Papa Ben and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

I have a tendency towards depression. I know of several things that can set it off for me, including hormone crashes and ingesting large quantities of wheat. But I also know there is the insidious kind of depression that is simply due to good old unresolved issues.

And that's basically why I've had a really awful day today.

Let's just say there is a situation I've faced recently that is by no means new to me, but somehow the person I am while facing this situation is not quite the person I was the last time around. "Why should this be so difficult now?" I thought to myself. Like a chicken on a roasting spit, I have turned this thing over and over and over again today. All I knew was that some very old pain, pain just a few years younger than myself, was getting rolled into this situation.

And then my children got into a fight. The ninja had temporarily left his helmet on the kitchen floor, and Cinderella thought it was her crown, only to discover that the ninja felt a strong attachment to this helmet. Crying ensued. I had just gone to see if I couldn't sit down for a few minutes of quiet reading, when I heard Cinderella scouring the opposite end of the house looking for me. Papa Bear tried various means of consoling and reprimanding, increasing the overall domestic volume. I came to scoop Cinderella up to her chamber, to calm her and quiet at least 45% of the volume, when I realized I had been trailed by a ninja. In all the clamor and hollering and distress of others, the ninja earnestly and urgently wanted his new karate jacket frogs done up.

Who cares about what a jacket looks like when the whole house is engulfed with chaos? With great consternation I beheld the ninja's audacity and I blurted out (and I paraphrase): "I wish I could consider what I want so danged important to ignore everything going on around me and demand that someone jump into action for my need!!"

And suddenly I realized what I'd said.

With those words, I kicked free the dammed up area in my heart that was causing me such a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

So, what does all this have to do with Pope Benedict? Nothing, yet.

But I did mention in a recent post that I was struck by something the Holy Father said in his comments at the White House (the only address I have been able to listen to in its entirety yet, papal slacker that I am!). And it was this idea of bringing one's convictions and values to public debate.

I have convictions that I hold be to absolute truths, and I have other convictions and values that I hold to be my best take on certain issues. And while some people may discuss absolute truth in a relative sort of way, I have been more of the type to discuss "spectrum values" (I'll call them) in an absolute sort of way. At least among those who share the same values. Let's take unschooling, holistic medicine, and home birthing as three such examples. I'm not going to unpack all those things just now, but what I see is that when one is either not capable or not open to frank discussion or reasoned debate about values such as these, there's a big loss. There's a loss of good information that could be shared, but there is also a loss of something of the humanity of the one holding these values, because of espousing something as more of an ideology than a reasonable, human, holy approach. Boy, that was as clear as mud. Let's just put it this way: if I can't give you a short list of benefits of unschooling as lived in my family, as compared and contrasted with other options, then I am probably not living our unschooling consciously enough to be doing it well, or to be living it to the full.

The goal of debate is not to conquer others or even to change minds or hearts; we debate in order to live life to the full. That's the call I hear.

Ok, so what does this have to do with my terrible day? Without wading deep into my psyche (for once), let me just say that speaking out, with audacity, what is in the heart, is an ability that I think is innate to the human being, especially very young human beings. Most people spend their lives tempering that ability, I suppose. I think I have spent my life thus far trying to tap it. I get lots of fissures that leak into subterranean caverns and cause a bunch of mess. But there is something that has been calling all my life for a straight tap, heart-to-world, via my mouth. And woe unto me until I get all these parts of the call to line up in peace.

I need both the raw passion of my heart to be free, and the reasoned intellectual approach to know that it is not the intensity of my passion that makes truth true. So, my need is simple: basic strong doses of ora et labora.

*My apologies to Judith Viorst for stealing her title.