Sunday 16 April 2006
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Maturization
St Theresa's Seminarians' letters to the Life Teen Program are an interesting window into my friends lives. I remember Matt & John from when we were in Life Teen together. When we were growing up, I never thought that anyone I knew would go on to become a priest. It's so cool, and yet so weird. I guess I was too busy always deflecting people's desires that I seriously look into the priesthood. I always wanted to be an example of single laity involved in the church. I don't think you see enough positive examples of that, personally.
I find myself more and more...occupied. It's almost like a drug, where I look forward to my fix every week. Then I find myself lost in thought about... I've always prayed, but this situation is causing me to pray even more. Each week, I become more preoccupied than the last, causing me to pray even more. I could definitely use all the prayers people have out there. I would really like a positive result from all this. I need to let go and let God. Easier prayed than done.
Earlier, Kitty and I were discussing how we (humanity) learn our parenting skills as children. How, once we are tested to the max, our earliest examples of parenting bleed out, no matter how much we might work against turning out like that. I believe that through hard work, we can overcome those mistakes while she thinks that we can be so sorely tested that we instinctively revert to our parents' parenting skill set. She's had kids and grandkids, while I just enjoy other people's kids, so I'll have to concede. But I don't think that we should go into parenting with that mindset, which I believe sets us up to fail. If we believe we can do better, we will do better with God's help. He, our spouse, human support network, the angels, and the saints can support and reinforce our efforts to be better. And should we falter, they will assist us in getting back up, rectifying the situation, and support us from making those mistakes again. Think positive and get positive.
Anyway, the reason I bring this up is that I realised that maybe this was the real reason Child Protective Services had me attend parenting classes with my parents. Perhaps the people in CPS were hoping to mold me while I was still young, and that I would instinctively retreat to my parenting class training when I myself became a parent. It's an interesting idea, one of which I would be curious to see the outcome.
"There is no meaning in a word. Meaning is in people." ~ If Only He Knew, Gary Smalley
Comments (1)
Interesting thought that CPS would use that particular tactic. I approve. A little bit of clarification is needed though -- while I do know from personal experience and observation of friends in the same boat that your own child rearing skills will strongly reflect your own childhood experience, you can change your approach in ordinary day-to-day behaviors and tactics. It's the heavy-duty stress that shuts down your learned approaches and brings back your original experience. Consequently you will slip up from time to time if you had bad examples in your early life -- mostly during the heaviest testing. That doesn't mean you'll do the wrong things all the time. ((And I doubt it's possible that ALL the early experience will be bad things...somethings of value had to be there too.)) All you can do is try to pre-empt as much of the stressors as possible ((is that under the heading of avoiding the near occasion of sin?)), and pick up and try again after the slip-ups.
It's not a hopeless situation, it's one where you need to be practical about what's going to happen. And it makes it plain to you that forgiving the transgressions against you is really the only reasonable thing to do -- your own parents were just people in the same situation doing the best they could with what they knew too.
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