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Ours is a generation of big-box stores, cheaply manufactured facades, illusions for sale. You can see the evidence of it everywhere whether it’s that brand-new outfit that gives you the appearance of being affluent (that was made overseas by slave labor and is the result of unfair trade), the “durable goods” that aren’t so, the white bread that claims to be packed with nutrition.

We’re a generation that has brought the McMansion into being, lego houses all in a row, each a different shade of Easter Egg. Our cars are big, our diets designed for hedonistic pleasure rather than nutritional qualtiy, and we Wait for No One.

How deeply the lies have penetrated into our being. It is so hard to swim against the tide and dig to the truths beneath. Each layer, somehow revealing there is more to go before hitting the bedrock. I supose this is good for humility; none of us has “arrived” and airs of self-righteous piety are just that…….air.

Take this lie for instance: All Choices Are Equal.

Sounds nice on the surface. How rosy and all inclusive. This one can be sooo subtle. Heaven or Hell and the pathway into each? In my tradition, this one was easy to be black and white on. It was easy to be black and white on the stance against drunkeness. Not so much overeating. That was a definate “grey area” where “what is right for you is right for you and what is right for me is right for me”.

I love the quote by Mother Theresa that was my first dawning realization of this lie:

“It is a poverty to decide a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

Women’s lib and a good portion of the pro-choice movement would like us in this generation to beleive that we can choose any option we want and no choice is better than another. The question that came to me those years ago was, “better for whom?”

See, it might be fine and good for that young woman to not have her life interupted right now. Her career, her body, her lifestyle. What about for the baby person? Was that an equal choice?

Hmmm….car payment current and boyfriend still here versus….death? Someone sure got the short end of that stick.
Let’s try something not so hot-button. Breast milk versus formula. There are too many studies to count that scientifically confirm what nature has shown all along: human milk is best for human babies. If it can’t be offered, will a human baby suffer from a man-made alternative? In most cases, no. Would they still be better off from the best offering out there? Yes. Breast milk *is* superior to formula. Enter the complication of formula ingredients contributing to sugar-dependency and allergies for the child. For one of the parties involved,  the choice isn’t equal.

The sticky wicket comes when you look at a “less than” option and debate if it’s “good enough”.

Or here’s one: “You can’t live without that!”

Who wins with this one? Usually it’s the one providing the good or service that would prefer for humanity, or least American humanity, to not realize that simiplification is not only possible, it’s downright rewarding. We love our year-round 70 degree environments, our grocery stores full of food, our cushy paper products and caustic chemicals that give the desired effect and hide the ultimate consequence. Give us whiter teeth, hunger-free weight loss, credit to ease our lack of cash. Give us dependance because we can’t remember how to live without it.

Another lie: If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.

The convenient part here is that if you rely only on yourself, you have only yourself to blame. And you can eliminate all that messy and sometimes uncomfortable “living by faith” stuff. Faith is the evidence of things unseen, remember? Going without seeing requires trust. It may not make sense to those watching. You won’t have all the answers.

Things may not get done to your standards. It may not be pretty and it may slow you down. Which of course, is why our frenzied and control-freak society prefers not to rely on trust and faith.

When a little child wants “to help”, and you won’t let them because you know there may be a spot on the dish when they’re done, who loses? Yes, the child, who learns their effort and motivation wasn’t good enough. But do we? I think so. We aren’t blessed because we’ve turned our nose up to the blessing we couldn’t predict. A strong relationship is more comforting than a row of clean dishes but we chose the short term, instant gratification answer. When a husband works hard at a job to provide and we either pilfer it away shopping or won’t find ways to live within it’s bounds, who loses? The husband, as he’s emasculated to feel “not good enough”? Is that all? Or do the women lose too? Do the children? What’s not getting said?

“If I want something done right, I have to do it myself.”

Peel it back, dig for bedrock. Underneath there is beautiful truth.

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