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October 12, 2022

Claim That Reverence! Encourages us to find and celebrate what is personally meaningful to us.

“Whatever claims reverence risks ridicule.”

C.S. Lewis

What is sacred, valuable, and worthwhile? How many times has it been mocked and devalued?

I’m not talking about satire. I’m talking about those deeply personal things to us that have been attacked, judged, and criticized.

We’re told it’s wrong.

Not allowed. Forbidden. Sin. Impractical. Unrealistic. Childish.

Recognize any of these words? Others may have used such words around something that means a lot to you. Feeling judged for its place of importance in your life?

Shame and guilt are all too-common tactics utilized to control and change us. It’s not about a matter of “decency.” It is about what is preferable and comfortable in someone else’s eyes, and their need to impose their values, opinions, and actions on us.

We’re told it’s not enough.

“There’s a better way.”

“You’re doing it all wrong.”

“Why can’t you just be like us, doing it just like us?”

Ever hear those kinds of things?

When something is valuable and important to us, many times, other people have tried to discourage us by insisting how it is lacking something. It is not enough. What means the most to us, what deeply reflects who we are as unique individuals, is NOT enough.

Most of the time, when we encounter those kinds of judge-y statements, it’s from a place of projection. Someone else feels insecure and subpar about themselves and what they’re doing. Instead of dealing with those issues for themselves, they sidle up to us, perhaps, enjoying and ripping into something that means a great deal to us.

It’s too much work, in their own minds, to improve their own lives; it’s so much easier to just take apart someone’s else’s situation instead. Now that’s fun.

Pop the popcorn. It’s time for their personal amusement. Congratulations! Your misery is their entertainment.

We’re told it’s silly/frivolous/stupid.

We are misunderstood. What’s important to us is misunderstood.

That’s the short, simple answer.

What seems to be more complicated of an answer is that a rigid, status quo-, often fear-fueled way of living and choice making is threatened.

“That’s not how we do things around here.”

The subtext of that statement, however, communicates the message that “it” is not “legitimate.” And what’s often the opposite of that legitimate designation? Silly. Stupid. Not worth doing. Not worth choosing. Not worth being.

Being “legitimate,” being the normal status quo, however, is the way that’s credible, worthy of love, attention, money, and the benefits of life.

Accept no substitute.

Harsh, isn’t it?

Claim That Reverence! What Do We Say/Think About It?

What does that thing that signifies meaning or significance look like to us? Why do we believe we cannot or should not have it be that for us?

We need to focus on not getting talked out of personal meaning when it comes to that “thing” that is so important, it occupies a place of reverence. It’s individual, subjective, valid, and it has a right to exist in our lives. Many of us have been discouraged into believing what matters to us has no right to exist or mean what it means to us. We have been pressured into giving up or conforming to another person’s or system’s agenda.

We don’t need to get anyone’s else’s permission to justify its importance to us. It means what it means.

Claim your reverence. End of story.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

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