Author Archive
When we face life honestly, bravely, and resolutely, it slices us with a thousand little deaths: truths we are loathe to admit, securities that have blocked our growth, long-fostered hopes that end with a sudden blowout or gradual leak against every effort to re-inflate them. As Kimberly and I prepare to move to Asheville, NC, we are “downsizing,” a smooth word corporations use to put a positive spin on frantically casting everything overboard to save a sinking ship–more like foundering than streamlining.
I had no trouble giving away excess clothes and unused dishes, but when I sold my weight set, it went out the door with my dreams of a buff body still draped over it. To my wife it was a dust-collecting eye-sore, but when I sold that bench, I gave up on a promise and hope. It was my final concession that this frumpy body is the one I will take to the grave. I finally admitted honestly that it was a wasted dream, sitting idle for so many years because my real values lay elsewhere. And that’s okay… it’s even good. I want to live out my true values and not be distracted by false ones. But the good road often forks away from the desirable one. Being good and being happy are often incommensurable.
Stripping away possessions can be a stripping off of dreams and securities, groundings and trajectories, plans and expectations. This morning as I drove my pickup filled with ministry books to donate to a local college, one phrase pounded through my head: “I hate my life!” Those particular books sat in boxes in my basement for ten years, waiting, full of hope for a revived ministry of preaching or teaching or leading, some role to play in bringing God’s goodness into the world. They hung heavy with past joys long gone: the delight in studying and sharing truth with others, the deep satisfaction of experiencing spiritual usefulness by sharing gifts to benefit others.
I have pursued the truth as relentlessly as I can, and it has brought me so much more insight and freedom, self-knowledge and character. I know now that much of what I did before was streaked through with blindspots and immaturity and ungodliness. I had a deeply flawed understanding of God. I am in a far better place personally and spiritually because of all the breaking, but I had hoped to come to the other side of the struggle, to rediscover joy and peace and fulfillment at a new, fuller, more meaningful level. But I am only tired, deeply tired, and crushed and broken-hearted. I feel as though I am on a death-march, lifting one foot after the other in my hopeless, stubborn faith.
If this rings true for your own experience, may you be encouraged that you are not alone. Let us call out to one another in the dark.
We are moving and selling our house. It takes a great deal of work to get a house ready to sell: fixing, updating, de-cluttering, prepping… on top of working two jobs. It is exhausting. All day long I mutter, “I am SO tired.” And the work never ends. I’ve tried multiple fixes and none have worked. Trying to sleep it off just delays the soul and body ache which jumps me the moment I start my day. Every other search for relief has the same dead-end result.
It occurred to me recently that I may need to accept weariness as my current stage in life, like the parents of a newborn must do. Perhaps resignation is my best move since every failed effort at escape simply increases my sense of entrapment. I can live with exhaustion just as others live with arthritis–with a bit of accommodation and commonsense caution, carry on with life each day as it is given me to live. I’ll let you know how it plays out (if I’m not too tired to blog).
Sometimes I feel truly overwhelmed. Hope drains away and the future becomes dark… and then meaningless… and then too weary to even consider. Days are reduced to a zombie-like stumble, a daily routine on endless repeat like a scratched album.
This fall I faced Mount Everest when I finally agreed with Kimberly to move to Asheville, NC. Relocating is a huge effort, and just getting our house ready to sell formed an insurmountable list: patch and seal the driveway, repair the stone wall, replace the doorbell, finish remodeling the bedroom, paint the deck and porch and windows and basementandbathroomandkitchen… the tasks filled a page, single-spaced and two columns long. I felt myself sinking under it.
But in my desperation God sent a guardian angel, my sister Mardi, who suddenly decided that she would take several days vacation-leave to come help. Driving across three states, she dropped her bags on the floor and said, “Hit me with your list. I’m going to work from 5 in the morning till 10 at night to get this stuff done.” Kimberly and I had to tag team just to keep up with her pace. Her energy flowed into my spirit and lifted me over the shoals so that I could keep going even after she left. There is still a lot to do, but it no longer overwhelms me. The wind she puffed into my sails keeps blowing me forward so that her sacrificial gift did much more for me than finish some tasks.
She made the difference for me by giving from her heart, without expectation, which is a pure expression of grace. When I help others, I often expect that they will help me in return when I need it or that they will join with me as I help them or that they will at least be encouraged and feel better. If nothing else, I expect them to be sufficiently grateful. A gift that comes wrapped in expectations is really just a transaction, a trade, and can feel more like a burden than a blessing to those who receive it. But Mardi gave without expectation, freely, and such grace is an artesian spring, filling our hearts and overflowing into others, the gift that keeps on giving.
This article is worth your read. It doesn’t offer a path forward (how to learn to love yourself), but it is a very good description of well-meaning legalists like I was most of my life and the consequences in myself and my relationships that I am still working to overcome. The grace of God is key in this process of recovery, but it takes faith, time and perseverance.
“Be gentle and kind to yourself” I blogged two weeks ago. “Take full measure of your pain and with compassion find a way to give the help your weary, struggling heart needs.” Great advice, and as it turns out, useless. I was suffering acutely, but didn’t know why. How could I relieve a pain that I could not locate? Loneliness may be remedied with a friend, loss may be resolved with healthy grieving, but the phantom pain of depression is often untraceable to any source. I was completely stuck.
For a long time now I have been struggling to find relief from my pain… or at the very least find the best way to cope with it. Should I follow a plan or be spontaneous, should I read or write, should I sleep in or get up early–what would be best for my soul? I kept taking my emotional temperature, trying to figure out what helped or didn’t help, but the solution was a will-o’-the-wisp, dancing just outside my insight and control.
“And then somehow it came to me,” I journaled the next morning. “What my heart needed was not support to find and apply a solution (friends, good job, insight, etc.), but just support as an end in itself. What my heart needed was simply that gentleness and kindness, for me to have an attitude of constant gentleness and kindness in how I saw myself, thought of myself, felt about myself. I needed self-compassion for my own pain and struggle and fear and confusion and sense of worthlessness—not to find a solution, but to just be on my own side through it all.”
I am a fixer from way back. When I see others in pain, I want to help, give them suggestions, offer them a way to find relief. This often backfires, unintentionally causing more hurt. Kimberly wants me to listen with compassion, understanding, and empathy rather than solutions, but I’m a very slow learner. I keep defaulting back to problem-solving even though I’ve discovered through her how greatly I also need to just be heard and not fixed.
If the best a friend can offer is not to stop my pain, but to hold my hand through it, then why have I never thought to practice this with my own heart, to be my own best friend? What if I walked through each day with a tenderness towards myself, an empathy for my struggle, an awareness and responsiveness to the fluctuations of daily events and how they impact my heart?
I feel as though a new way of being has started to open up in my mind. I’m just learning the initial steps, but it seems to hold real promise for the next leg of my spiritual journey. It does not mean my misery will lighten, but that I will be sensitive and caring about my ongoing pain.
This is the kind of eulogy I would wish for myself–not to be remembered for my intelligence or talents or accomplishments, but for a sweet spirit. I think it will take another couple decades of fermenting to become what I wish to be. Here is Daniel Radcliffe’s (Harry Potter) remembrance of Alan Rickman, the late actor:
Alan Rickman is undoubtedly one of the greatest actors I will ever work with. He is also, one of the loyalest and most supportive people I’ve ever met in the film industry. He was so encouraging of me both on set and in the years post-Potter. I’m pretty sure he came and saw everything I ever did on stage both in London and New York. He didn’t have to do that. I know other people who’ve been friends with him for much much longer than I have and they all say “if you call Alan, it doesn’t matter where in the world he is or how busy he is with what he’s doing, he’ll get back to you within a day”.
People create perceptions of actors based on the parts they played so it might surprise some people to learn that contrary to some of the sterner(or downright scary) characters he played, Alan was extremely kind, generous, self-deprecating and funny. And certain things obviously became even funnier when delivered in his unmistakable double-bass.
As an actor he was one of the first of the adults on Potter to treat me like a peer rather than a child. Working with him at such a formative age was incredibly important and I will carry the lessons he taught me for the rest of my life and career. Film sets and theatre stages are all far poorer for the loss of this great actor and man.
I drove home from work this evening with my windshield wipers swishing away the dreariness and plotting how to ease my weary soul: instrumental music, a cinnamon scented candle, a DVD fire on the TV screen, a cup of coffee and a chocolate chip cookie topped with birthday cake ice cream, while nestling into my sofa to love on my two dogs. So here I sit with Mazie curled up beside me and Mitts stretched out on my lap, lending me their peace.
I have things to do, things easier done in the daylight, but I’ve set them aside as the shadows settle in. Through the back french doors I can just make out the black tree trunks and branches against the dark grey sky on the hill above our home. It is okay. There will always be one more thing to do. My inbox will always be overflowing. Rest is so important to God that it made his top ten list. It is an act of holiness so basic to our well-being that it was the capstone of the world’s creation. Even more than my body, my soul needs to let go, relax, settle in, harbor from the blasts life blows throughout the day.
Come join me. Find your place of calm. Leave the lists and obligations, the insistent tasks and expectations in the hands of the One who can carry it for you and come away to Sabbath for a time until the weariness slowly drains off and washes away. Every person and task in your life is benefited by your self-care. Breathe easy. It is an act of holy obedience.
Be gentle and kind to yourself. Your soul needs it. Be patient with yourself, life is hard enough without your self-criticism. Learn to support yourself, not superficially with cake and new shoes, but at the deepest levels towards your heart’s real needs. Lovingly forgive yourself for your failures and shortcomings as you would those of a dear friend. Be your own best friend. You are in as much need of a true friend as anyone else.
What does your heart need today? It will only be honest with you if you are gentle and kind to it. It is not luxury or indulgence to give first-aid to your bleeding heart-wounds. To ignore them or diminish them would be neglect, so take full measure of your pain and with compassion find a way to give the help your weary, struggling heart needs. With a little courage, ask for assistance from others and accept what is offered freely and without apology, but with real gratitude.
Be kind to yourself today, and gentle. It is the root from which compassion springs up for others. Practice it on yourself first and you will be better at giving it to others.
I have little time before work and only 9 usable fingers, having chunked off the flat of my thumb in my belt sander–a story for another day–so this will be quick and rough, but I have thoughts I want to put down. I watched an old episode of Joan of Arcadia recently and remembered why I liked it–the constant reminder that God does not play by our rules and often leaves us in the dark, even (or rather especially) about our own lives. That is, I hate the experience, but I am grateful for the camaraderie of someone who also feels slapped in the face by life… every day… and cannot find a way to duck the swing.
I have been struggling more deeply with depression for the last few months (which is the reason for my absence here–depression reduces life to survival and little more). It feels awful, so much like an actual physical trauma that I find myself catching my breath with the pain, and more recently grasping my head in my hands as I double over. So I dig through my piles of options for some way to reduce the misery, but while I’m looking, my feelings change. How do you address something which is unpredictable, indiscernible, uncontrollable. I don’t mean I don’t have any influence over my feelings, but it is like driving with a knee around mountain curves… in the fog. So my feelings are constantly in the ditch–it is all I can manage to keep from going over the embankment.
Some days I wake up feeling okay… as long as I just lie there in a drowsy stupor. That makes me think that naps might be a way to avoid my misery… which is true, but not helpful since I can’t live the rest of my life in a coma. It just delays the returning blackness, it doesn’t lighten it. So basically any strategy for avoiding life and its attendant feelings–loving on my dogs, watching TV, reading Facebook–is only a distraction from feeling anything deep or meaningful, it doesn’t resolve or heal or soften those bad feelings that come flooding back the moment I come out of the circus show.
For my religiously minded friends with the easy and certain solution–yes, I keep trying prayer and Bible reading as I am able, I keep looking for a church that doesn’t make me feel even worse afterwards. These have not brought any fundamental relief or changed my experience of life. And for my friends who have found some relief in medicine–I’ve tried several iterations, no luck so far.
Honestly it is not my staggering emotions that are the fundamental soul problem so much as the lack of control and confusion. If I believed that my depression were God-ordained and inescapable, it would relieve me of desperately seeking solutions (which puts a great deal of pressure on myself, and temptation to self-blame). I could settle for learning how to manage the life I am given. But since I have small influences on my emotions, it keeps me actively engaged. Were I to conclude that I had no real control and that my emotional experience of life was wholly in the hands of God, I could accept my lack of control, but that would exacerbate my confusion, not only over why this was God’s choice for me, but how I am to respond to it.
Regarding the first, the very values God promotes are undermined by my depression, not simply because of the inherent self-focus needed and the sapping of all motivation, but because of its intense draining of energy: I don’t have the normal resources from which to draw to be generous-minded, hard-working, other-oriented. Patience looks more like resignation, hope seems more like stubbornness. Wisdom seems to be stymied–if I have too little insight for my own life, what do I have to give to others? And to find any joy present in this mess would require a complete re-definition.
Regarding the second, my response to intractable emotions, it is hard enough to find a rhythm for the dance of life when one’s emotions are consistent, even consistently miserable. A strategy, plan, step-by-step approach can be developed when the playing field is stable, but when it constantly changes, it throws off all efforts to establish patterns, learn dynamics, and create a workable approach.
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That was yesterday. I ran out of time before I could post. But the gears started to spin as I wrote. To suppose that patience as resignation or hope as stubbornness is somehow a poorer, weaker form of the real virtue is to undermine the very breadth and variegated beauty of each virtue, to stereotype, slot, and truncate the vast panoply of experience and expression of each facet of goodness. We have often tried to distill attributes into some pure or regnant form, a person that most exemplifies some particular value, say of courage or discipline. So the essence of real love is seen as mother love, as though there is only one kind of love and everyone should emulate it. But what if there are many unique and invaluable forms of love that are missed by this reduction, that look different from mother love but have their own irreplaceable value: what of the simplicity and humility of a child’s love, the equality and intentionality of a friend’s love, the intensity and intertwining of a spouse’s love… and so even those of us under the heavy weight of depression have a unique offering of love, one of deep understanding and empathy and acceptance. Perhaps depression does not inherently limit, sap, or dull our virtues, but instead refines, strengthens, sharpens them with a special coloring. Our virtues have their own beauty and power, unique role and expression, a glory all their own.
“FORGIVENESS is a heartache and difficult to achieve because strangely, it not only refuses to eliminate the original wound, but actually draws us closer to its source. To approach forgiveness is to close in on the nature of the hurt itself, the only remedy being, as we approach its raw center, to reimagine our relation to it.
“It may be that the part of us that was struck and hurt can never forgive, and that strangely, forgiveness never arises from the part of us that was actually wounded. The wounded self may be the part of us incapable of forgetting, and perhaps, not actually meant to forget, as if, like the foundational dynamics of the physiological immune system our psychological defenses must remember and organize against any future attacks – after all, the identity of the one who must forgive is actually founded on the very fact of having being wounded.
“Stranger still, it is that wounded, branded, un-forgetting part of us that eventually makes forgiveness an act of compassion rather than one of simple forgetting. To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt, to mature and bring to fruition an identity that can put its arm, not only around the afflicted one within but also around the memories seared within us by the original blow and through a kind of psychological virtuosity, extend our understanding to one who first delivered it….
“To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seem to hurt us. We re-imagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we re-imagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft.”
~ David Whyte
Janathan Grace Reflections 