A Heart at War

I am reading "A Separate Peace" and asked Oliver and Rachel DeMille (who are mentoring my "Mentoring the Classics" class right now): do you have any mentor prompts for me for this book?

Oliver says: That’s a transformational book. The mentor prompt for that one is: Read it. When you come to a place where your heart wants to open up and change - let it happen.
 

I have been thinking about this prompt as I read the book and I had some huge epiphanies this morning.

I feel that the message for me from this book is this: I make assumptions of motives in relationships around me due to a heart at war. 

This leads to the following:

--sabotaging relationships based upon mistaken assumptions, often almost without thinking about it;

--a heart at war with others around me that leads to erratic behavior (like Gene's jouncing the branch even while sticking up for Leper, with whom his "war" is to not give into bullying tendencies as so many others do);

--frequently one-sided battles, as in the case of Gene and Phineas;

--"oppositional behavior": I have always tended to manifest "contrasting" behavior to those around me. If someone is bold, I am cautious. If someone is outgoing and optimistic, I am reserved and pessimistic. If people are cautious, I am bold. If they are narrow-minded and pessimistic, I am open-minded and optimistic.  Looking over what I just read, even my descriptions bring out my negative labels of others.  Again, this battle.

--I default to frustration or attack when confronted with opposition in any form...even and perhaps even especially within myself.

First, I realized that I do manifest this behavior with my poor, dear husband.  I have blamed him for years for things that he probably isn't even aware of.  Similar to Gene's perception of his imaginary battle with Phineas, my perception of my husband's actions have created conflict that simply isn't there.  These imaginary battles lead to behavior on my part that is destructive and crippling.

Then I realized that this conflict is a reflection of what is going on in my own heart with myself.  My outward "battles" are a reflection of my inner battles.  When I don't accept myself, when I even reject myself, I impose that frame of mind with the relationships of those around me.  This is the painful beauty that lies at the core of "Judge Not That Ye Be Not Judged," I believe.  When our minds are in the frame of reference of judging ourselves in a particular area, we transfer that same frame of reference to those around us and judge them from the same perspective.  By training ourselves to not judge others and just accept them, we automatically train ourselves to not judge and just accept ourselves.

For instance, if I neglect to keep up with the housekeeping to the standards I desire, I attack my decision-making and motives, feeling that by so doing that I am deliberately sabotaging the peace of myself and those around me.  When my children don't keep up with their stewardships, I impose my same mindset of "choice" and often misinterpret incomplete results as deliberate poor decision-making... and not just innocent ignorance or forgetfulness.

Gene's heart is at war. And it kills his relationships with those around him.

At one point, he compares the arrival of the first New Hampshire snow with the arrival of war in their lives.  It comes dramatically, demanding attention. It comes early before expectation, when the ground is still green and the plants still in bloom.  It comes in waves, ever stronger, until the campus at Devon is locked under inches of snow premature to Gene's expectation. How often is this the case in the wars we fight with each other? At first there is this exciting novelty of strong emotions, until our hearts are locked under the cold hard ground. (Compare to "The Snow Queen" ice in the heart analogy: distorts the good in what we see to become undesireable.) 

Following the encompassing arrival of the snow in Devon comes the drudgery of Gene's working in it on the railroads,... ironically, even as Leper is discovering the wonder of the beaver's dam  while skiing.  Symbolically, the war has the same kind of entrance into Gene's life. At first it dramatically makes an entrance into their lives and then pulls back a little.  Bit by bit the war, like the snow, gradually comes to consume their lives, locking their progress into a stasis until they are forced to confront it and find their role in it.  In my life I allow my personal battles to develop the same way, often getting into lock-down mode in a relationship without even realizing it.  A frozen mindset develops until books like this awaken me to an awareness of it.

Even the symbolism of Gene's vs. Leper's reaction to the snow plays a part in the beauty of this analogy.  Gene takes on a job in the snow that is at first entertaining with expectation of payment. This job turns into an experience of painful exertion and monotonous repetition.  Gene's approach to relationships and life in general is at first one of enjoyment and then drudgery with painful exertion.  Does he create this in his expectations of school? of relationships? of life?

We see Gene enter relationships with a calculating approach, analyzing how to make the most of each relationship, followed by a warlike vengeance to carry out what he feels like his side of the battle requires.  He is willing to do this beyond the initial moments of fulfillment, with a mindset that if he just sticks it out, he will get "paid" at the end of the day in almost mercenary fashion.

Leper's approach to the snow is one of wonder and expectation. 

I see painful parallels with my own approach to life verses that of my husband.  His outlook is one of looking for the wonder and beauty in relationships around him. This is not done in naiveté.  It is done out of choice.  Unlike Leper, he is aware of the harshness and demanding work possible in our approach to life...and he chooses to find the joy.  I see the potential of labor and get locked into it.  I don't see the ski trip and the beaver's dam of life; I see the work, the "payment," and carry on through the drudgery.   We are both choosing our approach to the "snow" of our lives and sometimes unwittingly by default choosing what rewards we get as a result of our choice.  Isn't this so often the case with choices?

So to determine how to find this separate peace, how to end this warring in my heart, is the next question: a war that is often being fought so one-sidedly in my relationships with others. I find I can and have turned anything into a struggle for victory, from visiting teaching to friendship to marriage to homeschooling.

This is interesting to note in light of my struggle to incorporate the principles of the recent books in the Mentoring the Classics series.  My main struggle is to let go ownership of my children's education. I realize now that I have subconsciously adopted the mindset that if I just battle enough through the drudgery and the self-conceived opposition, my children will succeed. In their name and "for their good" I am actually battling against them and their genius.  

What would happen if, instead, I chose to strap on my skiis and look for the wonder?

And, even if I don't end up seeing the beaver emerge from its dam, can I, like Leper and my husband, still be content and inspired by the experience in the snow that I do have?

And can I refrain from turning these new epiphanies into my newest battle ground?

Transformational book indeed...and I am only halfway through.  Perhaps it is also time to read "Anatomy of Peace" again?