The Sound of Silence

This time of year we often hear the beautiful old song "Silent Night,"  which speaks of the "heavenly peace" of  the night when Jesus was born.  As the song continues, it tells of how the silence of that night is shattered, and the witnessing "shepherds quake at the sight" of  an angelic choir heralding the birth of Christ.  The silence of that night represents peace and calm, but the end of that silence is welcomed because it brings something better.

The classic rock duo Simon and Garfunkel are also famous for a song about silence.  However,  unlike "Silent Night," which uses silence as a metaphor for peace and well-being, "The Sound of Silence"  has a different message.  As Art Garfunkel says in the video linked above,  the song uses silence to symbolize people's individual inability to communicate with one another, and their failure to love one another.  The song uses stark images of a vision the narrator experiences, a vision of city streets, neon lights, and the sound of silence, which, for me, represents the results of love-term isolation:

"And in the naked light I saw

Ten thousand people, maybe more.

People talking without speaking,

People hearing without listening,

People writing songs that voices never share

And no one dared

Disturb the sound of silence."

People not communicating. People not relating to one another.  People ignoring one another.  People going through the motions of interacting without really knowing each other.  People not having the courage to end their isolation.  Although Paul Simon wrote "The Sound of Silence" in 1964, its message is perhaps more relevant than ever.  A 2009  article  from Psychology Today calls social isolation a modern plague:  "Remarkably, 25% of Americans have no meaningful social support at all - not a single person they can confide in. And over half of all Americans report having no close confidants or friends outside their immediate family. The situation today is much worse today than it was when similar data were gathered in 1985. (At that time, only 10% of Americans were completely alone)."  Consumer Reports from 2010 says that such isolation is not only bad for a person, but can actually shorten one's life.

To personalize this topic, I know that my wife Dana and I are somewhat isolated from people outside our extended family.  We work.  We come home.  We are tired.  We are both introverts and we tend to be a bit anti-social (keeping it real!), so we don't socialize much (except on Facebook).  Very little.  Hardly ever.  Most of the people in our neighborhood are just like us, so we haven't had much interaction with them, either.  For the most part, we have been fine with this state of things, each of us being content with the company of the other, occasional visits with our children and grandchildren, who live out of state, and  with my mother and Dana's brother and sister-in-law, who are local.  

Usually, Dana and I are fine with this arrangement. I sometimes wish we had a more active social life, but I haven't done  much to change it.  I just chock it up to people being busy and the state of our society.  Instead of front porches and "y'all come" attitudes, most folks today, including us, have patios out back with privacy  fences and  "please call first" attitudes.  When I was a kid growing up, we had stay-at-home moms and neighbors who knew one another and helped each other out.  Now many people value their privacy over a feeling of community.  When they aren't working, they mostly want to be left alone. They don't want to be bothered and they don't want to bother anyone else.  I am convinced we are paying a price for these attitudes.

My attitude about how much community I need was changed drastically last Thanksgiving night.  Dana and I were at our daughter's house (380 miles from home), and, having enjoyed the holiday with her and her family, we were sleeping when my cell phone rang a little after midnight.   It was my home security company:  "Mr. Fouse, we have movement in your house."  They went on to inform me that the police were on their way.  I could not believe what I was hearing!  I reacted physically by beginning to shake.  I kept saying how cold I was, but Dana (an RN) later told me that I was experiencing a rush of adrenalin.  What do you do when there are thieves in your house and you are 5 hours away?  I eventually spoke to the policeman who was in my house responding to the call from the security company.  He told me that the burglars had thrown a rock through the glass patio door in our bedroom and entered there.  When I told him I was facing a long drive home, he asked me if I could call someone to secure my house.  That was an excellent question.  My mother was out of town for the holiday also, so I couldn't call her.  Being Mr. Independent, I hate to ask anybody for help.  But, in this case, I had no choice.  So, I called my neighbor Wayne.

Wayne is my neighbor to the east, and he has always been a better neighbor to me than I have been to him.  He is retired and has lots of time to visit with neighbors.  He is friendly and outgoing, but not pushy.  Remember Tim Taylor's neighbor Wilson on Tool Time? That's my neighbor Wayne. Except that I have actually seen his face   He had offered to help with things around the house a few times, so I knew he was the one to call, as much as I hated to. I found his number on the internet and called his house. When he answered, I told him I was sorry to wake him, to bother him at that hour.  He said he didn't mind, that my alarm had awoken him earlier.  He told me he had been outside when the alarm went off, but he hadn't seen anyone.  There wasn't any way he could secure my house with a gaping hole in the door, but he promised to keep an eye on it until I could get home.  Talking to Wayne calmed me greatly.  Just knowing there was someone friendly here made the situation seem less dire.

Dana and I drove all night and made it home about 7:30 the next morning.  Not much was gone, but our sense of safety had been shattered along with that glass door.  When the police arrive later, Wayne talked to them, and commiserated with us.  Richard, my neighbor on the west, came out and said that he had also heard my alarm.  He helped the police locate some items that were stolen from my mailbox, items that the police used to try to get the culprits' fingerprints.  When I brought home the replacement door from Lowe's the men who live across the street helped me move it into the house.

Simon and Garfunkel have another song about isolation.  Long one of my favorites by them," I Am a Rock" is about the ultimate anti-social person, who proclaims, "I am a rock; I am an island.  I build walls, their fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate...."  Many people today, although they might not overtly express those ideas, live them out  in their lives.  I know that I have been prone to self-imposed isolation, although not to the extent of the Rock in the song.  Cutting yourself off from those around you becomes a habit, a way of living that is hard to overcome.  I have come to realize that, as "The Sound of Silence" puts it, "silence like a cancer grows."

‎"Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say." -- Samuel Johnson

However, my experience with the burglary taught me some things relating to our places in society, and about myself.

First, whether we know it or not, we are part of a community.  My neighbors are part of my community, and I am part of theirs, even I don't know them well or rarely speak to them.  I know that  because I realized that morning when the police were at my house that Dana and I weren't the only victims of that burglary.  When my security was breached, theirs was also.  When my alarm sounded and woke them up, their silence, their peace was shattered, too.  Because if my house could be violated, theirs could too.  If hoodlums could destroy my property and steal my possessions, it could happen to them to.  Indeed, in a way, it did happen to them.

Secondly,  no matter how independent I prefer to be, I really do need people --  for practical things like helping me carry heavy objects, and for emotional support, like a friendly voice on the phone when I am facing a crisis.   Like it or not, I need other people, just like they need me.

So, what am I going to do about what I have learned?  I know that I am not going to become an extrovert, but I do intend to be more open to being in community with people, to whatever extent our relationship calls for.  I want to look for ways to be more sociable, to reach out to people.  Writing this blog has taught me that when I am honest about myself, even just in a blog, when I talk openly about things that matter to me, things that might make me feel vulnerable, I give other people permission to do the same.  I want to do that more in my  real-world interactions with people as well.

About a week after I was burglarized,  Wayne was out front when I came home from work.  He and I visited  on the curb for several minutes, talking about the burglary and about our families.  Before he left to go in, he told me that he would like to give me a key to his house, and to let me know when he was going to be out of town.  He asked me to watch his house during those times.  I told him I'd be glad to and asked him to do the same for me.  He said he'd be glad to.

I guess that's a start.

Circles

 If you have wandered away from Facebook into that mysterious new world called Google+, you know that on that social network, instead of sending and accepting Friend requests as on Facebook, you add people to your Circles.  The people whom you add can add you to one of their Circles, or not, as they choose.  There are various pre-established Circles, such as Friends, Acquaintances, and Family.  Users can create and name whatever Circles suit their purposes.

Left-handed?  Who knows.....

So if you know a lot of people who are Left-Handed Cross-Dressers, you can create a Circle to group those people together. People being added to circles don't have to approve of your adding them (unlike accepting a Friend request on Facebook), and they are in fact unaware of what Circle you put them in.  Some of the Cross-Dressers you know might not be left-handed at all, they might be right-handed, or even ambidextrous, but you are making the Circles, so they don't get a chance to correct your mistaken ideas about them.    

Human interaction, both on the internet and in the real world, is so often about categorizing other people.   I suppose the most basic categories we all establish are Like Me/Not Like Me.  (Or maybe Acceptable/Unexceptable.) We all make judgments about other people based on all kinds of things, some of which are not very fair or accurate.  How often have you made a mental judgement about someone you just met based on how they look or what they are wearing?  If you are like me, it has been pretty often.  We do this without even thinking about it, sometimes without even realizing that we are doing it.  "Look at that person.  He/she is so (fill in the blank).   He/she is probably one of those people who (fill in the blank).  He/she (is, is not) someone like me.  Therefore, he/she (is/is not) acceptable." 

I learned a big lesson about myself a couple of years ago, when my wife and I were on an outing with our daughter Rachel and her son Ian, at an art museum in Oklahoma City, I think.  Ian was about 2 years old at the time, and we encountered a young woman in the museum who had a child about that same age.  I am ashamed to say that the young woman immediately fell into my "Not Like Me" category because she was extremely tattooed and pierced, much like the young man in the photo above, except that she was wearing a shirt.

I confess that it would never have occurred to me to speak to her, because her outward appearance said all kinds of negative things to me, based on my assumptions about people who adorn themselves that way.  So I was surprised when my daughter spoke to her, asking her her child's age, and generally engaging her in the kind of conversation young mothers often share about their children.  I was further surprised when the young woman seemed pretty much like Rachel in her demeanor, her love for her child, and the way she spoke.  It was clear to me that despite the way she looked, the young woman had more in common with Rachel than I would ever have imagined.  In fact, she seemed like a sweet person.  The fear and loathing her appearance has inspired in me disappeared.

 "Just because you are blind, and unable to see my beauty doesn't mean it does not exist. " -- Margaret Cho 

People my age remember very well the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s, and how African-American people struggled to gain rights and privileges afforded to other races in this country.  As children, we were taught that racial discrimination is wrong and destructive to those who are victims of it.  It is now unthinkable to me that I would despise someone based on that person's race.  If I ever find myself making assumptions about someone based on that person's race or ethnicity, I become aware of it and admonish myself to adjust my thinking.   In general, racial bigotry is now considered socially unacceptable, at least among the people I know.  However, unfortunately, other kinds of bigotry, categorizing of people, and "circle drawing" are still second-nature for lots of people today, engaged in  without their even noticing they are doing it.

The kind of thing I am talking about is based on people putting others into their "Unacceptable" category based on what those other people believe.   In our politically fractured society, it is common for politicians and everyday people to demonize those "on the other side of the aisle" because of their belief system.  This kind of thinking about "Outsiders" is also common among religious communities as well.  I was reminded of this yesterday when I read an interview with Jim Palmer, author of Divine Nobodies, Wide Open Spaces, and the upcoming Being Jesus in Nashville.  In his books, Jim writes about being a follower of Jesus outside traditional Christian institutions.   In  this interview, Jim talks about the his controversial upcoming book, in which he describes his experiment of attempting to be Jesus to the people he encounters.  The interview also discusses the fact that the content of that book  caused him to lose his contract with a major Christian book publisher, who deemed it too unorthodox.  

Jim also discusses his observations about how often people in religious communities indulge in the practice of excluding and demonizing other people:  "The hallmark of Christianity seems to have become who is excluded, which can include anything from a theological litmus test to what you wear to church on Sunday mornings. Since leaving institutional church and writing about my journey of shedding religion to find God, I have received hundreds of emails from other nobodies who feel judged and marginalized by Christianity, including Wanda the Waffle House waitress who’s only crime is having tattoos and wearing her Waffle House uniform to church, where people stare at her like she’s a whore and avoid talking to her after the service. "

How often do we exclude others, make them feel judged and marginalized, based on what they believe or how they look?  This happens in all areas of our society, not just churches.  Why do we do this?  What is it about people that makes us need to draw circles that include some, but exclude others?  I have thought a lot about those questions, and I have reached some conclusions about them.

First, it is natural, and not always destructive to make judgements about people and to categorize them.  On Google+, the purpose of the grouping people into Circles is to create sub-communities of people with something in common, so that that grouping can better enjoy their cyber-socializing.  In the real world, we do similar kinds of things through clubs and other kinds of organizations. Also, some of the judgments we make about people are useful, while others are not.   In the case of the young tattooed woman at the museum, it would have been logical for me to assume, based on her appearance, that she liked unconventional (to me) modes of self-adornment.  However, I made the mistake of assuming lots of things about her that may not have been true, and some that were definitely not true based on my daughter's conversation with her.  In short, I dehumanized her.  I made her one of them rather than the individual that she is.  I rejected her without knowing her.  As with the my imaginary Google+  Circle for Left-Handed Cross-Dressers, I did the categorizing, I made the decisions about her without her input, indeed without her knowledge.   

I believe that we often dismiss people, both within ourselves and through our actions towards them, in ways that diminish both them and ourselves.  I believe that this is contrary to what was taught by Jesus, who told us to love God first and to love others as we love ourselves.  I also believe that,  through this kind of thinking, we often cheat ourselves out of knowing someone different from ourselves, and from enriching our own experience by what we might learn from them.  I am proud that my daughter spoke to that young woman at the museum, and I am glad that I was there when she did. 

For me, Rachel was drawing the circle a bit bigger.  I hope to do the same. 

"He drew a circle that shut me out—

Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. 

But Love and I had the wit to win:

We drew a circle that took him in!"

--Edwin Markham

(Inner) Space...The Final Frontier

Have you ever much  thought about human emotions?  How accurate are the things we feel versus the things we know or determine by logic?  Can we always trust our emotions?  If not, when can we trust them?  Are the answers to these questions the same for everyone, or do they vary with individuals?   Personally, I have never been sure how much to trust my emotions.   In a previous blog I explored a negative experience I had with emotions in my life, so I am a bit leery of relying on feelings too much.  Still,  I think denying our feelings is denying a part of our humanity.  

When I was a teenager, my favorite TV show was Star Trek.  If you are a SciFi geek like me, you know that the five-year mission of the Starship Enterprise was to explore "Space, the Final Frontier...To boldly go where no man has gone before."  Although some of the acting was atrocious (think William Shatner), the stories were compelling and the themes dealt with contemporary issues such as war and racism.  We got to meet all kinds of aliens that were really intended to get us to examine ourselves and our fellow Humans (as opposed to Klingons or Romulons, for instance). 

The alien from Star Trek that made the biggest impression on me was the Enterprise's science office, Spock.  Like all Vulcans, he was devoted to Logic.  The defining characteristic of the Vulcans was that they had learned to supress all emotions.  Their history had been a bloody one, like that of Humanity, and so, to save their race from completely killing each other off,  they had learned to suppress their emotions and rely only on Logic.  Their philosophies disdained all emotions.  They lived their lives based solely on what their enlightened intellects told them.  Or did they?

The original Star Trek series was soon cancelled due to poor ratings.  But the show and its characters lived on in the imaginations of us Trekkers, and it was eventually revived in the form of movies and a new show, Star Trek: The Next Generation.  This show took place 100 years  after the original series.  It featured better acting (think Patrick Stewart), better special effects, and an even more enlightened bunch of Humans and aliens.  (Lingering sexism still present in the 22nd century apparently ended for good in the 23rd century.  The TNG crew's mission was "to boldly go where no one had gone before.")  And this show introduced ship's counselor D'Ann Troi, who was a Betazoid, and therefore an empath, or one with the ability to sense others' emotions.   So clearly, Troi is the antithesis of Spock.  While he was all Logic, Logic, Logic, Troi was all about Feelings.  Not only was she into her own emotional adventures, she was the ultimate busy-body, going around the ship sampling what emotions other members of the crew were feeling.  This served her well in her role as ship's counselor, and her psycho-babble was often sprinkled with her impressions of what others were feeling.   I don't remember her relying much on Logic.

The dichotomy between Spock and Troi, and between their respective alien races, is made more interesting by the fact that they are both half Human.  So, Spock's devotion to Logic and Troi's emphasis on Feelings are watered-down, sort of, by that pesky Human DNA.  If only each didn't have that unruly Human half, they could be completely devoted to a more enlightened path, one of pure Logic, or pure Emotion, depending on their inclination.  (Could the writers of these shows have been more subtle?)  Especially with Spock,  many stories dealt with his struggle with the feelings from his Human side, the part of him of which he is ashamed.  Troi is hampered by her Human half in that she can only read others' emotions, not their thoughts, as full-blooded Betazoids can do.

I have often dealt with similar struggles in my own life, although perhaps not to such a degree as Spock and Troi.  My wife Dana  tells me that I am much more logical than she is, and I agree with her.  She is definitely more emotional than I am.  I am sometimes too logical and she is sometimes too emotional.  I guess that in our marriage, I am Spock and she is Troi.  As you can imagine, conflicts have arisen because of these differences.  But as our daughter has said so eloquently, about her own marriage, what is wrong with Dana is good for what is wrong with me, and what is wrong with me is good for what is wrong with Dana.

But to say that either of us is more one thing than the other is not to deny that other part of ourselves.  I am often struck with how well thought-out some of Dana's opinions are.  She has taught me important things that she has determined through her own use of logic.  I usually prefer to rely on rational thought, but sometimes I am most sure of things that I just intuit, things that I just feel.

I have often told Dana, and she has not objected, that motherhood is a form of insanity.  Is it logical to love someone, even your own child, so much that logic and reason concerning that person are only minor considerations?  I would say no.  However, I am loved that way by my own mother, and I am thankful that Dana loves our children and grandchildren that way too. I don't believe, however, that a mother's way of loving a child diminishes the importance of a the usually more logical love a father extends.  A kid needs to be seen more dispassionately by a parent, perhaps to prepare him for the way the world will see him.   I also recognize that not all mothers and fathers love their children according the emotional/logical patterns that Dana and I tend to follow.   

This post didn't exactly go where I thought it would, but it is a start.  I expect that I will deal with this topic again later.  The important idea for me in all this, is that I often face a Spock-like struggle regarding the things that I feel and the the things that I think.  I think that others probably face a similar struggle.  I tend to mistrust or deny my feelings in favor of a more logical viewpoint.  My wife and others approach things in the opposite way.  They tend to believe what they feel more strongly that what they think.  Why do we have some different approaches?  Which is more valid, logic or emotions?  If the answer varies with each situation, then how do I know, how do I decide?  Do my answers to such questions only apply to me, or are some of them universal?

I don't know, but, it is clear that as Spock and Troi and all the other aliens and Humans in Star Trek zoomed around the universe at speeds exceeding that of light (despite the objections of Mr. Einstein), they learned as much about their own inner space as they did the galaxy. That inner journey is one we can all boldly take.  And, as Spock would say, it will be .. Fascinating.

Prophet of Doom...But Only Kinda

This morning I have realized once again that I have a great talent for making things worse than they are, for imagining the worst possible outcome in many situations.  I do this even when logic tells me that a more favorable outcome is likely.

As I begin this blog entry, I am sitting at my dining room table, looking out the patio doors and watching the culmination of events which reminded me of this Prophet-of-Doom bent of mine.  The man from the natural gas utility is out back repairing the leak in my gas meter.  This is the best possible outcome for me, both financially and  in terms of convenience.  I know this from experience.

Two years ago this month, we noticed a strong smell of gas in  the back yard.  The source of that smell, we soon learned,  was a broken gas line from the gas meter to the house, which we had to replace at our expense. This project was both expensive and excruciatingly slow, and it involved the plumbers tearing up our back yard and endangering the lives of our mature trees.  We were without natural gas --  heat and hot water -- for at least a week.  So, when we smelled gas out there again recently, I immediately remembered that bad experience and wondered if we were in for a recurrence.  After all, we had survived the Great Oklahoma Quake of 2011, so maybe the line was broken again.  As I sniffed around out back, I didn't really think so, though, because the smell really seemed to emanate from the gas meter, instead of being all over the yard as it was in 2009. It was probably just a leak in the meter,  which would be Centerpoint Energy's responsibility, not mind.  Still,  bad things do happen....

Once when a friend at work confided in me that she was dreading a family dinner she was going to attend that night because of some drama she anticipated, I attempted to comfort her by saying, "Things are always worse than you expect them to be.... Wait, no...."  I had meant to try to comfort her with the a statement of the exact opposite, that things are never as bad as you expect them to be.  I did comfort her because she laughed loudly at my parapraxis, and, as it happened, the dinner turned out fine.  But my slip really did echo the ambivalence in me about whether future events will be wonderful...or horrible.  I am always willing to allow for the possibility that the Sword of Damocles may be hanging over my head.


This fact about myself is not one that I like to admit, even to myself.  I really want to believe that the glass is half-full and I try very hard to believe it.   I tend to be optimistic when given a choice, but the real truth is that for the me, the glass is half-full, but it is also half-empty.  It could be either, who knows?

I have tried to analyze why I am so often willing to fear negative outcomes.   One part of the answer, I think, is that we are conditioned by the news media to fear things that might happen, for example their annual story about the impending End of Mankind from the Flu strain of the year.  The media loves bad news, and is not above making things seem worse than they for the sake of ratings.  Another reason for my healthy fear of the future is that I like to be in control.  If I can imagine bad things before they happen, I can be prepared, and maybe begin formulating a solution for whatever I might face.  Also, I hate surprises. 

I believe that people in general fear the future, and they use various intellectual gyrations to attempt to control it.  One example is the idea of Karma, common among Eastern philosophies.  This is the same idea expressed commonly as What Goes Around Comes Around-- you do good stuff, you get good stuff in return; you do bad stuff, you get bad stuff in return.  My favorite anecdotal evidence for the reality of Karma happened once in traffic while I was driving to work.  I made a perfectly safe, legal lane change into the lane in which a black pickup with darkly tinted windows was traveling.  This enraged the driver of the Demon Truck so much that he changed lanes himself to come along side me, hung his head out the window, blared his horned, and vehemently shot me the bird.  Of  course, he was too busy with these important activities to attend to his driving, so he slammed into the car waiting at the stoplight in front of him.  Instant Karma!  However,  the idea of Karma breaks down when you consider the driver who was rear-ended.  What did he do to deserve what he got? Nothing that I could see.  

Another way that people try to manipulate what may be coming their way is called the Law of Attraction.  This is the idea that your life events are governed by the way you think.  If you think, "I need more money," you will continue to be in need.  If, on the other hand, you think, "I will get more money," then you will focus on making that happen, and therefore, it will happen.  I think there is some truth to this.  In my own experience, if I decide that I'm having going to have a good day, my day will at least be better than if I have told myself that this was an awful day.  I just don't think that positive thinking can always change everything.  Some things are out of our hands.

That fact leads many of us to prayer, another way that people attempt to control the future. Sometimes people pray that God will prevent whatever bad thing they fear from happening.  Sometimes they attempt to manipulate Him by telling him they know he won't let that happen, that He promised good things for us.  Although it is true that we have all kinds of wonderful promises from God, there is no promise that bad things will never come our way.  To me, those kinds of prayers exhibit a lack of faith, rather than being expressions of trust in God.  I believe that prayer changes things, but often it is not the future that it changes.  Rather, it changes me to be able to accept what I believe to be unacceptable, and to be willing to follow God through things I would prevent if I could.  Things that I wish I could avoid. 

When I  was a kid, I heard that sometime in the far-distant future, in billions of years, the sun will become a supernova, and will expand in size past the orbit of the Earth.  This was scary news, and a little disturbing, but not overly so, because I knew I would not be around to experience it.  But I was never tempted to deny that it would happen.  Ideally, I wish I could adopt a similar attitude about scary circumstances I may face in the future.  While I generally believe that I have a positive future to look forward to, I do not choose to deny that bad things will also happen, or that a negative outcome may face me with the next problem I encounter.  I cannot always be a glass-is-half-full guy.  For me, that would be intellectually dishonest, and somewhat irresponsible.  So, the next time I smell gas in my back yard, I will likely wonder if the line is bad again.  But, I will also remember that this time, the glass really was half-full.

Dark Night of the Soul

Recently one of my Facebook friends posted that a friend of hers had attempted suicide the previous night.   The person who attempted suicide tried to reach my friend before her suicide attempt because she knew that my friend has once attempted suicide herself.  My friend, who is the queen of provocative Facebook questions, asked if anyone else had ever experienced a dark night of the soul, and, if so, would they share about it.  Lots of people had had similar experiences that they shared.   Later I spoke to my friend on the phone and she shared more about her friend who had tried to kill herself.

Today I started thinking about those posts and that conversation again.  I have often heard the term "Dark Night of the Soul,"  but I didn't know until today that it is the title of a poem by Saint John of the Cross.  According to Wikipedia, the  "main idea of the poem can be seen as the painful experience that people endure as they seek to grow in spiritual maturity and union with God."   That sounds like a pretty good definition of a Dark Night of the Soul.  For me, the definition would be "painful experiences that have the potential to teach us about ourselves and about God."  That sure describes my own Dark Night of the Soul experience.  More about that later.

I starting thinking about my friend and her suicidal friend today because of a seemingly unrelated blog published today by my son, Steven.  In his blog today, which I encourage you to read and follow, Steven questions exactly what the Good News that Jesus brought is.  He concludes with his own ideas:  "the good news, is a simple concept that can be spoken many ways:

God loves you.

You can approach God directly.

The only thing keeping you from God is you.

The gods aren't angry.

You are free from religious obligation.

There is nothing you need to do to be right with God.

You are good."

Steven's blog relates to my own Dark Night of the Soul because of what that experience taught me.  In 2005, I began to exhibit several symptoms that I did not understand.  I began to lose my appetite for food.  Indeed, very often, I could not force myself to eat.  I began to lose a lot of weight.  I lost interest in almost everything.  I remember having extremely dark imaginings about the future, such as being sure that I would someday be left all alone by the deaths of all my loved ones.   Soon I was sleeping less and less.  All of these things kind of crept up on me, so it was easy not to realize that I was having major issues.  At about the same time, I had begun  taking a new prescription for digestive issues.  I did not know at the time, but this drug is associated with feelings of anxiety in those who take the medication.  Soon I was suffering from extreme anxiety.  "Extreme" doesn't really express it.  I remember often thinking that I would start screaming  any moment.  I understood very clearly what people who have panic attacks go through.  I remember once being in church and thinking I was going to run screaming from the building any moment.  These feeling were not unusual for me during that time.  However, I managed to keep it together and never made a spectacle of myself.

Prior to these experiences, I had long been a fan of the Ballard Street comic strip.  One of my favorites, which was a single panel, showed a mildly agitated older man sitting by himself.  The caption read, "Once again, Stewart finds himself alone with his own brain."  Funny stuff, I've always thought, and I was often reminded of it when I was experiencing that terrible anxiety.  I was literally afraid to be alone, not because I thought I would harm myself, but because those feelings were always the worst when I was alone.  There were often times when I did not know how I could endure another moment.

In those moments, I would pray, "God, please make it stop."  The answer was always the same.  "I am here."  The anxiety often didn't lessen for a while, but I always remembered after God spoke that I could endure what I was going through.  No matter how dark the experience, God was always there with me.  In those darkest moments, He seemed so close to me, not in some far-off Heaven, but right there with me as I went through my Dark Night of the Soul.  In my mind, I could cut my eyes to the left and kind of see Him there.

I eventually quit sleeping altogether, so I went to my doctor.   I quit taking the prescription that caused a lot of my anxiety.  The doctor gave me some stuff to help me sleep and something else to help with the depression.  As the former Newt from Monty Python said, I got better.  I don't know why I had to go through that.  I don't know if it was caused by God to teach me what I learned, or if it was just circumstances that converged to create a really bad time for me.  Either way, it changed me forever.


For one thing, I am much more tolerant of seemingly aberrant behavior.  How do I know what someone is going through?  A lot of people dismiss depression and other kinds of mental illness as weakness, or a lack of faith, or the result of bad choices.  Those things may sometimes contribute, but we should not blame victims of  those kinds of conditions any more than we blame people who have cancer or heart attacks.

Another way it changed me is that I now realize how really frail we all are.  Life is sometimes hard and it wears us down. Sometimes simple things like not getting enough sleep, or some weird drug side-effect can push us over, or pretty close to, the Edge.  This is not something to hide or be ashamed of.  This is part of being human.

If I had never faced a Dark Night of the Soul, I might not be as confident in my own resiliency.  I might not know that God is right next to me and how much He loves me.  Those are good things to know for the next time it gets dark.

I'm OK, You're OK.

Recently my friend Jim Palmer  posted the following quote on Facebook:

"If you could really accept that you weren't OK, you could stop proving you were OK. If you could stop proving that you were OK, you could get that it was OK not to be OK. If you could get that it was OK not to be OK, you could get that you were OK the way you are. You're OK, get it?  - Werner Erhard

This quote was interesting to me for several reasons.  One reason is that it convoluted as hell, and took a little concentration to discover what old Werner was trying to say.  Secondly,  I have been thinking a lot about the topic of being "OK" lately, so this quote fed into that.   Also, it reminded me of a popular self-help book I read back in the '70s,  I'm OK, You're OK  by Thomas M. Harris, MD.  It was a pop- psychology work that advanced the idea of being "OK" as having a self-image that included feelings of self-worth, competence, and, you know, OK-ness.

The book was about transactional analysis, which was a fancy way of saying figuring out what happens when two people interact.   Dr. Harris said that there are four basic models that describe the dynamics between people:

1. I'm Not OK, You're OK
2. I'm Not OK, You're Not OK
3. I'm OK, You're Not OK
4. I'm OK, You're OK

Harris said that the most common situation was number 1, meaning that when two people interact, usually they each feel the other person is a valuable, worthy person, a got-it-together member of Homo Sapiens, and that they themselves are not.  Sort of, "You are a fine, acceptable person worthy of love and respect.  I, on the other hand, am Pond Scum."

If Doc Harris was right, it's pretty sad, don't you think?

If it is true, why would it be true?   As I said, I have thinking about this issue for awhile.  I think there are lots of reasons that contribute to feelings of inadequacy in people.   The specific factors at play with a particular individual depend on his or her life experiences.

I mean, think about it.   From our earliest experiences, parents, teachers, siblings,playmates,  religious authorities, and the world in general spend a lot of time pointing out our failings.  "Do better in school.  Don't fight with you sister   Don't eat so fast.  Big boys don't cry.  If you don't behave, Santa won't bring you anything.   Don't sin or you'll go to hell.  Keep your eye on the ball or you'll strike out again."

Also, we have Madison Avenue to thank.  Who could ever live up to the images we see in advertisements, images that set up what we often perceive as the standard we should attain?  If we just looked liked them, lived their life, we could live happily ever after.  

I don't want you to think that is turning into one of those whiny recitations of how my parents damaged me, how the world doesn't understand me, and an oh, woe-is-me laying of blame.  I was blessed with good parents who did  not abuse or misuse me.   I did well in school.  I always got presents at Christmas, and I never seriously worried about going to hell.  My point is that the world is full of negative messages about our relative merit as people, and we all take our licks. 

There is an old  saying that one "Aw, Shit" undoes a thousand "Atta Boys."  I know this is true for me, and if Dr. Harris is right, it must be true for lots of people.  Maybe for most people.  Somehow it is easier for us to believe the bad messages about ourselves than the good ones. 

I have realized recently that I am often less kind to myself than I would be to my worst enemy. I don't consider myself a perfectionist, but I have often felt that somehow I just don't measure up to what I ought to be.   I know a woman who, who when she makes a mistake, often proclaims out loud,  vehemently, for all to hear, "I am so STUPID."  This woman is not stupid, but she is willing to believe the worst about herself, to generalize one mistake into a general assessment of her entire level of intelligence.  In other words, she doesn't give herself the benefit of the doubt that she would give to other people.  I do the same kind of thing, only I keep it to myself. 

Another factor in our unfairness to ourselves,  I think, is that we often consider being proud of who we are, what we have done, and our abilities, to be arrogant or overly conceited.  Part of my musings about being OK has been to figure out some of those positive things about myself.  I managed to come up with a few, which I modestly described in my previous blog.

So, getting back to that convoluted quote by Werner Erhard.  He took the long way around to say that we all have issues, we all have things we don't like about ourselves, and lots of imperfections.  Quit trying to be perfect.  No one is perfect, but everyone is OK.  All of us are children of God.  Jesus said that we should love God and love our neighbors as ourselves.  "As ourselves,"  did you get that?  There's a command, or an assumption, that we would love ourselves.  Think about that.  Think about the ways you are unkind to yourself.  How could you be nicer to yourself?  What have you got to be proud of?   I bet there are lots of things.

I'm not perfect and neither are you.  But, I'm OK.  And you're OK.   OK?

The Cost of Living

Yesterday on the way to work, I was busy driving, listening to the country radio station, and dreading a couple of things I knew were facing me on the job. Man, I wished it were Saturday instead of just Friday. I did not want to go work, having endured a week with an extra ration of BS and stress at the office. Then the new song by Ronnie Dunn came on the radio and gave me something else to think about.

The song is about an unemployed family man looking for a job and the impact his situation has had on his life. Take a listen:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWjkDfRcCus&feature=related

One of the things I like about country music is that it often expresses feelings, and deals with conflicts, that are common to many people. This song is definitely a case in point. I am fortunate in that I have been steadily employed since 1979. Prior to that, I endured a brief period of unemployment that had profoundly negative impacts on my self-esteem.

Maybe that brief period of unemployment taught me something about myself that lead me to stay in my current job since March 1981. That's right, I've been at the same job for over 30 years. As you probably gathered from the opening sentences above, there are days when I would rather be scraped raw than go to work. Or at least I tell myself that. I'm not sure it's true.

I started out to be a high-school English teacher. I loved the idea of teaching and English-- books, ideas, writing-- was always my favorite. So, I went to college and prepared for a career in teaching. My idea of who I was and what I wanted to do in life was all wrapped up in my being a teacher. It was who I was.

So, it came as a big shock to me when I was confronted with the realities of teaching in the public schools. I hated it! Most days were a huge struggle. And there was that one instance when I assaulted a smart-aleck student... but only a little. Anyway, I had to do something else, but what would I be? Who would I be?

After a couple of years of teaching, I stumbled into work as a technical editor for a local government contractor. Before long, I was doing work I had never imagined and discovering that I was good at it. I was promoted to more technical jobs and given increasing responsibility. The salary I earned was much more than I would ever have made as a teacher.

Still, I dealt for a long time with reconciling what I was doing with my previous idea about who I was. I had never dreamed of being a technical editor, technical writer, training developer, supervisor, wearer-of-many-hats. Wasn't I just doing this to pay the bills, to provide for my family? Wasn't I selling out just to support my family?

For a long time, I felt that I was selling out. I could not get away from the idea that I should be doing something big. I should do something that mattered. However, I am above all things a practical person, not much of a dreamer, really, so it always made more sense to me keep doing what I was doing. We were living where I wanted to live, and my evil, devious employer continued to seduce me with good pay and attractive benefits. Those bastards! So, I just kept on keeping on.

I know that those I love most have felt that I made a huge sacrifice by spending my life in offices and cubicles. My wife still thinks I should be a novelist. I'm not so sure. I know that I can write, but I don't think I have much talent for making up stories, at least that I know of. Probably I contributed to their wish that my life could be different because of my sometimes too-frequent complaining about my job. If I had it to do over, I would complain less and spend more time enjoying my life.

Because in recent years, I have come to realize that working hard, making a wage, and providing for my family is doing something big. It is something to be proud of, and I am proud of it. Also, I have realized that in 30 years of doing something every day, you become the thing that you do. And ultimately, to a large extent, we choose what we do, who we become, whether we realize it or not.

My job has taught me things about myself I would never have learned otherwise. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I am very good at what I do. I am organized. I am able to manage multiple tasks successfully. I have an analytical mind. I am a good supervisor, respected by those who work for me. This last one really surprises me because I am by nature an introvert. I have endured the stress, the endlessly changing work environment, and BS akin to what Dilbert endures, and I am still standing.

I am thankful for every day that has gone before, and I am looking forward to the ones to come.

"One day at a time- this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past, for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful that it will be worth remembering." --Ida Scott Taylor.