Years later, an answer comes.
Difficulty in valuing the everyday/ mundane/ simple....
Years ago, I wrote that I wanted to learn to value doing what I am asked to do. I wanted to find more value in the mundane. It was so difficult for me to be virtuous instead of striving to be a virtuoso. My childhood Big Hero Dreams were all about the ego, naturally.
I dislike borrowing the term "ego" from Freud, but he is in the water that we drink. Perhaps simply using the word "self" is better, because it really encompasses the whole self instead of breaking down into parts that have higher and lower reputations. It would be good for me personally at this time to feel whole and to take responsibility for all my aspects instead of blaming them or pretending one is just my "inner child" and inherently, shamefully selfish with no altruism. Children are beautiful, whole universes. How could they not be caught up in their own worlds? Giving thoughts and feelings nicknames might just be a bullying tendency we never really gave up, but just turned inward. Or maybe Freud's nicknames are good for us in some way. I will have to think about it some more.
There is worthiness in the desire to improve the self. It's not a matter of right or wrong to care about the self. It's a matter of balance. Just because it's important to feed the hungry doesn't mean I shouldn't take time to improve my cooking. And even if I'm the best chef in the world, a great artist of food, it doesn't mean I am too busy to feed the hungry.
Maybe I don't have to focus my attention on the perfection of my cooking skill in order to do great good in the world. In fact, maybe the greater good happens when I take time to wash the pots and pans with more attention and love. Maybe the greater good is when each unnoticed task (flossing my back teeth or dusting behind the books) is done with faithfulness and love. Not a self-love for the purpose of self-comfort or self-importance, but a love that comes from something I perhaps glimpsed as a child, but had forgotten. That thing was told to me today, by a few key sentences of Peter Kreeft.
I have achingly wondered for years how to make myself value the everyday - to become that person who really takes care to do the most basic things. Nothing seemed to work: self-debasing scolding, trying to follow models, striving for a goal or a self-bribe, etc.
But ultimately I could not force myself to love. The directive "love now" just doesn't work very well. I could not see anything to love in the mundane. But I had a vague notion that it was terribly important and that I was missing something by ignoring whole areas of my life that were unexciting. But try as I might, George H.W. Bush's "broccoli" was still just "broccoli" and I could not force it. And the harder I tried, the more angry I would become that I could not force myself to love the broccoli. (I actually like broccoli, by the way, it's just a metaphor.)
Then today happened. Well, before today there were two years of approaching prayer and study of Christianity and Catholicism with the inspiration of GKC, and with the help of my new friends - Joyce B., von Hildebrands, Teresa of Avila, baskets full of books, Theology of the Body, and many others....
And then, in that context, today happened. Peter Kreeft challenged the thing that has been vaguely taking shape in my mind slowly these past few years with various ideas I had never contemplated before about the material world. That thing was related to the now-removed, somewhat inaccurate sculptural portrayal of a Kabbalistic ritual that I found made of beautiful polished and marbled wooden pieces, hidden out-of-the-way under a staircase at the University of Michigan Art Museum....
When will I tell the thing? I suppose I keep stalling because I want to explain that it's not the first encounter with this idea, and that I've even talked about it earlier this month. But it's the first time someone presented it clearly in a way only Peter Kreeft can do, with all aspects considered carefully and wrapped up as if it were an intellectual gift. I received the gift. I will try again soon to study his words and catch this answer again and again until it sinks into my mushy mind.
I'm convinced the contents are going to heal me. I'm absolutely certain that his argument that God is in every blade of grass and even in the illness of a loved one is something I have to grasp before I can value the mundane and before I can treat my own body as if it has merit. To inject meaning into my life might just be the answer to my painful, out-of-body jamais vu experiences several years ago. If I look down at my untied shoes and there I see goodness and the merit and meaning of tying them, because of God's presence in an omnipresent way, I will no longer think it is unimportant or meaningless.
More soon, when I have a better grasp of this thing. I am so happy to have found some better answers and something that might be based in reality that could re-adjust my whole mindset and bring healing to so many parts of me and unlock my ability to value the mundane.
I'll keep on studying, and hopefully update soon....
Years ago, I wrote that I wanted to learn to value doing what I am asked to do. I wanted to find more value in the mundane. It was so difficult for me to be virtuous instead of striving to be a virtuoso. My childhood Big Hero Dreams were all about the ego, naturally.
I dislike borrowing the term "ego" from Freud, but he is in the water that we drink. Perhaps simply using the word "self" is better, because it really encompasses the whole self instead of breaking down into parts that have higher and lower reputations. It would be good for me personally at this time to feel whole and to take responsibility for all my aspects instead of blaming them or pretending one is just my "inner child" and inherently, shamefully selfish with no altruism. Children are beautiful, whole universes. How could they not be caught up in their own worlds? Giving thoughts and feelings nicknames might just be a bullying tendency we never really gave up, but just turned inward. Or maybe Freud's nicknames are good for us in some way. I will have to think about it some more.
There is worthiness in the desire to improve the self. It's not a matter of right or wrong to care about the self. It's a matter of balance. Just because it's important to feed the hungry doesn't mean I shouldn't take time to improve my cooking. And even if I'm the best chef in the world, a great artist of food, it doesn't mean I am too busy to feed the hungry.
Maybe I don't have to focus my attention on the perfection of my cooking skill in order to do great good in the world. In fact, maybe the greater good happens when I take time to wash the pots and pans with more attention and love. Maybe the greater good is when each unnoticed task (flossing my back teeth or dusting behind the books) is done with faithfulness and love. Not a self-love for the purpose of self-comfort or self-importance, but a love that comes from something I perhaps glimpsed as a child, but had forgotten. That thing was told to me today, by a few key sentences of Peter Kreeft.
I have achingly wondered for years how to make myself value the everyday - to become that person who really takes care to do the most basic things. Nothing seemed to work: self-debasing scolding, trying to follow models, striving for a goal or a self-bribe, etc.
But ultimately I could not force myself to love. The directive "love now" just doesn't work very well. I could not see anything to love in the mundane. But I had a vague notion that it was terribly important and that I was missing something by ignoring whole areas of my life that were unexciting. But try as I might, George H.W. Bush's "broccoli" was still just "broccoli" and I could not force it. And the harder I tried, the more angry I would become that I could not force myself to love the broccoli. (I actually like broccoli, by the way, it's just a metaphor.)
Then today happened. Well, before today there were two years of approaching prayer and study of Christianity and Catholicism with the inspiration of GKC, and with the help of my new friends - Joyce B., von Hildebrands, Teresa of Avila, baskets full of books, Theology of the Body, and many others....
And then, in that context, today happened. Peter Kreeft challenged the thing that has been vaguely taking shape in my mind slowly these past few years with various ideas I had never contemplated before about the material world. That thing was related to the now-removed, somewhat inaccurate sculptural portrayal of a Kabbalistic ritual that I found made of beautiful polished and marbled wooden pieces, hidden out-of-the-way under a staircase at the University of Michigan Art Museum....
When will I tell the thing? I suppose I keep stalling because I want to explain that it's not the first encounter with this idea, and that I've even talked about it earlier this month. But it's the first time someone presented it clearly in a way only Peter Kreeft can do, with all aspects considered carefully and wrapped up as if it were an intellectual gift. I received the gift. I will try again soon to study his words and catch this answer again and again until it sinks into my mushy mind.
I'm convinced the contents are going to heal me. I'm absolutely certain that his argument that God is in every blade of grass and even in the illness of a loved one is something I have to grasp before I can value the mundane and before I can treat my own body as if it has merit. To inject meaning into my life might just be the answer to my painful, out-of-body jamais vu experiences several years ago. If I look down at my untied shoes and there I see goodness and the merit and meaning of tying them, because of God's presence in an omnipresent way, I will no longer think it is unimportant or meaningless.
More soon, when I have a better grasp of this thing. I am so happy to have found some better answers and something that might be based in reality that could re-adjust my whole mindset and bring healing to so many parts of me and unlock my ability to value the mundane.
I'll keep on studying, and hopefully update soon....