Being Special, Being Ordinary
As usual, the bloggers at Christianity Today hit the nail on the head.
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2012/08/forget-what-your-mom-or-teache.html
As someone who has tried hard to be "special" all my life, I now appreciate the freedom of ordinary. But the younger generation has been fed a lie. In Generation Me, Jean Twenge addresses the irony that our young people have been told they are special all their lives, have been taught to have self-esteem, etc., and yet have such trouble with depression. They know they can't live up to the specialness they've been fed, and they feel like they have failed. I am sitting here with my unemployed son, who did well in college and graduated in four years, has no tattoos, no debt, great credit, no record, has never been in the wrong kind of relationship--but isn't a wunderkid. So he can't find a job.
When reading the blog at CT, I was reminded of Ann Voskamp's work. She portrays herself as ordinary, a pig farmer's wife with six kids in the middle of Canada. She teaches us to revel and praise and thank God for the ordinary beauties we take for granted. But she is not ordinary! For one, she is a magnificent prose-poet. She is a best-selling author.
None of us is ordinary, really, but most of us are not standouts. I have tried hard to be that, especially through writing. But now I want to be left alone, not a good place for an author.
http://blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2012/08/forget-what-your-mom-or-teache.html
As someone who has tried hard to be "special" all my life, I now appreciate the freedom of ordinary. But the younger generation has been fed a lie. In Generation Me, Jean Twenge addresses the irony that our young people have been told they are special all their lives, have been taught to have self-esteem, etc., and yet have such trouble with depression. They know they can't live up to the specialness they've been fed, and they feel like they have failed. I am sitting here with my unemployed son, who did well in college and graduated in four years, has no tattoos, no debt, great credit, no record, has never been in the wrong kind of relationship--but isn't a wunderkid. So he can't find a job.
When reading the blog at CT, I was reminded of Ann Voskamp's work. She portrays herself as ordinary, a pig farmer's wife with six kids in the middle of Canada. She teaches us to revel and praise and thank God for the ordinary beauties we take for granted. But she is not ordinary! For one, she is a magnificent prose-poet. She is a best-selling author.
None of us is ordinary, really, but most of us are not standouts. I have tried hard to be that, especially through writing. But now I want to be left alone, not a good place for an author.
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