Of Shame and Turtles

This week I did some reading while I was at work. I started the book “The Cry of the Soul” and someone left a copy of Lucado’s, “It’s Not About Me” at work so I read it, too—in just one day. I think my brain (and probably my spirit) were craving input.
Lucado’s book was a quick read. I like that about Lucado: he doesn’t waste paper talking about what he wants to say, saying it, and then re-saying it to be sure you got it. Here are a few quotes from the book that stood out to me:
-Aren’t we all born with our default drive set on selfishness?
-If you’re looking for a place with no change, try a soda machine.

I also really liked when he explained that the word sometimes translated beholding and sometimes reflecting found in 2 Corinthians 3:18 is both. Paul uses another one of these dual words (in his correspondence to the Corinthians) when he tells them that God’s love constrains/compels them. Double meanings trip us up in the scripture but we use them all the time in our English language. Reflecting and beholding made sense to me when I thought about how the reflecting is the natural response to beholding—like Moses: we just can’t help but reflect God when we have been in His presence.

Allender and Longman’s book is not so quick and easy a read. I had it bouncing around in the back end of my car for a few months. It’s premise is that my emotions, when examined will say much about how I’m feeling about God. They draw on the writings in Psalms.

The thing that really got me to thinking was contemplating that my anger had more to say about how I was feeling about God than about the situation. I’ve been angry a lot over the past months. People have pointed it out to me. I’ve tried not to show it. If they saw me in private, they’d really think I had lost my “saintly side.” At times it’s scared even me. The Psalmist’s question “how long God?” wells up within me and explodes out of me with the explitives of a sailor on leave (not that I’ve known any, it’s just a phrase I’ve heard).

I’ve got a laundry list of questions for God. Why did I have to be born with weak eye muscles? I know it’s not a huge deformity and that others go through far worse, but it was enormous to me because it left scars that won’t go away. Scars in my heart and mind: I was a financial burden to my parents; I never healed; I couldn’t do what was asked of me—I was so far from perfect. Is that why I never felt loved? Is that why they couldn’t cuddle me, hold me, and left me feeling unloved? Is that why I was left with a warped sense of what love is, and an even more deeply wounded understanding of how to show love to others? Is that why I didn’t (until recently) come to trust the love shown to me?

And now my anger is reduced to shame. Or maybe my anger is my cover so you don’t see my shame. Is that why I peal the skin off my hands: I loathe the skin I’m trapped in? Or is it why I’ve never been able to sustain weight loss: thin people are good people and I know I’m not good? Is it why I’ve always expected perfection from myself and been miserably disappointed because I’m so far from perfect?

This week I felt like I was watching myself, a rather dissociative experience. I thought more about my outbursts and my shutdowns. One of the things that really frustrates me is my clumsy klutziness. I hurry and rush everything I do. And I try to do too many things at once: I try to open to many things, carry too many things, put too much on my schedule. Too much too fast always results in something dropped, broken, lost, or missed. I remember being told in CPE that I focused on the end rather than the process. No one would describe me as deliberate or methodical. Sometimes I appear slow, but that’s just procrastination coming from my fear of doing something because I know I can’t do it perfectly.

Writing that paragraph made me smile, laugh at myself. I wear a ring on my left middle finger. I bought it at least five years ago. The ring is three turtles. Why turtles? When life crashed for me in 2001, I did some research on spiritual totems. I was drawn to the turtle. I just went back and read up again on the turtle totem (http://www.sayahda.com/cyc5.html). I think I’m a turtle who wishes it was more of a tortoise—but I doubt they really do that.

Tortoise or turtle, the focus is on focus. I wear the turtle ring to remind me to focus, to slow down. Those are two things that I find very difficult because I have ADD. I have always rushed: through tests, through cleaning, through books. The downside to rushing is a lack of depth and understanding and also things left broken and disrupted. Now pair lack of care and focus with no depth perception and if you can even imagine it you might come close to the frustration I live with daily.

This week as I was gathering everything up to head out the door to work, I paused long enough to think about how ridiculous I must have looked. Where and why did I get the idea that I had to operate at 90mph and act as if it all had to be done at once? I try to carry everything all at once. Somewhere I got the idea that life is a balancing act—and I don’t have any ability to balance. It’s as if Life is like one of those circus performers who can walk across a tight rope balancing everything but the kitchen sink, but I’m from the clown troupe.

Now, I know I’m not a clown 100% of the time, but I need to do more to focus. I also need to work on my issues of shame and anger. The good thing is, I know that it will be a process, a journey of sorts. And I’m really ready for a change!