On Practicality

I am a theorizer through and through - which is okay if that fact is balanced with a healthy relationship to the practical parts of life. I am wondering why I have such a joy to sit around and pontificate about the nature of the human condition and make abstractions about how what we really need to do is start loving each other and how people are really good deep down if we look for it, and yet, when it comes to waking up every morning to find a job, I am painfully far from the mark of a man. Though reading a book such as Marion's The Idol and Distance is an excruciatingly complex endeavor, and mind melting one at that, it is nonetheless a true pleasure for me. When it's time to consider picking up The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, though, I begin to tremble with nervousness and a little bit of boredom.

Let's face the facts:

I am twenty-three years old. I have a Bachelor's Degree. I am a Christian. I live with my parents. And I, basically, have no job. Also, I try to ruthlessly assert myself as a man. When it comes down to it, though, my status in life is little better than a high schooler.

This is distressing to me.

I have always wanted to get married and have a family and be a good man. I want to believe in the equality of all people and their respective, objective importance in the world. These are lofty goals for someone who can't even determine to get out of personal debt - goals that I am worthy of, even in the slightest way.

I sit around, day after day, expecting my parents to take care of me and offer me good after good, maintaining that I will look for a job "when I'm ready." Wow. What is manly about that? How can I expect to be a family man, a provider, when I can't even begin to provide for myself? How, in the past, could I have dated women and asked them to take a chance on me that, in a couple years, I would get it together well enough to the point where I could make a Mrs. of them? What boldness. What arrogance. What entitlement!

I write all this from a place of great fatigue, having slept a mere hour and a half last night, so even as I am writing I am finding myself getting lost in my thoughts and my inability to express the nature of my predicament very well. It basically comes down to this: I need to get it together. I can't wait around any longer until a Job falls into my lap; I just need a job. Any job. If I were able to just begin to feed myself without my parents help, I would be making a step in the right direction - toward manhood. Toward courage.

I'm too intelligent to be in the situation that I'm in. I don't mean this to say that I'm uber-intelligent, but the facts are that I'm college educated and lack the practical experience in life to own that I can't take care of myself and that this is unacceptable. Again, how can I begin to think about being someone's husband or father when I'm still a child in my parents' house?

They are wonderful people, my parents, but I can't sit around and let them be mommy and daddy forever. I can't keep playing the constant mind game with them and myself that one of us has to be in control or have higher ground. They have provided me with a home, for now, to get my act together so I can grow up. Why have I not leapt at this opportunity? In a lot of way, I think I am more of a man than ever before, but in the area of self-actualization by the grace of God (paradoxical, perhaps unorthodox), I, again, am painfully far from the mark - sinner that I am.

No more, says I. This is where this needs to stop. I should be joyfully embracing this time instead of shying from it or thinking of it as a pain in the ass (which it is). I have an opportunity to become a man and work through things that I don't want to do. I can do something for myself. I can take care of myself in a very practical way that will most likely lead to many other things falling into place with increasing ease (or at least less resistance on my part). This is the first big hurdle, the first big step, and it's probably the scariest. Again, I find myself in a crucial place where I can either rise to glory, or I can fall to the pits of despair and become like my father who never let anyone tell him what to do and hardened his heart against his family, his life, and God. I don't want any of that. God, help me.

It's time to figure this out and make something happen.

I love deeply, and it really would be a shame if I never got to share that with someone just because I refused to grow up and get a job.

On Growing Up

I used to think I was a Toys-R-Us kid. I really did. I never wanted to become the gross old man who just sat on his porch yelling at kids like my-then-self to get off his property. What's the charm in that? It's really just crotchety. No thanks. I wanted to be a kid forever - nothing but planes, trains, and video games to worry about. It's a good thing, I think, that as we grow, our sentiments begin to do so as well. If that doesn't happen, well, things can turn pretty dismal. The hours of entertainment, of childhood make-believe, if not properly sorted through upon, inevitably, arriving at adulthood can lead to never growing up. The thing is, time doesn't wait for us - our bodies don't wait for us. We sit around and find new, adult-themed way to entertain ourselves, to make-believe. Some are physically healthier than others, but they all basically stem from an obstinacy rooted in an indelible desire to never grow up.

Tonight, I got a new glimpse of myself. Though I don't sit around and smoke pot and sit in front of the television all night, I may as well. We have this idea, and rightly so, that drugs are bad because they take us out of ourselves and help us forget the day, turning us into a different version of ourselves that perhaps we enjoy more readily. While chemical intoxication doesn't appeal to me, escaping from myself has a particular allure. I do it readily without the help of drugs. How am I any better than my brothers who escape themselves with chemicals? I'm not. For this reason, stoners, alcoholics, addicts of any kind really, don't seem terribly foreign to me. I guess I would rather just collapse into myself like a dying star than go out with a bang, which might be even more dangerous. At least for the addict or drug-user, he can come to the end of himself at some point, realizing that the drugs just don't offer the same high. With the depressive-anxious among us, well, there's really no telling to how low we can sink. It's not hard sink lower and lower, and really, the human heart is infinite and capable of great(terrible) despair.

My isolation from the world, my family, my friends, even, takes me so deep into myself that there's really no telling when I'll reemerge. It's scary for those around me, no doubt. My family, God bless them, when they see this retreat into entertainment, self-destruction, they readily try to offer help, and I, callously, ignore it. My family, the people who want nothing more than to see me flourish and breathe fully the greatness of God's grace, must be utterly baffled that I would shy away from such benevolence, and choose Facebook instead. I have come to be ruled by the things I love wrongly. If I loved them rightly, I would have a full life. If I trusted in God, what a good life I would have! Television and movies would offer a new way of viewing life so that I could reengage while calling on the name of the Lord. Instead, I have come to view them as alternate realities in which I wish I could write for TGS with Tracy Jordan or look like Jim Halpert or fly like Peter Petrelli. Why do I choose these other worlds that don't exist in lieu of the grace, goodness, and love of God the Father through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?

My childish imagination has stayed put, refusing to grow up, continuing to live in a Toys-R-Us world, and I am terrified by the horrible, grim, true, wonderful reality of working and repentance. Is it really such a terrible thing to grow up? How could it be? If I existed in reality and regarded myself properly, I would continue to push myself in that direction, I think. I would understand the beauty of the Lord more fully, I would see the glory of my neighbor, and gladly offer myself to him and them as a sacrifice. What is my time to me? What good is it if I am not offering myself to God and to his Church? Why have I been given this life if I am going to refuse to show up for it?

Growing up is perhaps the most important thing to do. I don't want to grow old in childhood, I want to be there. No wonder Ivan wanted to kill himself upon reaching 30. He understood that life really would just become boring if he himself did not have a dynamic self that grew up as he grew old. How long can I drink from the cup of my broken childhood? Why would I want to? God can't reach me in the past of my childhood, in a faulty imagination. I have to offer it to him as it is, right now. How can I think possibly that sitting around in my room all day is possibly going to lead to my eternal salvation and life in Christ? How can I claim to live in him when I don't even want to claim that I have a self to let live? I die slowly at my keyboard each day and refuse to humble myself before the almighty Christ who bore my flesh nature and hung on the cross with his arms wide calling me to him. No longer. By God's grace, no more! May it not be that I continue to escape his glory. Where can I go to hide from him? The psalmist asked that question centuries ago, and he came to the end of himself realizing that the answer is NOWHERE. There is neither height nor depth that can separate me from him. How can I be so bold to ignore his calling? Who do I think I am? Are my plans to sit around and twiddle my thumbs really all that important? Preposterous thinking! May it never be!

It becomes clear to me, then, that if I continue to hide in my childish wishes to never grow up, then I will err fatally. Christ is the Vine and we are the branches - branches are supposed to grow are they not? If they do not or yield no fruit, are they not, then, dead and consequently severed? Lord, have mercy. I don't want to be a Toys-R-Us thinker, but I want to dwell fully in the presence of God in whom my identity is found. And really, as it has been said, "If he is for us, who can be against us?" Really. Who is there that would dare butt heads with he who vanquished Death? You'd have to be a damn fool to do that.

As we continue to grow up, in body, heart, soul, strength, and mind, doesn't it make sense that God would continue to fill those things even more as well? If my imagination grows up, how much more will God enter that space and make it his? And what joy waits for us, then, as we continue to grow! Lord, have mercy.

Growing up is, though, scary and difficult. Letting go of any habit that you've had for the majority of your life has to be. I'm in the particular habit of hiding from my life, refusing to let God get me where it hurts. As I, however, begin to bring that part of myself before him, he will be good and faithful to kill and resurrect it and make it his and whole. As he enters and confirms my life, he will make me an approved doer of his work, but only if I let him reach all the parts I'm afraid of anyone knowing. But again - where can I hide? How can I think that there may escape from his notice even one part of me, one sin, or one iota of thought? If these things, which are hidden from even me, can be touched by his love, then there is hope for the destruction of the despair that plagues my life. He sets captives free, and I am bound by despair, anxiety, and inability to grow up.

Growing up is necessary, unpleasant work. Lucky for us, however, our God knows something about necessary, unpleasant work. Let's talk for a second about the destruction of Hades, shall we?

On Talents

This present reality is God’s greatest gift. I guess I don’t really know what that is supposed to mean. Well, maybe I do. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I can figure it out.

Here I sit, right now. Right now. This moment. This instant. It’s the only one I have. How can I sit around and expect to amount to something “one day?” That’s a little presumptuous, I think. I can’t expect that I can just sit around on life and that the same blessings, same gifts will be accessible to me. Marianne said that my father had gifts, too, but he let them die. He failed to become a man and let his blessings fall to crap, and he curled up around the big pile he made for himself. He died that way.

What, then, can I do with what my gifts are right now? Do I need to focus on them, or do I simply continue to repent and do all I can to serve God in whatever way possible? Yes. Obviously, I do that. That seems like a no-brainer of Christian life. Why is it so hard to do, then? I guess I’m just so unable to live in the present moment of things that I let everything that is good about me go to waste. I don’t value where God has placed me enough. I continue to be presumptuous and think that “the golden job” will simply fall into my lap. No. That’s no way to live.

I was thinking about the whole “saved by grace through faith” dilemma. I remember growing up thinking that all my faith was supposed to do was deliver me from hell, and it was grace because I didn’t deserve to be saved from hell. Not entirely so. My priest yesterday was talking about the synergy of the Christian’s relationship with God. Faith is action. It makes sense. It’s not that I’m saved by the deeds that confirm faith, but it’s sort of like thinking of God’s grace of salvation as a train. Faith is the vehicle that gets me to the train station. Even that is a flawed analogy, but I guess it helps to think about what exactly the nature of faith should be, though. It’s what enables us to get nailed by grace. And faith is something that can only happen in this present moment. Any other time is either presumption/despair (future) or regret (past). I constantly must put myself in the way of God. He’s waiting for me to do it, but he’s not going to force me to. He’s a very patient God.
So, why do I insist on waiting? What am I waiting for anyway? What keeps me from running straight into the arms of God, my Father, the Giver of all good things?

Fear. Plain and simple. Fear coupled with despair. Wow. Is that really it? It must be.
It is in every moment that I am able to turn to him. This present reality is God’s greatest gift. It is there that God can hit me. If the present reality is ever before me, how can I fail to see my need for him and his grace and his love for mankind? If I stay here, stay in the room, I will see the people God has placed before me and the joy of the world. It is impossible to miss. “May those who have eyes, see, and those who have ears, hear.” God, make me worthy to see and hear. How can I see something or hear something if I am not around to hear it? How can I experience life if I don’t show up for it? Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.

So if I remain present and focus on the ineffable goodness of God’s love and the insurmountable heights of his glory and grace, that means I acknowledge God’s wisdom in making me a part of the present reality. Right? I don’t disappear from it, but have a place in the world, a place in the room. If I fail to acknowledge my place in the reality that God has ordained, I still fail to be present. So I must recognize my proper place in that reality, and along with that goes acknowledgment of gifts and weaknesses. Acknowledging gifts can seem haughty, but if it is coupled with acknowledgment of crippling fear and impeding despair, there is healing, joy, and grace. Praise be to God for this.

So why is it so difficult to embrace gifts of God? If I embrace them as characteristics of myself, truly I become proud and make way for every other sin to enter - especially despair. If, however, I acknowledge them as gifts, I am compelled to use them humbly. God, have mercy. What a strange paradox humanity is. So why do I think that my resistance to embrace the gifts God has given me is the humble route? It’s not. It’s the most proud way there could possibly be. “I know I have these gifts, but I’m not going to use them.” What the hell, man? Who do I think I am? More importantly, what gives me the right?

Marianne told me recently, “Stop messing with the DNA that God gave you, and embrace it.”

Awesome.

How do I do that? How, how, how?

By getting present. Yes. Be where you are, with whom you are. “Draw near to Christ and he will draw near to you.” What are these gifts that he has given me? I guess I’m afraid to find out. I don’t want to be one of the servants who lets his talents go to waste, not yielding return on them. More than that, though, I don’t want to be a servant with talents at all. Since, however, that is a ridiculous thing to ask because I can’t do anything about what God has given me. I can either embrace and love it or reject it and hide, and so, become my father who let his talents go to waste, burying them underground. Not wanting gifts is basically like saying that I don’t want to even be alive at all. “I hate to breathe, so I refuse to acknowledge the existence of air.” Preposterous, at best. Is there a difference between the things I love and the things I am good at? Maybe not. As with anything, it takes training. So, maybe, while I love loving people, and am not good at it, I can see this as a gift of mine. I fail to love perfectly - duh - but that doesn’t mean that I can’t grow in love, right? The talents of Christ yield great return only when they are put to use. So that means I might lose some gain before it’s made up and ends up being more than I was given originally. Right? I love writing, but that means I’m going to have to write some pretty terrible things before I get it right, doesn’t it? I can’t just walk into a conversation about philosophy (though I love it) and get anything out of it unless I first misunderstand. It is through this haziness and imperfection that more clarity and wholeness is brought about.

So instead of messing with this DNA that God has given me - the DNA that longs for connection with other people - I should embrace it and get used to the fact that I WILL NOT LOVE PERFECTLY. It simply can’t be done, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t redemption or hope. Thank God for his abundant mercy and love!

My main gift is that I am a people person. I thank you, O God, for this gift! My desire is to help them. I long to see others become fulfilled in God’s love and grace and to realize and actualize their callings. I want to bless all the world. I want to love everyone. I want to see and embrace others indiscriminately. I don’t want to hate anyone for anything or judge them for any misdeed. People are not the summation of their failings, but are the image of God. We are called to glory. We are called to forgiveness. We are called to resurrection from death. Who among us has not sinned? Who among us has not hated? Who among us is without hope? There is no such thing - if so, what kind of God do we worship? What kind of God is he who lets people perish hopelessly from the face of the earth? But he is not that God. He is a good God who restores the lost and seeks the sick. Praise be to him, now and always!

Teach me, O Lord. Break me. Humble me. Restore me. Strike me down and raise me up that I may forever call on your name. Teach me to love others as you do. This is my desire. To minister to the broken, to offer help to the helpless, to preach healing of the soul and body. There is grace. There is love. There is you, O Lord.

Have mercy, O God. Have mercy. Lord, heal us. Save us. Protect us. Help us embrace the gifts you have given us and teach us to use them for your glory and for the good of the world and the Church.

Christ is in our midst.

He is and ever shall be.

From Elation Regarding The Holy Orthodox Church

Christ is in our midst!

I just love that so much. I wish I began conversations like that all the time. What a way to set the tone for the interaction that is to be had. I wish that I had something eloquent or mind boggling to say about the Church, but I don't. I guess I'm just remembering lately why I was so drawn to Christ's Church in the first place, and I remain so continually grateful that he led me to her doors.

Today our parish celebrated its patronal feast - The Chains of St. Peter - and it was a joyous feast! The only thing that would have made it better, though, is if the St. Peter diaspora could have returned. Regardless, though, the beauty of the Church is simply overwhelming.

Man. I wish that I could say something intelligently right now.

I guess that what it comes down to is that I'm pumped that I get to make it to church twice this weekend and receive the holy Body and Blood of our Lord. What a blessing!

Perhaps this is one of the more sentimental posts I've made, but my gratitude and joy is all I feel that I can express right now.

I wish everyone could find such joy and encounter the Lord in such a steady, powerful way.

Lord, have mercy.

Glory to God in the highest!

On Magnanimity

My step-father told me today that he read that being magnanimous means pursuing a worthy goal as well as trying to become worthy of the goal. Poorly explained. It means that someone has courage to do something great and they themselves become worthy of doing the very thing worth doing. It sounds like a scary prospect to me. I guess because rather than just doing something awesome, the pressure to become awesome oneself adds a serious degree of self-worth to the equation. I’m using the word (and variations) “worth” a lot right now, but I guess that’s what it all comes back to - so maybe not totally a bad thing. I guess this is where I need to take a post and be almost entirely self-disclosing to actually work through my thoughts on the matter. It’s so easy for me to talk about things theoretically, but when it gets personal and specific, it’s also really easy for me to shut down, go elsewhere in my mind, talk about what a failure I am since I haven’t realized any of my potential, or any other thing that keeps me from doing work on the situation at hand. Embarrassing, really. So let’s get down to it.

It’s so easy for me to do things that I’m not afraid of doing and they’re most often things that I don’t believe I should be doing. It’s easy for me to not be afraid of smoking, for example, because it doesn’t say anything about my worth. It’s a bad habit and it makes me smell bad (well, did), but there’s nothing personal about it. It’s just a habit. The idea of being a teacher, a counsellor, a director, a pastor - whatever - terrifies me because there is a matter of worth in each of those things for me. Have I instructed well? Have I gotten through this person’s tough exterior so we can do that inner work necessary to make sure that they become the person they are meant to be? Were my actors good enough? Did I save my congregation? Ugh. So many ugly questions and doubts and fears come along with doing something that, to me, is worth doing. I hate waiting tables - fact - but it’s impersonal and without risk. Even though much of me dies inside every time I step foot inside a restaurant in a uniform, I keep going because I can still walk away from the job and, deluded, tell myself I’m a pretty worthy and alright person. With the constant surrender to fear and avoidance of worthiness, I doom myself to a worthless occupation because I have not pursued my vocation - not that waiting tables is a worthless occupation, some people are meant to be waiters and get fabulous meaning out of it and are truly magnanimous.

We’ve all been told that a vocation is “a calling” - what we were meant for. Some of us are less afraid of this word than others, and those are the people the I want to be friends with. Well, I like you people who are afraid, too, so I’ll take you as friends as well. Come to think of it - let’s just all get along, yeah?

I digress.

We all have a calling to some thing or another. I am afraid of mine. It is obvious to me that my vocation is towards something that involves people. Specifically, I believe that I am meant to encourage them towards magnanimity themselves. I don’t know that I have any sort of prophetical gifting, but I do think that I understand people really well and, by God’s grace and gifting, am able to speak into their lives offering the encouragement that they need. When I don’t depend on him for this guidance, however, I often give terrible advice that can lead people into the complete opposite of what they need to do/hear. That possibility, however, cannot be what keeps me from pursuing what I believe I was intended for. I was not meant to sit in my room and write until my hands fall off. I was not put on earth to sit in a lab and research the mutation of red blood cells and see if we can figure out exactly just how we’re to unmutate them, now. I was put here to love you in, probably, a pretty annoying way. You know what, though? I’m okay with that, more and more.

While I think my operative functionality was “Be liked,” it is slowly morphing into “See, love, and help others.” I think these things have the same basic drive; the problem is one is totally inwardly serving and the other is what God intended for my extraordinarily deep-seated need to be a part of people’s lives. And yes, I do think it’s a need of mine. I need to be involved with people. I need to know what makes them who they are and what they're built for. Then, I need to attach myself to whatever those things are and do all I can to build them up even more and then send them out.

I have spent a lot of time in the spotlight as a friend and an actor, and though I love being in the spotlight, my deeper desire is to push others into self-realization - to encourage them to become the people that they truly are to the fullness of themselves in the grace of God. My patron saint, Andrew the First-Called, did this very thing. He was the first to follow Jesus, but he was not the one that Christ established as the Rock of the Church. It was his brother, Peter, whom Andrew had led to the Lord, that was chosen for this. Andrew pushed Peter into a deeper relationship with God, and by that encouragement from his younger brother, Peter became the “chief among the apostles.” Amazing. Also, this is not to mention that Andrew’s very name means, “manhood; warrior; valor; courage” - magnanimity, dare I say?

What a beautiful calling, then! I wish so badly that I could perfectly follow this bright, holy man’s example and walk fully in the glorious countenance of the Lord, encouraging my brothers to actualize their respective callings. I want to know others so I can learn how to encourage them. It’s my instinct and I love that about myself. I guess the trick, now, is learning how I can hone that skill, embrace that desire, and actually do something about it.

I guess I’ll end with this prayer:

“O glorious St. Andrew, you were the first to recognize and follow the Lamb of God. With your friend, St. John, you remained with Jesus for that first day, for your entire life, and now throughout eternity. As you led your brother, St. Peter, to Christ and many others after him, draw us also to Him. Teach us to lead others to Christ solely out of love for Him and dedication in His service. Help us to learn the lesson of the Cross and to carry our daily crosses without complaint so that they may carry us to Jesus. Amen.”

Amen.

On Taking Risks

There is a certain comfort in not really amounting to anything. I have been a server for the last four years. For a year and half, it is pretty much the only thing that I have been. Except for recently, I completely fell off the map as an writer, a reader, a thinker, and certainly as an actor. As I have continued to sit in the familiarity of my own life, a growing dissatisfaction has begun to rear it’s head. I’m pretty sure that the source of this self-disappointment comes from knowing that I am capable of so much more than what I have been doing and have done so far. Sometimes, the possibility or potentiality of my skills and self almost seem to suffice for accomplishment, but as I get older and grow more dissatisfied and disillusioned with the life that I have established for myself so far, I become less content with not taking risks.

Sure, I could wait tables forever. I know how to do it. I’m good at it. But this is not what my gifts are for. I get by at doing it with relative ease, but remain miserable. My unrealized potential tells me that I’m gifted enough to do anything I would want to do (not that I could do anything - but anything that I desire to do I believe I’m equipped for), yet the longer I stay dormant, the less energy I have to put myself out there and try to find something I believe in doing.

It’s this damn matter of the learning curve that has got me sitting on my ass. My perfectionism astounds me. With my overdeveloped intuition, I have gotten used to understanding things readily, but this normal blessing has become a curse for me. It’s like if I can’t get it right immediately, it’s not a problem with me, it’s a problem with the thing - it’s un-gettable - so I figure, “Screw it. I’ll try something else.” When I examine my life over the last 23 years, I find that most of my frustration and the things that have led me to give up on something has stemmed from this perfectionistic pessimism. Of course, when I was younger, even this perfectionism led me to try different things. I couldn’t get the piano right away, so I started playing guitar. Not only have I learned to quit things once they prove difficult, but I’ve also picked up the nasty habit of not trying anything at all lest I should have to try at something that doesn’t come readily to me. “When the going gets tough, Christian gets gone.”

It’s as if each new experience - potential risk, let’s say - feels like jumping off the high-dive. I stand at the edge of the board, looking at the water below, seemingly a mile away. Sadly, this is as far as I get to the act of jumping. And this is what everyday feels like to me. I’m so tired of standing at the edge of the board, and the longer I stand here and tell myself that it is only my fear that makes the dive seem so perilous, I start to believe that, in reality, the fall is no more than 6 or 7 inches to the water, and I’m not on the high-dive at all. It's that first jump that is the scary one. It's before the leap that I'm in trouble. But what about afterwards?

There may be some residual fear on the other side of finally taking the jump, but the experience has also taught me that it's not really that bad. I remember one time when I actually was jumping from a high point. The cliff was forty or fifty feet high, it took every ounce of courage that I had to throw myself off the edge, trusting I wouldn't be smashed against the water below - an irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless. I jumped. I survived. The thrill was indescribable. Of course, I climbed back up the cliff to get ready to jump, charged with the energy of the first success. When I got to the top, I was reminded of how scary the leap was initially, but quickly, I was able to convince myself that it hadn't been too bad the first time, and that was enough for me to do it again. I guess the point is that while it's going to be scary every time, and my feet may sting more sometimes than at others, the jump is still worth taking. This is the thing that makes life worth living. If I had stood at the cliff for too long, I never would have jumped, and I either would have been stuck up there forever, or had to climb down (always harder than climbing up).

When we get to the place in life where we see that we need to take a leap, it is important to not let the terror take over and cloud our judgment of the situation too much. It's right that it should be terrifying and that we should be anxious about throwing ourselves into some sort of oblivion, subjecting ourselves to the indifferent law of gravity, however, this fear cannot get the last word. It is what leads to deadly inertia.

The longer we, I, stand atop the cliff looking at the water, the harder it's going to be jump.

Why wait?

On Making Excuses

I have made excuses for so long and for so many things that I no longer know when I am telling the truth. I can't believe the degree to which I am so neurotic. It's compulsive. For every situation that I am presented with in life I offer any number of excuses to dodge telling the whole truth. It's not that I necessarily outright tell lies or anything like that, but I remain defensive in my telling of the truth - I just try to make sure that I still look good when we come out on the other side. 

I'm still trying to figure out what exactly causes this compulsion to defend myself at every turn. It's funny how blind I was (and probably still am) to my own defensiveness. One of the girls I dated in college told me that her mother thought I was defensive, to which I responded, "I'm not defensive!" Case and point. Judgment: defensive. At the time, though, I really didn't think that I was defensive. I had prided myself on being open and generous with myself, and I didn't understand how anyone could fail to see that in me. I think to some extent, I do share a level of openness with friends who are close to me and who I believe will accept me.

And I think that this is the main problem that I run into in a lot of my relationships, even (and perhaps, especially) with my parents. I don't doubt that people will love me. I do, however, doubt that they will accept me. This fear is most likely based in the fact that I have a hard time accepting myself. The amount of the day that I tell myself that I should be doing things differently, I should be more successful, I should be thinner, I shouldn't be living at home, or any other self-defeating and self-judgmental thing I can think of is truly appalling. It's draining to be walking around with a sign over my head that is a giant "F." And to make things worse, no one is putting it there but me. I ran into some financial problems. I am twenty-three and desiring to get things right. I am applying to grad school. All in all, I'm doing things pretty well, but for some reason, I can't seem to shake the negative self-talk nor can I stop beating up myself whenever the mood strikes.

With my counselor's help, I have realized that my daddy-scarring affects me in ways that I'm not even aware of. For the most part, I pretty much considered my relationship with my dad to be a done deal - we don't talk, and I'm okay with that. Those things are true, still, though, regardless of the ways that he has and does affect me in every relationship. For the 16 years I was in relationship with my dad, he controlled me through fear of withholding. I was afraid that if I didn't perform well enough or didn't measure up to what he wanted me to be that he would stop loving me. This was the opposite of what he said was true - that I could never do anything that would keep him from loving me - and I don't think it was necessarily a lie, even still. The truth, however, of what I was learning was "Fall in, or get left." When I was 16, he and I had a final falling out where I told him exactly what I thought about the way he ran his house and the way he treated his wife, after which, he threw me out of the house and I have only spoken to him a handful of times since, usually just to wish a happy birthday or something like that.

I guess that this comprises part of the background as to why I do what I do, and I suggest, why a lot of us make excuses, get defensive, etc. I don't mean that it's because we've had dads (or moms, even) who leave or who mind-play us (though, we have all been mind-played by our parents at some time or another), but because from some deep place within us, we are afraid that once the true "me" is exposed, the true "me" is known, it isn't going to measure up and that it's going to get left. Any excuse that I make, I think, comes from a place of trying to advocate for myself wrongly, saying, "No, see, but I am smart enough," "I am diligent enough," "I'm not as lazy as all that because look what else I can do. Just don't leave me." Excuses keep others at an arm's distance, keeping them from getting to know the real person behind the excuse. We are all desperate to be loved and many are afraid of being known fully, because this vulnerability leaves us susceptible to wounds or abandonment. Because of this crippling fear (there I go again with fear), I am still not ever known, not even by myself, because the excuses that I make every moment of my life become one with me, so much so that I can never get beyond making excuses and just be honest.

As with anything, excuses can rule your life. They rule mine. It is my hope, though, that as I continue to grow and learn that I don't always have to defend my life, but rather, I need to live it and let it be a testimony to who am whether people find that person acceptable or not. My identity is in Christ alone and he is my acceptance. If I constantly try to make a name for myself by offering reasons why I did this, and why I did that, I will only become more and more of a liar, and that's the truth about that.