Janathan Grace Reflections   This is my journey of self discovery shared with you

Fibi responded (on facebook) to my blog post “Let Me Be Weak” with some interesting questions, including the thought, “Of course it is such a natural tendency for one to try to lift you up and encourage during these low times. I think it’s a way that others try to show they care, but I almost hear you saying that it’s not possible … One has to walk through the sad times.”  It set me to thinking.

First of all, let me thank you for listening, Fibi.  You really listen, and that is a gift.  There are few things more encouraging or affirming than to be really heard.  I think everyone is unique and so benefited in different ways, and even receive different gifts from different individuals.  So one of the best ways to learn how to support is to ask (as you did).  I naturally imagine that what helps me will help all others, but that proves to be a false assumption on my part.   I first learned from Kimberly that trying to ‘fix’ her is counter-productive (and then to my surprise found the same to be true for myself—I was more benefited by those who listen than those who try to solve). 

When I am depressed, I want friends to simply be sympathetic to my situation.  If I sense they need my feelings to change or expect that their sympathy should make me happy, I don’t feel supported in my present experience, but feel pressured to cheer up (which would require me to deny or suppress my true feelings).  In turn, that pressure feels like a judgment against my depression or against my depression continuing–I am not only sad, but guilty for my sadness.  I realize I may misread others’ attitudes and shouldn’t assume that they are critical of my feelings.  On the other hand, we all have blindspots, so I may accurately sense in others attitudes of which they are unaware.

I have found great encouragement in the sympathy which says, “I feel sad for you, it must be really painful and difficult.  I understand why you would feel depressed.  Share with me how you are feeling.”  In other words, I want my friends to accept my feelings fully as they are.  Instead of trying to get me to join them in their happy feelings, they join me in my sad feelings, not in order to make me happy, but simply to be with me, to identify with my pain, to perhaps share or carry some of my burden emotionally. 

This is not an easy thing to do.  It scares some people, perhaps because they are frightened of their own sad and depressed feelings, which they are trying hard to avoid, or perhaps because they feel unable to be supportive for a variety of reasons.  Their fear or inability is quite understandable and legitimate, and when I am “down,” they may need to put some distance between us for their own sakes.  What I want to say to them is, “It is okay if you cannot support me.  Just please don’t pressure me or condemn me.  Let me at least be true to myself and listen compassionately to my own feelings.” 

Your response to my blog has set me thinking more extensively, so I think I will have more to say soon!

Kimberly and I took a trip to the NC Blue Ridge Parkway for Thanksgiving weekend.  The first day was rainy, and the next two days were below freezing with very high winds, but it was beautiful!

Our dog Mazie (short for Amazing… yes, Amazing Grace ) loved the walks, sticking her nose into every clump of grass and chasing deer and chipmunks (to the end of her leash).  She didn’t have much use for the vistas.  Our digital camera has about a 2 second delay, so getting a good picture of her is nearly impossible.

The road names ’round them parts was quite colorful–Racoon Hollow, Lump Road, Ox Cart Road–and for some reason a lot of streets named after naked people: Don Bare Road, Hiram Bare Road, Doyle Bare Road.  There was also a Bare Creek, which may have started the whole thing (I mean, you’ve got to bathe somewhere).  Speaking of bare… there was a hot tub in our cabin (only half the parties in the tub allowed for picture taking).  Oh dear, TMI!

Kimberly and I had a debate about Christmas trees, which were stacked on the roof of every 3rd car on the road–like there was a pine tree fire sale.  “I’ve never seen so many christmas trees getting hauled home… maybe 1 out of 10 cars would be reasonable, but this is crazy,” I said.  She responded, “Oh, there aren’t that many.  Count the cars: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7 8,9,10 and only one Christmas tree.”  Then the next 3 cars had trees on top!  We saw one Christmas tree in the bed of a pickup truck that was bigger around than the truck, quite literally.  Other holiday cheer was spotted now and again–we saw 3 Santa Clauses hanging from a fence by the country road.  As we got closer, we saw they were stuffed like scarecrows… and were headless.  Like a Tim Burton movie.

On the way home we stopped in the little town of Floyd, VA for lunch at a local joint called the Oddfellas Cantina and were delighted with french toast made from homemade cinnamon bread and live music from a local crooner–I’d show you the picture, but I don’t know how to get them off my cell phone.  It really was a very pleasurable trip.

I feel depressed today, I’m not sure why.  No doubt a combination of things–overcast sky, reading back over my journals from years past, not having the distraction or rewards of work (I’m off this week).  I have done little personal processing over the last 6 months, especially recently with life going so smoothly that I am not forced to face and work through my baggage.  Perhaps it has been a needed break from the usual emotional storms of life, but that calm can trick me into thinking that I am suddenly stronger and not rather that the waves have died down for the moment.  Whenever the winds strike up again, I am surprised at my own fragility–my quick fears or reactive anger and defensiveness. 

Most of my life I was not fragile at all.  I was the strong, courageous one, and others were weak and insecure, leaning on me for support (or vying with me to be the rock).  I did not know that my intense fear of inadequacy drove me, that I dashed into danger to flee this greater terror, that my invulnerability was not a mark of courage, but of cowardice.  People cannot understand how emotional fragility, acknowledging and embracing my vulnerability and weakness, can be a mark of growing maturity and strength.  Many old friends and even family members wish I were my “old self,” that I would be “strong” once again as I was before, that I would handle my feelings as I once did.  They think that when I listen and respond affirmingly to my emotions I am being controlled by them.  I find myself put in the strange and difficult position of insisting on being weak.

One of the most common expressions of this dynamic is when friends try to talk me out of being depressed, try to encourage me till I feel better, insist that I think positive thoughts until happiness returns.  But I find that depression is always telling me something important, that it has some deep truth it is calling me to discover, and if I have the courage and energy not to run from my depression, but to embrace it, listen to it, dig deeper into its secrets, then I find new life flowing into my soul.  “When I am weak, then am I strong.”

I’m not sure where I read this, but it is worth posting:

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole
which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and
while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water
at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master’s house, the
cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily,
with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his
master’s house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments,
perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was
ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to
accomplish only half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the
water bearer one day by the stream. “I am ashamed of myself, and I want to
apologize to you.” “Why?” asked the bearer. “What are you ashamed of?” “I
have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load
because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to
your master’s house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work,
and you don’t get full value from your efforts,” the pot said.
The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion
he said, “As we return to the master’s house, I want you to notice the
beautiful flowers along the path.”
Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun
warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered
it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had
leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its
failure.
The bearer said to the pot, “Did you notice that there were flowers only on
your side of your path, but not on the other pot’s side? That’s because I
have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted
flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from
the stream, you’ve watered them. For two years I have been able to pick
these beautiful flowers to decorate my master’s table. Without you being
just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house.”
Each of us has our own unique flaws. We are all cracked pots. But if we will
allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace His Father’s table. In God’s
great economy, nothing goes to waste.

‎”Suppose this sunset, this moonrise, this symphony, this buttered toast, this sleeping child…suppose you would never experience these things again! Few things are commonplace or boring in themselves. It’s our reaction to them that grows dull.” Arthur Gordon [via Elizabeth Godbold]

A few nights ago I dreamed I was back in India, a fairly common dream for me.  Even though it is a decade past, reminders of that period in my life almost always stir up very painful emotions which I usually choose to avoid.  But that morning I began to reflect on the many regrets, small and large, which hound me: hurtful things I have said and thoughtless things I have done, often with very charitable intentions.  I realize that I am not unique in this—everyone screws up a lot of things through the course of life.  I’m guessing I will reach a stage of maturity in a decade or two when I will no longer cringe at the negative side-effects of my personal impact on the world.  I commented to my wife Kimberly, “I should have been quarantined from society till I was 65 or 70 years old.”

I have always assumed that only the demonstrably good things I do are a benefit to the world, that everyone would be better off if I had no flaws.  My good blesses the world and my bad curses the world.  But in my own marriage I see a contrary principle at work.  Not only our strengths but our weaknesses and flaws– and even, by grace, our sins–benefit the other.  I have seen this hundreds of times in the 6 years we have known each other.  When I am pricked by my wife’s issues and react, I am forced to admit and face my own insecurities, which, if left unchallenged, would subtly and powerfully stunt my growth.  I am astonished by the idea that even my flaws are a blessing to the world.  When I accept myself and others for who we are now, today, and not who we wish we were, grace has a chance to do its work.

Something I wrote at some forgotten occasion and time about my sense of inadequacies:

Since childhood my imagination has been overstretched,

dragged down by the weighted melancholy of ten thousand wretched little sins

and darkened by the graves of a multitude of irreparable failures. 

No grand failings, only contemptible ones. 

Sins can be forgiven, but what remedy can undo failure? 

Failure of the poorly finished, the unfinished, the misguided, the foolish;

Failure of too much or too little insight, of too great or too little effort;

each failure leaving its residue of guilt clinging to my soul

long after the deed itself had slipped from memory,

while others refuse to be forgotten,

jabbing my conscience with fairy tale endings to stories now beyond recovery.

Some people stumble grandly and suddenly, reaping admiration and sympathy. 

But my dreams have died quietly by slow betrayal,

the bright morning of anticipation shriveled by delay to the wilting burden of duty,

and duty sinking into the shame of good done too late or left undone. 

Even good begins to stink if it lies too long unfinished.

Dream upon dream turned moldy and abandoned,

stacked one on another like corpses on a lost battlefield,

grand hopes that kept at bay my sense of worthlessness,

finally unmasked by time’s ruthlessness.

A martial arts student went to his teacher and said earnestly, “I am devoted to studying your martial system. How long will it take me to master it.” The teacher’s reply was casual, “Ten years.” Impatiently, the student answered, “But I want to master it faster than that. I will work very hard. I will practice everyday, ten or more hours a day if I have to. How long will it take then?” The teacher thought for a moment, “20 years.”