Facing Truth

Rev. Dr. Ursa proclaims: Our most fervent prayers are born of guilt, fear, and resentment. The most effective ones are the fruit of love.


Ursa's evil twin counters: So -- before I presume to pray for others, I should divest myself of my own guilt, fear, and resentment? You've got to be kidding! That's how I legitimize those nasty feelings!! "Dear Lord, Joe is a jerk, but I'm OK because I'm praying for him. When I get finished being holy, I expect you to hand over my lollypop! I've earned it!"

We need honesty in our recovery tool kit just as much as we need faith, hope and love. Honesty with God is difficult, because God is huge and scary and all-powerful and may retaliate if we fail to please. Honesty with others is difficult, because we risk being cast into outer darkess, with weeping and gnashing of teeth. Honesty with ourselves is most difficult of all -- we cling to our shredded self-image, the delusion of self-sufficiency, the filthy rags of our self-righteousness, praying desperately to believe that if we just faith hard enough, the world will re-arrange itself in the glorious patterns we dreamed before we lost our innocence.

When the All-Powerful and All-Knowing comes to us in the garment of unconditional love, we howl and weep because we have nowhere to hide. It is not an easy matter to acknowledge who we really are. But until we do, our deepest hurts remain unhealed and festering.

Impression Addiction

(October, 2006)
It has recently come to my painful attention that I sacrificed most of my life to fantasies. I wanted to be the best, the most beloved in all things, and I needed people to tell me that I was this mythical person. Impression management was more important than the experience of living.

The price for my unwillingness to accept reality was a chronic sense of failure. Failure as a student (because I couldn't score 100% all the time); failure as a teacher (because some of my students refused to comply to my unrealistic visions of them); failure as a mother (because my children weren't perfect); failure as a wife (because my husband wasn't God); failure as a woman (because I was not a sex goddess and did not particularly enjoy the company of children); failure as a Christian (because I had doubts and could not invoke God's power on demand). The universe would not conform to my dreams, so I was a mistake.

Last Good Friday, I drew pictures of the failure monsters, the success idol, and other evils. I renounced them and burned my artwork before God's altar.

Now I need the help of my friends to see myself realistically: to acknowledge both my strengths and weaknesses, to be comfortable with my limitations, to absolve myself of responsibility for things which I cannot control.

It's a hard road, but it's a whole lot better than hating myself.

Preach, Teach, and Leave Literature

You know you're recovering when you can go to a family reunion and you don't have to preach, teach, or leave literature.
--"Karen" (from Anne Schaef's Meditations for Women Who Do Too Much)

Preach, teach, and leave literature -- the style of evangelism we love to hate. Yet we all do it. When we get on a bandwagon -- the latest diet, the hot new book or movie, the game to end all games -- we want company. Once our enthusiasm wanes, we redouble our proselytization, hoping that the new converts will help us to re-live the first hyperflush of insane hope that this time, we would get things right and everything would be fine forever.

If I can't control my life, I try to control others' lives. Now there's a bit of twisted logic! Somehow, someone else's backyard jungle is more exciting, more worthy of attention, than my own weedy flower beds.

Dr. Shaef: "How much easier it is to work with people instead of trying to overpower them with the righteousness of our rightness. CONTROL IS DEADLY FOR EVERYONE."

So, Doctor -- even if I succeed, I fail?

Ouch.

Knowing what I want

Once upon a time (probably in the late 80s), I happened to be in Regina by myself at supper time, and discovered that I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WANTED TO EAT OR WHERE I WANTED TO EAT IT!!!!

I knew the preferences of every family member, and kept trying to juggle them, becoming more and more resentful because nobody seemed to care what my needs were.  But if they had asked me, I wouldn't have known what to say. 

HOW COULD I GET WHAT I WANTED IF I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THAT WAS???????? I was so out of touch with myself that I didn't even know what I wanted to eat.

I still have to work at this. Hard. It can take a long time to overcome performance panic long enough to became aware of what I want. I have to relax, let go of the various layers of delusion, and find ME. 

The really cool thing is -- it generally turns out that what I want at the core is what God wants for me too. It is always true that what I need (as opposed to what I am conditioned to think I need) is what God wants for me.

That titanic struggle between what God wants and what I want -- that's a MYTH. The real struggle is between what I want and need, and what I think I should want and need.