Earlier this year, when a small group at my church were doing Lenten studies, one woman spoke of giving up destructive self-talk for Lent. This struck a chord with me, because the thing I call myself most frequently in my head, several times every day of my life, is ‘Idiot!’
For a Christian, I know that as a default response, this is tantamount to blasphemy. My head knows all about amazing grace and the unconditional and unstinting love of God; in my writing I bang on about it all the time, but inside, in the bits that matter – my heart, my spirit – it’s a grimmer story.
No doubt there are reasons for the self-criticism that afflicts so many people, especially those, I suspect, of my generation and older. We grew up in a more authoritarian, guilt-ridden time. We grew up in a church where the emphasis was heavily on sin (read some of Calvin’s prayers of confession some time when you’re feeling strong). We grew up with images of God being not only male, but emphasising a punitive, intimidating deity – King, Lord, Judge – more to be feared than loved.
We also grew up in a world where the talents and abilities that were lauded and rewarded were the traditional male ones, about which I am, in fact, a bit of an idiot. Sport, politics, numbers, adversarial debate, no matter how hard I try, not only can I not be any good at these things, I can’t even begin to care that much. In many social situations the conversation was dominated by verbally and cerebrally clever men who, while not actually calling me an idiot, made me feel like one.
I now know that I’m pretty good at lots of useful stuff; holding a job, organising, cleaning up, producing writing of a certain kind, friendship. I have endeavoured to hone a natural bent for commitment, prayer and relationships. I’m good at being still, at drawing out other people, at seeing through some of the phoniness that proliferates all around us.
And these gifts and graces (possessed by many people, often women) if recognised, nurtured and rewarded, would help someone like me be more likely to say, ‘good job,’ to herself, as ‘idiot’. Or, if she slipped up, as she regularly does, to say something a little more benign. ‘Silly,’ maybe, or the annoyed grunt popularised by Homer Simpson, ‘d’oh’.
The fact that I’m reasonably good at a number of things, however, is completely beside the point. What I am learning, over a lifetime, is that whatever I am good or not so good at is irrelevant to the way God apparently delights in me. The closest comparison in my own life is the way I feel about my kids.
Isaiah 62, 4 expresses it beautifully:
‘You shall no more be termed Forsaken,
and your land shall no more be termed Desolate;
but you shall be called My Delight is in Her…
for the Lord delights in you.’
This article first appeared in The Melbourne Anglican, August 2014 issue.