Kimberly was in a mood yesterday, a “Life Is a Lemon” mood, so she blasted our living room with Meat Loaf. On most days I totally agree with the sentiment, just not the volume, and not really the music. Look at that picture on the left and tell me if she looks like a head banger to you? Who knew? I might have had second thoughts on our wedding day. That and she likes the TV series Scrubs–openly and without shame, like it’s a normal taste. She even forced me to watch Moulin Rouge with her. Well, she asked me to, which is the same thing because: “loving husband.” I would rather stand barefoot in the snow (which I incidentally did today since I had to move my car and was too lazy to put shoes on).
Besides her seriously bad taste in entertainment, she throws away perfectly good things, like dish-washing sponges before they’ve naturally disintegrated on their own. I tell her to think of the starving children in China who have no sponges to wash their dishes with, but it does no good. She claims they stink even after microwaving them (yeah, that’s a thing now). I say, “I don’t smell anything,” and she retorts, “You wouldn’t smell it if the dog pooped behind the sofa.” She didn’t actually say that, but she still had a point about my deficient olfactory nerves.
And speaking of behind the sofa, she’s a complainer. About once a month she complains about the trash around my wastebasket at the end of the living room sofa. I can’t quite reach it, so I kind of toss stuff in that direction, sometimes food, and some of the smaller stuff kind of sticks to the wall. But hey, I clean it up, about once a month coincidentally. I don’t go all commando-clean, like scrubbing the wall, but I pick stuff off with my fingernails. I tell Kimberly to just avoid that end of the sofa and she won’t see it, after all, marriage is about compromise, right?
Hey, I’m not a barbarian–if it were dog poop behind the sofa I wouldn’t wait a month to clean it up. Just sayin’.
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?
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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.
One of my friends posted this to Facebook yesterday:
Right then I was in an emotional place to find that picture encouraging, but often I’m not. The friend who posted this is gracious and gentle, so I would not take offense even if I were in the throes of despondency, especially since she did not send it personally to me. I only want to underscore the importance of context–my emotional framework shapes my understanding of the message (and this message of positive spin is one of the fundamental tenets of our American culture). Notice how crucial the background picture is to the sentiment–its impact is subtle but powerful. Let me demonstrate:
That is a profoundly different message, hugely dissonant. What was a nice nudge towards contentment is suddenly disturbingly trite. When someone’s inner world feels this broken, thankfulness will not fix it. Gratitude has a role even in tragedy, but it is not the remedy for tragedy. The hungry need food, the homeless need shelter, the lonely need companionship, the vulnerable need safety, the wounded need healing. Sometimes what I have is not enough, even if I’m grateful. Scripture wisely tells us to weep with those who weep rather than give them reasons to cheer up.
I realize some folks want to be pointed to the positives, but for many, the chipper “Be grateful!” can be code for “Stop whining!” and that shaming message discredits their needs and belittles their distress. Perhaps what they need is permission to feel the injustice, encouragement to sit with their sadness, help to empathize with their own sense of loss. Maybe the very words they need to hear are, “Yes, it is bad, very bad. You must feel awful,” rather than, “It’s not as bad as it seems. Look on the bright side.” Perhaps we could all benefit from learning to sit longer with our sorrow.
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.
I’m on furlough over spring break and it’s been difficult. A fixed schedule helps my depression–simple requirements at set times take much less energy to commence. That easy on-ramp is a big plus for me because my psychological crud poisons initiative, so whatever keeps my wheels turning, even slowly, keeps me alive. When my schedule is wide open, just making decisions increases my load. How much energy do I have? How much energy will it take? What is priority? How will Kimberly feel? How long can I put it off before it breaks or blocks up the works or breeds flies? Procrastination is a serious survival strategy.
I could rouse myself to do something invigorating if I were sure of a pick-me-up, but more often than not I put in the work and get nothing out of it but tired. When I use up the little energy I have and find myself no better off, I feel hopeless and helpless and powerless. And the more I try and fail, the more lost I feel, till I give up in despair.
But against my resistance, a little hope sneaks back in, maybe because I can’t live without it or maybe because it never fully leaves in spite of our countless beatings. It grimaces and drags me back into the ring to get pummeled again by life. Apparently I have a masochistic addiction to hope, like battered person syndrome. Emotional resilience against my better judgment. Is it a blessing or curse?
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.
Following the great literary tradition of Dr. Seuss, someone coined the phrase “Fake it till you make it,” meaning that if you can’t do something good from the heart, do it without the heart until the heart catches up. If you hate someone, smile and be nice anyway. If you are frightened, affect a bold, unflinching attitude. If you are upset, act as though you are calm. Fake it.
Pretense never appealed to me. I take the honest approach. If I hate someone or think he’s stupid, I let him know it, scowl at him across four lanes of traffic or shake my head in pity. There’s a reason I don’t have any Jesus bumper stickers on my car–it would be false advertising. “Receive Jesus and you can be just like me” has some major shortcomings as a marketing strategy. To be honest (I’ll try to stick with that), I’ve noticed that when I force a smile through clenched teeth, and he smiles back, good happens, a sliver of peace accidentally slips down into my heart and relaxes my jaw.
Or not. When I try to stuff the bad feelings and force myself to be virtuous, it doesn’t work so well. I wrestle down my aggravation over this lane-hogging driver… and the one who dilly-dallied till I missed the green light… and this guy who parked so crooked I can’t pull in, and each time I push down the bubbling anger, it comes back up hotter. Putting a lid on it can make things boil over.
So which is it–does it help or hurt to act good when I don’t feel good? Why does positive behavior sometimes pull my reluctant heart along and at other times trip it up?
For me, it depends on the impetus. When I choose to do good in a way that seems to devalue and override my feelings, it turns radioactive. When I give grace to others by denying it to myself, it poisons me. In fact, I don’t think it’s real grace. Picture grace as electricity–I am the cable, and God is the generator, and when I cut myself off from grace, I also cut off those who receive it from me. Being only the wire, I can’t crank grace out on my own, especially not from legalism (which is the impetus if I am moved purely by obligation). Or to say it without wires and sparks: I cannot shame and fight my feelings and then hope to be accepting and generous towards others.
Here is how it plays out for me in two traffic scenarios. First, under law. I try to clamp down on my irritation by “shoulding” on myself, forcing down my feelings. Legalism makes me very conscientious as a driver–I don’t tail-gate, I let others merge in front of me (one car only, thank you), I don’t hold people up at traffic lights as I text on my phone. I work hard at it because my self-worth is tested daily, and I have to pass every section, even the driving part, to get my human license re-validated. If God’s keeping a scorecard, I can’t afford to make mistakes, and If I can’t have excuses, neither can you. It’s a tense way to be a driver… and a husband… and an employee… and a neighbor… and a human.
Grace only has room to flow in when I change the game from whack-a-mole to save-a-mole. I decide to accept myself and others with our mistakes instead of trying to beat out the faults till we deserve acceptance. Instead of saying in my head, I drive right, so you must drive right, I say, I make mistakes, so you may make mistakes. Now this is not a new equation of fairness on a different standard as though I am saying I will allow you as many mistakes as I allow myself, but if you cross the limit, I’ll whack you. Grace is unlimited. It is no longer based on fairness. Whatever I need I get and whatever you need you get.
But what if it goes past mistakes into meanness–she is deliberately unkind. Then grace takes the form of forgiveness, and since I need a lot of that too, I want forgiveness to be woven into the ambiance of grace in my relational world. I’m not suggesting a world without boundaries, leaving us defenseless. But walls are not weapons, so personal boundaries are not a conflict with grace, but a concession to our limitations. In fact, boundaries are a form of grace to myself, providing support for my weaknesses and security for my fears, and only then will I have the resources to offer grace to others, even to trolls, who are no less deserving. None of us have merit badges–that’s why we need grace.
Janathan Grace Reflections 