Denying denial

A few years ago some social psychologists decided to do something useful with some of those surveillance cameras that pollute so much of our lives (it's not like they stop much crime). They used cameras over a parking lot at a mall to time how long it takes people to back out of parking places.

Okay, that doesn't sound terribly enlightening but bear with me; the results were interesting. The average time it takes people to back out when another car is waiting for their spot is longer than when no one is waiting.

This tells us something really useful for relationships. It tells us that denial is our default mode.

Because the people in those cars weren't feeling mean or territorial. Okay, some of them probably were but I bet most of them felt harried. They saw other car and felt the pressure to move.

But, whatever they felt, what they did was to take longer to back out.

Although our feelings are important, they are absolutely useless as a guide to how we are treating other people. Self-righteousness, defensiveness, insecurity all motivate for far more cruelty than hatred. (In fact, there are very few more reliable signs that someone will argue in hateful way than their accusing people who disagree with them about politics of being haters.)

Denying ourselves


That denial is our default mode tells us that anytime we stop actively thinking of ways to be good to the person we love, we start losing ground. If we just mind the store the self that unconsciously takes longer to back out when we know someone is waiting is the person who is taking care of the one we love.

That self is the one that Jesus was talking about. That self is the one that needs to be denied.


Thoughtlessness

We spend a lot of time worrying about our thoughts. And moral guides tells us to worry about having the wrong kinds of thoughts. But what am I denying others by failing to think the right kind of thoughts? (Thinking the right kind of thoughts = charity.)

My friend at church

That lovely old man with the voice like Cliff Edwards. It's not hard to think of reasons why his wife may have told him he couldn't sing.

It may be that she didn't know any better—that she had no taste for music.

It may be that he wasn't all that good a singer when they first got married. It may be that he got to be good by doing all that singing along with the radio when he was in the car alone.

It may also be that she came from a family where people worried so much about embarrassment that singing and acting and other artistic expression was discouraged. I come from a family like that myself. If she came from that sort of family, she probably didn't even hear the quality of the singing; it was the mere fact of singing at all that she disliked.

No matter what she was feeling—like the person backing out of the parking spot—she probably wasn't aware of her doing something to someone else. The thing she was aware of was her own feelings. She didn't think of him at all. It wasn't a feeling inside her that was missing. What she denied him was something she should done for him.

And yes, I do feel comfortable concluding that she did not love him because she didn't do this thing. It wasn't a little thing after all. She was married to him—she had every opportunity in the world to figure out what really pleased him.

Did you ever hear someone complaining about their spouse talking all the time? Of course you have; we all have. But listen to them closely and you will notice that they demean not just the person but also conversation. They treat it like it doesn't matter—as if it were a trivial little thing that the other person shouldn't bother them about. When they want to talk too, there isn't any problem.

Same thing if you have ever heard someone complain that their spouse only thinks about sex. They don't just demean the person, they demean sex too. Oh, there you go wanting meaningless sex. And to them it is meaningless because they don't feel any desire to have sex right now. When they do want sex, it suddenly isn't meaningless anymore.

Love that is given only when we feel loving isn't love at all.