We will never forget... but haven't we?

It's that time of year again... a mixed bag for our house, since we celebrate birthdays (my daughter's, my dad's, my cousin's) and yet remember that fateful morning on 9/11/2001. The day we all promise to never forget. The day that took the lives of so many. So every year, I wake up to the reality that, while I post happy birthday messages for my daughter, so many others remember the lives of those they lost.

And we say it again in posts, with pictures, in our words - Never Forget.

But I think we have.

No, we haven't forgotten the horror. We haven't forgotten the tragedy. We haven't forgotten what we were doing, where we were, how we found out. We haven't forgotten the victims nor the heroes. We haven't forgotten that we made a promise to not forget.

We have, however, forgotten what else came out of this tragic day. We have forgotten how we came together in support of one another. We have forgotten how we all seemed to be kinder, more patient, more understanding - even on the California freeways, which is to say something. We have forgotten that on that day and after, what brought us all through was love and celebrating what is good in life.

We have forgotten that during that time, at some point, this touched us so deeply, we all wanted to be better people and create a better world.

As St. Mother Teresa said at one point, we have forgotten that we belong to one another.

We have forgotten that the only way to dispel the darkness is to be the light, and that the only way to combat hate is to love.

We talk about it, though, only to turn around with another post filled with expletives and hateful words and statements - either directed to a type of people, or to our neighbor for disagreeing with our views, or to the people on the other side of the political party isle. We fill our walls with sentiments about justice and kindness and love of neighbor, and then we follow that with statements that project anger and hatred and insult.

So, we have forgotten some of what that day initially instilled in us. And in doing so, I think we have forgotten how to best honor those lives lost - not through division and hate, which is what took down those towers and took away those people. We best honor those lives in the same way the heroes who ran into those buildings honored them - compassion, caring, kindness, determination in the face of fear, hope in the face of despair, light in the face of darkness.

To repeat another often-shared sentiment, in a world where you can be anything, be kind.

Be the light.

Happily Ordinary? Hardly

 

Social media - our lives revolve around kittens, memes, sometimes political rants which seem to be the only thing that's allowed to be ugly. We share all the ways in which our lives seem perfect, or perhaps happily ordinary.

The truth, in the meantime, is that behind closed doors, away from that peeping-Tom window of social media, we all face a struggle. We don't talk about it - dirty laundry is aired at home only. We don't share except with a few, because it's painful or maybe because then it becomes too real.

In the end, how many of us are struggling in isolation? Or how many of our loved ones at home are struggling in their own silence, while looking perfectly fine, animated, even happy?

Well, my kid, for one. And I share this because maybe your kid is too, and you know it. Or maybe you don't.

She is funny, witty, animated, weird in the best of ways. She is bright and creative. She is a force of nature, and I'm sorry for whoever may be crazy enough to stand in her way. She's like a firework - filled with energy and light, beautiful and striking, and a bit dangerous too.

And she's struggling. She's hurting. She's crushed by this pain she's not able to let go of or work through, because it hurts so damn much. On a good day, she may be at a 4 on a scale of 1 - 10. And even at a 4, she's considered suicide.

Yes. That dirty word. Suicide. The one we don't talk about.

Being who she is, she's evaluated the pros and cons and decided she'd be stupid to go through with harming herself or worse. Two things keep her from it - food (she's her momma's kid, after all), and knowing that this won't last forever.

She's in therapy. There's no traumatic event, loss or situation that seems to be the root cause, so even less reason to suspect there's something off. She's now been prescribed an anti-depressant, because her suicidal thoughts are so frequent. And I don't know if this hurts me even more because finally something can be done to bring her some relief and help her cope, or because it's bad enough to require a prescription, or because it's just hurt for so long to not be able to make it better.

It's not major depression, but minor (or so we are told, and thank God for that). And yet, "minor" is such a deceivingly innocuous word.

If you saw her, talked to her, spent days with her, you would never know. This is her normal, she carries it within her and holds on tight.

And I hurt, because there is nothing I can do to solve it NOW. Because what I want to do is scream and fix it with a magic wand that will make it all ok. And I know I'm doing all I can, and that this is temporary.

Why am I sharing this? Because life isn't made just of photos, and kittens, and memes, and the FB posts on the stuff we are willing to share. Because maybe, just maybe, I can help one more person out there face her or his own situation. Because maybe I can help someone else. Because more kids than we think experience this.

And to those of you who've known and continue to pray for her, thank you. You are my angels on earth.

Why fit in when you were meant to stand out

The other morning I found myself almost snorting coffee through my nose, as I came across this article on the Hipster Effect. The article talks about how hipsters, who want to be counter-cultural, end up all looking the same. The part that almost made me snort was that some guy saw the article and the photo used for it and went after the MIT Technology Review for using his photo without his consent.

Except, he wasn't the one in the photo.

He just looked exactly like the guy in the photo. Which comically underscored the point of the article.

And that got me thinking. In the end, we all want to fit in, or probably more accurately, we all want to belong. That starts with the way we look - most of us don't want to stand out. We don't want to be underdressed or overdressed for the event. We don't want to stand out by asking a question or voicing an opinion. We want to be part of that group of people who are having such fun or carrying on interesting conversation.

And we all run the risk of becoming part of the herd, of choosing not to voice our thoughts when that's exactly what is called for, of condoning behavior and thought that are opposed to our values and beliefs.

We often wonder how evil happens in the world, and we forget that all evil needs to succeed is for good to do nothing.

But I digress. The point of this blog is fitting in (or not).

Don't get me wrong. I have nothing against fashion trends - except when they call us to expose things better left to the imagination. And if you know me, you know my love of shoes. I will not ever protest high heels and how we ladies conform to the excruciating experience of walking if skyscrapers all night because they look so very good. And I really have nothing agains people wanting to fit in - it's how communities are built.

And I do see the point of going against the culture, especially when the culture has turned the world around us into a version of the Stepford Wives. But just changing the way we dress or the cars we drive isn't enough, even though it might be a visible sign of resistance - until, as the article above points out, it isn't.

So, I challenge all of us. Let's look around us and take a look at the world today - at the culture, at the trends, at the way in which our focus has shifted to place importance and emphasis on things that shouldn't matter as much as people. Let's take a hard look at shifts in values and attitudes. Let's take a pause and figure out why shouting and vitriol have replaced dialogue, reason and collaboration.

And let's be ok with being counter-cultural. And I don't mean wear a beanie and a plaid shirt, grow a beard and a man-bun. I mean be kind. Be courteous. Be considerate. Put people first. Give others the benefit of the doubt. If we're going to be wrong, let it be because we're coming from a place of grace and not a place of judgement. We don't have to shout and be the loudest, most strident, most vulgar voice in the crowd to be heard and make a point. Let's remember all human beings have inherent dignity.

Why fit in when you're meant to stand out?

Stand out as the best version of yourself, and give others reason to notice you in your humanity.

Love, more than a feeling

A friend of mine once shared that, when her husband drives her crazy, she repeats to herself "I love my husband, I love my husband, I love my husband." I am sorry to say that's not what goes through my mind when my husband drives me crazy (big surprise, I know). 

In fact, recently, he and I got into a heated argument (that sounds so much better than a fight), the details of which are not important for this post. Except to say that later that day, before Mass started, I knelt and prayed for the desire to forgive him (yes, I was still mad). And wouldn't you know it, shortly after that prayer our priest announced we'd be hearing from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, about love being patient, kind, and forgiving all things. God does have a sense of humor.

At the end of the day, I relayed the whole story to our priest, details of the argument included. He laughed and said "I envy your relationship." I was more than surprised and asked what exactly he envied about all that, to which he replied "opportunity for holiness."

And that's the crux of it all. Love is not a feeling, or at least not just a feeling. 

When we think of love, we think of the warm, fuzzy-brained, butterflies-in-stomach kind of love that is part of a romantic relationship; or the enormity of the feeling we get when we look at our children (at least when they're behaving); or our friendships. There are any number of things that can evoke that feeling of love. 

Seldom do we think of the sacrifice that love entails - the giving of self, the denying of our own desires at times, the reprioritizing, and so forth. Ask any married couple that's been together for decades, and likely you'll hear a lot of "it's hard work." 

It is hard work, because love is also an action. And a choice. And in the Christian life, sacrificial to the point of suffering. 

And the point of love is not that we will feel warm and fuzzy for the rest of our lives, waking up to our love of the past fifty years, gazing into each other's eyes. The point of love is we walk this journey together, helping each other become the best version of ourselves, choosing each day to love, to put the other person before us, to give our all with no expectation of a return - and really, if both people are giving their all, there are huge returns. And let's face it, that's a lot easier said than done.

The point of love is also to love our neighbor like ourselves - and that includes helping the needy, feeding and clothing the poor, and helping make this world a better place with whatever gifts we have been given. The point of those gifts is to share them in love of neighbor. And again, easier said than done.

Easier said than done, because somehow we've become a world that fears sacrifice, avoids suffering to the point of closing our eyes to the suffering of others, and sees any type of discomfort, inconvenience, and pain as the things to walk away from, as if they were wrong for our life.

Well, guess what? Like it or not, life is filled with pain and suffering. They can't be avoided. We can, however, encounter grace in them, if we only saw them as opportunities for holiness. Whether it is because we sacrificed something for the benefit of someone else, or accepted whatever cross we have in this life and carried it with grace, or joined in the suffering of others to help them with their own crosses. 

Life is filled with opportunities to give, to love, and to do so sacrificially. It's a daunting thought and a scary proposition. It is, however, what we all are called to do, if we only pay attention to the inner voice that wants more for us than fleeting pleasure in a world that will do anything to drown us in its noise. 

How are you loving today? How are you choosing to give to others? How are you sharing your gifts to make this world a better place? 

Choose to love and open yourself to the possibilities. It is a daily choice, and though we may fail in different degrees on a daily basis, we have each day to start over, to try again, and to do a little better with every step we take.