Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Does Compassion Mean What I Think It Means?

Compassion.  I think I know what it means to me, and I know my penchant for projecting onto others what I think it must also mean to them.  And more often than not, I come to learn what I have projected is not necessarily at all something means to another.   So difficult, finding the commonality of our languages, even when we speak the same language.  I would have surely thought compassion would have a somewhat universal meaning and would be a safe conversational word to express humane, spiritual and faith based concepts.

Apparently not so much in the faith based world.   Reading a post on Compassion at Better Than Believing blog this morning was an eye opener for me.   Translated from the scriptures and texts into the English may leave behind some of the intended meanings in the original writings.   Calls into question then, what it means to follow the popular belief of the Jesus teaching of compassion.

The differing meanings of the words compassion as cited in the post:
racham as compassion; Hebrew racham, which may have evolved from a root associated with cuddling a baby or little child, is frequently rendered compassion but has a variety of other meanings.
chamal, which originally may have meant commiserate; another Hebrew word. The difference between chamal and racham is that chamalnever seems to be connected with emotions but always suggests a decision about how to treat people
Two other Hebrew words are occasionally translated compassion: chen, which usually appears in English as grace or favor, and chesed, which most often is translated steadfast love or mercy.
The word that usually appears as compassion in the gospels must always be accompanied by a verb because the word in Greek, splagchnizomai, is a verb. It is based on splagchnon which means intestines, bowels, guts, or viscera. When a people today talk about having a visceral reaction to someone, like the authors and editors of the gospels they are acknowledging that intense emotions are experienced in the digestive tract. A crude but accurate translation of splagchnizomai would be torn up in the gut. In the gospels splagchnizomai usually describes a reaction of Jesus to the suffering or distress of other people. Occasionally the translators use the word pity instead of compassion.


His post then poses question about meaning of compassion as is typically understood from the biblical texts.  He suggests that making a virtue of compassion as if it is understood in the same way by all may not create a bit of a problem in understanding the meaning and intent of the teachings.  If as a visceral feeling, gut reaction, one feels it or one doesn't.  He then cites the well practiced masking people must do with their personal feelings in the helping professions in order to provide care (ie, doctors, nurses, EMT, etc) effectively.  


I well know the experience of needing to turn off personal feeling less my compassion be exhausted before a nine hour work shift is completed.  It provides a safety valve that permits me to do my job, helping large numbers of others, without depleting my personal resources.  I don't think my sense of compassion fully dissipates, but it is necessary for it to recede to the background in order to more effectively perform the helping services of my profession.


His post goes on to suggest that followers of Jesus must also learn to train themselves with regard to their personal sense of compassion so that they might provide a loving and merciful response within the context of how they experience their sense of compassion.


I intend to contemplate this for a while, incorporate it into my understanding of compassion, and revisit what I think the scriptures might be suggesting Jesus meant in use of the word compassion.  It sounds like there are differing meanings applicable to different situations.  

Read more

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Mormonism of Yesteryear's Pioneer Spirit

It would not be complete to not include the link to this post by Holly Welker; Latter-Day Saints and Modern-Day Pioneers, which generated in me a culmination that it has become  time or even past time for me to lift up my voice with my husband's voice in honoring the spirit, integrity and courage displayed by his familial ancestors as reflective of the pioneer spirit of Mormonism.  I can admire the story, the people, the experience and relate to it strongly as it mirrors for me that deeply held faith beliefs can sustain horrific life experiences. 

I do believe believe that through arduous reflection, introspection, and determination, faith can help rescue human pain, human hurt.  I am not of the belief that there is some immediate miraculous lifting of the anguish, but that faith is a process and like many  processes, it evolves in increments, steps, time and experience. I think for the most part humans will experience varying kinds of levels of deep pain, deep hurt that need the balm of healing.  And I believe a combination of factors to include reaching out for or holding onto faith can be that balm.

My husband's  viewpoint on his ancestral story is better told in his own book 'And Should We Die', which is not an effort on my part to promote his book in this post; more that his own words tell the story of how he feels about his ancestral heritage and story.   Given what I have come to learn about this fateful and dangerous trek and the costs in terms of loss of life of men, women and children, I do not share quite the same viewpoint as my husband.  We do share in common a mutual admiration for the people who were his relatives, who made that trek, who brought his family to the West. 

In that vein, when I read Holly Welker's post, I let out a hoop and holler of Yes!  A person who not only shares my viewpoint but brings additional material to the discussion, offering up resource material for me to seek out and digest.  Bringing me to an almost 'aha' moment, which generated in me the desire to initiate this blog. 

Quoting from her post;

  As far as I'm concerned, my activity in the Mormon church is irrelevant to my identity as a Mormon. Mormons call themselves saints; I suppose these days I'm a secular saint rather than a devout one. But that indelible mark made on the collective Mormon psyche by the trek across the plains? It's as vivid and deep on my psyche as on anyone's. What it marks is not my relationship to orthodoxy but to sacrifice, landscape, the unknown, and change.
I am proud of and humbled by the actions of my ancestors. They abandoned the familiar and strode bravely into the unknown, confident that doing so would enable a better future. They gave up possessions, relationships that no longer nurtured them, ideologies they had outgrown. They did the hardest thing they could, both because they could and because they had no other choice.
I cannot count the number of people who have said to me,"I have profound doubts about the church -- its politics, its doctrines, its social structures. I don't always feel at home. But I'll never stop attending or voice certain doubts in public because that would render the sacrifices of my ancestors null and void."
And I say, "How is doing the opposite of what your ancestors did the best way to honor their actions? Isn't the best way to honor their examples simply to follow it?"
I currently live in Salt Lake City, with ample opportunity to celebrate Pioneer Day: concerts in the tabernacle, a ball, a powwow, fireworks, the obligatory parade. I'll probably skip it, because these days Pioneer Day is about settling down, when the spirit that made the arrival in the Salt Lake Valley possible in the first place was about rising up. Mormons today are instructed to submit to authority, when the impetus for the trek across America was rejection of authority.
So this year I celebrate by imagining the Pioneer Day parade of my latter-day dreams. The marshals of my parade wouldn't be men who make pronouncements about doctrine, but the contemporary pioneers who challenge and remake the ways Mormons lives their day-to-day lives.

Read more at the link, and the resource material she has posted.

Read more

Literalism, another way to look at it

 

I have come to value that one of the pitfalls my formerly devout (in other words, accepted by the LDS mainstream) husband was his experience of a literal faith, which proved to have holes too big for him to ignore, followed by his need to resist the literalism of his faith community. 

In the either/or literal sense, his resistance was truly more his own effort to deepen his faith within the context of his faith community.  What he met with were too many who offered him the black or white literalism - if you are not for it, do not believe it, do not accept it, then you have lost your way, are listening to another force, are out of step and compliance with the homogeneous belief requirements. Would that his resistance have met with people who could offer him a more meaningful way to wear and use his faith, acknowledging his need to be out of compliance as part of his quest to deepen his faith.

My journey with him began at the time of his questioning, and I can only speculate what his life in the literal belief may have looked like, felt like to him.  Before I knew much of the community of LDS or Mormonism, I only knew of some of what is described as the peculiarities of Mormons - the usual array of things like their undergarments, the history of polygamy, the strong family bond, and an arrogance that they believed they had the only truth there is to have in such matters as faith, family, God.  What was more relevant to me than what the beliefs were, was his carriage of himself, the obviousness (to me) of his deeply held faith, and that there was a goodness about him that I had to conclude came about as a result of his heritage, his culture and his beliefs.   I have oft wondered if there was a way in which to accept aspects of the faith minus the literalism and still be able to hold to the faith-based tenet of the narrative.

My experience of religions considered to be traditional and mainstream Christian is that they too have holes too big to ignore, and again it seems literalism is a core cause of the need to resist by questioning.  It is the questioning process that I believe strengthens the faith.  It is the faith, I believe, that then strengthens the belief.  The two seem incompatible at times. I could never, for example, say that I believe with absolute certainty and unequivocably that a conceptual storyline is reality or truth, rather that it points to inner, deeper, personal truths that need to be nurtured over time and experience in order to more fully manifest in one's personal life.

Coming across the post Avoid The Temptation of Literalism, by Steve P. at bycommonconsent corresponds well to my take on the matter, and I'm actually a bit surprised to find it so well articulated from inside the LDS community.

To borrow Steve's words from the post;

This is why reading the scriptures a scientific text does such violence to their purpose. They are designed to connect us subjectively, consciously and spiritually to richer truths and meaning. To use the scriptures to pull out objective facts about the physical world and its history is to tear them way from what they are there to ground. Literalism is like giving a child a calculus book as a stepping stool to reach a washbasin. In so doing, much is lost that lies with the proper use of the book. Certainly children need footstools, but such use misses the true potential the book has to offer.
  and
The scriptures are sacred. They allow us to touch the deepest truths available. To use them to read the surface of physical things (for which they are not intended and for which they don’t lend themselves) is a mistake that leads us away from where science is strong and should be used (as Elder Oaks points out) and, worse, wrenches the scriptures away from the beauty and truth they have to offer.

My husband has posted thousands of words expressing just such thoughts in his earnest need to indict literalism in any religion.  He and I have shared many hours of conversation and discussion over the past sixteen years of our lives together.  I'm not as likely to spend the amount of time, energy or resources as he has used in pointing to the flaw in a literal interpretation of what many consider the 'sacred' book.  As we have shared our thoughts, feelings with each other, I believe our sense of faith and belief has evolved and that while we share much in common in our connectedness at a spiritual level, we might have somewhat dissimilar verbalized belief sets.  It is extremely difficult to have any kind of conversation about religion, beliefs, faith because the language one eventually must employ has so many words that are 'charged' with meanings as defined for us, rather than words we can use and define for ourselves. 

Yet he and I have persevered in sharing such discussions, and when it gets close to the heart of the matter, to the faith of our child selves and the intellect of our adult selves, a reconciliation must take place for the faith to grow and mature.  I see us at this place in trying to find our own definitions. 

Read more

Monday, September 20, 2010

Dressy, Colorful, Designer and Vintage Scarves

I’m excited with my new endeavor, launching Look Again! an online e-store  

We welcome you to Look Again at the treasure finds we have found and are making available to you. Our items will be primarily of the gently used variety. If it appeals to us, then there is a good chance it will appeal to you too!


Please do bookmark us so you can find your way back to the store
lookagain.ecrater.com/

Added some beautiful scarves to the store.  You’ll want to take a look!  (little play on words there, since name of the store is Look Again! )

Uses for designer and vintage scarves besides the usual fashion accessory; curtain valance, frame them, use as dresser scarves, use to make pillow slipcover, use in upcycle crafting/sewing, sew a few together to make table runner, make a tablescape by draping scarf from vintage purse with pair of glasses and place a thin column lamp placed in purse, What uses can you think of for scarves, vintage or otherwise?

Echo Black on White Striped Scarf

S7303681

S7303678

Offering this Echo designer scarf in a bold black and white stripe pattern, edged with an orange stripe finished with a larger red stripe. 100 % silk.


No tears or holes. There is a tiny run across part of the width in one place, but it is not obvious. I almost missed it in my examination of the scarf. Appears to be new or if used, has been very little use.


The Echo name in designer scarves has been around since 1923. In fact Echo claims that it was the first brand name ever printed on a scarf.

 

Charter Club Silk Tropical Floral Scarf

S7303684

S7303686

S7303685

Offering a Charter Club designer scarf in vibrant colors in a tropical floral pattern edged in blue/green. The Charter Club logo is visible on the corner of the scarf. The tag indicates Charter Club, 100 % silk, made in Japan, with copyright icon - Macy's. Instructions indicate dry clean only.


The scarf appears to be new or if used, lightly used. There are no tears, holes or runs, the edges are rolled hem and beautifully stitched.
Scarf is rectangle measuring 35" by 18".

 

 

Vera Green Scarf

S7303673

 

S7303675

Vintage Vera! Offering this Vera scarf, likely from the 1970s based on large signature and no ladybug icon. All Vera designs are copyrighted. color green


Scarf is large square in size measuring 22 1/2" by 22 1/2 ". Green with green mountain pattern. The fabric feels like a chiffon, or sheer type fabric. There are no tears, holes or pulls. The rolled edges are in very good condition.


If you don't know the Vera name of designer scarves, a brief history. Vera Neumann, artist turned textile designer's scarves are known for their graphic, bold patterns (flowers, dots and geometrics) and Vera's signature in the corner. One way to tell the age of the scarf is by the size of the Vera signature - the smaller the signature, the older the scarf.  Also through the 1960s until the late 1960s, the ladybug icon shows up alongside the Vera signature.


The Vera signature gets larger; the ladybug icon makes a comeback in approximately 1973 with the larger Vera signature. Disappears again through the 1980s, and makes a comeback in present day scarves.

Read more

She asks the questions most obvious to me

Is this a pattern? A lot of us women on fMh have been hurt by men in some form or another - abuse, rape, abandonment, etc. It seems to me that my friend in the temple easily dismissed my concerns because of my fears. If I wasn’t so “damaged”, then I would understand the patriarchal order and be at peace with it.

Is that true? Part of me wonders if it might be. But then part of me tends to think hat because I am aware of the abuses of authority that can occur, I am more sensitive to how they can occur.

Anyways, these are my questions:  If you have been hurt by a man at some point in your life, do you feel it has shaped your feminism? If you have never been hurt by a man, what do you think shapes your feminism and makes you aware of these issues? If more women who are not “damaged” speak up, will it lend more credence to those of us who are and make it harder to just dismiss us and our concerns?

via Feminist Mormon Housewives by Stephanie on 9/18/10

She asks questions that seem obvious to me, in the sharing of sisterhood across all the spectrums, don’t we have a bit of a sister obligation to ‘hear’ our sisters when they try to speak to abuse they experience under authoritarian structures.  And don’t we have some inner urging to speak out against it, even if the voice we use is one of support for one of our sisters?

Read more

What does Yon Kippur have to do with Mormonism?

 

Perhaps more than is realized or currently practiced.  In quickly scanning which posts I would read this morning, I almost skipped this post, because it immediately started with Yon Kippur, and I wasn’t in the mood to read about Yon Kippur today.  But what Mraynes did with interpreting the spirit of Yon Kippur in applying it to Mormon doctrine of atonement was refreshing.

Today is Yom Kippur. Day of Atonement. A time to repent of the sins between man and God. I like the idea of taking a day to right your relationship with God. In our own tradition, the story of Enos has always spoken to me for this reason.

and

There is not a lot of room within Mormon theology for this kind of relationship with God. God is perfect, some say unchanging, and it is us who must repent, break our hearts and make contrite our spirits. And yet who among us has not been angry at God? Who among us has not felt that God has treated us poorly?

If Rabbi Brous’ metaphor holds, what kind of marriage is it if one party cannot say to the other, “You have hurt me”?

Read more

Barbara B. Smith influence on Mormon Women at time of ERA

 

It helped me to read what Stephanie posted in eulogizing Barbara B. Smith.  Her expansive description of the time in which Barbara Smith took office of President of Relief Society reflected a time of great inner organizational structural change in the LDS church.  At the time of ERA, I knew little of Mormon faith, beliefs or culture, only that the LDS women were marching in lockstep to help defeat ERA.  At the time I was not in the fullest sense of the feminist movement, but I was in a budding career and much interested in growth of recognition of equal wages for women who found themselves in the workplace (either by choice or economic circumstance).  I recall my thoughts at that time of thorough surprise, puzzlement and even disdain in hearing that Mormon women were not in support of ERA.  How could sisters not support sisters, I wondered.  What was this peculiar belief set that permitted the women to hold to the status quo of too many characteristics on the economic and domestic frontlines belonging to a ‘man’s world’?

Perhaps Barbara B. Smith wasn’t as far off the mark as I believed at the time.  Now that even Mormon women find themselves in the workplace, and not necessarily by choice, but by economic circumstance, women’s rights have taken a slightly backwards step forcing choices to multi-task as wife, mother, parent, and working woman.  The ‘SuperWoman’ as it was thought we women could be in those years of the movement (1970’s n 198'0’s) has proven to be unrealizeable.  Some role element suffers - be it the career, the parent, the wife.   I now believe an economy that forces women into the workforce at the expense of raising their children has consequences for the woman and the children.  Which is not to say it can’t be balanced and done well, but it takes enormous energy and superb help, not always readily or handily available. 

Having said that, I also believe that an economy built on consumerism has worn out it’s welcome and revisiting what we ‘need’ instead of what we ‘want’ is timely.  We may well find out that we need less consumerism and want more time to be in and with family. 

Read more

Developmental Stages 7 and 8

On the eight stages of the ladder of life as defined by Eric Erikson it seems I have reached Middle Adulthood, and am looking at Stages 7 and 8.

Two conflicting issues fight within to be resolved; Generativity versus Stagnation.    Eric Erickson developed a ladder of life stages theory that seems to my reading to make sense, particularly this stage of 7 and 8.    Better told in the words of byjane in her blog article at MidLife Bloggers, take a read to see where you are in the process.

Read more

Stuff, Getting it, getting rid of it

It’s a strange cycle, all those years spent slowly acquiring ‘things’ only to reach this age and wish to be shed of most of them.  I’m reminded of the late George Carlin’s performance routine in which he talks about ‘stuff’.    Coming across an article in The New York Times; When Possessions Lead to Paralysis, I am reminded fondly of what George Carlin has to say about it.

We just saw our granddaughter off to college, spending that first Orientation Day with her while she set up her dorm room.  Last month another granddaughter just got herself set up at her college dorm room, so we have furnishing college dorm rooms on the mind.  With the sparity of space, yet the essentials of living for the next year all contained in a space about the size of a large walk in closet, if even that much room, I’m feeling awkward about the house we live in which contains the two of us and all our possessions.  

I wonder why it seems to take a lifetime to acquire all we think we need only to wind up looking at it all wondering why we thought we had to have it in the first place.  Not so much my husband, as me, because I seem to have that collecting stuff need more than he, but I wonder, could we get by with just enough stuff to fit a dorm room?  I often wonder if we could get by with just enough stuff to fill a travel trailer and do some road travel in the years ahead. 

What would we do with all our stuff?  And already I’m thinking it’s time to have an ongoing garage sale, online, and offload some of this stuff.

My mother said goodbye to her husband in 2006.  When he went on ahead to the other side, he left her alone.  I spent the first two years being as much ‘there’ for her as I could, and she often talked of selling her house, and moving closer to us.  She talked of doing so for years, it is now 2010, yet it never got much further than talk, and now she seems to be settled with the idea of remaining where she is, staying put.  It’s a financially sensible arrangement for her, yet I’ve often wondered if the idea of what to do with all her stuff was a somewhat overwhelming part of her decision to stay put.    It would certainly be overwhelming to me to be alone and along in years, left to figure out what to do with all this stuff in our home. 

Read more

Is the ‘Favorite’ child going to take care of Mom?

I know, I know..my mom says it too, she doesn’t have favorites, she loves us all the same.   Actually, I have come to recognize that I don’t want to be loved ‘the same’ as my siblings, because somehow it denudes my specialness, and I am then just one of the brood.  My mother would never admit to having a favorite among her four children.  I like to believe that I don’t have a favorite among my three children.  Yet this article in the New York Times; Mom Always Like You Best (a well known routine from the Smothers Brothers) points out the significance of  who is going to care for mom and how that relates to mom’s sense of  her favorite child. 

Quoting from the article, and for more, read the article here.

Further studies revealed that middle-aged children often recognized that their parents felt closer to one child than another — but were off-base about who ranked highest. “They typically choose themselves,” Dr. Pillemer said, “and they’re typically wrong.”

One might file this under “Stuff I’d Just as Soon Not Know,” except that the care of the elderly falls mostly to their children and that one child usually shoulders the bulk of the responsibility. Mothers also express clear ideas about whom they want and expect to take on that role, it turns out, so their partiality has consequences.

Read more

She really does like her solitude and it’s okay.

Reassuring article, New York Times; Aging’s Misunderstood Virtues  explains that as we age our so do our tastes, preferences and what interested us at 45 or 50 may not be of interest in later years, as we mature so do our interests, we are continually evolving.    I have worried that my mother seems to spend more time alone than I think is healthy.  Perhaps not; quoting from the article;

“We develop and change; we mature,” he told me in a phone interview from his home in Uppsala, Sweden. “It’s a process that goes on all our lives, and it doesn’t ever end. The mistake we make in middle age is thinking that good aging means continuing to be the way we were at 50. Maybe it’s not.”

An increased need for solitude, and for the company of only a few intimates, is one of the traits Dr. Tornstam attributes to this continuing maturation. So that elderly mother isn’t deteriorating, necessarily — she’s evolving.

“People tell us they are different people at 80,” Dr. Tornstam explained. “They have new interests, and they have left some things behind.”

Read more
Related Posts with Thumbnails