Things that go bump in the night...
Principal Vernon (Paul Gleason)talks in “The Breakfast Club” about “the thought that wakes me up in the middle of the night”; and that’s what I’d like to hear for this week’s blog. What scares you? I’m not talking about spiders or snakes or Democrats…I mean the real stuff. I’m just going to ask and see if anybody has the guts to answer. To be fair, I’ll start with mine.
Most everyone knows that my wife and I are expecting (if you didn’t know…surprise!). What many of you don’t know is that we are no longer having twins. At the doctor this week we found that the second baby did not develop. The first baby is growing like a champ, though, so we are still very excited and can’t wait to meet him or her. Everyone tells me I’ll fall in love with the baby as soon as it is born, and I’m so anxious to feel that, but therein also lies my fear…to love something so much when so much can still go wrong. I’m afraid that my body could not withstand having that much love torn out of me.
So there….I’ve taken the first step, so let’s see if you’ll follow. Post a comment here or on the MySpace page. If you’d rather keep it private, send me an email. Thanks for playing along.
Do good things with the week to come, learn something new and be safe.
4 comments:
When I lie down at night, my mind always finds it's way back to the same subject...children. I struggle to make peace with what I have versus what I think I need. I have the most perfect, precious child and I love her beyond comprehension...her existance is truly the substance of miracles and I would love more than anything to give her a baby brother or sister to share her childhood with...but fertility isn't exactly my forte and I'm just not convinced those kinds of miracles come along more than once in a lifetime...yet I feel I'm letting her down if I can't give this to her, even though it is in hands much bigger than mine. And although this longing for another child rocks me to my very core at times, I also know how blessed and fortunate I've been to experience the joy of motherhood this one, precious time...I'm just not settled with this yet, and its always at night when it calls me out.
Losing those I love.
Never having the opportunity to raise a child (whether from my body or via adoption).
Getting that opportunity and screwing it up royally.
Inadvertently causing anguish to those I love.
I will accept the Michal Berrier challenge and prove to both him and the rest of you reading this that, yes, I do in fact, have the guts to answer “what scares me.”
As an undergraduate in college, I majored in English literature and classical history. Of course, my family thought I was insane (“How is THAT going to make you any money?”), but the truth is, I was looking for something, and surely among the wisdom of the ancients I would find the answer.
As I studied, I found that I most closely identified with the ancient Greeks (the Romans, in my opinion, took themselves entirely too seriously) and I grew to love the poetry and philosophy of Sophocles, Plato, Euripides, and Socrates, just to name a few. I came to respect the Greeks; they were the greatest of thinkers (a quality which I feel is all too lacking in our present day society) who weren’t afraid to tackle the tough questions about the purpose of life and the irony of fate.
In speaking on the subject of the nature of man and fate, one philosopher caught my attention in particular, Heraclitus, when he said, “A man’s character is his fate: the tragedy is not what becomes of the man, but what the man becomes.” When I read that, it struck a chord within me that left me a little unsettled, so much so that it caused me to pause and offer a moment of inner reflection.
You might be wondering what all this has to do with me and my fear? Well, it’s simply this: I don’t fully know what character of man I am. And, to be honest with you, that scares me. You might be asking yourself, “Well, just spend a moment of self refection and you should be able to figure that out easily,” but it’s not that simple. See, as I write this in a cozy chair at my computer desk, it’s quite easy to say what I would or would not do if a choice was presented before me. But our real character never manifests itself until it is pressed, tested and under stress. Only when we find ourselves in a situation where our character is placed in the heat of the refiner’s fire do we truly see what rises to the surface.
I recently read in the news that John Edwards is facing, shall we call it, a “handful” of problems (I mean, anything more than a handful is just a waste, right?). After using his wife to promote an image of “honest family values” and parading her cancer around in an effort to secure the sympathetic vote for a chance at political power, we find, with no small degree of irony, that he was cheating on her the entire time. I can’t exactly fault him; I know what it’s like to covet the flesh—to feel lust and physical temptation. And yes, I, too, have felt the intoxicating effects that come from seeking power, prestige and the glory of men. Yet, my point is simply this: what causes one person to resist those temptations, to take the high road, shall we call it, and oppose the influence, while another, like John, simply gives in? I believe the answer is merely “character.” In the heat of the trial, when the burning in his pants became too much to handle, we find that, deep down inside, his character couldn’t withstand. The result is that, today, he faces indignity and dishonor from among his party, but more importantly, from his family. Ah, Heraclitus, you were right after all: a man’s character is his fate, indeed.
On the temple at Delphi, the words are inscribed: “Know thyself.” But how can you know who you really are? If I see a woman being raped at knife point down a dark alley, will my character allow me to intervene, even if it means taking a stab wound to the chest? Or do I just keep walking by, pretending I didn’t see anything? There are in infinite number of ethical scenarios that you could ask yourself, questions in which we all know the obvious answers, but in the end, you really can’t answer them, because you don’t really know what you would do unless you’re there. And that’s just it: it’s the uncertainty of my character that scares me. That, and the personal disgrace and shame I would feel if my character is found wanting. To quote the lyrics of Switchfoot, “where can you run to escape from yourself? Where ya gonna go? Where ya gonna go?”
I just recently watched Batman: The Dark Knight (great movie, by the way), and the movie scared me to death. Why? Because the entire movie deals with what my greatest fear is. Who are we really? What are we deep down inside? The hair on the back of my neck stood when I heard the Joker say, “Do you wanna know why I use a knife? Guns are too quick. You can't savor all the... little... emotions. You see, in their last moments, people show you who they really are. So in a way, I know your friends better than you ever did. Would you like to know which of them were cowards?”
The Joker is scary not because the Joker is insane; he’s scary because he’s right.
So ask yourself: are you the valiant Batman, whose character never breaks no matter the cost? Or are you I a Harvey Dent, a person seen as a hero, the White Knight, but in the end is broken by what he will experience. The scary part is, there is no way of knowing; only the test will tell.
Oh well, I’ve said enough; I’ll end on a note that has been somewhat pressing on my mind. In a few days, I will be pledging an oath (made none other by one of the most famous of ancient Greeks—you may be familiar with him, Michael) to “prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.” In pursuing this course, I will no doubt encounter some of the greatest tests and trials of my life. This only brings up my fear and leaves me to ask the question: “Is my character such that I can withstand? In the end, will I become the individual I am supposed to be?”
In true Greek fashion, the oath concludes by saying what the fates will dole out based on the integrity of my character. If my character is true, and “I fulfill this oath and do not violate it,” I will be “granted to enjoy life and art, being honored with fame among all men for all time to come.” Yet, if my deepest fears are realized and I discover that deep down, deep within myself, my character is fundamentally flawed, a flaw that causes me to “transgress and swear falsely,” the fates have no choice but to deliver what my character allows, which, I am sad to say, “the opposite of all this will be my lot.”
I've had that much love torn out of me three times already. My soul was sad and broken for a really long time . Then, after many fertility treatments that love was given back to me many times over. There's nothing sweeter than feeling the breath of your sleeping baby across your cheek. It's heavenly.
Post a Comment