Darlene Pineda

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Darlene Pineda

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Darlene Pineda

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Darlene Pineda

via Facebook Good morning! Breakfast smoothie: chia seeds, goji berries, one peach, strawberries, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, apple juice....yum! 40 minute brisk walk, with dogs. :)

Sin and Forgiveness

First, a confession: I could not resist the "Lock Up" marathon. Just couldn't. The glimpse it offers of life in prison fascinates me, and the trainer in me finds useful the systems of rewards and punishments and levels and responsibility, and it reinforces for me the notion that people do what works for them, even if it causes them pain. But that's for another post.

They were interviewing a man who was on death row. Robert Fry, serial killer. He had killed four people, brutally. And, while in prison, he "found God."

He talked about sin, and being forgiven, and how he has been saved. He said, "What's worse, killing someone or stealing a cracker? It's all the same to God."

What caught me was this idea that stealing a cracker or killing a man were both equal sins in the eye's of the Lord: a sin is a sin, period. And that he had been forgiven by God, which gave him the right to ask the families of his victims for forgiveness.

That's about when my head exploded.

Okay, shall we break this down? I don't know what moral sense could equate eating someone else's cracker with killing them. The levels of harm are absurdly divergent, and I would think an inherent sense of justice wouldn't punish the cracker eater the same as the mass murderer. But, how convenient for him. This man can kill four people and feel like he did the same level of wrong as a cracker-stealer. He can sleep easy, safe in the knowledge that what he did was no worse than what a starving man stealing bread might have done. How awesome to think that the very worst thing I could do is no worse than the very least bad thing I could do...

So, why not kill the guy holding the cracker? They are the same, right? So no harm in upgrading the sin.

Along with this goes the sense of absolution. He feels he has been forgiven, and so he feels morally superior to his victims, to the point where intruding on their lives to ask them a favor seems completely appropriate.

(I have no issue with a victim making the choice to forgive--or not--a perpetrator. But it is their choice, and one they have a right to make on their own, and without requiring communication with the perp.)

Can you imagine, after burying your spouse/mom/son, the murderer thinks it is appropriate to, oh, send you a letter. Not one apologizing, but one asking for your forgiveness. Without a single thought to how you have healed, how you are grieving, how this intrusion might rip open slowly healing wounds.

Because it is still all about him. This murder didn't care about his victims, and "finding God" hasn't given him empathy or sympathy or compassion or insight. All it has given him is absolution and a bizarre removal of responsibility or need for atonement.

If that's what 'finding god' is about, I'm content to leave him lost...

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Wish for my Teen

For my family one of the biggest and hardest lessons we teach our teen is dealing with the consequences of his own actions.



That is, often, easier said than done. It is hard to watch him not do what he needs (I want him) to do. It is hard to not prod and prompt and offer intermediate rewards, dangling a new video game in exchange for a cleaner room or completed schoolwork. But I try and resist, because failure is one of the most important learning tools we have, even though it is so hard to give our kids the chance they need to fail.

A bad day or week or month or even year doesn't have to be a disaster, there is time to recover: to homeschool over the summer and make up any lost credits, to get early enrollment at a college, to just adjust expectations and find a new path.

And so, if he knows that completing this week's work equals a trip to the beach for the weekend, and he chooses to not complete the work, that is his choice. He has decided the one wasn't worth the other, right now. Come the weekend, of course, the priorities change! But it is too late, and consequences are lived with. Because that is how life works.

And he doesn't benefit by me letting it go "just this once" or lowering expectations. Work is, you know, hard and stuff. It takes effort. But it has value, both for it's own sake and for the other things it brings. And sometimes, in the midst of a hormonal teenager's mind, that little bit gets lost.

When my teen asks me what I want for him I always say "For you to be healthy and happy; to have work that makes you feel good about doing it and supports you enough so your needs are met along with some wants; for you to find love with the person(s) of your choosing and to have a family if desired."

When he has a bad week or blows off school or changes his mind AGAIN about a course he wanted I remind myself that he has the right to choose his life, and that my job is to guide him, but not stop him from falling. He has to learn to look where he's going, and if his short-sightedness has an impact, all the better.

He has the right to fail, and the right to fail on his own terms. And the right to look around, absorb the lesson, and move on; wiser and stronger. And I do not have the right to take that away from him.

I'd rather he learn some serious lessons while home than wait until he gets to college and is away and alone...



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New Cat!

I have a new cat:





Her name is Miss Gingersnaps, a.k.a Missy, a.k.a. Miss Floofytail. She is about six months old.

I found her at a friend's house, under pile of Dobermans.





These Dobermans, actually

She was unscathed but for a fractured jaw, which the vet kindly fixed for a discounted price (Thank you! Best. Vet. EVAH!)

Missy spent a few weeks alone, recovering. But she needed to start meeting the other animals in the house






Misha is very curious






Ah! One good sniff!






And we have a truce






Now we can all sit around together, watching the TV

Interestingly, my three best friends are also gingers. Hmm...

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