“But what if that story isn’t true?” His intensely curious tone didn’t do much to soften the impact of the direct assault on my… well, my whole identity really. I was eighteen years old.
Just graduated from a religious high school.
Recently moved out of my childhood home
but still close to my family.
Newly engaged to a young man
whose faith had attracted me first.
Accepted into a religious university and the honors program
that didn’t have a proper warning label on it.
Already wondering if I’d made a terrible decision
after the first week of more reading than I’d done in my
entire high school career and now
this new experience called the “Socratic Method”
with a facilitator and my peers.
To be fair, when this same man—the director of said honors program and facilitator asking the question—had interviewed me months before to be sure I was a fit, he had mentioned that the whole point of this classical training approach was to “help you make your faith your own”—not simply the one constructed by your parents, teachers, preachers, etc. Yeah, a proper warning label would have been something more like:
“Only enter if you are willing to let go of
what you think you know
(and who you think you are)
in search for Truth.”
It was the first time in my whole life that anyone had questioned THE STORY. Damn. I can still feel it viscerally twenty-five-plus years later.
Lungs empty.
Stomach queasy.
Heart racing.
Legs numb.
Intuitively and even physically, I knew that everything was about to change.
And all I wanted to do was RUN.
But like a good little dissociative, I was frozen to my chair rather than fleeing or fighting. (It’s funny how I can be grateful for such a deep trauma response all these years later.)
Thank God I didn’t run.
What ensued were an excruciating four years of LEARNING and LETTING GO, as I learned what it meant to be a critical thinker, an honest intellectual, and a persuasive writer AND consequently lost my primary connection with my family, my friends, and my fiancé.
***
I’ve been thinking about this moment (and several more like it in the last twenty-five years) as I’ve been watching various news feeds and friends on social media react to the political and social events of the last month. Don’t you just want to RUN?
Or perhaps you’re suddenly ready to FIGHT?
Or maybe, like me on that fateful day all those years ago, you’re FROZEN?
We’re right here, friends...
Some of our core stories are being challenged right now:
- Leaders and Leadership- Information and Sources- Procedures and Systems- Rights and ResponsibilitiesBut it’s not just a challenge to our personal narratives around “America” and what it means to be an “American” or "global citizen"...
I believe our personal stories about us are also in question:
- What do I believe real leadership should look/feel/act like?
- Which sources of information can I trust?
- What is my responsibility and role in all of this?
- What can I possibly do to make a difference?
Problem is, we all know that in order to answer those questions honestly, we have to be at least willing to let go of what we think we know (and who we think we are) in search for the Truth... and maybe more.
I believe we're being called to make our stories our own, and some of us will pay for that Truth in connection and intimacy and belonging in families, workplaces, and communities where the Truth is not pursued.
And yet, I can't recall a single Truth
that didn't actually set me (and those I love)
Free in the most important way.
Even though the pathway there
HURT like HELL.
If you haven’t unsubscribed by now, I hope you'll stay tuned for the next entry in which I’ll share what I learned about digging for Truth in the honors program and navigating the inevitable sacrifices with a little more grace in all of my learning and letting go opportunities since.
