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A Continuing Saga…
At Smith Mountain Lake Kimberly and I took a kayak ride, and, like usual, talked some more. One of our cars has over 200k on the odometer, so we have been talking for some time about getting another vehicle. I mentioned to Kimberly my desire to buy a truck, for which I regularly have a need. “We don’t need to discuss it seriously at this point… I just thought I would broach the subject for you to think about,” I said.
She was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I’m afraid that if you get a truck we will be inundated with wood. You know how you have been packing it in everywhere.” It’s true. I’m a scavenger. I find useful things on the street next to garbage cans, in dumpsters at construction sites, and at demolished buildings. With these I have built a bedroom, cedar flower box, a king size bed frame, and numerous other projects.
I responded, “Okay, the shed is full of wood, but I’m the only one who goes in there.”
Kimberly corrected, “You also have wood piled on the downstairs patio and stacked in the laundry room in the basement.”
I replied, “I didn’t know that bothered you. I can take that wood out if you like.”
This kind of interaction has often been a trapdoor to shame. If Kimberly expresses any dissatisfaction with life together, I feel I have been a bad husband. She does not intend to shame me… she is just telling me how she feels. But I was trained as a child that when someone expressed dissatisfaction, they were telling you how you must change to meet their expectations (and by inference, how you are currently inadequate). They were talking about their feelings not as an act of sharing their experience but as a means to pressure you to bend to their wishes, making you responsible for their unhappy feelings.
Kimberly and I have spent many, many hours working through this issue—about construction I am doing, my grocery choices, messes I leave. She has told me hundreds of times that her discomfort is not my fault, that she is not trying to manipulate me by guilt or shame, that she simply wants to share how she feels without burdening me with expectations. She just wants me to understand and empathize with her feelings.
But this is a serious problem for me. When she recounts her negative feelings, my past shouts at me, “She is telling you that you must change, that you are inadequate. There will always be something you disappoint her with. You are a worthless human being!” I could not listen, understand and support her emotions without condemning myself as a failure.
We have come a long way in the right direction. She has understood my struggle and learned to express her feelings in a manner that least provokes my fears. I have learned to trust her so much more and to start supporting her in her feelings without taking responsibility for them and shaming myself.
As we paddled up an inlet, we discussed our growth as a couple, and I reminded her how well she dealt with the issue of dirty dishes. Kimberly is a do-it-now person and I am a do-it-later person. She would like for us to wash each saucer as it gets dirty, even pausing our DVR movie to do this. I find it efficient to wait until I have free time, for instance during the two minutes my coffee is in the microwave. Our initial compromise was that if plates piled up, I would wash them. I was fine with this trade—I chose the timing and did all the dishes. Hey, if I have to wash everything, I’ll do it when I like… so I let them pile up. I preferred leaving them in the sink at night and scrubbing them in the morning, but she found it difficult to get her cup of coffee with a basin full of dishes, and it soured her mood to see a stack of pots covered with dried remains of food. When this had happened for a week in a row, she decided it was time to talk.
Kimberly explained the situation and said, “How about if we wash the dishes together at night?” I felt bad that my method was spoiling her mornings, but since she was careful in how she worded it, I was able not to blame and shame myself. I found that I was then free to respond to her out of love and care rather than out of shame and obligation. The resolution felt good to both of us, validating each of us and our feelings. I still wash all the dishes in the morning, but I do it before she comes downstairs.
The resolution is not a permanent fix for my underlying issues. I still struggle not to be motivated out of fear for what she will think of me, but we are both headed in the right direction. Our commitment to mutual support creates a world of trust, safety, and intimacy.
I do not know the source, but here is a story of diehard love:
Some years ago on a hot summer day in south Florida a little boy decided to go for a swim in the old swimming hole behind his house. In a hurry to dive into the cool water, he ran out the back door, leaving behind shoes, socks, and shirt as he went. He flew into the water, not realizing that as he swam toward the middle of the lake, an alligator was swimming toward the shore.
His mother in the house was looking out the window and saw the two as they got closer and closer together. In utter fear she ran toward the water, yelling to her son as loudly as she could. Hearing her voice, the little boy became alarmed and made a U-turn to swim to his mother. It was too late. Just as he reached her, the alligator reached him. From the dock, the mother grabbed her little boy by the arms just as the alligator snatched his legs. That began an incredible tug-of-war between the two. The alligator was much stronger than the mother, but the mother was much too passionate to let go. A farmer happened to drive by, heard her screams, raced from his truck, took aim, and shot the alligator.
Remarkably, after weeks and weeks in the hospital the little boy survived. His legs were extremely scarred by the vicious attack of the animal, and on his arms were deep scratches where his mother’s fingernails dug into his flesh in her effort to hang on to the son she loved. The newspaper reporter who interviewed the boy after the trauma, asked if he would show him his scars. The boy lifted his pant legs. And then, with obvious pride, he said to the reporter, “But look at my arms. I have great scars on my arms, too. I have them because my Mom wouldn’t let go.”
You and I can identify with that little boy. We have scars, too. No, not from an alligator, or anything quite so dramatic. But the scars of a painful past. Some of those scars are unsightly and have caused us deep regret, but some wounds, my friend, are because God has refused to let go. In the midst of your struggle, He’s been there holding on to you. The Scripture teaches that God loves you. You are a child of God. He wants to protect you and provide for you in every way. But sometimes we foolishly wade into dangerous situations. The swimming hole of life is filled with peril – and we forget that the enemy is waiting to attack. That’s when the tug-of-war begins – and if you have the scars of His love on your arms be very,very grateful. He did not and will not let you go.
“Fear Not!” occurs over 300 times in the English Bible. It has always been a rebuke to me, or at least a challenge to obey. After all, it is in the imperative mode—it is a command, and commands are to be obeyed. Combined with Jesus’ rebuke of his disciples, “O ye of little faith,” I was tried and found wanting. That was my take on it most of my life.
I am regularly amazed at how I blindly bring my own assumptions to Scripture. As I receive insight from the Bible, I also shape that truth to my pre-set ideas. I think to some extent this is inevitable, since we cannot make sense of a concept that will not somehow fit into our current worldview. In this case, my assumption was that any word of Scripture in the imperative is a command, its primary address is to my will, and it requires obedience.
If I do fear when I shouldn’t, I am being disobedient and condemned by my conscience, and fearing this feeling of guilt, I try to force my feelings to submit, usually by impressing on my mind thoughts that will countermand my fear—talk my fear down, so to speak. I was trying to eliminate my fear by increasing my fear (of something greater), and my greatest fear was losing God’s approval.
I remember when I started wondering about this. Does a God of grace really want us to be afraid of Him, to doubt His grace? Does the phrase “fear God,” which crops up way more often than “fear not” really mean that I should be afraid of God? How does the gospel address this question? How do we make sense of the Bible commanding us both to fear and to not fear… is God suggesting that He should be considered more scary than anything else… the Almighty Boogeyman?
As I wrestled over many months, perhaps years, with these questions, it dawned on me that the command mode in grammar is not always used as a call to obedience. We commonly use the imperative to encourage or grant favors to others: “Have another piece of pie” or “Take your time.” They are in the command mode, but are meant as gifts, not orders. As someone departs town, we say, “Stay safe!” Is this a blessing or a command, like parents scolding their teenager, “Drive safely!” They have such very different responses in our souls.
I learned as a husband that I can easily intend a statement to ease my wife’s fears which only shames her instead. She would be afraid of something happening, and I would feel sorry for her suffering in this way and try to give her relief by explaining to her why she did not need to be afraid. “You don’t need to be afraid! It is pretty unlikely that this will happen because ____________.” I would try to explain away her fears, but she heard me saying, “It is stupid for you to be afraid. Your feelings are completely unfounded.” I seemed to be shaming her for her feelings.
Over time I learned to validate her feelings of fear, “I understand completely why this would make you afraid. I mean consider X,Y,Z,” before I went on to try to calm her fears with some form of encouragement (the kind that works for her). All my life I thought that expressing understanding for someone’s fear would actually support their feelings of fear, but I discovered that, magically, the opposite happened. Hearing my empathy for their feelings (instead of arguments for not being afraid) seemed to relieve a lot of their anxiety. They could see I was with them in their insecurity.
When God says, “Don’t Fear!” is he trying to calm our fears or shame them away? Is it the voice of a tender father soothing his frightened little girl as he holds her tight, “It’s okay… I’m hear… don’t be afraid… I’ll protect you,” or is it the voice of a sergeant to his platoon, “Stop being afraid, you cowards! What’s wrong with you? Go out there and die like men!” Which seems to yield more healthy results in our lives?
After reading “Tattoos,” Kimberly and I drove an hour to visit a friend of hers at Smith Mountain Lake, and we continued talking about unconditional love. Why is it so hard for me to extend grace to those who show no remorse for the bad things they do? Why do I so naturally feel grace for the victim and balk at gracing the aggressor? Why am I afraid to love? What am I afraid of? Why does it make me feel so vulnerable?
As I talk this out with Kimberly, I suddenly realize the source of my fear. From the time I was in diapers I learned that transgressors can only win back a good standing by feeling very sorry for what they have done. To offer grace to those who are unrepentant is simply enabling their bad behavior. Instead, show your unhappiness and disappointment, give them the cold shoulder that they deserve so they will be motivated to change. When they change, embrace them fully. Giving grace to those who are hurtful is a sure way of giving them a green light to hurt again.
During the school year, I supervise student workers at Lynchburg College library. I was amazed at how my boss Belinda could be friendly to someone she was about to correct, asking them with genuine interest about their studies or family matters. This was not my style at all. I was sure that being friendly when someone was late to work or cut corners would simply encourage their irresponsibility. But the students listened to Belinda. If anything, her friendliness made them more inclined to do what she asked. She was for them, even if she had to let them go, and they sensed this. I could see her way of relating was better than mine, but it directly contradicted decades of thought patterns and emotional systems I had grown into.
I was sure that if someone disrespected or mistreated me and I was kind in return, they would continue their behavior, and I would slowly, inevitably grow more resentful and angry. I only saw two choices: I could be friendly and let things slide or I could be unfriendly and challenge them. I could not imagine squeezing care and confrontation into the same interaction or relationship.
I think one major problem is that I tend to evaluate behavior as right or wrong, and then try to enforce the right. It sure makes things appear simple and straightforward. However, I realize that conflicts with Kimberly are really personal and relational issues, and if I try to make it about who is right and who is wrong, we get lost in defensiveness and the argument simply escalates. When we try to approach a problem with sharing and understanding instead, we resolve the conflict and both grow from the interchange. I can support her feelings and experience without abandoning my own if I do not insist that there is only one right perspective.
If I suffer because of another person’s behavior, I can either determine that they are wrong and must change or I can see it as a relational problem that needs to be addressed. “You lied and that is wrong. Don’t do it again.” Or, “When you lied it hurt me. What was going on with you that you felt the need to lie?” I find grace is lost in the shuffle for me with the first approach, and grace is a very natural part of the second approach (though I have an uncanny ability to inject dis-grace into any situation, even with a tone of voice). When I assign blame and push for change, I turn the situation into a showdown and we square off. A boxer may have tensions with his manager, even irreconcilable conflicts, but the manager is always in his corner, he is not the opponent in the ring.
Because Xanga makes it hard for folks to leave comments, I have decided to switch my reflective posts to janathangrace.org. I may switch my informative blogs to a different site as well, but I will let you know.
Wow, it was great to get 5 responses to my first post! Thank you guys for commenting! It feels good to know you are out there reading. Since this blog site is for reflections, I may keep another site for happenings, perhaps switching my Xanga to Blogspot (advantages anyone?).
My wife and I have been reading together “Tattoos on the Heart” by Gregory Boyle, a wonderful book of grace for the gang members of L.A. among whom he works (warning: rated R for language). It inspires many self reflections and long conversations between us. Sunday morning Father Boyle charmed us with descriptions of his young friend who was trying so hard to make good choices in a hellish world. He deeply loved this boy who is one day murdered senselessly in a drive-by shooting, a random target of a rival neighborhood. He speaks of the near impossibility of his calling–to give grace to the hardened killer, to love him just as he does the victim. I had a gut reaction to this suggestion.
“Isn’t shame a good thing to foster in those who need it, those who are hard-hearted?” Kimberly reminds me of the distinction she makes between shame and guilt, and for her, shame is never something we should promote. We have had this discussion many times before, and I never quite understood her. I always thought the difference was that guilt is internally directed (motivating us out of a guilty conscience to reform) and shame was externally directed (motivating us out of fear of others’ judgments to reform), the first based on internal mores (self-criticism) and the second on external mores (others’ criticism). For Kimberly, guilt is feeling bad for what I have done and shame is feeling bad for who I am.
I realize why I have always been confused by this distinction–for me there is no real difference between what I do and who I am. If I do bad things it proves I am a bad person. Kimberly responds, “The world is not made up of good and bad people. Every individual has both good and bad in them.” I agree… sort of. I know in my mind this is true, but don’t we have to make some distinction between criminals and law-abiding citizens, trustworthy and untrustworthy employees? Doesn’t society need to enforce minimal social norms by motivating wayward members with shame? Isn’t shame sometimes a good thing?
Then she makes something click for me, “What people need, even those who are jaded… especially those who are jaded… is love and grace. It is never good to shame others.” “What about the Pharisees?” “There is great value in helping others get in touch with the shame they already have and are suppressing, which is very different from imposing shame from outside. The self-righteous are not free of shame. In fact, their shame is so intense they have to keep it away at all costs, repressing it by tight behavioral conformity and projecting it by shaming others.” I stew on that. It finally makes sense to me.
I still think like a Pharisee in many ways: I feel bad for who I am, a miserable sinner and my behavior proves my character; the only way to escape this shame is to change my conscious thoughts, motivations, and actions to be good; I shame myself and others into this conformity. But finally the light blinks on. I am bad, flawed, sinful (like every single person on earth), and I automatically equated this with being worthless or at least worth less. But my value has nothing to do with my behavior. God loves me because I am his beloved, and nothing I do can change that. My worth as a person is completely based on God’s love. I believe it is legalism to try to establish someone’s worth by excusing or ameliorating their sin, “You really are a good person, and therefore have worth.”
When I returned from being a missionary in Calcutta, I felt like a terrible failure, and because of my legalism, I believed this proved I was unworthy, unacceptable. But if I exhausted every twitch of energy to be a “success” in God’s eyes, and still failed, then I was without hope of ever getting on God’s good side. I stumbled off that gerbil wheel, not because I had a better path to follow, but because I was convinced my efforts were useless. Some folks, hearing I was discouraged, tried to lift my spirit by telling me that I really had been a success in spite of what I thought. Instead of cheering me up, this darkened my heart even further since their insistence on this point fed my fear that I really did have to be a success to be of worth. This underlying fear plagues me to this day, though daily I pull further free of its hold as I believe more fully in God’s love.
So, friends, what are your thoughts and experiences around this dialogue? Feel free to disagree with me or one another, but please do so with as much humility and grace as possible.
Welcome to my world! I hope you find here an open invitation to an honest journey, a story of struggle and hope, of pain and grace. I hope you find this place safe enough to share genuinely about your own joys and fears, growth and heartache.
Because I want this to be an interactive community, I have decided to move here from Xanga where you must jump through hoops to leave a comment. I am blessed in being able to share. It helps me think more clearly and connects me at a deeper level with others. I am also greatly blessed when others share with me. So come sit down and visit for a while!
After some 6-8 weeks on a generic form of Prozac, I found myself with far more energy than I have had in many years. My fears that I would lose touch with my feelings was proven false, at least for me. I actually have more emotional space now to be more connected to my feelings, so it has inspired a new round of self reflection and growth. It has been a lungful of fresh air… not perfect…. I still struggle with depression regularly, but that seems to me to be a good thing because the source of my depression is an ungracious paradigm or framework out of which I have operated all my life. I need to connect with the resulting emotions so that I can identify my self-criticism (which is constantly at work in my subconscious), and apply grace to a wider scope of my life and perspective. Since a very young child, I have been severely limited in my ability to bring grace to bear at the deeper levels of my heart.
At first the limitation came from being clueless about my true feelings. My sense of failure in Calcutta and the resulting clinical depression fifteen years ago broke through that blindness to my deepest needs and their remedy in the grace of God. For many of us, unfelt needs are far more significant and life-shaping than felt needs. As I do everything whole-heartedly, for the last decade I have been on this rigorous journey of self-discovery and grace discovery. I realized the problem and solution correctly, but I knew myself so little that I was greatly hindered in this journey. Instead of moving from a law to grace perspective, I tended to simply refocus all my energies and obligations on knowing myself and grace better. In other words, I was still mostly operating out of a foundational legalism. I continued to “should” all over myself and drive myself to discover grace! Like trying to vigorously fan a weak flame into life, it tended more often to blow it out.
I continued to operate (unknowingly) out of a motivation of obligation and with great effort (both of which are inimical to grace). I knew my house was broken and why it was broken, but I kept using the same broken tools in trying to rebuild it. I think this is often inevitable, because when we realize our need for grace, our history is not erased (the tools are not exchanged for others, but must themselves be slowly rectified). Regeneration gives us the power to be transformed, but growth in grace is a lifelong process. I find that I can only apply grace effectively to the self-condemnation which I recognize, and I was out of touch with most of those subconscious views. When the problem is not what you are seeing, but what you are seeing with, it is very hard to identify clearly, like using my eyes to evaluate what is behind my eyes or seeing a vast landscape without noticing the perch I stand on.
At times that submerged perspective broke through (and still does) to the level of my consciousness. Often I only notice a particular moment of dis-grace. If I am able to give that moment my attention and reflection, I will gradually be more open and aware of those hints to my underlying outlook until I identify a pattern of self-condemnation that needs the salve of grace. This often comes as an “aha!” moment.
My wife Kimberly laughs at how much I talk out loud to myself… carry on snatches of conversation actually. I was so accustomed to thinking out loud in this way that I didn’t hear myself doing it. But one day I realized that every time I make a mistake I say to myself (occasionally out loud), “Dummy!”or some other pejorative. [At this very moment I suddenly remembered that my dad has always done that to himself, and anger is tied to this for both of us… but I will leave that for another time.] I started becoming more aware, especially when I said it out loud, and began correcting that damaging view. But quite recently I awoke to the truth that this was not just an occasional word of self-hatred, but only an occasional siting of an ever present self-condemnation over mistakes. I had not only recognized a pattern, but the underlying sinkhole of dis-grace, and it makes me alert to more and more occasions of self-condemnation.
When I notice those destructive thoughts, my personal conversation goes like this: Me: “I am not a dummy. Making mistakes is human and everyone inevitably makes many all through life. There are humans and angels (a perfect non-human), but at least this side of heaven you have no other option than being a flawed human. God created us as limited, fallible creatures, and he looked at us and said, “very good!” Alter-ego: “He said that before the fall of mankind. You are severely flawed. He is disappointed in you.” Me: “Yes I have many flaws, but God loves me all the more in my failures.” Alter-ego, “Well sure he loves you, but don’t you believe he has expectations in which you are miserably failing?” Me: “Your idea of love is a lie! It suggests that God’s love is conditional, that it vacillates based on our behavior. God loves me completely, unalterably, unhesitatingly, unceasingly!” This conversation will go on as long as I need it to, until grace wins my heart. Sometimes I need to get the help of others to stand up for me, for God’s grace–to declare me loved fully despite any situation–since in my most vulnerable places I cannot stand up adequately for myself, that is, I cannot embrace grace because my self-condemnation is too strong. I had a year of counseling to do just that, and would have kept it up if I had not moved across state and halved my salary. But what I got in return (my wife) was a far greater blessing.
I have not posted in two months because I have been struggling with depression more than usual, and when I am in that place, I only have energy for the essentials. It took me two months to figure out why I was struggling. I should have figured it out the first week, but after a lifetime of emotional neglect, I find it very difficult to identify problems that crop up.
I currently work at a private college library (Lynchburg College) supervising student workers. The job is not only part time (28-30 hours), but is only for the school year, so I was furloughed over Christmas (and will be over summer). To make up for the winter drop in income, I took a part time job cleaning up some organizational messes at my previous employment. I knew I didn’t like the job, but it took me 6 weeks to figure out that it was also pulling down my whole life experience. Thankfully, it was a temporary setup anyway.
The last 15 years of my life I have been depressed, and though I did all I could to get free, nothing restored my soul. For 10 years now I have considered taking medication. At first I was reluctant because of the stigma (both from a religious perspective as well as a professional one). After working my way through that barrier, I was reluctant because I thought it might distance me from my own emotions and so make it more difficult to grow more healthy. I was also reluctant to become dependent on meds, and to drive up insurance costs (on applications they always ask). But 4 weeks ago I finally decided to give medication a try. I understand it takes quite a bit of trying to find the right one, so we will see how it goes. I am hopeful, though so far I’ve experienced no significant changes. I would ask for the prayers of those who believe in prayer (and the well-wishes of those who don’t).
I have driven some roads so often that they become like grooves or ruts in my subconscious, and if my mind is working on a tricky problem, I may end up on my home street with an empty tank instead of at the gas station where I was headed. At the other end of the spectrum are those places I have been once or twice a long time back. The first turn off the main road seems right… I think I remember that red mailbox… was the street named Malcolm or Mercury or… Whitmore?… wait, this is not right, I’ll try the other street. If I am in the countryside, low on gas, and out of cellphone range, anxiety starts pricking my stomach… and rural routes are often unmarked, on signs as well as maps.
That contrast reflects my history. I lived most of my life following the clear, unambiguous way, The Plan, until it ran me smack into the wall. But once I realized the way ahead was not obvious, certain, simple, or predictable, I couldn’t figure out what to do. I have a general sense of direction and a rough idea of how to proceed, but am thoroughly befuddled about how to make daily choices. I don’t do well with ambiguity. It makes me feel insecure, confused, and tired. In the past, my certainty protected me, but I can no longer trust that crutch. Some folks might advise to “just let it go,” allow myself to muddle through and make mistakes, but I don’t have enough emotional capital to freely make mistakes. Every time I make a wrong turn, I run out of gas and clunk to a halt or avoid running out of gas by dropping to a crawl.
One of the serious handicaps I work with is a history of denying, ignoring, shaming, and attacking my own needs and desires. By the time I reached adulthood, I no longer knew what was or was not good for my soul, or rather I strongly believed that the poison I constantly fed myself was the best of vitamins. After 40 years of feeding myself a smorgasbord of shame, I am tone deaf to my own needs, and every choice seems to be lined with pitfalls. If I push myself to do some unwanted task, will I be stoking the lie that the task is more important than I am… or conversely, if I resist doing the task will I be setting myself up for self-judgment about irresponsibility. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.
The healthy third way is for me to dig down into the reason I feel reluctant to do the deed, feel compassion for my personal wants, needs, fears, confusion (i.e. receive the grace of God for who I am and what I am in right now), and out of that settled security, choose one way or the other. Unfortunately my grasp of God’s grace is never “settled,” but is tangled up with a lifetime of skewed perspectives, twisted dynamics, and profoundly ingrained feelings. The best faith I can muster is usually a mixed affair, and in such a situation, neither decision is going to work out well. That is to say, down either path I will find myself fighting against a new pressure to feel shame. Even if I come out on top of that fight, I will be exhausted, and have little strength for the next round. In the main, I am growing in grace, but so slowly and with such toll that I usually feel I am barely holding on.
I do have eddies of peace or splashes of joy along the way, but that is not the flow of my life, and no amount of positive thinking will make it so. My hope is that grace will one day make a deep and strong enough current in my heart to buoy me through the rapids.
It helps to talk about it. Thanks for listening.
Janathan Grace Reflections 