In Jack’s Absence

Jack tells me that whenever I’ve gone on a trip without him, I come back just a little different.  More confident, more relaxed, somehow stronger.  Whenever he says this I change the subject, not because it’s not a compliment, but because I’m afraid of what that means for the rest of my life.  If I come back independent, confident, and strong to the point that my husband is startled, it must mean I’m less these things in my daily life.  I’ve written on this blog before about my insecurities about being a wife, my fears that maybe I only married because I thought I needed a man, and that I’ll never be truly brave and strong.

A couple weeks ago I stayed home, and Jack went on a trip, which I don’t recall happening in our marriage before.  As I dropped him off at the airport a 5am, I wondered if he would come home to a more independent and confident wife.

The first day, I reveled in my aloneness for a good 10 hours, then I got bored and lonely.  So I invited a friend over for dinner.

Wait, what?

Spending time with people is usually a much more complicated process for me.  I’m never sure if I’m lonely or just exhausted.  I don’t know whether I want to see people or just see them on facebook while a movie runs in the background.  I hem and haw and fret and just don’t know what I want.  And eventually I decide to see people, or not see people, but I don’t feel at ease.  I spend the evening thinking that maybe I would have preferred the opposite.

But for some reason, on the day Jack flew to Boston I knew that what I was feeling was loneliness, and what I wanted was company.  To know what I wanted was, I’m sorry to say, the strangest feeling.

The whole week without Jack was marked by me knowing myself… as if my desires had cleared their dusty throats and started singing with shocking clarity.  And I was like, wait, who are you guys and what is that beautiful song?

I made french toast for dinner three nights in a row.  I left dishes in the sink overnight, not worrying about whether I’d regret it in the morning because I knew I wouldn’t.  I had 10 people over for a study group and loved every minute.

It was such a delight-filled week, but I was also scared.  Jack would return, and I didn’t want to have to say, “the week you were gone was one of the best of my life.”  I brought my ambivalence in to my counselor, asking her why just the presence of Jack (who is a very kind man) muddles my own thoughts and desires.  And we talked and came to some realizations, and I cried, and I left with more wonder and joy and sadness than I had come with.  PEOPLE, THIS IS WHY I’LL BE IN THERAPY TWICE A WEEK FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE.  That’s $12,000 a year, if you’re curious.  But it’s worth it.  It really is.  Go to therapy.

The day before Jack came home, I read a chapter from a book called She Who Is, by feminist theologian Elizabeth Johnson.  The chapter was on conversion.  Johnson writes about how religious conversion is often talked about in terms of “disowning oneself,” but this language is only really useful to those in power.

She writes:

If pride be the primary block on the path to God, then indeed decentering the rapacious self is the work of grace.  But the situation is quite different when this language is applied to persons already relegated to the margins of significance and excluded from the exercise of self-definition.  For such persons, language of conversion as loss of self… functions in an ideological way to rob them of power, maintaining them in a subordinate position to the benefit of those who rule.

Okay, there’s more, but take a deep breath.  If you’re anything like me, your stomach is churning and your heart is saying “more!” and “stop!” simultaneously.

Johnson continues:

Analysis of women’s experience is replete with the realization that within patriarchal systems women’s primordial temptation is not to pride and self-assertion but rather to the lack of it, to diffuseness of personal center, overdependence on others for self-identity, drifting, and fear of recognizing one’s own competence.

(Johnson, She Who Is, 64)

And my first thought after reading this was, NO FUCKING WONDER humility never worked for me.  I remembered myself at 20, a new convert, presenting myself and my new faith to roommates, family, and friends.  I tried to appear joyful (because that’s the image I was supposed to project), but was dying of fear inside.  A few people, mostly men, men who were probably used to power and privilege, scoffed or laughed or bragged about themselves in response to me.  It was painful and infuriating.  But I thought they would come around if I was more humble, if I listened to them and laughed at their jokes and was nice and gentle.

When really, I probably should have thrown some tables around.

Diffuseness of personal center.  Overdependence on others for self identity.  Fear of one’s own competence.

It’s heartbreaking to admit that all these phrases describe me in relationship, even in my marriage to a truly humble man—the kind of man who, when I told him that I was more free and alive in his absence, responded, “let’s keep working on a way to let you be free and alive when I’m around, too.”

I do have parts of myself that are capable of harming others for my own benefit.  But most of my sin comes out of the belief that my identity is tied up in how others think of me, that my opinion of myself is secondary, and that I should check with someone else before doing, thinking, or even feeling anything.

Before reading this Johnson excerpt, I kind of worried that I was going about personal healing all wrong.  That all this therapy was “secular,” and God was impatiently tapping his foot waiting for me to get back to humbling myself and diffusing my personal center (God-construct, anyone?).  But Johnson gives me hope.

There’s theology and then there’s theology.  Some theology is like, “Oh, so that’s what perichoresis means.  Interesting,” and some theology makes you go, “Holy fuck, maybe God is good to me.”

My White Identity Development

I’m taking a class this term on Multicultural Issues in Counseling, and our mid-term assignment was to write a paper on our own racial identity development.

Part of my white privilege, I’ve learned, is that I never really need to think about my race.  I’ve been told through my schools, churches, government, and media that White is normal.  Not until college did anyone tell me that I belonged to a race and a culture like everyone else, and that maybe my idea of “normal” was culture-bound and oppressive.  And it wasn’t until last month, at the beginning of Multicultural class, that I began to see just how much racism I’ve inherited. Shouldn’t I have known this from elementary school?

I’m re-printing part of my midterm paper on my White identity development.  I’d love to hear your thoughts, but please keep in mind that there’s a tendency to change the topic from race into other forms of oppression (gender, class, sexual orientation, etc).  I’ve certainly done this, so I’m now trying to stay with the topic of race, even through the intense guilt and anger it brings up in me.  Also, know that I’m beginning a process that I wish I had started years ago.

Here it is:

On the first day of Multicultural Issues class, we were asked to discuss the question, “Who makes you dance?”  The “dance,” Professor Hollins explained, is one of anxiety followed by awkward cover-up.  Two panicked steps back and one embarrassed compensating step forward.  A nervous and silly-looking jig.  I thought, “does she seriously want us to name an ethnic group?”  I hoped, as I had in college, that I could admit to being a white victim of societal racism without naming the particulars of my own unconscious beliefs.  I tried to think up a softer answer than the one that jumped into my head.  But I knew that the professor was asking me to give that first answer, the one that nagged from the pit of my stomach.

I sat at a table with four other white people.  The first person said she grew up in the south with many racist attitudes, then when she went to Africa she understood how hard it was to be a minority.  This answer irritated me.

The second person said he felt uncomfortable in large groups when he was one of the only Whites.  Then he added as an afterthought that he felt uncomfortable in all large groups, so it was hard for him to tell how much of it had to do with ethnicity.  This answer irritated me too.

Then it was my turn.

I was furious.  Were these two really going to leave it at that?  Give their vague answers that touched the topic of race then revoked it?  Were they really sitting there claiming victimhood?  How would I look next to them when I gave my clearly racist answer?

I looked at my hands and said, “I, uh, find myself really anxious around… African American men?”  I didn’t mean for it to be a question, but I felt like I needed permission to say that.  Someone at the table nodded.  Then a flurry of words came out of my mouth, about movies and newspapers and the media and how I didn’t mean to develop these attitudes about Black men, but I did.  I suddenly felt that it was very urgent to emphasize my victimhood, and minimize the clear personal racism I had just expressed.  My table seemed just as nervous as I was.  There was silence, then we moved on to the next person.

When I got home I told my husband about this exercise, and started wondering out loud what personal experiences I had with African American men that might have led to my discomfort.  I haven’t had close Black friends since grade school.  I could name a few interactions with Black men that might have confirmed my stereotypes that they are “dangerous,” “angry” and “seductive,” but I could recall far more neutral or positive interactions.  I realized how deeply and unconsciously I must believe advertisements, movies, and news outlets in how they portray Black men.

In the Resistance and Immersion phase, Sue and Sue (2008) write that “for the first time, the [White] person begins to realize what racism is all about…Racism is seen everywhere (advertising, television, educational materials, interpersonal interactions, etc.).”  As I become more resolved to name racism where I see it, I realize how daunting that task is.  I cannot sit in public, watch television, or browse items at a store without noticing how our world caters to white people, and overtly or subtly oppresses people of color.

As I have read, written, and participated in this class, I’ve experienced a lot of what Sue and Sue (2008) describe as “guilt, shame, and anger toward oneself and other Whites” that typifies the resistance and immersion phase.  I worry that I must somehow pay the world back for my privilege, which is a terrifying and impossible task.  I feel guilty for how easily I was able to go to college and now graduate school because of my race and social class.  I am weighed down by the thought that I have not earned my keep in this world.  It’s a relief to know that guilt, shame, and anger are a normal part of the resistance and immersion phase.  Perhaps that means these feelings will not last forever (especially since they are helpful to no one).

Despite feeling so much shame, I am finding that I can stay in the hard and messy conversations much more than I was able to as an undergraduate.  During the lunch break on the second day of class, one student said that she wished Multicultural Issues had been offered the summer before our regular classes started.  But after a pause, everyone at the table agreed that we were glad to be taking the class now and not earlier.  The inner work we’ve done in the past nine months allows us to engage in conversations about race.

It’s paradoxical to me that the very privilege I feel so guilty about– the “luxury of the middle and upper classes” of being able to “sit and talk about things” (Sue and Sue, 2008, p.150)– is what allows me, little by little, to be engaged in conversations about race without completely shutting down. When Sue and Sue write that we have all inherited racist beliefs, I am able to understand that this sad truth is not an attack on my right to exist (it helps that Sue’s language is not personally attacking).  I do not hear the anger of oppressed minorities as a demand on me to somehow make up for years of past pain.  I am slowly able to enter conversations about race as an adult, learning how to be responsible for myself and the harm I’ve done without accepting burdens that are not mine to carry, and without backing out of the conversation in terrified self-defense.

For the Prospective Mars Hill Graduate School Student

Dear person who browsed here from the MHGS Blog Hub,

Last week we had an assignment that was nicknamed The Tragedy Paper.  We were to write the story of a “defining personal tragedy,” and reflect on how it affected our Faith, our Hope, and our Love.

I have not led a tragic life by most standards.  The story I ended up writing had never been called a “Tragedy” by anyone, including me.  When I first told this story to my Practicum Facilitator in September, I spoke of my adolescent self in third person.  I had very little love for her.  She had embarrassed herself.  Surely she deserved what she got.

My PF looked horrified.  “Do you hear the contempt in your words?” she asked.

I tried telling the story again, through a different lens.  I started to listen to that teenage girl.  She was scared, and trying so hard to do the right thing.  She asked for an advocate, because her world silenced and dismissed her.  I spoke for her, not with contempt, but with compassion.  In defending her, I grew more and more angry.

If all that sounds weird, but also intriguing and maybe a little bit wonderful, consider applying to Mars Hill.

I made the mistake of going to the coffee shop where I used to work to write my paper.  First I typed out the part that I remembered best: the horrible words that were spoken to me, the ones that have echoed in my head for years.  Then I went to the bathroom to weep.

For three hours I sat at Peet’s Coffee, reflecting on my tragedy as well as my Faith, Hope, and Love.  The customers I used to serve came over and asked if I was okay.  And I really didn’t know the answer.  No, I’m not okay, this hurts.  But then again, Yes, I’m wonderful!  Writing this paper feels right and good, and the dead part of me is beginning to stir.  And did I mention that I’m furious?  Yes, I’m very angry, and I think that’s part of the new alive-ness.  Thank you for asking, how are you?

I turned in that paper along with my 90 classmates.  We were exhausted.  All week we had wept, raged, and posted not-so-clever facebook status updates (“Christine is working on her tragedy paper…. FUCK EVERYTHING”).  Some had shared their tragedy papers with new friends.  None of us are the same since handing it in.

In the end, I was proud, so proud, of that paper.  I’ve rarely heard my own voice freed from the demand to please others.  It was unapologetic, furious, explosive.  It blew open a space in my soul for God’s words: I grieved that too.

I like this school.  Maybe you would too.  Drop me a comment or email if you want to talk.

Plunging the Depths

I reduced my hours at Peet’s by about 50%, which means I’m about 50% less angry.  If such a thing can be measured.

When I met with my pastor she told me to “plunge the depths” of my anger.  Which is not the concrete practical advice I like to hear.  I’d prefer something like “make an appointment with a counselor,” or “slam raw eggs into the wall of your shower” (believe me, the cleanup is *not* as easy as you might think.  I had to bust out the ajax to get the yolk off, and the shards of shell are still behind the toilet).

Earlier this week, when Marin asked me how I’ve been lately, I told her, “I’ve been angry.”  I thought “plunge the depths” might mean, “admit it.”  And when I said those words I tried to remember if I’d ever said them before.  Saying “I’m angry” feels a little naughty, like carving your first bad word under the dining room table.  Or writing “Denver” on the living room wall (If you ever think you will get through parenthood without screaming, “WHO WROTE ‘DENVER’ ON THE NEW PAINT?“, talk to my mom).

I am worried about complaining too much.  I’m scared that I’ll lose my friends, or insult my church family, or that someone will call me to say that my blog is “too whiny” (hi, Mom!).  But please forgive me, I’m just starting to learn what to do with anger.  Plunging the depths is bound to be messy.