Family

 As my family gathered over Memorial Day I naturally thought of families.  Families are good and bad but almost always chaotic.  If we are lucky, that is where we first learn about love, acceptance and forgiveness.  What does our friend Lao Tzu have to say about families?

                                    In Family Life

                                         Be Completely Present  

 I really like this quote.  I think we all get so busy that sometimes family gets the short straw because "they will understand."  It is important to be fully present to our families; they deserve it and we will gain from it.  It is easy to lose sight of our priorities in this world and I think this quote is a great reminder.

Pax

 

Joe     

What I have learned after 32 years of marriage

 Three things have happened recently to bring me around to this topic.  First I celebrated my 32nd wedding anniversary! Second, we have watched several TV shows that show people quitting on their marriage to "find themselves" and they co- parent and it goes wonderfully.  Third, I had a discussion with 2 students at the clinic about how one can stay married for 32 years.

First, Lao Tzu didn't have much to say on marriage.  There is this quote: 

But while clever it didn't sound like Lao Tzu.  "Sin" is a very Christian idea and not like Lao at all.  A little digging and I found a site by Stefan Stenudd who states this quote is from a 1906 play, The New York Idea.  Still there is something to be said for this quote. 

The most important thing you can do is choose the right person! If you are in it for the long haul fun, sex, glamor actually only goes so far.  You will be with this person every single day for the rest of your life and no other.  Some people get married before they know the person and the marriage is doomed. I dated my wife for 2 years before I got married.  We went on Engaged encounter and talked about faith, kids, money; all of it.  Even with that, two years after our wedding we looked at each other like we didn't know who we had married. Make sure we really, really know the person.  I had  a conversation with a wise friend and she said marriage is about growth.  Many people today, particularly those pursuing higher education, aren't near their terminal velocity of growth until their later 20's. If you marry someone who is growing at a far different rate than you are than the marriage is doomed.   Sometimes there is true abuse and the marriage is unhealthy. I would like to tell you I thought all these things through before I got married but I didn't.  These are just observations watching friends, peers and airmen[ remember as a military commander, if it is messy then it is your business.] over the last 30 years.    Marriage is going to take work.  You need a partner who is going to work and grow with you.  This is the most important decision you will ever make!  Take your time.

The most practical thing I learned is that when my wife came to me with problems she didn't want me to solve them.  Now I have spent my whole life solving problems.  Either patients would come with them, or someone in the organization would have them. So, silly me, when my wife had a problem I would slip into work mode and work out a solution and give it to her.  It would not go well.  It took me 10 years to figure out that what she wanted was for me to listen to her empathically.  She could solve them for herself, she just needed to talk it through. 

When I first got married I thought it was all about "us".   I thought of what we could do together.  And if I am to be honest, there was a little bit of "me" in that "us".  I had not really moved from me centeredness.  I was sharing myself with another but hadn't moved fully to caring about that person more than myself.   I suspect this is where most people begin their marriages.  This is where the quote above comes in.  When you are still mostly me centered love and desire can get you past many things but you will need to learn forgiveness for the "sacrifices" you will have to make the marriage happen.  Even then it is very, very tough for two people to stay together.  Look at the divorce rates in western society. I think this is why many marriages fail.  People keep a scoreboard in their head and one person feels they are making all the sacrifices.  At that point they leave to find themselves.  Now if you both have a strong faith God will grant you grace to work on being centered on the other person. [ This clearly only works if both people are working at it together.] 

What I learned is that marriage is actually all about the other person.  I am embarrassed to say but at about year 24 I really understood that it was all about my wife. I finally would wake up and consistently think how I could make her day special or at least make it a little easier.  I knew she loved me so if I heard a cross word I just chalked it up to a bad day.  There was no scoreboard because it was about her.  And the most remarkable thing occurred.  She was doing the same thing!  [ She, being my wife, had started years earlier of course!]  It is amazing to live with someone who thinks about your needs all the time while you think about hers.  My parents had this and now I have found it.   Now not everything is perfect, we still have our moments but they are few and short lived.  

We are in a blessed place but it wouldn't have happened if we had not gutted out the hard times when we both wanted to quit.  There were several times when we both wanted to quit but we took our vows and our faith seriously.  We have been tested and are in a great place.  

I would like to end with a quote that I believe is from Lao Tzu and certainly speaks to marriage:

   

Pax

Joe
  

How could God let the Buffalo Shooting happen?

How could God Let the Buffalo shooting happen?

 I have been thinking a lot about this since it hit the news so I thought it might help to talk about it.  Of course this is the age old question, "How can an all powerful God of love allow evil in the world?"  Now there are whole books and classes on this subject and I am certainly no expert but here is a brief synopsis of my understanding.  [ This is a long read but it is a tough question so bear with me.]

First off God gave us the gift of free will. I think all of us would like the freedom to decide what we do.  To actively do good ( Love God and do His will) or decide "not today".  Well, God gave us this gift and it certainly has consequences.  If God didn't actually allow people to make poor, selfish and even evil decisions than He really didn't give us the gift of free will did He?  And despite what most independent loving americans think, our decisions rarely affect only ourselves.  So If someone is so full of hate that he wants to take a gun and shoot up a grocery store in Buffalo, God will shake His head sadly and sigh. Those of you who are parents and watch your children do bad things but realize it is how they learn will know what I am saying.

Now a few of you will say, "Sure, I get the free will thing. But wouldn't a God of love have the shooter trip and fall and knock himself out before he could start shooting?  My God, 10 people!"  

Now this is where it gets tricky.  I couldn't find any snappy quotes from our friend Lao Tzu but Taoism and Zen see "evil" as the other side of the coin from "good".  Good verses bad is often just a matter of perspective because everything in the universe is in balance.   

Judeo/Christians see ( or should see) God working in the world everyday according to God's plan.  So even if human beings want to use free will to go against God and His plan, He will use those actions to bring about good.  My friend St Thomas Aquinas writes, 

While this might seem far fetched, if you look around you can see examples of tragedies making good things happen; communities unite, laws get passed, alliances strengthen.  Judas betrayed Jesus and God used that to help save us all.  

Now let me be clear, God doesn't cause evil, man does that all on his own.  But God is there with us showering us with graces before, during and after.  If you go back and read my day 14 lenten reflection, Thomas Merton says war is the best proof of God that exists. He writes,

People seem to think that it is in someway a proof that no merciful God exists, if we have so many wars.  On the contrary, consider how in spite of centuries of sin and greed and lust and cruelty and hatred and avarice and oppression and injustice, spawned and bred by the free wills of men, the human race can still recover, each time, and can still produce men and women who overcome evil with good, hatred with love, greed with charity, lust and cruelty with sanctity.  How could all this be possible without the merciful love of God, pouring out His grace upon us?

So a judeo/christian response as to why God let the Buffalo shooting happen would be that  " While I can't understand how someone could do that I know God will be with the families of all involved to strengthen them in their time of sorrow.  While I don't know how, God will use all this pain and tragedy to do good."   

Now some of you will say, "Dr Joe, that seems like a convenient answer.  "God will make good of it.  How?  I don't understand?" 

My ways are not your ways says the Lord.  My words are not your words says the Lord.  God is an infinite being, there is no way we can fathom Him or His goodness.  We are certainly never going to understand His ways. Let me give you an example.  I normally feed my dog from the table every time I eat.  The dog knows this and expects it.  When I am eating chocolate cake I don't give him any because his enzymes can't break down chocolate and he will get very ill. As I am eating I know he is impatient with me as I am not giving him anything to eat.  I know he is thinking, " Dude, what is up? You always give me something and now you are eating cake.  How can a loving master not give me a piece of cake?"  I tell him it is for his own good but there is no way he is ever going to understand.  I think it is like that with us and God.  We just can't fathom His ways.  

And someone will still say, I still don't buy it. I won't believe anything I can't understand or prove.

 Merton tried to give you a proof several paragraphs above.  If love, the sun and redemption aren't proof enough of God and His grace then I got nothing for you.  For St Aqunias also says, 

Now just because God will use this evil that man has created to make good happen doesn't make it any less horrific.  It doesn't make the pain and suffering less genuine.  It should not lessen our efforts to help, it should double our efforts to be part of God's solution.  

Well Dr Joe, I am still not sure.        

Pray.  Pray for faith.  Pray for the victims and their families.  Pray that our society can discover a way to help and stop the people who want to perpetuate this violence.  Let's be part of the solution. 

 
 Pax

 

Joe 
  

The importance of being right

 Got into a discussion last week about abortion.  Now you might guess I have definite opinions on it as does everyone in America.  What pleased me were two things; first I said very little. [ Hard for me to do!] Second, everyone was still talking at the end of it. 

So I started thinking about how my views of discussions have changed over the decades.  In my teens-30s I had to be right.  I thought I was standing up for my ideals and principles but in retrospect it often morphed to fighting for ultimately being right.  If I was proven wrong somehow I wasn't smart, clever or good enough.  I personalized it and it became about me not about whatever we were discussing.  If I realized my position was tenuous or very weak, I would look for tangential arguments or use logic to confuse my opponents; very sad really.  I think this is where our politics are today; no trust, no looking for the truth. 

In my 40s early 50s I was at the top of my profession, with wide responsibility and living in a fishbowl.  My confidence in my position had grown and I no longer had to make sure everyone knew I was right. [ Surgeons are taught that if you are right about something it is your duty to make sure everyone knows!]  I still argued for my ideals and principles vehemently but I was willing to hear the other side and compromise or even accept that on occasion I might not be right.   

In my mid 50s I retired and took a job as a civilian CMO.  I started reading Merton, Tzu, Loyola and James Martin because I finally had time.    I came across this...

   It has taken me several years to figure it out.  If you are confident in your position you really don't have to say much.  Your position speaks for itself.  You can mention one or two points, if the other party is open to a discussion, a dialogue can begin and you both will learn something.  If the other party aggressively starts arguing then they are stuck where I was 30 years ago; it is about them being "right" and not about the issue.  Further discussion will get both of you no where. 

Sometimes, this is still hard for me to practice. With my mom I slip into old habits at times, for example.

So how important is it for you to be right?

 

Pax

 

Joe         

Trust

 I thought about trust this week.  It certainly doesn't feel like there is much trust in the country.  We can't even agree on what is "true" half the time.  Trust is fundamental in human relationships and interactions.  When everyone trusts and is trustworthy things go great.  When people don't and aren't things don't go so well.  So I actually like a different quote on trust today.  And it comes from Dean Ornish which will make one person I know happy. 

I like this quote because fear builds on itself as does trust.  Once you get a little win ( or a little loss) it is easy to build on that experience.  

It is scary to trust others because it makes us vulnerable.  I am going to avoid the two extremes here of trusting God ( Merton talked about that plenty during lent) and trusting total strangers and focus on friends, family and co workers. I think it is critical to trust and to be trustworthy for that is how we grow and relationships grow.  When I was in charge of 1000 people at Lakenheath hospital, it was very hard to trust that everyone would do their job well. My reputation and job were based on how well everyone performed.   I could have micromanaged and I probably would have felt less nervous but I would have driven everyone crazy and folks would not have grown and done the tremendous jobs they did.  It was scary but I trusted and it led to more trust. The trust fed on itself and slowly made its way up and down the organization.  

I think it works the same way within our families.  Of course, there may be members that can't be trusted. At work these people can be moved out of the organization but not in the family.  We must be careful but we can't give into fear, because fear leads to more fear.  We can always communicate honestly and clearly.  Obviously every situation will be different.  

How about you?  Are you willing to trust?  Do you strive to be trustworthy?

 

Pax

 

Joe