This Tastes Bitter: The Taste of Self-Preservation

Those pithy sayings about the difficulties of life making us better not bitter are not meant for us bitter people, I think.  They may be meant for potentially bitter people, but more likely they’re meant for better people—to feel even better about themselves.  But I may just be bitter. 

I’d really like to be one of the better people, but in reality I think I often prefer to wallow in my misery.  Just for a while.  Just until I’m sick of myself...  I’m sick of myself. 

Perhaps my bitterness comes from a tendency to take myself too seriously instead of seeing the lighter side of disappointments with life.  Maybe I should change the tone of this whole blog and find my voice as a witty humorist who is almost 35, with no babies, no dates, no real job, no prospects and more student loan debt than I care to mention.  But somehow when I try, it comes off sounding desperate and pathetic.  Maybe that’s because I hear other voices—the ones of my contented single friends, or discontented married friends, or the better people telling me I shouldn’t be honest bitter.  Though maybe it’s just my own self-preserving voice.

I suspect self-preservation will be my downfall.  Or the reason I never quite get off the ground.  It is the reason why I’ve removed my last several blog posts, the reason I’m scared to risk, the reason I don’t love fully, and maybe even the reason I’m bitter instead of better.  It’s safer.  It’s the reason I am satisfied with a superficial self rather than my true self.  I wonder what would happen just in one year if I could live my life without self-preservation.

I can’t.  We can’t.  Not fully. We all wear fig leaves of some sort.  But I imagine.  I imagine who I could be if I didn’t hide from God and man.  Mark Sayers says this is true holiness.  “Holiness is not about pointless and impossible perfectionism.  It is about becoming the people we are meant to be.  It is the ultimate discovery of our true selves.  Each step toward holiness brings us closer to becoming who we really are.”

Being sick of myself is often the thing that makes me want to trade in some self-preservation for a taste of holiness, a taste of God’s work of restoration in me and in the world.  But then, if I did that, I might forget why I’m bitter.  

Post-Grad School Angst

I feel let down. It seems I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. After investing three years of my life (and finances) into grad school, I’m now wondering if it all wasn’t just some siren song calling to me to greener grass just to dash me on the rocks. I guess this is what they call the divine discontent. Holy frustration that leads me to the truth that my hope has been misplaced. Again.

I don’t regret going to grad school (of course I haven’t started paying back my loans yet either). I guess I just thought it would be different on the other side—that I would be someone else maybe. And I am, in some ways. But life is still hard and confusing, and I’m still not who I want to be. I thought I’d be perfect by now. How disappointing.

I hear this is a common feeling for post-graduates. Maybe it’s common for anyone who has worked hard to get something or get somewhere only to realize it’s still not enough. It reminds me of what my professor said, that frustration is built into our lives on purpose by God to lead us to him—our Source. It’s part of the curse. To lead us to freedom and rest and true hope (Romans 8:20-21). We won’t find what we’re looking for until we look to God.

And yet before I get there I always seem to have to spend myself trying to avoid the curse, mad at God for not giving me what I want and irritated that he’s more concerned with what I need. Until I’m exhausted enough to let him work.

“Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.”  St. Augustine

Until Then

Death loss
is not what I thought, not what they taught. Yes, it’s grief
and tragedy. It’s sadness and sympathy.
But not so much over
your death
as over

your life

that I didn’t know,

that you never showed,

that maybe no one knew,

not even you.

All your greatness, hidden by shame.
All your heartbreak, hidden with blame.
All in ashes. Only worn out jokes and guitars remain.
Nothing risked, but all is stained.

I wonder if now you see clearly, and what you would say
now that you see, and who you would be
now that you’re free, and how things would be different
back then if you had not been

hidden.

But I’ll see you again.
Until then
I miss you, Dad. I always have.

Deep Calls to Deep

I prefer to write about innocuous truth. You know, then I don’t have to get naked.

But perhaps the truest thing about us is the most personal, the most vulnerable—our desire to connect and be known. I tend to be pretty ambivalent about it, really. But then at times, I am ambushed by that desire so powerfully that I have to confront it. Last night was such a time.

Often for me, like last night, it comes after spending time in community when no true knowing has taken place. Conversations about food, the economy, and the weather are paramount. And we all remain unknown. And safe. And then boom. Suddenly I want to do something self-destructive and reckless, like an angsty teenager. I feel unsatisfied and restless.

I wonder, if we could all just learn to recognize and name that longing, a longing for intimacy, how much senseless tragedy would be reduced. Would there be less drunk driving, less affairs, less eating-disorders, less suicide? Probably not. Because awareness doesn’t fix the problem. We’d still be unsatisfied—we’d just know why—we’re not getting our deepest need met. So, what do we do with the problem of deep desire?

There’s the obvious choice: repression. Don’t feel, don’t desire. Keep busy. Self-preservation. Seems to be the thing in our culture. I even feel weird writing this because I’d rather play it cool or make a joke—that’s how my family has dealt with it. Laugh it off. But then, the truest thing about you dies.

Then there’s the option of trying to get that need met in counterfeit and harmful ways, or trying to force others to meet that need for you. Addiction. Manipulation. Come to think of it, that’s my family too. And this is what I have seen most often in the therapy office. The aftermath of it, that is.

To be honest, I don’t even think most of us know how to connect or be known. It’s freaking scary—to be known. Most of us opt out. We push people away or hold them off in so many ways, but mostly we just don’t know how. What if we all confessed that we have this deep desire that’s not being met? Would it be okay to talk about? Because if we start talking about our deepest desire, there’s a chance we might begin to feel known.

But it seems to me that this desire can be so deep that I could eat and eat and drink and drink and never get enough. I think we have to learn to live with this desire—to let it be the symptom that tells us we are alive and part of the struggling human race, and let it lead us to the recognition that we are far from home. It is a homesickness that touches us when things are not as they should be, or when it feels like home here. In pains and pleasures, the deep calls, reminding us of the truest thing about us. And really, the call is to risk being known now, as we are, naked.

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me." from Psalm 42

How to Look Good Naked

While many self-loathing people might sign up for a reality show that promises makeover, I would be surprised to find people lined up for a self-acceptance experience that involves exposing your flaws and vulnerabilities to the world with no promise of ridding you of them. I wouldn’t do it. So I was pretty shocked by the audacity of this show “How to Look Good Naked” hosted by Carson Kressley. He basically takes women who hate their body and tries to convince them they’re beautiful—by having them get naked and unashamed.

I don’t like to be naked in public.

I guess that’s normal. I have a recurring dream about being naked on an elevated toilet in the middle of the mall food court. And there’s the one where I realize I’m naked in the middle of teaching a class. Vulnerability scares me. Even more than being physically exposed, I think I fear others seeing inside. I can turn deep shades of red just thinking about things I’ve said that may have exposed parts I try to keep hidden. I even go through and delete blog posts periodically when I’m feeling especially vulnerable and fear I may have taken too many layers off in something I’ve written. I’m very careful about what I let you see.

My friend recently said to me, “Let people feel the full weight of who you are,” and I can’t get over it. When I think about it, I’m filled with a million reasons why I should cover up instead—a million reasons why I shouldn’t let you see me naked. It makes me think about our fall and restoration. If, in the garden they were naked and unashamed, then does redemption involve ridding us of this shame that tells us to cover up the full weight of who we are? To stand naked and unashamed, I would have to have full confidence that what was exposed was acceptable—that I’m loved in spite of my damage from the fall. Is that the makeover God has in mind? Is that redemption?

As I was watching Carson gently convince women to take their clothes off, look in the mirror, and be photographed naked, my discomfort was growing. He told them they were beautiful and brought evidence to persuade them they were acceptable, until finally they seemed to trust him enough to take a risk and expose themselves. It reminded me of how I need to hear from God over and over that I am beautiful and acceptable—until finally I’ll risk exposure to let others experience the full weight of who I am. It seems to me that unconditional acceptance is the only thing that can convince us to take off the layers of striving and careful covering—it is the only thing that heals the wounds of shame.

Of course, I’m not suggesting we all become nudist—literally or figuratively. In fact, if the host were a straight man, I don’t think he could pull it off. I, for one, would assume ulterior motives. And the truth is, it’s not always safe to walk around naked in our fallen state. But if we never stand bare before God or others, we can never be fully known, and can never experience the balm of acceptance—we can never look good naked. We have to get naked to look good naked. And that is where redemption takes place.

“Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.” Soren Kierkegaard

Deep Down Things

THE world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs --
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

~Gerard Manley Hopkins


I’m on a roll. Life has been going well for me lately. This isn’t a problem, per se, but I am starkly aware of my grasping desire to keep things going my way. This seems to mean living life on the surface in accordance with my safe and selfish imagination—I use work and achievement (smeared with toil) and entertainment to keep my soul at bay as it tries to come to life. I’ve been down this road before (have trod, have trod, have trod). It leads to death.

And yet, “there lives the dearest freshness deep down things.” My truer desire for something deeper and grander always returns—a desire for something better, more difficult, and more beautiful than my way.

As I was reading David Benner again yesterday morning I was struck by the truth in his words, “We will never come to prefer God’s kingdom and will to ours until we meet the Divine in this relationship of love intermixed with wonder… There would be no reason to submit our will to a tame god of our imagination. No god that is merely a projection of our deepest needs and longings is worthy of surrender of our soul. Surrendering to God’s will begins by encountering God’s grandeur. It also involves falling in love with God’s grand plan of restoration of all things. This lies at the heart of God’s will and God’s kingdom.”

This put me in mind of the Gerard Manley Hopkins poem.

May I be willing to exchange successful surface living for the grandeur of a Kingdom of restoration.  May I give up the god of my imagination for the God of wonder. Oh, morning!

Silence and Soul Cravings

I have just entered into a very busy season of life—maybe busier than any other time in my life. So, what has been on my mind lately is how discipline leads to rest. And beauty. And rightness. And all the things that feed my soul.

My tendency is to let life spin madly on and carry me away, and before I know it I don’t know who I am or where I’m going. But I need silence. And nature. And God. To remember. And discipline leads me there. Discipline (once hated as the end, now cherished as the means) allows me to pay attention to the soft, low sounds that can probe depths to awaken soul cravings. Like the sound of poetry.

I heard Mark Sayers speak recently, and as he read this poem aloud, I felt as if something that had died in me was being awakened with a gentle caress—as if something deep and beautiful and a little tragic, like my favorite novel, was coming to life. And it filled me with a new and urgent desire for silence, so I could hear more of the same.


In The World of Whispers - Cam Semmens

There is a serpent in the speakers
of my TV,
radio,
laptop,

phone.

I can hear its hiss

running beneath every

show,

song,

clip,
chat.

Thiss hissssss –
a subtle, insistent whisper:

…buy, buy,
buy an ipod, buy an MG,
buy a PC, buy an Apple
and you will be like God,
buy, buy…

And I – too late – feel the fangs
pierce the thin skin of my will.
And I can feel the venom
poisoning
every choice I make,

…buy, buy…

but I
lie as still as I can.
Still.
Still listening.
Listening
for that other whisper –
that still, small voice.

Cameron M. Semmens