Religion and Good People

I have a confession: I love watching crappy TLC shows. I have no shame about it. Say Yes to the Dress, Sister Wives. I am all about it. Lately I’ve been binge-watching 19 Kids and Counting, a show about an extremely religious family that subscribes to things like purity culture, homeschooling, and missionary work around the world. And while I find this as entertaining as the rest, there are a few trends in the show that I feel need to be called out as real trends that people in these traditions tend to follow. Many of these involve acting in ways that they feel make them a “good person”, or at the very least that portray them as such to others, however many of them seem to me to be completely irrelevant to goodness or morality.

The first one of these has to do with gratitude. In 19 Kids and Counting, the youngest daughter, Josie, was born nearly 4 months premature. The family wasn’t certain if she would survive infancy. She did, and throughout the season of the show that I was watching they were continually expressing gratitude for her life. This seems wholly appropriate. However what seemed odd to me was that they were expressing gratitude to God without once expressing gratitude towards the doctors and nurses who clearly worked incredibly hard to keep their daughter alive. No mention of the NICU where she stayed, no mention of the good people who helped her or their family, no mention of the hard work that scientists have done to allow a baby like this to survive. These are people who are living with their daughter on oxygen every day so that she can remain alive and healthy, and they choose to say nothing about the other human beings who made this possible.

Of course if you believe in God it makes sense to be grateful to God, but if you want to be a good person you should also express your gratitude towards the people who have helped you, people who could hear and NEED to hear about the difference they’ve made in your life. It seems odd to me that these people can express such deep gratitude to their God and ignore the time, sacrifice and effort that other human beings have made for their family.

A similar example comes in their service work. The Duggars speak often about the value of service, and how they want their children to enjoy serving others. This is a great value! I applaud it. However all the examples that I have seen of their “service” are simply proselytizing. They volunteered for a local aid organization, however the only aid that this organization provided was Christian materials dropped from planes. They went on a trip to Central America to help remote villages without water or electricity, however instead of bringing much needed supplies or helping build a well, they brought Christmas presents, Bibles, and put on a Christmas pageant.

“Service” is not just doing something abroad or for a nonprofit. Service has to involve actually helping other people…serving them. You have to do something that they need or want in order for it to be service. You need to actually be providing a service to someone, not simply forcing things on them that they don’t want. Proselytizing is not service, and acting as though it is will give your children an extremely skewed vision of what it means to be a good person.

Choosing God over other people does not make you a good person. The Bible has a lot of bits about loving your neighbor in it, and it seems to me that if you want to show love for God you should do more than simply talk about your gratitude to him and actually go out and do something for other people that helps them. I realize that for some people, exposing others to God is something that helps them, but maybe we could show them some mercy and gratitude in this life too.

 

The Morning After

I know that many people love Thanksgiving, but I’m one of the odd ones who doesn’t think it’s the best holiday. I like the people I spend it with well enough, but I’ve always felt drained after socializing with those I only see once or twice a year, and gorging myself on food that I really don’t like that much is hardly something I look forward to.

Many people I know focus on the fact that Thanksgiving is about the people you spend it with, and I believe that’s true. I do feel a great deal of gratitude in my life. But for some reason saying thank you on Thanksgiving feels disingenuous to me, as if it were required of me. I like telling other people how much I care about them, and so my first impulse is to be as gushy as possible on Thanksgiving, writing long Facebook posts, and spilling my heart about the gratitude I feel in my life.

But I ask myself: why couldn’t I do this every other day of the year? Why did I wait for today to tell people they are wonderful? It’s easy for us to forget to tell people we are grateful, to wait until someone prods us or asks us what we’re grateful for. Unfortunately, people need to hear that we care for them, that we’re grateful for them.

I know that I am grateful for a great deal in my life. I know that I need to say “thanks” more often, in a real, honest way. And so I’m going to make it my mission for the next year to find some way to express gratitude every day.

I’m going to start today. I am grateful for my mother. While we’ve had some growing pains in our relationship recently, she has given me more than I can say. She has guided me through incredibly difficult situations, both moral dilemmas and hard times. She has cared for me when I refused to care for myself. She has taught me the principles of feminism, of social justice, of caring for others, and yet she has urged me to be honest and caring with myself. My mother is someone who inspires me. She is brilliant, giving, and dedicated to what she does. She gives her time and money to others and never spends enough of it on herself.

But more than any of these things, my mother is one of the few people who truly is present with me. We can sit and talk for hours because she makes it a point to be THERE when we talk. This means we can talk about almost anything, and I know that she will give me her real opinions, think through what I’m saying, truly engage with me. This is the best gift that anyone can give another person: their true time and energy, and I am so deeply grateful for it.

I love you Mom ❤

Gratitude: Mental Illness

It’s Thanksgiving this week, and I’m going to be cliche and talk about gratitude. I’ve unintentionally spent some time earlier this week looking at an experience that I was grateful for, but today is going to be a difficult exercise for me: I want to talk about something in myself that I am grateful for. This isn’t easy, but I suggest all of you try it as a way to see those things in yourself that are good.

I spend a lot of time griping about my mental health, but after a lot of thought, I am grateful that I was born this way. My mind is quite often a bitch to me, but I’m glad that it is the way it is. Despite the fact that my mental health is probably my biggest hurdle in life, it has forced me to become a better person, to learn many things that I otherwise could have easily avoided, and to simply be kinder.

I certainly can’t say that if I was given the chance I’d choose my mental illness, and I’m not saying I enjoy my life the way it is, but if I’m being honest with myself, I’m a better, more selfless, and kinder person because of my mental illness and the places it has taken me.

First and foremost, my  mental illness has required that I spend time with myself. I have spend more hours than most people could imagine delving into my deeper fears and insecurities, ripping apart all the myths and lies that I tell myself, and examining why I do the things I do. I have become a far more facts-based individual due to therapy. I have become better at assessing myself and my situations. Because I’ve simply had to really BE with myself, in an entirely present way, I’ve figured out what I don’t like about myself and made improvements, and because I’ve spent so much of this time with a trained professional, I’ve also started to notice when my perception is a little off.

I’ve also had to spend a lot of time with therapists who are unafraid to criticize me and my coping strategies and who want me to improve my relationships. This means a whole lot of real, honest feedback about who I am and how my behaviors affect other people. Because of this, I often get to think about things I screwed up without falling into a guilt trap and with someone there to help me brainstorm immediate techniques to improve the situation.

While I have spent a lot of time thinking about myself, I have also spent a lot of time thinking about how other people influence me and how I influence others: I have learned to shift the perspective away from me, me, me. Your actions aren’t about me, and my actions are small. I have learned that often I should be thinking about someone else instead of about making myself smaller to fit someone else in.

In addition, I’ve found that I understand emotions better, both my own and other people’s. This makes me far more effective at Not Fucking Shit Up. I’m extremely grateful for that.

I can’t imagine that I would be doing the things I’m doing today if it weren’t for mental illness. I would be locked away reading books somewhere instead. I’m so glad that mental illness has forced me to engage with the world, that it’s led me to my VISTA year, and that it’s demanded of me that I do more for others.

But the thing I’m most grateful for is the compassion I feel I’ve gotten for people whose brains don’t process quite the same as mine. After seeing the confusion and frustration in people’s faces when they try to comprehend what I’m thinking and feeling, I don’t want to be the person that dismisses another’s pain or struggle. While those experiences were horrible, I’m grateful that I think I’m a better person for it.

My mental illness itself has not given me much, but it has forced me into situations that have given me tools to help myself and to help others. I am grateful. I would never have thought so deeply, been nearly as effective, or been so perceptive without the drive of mental illness behind me. I’m grateful that I now have a habit of therapy behind me, that going forward I will now how and where to find appropriate tools to improve myself, and that I will continue to reflect on myself in this way. I’m grateful that when I ask others to go to therapy now, I have the weight of my own work behind me. I’m grateful that I am in a better position to help others now.

So thanks mental illness. You’ve made me a better person.

Gratitude: People Who Teach

I’m back! I’ve missed you all and boy have I missed writing, but life should be calming down for a bit. Sidenote: I am sick at the moment, so I’m blaming any incoherence on that, and if I disappear again soon that’s why. This was a post that I really wanted to write a few weeks ago and just never got a chance to put down on paper, so here it is.

A little bit ago, I went to a concert in which one of my professors from college was playing. I’ve always enjoyed this person’s thoughts and company, and sitting there listening to him speak and sing, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia for school and for the people who taught me. I was struck with how my professors and teachers were so deliberate with their thoughts and their words, even those whose energy could not be contained. They were there because they were seeking after knowledge, and they respected each of us enough to treat their words with care.

I remembered the hours that I spent sitting one on one with professors, talking through an idea or a question that just wouldn’t let go of me, and how they never seemed to care how much of their time I was taking up. I remembered the lifelines that so many of my teachers threw to me when I refused to accept them.

And I was really hit by how much I owe to the people who have given me my education and how few opportunities I have to say thank you. And so despite the fact that most of the teachers that I’ve loved will never read this, I want to send it out into the void: I am deeply grateful for what you’ve given me. I am deeply grateful for you not just as teachers but as human beings who have expressed an interest in my life and my mind, and who have held me up when I am falling.

I don’t think it’s really fashionable to talk about the adults in your life, the mentors. And I think that’s horrible because teachers need to hear what they’re doing is making a difference. Publicly recognizing that who you are today is a direct result of the things that others have given you is necessary for us to understand that no one is self-made. We all rely on others, and my educators have been some of the most important people in my life.

As early as grade school, I had teachers who read hundreds of pages of my fantasy novel and encouraged me to continue writing. I had teachers who engaged with me, who would debate test answers with me to make sure they felt confident they had the correct answer. I had teachers who simply let me GO, who told me I could write and read and think as much as I wanted and they’d simply be there for me when I needed someone to talk to about it. In high school I had teachers who would sit around with me after school and discuss our readings and subjects in more depth. It felt like I had personal tutors because they simply cared enough to make time for me. Knowing how busy teachers are makes this even more important to me. These actions validated my curiosity and my drive. There’s no way I would have the love of learning I have now if it weren’t for the message these people sent that YES, these topics ARE interesting and wonderful.

And when I got to college I had professors who would develop things for me specifically to research and delve into. I had profs who created independent studies for me, who hired me as an editor, who sent me articles and conversed with me about them over the summer, who would spend hours talking to me about what major I should choose or where I should apply for grad school. I even had a professor who reached out to me in the midst of my eating disorder just to check and see if I was doing ok.

But perhaps even more than these specific memories, I think about the ways that my teachers approach teaching: through humor, with deep care, with passion. I think about the teachers who speak beautifully about the texts they love, or the teachers who are a little haywire and spout amazing rants that contain nuggets of brilliance in them. I miss the essence of the people who are teachers, the pure fervor with which they speak about their chosen subject. There are few people in the world who can speak about anything like a professor can about their subject, and I deeply miss being in the presence of those people.

Sometimes I forget that my teachers are human beings with complex lives of their own, but these memories mean the world to me. They remind me that there were people in the midst of my bad days who cared about me without having any idea what was happening in my life, simply for the mind I had and the ideas I shared. The most validating experiences of my life came in the classroom and came thanks to teachers who passionately cared about engaging.

So thank you. I am who I am because of you.