Perspective

It is amazing how emotional pain, anxiety, and anger can distort perspective. I deal with this on a daily basis with many of my clients, and from time-to-time I have to be my own therapist and “practice what I preach.”

My 20-year class reunion was a couple of weeks ago. I did not attend. However, I was sent a link to a MySpace profile that contained a slideshow of some of the events and people from the weekend. As I watched that slide-show, I felt a lump in the pit of my stomach. That same lump I felt many days as I walked the halls of my high school. The lump that is associated with feelings of insecurity and inferiority that began literally in the 3rd grade with classmates making fun of my stutter or my obvious lack of athleticism and chubby frame. The lump was most noticeable to me in junior high. I used to find lots of change and even a few dollar bills in junior high because I walked around with my head down and shoulders slouched in junior high not wanting to make eye contact unless absolutely necessary.

That lump was the beginning of the distortions for me and was tied to so many of those negative emotional experiences. I began to paint my high school years as “traumatic” and "uncomfortable" in my head. I looked at many of those pictures and felt the wounds from the past – the betrayal of a friend in the 5th grade, the condescending or indifferent interactions had with “the popular” crowd. Still many “why questions” unanswered. To be honest, I wallowed in this muck of self-pity for a couple of days. Then I realized that in actuality, most of High School was the source of a great deal of fun and fond memories. There is still no denying that elementary and junior high school were traumatic, but high school was overall a tremendous time where friendships developed, fun was had, and meaning was derived.

That caused me to consider what was different about high school than the previous years. The very real answer came that in the Summer prior to my 9th grade year, I surrendered my life to my Lord Jesus Christ. I can honestly say that my self-confidence and identity came in, and from, Christ (still does!). Those wonderful memories are inevitably tied to Christian friends and an active youth ministry.

Let me be clear, my relationship with Christ did not “solve all my problems” and magically heal all my insecurities but provided me with hope, strength, and resources to walk through all that stuff. As you can tell by the very nature of this entry, I still struggle with some of those things – self-confidence and insecurities – but through what Christ did and does in me “I’m not who I was.” I also owe a great deal of thanks to a few of my “OLD” friends (Lisa, John, Curt, and Cathy) who have made contact with me and through whom God used to bring things back into proper perspective.

Running with Scissors

Over vacation I read the memoir Running with Scissors in which Augusten Burroughs recounts his tumultuous, sad, and frightening years between the ages of 12 and 17. When beginning the book, I likened it to Catcher in the Rye with a much drier whit employed. Essentially, the story has three main plots under the theme of “coming of age”: being raised by a bipolar mother; floundering between the mother and the bizarre “Finch” household after his mother signed over rights to Augusten; and Augusten being the victim of a sexual predator who lived in the garage behind the Finch’s house. The Finches are headed by the father, Dr. Finch who is the very peculiar psychiatrist of Augusten’s mother. As I continued through the memoir it became evident to me that Burroughs was recounting many of these memories with hindsight (factoring in information and interpretations he did not have at the time of their occurrence) which I deemed acceptable, because I think most of us would do that when writing about our childhoods. Continuing through the book, I had the fleeting thought, “this can’t be true!” but continued reading. I am a bit OCD about things that interest me, and because of this, after finishing the book, I did a Google search for critiques of the book and it’s author. I came across a January 2007 Vanity Fair article that interviews the 4 “Finch” sisters who claim they and their family were grossly mischaracterized by Burroughs. Immediately, I assumed Burroughs is another James Frey and was disappointed. However, as I read, the complaints that these siblings made had very little to do with the major systemic dysfunction that was so unbelievable (e.g. when you are 13 you make your own decisions and are offered support and enabling by Dr. Finch; sex between adults and children is acceptable).

I was a very vocal advocate of the professional castration of James Frey after he was exposed for blatant lies about his substance abuse recovery and literally applauded when Oprah confronted him on her show. The experience I had with Scissors forced me to question my consistency on the issue of creative integrity. Should I be as appalled by Burroughs as I was Frey? Why am I not? Is it because I connected emotionally with Scissors and not Pieces? So far, what I have come up with is that Frey made himself out to be hero and an “example” for those in recovery. Augusten made no such claim or characterization. He was just as screwed up as his “siblings” in some respects and he has enough veracity to expose it with such biting humor. If Burroughs made up ½ of the stuff in his memoir (which there is seemingly no evidence to support this large a percentage) it was still a horrifically sad and tragic period of his life. Even some of the more sensational situations were not denied by the family.

If you are an adult reading this blog, and you are not completely turned off by graphic situations and profanity READ THE BOOK. If you are not an adult reading this, please DON’T READ THE BOOK!

Here are links to the Vanity Fair article and Smoking Gun's exposure of A Million Little Pieces:

http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2007/01/burroughs200701

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html

Wanderings and Worries

I’ve really been enjoying this journey through Yancey’s book on prayer. Some of my “unconventional” beliefs on prayer have been validated and my understanding of communion with God has developed further.

There have been times in my life where I have been very legalistic about prayer and have been “guilted” into spending time because it’s what you are supposed to do. I defined prayer narrowly as a time beginning with “Dear God…” or “Father…” and ending with “In Jesus Name, Amen.” My more substantial times of prayer still begin and end in that same manner, but I’m also learning to appreciate more the “attitude of prayer” peppered throughout my day. I used to be very upset about times of intercessory prayer when I would voice a concern for someone and then “wander off” thinking about them, how they must be feeling, how I could interact with them, or just their situation in general. I often do the same “wandering” in prayers for myself as well. When I finally caught myself in this “goose chasing distraction” I would beat myself up and apologize to God for wasting His time and mine and secretly wonder if I was ADHD. Other times, I would feel guilty about not praying enough for a person and their situation but there were times they were heavy on my heart and I would worry for them and because I didn’t begin and end in the traditional manner, I believed I wasn’t truly praying for them.
A couple of years ago through conversations with people I respect and my own self-analysis, I became comfortable with those times of wandering and worry because I recognized that inherent in those times was an assumption that God was/should/will be at work. I assumed God (without making an “ass out of you and me”) and believe the Holy Spirit directed those “distractions.”

Here's how Yancey puts it...

Prayer, according to one ancient definition, is "keeping company with God." I like that notion. It encompassess the epiphanies that happen during my day: turning a corner on a ski trail and seeing a gray fox skitter away, watching the pink alpenglow on the mountains as the sun sets, meeting an old friend at the grocery store. By incorporating those experiences into my prayers, I prolong and savor them so that they do not fall too quickly into my memory bank, or out of it... [according to Alan Ecclestone] "In prayer... you pause on the thing that has happened, you turn it over and over like a person examining a gift, you set it in the context of past and future, you mentally draw out its possibilities, you give the moment time to reveal what is embedded in it."