If
our home has a basement, attic, garage, or other storage, it’s probably a good
bet that there are boxes that we haven’t looked in for years. It usually takes
a major event to get us to clean out those boxes we haven’t opened in a long
time.
I
think our lives and memories can be a little like this. We may have memories of
events that we’d prefer to keep unopened in that dusty box in the basement of
our mind. This happened to me recently and quite unexpectedly.
My
9th grade daughter is in the marching band and practice has just begun.
She is the youngest and the first of our 3 children to be in band. On a recent
evening as I waited for practice to end, I watched the marching band. It was a
beautiful evening. But I was overcome with sudden and inexplicable anxiety and
anger. The rational side of my fact based, law school trained mind, suppressed
my urge to start the car and burn rubber to escape. My clinical pastoral
education from seminary kicked in to start asking myself why I felt this way. When
my daughter got in the car I was calm, and I asked her about her day. But on
the inside, my anxiety and anger were turbulent.
I
spent a lot of time that evening going through the basement of my mind to
figure out what was going on. Finally, a memory came up, one that I hadn’t
thought of for 37 years. I had forgotten, perhaps on purpose, that during my
first year of high school marching band I was the victim of hazing. On an out
of town band trip, juniors and seniors hogtied me, dragged me down to the
nearby river and threatened to throw me in. I’m a great swimmer, but not when
I’m hogtied. I didn’t say anything to those in charge on the trip for fear of
retribution and my shame. When I returned home, I told my parents, but neither
my parents nor the school did anything. And the hazing didn’t end there either.
The
curious thing about keeping events like these in the basement of our mind is
that they don’t stay there. They can manifest themselves in unusual ways. For
example, even though I like football, I now have insight as to why, when my son
played high school football, that I felt uncomfortable at the games. Eventually I wouldn’t go. At the time I
couldn’t explain it to my annoyed wife because I didn’t understand it myself.
But the marching band and the high school football atmosphere were too much.
A
popular quote from Fredrich Nietzsche is, “what doesn’t kill you makes you
stronger.” But I don’t believe it. Consider what the experts say: “…but the bulk of psychological research on the topic shows that, as a
rule, if you are stronger after hardship, it is probably despite, not
because of the hardship. The school of hard knocks does little more than knock
you down, hard. Nietzschian--and country song--wisdom notwithstanding, we are
not stronger in the broken places. What doesn't kill us in fact makes us
weaker.” Noam Schpancer, Ph.D., 8/21/10 Psychology
Today.
Instead
of Nietzsche, I prefer what the psalmist tells us: “Bless the Lord, O my soul,
and do not forget all the Lord’s benefits – who forgives all your iniquity, who
heals all our diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with
steadfast love and mercy...” Psalm 103:2-5.
I
suspect that we have all been damaged or injured in one way or another. The
psalmist reminds us to not forget that the Lord can heal us, and that the Lord
can redeem our life from the pit or even from the basement of our lives. But
it’s not “presto-chango” and everything is fine. It takes some work on our
part. It take some recognition of how past injuries may be playing out even
today. It may even take opening some of those dusty boxes and letting the light
of day shine in.
Peace
be with you,
The
Reverend Brent Owens+
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