#shoulds

[momentsbeforemass]

What you have

(for someone who’s running on empty)

Today’s Gospel is disturbing.

When Jesus says, “whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

It comes across as harsh. And it is. For a reason.

To break us out of our complacency. To get us – just for a moment – to actually think about what we’re doing. And how we do it.

Because all of us have our priorities, the relationships that come first for us. Ones that weigh on us if we neglect them. Our “shoulds.”

Even when our priorities are healthy – we’ve gotten rid of the negative and the toxic, and we’re focused on good and healthy relationships – there’s still a limit to what we can do. Because you and I can only give to them what we have.

And if all we have to give is our own strength, our compassion, our patience, our forgiveness, our love? At some point, it’s going to run out. Because you and I only have so much. And we can only give what we have.

God knows this about us (He is God, after all). God knows us better than we know ourselves.

And God knows that in order to be able to give what needs to be given, to keep those relationships healthy (for us and for them), we need more. More strength, compassion, patience, forgiveness – more love than we have to give.

Which is why He’s telling us to get our priorities right. Not because there’s anything wrong with loving any of those people. But because God wants those relationships, and all the relationships that are important to us, to be grounded in an unending source of strength and compassion, of patience and forgiveness – the unending love of God.

For the relationships that are important to us to be at their happiest, their healthiest, their holiest? We need to bring our best to them.

And you and I are at our absolute best when what we bring, when what we are first filled with, is the unending love of God.

Because you can only give what you have.

Today’s Readings

[sunfoxfic]

I'm gonna try to go offline for a few days just because I'm straight up not vibing and I think I need a break from social media. Once I come back, I'm really gonna put effort into not engaging with salt content at all. All this being said, I have a final remark:

I do not care what you think the characters should do to "solve" their problems, and if you're focusing on how their issues could be solved, I really implore you to think on that. Because 1) we don't know that there wouldn't be repercussions to your quick fixes if the characters actually did it in canon, and 2) even if your fixes will work, it's redundant.

If these characters were not doing what they do, they wouldn't be the same characters. Or, maybe better put -- anything other than what's happening would be out of character for the main cast. If Marinette were to see that Chat Noir is hurting more than he lets on, if Adrien were to admit to Ladybug that he needs more than he's getting -- these actions are born of their flaws, but their flaws are fundamental to who they are. It feels like some people are trying to gentrify them, or to prove that the characters are being irrational and dumb, when that's beside the point. These characters are being human, and I really want to know, genuinely give me an answer if you can: What does it matter how they could solve their problems? What are you proving?

Because a lot of people will claim "oh, I'm just being critical of a character, I'm not salting," but then those "criticisms" are ultimately attacking fundamental parts of who that character is. If what you say is that a character "should" do something, but what you mean is that a character "should" be a different way, then that counts as salt in my book.

[serenityquest]

[solis-salutis]

I’ve seen women insist on cleaning everything in the house before they could sit down to write… and you know it’s a funny thing about housecleaning… it never comes to an end. Perfect way to stop a woman. A woman must be careful to not allow over-responsibility (or over-respectabilty) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she “should” be doing. Art is not meant to be created in stolen moments only.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés

[lariita019]

[evolutioncounseling]

We live by all these unspoken rules and values, telling ourselves what we should and shouldn’t do without even really considering where these ideas came from. If they were universally valid then everyone would think, talk, and act the same way but obviously they don’t. It’s bad enough to have to deal with the external authority figures throwing their weight around, trying to tell us what we can and can’t do, but there is a far more demanding authority figure telling you what to do 24/7 . You have an internal police officer constantly telling you what to do and he’s a dick. It’s challenging to make the unconscious conscious, to pin down your ephemeral, free floating thoughts about what constitutes appropriate behavior, so a really good place to start is to stop in your tracks and analyze what’s going on every time you say to yourself “I should be or I should do so and so.” The word should implies an inflexible demand; it doesn’t leave room for various ways of seeing an issue, acting as a cruel taskmaster that forces you towards a way of being even when it’s not in your best interests, impeding your growth and well-being. The thing is, most people take their own subjective shoulds as objective reality, in no need of critical analysis, just as the way things are. But everyone has a different set of shoulds and what you feel compelled to do is probably quite different from what I feel compelled to do. Just by becoming aware of your own shoulds, you start to become more aware of your internal police officer, that internal authority constantly dictating to you what’s okay to think and do and what’s not okay to think and do. I caught myself in the act recently. The weather has been really nice in Seattle and I was lounging around inside, when I thought to myself, almost with a sinking feeling, “I should really be outside right now.” Says who? Where is it written that I have to be outside every time the weather is nice? I didn’t feel like going outside, I was comfortable indoors reading a book, and I knew in this particular case getting out there would have been a pain in the ass and interrupted an activity I was already enjoying. So I squashed the idea and kept reading. Sure enough, later on in the day I had a true desire to go hit up the park, and I went outside to enjoy the sunshine without feeling compelled to be there at all. The example above might sound rather insignificant but the point is that you can’t be happy when you are constantly being dragged around, forced to do, think, and feel things based on nothing except your internal police officer telling you these thoughts, feelings and behaviors are appropriate. If you start by questioning all your shoulds you’ll be well on your way to critically analyzing where your beliefs about the way you have to be in the world come from, and whether they really fit the way you want to live your life.

[ampersandthenwhat]

Maybe I kissed you for longer than I should have

but I’ve been trying to delete the “should”s from my mouth these days the way I tried to delete you from me and damn well didn’t. I know I am a shaky house for at least half of every month. I know we didn’t have the strongest foundation and as you readied yourself for our repairs I stopped building alongside you (more than once). I know I ran when you tried to reach and left when you tried to love and that’s the stuff I’m working on. I hope you've got a list, too.

this, this is your poem about baggage claim.