulfilled their commitment to us, by allowing us the magnanimous experience of raising them. I am honored. I am more than honored, by that fact. I am utterly grateful. I hope to have a satisfying relationship with all of my children and their families for the rest of our lives, but that is up to all of us, as adults, to be healthy, considerate, loving people, who have and who accept healthy boundaries – people who anyone would want to have a satisfying relationship with. When we are adults, it becomes a mutual thing. There are no “shoulds.” I am not a selfless martyr. I chose to have my children. I also have a life outside of my family and that is important for all of us, for all of our ultimate growth experiences in Life. I do not care to have any relationships with any other people that are heavily based on fear, guilt, control, obligation or shame – not my children, not my husband, not my extended family, not my friends, not even with myself or with God. I choose authenticity. I choose healthy Love.

I think that it is very sad to use the Bible to make excuses or pardons for inflicting our ugly behavior (without repentance), the kind of negative behavior that we sometimes and most often, inflict on the people who are the closest to us – the people whom we love the most. I read something recently that said the true way that we honor our parents and our family name is basically, by not being a jerk. We dishonor our parents by leading lives filled with deceitful, criminal activities. “Honoring” speaks nothing of the intricacies and delicacies of a mutually satisfying relationship.

I know that not everyone sees things the way that I do. I am comfortable with that. I love the variety in this world. It has taken me a long time (probably most of my life) to figure out my current life philosophy and I understand that this current philosophy is more than likely to evolve and to grow and to change, as I do. The people whom I most intimate with in life with, are also in the ever-changing process of growth and unfolding. I respect that. My conversation with my son this week, spurned a lot more thought, introspection, and contemplation than just my opinion on his career goals. It is said that relationships are “people growers” and I like to think that my son and I both experienced some healthy individual growth from our conversation. This individual growth helps the garden of our relationship to continue to bloom in a healthy, satisfying way for both of us, a relationship with its roots being firmly planted in the deep, rich, nourishing soil of authentic Love.

Judgment Day

As I get older, I have a fear of becoming extremely judgmental and set in my ways.  Now that’s judgmental in itself, me presuming that older people ARE more judgmental and set in their ways than younger people.  This self realization lead me to do some homework on this topic of judgment versus discernment.

When my four kids were little and they would be making fun of each other’s haircuts or outfit choices or the ways that they each laughed or ran or threw a ball, I would spout out this “groaner” statement, “There has never been a statue erected to a critic.”   In time, my youngest son, who I have more than once suggested has a tendency to be inflammatory, would say, “Actually Mom, there is a statue erected to the movie critic Roger Ebert in Illinois.”   This would start the chain of snickering and they’d all be friends again.  Kids against Mom.  Mission accomplished. 😉

Anyway, I decided to do some studying on the difference between being judgmental and being discerning.  Being judgmental or not being judgmental, seems to be a hot topic these days.  These are the days of the idea that everyone’s the same, everyone gets a trophy and yet, there’s been a lot of backlash against the practice of “trophies for everyone.”  I understand that backlash.  I don’t deserve a trophy for singing or dancing.  Those aren’t my talents.  Other people are better at singing and dancing than me.  That doesn’t make them better people than me, just better singers and dancers. Way better.

The topic of being judgmental has a lot of weightiness to it because of the religious undertones.  “Let he who has not sinned, cast the first stone,” comes to mind the minute I think of the judgment topic.  The Bible itself is telling us not to be judgmental.  But if we didn’t have judgments, if we didn’t recognize differences, would mankind have even evolved?  Would we even exist?  That’s when I really started researching preferences or discernment versus judgment.

Now I like to simplify things.  I have always thought that those yellow Dummy books like “Home Buying for Dummies” for instance, were just great.  So, I have dummied the whole “judgment versus discernment idea” down for myself.  I find it helpful.  I hope that others do, too and that I’m not the only “dummy” on the subject.

Let’s pretend that we are in a park and we see a cute, tail wagging puppy and we also see a snarling tiger.  The non-judgmental, non-discerning person will say, “Puppies and tigers are just the same.  I’m going to love up on both of them!”  Even us dummies can see that this is a recipe for disaster.  The judgmental person will say, “Tigers are BAD, EVIL creatures.  Their only motivation in life is to maul and eat people.  I’m going to start an “I HATE TIGERS” club to get others to agree with me and validate my opinion which is the only right opinion to have about tigers.”  This is showing a lot of hate and fear, a need for control and a need for outside agreement and validation for the judging person’s opinion.  It is also making sweeping generalizations about tigers and their motivations that the judging person couldn’t possibly really fully know or understand.   The discerning person will say, “My education, experience and gut instincts are telling me that I should keep a very safe distance from wild creatures like tigers.  Domesticated puppies are likely to be safe, so I don’t have to keep my distance from the puppy.”  Or the discerning person could say something like this, “I have a lot of background in animal behavior and I have a tranquilizer gun in my backpack.  I find the tiger intriguing, so I will take calculated risks when approaching it.”  The discerning person is making decisions for himself or herself based on facts, experience, gut instincts, and what is best for that individual person.  The discerning person has no need for outside validation; they are comfortable with making their own assessments for what is right for themselves.  The discerning person is coming from a place of self-confidence, self-protection and creating healthy boundaries for himself or herself without requiring other people to have those same boundaries for themselves.  There is no religious edict that I know of that is against us being discerning.

That may seem like an oversimplified example, but if you put a person who has committed crimes in place of the word “tiger”, you can see how it fits.  It is not being judgmental to not hire an arrested embezzler to invest your life savings.  That is a discerning and wise choice.  To say that the embezzler is a bad, evil person who did their crime because they only have hate in their soul is judgmental.  The embezzler will go to jail to pay their consequences for committing a crime.  That is all that there is to it.  Those are the facts.  In nature, there are no rewards or punishments, just consequences for behavior, thus leaving out judgment.  Judgment is perhaps between us and our Maker only.   But discernment shows that we have self-understanding, self-care and preferences.  Discernment perhaps is a tool given to us by our Maker so that we can grow to be our own best selves.  Discernment allows us to grow to the best of our own abilities in the safety and security of knowing and trusting ourselves and trusting our individual choices completely.  Discernment says, “I know what is best for me.  I know what I like and I know what I need.”  Discernment is a tool for us to use individually.  It doesn’t try to control other people.

I’ll end this blog post with a description about one of my favorite cartoons that I cut out from The New Yorker magazine.  In it, a boy and his mother are looking at a piece of modern art in a museum.   The picture shows the mother saying something.  The caption reads, “Instead of saying ‘It sucks’, try saying ‘It doesn’t speak to me.’ ”  Judgment versus discernment.  There is a difference.