Honor Thy Parents (analyzing Top Ten Posts)

  That Thy Days May Be Long On This Earth...

22nd March 2024:

Googling the innocuous Sentence, "Is it wrong to refuse to listen to your parents?" reveals much about a dynamic shift of our culture, specifically in its reverence for authority.  The majority of the top 30 sites listed are anti-parental influence (or authority), "why you should not listen to your parents' advice," with a few outliers suggesting that even as children, say, under age 12. The fact that they occupy the first thirty positions of Google search suggests that these are the more satisfying responses to this biblical issue of honoring one's parents in the narrower realm of merely listening to them. 

    But, what does it mean to "listen to your parents?"  Listening does not necessarily entail any kind of implicit command to obey them.  If you are above the age of 12, I would not think or suggest that you should feel God-bound to obey every utterance of your parents, or even any, unless they are saying something that could be from any brother in Christ, a clear echo of some Scriptural injunction.    

     Rather, they seem to share a common zeitgeist theme, "Do not trust your parents or anyone in authority.  (reminiscent of the theme of the book of Judges, "And every man did what was right in his own eyes.") 

     It is only the 

Site A:  Why You need to Stop Listening to Your Parents:  Kevin goes to Hong Kong, in defiance of his parents. He has East Asian parents and so it seems that he may labor under a strong recent cultural heritage of heavy filial duty expectations, even when growing up in the United States, which verily exalts the self, teaching and celebrating a radical ethic of individualism (which we do not find in the Bible, a text which consistently teaches a perfect need to humble the self).

From Kevin's blog, when his father opposes him going for a 4-month work internship at Hong Kong, his knee-jerk response lacks self-reflection and draws exclusively upon his U.S. cultural ethical framework to arrive at his liberating conclusion when he summarily dismisses from the set of "people who mattered" the one parent who opposed his internship abroad, his father:  

Text Key: 

A. Quotes From Kevin's Encouraging, Well-Intentioned Blog: 

B. Biblical Deviations in Kevin's Reasoning in Red:

I FIRED MY DAD THAT DAY.  

But, God Is Not Mocked. 

Rather, God makes no mistake when He assigns a son to a father and a mother. God's character includes all power and perfect goodness. God has a desire for all His human creatures to flourish, even those whom He foreknows to be ones who will never submit to His will.  Therefore, God gives each new baby the very best set of parents for that child.  We cannot read the Bible and conclude otherwise. So write that you "fired your Dad," is to behave within the  radical imagination that you have the authority to usurp the authority of the very one who created you.  This is nothing but the Book of Judges revisited.    

Looking back, my dad wasn’t a bad person; he was doing what he thought was best for me. I’m grateful for my parents getting me to where I am today.  
     "Maybe I was a “bad” Asian son for speaking up, but I knew this was the right decision. My friends and my mom supported me. The people supporting me were the people that mattered."  

If your parents disagree with you, realize 3 things…

Your parents mean well.  Is this patronizing, a smoke-and-mirrors means of self-delusion, when one does not seriously wish to consider in the light of Scripture his assessments of his familial relationships? 

There comes a time when only you know what’s best for yourself. 

You don’t need their support

Instead take responsibility and don’t half ass your own dreams, goals, and desires. Reparent yourself.  his Kevin here 

The New Kid On The Block (brought to you by PostModernism): 

  The contemporary cultural climate of society in the United States has been steadily shifting away from respect for authority and instead, an increasingly radical deference to individual determinations on how much to recognize authorities in every sphere, but particularly in the spheres of authority established within the Bible:  A. God's authority, B. the authority of the church leadership, C. The headship of a Man over his wife, D. The Father as head of the family, D. Civil and social authorities. 

   In the last few decades, we have created a funny authority in the United States' experiment in radical individualism: The authority of scholarly experts recognized by society, which suffuses law, and the selection process for hiring people in prominent positions of government, larger corporations, and other gate-keeping functions. 

   However, this authority of experts has recently lost ground to a new leadership, a populist mass usurpation based upon the vague, amorphous & inchoate ideologies which are  scarcely defined, or redefined: 

  a. diversity

  b. equity

  c.  inclusion

  d. social justice (radically redefined to mean its opposite vis-a-vis the Bible and tradition of Western Culture),

  e. anti-racisim (with micro-aggressions, required sworn adherence to honor codes for medical schools (c.f. WSJ article, "Ban DEI Quackery in Medical Schools," 19 March 2024, page A15, by Greg Murphy and Stanley Goldfarb.  

“Envy was once considered to be one of the seven deadly sins before it became one of the most admired virtues under its new name, 'social justice'.”
― Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice

“In its pursuit of justice for a segment of society, in disregard of the consequences for society as a whole, what is called “social justice” might more accurately be called anti-social justice, since what consistently gets ignored or dismissed are precisely the costs to society.”
― Thomas Sowell, The Quest for Cosmic Justice

Websites Attempting a biblical, Comprehensive Exposition or Approach: 

A. How To Honor Your Parents As Adults And Why You Should.  By Becky Sweat March 29, 2023

  https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/blogs/how-to-honor-your-parents-as-adults-and-why-you-should

B. Honor Your Father and Mother ... As An Adult?  By John Whittaker, JohnWhittaker.net 

  https://renew.org/honor-your-father-and-motheras-an-adult/

C. 8 Ways Adult Children Can Still Honor Their Father and Mother

  https://www.crosswalk.com/family/parenting/grandparenting/ways-adult-children-can-still-honor-their-father-and-mother.html

Summit Counseling FAQ’s (6 of 9): How Do I Know If My Life Struggle Merits Counseling?
   https://bradhambrick.com/faq6/ 

Honor Your Father and Mother

Cheap Man Farewell

21 March 2024

 Why am I so cheap?  I just now discovered an abiding pleasure, a simple delight, one so "singular-faceted" that I cannot imagine losing.  I am a sitting at my small, make-shift desk as a math sub at the local high school.  Students and I are working "together," each online, albeit inhaling the same air in the same classroom, working each man to himself on his government issued computer, on the same Delta Math exercises.  

I have a student account and the inimitable, distinctive joy of doing the same work as my students while they work quietly at their desks, in soft, relaxed communal conversation, most felicitous and convivial.

I couldn't tell you whether it was my twentieth or my thirty-first sip, but at one point when I was more focused on math, I tasted my French Vanilla decaf coffee and it dawned upon me that I am a devotee, something I could not allow myself over the past few decades to ever admit to myself. That means that I must needs cease my sporadic, resurfacing efforts to quit decaf coffee entirely, in honor of my wife's declarations to the effect that even decaf coffee has a significant percentage of caffeine and that the consumption of coffee disturbs one's digestive system, fomenting acid in excess of that which he likely needs for comfortable, effective digestion.  

Indeed, in loving my wife, I come to adopt her tastes, her preferences, and sally forth in the fuller mysteries of love even unto the adoption of her analytical methods, knowledge, and pragmatic value judgments. These parameters of pragmatic, quotidian life cannot but suffuse my being and permeate my physio-chemical body to every corner and crevice, percolating in vibrant joy there, heralding and proclaiming my capture in the love of my wife. 

I am reminded of a point of humor from the lips of a dear friend from my bohemian early-mid life epoch:  "Ordering decaf coffee in a true coffee spot near a large university, open late at night, a place committed to serving students and writers who stay up all hours is like going into a Western bar 150 years ago and ordering milk. 'Bartender! One milk please.' Everyone in the bar will turn to stare at you and you will be able to hear a pin drop.  If there is a bully in the saloon, he may well rise from his cards and saunter over to confront you." So when we drink decaf, we have to accept that there will always be some ineluctable effete factor that you will need to work into your self-conception, if only to iron out any potential disturbances, inequalities, or visible wrinkles in your working persona. 

   

But now with this crossroads swept by the wind at my back, I move ahead with my eyes on a new horizon, one of a more relaxed allotment for coffee on my the ledger of my budget.  Lowe's Foods has a special now, of 10 oz decaf coffee packages in various flavors at a savory Buy One Get One free discount that has tempted me to buy all they have.  However, with my wife's resounding admonition collected into a bugabear within my psyche, I could not heretofore ever have entertained such a notion with any sincerity.  No more.  This afternoon, I plan to drive to Lowe's Foods right after completion of my substitute duties and gather into my basket every decaf package from that special sale shelf. 

   I will even purchase all their whole bean packages and freeze them for long term keep.  And no more, the LORD willing, merely exist as a man so cheap.  

Sex Abuse and Prevention

                     16 February 2024  

Sex Abuse and Prevention is the title of a course now required for every degree-seeking student in the local seminary where my family has over the years studied various courses, such as biblical languages, philosophy, math, music, and theology. Though I am the sole degree-seeking student in our family, already two of my sons have taken an interest in the class videos for this course, watching them with me.  

    I am pleased that they do this. They need to know all they can about this in order to be more attuned and vigilant overseers, watching over the flock of their families and as well, helping to guard the church and other social situations.  Men are made to watch out for wolves, and sex abusers are wolves. 

    This is a course of greater social relevance and importance currently than perhaps at any time previously. Our culture has become inured to reports of widespread sex abuse.  We have assumed patterned responses to this social damage, but without relevant education regarding the severity and nature of it. So from a learning perspective, we have been fossilizing our errors in understanding this social phenomenon. 

    When we discount the depth of the damage, we have become, without realizing it, a force that can present greater psychological hurdles and difficulties for a victim in the event of the disclosure of abuse in our church, our school, or any social group where we are members. If a child begins intimations suggesting the need for a disclosure of abuse, we can too easily respond in a way that greatly minimizes the severity, mostly because of our ignorance.  

     Therefore, we need to not merely take this course, watching all the videos and doing all the reading.  Rather, we need to view the videos again and again, maybe reviewing at six-months intervals, to get the material ingrained within our minds.  We have to socially re-engineer ourselves in order to be ready to respond to the most subtle overtures towards an eventual disclosure from an abused child or youth... lest we "drop the ball," and cause harm before we even realize what was happening, that a child sought our trust and quickly decided that we were not safe to engage on that topic.  

   

     In his introductory video for this course, our seminary leader said that the biggest reason cases of sexual abuse have become so much more numerous over the past few decades is because our U.S. culture has given greater and greater legal freedom to the production, distribution, and consumption of pornography. I believe he has a strong point. If it has not become socially acceptable to consume pornography, I know that some believers will claim that it is virtually ubiquitous and almost irresistible.  Just last night at a multi-cultural dinner with a large church in this area, I sat with a 55-year-old man, a strong believer, who said to me and my sons, "every man struggles with pornography."  

    My wife notes that earlier generations had "dirty magazines," but did not have fingertip cellphone access to photos and videos of people in compromising situations, engaged in ungodly physical relations. This, she adds, is highly addictive to the brain.  She studies the effects of addition on the brain with Neil Postman's books. There, we learn that the brain scan of a person addicted to anything, even social media (which many assume to be relatively benign as an addiction), appear indistinguishable from the brain scans of a heavy drug user, with portions of the brain shut down. 

     One speaker in our course says that the brains of a person sexually abused as a child have whole areas shut down, just like you see in stroke victims.  This is profoundly disturbing when you think that these people, made in God's image, are just starting out in life.  They didn't get a chance to form a healthy experience of their emotions before their brains were damaged.  They do not know how to interpret their environments, and feel unsafe in situations which have any link to remind them of situations and circumstances where they were abused.  

      

 

    And it is a subject commonly misunderstood, even by social leaders in positions where it is of great importance that they have a solid understanding of the relevant research. 

Yellow Frisbee

Dear Ashley,                                                23 January 2024

      I was walking outside down from Carson Hall (formerly Patterson  Hall), and I saw a man throwing frisbees around the disc golf course.  He was down a hill from me so as I went in his direction, I saw only the frisbee at first.  

      And I didn't right away recognize what it was.  But it floated beautifully in the air.  It was yellow.  After a second or two, I descended from my reverie and realized somebody had tossed a frisbee.  

      Then, I saw the person as my line of vision sufficiently crested the hill. He was alone, so I realized that he must have been practicing, not playing against a partner. 

       At once, I realized that is not for me. I had vivid inner clarity on this, a clarity I do not think I have had before.  I am changed, a different sort of person from when I roamed the fields and woods in my youth. 

      So, I now have no interest in that sort of thing.  Maybe I used to. But something rich inside of me suggested that I never truly was. 

     Indeed, it was a bit of a puzzle, at once a curiosity and conundrum. I could not identify with the "me" that had done things like that. I remember the fact that I did, and even did so with enthusiasm, enjoying the company I was with. But the competitive aspect was something at heart, I preferred not to be part of.

    The reason for this disconnect, I think now, was that a dominant reason (unknown to me then) that I worked to become skilled at competitive sports was so that others might like me, or enjoy being with me, and I could ostensibly get married.  This is craven if it is the sole operating principle ... which of course it wasn't. I had reasonably healthy relationships with friends in my school years.  

     Still, in retrospect, I can easily see that it was too much of a dominant motive for me.  I should have spent more times reading books and preparing for my future as a teacher.  I know this because I have learned more about my true feelings, what I truly enjoy, and these things glorify God all the more.  

     I don't have anything against people competing in sports, games and other activities; I think it is beautiful when people peacefully play things together, and especially when they can get outside and walk around.  

      I believe that I am at heart drawn far more deeply to other things. I enjoy reading and writing.  And I like small conversations with one or two, maybe three people, like at a coffee shop or some comfortable private place.  I enjoy quietly gazing upon the faces of loved ones while listening to them talk with each other. (I did this while lying on the floor by the fireplace at Lambton a couple of weeks ago, when Scott came over to run an rpg game with Jordan, Christopher, and David.  Just listening watching them from a bit of a distance was one of the most beautiful and soothing experiences of my life, Ashley.) 

     I feel a deeper comfort when I do not feel pressure to speak much.  This is the height of intimacy for me, and I experienced it some in my youth, but only lately, since marriage, in watching my kids, have I been freer to commune this way.  

     Nathaniel was depressed after his psychosis, and I believe I tried too hard to make friends who could perhaps be a good influence on him.  In that period, the few years after Nathaniel's psychosis, I wish I had not worked to make friends with people, but trusted God to just let it happen ... and in the process relaxed and enjoyed my loved ones all the more. Paul Butler, Delia, and Ron Gilliam used to wear me out, listening to stuff I didn't agree with. Bobby was different; he truly loves us and would stop whenever I interrupted, saying I needed to go or get to bed.    

    I now do not believe God ever called me to be a competitive runner, though I fooled myself into taking my giftedness as a runner as a calling. Placing a career focus on this gift was an aberration on my part, from God's plan for me to become a teacher. I truly wish I had spent less focus on running as a career and more quickly gotten through the college certification required for teaching in North Carolina.  That was a colossal and sad mistake in my life. 

    But, God always cares for us.  He merely wished to use my love of running as a means of me spending time with him alone, up on the trails, not for me to dream about setting world records and being able to earn enough money that I didn't have to get another job, didn't have to study education and become a teacher.  

    We just have to recognize that God always cares for us through thick and thin, and therein work with Him to get the best sanctification and set back on a better career path.  I had to get that over and over.  I was not walking in obedience with Him whenever I was not studying education.

    The education courses I took at UNC were wonderful, and I got a lot of ed courses at App State, but I was not pursuing an education major at App State, rather business studies, music, psychology, ESL, alternative technology, English, and French. The five graduate level English courses there at App State were good, though, and helped me immensely with my ESL teaching later in life.  

     It is difficult to have good memory and you can overdo self-criticism (Christ paid the price for our sins and only the Devil wants you to "beat yourself up about past sins"), but a believer needs to examine his life in retrospect and learn from mistakes, particularly when he has children, for they inherit similar tendencies, genetically and psychologically, from having modeled on their parents.   

  

    I spent 18 years training for a career in middle distance running, and it had a big influence on my life, but not a healthy influence by and large.  Or, the mere fact that I can see clearly now that God did not call me to that -- and I pursued it anyway -- which did not work well for me. 

    Of the time I spent living and training in the North Carolina mountains, there were beautiful experiences of me on the long, gentle training runs in the woods around Moses Cone Park, me alone with God for a couple of hours each morning.  

    And the friendships I made were in some ways golden.  But, these were the friends who were writers.  I didn't make friends with athletes, I think instinctively because I didn't want to be competitive in training. 

   I Love You, Miss Charlotte.  Sleep well and have a good day.

Our Fire Video:  https://www.wral.com/video/news/video/18162267/

  

Love, Pappa