Telling the Story in Song

          On this blog, I have been telling my story a bit, having been inspired by the book To Be Told, by Dan Allender and by my friend D.P. and his insistence that I take a deeper, longer look at my past.  It has been surprisingly rewarding.  I found myself filled with affections for my 12-year-old self.  I never really thought negatively about 12-year-old-Rob because I rarely thought about 12-year-old-Rob at all.  But, the process of remembering and trying to again re-live the experiences has filled me compassion for the younger version of me.

          Much of what I have written revolves around my relationship with my father.  This makes sense.  My self-definition is based on my identity ‘as a man,’ and the role model is my dad.  I have a great relationship with my dad.  It was what it needed to be when I was a kid and it has grown, matured, and deepened as I have become an adult and a dad myself. 

          I am influenced by my mom just as much.  She is as significant a figure in my life, but the effect is subtler.  I can look at my life and the ways Dad has shaped me leap off the page.  Dad’s fingerprint on me is obvious and, significantly, it easy to describe in writing (and more writing and more writing).  I could fill a notebook with thoughts of how Dad has made me who I am.  Thus, I am inclined to write about that relationship.

          The raw material of my life drawn from my Mom’s influence is every bit as much me; I just not have given it as much thought.  Recently that changed.  My family – wife, kids (12, 7, 5) and me – were on vacation, driving in the minivan, the movie Frozen playing.  As the driver, I could not watch, but I could listen, and Frozen is as much about the music as about the dialogue.  As those songs play and I pictured the film I felt a deep connection.

          It seemed odd.  Frozen is the story of the relationship between two sisters.  I have a sister, but I am a brother.  I have a daughter, but only one.  The others are boys.  I have no direct connection to sister-to-sister dynamics.  Why did this animated film touch the deepest part of me?  It is because of mom. 

          Of course the film has nothing to do with mother-son relationships.  However, one of the ways my relationship with my mom flourished is in our love of film and our love of musicals and especially our love of films set to music. 

About 15 years ago, when I was still single, my parents came to visit me in Arlington, VA and the three of us when to see Camelot at the Kennedy Center.  We were all excited about dressing up in fine clothes and riding the Metro from the Pentagon to downtown.  Mom was so giddy she teared up.  I did not but I recognized her emotion and shared it though I did not express it the same way.  More recently we gathered with the family at my parents’ house to watch Nanny McPhee Returns.  I was thankful for the darkened basement because this time my moist eyes betrayed my emotional nature.

Afterward, I admitted I had cried.  My stoic Father dismissively said, “Oh, I knew that was how the movie would end.”  My mother was right there crying with me.  I don’t understand about myself.  I had seen Nanny McPhee Returns about five times.  In prior viewings, I had not emoted.  Why now?  My mom had seen Camelot previously. Why was that night so special for her? 

The answer comes back to how listening to Frozen brought me awareness.  Each presentation – Frozen, Camelot, and Nanny McPhee Returns, as well as many others – is a beautiful story presented by true artists of film, stage, and music.  My mother gave me my deep appreciation for the genre of the musical.  My brother and sister share it as well.  And our dad likes musicals well enough.  But my love for the musical is a gift my mother gave.

I remember many years ago a friend of mine said, “I don’t musicals.  In real life people don’t spontaneously break into song.”  I think my mother would say, “They should.”  I agree.  And when the story of her life is written, the only genre that would fit is the musical. 

Maybe my sister can take that up as a project … Christy, what do you think?

Little Robby Tennant

          At a friend’s suggestion, I am reading a truly helpful book, To Be Told, by Dan Allender.  It is quite wonderful.  The book brings to mind many of the lessons I learned as a student in the doctorate of ministry program at Palmer Theological Seminary (http://www.eastern.edu/academics/programs/da-marriage-and-family/da-marriage-and-family).  One of those lessons is the insistence that all people fully write, read, and live in acknowledgement of their own stories.  As I read Allender and listen to the friend who recommended the book, I hear voices from the past, the voices of the husband and wife team who were my professors of human sexuality.  If you are in a program studying marriage, you have to study human sexuality.  The program is worthless if you do not.  Reading Allender, I heard my professors voices from 10 years ago.

          ‘Rob, there is some pain in your past that you aren’t naming.  You must name it and face it.’ 

          I have tried.  I have talked about incidents of bullying when I was in grades 4-6.  I really believed you had to be a tough kid and win neighborhood fights.  There were kids I could not beat and they scared me.  I would take a beating and as long as I did not cry while losing the fight, I felt successful.  Even if it hurt to be punched, I would not cry.  I once convinced a kid who had given me a whipping to be sure and tell everyone I did not cry.

          Now, looking at the words I just wrote, I can see a hurt little boy and that boy was me.  An “editor,” as Allender describes someone who reads our stories, could ask probing questions and get into the “gaps” of my storytelling (p.109-115).  And I indeed do find myself affected as I read what I just wrote.  It’s tough.  A boy was afraid to cry; afraid he would not be enough of a man if he did. 

I know where that comes from.  I rarely saw my dad cry.  When I did, well, the moments were profound and beautiful.  But at a young age, I could not translate the beauty of a real man expressing real emotion.  There was always an “out-of-control” element that probably violated an unspoken, unconscious rule in our household about keeping things in check.  Also, crying would not help you in the next fight. But not crying might help you avoid the next fight; bullies eventually realize they’re not getting the desired reaction and move on to a more vulnerable target.

Here is the thing: over the past 10-15 years, I have come clean on my own story.  I have learned to cry again.  I understand that it is ok if little boys and big boys cry.  Forcing one’s self to not cry is unhealthy.  I now am a pastor and I invite people in my church to express their feelings, their emotions, their heart.  I have teared up while preaching.  My dad and I have cried together, and not just at funerals. We have grown together in our walk with Christ.  We know our manhood is defined by Christ in us. 

I am aware that in the last two paragraphs it may be fair to accuse me of having slipped from telling my story to theologizing.  An editor (as Allender uses the term in this context) would call me on that.  I just don’t know what else to say.  I will add that steeling myself to hide my tears and “toughen up,” while not very emotionally healthy did serve me in other ways.  I was toughened enough to survive high school football and army basic and advanced infantry training.  In those cases, not crying benefited me.

I often cite those experiences (basic training and football) as credentials on my machismo resume.  That I need a machismo resume says something about battles I might still be fighting, but I sincerely believe that most of the time when I cite those experiences, it is to gain a hearing.  I am past trying to be a tough guy.  At 30, I realized, I don’t have to be cool.  From 37-45, I have been learning (or trying to learn) I don’t have to be tough.

Here I simply cite my “tough” experiences of sports and military to show what benefit there was to the toughening I experienced growing up in Clawson, Michigan.  Yes, I hated getting beat up by Gary when we were doing our paper routes.  Yes, it had lasting effects on me.  However, I have faced that experience and while it is a part of my story, I have moved on to other parts.  I have looked back, understood how experiences have shaped me, and now I look forward.

There are experiences from which we cannot so easily “move on.”  I do not callously tell victims of deep pain to “get over it.”  I do not do that to people who suffer.  Allender describes an experience of prolonged, ritualistic sexual harassment and abuse (p.110-112).  I was repulsed reading his account.  My heart ached for what he went through at the summer camp.  I don’t know how you heal from that.  I remember the vulnerability of being 11 and being at camp.  But my experience was so incredibly different; it probably explains why it is hard for me to relate to Allender and why it is hard for me to tell of my own pain.  My pain just is not even in the same realm of what others have experienced.

Like Allender, I was 11, a second year camper at the Detroit Baptist Camp (DBC).  Like him, I was right smack in the period of discovering my sexuality.  However, it came about differently.  His sexual awareness came when a scout leader had him touch the scout leader’s erect penis.  I never had an experience like that.  Ever.  No therapist demanding that I get in touch with my past pain will conjure up an experience like that one because I never, ever had such experiences.  I am sorry it happened to Allender.  I am deeply sorry.  I have friends, people I deeply love, who experienced similar abuse – sexual, repeated, prolonged.  I am really, really sorry and hurt that people I know and love had to endure that.  I don’t know why I never went through anything like that, but I didn’t.  Ever. 

At DBC as an 11 year old, I swam in the lake, rode in canoes, played baseball, got candy at the camp store, and even hung out with the cool kids.  And, for the first time ever, I had a crush on a girl.  That’s how I entered sexual awareness and expression and awkwardness.  I told the girl I liked her, probably in as awkward a way as possible. 

Allender’s editor here would point out shame that I am affixing to 11-year-old me, but I assure you that this is not shame.  Every 11-year-old trying to express his romantic affections is awkward.  That’s just a fact.  I am not ashamed of how I acted.  I love 11-year-old Robby Tennant.  I am proud of how he went about things, mistakes and all.  I look at how he handled learning lessons, and my heart fills with love for him.

Back home in Clawson, I guarded my tears.  I fought them.  I controlled them.  But at DBC when I told that 11-year-old girl I liked her and she gave me the awkward 11-year-old girl version of “let’s just be friends,” I ran back to my cabin and balled.  I who fought so hard to control my tears rained tears.  My pillow was soaked.  By the way, I have no idea what I would have done if when I said to her, “I like you,” she would have responded, “I like you too.”  I had not gotten past working up the courage to speak my heart.  I no idea of what came after that.  But it is no matter because she liked me as kids like their friends, but she didn’t like me as boys and girls like each other.  It was my first rejection and I was crushed.  So I cried.

Now, you have read about counselors and priests and scout leaders who sexually abuse young boys.  The stories fill the news.  Allender writes a moving account that I referred to above.  These stories are awful, horrific, terrible and should never be minimized or swept under the rug.  What I want to say is this is not true of all counselors, priests, and scout leaders.  Some are loving men and women who genuinely want to give of themselves to help young people grow up healthy and strong.

Here is what the counselor did in my story.  He walked into the cabin and only one kid was there – little Robby Tennant, face buried in a pillow, crying his little eyes out.  It was just the boy and the counselor.  He could have done anything.  What he did was sit down.  And he said, “It will be OK, Robby.”  And he comforted me and encouraged me.  I felt loved.  I felt like with my pain, the safest place in the world was with this guy.  This gentle man walked me through it. 

And that is it.  That’s the story.  It is the story of a compassionate counselor guiding a confused boy into the murky waters of adolescence.  Thank you God for that counselor!  My life is filled with people like him.  Why I am blessed like that?  It is certainly not for any great thing I have done.  It is a gift of God’s grace and all I can do is be grateful, and I am.

The footnote is that when the week of camp was over, it was time to go back home.  An awareness was awakened deep within me.  I had started down the road which meant leaving childhood behind.  No one told me this.  But deep inside I felt it.  And it was made manifest in a very interesting way. 

The next Sunday back at First Baptist Church, Royal Oak, MI, the pastor did what he did every week.  After the sermon, he invited anyone who felt the Spirit to come and give their lives to Christ.  I did.  I went to camp, was comforted by my counselor when I was hit by new emotions, went home, and accepted Jesus and gave my life to him. 

There is much more of my story to be told and I appreciate Allender’s sharing of his own story and guidance in teasing out mine.  And I really am thankful for my friend D.P. for turning me onto this Allender’s writing.  Even though I have not uncovered any skeletons in my closet, I am revisiting events from the past, rediscovering Little Robby Tennant.  I am grateful for that.  Maybe I needed to say it – to say, I love Robby Tennant.  Maybe it was and continues to be really important that this 44-year-old man be faithful to that little boy.  Maybe now that I am a father of my own 12-year-old who is just exploding into puberty, I need to remember what it is like. 

Thanks D.P.  Thanks for nudging me onto this path.

More to come.

The Creative Potential in Positive Experiences

          I am reading a wonderful book about connecting to God and to God’s healing by way of knowing yourself; and, you know yourself by listening to your own story.  The book is To Be Told by Dan Allender.  Much of what he says is strikingly similar to what I was taught as a doctorate of ministry student at Palmer Theological Seminary studying family systems and marriage therapy.  For an individual to be truly healthy, he or she has to read his or her own story honestly and discerningly.  We have to come afresh to the story of our own lives and read and re-read that story.  On this Allender is most certainly on track.  My own experience at Palmer and even earlier as an MDiv student at Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond affirms all I am learning from Allender.

          My one bone of contention is Allender’s neglect of the positive experiences in one’s life and here I am specifically thinking of chapter 5, “Facing the Tragedy that Shapes You.”  In this chapter, he says, “All passion is founded on pain, grown through risk, and marked by the decisions we make in the face of tragedy” (p. 65). 

          I affirm that “passion is founded on pain ... and marked by the decisions we make in the face of tragedy.”  I do not agree that all passion comes from personal experiences with pain.   Some passions – things we care about deeply (or passionately) – come from good experiences.

          Also he says, “There is not a person on earth who has escaped life’s pivotal, inciting incidents – incidents that are full of sadness, injustice, failure, and cruelty; incidents that require action to change or redeem them.  If we are listening to another person’s story, we must presume that shalom has been shattered and the he or she is on a journey to restore balance” (p. 66).

Yes, I say with Allender that shalom is shattered.  No, I do not think we presume that.  Presumption is not a good thing in listening.  The conclusion is decided before I’ve told my story.  Before I say anything, Allender already has decided shalom has been shattered in my life.  He won’t hear my story because he’s listening with an agenda.  He is so determined to find my pain that he may see pain that is not there.  We do not need to presume the shalom in another person’s life is shattered.  Simply listen to their story and that will be evident.

          And finally, “Tragedy shapes our deepest passions, and our passions shape who we are and what we will become. Each person living in a fallen world will encounter abandonment, betrayal, and shame.  You can’t avoid it and neither can I.  It’s necessary in the context in which we come to grips with how we will live.  It is in the midst of affliction that we become our truest or most false self” (p. 67).

         

          I agree that tragedy indeed does “shape our deepest passions.”  I do not agree that it is only in the midst of affliction that we become our truest self.”  We do become our truest self in affliction, but positive experiences also reveal and create who we are. 

          By way of example, I share my own love of the outdoors.  It goes back to when I was 13, the summer of 1983, and my family went backpacking for the first time.  There are two times in my life that I recall my breath being taken away because of the awe and wonder that poured into me.  The second time that happened was on my wedding day when my bride walked down to aisle to me and I was utterly taken with her beauty.  The first time was when we hiked on that summer day through fog to the top of one of the mountains outside of Roanoke, Virginia.  As we came to the clearing on the top, and I looked out over the valley, the first time I had ever had a literal mountain top experience, my breath left me – taken by beauty.  My love of the outdoors was born.

          It came not by pain (unless you count the pain of hiking up hill, but I was a 13-year-old bundle of energy).  It came through love.  The love of my mother and father to take me out into the woods; the love of green and trees and the sounds of nature instead of the sounds of the city; the love of what God did when he created and “saw that it was good.”  My passion (or deep love for the forest) came from a positive experience, not a tragedy.

          Later, in my first years of being a senior pastor, I discovered loneliness that comes with responsibility.  I was in my late 20’s trying to figure the whole pastor thing out.  I was single and seemingly not getting any closer to changing that.  So, there was sadness in me.  Sometimes it felt tragic.  What did I do in those days to escape?

          I retreated.  I got in my car and drove west, away from Arlington, VA where I pastored, and out to Shenandoah National Park.  I found my true self in a place of memory – the woods, the mountains.  I did not have to be afraid there.  I would go hiking for hours, alone, and the forest filled me with life.  Even the time I stumbled upon an adolescent black bear turned out to be more laughable than scary.  He was in the thicket a mere 10 yards to might right. 

He looked, I looked, and I ran.  After several seconds, I realized the bear had not run me down and tackled me.  So, I stopped and turned around.  Then I chuckled.   He had run the other way faster than my retreat.  That exhilaration, that closeness to nature was life-making within me. 

Perhaps Counselor Allender would say I made a choice – to get in the car and drive to the forest.  In the midst of my tragedy (unwanted single adulthood), I responded to my sadness by going to a place of joy and safety – the woods.  But, I rejoin, this not from abandonment, betrayal, or shame.  I had not yet gotten married and that coupled with the pressures of being a senior pastor coupled with the reality of my glaring inexperience made me feel quite stressed.  I handled the stress by doing something I love. 

I know Allender’s game – he could frame this conversation to bring out of me the shattered shalom, the shame I felt in my failure to wed, the elements of my earlier childhood that led me to react as I did to things.  He wouldn’t be entirely wrong.  I had a professor in my DMin program pry into my psyche by burrowing into my past.  I kept feeling like she was determined to find something in me that had to be healed.  I couldn’t find it and I wasn’t going to fake it for her.  And I won’t fake it for Allender either.  But, I get where he’s coming from and that professor did help me.  She helped me re-examine some things.

To be honest, what I learned in my sessions with her caused me to take a closer look at how I went about relationships.  I made a conscious effort to change what I did and it started with noting my own reactions in dating.  The next person I went out with, and this is 12½ years ago, has been my wife for the last 11.  So, I please, believe me when I say my professor/confessor and Dan Allender and others like them are psychologists who know their stuff.

What I would say to her and to Dan is that the positive experiences in some lives are just as profound as the tragedies and they should be heeded as well.  Yes, the world is fallen.  However, when God created he saw that it was good. The fall corrupted the good, but underneath the corruption, the good is still good; good by God’s standards.  In my life, the inspirational, joy-filled, positive, good experiences carry more weight than the tragedies.  I urge the good psychologists like Allender not to ignore the positives just because the negatives make juicier stories.  That does not make you good listener.  Seeking out only pain makes you listener with an agenda.  All parts of a person’s story are parts that need to be told.  The good parts too.