Life, Liberty and ... Happiness Schmappiness

In light of a few recent conversations, I would like to explore authority and obedience. And maybe our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Negative views of authority surround slavery, dictatorships, church hierarchies and sometimes the military. The negative adjectives associated with these types of authority, which are sometimes also applied to marital relationships are controlling, abusive, oppressive, arrogant, power hungry, angry, condemning and harsh. Groups that tend to be more sensitive to being under this type of authority are women, those associated with poorer, exploited countries (formerly known as minorities, but that is changing in America), Protestants, and those who have chosen stigmatized, usually considered immoral, lifestyles.

I believe there is some basis for this negative view of authority, mainly because I think it takes a Saint to do it right. Otherwise power tends to corrupt. This may be why there is so much time spent in the Bible teaching how it should and shouldn't be done. But I don't want to focus on the qualifications of a proper authority figure right now, who is necessary as without it there would be chaos and anarchy because the oppressed aren't perfect either, but on the needs of those who are under authority, who will someday have responsibilities, perhaps for just a dog or a plant.

What do children, plants, dogs, poor people, women, enlisted men, immoral people, and Protestants need from those in authority? Maybe Maslow got it right to some extent in his hierarchy of needs. Food and shelter, safety, love and belonging, esteem and self-actualization. I don't think people are completely stuck in one stage of need at a time, but maybe Maslow doesn't either. Different people view the fulfillment of these needs different ways, and this leads me to what people generally need provided for them, a safe place in which to grow and be and to be free. I don't think we can be truly free in a fallen world, without someone protecting us, and that is the main role for those in authority, imo. A hierarch protects the people by providing education, shelter from destroying influences, nourishment for growth, and appropriate boundaries for creativity and exploration. I find myself for the first time in my life in the upper zone as most of my life heretofore has been about struggling to have the most basic needs met. But now I have a husband who provides beyond any of my hopes and expectations, and my children are getting of an age where they don't need constant care, though I'm always listening and try to be aware of their activities. George wants me to have interests and to succeed in them and that is such a blessing. Meanwhile, he works gruelling hours to provide for me and ours, and for that I am very thankful.

So, the Orthodox Church paints beautiful pictures for what a self-actualized person is in her teachings of the Incarnation and resultant Saints. But each Saint is an individual with their own personal relationship with God, though even that is more communal in the Orthodox Church. I don't want to go into specifics about how to be a Saint, but I do believe it is the only way to become who we are intended to be - truly free people in the infinite, safe, nurturing boundary of the Body of Christ. But this is not a right, speaking of the Declaration of Independence, because it is conditional on becoming Christlike through our free will, faith, and walking in His ways by the grace of God. I hesitate to use "obedience" here because of how it has been used on abused people, and we women are very sensitive to that. Pedophiles gain an advantage by coming across as a caring adult authority figure. Somehow I don't think abused men have the same issues of authority and forced obedience as women, maybe because they grow up to be considered authority, powerful figures automatically and thus shed their vulnerability to domination, and many end up becoming oppressive dominators, though some may be so turned off by it that they become passive and don't exercise their authority in it's proper way.

I don't want to villify obedience, but I think the problems of exploitation are so much greater than the problems of disobedience in women in particular because I think we naturally want to please. Children are another matter, some want to please and some are more stubborn. Which leads me to stressing that authority is about providing safe boundaries/shelter. Both call to mind walls and a roof. We have this physically in our homes and Church buildings, but we also need to learn how to provide walls and a roof around their tender hearts and minds where they can grow into the fullest expressions of their individual personhood as they were created to be. I feel most in the presence of God when gazing at an innocent child's little face, and that is what we need to guard more than anything - their innocence. It's not about agressive control, but protecting their safety and the safety of those around them. After all they will someday be in charge of my grandchildren, and maybe even me if I get old and need additional care. If I want my grandchildren raised in the Church, I must play a very active role in enforcing how important it is for them to be raised in the Church. The Church needs to be the biggest influence in their lives, not sports, school, though it can complement the Church very nicely, not rest and relaxation, not vacations, entertainment, or even a career, though our Priest says that honorable reasons for missing Church include sickness and a job that requires it to provide for your family. This is also why two of my sons work at Chick-fil-a which is closed on Sundays unlike most other minimum wage jobs. I've told my kids that the main thing I want for them is to always attend Church regularly, and for my grandkids to as well. This probably means marrying an Orthodox spouse, or at least one that supports the kids going to an Orthodox Church. To me it is a matter of conditional life and death, otherwise known to Saint Maximus as ever well being, or ever ill being.

Oftentimes our immediate happiness is put on hold when we are caring for those we are responsible for. This is what denying self and following Christ are all about, but He promises that we can never give up more than He will eventually give us, and He has proven this true to me my whole life, though it usually takes a lot of time and testing. I'm glad Orthodox Lent is so long. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Various issues

Our showers, dishwasher and clothes washer use way more water than our neighbor's sprinklers.

I can't get passed Obama's pro-death stances, Hillary's untrustworthiness, or McCain's support for throwing money at Iraq, so I'll either vote for the so-far seemingly antiquated, pre-WWII foreign policies of Ron Paul or not at all.

Every human cure has side effects.

Utopia isn't going to happen here, except in the Orthodox Church. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be done.

Well there's triumphalism and then there's triumphalism

- Edited from original

Everyone decries triumphalism as being counterproductive. I sense that I come across triumphalistic at times in the negatively characterized sense. But I'm not convinced it is bad.

Here's the first definition from Answers.com

"The attitude or belief that a particular doctrine, especially a religion or political theory, is superior to all others."

Guilty - so? Orthodoxy is the fulness of the faith, where something unorthodox differs, it's wrong, damaging, and unhealthy. Truth is superior to error. I believe our anthem at Pascha expresses the truth of Christ's resurrection better than anything I came across before discovering Orthodoxy - "Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life." We glory in God's revelation to us through His Church.

Here's where I start to feel a twinge of wait a minute. Second definition from the aforenamed site,

"The term triumphalism is what anthropologists call an "observer's category"; it is generally taken as having a pejorative sense (see the Oxford English Dictionary) and few members of groups would identify themselves as being triumphalist.

The term is sometimes used to refer to relatively inconsequential behavior, such as excessively demonstrative glee at the defeat or failure of a sports rival. People experience triumphalism in this recreational form as collective pride (e.g., school spirit) or sports fanaticism (“We’re Number One!”).

Triumphalism also takes more consequential forms, including extreme forms of patriotism, nationalism or religious extremism.

Triumphalists may derive a sense of pride, security, or virtue from their sense of superiority and expectation of ultimate triumph. However, those who believe in their own group’s superiority or inevitable ascendancy do not typically claim the label ‘triumphalist.’ Instead, the term usually has a negative connotation and is used by those who do not accept the superiority of the belief or group in question, or by those who are warning against the effects of over-confidence and hubris within their own group."

One reason I don't watch Cowboy football games with as much engagement (other than the fact that Tom Landry's departure was so poorly handled) is that I see how people's emotions get so tied up in the outcome - I'm happy if my team squashes your team, I'm sad, feel like a failure, and have an identity crisis if yours squashes mine. One team, and their vicarious fans, gets a W on their forehead, the other gets an L. I've similarly detached myself from political competitions. But the trash talk, wrestling rhetoric is more blatant in that field. Athletic team commentators seem much more sportsman-like and objective about their analysis of why a team wins. They understand about attitude, ascetic discipline, the qualities of a good coach, diet, etc. Plus everything is subject to instant replay and drug testing so if a fast one is pulled, it's harder to hide. Though there are a few nanner nanner boo boo players along with that type of fan reaction. I think I'm starting to see how triumphalism can get categorized as a posture of wanting to bring someone down, rather than rejoicing in the beauty, success, health, and happiness engendered and embodied by proper form and content.

I confess a certain anger at heterodox religions and their defenders. I want them to suffer defeat and depopulization because of their damaging paradigms. I feel that I have been personally hurt by their teachings and practices, or more often, lack there-of. I know a lot of Orthodox want to properly give credit to their abandoned team by appreciating their providing partial truth which was better than nothing. I'm just getting tired of straining so hard to appreciate the good side of an abusive system. Like trying to appreciate how well an offensive scene was painted on canvas which was so superbly stretched. Why do we need to defend it? At the same time, I have sympathy for the artist who painted said scene and at the destructive influences that motivated him.

Some people's conversions were perhaps met with less violent reactions than mine was - I'm still shaking my head at the fall-out. And maybe I should feel guilty in rejoicing so triumphantly when I initially told my Protestant family of how I'd "seen the true light, received the heavenly Spirit, and found the true faith, worshipping the undivided Trinity who has saved us." Maybe this is why Jesus told the blind man to not tell anyone he'd been healed. But if I remember correctly, the healed people, not that I nor many of my fellow this-side-of-the-veil-bound inmates are healed, we've just found the BEST DOCTORS AT THE BEST HOSPITAL!!!!!! COME AND SEE, THERE'S ROOM FOR YOU TOO, IT'LL JUST COST YOU EVERYTHING YOU HAVE!!!!!, couldn't contain themselves.

So triumphalism in the bad sense is rejoicing that I personally am not a heretic like them, a la the Pharisee and the Publican. But in a more natural sense, I believe it is in rejoicing in the truth, and exposing the dangers of error, hoping that other people in those inferior religions will become more sensitized to unhealthy modes of living and come to rejoice with me in learning the intended, predestined one. Please pray for me that I will be healed of any wrong posturing.

Distinguishing Tolerance, Compromise, and Intolerance

Tolerance is looking for commonality with another person. Compromise is saying your points of disagreement are equally valid. Intolerance is aggressively enforcing our way in certain points of disagreement.

Tolerance is determining that the things we have in common, such as being created in the image of God, are significant enough to continue a dispassionate discussion on points of disagreement. Compromise is saying we'll take turns doing it our own way, all things being equal. Intolerance is saying our disagreement is so severe, and the consequences are so soul-destroying in your point of view, that I can not talk to you.

Lord have mercy (healing correction) on us.

On Head Coverings and Male/Female Segregation

The only part I remember from skimming Handmaid Mary-Leah's John Chrysostom sermon on headcoverings which was very long, was that women should show proper shame in wearing them. Despite my automatic defensive reaction, including not reading it in more detail, I wore the new Russian scarf I bought on our cruise to Alaska to Vespers and Matins Saturday night at St. Seraphim's Cathedral in Dallas. We were there with George's god-father and his friend who were visiting our house this last weekend from Mississippi. I feel protected and hidden when I wear one, though not many women do at my parish. I feel ashamed if I'm in the minority in not wearing one. Like I'm exposed. But at my parish I stand up front and sing in the choir, and as none of the other ladies do, and the choir director looks at me funny (that's not all he does) when I wear one, I've quit as I'm a newbie in the choir and feel I should follow their lead.

Saturday night at the Cathedral I and the girls also stood on the other side from my sons, our male guests, and initially my husband after I'd venerated the icons on that side. But George came over to be with me. So for a few minutes I was segregated with a head covering. It was nice. But I feel at home at St. Seraphim's where head coverings are more frequently worn. When we visited the male Greek monastery in Kendalia a couple of years ago and I was forced to wear a head covering, which at that point I was very unused to, and stand away from George and the boys with a bunch of strange women in a Greek-only service, it was all too foreign and uncomfortable. And then we had to eat in a separate room, that was even more uncomfortable. I couldn't wait to leave.

I don't know if it is because I was raised with two brothers and a quiet mother, though she is very smart and well-read (Valedictorian and class president at Bob Jones University boarding high shool), or any other number of social, genetic, and freely chosen formative variables, but I enjoy male conversation. Actually my mother always said she preferred male conversation. So to be segregated away from it, to be told women shouldn't teach men (not that that is my goal), should be silent in church, that men should have dominion over us, that men have better camaraderie when women aren't around, makes me sad. But St. Maximus says that Christ Recapitulates and resolves the dialectic between males and females. Christ had very nice conversations with women. I especially like the Gentile woman who said, "even dogs get to eat the crumbs that fall from the table". Jesus liked that one too.

But to tie this to the post previous, I have anxiety about whether I am being appropriate or not when talking to men other than my husband. A line has been crossed before. And when I said before that I am deliberating whether to keep running or to be sad, this is part of that choice-making process. I have for the most part chosen to run ahead despite my anxiety, instead of being sad at having the cross of segregation. Peaceful but sad, or happiness cut short by anxiety. Maybe this is my cross. So should I even quit my blog which has co-ed readers, in addition to not commenting on male blogs, even though I find them interesting and intriguing? This is what I mean about facing that I am meant to be "alone", unless I'm wrong. A week ago I almost deleted this whole thing but George told me not to. I don't know.

Another thing to consider, my favorite thing about St. Seraphim is how he adopted the nuns at a neighboring monastery. He even invited them to spend the night in the chapel if the weather was bad. He called them his "orphans". That made me happy.