Ambrose’s Nixon: Ruin and Recovery 5

On page 134 of Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, 1973-1990, Stephen Ambrose says the following about Elliott Richardson, who would serve as President Richard Nixon’s Attorney General:

“But Richardson was also a D-Day veteran.  He was one of those junior officers at Utah Beach who had led the way up and over.  No man who had been through that experience ever again had anything to fear.”

Someone with Asperger’s one time said something similar to me: that he is not afraid of most things because of all of the bad experiences that he has already gotten through.  It’s probably a variation of the “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” platitude.

Do I agree with it?  I wonder if war can make some people even more afraid, rather than eradicating fear, as it supposedly did for Richardson.  There is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but I’m not sure to what extent that entails fear.  In any case, there are people who become scarred by trauma, not made stronger by it.

Still, I can see some rationale to Richardson’s experience: if something really horrible is thrown at me and I live to tell about it, then perhaps that can influence me to be less fearful when less horrible things are thrown at me.

Peck on the My Lai Massacre

In this post, I’d like to talk about M. Scott Peck’s discussion of the My Lai Massacre in his book, People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.  Wikipedia defines the My Lai Massacre as: “the Vietnam War mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of ‘Charlie’ Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the America[n] Division.  Most of the victims were women, children, infants, and elderly people.”  The American troops did this because they believed that these South Vietnamese civilians were helping out the Viet-Cong, which the U.S. was fighting.

To what does Peck attribute this act of group evil?  Peck says that the American soldiers had become accustomed to bloodshed on account of their experience in war.  He also states that they were under an extreme amount of stress, for they could be unexpectedly injured or killed by booby-traps, plus the enemy was hard to find.  Peck also notes that the massacre occurred in 1968, which was before the U.S. military forces in Vietnam consisted largely of draftees, and so the Americans in the Vietnam War at that time were mostly people who wanted to be there (the implication perhaps being that some of them gravitated towards a killing role), or they may have included people who were sent there because they were troublemakers.  Another consideration is the emphasis on following orders within the military culture.

But Peck also condemns U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War in general.  He believes that it was narcissistic, as the U.S. became more deeply involved in order to save face.  Peck also disputes the narrative that we needed to contain Communism, as if Communism were an expanding empire, for Communist nations were not monolithic and often acted against one another.  Moreover, the U.S. was disingenuous to criticize Communism for its repressive regimes, when the U.S. itself supported oppressive regimes.  On a similar note, on pages 286-287 of The Different Drum, Peck portrays Ho Chi Minh as a nationalist up-riser against colonial imperialism, and Peck avers that the U.S. pushed Ho Chi Minh into the arms of Communist Russia by siding with Vietnam’s colonizers rather than Ho Chi Minh’s nationalist movement.

Another issue that Peck discusses in his chapter on the My Lai Massacre in People of the Lie is the avoidance of responsibility.  For one, compartmentalization passes the buck and thus enables people to avoid responsibility, for it’s ambiguous where exactly the buck stops.  This is especially the case in governmental institutions.  Second, a number of Americans prior to 1969 were not invested in the Vietnam War, for they were not paying a significant amount of taxes to support it, plus not many of the American forces in the region consisted of draftees, but rather of volunteers.  According to Peck, it was when the draft became more of a looming force in people’s lives that anti-war activism entered the mainstream.  Peck’s point may be (and I’m open to correction) that the American people themselves bore some responsibility for the war in Vietnam, but certain factors enabled them to avoid recognizing their responsibility for it.

What are my reactions to Peck’s analysis?  First of all, I could identify with Peck’s statement that extreme stress can encourage people to compromise their morality.  Peck talks about when his wisdom teeth were pulled and he was especially self-centered and temperamental immediately after that experience!  It’s a challenge to be considerate to others when one is under stress or in pain, physically and emotionally.  Consequently, I admire people I know who do not feel well, yet they still manage to be kind.  I stand in awe of that kind of strength.

Second, would I label the Vietnam War as evil?  I don’t consider it to be an entirely narcissistic endeavor on the United States’ part, for the U.S. was fighting Communism, which was a repressive force, and it also sought to assist South Vietnam’s economy.  But there were evils that came out of it, the deaths of Americans and Vietnamese people perhaps being the greatest.  I agree with Peck that we were staying in the Vietnam War for a questionable reason, namely, to save face.  I can understand the argument that we need for other countries to respect us if we are to successfully stand up to evil and be a peacekeeper, but I often wonder if saving face is really worth the cost and sacrifice.  In The Different Drum, Peck says in his discussion about the arms race that someone needs to be the bigger person and back down (or Peck says something to that effect, if my recollection is accurate).  When I read that, I thought about Gorbachev, who was willing to dismantle the Communist empire in Eastern Europe.  Gorbachev probably had ulterior motives: he realized that Russia couldn’t continue its involvement in the Cold War and sustain its economy at the same time.  But I admire Gorbachev for being a big person (which is not to say that I believe that leaders should always back down).

Third, do I agree with Peck on whether Communism was a real problem?  I don’t know.  I’ve long heard the leftist narrative that we pushed revolutionary forces in other countries into the Communist camp through our own failure to support them.  But then there are right-wingers who come back and say that some of the revolutionary leaders made pro-Communist statements before we supposedly pushed them into the Communist camp.  Some attempt to correct me when I call certain revolutionaries Communists, for they tell me that the revolutionaries were nationalists, not Communists.  Whether they’re entirely correct on this or not, they may be on to something, for I doubt that people became revolutionaries simply because they desired the expansion of the Communist empire; rather, there were serious problems in their country that they wanted to redress.  Do I agree with Peck that Communist nations were at odds with each other?  There were right-wingers who argued that Communist nations also cooperated on projects.  And yet, a significant assumption behind Richard Nixon’s foreign policy was that Communist countries were not necessarily on the same side, so he could use them against each other in conducting the Vietnam War.

Peck on Exorcism

In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck talked about exorcism.  I did not finish Peck’s chapter on this subject, so I will be commenting on what I have read so far.

Peck distinguishes demonic possession from multiple-personality disorder.  One difference between the two is that, in multiple personality disorder, “the ‘core personality’ is virtually always unaware of the existence of the secondary personalities—-at least until close to the very end of prolonged, successful treatment” (page 192).  When people are possessed by demons, by contrast, they are often aware that there is an alien presence within them.  Another difference is that, in multiple-personality disorder, the personalities usually are not evil.  In demonic possession, however, the alien presence is evil.

I had to think about Peck’s distinction between multiple-personality disorder and demonic possession for a second, for I wondered if his characterization of multiple-personality disorder was correct (not that I have the knowledge or credentials to challenge him, but I have the right to ask questions).  I vaguely recalled that, in the movie Sybil, in which Sally Field played a woman named Sybil who had multiple-personality disorder, at least two of Sybil’s personalities were carrying on a conversation with each other, and that made me wonder if personalities within multiple-personality disorder were indeed unaware of each other.  But then I took a closer look at what Peck was saying: Peck didn’t say that none of the personalities was aware of the other, but rather that the “core personality” was unaware of the “secondary personalities”.  And, indeed, in Sybil, the two personalities who were talking with each other were secondary personalities.  But Sybil herself, if I recall correctly, was unaware of the other personalities, and it was like a black-out for her when another personality was taking over.

But back to Peck’s discussion of exorcism.  Why do people get possessed, according to Peck?  Peck listed at least three factors: loneliness, selling out on one’s morals, and involvement with the occult.  This made me think about an episode of Touched by an Angel called “The Occupant”, in which a man named Lonnie is possessed by Gregory, a demon.  How did Lonnie become possessed?  Lonnie grew up in a troubled home, so he was lonely.  A woman he met got him involved in the occult, and that’s when he met Gregory, who promised never to leave him.  Reading Peck worried me somewhat, since I myself have difficulty establishing relationships and can easily find myself becoming lonely.  At the same time, lonely people can reach out to God, so perhaps loneliness can have positive spiritual outcomes.  And yet, oddly enough, Peck says that some whom he knew who were possessed by demons had an extraordinary potential for holiness.  So what can I do?  Probably seek God’s protection, stay away from the occult, and nurture whatever healthy relationships with people that I have.

Peck also makes the point that those conducting the exorcism must be loving and compassionate people.  They’re not necessarily perfect, for one participant Peck mentions said that he had a cold element of his personality until helping to perform an exorcism cleansed him of that.  (Peck was saying here that exorcism not only cleanses the possessed person, but it also has a positive spiritual impact on those performing the exorcism, even though the activity is draining enough to them that they usually don’t want to conduct an exorcism ever again.)  Peck also says that God can use people’s imperfections amidst the exorcism.  Moreover, Peck denies that one has to be a Christian to conduct an exorcism successfully, for he knows of participants in exorcisms who were atheists, plus he notes that exorcisms occur in non-Christian contexts.  What is important is that one be loving and compassionate.  Not only does that create a proper atmosphere for an exorcism, but it would also help the person who has just been cleansed of the demon, for he longs for community, so it’s good when he has loving and compassionate people there to support him.

I doubt that I would be qualified to conduct an exorcism, for, although love, compassion, and empathy are within me, I can see myself getting puffed up when attempting an exorcism.  What’s odd is that I hear stories from people who claim to have cast out demons, and they sound pompous, self-promoting, and spiritually proud, so I wonder how they succeeded in performing exorcisms, if Peck’s criteria are true.  Maybe they’re just shooting off their mouths! 

Charlene’s Story

In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck talked about Charlene.  Charlene was a lady in her thirties who played by her own set of rules, regardless of how that affected others.  She played by her own set of rules when she was in college, which meant that she did not fulfill assignments in the way that they were assigned.  The same went with the jobs that she had.  Moreover, she wanted Dr. Peck sexually, even though he told her that this was inappropriate because he was responsible for her growth as a human being, and a sexual relationship with him would hinder that.  She also came to Dr. Peck’s house (which was also his workplace) even when she did not have an appointment.  For years, she came to Dr. Peck for psychotherapy, and she told him that this was for her own amusement because she liked to see how he’d react to what she said and did.

Charlene appeared to be fearless, in the sense that she was not afraid when she started a new job, but Peck concluded that this was because she played by her own rules anyway, so, of course, she wouldn’t care whether she was successfully meeting others’ demands or expectations.  But Peck speculated that she must have a great deal of fear: she desires control, and that’s why she seeks to dominate situations.

She was in a church for a while, even in a position in which she taught Christian doctrine, but eventually she left Christianity and joined a cult.  Peck asked her what Christianity says the goal of life is, and she replied that it’s to glorify God.  But she didn’t care for that doctrine because she wondered where the room for her was in that.

One day, she came to her therapy session, behaved herself, and then remarked that this was her last session, and she was simply behaving herself to show Dr. Peck that she could.  Dr. Peck was flabbergasted and felt like a failure.

Peck says that he speculated that at least part of her problem was Oedipal.  I won’t go into the details of that, but, essentially, in Peck’s description, many kids at a young age go through the Oedipus complex and come to learn and accept that they can’t have their cake and eat it, too.  But Charlene did not go through that stage because her parents really were not there for her when she was growing up.  Consequently, she retained a belief that she could live by her own set of rules, that she could have her cake and eat it, too.

Looking back, Peck says that he wished that he simply recognized when he was treating her that Charlene was evil.  This was why Charlene gave one of Peck’s other patients the creeps whenever Charlene went through the waiting room!  At some point in his conversation with Charlene, they talk about exorcism.  An issue that comes up in this book is the source of evil.  Is it a medical condition?  There is another person whom Peck discusses, a lady named Sarah, who continually put down her husband, and there was a time when she was speaking to Peck that she did not manifest a continuous stream of thought.  Peck speculated that she may have had mild schizophrenia.  Is there a biological cause for evil?  Is evil due to poor nurture?  Or are there times when it’s due to demons?

Peck does not think that Charlene was thoroughly evil.  She did, after all, refrain from getting married and having children.  Had she gotten married and had kids, Peck speculates, she would have been an evil mother like Mrs. R., and an evil wife like Sarah, in that her narcissism and desire for her own amusement would have harmed the lives of others.  But, through her avoidance of marriage and motherhood, she did not allow herself to do harm within a family context.

I thought about Leland Gaunt in Stephen King’s Needful Things when I was reading about Charlene.  Gaunt liked to set people against each other for his own amusement.  Charlene didn’t go that far, but, like the other “evil” people Peck discusses, she was narcissistic.  I don’t think that it’s so wrong to be an individual, to be creative, to be unique.  What the herd wants me to do is not right just because the herd is expressing its exalted viewpoint, and heaven forbid that I should disagree with the herd.  But I should not take these thoughts in the direction of narcissism.  If I’m working on a team, for example, then I should be a team-player.  If my boss wants me to do a job, I should do it, for I’m there to serve the company, not to fulfill whatever I may desire at the moment.  

Introversion and Loneliness

In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, two issues that stood out to me were introversion and loneliness.

Peck tells a story about a young woman named Billie.  Her Dad was a bank clerk who was really introverted and distant.  Her Mom had several affairs and  was dead-set on preventing Billie from attaining her independence out of fear of being alone.  Billie herself was promiscuous, and she was inhibited from having a committed relationship because she alienated men by being clingy.  Billie was also afraid of spiders, and, in therapy, she arrived at the insight that this was because her mother, and even she, were like spiders: they trapped their prey.

The reason that Billie’s father stood out to me was that, although he was introverted and distant, he unexpectedly supported his daughter when she moved out of the house into an apartment of her own.  He helped her out and gave her gifts.  This disrupted Billie’s relationship with her mother, for Billie and her mother had bonded over running the man down, and now they couldn’t bond over that because Billie liked her father.  I appreciated this story because it showed that even an introvert can show love to somebody else.

I could identify with Billie and her mother’s fear of being alone.  I lived alone for years.  It had its strengths, but it was, well, lonely.  I like being around people who love and care about me—-people with whom it’s not an uphill battle to become accepted—-and that’s what I have now.

Roger’s Parents

In my latest reading of People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil, M. Scott Peck talked about another case study in the area of human evil: Mr. R. and Mrs. R., the parents of Roger.

Unlike Bobby’s parents, whom I discussed in my last post, Mr. R. and Mrs. R. were sophisticated, urbane, glib, economically comfortable, and socially adept.  But Peck concluded that, for whatever reason, they were seeking to undermine their son Roger.  They disregarded Roger’s request to go to boarding school.  And, when Roger’s work with people who had mental retardation earned him a trip to New York City for a conference, his parents did not let him attend because his room was messy.  Moreover, rather than admitting that they themselves needed counseling, they proposed that perhaps Roger had an incurable condition.

Peck mentioned a letter that Mrs. R. sent him after his final session with the Rs.  Mrs. R. said that she and Mr. R. were following Peck’s suggestion that Roger go to boarding school, for they were sending Roger to a military school that worked with troubled youths.  The thing is, while Peck in an earlier session said that the Rs should have been more sensitive to their son’s desire to attend boarding school, Peck in the last session recommended that they keep Roger in his Catholic school rather than sending him to boarding school, for Roger was happy and well-liked at the Catholic school, plus a dramatic change was not what Roger needed.  This reminded me of people I know who have, well, odd “memories” of things that did not happen.  Whether they’re evil or not, I cannot say.

One insight that Peck communicated in a footnote was that Mr. R. and Mrs. R. worked as a team, as did Bobby’s parents, and as do a number of parents who are evil.

I can’t say that I fully understood my latest reading—-the motives of the Rs, why evil parents work in teams, etc.  But it was intriguing.  And I have to admit: I somewhat enjoyed reading the Rs’ back and forth with Dr. Peck, since Peck sometimes strikes me as rather condescending and arrogant when I read him, and it did seem that the Rs were baffling him with their smooth, well-crafted comebacks.  It was sad that their actions were negatively affecting Roger, however.

People of the Lie: George and Bobby’s Parents

I started M. Scott Peck’s People of the Lie: The Hope for Healing Human Evil.

What draws me to Peck’s books are his stories, particularly the ones pertaining to his experiences as a psychotherapist.  In my latest reading of People of the Lie, Peck talked about two case-studies: George, and Bobby.

Let’s start with George’s story.  George was a successful salesman who ran into a problem: he was having obsessive thoughts about his own death (among other things).  For example, he crossed a bridge, and the thought occurred to him that this was the last time that he would cross that bridge, for he would die if he crossed it again.  But it was an important bridge on his sales itinerary, and so George late one night drove miles back to the bridge to cross it and thereby to quiet his obsessive thought.  Or a thought occurred to George that he hit somebody on the road while driving, and so he’d drive for miles back to where he came from just to make sure that he didn’t.  These thoughts were taking a toll on George’s health and his job, so he went to see Dr. Peck.  In the course of their conversations, Peck learned that George had a horrible childhood (i.e., his schizophrenic dad beat his sister’s kitten to death), that George’s marriage was on the rocks, that George showed favoritism to one of his children while alienating his other kids, and that George was afraid of death.

But George did not want to confront his demons, for he wondered what the point would be of fretting over such problems.  And so George made a deal with the devil, whom George did not even believe in.  The deal was this: if George had (say) a thought about dying the next time he crossed a bridge, his fear would actually come to pass if he did cross that bridge.  Or his favorite son would die if he gave in to his obsessions.  George was feeling good as a result of this pact, yet he felt slightly guilty.  And Peck’s response was that it was good that George was feeling guilty, for George was cravenly seeking the easy path as opposed to the right path.  George’s obsessions were signs that he needed to deal with certain issues, and George was choosing not to do so.  George and his wife continued in therapy, and George became stronger.  As Peck says on page 34: “He was able to realize that in these negative feelings, in his sensitivity and tenderness and vulnerability to pain, lay his humanity.  He became less Joe Cool, and at the same time his capacity to bear pain increased.”

Now for Bobby’s story.  Bobby was a teenager whose older brother Stuart shot himself with a .22 caliber rifle.  Bobby became depressed, his grades plummeted, and he stole a car.  Bobby then saw Dr. Peck, who learned at least two things: that Bobby was fond of one of his relatives, Aunt Helen, who lived miles away, and that Bobby’s parents gave to Bobby as a Christmas present the very rifle that his older brother had used to kill himself.

Peck then met with Bobby’s parents, and this scene appears to be important in People of the Lie because Peck feels that Bobby’s parents were evil.  Bobby’s parents were working-class people.  They told Peck that they did not try to get therapy for Bobby because they were working on weekdays and could not take off work.  Bobby’s Mom said that she did not like her sister Helen because she thought that Helen acted superior, when all Helen did was run a cleaning service.  Both of Bobby’s parents told Peck that they gave Bobby the rifle because they thought it was a good Christmas present—-did not every teenage boy want a gun?—-plus they could not afford another Christmas present, and they were unaware that their son Bobby had requested a tennis racket.  When Peck said to them that their gift was problematic because it conveyed to Bobby that they wanted for Bobby to kill himself, too, they got really defensive and angry, saying that they don’t always know what to do because they don’t have the level of education that Peck does.  When Peck suggested that Bobby live with his Aunt Helen for a while, Bobby’s father became belligerent, but Peck replied that he was trying to keep the issue within the family, yet he would involve the law if necessary.  In my opinion, this overlaps with something that Peck says later on in the book: that raw force is the only thing that evil people understand.  Peck reflects that Bobby’s parents should have tried to convince Bobby that his brother’s suicide was not Bobby’s fault, or that they should have at least sent Bobby to a therapist if they felt that their own resources were inadequate.  But they did not do so.

Peck characterizes Bobby’s parents as people who did not want help in addressing their own character defects, plus he felt that he did not like them because they were evil, and evil people tend to repulse others.

Both of these stories hit some nerves.  Do I, like George, tend to look for the easy way rather than the right way?  Should I confront my demons and my negative feelings, or should I ignore them in order to feel better and to get through the day?  Do people dislike me because they sense that I’m evil, and my evil is repulsing them?  Like Bobby’s parents, I tend to have resentment about people, and I am reluctant to provide emotional support for others.  (In my case, it’s due to feelings of awkwardness and inadequacy, but also not wanting to be inconvenienced or emotionally drained.)  But, were I a parent, I hope that I wouldn’t be as callous or as uncaring as they were in their relationship with Bobby, and that I’d at least be open to seeing what I did wrong and learning what I could have done better.

Finishing Further Along the Road Less Traveled

I finished M. Scott Peck’s Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth.  In this post, I’ll use as my starting-point two passages.

On pages 225-226, Peck states:

“As a friend of mine once put it, ‘The sexual and the spiritual parts of our personality lie so close together that it is hardly possible to arouse one without arousing the other.’  I do not think it an accident that when this woman became able to give herself wholeheartedly to God, in very short order she became able to give herself wholeheartedly to a human partner, praise the Lord!  I have another friend, a priest, who actually uses this phenomenon as a yardstick of conversion.  He tells me that if a conversion occurs in a previously sexually repressed individual and is not accompanied by some kind of sexual awakening or blossoming, then he has reason to doubt the depth of the conversion.”

On pages 247-248, Peck talks about a woman he knew who had schizophrenia:

“When I left my consulting position at the clinic, she continued to drop by my home twice a year for a free visit of fifteen to thirty minutes.  Today, at age fifty, she demonstrates all the signs of moderate, well-entrenched, chronic schizophrenia.  The course of her disease over eighteen years has been consistent and stable.  From a traditional psychiatric point of view, she has neither deteriorated nor made any progress whatsoever.  It would be easy to regard her as a chronic lost cause.  However, over the course of those years, she has moved from skepticism to a tentative interest in religion to a deep faith.  She now attends Mass at least weekly.  Her theology is not in the least bizarre; it is, at best I can ascertain, not only traditional and sound but quite sophisticated.  In return for my extremely minor ministrations, she regularly prays for me.  I think I have, by far, the better part of the bargain.  Many would regard her as a wasted sort of life in which there has been no progress.  From my point of view, while there has been no improvement in her schizophrenia or growth in her social skills, there has been an immense growth in her soul.  Something very profound has slowly been happening within her.”

I hated the first passage and loved the second.  Regarding the first passage, I don’t believe that I have to justify my conversion to another human being.  Sometimes, my religious passion and sex drive are strong; sometimes, they’re not so strong.  Whether there’s a correlation between the two, I don’t know.  But I will say this: They have nothing to do with God’s love for me, and the privilege that God gives me to take refuge in God.

Regarding the second passage, I like it because Peck is saying that spirituality has provided a woman with depth of soul, even though people may judge her as inadequate and her social skills leave much to be desired.  So a person doesn’t have to be a social butterfly to have a legitimate spirituality?  I hope that’s the case!

At the same time, I think that it’s beautiful when spirituality can lead a person to give himself or herself to another.  It’s also beautiful when spirituality can give a person deep thoughts about life.  I can’t entirely say that my religion does these things for me, though, but rather it provides me with entertainment as I discuss with myself the meaning and ramifications of biblical passages.  It’s like the Wallace Shawn character said in My Dinner with Andre: he enjoys reading reviews of plays, and then reviews of those reviews.  There are many times when I feel too dead inside to move beyond that point.  And feeling dead inside, in my opinion, is much better than having bitterness and resentment—-or at least it feels better!

Narcissism

On page 67 of Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth, M. Scott Peck states the following:

“When psychiatrists talk about injuries to pride, we call them narcissistic injuries.  And on any scale of narcissistic injuries, death is the ultimate.  We suffer little narcissistic injuries all the time: a classmate calls us stupid, for example; we’re the last to be chosen for someone’s volleyball team; colleges turn us down; employers criticize us; we get fired; our children reject us.  As a result of these narcissistic injuries, either we become embittered or we grow.  But death is the big one.  Nothing threats our narcissistic attachment to ourselves and our self-conceit more than our impending obliteration.  So it is utterly natural that we should fear death.”

On page 68, Peck says: “…the further we proceed in diminishing our narcissism, our self-centeredness and sense of self-importance, the more we discover ourselves becoming not only less fearful of death, but also less fearful of life.  And we become more loving.  No longer burdened by the need to protect ourselves, we are able to lift our eyes off ourselves and to truly recognize others.”

As Peck notes, we all have narcissism.  I plead guilty!  I think that there are some areas of disappointment in which I can look back and learn from what I did inappropriately.  In some areas, however, I have no idea what I could have done in place of what I did.  If I made a mistake because I didn’t know how to do something, was that my fault?  Moreover, I find social situations to be a pain because I don’t know what to say, so I get ignored or forgotten, but when I do speak up, I end up saying something inappropriate.  So should I speak or keep silent?  Well, I just told you the problem that occurs when I stay silent!

But you learn what you can.  If I can look back and identify things that I could have done better, that is good.  And maybe what would help me is not so much for me to rehash my mistakes in the past, but rather to read about or hear about better ways to do things.  As I Thessalonians 5:21 says (in the KJV), “Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.”

I doubt that self-forgetfulness will happen, at least when it comes to my life.  I doubt that it can happen, for, of course, I think about myself and my tasks each day.  But I should work on ceasing to see myself as the center of the universe.  I shouldn’t take myself so seriously.  Maybe I can be more interested in what is going on in other people’s lives, whether we’re talking about people in my family, or people online, or others with whom I come into contact.  In the words of Romans 12:15, “Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.”

Peck on Forgiveness

I started M. Scott Peck’s Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth.  In my latest reading, one topic that Peck discussed was forgiveness.  According to Peck, some people act as if forgiveness is an easy task.  Peck refers to a “a very popular New Age book called Love Is Letting Go of Fear, by Gerald Jampolsky, a fellow psychiatrist” (page 41), and Peck characterizes Jampolsky’s position on forgiveness to be that we should not judge people but rather should seek out the good that is within them.  Peck believes that such an approach ignores the reality of evil.  For Peck, while there may be a reason that somebody hurt us, such as damage that he received during his childhood, his hurting us was still wrong.  Forgiveness is us acknowledging that the person who hurt us was wrong, and then choosing to forgive him.  As Peck says on page 42, “Only after a guilty verdict can there be a pardon.”  It’s a lot of hard work for us to forgive, according to Peck, and yet it is necessary, for unforgiveness is like us chewing our leg: we’re hurting ourselves when we don’t forgive.

Do I agree with Peck?  I’m not exactly in a position to critique what he says about forgiveness, for I know for sure that I’m not too good at forgiving people!  But I doubt that practicing what he says about forgiveness will help me to forgive.  I already know that people did me wrong.  My problem is that I revisit those wrongs in my mind over and over again, often imagining myself telling people off.

So what should I tell myself to help me to forgive?  Although I’m not good at forgiveness, some thoughts do help me better than others.  Trying to remind myself that we’re all imperfect human beings in need of forgiveness helps me to have a better attitude towards others, including those who have done me wrong.  While that works (somewhat) for me, however, I’m not in any position to tell someone else (such as a victim of abuse) that it absolutely must work for him or her.  But, overall, I agree with Peck about what forgiveness is: recognizing that someone has done us wrong, and making a choice to let that go, to release its hold on us.