Learning or Not.

"I'm not as weird as I seem, if you only knew where I've been." --Jeanette, 2005

We all have a story. Where we've come from. Our parents have a story, where they've come from. Their story shapes our story, our story shapes our lives. Our story shapes our lives and our children's lives.

I remember musing on this when I was 17 years old but didn't know how to articulate it. I tried, though, I have a diary entry where I muddled around talking about children and the legacy left them by their parents.

There are parts of my personality that are likely from my great-grandmother and great-grandfather. I don't know what they are, but since my grandparents were a large part of my life throughout my teen years, I would imagine that parts of them and parts of the men and women before them touched me.

Someone this past week tried to tell me that the past shouldn't be allowed to affect us. That we can't live our lives in the shadow of the past. The choice of words used were hurtful. I understood what the person was saying, but I believe there's a difference between living in the past and learning from the past.

If you fail to learn from the experiences you've had, then what was the point of going through them? If you fail to learn and then accept responsibility for what YOU did or didn't do, wouldn't it stand to reason that you will repeat what you've done (or haven't done) before?

In the Bible, the Israelites repeated their mistakes over and over again. They would fall into the ways of whatever society they were living in, worshipping idols, when God kept telling them to only worship Him. Yet, they never learned. A quick search for the word "idols" in the online Bible returns these results: Link

My opinion, wrong or right is this ... a person who lives in the past is a shadow who will never reach their full potential. Living in the past is rather like a spiritual smothering. Gradually, you just die inside.

A person who fails to learn from the past is a fool. In order to learn, you have to examine. If you don't examine, you don't learn.

I pray that I'm not a fool.

Recovery Day.

Today was a day of recovery for me. Recovery of spending time with SO MANY PEOPLE at Disneyland the last couple of days. One of the joys of being an introvert is the need to recover and rejuvenate by having alone time after social events.

My fiance's parents gave me a book entitled "Sarah: The Women of Genesis", which I finished reading today. It is a novel based loosely on the experiences of Sarah and Hagar. I am also reading a devotional book on the women of the Bible. As it so happened, the stories of Sarah and Hagar from one book coincided with the reading of the other book.

Something that resonated with me served as a closing to the story, as Sarah, an old woman looked back over her life. The book connected Lot's wife (who turned into a pillar of salt because she turned and looked at Sodom & Gomorrah when she should have been looking towards her future) as being Sarah's sister, named Qira.

And thinking of sisters reminded her of Qira and her tragic blindness to anything that mattered. Qira was almost as blessed as I was, thought Sarah, but she never knew it, and kept trying to get joy from those who had none to give, and rejecting it from the only ones who knew how it could be obtained. And she died because she couldn't let go of the very things that the dead always leave behind, and couldn't hold to the only things that the dead can carry with them.

The love of a good man for a good woman. The love of good friends for each other. The love of parents for children, and children for parents. The love of brothers and sisters. The memory of joy and grief, which all becomes joy when enough time has passed. This is the treasure that I have won through all the years of my journey through this life, thought Sarah. And every bit of it I'll take with me beyond the grave. I'll meet God then, Abraham promises I will, and I will take all these treasures and lay them out before his feet, for God can see them easily even if mortal men cannot. And I'll kneel before the treasures and say, "O God, I thank thee for giving these to me during my life on Earth. No daughter has been better loved than I, nor any wife, nor any mother. I never deserved them. They were not mine by right. But I hope that, having been given such gifts so undeservingly, I used them well, and gave back to thee a life that was worthy."

And I thought to myself how well said that was.

Is It For Real?

I was listening to my morning radio show the other day. The people who DJ the show are really talented. They have just the right mixture of depth, humor, warmth, vulnerability, silliness and love for each other to make their show worth listening to. Such a diverse group of people, too. I've listened to them for at least 16 years, following them from station to station as they moved around throughout their career.

The other morning, their topic of discussion was "What is the one question you can ask yourself to know whether your love is the forever kind of love."

It seemed like a fun little game, so I decided to play along. The questions were intended, of course, towards finding your soulmate.

One caller said the one question to ask yourself is "Do you need him because you want him or do you want him because you need him?"
Another caller said, "Would you love him if he had nothing?"
The next one, "Would you love him if he were a quadroplegic?"
The next one, "Can you imagine your life without him in it?"
The next one, "Are you a better person for being around him?"
The final one, which was the show stopper was "There is no question. You just know. If you're asking yourself these questions, then he's not the one."

I have to admit that I was somewhat irritated by the "final" one. I believe that, generally, teenagers do not have the life experience to "just know." They THINK they do, which is a dangerous line to walk. At that point, though, I think parents play a critical role in guiding their teenager through their decision. If the teenager disengages from the parent at that point, I think that would be a clear indication that the teenager isn't ready for a marriage. (I make that statement based on the assumption that the parent loves their child and wants what's best for them based on the parent's life experience.)

Even as a 34 year old, the "just knowing" phenomena is risky. By that age, I think we've gained life experience but, if we've been burned by bad experiences, we will likely question and analyze everything. We are not willing to trust our intuition so completely. While the questions above are fun and cliche, I think the following questions (that I received from an e-mail list I'm part of) are much more thoughtful and based on life's realities:

1. Am I able to pursue my own interests without recriminations?
2. Am I allowed to express myself in my own unique way without criticism?
3. Can I speak freely about my beliefs, spiritual path, and differences without being ignored or ridiculed?
4. Do I speak my truth easily without fear of confrontation?
5. Do I accept and tolerate, with respect, my partner's lack of knowledge or interest in any of the above?
6. I need to feel happy with myself first. Know myself well and be true to that without guilt or fear of loss. If I can be on my own in such a way that I know I don't actually need another and that I am a whole, then I am ready for a better relationship with a significant other. And that person could just as well be my partner.
7. When I leave this world, will I be content and at peace with the person I leave with, i.e. MYSELF, not the person I lived with?

It seems that so many people prepare for the wedding of the century, but they fail to look beyond that to the future of living daily with another person in close quarters. When you're searching for the Forever Friend (i.e., soulmates) you have to take a close look at everything. Marriage is a binding of all parts of you. You can't just go with your heart (i.e., you just know) when there's 3 parts of you that will marry someone.