A fine line

Wow two posts in one day. What can I say, that's the way I roll. I don't post for a while and then am extremely verbose and have to write to separate blogs in one day. Good times, don't you think?!?

I had a very interesting conversation a little while ago. I was talking with someone whom I am very close to. She made a comment that she never could understand how a mother could abuse her own child. Then she had a day where she had hit her limit and was able to see how a mother could hurt her own. Have no fear she put herself on time out and no child was injured. She is a great mom.

That brought up an experience I had a while back. A friend of mine works with teenage perpetrators. She has had me come in numerous times to talk with these kids based on some of my past experiences.

The first time I went to meet the teens I was set to hate them and see evil monsters. As I looked at these monsters I looked into the eyes of young scared teenagers. What the?!? I kept trying to hate them and I just couldn't in fact I felt love for these kids. How is that possible.

These kids shared their stories with me, both telling me what they had done and also telling what had been done to them. My heart broke. I left a bit perplexed and not knowing exactly what I was feeling.

I few weeks later my friend asked me to come back to talk to one particular boy during his therapy with her. I agreed and was again set to hate this kid. When I got there sitting across from me was a very handsome young man. When he looked in my eyes all I could see was pain and I really just wanted to hug him.

At the end of his session I did give him a hug and I started to cry. I guess I again only felt love for the kid. I in no way condoned the things he had done but he was and is still a child of God. That's when it hit me. We all walk that fine line. I don't care who you are. The thing is somewhere in my life I made different choices that sent me down a different path. The thing that stuck out to me was that I could have made choices that would have put me in the same place that this kid was.

I had always tried to make a villain out of people who do bad things. But guess what...Life is not black and white. There are definitely bad things that people do but really there is a whole lot of grey out there. This was a huge aha moment for me.

Humans

So I have been thinking about humans. I know i am one.....The thing is I don't understand why we as humans do what we do. We need other people in our lives. It has been proven that being alone is not good for our health. Heck I learned that when I watched Cipher in the snow in seminary. (I still hate that movie, so sad.)

Anyhow being that we need each other why are we the only creatures who can and do destroy each other. In the animal kingdom it is because they literally survive off of each other and yes that makes sense to me.

We are supposed to be these highly intelligent beings that can reason. We love, we feel, we can communicate, we don't have to feed off of each other....We can be vegetarians, vegans, freegans, whatever we want.

Yet we still make decisions that can and do destroy not only ourselves but those around us. I know it has to do with agency. On a side note I know that people say free agency. But I think we need to be careful with that phrase. We have agency that is given to us freely. It is not free though. To every choice we make there is a consequence be it good or bad.

My question to you is why do humans in general make choices that hurt and or sometimes even destroy others? I would like to know your thoughts on this.

Mom...Dad.....

SO I have no idea what my parents address is. Here is the odd thing--they haven't moved. No I haven't lost my mind although I feel like I have. I know cue the violins, sometimes life is hard.

I grew up on Olive Dr. My address was 5235 Olive drive. I love that address and miss it. The thing is there used to be this huge walnut orchard next to my house. Well the old man passed away and his kids sold the orchard to some housing development. If that wasn't sad enough, when the development was finished it changed my parents and grandparents address.

All I know is the street is now named Heritage Dr. I have no idea what the street number is. It is funny when people ask me where my parents live and I say I have no idea and no they haven't moved. People look at me like I am crazy and I find it mildly amusing.

So although I don't "know" where my parents live, I think I can still find them!!!