Expectations

You know what makes ya miserable?  Idealism.  Expectations of things you imagined that turn out to be not the way you imagined them, with no way of making them how you imagined them.

    This may seem like a terribly obvious, and not terribly useful, observation.  Thing is, I've been seeing what a problem it is for me lately.  I mean, it's one thing to sift through your past, and see how things turned out, and get some closure.  But something else can happen too: you can not only see what lessons you learned along the way, and feel smug about them, but you also tend to see what lessons you didn't really learn at all.  Stuff you may never learn.

   Let's see: when I was a kid, I grew up with a pretty strong sense of how things were Supposed to Be.  I mean, my parents were teachers, and although they don't speak all posh or anything, they tried to make sure I spoke at least somewhat unrural.  So when I hit the school yard in kindergarten for the first time, I was appalled at the language the other kids were using.  They were saying things like "Youse."  So I went to a teacher and told on them all.  Because they were saying "youse guys" and "I seen" and "somewheres" and stuff like that.  Stuff that wasn't correct.  And I learned that day, that when people are stupid, it's considered rude to point it out, and worse yet to try to correct it.  Unless you become a teacher and they're in your class, of course.  And even then, you're likely to let them sound like that.

   And church was more of the same, for a young kid.  Christians weren't supposed to say "You" and "Your" to God when they prayed.  And they weren't supposed to use translations that weren't the King James.  And they weren't supposed to sing modern hymns.  But once again, they did.  Not at our church, of course.  But elsewhere.  We were polite and didn't correct them, though.  Because they didn't know better.  Not like us.

   But I grew up with expectations.  Expectations that if I read the bible, prayed regularly and attended church, I would be happy and spiritually healthy.  If I was willing to sacrifice all the things that would have made me happy in any other, nonChristian way, of course.  Movies, television, comic books, music, dancing and all the rest of it.  But doing that actually made me want to be dead, is what it did.  Because it wasn't letting me live.

   But in with that, were other expectations.  Expectations that, if I turned down high school sexual opportunities, I would eventually have a church girl friend who would become my wife.  Expectations that, if I was honest and dutiful about the bible, I would be allowed to speak up in church like the other guys.  Expectations that, if I was a Christian, that the other Christians in my community would accept me and include me socially, and welcome me with open arms.  Expectations that if I only tried, I could become less a product of my heritage.  That my personality would straighten out.  Expectations that, if I "left [troubling church] things with the Lord," they would end up getting dealt with in my lifetime.  Expectations that when told the truth about things, Christian people would not lash out. Expectations that God wouldn't really let Christians sideline me if I couldn't "play happy Christian" convincingly.  Expectations that, if I wanted to, I could "play happy Christian" convincingly.  Expectations that, if I was better for girls than their boyfriends, that they'd leave them for me, or at least consider me as a love interest when they did leave them.  Cataclysmically stupid expectations.

   I grew up with expectations that, if you obey God and avoid various sin and temptation, that He'd reward you, just for that. Would bless you.  Expectations that God isn't the sort of Being who uses people up.  Not the sort of Being Who takes service and gives nothing but more opportunities for sacrifices you never expected to have to make.  That, if He needs you to sacrifice things, He will ask or tell you.  I grew up with expectations that God wouldn't shame someone who followed Him and trusted. I grew up with expectations that stuff gets rewarded and punished, in this life.

   All bets are off, though.  We don't know what to expect and it makes us miserable to keep expecting things and then stamping with rage and tearful temper tantrum disappointment when it doesn't go down that way.  Impossible at this point to know what we messed up, and what God simply made no attempt to give us.  It's time to grow up.  High time.