This week, I will be speaking at a networking event at my undergraduate alma mater, Judson College (now University). On Friday night, I will receive a distinguished alumnus award. Upon learning that I will be afforded the opportunity to give a short acceptance speech, I began to reflect on my time there, and on my life since. I don’t know how much of that reflection will find its way into a short series of remarks this week, but, as usual, I conclude that if writing and sharing them might provide encouragement or perspective to someone, then I ought to do it. When I arrived at Judson, I was a mess, and I didn’t even know it. Like many college students, coming to terms with my life up to that time, independent of the circumstances that shaped it, confronted me almost immediately. For me, this meant contemplating my father’s suicide and how that affected me, my family, and our relationships. In short, I spent my freshman year and the first semester of my sophomore year under the water of the tidal wave that hit me. I spent a lot of time alone—going for walks in the middle of the night, listening to music, writing bad poems—visiting some of the darkest places I have ever been, trying to understand, trying to make sense of things that don’t make sense, trying to learn how to abide with grief instead of converting it to what by then had become the ease and comfort of anger. But though I spent a lot of time alone, I did not remain there. I have always been the kind of person who can be alone in a room full of people. But I could not persist in that—people surrounded me, supported me, loved me, expected me to be somebody. Even if they didn’t understand it all or see everything that was happening, they knew enough and saw enough to extend a hand, and those hands, collected, ensured I did not drown. I did not accomplish this. Other people did it for me. I had to journey through it, and that sojourn required something of me, but I could not have done that alone. I would have drowned. I would have given in to anger. I would have become something unrecognizable from the person you know me to be. I would have chosen this, because it was easier than pain. I cannot tell you how many times everything in my being seemed to say, “Just this once. Put all of this to one side. Compartmentalize. Don’t hold it back. Stop going to these places of weakness and need. Rise up. Be against. Use anger.” I have lived with that temptation almost every day since. It is no different than addiction or any other way to avoid pain or some other undesirable thing. The only difference is that in my pain, I would not hurt myself, but others. I am not ashamed to admit it, because if you have ever benefitted from our acquaintance in any way, it is because this force has been redeemed through community, through people who could not see their way to allowing one among them to drown. These same people had faith in me and saw things in me that I did not realize. They gave me responsibility and expected me to live up to it. They loved me and gave me grace when I let them down. They saw a future that, in short, I could not see because of my past. I look good on paper. I have experienced things and accomplished things that other people find admirable or desirable. These, too, I did not manage on my own. In fact, the trajectory my life has enjoyed has had little to do with me. I merely walked through doors that were open. I was intentional in that I kept walking and kept seeking doors, but I did not expect, much less predict, how my life has unfolded in the years since my undergraduate experience. I have been convinced for some time now that it must be this way, for had it transpired otherwise I might have been persuaded that I was the chief architect of whatever good has come from my life. Moreover, I might have pursued that good for my own ends and my own sake, rather than accepting the life I have been given with surprise and wonder, a posture I strive now to maintain, and to extend what means or strength I have to serve others. I can do this because I have received this. I can do this because I have stood, for all my life, on the shoulders of others who saw fit to extend means and strength to me. If I have done anything distinguished, worthy of note or recognition, it has been borne on those many shoulders, and motivated by resembling them in some way. If I am recognized, then my pride is to be among those whose help and example I have cherished. If, in my turn, I am like them for another, then they have accomplished yet one more thing in and through me, and I shall return again to thanks and aspiration.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Sep 2014 02:16:09 +0000
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