I like looking for bigger ideas in smaller conversations.
On June 22nd’s Articles Of News, I saw a very big idea mentioned over and over again dressed up as supposedly different unrelated topics.
If you haven’t listened to it, you should listen to it now.
DISCLAIMER
I’m not criticizing anyone who was on the podcast nor am I criticizing anyone who wrote into the Cultural Hall recently. As far as I know, a lot of the disagreements had between commenters and Cultural Hall Hosts were resolved on the July 1st Articles of News. In fact I think most of the disagreements weren’t so much disagreements as they were miscommunications.
FULL DISCLOSURE
Stephanie, the one who wrote into the show, is my wife. I say that because I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to twist her words to mean X instead of Y.
We have had several discussions on the topic I want to address here and I think we both agree on this topic. So if you go to listen to either of the linked shows in this blog post, keep this post in mind as you listen to what she said. I don’t know how one will interpret her words or anyone else’s comments, but I do know her stance on this topic.
I just don’t want anyone saying I’m writing a skewed post.
With those two disclaimers out in the open lets talk about depression and modesty.
Let’s get on with this.
On June 22nd, Joni and Lindsay talked a lot about depression in relation to a letter Stephanie wrote previously.
Basically there were two sides.
Stephanie was saying that you can’t put the blame on Person X when Person Y commits suicide because, in the end, it was still Person Y’s decision to kill them-self. She also said that if someone wants to get over depression,at least in part, they have to get up and do something about it.
For example, you should probably find a reason to get out of bed every day. Whether that’s work, loved ones or something else; find something.
You should recognize you feel how you feel but you need to choose everyday not to act on those feelings.
Joni and Lindsay were saying that, although that is true that one’s decisions are ultimately their own, that many people don’t understand how intense depression can be.
Joni also made a comparison about a broken leg. You can’t decide not to have a broken leg. You can try and walk on a broken leg but it’ll still hurt and can very possibly be debilitating.
So “one side” was promoting a more bootstraps outlook on depression and the “other side” was saying that’s all well and good but you can only do so much and too much is too much and we don’t really know what too much is for any one person.
After this discussion, Richie T read an email from The Cultural Hall’s favorite blind emailer, Kevin.
Kevin wrote in his email about the importance of modesty.
One of the points he made was that women should dress modestly to help men guard their thoughts.
The response to Kevin’s email was that men should control their own thoughts and women shouldn’t be objectified.
So once again we have two “sides.”
One “side” was saying women should dress modestly to help men keep their thoughts clean while the other “side” was saying that men should be keeping their own thoughts clean.
Now the question I would ask is, what do depression and modesty have in common?
The answer?
They both deal with the feelings of one individual and the actions of another individual.
Feelings and actions.
Who feels what? How much can these people control their actions considering what they currently feel? How much can’t they control? How much help do these people need? How much do they need to take care of on their own feelings and actions? What responsibilities do others have in helping someone control their actions in spite of feelings they may have? How much are the actions of others responsible for the actions of people who are under the influence of certain feelings?
These are all questions that must be addressed regardless if someone is talking about depression or modesty or any other interaction between Person X who feels a certain way and Person Y who is performing an action.
Depression, modesty and any other situation that meets the aforementioned description are all similar in certain ways.
Some people expect the depressed to control their own thoughts. Some people expect that men control their own thoughts.
Some people say that you need to do everything possible not to push someone over the edge of depression. Some people say you need to do everything possible not to tempt a person to have carnal thoughts.
I’ve seen this topic dressed up a thousand different ways and I’ve seen people who have said that group X shouldn’t be expected to shoulder their feelings by themselves and turn right around and say that group Y should keep track of their own feelings and they will not be held responsible for the feelings of others in specific circumstances.
These arguments usually fall along lines of one’s politics or their orthodoxy.
Conservative/Orthodox members generally say that LGBT people, depressed people and alienated feminists need to keep their feelings in check and watch themselves. Yet at the same time they’ll say that women should dress modestly to help others from having impure thoughts.
Liberal/Progressive members of the church will generally feel for the suffering of LGBT individuals or those feeling depressed but will turn around and say that women shouldn’t be responsible for the thoughts of men.
Who’s right?
What if I said that both were to some extent?
I’ve never been depressed but I have dealt with anger issues throughout my life.
As my wife can attest I have more or less two feelings. I’m either somewhere on the happy spectrum or I’m somewhere on the angry spectrum.
I’m never really on the sad spectrum. I’m never really on the nervous spectrum.
I’m somewhere between content and happy or I’m somewhere between ticked off and wanting to break something.
How responsible do you think I should be for my own feelings? How responsible do you think I should be for my actions when I feel angry? How responsible do you think you should be if I react a certain way out of anger for something that you wore, said or did?
Now ask yourself those questions in relation to other possible situations you might encounter.
Let’s say you met someone who has a porn addiction.
How responsible do you think they should be for their feelings? How responsible do you think they should be for their actions? How responsible do you think you should be if they have certain thoughts of lust because of something that you wore, said or did?
Or lets say you met someone who has suffers from severe depression.
How responsible do you think they should be for their feelings? How responsible do you think they should be for their actions? How responsible do you think you should be if they react a certain way because of something that you wore, said or did?
Are your answers the same? Are they different? If they’re different, why is that?
Do you think anger issues, porn addiction and depression are really that much different?
How do you know that it’s so much easier to control your thoughts in one way but it’s so much harder to control your thoughts in another way?
I don’t think anyone should try and go out of their way to push a depressed person of their edge or ignore their feelings. I also will not ignore the very real problems many people have trying to keep clean thoughts.
At the same time I don’t think that anyone can decide to not be depressed anymore than I think anyone can prevent another person from having dirty thoughts.
I don’t see these issues as being separate issues. I think they all share a lot more in common than many of us are willing to admit.
It’s all about how one’s feelings sway their personal actions and how much the actions of others play a role in those actions.
Let’s take the semi-hypothetical example of PMS to address this point.
And if you get offended for certain stereotypes I may be making, I would ask you to control your own thoughts and not scapegoat your feelings on me.
See what I did there?
The stereotype is that women sometimes will get a bit testy emotionally due to physical and hormonal changes that occur.
Should my wife be held responsible for all of her feelings as hormones start raging? Should I be responsible for my actions because she might happen to be extra sensitive?
I’d say yes to both of those questions.
It is my responsibility to understand what my wife is feeling and why those feelings may be influencing her to act a certain way.
I should keep those things in consideration as I try and figure out how I’m going to react in any given situation.
She is also equally responsible to recognize that there might be a rational explanation for why she is feeling the way she is in any give moment but she is still responsible for trying to reign in those emotions the best she can.
Most all relationships, no matter how serious or casual, are a bit of give and a bit of take.
We as members of Christ’s Church are especially responsible to try our best to recognize when to give and when to take.
We shouldn’t insensitively push someone suffering from depression off an emotional cliff. We shouldn’t blatantly expect someone else who may be suffering from a very real addiction to deal with dirty thoughts by themselves.
However that doesn’t give someone with depression a “get out of jail free card.” You still need to help yourself. Sure depression is like a broken leg in the sense that you can’t decide that it doesn’t exist anymore. But once when a break is properly set in a cast, in most cases it will heal and be just fine afterwards.
Depression and anger-issues, on the other-hand, require some self-reflection on the part of the individual. You do need to recognize what things trigger those emotions. You need to recognize when you’re feeling a certain way and try the best you can to objectively discern whether your feelings are a logical response to what is happening or if it’s something else. You do need to decide not to feed into those feelings any more than is necessary.
The same goes with dirty thoughts.
Porn addiction is real.
Show me someone who says they haven’t seen porn and I’ll show you a liar.
It has influenced all of us.
Some of us are perfectly able to dismiss a dirty thought once it enters our minds.
Some of us aren’t.
To say otherwise wouldn’t be fair.
That’s not to say that every dirty thought is due to someone’s low cut shirt. That’s not even to say that most dirty thoughts could or should be attributed to a low cut shirt.
But to dismiss someone’s feelings in that situation would be just as insensitive as it would be to dismiss the thoughts of a depressed person.
That’s not putting blame on a victim of sexual assault. So don’t put words in my mouth.
It’s just recognizing that we can all do our part to help one another out.
Besides, we shouldn’t comfort the depressed because they are somehow incapable of controlling their own thoughts any more than we should dress modestly because someone else is incapable of controlling theirs.
We should do these things because we are all trying to lift where we stand.
We should comfort those who need comforting. Protect those who need protection. uplift those who need uplifting.
We don’t need to be on Team Do-It-Yourself and we don’t need to be on Team Do-It-For-Me.
We need to recognize that we are all God’s children and we have very real physical and emotional struggles.
Some people need to try a little harder to help themselves out of their own holes, while some need to help other people out of holes.
If individuals did everything they could to help themselves and everyone did everything else they could to help out the individual, I’m willing to bet we would have a whole lot less problems in this life than we currently do.
I think that was what Stephanie, Kevin, Joni and Lindsay were all trying to get at. It just took a while to realize that they were all trying to “yeah that part is important but lets not forget about this part too.”
I don’t see the two sides as two sides.
I see these as two parts of one solution.
When we apply both parts of the one solution as best as we know how, we’ll start to see real progress made.
Until then, we’ll just be arguing about the same thing and taking different sides depending on how the issue presents itself to your political leanings or tendency towards or away from orthodoxy.