Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

I will now relate what I learned as I read that book years ago in preaching class, a book which still resides on my bookshelf bearing within it all the underlining in red ink. I cherish it because it was my source of hope which kept the original light bulb burning. There would be many more books read and presentations heard to bring me to the present.

I learned that I am a center of creativity. I create myself. I am composed of a long procession of tiny moments, one following another. I am unique in each of these moments, one is never exactly the same as another. Bob in that moment is brief and a new Bob forms in the next moment. Each moment has a beginning, a process of creating  who I will be and an ending. As each moment ends, it influences the next moment, flowing into that becoming moment as it simultaneously becomes an unchanging part of my past. I create myself from a vast number of relationships, although I am unaware of most of them. Known or unknown, all relationships influence who I will become in a given moment.

God is present with me in the beginning of each moment offering invitations of the person I could become. Then, each fleeting moment is felt by God exactly as I feel it. As a moment is completed it enters in its fullness and entirety into the life of God and is lovingly saved. It also enters my personal past where aspects of it may be remembered by me, but remembered or not it will influence future moments.

Four relationships go into making Bob in any moment: my past, my body, the world in which I am immersed, and God’s invitations. This may sound like a small gathering, yet within each group there are vast numbers of persuaders. Any happening in the universe, any occurrence within the inner most realms of my body and any tiny event in my past affect who I will become in the next moment.

In a nutshell, this is what I found that helped to make sense of who I am. Many features were both helpful and hopeful for me. Foremost is that I am the one who creates me. I am not predestined by God to be a previously decided person while falsely imagining that I really make decisions about my own life. Ah, the signs I read in front of church buildings, “Free Will Baptist Church,” confirmed what I already had felt and now knew to be true. I do have free will.

If it is true that I create myself, then I had to question some of the experimental psychology I had read, which would lead me to believe that I am determined by all the stimuli around me. If a researcher knew every minute detail about my environment, my past and my body that scientist could predict with exact accuracy how I would behave.

Likewise, I could let go of a very popular idea, which in the vernacular says that I am busy “finding myself.” This theory says that somewhere in my depths or out there in the universe is an image of Bob which is already there. I must find it. The challenge, however, is not finding myself, rather it is creating myself.

I am a decider, a chooser, a creator! Yes, I have powerful relationships around, within and intersecting me which limit my freedom and influence me, but I create me!

I had always believed that we had such freedom, but it was reassuring to have a vision of the entire universe which confirmed my belief. I could hardly have been an authentic counselor if I thought that the future of a client was already established by God or the forces of nature and was lurking somewhere within or out there waiting to be found.

I tried a number of ways of picturing this new center of creativity. In a way I felt that I was following the many staggering and stumbling steps which marked the evolution of the automobile and the airplane. I sheepishly confess that I began with the image of King Arthur and the Round Table. Primitive, inadequate, and inaccurate, it was my first try—my Model T Ford. The image did at least express that decisions are made by a group in deliberation. In time I transformed the Round Table into a Committee. So, each moment is a gathering of a committee. That too served for a time in my personal and professional life. I spoke of the experience of an inner council meeting when looking over a menu. Most of my clients knew exactly what I was talking about!

Then, I increasingly saw that this image was presenting a picture of continuing, unchanging, enduring persons coming to the table. Let’ see, here are The Scaredy Cat, The Coward, The Death-Wisher, and seated across the table are The Obsessive-Compulsive Boy and The Kid. This was inadequate in that there are no stable unchanging persons, rather it is uncertain who will gather for each committee meeting. They are all in flux and continually changing just as the “I” that is Bob. There is no enduring “I,” an unchanging person appearing regularly in each new event.

This led me to my present image of a “Committee Meeting,” which describes only that something will happen here rather than who will be here. No enduring persons, no enduring circumstances, only a moment with a beginning, a process, and an ending. Those present will change. For example, my ordinary routine committee meetings while entering the restroom to prepare for my next counseling appointment are dramatically different from the meeting initiated by watching my urine run red!

I made another important discovery: I am a subject and all entities in the universe are subjects. I am not a thing, matter, or substance but an active, initiating, creating center. There is an “I” who is feeling, deciding, and acting. This finding is in contrast to much of our thinking about ourselves and the world around. In these world visions the researcher is the subject, all else are objects. This approach hearkens back over 300 years when the mind- body split occurred. The mind was of a different order than the body. Our bodies as well as all animals were simply machines, objects to be observed, directed and utilized. Now, suddenly, as the song reveals, “the hills are alive…with the sound of music.”

The center of creativity is actually both subject and object. First it is subject as it comes into being and creates who it will be. Second it is an object after it ends and throws itself into the world. So the perennial problem in philosophy of subject-object is addressed by saying it is both. Granting this same status to atoms, molecules, cells, and animals is a new venture. Although not having the same consciousness as we humans, they enjoy the same process of being subject and becoming object.

One way of illustrating subject and object is to show these two perspectives on my life. First, I will describe the object: my professional resume’ illustrating how I am seen from the outside. I will then compare it to the subject: the persons who have participated in most of my past committee meetings. They are the ways I experienced, created, and formed myself from within.

If I were applying for a job the potential employer would know certain things about me by reading this objective history of my professional life. She or he would know that I was a Westerner, that I was young when I earned my doctorate, that I made a change in my vocational goals at least three times, that I spent many years in graduate study, that I entered theological school and the ministry at a later time, that I spent several years as a pastor before returning to my earlier profession of counseling, and that I have engaged in writing about theology.

Surely, seeing Bob as an object reveals important information and would help to formulate a number of educated guesses about my qualities as well as to pose questions to be pursued. Yet, the objective view leaves much unsaid and unanswered, probably the more important contours and features of my life. I doubt that one would know me well or deeply from such an objective view.

If we would expand this inquiry beyond me to the wider world, we may well wonder about how we see birds, animals, flowers, rocks, and stars…cells, molecules, atoms. We see them normally as objects and usually in terms of what they can provide for us, yet we might be awed by them as subjects. What do they experience? How do they feel the universe about them? What are their stages of creating themselves? What degrees of freedom do they have? What is the experience of those entities lacking consciousness? What would it be like to be an atom?

After our brief look through the binoculars, telescope, and microscope at the wider world of subjects, I now offer a contrast to Bob the object, which is Bob the subject. I have already introduced most of those subjects as I related the crucial events of my life.
Now, I will present them as subjects whom I created in the midst of different circumstances and the continuation and transformations of those subjects. I will be sharing creative births, transformations, inner conversations, new births, and new transformations. They are all real and could be seen or heard at the time with an audio recorder or video camera. One could see The Coward sitting terrorized on the basement steps and The Death Wisher in the leather chair staring blankly out the window. They are the relationships composing my committee meetings.

I invite you to imagine with me a committee meeting to contrast with my resume. Primitive early parts of me joined by later transformed parts are seated around a table. Scaredy Cat, Saluting Soldier, Obsessive-Compusive, The Coward, Mother’s Confidant, The Death Wisher, The Roseworth Boy, The Kid, Comforted,  The Intelligent Student, Steel—the U.S. Marine, The Formal Dr. Brizee, The Minister, The Lover, The C + Father, The Reluctant Leader, The  Empathic Listener, The Psychologist, and The Teacher. The agenda of any meeting is always the same: Who will Bob become in this new moment?

An image to be added to the committee meeting is that of a long line, each of these parts of me standing one after another like a yellow center line in the middle of a highway across Montana. One image is a circle, the other a line. With the passage of time the line becomes longer and the circle becomes wider. This is another way of saying that although many voices make up a current committee meeting, those voices may be from parts of me speaking from the distant past. Although Scaredy Cat is probably the earliest creation of me, he can speak loudly in any present committee because he has been present in a transformed way many times along the highway. I know that Scaredy Cat will never disappear, leave me or die, but can rush in at nearly the speed of light, grab the microphone, shout his message, or whisper from the hazy background.

I invite you on a guided tour around the circle of the committee meeting. As in the newspaper when a series of photos are shown, we start at the top moving in a clockwise manner. Scaredy Cat is the original. My first experiences were fear, sometimes terror. Growing from those experiences in my committee meetings I had to develop ways of coping with this fear. Scaredy Cat was a primary voice in the creation of The Soldier,  for he was a way of avoiding the violence which caused the fear. Likewise as we move in the clockwise manner, we meet the Obsessive-Compulsive Boy, who deeply influenced by both Scaredy and The Saluting Soldier, increased the options of avoiding trouble. He lived each moment of life by coloring within the lines of the coloring book. O-C was careful! Yet since neither The Soldier nor the Obsessive-Compulsive Boy could be totally successful, The Nail-Biter was created in response to the anxiety of the gaps. Biting reduced anxiety!

Continuing around the circle we meet the Coward, since the fly in the ointment with my ways of coping was that my brother was experiencing violence and I had no part of me that knew how to help him. Indeed, even my mother did not know how! Coward was a compromise of wanting to help while already living in great fear. The Death-Wisher was created by all earlier parts collaborating with the part of me that had at least limited safety with my mother. Since my mother had chosen me for her confidant, I created myself into a listening and helping person. I began my counseling training long before entering Michigan State University. Thus, I knew her feelings and wishes well. If my mother had a solution, the confidant would join in it. My father’s death was the answer to her problems with him. All parts would agree: Scaredy, Soldier, Obsessive-Compulsive, Nail-biter, Coward and Confidant. It seemed that they would no longer be necessary if death occurred. Freedom and relief were promised. My mother would be happy, my brother would no longer be beaten, my earlier parts could go on vacation.

I am expressing how earlier parts flowed into creating later parts which would incorporate them  The earlier part as it originally appeared would still be in that long line of Bobs, yet would transform in later events. Both the original and any number of its transformations were present later. It is obvious that the earlier parts were necessary in the development of later parts. If I had lived in a home which facilitated gentleness, spontaneity and openness, I would never have created Scaredy, Soldier, Obsessive-Compulsive, Nail-biter, Coward and Confidant. I would probably have created myself into parts which were curious, creative and fun-loving.

I created the Roseworth boy after my father’s death to meet the challenges and deprivations of ranch life. This boy is frugal, will do without, avoid thinking of losses and accept what he had, all as a way of enjoying life under dramatically different circumstances. I initiated The Kid there also in my last few months on the ranch, but he  would become more active in Albion as I was now two years younger than my classmates. Naturally this part could not emerge until I was a 12 year old freshman in high school. In that same year at the normal school away from my family, the Sad and Lonely Boy mysteriously created the imaginary tender woman who comforted him, thus his name Comforted, a most powerful part which would re-appear time and again in transformed ways.

I had no reason to create the intelligent creative Student until college when I learned what must be done to stay in school and to avoid being drafted during my junior and senior years. Nor would Steel and Dissociator develop until age 25 when I entered the U.S. Marine Corps boot camp. Other parts of me would await new circumstances and would be greatly influenced by those parts I had already created.

I have not elaborated all parts of me, but have introduced those present around the committee meeting table in the approximate order in which I created them and shown how earlier creations of me deeply influenced my later creations. This is Bob as subject, how I experienced myself and developed myself. I think that as subject I am better known authentically by both myself and others. This present circle with the long line preceding it has been presented to contrast Bob as both object and subject.

I will share a story, based upon a real event, which I wrote in 1987. I do so to illustrate how over twenty years ago I was actively seeking to make sense of the center of creativity. The story is “The Motorcycle Accident.”

“Tom sat in English class, his thoughts occasionally drifting away from the discussion. During one of these daydreams, the idea occurred to him to have lunch with Sue at the downtown drive-in. This idea emerged out of God’s continuing persuasion that Tom experience enjoyment. The thought pleased Tom as he turned it over in his mind.

Between classes Tom found Sue at her locker and suggested the plan for lunch. She liked the idea. God was present with both Sue and Tom, feeling the anticipation with them as they planned together. Since Sue needed to stop by her house to pick up her pom-poms for drill team practice that afternoon, she would drive and meet Tom there.

The final class of the morning seemed to creep by for Tom in spite of God encouraging him toward the excitement of learning. Even a Caring Friend is ignored at times. Tom divided his attention between thinking about Sue and gazing out the window at the apple trees just beginning to bud. The lunch bell jolted Tom from his reverie. He scooped up his books from the desk and ran out of the building. The Caring One felt the excitement with him.

Tom fit the key into the ignition, opened the throttle, and with two firm thrusts of his foot started the cycle. He loved the surge of power when the engine roared. God felt the surge right along with Tom. Kicking up the stand, Tom turned the accelerator on the handle, held on the brakes, and “burned rubber” out of the parking lot.

It seemed to be the only place during his day where he had some freedom to be himself. All day he was told what to do. A term paper had to be written, Thursday’s homework was due, he was required to take biology, holding hands was not allowed in the hallways, eight minutes was the time limit for changing classes.

Gently, as a Caring Friend, God called Tom toward pleasure in this day. He might drink in the emerging beauty, see the vivid colors, and feel the warmth of the spring sun. He could hear his mother exclaim that this is her favorite time of year. He also recalled Sue’s excitement at seeing the first purple crocus peeking out from beneath a clump of brown leaves. In fact, Tom divided his attention between enjoying the present and looking forward to what was next. God was enjoying this experience with Tom, as well as relating to the birds singing in the branches, the newly formed buds on the apple trees, and the dog lying lazily in the sun.

Tom felt a mood of caution blending with his feelings of pleasure. The wind whipping through his hair prompted him to remember that he did not have his helmet on. He could picture it still in his locker.

The impulse toward caution rose more strongly from the Caring Friend. His father’s stern lecture about wearing a helmet came ringing clearly in his ears. He had heard it so often he knew it by heart. His brother Art’s merciless teasing that only sissies wear those  “dumb-looking things” was his next thought.

For a fleeting moment Tom considered going back for his helmet, but he quickly shook off the idea. It was too much bother and it would take away from his already short time with Sue. His real fear, however, was that Mr. Simpson might be waiting to talk about his noisy exit from the parking lot. Tom returned his attention to the free and easy feeling of a young man on his bike on a beautiful day. Although this was different than God had envisioned these next moments, the Loving Friend experienced the freedom also.

Tom had driven this road between school and town so many times that he could do it blindfolded. He knew the road by its feel—each bump, incline, pothole, curve, and straightaway. Each time he enjoyed the tingling feeling of leaning into the curve, a reminder of the rides at the carnival. The Caring Friend shared the tingling with Tom

Nearing the curve, Tom felt again the urge to use care. The tension in his body told him that he had mixed feelings. Some impulses pulled him to let up on the hand throttle and touch the brakes. These feelings probably arose from the class he had taken on biking and Sue’s “be careful” following each farewell. Others pulled toward loving the risk at hand. The chase scenes of the late movie flashed before his eyes. Tom moved ahead!

Seconds later Tom felt the bike begin to slide. The Caring Friend felt these sensations just as Tom did. Acting with computer-like speed, Tom let up on the gas, tightened his grip, and struggled to keep his balance. Yet all of his rapid actions seemed to be of no avail. Tom was losing control fast. Tires no longer gripped the surface of the road.

The Loving Friend felt this loss of control in Tom’s body just as Tom did. Tom tightened every muscle. Adrenalin surged through his system. His heart pounded. Blood vessels in his arms and legs contracted.

Over the steep bank at the curve, machine and person were airborne. Loose gravel, flying sparks, and a cloud of dust marked the event. Consequences of earlier decisions were being carried out.

God felt with Tom the shudder of terror as he flew into the air. God experienced with Tom his desperate scream as he sighted the large tree directly in his pathway. A flow of utter helplessness streamed through Tom as he realized the impossibility of changing directions. No longer able to bear it, he tightly shut his eyes.

There was a violent crunch, followed by excruciating pain, star bursts, intense burning sensations, and fleeting visual memories. The Caring Friend suffered the shattering with Tom. Along with Tom, God felt a loss of feeling, then an overshadowing darkness. Tom died.

Where was God in Tom’s world? God was fully present and actively involved in every split-second of the developing accident. In each forming decision, God was persuading, encouraging, luring and urging toward enjoyment, safety, and well-being. God knew Tom as the final decision-maker at every critical choice. God valued Tom’s freedom to accept, reject, or shape any persuasion. God experienced every nuance of feeling exactly as Tom did. God was neither totally absent from the tragic moments nor absolutely controlling them. Rather, God was present in loving persuasion.

Now we have before us a brief description of the accident and an interpretation of where God is and what God does. The answer offered is that God is lovingly and persuasively present in each tiny event of life. With this, I conclude my history of how I became aware of myself as a center of creativity and how I sought to make sense of it. Later I will share more about how I applied it within my life.