Sidestepping

Posted on 01/06/2011 by Jane Devin

My Mennonite neighbor Dawn exudes a manner of calm acceptance. She hugs me when I meet her, and doesn’t seem to mind when I block her attempts to talk to me about Jesus, or when I shoo her away so I can have a cigarette.

“It doesn’t bother me, really,” she says, “I kind of like the smell of smoke.” I laugh because Dawn often challenges my assumptions in gentle ways, and I like that — I like when my apprehensions turn out to be groundless. Dawn knows I’m gay; she doesn’t judge. She knows I haven’t had much success with quitting my vices; she offers only encouragement. She knows I have no interest in her religion; she just continues to be Dawn. She lets her 12 year old daughter talk to me about anything under the sun, and doesn’t feel the need to remind me what is and isn’t in the realm of their beliefs. I check my own speech out of respect, but occasionally slip with a damn or a Jesus that seemingly goes unnoticed.

Almost every day, particularly when it’s warm, I see Dawn outside. Sometimes she just walks in circles in the gravel parking lot, wearing a jean skirt, a baggy sweatshirt and a cap of lace, praying to herself or meditating on scripture. Sometimes her husband joins her and they hold hands as they go for longer walks. On sunny days, her daughter Becky rides a bicycle while her mother tests her on Psalms or history.

Becky is a girl who laughs easily and who can tell me her entire life plan in under five minutes. She wants to go to college early, get her Master’s, and become a teacher. She wants to get married at 21 and have babies. For now, though, she likes glittery toenail polish, learning to play the harp, and eating sweets. She favors M&M’s, milkshakes, and cookies, which she makes in batches for home-school credit. The last batch was oatmeal raisin. “I know you’re on a diet,” she smiles, bounding over to where I sit outside, “so I only brought you three.” She’s wearing jeans and an Abercrombie t-shirt and her smile is contagious. She reminds me of a young gazelle—grace in the making—but for now she’s all arms and legs, and completely unaware of her own beauty.

One time, she ran over to me with a big bag from Old Navy. “Forty-nine cents each!” she exclaimed. The bag was filled with summer thongs, in every color. “Pick a pair,” she said. “We got all sizes and are giving them away as gifts.” I picked a purple pair, size 9, and she seemed pleased. “I have polish to match those,” she told me. Her mother joined us and the talk turned to mountains and balloon rides, Amish cooking, and the difficulty of losing weight past a certain age.

Whenever I leave the company of Dawn and Becky, I feel happy by some trick of osmosis, and I want to dwell in the innocence surrounding me for as long as I can. Dawn is not a naïve woman—she has held crack babies and seen lives destroyed by drugs, alcohol, and other vices—but she is eternally hopeful. She was reared in sunlight and the belief that God has a purpose for everyone and everything, and that the hardest times are only tests of faith and endurance. She would quickly tell me that she is imperfect, but strives daily to make herself a better person. She walks and prays and when she falls short, she finds a teachable moment and comfort in scripture.

After a lifetime of pleading, searching, questioning, falling and standing up again, I know God is not the answer for me. I find myself in need of something concrete—something I don’t have to guess at, with motives I don’t have to wonder about or question. I have taken too many long, prayerful walks of my own, and railed too many times against an expanse of sky that has never offered more than an echo back.

I yearn for brick and mortar, bone and soul, stable and touchable miracles.

There are no such miracles on the horizon.

When I fall, as I do often these days, it feels like there should be something to lean against or hold onto, but there’s nothing there. There are only hints of where something foolishly optimistic and ultimately futile tried to exist—leaving behind stains that taunt and reprimand: Not yours, not yours, not yours, never yours. Stand up, stop crying, be tough, be strong.

Refuge, like so many things, like life, is fleeting and always temporary.

I fall to my knees and pray to the god inside of me, the one that has a history of keeping me resilient, if only with well-worn promises. Tomorrow’s another day, anything can happen, you’ve come this far, you’ll get there one way or another.

I plead to my higher self. I am overflowing, I say. There’s just been too much, too many lifetimes lived in this one, and there’s no release—no matter how many words I write or cages I invent to hold the excess. No matter how often I try to make sense of the senseless. Take some of this away, I beg, any part of it—take away the thousand triggers, the broken dreams, the failures, the endless anxiety and fears, the mind that never rests, the spirit that has been inflated and deflated so many times that it’s left sagging and vulnerable to attack, even from the blindest and most thoughtless of people.

Let me sleep. God, I need to sleep.

Eventually, I leave my impotent god in a puddle on the carpet and get up to wash my face. My Mennonite neighbors have slipped a belated holiday card under my door. Smiling pictures and a church tract reminding me that Jesus is Lord.

I find myself happy for them all over again, not only because they find solace in an untouchable savior but because they believe so strongly that all in life has a purpose and that anyone can be saved, including me.

Stand up, be tough, be strong. Make wiser choices, and wear blinders when necessary.

And when all else fails, buy a king-sized packet of M&M’s for a sweet little girl and watch her green eyes sparkle with joy.

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The Science of Being Human, Pt. 1: 40 Questions

Posted on 03/25/2009 by Jane Devin

After writing, The Invisible Jesus in Psychology, I had an idea I wanted to test. To help me do that, I invited readers to ask me any question they’d like. Nothing was off-limits. Here are the questions they asked, and my answers.

1. Do you have regrets? What is one? Do you believe that regrets have a valuable place in our life, or do they distract us from moving forward? – Danielle

I do. One of them is marrying at 19. There were years-long consequences to that, even though the marriage did not last long. Yes, I believe regrets are valuable. I think if we never regretted anything, we’d not only lack a conscience, but be more likely to repeat mistakes. I don’t see how having regrets would prevent anyone from moving forward, unless they stemmed from something long-term, such as having children or getting into a certain career, but even then we can only move forward.

2. Have you ever been attacked by cyber-bullies and how did you handle the situation? – Palestar

I have, and I didn’t handle it as well as I should have. I took it much too personally. In retrospect, I should have done more to ignore it and understood that as personal as people get on the internet, they have no way of really knowing you, or you them, on the internet.

3. If you could live your life over, choosing the location, your profession, etc., what would you change and why? – Debbie

I would have started with different parents, never left California, completed my degree, and remained a technical writer unless my literary career took off. In reality, a restless spirit, combined with some incredible hopes and a love for adventure, took me many places, some good, some not. Now that I’m older, I wish I’d managed to be a little fonder of stability in my 20′s and 30′s.

4. And for you: Pizza, steak, Mexican, or Chinese? – Laurie C.

Chinese food, steak, then Mexican food. Pizza way, way far down on the list.

5. If a person could read your tea leaves, and the tea leaves of others accurately without knowing you or them, how would you explain it? – Ann Parker

As a fluke or a set-up, because I don’t believe in such things and have seen too many other similar things, like astrology, seances and psychics, roundly debunked.

6. If you had no choice and could choose, which would you rather lose, your sight or your hearing and why? – Marcie

No doubt, my hearing. You can still “hear” people through their body language, expressions, and writing and you can “hear” things like wind and thunder through sensation…but it’s much harder to see people and things without vision.

7. What is your favorite aphorism? If you were given the choice to learn your date of death would you choose to know? Have you ever seen the movie School of Rock? – Elaine

“Highly developed spirits often encounter resistance from mediocre minds” – Einstein. This became a particular favorite this past election season. And yes definitely to #2, and yes oddly enough to #3 (I’ve seen about five movies in the last six or seven years).

8. If you could live anywhere in the world where would it be and why? – Tammie

Hawaii. It’s beautiful, warm, lush, surrounded by the ocean I love, and there are no slithering things.

9. I am a total foodie…so I need to know…what one comfort food do you turn to when you are blue? – Jeanne

Do I have to be blue? I’m a latte fanatic everyday. Chocolate is something I don’t eat often anymore, but I crave it when my energy is low. As far as a comfort meal, I’d have to go with chicken and dumpling soup.

10. Do you lust after the new Mac Airbook for just it’s beauty and style and wow factor and if so wouldn’t the new super slim Dell be just as cool, or are there other internal differences about the Macs you love? – Susan S.

I had a Mac a number of years ago and remember it as being intuitive, fairly problem free, and easy to remedy when there was problem, which has not been my experience with PC’s. I am frustrated by how long it takes to end a program that has quit working, and the number of times that happens even when the memory is nowhere near capacity. I’m frustrated by the updates that seem to almost always cause something else to quit working, and by Windows built-in preferences for its own substandard other services.

11. Why are you important? – Woodrow

I don’t feel I am in the context of self, or what I presently give to the world at large. When I was raising children whom I was solely responsible for, I felt important in the sense that other lives and futures depended on my own. My children see me as important to their lives even though they are grown and competent, and there may be others who find me important in their lives for other reasons, but I think if death was imminent, I’d be at peace knowing I’ve loved, nurtured, and given to my best capacity.

12. Do you have any true friendships with people who’s opinions regarding religion and politics strongly oppose yours? If you don’t, do you believe it’s possible? – Chris

Yes to religion and no to politics. I have among my friends a Lutheran, two Catholics and one Mormon, but none of them are staunchly, wholly conservative. I think my friends tend to take what’s best or most meaningful for them from their religion and apply it to their personal lives without expectation that others should do or feel the same. I have friends who are anti-abortion, for instance, but who wouldn’t want a law that denied abortion for others. They view religion as personal, not political. I don’t think I could be friends, or want to be, with neo-conservatives, because their beliefs are not just personal, but societal and often global. They want their beliefs, including their personal religious ones, to inform government, law, science and more.

13. What really pisses you off… makes you so mad you could scream…? – Theresa

Purposeful ignorance. Someone who is so intent on holding onto a certain belief, philosophy, or way of being that they absolutely refuse to process or understand any other information.

14. Why do you write? I know what rankles and activates you. What brings you: joy? peace? serenity? Describe your ideal Friday night. – Kate

I write for different reasons. Sometimes because I don’t understand something until I’ve laid out my thoughts and questioned them, sometimes because I’m excited, outraged, or heartbroken and sometimes, oftentimes, because I see or hear something I totally disagree with and I want my perspective put out there as a balance. What brings me joy-peace-serenity isn’t an absolute unless we’re talking about the well-being of my children. Where I’m at now, I take those things wherever and as often as I can find them. My ideal any-night is being “in the zone” and writing something that I think is meaningful and that others will enjoy.

15. My question: We all have defining moments in our lives. Moments that shape us, our ideas, our writing, our outlook. Name one defining moment in your life and how it shaped you. – Corina
& When did you know you were a writer? – Sharon

This is not a lovely answer, but true. It was when my mother choked me into unconsciousness when I was in the 4th grade. It was field day at school – we were given permission to wear shorts – but my mother wouldn’t hear of it, so I put the shorts on under my dress. She had been violent before, but never that deadly. I realized my own mortality then, and on some level finally understood that my mother’s violent outbursts and hatred had to do with something other than who I was or how I behaved. After that incident, I became less of an inward child and began to write in order to find my voice.

16. Who was your biggest influence and why? – LBJ

For better or worse, my mother. The one who gives us life and then nurtures — or not — is the one who sets the foundation from which all else springs. That’s not to say that we can’t build anything we want from there, but the influence from childhood is lifelong, even if it becomes our life’s work to do everything quite the opposite way.

17. What are the things that have made your heart soar to unfathomable heights never reached before? – Tash

Three things: 1) The birth of my children – more than anything in the world. 2) Making love to someone I really loved – the second most-high experience. 3) An article I wrote that seemed to touch a lot of women, but this last one was kind of a fluke because it was something that was linked to from a celebrity site, and so it was her fans that commented. It made it difficult to know if they liked the piece on its own merits, or because she did. A famous person could start using a grocery bag for a purse, and many people would think that was cool. That doesn’t really make grocery bags cooler than they were before the celebrity started wearing them.

18. All that is left of the great artist is: A painting she has done of the cat and the cat itself. You must save one. Which will it be and why? – Laura

The cat, of course, because it is a living, feeling creature.

19. When are you gonna come for dinner and let me cook for you? Red or White…whats your fav kinda wine? – Loony

If I’m ever in that part of Canada, Shoeless Acres will be my first stop, and I’d love a glass of Cabernet Sauvignon.

20. What is your favourite curse word? – Peggi Jean

Fuck. Hands down.

21. Miracle whip or mayonnaise? – Caron

Mayonnaise, preferably homemade or organic.

22. Why are people [so willing to ] turn over the control of their lives so easily to an unknown force? – Jeff

The world can be frightening, unjust, and unforgiving. I think people seek to give “control” to an unknown force because it not only lessens their fears and anxieties, but also gives them some hope for all that the unknown force usually promises — which is usually centered around blessings, redemption, and peace. Of course, the ultimate control is always an individual’s, but a belief that one will ultimately be rewarded for being good, and others will be punished for being bad, helps many people get through their days.

23. If you had to pick a single word to guide you through the next year, what would it be and why? – Sandi

Change. Obama’s campaign slogan is also mine — I would like to make and see many changes in 2009, none of them easy or easily accessible, but I’m going to push as hard as I can to make this year really count.

24. What’s your ultimate dream/goal/fantasy as a writer–meaning what would your ideal writing life look like? – V-Grrrl

One bestselling book that will buy me a small house in a beautiful place, and the rest of my years spent writing whatever I wanted with no concern about ever needing or wanting to sell it to a publisher. I think JD Salinger did it right. Unfortunately, it’s the rare writer who can now be both published and a hermit.

25. What do you wish people knew or understood about you that they do not? – Julia

That despite everything I have known and seen, I have a deep core of innocence, and am still easily amazed, affected, and moved by even small, simple gestures, words, and situations.

26. How is the you of 5, 10 years hence going to be different to the you of today? – Karen

I likely wouldn’t be much different 5 or 10 years from now, unless one counts having additional experience as a substantial change.

27. Why is it you, and other female writers, such as Annie Proulx and Amy Bloom, start out life as wives and mothers and then change their sexual orientation? – Carol

I can only speak for myself, but I was bisexual as a child, I just didn’t have a name for my attraction to girls. There were no discussions, no role models, no people I knew who were gay. When I was a teen, I went out with boys because that’s what all the girls did. I married when I was still a teen, at 19, and it was very brief. Afterwards, grown up and on my own, I felt freer to explore my feelings and be honest with myself. I realized that while physically I could be attracted to either sex for the short-term, my long-term desires, physical and in every other way, were for women. I would not say I changed, but grew more self-aware and more comfortable with who I was.

28. Do you believe in God? – Suzanne / What defines you as Jewish? – Neil

I suspect, or want to believe, that there was some intelligent force behind the creation of life, but I also believe the science for evolution is well-proven — which is at odds with the Biblical version of God. I have problems with the great leaps of logic apparent in all the the religions of men, because I believe that any force capable of creating life would not be illogical. Outside of a few very minor species, it takes a female and a male to procreate, meaning if there were a God he would have had to have a mother. It is irrational to believe that God would be born alone from the vapors of the Universe, yet a taboo question in religion is “who created God”. I also believe that human beings have the brains that we do so that we can evolve and reach our highest potential — something that organized religion often seems to want to undermine in favor of blind faith, dogma, and tradition. I find comfort in liberal Judaism not as much for the traditions but for the spiritual, emotional, and practical aspects, such as community, service, self and global awareness, progressive beliefs, inclusion, and a strong belief in education.

29. Huge fan of food network so….you’re given zucchini, pineapples, dried dates, maple syrup, and polenta, what would you make having to use all these ingredients? – Steve

I would make a mess! I was curious, though, so I googled your combination, and discovered that I could make a breakfast polenta of sorts, although the zucchini would be a rather odd ingredient.

30. Why is the desk in the room of your own vision great and big and mahogany? – Tre

I have absolutely no idea! I may have seen something like that as a child and been impressed, but if so I don’t remember where or when. Mahogany has always been my favorite color/grain of wood.

31. What is the one piece of advice, over all others, you would give to someone who wants to be a writer? – Lucie

To try to look at the people, situations, and circumstances around them as writer — a recorder of physical, factual, emotional, and contextual detail. I think most writers begin by writing through a self-reflective lens, which helps them explore hidden parts of themselves, and find their own rhythm and voice. The evolution is in being able to look at something through multiple lenses while not losing your individual vision.

32. What do you think is the next step for feminism? Or is this as good as it gets in a patriarchy? – Callie

First, thank you for acknowledging that we still live in a patriarchal society. I’ve been stunned by how many people deny this is true, despite the continuing imbalance of power. We still live in a time when language like “the state’s first female governor…” is spoken with peculiar pride or surprise. I believe feminism, as a self-sustaining concept, was lost in the mire of several other causes it attached itself to in order to gain more supporters, build solidarity, and present itself as a stronger political force. Those other causes, such as ending racism and gaining LGBT rights, have not been as inclusive of, or outspoken about, womens’ rights as the cause of feminism was to theirs. The brightest and most passionate feminist voices seem to have slipped away to the ivory towers of academia, leaving an entire global generation with only a dim knowledge of domestic inequalities, and the horrors that millions of girls and women face around the world. The only thing feminism can do to revive itself, in my opinion, is step back in the fight. Not with more studies, not with more panels — but as they did it in the glory days — by gathering the tribe, screaming into megaphones, expressing their rage at podiums in college auditoriums, picketing in the streets and demanding to be heard. Without that kind of passion, I don’t think feminism will evolve or be revived.

33. With all that we have at our fingertips in the late-20th and 21st century I think we are lucky to live in the time we do, especially for women, but we do have a long way to go. If you could pick a time period (of the past, of course) to have lived, when would it be and why? – Shelley

I would have liked to have been born fifteen or twenty years earlier so that I could have been there when so many of the people I admire were at the peak of their expression. To hear Adrienne Rich or Gloria Steinem in person? Listen to the beat poets? To see Janis Joplin in concert or Joan Baez at a coffee shop? I would have loved that. I also would have loved to have lived in Berkeley or San Francisco then, and to have contributed something to that spectacular mix.

33. If you could produce a TV show, what would be the premise? Do you feel truly accepted? If you won the lottery, what would be the first thing you would buy for yourself? – Pat (was funny and asked 17 questions, I answered three)

1) I would like to see the return of a network Phil Donahue type show, or Oprah before she got the feel-good “discover your spirit” format. Serious issues that used to be given focused air time aren’t getting but a fraction of that now and when they do, they pile on the guests until the stories are diluted. 2) No. 3) A small, cozy house near the ocean.

34. How would your writing and life be different if the internet and blogging had never been invented? Would your writing be altered or take a different path? – Lisa

Given my minor publication history, and my lack of effort or interest in submitting work during the last few years, I can reasonably guess that without the internet my writing would be less public. I also think I would not have written on as many topical things subjects, such as current events and politics.

35. If you could have one super power what would it be? if you had one last thing to say to the world, what would it be? – Kris D.

The ability to be invisible because the possibilities in that are nearly endless. As for the last thing I’d say to the world, it would probably be a repeat of one of the first things I ever said, Why?

36. Favourite character on Happy Days? – T. Fraser

None! I really didn’t like anything about that show.

37. Do you fear death? – Nikki

No, only any pain that might lead up to death.

38. Do you possess enough rage to take a human life? – Doris

No, but I think if I needed to defend my life or the life of someone else, I wouldn’t hesitate.

39. What is your Meyers-Briggs type if you know it? – Melissa

The last time I took the test, which was about 1998, I was an INTP.

40. When you are feeling lost, and down, and depressed, and you don’t know what to do, and you can’t write, and it feels like everything is wrong everywhere in every dark depressing corner of your head … what do you read? What author do you pull off your shelf, knowing that it’s going to lift your soul? What can you read, over and over again, and just know that it’s going to inspire you, or at the very least make you laugh a little and realise that things aren’t that bad? – Tamara

It’s not a book I reach for, but cards and letters that people have given me over the years, including my daughter, who has written me beautiful notes since she could hold a pen. I’ve kept every card and letter that’s ever moved me, and when I need an infusion of sun or a way to revive my spirit, I open that box.

_ _ _

Part Two: What impressions might my answers give a group of strangers? How much might those impressions differ from the results of the personality test recently discussed on this site? Stay tuned! I also asked readers questions, and got some fascinating answers!

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The Invisible Jesus in Psychology

Posted on 03/18/2009 by Jane Devin

Universities in the “Show-Me” state of Missouri seem to like studying blogs and the characters of those who write them. Last year, the Missouri State University in Springfield asked me to participate in a student study on media ethics and the “Wild West” of the internet. Yesterday, Tal Yakoni and Dr. Simine Vazire of the Washington University in St. Louis sent me an email soliciting my participation in a personality test to help them study the link between a writer’s personality and the “content and style” of their writing.

I had my choice between a 10 minute, 100 question test or a longer 300 question version. I’m impatient, so I chose the option that took the least amount of effort. I’m pretty sure that psychology would give me a demerit for that, since its a subjective science that seems to use Jesus as a role model — and we all know that Jesus wasn’t a slacker.

As a school of thought psychology, like Jesus’s Christianity, seems to value a sense of altruism and sacrifice in its adherents. It advances a pseudo-religious creed of love for all mankind, unselfishness, and an unbridled spirit of empathy and compassion. It wants disciples who will strive to maintain a happy, positive attitude no matter how wretched or difficult a situation might be.

But are the ideals and expectations of psychology rational? Do the terms and labels employed by psychology work toward better understanding and social enlightenment, or are they simply a convenient way to exclude in some way those who don’t fit the mold?

One of the agree/disagree statements on the personality test was: “You have a good word for everybody”. This is a question meant to measure one’s level of “agreeableness” — the value an individual places on getting along with other people. The higher your score, the more “considerate, friendly, compassionate, generous, helpful, and willing to compromise” you are considered to be. In other words, you’re that much closer to Jesus.

The problem with the “good word” question is that it’s illogical. Jesus might say there’s no such thing as an illogical question, but how rational was a man who believed he could walk on water and rise from the dead? Jesus today would have been locked up or put on some heavy doses of anti-psychotic medication yet the school of psychology, perhaps unwittingly, relies on a role model very similar to Jesus to inform its beliefs on what constitutes the most positive and desirable individual traits.

As a rational person, I don’t have a good word to say about murderers, child abusers, rapists, suicide bombers, white collar thieves, war mongers, wife beaters, and baby slayers. Jesus might have felt a calling to dig into the dark souls of the wretched and pluck out a ray of light — but I don’t see the point. While it pays to understand the why and how of society’s predators so that we can work on prevention, I feel no particular compassion, empathy, or mercy towards the who that committed the crime. A person who can rape a child, beat a woman to death, kill dozens in a bombing — or who revels in the high life after stealing millions of dollars from others — does not, in my opinion, merit empathy, but disdain.

Another unqualified test statement was “You like to make people happy”. I know there are some people who might rejoice (such as neoconservatives and child abusers) if I never wrote another word, but I don’t really care about their happiness. I’m also sure it thrills my neighbor when I clean up his dog’s shit from the communal lawn, but I don’t do it to make him happy. I do it because I have a dog and don’t want the condo association to change its pet-friendly policies.

Jesus would probably clean up after the lazy neighbor as a good deed. Jesus liked to do good deeds even if they weren’t rewarded — but of course they usually were. In fabled stories, the wicked would see Jesus’s good example, have an epiphany, and fall to their knees in gratitude.

In real life, I resent picking up basketball-sized mounds of German Shepherd shit, and the only epiphany my negligent neighbor seems to have had, despite letters and conversations, is that someone else will eventually take care of the mess. I don’t delight in Sunday mornings hunched over piles of dog poop with rubber gloves, but I might feel quite differently if my neighbor was incapacitated or actually needed my help.

Like most people, I also enjoy making those I love, admire, or otherwise value happy. There’s gratification in giving to friends and family members, as well as to those whom I see as deserving but less fortunate. So do I like to make people happy? It depends on who they are and whether or not their happiness is important to me.

The test asked if I agreed or disagreed with the statement: “I am not interested in abstract ideas”. Again, it depends. I met a philosophy student once who insisted that a Pepsi can only existed because I thought it did. He did not believe that material reality could exist outside of one’s own beliefs. I wasn’t interested in his abstract (nonsensical) theory at all. Carl Sagan, though, has put out some abstract theories that are fascinating — and so did Jesus — which is what I believe is at the root of psychology’s odd mix of mysticism and studied rationales.

The “think positive” movement is a prime example of mixing magical thinking with academic study. “Think it and be it” and other reality-defiers are buoyed by massive studies that lead to such sterling conclusions as “happy people are happier”.

The feeling of happiness, despite the reality of circumstances, (think Job, think Jesus on the cross) has, in tides and trends, been sold like a mandate to the masses, and this mandate has diluted even our language — there are no obstacles, only challenges. We don’t have problems, but issues. We don’t have realities, but perceptions. What would Jesus do?

Jesus likely wouldn’t have invented electricity, the telephone, the automobile, or the MacBook Pro that I covet. While I disagree with much of the criteria that psychology professor Dean Keith Simonton used to define genius in his recent book, I agree with his general conclusion that geniuses tend to be “open to experience, introverted, (and) hostile. . .”. In other words, not very Jesus-like at all.

What label, besides “hostile”, does psychology put on those who are emotionally reactive and therefore more likely to experience “negative” feelings such as anger and frustration? Psychology calls them neurotic. The old testament God would have scored very high in this category but the softer, gentler Jesus would have scored low. According to psychology, the mythical God, creator of the world — the one who was emotionally reactive, moody, and easily irritated – would have a diminished ability to “think clearly, make decisions, and cope effectively with stress”. Jesus, by contrast, would be “calm and emotionally stable”.

If Simonton’s personality theory of genius is to be believed, then shouldn’t we be concerned with how much potential is being thwarted in classrooms when non-conforming smart children, who are easily bored and irritated, are taught a curriculum that’s geared towards the average and not the exceptional? What about adults with above-average intelligence who find themselves frustrated by slow thinkers, outdated methods, and irrational beliefs?

The Jesus-model of psychology would have everyone believe that they are special and unique — but no more special or unique than anyone else – which really gives “special” a whole new meaning, one that’ s not quite sameness, but more like same worth. To feel that you may have more intrinsic or social worth than someone else, (no matter how base, unethical, or irrational that someone might be), is considered by psychology to be arrogant, narcissistic, grandiose – even delusional. It’s just not very Jesus-like.

Jesus died on the cross for the sins of others, and didn’t whine enough about it to be considered a martyr or someone suffering from persecution complex, therefore it stands to (psychology’s) reason that people should be selfless enough to see the positives in their own adverse circumstances. It’s not what happens to you, it’s how you feel about it. You choose your own feelings. No one else and no other circumstance can dictate the way you feel — it’s a choice — so think positive.

Try to keep that in mind the next time someone slams your finger in a car door or empties your retirement account. What would Jesus do? He’d forgive, of course, and then find a way to make it a positive, life-affirming experience because, after all, happy people are happier. And happier people are just a whole lot more fun to be around than those who are always questioning reason and authority and letting themselves be bugged by facts or circumstances that are not in their milieu or immediate power to change.

Yet no change occurs in a vacuum, and every grassroots social cause begins with disgruntlement or unhappiness over a certain situation — whether or not it is our own, or even on shared soil. Positive changes, in other words, often stem from “negative” feelings and thoughts. While joy is certainly a preferred feeling for its euphoric qualities, this doesn’t lessen the validity or rationality of other emotions, such as frustration, anger, or sadness. That some people might feel these “negative” emotions more often than others might not indicate neuroses, but a heightened sense of awareness of the world outside their own front door.

Another flaw in personality tests is that questions are often asked in slightly different ways in order to measure truthfulness, but for many people, including myself, a change in wording is a change in meaning. “Do you feel that you have had more bad experiences than most other people” is, to me, a totally different question than “Do you feel that you are cursed”. One may be an arguable fact, while the other indicates a belief in the mystical concepts of blessings and curses.

The storied Jesus, while hanging on a cross, went through a range of emotions, at first blaming his father for forsaking him, then believing that he was being tortured so that others could be forgiven. I believe Jesus’s MMPI scores would have fluctuated dramatically given the day. In the end, though, it’s the feel-good story of Jesus — as a simple, self-sacrificing, loving, humble, calm, altruistic forgiver of all wrongs — that seems to inform psychology’s definition of social harmony and mental health. There is no doubt that many people, particularly the religious, find this not only acceptable but somehow perfect. After all, who wouldn’t want to be more like Jesus?

There’s a disparity between Jesus and mere mortals, though, that many seem to forget. Jesus could turn water into wine, heal the sick, stop a storm, and drive the evil spirits out of the wicked and possessed. Is it any wonder he was such a calm, affable guy? I know I’d be much less stressed out if I was capable of pulling off a miracle or forty-seven. I’d definitely be a lot more agreeable.

If psychiatry is to psychology what science is to art, (and I believe there’s truth in that), but both rely on the Jesus model to some degree, then both would seem to be less rational, less tolerant of difference, more bent on conformity, and ultimately much more limiting to the advancement of humanity, than they make themselves out to be.

How many employers are now using personality tests to decide who gets a job and who doesn’t? How many “introverted” people or “hostile” geniuses are being excluded from consideration due to these supposedly undesirable traits? In schools, how many extraordinarily bright but “easily frustrated” children are being labeled with ADD or personality disorders? How many potential “beautiful minds” have we lost by insisting that they are not socially harmonious or agreeable enough for our schools, our workplaces, our institutions?

How many potential Galileos and Van Goghs would the modern day world of psychology have us abandon to the mythical, invisible role model of Jesus?

Footnote: The results of the personality test I took determined that I am more neurotic than 63.3% of you, more open to experience than 82.3%, and more extraverted than 63.6% of you. However, 82.7% of you are more conscientious, and 74.3% of you are more agreeable. Which makes most of you much more Jesus-like than me. I’m also an INTP according to Meyers-Briggs, a confirmed caffeine addict, and neurotic enough to believe that most of you won’t have had the interest or patience to read this entire essay.

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Waving, Not Drowning

Posted on 02/06/2009 by Jane Devin

In the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, we abandoned Eloise’s Suburban and walked the wet, rutted road that led to her house. It was lightly raining, and there was an orange tint to the sky that made even the sagebrush look beautiful. There was a rainbow forming to the North, and a pair of desert cottontails bouncing in and out of a lone patch of grass.

The laughter in my throat was stilled by the heavy clomp of her boots in the mud. She was angry at her truck for running out of gas, angry at the rain, and angry at the whole world it seemed. She muttered and cussed, and insisted that I thought she must be a real fuck-up. What I was really wondering was how an empty gas tank could trigger what amounted to a self-flagellating tantrum.

“What a great start to your trip, huh? You must think I’m a real idiot.
“That fucking gauge was above E. You saw that right? That it wasn’t below E?
“I bet you’re regretting being here.
“I’m tired of shit like this always happening to me.”

After the third or fourth reassurance, I realized it didn’t matter what I said. Eloise was determined to be miserable. Her hostility was easily tapped, and there was a black hole to her being that she catered to as if it contained the only precious truth left in the world.

A mile-long walk left us standing on her porch, rain soaked and muddy, and I couldn’t help but think that with someone else, this might be a fun occasion. Leah would run for the wine glasses, Sheila would challenge me to wrestle in the mud, Jen would tell jokes, and then laugh so hard she’d have to stop walking. None of them would have done what Eloise did next –- which was to take off her boots and throw them against the garage wall.

“Never mind that those were my favorite boots,” she seethed to the mud-streaked plaster.

Later, I sat on a couch in her living room, listening to a litany of trivial, wine-soaked complaints. Her parents loved her, but not well enough. She had a stellar education, but not Ivy League. She had many friends, but no one who really understood her deep complexity. She had a trust fund, but it wasn’t enough to quit working. There were lovers that used, and lovers that left, and a sense of never being appreciated.

“It would be nice if even just once I got back 10% of what I gave to others, but I guess I’m screwed on that. Everybody I ever meet is so selfish.”

For four nights, I sat like a cypher in Eloise’s smoky living room, willing myself into stillness as I watched the stars through the skylights. She was an unlikely Scheherazade, a steely, bitter-eyed woman who seemed to have spent her life creating conflict so she would have an outlet for her combativeness. With every story, she seemed to grow fresh scars, counting and recounting the wrongs committed against her until there was no good will, and no right thing left in the world.

Instead of bolting, I found my curiosity turning morbid. There was a sour aftertaste to our one-sided conversations that was all at once revolting and intriguing. My incredulousness was stretched but not yet sated, not even when she told me the story about driving drunk, and the massive damages done to her lover’s face when she drove into a ditch going 80 mph. Even in that story, Eloise reigned as the ultimate victim. The lover sued, Eloise received a suspended jail sentence, and when the story hit the local newspaper it was humiliating.

“So her face – did they manage to fix it?”

“What? Oh. She lost most of her lower jaw and lower lip, but had lots of reconstructive surgery. Between the insurance company and me, she made out pretty well. I ended up having to go to treatment, though, which was stupid because I wasn’t an alcoholic — but who cares, right? I paid through the nose for that night. There are still people in this town who hate me…”.

On the morning I left, I woke up early and walked through the house, and for the first time noticed how beautiful it really was. Stained glass French doors led to a wrap-around patio. The floors were a dark walnut wood, and there was an exquisitely patterned red Persian rug in the living room. Abstract art hung neatly from clean white walls, lit from below with key lights. In four nights, I hadn’t noticed the antique chairs, covered in cobalt blue velvet, that framed the fireplace, or the soft white chenille of the couches. Either Eloise’s misery had sucked all the color and light out of the room, or I was so enchanted by it that I turned blind to everything else. In the pale yellow light of morning, I was reminded of a song by Sara McLachlan – “you live in a church where you sleep with voodoo dolls, and you won’t give up the search for the ghosts in the halls”. Eloise’s home was like a tainted church, a sanctuary lost to the cause of both old and ongoing wars.

In front of the airport terminal, Eloise handed me a folded up piece of paper and told me to read it on the plane. It’s just a poem I wrote, she said, something I wanted you to have.

Nobody heard her, the dead woman,
but still she lay in the abyss moaning.
I was much further out than you thought, she said,
and not waving, but drowning.

As if there were not enough reams of torment in her own life, Eloise resorted to stealing the tragic words of others. The poem was written by British poet Stevie Smith, and only slightly changed by Eloise’s interpretation.

I might have never known, but I discovered Not Waving, But Drowning in the county library when I was nine years old, and ran home to read it to my mother –- a woman who was drowning in an unhappiness I was powerless to change. I was always looking for words she would recognize –- that would move her in some way, or that let her know that while I didn’t understand everything, I did understand that she felt I was to blame in some way, and that I was sorry, sorry, sorry. For three decades, I waited for the day my mother’s secrets would spill, and we could forgive each other for the darkness. The right combination of words were never found. There was no grand rescue, no heroic act of forgiveness, no chance of saving either one of us from wanting what we could never have.

Yet, years after her death, I found myself drawn to sitting silently in the darkest shadows of other women, waiting for a hint, a revelation, or some epiphany. When I wasn’t actively seeking out the most brooding people I could find, they seemed to find me.

And the only thing I ever really learned from all those years of shadow sitting is that misery can travel beyond time and circumstance, and become a black hole that voids all light and swallows any possibility of good. There really is no mystery to the the forever-lost, the fucked-up, the hateful, or the chronically bitter. We move in this universe on differing parallels –- some paths are rife with danger and difficulty, and some are so easy that they seem supernaturally preordained, but most are a mix of challenges, habits, and celebrations. Sometimes there are choices, and sometimes there are unmitigable circumstances. We fall as often as we get pushed. We embrace each other, or we stand apart. We scar, berate, and rail against each other, or extend our compassion and love. We kick each other, or help each other up.

We are the secret, the key, the magical, elusive meaning of things that we search for in the clouds, ancient books, and new-age gurus. There is really no major mystery to who we are. We are what helps creates the other. In the largest picture, we are the source of each other’s love, misery, happiness, anger, regret, support, hope, longing, and despair.

Eloise and my mother were partially created by others on their path, as surely as Beethoven, Curie, and Van Gogh were. But instead of gathering love, they nurtured grudges. Instead of striving for happiness, they chose to lash out in anger and bitterness.

The worst monsters and tyrants in the world only exist by collective permission, as do the greatest thinkers, pianists, artists, and inventors. We don’t always agree with the collective, and often lack the power to enforce our differing will, but many of us accede our personal ethics as if our singular thoughts, ideals, or dollars had little value at all. We sit in the shadows of corruption, perverse politics, bad will, unjust laws, and miserable people until we are numb and feel them as inevitable.

And perhaps they are, at least until the collective masses experience a new call to enlightenment, but we don’t have to sit in the shadows and wait. We don’t have to sleep with voodoo dolls, or taint our sanctuaries with totems of death and misery. We can, instead, consciously choose to live in a way that honors our highest ideals.

We can stand and speak clearly instead of moaning. We can wave, and refuse to let ourselves be drowned.

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In Defense of the 2009 Dream

Posted on 11/11/2008 by Jane Devin

John Lennon struck a chord when he sang, “you may say I’m a dreamer, well, I’m not the only one”. And he was right. To be human is to dream — and to want to bring our dreams to life. Dreamers, though, have gotten a bad rap. Our antagonists would have the world believe that those who imagine a better, more inclusive and peaceful world are ethereal beings, idle wanderers, and lost souls.

It’s a myth that dreamers are incapable of rationality and lost in the elusive. Both rationality and imagination are behind every brush stroke of Mona Lisa’s smile, and Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel. They have connected – beautifully – in the pen strokes of Shakespeare, in the musical notes of Mozart, and in the inventive genius of men like Isaac Newton and Bill Gates. Every human being has the potential to share this duality. We are, as a species, gifted with complexity, and a desire to know the divine.

It’s a new election season in America, and on the heels of disaster, the possibility of change sparks both our imaginations and our desire for a more rational world. Is it possible, we ask, to heal the wounds of people and the rift between nations? Is it possible to overcome the well-oiled machine that has sanctioned the rule of morally bankrupt and intellectually empty leaders? Can the voices of reason and possibility rise above the rallying cries of war and more war?

Despite those who would suggest otherwise, it was dissent against rigid dogmas, and not religious fervor, that informed every word of our Declaration of Independence. And then, as now, the authors of a new age seek both a dream and an absolute. The dream is peaceful progress and the building of a nation where every human being has the opportunity to reach their highest potential. The absolute is never again. Never again can we allow the want of revenge to override reason. Never again can we stand idly while politicians and big corporations sink our country into the morass of corruption and the swamp of endless debt.

When our highest dreams and most rational actions are joined, we may overcome not just the stalemate of political divisions, but other social issues.

Presently, over 500,000 children live in the limbo of foster care. I can imagine a day when the most innocent and vulnerable among us are truly protected, not just in a time of crisis, but for the duration of their childhoods. When the “best interests of the child” is a promise fulfilled, and where a child’s right to live in safety, without fear, is considered paramount.

I imagine a world in which every child is given multiple and varied opportunities to find, nurture, and expand their potential, and where doing so is not a luxury, but a given. I believe that if we were truly motivated to nurture the best within our children, we would find many more Galileos in our midst. Einsteins and Kings, Van Goghs and O’Keefes, and yes, Barack Obamas.

In a country that sought to revitalize the rational-imaginative minds of its people, we might see a final end to discrimination. We might see a day when false limitations are universally known and believed to be false – and where character really is the ultimate determinant of one’s opportunities.

I can envision a time when rational tolerance is practiced. When the steady progression of humankind is the goal of all cultures, including the cultures of the traditionalists and the devoutly religious.

Religion and tradition should not be used as justification for stunting the evolution of humanity, or as an excuse for denying the inherent right of others to liberty and freedom. No God or other high-minded entity would have us mutilate the genitals of little girls, rape women, or slay, torture, or starve thousands of people in order to advance a political, religious, or cultural agenda. To live in a world where even one act of such violence is considered unavoidable, or par for the course, is to have twisted the noble concept of tolerance into soulless apathy.

Humanity is not soulless, but our challenges are many, our divisions are great, and recent years have discouraged our ideals. So many, reeling from tragedy, or facing a time of personal struggle, are feeling the weight of despair. They may even be afraid to hope for better days, particularly in a climate that has traded rational dreams for ever-deepening political divides – a climate in which war, torture, and death was marketed as a rational response, and those who sought answers and accountability were derided as “bleeding hearts”.

There’s a saying – “we all want to change the world.” Actually, we know that some, particularly those who profit in a time of war and destruction, would like to see it not change at all. Others find change threatening in some fashion.

The dreamers among us move forward, past our fears, because our minds recognize them as unnecessary limitations, and our imagination longs to see what is on the other side. We long to expand the boundaries and break the unnecessary barriers. We long to fill our individual selves with the light of possibility, and then carry that torch to the outside world. We long to create a legion of united individualists, who will stand together and usher in a new age of revitalization, and the reconciliation of our ideals with our everyday realities.

If we can dream it, it is possible. A battle to revitalize the human spirit requires no enemies, and a revolution of peace requires no violence.

If we were to each follow our highest ideals, we would likely find ourselves not divided, but united. Not alone in our idealism, but joined. Not lost in idle dreams, but wholly invested in making them come true. 2009 is only our beginning. Our end is nowhere yet in sight.

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While Awaiting the Rack & Condemnation of the Religious Wrong…

Posted on 07/30/2008 by Jane Devin

Subtitled: If my eye offends you, fuck you. It’s mine.

Tomorrow, the religious wrong, while pretending religion has nothing to do with it, will attempt to beat me over the head with their imagined moral authority and their too-real power. Chest-beating Christians will circle around me in a vulturous group, waiting to take the eye they feel they are owed. Not because it’s really owed, but because they feel a sense of entitlement, especially when it comes to black sheep who aren’t members of their flock. Stay tuned for that story.

For now, I want to tell another story about God, who’s often confused with Jesus, even though the two actually had little in common except a disputed paternity claim. The pre-Jesus God was pretty fierce. He razed whole cities in anger, and didn’t even spare the children. He turned a woman into a pillar of salt for merely glancing over her shoulder. He led a man to hold a knife to his toddler’s throat as an act of faith, and then said hey, just kidding, you passed. Not a nice guy, God. Not someone you’d want to invite to your weekend barbeque or cocktail party.

God’s image needed a little softening up, so along came Jesus, a wild story, a bestselling book, and all these years later, millions of crosses and Virgin Mary’s dangle from the walls, necks, and rearview mirrors of the righteous believers. Except many of them are not all that righteous, by definition of the word, tending to take after the almighty God far more than the gentle Jesus they melded him with. Meaning the badly religious are often some of the most wrathful, unforgiving, and punishing people here on Earth. Yet they demand for themselves a level of respect that far eclipses any good they created – if they attempted to create any good at all.

At least God is said to have created life and Earth. The Religious Wrong, on the other hand, have created only monstrously huge institutions to perpetuate the idea that using God as their shield makes them infallible by default. Sinful, but perpetually forgiven, no wrong is too wrong for absolution. Absolved, they are pure, and pure they sin again, and the cycle leaves them, at least in their eyes, exonerated from moral blame or judgment outside of Heaven’s.

The same people will cry “human nature is sinful” when confessing, yet once the Hail Mary’s are given and curtain is pulled back, they are quick to return to their state of imperviousness: Jesus forgives them, even if only through ancient words and stained glass windows, and this forgiveness is far more important than the forgiveness of other people, no matter how badly they’ve hurt them.

The funny thing is – and it becomes funny if you witness it often enough – is how quick the Religious Wrong are to disown each other when the proverbial shit hits the fan. The Christian who beats his wife and kids isn’t really a Christian (even though the bible allows for a little family beating, as long as the victims are women and children). The Muslim who murders isn’t really practicing Islam (despite that whole yarn about martyrdom and 40 virgins).

The first time I consciously processed how reactionary and frightening the Religious Wrong could be, I was in 7th grade, in Mrs. Hand’s class. I casually said “Oh, God” in response to something a classmate said to me when Mrs. Hand flew out of her chair, grabbed me by the arm, and dragged me up to her desk. I had no idea what I had done to provoke the attack, although she kept insisting that I had cussed. My response of “God! No I didn’t!” threw her over the edge, and it was only then that I suspected. I was sent to the principal’s office, where I spent a fruitless half-hour with Mr. Campbell debating the issue of free speech and religion in a public school. Of course, Mr. Campbell won because he held the power. I left school the next year, when the choking, claustrophobic feeling of school became too much to bear.

I had really exited years before, as a third grader who was denied a skip in grades for “failure to conform to the rules of the classroom”. That year, I tested three to five grades above level in every subject, but couldn’t get through the torture of a school day without drifting off, or sneak-reading a book carefully hidden on my lap. Counselors were consulted, tests were taken, and everybody except my 3rd grade teacher thought I should be moved to fifth grade. Mrs. Herron’s reasoning was that such a move would be a “reward for bad behavior”. A cross-wearing Catholic, Mrs. Herron didn’t believe in spoiling a child, even with education, and her rod was to rack me into submission by way of mean-spirited boredom. And I, a child who loved books and learning, grew to hate school. I became a daydreamer and clock watcher, who learned through books on loan from the County library rather than through people.

People were scary to me then, and often still are. Irrationality frightens me, and more so when it’s ensconced in religious mysticism. The structure of an “organized” religion, complete with masses of brethren, allows religion a credibility and standing shared by no other fable or myth. I have to wonder if millions of people believed in Leprechauns, how many monuments would be built, how many laws written, and how many offenses would be taken at those who didn’t believe there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Tomorrow, the religious wrong will pretend that religion has nothing to do with their eye-plucking. They will talk, instead, about offensiveness, mine, of course, because God knows they are pure, blameless, and ultimately absolved – even as they talk crudely of tits and ass, dicks and balls, white trash, Mexicans, and bodily functions. Even as they scream profanity across the aisles, bite each other’s backs, and seek to do real harm to others – they are forgiven.

But let a black sheep make one sarcastic comment . . . and all hell breaks loose.

More to the story tomorrow.

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