A beautiful thing happened to me this morning. Serendipitous. It lasted only a few minutes but seemed to balloon in time. As I was walking, I paused a moment and texted Jeremy to ask for a phone call if he had down time today. I wanted to discuss my situation at work with him because I always like to hear his advice. All of a sudden, spontaneously, music started playing on my phone. I couldn't tell where it was coming from as there was no open tab on my phone indicating its source. It was music that immediately pulled me into almost another dimension of knowing, drawing me to God. My heart rate and respiration quickened and I felt pulled forward, almost as if I needed to run forward toward what could only be Jesus. My eyes scanned the woods and I looked ahead expectantly, searching for the unseen. As the music continued to play, with tears streaming down my face, I said aloud, "Let me hear the music. Let me hear the music. Let me hear the music when I die and everything will be okay." It touched emotion in me that has no name. I really wondered if I was going to die and welcomed the thought in that moment. The music ended and I figured out that it was coming from Pandora, even though I had not opened Pandora. When I tried to get back to the song, I was unable to do it. I don't know what it was. Maybe that is as it should be, for I could not duplicate the experience. It was a gift, a peek into another world, the curtain pulled back for only a moment. For me. Drawing me into the love of God. Assuring me of His presence. Telling me that it will be okay. No matter what happens.

revelations

As I reflect on who I am through the lens of my behavior and seek to find its origin, I think about family members with whom I seem to share personality components. Grampy George, my childhood hero, was a man of substance and depth, at least in my eyes. He was emotionally sensitive, maybe even a conflicted soul, and loved fiercely. He loved nature and music and would sacrifice and fight for people and the earth with all its creatures. He also was a man of strong opinions, impatience with people, and anger and bitterness over losses and grievances. In all of this complexity, which I'm sure I only know in small bites as I observed him as a child without an adult's fuller understanding of people and situations, I recognized a thread of passion. I have seen this thread running through my mother in her strong sense of justice, her impassioned beliefs, and her love for her family, especially her grandchildren when they were young, and her great-grandchildren. As with all human qualities, these are coins with two sides.

I inherited this sensitive, passionate, impatient thread running through me, as well, but that inheritance alone did not fully form me. The crucible in which my soul was formed was a culture of performance, judgment, punishment,  guilt, and a denial of strong emotional expressions. I was nurtured in an environment that allowed for no ambiguity in issues of right and wrong and that encouraged strong moralistic teaching and confrontational interactions about behavior and life style choices. Fear was an underlying and constant presence, fear of failure and judgment. Even in early adulthood, this pattern of relating and "helping" others was enforced by Christian psychologists that I read.

So I suppose it is no surprise that my life has been marked by passion, a passion for people and causes, a passion for "getting it right" and perfection, a passion for self-sacrifice. I have never even considered that my life's purpose was anything other than service to God and people. A savior, a helper, a rescuer, a teacher, a spiritual exhorter--these have been my identities. While my passionate, sensitive nature has positive aspects which I want to embrace and accept, I am learning that my approach with others has been sorely misguided. I have strongly entrenched patterns of relating to people that, as Parker Palmer says, push the shy soul away causing it to flee to the woods. In my passion and sincere love, I have over and over "attacked" the shy souls in my life, smothering them with my words and advice, so sure that they need to hear the truth from me. After all, the book of Ephesians says to "speak the truth in love." My personality, with its direct (no beating around the bushes) tendency, is big on exhortation and helping the Spirit reveal truth to those around me, most often family members, but I've seen it also in work-related interactions. There are so many scenarios that run through my head of times in which I very directly and passionately interacted with people, passionately made my opinion known, passionately pleaded for behavior changes. I'm not saying that there are never times in which passionate pleas or exhortations are necessary; sometimes people may need to be firmly confronted about their sin or misguided thinking. However, I am learning that that is not always the case, probably usually not the case. I advise, and people don't usually need my advice. They need the safety of a listening heart, one that is patient enough to wait for them to discover the truth within themselves.

Here I am now with decades of behavior patterns that, it turns out, may have actually caused more harm than good, despite the sincerity of my heart. This is a humbling place to be. And sad. However, I also realize that my tendency is to be very dualistic in my thinking, to look at my life as a total failure because of this new knowledge. That cannot be true. I have loved deeply and given my life in sacrifice to others, and good has come of it, but if I want what is left of my life to be better, more loving, more helpful to others, I must embark on change. I repent of ineffective and even damaging ways of relating to others and commit myself to growing in building trust and loving others.

Parker Palmer, in A Hidden Wholeness, writes of circles of trust in which people do four specific things:
1.  Speak their own truth.
2.  Listen receptively to the truth of others.
3.  Ask honest, open questions instead of giving counsel.
4.  Offer the healing and empowering gifts of silence and laughter.

These are signposts for this moment in my life. New focus for my soul with regard to relationships. I'm sure it would be very helpful for me to attend a retreat featuring a circle of trust. Maybe one day I can do that. But for now, I at least have a new direction to follow. Sadly, I know it will take years of stumbling as I seek to alter the way I interact with others. This will not happen overnight, but I hope with God's help to begin a new journey of better love.

I have written this on purpose, knowing that it makes me vulnerable. Vulnerable to being fixed, dismissed, or judged when I fail. Taking that risk is part of my journey.