You & Your Family
People who make suggestions that do not trouble themselves, but needs others to act, respond, or change, are deluded in believing that they are adding value or helping in any way.
Its only a lazy method of convincing self that “I did something”
Everybody has some money. Even the beggar has a few paise. But only a few have real wealth that supports self-actualisation.
Similarly, everyone has blood relatives but only a few have the wealth of a family.
We all have, and perhaps we all are, relatives, parents, children, siblings, who make unreasonable demands and are ready to cause hurt and confusion in the name of being family, or being loving.
Maturity, sensitivity, respecting boundaries, encouraging aspirations, mastering the skill of learning-how-to-deal-with-those-who-slip-and-fall, these are the characteristics of a wealthy family. A place where you can be who your are, say what you feel/think, and act as you deem appropriate without being attacked by those who ‘love’ you.
Suffering so that another can benefit and finding joy in that suffering…was this not the first experience of motherhood?
Is this not what the father also finds he needs to do - choose between his own pleasure or suffer so that the child can benefit?
When did we stop finding joy in suffering so that life is produced in another?
Can you look back in your life and see when it became no longer worth your while to suffer for a child, a parent, or a sibling?
What we needed in our family as infants, children and teens is not so different from what we need from our families as adults and senior citizens. To cherish and be cherished is not solely a baby-in-the-womb need. To cherish and be cherished is a life long need.
To be cherished means to be sought after for nothing else other than our own person. We cherish the baby-in-the-womb in this way. Not knowing its gender, not knowing its potential skills and talents, what it will , or will not, produce.
Imagine the lack of character therefore, and the mindset of the man & woman who can commit murder in such a womb.
Turning the womb into a tomb unfortunately is not a localised skill. It permeates through every aspect of our being and lives.
Even if we never did have the opportunity to actually abort an unwanted baby, just as we’d abort foetuses, we ruin relationships. Something seems to change to us once we know the gender, once we judge the identity, once we evaluate what the other will produce for us.
All of us have our reasons for not cherishing the other person.
Some of us - as I know I have been - are addicted to cherishing an ideal, a principle, or an idea at the cost of the person.
Think about it - do you really love God, or the IDEA you have about God?
Is it not that because we love our ideas more than we love other persons that we can fight and kill people over our ideas? Thus the arrogant always scream at you and provide you with their balance sheet of love -”See what all I have done for you, and how much I spent”
An idea - however brilliant, accurate, and true it is - is always us; is always “I me, myself” The idea exists within us.
A person is always the “other”. Someone outside of us.
To give up, to sacrifice our idea for a person is very difficult. In effect we are giving up our idea for the other persons idea.
It is very difficult for sinful man to distinguish between his idea and the person of God. Both God and the idea are invisible and intangible experiences living within him.
Good parenting is about teaching children to give up their ideas and subject themselves to what is not necessarily pleasant, or immediately welcoming, and FINDING JOY in this exchange.
We all teach our children to give up their own ideas of how life should be and subject themselves to the discipline of grooming, gaining knowledge, honing talents and gaining skills. Yet too many of us fail in both doing the same thing joyfully and also teaching our children to find happiness in this sacrifice.
If you don’t love waking up in the morning, and you have children whose eye lids are heavier than mountains, you can be sure that there is a gap-to-be-filled in your personal self and your parenting skills.
Babies love waking up in the morning.
Our way of being, and upbringing, infects them in such a way that sleep now becomes more desirable and there is no sense of “Yay! It’s morning and a new day begins!”
Can you remember how much your child - when it was in the womb - EARNED your love and respect?
Can you remember when it was that growing up you decided to cherish another based on how much respect the other person earned?
It is most probably because someone humiliated you, and made you feel that you were unworthy of being loved.
Parents who have this unresolved issue in their lives will in all probability have fractured, fragmented families.
Silliness is difficult to bear. It’s like sandpaper on our sensibilities. It’s like a thorn being driven into our head, or a nail being pierced into our palm.
I realise that, like with muscle and strength , there are moments when I am full and strong and other times when I am worn out and weary. In the same way faith and love works in me and there are moments when I am full, and times when it seems I am empty and bereft of love.
The one who exercises and follows a diet is more fit and more energetic through the day growing stronger and stronger each week. In our physical lives, we can be super people filled with energy or the puny person who cannot work effectively for any effective duration of time. In our spiritual lives we can love or hate, accept the thorns with equanimity or reject them with our pride and intellect.
This world is a gymnasium for our inner beings. Prayer, spiritual readings, religious rituals are the exercises that build our inner muscles and strength of faith and love.
Yet too many people build their bodies only for vanity, and not to produce work that these muscles support. In the same way too many are religious for vanity and not for love.
It is necessary we fall- simply because each of us are yet weak and none of us have the limitless strength of love.
Our family is meant to be the safety net for when we slip and fall.
Each of us have such a net but they are torn and in need of mending. So it is not surprising that after you fell you now limp along hurting and finding everything to be a pain. When we hurt thus, we become another hole-in-the-net for when someone else falls, and the pain and the hurt and its legacy continues.
When we fail God, He doesn’t shout at us saying “You blew it!” There is no hole in Gods net.
It is our destiny to become like God; to receive the nail and the thorn with equanimity. To suffer for no fault of ours so that another gains life.
Trouble yourself and find peace within. Trouble others and find pain within.
At all costs, do what you can do to build family. Yet remember, that you only tear the net more when it is someone else's behaviour or actions that you seek to rectify.
Make suggestions to your self. Leave others be.