That's projection, no doubt, on proceedings I don't remember. I remember generally though that I did not like it when my mother staged these little photo productions because I never adequately posed and I hated posing in the first place. I hated the itchy dresses and the carefully constructed curls. I know myself well enough that the rigid hand locks around my waist were not of my own doing. But the picture serves as a launch point for this day's posting.
Whatever else is going on in that picture, I know that the one thing I felt was annoyance. Somehow, though I was in the picture, I well, really wasn't. That what I perceived in my unformed brain I needed or wanted at the moment (to be able to be myself, whoever that was working itself out to be, for the photo, or not to take it at all) was not in any way being considered. Heck, I look like I am fuming in that photo.
I was a little bundle of hurt pride.
Over the years I have realized, as most of us, except deluded doted upon Hollywood Stars and the occasional millionaire/billionaire entrepreneur, do, that my pride hasn't been a good, or useful, trait.
Besides, it is one of the deadly sins. And when it comes down to it, it gets you nothing of that which you crave, validation, love, respect, attention.
But it's built in. It was built into at least some of the angels, Lucifer being the most obvious example. And clearly, it was built in to Adam and Eve, who decided that they wanted divinity on their terms. I suppose that it is a consequence of that free will given to us so that we could choose God, our Creator, over ourselves, in love and thanksgiving. With free will, somehow there came pride and the inclination to be gods ourselves.
Pride is also cultivated by our parents, and society. I, at least, and I don't think my experience was unique, was given to understand that I was being watched very closely by the world, that I had to do well in everything. I had to achieve, and I had to worry about what things looked like. By my actions in achieving and being seen as achieving, I would, I must have come to reason, be "in control." Not to be exceptional and valued for that trait, was failure. The behavioral training that results in such distortion is innocent enough, and perhaps even necessary in molding the tabula rasa of a child's mind who would otherwise be inclined toward laziness. So, in my school, the measure of one's value as a student was either a gold bow or a blue bow, and if I recall one that was both. The bow was bestowed to be worn on your uniform blazer, if your grades were outstanding. The gold, of course, was for overall grades somewhere in the 95 region. I think the blue was in the region of 90-95. I can tell you that my mother, as many a mother of the time, was not happy if I did not have a gold bow. I got it a lot. But not always. And that creeping pride was deeply wounded when I did not. Without it, my value appeared to diminish. This need to achieve to public consumption, or so it seemed this was the lesson, could arguably be said to have been at odds with the Catholic Christian goal (I was in Catholic School) of being last, rather than first. I know, its all more nuanced than that. It might have been that to be number one or as close as possible to it, was only for the Glory of God. But in my muddled child brain, I missed the nuance. I have apparently been missing it every since. I have a lot of growing up to do.
Two childhood examples. I am ashamed I should say up front that they still resonate with me, but there you are. I said I have a lot of growing up to do, and I ain't got much more time. But here goes. I had a partial scholarship to high school. Naturally, you had to maintain grades to keep it. I usually had that 95 average, but I was also very bad at algebra, and geometry, and anything having a number or curve. So, one year, my average fell to 93. The principal, or some other administrative staff nun, (at the time it was all nuns, now it is mostly lay people), called me to the office and told me I was in danger of losing my half scholarship. A 93 average wasn't good enough. Way earlier than that, back in say, fourth grade, though I was a good student, I liked to play with the other kids in our apple tree filled grassy knoll near the convent building. A classmate, and you can tell how much this affected me by the fact I remember her name, Claire Callahan, used to read during recess. As many a mother would do in trying to motivate their child to more approved behavior, she asked me why I wasn't more like Claire. In that Claire was number 1 in the class and I was close, but not there, as my mother and sister so and so reminded me more than once, this type of comment was bruising.
Like everyone else, I have a million examples, right up to the present day. I mean it cannot but be an assault on that carefully internalized prideful self to have a job for 25 years, to move up in the ranks, to be management, to have yearly commendable or exceptional reviews and then be dismissed in all of five minutes with the cliche, "We're going in a different direction. . . ." POW! It is today, five years after I was dismissed, to me, and to them, as if I never existed there.
It's a hard lesson, but trying to be number one, or getting the attention for our talents and achievements, is something a whole slew of people are doing, and we can't all get it. More than that, we aren't going to be consulted on most things, if anything at all. So being pouty about it is futile, and just plain stupid. Our hurt pride is irrelevant and corrosive. And doing things to be seen or rewarded, really is a mistaken notion, however motivating it might have been when we were young.
And it all goes back, in my mind, at least, to the Garden of Eden. Pride and grasping gets you precisely nothing. In fact, it loses Paradise.
Look at Christ. One day He was being lauded and hailed, with palms, as a king of the earth. As the Messiah who would conquer Rome in the way men expect to see victory. Another day he was being hammered into a Cross. He didn't view the moments in which he was lauded as having any meaning. He did not act out of pride. He lived and acted in utter humility. If He did well, He did it only to achieve His Father's mission, His own mission as the Second Person of the Trinity, to save the other, to save humanity itself.
I think pride, and its consequences, anger and resentment and fear, are my worst sins. I know this, because as I write, I feel them all with an intensity that makes me want to send the potted plant in front of me crashing to the terrazzo below.
I want to give them up. But it isn't as easy as giving up wine, or chocolate for forty days, and frankly, pride, anger, resentment, and fear, are things to shed completely, not only to obey God, but I believe in my gut, if any happiness on this earth is possible, before Eternal happiness in heaven.
My pride tells me I am being dismissed, all the time. Maybe I am being dismissed; maybe I am not. It shouldn't matter either way, if I am looking at the things of heaven rather than the things of this earth.
So, what I am praying about giving up for Lent is Pride. I pray God will give me the Grace, for the forty days, and for the duration of my days.
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