This, also, I am ever urging, and shall not cease to urge, that you give attention, not only to the words spoken, but that also, when at home in your house, you exercise yourselves constantly in reading the Divine Scriptures. This, also, I have never ceased to press upon those who come to me privately. Let not any one say to me that these exhortations are vain and irrelevant, for “I am constantly busy in the courts,” (suppose him to say;) “I am discharging public duties; I am engaged in some art or handiwork; I have a wife; I am bringing up my children; I have to manage a household; I am full of worldly business; it is not for me to read the Scriptures, but for those who have bid adieu to the world, for those who dwell on the summit of the hills; those who constantly lead a secluded life.” What dost thou say, O man? Is it not for thee to attend to the Scriptures, because thou art involved in numerous cares? It is thy duty even more than theirs, for they do not so much need the aid to be derived from the Holy Scriptures as they do who are engaged in much business. For those who lead a solitary life, who are free from business and from the anxiety arising from business, who have pitched their tent in the wilderness, and have no communion with any one, but who meditate at leisure on wisdom, in that peace that springs from repose—they, like those who lie in the harbour, enjoy abundant security. But ourselves, who, as it were, are tossed in the midst of the sea, cannot avoid many failings, we ever stand in need of the immediate and constant comfort of the Scriptures. They rest far from the strife, and, therefore, escape many wounds; but you stand perpetually in the array of battle, and constantly are liable to be wounded: on this account, you have more need of the healing remedies. For, suppose, a wife provokes, a son causes grief, a slave excites to anger, an enemy plots against us, a friend is envious, a neighbour is insolent, a fellow-soldier causes us to stumble—or often, perhaps, a judge threatens us, poverty pains us, or loss of property causes us trouble, or prosperity puffs us up, or misfortune overthrows us;—there are surround us on all sides many causes and occasions of anger, many of anxiety, many of dejection or grief, many of vanity or pride; from all quarters, weapons are pointed at us. Therefore it is that there is need continually of the whole armour of the Scriptures.
—St John Chrysostom, On Wealth and Poverty
Category: PARENTS
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False obligations are all the kind of things that, if you could do them, would make you abnormally wonderful, outstanding, quite a lot better and more sensitive-looking than other people with abilities and opportunities similar to yours. Our ordinary obligations—like cleaning house, gardening, repairing things, being faithful to friends, and doing our fair share of the work in family life—don’t make us look us especially wonderful or exceptional. People who are burdened with a lot of false obligations invariably fall down on what most of us consider to be normal obligations. They tend not to help others with anything. They make promises and then break them without giving it a second thought. They tell you they’ll be at your party or meet you on a certain afternoon, and nine times out of ten they’ll back out the last minute with a very unconvincing excuse. Even though they are constantly getting after themselves for not loving and being kind to everybody, they have almost no sense of obligation to other people and are completely inconsiderate most of the time. They rarely notice or feel guilty about the everyday obligations they could be living up to. But they feel terribly guilty and miserable about the false obligations they can’t live up to.
Who is God? Who Am I? Who Are You?
Dee Pennock -
I interpreted the entire movie as documenting his pathetic cope; a cope he was able to keep up as long as he had no significant social interaction and could keep repeating the cope to himself in his own head, day after day.
As soon as he’s reminded about how he has no children, his sister mogs him, his father hates him, and mortality is coming for him, he starts crying and spiraling out of control.
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To me, it’s actually a very sad (albeit beautiful) film. I saw a man hanging on by a thread, his routine and isolation being the only things keeping nightmares at bay.
Perfect Days (2023) – I don’t understand the top critic reviews of this film -
Parents feel like their friends without kids have left them behind and are flaky. Kid-free people feel like their parent friends only want to hang out with other parents and are also flaky. Parents feel like society is incredibly hostile to them; single people feel like society is incredibly hostile to them; partnered people without kids feel like society is incredibly hostile to them.
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This is where I say very clearly: parents, I know it feels like you live in a never-ending hurricane season. You need to talk to your friends without kids, and you need to figure out ways to be in their lives, even if you think their lives are easier and should naturally bend towards yours.
And people without kids, I know it feels like the world thinks we’re weirdos and parents don’t understand the very real struggles and fears that accompany our lives. We also need to be more understanding of our friends with kids, and figure out how to balance our own often more flexible lives with some of the more inflexible demands of their lives.
How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids — and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents
ANNE HELEN PETERSEN
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As I began to work on getting my own life back on track, I relegated time with my mother to every other Sunday and holidays, holding her (and our relationship) at arm’s length. What seemed at the time to be self-care and boundaries was also a mixture of avoidance and burden—but I didn’t truly know this until a Tuesday afternoon one day in November.
She’d called me the night before and I’d ignored it; she was lonely and called me a lot, and I’d decided that I couldn’t always stop what I was doing to answer. But the next day I got a call at work from my brother, telling me to come home at once. When I got there I found that she’d died in her sleep the night before.
I checked the voicemail that she’d left me. In it she’d asked me to come over and see a movie with her.
The guilt caved me in.
The following weeks and months were a blur. I was beside myself with grief, regret, and the illogical thinking that can come with loss: Maybe if I’d come over that night she wouldn’t have died. Maybe if I’d been around more, called more, or been a better daughter, maybe that would have changed things.
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4. Brother and Sister
Try to blame yourself, yourself only and not your relations, for all. Be certain that none can offend or hurt us without God’s permission; and whenever God permits it, it is always for our good. Punishments, tests, temptations, are all equally good for us.
You may ask your brother for help; but do it courteously, gently, without insistence. Besides this, pray, have faith, and abandon yourself-and the whole pattern of your life-to God. Pray fervently that peace may be restored in the family.
Although I have not the honor of knowing you personally, I have heard so much from your distressed townsfolk about the exemplary life your family led during your father’s lifetime and of the bitter enmity which now divides you, that I am writing to beg you to come to your senses.
Stop these endless quarrels and bitter insults! Do not provide the enemy with this delight: he enjoys nothing better than the distortion of family life, the mockery of it.
Remember that you are pupils of Christ; of Christ who teaches us to love not only our friends, but even our enemies, and to forgive all who trespass against us. But if you forgive not mere their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt. 6:15). What a frightful prospect!
And so, I beg of you, leaving all recriminations, make peace among you and strive for the greatest boon of all: strive for the inner peace.
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If you’re angry at somebody, if you’re bitter at somebody, prayer is the first step. Something mystical happens in prayer: the person you’re angry at, the person you’re annoyed at, when you start praying for them, God melts your heart. If you’re consistently praying for that person, when you approach that person, your demeanor is different, your mentality is different, you’re not looking at that person the same way.
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Indeed, what can God forgive this righteous’ Pharisee? Which sin can He forgive this person who is righteous in his own eyes, who did not mention a single sin before God so as to seek His forgiveness? If he were a sinner like the tax-collector, he would have asked for mercy like he did, but boastfully he said, “I am not… as this tax-collector”. He did not confess any sin that required forgiveness and did not seek forgiveness, thus alienating himself from forgiveness and from justification by the Blood of Christ.
Similarly, the Scriptures did not say that God justified the elder son who also did not find anything to blame himself for, but moreover was angry, casting blame on his brother and on his father, saying, “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends” (Lk. 15:29). Truly, what forgiveness can be given to the one who says, “I never transgressed your commandment”? This same son did not ask for forgiveness, because he did not see in his behaviour a single mistake that needed forgiveness! But his younger brother was justified because he reproached himself and said to his father, “I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Lk. 15:19).
—H.H. Pope Shenouda III, Before the Just Judge
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Becoming a parent has lifted a corner of my blindfold and let me glimpse what God’s love looks like. My son, Jaden, is incapable of doing anything—anything at all—that could make me stop loving him. There is nothing he could say or do, or forget to say or not do, that would ever diminish the love I have for him in my heart. He can’t out-sin my love, just as I cannot out-sin God’s love.
—Jena Morrow, Hollow: An Unpolished Tale
