Archive for the ‘Personal’ Category
This morning I came back from washing the breakfast dishes and crumpled onto the floor, burying my face in the sofa cushions. Kimberly simply said, “Why don’t you take a nap.” So I did, curling up next to her, and it helped. Moved me up the scale from minus bad to “it doesn’t hurt as long as I don’t move.”
Sadness comes in shades so different they seem like contrasting emotions. There is a sadness, like today’s, which is desolate and drains the heart of life and knots up the words. It feels bottomless and endless and inescapable. It isolates, so that even fellow mourners bring no more companionship or connection than fellow prisoners in solitary confinement.
In contrast is the sadness which fills the heart and cascades down the cheeks. It creates bonds of camaraderie and sympathy and understanding. It makes me feel more connected and in tune with my soul, harmony in the minor scale. It feels pregnant with meaning, pain that carries purpose and life, a deepening of my being that opens me up to others. A healthy, hearty grieving.
In the first sadness, the music of melancholy scalds me and the sympathetic presence of others suffocates. In the second, shared melancholy gives me the comfort of allies, of support and hope, even with strangers like Leonard Cohen. Were I a drinker, the first would be a half-empty bottle in a darkened room, the second, a circle of folding chairs at an AA meeting.
The first blocks all means of resolution; nothing I do matters. It stops without warning and starts up again without reason. The second sadness has potential movement, a sense that time and effort will eventually lead to greater peace and maturity. It makes me a better and more whole person. But the first melancholy unmans me. Why?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
I read this to Kimberly so we could toss it around looking for answers–what makes the difference? At least the relational element seemed to come into focus–if there is some disconnect in the empathy of others, then their presence is painful instead of comforting. If they are unsafe or just seem to me to be unsafe, the empathetic connection shorts out. Perhaps they don’t understand or care or don’t have time or can’t be trusted or have too much of their own baggage or too little energy to give. Unfortunately, even a compassionate presence seems to give little relief to a sadness which is indecipherable.
I share my life this way, dark as it is, not because I have answers, but to offer some identification of feeling to those who struggle as I do.
Prayer and I have had a very long, intense, conflicted relationship over the years. I have asked God, weeping and begging, shouting and pounding my fist against the floor, for requests from His own wish list–healing, reconciliation, deliverance, guidance–and more often than not I’ve come away empty-handed. Am I not praying enough? Do I lack faith? Is it not His time? Do we not deserve His intervention? Where are you, God?
What’s the point anyway–if God is all wise and all powerful, why tell Him what we want, especially since He is also all good and will do what is best regardless? It’s not like He needs my advice about how to run the world, or even how to keep me headed in the right direction. Is it just some sly, round about way to get me to admit my own powerlessness and dependence on Him?
I still talk to God… all the time, really. But I don’t ask for much any more. I guess prayer is just my way of reaching out in the dark to reassure myself that He is still there, still with me, still present even if we’re going over the cliff… especially if we’re going over the cliff. I need someone to hold my hand, to love me as I am, even if He doesn’t help. One day it will all make sense, or maybe it just won’t matter. In the meantime, I need a friend.
Maybe I was looking for answers from God when God was the answer.
Emotional shrapnel from old battles tore unexpectedly at my vitals this afternoon, searing my heart from some random twist in my psyche as I drove down Lakeside Avenue. It flares up like this without warning, without any evident cause… something I saw or heard or remembered that touches a place still raw and sore, but too deep to identify. I am learning to live with it like rheumatism. Slow down, ease off, go gently till it lifts in an hour or day or month. Another tough opportunity to learn self compassion.
I am Irish from 4 generations back, and my great-grandfather apparently lived out that legacy with a liquor bottle. My grandfather was converted, and I guess he tossed everything out from the old country, good and bad, because we heard nothing more about his father in our family histories. Our illustrious past started with grandpa, and what lay before was best forgotten. By my generation, we were starched so red-white-and-blue that I discovered my green ancestry by accident, from a passing comment. When I was a boy, March 17th had no more significance than the 16th.
New beginnings are rich with potential as Kimberly and I can attest in changing our surname, in my case from McQuilkin to Grace, but the past cannot be sliced off like so much dead weight. It’s roots are permanently entwined in who we are till death do us part–it’s part of our physical and spiritual and mental DNA. Recognizing that, I kept my middle name Kent. I often wonder how much of that early delinquent heritage has seeped down through our family line, even more powerfully because of our refusal to acknowledge it. In facing the shadows of our past, reaction is as false a step as acquiescence. I also wonder how much good we have missed by that same act of mental divorce. How might we have been enlightened and enriched by a past which has now faded beyond recovery?
I woke up this morning with spare change on the clock to get to church on time, but my soul was out of sorts, so I lay still, sensing its pulse instead of pushing myself out of bed. For the last decade I’ve honed the skill of listening to my feelings without judging them, but I’m only gradually learning to then respond with compassion, a crucial second step. Since I spent most of my life judging my feelings and driving them out with shame–calling them stupid or weak or petty–it was a giant step for me to learn to accept them as legitimate and meaningful, and it took years of stiff work.
That tenacious acceptance opened a huge cache of information about myself, a way to sort through my junk and set the furniture back on its feet. But with my cognitive bent, I’m slow on intuition, a key conduit to feelings. I often get stuck in my head, my thoughts going in circles like bugs around a rim, emotionally trapped, unable to move forward until I understand it.
I failed to realize that understanding someone and embracing him are quite distinct, and I don’t need to diagnose him in order to love him. Empathy can be profoundly healing even without an emotional biopsy. When I focus on fixing a “problem,” I default to analytics, but I can’t support the feelings when I treat them as the problem, a roadblock instead of a signpost. A hug is often better than a flow chart, not just for my wife, but surprisingly for me, the thinker.
When I’m busy dissecting feelings, I can forget compassion, especially for myself. Love seems a distraction from analyzing and engineering a solution… unless love IS the solution. “1+2 = love” does not make sense because feelings cannot be reduced to equations or formulas. But if love is not the answer, then perhaps I’m asking the wrong question, and if I’m not ending up at compassion, then I’m really off track. How would it shape my experience of life if I lived for love, not just for others, but for myself?
I know how to be a good friend to others: to listen, love, be gentle and patient, kind and thoughtful. But I don’t treat myself that way. I bully myself. I push and prod, roll my eyes, belittle pain, ignore my needs, devalue my efforts. I’m a really bad friend to myself.
So this morning I lay in bed, fully present to God and myself, ignoring the clock, being patient and gentle and sympathetic to my struggles like a good friend should. I took a feel-good shower instead of skipping it and rushing to church, and I discovered that being a better friend to myself made me a better friend to those I met. I’ve found a new buddy, and I think I’m going to really like him.
Yesterday I applied for a groundskeeper position at Lynchburg College because it’s a full-time job and my current library position is part-time… and I enjoy yard work… and I’ve been thinking about starting an M.A. in counseling (free credits with full time work). Then I took Mazie for a walk as my agitation slowly crescendoed over my creaking joints, “What the blankety-blank am I doing?! My body can’t stand up under all that physical labor,” I griped as I limped along with a leg that’s been bothering me for… well… on and off for over a year. “Why the blankety-blank are you going to study counseling? One more degree to stack against the other useless ones after you discover you don’t like the work?” This was just the latest on a life piled high with dead-end schemes, so I walked faster to drive out my perturbation… which just made my calf hurt more.
I was a couple miles down the trail, and as I’d left behind the other strollers, I was emboldened to turn my muttering into short, loud exclamations of woe. Then I started singing a spontaneous dirge. “I hate life on this wretched earth; full of misery, without mirth. What the heck were you thinking, God? This is worse than a filthy clod.” Hey, don’t criticize, I had to make up each line on the spot in 4/4 time. I would tell you the chorus, but it was a pounding four-letter word, and some of my readers might be offended. I swept other unfortunates into my lyrics, singing for all of us, and that curved around to lines of empathy for them and my wish to be supportive of them in their struggles. And finally I came full circle to seeing God as understanding and empathizing, as being one of the wounded rather than the wounder. That’s not a typical Christian approach: cursing my way back to faith. But then, I’m not very typical.
I just feel like touching base tonight with readers who follow my tortuous journey. Thank you for sticking with me, coming here to read and sometimes interact. It would feel very lonely to share my heart and struggles if no one were reading. I especially want to thank those of you who comment: to hear that my words are meaningful and encouraging to you is a trickle of grace and hope into my heart. Because of my depression, my active relational circle is very small, so I have almost nowhere else to make a positive impact on the world, to feel my life matters to anyone but my wife and dog. I just want you all to know that you matter to me, and that is not a small thing. Thank You.
Beautiful, Solemn, Peaceful, but Lonely
Some of my flaws are more fundamental than others, more pervasive and enmeshed, more demanding and persistent, more hidden and stubborn, like my deep rooted legalism. If I voiced my intentions, I would say I’m a recovering legalist, but my progress seems so glacial that that might be unfairly congratulatory, like a daily drinker claiming to be a recovering alcoholic. As I think about it more, I really have improved a great deal over the years, but all that thrust has not lifted me above its gravitational drag. Legalism remains my default in so many situations, a judgmental sinkhole out of which I must crawl, talking down my critical reaction to others. Trying to be gracious is a very long way from actually being gracious.
My soul is resistant to giving grace because it makes me feel so vulnerable. In a disagreement, if I can dismiss them as being stupid or unbiblical or biased, then I don’t have to give any weight to their idea, which threatens my own perspective, a perspective around which I have built a safe world for myself. If I label them untrustworthy, I can justify my suspicions of them and guard my heart against their potential betrayal. If I mark them as selfish, I can depend wholly on myself… for fear they will refuse my request for help and so prove I am not worth helping. It threatens me at my core. As C. S. Lewis wrote, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.” A closed heart is a safe heart. Thinking generously of others, trusting them, and opening my heart to them is dangerous. Giving grace opens me up to assault from every quarter.
Living in a world full of potential aggressors is frightening and lonely, so I am drawn to nice people, safe people, people like my wife. They have helped me slowly build trust, creep towards vulnerability, discover genuine connection. Once I develop a close relationship, I find that grace flows naturally… until I feel threatened. That is when my grace muscle is stretched as I claim grace firmly enough to support myself and then extend it to the one challenging me. Berly has been the perfect companion for this journey into fear and grace.
On Valentine’s Day while Kimberly was at the doctor’s, I stomped my heart out on our front lawn to surprise her.
It was spontaneous, with little forethought, because I love my wife and want to express it, but when I am bowed down with depression, my energy is used up on today’s survival, not tomorrow’s plans. This is how depression often plays out in a committed relationship–with what little energy we have, we give, and we appreciate the gift, however small. It may look meager and haphazard, and to be honest, sometimes it feels that way, but in a cold world with thin blankets what we need most is a close friend.
The substructure of our relationship is good, very good, but the frills are often missing. Far from being a problem, this is a sign of our marriage’s strength. Many couples count on the frills to smooth over their stresses. To mollify an angry outburst, he brings home a bouquet or she whips up a banquet instead of sorting through their feelings with empathy and honesty. They’ve tried that and it doesn’t work. They begin with “Let me be honest,” and it goes downhill from there. So they opt for the smooth-over. But when frills become the primary language of love, flubbing it can threaten the relationship.
Depression strips Kimberly and me of many of these emotional bonuses, so we cannot use them as a substitute for the honest, hard work of sorting out our differing views, feelings, and thoughts. Of necessity we learn to make room for one another’s weaknesses and limitations, trust one another’s hearts, accept one another’s efforts. Without frills to fall back on, our relationship becomes deeply grounded, and our small offerings of love become far more meaningful.
The first thing Kimberly saw each morning as she left for work last week was the heart I stamped out in the snow. And for her it was not just a romantic gesture, but a symbol for what beats behind the image, a heart she knows intimately and feels safe in because she courageously shares her true self and is embraced for who she is. Hallmark and Whitman’s can never compete with that.
I was a 45-year-old bachelor when I started dating Kimberly, and my friends, assuming I was girl-dumb, insisted I romance her with flowers, fancy chocolates, and fru-fru gifts… take her to see a chick-flick… say “I love you.” I smiled and nodded to placate their eagerness, but I knew they were wrong. For starters, Berly prefers cheap chocolate and is ambivalent about gifts. They might have known “women,” but I knew Berly. The problem with our romance pop-culture, and much of the marriage enrichment industry, even many Christian seminars and books, are the notions that all women are alike, that men cannot understand them, and therefore that husbands should simply learn some basic rules for marriage maintenance. Men regularly come home from a weekend retreat with a checklist to follow: kiss your wife goodbye when you leave for work, tell her you love her, have a weekly date night, and for goodness sake drop the toilet seat after peeing. And those are the better men, the ones who are really trying.
It’s a deep sadness that our most intimate relationships are held together with stock routines because we’re convinced we can’t understand each other. The gender gap might as well be an intergalactic separation, after all, women are from Venus and men are from Mars… and we’re apparently lost in space. It’s certainly a nice gesture to take a quiz on our five love languages and task oneself (say) with giving three daily encouragements to a spouse, but how much does that help in understanding one another deeply and thoroughly, which is what the relationship truly needs. It is almost as though we’ve given up on real relationship (vulnerable sharing, open listening, trusting, understanding, accepting, valuing, empathizing) and reduced love to what we do for one another.
Mutual understanding between the sexes is not easy or quick. It takes a lot of time and energy, not to mention fear and pain, and perhaps for that reason our culture has largely abandoned the effort as hopeless. “It has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried” (as Chesterton said of true Christianity). But nice words and kind behavior can never substitute for the gritty, real work of heart connection. The first is comfortable and functional, like a pair of old shoes, the last is revolutionary.
Janathan Grace Reflections 