I was reminded of this book about a platoon of American soldiers during the Vietnam War by a dear friend with whom I had a powerful visit one evening last week – although we had not seen each other in over a year.
She was talking metaphorically about the things we carry as adults, much of which is from childhood. We have been friends since 4th grade, spiritual sisters since high school and college roommates. We hold cherished memories and some, well, we’d rather forget. We are undoubtedly friends for life.
Yet that evening I saw and felt something I never had before. As she allowed herself to grieve over a tragedy which happened in her young life before we met, I shared a modicum of her burden – the guilt, blame and pain – she has been carrying for 43 years. I don’t have to have walked in her shoes, just set aside my own pain to feel a tiny bit of hers.
This feeling persisted into the next day when I encountered waves of sadness over what it must have been like for her all these years. Psalm 55 proclaims to ‘cast your burden upon the Lord, and He will sustain you’. How do we even DO that? Perhaps when we crack open our hearts and bare our souls to those dearest to us on earth, we permit them to see us in a way that facilitates this divine transmission as well as our own ‘militant self acceptance’.
In Plan B Further Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott uses the aforementioned term as she recounts a story about David Roche, author of The Church of 80% Sincerity, who was born with a severe facial disfigurement – a self professed beast who married a beauty and survived adolescence more seamlessly than Catholicism, but I won’t go there.
Not surprisingly, he tends to be more readily accepted by children. Nevertheless, in discussing his life with a multi-generational audience, the topic of inner beauty was central, and he concluded with this inquiry, ‘I look different to you now, right?’
“They nodded, especially the teenagers. To be in adolescence is, for most of us, to be facially deformed. David makes you want to help him build a fort under the table with blankets, because it looks like such fun when he does it. He builds the fort, and then lets you lift the blankets and peek in at him – and ultimately you. You laugh with recognition, with the relief that your baggage and flaws are not vile, unmentionable. It’s like soul aerobics. ‘I’ve been forced to find my inner beauty,’ he said in closing. ‘Doing that gave me a deep faith in myself. Eighty percent of the time. And that faith has been a window so I can see the beauty in you, too…’ “
My friend built a fort for me the evening we were together, and she let me in. We did soul aerobics. I laughed and cried and saw her inner beauty more keenly than ever before.
A wellspring of wisdom from others has surfaced since then. Here are some of the most poignant words: My close friend, Julie Williams, wrote to me recently: ‘the good in me sees the good in you always.’ Anne Lamott: ‘Rubble is the ground on which our deepest friendships are built.’ Rumi: ‘Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house of its furniture, still, treat each guest honorably; He may be clearing you out for some new delight.’ Publisher, Pastor and Renaissance man, Stuart Revercomb: God ‘continues to push through the ruins of our lives and into those hearts humble enough to seek Him.’
Additionally, I thought of Brene Brown, PhD who suggests that we cannot selectively numb emotion. If we don’t want to feel grief, shame, fear and disappointment, guess what? We won’t feel joy, gratitude, happiness and contentment. Remember what your child announced at the dinner table – maybe you have said it yourself – when you were clearly full from the main course: ‘There’s a separate compartment for dessert!’ This myth can invade our psyches – that we can compartmentalize, bury, hide, deny the bad and house only the good. Yet it simply doesn’t work.
Life is messy. We are broken. We have foibles, flaws and baggage. According to Brown, the beauty is in allowing ourselves to be deeply seen which is where real connection happens with each other and, I would add, with God. This is good. This is why we’re here. The delight comes in deeply seeing others and, elaborating on Roche, experiencing the flashes of grace, beams of mercy, rays of forgiveness, glimmers of unconditional love – ideally in the 80% of living when it’s not all about you. One precious moment at a time.
If we don’t know how to cast our burdens upon Him, perhaps when we let others carry our baggage – if only from the car to the front door – our hearts will be pierced by the work of The Cross – if only a quiver. We must, however, be authentic, vulnerable and humble enough to give them permission to grab the handle first.
Oswald Chambers writes, ‘If you will remain true to God, (He) will lead you directly through every barrier and right into the inner chamber of the knowledge of Himself.’
I didn’t know what being true to God means – until I considered this: it may just begin with being true to . . . ourselves.
– Caroline Watkins
