Turning the other cheek

I've been thinking of going back to the Catholic Church. So seriously to the point that I have inquired about getting my kids Baptized. I guess there is a lot of reasons for this. One major one might be that I recently reconnected with my Godmother, and though she didn't mention it, I thought it might be nice if the kids were indeed baptized when I met her.

But mainly, the reason why I can now accept the Catholic faith where as before I could not, is basically through reading Reza Aslan's book and reading up on the Pagan origins of Christianity I feel that I could swallow Christianity because it has all that other stuff in it (and I would theorize that there are Buddhist roots to Christianity too just based on the fact that early Christianity was very Greek and then converted the Romans and Buddhism had already been around and frankly, quite nearby for over 600 years.) And basically the idea of Jesus Christ, is a good one, at least the way he is presented now and he is already a part of my psyche just from all the stories and movies and from my education. Even when I wasn't Christian, I inevitably was.
Plus I was baptized as a kid so why join another Church. Plus I think all the ritualistic traditions and all that stuff (which i never really did) are probably good. But I probably wouldn't send my kids to Catholic School.

One thing that I have been thinking about a lot is turning the other cheek. Mainly because this is something I don't do well. Or maybe I do it sometimes but it's hard. Basically the "slap" that you are supposed to turn your cheek to is not a fist. It is more of an insult. An nit picky type of conflict that Jamaica Kincaid complained about with her people saying they would make an event out of an everyday thing and ignore real events. Jesus was saying you have to get along with jerks because they will be needed in the revolution against Rome. (Not that he was successful at all.)


The main point it don't get sucked into all that.

I do.

Not so much on the street so much but in my relationship with my kids and with Grace.

In fact yesterday I raised my voice and even grabbed her arm after she yelled at me and did not help me with Jonah. He had been on the table, I took him off the table and put him on the floor. Grace said to bring him in the other room, so as I started to do that, taking my plates up to the sink. Jonah ran around the table and right by Grace, closer to her in fact and climbed back on the table. She yelled at me again and now she started throwing things on the table just like Jonah had been doing and said, "Let's just let them do whatever they want then."

From her perspective, I wasn't doing what I was told or watching the kids, which is my job, and not hers.

From my perspective, this was ridiculous because my hands were full and I simply needed her to stop him from climbing on the table a second time so that I could do what she had asked of me.  Instead she broke down into childhood behavior. And I was about to lose it. I yelled at her and put the plates down and took the kids upstairs. But then I came back and grabbed her by the arm, and said, "I need you to listen to me."

Basically I was lecturing her rather roughly the way I would do to Noah if he were being bad and was near the street.

I shouldn't grab Noah like that, but I do. I shouldn't have grabbed Grace like that. But I did.


It is difficult to see the full situation when you are in that moment of frustration.

The full situation is this. Grace is not my enemy. She is the breadwinner and homeowner. Essentially like or not she is my boss and it is my job to watch the children. It would be nice if she could help out, but when it comes down to it, that is not really her job or her strength. Her job is to make money for the family which she does and when she comes home she probably wants to relax instead having to take care of the kids.
So when she slights me, or acts unfairly or anything like that.. turn the other cheek. I have no quarrel with her, She is the mother of my children and the breadwinner. There is no need to lecture her or grab her arm.
Now there was a lot of things that I did do that were probably good. But ultimately I can't change the fact that I yelled and I did indeed grab a woman's arm in anger, instead of just walking away and not raising my voice.

Which technically takes less energy to do.

It is difficult to do this though. And essentially it is a good idea, the turn the other cheek idea. It doesn't mean you let people run over you. You just don't get sucked into a situation of anger where there isn't really a conflict. When there is a real conflict, "if you don't have a sword sell your cloak and buy one."
But among your own people, especially your own family, turn the other cheek.

I'm thinking that maybe going to church and praying and all that will help me do this, as mental exercise. In fact, just to keep calm and raise children, I think I will need to eat magic bread and wine (magic from placebo effect if nothing else) that is the body and blood of Christ, the idea created after Jesus's death who is basically a Roman Greek Jewish  version of Buddha.