very raw days
There are very few times I've viscerally experienced a sense of worth, the kind Donna Hicks talks about in her work on dignity, the kind in which you know yourself as priceless and irreplaceable, not because of anything you've done, but simply because you exist. I know this is in part because we live in a world of binaries (masculine/feminine) and hierarchies where one binary (masculine) is granted more value than the other (feminine). But I don't think that's the only reason. I think it's also because I locate myself a lot more often in William James' "me" more than his "I." Hicks describes James' "me" as constantly seeking external validation and feeling wary of others because they might withhold it. I know that when I'm still and quiet at the end of the day, the question I often hear myself ask is, "Did I get enough done?" That might sound like a pragmatic question related to to-do lists and not crossing enough items off the list, but I know it goes deeper than that. I always seem to be waiting to feel ok, and my measuring stick seems to be work, as if one day, I will do enough and then I will magically feel good, you know, like, good-good, like valuable, like worthwhile.
But there was this one time where that external validation craving got overridden. I had gone to see Pastor Jim, one of several confidantes I had turned to as my eighteen-year partnership unraveled and finally ended in divorce. While some people don't like how difficult his office is to find, how deeply squirreled away it is in the depths of the Chapel, I've always appreciated the den-like quality. Even the shape of the room feels somehow organic. At least, in my mind's eye, I don't recall lines and corners; I recall curves.
I can't remember what drew me to his office that day. My memory overlays it with the time that Jim talked me through the steps of forgiveness and reconciliation and encouraged me not to rush what was, in fact, a process requiring time. You see, I wanted to do something--of course! I wanted to take control by exerting my will. I wanted to feel worthy again. But Jim insisted this would be a process that would work on me.
And then, and I think not just because he's a pastor, but because he knew what I was really after, he stopped and said, "You know, you, Allison Schuette, are a child of God, and no one can take that away from you. God made you, and there's no one like you, and you are loved, just because, end of story."
It sounds cheesy and generic now, the ending of a Disney, day-time special, which means that I haven't written the moment well yet. Because there was nothing cheesy in the moment. Jim's words were profound, like they'd never been uttered before. And maybe, even though I grew up in a very religious family, they had never been uttered to me before, or not uttered in way that the speaker meant them, no strings attached, no hidden qualifiers. I sat there, on Jim's awesomely retro-modern, red leather couch, journal open, pen at my side, and for the slightest second everything stopped, or rather nothing stopped but everything that was going opened up into a stillness. I sat there and I blinked. And suddenly I was blinking back tears, which was kind of silly because I'd gotten awfully used to crying in public, since nearly everything made me cry in those very raw days.