Projection

There is a popular and fairly tame psychological phenomenon I have become intimately acquainted with in the last few days. Many have different names for it, ways of describing it, or remedies. Authors and thinkers have all take it in stride and the notion has filtered down into informal word bombs of avoidance when used peer on peer. Projection.

The real meaning on the concept has become somewhat lost as it has been bandied about, most recognized in its more infamous use between two arguing parties as someone tries to gain the upper hand by using a logical term in an illogical situation, “Oh, you’re just projecting!” The perfection of this usage can only truly be appreciated when it followed with “I know you are but what am I?!”
When all is said and done though, the tool of understanding projection has come in fairly handy in the last few days for me. That is when I am honest enough to admit it.

I was listening to a sermon by one of my favorite speakers regarding the Sermon on the Mount. The sermon centered on the beatitude of peacemakers. He made a point of calling out what seemed to be a large discrepancy, at least to me, in certain concepts of Jesus’ teachings. In one breath He calls everyone to peacemaking, and in the next He’s using the hubris of hating father and mother and swords dividing family and speaking of persecution. It begs for more exegesis, which I got.

The speaker was talking about coming to peace within your own life, your own story, your own experience; sounds cliché, until you start putting the ideas into practice. He started with a very simple statement, whatever you have a hardest time with in others, is most likely what you struggle with internally. Learning to come to grips with those things is not as easy as we would like to believe. It’s Paul’s lament in different terms: I do what I don’t want to do and don’t do what I do want to do. Two different laws battling it out within each of us. Swords, fighting, internal discord, external insecurity… it all seems to be flowing together and finally, something makes sense in the madness.

This, of course, is all in hindsight, or maybe it’s foresight before I knew it. Huh. Either way, the concept buried itself in my head and has been making its way back to the surface, slowly, albeit, painfully. All of the sudden, my actions, attitudes, feelings, thoughts have become magnified in gargantuan proportions. I find myself struggling to do what is right, only to literally spew something different into the atmosphere. As though the internal dialogue stops short just before my tongue. Damn it. The frustration of wanting so badly to be the person I see outlined in my head and then repeating the same patterns over and over again is an exercise in testing the veracity of the resurrection. Seriously? I need some help here.

Lately though, it seems to be over the top. Worse in so many ways. I can’t tell if it is just because I a finally noticing, or because the wounds have been uncovered now and I am actually overacting. It’s so hard to tell when everyone around you is already riddled with their own sense of deep defensiveness. It’s the blind leading the blind over a cliff, on purpose.

I digress, or divert, whichever you prefer. What is truly driving me? What beliefs, what thoughts, what rules, regulations and patterns? Are they internal messages, external, or just social imperatives? On a more specific level, why do I feel so responsible for the wellbeing of certain people surrounding me, but then swing to wanting to watch their demise so quickly? And who’s pulling the strings?

I have two nephews. I love them dearly. Sometimes I look at them and I think, “I could be happy not having children, just knowing I get to pass on to them whatever I have to give.” I love spending time with them and my heart literally breaks when they are hurting. I want them to have everything I didn’t, so I do everything I can to give them what I wish I’d had.

But that’s the saintly side of me. That’s the side we want everyone to see. There is a darker side and just as powerful (or maybe more). They were born when I was young, and subsequently, my world changed. I had always fought for my place in my family. I was always the baby and no matter what, at least I was the youngest and cutest.

Then, at thirteen, on the cusp of anger and resentment born of learning to walk on your own, my two sweet nephews stumbled onto the picture… and out I went. The little space I carved out for myself was lost, and so was I. My jealousy grew as it typically would. I assumed caretaker role, and spent a good chunk of nights waking up with them when my sister decided to wear earplugs so she could get some sleep.
Flash forward 14 years later. I’m haunted by feeling 13 years old, watching myself act like a spoiled brat, yet finally having the brain development to be able to actually see when I’m acting like a brat. Damn. Stuck between a hard spot and a rock. I am the walking conundrum of love and resentment and it sucks ass.

What does any of this have to do with projection? The only reason I actually saw any of this was because I started to see in myself the very things I say I hate the most; criticism of them, judgmental attitudes, ideas of superiority and defensiveness in gigantic arrays of spectacular narcissism. It was one instance where there was a discrepancy between my thoughts and my feelings. My past dictating my present and drawing a very large question mark over my future. I was becoming the system that had eaten me alive.

My heart broke as I realized I was projecting on everyone else the very internal dialogue, unrest and discord that was going on within me. The harsh, ugly things I had to say to others, the venom that flowed forth so easily, the pain I could easily cause and lash out with, it was all a reflection of what I is happening under my surface.

It wasn’t just the bad things either. I project pain onto people that isn’t there. Feelings of unworthiness, shame or rejection. I see shadows in people’s eyes that are only mirrors of my own, and I rush to bandage wounds that aren’t there. Ultimately, I’m trying to rescue myself, and ironically, it’s only making it worse.

These are the moments when hope gets tired. I look back at hurdles I’ve crossed, lessons I’ve learned, things I’ve done, and I realize, the road is so long and I’m scared to walk it. I’m frightened of what I will do, say, or be next, that is really just a poor reflection of who I am, and it will only makes things worse again. I’m scared of what rock will get turned over, what ugly thing will pop to the surface, what terrible criticism I will have for myself later. This is when I am most desperate for a practical salvation. This is when I need the Gospel the most. I know I am poor in spirit, with nothing of value to offer, I am no peacemaker, and I have spoken raca so many times. I wonder if there is any grace left for me, any shred of joy to find and I am bedraggled, exhausted, frustrated, guilty, ashamed, and wearing burdens far to heavy for my shoulders to carry.

And even more ironically, I’m almost grateful. There is just the tiniest sliver of release as I stop fighting and running from these truths and sit down on the path and say a gentle “Fuck it.” This is me. I’m all sorts of messed up, insecure, insane, unworthy, shameful, ugly and exhausted. My powerlessness overwhelms me and finally wrestles what little control I thought away and I’m sort of glad to see it go. But I’m also glad I put up the fight, because I’m tired of holding it all together. I’d rather someone else be responsible for a while. I’m not God, but I hate that sometimes, I think I am and right now, it feels good to know I’m the least of these.

Someday things will get better. I’ll learn how to forgive myself, to stop criticizing and maybe, stop criticizing others. I’ll stop judging myself and get off the roller-coaster and hopefully, stop judging others. I’ll let every last bit go, and find the peace of His life take over more and more, a little at a time. For now, I’m going to go home, put on some TV, condition my hair and work out, knowing how juvenile, self-absorbed and silly it is. I’ll ignore calls from my family in hopes of finding some peace, I’ll put guilt on the shelf for a moment and indulge in a cookie, pack my suitcase and head off to a weekend of sightseeing and champagne in Seattle.

And then, before I go to bed, I’ll download another set of sermons from my favorite speaker and hold my breath as I listen to the most beautiful words I have ever heard, the red letters of peace, and I’ll pray they become more true than a wounded past. And for now, that will be enough.

Merry Christmas

The perspective of counter cultural is usually saved for 1960 hippies living in the Haight Ashbury, celebrating hash and shrooms. Words have baggage. They always have, they always will, but, I wonder, what would happen if the pictures that seem to drag behind the phrases, switched? Or maybe just morphed slightly.

On Christmas, what we celebrate as the birth of Jesus, something picks up a bit of irony in the air. The story goes a King born in a stable of a virgin. So beautiful in it's double meanings, immaculate conception in the dirty straw of muck. How sweet. And perfect for our current screenplays. Tradition hangs in the air, Norman Rockwellian pictures of middle class suburban life equalling nirvana. Simple beginnings parallel the blue collar tradition, or even the need of a sinner.

We forget though. This virgin, she would have been labeled a whore. Everyone could have done the math. Who would have believed she hadn't gotten her freak on with someone? Besides, the word of a woman, in those times, was worth about as much as the word of the Inquirer. For the rest of her life, she and everyone around her would have had the stigma of a woman that just couldn't keep her skirt down. Including Jesus, later, as a bastard child. Even if Joseph took him in, Joseph would have been seen as the cuckolded man, kind but stupid. And thus begins the Christmas story.

Jesus grew up in a hick town, as far as we know, with no higher education, and when he finally came on the scene, past middle age. He was 30 when His ministry began. The average age of death was 40. His disciples ranged in age from teens to mid 20's. He would have been scene as a little beyond His peak, if you know what I mean. Let me put this in different terms, we say 40 is the new 30, but to them, that's like saying 20 was the new 10. Ah, just as life is beginning. He was old. And he had no wife. Weird.

He preached a gospel in a time of violence, of non-violence. When bread was in short supply, he ate with tax collectors. He made time for anyone and everyone. Women paid His bills. He spoke a message, not caring who or what it challenged. He constantly moved outside of the realm of predictable, frustrating those that life was about clear paths and should's and should nots.

He specifically moved in ways that were enough to be understood, while putting common thought to shame. He took everything to the next level, asking for deeper, stronger, more intimate understanding. He called for more, knowing the path would be narrow, but wanting everyone to find it, to find life. Real life. He shed the illusions that held everything in place and proved you didn't need someone to define your life, other than Him. It was revolutionary. It was the ultimate counter culture.

And we celebrate it... in culture.

But to, what was the most revolutionary thing He ever did, He moved within the system and revolutionized it. He never let it break Him, instead, He broke it. Never someone so comfortable in His own skin, the skin of a stigma'd whore, deemed incompetent by the educational system, His family struggling with who and what He was, I can't imagine what He went through, for all of His life. Never understood, never truly accepted, outside the system, and yet subject to it, in a few short years He changed the world.

Movies about Rudy, Juno, About a Boy, these are the depictions we credit with showing the underdog, the mediocre finding exception, but the greatest story of all time, we forget the power of.

My family drives me nuts. I mean that literally. They have perspectives of me that I find myself playing to, no matter how wrong they are. Damn. I hear the words of those that I loved and found no need to stay, echoing through an empty chamber in my heart, inciting a need to prove them wrong, igniting a deep sense of defensiveness. I find myself feeling so uncomfortable being me, since so many told me it wasn't good enough. I want to get out, of here, myself and everything, to push back, to scream, to fight, to make it different, and then I realize I can't and I wonder what I ever really amount to. It scares the hell out of me.

And I forget, the story of the Christ, that is. I forget that there was a One that came from a place and time that should have amounted to nothing, a nobody, a mist in the wind. I'm sure, He was a nobody, to everyone, before He was an anybody, to anyone. The son of a whore, the half brother to the legitimate, the backwoods hick that started a career too late. Thank God.

He literally broke every norm, every prediction, every typicality. And on Christmas, the real meaning hits me. Yes, it's the birth of the Christ, and it's the saving of the world, but what does that really matter if it doesn't mean something for each of us right now, right in this moment? I am the product of my environment, but that doesn't matter, does it? The miracle is here and now. I am not over, and neither was He. His miracle was how amazing He was in the midst of the unamazing. He was a miracle as much in His life, as He was in His death and resurrection.

I want to follow that guy. I want to follow Him. My example is not a Rudy, or some figment on an imagination, but instead a man that truly changed the world. He lived a life counter cultural, fighting the systems of family, friends, city and state, and He won. Amen, Merry Christmas.

Fight. That. Out.

It's always the way it is, isn't it? When some things start to make sense, others keep unraveling. Somedays I wake up, look around and feel as though I have been tricked for the last 27 years. Everything I thought was real, if pushed slightly hard, the propped background crumble. But I had bought it, and now that it's all crumbling, I'm liberated, angry, sad, confused, scared, full of a restlessness I can't name and a frustration that usually comes out in the form of yelling out the cuss words during a Mumford's and Son's song in the car.

Exiting the system isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Oh, side note, the "church" conveniently forgets to tell you that "not being of the world", really means not settling for the status quo.

Funny story, so it dawned on me today, there is a deep and abiding irony to my life. I was raised to conform. I mean, we all are. "Fitting in" becomes the manipulative ploy of life to keep everyone set in certain boundaries. Where this started, or who keeps perpetuating it is neither here nor there (though I do think often about what deep need within larger systems exists for the cultural norms to be as suffocating and binding as they are), what matters is, being apart of something is a desire each individual is born with. Powerful messages enter and tell us how to gain this illusive acceptance within the places, spaces and people we are born into. Home, school, city, state, church, country, etc. We define ourselves and others. All fine and good, but here's the thing, it's just like Scripture says, we are born with eternity and the finite we exist in doesn't satisfy, so we go searching. Some find, some die trying and some settle. Those that find try to bring others, those that die trying, well they die, and those that settle, well, I'm convinced they are jealous of those that have found, or are still searching, but instead, do everything they can to tell everyone else why they should stop looking, or why they have the answer, or why they are right and someone else is wrong, or why it doesn't really matter. I think this is the worst of all the scenarios. Because this is where the lie begins.

So anyways, in my situation, I encountered this volatile gospel at a young age. I was intrigued by the big promises and awakened to a sense that there was something that brought everything together. It spoke of deep love, mysterious hope and things that were true and yet I didn't know why. But the people that were talking about this God, this Man, these words that were "powerful" lived lives of false smiles, pretty faces, thin bodies and working hard. The best student, smartest, funniest and prettiest always got ahead. They said they were brought a gospel of freedom, but they seemed so bound, their words were hope, but their actions were despair and fear. Small worlds, small minds and smaller hearts. I spent years trying to understand Scripture through their terms, their explanations, their definitions. Questions weren't allowed, horizons were pursued, their message overall seemed to be "settle." Stop fighting, just "trust."

Here's where the irony kicked in, all I wanted to do was fit in. I twisted, squeezed, maneuvered, struggled. My emotional and mental development looked like an attempt to pull on a pair skinny jeans fresh out of the dryer after a night of binge cookie dough eating. It would fit for a moment, but eventually that damn button would pop. When I fell in love with someone that was in the thick of that culture, those people, that place, that church.... I felt accepted for once. Finally, I was validated. And then, those damn jeans ripped from crotch to crack. Fuck.

As I shed the past, the ways, the things I thought I needed, like new booties and a Christmas party dress, and instead I pay off debt, continue to consign very expensive dresses and generally just take myself out of the race, the gospel, the real gospel becomes a powerful message. Jesus, the real man, starts to make sense, bring a sense of true hope and I find the Scriptures aren't binding, but actually they are controversial, frightening, confusing on purpose and will jack with your mind in a powerful way (like how can God telling Israel to kill every man, woman and child in a different nation, and yet say don't murder?), if you let it. The Sermon on the Mount becomes a radical call to continue to put off a world that is constraining, chained and full of bullshit. That's right, I said it, bullshit. The world will tell you that you should feel stupid for loving with all of your heart. And when I say world, I mean the very people that turn on you. The world will tell you the prettiest and most entertaining win. The students with the best answers in class, the ones that have it "all together" the ones that have the easiest time are the ones closest to God. And that was just high school. "Blessed" becomes a word to strive for, humility a term to beat someone over the head with, righteousness, a weapon of mass destruction.

So I was rejected. I was rejected by the world. That's right. All I wanted was to be apart of the world, and it rejected me. Seriously? An explosive gospel that had somehow gotten in my soul, kept me off balance enough to not settle, but the only path to finding God I knew, was through the one the church had given me, but the church was nothing more than the world, with a cross around it's neck. The ways they showed only led to more confusion, more frustration and eventually, took me in a full circle back to the same questions, places and angers. Honesty takes a backseat to pretty pictures. They would rather have a "sinless life" than an honest one, and somehow, I think having one without the other, is impossible. Now, I'm finding the gospel in the one way the world and the church tells you to never take: failure.

Party too hard, spend too much, get arrested for peeing in public... just whatever you do, be honest. With yourself and God. Search for life, whether it is in a concert hall listening to an amazing band, rock climbing in the alps, reading first editions in the Cambridge library, protesting the 1%, or earning your millions. Fight for life, your life, for truth, for more. There is no fear in love, and if you have fear, you have not been perfected in love. You may find yourself in thousands of dollars in debt, waking up the next morning with a massive hangover, trying to remember the name of the person lying next to you, but eventually, if you are honest, you will realize where life is, and where it isn't. And the crazy thing? God will meet you.

What are we so afraid? What are we so afraid of? I don't regret a dollar a spent, or stupid thing I have done. You know what I do deeply regret? The years I spent in denial, trying to conform to a world (or a church), that would seek to strip me of any sense of angst and frustration. I regret time. I grieve for the years I spent believing the lies that I had to do things like everyone else, that I didn't fit and never would, that because I wanted more, there was something wrong with me. I regret trusting people that didn't trust themselves, or know themselves. I hate that believed their lines of BS that there was something wrong with me when I called out there double-sided beliefs. I regret not testing everything that people told me was "truth", but mostly, with to the bottom of my heart, what grieves me in a sort of wound that bleeds everyday, I regret believing I needed to settle. I'm 27 and every stupid after school special only now makes sense.

I haven't found my answers yet, but I know one thing for sure, I have found I'm comfortable searching for the answers. I don't want to know, but I do want to fight for the truth, through anything. And I will keep making mistakes as I search for His gospel everyday, but one thing is for sure, God won't associate Himself with that which isn't life, vitality, truth and eternal. So if you are struggling, leave whatever it is you are doing, and try something else, anything else. Stop reading a devotional everyday, pick the paper, the latest People, or better yet, a book on the opposite end of the spectrum as you. Challenge yourself, your perspective, your life. Then take those questions and if they don't fit with what you know of God, start asking more questions. And, when you do read Scripture, there is something that doesn't make sense, don't stop asking why not until you have your answer. And when your pastor doesn't have a good enough answer, don't stop there. He is not the last authority.

Fight. That. Out.

Food for thought: What does the abundant life really look like? Can it be defined more than "peace, joy and love"?

Pressure

Most of my life has been spent under pressure. Whether it was false or real doesn’t really matter. As I have started to wake up, to life, possibility, reality, whatever you want to call it, I have begun looking at myself and my responses in different ways.

Rather than action being easily deemed good or bad, a statement of grace has found its way in and I find myself becoming less defensive, at least with the voices in my head. That, in turn, has led to me being able to look critically at myself, my emotions and my reactions as something to understand, rather than change immediately. If I start a step backwards from the place of judgment and criticism, and instead, accept that I am going to be all the things I hate at any given moment, accept it and seek to give myself the space and permission to be whatever I am, I am much less anxious.

And since nothing is ever complete without an example…

I happen to be pretty sensitive. What? Shocked? I know, it’s hard to believe… and truth be told, there are some things this sensitivity breeds that I like about myself. I’m attuned to people, their needs. If I were in their position, what would I want? A shoulder, a word of encouragement? Or maybe it’s just the presence. I love people and a good sense of sensitivity can be a great tool. On the flip side, it can bring some seriously high maintenance tendencies. I’m defensive, I over react, I’m passive aggressive at times. I have high expectations that bite me in the ass every damn day. It can get ugly quickly.

So the best place to see that happen, work. I have about 25 women and 8 men that work in my office. It’s a vortex of cattiness and cliques. Since cliques and I have never gotten along, I find myself on the outside of the more than I would like to admit. It brings the childishness in me to a head more often than not. Good lord, do we ever leave high school? Apparently not. And rather than rise above, I dive right in with the best of them.

The good news is, I can joke about it. I don’t like it, but I also am starting to see myself as cohesive self, good bad, yin and yang BS. I’m doing the best I can. When I find myself struggling with making plans with people in front of others that have rejected me, I know it’s stupid and so ugly, but I also know it’s stupid enough to not get tripped up on. I do it, laugh at myself, feel stupid, and then move on. If someone points out something about me that has been an insecurity of mine, no matter what their intention is and I become defensive, instead of becoming defensive about being defensive, I appreciate where I have been and how the things I have been through have taught me to be defensive, relax knowing I will be immature and childish, probably forever, and let it go.

In a world where the pressure to be perfect, be it in looks, attitude, career or religion, embracing my imperfection has been some of the most freeing things I have experienced. If I stop caring about what whether or not people love me, knowing I will be fine either way, if I am imperfect with people, I can let go knowing I am fine either way. For most of my life that story has been change, mold, become what they want you to be so you don’t lose their love. Now, it is, either accept me, or not, but this is what I am. I’m ridiculous sometimes, over the top, and maybe I do need to be taken in small doses, but hey, I live life. I do like things on a ten. I like my music loud, my nights long and busy, my mornings late, my weekends jam packed with anything and everything I can get my hands on. I read ten books at a time, have 50 projects started and some never finished, I bite off way more than I can chew, and I never, ever give anything less than 100% to everything I do.
And for once, I’ve stopped making excuses, justifying, or explaining myself. I am what I am. What you see is what you get.

Even better? I’ve stopped expecting any less from others. They are mean, they are selfish sometimes. People are sensitive, defensive and manipulative for all the reasons I have been. I have a choice about whether or not I see myself as the catalyst. Sometimes I am, sometimes I’m not, oh well, but I’m still here, and so are they. I will love because there is no other choice, if I want to live in freedom. Loving myself and others in all the stupidity that we bring to the table. They may be mean and passive aggressive, but so am. I can always choose to laugh and let go, even if they do judge me.

And the cycle continues that I don’t always do that well. I get hurt all the time, then I have to remember the grace, give it to myself, see it from God, and then the grace I give others isn’t grace, it’s just acceptance of life. It’s just belief in the infinite good of God, the heart of life and the up and down that I fall into and out of every moment. Sometimes I think we make grace more than it is, in a sense that it is so desperate. I guess I see it as less desperate, but more intrinsic. Grace isn’t difficult to give out when you have accepted your own need for it, and then laughed at yourself.

I’m learning. We all are. I get it wrong so much. I can’t even count the stupid things I have done today, but I’ve stopped seeing a line in the sand between the stupid and “smart” things. Instead I see it all as life. That is grace. That is mercy. There is no scale, no balancing game, grace and life absorbs what we think are the successes and failures and just passes the time on. Here it is, then it’s gone. It stops holding imperfection against itself, and instead expects nothing less.

There are millions of really nice people out there. There are millions of really intense people. But I am the unique expression of some story God is telling, the good and bad. The anger, the joy, the fear, the courage, they are all a part of His plan, His goodness, His understanding and purpose in my creation. And that, of all things, takes the pressure off.