Destructive Intervention

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Destructive InterventionBy Ronnie Bray

The history of humanity is liberally sprinkled with stories and

legends of Divine Intervention where a kind God has taken note of a

particular human condition and dispensed his favour to ameliorate

and bless the recipient.

Examples of this include the infant Moses rescued from the waters

of the Nile by Pharaohs daughter; Elijah raising of a widow's dead

son; Elishas miracle of continuously replenishing the poor widow's

jar of oil; and the raising of the four-days dead Lazarus. These

examples of Divine Intervention are grand themes of Gods reaching

out of heaven to do things for people that they could not do for

themselves, and are among the grand themes that inspire and

motivate the faithful.

Equally grand, but less notable, are instances of where a parents

prayer has kept a sick child alive against all odds; restored love to

broken families thought to be beyond repair by human experts; andthe restoration of joy and love to one whose heart has been sunk into

the depths of despair by the tragic loss of a loved one, by the divine

provision of a loving person with power to bind up and heal. In each

of these examples, the principle element is either the saving of a life

that seemed doomed to be snuffed out, or the restoration of vitality

in someone whose life lay in ruins before them. The motive behind

them all is love, which is Gods primary motive in all he does and

longs for for his human children in order that they can fulfil theirdivine destiny.

There is a much less worthy kind of motive at work in cases of

Destructive Interference that marks it as the direct polar opposite of

that which God seeks to introduce into the lives of his children. Try


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as we might, we cannot find anything honest, just, pure, lovely, of

good report; virtuous, or praiseworthy in it. As Gods motive for

Divine Intervention is unparalleled love, so those engaged in

Destructive Interference are moved by ungodly and fundamental

hatred. This hatred does not care what it costs as long as it gets itsown way, nor who it hurts, as long as its fundamental aims are

accomplished.

Human happiness is fragile, at best. It takes very little to disturb the

equilibrium of a balanced life, but practitioners of Destructive

Interference are shielded from, understanding what effect it has on

others, even on the innocent, because they shelter behind a solid

wall of selfishness. At worst, it is crass unkindness, and at worst, itis significant pathological evidence of a diseased, unsocialised mind.

The most often noted instances of Destructive Intervention are those

arising after the death of a spouse, when the surviving partner finds

comfort, perhaps love, in another person in a similar position, and

the children of one or the other objects to the new friendship.

Often these occurrences are met with such hostility from childrenthat the friendship is forced to end, leaving two people that have

already suffered from the death of a loved one have little recourse

left to them in order to keep the peace with their unruly and

thoughtless children other than to withdraw their friendship,

affection, and support from the newly found friend, following which

withdrawal they are left to descend into another cycle of despair as

hope is snatched from them and all that is left to them is an event

that closely resembles bereavement.

It has been suggested that a reason for the childrens Destructive

Interference is the fear of losing inherited property or cash benefits.

Others have excused their behaviour by claiming to be loyal to their

deceased parent. Yet those that claim the latter are often found to

have themselves remarried after their partners death, or else to have


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divorced and remarried without any regard for their own loyalty to

their previous partners. It is sad to note that in almost every case

where objections have been raised to surviving parents finding new

love and joy, the objectors do not employ the same level of

sensitivity when it comes to their own lives in similarcircumstances.

Discourteous efforts to adjust to a bereaved parents remarriage

often induce or exacerbate what is called Surviving Parent

Alienation Syndrome. Underlying dynamics include hostility, fear

of losing property or wealth, narcissistic outrage, desire for revenge,

children's unskilled attempts to resolve their own conflict, and

parent-child boundary violations. In some cases these and similarfeelings are aroused because children, of whatever age, have not

learned to regard the feelings of the bereaved parent as either

significant or important.

The simplest method of learning to cope with irrational feelings at

the potential remarriage of a surviving parent is to put oneself in

their place. This permits a clearer and more reasonable

understanding of the awful plight in which survivors of a loving andhappy marriage find themselves. Perhaps only those that have stood

in their shoes can fully understand the dreadful emptiness and

misery they experience. No amount of explanation will enable

another to know exactly how it feels.

Even their own sorrow at the loss of their parent seems unable to be

transferred to their surviving parent, so that no fellow feeling exists

for their grief: only the cold certainty of their own loss, and,

perhaps, the impression that their own grief can never be assuaged.Where this is present to a pathological degree, the prevailing notion

becomes that the if the parent shows interest in another, then the

grief expressed by that parent at the death of his or her spouse was

counterfeit, and so betrayal extends beyond the dead parent to the

children. This conclusion, however, is patently false. Yet it has


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blighted the lives of good men and women for many centuries and

its race is not yet run.

The ultimate penalty for non-sanctioned remarriage is utter and

outright alienation. This is, ipso facto, a declaration that the survivoris dead. This conclusion may be reached by diktat from a powerful

sibling, or by a democratic process in which the accused and

rejected is not a part, or by a combination of similar processes. The

result is always the same: it abandons the rejected parent and forms

the siblings into an uneasy and always suspicious alliance that often

runs counter to the individual mores of the weaker members of the

group.

What is certain is that the terminated parent will be the continual

subject of self-justifying discourse by the group, and even false or

invented memories will be invoked to justify the decision of the

court that has handed down sentence on the rejected. The failure of

any self-censoring faculty allows the charges to be deepened and

darkened as time goes on, and eventually matters over which the

discarded had no control will be laid at his or her feet as if they were

somehow culpable of crimes against the group.

While the effects of this rejection often bring harm to the one

outcast, the deeper injury is done to those that act thus. Hatred that

is cradled, nurtured, expanded, and treasured lives like a canker

inside the hearts and minds of those that gave it birth, and whose

energies are directed towards its continued existence.

The saddest part of such behaviour is that it is often conveyed into

the hearts and minds of little children who are taught thereby thatlove is nothing, and that hate is worth embracing. As it says in the

Bible, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth

are set on edge." How true it is that hate is an easier legacy to

bestow than love, for love questions, but hate never does. We can


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only weep for little ones led astray by insensitive adults who are

careless with what they instil into their young ones.

Just as only those that have felt the love of a beloved companion can

know what it is like, it is equally certain that only those that havebeen subjected to the injustice of alienation by their children for

affirming their God-given humanity can know the ineradicable pain

it causes.

Throughout all these bitter experiences, we will always find God

ready to ease our distress, lessen our pain, and breathe comfort to us,

if we will be patient, trusting, and ready to hear him.

Copyright 2012 Ronnie Bray

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Destructive Intervention