"Who I Am"

"Who I Am" has new meaning this morning after yesterday's park visit with my grandaughter.

"Who I Am" has meant for me in the past; "fallen", "saved by grace", "hopeless apart from Christ", "a mistake", "a product of divorce", "a wife", "a mother" and the many other temporary roles that have been mine thoroughout my life.

Science is bringing us new information all the time about our physical world, and now, I am understanding more and more how the physical world impacts "Who I Am".

Yesterday, my grandaughter had asked an important person in her life to go to the park with her. After a little while, I also went to the park to visit and watch the kids play. But, to my dismay, my grandaughter and her cousin had a "conflict of interest", and came running up to us. Hannah was distraught, but before she reached the park bench where we were sitting, Hannah's cousin had given 'her side of the story".

Without even hearing Hannah's side, this "idolized adult" stroked the hair of the cousin and reprimanded Hannah over the other child's percieved exclusion. Hannah was absolutely devastated, for when she would try to "tell her side", she was told she could not be understood unless she calmed down. All the while, she was being excluded from telling "her side of the story". She perceived the situation as "shaming" to her "person", as Hannah has an honest nature and this was not being affirmed.

When I tried to get Hannah's side, this adult reprimanded me, by saying that Hannah had no business excluding her cousin. Hannah kept saying how she was only trying to "make a new friend", that "cousins were not friends", and that her cousin had pinched her.

In her little mind, categories had not expanded to include different roles. Though she has played with her cousin since birth, her "social side" wanted to expand and befriend the strangers around her. She is an extrovert, this is "who she is". The more she kept defending herself and her desire to make "a new friend", the more this adult kept telling her it was unkind to exclude others and not to get "so hysterical". I was mortified, as I didn't know how to defend Hannah, except to try to help Hannah see an expansion to her categories of "cousin" and "friend", but Hannah perceived my attempt to expand her categories as "shaming". This was never my intent, and it reminded me of the time I tried to give different names to those she loved, when she was only three. Her immaturity was by no means "sinful".

What could have been only a minor incidence of childhood "trauma", had become a major "message" to Hannah's "person". I don't want my grandaughter to think or feel as if "who she is" is "bad innately" and she is in a social environment that will suggest this ego "framing" for her.

On the way back from the park, her Opa attempted to walk along side of her, but she kept telling him that "no one loved her", except her Mommy and Daddy and she didn't want to walk with him, an unusual response from her. She only wanted her Daddy to "come get her". So, her Opa called her Daddy to walk with her back to our house. This suggested to me, that she had internalized a lot of the "guilt" and responsibility for the situation. It is called "shame" and it is an "internal message" about "Who I Am".

Hannah felt betrayed by most everyone that she had loved and trusted in this minor childhood "trauma", because her innate extrovertedness was percieved as "sinful" for excluding another, while her cousin's "sin" of pinching was never addressed.

My daughter has expressed her desire to reconsider how she is approaching Hannah's childishness and I am glad. Hannah is the oldest child and has already taken the "back seat' to her brother's physical problems, and her younger sister's "immediate needs". Hannah's immediate family has been "dysfunctional" in her mind, as her Daddy has been gone every week since March to the "Police Academy". Since she is going into kindergarten, it is important for Hannah to feel confident about "who she is", supported by her whole family, not shamed and demoralized.

All parents have these "encounters" with childishness, but religious ones exasperate the problems by labelling "what is normal" as "sinful". "The Cosmos" (or "God") is displeased with the chld's normal tendencies. Instead of approaching childishness as a stage of immaturity and seeking to guide and reorient the child,; the child is "scared, shamed, and scarred" by messages of "immense importance". The child's needs are minimized, while the "Cosmic God" is immortalized and idolized, by such "child sacrifice"!

I am no child psychologist, but I am a grandparent that has "lived and learned" and loves her grandaughter. My grandaughter should never be "shamed" into submission or obedience. She should obey with the knowledge that doing so, only brings her own happiness, not some "God". Love should be understood and experienced as desiring the best for "Who I Am" apart from any "God". This is what I hope my grandaughter come to know and understand.

Pragmatic Solutions Don't Answer the Ideals

On another blog site, Experimental Theology, it was suggested that boundaries are a problem. I imagine that this is the way people are trying to "connect" across cultural, and racial boundaries. It is the "usefulness" of the Church's message of "Christ". (A rose by any other name is just as sweet!). And such image/myth making is how our Founders understood and formed our government.

The question of whether one internalizes their culture in such a way that one's very identity is compromised and whether one's "self" is rooted in such a way that universalizes such myths, and destroy or damage "self". Can one who has gone beyond a "group identity" give up their "self"? This is the question of alturism. It obviously has been done, but is everyone predisposed to alturistic "service"? Is it an innate nature that needs challenge to become "alturistic", or is such a challenge futile because one's tendency is genetically determined? These are questions that will transform our understanding of psychotherapy itself.

I tend to think that one's racial and cultural background is internalized to such an extent that without being exposed to a "wider world", there is no hope for any change. And I also think that it is really myth that holds the "universalization" that is necessary for "alturistic concerns". But, I also believe that there is a tension between one's genetic nature and one's cultural examples. Some might not identity with others, but be independent in their thinking and being in the world.

Mystics aren't logical in their thinking, but romantic/transcendental. "Images" make for meaning in such minds/brains. Such thinking can be useful to "sell goods" such as marketers do, but is not the way to govern. Governance needs "real life" solutions to "real life" problems, not image making images that give some ungrounded hope about tomorrow. Politicians use such salesmanship to get elected, but how many prove themselves to really be true to their compaign promises. Such is the reality of the "real world". The real world is not based on "ideal solutions" but pragmatic ones.

Our Founders recognized that man was made for "ideals" to hope and dream. This was their "promise in their creation of our government" where all men are created equal. But practically speaking, when one has a job in the real world, all are not equal in position, nor in abilities. Therefore, "equal" has a limited application.

Internationalists would like to see our nation-state export such democratic ideals. But, the reality is that we have needs at home right now, that make it pragmatically improbable if not impossibe to meets "everyone's need" for democracy or humanitarian aid...There are just too many problems for one nation (or the West) to address! Politicians are trying to come to solutions that will pacify the Internationalist and the Localist, the essentialists and the non-essentialist. And scientists are wondering if "myth" might be a pragmatic solution to "real world" problems. Others think that the problem is religion itself, that uses myth to promote such "self-annilhilation" or "alturistic concern".

Is Religion Outdated, or the "Old Answer"?

"The taming and domestication of religion is one of the unceasing chores of civilization. " Christopher Hitchens

Do you agree? Or do you think that without religion, man is "lost", either literally in an afterlife, or metaphorically, in the 'here and now"? One truly believes in "God" as a personal being, while the other is a more "socialized" undestanding. Is the socialized understanding against what our Enlightened Founders understood to be the basis of our liberty?

Does it take religion to get man to "behave himself"? Or is man made to develop morally speaking? And how is that to be accomplished?  Is such "moral development" an innate nature, or is it something that is culturally defined and determined?

Is man only a blank slate that society and his environment "form"? and what and how does individual experience "form" or correlate to society's impact?

Does man's environment impact him physically, or does his physical pre-disposition impact his "understanding"? Science has determined that liberal and conservative bents are innate/genetic or pre-determined...How much is pre-determined by our genes...and how is this pre-determination influenced/impacted by one's environment...and how?

These are questions that science is studying, and bringing in new results and information that will impact the future of our understanding of religion... amd society at large! We must stay informed...

Character is More Than Behavior

Character is more than behavior. Although much can be assessed by a person's behavior, one cannot dismiss the innate nature that dwells within the individual. This innate nature is also character. And different characters have different strengths and weaknesses.

Character is personality. Is someone extrinsically motivated. That is, are these "social beings"? Or is the nature of a particular individual more internally motivated? "He is a enthusiastic person"; "She loves to discuss ideas"; " He loves to work with his hands"; "She likes to have people over for dinner". These aspects of personality cannot be disregarded when considering what type of character one has.

Innate nature does not change, (unless there has been an overcompensation from a "past"), but how that nature expresses itself may. People grow, discover new interests, and change their desires throughout their lives. Someone must know someone well, to understand a person deeply. And this sometimes takes years, Some people are never known deeply, as one must be open to be known.

Innatedness or Environmentalism?

Last post I was pondering the question of democracy and justice. It seems to me that there is a "conflict" of views in the issues of social justice and democracy on a more basic level, innatedness and environment.

The conservative, who believes in self responsibility and limited government also believes that man can develop innately because of his God-given nature. While those that believe in social justice also believe that human nature will develop, these also believe that proper environment is also necessary for human nature to develop appropriately.

Is the human gifted above the animal kingdom to develop irrespective of environment? Or is environment mandantory for a proper development?

Is a democratic form of government all that humans needs for proper development, or are social structures such as family, community and Church also necessary? Do individuals develop because they are rational animals, or because they are social animals? Isn't it both?

The individual and society has also bred many debates philosophically. Interesting debates as these are the substance of our public policies.