Prevention vs. Coping
We talk about mental illness. We discuss ways to aid in the healing process. We produce therapies to cope with depression and anxiety and sadness. In the United States today, psychological disorders are a way of life. While some disorders are not preventable, others are caused by our perception of ourselves. When will we realize that the ideal of the American dream has backfired?
King Solomon once wrote, "Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have no comforter - on the side of the oppressors there is power, but they have no comforter" (Ecclesiastes 4:1, NKJV).
I have to wonder what Solomon would write if he were alive today, a time when pride in our ability to keep up with a standardized system is rewarded and failure to comply (either due to unwillingness to sell out or inability to keep up) is frowned upon. A time when individual worth is non-existent under the oppression of supposed success.
We emotionally lobotomize the outcast, the different, the disabled. We have no concern for the pain of the oppressed, as long as our perfect houses with perfect picket fences on perfect streets sparkle in their supposed glory. Even in the name of Christianity, how far we have strayed from the God who considers the cause of the oppressed and poor in spirit. In our wisdom, we have become fools. "For surely oppression destroys a wise man's reason (Ecclesiastes 7:7a).
It has taken time to see the results of our reliance upon visual success, our worship of conformity, our idolatry of pride. Throughout past generations, we have allowed a mindset of oppression to erode away at the values that are our God-given heritage, replacing them instead with ideals that glorify ourselves, our outward appearances. A type of spiritual climate change has slowly eaten away at the very core of what it means to be human, to express love and appreciation for others for who they are, rather than how they perform in our performance-based culture. As King Solomon lamented, "Do not say, 'Why were the former days better than these?' For you do not inquire wisely, concerning this" (Ecclesiastes 7:10).
Perhaps now, as our current generation deals with the aftermath of the the past's sins of pride, we should turn our faces to God's understanding of what is valuable. For "Wisdom is a good inheritance, and profitable to those who see the sun" (Ecclesiastes 7:11). Perhaps we should turn our focus away from "standardization," "measuring up," and a "one-size-fits-all" opinion of the individuals surrounding us, and toward the recognition of individual worth, individual talents, and individual identity.
King Solomon once wrote, "Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun: And look! The tears of the oppressed, but they have no comforter - on the side of the oppressors there is power, but they have no comforter" (Ecclesiastes 4:1, NKJV).
I have to wonder what Solomon would write if he were alive today, a time when pride in our ability to keep up with a standardized system is rewarded and failure to comply (either due to unwillingness to sell out or inability to keep up) is frowned upon. A time when individual worth is non-existent under the oppression of supposed success.
We emotionally lobotomize the outcast, the different, the disabled. We have no concern for the pain of the oppressed, as long as our perfect houses with perfect picket fences on perfect streets sparkle in their supposed glory. Even in the name of Christianity, how far we have strayed from the God who considers the cause of the oppressed and poor in spirit. In our wisdom, we have become fools. "For surely oppression destroys a wise man's reason (Ecclesiastes 7:7a).
It has taken time to see the results of our reliance upon visual success, our worship of conformity, our idolatry of pride. Throughout past generations, we have allowed a mindset of oppression to erode away at the values that are our God-given heritage, replacing them instead with ideals that glorify ourselves, our outward appearances. A type of spiritual climate change has slowly eaten away at the very core of what it means to be human, to express love and appreciation for others for who they are, rather than how they perform in our performance-based culture. As King Solomon lamented, "Do not say, 'Why were the former days better than these?' For you do not inquire wisely, concerning this" (Ecclesiastes 7:10).
Perhaps now, as our current generation deals with the aftermath of the the past's sins of pride, we should turn our faces to God's understanding of what is valuable. For "Wisdom is a good inheritance, and profitable to those who see the sun" (Ecclesiastes 7:11). Perhaps we should turn our focus away from "standardization," "measuring up," and a "one-size-fits-all" opinion of the individuals surrounding us, and toward the recognition of individual worth, individual talents, and individual identity.
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