Why I’m going to do nothing but bake cookies and watch Elf for two weeks.

It’s the end of the semester.  I’m exhausted…from the academic work, but also from being angry for three months straight.

Last week I put a quote from a book called Atonement and Violence on Facebook as my status message.  I don’t remember what it was, but it was sure to piss someone off.  I picked the one that would have the highest chance of making the most people angry and uncomfortable.   It didn’t occur to me until the next day that maybe I was angry and uncomfortable, and I wanted others to join me.  We psychologists call this “projection.”  The rest of the world calls it either “misery loves company,” or “what the hell is your problem?”

And now, at the very end of the term, I realize that Theology class has made me angry.  The assigned readings have exposed the fragile narcissism of my former pastors, popular Christian authors, and my fellow lay people.  And I, too, spent many years afraid of the theological variety that I sensed existed.  I was told (implicitly) that it would be dangerous for me to know more than whatever was determined to be “Truth” by my small community, and I believed it.  I learned the Truth and defended it, stifling my curiosity, creativity, and even femininity. But now, the chaotic choir of history’s theologians has begun to drown out the relentless Evangelical anthem that has played in my head for the past 7 years.  And I just might start humming along.

Once I figured out that I did not want to Facebook-debate about atonement theory, rather I just wanted to be known and understood, I changed my status.  The new one read, “Christine Canty is pissed that she lived almost 30 years without knowing all her theological options.”  That one felt way more accurate.

Attachment Theory and a Letter

During our last Human Growth and Development class, some students shared a bit about how the class (which focused on Attachment Theory) had impacted them.  One woman made a video about the guilt, agony, and hope she felt as a mother studying Attachment.  It was heart-wrenching.  My brilliant friend Jari read a story about sponges, and you wouldn’t expect this, but it was totally heart-wrenching too.  I chose to write a letter to my sister-in-law and her son (my nephew), and read it out loud in class tonight.  Even the parts that say ass and shit.  Here it is:

Dear Carine and Joris,

I’ve pretty much had your two faces in front of me for this entire semester. For my class on Human Growth and Development, I’ve been reading all about attachment… “attachment” being a way to describe the bond between any two people, but primarily between mother and child.  Attachment theorists would call you two a “dyad.”  Turns out, none of us is born able to do anything for ourselves, surprise!  All of our functioning, including our thoughts and emotions, begins as a two-person system, until we eventually incorporate that second person into our own psyche.  Carine, when you talk about “channeling your mother,” that’s (for better or worse) because you internalized her as part of yourself before you could even speak.

I’m sad to not be addressing this letter to Jacob at all, as if fathers don’t matter in our psychological development.  Jacob, you totally matter.  The budding feminist in me wants to throttle all these attachment researchers and scream, “Can’t all of you people give Mom a break?!”  The last thing the moms of this world need is to worry about dyadic affect regulation on top of everything else.  I do hope my generation of researchers starts including Dad in attachment theory, because deep down I’m convinced that dads do matter before the age of 2.  They must.  Surely the emotional health of humanity is not (another) burden that women must carry alone.

Early in the semester, when I began reading the opening chapters of my textbook on attachment, I realized that I had had the privilege of watching you two attach to each other in the months after Joris was born.  When I lived a block away and was able to stop in daily, I saw your dyadic emotional regulation, mirroring, missattunement, and repair.  As I read in my textbook about what both secure and insecure attachment looks like in a baby of 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 1 year, I felt my shoulders tense and fall, tense and fall.  Joris, it felt as if I was reliving your infancy, worrying if you would make it through each stage with a secure attachment.  As I remembered you at 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and 1 year I felt wave upon wave of relief to recognize you in the description of the securely attached infant.

Sweetie, part of the reason I see your face when I think of attachment is because I also bonded with you in that first year of your life.  Not as much as your Mama, of course, but I was at your house much more often then than I am now.  I made goofy surprised faces at you and watched as you reacted, probably about .42 seconds later, with a huge toothy smile (you had teeth at 4 months, you know).  Sometimes I tried to make you laugh but instead I frightened you, and I had to pick you up and hug you and try to teach you that ruptures can always be repaired.  If you grow up knowing in your deepest self that people can fight and still love each other, well… you have mostly your parents to thank for that, but if you wanted to give Auntie Chris just a bit of credit, I wouldn’t complain.

Joris, I see in you the marks of a secure attachment.  You seem to have access to all your emotions (although some of them still feel overwhelming), you’re able to say what you want, you feel free to explore your world, and you’re cascading beautifully into the stage where you try to destroy your maternal object.  From what I hear, a few more rounds of “NO!” and you may well come close.  I’m not sure if Winnicott (the psychologist who wrote about the aforementioned object destruction) ever cared for a two-year-old 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  If he had, he may not have wrote with such ease about the importance of the mother “not retaliating.”

Which kind of brings me to my next point: none of us are completely secure.  Your Mama has issues, Daddy has issues, Uncle Jack, Auntie Chris, HOLY SHIT, does Auntie Chris ever have issues.  Everyone who has ever held your warm little body and wished with every fiber of their being that they would never do anything to harm you, has harmed you.  It’s the most painful truth in all of existence: we harm each other, and even when we reconcile, the harm will always be part of the story.

So, despite your seemingly secure attachment (and in 20 years you can tell me if you think I’m right about that), you won’t live your life feeling secure all the time.  And when you don’t understand why you’re feeling depressed, or when you’re overwhelmed with the pain of being teased by other kids, or when you just want to live differently but don’t know any other way to be … just know that your crazy-ass therapist Auntie will always be there to muddle through it with you.  Free of charge.

Carine, I’ve seen how sometimes the stuff I talk about raises your anxiety.  The thing is, I don’t have kids, and so my bias is against the parent.  For that, I’m so sorry.  When I see Joris, sometimes I see myself as a toddler, and I’m convinced that somehow I can heal my own hurts through him.  This does not help any of us.

Part of my pathology (that means my crazy) is seeing the world in terms of right and wrong.  Learning about secure and insecure attachments has made me think that “right” parenting leads to security, and “wrong” parenting leads to insecurity.  This right-and-wrong construct has not served me well in adulthood, but man, it is a tough piece of my psyche to dismantle.

A few months after Joris was born you gave me a card.  In it, you thanked me for being there for Joris’ birth and for being a big part of his life, and you said you would always be there for me too.  I’ll definitely continue to need your support as I finish school and (hopefully) start some sort of career … but I think you’ve also been helping me in ways I didn’t even know how to ask for.  You’ve stumbled through this parenting thing with courage and honesty, and as I’ve watched you, my rigid right-and-wrong construct has started to break down.  You give yourself freedom to be human, to make mistakes, to be angry and irritated, and even to (gasp!) ask for help.  I know that in granting yourself this freedom, you’re also giving Joris—and me—the  same permissions.  Watching you parent has given me a bit more room to breathe. Thank you.

You three have a wonderful Christmas in Holland.  I can’t wait to hang out when you get back.

Love,

(Auntie) Chris

My Atonement Theory

My Theology Class is studying Atonement Theory, and I just turned in a short paper on my own working model of Atonement.  I’m finding Atonement Theory to be like a mosquito bite: I’d really like to ignore it, but the goddamn thing won’t stop itching.

Here’s my paper:

The problem with the penal substitution atonement model that I have been taught throughout my Christian life (besides the fact that I never knew there were other options), is that it favors oppressors over their victims.  This model states that we, as sinners, collectively deserve the punishment of death, but Christ died “in our place.”  While this theology can be used to release the perpetrator from his guilt, it is problematic for victims of oppression and violence.  As Rosemary Radford Reuther points out, this model puts victims in a “double-bind”: They either must accept their deserved punishment (because if there is punishment, there must have been sin), or if they are innocent, they should endure their undeserved punishment in order to emulate Christ, the innocent sufferer. I am searching for an atonement theory that speaks to the realities of both victims and perpetrators of violence (and the many of us who find ourselves often in both positions). My working theory is that redemption of both sin and suffering happens not at the cross where a sinless savior dies, but in the life, ministry, and (especially) resurrection of Jesus.

Thomas Finger asserts, and I agree, that the cross was the inevitable result of Divine Love dwelling in a violent world. Ruether agrees, writing that “the cross is the ultimate expression of…retaliation by the mighty of religion and state that rejected [Christ’s] call for repentance and solidarity with the poor.” The cross was an act of senseless human violence, not God’s planned atonement strategy for sin.

If the cross represents an act of meaningless violence toward God by those in power, then the resurrection exposes the oppression and injustice of the cross.  Christ, silenced by a violent death, is now a witness to the violence done against him.  And it is in Christ’s resurrection, not his death, where both violators and victims find redemption.  As perpetrators, we see our own violence exposed by the resurrection: perhaps we, too, are so entwined in the system of sin that we rage against the God who stands with the oppressed.  As victims, we see ourselves in the suffering and dying Christ, and if this innocent suffering is not glorified (as in the penal substitution model), we allow ourselves to feel rage at the assault on our own dignity.  As Ruether writes, “those who remember the cross as a crime against humanity experience… anger and sorrow at this act of unjust violence, but they also revolt against it by carrying on Jesus’ message of good news to the poor.”

Empathy, Listening, and Confidentiality; or, Everything I’ve Learned So Far.

I’m doing my first real counseling-related project through my school.  It’s confidential.

No no, listen.  IT’S CONFIDENTIAL.

There’s something so grown-up about having confidential work.  After my first meeting for this project, I went home feeling panicked and unqualified, but I still relished the moment where I said, “Jack, I’m going in the office to do some confidential paperwork.”

“Okay hon.”

“That means you can’t know about it.”

“Uh huh.”

“It’s confidential.”

Sigh.  “Okay hon.”

Mostly for this project I sit and panic that I won’t have anything useful to say to the people I’m interacting with, or that I’ll say something really wrong and they’ll act on my words and end up suffering even more.  Then I think, “All I ever do is make thing worse.  I’m going to ruin people’s lives.  I should just stay in bed all day.”

Then during my next counseling appointment I tell Susan I feel depressed and I have no idea why.  And she says gently, “no idea why?” and I say, “Well, I’ve been telling myself daily that I suck.  Could that be related?”

Step one to becoming a therapist: learn your own patterns.

When I started my first year at Mars Hill I figured the main qualities of a good therapist were empathy and listening, and I believed that for the most part, I had those skills.  They just needed some fine-tuning.  Turns out my empathy and listening skills were in the wrong key, on the wrong instrument, and not even the right music.  Fine-tuning actually meant unlearning and relearning the song.

Empathy isn’t just understanding another’s emotions.  It involves knowing how you feel in the presence of the other.  Next time you’re with your best friend (or better, the friend you’re not sure that you really like), or your sister, or your kids, having a conversation or baking cookies or whatever, ask yourself what emotions you’re feeling right then.  It’s tough.  You’ll leave that person and realize you had no idea at the moment how you really felt… especially if you felt something not noble, like anger or boredom or disgust.  Most of us were never taught to listen to our quietest inner voices, even though they whisper truth about ourselves and others.

The prerequisite to empathy is knowing your own story.  We all know the surface events of our lives, but not always the underlying currents.  I thought I knew my own story before, but holy shit.  HOLY SHIT.  If you want to hear more, buy me a beer.  If you want to hear more and you’re related to me, buy me 2 beers.  If you want to hear more and were in any way involved in my conception and/or birth, please ignore this paragraph completely.

If you don’t know, really know, your own story, then your feeling of empathy for another is more likely the ache of your own unfinished business.

So much for empathy.  Let’s talk about listening.

I realized with a shock around February that I’m a terrible listener, even though I’ve always been a very gifted nodder and smiler.  But listening actually means recognizing a person’s patterns–what words does she repeat?  How does she draw you in, and how does she push you away?  What does she want you to believe about her?– and catching when those patterns are interrupted, say by anger or sadness or delight.

I’m getting better at this pattern recognition.  But it’s tough to look for another’s patterns while you’re tracking your own emotions and keeping your own life in mind.  You need to make sure you aren’t seeing the other through the lens of your mother’s criticism or your middle-child issues or whatever else you might have going on.

Sometimes, when I’m not preoccupied with proving myself to others (which is pretty much never… that would be one of my youngest-child issues), I have moments of empathy and listening that surprise me, and usually whoever I’m with, too.  I love watching friends connect the stories of their lives, take hold of their own heartache, and put words to their as-yet-unnamed strength.

It’s hard not to come home bursting with the beauty and tragedy of these stories… stories of friends I’ve known for years!  But I try not to spill everything to Jack, at least not in the first 3 minutes of walking in the door.  The hardest part of my future career might be confidentiality.  I need to start practicing.

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.

Endings

This week I had to say goodbye to my practicum group.  Before our last meeting, we talked about endings.  Our Practicum Facilitator, Jeanette, told us that people usually try to make goodbye less difficult.  We find something to get angry about, so we can brush our hands off and be done, good riddance!  Or, we create distance, convincing ourselves that we don’t need that person as much as we thought.

As Jeanette went through the list of ways we make parting easier, I heard my own voice at every airport: “I had a great time with you, and I’ll call when I get back.”  We’ll talk soon, I say mostly to myself, so this isn’t really an ending.  I borrow from the future to alleviate the pain of leaving.  And by doing that, I’ve missed so many chances to end well.

Good endings, Jeanette told us, involve remembering.  Ending well means telling stories.  It means recognizing that we’re at the end, and not cheapening the end by backing away from it.  It means celebrating and mourning, together.

So on our last day of practicum, we told stories.  We remembered each other, how we were in September, and how we are now.  I didn’t console myself that I would see these people next year.  I will see them, but we’ll never again be in a group together.  I told each person how I would remember them.  And I heard their words to me, which were almost too good to bear.

Then, the next day, I had my last one-on-one meeting with Jeanette, and that was a billion times worse.  I did not want to say goodbye to that woman.  How do you let go of the person who first confirmed that parts of your own story were dark and tragic, and told you your tears were right and good?  I just couldn’t.  So I didn’t say goodbye for the first 40 minutes.  Instead, I found less painful things to talk about while I creatively didn’t look at her.  Or swallow.

Then when our time was up, I panicked that if I wasn’t honest now, I might never again say anything that mattered.  So I took the world’s shakiest breath in and said, “I was scared to come here today, because I don’t know how to begin to thank you.”  I’m not sure if the last few words were audible or not, but she seemed to get it.  She looked surprised, choked out a soft, “oh,” and started crying.

We sat for two minutes, and I hope to remember those two minutes my whole life.  At the end she said, “You’ve touched my life, Christine, and I won’t ever forget you.”  I think she said that because it’s true, and because she knew I would have trouble believing it.  Love must be much bigger than I imagine.

Since then, I’ve been seeing endings everywhere.  What if I left each visit with my sister saying “I had a great visit, and now it’s finished.  We’ll never have another like it.”  What if I let myself comprehend that, next time I see my nieces, they will be different people entirely.  What if, on our anniversary, Jack and I told stories, celebrated, and mourned the quick passing of our newlywed years.  What if I told my sweet 2-year-old nephew, “I remember your first cries, and I will never hear them again.”

Endings are everywhere.  Death is everywhere.  Sometimes it seems like Good Friday lasts forever, and Easter is only a sad illusion.

Revelation

When I worked at Peet’s, I would often take a person’s order, and while I was making the drink I’d ask that same person, “Can I get something started for you?”

I have a real problem remembering faces.

Jack is very gracious to me when we watch movies, and I have to pause every five minutes to ask, “Wait… I’m so confused. Is that the new lover or the old lover?”

And Jack will be like, “THE OLD LOVER IS WHITE. THE NEW LOVER IS BLACK. HOW CAN YOU NOT KEEP THEM STRAIGHT?”

And I’m like, “They’re not straight?!? But what about the woman? Or was it two women? I’m so confused!”

Beyond just not remembering faces, I’m not a visual person. I don’t have a mind’s eye, and my real eyes barely work (contact prescription: -7.5). Recently a friend tried to teach me how to wear makeup, and she was talking about rose shades and berry shades and bluish browns and greenish purples and I was like PLEASE just give me a tube of lipstick that doesn’t make me look like I forgot to sleep last night.

I’m intimidated by all things painted, drawn, sketched, sculpted, or visually representative of something else. This is one of the reasons I’ve never read the last book of the Bible. Revelation is just too visual for me. (The other reason is the people who love Revelation. Or more precisely, people who love thinking that Revelation is about them. You know what I’m talking about.)

So when I saw “Apocalyptic Literature” on the syllabus for my New Testament class, I was intrigued. I was pretty sure no one at Mars Hill would claim that the European Union was a sign of the End Times.

At the beginning of the 3-hour class, the TA, Rob, talked about features of apocalyptic literature. Then, for the second half of class, he turned off the lights and read the book of Revelation, out loud, from beginning to end, with no interpretation or commentary.

Image after image bombarded us. Four-headed creatures and fire and swords. Sounds of thunder and weeping and rushing waters. An earthquake. Shining white linen with golden sashes. Pus-filled sores. A woman in labor and a dragon waiting open-mouthed at the end of her vagina to devour her child.

And it was too much. My poor imagination has not been worked so hard in years. It tried to keep up, but like a rusty old bike chain it snapped and got tangled in itself. And whenever it became too much, whenever I was tempted to go get a drink of water or check my email or stand up and beg Rob for mercy–whenever I thought I would burst into tears if my senses were strained any further, one of Revelation’s horrific creatures would cry,

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!”

As if they, too, were full to the brim and begging for mercy.

At the zoo

Last month I went to the zoo with Jack, and we discovered the indoor tropical exhibit. The first cage held an ocelot, which I had never even heard of. I took one look at it and immediately told Jack three things:

1) I want one.

2) If I were in Harry Potter my patronus would be an ocelot.

3) That face just turned my insides to goo.

It was seriously the most beautiful creature I could imagine:

A few weeks later I was sitting in class thinking about ocelots when it hit me: what do the babies look like? I googled, “Ocelot babies” and found out that two kittens had been born to the Woodland Park Zoo ocelot in September. I immediately gmail-chatted three things to Jack:

1) Ocelots have babies.

2) Ocelot babies are near my house.

3) There is a God.

Yesterday my friend and co-student asked if I wanted to go to the zoo and talk. It seemed like a good place to go on a February afternoon. Because February is tough, especially for students. It’s a good month for ruminating and brooding. I liked the idea of brooding with Grace while watching otters play. It seemed like such a ironic, both/and, already-but-not-yet, ambivalent, “hold everything in tension” thing to do.

When I saw the sun this morning I thought, “No no no, this takes away February’s usefulness. How can I possibly brood when the sun’s out?” But of course, it was wonderful. The animals were displaying their best quirky/horny spring behavior. AND. The ocelot kittens were to be in their exhibit at 2:30.

We had an hour to kill, so we meandered towards the day-and-night exhibit and talked. February has been hard. Grace talked about her tears, and how she had hoped that Mars Hill would erase them, but instead people call them a gift. I’ve been realizing my own secret fantasy that Mars Hill would teach me how to be bold and outspoken, so I could be seen and heard and fully accepted.

Mars Hill is not known for fixing problems. One of our professors says that a therapist’s job is to make things worse before making them better. I’m beginning to think that the “better” is much more beautiful and painful than I can now imagine.

There’s a little walkway between the zoo’s indoor day and night exhibits. The walls are painted with dark, shadowy forest against a night sky. A Wendell Berry poem leads you from the day exit to the night entrance:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

We stopped. “I’m reading that really differently today,” said Grace.

Yes, I thought, me too. It’s not just about bats and owls today.

Maybe things don’t get better. Maybe I will be lonely and unseen. Maybe Grace will always have tears. Maybe everything is always and forever dark.

We paused, and Grace finished both our thoughts: “But it’s been traveled before.”

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.

Why I’m having trouble blogging

… it’s because of the therapy.

Therapy is doing what it’s supposed to do… that is, it’s helping me express my feelings with increasingly dramatic adjectives.

Here’s a game:  One column contains words and phrases I used pre-therapy.  The other column has new words that I’m finding more suitable.  See if you can guess which column is pre-therapy and which is post-therapy:

Sad  …………………………………………………………………………………. Heavy with grief

Kinda vulnerable ……………………………………………………………… Completely exposed

A little down …………………………………………………………………….. Burdened

Angry…………………………………………………………………………………. Enraged

Anxious……………………………………………………………………………… Terrified

Fine, thanks, how are you? …………………………………………….. Oh God.  I… I just don’t know.

Why yes, it’s 2:15 ……………………………………………………………. [Breaks down crying]

And as I laugh at my own jokes (someone has to), I’m so aware of hiding behind them, too.  They give a satisfying non-answer to the question, “How’s therapy going?”

I can hear my counselor gently reminding me, “pearls before swine, Christine.”  The Internet is a pig, and my counseling stories are far too precious for its hairy snout.

But in my lighter moments, I’ll make the best counseling jokes I possibly can.