The Breakdown
I was reminded soon enough of what it might cost me.
I had recently read the story of Admiral Jim Stockdale, and “the Stockdale Paradox” in Collin’s book. Admiral Jim Stockdale, a United States military officer imprisoned in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp during the Vietnam War demonstrated a remarkable, profound resilience in the midst of significant mental, emotional, spiritual and physical challenges. Collin’s interviewed Stockdale about his experience.
“Who didn’t make it out?”
“Oh, that’s easy,” he said. “The optimists.”
“The optimists? I don’t understand,” I said, now completely confused, given what he’d said a hundred meters earlier.
“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.”
Another long pause, and more walking. Then he turned to me and said, “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end— which you can never afford to lose— with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
Collins, Jim (2011-07-19). Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t (Kindle Locations 1506-1511). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
“This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end— which you can never afford to lose— with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
So this perspective somehow demonstrated what I had never done before in my life–to not do anything. To just let reality happen to me, and see it for what it was. Because what I was realizing is those categories were not my identity, they were only pieces of me, scattered haphazardly all over the map of my life.
I was facing some pretty brutal realities. The breakdown occurred when my category of “UMC pastor” broke, which had become my affirmation of “Okayness”.
That category was supposed to sustain my identity, darn it; and when it didn’t pan out, my gosh, I was confused and disoriented. I questioned everything that I had spent years investing in, and I questioned my sanity too.
It was, and in some ways, still is, a huge challenge to let go of the things that I had assigned as my identity.
For others, the means might be very different, but the breakdown of the categories will inevitably occur. I deeply believe that we are made for wholeness, so living out of categories is unsustainable.
Though I was intentionally not doing anything, I was doing some things very intentionally.
- I read as much as I could. And I got curious about myself.
- I read from a diverse spectrum of authors. I read Brene Brown. Jim Collins. Elizabeth Gilbert. Mary Oliver. Ted Loder. Thomas Merton. Henri Nouwen. Richard Rohr.
- I spent time in community with others doing similar work.
- I was fortunately participating in a year long co-hort, Courage to Lead, sponsored by the UMC, with a small group of really awesome clergy and lay leaders.
- I invited close friends into my process.
- I am infinitely enriched by the close friends in my life. We lean on, listen to, and lean on one another. It was a friend who insisted I see a therapist she knew; so I made the call that one morning when my preferred term, “awakening”, felt more like emotional breakdown.
- I leaned on my spiritual director, and I found a good therapist.
- Ironically, months later, my therapist would similarly call me on my lack of emotional coping. And my spiritual director seemed downright joyful about it, declaring gently, “By gosh, I think you’re being!” My reply? “Oh! This is BEING! Greeeeeaaaat.”
Everything that I read, heard and experienced seemed to carry similar messages–there was more. Thing is, none of it felt good at all. At times, I held a tremendous sense of hope, while other times I wrestled with the ambiguity and uncertainty of it all.
Something was happening to me. But I wasn’t doing anything.
In the book Falling Upward, Richard Rohr writes:
“The further journey usually appears like a seductive invitation and a kind of promise or hope. We are summoned to it, not commanded to go, perhaps because each of us has to go on this path freely, with all the messy and raw material of our own unique lives.”
It felt horrible and great. I was living the paradox. I had complete faith that good was happening, and I completely engaged in dealing with my garbage–and there was plenty of that. Rohr is so nice with his “messy and raw material”. Hot pile of mess is how I described it.
The Paradox
Here’s the thing with becoming whole. You never really get there.
What? Then what have we been talking about for 2000 words?!?
Hold on, I’ll get there. The Paradox is that you never really get there. The paradox is the journey–the sweet discomfort, the unsure confidence, the deliberate disorder.
Here’s the definition of paradox: “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.”
So, categories/tags/labels are part of our culture.
Categories are neither bad nor good. They just are.
Where categories get us in trouble is when we assign our identity to categories–we are not made for categories, we are made for wholeness.
We were made to be whole in Christ, who became a human being to freely give us the means to be whole. It is up to us how we engage in the process, with God’s help, towards wholeness.
Richard Rohr writes about the second half of life being this genuine opportunity to experience this wholeness–where categories are just what they are. Neither good nor bad. But what they don’t do is identify us, rather we are identified by our humanity, our pre-wiring that finds completion in God alone.
“Grace must and will edge you forward.” He adds, “When you get your “Who am I?” question right, all the “What should I do?” questions tend to take care of themselves.”
The journey to wholeness never ends. Grace moves me, and you, forward towards the places that we are ready to engage. For me, it was time to experience and see where I was, and where I knew God desired me to be. The best part is realizing that if I had opted to stay where I was, God, in his grace, would have sustained me in his love and compassion.
Questions for Reflection:
Where are you today?
What is your current reality?
What ways do you see and experience those “roles” or “categories” in your life?Do they intersect one another at all? If so, how? If not, why not?
In what ways can you find ways to nourish your identity in Christ? To feed your soul? To begin the life-long journey to become whole?
What is it to live in a culture of categories, labels and roles? Where everyone assigns me, and you, with our likes/dislikes/and in-between?
We can live wholly aware that once upon a time, we too were enslaved to categories. We too were just surviving. And when the time is right, we might be able to share just enough of our story.
“But they keep on doing their own kind of survival dance, because no one has told them about their sacred dance.”–Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
When Real Life and Real Faith Intersect 