When Every Limb Feels Thin
I am not, by any means, an expert on Charlie Brown. I’ve seen the Christmas and Thanksgiving specials. That’s it. So please forgive if my analogy is unfaithful to the Peanuts Universe.
As I launch out into this new space, telling my story, and putting my thoughts and experiences “out there” in hopes they may invite some of you down your own path of healing and maybe cheer you on to courage in taking the nexts steps in that journey, I am reminded of an image that has frequently come to mind in therapy and conversations over the last few years and encapsulates what I often feel about moving forward from trauma. A Charlie Brown image.
Eight and a half years ago we left our home in Texas for the West Coast. For Oregon. Our dream was to lead a church through and into revitalization, and to put down long and deep roots. We hoped and planned to finish out our remains working years here and have played with the possibility of retiring to the beauty of the Oregon coast. We were excited and buoyant even as the transition and work was challenging, as I made mistakes, and as I struggled with the steep learning curve of “figuring things out.”
In spite of the challenges and truly because of them, I remember thinking and saying often that I believed my previous 20+ years invested in preparing for and working in full-time vocational ministry were to prepare me for this call. I felt more comfortable in my own skin than I ever had, and I was confident the Lord had placed me “in my wheelhouse”; that he was committed to the church’s and our family’s blessing.
It was at the height of that hopefulness and trust in the Lord’s call and preparation that I was in an accident that killed a pedestrian. I cannot begin to describe how earth shattering and soul shattering that moment was and has been. Among the butterfly effect of losses from that moment was all confidence that I could calculate the Lord’s plans. I don’t know if my notions were simply wrong, or foolish, or prideful. Or what? I don’t know.
What I do know is what I feel. I feel that I trusted the wrong things. Enter Charlie Brown. I don’t know Charle Schultz’s point in the Charlie Brown and Lucy football prank, but I’ve come to think I know the feeling. Convinced of the moment, of its possibilities, of its invitation, leaning into the risk in faith and hope only to swing and miss. Epically. Shamefully. Again, I have no idea Shultz’s point that Charlie Brown falls for it over and over again. According to "Peanuts Fandom” it’s because there is a real love for Lucy even in their tumultuous friendship. I don’t know.
I know I don’t want to fail epically again. Swinging and missing is embarrassing. Since the accident I have wrestled with the deep fear of ever risking of planting my foot, leveraging my weight and momentum into, and committing to kick a ball that might not be there when I thought it would. How does one risk again after failing so miserably and spectacularly? I mean, who wants to be Charlie Brown, flat of his back, embarrassed? Again.
I’m not here to argue that our relationship with God is truly like Lucy and Charlie Brown’s. But it can feel like it. And what shall we do then?
Cities of Refuge is in part an answer to that question for me. It is my leaning into the possibilities and invitation to faith and hope from the flat of my back having swung and missed. Knowing all too keenly shame. It is, perhaps like for Charlie and Lucy, the resistance of Love. A Love that resists cynicism and despair even in deepest pits of sorrow and shame. Even from the flat of one’s back.
Cities of Refuge is also a step in the journey prompted by that question. Prompted? More like a step on a forced march away from destruction to…I’m not quite sure where with the question as my guide. And as strange as it may sound, I believe healing is down this path.