Recently, I facilitated a retreat for the first time. The sponsors and the attendees were all such kind people (and constructive in their critiques; I hadn’t prepared enough content, and a couple pointed that out). I’m told they all also were complimentary about my willingness to share information about my journey away from and back to the Catholic Church.
And I’ve been thinking about that feedback ever since. In fact, I had lengthy discussions about it with four women I trust and respect–two Catholic, two who attend non-denominational churches.
You see, there are some things in my life about which I am totally transparent. I mean, my Chapter 13 bankruptcy and my repayment of $109,332 in credit card debt from when I married is public record, as is the fact that I’m divorced after a twenty-two-year marriage. Some of the challenges and God moments I had in my return to the Church are pretty much public knowledge as well; I sometimes blog about them here or in Your Daily Tripod. I also have included that information in witnesses, and sold a memoir about the experience to Liguori, which after the book was edited and designed got cold feet and backed out of the project.
I’ve also written about that fact that my father was an alcoholic and a paranoid schizophrenic who lived on the streets for a while and had his case against forced medication heard by the South Dakota Supreme Court.
But then there are the things I don’t generally share with people. And I’m not going to share them here either. Some of them involve other people. Some of them are stupid things I’ve done. God’s forgiven me, and I’ve done my best to learn from those mistakes and not repeat them.
But I find myself wondering about the comments my trusted friends made. Does no one live a totally transparent life? Is it a good thing not to put everything out there, because you then put others in the role of enabler or therapist or God? At some point, will even the dark places be in the light, either because I choose to share them or they come out in some other way?
It’s something I plan to keep chewing on through Easter Sunday, and possibly beyond.
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Interesting… I’ve not really thought about it, although it does bring to mind my feeling, as a small boy shortly after my grandmother’s death, that I always had to be good because Grandma was watching me from heaven and would know if I was bad. I wasn’t worried about God watching me, or Santa, for that matter; I didn’t want to disappoint Grandma!
In going through my parents’ effects, I’ve had on more than one occasion that little apprehension upon opening another box, another drawer: Would this be one that contained some sort of secret, some sort of embarrassment that one or the other of my parents wanted no one to know about? In fact, there have been none–although finding the fabled Plain Brown Envelope in the bottom of a drawer in my mother’s dresser caused me a momentary pause. It contained The Preg-O-Meter, a kind of circular slide rule by which Catholic women were to determine when they were most and least fertile. Whew.
However, it must be said that had I found anything untoward among my parents’ effects, I would not share them with you, and certainly not here. We all have those corners of our lives, our personalities, that we would just as soon not look at ourselves, let alone have others look at–especially others whom we love and respect and whose respect we crave. My parents would be entitled to that measure of privacy, had they needed it. I have no reason to think that a loving and benevolent God would not respect our desire for opacity in some areas of our lives.
Wow, I hadn’t even thought about that… about finding out about your parents’ secret lives. When we were kids, Maureen and I once were legitimately looking for something in Dad’s dresser drawer and found photos of dead Japanese from World War II. To the best of my recollection, we never asked him about them. I suppose that was the right thing… but sometimes, I wish we had. He never talked about his time in combat, and may not have even if we asked.
I think transparency is really an attitude, e.g. I will share with you what I think and feel without worrying about what you’ll think about me. I think you and I are pretty transparent with each other, but I didn’t know (or had forgotten) that your dad once lived on the street. We don’t hang out together enough for me to know all about you, but I know you. That’s different. Transparency also isn’t self centered, so when people are vomiting their lives into my lap, they aren’t being transparent, they’re using me as a toilet. Transparency takes a lot of courage and discernment.