One yearns to have general public attention and skills of persuasion to reach the world, to argue that we are, as individuals and society, often taking detours in life. We are like persons using crude methods and tools when improved patterns and tools are available to us. We may be easily distracted from better things in our lives. Love has been found, in extensive studies, to be the most universal desire and expectation for all peoples of whatever background, culture, education or faith. It is the single factor that was mentioned by every culture studied. All other items were less than 100%, although several were very highly desired. Love was the only 100% factor, clearly in first place. Love is effective with the most handicapped person, and yearned for by the most privileged. If growing, it is seen as almost a human cure-all. God heals with it.
In the course of my professional and personal life I have often been called upon to respond to various family problems, largely related to the nurture of the husband/wife relationship, and proper rearing patterns for children. I began, generally, with review of the child experiences of the couple. What did parents do helpful to their maturing process, and what was left out? Often I wish I could take an eraser to what I am told, and permit the questioner to go back years of life and start over. In our time period the lack of home education and the distortions of discipline may be cited as blundering related to life formation. The story is yet to be told about the extensive damage that too busy and impatient parents have visited on their children. Permissiveness is interpreted as love. (The story told by the daughter of Elvis Pressley accents dramatically this observation. The current entertainer, Madonna, has the same story with her daughter.) It is really the product of ignorance, evasion of responsibility, and acceptance of a casual culture. It leads to distortion of one’s self worth, duty, privilege, even morals. It leads to what is commonly understood as narcissism – an excess of self-centeredness. The matter is addressed by both ancients and moderns. Jean Twenge of San Diego State University wrote a book entitled: Generation Me: Why Today’s Young Americans are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled – And More Miserable Than Ever Before. In summary, the analysts assert that the generation under study, at the beginning of the 21st century, was so taken with its own specialness, with the privilege of self, that the respondents interpreted much of life on the currency of their proud feelings. So they were more likely to have short-lived relationships in romance, to follow game playing dishonestly, to controlling behavior of others, to exhibit violence, and lose emotional warmth. Perhaps love was betrayed. Perhaps genuine love is unknown to many.
When their children grow older, parents commonly feel perplexed, to discover that there are breaks between members of the family. They are unsure why the family has become, a cauldron of solidarity and rebellion, loyalty and betrayal. Where has love gone? Intimacy is broken, and respect is diminished. Parents may be loved more than they realize, but respect is diluted. Parents did not provide discipline, expectations, personal education, relationships, service sense, values and the like. They are offended, not knowing why. Failing in this we fail in discipleship. At this writing the hope for generating genuine love quotients for westerners seem tenuous. In talking with young persons, anticipating marriage, I found fewer and fewer choosing their models of marriage from their parents – even though they were able to cite marriages they would like to model. It is a human and spiritual scandal. This may be significant evidence of dilution, even decline, in current family solidarity, culture, and meaning. *Mark W. Lee, Sr. — 2016, 2020