What Remains

Never confuse the importance of heart or intellect.  They work in sync with the soul and are equally important for true perception.  We know that in the South, a soulful land that knows the painful struggle of holding on to identity when all causes appear lost.  In the middle of destruction we have been taught to ask what really matters, a question that can only be answered by use of heart and right thinking (as Jesus would say, thinking with the heart). 

Lately I have been thinking with the heart and asking some questions about the passing of time.  Inevitably, seasons change and we do, too.  We may wonder what lies beneath who we are today.  What have we lost, and what have we kept?  We generally keep the same eyes as windows to the soul.  The same laughter; the same tears.  The same heart; the same mind.  The same light; the same dark, and many, many memories born of each.  

All in all, the same soul remains - tethered, free or freely tethered. 

My generation has freely given way too much heart and intellect.  We have shared our thoughts, opinions, emotions, sentimentalities.  We have shared our bodies like salted peanuts in a bar.  We have socialized, fraternized, intellectualized, compartmentalized and idealized.  We have all given, taken, used, abused, amused ourselves and begged to be excused for all this sincere fun.    

But has another soul ever really known yours? 

Puddles of Anger

There are different ways of expressing anger, some indirect and others more direct. Whichever way expressed, the human psyche usually senses the hostile presence of rage, whether it can be correctly labeled or not. In other words, exposure to phosphine will kill you whether or not you can name it due to its noxious and corrosive nature.

Indirect expressions of anger include:

sulking; pouting; teasing others; using sarcasm; ignoring, feeling suspicious, wary or cynical; competitiveness through intellectualizing; getting even in sneaky ways; humble competitiveness through comparision of self and others; eye rolling.

Direct expressions of anger include:

feeling resentful; acting helpless; lying; acting dismissive; exploding; pointing out another's inadequacies; disparaging efforts or accomplishments of others; acting aggressively competitive, feeling hostile; showing your superiority; challenging others; overreacting to a real or implied criticism; projection.

Even when we do not express anger directly - and, I submit, most of the time we don't in what we call civilized community - it may be seeping out and puddling around our feet. And the oddest thing about anger is how it attracts anger. The truth of the matter is that we live in a stressed out, angry society. We are doomed to slip in puddles unless we do three things - become aware of the various faces of anger, do the hard work required to deal with the root cause of our own anger and avoid stepping in a puddle of another.

Wax Rosebuds

I do not paint artificial flowers, and now I know why - in that way one has known something forever but without words to explain.     

I have a friend who says that monsters live amongst us and look just like people.  I have come to agree with this, and I believe that the "monster" is not something that is there, rather something missing.  Scientists would tell you that one in every 25 persons is a psychopath, a person lacking a conscience (think about that next time you go to a group event).  Some who study this phenomenon believe that psychopaths lack souls.  I agree. 

To explain the dangerous nature of superficially charming psychopaths (people who do not feel genuine remorse though they may feign it for affect) and the way decent people are taken in, Robert Hare in Without Conscience quotes from William March's The Bad Seed (1954):

"Good people are rarely suspicious: they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing; usually they accept the undramatic solution as the correct one, and let matters rest there.  Then too, the normal are inclined to visualize the [psychopath] as one who's as monstrous in appearance as he is in mind, which is about as far from the truth as one could well get . . . These monsters of real life usually looked and behaved in a more normal manner than their actually normal brothers and sisters; they presented a more convincing picture of virtue than virtue presented of itself - just as the wax rosebud or the plastic peach seemed more perfect to the eye, more what the mind thought a rosebud or a peach should be, than the imperfect original from which it had been modeled."

A wax rosebud, perfect in shape and color, taking on the identity of a delicate rosebud, but without scent or bruise on the petal...charming, smiling, flattering, proclaiming virtue, but, void of empathy and always comparing itself to the real thing and always falling short...knowing it does not have a soul and taking pleasure in destroying what it cannot have. 

I do not paint wax rosebuds because I have a soul.  Originality makes up for any imperfection, and, after all, there can be great beauty in imperfection.  

Oh My Aching Head

Bisexuality at it's best is demonstrated in Max Eastman's Great Companions.  He tells a priceless story about the gutsy Edna St. Vincent Millay.  While at a cocktail party while chatting with a psychologist she complained of recurrent headaches.  The psychologist asked her if she had ever considered that she might -  unconsciously, of course -  have an occasional impulse toward a person of her own sex.  She responded, "Oh, you mean I'm homosexual! Of course I am, and heterosexual, too, but what's that got to do with my headache?"

Defining The Alpha Female

Generally speaking, we comprehend Alpha Males. They command attention and lead because they love challenges and are willing to go where angels fear to tread in order to accomplish goals. Focused and driven, the Alpha Male is a wonder to the uninspired average, and he is usually respected, if not admired, thus occupying a dominant role to the more submissive non-Alpha.

The concept of Alpha Males originated in the wild with the study of domination/submission patterns of animals during social interaction. For instance, dominant (alpha) wolves stand with their tails raised while submissive wolves lower their bodies for active or passive submission. Active submission is “kissing up” through excited approach, tail wagging, ear lowering (a lot like your dog looks when he wants a snack). Passive submission is rolling over and letting the dominant wolf sniff the groin or genitals. Anyone with two or more dogs has witnessed this unashamed public interaction, hoping it won’t happen when company comes to visit.

Civilized human beings are perhaps less physical about the domination/submission thing (though one might wonder when watching an ass kissing manipulator). In the human realm submission is often defined as conceding to the idea of another.  In this way the Alpha Male would be the one with an idea - not to mention the idea that flies. But beyond the pursuasiveness of his ideas, his direction is often respected due to the Alpha Male's past accomplishments, commitment to goals, energy and intelligence.

But who are Alpha Females? Who are the Hillary Clintons of the world, and what do they inspire in their fellows? Before you guess that Alpha Females are genetically flawed, recognize that Alpha Female wolves attack right along side the Alpha Males.

We can probably agree that the human Alpha Female is noticed, usually loved or hated but rarely serves as the object of apathy. Frankly, I think the term Alpha Female is overly and incorrectly used these days. I have seen Alpha Females described as the liberated shopping queen, the girl who doesn’t care if she is a size 12 and the girl who gets the guy. No, no, no. While Alpha Females might, indeed, do all these things, this is not what defines an Alpha Female any more than an Alpha Male is defined by wearing Brooks Brothers or having hot sex.

When considering this concept I originally thought that an Alpha Female might be defined by her culture, but this concept is an intellectually incorrect assumption. Though she may terrorize a family or an organization, a Steele Magnolia who schemes behind the scenes to make a male think her idea is his choice is not, in reality, an Alpha Female. Neither is any other type of female manipulator because being an Alpha is about direction (with direct being the operative part of direction). Alpha Females, like Alpha Males, have goals they claim outloud because they are not afraid to be honest about their intentions.  In this respect integrity is a characteristic of an Alpha Anyone. 

Maybe my favorite Alpha Female is Katharine Jefferts-Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States.  When this unapologetic feminist and pro-gay woman became the first female to head a major denomination Bishop Jefferts-Schori inherited a church already in uproar over the election of a gay bishop, but the fact that a female took over the reigns was the unspoken straw that broke the backs of the good old boys and girls.  While exhibiting nothing but dignity, kindness and intellectual honesty, she has been maligned in severe ways.  Like Hillary, her looks were criticized after her consecration in 2006 in some of the vilest posts I have ever seen online.  A year ago in Tanzania seven conservative Anglican leaders boycotted God to criticise Bishop Jefferts-Schori by refusing to take Holy Communion with her.  Yikes!  Stop and think about that for a minute.....using Holy Communion to isolate a person?  Unruffled, the Presiding Bishop's response was "It's not about me. This is not a table that belongs to any one province. It's God's table."   In my own church I have seen a priest refuse to say her name and a pathetic, homophobic good old boy roll his eyes at mention of her name.  Her predecessor, Frank Griswold, agreed with her pro-gay stand, and while he was boycotted at Communion, no one dissected his looks, refused to say his name or rolled their eyes.  You will never convince me that a measure of disapproval Bishop Jefferts-Schori endures is not gender based.  

Having accepted the frequency with which people dislike the power of Alpha Females, it is worth recognizing that sometimes even people who claim to like them, in the last analysis, do not.  Or perhaps they like the Alpha Female in theory, but not as an individual because the focus of the Alpha Female takes something away from them.  In a society plagued by narcissism, I don't doubt it.   

Our language is a clue to how we regard the Alpha Female.  One might admiringly say that she “has balls” or disparagingly say that she has “too much testosterone,” either way, innocently or maliciously defining her by male sexual characteristics. I suspect we use such language because we have developed no other words to describe female power (except a few I do not feel comfortable repeating here). Hidden behind the maliciousness, two themes seem to dominate when a person’s leadership skills are ignored in favor of concentrating on her genitalia - fear and envy.

Wolves don’t do this, but humans do. Even Alpha Male wolves don’t do this, but humans do. Isn’t it odd, and are we not more primitive than we can admit when we require submission patterns in the form of giddy, attention begging flattery or psychological roll-overs in human females? Packed deep in our belief systems are primitive emotions that are the equivalent of embarrassing behavior we witness it in our pets and prefer to hide from company.

So a society that thinks it degrading and silly for a woman to hide her face behind a veil still wrestles with what to do with a self-confident, competitive and opinionated woman. We debate her characteristics as saintly or unnatural.  When we admire her spunk we may fail to objectively evaluate her policy positions, and when she takes something away from us, we treat her like an object of contempt and employ the greatest punishment possible - ignoring and isolating her by measuring her hormones or criticising her hair style.  But where in the world do you park an Alpha Female when you either want to drive her at top speed or wreck her into a stone wall?

Releasing Your Inner Cupid...or Something

Have you seen the new Hallmark cards advertised on TV?  This dull little couple sits in a car, and one of them opens a Hallmark card that plays REO Speedwagon's "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore".  They remember a concert from their past and suddenly grab each other with what would appear to be long suppressed passion.   Ahhhhh......it is really sweet and very cute, and they call it "Releasing Your Inner Cupid".

This is a brilliant product offered by Hallmark.  I know this for a fact.  Why?  Because "I Can't Fight This Feeling Anymore" was once "our" song in a short relationship I had for several years 20 years ago.  The guy was chronically angry, emotionally abusive and ultimately became a stalker.  I never missed him one day of the last 20 years, but the REO Speedwagon song made me feel sentimental.  

Music and perfume does this to us.  We never forget something special somewhere in our overstuffed little hard drives, and the senses can isolate the good and eliminate the bad well enough to make a person  feel sentimental about a stalker 20 years later (!)  Scarey, isn't it?  It should be called "Unleashing Your Inner Neurosis". 

Friendship

Aristotle defined three types of friendship:  friendships of good people with similar virtue, friendships based on utility and friendships based on pleasure.  Of these, only friendships of good people with similar virtue are enduring and complete because, in addition to being useful and pleasant, the parties "wish goods to each other for each other’s own sake". 

Friendships based on utility alone (what's in it for me?) are motivated by short-term considerations and may change according to circumstances. 

Friendships based on pleasure alone (I enjoy his sense of humor or good looks) are based only on feelings and are capable of change according to circumstances.  

But friendships of good people of similar virtue who wish good to each other for each other's own sake are complete and enduring.  Aristotle did not say so, but the category of friendships of good people of similar virtue sounds like unselfish (though not unconditional) love.  

It is an interesting proposition that we use the term friendship so frequently as an admirable term chocked full of virtue - loyalty, love, understanding, support, and so on -  when the odds appear to be in favor of a friendship being temporary, motivated by what the participant can take from it,  caring not about the soul of the "friend".  It would also seem that enduring friendship is incredibly rare - the blue rose of human relationships (?) - and the fortunate are those who manage to face death with even one enduring friendship made on earth.  

Ah, but when a friend does enter your life he will wish your soul to soar by means of grace and for hope of glory giving more than lip service to the fact that even though life on earth is temporary, friendship need not be.  

Tears

Excerpts from Night Thoughts by Fr. Thomas Ryan

Some reckon their age by years,
Some measure their life by art,--
But some tell their days by the flow of their tears,
And their life, by the moans of their heart.......

Better a day of strife
Than a century of sleep;
Give me instead of a long stream of life,
The tempests and tears of the deep.

A thousand joys may foam
On the billows of all the years;
But never the foam brings the brave heart home--
It reaches the haven through tears.

A New Exit Strategy

Comically sad, odd things happen in my church on a regular basis (what we call Dibley Moments named for a flavor similar to the English comedy "Vicar of Dibley").  One of my favorite memories is of a regularly attending new visitor who came dressed in a witch costume for the Sunday closest to Halloween and All Saints, complete with tall, black hat.  Some of the more conservative members pierced their lips, crossed their arms and acted as if Lucifer would appear at any moment to claim possession of the property.  I knew I loved our rector's wife when she smiled and admonished the judgmental to relax, saying she rather liked the flair with which the visitor pulled it off.

But despite all of our small church, small Southern town eccentric behavior I was shocked by a story that appeared in the St. Petersburg Times about a woman who told her friends at St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church that she was dying of cancer just to get away from them.  This just beat all (as we say Down South).  

The woman had attended the church for two years and sang in the choir.  She fabricated an illness that  lasted 11 months, including hospice updates and a final report of death from her "sister" who planned to ship her body north for a funeral. 

It looks to me like she would have been home free but for the fact she attended her own memorial service at the church, identifying herself as her sister.   A suspicious choir member contacted the local sheriff who found the woman at home and quite alive.  She reported to the sheriff's department that she had attachment problems rooted in childhood trauma which caused her to fake her death to withdraw from the church.  

I don't know why - call me curious - but there is a "rest of the story" here we aren't getting.  I ponder what it might be as I hum "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" and wonder why she didn't leave well enough alone and skip the memorial service.   

The Dog Whisperer

I love the Dog Whisperer.  The insights are just amazing.  One of my favorite cases involved a little dog named Sugar who had trained the husband and wife owners in a most ill manner.  She was attached to the husband and was so possessive of him and hostile to the wife, the couple had quit sleeping together!  Sugar would bite the woman when she got in the bed and act in all manner of hostility toward her. 

I didn't think one had to be the Dog Whisperer to comprehend that the husband and wife were the culprits.  The wife was a well defined victim, and the husband was a jerk.  The husband made no effort to get this dog under control - why?- because he enjoyed having the dog's attention and being someone's favorite.  Eventually the man revealed that he had always had to share a pet, and he was enjoying having a pet that was his alone.  He and the dog would walk together an hour every day and had bonded in healthy ways, but they had likewise bonded in totally neurotic ways that excluded the wife as part of the pack.  The wife was a victim because she did not demand that the dog be removed from the room, from her bed, for Pete's sake.  Simple solutions were not even on the radar screen for people so caught up in such neurotic needs that they defy logic.       

Humans aren't always bright, or their brightness is dimmed by emotional need.

One of the actions taken by The Dog Whisperer in dealing with Sugar involved his getting on the bed on his knees, towering over the dog and advancing.  Not a word or sound was uttered.  Eventually Sugar started backing up, jumped off the bed and ran to hide under the bed.  He smelled no fear; he was not given hands on a platter to bite as someone tried to pet and calm him down; he felt an advance he could not stop by having a biting, barking fit; he gave up. 

There's something there to be learned about dealing not only with dogs, but humans as well.