We are only as sick as our secrets

Secrets have been on my mind for the past year, ever since my mother revealed a secret she had been keeping for almost fifty years—which sparked my own awareness of a secret I had been keeping even longer.

Since then, I seem to be very aware of others’ secrets and how often people shade the truth or tell half-truths to frame things in a different light.

For example, I recently attended a talk about Etty Hillesum, a woman who lived in Amsterdam during World War II. The speaker talked of Etty’s affair with her professor but failed to mention that Etty had had an abortion. I wondered why. Etty wrote about the abortion; it was not a secret, yet this person recalling Etty’s life left out this detail.

Was she trying to protect Etty by not talking about the abortion? Did she have feelings of shame around abortion that led her to omit it? This presentation was at a Catholic retreat center, and I wondered if the setting and the audience prompted this omission. But why did she include the details of the affair? It was all a mystery to me.  

Secrets abound in the British detective tv shows I watch. Often, some secret is being kept which is key to solving the mystery.  “Why didn’t you tell us?” the detective asks in exasperation when the secret finally comes out. The detective doesn’t care that the grandfather had a child with the maid or that the mother had a wild past or that the children have squandered their inheritance. The detective just wants the facts and not an edited version of history.

It seems that we can be our own worst judges when it comes to our secrets, believing that the worst will happen if our secrets are revealed.

The truth is that we are the same people we were before our secrets were revealed, and those who love us will continue to love us once they know our secrets.

People may be surprised or even shocked to learn of some traumatic event in our past. They may have to adjust their image of us. They may review the relationship in light of new information, but if they really love us, they will get over their shock and adjust their image. They will remember that we are the same person we were before they knew our secrets.

I have always been open about being a rape survivor, but not everyone in my life knows about it, mostly because it does not come up in everyday conversation and because I have moved around a lot. The “getting to know you” phase of new friendships don’t usually include talk of rape or other traumas, so while my history is not a secret for me, it usually doesn’t come up until a relationship is established.

My goal is to have nothing to fear, nothing to prove and nothing to hide. I desire to live transparently, holding nothing back and keeping no secrets.

Transform me

Transform in me,

judgmentalism into compassion,

insecurity into confidence,

fear into trust and

anger into acceptance.

Then I will be free to

love unconditionally,

forgive without limit and

let go of all that holds me back.

Or is it that if I love unconditionally,

forgive without limit and

let go of all that holds me back,

judgmentalism will be transformed into compassion,

insecurity into confidence,

fear into trust and

anger into acceptance?

Live radically

Planted in my heart early in life was a desire to live the Gospel as the early Christians had, to live in community and share my possessions. This early Christian way of life was different from what I saw around me, radically different.

For a few years after college, I was affiliated with a congregation of Catholic Sisters, thinking I might become a nun. But when I decided not to enter the community, I was unsure what was next for me.

At the time, I was working for a small nonprofit, matching volunteers with people who have developmental disabilities for one-to-one advocacy relationships. It was important work that had a big impact on the people who were involved, but it did not feel radical enough for me.

Living in community as the early church had (or as a nun might) shaped not just work hours, but every hour of the day, and I wanted that—for my life to be wholly lived for God, to have God be the number one priority in my life. I wanted to invest every day in my God relationship and to be submerged in the spiritual, like a fish in the ocean.

During my garden year, I was continually led to pray with Matthew 25:31-46, the Final Judgment, and I gained greater clarity about how Jesus inhabits vulnerable people so that what we do for “the least” is what we do for Jesus. I remember replacing the word “for” with “to,” and seeing Jesus as the person who is hungry, thirsty, naked, ill, a stranger and imprisoned. “I am doing this (or not) to Jesus,” I would say.

That realization affected how I interacted with every vulnerable person. If I walked by a homeless person without at least saying hello, I knew I was bypassing Jesus, being rude and unfriendly. If I let an opportunity pass to visit someone in hospital or another institution, I knew I was neglecting Jesus, and I imagined Jesus tsk-tsking at me for my lack of concern.

It was not just some poor person I was neglecting; it was Jesus himself; I was deliberately choosing to ignore Jesus.

After a year of discernment as to how to live Matthew 25 in the most radical way, I moved to a l’Arche community, which seemed pretty radical. Then, perhaps even more radical, I lived and worked with Mennonites.

And what I learned from four years of trying to live some radical way of life was that no one way of life is more radical than another and no one way is better. I had left everything familiar only to discover that the outer structure of my life had very little to do with my interior spiritual journey.

It turned out that the nonprofit work I had been doing was radical enough.

I realized that what helped me live the Gospel most radically was to make God my priority and to spend time in prayer every day; and I could do that anywhere.

The gift of retreat

“What do you do all day?” several people asked before I left for my week-long, silent retreat. These were Christians who regularly attend church. There were asking out of curiosity; none of them had ever gone on a retreat.

All of them had gone away for other kinds of events—camping weekends or workshops related to a hobby—dedicated time spent on something they love. So why not retreats? Why not dedicate an extended time to God?

I asked my spiritual director about this during my recent retreat.

She suggested people may have a harsh image of God, so the idea of spending an extended time with God might not be appealing.

My first retreat was in my early twenties. A man at work invited me to go on a retreat because he could see I was serious about my faith (I attended daily Mass and weekly Bible study, taught Sunday School, etc.).

I balked at the idea. Like those who were curious about my retreat, I found it difficult to imagine what I would do for a whole weekend.

I expressed my reservations to him, and he explained how the weekend would go. It was a structured retreat with talks and small-group sharing.

The word “sharing” was the kiss of death; I did not share!

My hesitancy about going on this retreat became outright resistance. Thanks, but no thanks.

My issue was not a negative image of God, but a negative image of myself, so talking about the ways I had let God down had no appeal.

This guy was persistent, though, and I finally caved in and agreed to go. My reluctance must have been obvious, because he insisted on driving me to the retreat. It was as if he had been reading my thoughts: “I will go, stay for the opening prayer and dinner, and then bolt.”

Beyond the sharing thing, I also feared I would have little in common with the others at this all-women’s retreat and that they would judge me. I was divorced, and in Catholic circles in the 1970’s, that was uncommon enough, but a divorced woman on retreat! I imagined lots of tsk-tsks.

But I allowed him to pick me up and drive me to the retreat center.

I learned a lot that weekend—about God, myself and the other people on that retreat. I found the women to be helpful and supportive—not judgmental. They seemed genuinely interested in me and my well-being, and no one tried to force me to share more than I was comfortable sharing.

I also learned that God provides—although most of the women were married, there was one other single woman, and we immediately connected.

In the end, I was glad I overcame my fears and went.

It was a few years before I went on another retreat, but when I did, it was with anticipation instead of resistance. And then I started going every year.

As with any relationship, spending quality time with God is a gift.

The truth will set you free

The House of Mirrors at the Michigan State Fair fascinated me as a child. I loved how the slightest movement could cause great distortion. I could go from tall and skinny to short and fat with just one step.

In a way, these distortions reflected my everyday life, which could shift from peaceful to chaotic in a moment. Except, I was not the one creating the chaos; I just had to live in it and learn to keep silent about it.

So I lived on two planes—my interior life, where I knew the truth of my life, and my outer life where I pretended not to.

Of course, holding tight to secrets caused me a great deal of anxiety and shame. I worried that someone would realize I was a fraud—that the life I projected outwardly was nothing like the life I actually lived.

I felt trapped within walls of lies and deceptions.

I have had more than one conversation with Jesus about how knowing the truth would set me free (John 8:32), because that was not my experience. I knew the truth, and I was not free.

Only recently have I come to understand that I need one more step to be free—I need to speak my truth in order to be truly free.I have been experimenting with speaking my truth through this blog, continually revealing more and more of who I am and what I have experienced. It has been very freeing and has given me the confidence to continue to reveal my story.

My hope is to get to a place past shame, where childhood secrets have no hold on me, where I can see myself as God sees me and accept myself without judgment. Step by step, story by story.I have also realized that it is not only traumatic events that I have kept secret. Recently, I shared a story of a Good Samaritan who helped me after a car accident. When I get to the part of the story where this man paid for my car to be towed, I am overcome with emotion and tears fill my eyes.

Why would I cry in recalling an act of great kindness? And why have I not talked about this incident before?

I think my sense of unworthiness prevented me from telling it. I kept it secret because I felt unworthy to be so richly blessed, as if someone would challenge me—who are you to be treated so well? I knew I was not worthy and so I kept quiet.

But, in truth, my whole life has been filled with great blessings, with incidents of God’s abundant love being poured out on me.

I have only recently begun to share openly the good things God has done for me and the amazing way God has cared for me, and in doing so, am undoing my negative self-image.

I want to know my truth, to speak it and to be set free.

 

 

Walking with Jesus

I once asked a friend how often she thought about God. The question came out of my admiration of her—she seemed so peaceful and holy, and I figured it must be some kind of God thing.

“Throughout the day,” she said, and then she told me about her practice of intentionally bringing God into situations in her everyday life.

“How often do you think about God,” she then asked me. “Not that often,” was my reply.

I wanted to be more aware of God throughout my day and decided to adopt her practice of intentionality. I quickly realized that I needed to adapt the practice a bit. I am a very visual person, so it was easier for me to imagine Jesus walking beside me throughout the day.

Petition and praise became the two categories into which I slotted events as each day unfolded.

A cashier at the grocery store who seemed to be having a difficult day would elicit a prayer of petition. Or a mother struggling with a tired child or my own impatience. I would turn to Jesus and ask him to help.

Someone holding the door for me, children playing happily or a kind word would bring forth a prayer of praise and gratitude.

Each person and every event took on a different hue when I turned to Jesus standing beside me and tried to look at each person or event through Jesus’ eyes and with his compassion.

Where I might have negatively judged someone who was being rude, Jesus invited me to imagine that person’s back story and consider what awful thing might have happened to make that person that way. I started to pity people who were angry or mean, reminding myself that I would not want their lives.

Judgment faded; compassion increased.When I went to work for the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, I learned of Mother Cabrini’s practice of living from the heart of Jesus. She had exchanged her heart for the heart of Jesus and saw the world through the eyes of Jesus’ heart. Even more intimate that visualizing Jesus standing beside me was visualizing my heart swapped out for Jesus’s heart.

As the days, weeks, months and years passed, the practice became more a part of life, and I found myself more aware of God.

When my mother was hospitalized last month, one of my first thoughts was, God has her. The medical people could do what they could and I can do what I can, but ultimately, I know that God is holding my mother, and that awareness brought relief and peace.

Reflecting back, I realize how much the years of practicing bringing Jesus into everyday circumstances has become a part of my life and how much more quickly I can let go of worry because I know I am not alone in any burdensome situation. Just as God has my mother, God has me and that is the safest place I can be.

Is the parade passing by?

A friend recently invited me to her community theater’s production of Hello Dolly.

I tend to avoid musicals—too unrealistic for me. All that singing and dancing in the midst of poverty and despair is not how I remember the poor people in the neighborhood where I grew up or in neighborhoods where I have lived since.

When I saw Les Miserables, I remember thinking that most of the people in the theater would probably be afraid to walk through my neighborhood, yet they seemed to enjoy watching this upbeat depiction of oppression and wretchedness.

I worry that portraying poverty and human misery so light-heartedly can assuage the guilt of those who have the power to make societal changes. (Look how happy those poor people are; singing and dancing their way through despair—why change anything?)

But, to support my friend, I decided to move against my resistance and go see Hello Dolly.

This particular community theater is no-cut, so the cast was large and included people of all ages.

I quickly got caught up in the music, costumes and pageantry of the play. It was all quite cheerful, and I found myself smiling as I searched the faces of the cast for my friend.

At some point, though, I realized the story was about Dolly’s desire to move past grieving her husband’s death.

In one scene, Dolly says to her deceased husband, Let me go. It’s been long enough.

I, too, have sometimes felt chained to my past and have pleaded to be let go. I want to be set free and move ahead, but sometimes the link to the past is so strong that it seems inescapable.

And, it isn’t always a relationship that holds me back. Sometimes (and perhaps more often) it is an unhealthy or unrealistic belief about myself—my own lack of confidence—that can keep me trapped.

When Dolly sang, I’ve decided to join the human race again before the parade passes by, I could feel the tears well up in my eyes.

Then Dolly admitted that no one else’s life is mixed up with mine, and I felt found out and exposed.

Through this upbeat, light-hearted musical, this play was speaking deep truths to my soul and inviting me to examine the current state of my life and just how free I am.

Am I open to mixing up my life with others? Or am I keeping to myself?

Am I participating in the human race? Or am I sitting on the sidelines?

Is the parade passing me by?

Grief can take on a life of its own, and great loss can make it difficult to re-enter life fully. But, I know it is possible, and Hello Dolly invited me to let go and live more fully.

Perhaps Les Miserables and other musicals portraying oppression and poverty work the same way on those who have the capacity to effect social change, exposing vulnerabilities and offering insight for transformation. Maybe I judged too harshly.

 

 

 

 

Sight

On my recent retreat, we prayed with Luke 24:13-35, the story of the two disciples walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus after Jesus was crucified. Jesus joins them on the walk, but they do not recognize him.

Early on in the retreat, one of the facilitators commented, “expectations can bind.” His words reminded me of my postings from last month about being bound and unbound. Was it expectations that bound me? Would I be unbound if I let go of my expectations?

As I pondered the Emmaus reading, it occurred to me that the disciples’ expectations may have bound them, but they also blinded them; they literally did not see that it was Jesus. Expectations can blind, I concluded.

The disciples knew Jesus had died and even though they had heard that he was risen, they had not yet reconciled with that reality. They had no expectations of meeting Jesus on the road and so they did not recognize him. Had they been expecting him, they might have recognized him.

How often is that true for me? How often do I set up expectations that limit my ability to see Jesus in others? How often do I miss the gifts being offered because I am not expecting them or because I am expecting something else?

Quite often, I fear.

When I met with my spiritual director a few weeks ago, I shared my ponderings about being bound and unbound. I talked about how I not only wanted to be unbound, but I want to leap into freedom. She suggested I focus my daily Examen on when I leap and when I fail to leap.

I began to note in my journal when I took risks and when I hesitated. Each time I hesitated, I tried to discern what held me back.

On retreat, leaping and not leaping were still on my mind, so the phrase expectations can bind resonated with me. I reviewed my journal, looking more closely at entries about not leaping, and I could see that my reluctance to leap was connected to a fear of being judged.

If I had been the person Jesus appeared to, I wonder if I would have recognized him and run to tell the other disciples that Jesus was alive. Even if I had recognized Jesus, I don’t think I would have shared it because I would have feared others’ disbelief. “Why would Jesus appear to you?” I can imagine them asking, their question dripping with disdain and disbelief.

My expectations of being judged do bind and blind me.

“Were not our hearts burning within us…?” (Luke 24:32) ask the disciples once they realize it had been Jesus walking with them. I pray for the grace to act when my heart is burning within me, to push against my fears and let go of expectations so that my eyes can be open to see Jesus walking beside me and all the gifts God is offering.