Part 04 - Introspection10/14/2008 7:21:12 AM WHO AM I REALLY? Some of the journal entries in this segment are rather abstract. What I was trying to do was figure out what in my life was human construct (thoughts put together by me to form a certain picture of reality) and what was really real. If I could figure out what was real and what was construct, then maybe I could also figure out who I was, or more accurately, who I was becoming. Sometimes, not-knowing became awfully tiring. Journal Entry I fear a loss of feeling ‘special’, and yet unless I let go of this need, I can’t feel at one with others. I never felt special as a child. I seemed to be different from the rest of the family; always on the outside. From early on, I learned to take care of myself. Now, constantly, I must learn to be vulnerable, and to allow Christ to be my power. At home in him, I can be hurt but not damaged. There’s a big difference there. Why am I so afraid of not being special? Am I not special to you, Lord? But, surely, everyone else is too, so where does that leave me? What does it mean to feel special anyway? Standing out in the crowd, making a mark in this world for myself, having recognition? No, I think it means more than that to me. I think it means being loved, for myself, and not for anything I do or achieve. How can I give up what I never really felt I had? It’s the need, isn’t it, the need to feel special that you’re asking me to lose? The search for whatever I think is out there that will tell me I’m being held and loved and protected, that will tell me at last that I’m okay just the way I am. All needing to feel special does for me is make me feel separate from others. As long as I need to be special, that means I must stand apart from them, to be noticed and loved more than them. I must be more, do more, or they must be less. No wonder I feel so lonely. I see others as competition for your love, as if there isn’t enough to go around. When did this world become such an unsafe place for me? When did I come to believe that love is conditional and meted out very, very carefully, enough to keep me going and only as long as I’m a good little girl? Journal Entry I’m reading a book that talks about those who have little strength, whatever form that might take in history. Now, in our time and place, computers, facts, having data and information at our fingertips is so important. In the face of this kind of strength, I am weak and will be all of my life, for this isn’t me. I feel so ‘ethereal’ next to such a description, so insubstantial. Data, information, history are all so precise. I’m not. Journal Entry How do I not have time to be compassionate? How can I feel I have better things to do than to stop and listen to someone in need? I think of --- Sunday morning, who finally put her hand on my arm to slow me down so I’d listen. I think of ---- in pain and I didn’t listen, nor indicate I would. And I’m her pastor. And—why let myself get so tired and worn out I feel like that in the first place? And—what if I will suffer from chronic pain or disability all the time: is that an excuse to be less compassionate? Journal Entry Spent some time crying yesterday. I really am in the process of transition. I feel as though I’m disintegrating. I can’t even say who I’m not. I feel depressed for sure; a nothing. Do I feel like a nothing because I can no longer define myself by any externals (other than God)? Have I still been looking elsewhere, at my roles, to tell me who I am? All of it—pastor, gardener, etc.—are things I do, but they’re not me. I also was thinking more about having the title ‘Dr.’ I seem to be seeking something to identify myself, and this can’t be. The Dr. will just say something about studies, but not about my character, ‘me.’ Not even how much I know. It won’t make me an expert; it won’t set me apart. This transition is hard, yet I must be willing to lose myself in order to truly find myself, and the more self isn’t defined by standards, structures, etc., the freer I’ll be to use my gifts to minister. Journal Entry ---‘s remarks to others that I haven’t given him pastoral care: If I am my standards, my values, etc., and --- questions them, then I see it as an attack, and it is personal. It’s an attack against my integrity, my office of pastor, etc. (If you question my integrity or competence, it’s the same as questioning me.) But—if I am not my standards, and if my job is something I have and not who I am, then I can examine his remarks to see—not even if they are ‘true, for that implies a fixed standard—but to seek to understand his perception and to learn from it. Were there ways I could have supported him and didn’t? If I ask that question from the perspective of perception—how each one of us see our roles, etc.—then it’s not necessary to defend because ‘I’ am not under attack. No one’s under attack; we are just seeing differently. To own one’s perceptions, to take responsibility for them and to understand they’re not ultimate truth—that’s hard because it suggests relativity, no boundaries, nothing concrete on which to base our lives. But that’s not true/accurate. Our perceptions are our reality, and just because they’re perceptions, doesn’t make them less true. They’re true for us at the time we have them. So from that aspect, they’re real. They don’t become false because we change them. Our lives aren’t built on a lie because we change the way we construct—put together—our reality. That should make me feel uneasy, unsubstantial, not anchored, unconnected. But it doesn’t. I feel more solid than I have ever been. I’m not controlled by my standards; neither am I controlled by anyone else’s. That doesn’t create distance. Standards are something we have, not who we are. Your standards may be different than mine but that doesn’t change the realness of you and me. We still exist apart from our standards. It’s your standards I may feel distance from, but I can still feel close to you. Is that why I get so angry when Tim disagrees with me? I perceive distance and become anxious. Tim is not his standards. I can disagree with his perceptions and still be connected to him—the real him—not his views and ideas. The learning comes in steps, in segments. Journal Entry Who am I? Child of God. That’s it. That’s the bottom line—the truth—and everything else is my construct. So, in the sense that being a child of God comes from God, my identity is something given to me, an external. But that’s the good, because God is the most real thing there is. Other externals—people, possessions, etc.—can’t give me my identity because they’re not any more ‘real’ than I am. God is real. God creates, actually creates. Child of God. Everything else is my construct, our construct, and we do it a little differently. But the core is solid because of God. That’s why the different constructs don’t have to frighten us, nor do we need to defend them. Our constructs are something we have, but not ultimately us. So I don’t have to be threatened by your constructs, or insist that you agree with mine. So my own constructs aren’t better or worse than anyone else’s—just different. We’re separate, individual, and yet we can relate because we live in the same world and share the same journey. Since I see and understand other’s constructs a little better than I used to, I may be more at peace, less driven, but it doesn’t make me ‘better than.’ The evolving isn’t a step up; just a change in construction (a change in how I put my thoughts together to form a different understanding of life and the people in it). So I don’t need other’s approval, or even to have them understand me in order to connect. I’m having a little trouble here with the understand part—feeling a distancing. Why? I think I need someone to understand me, or at least to accept me without feeling the need to impose their construct of reality on me.
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