Skip to main content

Mirrors

When you've worked too much, and have done so for a long time, things get pretty boring, and so-- you can expect-- do you. It's in these times that leaving for a while with some friends helps you wake up a little. I did that today, and more than simply enjoy their company, I've found myself restored in a sense.

Let me explain. I've found, pretty consistently, that friends do more than share your interests. They play a crucial role in reflecting your identity back to you. That is, you're reminded of who you are by the simple fact that you've chosen them as friends. You look at their values and compare them to your own, and you find that they paint a pretty clear picture of the things you care about. Even more important, if they're good friends and if you've known them long enough, they also validate you on a level that few others can. You're reminded that you're okay because they respond to the paths you intentionally trudge or sprint through in life-- the doldrums and the heights-- with acceptance. A good friend knows you well and still thinks you're not such a bad guy. It's in those moments when you feel somewhat naked in front of the people you trust-- when your faults lay at your and their feet, that you need more than ever not to feel alone.

I've had moments like these, and it has been in the times when I've felt this vulnerability that I've learned that reflections of identity aren't just meant to reveal your own values. They're intended also, in the scope of Christian faith, to reflect the personal parentage of a loving Father. Those moments of trust in others reflect back to you not yourself alone, but the change that he has produced in the people you care about and, ultimately, the love of God himself. Mirrors like these-- reminders of who you are and who God is-- can't be formed from intellectual clay. They must be shaped, quickly or slowly, through those self-same moments of vulnerability when you trust-- really trust-- that God is who he says he is. If you've chosen wisely, friends become a reminder of that for you, a validation that you're okay, that you're not such a bad guy. I only hope that I can trust like this more often, not only with my faults, but with my successes and my desires as well. When I don't, hopefully I remember to turn around again and look where I looked before: in the mirror.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Persuasion

At different points in history, governments have devoted men, women, and resources to try to persuade others to their side. One significant example of this occurred in Germany under Adolf Hitler. Hitler knew how important it was to make sure the German people were on his side as leader of the country. One way he did this was by controlling what people heard. Specifically, near the beginning of World War II, Hitler made it a crime for anyone in Germany to listen to foreign radio broadcasts. These were called the “extraordinary radio measures.” He did this to ensure that Germans weren’t being persuaded by enemy countries to question their loyalty to Hitler. He knew that a German listening to a radio broadcast from Britain might persuade that German to believe that Great Britain was the good guy and Hitler the bad guy. This was so important, in fact, that two people in Germany were actually executed because they had either listened to or planned to listen to a foreign radio broadcast (one...
Post a Comment
Read more

Comparison

Psychologists and others have studied ways in which we compare ourselves to each other. One man named Leon Festinger argued that we tend to compare ourselves to other people when we don’t know how good or bad we are at something (like football or playing the guitar). One way we do this is when we compare ourselves to those who are not as good as we are, to protect our self-esteem (called “downward social comparison;” example: we’re playing basketball and miss most of our shots, but we feel okay because a teammate wasn’t even given the ball). Another comparison we make is when we compare ourselves to others who are doing much better than we are (called “upward social comparison”). When we see others who appear to be doing better than we are, we can respond by trying to improve ourselves, or by trying to protect ourselves by telling ourselves it’s not that important. There was a study published in 1953 by Solomon Asch, who asked students to take part in a “vision test.” The par...
Post a Comment
Read more

Thoughts on Academic Purpose

If I could tell my students how to choose a path of employment, I would emphasize that no effective writer, historian, athlete, musician, or scientist became such without dedicating themselves to some goal. For that to have taken place, however, the respective expert must have had a firm idea about why they were doing what they were doing. In other words, they must have had purpose. Karl Marx spent countless hours in English libraries, I would share, to understand the functioning of society in order to improve it; while Isaac Newton often went without food to gain a firmer grasp of the science of motion, and eventually revised that science. They did this because they had a clear purpose, a real reason for doing what they were doing that would affect others around them. I would communicate that whatever passion students tap into, it should be embarked upon with that kind of clear goal in mind. While they may not know which passions they have yet, I would emphasize that school is a time ...
Post a Comment
Read more