Disappointment: Being Wronged or Being Wrong

Posted on by bcp1662

What follows may see too simple. All I can say is that this has worked amazingly well for me, and on that basis I commend it for your consideration.

Disappointment comes when our positive expectations are not met. [When our negative expectations are not met, we call that relief.]

Our expectations exist on spectrum of certainty, comparable to betting odds.

We visualize our expectations on a spectrum from vivid to vague.

I call these visualizations of what we hope for, “pretty pictures”.

When reality does not match our “pretty picture” we instinctively blame reality. Our fast brain tells us that it should have matched, that we have been wronged, that we have a right to be disappointed.

It is easy to find others who agree.

Our slower and wiser prefrontal cortex knows that reality “is what it is” and that we were the ones who created the pretty picture.

Here is the maxim: Disappointment just means we got it wrong.

Being wrong beats being wronged every time, at least for me.

It’s one thing to be disappointed (wrong) about the weather when you planned a picnic, quite another to be disappointed (wrong) about a person you hoped would match our expectation.

We know it’s silly to be mad at the weather, but with people it feels different. They could (and therefore should) have behaved otherwise! Why didn’t they?! What’s wrong with them?!

Have you ever been blamed for failing to match someone’s pretty picture of you? It feels unfair. The shoulds and oughts begin to fly.

Do we dare to say calmly, “I guess you were wrong about me?”

Or, when the shoe is on the other foot, can we say, “I guess I was wrong about you?”

Can we own our expectations?

And can we see the expectations of others for what they are–their expectations. Theirs.

Food for further thought: What about when we disappoint ourselves? Some of us would rather take an internal (and often eternal) beating than to say, “I guess I was wrong about me. “

Predicting the Future

Posted on by bcp1662

Consider how much of our conversation these days involves confidence that we can predict the future. This was particularly manifest in the run up to the election. “Can’t you see that if X is elected Y will happen?!”

Much of social media and YouTube content expresses certainty that we know what’s coming. Warnings of rising seas, rising taxes, collapse of central banks and the stock market, the next pandemic, inflation, the next golden age, etc. — all in the future.

We all have an “algorithm,” a worldview, a frame, a paradigm, a way of sorting data to come to conclusions. Its job is to 1) filter and make sense of everything we encounter, and 2) provide a basis for decision-making and action. Since we decide with a desired future in mind, the test of a sound paradigm is its ability to predict the future well enough.

I recently hired a person to install a new furnace. I visualized having heat again in 2 days and saving lots of money by not using one of the bigger companies that have huge overhead. That future did not materialize.

What went wrong, why didn’t I get the future I saw so clearly in my imagination? How could I have been so stupid, naive, etc? Do I need to tweak my paradigm? Was this a “glitch or a feature,” as they say?

Burns’ wonderful poem “To a Mouse” ends with this philosophical conclusion: “…the best laid plans of mice and men go oft awry.” [English translation]. It’s basically a shrug. “That’s life”. “You do your best and make your plans, but you can’t be expected to get it right all the time.”

Is it better just not to plan at all? Live in the moment? Take it as it comes? But isn’t that too a plan of sorts based on a vision of the future? “I prefer a future in which I do not make specific plans, I go with the flow and take what comes. After all, whadayagonna do?!”

One of the benefits of not planning or imagining a desired future is that you are never wrong. For some people that is very important.

I used to have more confidence in my paradigm than I do now. I’ve been tinkering with it for over 60 years. It served me well in the small to medium things of life, but it failed me monumentally in the thing that was most important to me, what I wanted most of all, and never doubted I would surely get. I’m still in recovery from that and probably will be for the rest of my life. Perhaps that’s the purpose of life

Some wise men, like Rene Girard, think that such a paradigm failure is essential to our salvation. It does not guarantee we will be saved — one can always rationalize, blame others, “curse God and die”, collapse into self-pity and passivity — but at least these total system failures create the possibility for salvation. Before I was afflicted, I went astray. Ps 119:67

As the good book almost says, “How hard it is for a man whose paradigm has never failed to enter the Kingdom of God.”

The future? Well, I don’t know a lot more than I do, and the former is more important. I’m learning to listen more and to say with increasing peace, “… but of course I could be wrong.”

Is that a lack of faith? I don’t think so. It’s a different kind of faith.

What if?

Posted on by bcp1662

After watching a number of clips from a recent popular TV series on YouTube I realized that almost every one depicted a violation of at least one of the Ten Commandments.

Murder was a big one, of course. Who doesn’t enjoy a good crime drama? Gotta kick things off with a murder.

Adultery? Yes.

Theft? Aren’t those guys clever! Hope they get away with it, don’t you?

Lying? Plenty.

Taking the Lord’s name in vain? Almost continuous.

Disrespect toward parents and other elders? Yes.

Valuing anything more than God? How ’bout valuing EVERYTHING more than God!

Idolatry? No “graven images” but we don’t need to carve our images anymore. Screens are brighter and lighter than stone idols.

What if we committed not to watch any violation of the Ten Commandments on our screens for one week? One day?

If that is too much to ask, what if we decided just to keep count how many violations we notice?

This might be a worthy exercise when consuming “content” with children. And a creative way to teach them the Ten Commandments. Make a tally sheet.

Next time someone asks, “Whatcha watchin” you can say, “Oh, just some people breaking God’s law and God’s heart.”

“Is it any good?”

Brain research is revealing a lot about “mirror neurons.” We actually experience in our brains what we see others do. And we are hardwired to replicate it.

Romans 12:2 Be transformed by the renewing of your mind…

Bothering Jesus

Posted on by bcp1662

Last night at Prayer Meeting I was having a hard time getting started. I decided to do a little “house cleaning” using the Collect for Purity:

Almighty God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid, cleanse the thoughts of my heart by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit…

In the recent “thoughts of my heart” I found some pretty strong irritations, judgments, envies, angers, and couple of borderline resentments. I began to pray my usual, “Lord, help me to love so and so, etc.”

Response: “Not even I can help your selfish self to love anybody. He can’t be helped, strengthened or cured; only crucified. What say we put him out of his misery?”

I knew it was true. I know that guy too well. He’s hopeless. He has to go.

Upon further reflection, I realized that most things that grind the gears of my selfish self hardly bother Jesus at all. When I feel irritation rising, I’m learning to ask, “How much does this bother Jesus?”

I can hardly imagine Jesus being bothered about anything. Heart-broken? Yes. Bothered?

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. 

Romans 6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with him …

Bothering God

Posted on by bcp1662

I sometimes hear people say that they don’t want to “bother God” with their personal needs when he has a whole universe to run, or when the needs of others are so much more important.

It reminds me of one of my classmates at Asbury. He booked an appointment with then president, Dr. Dennis Kinlaw. When I asked him how it went, he said, “Oh, I told him I didn’t really want to talk, I just wanted to give him a few minutes of free time. And I left.” I can only imagine how grateful Dr. Kinlaw was for this moron’s generosity.

I’m sure God is also grateful that we don’t have any big requests for Him today. That will free up His schedule for more important things. Maybe He will be able to finally get caught up!

The Great 180

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The first thing a visitor to St. Peter’s website encounters is this statement. Or is it more of a warning?

The Liturgy exists for the purpose of worship, not for the comfort or edification of the faithful; we do not therefore take part in it for any personal gain, but to make the most perfect offering to God of which man is capable. And if we take our Communion and receive Him who is our perfect joy, still it is not for our own benefit, but that we may be more wholly given to God in union with Him. — Frederic Harton

It describes the exact opposite of what most people consider the purpose of “going to church”?

In the first prayer in the Holy Communion liturgy why do we ask God to “cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit”? In order that “we may perfectly love thee and worthily magnify thy Holy Name.”

In that prayer we say, “Lord, we are here to worship you. Prepare us to do that worthily. We have come here with all kinds of impediments to pure worship. Please put us right by the deep working of your Holy Spirit in the thoughts of our hearts, the very center of our consciousness.”

If we have come to church primarily to be fed, or blessed, or encouraged, or instructed we would need a different prayer. Perhaps, “Lord, help me to receive all that you know I need.”

There is nothing wrong with that. We do need all these things, but our greatest need by far is to worship and give thanks and praise to Him.

Start worship and see how many other needs are met and calamities averted in the process. Start with the needs and see how frustrating it all becomes when God doesn’t seem to deliver.

The source of all the horrors of Romans 1:22-32 to which we give so much attention is Romans 1:21: For although they knew God, they did not honor (worship) him as God or give thanks to him…”

Worship originates in a unique and neglected part of our “being”. In worship we experience a blessed, healing respite from our chronic obsession with ourselves.

Every Sunday we will receive and be blessed and fed by the ministry of the Word, the prayers, the music, the grateful reception of Blessed Sacrament, and the fellowship. But in all our receiving we are worshipping.

“Lord, I listen to your Word as an act of worship. ”

“I confess my sins and receive your forgiveness as an act of worship. ”

“I lift up my heart, I draw near, I bow down, I open my hands, I take, eat, drink as an act of worship to you.”

“I greet my neighbors, and receive their greeting, as an act of worship. I smile, listen and share as an act of worship. We bear each other’s joys and burdens and enter fellowship with each other as an act of worship. ”

It is all for Christ’s sake and for the glory and delight of our God.

Lord, deepen and purify and intensify my worship of you!