Sometimes, when one becomes exceedingly busy and obligation-suffocated, it\u2019s best to simply throw one\u2019s hands to heaven and say, \u201cif something\u2019s gotta give, it will be the blog!\u201d<\/p>\n
Starting in about three hours, I will be pretty much incommunicado (blogwise and email-wise) until next week, sometime.<\/p>\n
Thus begins \u201cthe week of re-posting.\u201d For the next 7 days we\u2019ll be revisting older posts that may deserve a second look (or not) and I think most of them will be of a more spiritual than political bent, although I may slip in a few of those. Please check back \u2013 and scroll down, when you do, because most days I\u2019ll be posting more than one piece.<\/p>\n
Today, since American Idol<\/a> and its sad and cruel mission to entertain by making fun of people \u2013 by literally seeing them as \u201cthings\u201d instead of people \u2013 is in the news<\/a>, and since to my way of thinking Oprah\u2019s crap<\/a> certainly meets Rosie O\u2019 Donnell\u2019s definition of \u201ccrap being served\u2026\u201d I thought I\u2019d repost these two pieces on Shame, praise, American Idol and Undercutting Greatness<\/a> and this great definition of sin<\/a>. See you in a week!<\/p>\n SHAME, PRAISE, AMERICAN IDOL AND UNDERCUTTING GREATNESS<\/strong> I hope we have reached the nadir of Reality TV, now. It\u2019s all getting too creepy<\/a>.<\/p>\n More than a decade after 16-year-old Amy Fisher had a sexual relationship with a much-older car mechanic and shot his wife in the face, the one-time \u201cLong Island Lolita\u201d and Joey and Mary Jo Buttafuoco have agreed to appear together in a televised reunion.<\/em><\/p>\n The man has sex with a minor, the minor blows a hole in the man\u2019s wife\u2019s face, and now they\u2019re all going to go on TV and revisit it. Again.<\/p>\n My brother Thom wonders \u201cwhatever happened to the idea of shame<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n I don\u2019t watch any \u201creality\u201d TV shows<\/strong>. Buster has tried to get me to watch American Idol because \u201csometimes there are talented people auditioning,\u201d and that may be \u2013 while I sat with him last week, I did see a few kids who seemed talented \u2013 but for the most part, I felt very uncomfortable with it. There is something wrong with training the cameras on clueless people while others react to them with scorn or mockery and revulsion. I watched and thought \u2013 what does this say about us as a society? Are there so many people out there convinced that they are \u201cgreat\u201d simply because we have become a generation (or two) of parents who are so busy \u201cpraising\u201d our children (to protect their delicate, way-overvalued self-esteem) that we\u2019re not being honest enough to say, \u201choney\u2026singing is not what God made you for\u2026\u201d Are we, as a society, encouraging a generation of delusion?<\/strong><\/p>\n 70 years ago, the \u201cexperts\u201d warned parents not to praise their children because it would give them \u201cbig heads. That was not great advice. A family member used to tell a story about how she danced at a recital and then ran to her grandmother looking for praise, and her grandmother laughed and said, \u201cyou dance just<\/em> like an elephant\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n 60 years later, when she related that story, you could still sense her pain. The kid was crushed.<\/p>\n Obviously, there is no reason to completely dash a child\u2019s efforts, and if dancing gives them pleasure, let \u2019em dance! But there are better ways to gently direct their dreams elsewhere.<\/p>\n I think we\u2019ve gone too far the other way, now. I know when I had kids, the \u201cexperts\u201d were telling us how important it was to \u201cvalidate\u201d and \u201cpraise\u201d our offspring, and I watched myself (and the moms around me) really overdo it, until our kids became praise junkies. These days children are praised for every belch they blurt. At every school event they all get \u201ccertificates\u201d that somehow denote their \u201cspecialness.\u201d Every kid on every team gets a trophy, no matter how crummy the season \u2013 they get rewarded for the \u201ceffort.\u201d Nevermind that such a mindset has nothing to do with real life. In real life, a bus driver who runs a red light and creates a traffic disaster is not rewarded for his \u201ceffort.\u201d A doctor who makes a serious error is not feted for his \u201cgood try\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Many schools have discontinued Honor Rolls and Science Fairs because the distinction of \u201cexcellence\u201d for a few kids is deemed \u201churtful\u201d to the vast majority of kids.<\/p>\n We hear, \u201cit\u2019s not fair to distinguish a few, because EVERYONE is special.\u201d Which means, of course, that no one is.<\/p>\n Excellence is not to be celebrated, unless average-ness is celebrated too.<\/strong> The message it sends is not \u201cbe all you can be,\u201d but \u201caverage is the new superior, and mediocre is the new outstanding, and don\u2019t tell Johnny there is something he\u2019s not good at.\u201d<\/p>\n What delicate little wusses we are raising!<\/p>\n It seems to me the best way we can \u201ccelebrate averageness\u201d is by accepting the fact that the great majority of us are pretty average individuals, faulty and human, and by understanding that there is something solid and dependable about all those\u201daverage\u201d folks with \u201caverage\u201d values who make up the world \u2013 who build its bridges and spaceships and guard its safety and grow its food. The world as we know it could not exist without \u201caverage\u201d people, and that\u2019s plenty \u201cspecial.\u201d Broadly considered, it is \u201cgreat.\u201d But we don\u2019t have to make a big fuss over it.<\/p>\n Perhaps our society seems so out of whack because everyone is trying so desperately to stand out from the great vast ocean of unremarkable \u201cspecialness\u201d into which they have been thrust.<\/p>\n It is simply true that most people live their lives unknown to all but their immediate family and friends,<\/strong> and they die and in a generation or two, they are completely forgotten \u2013 except, perhaps, by people like me, who like to go to cemeteries and take rubbings from headstones. This has always been true, since the dawn of time, and there is absolutely no reason to downplay the dignity and effectiveness that comes with being an average human being.<\/p>\n There was only one Moses, but it was the whole anonymous gang of average Jews<\/strong> who eventually populated the Promised Land. There was only one Martin Luther King but the whole anonymous gang of average marchers who made the trips to Mobile and to Washington DC. There was only one Churchill, but hundreds of thousands of average allied soldiers who put his policies into effect and beat down a great evil. There is only one Dubya, but 150,000 troops liberating Iraq and trying to make a risky-but-visionary effort succeed.<\/p>\n All those \u201caverage\u201d men and women, who sojourned or marched or fought had a degree of greatness and nobility to them, and it could be found in their principles or their determination or their steadfastness \u2013 but they still, in each case, needed someone with a distinctive edge, with just a tad more \u201cgreatness\u201d to bring them together. And there is absolutely no reason not to recognise it.<\/p>\n There have only been 43 American Presidents in 230 years. There have only been 267 popes in 2000 years. There have been billions of other people. Greatness is not an illusion. And it is not fomented with easy praise. I worry sometimes that our over-indulged, over-applauded youngsters may not have the requisite strength within themselves to find \u201cgreatness\u201d when we will need it.<\/p>\n Winston Churchill was not a pandered-to child.<\/strong> His father neglected him; his mother put high society before him. Only his nanny was faithful to him. He was shipped out to boarding school and suffered under a cruel headmaster and boys who thought him stupid because he could not excel in ancient languages. No one ever applauded Winston or gushed at him. And yet he seemed to have the sort of inner-resources which today appear scarce in our children. After being paddled by a sadistic headmaster with a heavy hand, the young student Winston stood erect, looked the headmaster in the eye and said, \u201cI shall be a greater man than you.\u201d<\/p>\n When he did become a man, he began to self-educate \u2013 reading Milton and MacCauley and Gibbons and Pascal \u2013 and when early in his political career he made a speech that was well received he noted the pleasure he took in it, \u201cI had never been praised, before!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are all worms,\u201d wrote Winston Churchill, \u201cbut I do believe I am a glowworm.\u201d<\/p>\n Churchill understood who he was.<\/strong> You would never have seen him stomping off from an audition with tears in his eyes insisting, \u201cI\u2019m a great<\/em> singer! Everyone I know says it, and I don\u2019t care what you say!\u201d<\/p>\n My husband and I had a little disagreement recently. Buster had sung a featured role in the school musical and \u2013 while he sang it beautifully and acted it very well, I couldn\u2019t help but remark that he would have been even better if he\u2019d remembered to face the audience. My husband thought I had done wrong to \u201ccriticize,\u201d and said I may have hurt Buster\u2019s feelings because, \u201cthe kid put his heart into that\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Knowing Buster as I do, I doubted very much that I had hurt him, but my husband\u2019s promptings did make me wonder, so last night I asked him about it. I asked Buster if he had felt \u201ccriticized\u201d or in anyway put down by my opinion. He said, \u201cno, actually, if you watched, the next two performances, I made a point to face the audience more, and it played better. I would rather know what you really think than just hear how great I am all the time. If all you did was praise me, it would be meaningless.\u201d<\/p>\n Churchill had greatness in him, but it was not formed by a childhood and youth spent basking in unmerited praise. It was something he found within himself, when circumstances demanded it. I wonder if he would have been able to find that greatness, had he needed to first wade through an psyche filled with junk-adoration and delusions or, conversely, a psyche filled with scornful self-doubt. Churchill. He would not have been a winner on American Idol \u2013 he would have been mocked for his tubbiness, and sent away by people who couldn\u2019t polish his shoes, and who likely would not understand a word he said.<\/p>\n Frank Sinatra and his glorious legato<\/em> would have aced American Idol. And too many would consider him, in the end, greater than Churchill, simply because of the glamour quotient. Our values are a bit skewed.<\/p>\n After one of Buster\u2019s school performances, over coffee, a good pal joked with Buster that he should audition for American Idol.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not wasting my 15 minutes on that,\u201d he said, surprising her. \u201cI am going to be the President of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh,\u201d she replied. \u201cYou sound just like Bill Clinton. He always said he\u2019d be president, someday, too!\u201d<\/p>\n Egad. Buster\u2019s been saying that since he was 8. Heaven knows what damage I, a well-meaning mother, have done!<\/p>\n Reader I Am<\/a> has more thoughts.<\/p>\n UPDATE:<\/strong> Maxed Out Mama expands<\/a> on these thoughts, brilliantly. Jeanette has a very interesting perspective on memories and ancestors<\/a> which relates to this post.<\/p>\n ***<\/p>\n A GREAT DEFINITION OF SIN<\/strong> Actually, it\u2019s the best definition I\u2019ve ever read.<\/p>\n Once again I find myself flabbergasted by a bit of wisdom from a Terry Pratchett book. Actually, from one Terry Prachett book, Carpe Jugulum<\/em>, which I wrote about here<\/a>, just the other day.<\/p>\n Apparently, I was not the only one taken with the excerpt posted by Julie<\/a>. Siggy got inspired by it, too (commentingly eloquently at Happy Catholic) prompting Julie to send him more, which he posted here<\/a>.<\/p>\n From Carpe Jugulum<\/em><\/strong>:<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a very interesting debate raging at the moment about the nature of sin, for example,\u201d said Oats.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cAnd what do they think? Against it, are they?\u201d said Granny Weatherwax.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not as simple as that. It\u2019s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNope.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPardon?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s no grays, only white that\u2019s got grubby. I\u2019m surprised you don\u2019t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That\u2019s what sin is.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a lot more complicated than that \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo. It ain\u2019t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they\u2019re getting worried that they won\u2019t like the truth. People as things, that\u2019s where it starts.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, I\u2019m sure there are worse crimes \u2013\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut they starts with thinking about people as things \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n Yes, yes, yes<\/em>!!<\/p>\n It\u2019s the source of every sin. I used to think the source of sin was connected to vanity, pride and selfishness\u2026but even those things are all about treating others as things, or even treating ourselves<\/em> as mere things. We forget that we are created creatures, begotten \u2013 as in loved into being<\/em>. In our exceedingly polarized world we increasingly lose sight of that, to the point where we cease to see each other as human beings at all<\/a> \u2013 which always leads to bad stuff. Lots to think of here, and for me it\u2019s wrapping itself up in Advent, in the idea of the bridegroom and the concept of covenant<\/a> \u2013 all stuff that\u2019s rattling around in my still-unquiet brain (I think I need to go on retreat \u2013 can\u2019t get quiet, and I need to). It\u2019s all stuff I mean to write about, as soon as I can put it together.<\/p>\n
\nOriginally posted, January 23, 2006<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nParenting involves balancing,<\/strong> trying to find the right way to encourage a child without filling his head with false notions of superiority or dashing her dreams by treating them with disrespect. Are we failing at this, are we out of balance? If so, the whole world, the great majority of us average folk, will pay for it.<\/p>\n
\nOriginally posted December 7, 2006<\/em><\/p>\n