jesus at 12

jesus at 12


i opened the door for him and his dad, introduced myself and shook the dad's hand, and offered my hand to him, as well...his dad, shyly, looking down, said "hi, i'm walt...this is my son, zane"..."hi walt and cain", i respond..."no", the boy says firmly, "my name is zane, not cain", and he grabs my hand and shakes it firmly...i am embarrassed and apologize and think to myself that i like this small boy, so assertive...so small for his age...i was told he was 12 years old, yet he looks, like, 8...wearing a big baseball cap pulled down over his eyes, a huge over-sized sweatshirt makes him almost disappear...and he wears boots, cowboy boots, like his dad...

i was pestered to see these folks, sort of...a colleague kept asking me to consult with them, assess their need for family counseling...and i kept resisting...me putting them into a stereotype of the dad new into his recovery process as an alcoholic...not my favorite cup of tea...kind of cynical, i am, about some folks in recovery...not proud of my cynicism, just aware and tired of seeing good intentions and lots of promises go awry...

"so", i wondered aloud, "would either of you like a cup of hot tea?", and walt says "no, thanks", but zane says "sure, i would like some", and i offer zane the many choices of tea from the basket...i smile at him...i do like this little guy...he grabs a cup and i pour the steaming water...he puts sugar into the brew and stirs...i even start liking zane's dad...i watch walt, he is smiling at his son, in a kind of quiet, proud way...

"well, welcome..." i say to them, "andrew said he thought it would be a good idea for you all to visit with me?" "yeah", walt says, "but i don't know if we need to...i have been seeing andrew for quite a few months and feel like i got myself straightened out...it has been hard, but, i'm better"...he continues to describe some of his journey, though without being very specific...i don't push...i don't need to hear his whole story, maybe don't want to...andrew does a great job and this consult is to see what this dad and son may need in the here and now...i look at zane...he is tense, i think...

"zane?", i ask, "what has this been like for you? sounds like you and your dad have been through a lot?" he has just gulped some tea and sits the cup down...he is silent...then the tears well up in his eyes...unabashedly, he weeps, cries out-loud, spills his heart...i am taken aback, he does not know me...yet, he is suddenly describing what the last four years have been like for him...without stopping his crying, he describes how, time and time again, he came home from school hoping to have supper, but finding, instead, his dad drunk and asleep in the big chair, having not done anything all day...he says he counted the beer cans on the floor surrounding his father..."i kept trying to wake him up to fix supper...but he wouldn't move, i couldn't wake him up! so, i would just heat something up in the microwave or i would cook for myself"...(what?! i think, this little boy has had to do this?) i look at walt, he has tears, too..."walt? have you heard zane's story before? is this true?" (i catch myself, what a stupid question, i think) "yes", walt says, "this is true"...zane grabs more tissue and says he is so tired..."have you ever had a chance to tell anyone this before, zane?", i ask. "no, just my dad"...it is silent in the room...i am a mix of sorrow for this child, mad at his dad, sorry for his dad...i imagine the times this happened, seeing the scenes, feeling the lonely desperation of this little, vulnerable child fending for himself...time and time again...

zane's mom died four years before...a fast striking cancer, she died a few months after the diagnosis...zane was 8, maybe the year he physically quit growing...then, a grand-dad died...then, walt lost the ranch and they moved to another, less profitable one...zane's best friend moved...walt found a new romance but then got jilted...alcohol became his deepest, bestest, most reliable friend...and zane...no one for him...his dad is a good guy...through blurry, foggy, beer-stained efforts, walt loved his son while walt died inside of all these losses...and zane was losing even more...his daddy, like he lost his mommy, his friend, his grand-dad, his home...his age...

walt tells how he couldn't, wouldn't stop drinking...how he did the chores drunk, how zane learned how to do all that work and more, how responsible zane is, how zane is building his own herd of cattle, chooses one each year for the county fair and grooms, trains and proudly shows his stock...how zane tried to be so well behaved to not worry his dad...how zane leaped from 8 to 18 to take care of his world, to make his daddy happy so he wouldn't need to drink anymore...on and on, zane, who looks like 8, acts like 18, goes on...until, one day walt got arrested and then he had to face his losses, his illness, his sedated grief...

treatment does work...when the treated one works...the pain does not go away, it becomes felt, maybe understood, not denied, not avoided, but felt...and purged of its poison so the wounds may heal...

and zane should be 8, then 9, then 10, then 11, then 12, never to be 18 until he is...i feel my daddyness, my yearning for this child who knows so much, too much...i see his daddy repent and falter, then repent again to gain strength to be the man and daddy he needs to be...how to face his losses? how to face himself, alone? how to make a world, out of scars and pain and callouses, a world that is good, that works, not perfectly or ideally, but works, with meaning and love and safty and health? how to do that? yes, how to do that?

zane is waiting.

this son, this zane, who has so much courage and fiestiness and wisdom beyond his years, astonished me that day...wisdom, and age, born of pain.

"...and when he was twelve years old...the boy jesus stayed behind...his parents did not know it...they sought him among their kinfolk and acquaintances...they did not find him...after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers and experts, listening...asking them questions...and all who heard him were amazed ...and when his parents saw him they were astonished..." (luke 2)

******

the howling of the soul

the howling of the soul...

...always, it seems, as the wyoming winter wind whips across the prairie, i am drawn to wonder about her...i wonder how she is...what she ended up doing...did she heal...enough?

i remember, one day in a session...she was so quiet, emotionally frozen...weeping softly...it seemed that any movement i did could startle her beyond repair...in her silence, i thought of a scripture story...a jesus story, one that today, eludes me as i am writing...something about gentle compassion, i am sure...something about the yearning and healing of a soul....

so, i quietly say, "i am going to move to my bookshelf...get my new testament and read you a story"...in whispering movements, i walk across the room and take my favorite, wrinkled paperback new testament and let the pages fall open to this now forgotten story...i remember reading to her...wanting her to just stay still and know...what? that she is more than the anguish she feels...that she is accepted just as she feels...that someone, maybe me, maybe jesus, maybe herself most of all, will accept her wounded, yearning soul to become alive again...

that is how she described herself, not alive, but dead...in her self...

and, now in this writing, right now, i suddenly remember the jesus story!!

the story that i was called to read to her! lazarus...the dead guy that jesus rose from the dead, that jesus cried about because, it seems, jesus was a good friend of lazarus, maybe even a cousin, i hear...and, the story goes, that when jesus heard about his friend dying, jesus wept...that's all...

just wept,

simple, painful, beautiful tears...

jesus wept...

"the shortest verse in the bible", we were taught in sunday school...

of course, as the scripture story goes, it does not end here, or there...that jesus broke the rules of life and death...that jesus went to the tomb, perhaps crying...sobbing...

jesus bellows, howling from his soul, his grief...

"lazarus, come here!!"

...and the folks around, family and friends, yelled back, "no! he stinketh! for he has been dead three days!"...and it did not matter...

the rules of death, and the rules of family and friends did not matter...

lazarus came forth, from the howling voice of a loving friend and cousin...

"unwrap him!" jesus yelled...for he was all wrapped up, as a mummy...

unable to freely move...breathe...live...

one deep winter night when she could not sleep, when, even in indiana where she lived, the wind blew fierce through the forests and across the farmlands...she wrote in her journal, "i can't sleep...all i can hear is the howling of the wind...and it feels like my soul...the howling of my soul..."

haunting, haunting...and that was near twenty years ago...

and the howling of the wind blows across this january land...bringing wonders and prayers for her and for all who know what it is like to die and come back again...

before i left indiana to come here to this prairie, she had renamed herself...yes, gave herself a new name...a new life from her tomb...she created a new family, new friends, new rules to live by...she called herself (and this is not her full new name, for her privacy and identity are preserved)

"free"...

yes, free...

and to her, i bow...

Life and Therapy in a Small Town

Life and Therapy in a Small Town

(January 4, 2009)

"Well I was born in a small town

And I live in a small town

Prob'ly die in a small town

Oh, those small communities"

(" Small Town" by John Mellencamp)

and the phone rings at 3:45 am...and i am startled, of course... shocked: my god, has someone died? what has happened? who is calling? am i even awake? dread, cold fear, tightening in my chest and stomach...thick, groggy, crazy thinking...

wait! my daughter, barely 15...just left not quite an hour ago...yeah, she drives at 15, school permit here in nebraska...rural rules...we live out in the boonies, 12 miles to school and she has a "speech meet" with other students in a town 4 hours away...they have to be at the meet by 8 am, so catch her local school bus at 3:30am and the school bus driver drives these students to that far away town...

"dr fitts?", i hear a voice on the phone..."this is officer brian...from the police department..." "what? yes?" i say...fearing..."well, i was just patroling around the high school after the students left to go to their meet and saw your daughter's car and she left the headlights on...i tried to reach in and turn the lights off, but the car is locked...wanted to let you know so you could come in if you wanted and turn them off before the battery died..."

oh my...relief! "officer, thank you...i thought something bad had happened...no problem...(i am laughing, goofy, giddy a bit) i will just let it be...i will be in later and jump it...thanks so much!"...

headlights...crisis of the night...small places where people bump into each other...the goods and bads of small town living...

so, i am driving a hundred miles from my home, in the beautiful sandhills of this land, enjoying the warm spring afternoon and i stop at a tiny village along highway 2...get a pop, maybe a piece of homemade pie at the cafe...i settle in at the counter and the waitress smiles and says "hi dr. fitts!" and i am taken back...oh my, i do recognize her...a client from several years ago...we laugh and she says she and her husband are doing well, along with a new baby! and i feel happy and amazed at this little gift...and the door opens and, honest, a delivery man walks in with supplies for the store and he says "hi royce!" and it is john, from another far away town, working on his saturday route, a client now, and that is the way it is...no pretense, just normal small town stuff...a hundred miles from home...

and i have friends in rhode island who laugh at how "everything is always compared to how small" their state is and i think of the vastness of this western prairie and make a silly joke to my self that this small town, this region that acts like a small town, is 14 times the size of rhode island! and it is still just a "small town"...spread across hundreds of miles...

and, another time, my old chevy van that i insisted on keeping, broke down in town at a restaurant and i left it overnight, deciding i would get it to the mechanic the next day...except he calls me a few hours later and says "hey doc, saw your van downtown and figured it had broken down again, so i just towed it in to the shop...wanted you to know"...

therapy is to be confidential, private...so it is common for clients to sometimes ask to see me in a different office, not in their particular town, but in one of my other offices in another town, even if that means a two hour drive...ok, good idea...and, one day, in my main office, i had just finished a session with a person from another town...she steps out into the waiting room and sees a person, also from even a different town (i had three separate offices then)...she stops and says, "are you...?" and the other person says "yes?" and then they remember that they are long lost friends from high school and hug and laugh and become life long best friends from that day on!

i can't even write most of the other stories because, well, it is about us! and we know each other and therapy is as private as can be...

and johnnie cougar mellencamp is so very right...

small is, not painless, beautiful...

freeze! (the wisdom of a dream)

well, i had a dream a couple of weeks ago, she said, and it probably doesn't mean anything...but it really disturbed me...

she is new to the dream group...she gave a bit of background of who she is...a long journey of difficult sobriety, fighting to avoid relapses, mostly succeeding, for years at a time, recently falling back, and now re-claiming her health...she has the determined mix of many recovering folks...seasoned with the struggles of life, scared by family history, sometimes overwhelmed by how to deal with the enormous strains of changing old patterns, how to healthfully detach from generational family expectations and demands...and still do her best to love them...without losing her soul and health....she's also very humble...sometimes giving and claiming for herself grace and acceptance...

i am with my family somewhere, she begins her dream...all of my brothers and family are there, other people, too...we are at some large, beautiful home, like an estate...lots of trees and grass...it is night...i think we have had a cookout or something...i am uncomfortable with some of the people, like a brother...i am walking toward a large beautiful swimming pool behind the house...suddenly! i see my mother fall into the pool, she is drowning...i think i scream for help...one of my brothers yells at me to jump into the pool to save her...he is up on a balcony, looking down...he is far up...i can't move!! i am frozen! then my brother leaps down, dives into the pool and pulls my mother out...everybody shames me and is angry with me for not jumping in...but i couldn't...i couldn't move...i wake up feeling so guilty...

we ask questions to gently understand her dream, not analyze or interpret...she is, she explains, the one who has been the giver and caretaker of others, that she in recent months had been the one to travel over a thousand miles to give care to her aged and dying mother...and how this "threw" her into that old pattern of being expected to take over...to lose herself, her soul in caring for others...while "they", many family members just stood by...taking advantage of her...she, torn by love, loyalty and past training, giving in, at least for a while...fighting to not get lost and finally relapsing, overwhelmed...now promising herself, with anger and clarity to never give in again...

so, as we, this group of dreamers, borrowed her dream, owned it for ourselves and explored our own journeys through her journey...feeling the terror and guilt of freezing in the face of death...began to become aware of how we, too, can get lost in the needs of others...how we get trained, programed to rescue others in such a way that we will drown in their needs, losing our soul...drowning ourselves in our own version of alcoholic sorrow...

i remembered out loud about the instinctual wisdom of the beautiful, sleek african gazelle...who survives the african prairie, survives the hunt of the fastest animal alive, the cheetah, by first, of all things...freezing...forcing the cheetah to blow her quiet stalking cover, to make the first move, not able to hide and kill... the cheetah is forced to run...exposing her stalking strategy...and the gazelle, now seeing where the danger is...explodes, darts, zig-zags...running its marathon of obstacle courses, tiring the cheetea...escaping...because, first...the gazelle knows to freeze...

freeze in your tracks!

all senses hyper-alert...the old pattern says "jump!"...

but, instinctual...wisdom...learned from scars...over seasons of seasoning...says...

freeze!

the blessing of nothingness, a meditation...

four years she has been coming to therapy...and over that time i have seen a remarkable, yet slow process of change...she's certainly not flashy with drama or exuberance, but, always consistent...

today she says, " i want to talk about what i believe...like i am not sure anymore...i am not even sure i believe in god, or what i used to think was god, anyway"...

so, i think, what now? where, oh where is she going?

years back she had met a guy who promised he knew god...personally...and he would show her how to live, how to pray, what to believe...and god told him she should marry him and they should move out to oregon and live there...she believed him...they moved and the voices he heard became dangerous...he imprisoned her in this oppressive, poverty-stricken, god-fearing life...she, never strong in her life in knowing how to make healthy decisions about school or partners or friends or thinking for herself, fell apart...a long-standing, never diagnosed mental illness exploded and she almost died...was hospitalized, thank god...and found her way back to wyoming, big sky country, to get some help, to heal...

shy, so shy she was, unbelievably shy...and medicated, lethargic, not much energy to even speak...yet, she did speak, slowly, slowly, ever slowly...putting her therapist to sleep sometimes, but always there, always, slowly unraveling her story...she got different meds, began to think more clearly, began to smile sometimes, tease a bit, said no to a job that didn't fit, began to actually speak to her neighbors...even began to challenge some folks about their intrusions into her and her neighbor's lives...

she joined my dream work and spirituality group, was there for a couple of years, then dropped out...too shy, i think, too intrusive in her tender mind...but she kept unfolding in her own quiet way...then, she commented one day, "you remember when you did the meditations in our dream group? when you said, 'imagine, if you are able to believe in god, that god just wants to be with you, to just be with you, to not ask for anything or to want to talk or to want to change you or to pray or to do anything...', do you remember that?" yes, i said..."well, i liked that...i felt peaceful, comforted...and now when i watch those TV preachers, i don't believe them anymore, not like i used to..."

so we explored, slowly, this new place of faith/no faith...of how she is comfortable today in the not knowing...how not knowing is not a place of fear, but a place to explore...a place to find her own knowing, to live with her questions, and answers, if she can find any...a safe, secure place of not knowing...

she peacefully smiles and then leaves...

cry wolf! (exploring a night-time dream)

so, what is it you need to explore, to talk about today? i ask as we both settle in over tea in my consulting room...she seems blunt, almost angry, eyes fierce...at me? i insecurely wonder, silently to myself, of course, hiding behind my doctor's degree...it couldn't be about me, could it? i am the therapist, sorta good, sometimes, i think, i hope...a client angry at me? anchor yourself, i say to me in my head...oh yeah, it is her session, i silently remember...she's offering a sacred projection...

then she blurts out: i want to be able to live without always having to have a man in my life!...oh my, it is about me, sorta, cause i am a man and she hired me, a man, to help her live without a man! oh, the necessary twists and turns of deep psychotherapy...she's brave to say this, certainly desperate...and angry, very angry, which she needs to be for the battle to save her soul...we reflect on previous sessions...how this has been her major theme, her goal...

you want to be able to live without always needing a man? especially the kind of man that you have often had...who end up being losers ( i am kinda blunt, too)...and you end up hurting and disappointed...yes, she firmly states...and we are silent for a while...

somehow, somewhere in this space of wondering...i ask if she has remembered any dreams...well, yes, just the other night i had one...it was stupid and weird...i was with my nephew (she deeply loves her troubled teenage nephew and often is the only adult in his life who truly "sees" him)...and we were in this house and we were looking out the window and we see a wolf running across the pasture toward our house and it kills our dog, rips it, and then it just runs off, back across the pasture...then my nephew and i are suddenly in a camper somewhere, camping in the mountains...we are with a person from work, a friend of mine who is always funny...and my nephew and i are getting ready to go to denver to the airport to take a trip...and that's it...that's the dream!

is this one dream? i wonder, or, as often happens, as dreams get jumbled together in our waking world, is this two separate dreams? no, it is the same dream, she says firmly and with a smile...h-h-h-m-m-m, weird, i agree...

i reflect and project...sometimes wild animals in dreams are about our wild untamed side...and domestic animals are about, well, our domestic side (i'm so brilliantly obvious)...do you dream about wolves often, about animals? no, never...see how weird it was, she says...and this wolf just rips, kills your dog?...and just runs off? yep...

i'm thinking/projecting/wondering...and the camper in the mountains... and going on a trip...this dream is so seemingly disconnected...and yet it has come to you to help you...wild...angry...killing...domestic...camping...do you go camping in waking life? no, never...well, i would sometimes if i was involved with a man and he wanted to...

ohhh, if he wanted to...

we keep reflecting... the word "adventure" comes to me in a kind of weird, pre-concsious way... why?... and what is it about this seemingly cruel wolf killing her dog and just running off? why would a wolf kill a dog?...

how do you have adventure, you know, have fun? well, i don't...i just work and go home, sometimes i go out with my girl friends, never go out alone...i'd go on some trips if the man i was with wanted to, but i'd never go alone...

wow! you never would go on a trip alone? without a man?

no.

so, you want to live your life without always needing a man? and this untamed wild, independent wolf side of you comes and kills your tame, dependent domestic side?

and, when the domestic, dependent side is killed, you are suddenly on a camping adventure with people you love and admire...you are free to take a trip, to fly away...without a man...

h-h-m-mm, nuff said.

button, button, who's got the button?

she's quite and gentle, almost unassuming, as she slowly describes moments of her early childhood...she silently weeps as she remembers the loneliness of being youngest child in a large family...living on a dairy farm in a region of the country that is not known for its dairy farms, an oddity in itself...but the little farm made it, day after day, gallon after gallon...and she, along with her sisters and mom and dad worked hard as only dairy folks know...the farm wasn't her family's, it was rented...her family living on this land, working the cattle, struggling to make any profit for the owner and for her family was difficult... poverty, always just one sick cow away...but, what she remembers most is not the hard work or the hot summer days or the 4am milking in the dead of winter...she remembers being so lonely...the family rules, you know...the unwritten, unspoken rules in the air we breathe...more powerful than any stone-carved commandment...thou shalt not reveal deep feelings of your soul...keep quiet, thou shalt not weep...never let anyone see your pain...do not be real...you will be humiliated by your sisters, criticized, tormented...and scolded by your mother...lonely, normal, secret pain...except, her father...not there very often, always working somewhere...but, he delighted in her, his youngest child...always giving her a tiny bit of special attention...a smile, a private moment, a bit of protection from the harsh elements of the air around her, from the constant ridicule of her older ones...she misses him most...and in the world of unspoken rules, she could never tell him and he could never ask why this little quiet one was so quiet...

she remembers being so little and curious...poverty meant few clothes, fewer toys...isolation...so, she found ways to play...so curious and inventive...that old jar of buttons mom always kept to use to do the obvious repair of third-hand clothing...her tiny hands lifting the large jar, spilling out the buttons on the floor...gazing, studying, touching, spreading the buttons...making a world of friends, button friends...and they visited with each other...the red ones, the grey ones, the white ones...they looked like families, some all alike, some big, some little...some broken, some chipped...so fun!...buttons to swirl and spin...and to talk to...yes, to talk to...like friends, family, secret family...and there was one...one button...a different kind of button than all the rest...an odd shaped button...like me, she thought...and odd button...feeling different, out of place, set apart, alone, odd...holding the odd-shaped button, fingering its shape, grasping, knowing what it feels...

can odd be re-formed into lovely? can odd be trans-formed into unique? can different be admired? can a button be a mirror of a soul?

button, button, who's got the button...?