The Mercury (this begins my 25th year of Monday to Friday Mercury columns)……..
It is a die-hard custom for columnist to “reflect” on the past year. Here are broad principles I have found to be true. I hope, readers in Southern Africa and elsewhere, that you will share yours with me:
Life is simultaneously beautiful and brutal. It is wiser to embrace both as fully as is humanly possible. Attempting to reject life’s inevitable brutality seems to delay deep appreciation and awareness of its beauty.
Generosity, kindness, openness to all others are more powerful than any politician or army.
My enemies unknowingly serve me, make me think, make me honor my life with greater effort and dedication. Thank you. I owe you. I long to repay you with grace, respect, and honor.
If I think my sons and their friends cannot teach me anything I soon discover I indeed have a lot to learn.
The most difficult people, the most demanding clients, the most trying customers, are those who offer me the most powerful opportunities to grow, learn, and exercise love and grace.
People do what they want to do. No finely designed intervention or battery of therapeutic skills can stop a person doing what he or she really wants to do.
The minute I blame anyone for anything, I regress. The minute I take responsibility for myself, I grow.
Finding the opportunity to seek forgiveness, participate in repair or restitution with people whom I have hurt may result in their expressing forgiveness. While hearing such comforting words warms me, self-forgiveness remains difficult.
Do you have similar battles?
I know this is a particular struggle because having known what is right, good, wholesome, I have not always done what is right and good and wholesome. I find this painful to admit and address. Knowing better was hardly helpful.
While it is no excuse, I am aware that I am not too different from many.
When I am feeling down it feels as if my failures speak louder than any successes. Despite the knowledge that “people are more than their actions” shame seeps and runs deep and makes me feel vulnerable and fragile. It can be a physical sensation.
Again, I must ask, do you ever feel this way?
When I am at my best, I can humble myself, accept my imperfections and that I am a forgiven person.
Admitting I am flawed is key to my freedom which leads me to self forgiveness at which point freedom fills my soul.
“Chased,” he said, “I’m being chased, haunted by my past, my past of multiple addictions, — they follow me.”
“Like dogs?” I asked, “I have wild dogs too.”
“No,” he said, “large lions, and a tiger, coming from behind, waiting to pounce, attack. To scorn, belittle me.”
“How do you protect yourself?” I asked.
“I outrun them; get ahead. Do heroic things to prove them wrong. But, they follow, catch up, then I have to do it all again. What about you and the wild dogs?” he asked.
“I tried to ignore them,” I told him, “but they don’t like that. They squeal, bark louder. I tried to get ahead, outrun them as you do with your pursuers, but that’s temporary relief.”
“I know,” he confessed.
“I made a decision that made a big difference,” I said, “when I was at my most desperate when they were chasing me through dark hallways of my mind, barking at my heels, I stopped, slowly turned, faced them. Told them they were right, looked them in the eyes, gave them attention — then, they withdrew, got quiet, behaved as disciplined guide dogs. Now, they do their jobs.”
“Can I train my lion? My tiger?” he asked.
“You’ll never know,” I said, “until you look them in the eyes.”
“Writing in the sand” is a strong metaphor for me.
My usage is in reference to a New Testament moment.
When confronted by men who desire to trap him, Jesus twice stoops to draw or to write in the sand.
Theologians have postulated much on what it was he wrote or drew.
I believe he was “steel-ing” himself. He was readying himself for a strong, suitable reply to what may have appeared to bystanders to be an impossible dilemma. Jesus was thinking, mulling things over, reminding himself of his calling and the power that was his and and was not his.
He was doing what you and I are called to do when faced with dilemmas, complex or easy.
When we take time to write or draw in the sand we give ourselves the time we need to consider many options when we make decisions.
Taking the time offers time for increased perspectives.
He was no loose cannon and we know how damaging they can be.
I have been writing or drawing in the sand for months, designing and planning suitable responses to tough situations.
It has taken me far more than two stoops and I know I will make many more.
But, I will emerge and act on decisions made while stooping these many times and drawing in the sand.
A man or woman who is a survivor of a difficult or traumatic childhood will often go to unusual extremes in several of life’s arenas.
“Make it perfect,” becomes the mantra.
The extremes are intense attempts at perfection to put right the past or stop it intruding on the present.
This may be particularly obvious when parenting.
The survivor of a difficult childhood whom you love will go to endless lengths to please you once he or she has broken through the trust barrier with you.
Once you are trusted it will be in ways he or she has never trusted before.
Be gentle as it could be very fragile.
When suspicious questions arise, answer as honestly as you know how you realize that it is not about your behavior, it’s about history repeating itself.
The man or woman whom you may love who is a survivor of a difficult childhood will often feel heavily let down if well made plans go awry. He or she may suddenly become completely disillusioned when discovering he or she was unable to create something perfect for you to experience together.
“I’m 28. I will marry a wonderful woman in August. My mother brainwashed me with venom about my father for 24 years. He lives nearby. I hardly know him. I think I want him at my wedding. She is threatening to boycott if he is invited or there.”
It’s your wedding. Except for your mother’s friends whom you want included, the invitation list (under these toxic conditions) is none of her business. Allow your mother hostage power now means you can expect her to try to wield similar threatening power over other matters in your married life.
The good news is you have several months to complete important work with both parents.
Contact dad. Invite him into the slow, deliberate process of deeper, appropriate, father-son intimacy. (Use your own words). Suggest a bi-weekly breakfast and tell him there will be no talk whatsoever about your mother. After a few breakfasts include the “wonderful woman.”
Stand up to your mother. Tell her you want her at the wedding but it is an invitation she may always decline. Include her on other plans – the challenge is to not alienate your mother but to clearly define your response to her controlling ways.
Defining yourself to both your parents will do more for your long-term fulfillment than anything else you do.
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