The ‘Not-Doing-What-Should-Be-Done’ Syndrome

Yesterday’s domestic news was dominated Baroness Casey’s report on the sexual abuse of teenage girls in the north of England. There was parliamentary debate… television programmes… discussion about enquiries… excuses, blame, self-justification, evasion of responsibilities, recommendations, promises…

A woman, raped by grooming gangs at the age of 12, 20 years ago, told her story. Women, victims of powerful grooming gangs and a powerless system call for justice and action.

This ‘not-doing-what-should-be-done’ syndrome seems to be part of our basic human condition.

Those advised that they should go on a diet, exercise more, live more healthily make excuses… those who’ve fallen out with a friend blame the other for their faults rather than actively seek reconciliation… those who need to clear a credit card debt find new priorities to spend more money.

I encountered two examples yesterday…

…Hearing the Tennyson’s quote: ‘Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.’ It’s part of a poem written following the death of a close friend, Arthur Hallam, who died suddenly of a brain haemorrhage aged just 22.

I see… uncertainty about what love is… poor role models of what love looks like… the impatient, the anxious, the muddled …those wanting to receive love but unwilling/unable to give it …those with scars from passed loves …those who see themselves as love-failures.

…leading to the ‘not-doing-what-should-be-done’ syndrome in love.

…Reading Jeff Lucas regretting that he isn’t the Christian that he wished he was: ‘I wanted to be a spiritual Usain Bolt. Instead I’ve often felt like Mr Bean with a Bible.’

This view is shared by many friends… lapsed Christians, fringe Christians, feeling-failed Christians, exhausted Christians, given-up Christians…

I identify with St Paul: ‘Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me… what a wretched man I am.’ Leaving it there I suffer – with my friends – from the ‘not-doing-what-should-be-done’ syndrome in faith.

My solution, Paul’s solution? ‘I press on to reach the end of the race…’ I keep moving, I press on…

(Jeff Lucas quote from June’s Christianity Magazine)