© Tom2898 | Dreamstime.com

(This post also appears on my Open Salon blog.)

Ann Bauer‘s recent story about her covert escape from a marriage encounter weekend has inspired some pretty pointed comments. While some are predictably cruel and trollish, others ask this reasonable (and paraphrased) question:

“Nobody was holding you against your will. So why did you feel the need to sneak out of the hotel in which the program was held?”

I can’t speak for Ms. Bauer and her husband, of course, but my suspicion is that, like many of us, they are uncomfortable with confrontation. A less dramatic, but more obvious, retreat could have resulted in a regrettable interaction with their manipulative hosts and, perhaps, other participants.

(Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.)

The article gave me a chuckle and reminded me of an incident that occurred about 15 years ago: A friend invited me to visit her new-agey encounter group. The mixed-gender group (there were about 9 or 10 of us) met in a posh, suburban home that belonged to two of its members, a middle-aged, married couple.

The evening began with the facilitator suggesting the evening’s activity, which was as follows:

1. Everyone strips naked.
2. Each person takes a turn sitting in front of a large mirror.
3. After appropriate contemplation of one’s own reflection, the mirror-gazer then tells the rest of the group what s/he likes about her/his own body.

She asked what we thought of this, and for a few seconds, nobody said anything. So I spoke up: I explained that I was completely uncomfortable with her proposal, and while I did not mean to disrupt the group, I would not participate in the activity.

She looked bemused and explained that, as nudity was commonplace in this program, she didn’t think it would be a problem.

My friend apologized for not explaining this to me before the meeting.

I offered to sit in another room.

The facilitator, showing signs of agitation, pointed out that the group’s purpose was pushing personal boundaries, and that maybe I should ignore my discomfort for my own benefit.

I politely acknowledged the potential validity of her assertion. I also explained that my clothes were staying on.

One group member (and its unofficial leader) became offended and offered to drive me home if getting naked was such a problem.

Over my friend’s protests, I accepted his offer.

After a bit more huffing and puffing, the group finally conceded that, in the future, members should warn guests of possible required nudity. The group also asked the facilitator to choose another, clothed activity. The meeting continued without further disruption.

In truth, I felt badly about the incident. I believe in the “when in Rome” principle, and really didn’t like the fact that my refusal to remove my clothes was such a problem.

Then something strange happened.

When the program for the evening was over, we scattered around the kitchen for snacks. Several group members came up to me and thanked me for voicing my opposition.

(Apparently, these group members, including the people who owned the house in which it met, weren’t crazy about the exercise either. They each spoke of their fear of saying anything, and again thanked me for having the “courage to stand up for myself”.)

The incident left me befuddled. I was in my mid-twenties at the time, considerably younger than the other attendees, most of who were old enough to be my parents. Why were these folks, older and wiser than me, so afraid of acknowledging that that they wanted to keep their private parts private?

(They were probably afraid of having to tangle with the group “leader”, who didn’t hesitate to express his contempt for those less enlightened than himself.)

So I while I understand the commenters who question the choices made by Ms. Bauer and her husband, I’m not going to join their chorus. Heaven knows that I became significantly less brave over the years myself, often staying silent when it was wrong to be so. So instead of telling Anne Bauer off, I am going to try and remember the girl who kept her clothes on, figure out where that courage came from, and put it good use.

To both my relief, and dismay, I have discovered that there is indeed a pattern. My relief is the result of having detected a pattern, but my dismay is the result of discovering that this pattern is pretty complex.

To demonstrate, I am going to use the following (fictional) scenario as an example:

1. Someone calls me a “dummy”.

2. I react by feeling hurt, sad, angry, and confused.

3. My hurt feelings give rise to one or more of the following responses: I snap back with an insult of my own, I wander off feeling sorry for myself and trying to figure out why that person doesn’t like me, I begin to wonder if that person is going to try and turn others against me. . .and so on.

Notice that my responses (which take up the bulk of my time and energy) are not directly the result of being called dumb, but are instead in response to my hurt feelings. My responses are only secondarily connected to the situation: The time and energy that I invest in my responsive actions is primarily connected to my emotional reaction, not the incident itself.

This is a hard pattern to challenge and change, so lately I have been just trying to pay attention to this process.  I’m trying to catch myself between my emotional reactions and my continued response. I’d like to think that eventually I can get enough distance between the emotion and my response so as to figure out whether I am making an appropriate investment.

I’ll keep trying, anyway.

The total delay for the second car? Probably about three seconds.

Apparently this waste of three seconds was enough to make the second car’s driver very irate. He began to lean on his horn and curse the driver of the first car. Then the driver of the first car stopped his car, further delaying the driver of the second car, and responded with cursing and horn-blowing of his own. After a bit of start and stop, both drivers drove off the lot, gunning their engines as they did so.

The time taken up by the angry exchange? Probably about fifteen seconds, and I’d bet anything that both drivers were fairly steamed for at least a minute or two after they drove off.

Total time of delay: 3 seconds.

Total time of angry exchange: 15 seconds (at least).

So for wait of 3 seconds, the second driver (roping the first driver along with him) invested 5 times the length of the delay in unproductive honking, cursing, and, yes, being delayed even longer.

Christians might call this poor stewardship of time and emotional energy. The rest of the world would probably just say that this was a boneheaded thing to do. No matter what you call it, though,  the neither driver will ever get his squandered time or energy back.

After watching this little drama unfold, I came to the realization that I am often (ok, usually, even)  just as wasteful of my energy and resources as these drivers. A slight inconvenience, a careless word, or, in some cases, even a positive exchange can result in behavior that is totally out of proportion to the actual stimulus. Thus a good stimulus is minimized by wasted time and energy, while a bad stimulus has the distinction of being made, by myself, even more damaging because of energy and time I invest in it.

I have some thoughts on why I (and perhaps others) do this, and I will write about them in my next post. But for now, it is enough to remember those squabbling drivers, investing fivefold in their own misery over a measly three seconds.

My dad died thirteen years ago. I was privileged to be with him at the time of his death, although the circumstances were not what either of us would have chosen.  We met for lunch in downtown Chicago (not an unusual event) and after our meal he asked me if I wanted some dessert.

Then he died.

My memory of the event is disorganized, dissociative. I remember facing my father directly across the table as he died.  But this isn’t how it happened.  I know I was sitting off to his side. I know this because I remember turning to one of our dining companions and told her to call 911, even as another friend tended to my dad.

(A psychiatrist once told me that my psyche has deliberately scrambled this memory in order to protect me from further trauma. This makes sense. )

He died because his heart stopped.  He sat there, breathing, but his open eyes didn’t see me. The sudden, incomprehending fury of a toddler welled up in me: I needed my daddy, and he was there, but he wasn’t paying me any attention.

Then, as the reality of the situation began to take hold, as the baby-rage passed, denial took its place. I fell to my knees beside my chair, and hit my head, repeatedly, against it, in an attempt to wake up from what was surely a nightmare. Each time my head knocked into the arm of the chair, I experienced some relief, feeling myself “waking up” from this horror.

(Waking up from the horror, to the horror. No matter how hard I tried, I could not undream it.)

My mind left my body. I actually saw it go, irregular blotches of red and green and purple and yellow tethered  to my head by only a thin silver cord. I had the choice of going insane at that moment. I could have anesthetized myself against the pain by simply losing my mind. Or I could keep my sanity and suffer mightily.

(I chose the latter.)

I grabbed the silver cord. I yanked it hard, and the pieces of my mind returned to my head, though I grimly noted that they didn’t settle back in quite the same arrangement as before.

(This discombobulation was proven when I stood up and asked a busboy if he was a doctor.)

The restaurant managers had got my father onto the floor and administered CPR. My knowledge of human biology was scanty, but I concluded that if they were getting some blood to his brain, he might still hear me. I called out to him, again and again, telling him that I loved him. The restaurant hostess quickly hustled me away. I was causing a scene.

I sat in a large chair in the lobby and sipped from a glass of ice water. When the paramedics arrived, I calmly rose to meet them, informing them of my father’s medical history. From then on I was calm, cool, collected, and sane. Everyone was frantically trying to save my father’s life, but I had seen it leave his eyes. I was resigned. (Though, at the hospital, when the ER doctor gave me the “we did all we could” speech, I still almost fainted.)

Later that day, as family and friends gathered, my godfather embraced me and said the strangest thing: “Now’s the time for growing up.”.  I didn’t get it. I was living and working independently . I was twenty-six years old. What more “growing up” did I have to do?

(A lot, as it turned out, and I sure as hell didn’t do a very good job of it.)

As time passed,  I began to heal and to be able to function. But it was a struggle. Despite my putting the worst of the grief behind me, I still desperately needed to find a reason for what had happened. My compartmentalized, orderly world had crashed around me. I had long believed that purpose and order could only be explained by the existence of God. But what purpose and order was there in what had happened to my father and myself? Where was God? What was God?

Since my own, personal, world had fallen into chaos and meaninglessness, I began groping blindly to regain order and purpose (never mind God).  I spent over a decade in this quest, looking for “signs” and systems and people that might bestow my life and soul with  meaning and purpose. I had a more than a few triumphs and joys, but mostly I failed miserably.

This quote, attributed to James Hillman, perhaps best describes my condition:

“He who has lost his soul will be finding God anywhere, up above and down below, in here and out there, he will cling to every straw of love blown past his doorway as he stands waiting for a sign.”

This went on for years.

To an extent, it continues.

I know now that the mark of an adult is graciously accepting (you don’t have to like it) the fact that things are not the way we think they ought to be.  It is the understanding (again, you don’t have to like it) that one’s own agenda has no real significance in the greater scheme of things.  It is no longer demanding that reality (you still don’t have to like it) serve one’s personal desires.

When my father died, I first raged against him for not being where I needed him to be. Then I turned my rage both outward (onto God and just about everything else) as well as inward (onto myself for not being able to offer myself the kind of control necessary to make sense of my existence). None of this served any good purpose. None of it made any difference in what was real. None of it made my life easier or happier. Instead of giving my life purpose and order, my childish groping kept me in chaos: I didn’t like it, but (I thought) it was easier to be there than to be an adult.

Then was the time for growing up.

Now is the time for growing up.

Its been time for growing up for quite some time now.

Maybe I’m finally ready.

This post is part of the September Syncroblog on maturity. Check out the posts listed below for other takes on this month’s topic!

Phil Wyman at Square No More with “Is Maturity Really What I Want?”
Lainie Petersen at Headspace with “Watching Daddy Die”
Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head with “what’s inside the bunny?”
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith with “Long-Wearing Nail Polish and Other Stories”
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse with “the future is ours to see: crumbling like a mountain”
Bryan Riley at Charis Shalom with “Still Complaining?”
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church with “Maturity and Education”
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent with “Putting spiritual infants in charge”
Bethany Stedman at Coffee Klatch with “Moving Towards True Being: The Long Process of Maturity”
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill with “Old Enough to Follow Christ?”
Joe Miller at More Than Cake with “Intentional Relationships for Maturity”
Jonathan Brink at JonathanBrink.com with “I Won’t Sin”
Susan Barnes at A Booklook with “Growing Up”
Tracy Simmons at The Best Parts with “Knowing Him Who is From the Beginning”
Joseph Speranzella at A Tic in the Mind’s Eye with “Spiritual Maturity And The Examination of Conscience”
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes with “vulnerable maturity”
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules with “What I Wish The Church Knew About Spiritual Maturity”
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations with “post-enlightenment Christians in an unenlightened South Africa”
Steve Hayes at Khanya with “Adult Content”
Ryan Peter at Ryan Peter Blogs and Stuff with “The Foundation For Ministry and Leading”
Kai Schraml at Kaiblogy with “Mature Virtue”
Nic Paton at Sound and Silence with “Inclusion and maturity”
Lew Ayotte at The Pursuit with “Maturity and Preaching“

For various reasons I have been researching the problem of verbal abuse, as well as ways to deflect it. I came upon this gem, which suggests the “Boring Baroque Response” to being verbally baited. I highly recommend it to all my readers!