Author: Bev

Sometimes it’s just utterly relaxing and peaceful to just concentrate on what’s in front of you.  Haven’t you got enough on your plate?

The constant vigilance in looking at the details in the periphery can be exhausting.  Working that machine at the ophthalmologist/optometrist office that tests the integrity of your optic nerve is shockingly tiring.  Concentrating on flashing lights in various degrees of strength and clarity, trying your best to notice all of them, can take it out of you.

You know how you must have peripheral sight in order to legally drive?  Well seeing peripherally means seeing the whole picture, not just what’s in front of your nose. 

Normally I’d be an advocate for socially peripheral vision, but I thought of another point of view on this.  Maybe sometimes it’s alright to just skip all that detail in the periphery and just look at what’s on the plate in front of you. 

Maybe it’s not a bad idea to cut out the periphery and give some space to all the rest of life going on around us.  There is so much going on, all the time.

Concentrating on details can be good and beneficial.  But, do you know the saying by Nietzsche, “the devil is in the details”?  On other words, something may seem simple but upon closer examination of the details, they may reveal problems.

So, if you’re going for simplicity in life, skip the details.  But if you’re the digging-deeper type, details will give you all the information you need or want.

The downside of those pesky details, is, in a word, anxiety.  If we review too frequently, can you say, constantly, in the case of overthinking the details, it does nothing but create unease about the “what ifs” of life in the future.

I’m reminded of a guy in a news story about the Prince and Princess of Wales and their mental health vision for young people.  He commented that we are forced by society to be “over-resilient” and we can’t relax in our vulnerability.  That’s an interesting concept, “over-resilience.”

A standard greeting as we pass one another in the marketplace is, “how are you?”  Most of us unthinkingly reply, “I’m fine, thanks.”

To be honest, I sometimes think before I reply to such niceties, and say forthrightly, “I’m okay.”  “Okay” is code for so-so; I could be better, but I’m resilient.  Most people get the nuance and nod with an affirmative, “yeah, me too.”

Occasionally it’s nice to just relax and let it be, “whatever will be will be, the future’s not ours to see, que sera sera….”  Thank you, Doris Day.

I must confess that I have allowed “the details” of a particularly challenging month, work me into a tizzy now and again.  Now that’s a word you don’t hear all that often these days.

When I looked up the word tizzy in order to confirm that it’s the right word to express my state on the occasional day filled with details that had to be worked out, during a difficult month, I came across an obsolete British synonym, sixpence.  Oddly, that word reminded me of a little children’s book, The Tailor of Gloucester.

In the story, the lesser known of Beatrix Potter’s animal-based tales and my favorite, The Tale of Peter Rabbit being her most famous, the tailor gets worked into a tizzy, or sixpence.  Long story as short as I can make it, the tailor becomes overwrought under the massive pressure to complete an important garment for an important person by a Christmas deadline.

The tailor gets sick and ends up in bed for a forgetful 24-48 hours or so, and the mice in the kitchen of his live-in shop, finish the embroidery on the mayors wedding waistcoat, except they run out of “twist” to complete the final details on the fancy formal vest.  His grumpy cat, Simpkin must go out into the night and spend their last coins on the needed twist so that the amazed and now cognizant tailor can finish the embroidery.

The moral of the story, to me, is that if we work ourselves up into the proverbial tizzy over all the undone details that come at us, sometimes daily, we may miss the good stuff right in front of our noses, and make ourselves sick, to boot.  And sometimes the details take care of themselves, if we back off and let them.

As it turns out, all the details in the periphery of your life might just include people, who are not in the least peripheral to your outcomes.  These people, or details may go unnoticed if you’re not a detail-oriented person.  Or you can acknowledge these folks as not just the details on the edges of your life but as vital support persons responsible collectively for your success in overcoming the challenges you face.

I’ve still got a keen peripheral vision and I want to thank all you “details” in my life.  I appreciate you.  Again, you know who you are.

There are a variety of personality types walking around this big ole world.  With some of these folks we can mount friendships as easily as we change our clothes.  There are others from every ilk with whom we just don’t get along.

The Caregiver personality is one which I admire but is simply not me.  I thought in a misty distant past of becoming a nurse-midwife.  In fact, I formally studied lay-midwifery while pursuing my post graduate degree.

It was the nursing part of midwifery that threw me for a curve.  I think it was partly due to my personality.

As it turns out the Caregiver personality, one of sixteen personality types identified in the 1956, less than scientific but better than a horoscope, personality questionnaire called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), is vastly contrary to my own personality.  I am more of an Idealist or Artist in personality type.

The Caregiver personality is one where the individual who possesses it is energized by interactions with others.  When I understood this simple little quirk of personality, I instantly knew “this is not me, no wonder that I struggle so much in a care-giving role.”

I’m the opposite, I de-compensate after too much interaction.  I need to get alone in order to recover from my outgoing endeavors.  Part of my introvert personality is to thrive for a time on one-on-one interactions, but to become energized by silence and nature.

I hope you never have need of the individual to whom I refer here as a Caregiver.  These human beings are in a category unto themselves.  And, before COVID, these people proved to be vital to our aging society; post-COVID, they remain a vital workforce.

Caregivers may include nurses of various degrees, nurse assistants, private duty carers and companions, as well as social workers; or even non-degreed humans who are called to work with folks in their home-setting.  Caregivers assist us as we age and don’t kid yourself, you may be younger than me or older than me, but we are all aging.  Sooner or later, you’ll need some assistance.

In discussing some problems of aging with a friend, I had to giggle at her sarcasm when she concluded, “golden years, my bleep.”  I get it.

I’m all about positivity, acceptance, and making the best of a given situation.  But I am also a realist who detests denial of reality and inauthentic living.

It is clearly beneficial for one’s mental health to acknowledge the odd blarney moment in life by shouting the f-word and smirking for a second’s relief.  Let’s be real, here.

But back to Caregivers.  They border on super-heroes, in my book.  I clearly can’t do everything, nor probably many things, well; but I am the first to recognize when people fulfill roles which are totally not in my wheelhouse.

Speaking of Caregivers, they have a special dispensation of “personality-grace,” if you ask me.  I’ve seen these folks accept personal psychological assaults day after day without burning out and giving up.

“This is how it goes,” they say.  The implication is, they’ve been there, done that, more than once, and they don’t take it as a personal assault when they’re yelled at, demeaned, spat upon, even hit.  The word, saint, comes to mind.

Caregiver-compassion is on another level than your ordinary understanding.  I feel like I have a good measure of compassion toward my fellow humanity, but my temperament is such that my efforts to care for others can be easily tampered with by ingratitude or hostility.  As an introvert, I withdraw and give up, even if just for a moment.

There is in my mind, a give-and-take of care; a back-and-forth, interaction, if you will.  I’m simply not equipped with the Caregiver personality, to cope, when the interaction breaks down into a one-way street of care-giving, only.

“Understood.”  This is a one word, concise and to the point, reply to a military order, I think.  It’s my belief that to be understood is the most meaningful of gestures from one human to another.   There are no sweeter words than, “I understand.”

“I get it,” is a simple way of saying, “I understand where you’re coming from.”  Caregivers have the miraculous gift of maintaining this kind of understanding with the strangers toward whom they dispense consistent and objective care.  I’m truly in awe.

French philosopher, Albert Camus, said “happiness is the simple harmony between man and the life he leads.”  It’s my full conviction that Caregivers are the divinely appointed people, called to apportion that harmony, and to help us who are aging, to find peace in the life we are now leading.  Thank you.  You know who you are.

It’s college football season, so if you’re not a football fan, please forgive my analogies, that follow.  So, a few football fouls, against the defense, which are relevant to my musings herewith are: “roughing the kicker,” “roughing the passer,” and “pass interference.”

While the offense is just doing their job, fouls perpetrated by the defense, such as contact, holding, pulling, tripping, hands to the face, or cutting off legally, offensively intended movements, are illegal and against the rules of the game.  Roughing the kicker is clearly a defensive ploy.

Surely, you’ve never been defensive, and rebelled against the rules that life has handed to you.  Or, you’ve never put off the unpleasant inevitables of life, by avoiding the rules put into place by the powers that be.

Have you ever been the receiver, blocked from doing what you want to, by pass interference?  Maybe you then found yourself raucously opposing the seemingly unfair rules of the game of life?

I’m reminded here of a form of bucking the system, referred to in the biblical book of Acts as “kicking against the goad.”  This was a literal agrarian concept of using a slender piece of timber sharpened to a point, to prod stubborn oxen into motion.

I don’t know if you’ve had any real-life experience trying to move a large farm animal when they don’t want to move, but I have.  I found myself at the mercy of one or two large rams which did not care to go in the direction they should have and needed to go.

When a stubborn animal foolishly kicks against that sharp goad, it can cause itself unnecessary injury and pain.  Isn’t it frustrating to find yourself unable to explain to that “dumb animal,” that it is in their best interest to move where you are directing them?

In fact, as is often the case in biblical literature, most text is a metaphor for you and me.  When Jesus said, when referring to the goad and the stubborn oxen, he was really speaking to self-willed, headstrong people, “You are only hurting yourself by fighting me.”

It’s often painful at first when we’re goaded into the right direction.  But kicking against the goad only increases the pain.  If we could just make peace with our direction in life and go with the flow for a time, perhaps the good in the new or the change will yield a surprisingly pleasant reality.

Jesus exercised compassion toward the oxen, aka the stubborn human when he said “it is hard for you.” Rebellion is a hard path.  It’s more painful than the path of peace and acceptance, forward.

Have you ever taken a path that you knew was right for you, but it was hard?  Let’s say, you plowed ahead and the difficulty eased, revealing the “necessity” of having taken that path.

I think none of us willingly take the narrow, rocky, or difficult path, in life.  In fact, Scripture reveals a truth in Matthew 7, that most of us gravitate to the wide, most-followed, crowded, easy path, when possible.

So, the next time you’re goaded into the “right direction,” perhaps you’ll do yourself a favor by not kicking against the goad.  Maybe, sit in the pain for a short time until the clouds begin to clear and you can see the sense in what seemed senseless in the beginning.

In your defense, stop roughing the kicker.  Those in your offense, in the game alongside you, are doing their best most of the time to usher you along the path you’ve selected.

“Bring it on, day!”  Sometimes I wish I hadn’t begun my day with those words.  You know what I mean.

One of the positive things about the social media platform, Facebook, is the uplifting sayings which are spread around like germs.  We all could use a bit of encouragement from time to time.  I’ve found some gems along with the germs in those little idioms.

The saying which I pondered in the musings which have become this column goes like this: “Life’s so ironic.  It takes sadness to know happiness, noise to appreciate silence, and absence to value presence.”

I had just come off a week of some difficult moments.  At the peak day of those difficulties, I felt like most of us have at one time or another, that I couldn’t take any more.

Soldiering through is a skill that we can all develop if we are put into tough situations often enough.  So, soldier-through is exactly what I did.

Compared to that day, the next day felt like the sun had risen in my world, for the first time in a while.  It was a truly ta-da moment where I could almost palpate the freedom I felt, compared to the adversity from the day before.

A day can come upon you, which is shockingly difficult, when you expected to “do other things.”  I can’t tell you how often either my husband or I exclaim in numbingly blatant terms, “this is not what I expected to do with this day.”

We just can’t count on what a day will bring.  The saying, “we’ll see what the day brings,” could be restated as, we’ll see what happens.

I’ve seen enough cop shows and mystery movies to have observed a few skeptical police officers question a mystic or medium who has come forward with some information about an impending murder, and say, “if you can see this, why can’t you see who the murderer is?”  Most of us aren’t privy to such information about an upcoming day.

Jesus said, “you won’t know what day or hour I’m coming again.”  I think we are also told in the Bible that we should be alert to signs and signals and not ignore such potential wisdom.

So, most days will bring some surprising events and outcomes.  But when we look back, we might have missed a few subtle clues as to what that day brought.

That’s hindsight for you.  Another valuable saying is, “you live and learn.”

I also have contemplated the concept of the time we’ve been given each day.  A day of twenty-four hours can be spent in a variety of ways with a variety of emotions, goals, hopes, and expectations.

What do you spend your time on?  Are you a spendthrift with your time, or are you just plain thrifty with the time you have?

Now there’s a word; “spendthrift.”  One might think that because the word thrift is contained in the word, that it means that you are thrifty or cautious with your spending.  But it means the opposite, that you throw away money, spending too much, or unwisely.

I complain from time to time about our beloved cats, who are so very finicky that we never know which can of food will suffice their appetites or to which one they will turn up their noses.  It’s a toss-up.  I’m often heard saying, “well that’s another dollar down the drain.”

Are you a big spender as to your time?  Or do you focus on saving time, banking it for another time?

Do you use your time wisely or foolishly?  Or is that just someone else’s judgment of what you do with your time?

Well, today’s another day and here we are, waiting to see what happens.  As most of you, I’ve made some plans, expect certain things to happen based on preparations put into place, and hope for the best.

All the while, also like the rest of you, I’m gonna put one foot in front of the other with the wisdom I’ve got, and do what I do.  It’s yet to be determined what this day will bring.

“He almost made a great play.”  When is almost good enough, and when does it not cut it?

I was about half watching a recorded college football game, which frankly was a bit boring.  So, I just listened while playing a word game on my phone.

What I heard were announcers consistently using the “almost” adverb more than a few times as to the opposing team to “my team.”  “They almost had that first down…. they almost had that tackle….”  Just once, so far, did I hear them say, “it was a ‘clear cut’ first down.”

So, since when is “almost” a reasonable call by football announcers?  It seemed odd to me; and possibly biased toward one team.

This made me think somewhat more deeply about the word and concept of “almost.”  The word refers to “for the most part,” “very little short of,” or “very nearly.” 

“Not quite,” comes to mind.  “Just kidding, not really,” also comes to mind.

Surely this concept came from an indecisive conqueror way back in the stone age.  “I think I want your land, so I’m gonna take this portion and I’ll decide later if I want it all.” 

Is it simply gentler to say, “I almost made it to the finish-line,” than to say, “I didn’t make it to the finish line?”  So, do we use this word to go easy on our ego when we can’t cut it?

For example, do we avoid saying “I can’t” and say instead, “I almost can,” and that suffices in our minds?

Are we dumbing-down, psyching ourselves out, and pretending to be okay by using such words as almost?  Whatever happened to truth, honesty, forthrightness?  Denial is easier, I’m guessing.

So, I almost finished this column when something crazy and important happened which demanded my full attention.  To be honest, I just didn’t finish the column.

 

What’s the difference, indeed?  Well, there all kinds of differences.  We look different from one another.  We talk differently.  We live different places.  We think and we feel differently from each other.  We have different ways.  We have different religions and different values.  We want different things from the lives we lead.

Matthew Engelke said, “While anthropology wants to document difference – and often to be a witness to it – it also wants to make sense of those differences.  Anthropology seeks to explain.”  A hundred years ago, I taught Introduction to Sociology and Cultural Anthropology.  That study of anthropology must be where I got my need to explain.

I particularly liked teaching several sections, among them was Assimilation vs. Differentiation or the Melting Pot vs. the Salad Bowl.  Assimilation spoke to European emigration to the U.S. in the 19th century, when the goal was nation-building, and one nation, under God was the ideal.  This is from whence many of you, and I hailed.

People thought at that time, the nation would be best served by a people with one identity, therefore, the various immigrant nationalities were expected, or forced – depending upon one’s perspective, to set aside their unique national heritage and identity for the sake of becoming American.  We were a melting pot, or a soup cauldron.  James Baldwin put it this way, “The American ideal, after all is that everyone should be as much alike as possible.”

You’ve heard the idiom, “It’s the same-difference?”  Same difference comes from a melding of the word same and the phrase no difference, and it first appeared in 1945.  Well, we’re not the same, although “There is very little difference in people, but that little difference makes a big difference.  The little difference is attitude” (W. Clement Stone).

As to the differences between people, I like the way Bill Clinton put it, “Our differences do matter, but our common humanity matters more.”   However, we can all likely agree with Vincent O’Sullivan that “If you’re different from the rest of the flock, they bite you.”  Don’t they just?

I’m okay with soup, but its consolidation of a bunch of flavors, textures, and solids into a smooth, singular sensation leaves me wanting.  In fact, the soups I prefer are chunky, not a pulverized, smooth amalgamation of nothing in particular.

I overwhelmingly prefer salad.  The crunch, surprising changes in flavor, and discernible differences in ingredients are what satisfy my palate.

Differentiation speaks to more recent emigration to the U.S. and a “we are the world,” multi-culturalism.  The salad bowl metaphor depicts our culture as one in which a flavorful, colorful, crunchy mixture of unique cultures work separately and together to freely form a diverse people into one union – unity within diversity.

Personally, I think the crunchy part of the salad is the most telling, culturally.  Crunchy is what differences between groups produce.  Other ways than my ways make me bristle and frankly the clash of cultural or ideational textures sometimes “rubs me the wrong way;” just like the sensation of wool on my skin.

Some folks just don’t want to fight through our differences.  It’s easier to just stick with the easier route of spending time only with those who are like us.  I guess if you prefer not to distinguish between a burro, which is an ass, and a burrow, which is a hole in the ground, then you’ll never know the difference between your ass and a hole in the ground.

We have our differences.  Think on these thoughtful quotes:  Marty Rubin said, “the sea and the shore disagree, it’s only natural.”  I would add, but oh when the two meet!

Another one is, “The heart and mind work together but make decisions differently (Ehsan Sehgal).”  This is the very definition of wholeness.  You can’t separate the heart and the mind, they work together, making us whole.  Finally, “We all see the same thing, but interpret it differently (Sukant Ratnakar).”  Rasheed Ogunlaru said, “We are one at the root – we just part at the branch.”  I’m all about trees and branches, and such.

Now, I segue to The Tower of Babel, which I always understood was about God’s judgment on a narcissistic bunch of unruly, mean-spirited people; a people with one mind and goal – setting themselves above God.  Thus, the tower they were building, was intended to gain a one-up on the Almighty God.

Rabbi Sacks (Not in God’s Name) parlays another, more plausible truth of the matter of The Tower of Babel.  He reminds us that Genesis Chapter 10 tells of seventy nations with seventy languages – God-given differences and each respected for their uniqueness, working at nation-building.

By Genesis Chapter 11, one imperial power imposed its monotheistic will on the seventy nations, making them follow one God, one truth, and one way, and speak one language.  This now, one nation was orderly and compliant (a primary goal of nation-builders), but bland and devoid of life and color.

God – the Founder of Monotheism, when he confused the language of the builders of the tower (Genesis 11:7) was not pronouncing judgment, but restoring the nations to their distinct, unique, cultural identities.  Sacks (Not in God’s Name) suggests that the whole of the Hebrew Bible is God’s attempt to show humankind the way out of our “fundamental human dilemma” of difference.

No matter what our differences, if we remember that we all have something in common – the image of God inside us – that glimmer of commonality can point us toward peace.  No matter how ugly, beautiful, sinful, saintly, grotesque or majestic we look or behave; we have a common feature: God’s image.  Remember, “One who is not in my image is nonetheless in God’s image” (Sacks, p. 202).

“Vive la difference!”

“Oh, my word, is it just me or is it really humid today?”  “Is it just me or was that pizza really salty?”  “Is it just me, or is that man really staring at us?”  “Is their music really loud or is it just me?”

Nobody wants to be alone in their perceptions.  We all need confirmation once in a while that what we think we’re perceiving is indeed what’s there.

Also, nobody wants to be alone in thinking something’s wonky.  The reality is, everybody has to put up with some nonsense from time to time.

“No, it’s not just you.  You’re not alone.”  That’s all we wanted to hear and then most of us move on to what’s next.

Unless you’re a victim.  Then you can’t move on, you’ve begun to identify with being wronged, and you want others to join your pity party, pat your back, and feel your pain.

Has someone ever told you, “Don’t take it personal?”  When someone treats you badly, how do you not take it personal, and avoid becoming a victim?

There are victims of crime and there are victims of circumstances, and there is a victim-personality.  There are so many victims these days, who have to blame someone or something  for their pain.

Once upon a time there was a victim of a crime.  A young man was senselessly murdered by another man vested with authority, which he doled out badly.

Almost immediately, that criminal and his cohorts were divested of their power and authority, and soon thereafter their freedom, as is usual in the first steps up the ladder of the American justice system.

But, before anything orderly or coherent could progress throughout the system, “the system was hijacked” by victim-hood, confusion and hate.  Powered by fear, greed, disadvantage, hurt, and uncertainty, a storm gathered victim after victim until a great fault divided the shores, valleys, prairies, and mountains of this land.

When I think about victims of crime, circumstances, or even those who might have a victim-complex, I associate them with scapegoat-culture.  Since, the word victim derives from the Latin victima, meaning sacrificial animal, I began to muse on the concept of the scapegoat.

My scriptural memory store associates the scapegoat with the story in Genesis 22, of Abraham heading on a journey with his young son, Isaac, up a mountain at the behest of God, to sacrifice his boy, of promise.  After having prepared the altar and strapping Isaac to it, out of the wilderness, wandered a ram.  God prepared a substitute for Isaac; a scapegoat.

So, scapegoating is the practice of singling out any individual or group for “unmerited negative treatment” or “blame.”  There has to be someone to blame for my poor self-esteem, my declining mental health, my crappy circumstances; for things turning out “wrong,” in my life.  Or does there?

Sometimes you just want everybody to move on and live their lives.  Many “victims” can’t do that.  They’re always churning up chaff.  I think people who are members of “victim-culture” are metaphorically allergic to wheat; just tossing chaff, or blame, into the air willy-nilly, for the rest of us to choke on.

Can you think of any individuals or groups in the world today, or in your own world, who serve as scapegoats, undeservedly bearing the brunt of blame for wrongdoing, real or imagined?  Holy moly, the list is as long as my arm, yours and a whole slew of arms joined together.

It’s a blame-game culture, me thinks.  Not to mention a culture chock-full of victims, who repeatedly cry out, “The system is unjust.”  “I’ve been wronged.”

How can we stop this cycle of madness perpetrated by this “they?”  I wonder if it’s forgiveness.

In the Hebrew account of the scapegoat, once the scapegoat was sacrificed, effectively taking on the blame for another, all parties are forgiven.  End of account. 

I hear echoes of “that’s not fair.”  Fairness is relative and it can’t be measured on a scale.  It’s also a rather childish notion, compared to the grown-up concept of forgiveness.

It’s a tall order, forgiveness.  Most of the time, forgiveness is undeserved, just like scapegoating.

Shall we give a modicum of credit to Christians, most of whom believe, Jesus was the ultimate scapegoat.  Was that fair?  Fair or not, his sacrifice ended it, if you believe.  He sealed the sacrifice by saying, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”