I am dismayed — mortified — and full of questions this morning as I continue to read the news. My human response is to consider the gun carrying, Quran burning, pastor Terry Jones, to be idiotic and stupid, the definition of ignorance. Although my gut response isn’t helpful or kind (or very Godly) can I say I just don’t understand him — at — all! ? It seems to me to be unfair that such a crazy man “represents” the same powerful, life-changing, transforming, beautiful faith that I have experienced with Jesus. And because Terry Jones speaks so loudly (and is getting so much media coverage) I must say: He does not speak for me.
I have to speak up and say: This is not my faith. This is not my Christianity. Not my religion. It is nothing like what I know to be true about Jesus and how Jesus would respond to the climate between people of various faiths in America today. I cannot conceive of the level of confusion and misguided thinking that would lead a follower of Christ to make these expressions of their (supposed) faith.
The freedom to express one’s self is a cherished liberty in America — I value the freedom I have to write my thoughts down here on this blog and express my beliefs and thoughts. But burning a book (sacred or otherwise), a flag, a cross, a church, a temple — it is all so indulgent and wrong.
A post by Eugene Cho this morning helps to direct thoughtful people toward a peaceful response asking the sometimes silly question: WWJD.
What Jesus would do ?
“How do their/your/my (my addition in italics) actions and stories testify to God’s work and invitation of reconciliation and redemption? As Christians, we can find harmony in the beauty of the Gospel: “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” [John 3:16] And because Christ has died for us, we can live for the work of reconciliation and redemption. I am not suggesting we be timid in our declaration of Christ as the way, the truth and the life. But in doing so, we can also choose to lay down the sword and choose love and build peace. We can choose to believe the truth of the Gospel: God not only died for us but dwelt amongst us. He walked among us. And he did the most amazing thing: Jesus ate with humanity.”
Jesus came to “restore, redeem and reconcile” us. He wants to heal us of our depravity. He died so that we could be changed people. He brought the Peace of himself to our world — of confusion, hatred and ignorance. This is the whole reason for what Jesus did – giving his life for our life. By coming to earth and walking and eating with us, he showed us only love. Love others as you love me, he said.
Cho says it well: “God wants eternal communion and friendship with us. He creates it, pursues it, and ultimately sends his Son to restore, redeem and reconcile that Relationship – as the perfect Sacrifice. Truly amazing.”
How does Jesus respond to the state of faith in America. I believe … Jesus weeps for us. And why do I share this today? Because what God has done for me is to heal me, making my life about reconciliation not judgment. And I do not want the reputation of Christ to be slaughtered by men like Terry Jones. No, God does not need me to salvage his reputation, but still I feel compelled to speak for what I have experienced as a person of faith.
If you want to talk to me about this or anything else I have written, please give me a call. Or email me at: melhhanson@yahoo.com. Otherwise please feel free to leave a thought here.
I mean my own — on the page — telling me things I may not want to acknowledge. I find out about myself as I write. What have I been afraid of knowing, I wonder, as I put off writing day after day?
I am uncomfortable with how narcissistic blogging is and yet I can’t seem to write any more without knowing others are reading. Except what is in my prayer journal, I am completely out there — laid open, exposed. And by choice. I don’t know what I think about this.
For a month now I have exercised six times a week.
Taking vigorous walk/run on the treadmill downstairs. I am up to three miles a day. I’ve lost about four pounds. I reassure myself that this pace is the healthy way to lose weight and that this rate is one that can actually be maintained.
I find myself angry and discouraged, when I think of all the weight loss programs that promise miracles and sometimes provide them. I once lost 17 pounds in about five weeks. It was years ago. My body was younger. I did it without exercise. But I was told that I looked ill. And inevitably it all returned. Those pounds brought friends to the party I call my thighs and double chin. I remind myself that wasn’t on an antidepressant then and weight gain is one of the top side effects of this medication.
But I hate the weight — It’s visceral. I am ashamed of being fat and more so of being ashamed. But how I loath being fat. It is complicated by my mother’s yo-yo dieting my entire life. And in God’s irony I married a yo-yo dieter as well.
In my mind being fat equals failure. Although intellectually I challenge this idea, it seems to be winning. I have to challenge it over and over again, because of people I love and respect working their whole adult lives on this issue and “failing?”
Up until a few years ago weight wasn’t an issue for me. Now I judge myself for my “failure” and I assume others are judging me too. I realize suddenly how I have utterly bought into the idea that “thin = beautiful, intelligent and successful.” Imagine the judgmental thoughts I have then. The shame.
And so I run, longer and harder each day, hoping the weight of my shame will be lost with the physical pounds.
I’ve thought a lot recently about time passing.
I suppose because we’ve come full circle with Molly moving back home after four years on her own. And a new school year for the other three kids. Around the time that my father was ill my depression was at its worst. I was trying to decide if I should go on an antidepressant to help manage it. For Tom and I, going on an antidepressant was a sobering choice that we thought and prayed and researched ad nauseam. It was one that we struggled with for months, so when I decided to go ahead I had to take a prerequisite pregnancy test. No-one could have been more shocked to find out I was pregnant, it was just too much. Dad was sick with cancer – basically dieing. Mother was caring for him, in Colorado alone, and was at the height of her drinking.
Being pregnant was the worst news possible. Mostly because there was no research on the impact o this medication on the fetus. And I was desperate for help coping.managing.surviving the depression.
A few weeks later I miscarried seven weeks into the pregnancy.
As I look back on those days now, with distance and perspective, I am filled with longing for that child. She would have started kindergarten this year and as I watch the tiny children walking hand in hand to school, their seemingly enormous backpacks on their tiny shoulders, lunch box dragging, their new white tennis shoes, I am crushed with the sight of it.
And wonder will I mark the passing of every year with this lost child?
I had a dream about her.
I was in a busy train station. People were flowing in and out of trains and it was difficult to figure out which way to go. I felt confused about my direction, overwhelmed. Then a tall blond college-age young woman turned her head toward me. She was beautiful, angelic, and strikingly similar in looks to my daughter Emma and she had downs syndrome. I knew she was my daughter. She looked me and said, ‘They wouldn’t let me come.” She smiled. This was my daughter that I had lost when she was just seven weeks old in my womb.
I woke up with the knowledge that she wanted to come to me and that she was at peace.
I am six years into the battle of dealing with depression.
There is so much learned. Many things I have lost or given up. Much grief and more joy that I could have imagined. Depression has made me the person that I am now — stronger, genuinely in love with Jesus, disciplined spiritually, more and more at peace with myself in the world. Twenty pounds heavier and hating that. But knowing that this depression is a conduit to a better life for me.
I exercise because I know that it helps me manage my depression and my goal is to be off medication. And it makes me feel good. I exercise because it means I am willfully thumbing my finger at the Sink Hole of depression.
Keeping balance, along with the wrong attitudes I have about fitness and weight, well, that’s another story.
I’ve been glutted with books and blogs and music and helping the kids prepare for a new school year and moving Molly back in (My 22 year old step daughter.)
I have been blessed with renewed friendships, times of striking & revealing Bible study, answers to prayer, working in my garden and yard, preparing delicious food, having providential experiences and conversations. Oh, and daily exercise! Good things — all. I am reveling in gratitude for all of it — for being loved by Abba and the wonder of being a mother, a wife, a friend, a sister, a daughter, a neighbor, a writer, and a photographer. I think this strange feeling is … joy?!
Tom asked me to type this up for him after reading it to him this morning.
I thought I’d pass it on to you as well:
And you, too, youthful reader, will realize the Vision (not the idle wish) of your heart, be it base or beautiful, or a mixture of both, for you will always gravitate toward that which you, secretly, most love. Into your hands will be placed the exact results of your own thoughts; you will receive that which you earn; no more, no less. Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain, or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration . . . .
In all human affairs there are efforts, and there are results, and the strength of the effort is the measure of the result. Chance is not. “Gifts,” powers, material, intellectual, and spiritual possessions are the fruits of effort; they are thoughts completed, objects accomplished, visions realized.
The Vision that you glorify in your mind, the Ideal that you enthrone in your heart— this you will build your life by, this you will become.
—From As a Man Thinketh by James Allen
Lastly, I want to encourage you to listen to this message that I heard yesterday at Blackhawk. I am still gathering my thoughts about it, but I have to say that I am psyched! Overjoyed and blessed by this sermon about Men & Women and the Church. The title says it is about Marriage but listen to it, it’s not about marriage. It’s about the redemption of the place of women in a patriarchal society and challenges the cultural belief that it’s okay to take this into the church and into a marriage relationship.
I recently quit Facebook. And then came back. There’s a lot behind the decision. Let’s just say it’s complicated.
As we create a persona on Facebook, picking and choosing what we want people know about us, there is an air of the dramatic to it — don’t you think? This may be only a partly accurate reflection of who we are. I am definitely not nearly as witty or intelligent as my FB persona. I just communicate differently in writing than in person. There’s a confidence (for me) online that isn’t there in many daily relationships.
I can say truthfully that I have made friends online whom I have never met face-to-face. And I have serious and valuable conversations with people who are not in my day-to-day life. And so often, things are said that a person might never have said to their face.
Is any of it real? The short answer is of course it is. I genuinely believe that it is every bit as real but it cannot ever replace the deep friendships that develop in face-to-face relationships. The human touch, perhaps a hand gripping yours as you cry or even a smile cannot be felt in online connections.
In the end, I suppose I was tipping too far in one direction. Not spending enough time with flesh and blood friends.
Another reason I quit Facebook
was that I found myself caught. For me, the world is a cacophony of need, pain and sorrow in a way that clouds my ability to stay focused on the positive at times. When I read the New York Times or blogs I am so often left bereft and I too easily forget the hope that I have been given. And FB is a daily reminder of all the need in the world, at least for me — a reminder of how different we all are — A polarization between liberals and conservatives, rich and poor, hungry and fed, educated and uneducated, creative and not so creative, the homeless and those with homes, Christ-followers and atheists and Hindus and Buddhists. Funny people and people with no funny bone, at all.
I could go on and on.
Any time one expresses themselves, it is an opportunity for people to “let it rip” in a most ungenerous way. And even when the ‘conversations’ are civilized, I am left with a feeling that this dialogue doesn’t do anything except underline our differences. I do not believe we will ever convince one another in a different direction over the internet or with the written word. I just don’t believe it will happen. Debate, discussion and healthy disagreements can only happen face-to-face.
And so, I decided I had to stop expressing my viewpoints on important matters on Facebook. It’s unproductive and divisive. But quitting wasn’t the answer either.
“A real spiritual life makes us so alert and aware of the world around us, that all that is and happens becomes a part of our contemplation and meditation and invites us to a free and fearless response. It is this alertness in solitude that can change our life indeed. It makes all the difference in the world how we look at and relate to our own history through which the world speaks to us.” Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen.
And so, I think I will continue but I will try to not be such a serious person [on Facebook.]
I will only raise issue of importance to me on my blog where I can at least put some time and thought behind it. And in an effort to be connected I will do more of that — connect.
I will be more intentional about knowing and loving others both online and off. What about you?
The danger is clear. If you want to be with people, if you recognize a need for a healthier balance in that area of your life, by the simple expression of it you might sound needy or afraid to be alone.
As I reflected on this at length over the past twenty-four hours I realized I do not fear isolation. Yes, that’s what I said — I am not afraid to be alone. It’s been a long process of coming to understand my self better and finding a certain level of personal contentment with solitude.
For many years I ran from solitude and the longings of my heart, filling it with the distractions of activity or work or later alcohol. When I was single I was afraid to be alone. Though I lived alone by choice, I would constantly seek out people and things to do. In my twenties I was able to fill my time with service and met many wonderful people that way. Now my life is full of the busyness of a young family and when I have precious moments of solitude I love it; a walk in my garden, a drive in the country, strolling through a book store, or sitting in a coffee shop. These things that would have made me crazy for years I now cherish.
I relish my private thoughts and activities — my free time. I am learning how important they are to sorting through what I think. When I lose that private time I can quickly become tossed to and fro by the ideas and convictions of other people in my life or the experts I have to quickly elevated to a higher level of enlightenment than myself simply because they have a higher degree or they speak loudly.
So how do I reconcile this with the idea of a yearning for community? Simple. They are completely different ideas.
In Reaching Out by Henri Nouwen he says:
“There is much mental suffering in our world. But some of it is suffering for the wrong reason because it is born out of the false expectation that we are called to take each other’s loneliness away. When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships, and suffocating embraces. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. And by burdening others with these divine expectations, of which we are often only partially aware, we might inhibit the expression of free friendship and love and evoke instead feeling s of inadequacy and weakness. Friendship and love cannot develop in the form of an anxious clinging to each other.
When I speak of community, I do not mean something to take away loneliness or aloneness.
Again from Nouwen,
This difficult road is the road of conversion, the conversion from loneliness into solitude. To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. … this is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search.
This is a wonderful place to dwell and like all lessons in life, we travel back along the same road many, many times. But I am learning to be content with feel my feelings, and wait for The Companion (God) to speak. And when it comes to a need for community that is a completely different thing. They are both themes in one’s life that do not need to be reconciled with one another. But they do need to be understood.
Nouwen talks about a conversion from loneliness to deep solitude. A space to develop your passions, ideas and opinions. Rainer Marie Rilke in Letters to a Young Poet says:
“What is going on in your innermost being is worthy of your whole love.”
So this place of solitude makes us into deeper people, better able to experience community, to love others and genuinely love being with them. We can enjoy our differences of opinions. And most important, others don’t exist to meet our needs but to experience a give and take of ideas and respect.
Here’s the thing. I have had a lifelong yearning for connection.
I think Henri Nouwen had the same thing going on. Nouwen’s understanding of the nature of life involved cultivating one’s self — inwardly, outwardly, and upwardly.
But if I am very honest with myself the very things I long for with people I resist! It is much easier to be alone.
I avoid — the telephone, Christian small groups or even just “Mom” groups, making new friends, more than a wave to my neighbors, calling my family, and even at times real conversation with Tom or my shrink or my friends!
No, not all the time. Not every time the phone rings, but often. Not every email or someone asking to get together. Not my best friends, usually. But — I— just— avoid. I recoil at church when I have to talk to strangers and duck and hide when I see a acquaintances in the grocery store.
Am I shy? Yes. Am I as arrogant as I come off? No way. I do have a social anxiety, badly. I can “talk” at length on-line or via email, but I sweat bullets to talk to the same person face-to-face. I go to a church of 6,000 so the chances of seeing someone I know at church is slim to none. But on the occasion that I do see someone I know I don’t scoot over to say hi and catch up. I am persistently filled with dread to see people! I stammer and stutter and end the conversation as quickly as possible. I shut down. Getting away is all I can think about. And then on the long drive home I think to myself “how lonely church is and how I don’t know anyone. Does anyone even care? Poor me….”
It’s— quite —pathetic.
For almost fifteen years now, Tom and I have had one conversation more than any other.
Me: “Why are we so disconnected?” Or, around the holidays “We rarely talk to your parents.” It’s infrequent at best that we see my sister and her husband and we see Tom’s siblings once or twice a year and all live in the same town. I can go a month without seeing my mother and weeks without talking.
And we always come back around to the same place.
Tom: “Tons of people love you Melody — Love you and are always conveying that to me!” Or, “We just have to make some effort. People are busy.” Or “If you really wanted closer relationships you’d [fill in the blank.]”
If you really wanted deeper relationships you would …
That is what I want. I have a hole in my heart you could drive a semi through in the shape of people. I need people and I don’t know how to be with them. So I’m shy. And I have social anxiety in most settings. And I am terrible, I mean terrible and I don’t even want to try to be good at small talk. It makes my skin crawl! And the hole comes from (trust me my shrink and I have been through this many times) my low self-esteem thanks to my crummy upbringing.
So what can a person do to change all that?
In the past my best approach has been to have incredible vivacious outgoing friends. They sought me out. They made plans. They were a party in and of themselves. But, I am now a forty-three year old mom and I don’t work outside the home and my church is mega- and I just don’t have it ‘happening’ any more. I’m frumpy and middle-aged, and I don’t drink. How droll!
So who is this strange person that I don’t even recognize (me) that needs her friends more than ever
and seeks people
and connection
and community
more
than e v e r!
Nouwen describes this longing I have, saying: “The spiritual life is a reaching out to our innermost self, to our fellow human beings and to our God. In the midst of a turbulent, often chaotic, life we are called to reach out, with courageous honesty to our innermost self, with relentless care to our fellow human beings, and with increasing prayer to our God. To do that, however, we have to face and explore directly our inner restlessness, our mixed feelings toward others and our deep-seated suspicions about the absence of God.” From Reaching Out— The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life by Henri Nouwen.
How and where do you find community? What do you do to develop and keep it in your life? What is important for you? Yes, this is a response question posed even for the lurker (you know who you are and you don’t even have to tell me who you are.) I hope to glean from your wisdom.
Yes, I quit Facebook (for the time being) because I’ve been lulled into the sense that I am — “so connected” — with people all over the globe and it’s crock. It really is. I need and want some face-to-face time no matter how scared that makes me.
What does community look like, feel like, smell like? What does it require of a person? Where do you find it? This is what I’m thinking about.
Cameron continues, “Every morning I seek to find God. Here is where I am, God. Can you find me? … We are all looking for God, for a connection that will feel real enough to get us through the day. A sense of companionship and connection. How do we know we are being guided by God? That we are moving in the right direction? …
Take yourself to the page. Writing yields clarity. There is something in moving our hand across the page that can also help to make God’s will visible to us. In seeing our alternatives, we can sometimes see the face of God. We are not powerless. We are not without choices. We are not trapped. We do have dignity. All of this can be revealed by time at the page.”
I have times when I am filled with nothingness — the total absence of belief.
And I long to be certain of my faith. Many other times my faith is sure, as real to me as my ability to touch my own children, as I see the reflection of God on my life.
But absolutes do not come to me easily. Although the order and complexity of the universe must lead back to a creator God, I am not certain of many other aspects of organized religion and religious people. Why is there hate and bigotry among religious people? Why do good people become dogmatic and judgmental when they find “religion”? Why is evangelical faith seemingly so exclusive? Why are conservatives so afraid of things and people that are different from them and their experiences? Why don’t people’s lives show their beliefs more often?
I’m just saying. Though these thoughts border on judgmental and that is not my intention. I just see so many people who go to church but their lives are not much different otherwise; Christians who seem to live for self-interest. I fear becoming that person. Perhaps I already am though that is what I pray is being changed.
I wake many mornings wondering if I am simply a speck on the planet earth with no higher purpose than to wake. eat. work. play. love. sleep. and do it again for a hundred years if I am lucky? No greater purpose than to try to stay physically healthy and mentally alert, so that this experience of living isn’t entirely miserable and hope that I don’t lose my mind before my body betrays me. Wait to die and the end is simply that, the end. Full stop.
Okay, that’s cynical me.
At other times, I believe my life has purpose. And my reason for being is twofold:
to move closer to God — grow in my knowledge of God through disciplines of prayer and study and practical application of the teachings of Jesus. Hope that this relationship is in some way attractive to others who do not believe. Hope that something in my life is curious and interesting enough that they ask “What is it that makes your life different?”
to move closer to others — my family, friends, and community in a healthy and productive way. Make a contribution, do some good and give a shit about people.
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
— the Gospel of Mark 12: 28-31
I spend most days in the in-between.
I know that anything good about me is because of God. I know this isn’t me. I have been changed from a selfish, broken and sad human being into something else. I am sure this isn’t me. If left to myself I think I would have stayed an angry, bitter, suspicious judgmental workaholic, an absentee mother focused on her own interests, and eventually I would likely have become a drunk, stumbling through life hurting all the people who I love.
So at the very least, the precepts that the Christian faith are based on have changed me for the better. And, as I have received the forgiveness of Jesus Christ, I have been able in a supernatural and healing way to forgive myself and others. That’s real.
I will hold on to these miraculous faith experiences. Cynical though I may be, this is real. That is what I am left with today. It is enough.
As Julia Cameron says in Faith & Will:
“What if there really is a benevolent God, one that will try to work with us as we labor to work with him? What if the harmony that we see in the natural world is possible also in the world of human affairs? What if we can move toward this harmony simply by trying to move toward God? What if the trying is enough? What if God really is the Great Comforter? … What if all that stands between us and God is us?”
In the coming days, I am going to be making a conscious effort to listen. Writing about all of this will be a part of that process.
I am going to reach out for God and act like I believe.
I appreciate the care and concern. And thought it would be good to write an update since I fear some may avoid me for my returned melancholia and others will fret and worry for me.
By the time I postedthat poem, I was doing somewhat better. Improvement made it possible to write and think and therefore compose those words, stringing them together one after the other into some semblance of poetry. At the very least they were a cry for help, as they say. Ha!?
For days I have looked at my camera and not had the will to pick it up. The last couple of days I have been able to and that is a sign. Though yesterday in my ineptitude I spilled water all over my camera and it may be dead. I am afraid to put in a charged battery and know for certain whether it is gone. All is not lost. I have a better camera bought for the business venture. I don’t know how to use it exactly but I may be forced to learn.
finito
That reminds me. The business of Imagine Photography LLC is finished. Although I love working with entrepreneurs (my father was one) I am not one. And I didn’t enjoy the business of family and wedding photography. I am hanging up my “professional photographer” hat and picking up my Artist’s. Closing the “doors” after three years and it’s somewhat of a relief, though I regret not having the personal umphf to “make it.” Some of my depression may have been triggered by the finality of this admission.
back to the issue
I have certain people for whom I have held on to lack of forgiveness. I feel hurt by them and so I resent. Resentment hurts me and is a self-defeating prophesy in a way. Anxiety, insecurity and fear come in and all of a sudden it is unbearable. Figuring out how to forgive, myself and the other person, is the only way to get past this. This requires time to pray and find the place of openness inside. Right now, my heart is still full of anxiety, it’s pressing down and creating tension and pain. I must do this business of forgiveness to move on.
It is no coincidence that this all started right after I wrote the poem about forgiving my parents. I wanted something powerful from that ‘gift’ of writing it for my church. My ego wanted it. And ironically, what has come of it is a humbling (er, humiliating) experience of being battered down by my weakness, frailty and continued inability to be a forgiving person.
“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” [Lewis
B. Smedes, The Art of Forgiving.]
This is the journey. This is only one piece of it but it is imperative that I figure it out. What a joke to be a follower of Christ and hold on to resentments and pain. To live held captive. To live without joy. To live bound and controlled by our fear and bitterness.
I know this is not right. I am humbled by my mistakes and want to climb out of this hell hole I’ve sunk into. That’s only accomplished one fragile experience at a time, as I listen and respond to the nudging of the holy spirit. I am so relieved to know there is a way out of this.
Feeble though I may be, I respond. There’s strength to be found in that.
God has shown me twice this week, by marking time in my past, to show me how I have changed. When this happened I was blown away by how much God loves me, something I have long struggled to believe. And that in and of itself is so sweet. So good. I just sat in the moment, feeling precious. God loves me enough to show me the changes, the progress, the healing that has come.
When I fell into my first major depression in 02, I didn’t really know what was happening to me. At first I just sat absorbing the fact that I couldn’t think, or sleep, or make decisions, or read; I couldn’t do anything. It was strange. Foggy. A bit like being in slow motion. A ten-hour day at home with three small children didn’t feel like a day at all. It felt like a flash, because I wasn’t really conscious. I had no words to describe what was happening to me. Depression took everything.
Lost My Way
After five weeks stranded in this place, I finally told Tom that something strange was going on. And then my friend Carol, then at some point I told my parents. I remember sitting on my back porch talking on the phone to my father who had called. Of course he said he would cancel all his plans and come straight away if I needed him. He was good in an emergency. But I declined his offer knowing it wouldn’t be that pleasant nor likely to be helpful. And I don’t remember much about that conversation except saying “Dad, I just want to be happy. I can’t remember the last time I felt happy.”
Looking back today, from the perspective finally of joy and contentment, I have to admit that I never believed I deserved happiness. It wasn’t something on the conscious level or anything I thought about very clearly. But at a deep, foundational level I couldn’t remember happiness. And didn’t believe I deserved it. I would reach out for it sometimes. Usually that resulted in hurt because I did it in such needy or aggressive way. And more than how others treated me, my thinking about myself was so bad, so low; I had a deep hatred for myself.
I can only guess that this was caused by being yelled at so often and so unexpectedly as a child, young adult and adult. You knew it might come at some point, but you could never guess why he was mad or what you might have done. My father was unpredictable in his rages. Berating. Pushing. Demanding that you admit wrongdoing. Keeping at you, over and over again verbally — until you concede to him, whatever it was. The subject didn’t matter. You must apologize. You must ask for forgiveness, absolutely. Looking back, he was Psychotic.
And so, inside I slowly disappeared. Life was numbing and I was without opinion. Without question I began to do whatever he expected of me. And that too reinforces your own loathing. I was a classic under achiever, my one way of getting his goat.
Every once in a while over the years, the last time happened in the late ’90s, I would meet someone who seemed to see right through the walls and ask me “Why are you in so much pain?” It was if I was translucent and they could peer into my heart and soul in a way that I couldn’t even do any more. I just looked at this person who didn’t even know me, with shock and disbelief at what they saw. I felt exposed and yet I had revealed nothing. They felt the pain I had stopped feeling. It was horrible. And yet, looking back it was so important. Again, one of those markers God gives me to see how far I have come.
I worked for my father for many years. My reasons (I see now) were to receive his affirmation. And it worked, though I worked too much and became a workaholic. I worked unreasonable hours, had no boundaries between work and my life, and I had hardly any personal life until I met Tom. Even then, I really had trouble getting home for dinner, worked through lunches, lived and breathed work. I worked 150% and knew that I couldn’t fail, which was what I was sure was going to happen if I stopped striving, because it was my father’s reputation and his good will toward me that were hanging in the balance. His love?
It wasn’t until I had my third baby in five years and quit that life to be at home that it all came crashing down around me. Thank God it did. I say that because it began a nine-year process of finding myself , FINDING LIFE — Oh, the mistakes I had to make in order for that to happen. But hey, I was doing the sped up version of adolescent rebellion I guess. Growing, learning, expanding, reaching, feeling. Finally feeling. And it felt terrible, and good at the same time.
Nine long years. And in those years I found
Photography.
Writing poetry and thought put into words in general.
A study of the Bible and the power of prayer with faithful believing women.
I developed opinions, thoughts and ideas that originate with me!
I found gardening and theology.
I have been slowly overcoming of anxiety – mostly social anxiety which I get so badly even still. I really do hate that.
I have found joy. I’m actually glad to be alive.
I have found love from humans and cats,
And more important than any of this I have found that Jesus loves me. No really, he does and I never believed it. After the phone conversation with my father he sent me a postcard in a frame that said “You are the One Jesus Loves.” I was so uncomfortable with it that I buried it in a sock drawer for years. Long past when he died. I really couldn’t fathom it. Sunday, right before church, I found the post-it that he included on it which said: “And your father loves you too. Love, Dad. 7/02” (Yes, in the strange third person.)
I don’t want to die anymore.
I started smoking in that time, which was a slow suicide and last year I quit smoking.
I starting drinking, socially at first, and then heavily and began to abuse it. And I quit drinking over a period of three or four l o n g years. When I started to think about quitting, I thought I would never have any fun again. I actually thought that. No fun, ever again. I had no idea what true contentment and joy, even happiness was until I quit drinking, accepted my powerlessness against it, and faced the shit I had been so cleverly (or not so cleverly really) been avoiding.
When I was depressed I thought I would never be happy. When I overdosed, a small part of me must have wanted to live because I woke up and told Tom what I had done and I lived. But only a tiny piece of me still wanted life, mostly I still hated myself.
But it has been the process of becoming ME that has made it possible to consider forgiving my father and mother. I know I am a strong person. As I begin to want more from life, I can accept and voice what happened to me. Yes, my father had to die for me to have the courage.
This near decade long process made it possible for forgiveness. And it isn’t a short or easy road. Truly, it has taken all those years.
My first honest words expressed about my dad were in a poem called “Good Dad. Bad Dad.” It felt so risky, so bold at the time. After reading it again after all these years, I think I’ll post it here:
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
I shed no tears today
for the warrior who has fallen.
Taken down by Cancer's sword.
My heart is full of memories,
good and bad.
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Constant worry.
Constant change.
Who could have foreseen
the Cancer overtaking his mind;
that became my liberation
in five short months.
The danger --
of loving too much;
needing tenderness,
and all the things Daddy's are supposed to be.
PAIN. FEAR.
Emotions jangling around me
like some kind of white noise;
pushing their way into my conscious thoughts.
Invaders, threatening to undo
the weak hold I've found on a Good Life.
So many memories
good and bad,
bad and good.
Who was he? Why was he MY dad?
MY tormentor.
MY warrior;
Finally broken,
beaten by the cancer
that was to become my friend.
Betrayal,
these thoughts which plague me.
Broken;
the unspoken promise
to keep our secrets to the end.
How do I remember?
How do I stay true and honest,
when the Truth causes an ache
too strong to feel,
to face,
to bear.
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Who was he in the end?
A demon? A saint?
Now simply a Muse --
remembered, but no longer feared.
Thought of
in furtive,
anxious moments.
Good Dad. Bad Dad.
Who is he to me now?
A man driven to despair
Living a chaotic, frantic life.
Not the Good Life I choose,
Not the legacy I will repeat.
Good Girl. Bad Girl.
Who will I listen to?
Who will I believe?
I am the woman I choose to become
today,
tomorrow.
These are the Good Days
that I can change.
Yesterday is Dead.
Burned in the funeral pyre.
Vapors
Mist
Dust settling around me.
Good Girl. Bad Girl.
Good.
Bad.
Good.
by Melody Hanson, 2004
So how does it work, to forgive a tormentor, an oppressor, an abuser? Does it mean taking someone’s anger and rebuke over and over again? I’ll never know if I could have stood up to my father? I have never met someone who did and stayed in relationship with him. That’s daunting.
Forgiving is “the opposite of ignoring and excusing. It is moving toward the offense.” And that’s been my path. Naming the pain. Drawing attention to it in my writing. My father’s anger and rages were ugly and dangerous and as a child I was constantly afraid of him. With some amount of distance – his death – and my personal work, I’ve worked to let go of it. But there will never be restoration and reconciliation because he has gone.
On the other hand, I’ve also experiences anger toward my mom over the years for her lack of action, defense of us and for shutting down. She also disappeared into health problems, depression, and eventually alcohol. But we, two fragile and broken people are working on a long healing process and I try every day to trust her and not expect or need her to change.
My pastor said recently about forgiveness: “Let go, open your heart, move toward the pain. Recognize the person’s humanity, their broken heart and sense of failure.” I can do that with my mom.
For the longest time I couldn’t have said that my pain and hurt belonged to my father. I had a blessedly complex relationship with him. I longed for his approval while at the same time had much hurt, anger and resentment for his controlling behaviors. I learned to be exceptionally passive aggressive and sarcastic because that was, I thought, the only safe way that I could express myself.
“Safe” is so ironic. I don’t remember ever feeling safe growing up. I was anxious, afraid, tense, doubtful, insecure, wracked with shame, self-loathing, and fear. Fear of the ambiguity of my home growing up — I actually said to a boyfriend “Treat me well or treat me badly. I don’t care. Just be consistent.” I longed for it.
But grace, coming from God in the life of Jesus and the sacrifice done for me — that’s changed everything!!! He takes the most broken and restores. Better put, he heals.
He makes like new but different, strong; his touch, attention, and gaze are profound. I will never be the same.
I have a new life. I have a life. I have started living. I have hope. I have joy. I may not ever feel loved by my human father …but I’m going to be okay. I don’t expect the way forward to be simple because as I grow God continues to ask things of me that are difficult.
Will you obey? Will you choose my path? Will you give such and such up? Will you forgive? Will you seek me? Will you be disciplined to know my words, the Word? Will you exercise because you know it helps your mood, and eat right? Will you pray? Will you have a generous heart? Will you sacrifice your desires for mine?
“Everyone says that forgiveness is a lovely idea until they have something to forgive.” – CS Lewis
Forgiveness of grave acts of injustice can feel like an abstract concept to those who have not experienced those acts. ( — PRISM magazine)
Sometimes I write, telling parts of my story, in order take what is anything but abstract for me and try to make it clear to others – to help my fellow journeymen (and women.)
My pastor said yesterday … that anger and the need to retaliate when someone has hurt you is “normal“; as normal as the reflexes a doctor checks when she taps on our knees during a check-up. Normal.
I hate that word. I don’t understand the use of it. It is a bit reckless to say anything is normal these days when people have such diverse experiences. But think I understand what he was trying to say — that a wish for vindication when you have been hurt is a healthy response. But even that doesn’t sound quite right. How about a human response?
But what response should one have to being hurt or abused or rebuked or shamed or yelled at? To retaliate? No, I think he means a human response to lighter stuff like being gossiped against is to strike back. Because when I think about my childhood, I think the healthy response is to shrink. One will cower. One learns to hide, to disappear, to not be the object of that person’s attention. Perhaps this response is not “normal” but it sure was “reflexive” for me. That’s why it is hard to hear that “wanting revenge is normal” if that is indeed what he meant.
Then, as I look back, I see that THERE HAVE BEEN TIMES when I wanted a sort of revenge with my father and mother.
I have carried fear of my father for as long as I can remember and an anger at my mom for not protecting us. And a kind of fury. I used to have rage dreams and on the really rare occasion I will have them still. But they are thankfully now years in-between.
The powerlessness that comes from having a father who never admitted he was wrong creates that anger and sense of worthlessness.
It is not worth trying to explain yourself.
It is not worth needing your own opinion.
It is not worth expending energy because nothing really matters. Nothing
really matters at all.
I am so glad I am past that.
It’s just too bad he had to died for me to come to this place. I carry a huge feeling of loss that I never knew a sweetness in my relationship with my dad. I loved him out of fear and a wish to please him. I know he loved me. But he just – couldn’t – help himself?
It is true he couldn’t help himself. I wish he could have let God help him.
I miss him now, as I ponder what could have been. He really was a dear man, loved by so many around the world who were his friends and never knew the secret rage inside him. I’m glad that many people didn’t know – in a way – because Dad accomplished many good things. Helped many people. Was loved by many.
God why did you take him so young? Sixty-two? I hope
it wasn’t simply
so I could live.
No, I don’t think God works like that.
It was simply a convergence of events coming together to give him cancer and take him home. And my ability to heal, to forgive, well I have to believe that I might have come to it even if my dad was still here. Perhaps it would have taken longer, but it would have come.
I have forgiven my father and then I think of my mother, who still has a story to tell. I don’t know if anyone would believe her, but she has so much in her life story that could be helpful to others. Surely we can’t be the only ones in this situation, caught between a person who does good things and has their secrets. A Christian leader who means well but whose home life isn’t right at all. But that, is her story. Perhaps one day I can help her tell it.
IN THE END what needs to be said is this.
Forgiveness is what each Christ follower is asked to do in response to the forgiveness Jesus extends to us. It is not easy. It can take a long time. It often depends on the emotional health of the person doing the forgiving. It always depends on all the factors surrounding the situation and each person has to sort that out, often with the help of a pastor or a counselor.
I have been in therapy of one sort or another, off and on, for almost twenty years! Wow, that’s crazy sounding but it’s true.
Pulling back the layers of pain,
the years of stagnation and lack of healthy growth as a human being,
the crazy mixed up ideas,
the strange perspectives and opinions picked up over the years.
The times of resisting and not being willing to obey God.
And finally coming to a point that one decides for themselves what to do — without the guilt or coercion of others, but in complete obedience.
It’s messy. It’s damn difficult.
But it is so sweet, when finally healing, forgiveness and the mercy of Jesus at the cross come down on you.
And you begin anew… and your story continues…
Where does rage come from?
I do not know and I have pondered my father’s strange rage for many years. I cannot pretend to have answers and obviously I cannot ask him. But I have a friend who works with incest survivors. She has a very special ministry. My father always said that he was sexually abused as a child, by a minister in his church. I never believed him. But I asked my friend about this and she said: “When a person admits to this as an adult, they are telling the truth. They have no reason to lie.”
No reason to lie. She also said very often anger like that comes from abuse in the past.
I don’t know if it is true but I cannot ignore this:
In Forgiveness: following Jesus into radical loving Paula Huston says: “Regarding the tender souls of children, Jesus says in a passage that can be read as referring either to young human beings or to “baby” Christians: ‘Things that cause people to sin will inevitably occur. It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck and he be thrown into the sea than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin.‘ (Luke 17:1-3) The roots of our adult sin patterns are often to be found in the still-gaping wounds of childhood.”
So my father was hurt as a child. And I was crushed by his pain and hurt, as he took it out in the form of rage and anger.
At some point we are each responsible to work through our experiences and get to a point of healing.
Again, from Huston,
“Then, and only then (after the process to be sure) we can see the other person as “a human being, no matter how degraded, a fellow soul made in the image and likeness of the God we adore.” (added by me)
God causes his sun to fall on both the good and the evil, and his rain to fall on both the righteous and unrighteous. (Phooey, I can’t remember the reference.)
The longer we shut up our heart against the one that has hurt us the closer we come
to losing our own heart,
our humanity,
even our life.
And for some even our minds.
These things happened to me in the form of depression, alcoholism, and self-loathing.
And so, for today, I just want you, the reader, to know that there is hope. It is found in Jesus at the cross if you will spend some time there. Lay those things down; the heavy burden of pain — close your eyes and picture** putting it at Jesus’ feet. Give it to God. Release it when you are ready and be ready for miracles.
MHH
** Some people have a hard time picturing things in their mind’s eye. If that is true for you I would urge you to watch the movie THE MISSION. That movie will give you a picture of your pain and lack of forgiveness as those heavy pieces of armor that the priest dragged up a water fall as penance. Whenever I begin to forget what my bitterness and anger, lack of forgiveness are doing to me, I can see in my mind’s eye that sack of armor. No one can live that way. No one should live that way. No one needs to live that way.
“If you’ve ever been part of a loving, healthy family
you have smelled the sweet aroma of heaven.
If you’ve ever lived in a troubled, broken home
you have breathed the foul stench of hell.”
I have never heard someone put it quite that honestly before! Except myself and I have done it with a bit of trepidation.
One of the things that is so difficult for me to reconcile was my father’s anger issues and other dysfunctional behaviors with being a Christian, an ordained minister and a ministry leader.
It is not that I think anyone can or should be perfect by any means, but it was disproportionate, it didn’t improve, and it was very confusing as a child. (And as an adult for that matter!)
Turns out half of evangelical kids walk away from Christianity as adults. I’m surprised the numbers aren’t higher actually.
Christian leaders get caught up so often in the doing, the work, others.
We all need to have to have more intentionality with our children. It isn’t too late. I choose not to repeat the things I learned growing up. It is such a relief to know isn’t to late!
The quote above is from the book It Starts at Home. I’m thinking of reading it. I only have 102 titles in front of it on amazon.com. (Sigh.)
I cannot speak, unless you loose my tongue;
I can only stammer, and speak with uncertainty;
but if you touch my mouth, my Lord,
then I will sing the story of your wonders!
Teach me to hear that story,
through each person,
to cradle a sense of wonder in their life,
to honor the hard-earned wisdom of their sufferings,
to waken their joy that the king of all kings stoops down to wash their feet
and looking up into their face says, ‘I know – I understand’.
This world has become a world of broken dreams
where dreamers are hard to find and friends are few.
Lord, be the gatherer of our dreams.
You set the countless stars in place,
and found room for each of them to shine.
You listen for us in your heaven-bright hall,
open our mouths to tell our tales of wonders.
Teach us again the greatest story ever;
The one who made the worlds became a little, helpless child,
then grew to be a carpenter with dark-seeing eyes.
In time, the Carpenter began to travel, in every village
challenging the people to leave behind their selfish ways,
be washed in living water, and let God be their king.
The ordinary people crowded round him
frightened to miss a word that he was speaking.
Bringing their friends, their children, all the sick and tired,
so everyone could meet him,
everyone be touched and given life.
Some religious people were embarrassed,
they did not like the company he kept,
and never knew just what He would do next.
He said, “How dare you wrap God up in good behavior,
and tell the poor they should be like you?
How can you live at ease with riches and success
while those I love go hungry and are oppressed?
It really is for such a time as this that I was given breath.”
Logic & Imagination 