In the Birdcage, part 2

I drove home from Massachusetts that May day abuzz with possibility and excitement, and with Bill's birdcage escape instructions at the front of my mind.

When I got home, I did my best not only to share Bill's insights with David, but also, much harder, to put his advice into practice--to affirm myself as a writer and an artist. (I'm really not sure what he meant by "artist"--I think rather than being about a clear focus on the visual arts, it had more to do with creative self-expression, which was a recurring theme across the several tests and indicators I had taken.)

This was 1997, and I don't know if there were many books around in those days trumpeting the ways of positive thinking and the use of affirmations in creating a new reality for oneself and one's life. I suspect there were some around, though nowhere near the popular explosion of the present book and internet world.

Even if there were some good books about out there that might have supported me in creating and "employing" affirmations then and there, I wasn't reading any of those books. They would have been way way off my reading list and would never have passed the censorship of my predispositions and assumptions in those days.

So I undertook to "affirm myself as an artist and a writer" as best I could. I tried writing simple statements a bunch of times in my journal every morning, and maybe, if I was feeling particularly uninhibited, looking myself in the mirror and speaking out loud: "I am a writer and an artist. I am an artist and a writer." 

I felt incredibly awkward, stupid, and inauthentic. Deep down, I didn't believe what I was saying.

Or maybe really really deep down I did, but in those thicker, tangled middle layers that stood between me and my deepest, truest, highest self, I thought it was hogwash. As patently untrue as if I had stared at an orange and said, "This is a blue apple. This is a blue apple." Mere repetition was not going to change the reality of how I perceived myself.

But I bravely kept it up . . . for a few days. Until I could stand it no longer and began to add more genuine-feeling truth to the statement.

Soon it had become: "I am a writer and an artist and a mother." And the mother part, that undeniable fact of my relational existence, eventually squeezed out the writer and artist. Since I was on sabbatical, I had a reprieve from the Episcopal priest part of my self-identity, but eventually the Episcopal priest part joined the mother part, and . . . you get the idea.

My fiercely protective ego doing its level best to keep me "safe" had won that round: Old, known, and familiar identity had been reaffirmed; potential new identity denied. (Although when David and I returned from that sabbatical, we made small changes to our shared work schedules, with the aim of allowing me more time to write. It was an excellent idea that proved very hard, make that impossible, for me to honor.)

But at least some strangely stubborn and potent seeds had been planted. Actually, I have a feeling those seeds had been planted long long ago, and somehow the sabbatical had provided enough forms of moisture and disturbance to crack the hard shell of each seed case, so that whether I was ready to acknowledge my dreams or not, something, some sort of growth had been set in motion underground.

The most unusual of the tests that I had taken as part of Bill's vocational counseling was called the "16PF". In the written materials Bill had sent me, he noted that many of his clients over the years had found this one test to be the catalyst for the most powerful insights.

Reviewing the 16PF results, I thought I sounded like a case for a psych ward. I think that's because it is oriented toward the world of corporate professionals, and I had answered some of its "work behavior" questions from the perspective not just of restless parish priest but also of harried, stressed out mother of two young children (that was a big part of my "work" after all!). And Bill did warn me that the 16PF was not exactly geared toward feeling and intuitive (feminine?) ways of wisdom.

This meant that there were some really off-the-mark observations in its analysis of me, suggesting that I might be overly focused on getting my own needs met and inappropriately uninhibited in expressing my emotional responses to my colleagues in working situations (like, yelling at my children?). But then it also said I was apt to keep my thoughts and feelings so hidden and quiet that others had a hard time knowing me. (Ah, not only was there quite a difference between my behavior at work and my behavior at home, but there was also the wide gap between how an introvert perceives and describes her inner emotional climate and what she expresses outwardly.)

Along with some piercing observations about my pattern of being reluctant to ask for support and my aversion to taking risks, the 16PF did leave me really pondering one particular quandary. It stated: "Ms. Curtis tends to get most satisfaction in life from chances to be helpful to others. She feels best, however, when she can do so while working alone and apart from others."

This may sound strange, but I could not get my head around that at all. It struck me as so utterly paradoxical as to be almost nonsense. Like an impenetrable Zen koan, or a brain teaser designed to torture those who try to solve it. 

"How can I be helpful to others if I prefer working alone and apart from others?" I kept asking myself. That's impossible! Aren't those two realities complete opposites? 

I could, of course, see how other people might be able to do what's helpful to others by working alone--scientists, for instance, doing research for the cure of disease; writers writing insightful or inspiring books, articles, or poems; musicians composing music to soothe the soul or awaken new possibilities; painters and other visual artists creating windows to expand our own ways of seeing or celebrating the world. I'm sure there are a thousand more human occupations that might fit.

That made perfect sense to me. For those others. Just somehow not for me. For me to see myself as a writer would be-- selfish and self-centered, grandiose, unrealistic, just another romantic idealist notion to add to my considerable collection of abandoned romantic idealist notions. 

Clearly I wasn't really an artist or a writer or a scientist . . . just an extreme introvert! And there are times, in this very extraverted culture of ours, when being an introvert can feel not just like a quirk of personality but like an immense liability, a major character flaw, perhaps even a moral defect. That is if you believe the accusations that get heaped on us introverts from time to time: "You don't like people." "You're anti-social." "You're kind of a misfit."

To which, in my better moments, I might reply by remembering what one of my colleagues used to say, almost with a hint of envy: "Ah, but you have such a rich inner life!"

(Remember those words--"moral defect"--for later in this story. Well, actually; you don't need to remember them. I will take care of that for you.)

My unimaginative questions continued: Isn't helping other people all about helping them in person, face to face, like the pastoral care that clergy offer to their congregations? Like my adolescent goal of joining the Peace Corps? Like Mother Teresa ministering to the poorest of the poor in Calcutta? Like a mother caring for her children, or a teacher teaching patiently in a classroom?

And lurking somewhere in the background, perhaps not even all that far in the background, the real clincher, the horribly moralistic, incredibly powerful silencer of all thoughts of really honoring myself as a writer and an artist, or even as just a human being apart from my family and congregation: Jesus himself, for Christ's sake (I couldn't resist)! The "pioneer and perfecter" of our faith, the hero, the role model, the guy whose example we are supposedly all dying to emulate, saying loud and clear:

"Whoever would be my disciple, she has to deny herself, take up her cross, and follow me."

To which I now say from a safer distance, "Thanks a lot, Jesus.  But I'm not signing on to that particular scheme."

But back then in 1997, as I said before, my fiercely protective-of-the-status-quo ego, seemed to prevail. And I stayed stuck.

In the Birdcage, part 1

"The way to open the door of the birdcage is to affirm yourself as an artist and a writer," the vocational counselor offered as we sat in his wide-roomed old farmhouse in central Massachusetts.

The birdcage image was mine, and when I consider that this meeting took place in 1997 I am a bit stunned to realize that it was firmly in place even that far back.  Clearly I had mentioned it to Bill, the counselor. For at least ten years, it seems, it was the dominant metaphor I used to describe how I felt about my professional life. Over time the metaphor got more and more elaborate, which might suggest that my stuckness was bordering on the pathological.

I was a bird in a birdcage (as best I could tell, the cage was parish ministry) desperately trying to get out. I was spending a lot of energy flapping against the bars of the cage getting battered and bruised and never quite getting out. From time to time I would be inspired by some new interest that helped me forget my entrapment (a new approach to Sunday School, or a new book by my favorite spiritual writer, or the whole intriguing realm of historical Jesus research--these come to mind).

In the midst of whatever new passion or interest had captured my attention, I would flap happily in the cage, even launching myself into flight, flying higher and higher until . . . WHAM! I would reach the upper limits of my caged space, hit the bars, and land with a flop on the bottom on the cage. Dazed and discouraged, I would resettle my feathers, pick myself up, and eventually start the cycle again.

For five months in 1997 David and I enjoyed the gift of a four month sabbatical and our annual one month of vacation from parish ministry. That made a total of five consecutive months off during which we would continue to be paid our modest shared salary while we pursued refreshing activities (sabbaticals are related to the idea of sabbath rest).

Before we started, my official sabbatical plan was to finish up the long distance Montessori teacher training that I had begun the previous fall but had gotten bogged down in almost immediately. My progress had been really slow. My initial interest had been piqued by the enjoyment and fascination I always felt when visiting the "modified" Montessori preschool that my daughters had attended (Anna was still there). When the parish had undertaken a new approach to children's Christian education that was based on the work of Maria Montessori, I saw a way to make a connection between the two (and maybe also to pave the way for another kind of "ministry" in the world?).

On the first night of our sabbatical, a Sunday evening, as David and I had settled into our reading in bed ritual, I began a book that had been loaned to us at the last minute by a parishioner who thought we would enjoy it--Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. I was hooked by the end of the first page of the introduction, and by the next morning I had decided to ditch the Montessori sabbatical project and see what would happen if I wrote for at least an hour every day, except on weekends.  By day five of the sabbatical, I had received a flyer in the mail for a drawing class called "Learning to See," using exercises from Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and signed myself up right away.

But there was another "project" going on behind all of this, one that felt really essential to my being. In anticipation of the sabbatical, I had knowingly defied all customary wisdom against doing such things during a sabbatical and engaged the services of a seasoned vocational counselor well before the start of our five month leave.

Bill (not his real name) sent me a battery of tests to be taken at home, then mailed back for scoring and analysis; after reading through and responding to the hefty booklet of test results and narrative reports, I was to make a date to meet with him in the Massachusetts farmhouse where he lived with his wife, who bred and raised English Bull Mastiffs.

I attacked the taking of those tests with zeal and curiosity. All those possibilities! There were so many kinds of work that seemed to appeal to me--for instance, nearly everything art or creativity related: graphic design, architecture, fine art, singing, composing music, conducting an orchestra, journalism, writing almost anything.  And there were plenty of occupations that did not appeal to me at all.

From the reports and analysis of my test results I learned, among other things, that I had a lot of "vocational energy". I think that means that I was very restless and probably also quite confused, neither of which was exactly news to me. More than anything, my zeal reflected a lively (desperate?) hope that I would learn something new, that something would become clear about another way of being in the world, especially another way of earning a living, and that I would find the practical way forward.

Unfortunately, Bill was at a point in his career when he was no longer doing that practical way forward part; he would do the testing and give his best considered and intuitive response, then send me on my way and retire to his study to write. I knew that when I started and decided it was worth the risk. He came highly recommended.

When I finally drove to central Massachusetts, it felt rather like a journey to a wise guru of some sort--I was a pilgrim in search of a teacher or a shrine, maybe the Holy Grail, and of course the grail was buried somewhere in myself. But I really wished hard that my guide and guru could make the search a little easier for me. Or maybe even a lot!

Bill ushered me into the farmhouse parlor, wearing a beat up old sweater and scuffing along in slippers. From his days as a career counselor at Harvard assisting students seeking conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War, he had developed a system in which he kept no written notes (nothing to be subpoenaed by the authorities that way), but he seemed to have retained strong impressions about me in his memory, which he set into action by asking to glance briefly over my booklet of test results when we first sat down.

First question: "How comfortable are you owning your rather considerable intellectual capacities?"

I squirmed in my seat before answering sheepishly, "Not very."

We talked about that a while, and then he launched his next line of inquiry: "I want to underscore how essential it is to your well being to honor the fact that you are such a strong introvert. How well do you do with honoring that?" (On the Myers-Briggs typology, I'm almost off the chart on the introvert side of the line, and this has been true every one of the gazillion or so times I've taken the "inventory".)

Me, squirming more: "Um, well, I try but I'm probably not all that successful."

He: "Someone as strongly introverted as you probably needs a minimum of an hour of uninterrupted silence every day, like silent meditation or something like that, or you will be living with seriously high stress. And you would probably be happier if more of your work were done alone." And a while later he volunteered: "I can understand why parish ministry would not feel very well suited to who you are."


We talked easily for ninety minutes or more--it's amazing how fascinating it can be to hear someone speak about your very own self with so much insight!--and when I glimpsed the time on my watch, I wondered when he would deliver his "verdict" and hand me his vocational prescription for what I should do with my life from here.

When he finally started in, I was on full alert.

"Here are the top three things I think you would be wise to pursue, in descending order:

"First, I think you would enjoy and do well teaching in a seminary." (I noted a flutter of excitement and genuine intrigue rise in my chest. We discussed the slight hurdle of my not having a PhD that would qualify me to do so, almost as if it were no big deal or easy enough to find some way around.)

"Second, I could imagine you teaching religion at the college level." (Some excitement and intrigue, though a little less, and still there was the PhD thing to consider.)

"Third, you and David could relocate to a new parish in a university town or some other more stimulating intellectual and cultural area." (This did not feel very life-giving to me at all, more like a lead weight in my gut.)

"And finally," he began (Wait! I thought he was only giving three recommendations; I was confused.), "if you should win the lottery, I think you should write."

Fireworks of joy exploded in my chest! Somehow I managed to contain myself to listen while he continued.

"I think you should try to give yourself an apprenticeship of sorts, maybe find a writing mentor to work with. Really hone your craft. And I think you'd be great at spiritual writing."

I admit that not all of that sounded exciting to me--finding a mentor, honing my craft-- but overall when I said goodbye and drove my way back to Maine, I was ecstatic! I should write! I should write! He thinks I should write!

And I had his advice about liberation from the birdcage ringing in my ears: "The way to open the door of the birdcage is to affirm yourself as an artist and a writer."