Minnie the Mirror
I would be remiss if I didn’t first wish you all a happy St. Patrick’s Day! My Irish lineage would not stand for such neglect. It actually works well with this post today because St. Patrick’s Day, a day originally set aside to celebrate the evangelization of Ireland by St. Patrick in the 5th century, has now become a day of partying and general drunkenness. Just another day with religious roots (like Mardi Gras) where we have officially given ourselves the permission to hit the pause button and let loose, trying to release the pressure from the demands of every day life. It is understandable.
We humans have an amazing survival instinct. It is our default programming that sits deep in our brain in what is called our limbic system…also known as the paleomammalian cortex. If you deconstruct that word paleo – mammal- ian you can figure out that it refers to our caveman and cavewoman brain. The basic functions of our being…emotional processing, eating, reproduction, fight or flight, etc. The parts of us that completely focus on the survival of our species. Our “lizard brain” as it is popularly called.
One of the more interesting parts of our survival instinct is the compulsion towards denial. It’s a part of the flight instinct when we feel a threat. Remember Monty Python and the Holy Grail? If you haven’t seen it, or if you haven’t seen it lately, then that is your homework tonight. In the scene when Arthur and his knights come to the dreaded Cave of Caerbannog, the home of the legendary “Black Beast of Arrrghhh” (named for the last utterance of anyone who ever saw it), the cave is guarded by an unknown monster. It turns out to be a little white bunny….that massacres any who approach. Well, when confronted with this fearsome beast Arthur and his brave knights decide it’s best to “RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!” Flight not fight. This is what we do mentally and emotionally when we turn towards denial. Instead of contend with the threat. Simply, run away! That feeling will hurt. Run away! Don’t feel that! Just stay busy, stay focused on other things. It’s an instinctive reaction.
We’re ok. (pressure building) No problem here. (pressure building) We’re fine! (pressure building) We’ve only been living out of boxes for two months while we de-mold and scrape carpet pad residue gunk off of our beautiful antique wood floors in every room, and paint every square inch of the walls in our historic house that hasn’t been updated since the dreaded wallpaper craze of the late 80s and early 90s, while suffering multiple leaks in the roof and windows. I won’t tell you how many people have asked me, “Have you ever seen the Money Pit?” YES! I have. Then, discovering we have mice because they’ve eaten the chocolate chips in the pantry. Who knew mice could be so cruel and calculating, going after the chocolate?! Those furry little jerks! And our family eating around the stove because our stools were the only places to sit down other than the floor. Tolerating contractors and painters in the kitchen for days on end. Carpet installers, roofers, etc. No big deal…just life during a renovation. We’re ok. We’re FINE!
We manage through difficult situations because it is a part of our survival. We have got to survive this. Don’t bother me with feelings. Feelings just complicate an already complicated situation, RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!
Behold the fearsome beast, Minnie.
Then…your cat starts peeing on all the beds. (pressure overload!) A tiny blonde fur-ball of a mirror reflecting back to you the fact that this has been stressful as hell! What’s wrong with you people?! How is this ok? I can’t handle it, and the only way I can let you know my displeasure and stress is by urinating where you sleep. Oh, you don’t like that? Well, I don’t like living in what feels like constant and complete chaos! All I can say (ala John McClane in Die Hard) is “Welcome to the party, pal! Wake up!” Yes, my cats quote Die Hard in my imagination because it’s awesome.
POP! Denial broken. Lizard brain quieted. We humans can bury things for quite a long time. I’m an expert at it personally. But cats, and animals in general, not so much. One of my buddies just moved as well, and his dog served as his mirror by not just peeing on his bed, but also leaving a massive poop on his pillow. It was both devastating and hilarious. But this is all part of God’s mercy in our lives, yes, mercy…to wake us up to what is really going on. To open our eyes to our own stress and discomfort. For most of my life I thought God was the main proponent of “just suck it up and keep going.” Don’t let it get to you, etc. We like to think of it as resilience or perseverance, some kind of false version of toughness. Frankly, toughness, resilience and perseverance are good, but they do not equate stoicism. Paul said very clearly in the Bible, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5). He celebrates perseverance, but it is not the result of ignoring the suffering or ignoring the pressure, it is in acknowledging it. Feeling it. Calling it what it is and admitting your need for help and comfort, needing his love to be poured into us.
God does not call us to ignore our troubles or to try to deny our pain. He is the one highlighting it, reflecting it back to us through the mirrors of our stressed-out pets and the like…so that we might have the freedom to be where we are and stop the dead-end game of trying to muscle it through. It’s ok to not be ok. Stop trying to run away from our feelings. Stop trying to numb out and stop turning to the false gods of self-sufficiency, productivity, and whatever show you’re binge-watching over that bottle of wine. He breaks our denial so that we might see our need, feel our need, and hear him once again there, in that very place, saying, “I know this is hard as hell, and I am with you in it. I am for you in it. I love you in it. You are not alone. Cast your burdens on me, and I will sustain you. I will carry you through it.” And find that all those other things we often run to pale in comparison to his word of grace for me, for you. We cannot survive without him. We cannot EXIST without him. He is the one that saves us in the midst of impossible situations and redeems them into testimonies of his faithfulness and hope.
Recommended Reading
