Mother To Child: "You're Responsible For My Feelings. You're to Blame / To Be Celebrated For Me Feeling __________."

I referenced within an earlier post how important it can be that I keep a lid on my emotions here at the homestead (around my wife / daughters), and how that approach has, in the past (pre-Samson Society involvement), been detrimental to me successfully steering clear of lustful fantasies (supplemented by porn consumption or not) from the standpoint of using said fantasies as an emotional enema.   

But I'd like to expound on this a bit from the standpoint of what exactly my wife is forced to emotionally manage day in and day out.

And I want to do this because you may be able to relate either as a husband or wife relative to the dynamics of our situation.

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Firstly though, it's important that you know that my wife's mother is a widow whom lives just 7-8 miles from our abode.  She "stays" (as black people put it) within the same home Angie (who's now 50) and her brother (who's now 46) were reared in (in Jackson) throughout the majority of their school years (as students of Jackson Academy).  

This home was mortgaged by her parents, all those years ago, due to her father moving his brood back here from Hattiesburg - in response to an unexpected job loss - out of necessity to take another job.

This job loss and subsequent move no doubt (as it's been described to me) represented a major demotion for Angie's dad, and as such, her mother went off the deep end as a result.  And when I say went off the deep end, I mean she went batshit crazy over his job loss / demotion.

It's important to know that when I unexpectedly lost my job back in 2013, Angie was very intentional about staying emotionally / physically supportive of our family in spite of the obvious embarrassment / shame that manifested itself as a result.  And I must say, had she not been such a steely, consistently hopeful presence within our family's life during that dark season, I would surely not have endured the situation.  Angie reacted as such the contrarian - for her family - in response to what she'd witnessed from her own mother as a child (within a somewhat similar scenario).

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Emotional "flare ups", as I call them, do occur within our household, and more often than not, they're due to the inevitable internal dynamics between my wife and any number of our daughters.  There's a boatload of estrogen there, therefore...

I try hard to take them in stride, but there are times when I too, need to exhaust some emotions out of frustration / fatigue.

But when I do, and it's within earshot of my wife, this represents a problem for her.

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Angie's middle / high school years were filled with emotional torment.  Torment that put her (& her brother) squarely within the sights of her mother's penchant for refusing to take responsibility for her own feelings.  Therefore, Angie's default, even today as a 50-year-old wife / mother, is to blame herself for everyone else's feelings / state of mind.  Even if said feelings in no way involve her.  

It is the weirdest phenomena to experience, yet we're all so used to it, that it's become the norm.

So, here's the interesting part to all of this.

Angie's mother is a fiercely independent woman, yet she's now reached a point, due to advanced age, that she can no longer manage her affairs.  And this means, someone needs to step up.  Someone she should be able to trust (like her deeply scarred children).

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As Christians, we're called to serve.  Go the extra mile.  Turn the other cheek.  And Angie, for sure, learnt that growing up at First Baptist Church Jackson (alongside me). 

Jesus modeled all of these (as chronicled within the gospels) and FBC Jackson's senior pastor throughout the '80s (when she & I were children) both lived it out and preached it eloquently.

Yet, no amount of obedience to the commands of Jesus can come sans the supernatural.  Especially when that call to obedience happens to involve those whose hands have doled out their fair share of trauma.

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Dr. Laura Schlessinger often makes good sense whilst giving advice to her radio show listeners, but it's important to note that she is not a Christian.  As such, were she in my wife's shoes today, her mother's former emotional abuse would result in payback that consisted of a reciprocal neglect later in life.  I know this because it's one of my hang ups regarding her approach to advising her callers.  (Plus, she also lived this out with her own mother.)

Dr. Schlessinger often justifies this kind of response as one which stems from "mom tearing up her mother card".  In other words, mother's disqualifying themselves due to their neglect, therefore deserving to be forever punished by their children as a result.

It's a hardline, militant approach that completely ignores the prospect / joy of potential reconciliation, and one of the best slang terms that I've found for this is delightfully "burning bridges".

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One of my oldest friends just recently returned to the Jackson Metro after being terminated from a fantastic job opportunity within another state.  His former out-of-state employer is also a friend of mine / ours, therefore as you might imagine, this put me in quite the emotional quagmire.  And to make matters much worse (for everyone involved), my friend, who just recently moved back to Jackson, chose to burn the bridge between himself and our mutual friend (his former out-of-state employer) out of disgust regarding the situation that transpired.

And this man has served as a deacon in a number of local churches.

His rationale for behaving this way was rooted in one thing:  his feelings.  Feelings which consisted of outrage, disillusionment, mistrust, and so forth.  And I get that.  Those feelings are legitimate and deserve to be accounted for.

Yet, I disagree with his decision to blame others for those feelings, and in turn, punish them therein.  Especially when those others have such a longstanding track record of support and love.

As Christians, our overarching focus should be, each and every day, on eternity.  Eternity obtained via our inevitable death.  Eternity where Jesus is within our presence always.  

Why?

As our king (today and on into eternity), emulating his humility and care properly befits us as representatives of his grace.  Even within the most accusatory, unfair, debilitating circumstances that embroil us with heady, visceral emotions.

We are not our own.  We are now serving within his ranks.  Heaven will be ours to enjoy because of what he chose to emulate for us.  Christians are not to behave / react / enact like everyone else.

Lagniappe

Recommended Viewing

Have You Too Been Hoodwinked Into Idolizing The Human Body?

One of the first lessons you learn within the Philosophy Of Architecture class is the most jarring, and that is that beauty IS NOT within the eye of the beholder.  As an architecture student at Mississippi State University from '90-'95, Philosophy Of Architecture was a required course as a sophomore.  Therefore, all of us second year students endured this enlightening experience there during our fall semester.

So obviously, this begs the question:  Who then does decide what's beautiful and what is not?  The critics do.  And these individuals have earned the right to do so.  For a great critic is far more experienced in doing so than non-critics.  They're experienced and educated.  And no, this doesn't always make them right, but it does up the ante relative to their adjudication batting average.  

Therefore, if you're ever wondering why a certain fashion trend is hot, paint color, or kitchen motif, you have only to look to the critics to thank (or loathe) for this.

To sum this up, I'll work to make a present day statement that should resonate with many of you.  Chip and Joanna Gaines built their fortune / influence on their roles as critics.  Though it may seem that their popularity is anchored in their million-watt smiles, it is not.  Instead, both of them are incredibly gifted critics, and this means that their ability to adjudicate beauty - within single-family homes, home furnishings / decor - is off the charts.  And to be as equally weighted as they are, in this regard, as a couple, is rare indeed.  

The Gaines have harnessed this talent by packaging it within a super approachable Texan folksiness that's made them a fortune.  Thanks be to God that their show wasn't dubbed Fix-a-fucker, otherwise, there'd be that many more westerners (& otherwise) - then there already are - saddled with chronic porn consumption issues.

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99% of architecture students (back when I was a student) weren't athletic and very few were involved in Greek life.  But, there was one student who was a couple of years behind me that did serve as a male cheerleader, and as such, donned the mascot ("Bully") costume for a handful of seasons.

As such, this young man was most definitely athletically built, and this made him stand out like a sore thumb amongst the rest of us.  But, it didn't help matters that this physically anomalous student was completely at peace with "exposing" his body.  Therefore, during the spring semester, as the temps were beginning to climb, it wouldn't be unusual to see him out sunning himself within the architecture building amphitheater.  I can remember specifically feeling torn between what he obviously saw as naturally pleasurable versus my own powerful - almost instinctual - urge to idolize his flesh.

Fitness magazines, published for men, which were readily available on magazine stands during the mid-'80s, offered me the opportunity as a middle schooler to idolize those images therein.  And, of course, the publisher didn't care who purchased the periodical or whether someone was idolizing their photos.  All they were interested in was sales.  

I can vividly recall the shame I felt in having to explain to my mother (she couldn't help but notice the grape purple bag) that I'd purchased an "Exercise For Men Only" mag from our local K&B drugstore.  

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Paul Freeman is an Australian photographer whose repertoire is nude or semi-nude men.  And more often than not, the men he photographs aren't within a studio space but within much more naturalistic environments.  If you look at his work, it's apparent that he's a superb critic of the male body, yet the images that he publishes aren't - at least to me - titillating in the least.  

So what separates his work from what I was exposed to as a young boy within the aforementioned fitness mags?

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Pornography's sole purpose is to illicit a titillating response.  Early exposure to porn versus non-pornographic imagery that respectfully celebrates the human body can short circuit a boy's embracing / understanding / appreciation for the beauty that lies within both his own and others' flesh, particularly if he's unsure of his own "fleshly worth".

More often than not, this exposure occurs during adolescence, and as I alluded to earlier, this can be a decidedly unbecoming development within the life of a teenager.  For he knows he's being taken advantage of, yet his hormones (& perhaps his home life, etc.) are seemingly working in favor of this private curse.  It's a bad, bad scenario that's especially prone to screw up a kid's head if it happens to be within a vacuum.

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As a side note, all forms of body augmentation from anabolic steroid use to breast implants to tattoos, I would argue, stem from man's idolization of the body versus appreciation.  And this is because, these augmentations are "permanently" enhancing the body to be more in line with someone else's ideal (either real or photographed).  

For example, an athletically built man who sees an anabolic steroid using athlete is likely going to immediately notice the size differences between his own drug-free body and that of the juiced dude.  Similarly, a woman with regular sized breasts, encountering her artificially endowed sister, can't help but notice her silicone implanted chest.  And finally, an ink-free individual, rubbing shoulders with someone he admires - who happens to be expertly tattooed - may very well soon obtain his own first tattoo.

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So what's the recipe for success in recircuiting our brains to see pornography for what it is (cheap, intrusive, disrespectful, debilitating, harmful, poisonous, toxic, explosive, robbing)?

I would argue the first step is recognizing where you were (& how exactly) initially hoodwinked by Satan to elevate / idolize the human body as you did.  And from there, invest a boatload of time in unpacking that deceit (perhaps alongside a trained professional) prior to working hard to forgive yourself for so much shame and guilt that you really weren't solely responsible for experiencing.

In closing, remember that God created man in his own image (including his sex organs).  We are image-bearers.  God too, created sexuality, from the reproductive process itself to arousal and everything in between.  We are not meant to be ashamed of our sexual desires, nor are we meant to not see each other through a sexual lens.  

Lagniappe

Recommended Reading

 Thousands of bodies go unclaimed in the United States every year - The Washington Post

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