Gratitude
“It
is not from ourselves that we learn to be better than we are.”
Wendell
Berry
My
internet has been down for three days. I have had several meltdowns about how
frustrating it is to be dependent on technology when you are abjectly ignorant
of everything about it. I have yelled hair-raising obscenities about a thousand times—I’m
sure my karmic debt now extends to several more lifetimes. Like I’ve said
before, my heart is Southern, but my mouth is Irish—and my daddy was a sailor,
so I know all the bad words.
Speaking
of which, I know that many of the bad parts of me—and there are many—came from
my parents, but also, some of the best parts. My folks didn’t have the psychological orientation of my generation or those younger than me. We grew up in the age of
Jung, Freud, Skinner, Maslow, and all the consciousness gurus. My parents grew up
during the Depression when life was especially hard. They learned early that if
you want something in your life, you work hard for it because nobody is going
to hand it to you. They were self-made in the most literal sense of the words.
Mother made our household almost self-sufficient—she did all the cooking,
cleaning, ironing, and she canned or froze all the food from our garden. She made
our school clothes, our prom dresses and even my sister’s wedding gown.
My dad
went to work at fifteen and was still working when he died at 75. There was
nothing soft in his life, so he was not soft. He had a good heart, and a harsh
mouth, and almost no tolerance for fools or whiners. I like to say he was a “take
no prisoners” kind of guy, but he also sponsored dozens of recovering
alcoholics who are still sober decades later.
We have
the luxury of free time—most of us don’t have to work as hard as our parents;
we have weekends and vacations and holidays—none of which existed for previous
generations. I believe we are given this opportunity so that we can grow our spiritual
and emotional intelligence. We have so many advantages in information, education, and simply in comprehension. The onus in on us to extend it to future
generations. We are now the ones who must pass on our little bit of wisdom not only to our children, but to a whole generation of grandchildren and
great-grandchildren. It’s our job to help them be better than we are.
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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