Skip to main content

Are We Now Guided by the Deprived Infant Within Us?

At the age of 66, novelist and poet May Sarton, was diagnosed with breast cancer, went through a mastectomy, ended a long time relationship, and suffered from depression.

Out of that she wrote one of her best books, Recovering: A Journal. She was obviously hurt and angry about all that had happened to her. But she was determined to understand what it meant and how she should respond. She struggled through every raw emotion in an attempt to remain human.

“We cannot withdraw love without damaging ourselves,” she wrote. “Rage,” she continued, “is the deprived infant in me but there is also a compassionate mother in me and she will come back with her healing powers in time.” 

It is a message of hope for the country.

There is so much cold anger today; so much unacknowledged hurt and pain. You see it everywhere. You feel it from people in traffic, at store counters, and certainly on social media platforms, especially Twitter and Facebook. Some things there are vicious and cruel.

We seem deeply estranged from one another, and from the best within each of us. We have taken sides in politics, in religion, in race, in class and social status. We are no longer interested in agreement, compromise, understanding or cooperation.

And we don’t just want to be right, and win; we want the other side to be proven wrong and to be shamefully defeated.

We must stop wounding one another, our country, and our world. We must find ways to “recover,” to get beyond our grimmest fears and our impulsive, careless anger.

Our children and grandchildren are growing up in bewilderment. They don’t know what to make of our incessant rage, our sniping and cutting remarks, our refusal to sensibly respond to people we strongly disagree with. They are watching. And they are learning all the wrong lessons from us.

Social critic and author, Frederic Brussat, has said, “Now more than ever we need a revival of courtesy practices to lubricate both private and public interactions between people.”

We seem completely uninterested in this as though being courteous to others, all others, even those we dislike and disagree with, somehow discredits us, makes us weak, leaves us vulnerable and defenseless.

Not so. Being courteous comes from inner strength, from thoughtfulness, consideration of others, and self-respect.

I find myself withering from the endless bitterness and resentment of people and from our leaders. Somehow we must find our inner decency, the mother in us with her healing powers, and a sense of the sacredness within ourselves, which as May Sarton wrote, “cannot be dirtied or smudged by wickedness or by anger, which no threat can touch.”


© 2017 Timothy Moody

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

We are Made for Human Connection

There are words from Brandi Carlile’s song, “The Story,” that I might sing, and perhaps you, too. “All of these lines across my face Tell you the story of who I am So many stories of where I've been And how I got to where I am But these stories don't mean anything When you've got no one to tell them to” You don’t have to be single or alone to feel the depth of those words. Someone in a longtime marriage or relationship might feel them, too. The voyage through life takes each one of us through an assortment of experiences. Some of them ennoble us. Some crush us. Some lift us beyond ourselves and carry us into the lives of those who need us. And some carry us to those we need. Some experiences are burdens. Others ease and encourage us. Some leave us baffled and unsure. Some build confidence within us and are so affirming that we grow in substance, in courage, in tenderness, and sympathy. As we age, the lines in our faces can represent the hurts we have not yet resolved. Or t

Remembering Dr. Bill Craig

In Memoriam  Dr. Bill Craig January 1, 2020 In the Hebrew Bible, we see from the life of Moses, and the Psalmist, Isaiah and others , concern for the problem of living rather than the problem of dying.   Their primary interest was not how to escape death, but rather, how to sanctify life. Bill modeled that kind of wisdom.  The brilliant novelist Louis L'Amour, who wrote bestselling books about the American West, what he called “frontier stories,” basically said the same thing. He wrote, “The trail is the thing, not the end of the trail.” No one attempted to sanctify life and get more out of the trail than Bill Craig. He was a deep thinker, a gifted veterinarian, a rugged and unbreakable man with the kindest heart and the purest motives.  He was a loving and devoted husband, father, and grandfather. Karen, Shalor and Melissa, Kellan, Nolan and Carter, were his world. They meant everything to him. I guess he had faults, but I don’t remember any of them.  There was o

Do we need a new country?

Have you seen the elaborate, stylish, opulent television commercial for Cartier? The original commercial seemed to go on forever, a full three minutes. They have shortened it now, but it still drips with ostentatiousness. It is conspicuously pretentious in spite of the beautiful music and the sleek panther and the stunning scenery and the elegant model dressed in a striking red gown. The commercial takes the viewer through an amazing montage of dreamy landscapes and famous cities and spectacular stunts while moving past a giant expensive watch and finally to a glittering diamond bracelet modeled by the woman in red. Each time I see it I keep wondering who the target audience is. It seems to be such an over the top expression of unbridled greed and materialism gone ape. In a time when much of the world is starving and millions are still out of work here at home it seems bizarre that Cartier would spend what has to be millions on a television commercial celebrating 165 years in