We Won’t Survive This

 The cornerstone of any civilized society is the family, despite what progressives assert about “my family of choice.” 

Ties of blood and kinship have, throughout the ages, been regarded as the most worthy, reliable, and valuable. Blood is thicker than water…friends come and go…but family is forever. 

It’s more than genetics; it’s shared history, shared roots, shared triumphs and struggles. It’s medical history and probabilities. It’s traditions and values and memories. It’s the responsibility to care for the most vulnerable - the very young and the very old - because we are linked by blood. 

The progressive left, intent upon the destruction of western civilization, has persuaded a significant portion of young Americans that it all means jack squat. 

Your parents fell short of your standards? Ditch ‘em.

Your family doesn’t agree with your lifestyle? Buh-bye.

Your folks voted for THAT guy???? Cut them off, quick!

The jargon is eerily the same wherever you look. Toxic, gaslighting, narcissistic, abusive, trauma, protecting my peace, safe space/safe family, boundaries, breaking the cycle, low/no contact. It’s almost as if they all talk to one another…

The deliberate and malicious cruelty about parents that I see in forums populated by no-contact “adult children” is unbelievable. Professionals and influencers who support estranged parents are villified as hacks and liars. Generic Mother’s Day messages like “life’s too short - call your mom” are mocked with glee. Young people who express uncertainty about their decision to cut off their parents are advised to not think twice and never go back. 

The “adult children” are always the victims and the parents are always to blame. 

Come on. At some point, the events of your childhood are less and less what defines you. These “adult children” in their 20’s and older? You are the product of your own choices, the voices you choose to listen to and believe, the decisions and actions you alone have made. 

I will say this with certainty: the generation that abandons God’s order for our lives is sowing the wind and will reap the whirlwind. 

They Did The Best They Could

 I have seen numerous videos from younger individuals detailing their eye-opening realization that parents of previous generations “did the best they could with what they had.” The gist is that those poor Boomer moms and dads just didn’t have the skills, awareness, tools, or whatever that today’s enlightened parents have.

I do think they’re trying to be helpful in the estrangement arena. They’re offering an explanation for why the estranged child’s parents fell short - those parents just didn’t know back then what parents today know. And perhaps that’s a piece of the puzzle. But there’s something missing.

The underlying assumption is that what’s new and modern and current is inevitably an improvement upon what used to be. Those old, outdated parenting methods of yore? Pfft. We know better nowadays. 

Now, if we’re talking about parents whose mistakes were far more than normal human failings - genuinely harmful, abusive, malicious parents - then HELL yes. FIX that shit. Give no quarter.

But if we’re talking about parents whose mistakes were indeed normal human failings, then guess what, O Buttercup of Modern Enlightenment? You will make those exact same mistakes. 

Your patience is not infinite because you have a therapist. Your temper is not unflappable because you practice self-care. You don’t have endless wisdom for every situation because you know you’re on the spectrum. You don’t have all the answers because you’re aware of the plight of the north Uzbekistani trans population. 

Plenty of folks know better and still falter miserably. Plenty of unsophisticated rubes have wisdom and demeanor that far exceeds what you might assume at first glance. 

“Know better, do better” is a wise axiom. The key word there is better. Knowing more, knowing different, knowing new is not necessarily knowing - or doing - better. 

The Fragile Generation

 We Gen Xers really did grow up hearing “suck it up, Buttercup” or “rub some dirt on it and get back out there.” 

Our parents didn’t talk about their feelings; they went to work and drove us kids around and cooked dinner and then we all watched Little House on the Prairie or Happy Days. 

If we complained about how hard school was or groused about what was for dinner, we heard “I’ll give you something to gripe about” and got reminded that there are poor kids who don’t have nearly the stuff we have and who go to bed hungry.

Now the pendulum has swung hard the other way. Gen Z are more in tune with their own heartstrings than any previous generation. They all have a diagnosis or two or twelve, multiple prescriptions, and two therapists on speed dial. 

And I don’t think it’s progress, because they’re also more fragile than any previous generation. 

If it’s too hard, they quit. If it hurts, they call it trauma. If it’s uncomfortable, they call it toxic. If it’s anything short of ideal, they leave. 

We’ve overcorrected by miles, folks. We need to get back to doing hard things just because they need to get done, and quit giving a shit about how we feel about it all. 

My Body

Mother to her baby as she aborts: “This is MY body. You must die so I can really live.”

Trans person to his body as he mutilates: “This is MY body. I must transform how it was made so I can really live.”

Jesus to us sinners: “This is my body, broken for you, beaten for you, crucified for you. I must die so that you can really live.” 

Forgiveness and Reconciliation Are Not The Same

I don’t want to go to my grave with a bitter heart toward anyone. As far as it depends on me, I want to live at peace with everyone. I cannot do so without God, so I must ask Him to supply me with what it takes. 

Some definitions: 

Forgiveness: releasing your offender to God and mortifying your desire to control, change, punish them, or settle the score. Burying the offense and walking away from it rather than carrying it around like a worry stone in your pocket. Recognizing that the offender is not accountable to you; they are accountable to God. Understanding that you are NOT perfectly just, but God IS, so you leave it to Him to handle the offense. He saw it. He knows. 

Forgiveness requires me and God. It requires nothing from my offender - not apology, remorse, or even acknowledgement of the offense.

My own need for forgiveness drives me to forgive others, because forgiveness flows from God. He is its source. You don’t drum up some warm fuzzies and dispense them as you please; you recognize your own sinfulness, go to the source, and pass on forgiveness because He has filled you with His forgiveness.

Forgiveness is not approval, dismissal, or pretending it didn’t happen. It’s not a feeling or sensation; it’s a decision. An intention to stop allowing that offense to rule your thoughts and behavior and leave it to God.

Bitterness: what you’re left with when you do not forgive - hanging onto the offense, replaying it, stewing over it, resenting the offender and harboring ill will towards them. Keeps you fixated on the offense and stuck in that moment.

Continuing in bitterness requires me, my flesh, and the devil, who wants to keep me dwelling on the offense. If I am asking God’s help with the situation, He will not permit me to remain bitter. 

Consequences: the natural, pragmatic, logical results of one’s behavior. Sometimes physical (a skinned knee), sometimes emotional (loss of trust in a relationship marred by offense), sometimes spiritual (a sense of guilt before God over sin). 

Repentance: the remorseful recognition of wrongdoing coupled with the intention to turn from it. Genuine, Spirit-inspired repentance results in inward change of mind and character and visible change of behavior. 

Repentance, like forgiveness, requires me and God. It doesn’t depend on my offender’s attitude or action.

Reconciliation: restoration of broken relationship, most importantly between God and humanity by the atonement of Christ, and secondarily between people who are at odds. 

Reconciliation requires me, God, and my offender. I cannot accomplish genuine reconciliation without all three participating. 

Putting it all together:

In my natural, selfish state, all my best intentions are stained with sin. So #1: forgiveness and reconciliation are 100% the work of God in me, not my own efforts.

He produces the fruit:

I intend to forgive as I have been forgiven, so I go to the Lord and plead His help and strength to put down that offense and leave any and all results to Him. 

I turn from bitterness and set my intentions for the good of my offender. 

I see the unpleasant consequences of my offender’s actions but I do not take pleasure in them, nor do I try to impose punitive or vengeful consequences upon them. 

I search my heart and repent of any sin against my offender, and I pray that the Holy Spirit would lead my offender to the same. 

I pray for and desire reconciliation between God, my offender, and myself. It is through reconciliation with Him that reconciliation between my offender and me will become possible. 

If my offender and I have both sincerely forgiven and repented, reconciliation will result. 

Some principles: 

Matthew 5:44 Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. (“Love” here is not an emotion, but a decision and intention for the person’s good.)

Romans 12:14 Bless, do not curse, those who persecute you.

Romans 12:17-19 Do not repay evil for evil; be at peace and don’t take your own revenge. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Proverbs 24:17 Do not rejoice when your enemy falls or desire their demise. Set your intentions for their good. 

Matthew 23:18ff A parable in which a master forgives the massive debt of his servant, but that servant refuses to forgive a much smaller debt of a friend. Don’t be that servant. Whatever offenses I must forgive, He has forgiven me far more. 

Betrayal

There’s good reason Dante put the traitors in the deepest part of Hell. There is nothing that I have ever experienced that hurts as badly as when someone whom I loved dearly turned on me - loudly, cruelly, intentionally, and publicly, in an epic blow-up.

It takes two to make or break a relationship, and I hold myself to that same standard. I am not without blame over the years. When the epic blow-up occurred, I was so gobsmacked that I responded defensively when I should have just walked away. 

The fact that she exhibited no concern, no sorrow, just resumed carrying on as “normal” literally hours later, confirmed to me that what she did was intentional. She wanted to tell me exactly what she thought about me - planned what she wanted to say - and felt *better* for it.

It happened a few years ago, and it left me reeling for months.  I questioned everything I thought I knew about the person, myself, and our relationship. In hindsight, I started recognizing patterns of behavior that, in my naïveté, I had missed or explained away because I believed this person felt the same way about me as I did about her. And that was my longstanding mistake. 

But the past makes so much more sense when viewed through a lens of truth. The blowup tore me to shreds at the time, but now I recognize it as a necessary revelation. The truth came bursting out and pummeled me until I believed it. 

An act of harsh disloyalty is INFORMATIVE. It brings CLARITY. 

I SEE you. You did what you did; you said what you said. You made yourself abundantly clear. There’s nowhere to go from here. The beans have been spilled. The toothpaste is out of the tube. There’s no going back. 

So I will simply move out of your way. Betrayal itself is CLOSURE. I’m done. 

As a Christian, I believe in forgiveness, and I desire to live at peace with everyone. The Lord has been hard at work in me to help me understand and live what I profess: I am a sinner who has received forgiveness, and I may not withhold grace when I have received so much. I can only deal with myself, though. I am not the Holy Spirit. 

It’s not beyond His ability to bring about repentance and restoration. 

It’s just beyond mine. 

Postmodernism’s Yukky Fruit

 Back in the good ole days of Modernism, we dealt in absolutes. Scientific inquiry, evidence, and reasoning were the standards by which we determined what was true. And when we said “true,” we meant objectively, verifiably, demonstrably, absolutely TRUE, without question. 

As cultures are wont to do, that pendulum swung hard the other direction and gave us Postmodernism. A grain of truth - that no one is unbiased, and subjective experience always colors our understanding - grew to a harvest that now rejects absolutes and denies objective truth. In Postmodernism, truth is discerned by individual perception and “lived experience.”  

Truth is not a primary goal of Postmodernism.  Maybe not even a goal at all. To the Postmodernist, knowledge is plural. There’s no singular answer, only lived experiences that mean none of us has access to one singular Truth. In fact, to them, no singular Truth exists.  

Of course, the academics came along and codified it into Critical Theory, which questions if objectivity is possible or even desirable. According to Critical Theory, knowledge is socially constructed and entirely dependent on context and demographics. Their goal is not to resolve questions or conflicts with evidence-based truth; it is to disrupt and undermine established ways of thinking (like logic and reasoning). 

Enter Marxism. Marx viewed the world through one lens: oppression/oppressor in the economic realm. The original Critical Theorists were Marxists. They assert that the first step of change and revolution is criticism of the system itself. Make noise - create problems - emphasize the plight of the oppressed - and they expanded this lens to not only economics, but also race, gender, class, ethnicity, sexual preference, etc. 

So here we are:

    Objective, verifiable Truth is (at best) unknowable and probably doesn’t exist at all

    Knowledge hinges upon individual perception and lived experience (rather than evidence and reasoning)

    Truth is irrelevant; what matters is oppression and power

    The only way to resolve this is via conflict, dismantling systems of power that oppress

    The goal of conflict is not Truth (remember, that doesn’t exist), but the destruction of the systems of power that result in oppression            

Most unfortunately, this worldview leads us into a hot mess. 

No more Law of Non-Contradiction; your truth, my truth, and his truth can be utterly incompatible and simultaneously all be true. 

If you make a truth claim based on your personal perception, and I make a conflicting truth claim based on verifiable evidence, whose truth claim is correct? Oh, wait. “Correct” doesn’t matter. We’re both right. But that means we’re both wrong, too.

I am obligated to respect and affirm your truth. It doesn’t matter if it conflicts with mine, because all truths are contextual, and cannot be “wrong.” Therefore, no one can tell anyone else they are right or wrong.