We went out to dinner with Mr. Mike last night. Mr Mike is a tall, slim Texan who travels the world for my husband's company. Though he claims to hate traveling, Mr. Mike seldom spends more than two or three days in the same time zone. He usually arrives in Malaysia just before or after spending the weekend with his younger son who works in Singapore. He's generally on his way to Ningbo, China or Australia. When you ask him where he's headed next he usually gives you his itinerary for the next three months - which is always mind-boggling. Last night he told me he's heading to Ningbo, then (I can't rememember the order) to Australia, Germany, Roanoke, New Hamsphire, home to Texas for "spring break," then Mexico, Brazil, Beijing and one more US city - all between now and the end of May. In June he takes his wife to Paris and Rome, stopping along the way to watch one of the uphill segments of the Tour de France. His wife is, by his account, an avid cylclist, horse breeder, championship rider, middle school teacher and amateur vet.
Our kids love him. He's like a favorite uncle. He quizzes my 17 year old about her political opinions - then chastizes me, her homeschool teacher, because she has none! He talks cars with my son, discusses Border Collies with my 10 year old and clinks banana smoothie glasses with my youngest. He's the only one of my husband's colleagues who greets me with a hug the two or three times a year we meet.
So dinner was fun. But after making the rounds of the table chatting with each child he asked me a question I always hate, no matter who is doing the asking: "So, what have you been doing lately? I mean for yourself, not for the kids." I hate that question because first of all, I can never think of an answer. I mean, unless you regularly appear on talk-show TV, who has an answer ready for that kind of question? And secondly, it invariably leads to a lecture about how you have to take care of yourself to be a good mother or wife or human being. That always leaves me tongue-tied and embarrassed, feeling like I must be the single most uninteresting woman on the planet. I already don't have a real job, for heaven's sake. Now I reveal I don't even have any hobbies or sports that legitimize my continued existence. I also hate that my fumbling answers make me look like some kind of self-sacrificing saint instead of the self-absorbed person I know myself to be. So I mentioned a book I'd recently finished reading (Thank God I remembered the title! I read all the time but can never remember book names), and managed to get Mr. Mike talking about his current reading. The conversation flowed on, away from me and my so-called life.
It's hard to choose the worst of the pop-psychology maxims believed and espoused by the average American, but the belief that we all need to love and cherish ourselves first has got to be the most annoying to me. It's the most insidious as well. Jesus' command to love your neighbor as yourself is often invoked with the implied or stated corollary that we all need to work first on self-love. Once we make ourselves happy, serene, beautiful, fulfilled and comfortable-in-our-own-skins (another troublesome phrase) we can do as much for others, if there's any time or money left over. "If you don't take care of yourself you can't take care of your kids or husband!" we're constantly reminded. Remember the sage advice given on every flight: put on your own oxygen mask first.
Ever since Adam we've been genetically programmed to save our own skins first. Adam and Eve both tried it in the garden - he blaming her and she the snake. When confronted by God they each grabbed the closest oxygen mask. As their true descendants, none of us need to be reminded to love ourselves, though we may need some education about what's good for us. As C.S. Lewis wrote in one of my favorite poems, "All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you: I never had a selfless thought since I was born." If I'm honest I have to confess that my initial motivation toward this "selfless" homeschooling life was a selfish one. I loved having all my little ones at home and was not ready to hand my six year old over to someone else to enjoy all day! I wanted her home with me.
Since then I have, on many occasions, had to count the cost of the choices I have made, and have indeed put my children's best interests before my own, but I have never harbored any illusions about my own self-effacing nature. I have learned that by God's grace we can resist the pull of self-love and serve others, but it is not because we don't love ourselves enough. In His wisdom and grace God has even tied most parents hearts to their children in such a way that making them happy can feel like making ourselves happy - which is what we naturally want to do anyway.
I do appreciate Mr. Mike's interest, and I know the motivation behind his nettlesome question was kind. But what I really need is for someone to ask me on occasion, "Who have you laid your life down for lately? What unnecessary weight have you laid aside so that you can better run the race set before you? When was the last time you esteemed someone better than yourself?" Those are the questions that really get to the heart of the matter - and encourage us all to do the things that will ultimately make us truly happy with our lives.
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