Take it with a grain of salt. Heck, take it with a BAG of salt if necessary...

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So I've been thinking about grief lately. And I understand that there is plenty of Christian literature out there on the topic, but because of my own personal prejudices, I haven't read them, so if I write something that sounds like a copy of what someone else said, props to them for thinking it first. (It's not that I'm opposed to Christian lit [anymore] it's just that I know so many people who take to heart so much of what a particular author says, there's no longer any room to take things with a grain of salt. Just a single grain of salt, that's all I ask for... That and a 17" macbook pro. But I already mentioned that in blogs past. Wink.)

This evening I saw a rather interesting film called "Across the Universe." The film follows the lives of a half dozen characters as their lives and relationships change from the ultra-conservativism of the 1950s to the radical upheaval of the Vietnam war in the 1960s, and winds down near the beginning of the 1970s. The film itself is definitely worth a viewing, though I recommend it with reservation (there is some drug use, sexual content, and brief nudity that keep me from freely recommending this to everyone and their mom.) The filmmaker does a great job showing the contrasts between where each character starts and where they end up at the end of the film. There are two main characters from a rather well-to-do family, who make some rather radical turns away from the lifestyle of their upbringing. One poignant moment is when the daughter of this family is making a phone call to her mother from a phone booth just outside a demonstration she's planned to join. The mother says something to the effect of "I don't want to lose my beautiful daughter," and I was struck by that for some reason. The mother didn't think she'd be able to bear the grief of losing her daughter. This is certainly not revolutionary thought, but it really seemed to connect with other events today, events I've been pondering.

I've been thinking a lot about the way we deal with hardships. For we Americans, pain is something we avoid, something we loathe, something we fear. So much of what we do in our lives is to further aid us in our blind quest for comfort. And we won't be happy until we're comfortable. (Now, ever so slowly take a heaping tablespoon of salt and slowly grind it whilst reading on.) I need an iPhone. I need a new jacket. I need (gulp) a new 17" Macbook Pro. And yet in all our quest for comfort, we have become some of the world's most mal-adjusted people. We are the ones who have sheltered ourselves from pain and grief and discomfort so much that when we do experience those things, we don't know how to deal with it. It's like the little kid who never quite engages socially, and from then on has a hard time relating to people. (And as you're still grinding, you quietly think to yourself, hmmm, that last part seemed a bit on the auto-biographical side. Crunch, crunch, crunch...) We have become a nation of socially-retarded little kids who don't know how to deal with our own problems. Broadly speaking, of course. In a general and stereotypical mindset. But hey, if I fit that stereotype, there's a good chance someone else out there does too. (Crunch. And you're now only half-reading because you're imagining Dayn awkwardly sidling up to other kids on the playground, hoping someone would have some strange desire to talk with him and be his friend even though he doesn't have the juevos to initiate any sort of conversation. Crunch. Grind.)

From my observations of other cultures, so many people groups are either content with little, or don't know any better, and are at the very least not a society of over-medicated angst-ridden little social-lepers. I certainly don't begrudge those in that position, myself included. I grew up with very little grief other than the very American self-inflicted kind, and therefore I am not able to condemn as much as I'm able to observe. Does anyone else think, generally speaking, that people in the good old US of A we don't understand that life that is not tempered with grief leads one to a path of inability to deal with problems later in life? Of course we all deal with grief in our lives, but sometimes I think what we call grief is often just dissatisfaction with discomfort. Or maybe I'm just ranting because I feel like it. (Okay, you now have two options: A, you can spit out the salt, thereby beginning to rid yourself of its negative properties, or B, you can swallow the salt, providing a much needed amount of grief, and potentially followed by the need for a deluge of water to quench the salt's fury. Choose wisely...)