Retractions: Finding an authentic self-love in Christian language

It’s come time that I would like to discuss Christian language about losing the self and about self-love, and do so by revisiting something I wrote a few years ago called “The Desert Spirituality of Motherhood.” 

In this well-intended piece, I wrote about how motherhood requires giving up of the self in order to be purified. Some of that is accurate, but some of what I wrote is off-the mark, and falls into the category I’ve come to despise in mom-devotionals: rationalizing our legitimate needs away. 

I wrote this: “But the false self who feels buried, who thinks we are above drool and spilled cereal, who wants everything to be easy, without sacrifice, and who wants accomplishments for accomplishments’ sake must die in the desert of motherhood.”

And to this I would now reply: Hold on. It’s true that no one is “above drool” and the mundane pieces of life, but neither should anyone be confined to the mundane aspects of life. Perhaps this “self who feels buried” doesn’t need to “die,” but rather is in a real need of being resurrected, cared for, and set on a path of purpose–in short, loved and healed by Jesus.

Yes, in the Gospels Jesus says that “He who seeks to gain his life shall lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake shall gain it.” And this is very true, but I fear that I’ve misapplied it myself and seen it wrongly applied quite frequently.  God loves us and wants good things for us. He gave us emotions, and when they are severely out of balance, it’s a signal that something needs to be fixed. Following God is meant to be a fulfillment of who we are called to be and of putting our gifts into his service. It is not the squelching of our abilities, moods and value. When we “give up our life,” this is a call to put our gifts at the service of God rather than selfishness.

And we can know that this is accurate because of the greatest commandment. We cannot love our neighbor as ourselves if we have no love of self. Fr. Jacques Philippe, a well-known priest and writer on the spiritual life has written:

Love travels along two paths that are inseparable in the end: love of God and love of neighbor. But as this text suggests, there is another aspect of charity—love of one’s self. (“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”) This self-love is good and necessary, not egoism that refers everything to “me,” but the grace to live in peace with one’s self, content to be what one is, with one’s talents and limitations.
– Called to Life, p.69

Christian devotionals sometimes wrongly attack self-love and self-care as selfishness or indulgence. But they are not always the same. Being a self, caring for ourselves is actually what allows us to give to others.

In true humility, we recognize our gifts so that we can give them! True humility doesn’t pretend that we are worthless wretches with nothing to offer anyone, cowering in a bedroom feeling low. Yet, it always maintains the other side of the truth, which is that none of us are ever perfect and that it’s good also to recognize our shortcomings and sins and aim to get better.

So I retract my portions of my essay. The intensity of my negative emotions meant that something needed to change. For me, I started working outside the home. Maybe this isn’t the path for everyone, but it has made me feel that I am using my gifts at the service of others and answering a call.

Encouraging Scrupulosity – Another problematic theme I see in some devotionals

And now, if I may, I have seen an entire genre of mom-devotionals in which frankly I see scrupulosity encouraged alongside this downplaying of the legitimate needs of parents.

In one recent post, the author found sinfulness in her social media latte post. She declared that she was a hypocrite, posting her shiny, “best life” photos while avoiding the stickier interior issues. Maybe that’s true, but I’d had enough of this style and unsubscribed. The post had also included that this was a break after a long stretch of busyness for her, and I just couldn’t shake the ill-feelings that this was precisely the sort of Christian-mommy post that finds sin where it isn’t and overlooks some other legitimate goods. These things are misleading and frankly unhealthy.

Here’s what bothers me about this genre of devotional:

–1. Finding sin in innocent actions encourages scrupulosity. I don’t want to discourage examination of conscience, but neither should we obsess over all the minuscule ways we might be sinning. There are more loving, healthy, helpful, Jesus-centered things to do instead.

-2. A coffee break can be a healthy impulse–as a mother, a little alone time is necessary for sanity. Jesus calls us to love our neighbor as ourselves–the “ourselves” isn’t optional. As I mentioned earlier, if we aren’t caring for ourselves appropriately, we cannot care for others. In humility, we see our own value interconnected with the value of others. Humility is not acting like we are worthless and don’t need to recharge or manage our own needs.

If some time out with a coffee is self-care, it is pernicious to look for sin in an innocuous action.

–3. Where does this self-critical confessional stem from? Honestly, (and I’m speculating here)  I think it stems from a sense of guilt at life going well. Sometimes, we are so accustomed to speaking of the cross, that we forget the joy and the resurrection. I’ve spent time reflecting on this myself–what to do when things are going well. What is there to “offer up” so to speak?

The answer, I believe, comes as forgetfulness of oneself, not as worthless, but in seeing opportunities to love others. Instead of continuing to look inward, we can turn our gaze outward to help others–to give back some of the goodness that we have been so lucky to receive from God.

4. God loves us. He does want us to live good lives–to have “life abundantly”–and while we do need to realize our sin, we need to also see our value, that we have gifts we are called to share. Fussing over lattes isn’t one of them. When life is going well, something isn’t necessarily wrong. It can be a time to share blessings.

Perhaps the author’s quiet cup of coffee strengthened her to jump back into the parenting fray or gave her a chance to write something which would encourage others.

Only the individual and God can say what is indulgence and what is self-care, so I can’t claim to know the state of her soul.

[For the record, I do not intend anything like the “prosperity gospel” here; I do not believe that God heaps material goods on people for being Christians. What I do mean is that when we do have abundance, we should be grateful and share it instead of looking the gift-horse in the mouth, so to speak, and seeking out problems with it.]

There are legitimate goods that are okay to celebrate and enjoy. And I believe that we live the Christian life when we focus on what we can give. In Bishop Barron’s words, “your life is not about you.”

When he speaks of the great values of God and teleology, Bishop Barron says: “None of this is meant to be crushing to the will, but liberating. When these great values present themselves to our freedom, we are drawn out beyond ourselves and integrated into great realities that expand us and make us more alive. “

So–what do you think? Have you had any turn-arounds in thought? Do you buy the distinction I’ve made about self-love and selfishness? 

 

Embracing Differentiation in Education

Differentiation in the classroom – the idea of having choice within assignments and adapted assignments for different student levels — tends to get a hard knock from the older generation. In my first year teaching last year, I was introduced to this concept, and admittedly, I found it new, different and slightly hippie-seeming. After all, I also grew up doing the assignment as it was given and memorizing my butt off for the tests. But I have had the chance to learn more about differentiation and especially about the changing dynamics in the student population over the last half-century, and I can say now that differentiation may seem new agey–but really, it’s very good for students and fits the reality of the set of learners we have in the classroom today.

The group of kids filling desks in 2018 is not the same group that filled Catholic schools in the 1970s. One huge change was legislation mandating that all children receive free, public, appropriate education. In 1975, this came to include children with special needs as well under the IDEA law, which created the modern IEP process for kids in any form of special education.  So, in days past, kids who didn’t sit still and listen well, simply wouldn’t have been in most schools, certainly not in private schools where they could easily be kicked out. Today, all kids are in school, public and private–for different reasons, and that creates a new reality within the classroom.

Before, rote lessons and whole class instruction went over just fine. Today, those methods don’t get much of a foothold. Maybe we can blame it on increased screen time, more distracted kids, spoiled kids. Those probably all do play a factor, but I wonder–were those really better methods? Granted, I believe in memorization–that a solid grounding in math facts or spellings must be the foundation of more advanced skills. But that doesn’t mean lessons and methods can’t also be more interesting and include more choices for the student.

From my point of view as a teacher, creating a solid differentiated lesson is more effort intensive. But when I do it right, it has gone over so much better than me trying to stand in front of the room and talk. Overall, what goes on today looks a good deal different than when I was a student, but I do think it’s mostly good (nothing is perfect), and it is actually desirable to adapt lessons to different student interests and abilities. While there is a time to sit and memorize, Mary Poppins said it best with “a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!”

Rambling on now to connect to another social issue: the homeless and high rates of incarceration in America. In my special education class, we learned about how in the early 20th century people with intellectual disabilities, what used be called “retarded”, were often cared for in state or privately run institutions or “schools” where they lived and never left, much like those with severe mental illnesses. Then, in the 1960s and 70s, a number of abuses were exposed, notably at Willowbrook School in New York, and these institutions gradually closed, and the family re-emerged as the center of care for those with such disabilities or mental illnesses.

A few things followed: these young people became part of the school-aged population, now part of our student population with needs that must be addressed, creating another change in the dynamics of the student population. Second, as adults, especially if the family couldn’t provide high-cost care, many of these people became the modern homeless and often those who are incarcerated. This isn’t to say that all/most people in jail have disabilities, but that in the cases of people with disabilities, many ended up in jail for petty crimes in such a way that modern prisons almost serve as institutions.

I found this a fascinating revelation; it means that today’s homeless population and high incarceration rates are more complicated than first meets the eye. It means that there is more to it than: “Jim just needs a job” or “Too many people are in prison.” That’s not even to mention the contribution of drug abuse issues to both problems. It means that neither with institutions nor with today’s methods of helping the homeless or imprisoned have we found an adequate way to address the needs of people with intellectual disabilities.

As I turn this over in my mind, the homeless, incarcerated and drug-addicted social ills of our society seem to call out much more strongly than other hot-button issues today–such as those related to sexuality. A compassionate approach from a compassionate population is needed; and this is something it seems easy for all of us to work together on: finding ways to help these people and integrate them better into society.