Wednesday, August 23, 2006
Screening
I remember when Hollie was pregnant with the girls, we had the option of a "triple screen" to see if the chromosomes were ok on the babies. This procedure carries a very small risk, and it allows the parents to screen for genetic deficiencies. Carrying out the procedure didn't make much sense to us. It was kind of too late to do anything about it. Only later did we realize that one could abort the kids whose chromosomes were deficient.
Here is a picture of kids with chromosomal deficiencies. I don't know if their parents had access to triple screens. I know that these kids have really hard lives, and their parents bear an awful strain trying to take care of them with no governmental--and very little social--support. The care workers get stressed and burnt out, too.
But I learned a lot from them about how I see myself in only my few hours with them. (I'm sure Hollie can vouch that she experienced something similar.) They made me nervous at first. You can't find them on the "map" of other such acquaintances you know. They might shy away from you, yell, hug, kiss, or ignore you. Whatever they do, though, is from the heart. Fortunately for me, they came right up to me because they loved Hollie so much, so I was already their brother.
I read a priest's story about a woman with Down's syndrome in his parish. (From Fr John Breck's _Sacred Gift of Life_) Every Good Friday she wept uncontrollably at the tomb of Christ. She experienced his death without any of the distance or explanations that I usually think about. She really loves Christ.
They made me ask myself, why don't I feel like that? Something keeps out extreme emotions. I think it's fear--maybe of rejection or judgment--but these people probably have more to worry about than I do. But people don't reject them at the Emmaus Center. The sincerity that they show catches people off guard, but people love and accept their sincerity.
So what am I afraid of? Why screen out the feelings that might get judged or mistreated? How do I know they will be received?
Comments:
<< Home
I don't think it'd be off-base to say that we screen these in order to be successful, in any popularly respectable sense of the word. In their simple honesty, these people that you're discussing, they engage in reality in some ways much more so than the average person... it's just that that very engagement with reality is taboo to many of us much of the time.
# posted by 
: 10:45 PM
: 10:45 PM
Why do we censor our emotional expression? Good question. And I'm sure it was, at least partially, rhetorical, but when you ask, some of us nutjobs out here in the aether might just answer. Ahem.
All issues of appropriateness aside (I think I just made that word up. But you know what I mean.), there's still a social/societal opinion in this country that emotion = weakness, and/or an un-real basis for our actions. Or at least an inferior basis for them. We talk a lot about self-control and regulating our emotional selves, blah blah blah.
But how authentic is it to live a life where your emotion isn't part of us; isn't a gift to our existence just as much as breathing or a heartbeat or the ability to think might be? Sure, the "negative emotions" -- the anger and the fear and the sadness -- aren't as pretty to look at as the joy and the peace and the love might be. (And even those are considered weak, if expressed to the wrong people or in a way that others feel uncomfortable with.)
And actually, that parenthetical is exactly what the problem is: others finding discomfort in YOUR authentic expressions of what you feel (and a big part of who you are, in the universal sense). I'd think that's largely because they aren't comfortable with their OWN emotional selves.
So then the big problem inherent is getting to a place where you're connected enough to what you're feeling to be able to express that kind of unrestrained emotion in a way that's authentic to who you are, the same as those you've talked about in this entry, while still maintaining a bit of discernment about the appropriateness of the situation you're in. (Spontaneous whoops of joy in the middle of a crowded movie theater can infringe on the rights of those around you and so forth...of course.) And getting to that point means circumventing the social coding (I hate to even say it, but ESPECIALLY for men, who still have that burden of appearing manly and all that happy gender role crud...) and just being yourself, knowing that all the while, there will be some that won't get it. Who won't get *you*.
And knowing, also, that if they don't, it's not your problem. You're put on this earth to live a full, rich, emotionally-deep life in *all* aspects. To be able to look God in the eye at the end of all this and say, "Wow. That was great. Thanks." I just can't see that being easy when you're societally constrained to live a whole segment of your life under wraps, y'know?
Live, Rich. Feel it all. Cry, laugh, and hold the people you love as tight as you can while you can.
That's what this crazy ride is all about.
Post a Comment
All issues of appropriateness aside (I think I just made that word up. But you know what I mean.), there's still a social/societal opinion in this country that emotion = weakness, and/or an un-real basis for our actions. Or at least an inferior basis for them. We talk a lot about self-control and regulating our emotional selves, blah blah blah.
But how authentic is it to live a life where your emotion isn't part of us; isn't a gift to our existence just as much as breathing or a heartbeat or the ability to think might be? Sure, the "negative emotions" -- the anger and the fear and the sadness -- aren't as pretty to look at as the joy and the peace and the love might be. (And even those are considered weak, if expressed to the wrong people or in a way that others feel uncomfortable with.)
And actually, that parenthetical is exactly what the problem is: others finding discomfort in YOUR authentic expressions of what you feel (and a big part of who you are, in the universal sense). I'd think that's largely because they aren't comfortable with their OWN emotional selves.
So then the big problem inherent is getting to a place where you're connected enough to what you're feeling to be able to express that kind of unrestrained emotion in a way that's authentic to who you are, the same as those you've talked about in this entry, while still maintaining a bit of discernment about the appropriateness of the situation you're in. (Spontaneous whoops of joy in the middle of a crowded movie theater can infringe on the rights of those around you and so forth...of course.) And getting to that point means circumventing the social coding (I hate to even say it, but ESPECIALLY for men, who still have that burden of appearing manly and all that happy gender role crud...) and just being yourself, knowing that all the while, there will be some that won't get it. Who won't get *you*.
And knowing, also, that if they don't, it's not your problem. You're put on this earth to live a full, rich, emotionally-deep life in *all* aspects. To be able to look God in the eye at the end of all this and say, "Wow. That was great. Thanks." I just can't see that being easy when you're societally constrained to live a whole segment of your life under wraps, y'know?
Live, Rich. Feel it all. Cry, laugh, and hold the people you love as tight as you can while you can.
That's what this crazy ride is all about.
<< Home
