In depth

Running away from Sadness.

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Continuing from my previous post…

Now that I have defined Joy and explained how we find it, I need to expound upon it.

This, more than any other topic, is a Church related one, because it’s in the Church that the word is mainly used; and many people are frustrated that they can’t find it.

If it were as simple as I made it sound, than more people would have joy. Because accepting sadness is totally simple…right?

Wrong is probably what you all thought, but actually, it is simple. It’s just not easy.

We run from sadness. From our own and other people’s.

I know people who will cry over nearly every movie they watch, but they don’t talk about what’s going on in their life so much.

I also know people who seem to be perpetually depressed, and by choice, not medical condition; it offends these people if you tell them to cheer up.

You know, Pollyanna actually had a sequel, Pollyanna Grows Up, and in that sequel Pollyanna tells her friend Jimmy about a man she heard say that every time someone said to be glad, he just wanted to go out and shoot someone.

A rather extreme way of reacting, but how many of us have wanted to scream when someone makes light of our sorrow?

Which is the last thing I want to do, I’ve had sorrow too, and I’d be a horrid hypocrite if I pretended it was minor.

I handle sorrow in an unusual way, when I experience real loss, I am oddly unshaken by it. I am sad, but it is not crushing. I suppose it is because I have never lost anyone close to me. Another thing is I constantly hear false alarms, one side of my family is always having one problem or another health wise, but they get over it.

but when I have relational pain, it can be very depressing to me.

I think because all our self worth issues get mixed up in that sort of pain.

I won’t say either type of pain is less selfish, or better than the other, but it is true that the latter often makes us act very selfishly.

The worst is when we don’t feel the pain, but it remains there, undealt with, and affects all our behavior.

Which, if I go back to Inside Out, is what happens to Riley. Though she can’t feel her pain any more, it remains there, buried or lost in the subconscious.

Years of living like this are what make people develop neurosis and sometimes psychosis; it is also the source of anger issues, difficulty in committing, and submitting to abuse because one feel like they deserve it. Pain turned to hate against ourselves is lethal.

And it turns to self hate when we neglect is.

But there is hope. Through counseling, or our own personal journey, we can go back and grieve over what we have lost.

After that process, or even during it, comes the time to have joy again.

There is always a reason to be glad, no matter how bad things are, they are never without some silver lining, but it’s hard to find. Plus that is not exactly joy.

Joy is, as I said before, bittersweet, when it first starts. It begins as the feeling of peace after sorrow, or during sorrow. after you have stopped running from it and have chosen to embrace it.

But one cannot live in sorrow, Ecclesiastes says in chapter 3 that there is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing, there is a time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to laugh and a time to weep.

I can’t really explain how you know when the time of mourning is over, I think it comes if you are waiting for it but not rushing it, you just know.

When this time comes, you put away your mourning clothes, so to speak, and you start enjoying things on purpose. You open your heart to new love, you might start a new hobby, or devote more time to an important person in your life. You move on.

It’s okay if it takes a year or two to completely move on, sometimes it takes longer, the idea is never to stay in one place too long, but to keep growing.

I think it has been said that the joy is in the journey, and I think that is true. Joy can be present when you stand still, but usually you need to be in motion.

That’s why joyful people dance, sing, paint, and write; or do whatever they do to express themselves, joy wants to be shared.

In fact if you are hogging your happiness, that’s a sure sign it’s not joy.

We will all run into sadness, but the key is to then run out of it, and leave it far behind. Though we will not forget, nor should we, because the sadness will eventually turn to joy if we are willing.

Those are my thoughts for now, stay joyful–Natasha.

Running after Joy.

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I thought I’d do a different style of post today, I wouldn’t want to get entrenched in the same subjects all the time.

I want to talk about that elusive quality known as Joy.

I say known as, but if you google it, look it up in the dictionary or read about it, you’ll find that no two definitions of joy seem to be exactly the same.

C. S. Lewis thought Joy was a longing, or that a longing was how we experienced joy in this world.

Most people think of joy as some type of ecstasy.

The more practical of us think it is just another word for being contented with your life and your work and your family. (I am not using practical as a good thing in this instance.)

My guess is most of us don’t think about it at all, or not frequently if we do. I myself don’t give it as much consideration as I could.

To many people e, and I have felt this myself, joy seems to be a joke. Something people talk about but no one has found. If anyone claims they have, they are delusional. Maybe, we think, joy is just a delusion. Which is worse than an illusion.

We think joy only comes when we can forget our troubles, which we can’t, and that it is fleeting. Maybe we felt it at one time. It’s odd how it is such a strong feeling while it lasts, but it is so easy to forget once it’s gone.

It’s not like we’re left alone once the euphoria we think of as joy dies away. Trouble inevitably comes.

Now if you’re a Disney fan, perhaps your mind immediately went to Inside Out when I brought up Joy. I watched that movie once or twice, I had to give it credit for doing a good job of explaining joy and sadness. I’m gong to reference it in a second.

If there was no trouble in the world, we suppose, perhaps everyone could be joyful. Or I could be, but who can be happy knowing there is so much wrong going on.

The truly sad thing is most of us aren’t unhappy because of the sufferings of others, but because of our own problems. We could ignore the rest of the world if our world was fine. But the rest of the world affects our own, whether we like it or not.

In A Walk to Remember, the movie, Landon, when still pessimistic and bitter over his dad leaving, tells Jamie he has no faith because “There’s too much bad — in this world.” Jamie replies “Without suffering there would be no compassion.” Landon says “Tell that to those who suffer.” Jamie looks away. We later find out Jamie suffers plenty, and tries to stay cheerful and kind despite that.

However, I’ve never really bought that line that we need suffering for compassion, or rather, that we need to have compassion anyway, because if no one suffered, compassion would be useless. Don’t misunderstand me, I believe compassion is very important, but it is the compensation for suffering, not the reason for it.

The reason I went off about suffering is because there will be no discussion of joy if suffering is not dealt with too, even if I tried to leave it out, everyone would think of it anyway.

As is pointed out in both the book and the movie Pollyanna, the Lord tells us to rejoice over 800 times in his word. It would be hard to find a book of the bile where rejoicing was not mentioned in some form.

It’s a saying in the Church, though no any I’ve been to in my memory, that God wants you happy.

Many people have attacked this phrase because it’s used as an excuse to do whatever stupid thing you want in the name of happiness. Which it shouldn’t be.

But though God does not always want you happy, in the way you think of it, He does always want you to rejoice. He says so.

This is where we get to the big difference between joy and happiness.

In Inside Out, Joy starts off as what I would call happiness, a positive attitude, fun loving, goofy character who keeps all other emotions in check. Joy also avoids Sadness like the plague and always feels like Sadness is intruding on her turf, and complicating things. Sadness feel bad, but can’t seem to help herself, she knows that Riley needs her, but she doesn’t know for what .

But after some really sad stuff happens to their kid, Riley, Joy finds it harder and harder to keep control, and eventually she ends up lost, along with Sadness. Sending Riley into a crisis.

The big moment at the end of the movie is where Joy finally feels sad, which seems oxymoronic, but it helps her to see what she needs to do. Sadness finally is able to help Riley, and a new kind of feeling if forged, the bittersweet sort, Joy and Sadness mingled.

Which is the type of feeling C. S. Lewis called Joy. A deep sadness that it is happy to feel. Another oxymoron.

True Joy comes only when happiness has been baptized in sadness. Bapitized is kind of a religious word, but it means a thing has to be purified, usually be dying to itself, and then being reborn as a newer, better version of itself. (Basically what the idea of reincarnation tries to accomplish and fails because it uses the wrong kind of dying and rebirth.)

In other words, you will not have joy until you have accepted sadness and grief and allowed them to make you a bigger, better, kinder person; because let’s be honest, we all know people who won’t ever cry or admit they’re not dong so hot, and they are often the least compassionate people of all.

Or we may be that person, and that’s what bothers us.

The heart of Joy is to overcome suffering. Not sorrow, which is where we get confused, sorrow is good in the right amounts, but suffering if only good when we treat it properly, and that involves pursuing joy even through suffering.

I can get more into this in my next post, until then–Natasha.

Learn me right–2

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So, as I said at the end of y last post, no one can make you stop caring except you.

But what do teens care about? Is it really video games, and dating, and drugs, and pop starts.

Well, most of us do care about at least three of those, and often too much. But I think we choose to zero in on those things for a few specific reasons.

  1. We don’t listen to our parents.

I’m serious. Just about every parent I know thinks kids should not spend an excessive amount of time playing with a little screen in their hand. My parents would have never let me date till I was a reasonable age, which is not 13 or 14, like a lot of kids start now. And parents also disapprove of a lot of music and the behaviors of many celebrities.

If teens listened to their parents on this, being obsessed with that stuff would at least be harder, or more in check, then just having free reign over their choices.

2. Nobody stops us.

A lot of us are just dying for someone to keep us more in line, but we often end up being the more strong willed person in our interactions with authority figures. (Thanks due in part to the many unnecessary law suits over disciplinary actions.)

3. Perhaps most importantly, we aren’t given a reason to look beyond what’s right in front of us.

It really saddens me to think that by the time I have kids of my own, things like books, and manual driven cars may be close to being extinct. I miss letter writing or even email being a thing. And I miss people taking notes on real note paper instead of on an app on their electronic device.

Technology has its uses, the problem is we have this immense amount of power when it comes to information, yet we are not taught how to use it responsibly.

For my money, the experience of going on a field trip yourself beats any instructional video you can find on the internet. There’s no movie you can watch that make you actually be there, be breathing n a different culture or place. And nothing you see on a screen exercises your imagination like reading a page of  a book.

It’s fine to use a computer for things that aren’t super important, and won’t shape your character in a large way; but when that becomes our main mode of interaction, we fail to see anything beyond that.

I’m sure this is nothing you haven’t heard before, but though we talk about it, what do we do about it?

May young people who have ideals do not reach for them simply because they don’t know how. If fact, our technology may be the most contact we can have with something bigger than our own lives, which is very sad, but all too often the case. This is nothing new, teens have wanted to be part of something greater than their world for ages. Whether it was getting out of a small town or getting out of the city, or getting out of their country; they wanted more.

It’s my firm belief that we were all meant to have more. Way back in Genesis, God placed man and woman in a garden, but He told them to fill the earth and subdue it.

Think about that for a moment. A garden is a wonderful place, I’d gladly live there, but I would not stay there, and neither would you. A garden is a place to rest in and nurture, but we all want to expand, and we all want to go out and conqueor challenges. We are meant to.

I’d like to quote two characters from that old-ish show Kim Possible.

Both of them have something to say to this subject. The first one, Shego, my personal favorite, really won me over when she replied to her boss’s condescending suggestion that she spend more time on the internet “No thank you, I have a life.”

I cheered.

The other, Kim herself, once was summing up her accomplishments, and on top of saving the world, she added “And looked Josh Mankey straight in the eye.”

I thin Kim has a point here, not every thing has to be big and fame worthy to be important to you. And Shego at least understands that internet subsistence will leave you starving for real things.

Actually one of Shego’s better traits is to do things herself in the most efficient way she can, versus Kim who likes jumping over stuff, even when she could just walk through a door.

They are both right in a way though, it’s good to challenge yourself, but it’s also good to keep things in proportion. Which is why when we get bogged down in the everyday, like myself and my friends, we can lose track of the grand purpose of our lives.

I’ve never heard of someone being given an average destiny. God tells all his people that they are priests, and Paul tells all Christians that we will be rulers. There is no such thing as an average destiny.

Survival is really a myth. Human beings are not meant to survive, as a song I’ve heard says, we’re made to thrive.

To bring this back to my original point about young people and youth groups; my theory is, young people don’t truly want to survive. (Braveheart anyone?) They want to feel like they have an important role in life. But you can’t look at what everyone else is doing and figure out your role. Personally, I’ve realized I don’t want what everyone else has, I want, as Shawn Hunter from Girl Meets World said “What I’m supposed to have.”

I don’t think I’m alone in this either. We really need to listen to what teens actually are trying to tell us. And help them before they get caught in the web of survival.

Learn me right–1.

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Today I started thinking about the years I spent sitting in Youth Group feeling frustrated.

I’ve started going to a new youth group by the way, which appears to be much better.

But I always wanted to know why youth don’t seem to take their faith or the bible seriously.

The conversations I’ve had with other teens about passages in the bible that aren’t often talked about, well their ignorance or indifference is surprising.

But over the years I’ve sat in Church services that talked to grown men and women pretty much how the youth leaders talk to their youth, only the adult services focus more on sin.

as any Christian teen over here can tell you, Youth Groups tend to cover purity, identity, and not behind addicted to technology by being a good example to your friends.

And all those are great messages, which I have needed and still need. The problem was, those messages should be seasonal, or every so often, but they made up the bulk of my youth group teaching.

As a homeschooler, I always felt like it was to easy for me. No one talked about books much, no one watched the same movies as I did, often enough; and no one expected me to retain much of what I heard, or to do the ridiculously easy assignments.

People could come to our youth leaders with their problems, but they couldn’t seem to actually follow their example. Why?

I don’t have a magic answer, but let me tell you about a contrasting experience I had.

When I went on my missions trip, the other teens were the most well-behaved, respectful bunch of peers I’ve probably ever been around. Except other homeschoolers. (Sorry, but it’s true.) We all wanted similar things, we all took pains to be nice to each other and to serve the people of Cambodia well. A lot of them also ate bugs, but hey, that’s normal in Asia. (And most other places except America.)

Phones were still a bit of an issue, but they at least kept it to a minimal. what made this group so different?

Well, the sad thing is, it didn’t stay that way entirely. Once we all go back, all of us hit some heavy obstacles in our everyday lives. Some of us floundered, others kept right on swimming. I admire one member of the group in particular for continuing to be of service to the people around them. I myself had to deal with a lot even the very day I came home.

I’ve never been common, and I don’t think anyone else would exactly fit the societal mode either, so what caused some of us to lose our grip?

My theory is it’s the same thing that plagues most other young people, here and in every place where kids have the opportunity to d more than survive.

You see, there’s a principle of life. Your situation is not what matters, it’s your outlook.

The fact is, no matter how hard our life is, we choose whether we live just for survival or not.

I have known plenty of people who are just trying to get through every day, whether its’ doing their school, their work, or possibly actually trying to keep food on their plate.

And like or not, when you live like the day-to-day challenges are the worst thing in your life, you have adopted an attitude of survival.

It’s not a good way to live, because it’s selfish, and it makes your vision very narrow.

They wonder why teens don’t care about church, it’s probably because they have learned to survive without it.

Personally, if I hadn’t found a good church to go to, I’d be at the end of my rope right now. I need the encouragement of being around other people who believe, people who I can sing to God with and they wont’ think I’m crazy. Non-believers take that kind of freedom for granted, I think. But it’s harder to find than it seems.

They say that the church is not relevent. That may true of some churches. But the ones I have gone to are usually quite relevant to some people. They feed the homeless, provide free childcare in a safe environment for busy parents. provide na alternative to secular culture; and give Christians a place to feel they are understood.

The church is much more than a safe haven of course, but the one problem is, very few teenagers appreciate having a safe haven unless they are in big trouble.

The teens I’ve known who came to church consistently were the ones with the most unstable lives, often enough. Sometimes they were more committed. Sometimes they were pastor’s kids and took more of an interest because of that. But I never heard any one of them say they came to church because it was a challenge, or because they felt it was dangerous.

That is, in my opinion, a huge percent of the problem.

we’ve taught kids that they can be anything, and prepared them for an adventure when they are young, but when they are teens, we start saying “Only a few more years of school.” There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, in other words. I don’t blame anyone for hating public school as I can’t imagine going to it myself, but church is treated the same way.

And I know you may not go to church and so may not care, but trust me, this is affecting you too. What do you get when a whole generation starts living just to survive. I almost prefer the past generations who lived for fun or to make a wealthy lifestyle, kids have grown up hearing that is not the most important thing, but they have no heard what is.

Or maybe they just don’t believe it anymore.

I am not letting teens off the hook. No one can make you stop caring except you.

But I’ll have to continue this in part two. Until then–Natasha.

Taboo–2

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Depending on how part 1 was received, this may or may not be getting myself in deep.

But I’ve started now, so let’s continue.

I already talked about Taboo Topic #1, but there’s a bit more to say before I go to #2.

As I mentioned before, some people feel they were born homosexual. I say feel, because the fact of the matter is, no one is born any kind of sexual.

We all have a sex, yes; but some people never marry; some, like nuns and priests, remain celibate; most people marry the normal, traditional way; and some people choose a homosexual lifestyle. It is a choice.

But no one is born with a sexual preference. We all grow up and decide how we feel about it as we go, and our opinions change.

It is true that young teens often have no wish to experience feelings, which they do experience, that tend toward what the world calls homosexual.

I think this term has been blown grossly out of proportion.

Not every desire for affection and for touch is a sexual desire; and people make this mistake  as often about heterosexual relationships as homosexual ones.

As I’ve said in “Are we starving?” Human beings need touch to show affection and feel loved, that’s from anyone, of any age group.

That said, it is true that some people develop those kinds of feelings.

However, some people enjoy hurting other people. Some people are addicted to substances. Some people develop a taste for porn.

I know, I am bringing up every controversial issue I possibly can, aren’t I? Sorry. (But uh, check the title of the post, people, what did you expect?)

My point is, human beings develop desires for many unhealthy things. Lust itself is unhealthy when it is out of marriage, and then it is not lust, but healthy desire.

Desire itself if no proof that anything is a good idea. When our emotions are screwed up, or just fluctuating, as any woman can tell you, we want to do crazy things. (Like binge on chocolate.) Not that these desires are on the same level, but it is clear then that not all desires are rational or good.

There’s a book written by a man who struggled with this issue, and he’ll probably go into better than I can, “A Strong Delusion.”

I’ll suffice it to say the Bible does deem some desires evil. And it tells you which ones.

Just to really entrench myself in this matter, I’ll address one more argument. The one that goes “people should be free to express themselves however they want.”

Let me go back to Romans for this, in chapter 1 verses 22-23 it says  “Professing to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man…”

Self has been made into a god in our culture, and we wonder why people are so selfish. It is good to express yourself, but it is never good to disobey God.

I might further point out, God has given us a whole planet full of things we can express ourselves in and with, and it’s harmless; it’s kind of silly to go to the very things he warns us are dangerous and say “I want to use my freedom of expression for this.”

But I’m aware none of this will fix the problem, because it goes deeper than that.

Not everyone cares what God thinks of them, and so preaching about it will not get one anywhere; but that will not change that fact that those who do claim to care, often ignore God as much as the others.

That’s really why I’m doing these posts, I don’t want to be intimidated by the culture into acting like this stuff is not real and deadly. And it is deadly.

It’s not the homosexual act itself that really is deadly, though it does affect people’s health, but it is the attitude we promote with it.

An attitude that is destructive because it is determined to ignore everything expect what it wants.

People are encouraged to think about what they want and think they need, not what is really best for them, their family, their friends, their children, or even their partner.

It used to be those relationships had some weight, and we were encouraged to be unselfish in them, but now we think it’s unhealthy to give way to other people and their needs.

I get that people have been hurt. Abortion, issue #2, is often justified because of rape, or incest; which are ugly, evil things. It is terrible when they happen. And they happen a lot.

I don’t live in a different world than you do, I know about this stuff. And to be honest, I have feared it too. What girl has not?

It’s easy to be afraid of other people and think they will hurt you. Some people do choose homosexuality after being hurt by the opposite sex. Some hate the opposite sex.

I can’t say we don’t give each other reasons to hate.

But now that I’ve admitted all this, how can I still call it wrong? Shouldn’t I have more compassion?

Well, I do have compassion. I don’t want to encourage people to do things I think are wrong, because to me, that is encouraging them to destroy their own lives.

That’s not a popular mindset, but all through history it has proven to be the correct one, people stand against the tide because they care about those who are caught up in it.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.” (Proverbs 4:12.)

The good news is that despite all the negativity of these two posts, I still have a hopeful attitude, because I still have faith. Knowing all this doesn’t change that. Christianity is actually the faith for those who live in a messed up, broken world. It really is in the definition.

I know blogs do not have a dislike button, so if anything I said offended you, you can’t mark your disapproval, but feel free to comment about whatever your thoughts were on the subject.

Until next time–Natasha.

A real feminist.

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It’s no secret that America has a large feminists movement, and we even had a march dedicated to it recently. Many women make it their life’s purpose to promote equality.

I know men and women alike also hate the movement’s guts, and I don’t blame them. It has grown to ridiculous proportions.

Not that the original idea is something I dislike. I don’t even dislike the mantra “HEre me roar.”  Nothing wrong with roaring.

What concerns me is how deeply selfish feminism has become.

Stay with me girls, I’m going to explain.

I’ve never really dealt with sexism from men, though I probably will at some point, because it is out there, but it’s not half so common as it’s cracked up to be. I have already encountered sexism from women.

At the very least, if we must be sexist, I wish it was to some purpose. This marching and telling the world what it would be like if women weren’t at the work place is at best flaunting a long past victory; at worst, it’s lunacy.

Because if anyone should not be complaining about that, it’s American women.

What we should be complaining about is how those girls in countries like India, Cambodia, and Greece, are tricked into being kidnapped and sex trafficked. Millions, every year.

We should be complaining about how women are kept ignorant and helpless in countries where the Taliban is in power.

WE should be complaining that women in African countries are starving and dying of water contamination and also watching their children do the same, and many of those women and girls are forced into sex trade too, as the only way to avoid starvation.

We should be complaining about the Jewish and Christian women who are slain along with their families or have to watch their families die, because of their faith.

We should not be marching the streets waving our angry signs, because we are allowed only to show up to work and get paid for it and take it home to our families, and don’t have to worry about being stopped on the street and asked why we are out without a man.

We should not be giving men the finger for handing over our rights decades ago instead of shooting us or beating us for raising our voices.

What is wrong with us?

Don’t misunderstand me. Any prejudice is wrong, even if it is smaller in our country, but I snot the point of having a voice and having a power so we can speak up for those who are still silenced? and protect those who are still defenseless?

I repeat, feminism is selfish. At least what it has morphed into.

And it is not fair when we tell our daughters they can be anything, but we tell our sons to get out of their way.

We teach boys to not think girls are lesser, but we don’t teach girls to show boys the proper respect.

It goes both ways. There’s a saying “If you would be loved, be lovely.” And it might just as well be “If you would be respected, be respectable and respectful.”

But more importantly, it is selfish to rant about our very few misfortunes, and say nothing about what is going on around the world. It affects us too, immigrants are bringing it into our country, and I know people from other countries than America read this blog, and I mean them too. It is coming into every country.

I have heard it remarked on that schools are now teaching kids to be citizens of the world, whether or not that is a good thing, I can’t say; but if they are citizens of the world they ought to be taught to view the suffering in the world as part of their lives too. Something they should allieviate if they can. I get letters every month telling me about suffering I could help stop if I had money, which I don’t currently, but while I did, I gave some. It’s not a big deal. Its’ what we all should do. It’s not like it has to be a lot, most places are thankful to get anything, even five bucks.

I don’t have any organizations of my own to beg for, so you know this is simply what I think is right.

If you would support women, then support the ones who need it most. I don’t think it’s really so complicated.

But it doesn’t have to start with money. If you want to promote women’s rights, start by treating the women around you right. If girls tear each other down, or compete with each other in unhealthy ways, that is as  anti feminine as anything a man could do.

One more thing, when girls are angry, there is usually a deeper issue. I’ve had rape used as an argument against doing right by men, more than once. I can’t pretend to understand the effects of such assaults, but I do know that whatever someone else does to you, it doesn’t change what you need to do yourself.

Being angry against everyone will not help, and ignoring the fact that things like that happen daily to girls around the world is still selfish, because no one should want others to suffer a horror they’ve been through themselves. But I am not unsympathetic, and if I could offer personal advice, I would, but I suggest seeking more professional help if that is you case.

But hopefully it is not; and the rest of us have no excuse at all.

Whew! This is some heavy stuff. I just hope I’ve done justice to it.

What I really want to do is to wncourage girls and women to be more than that. To do greater things than they’ve seen demonstrated, and to think of other people besides themselves. i want to encourge men to do the same.Thsiis jsut a humn thing,not a gender thing, and we need to stop making it into that. That, I suppose, was my main point.

Until next time–Natasha.

“If there ever comes a time when the women of the world come together purely and simply for the benefit of mankind, it will be a force such as the world has never known.”–Matthew Arnold. (Emphathis mine.)

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