November 1, 2008: Invest

Dear Friend,

I decided to go shopping today and make supper for Diana and Corina. They have been supplying food for me these past couple of days, and I felt it necessary to repay them. Deciding to go shopping in a foreign country, though, required a bit of prepping. I had to work up the courage. I didn’t go until much later in the day.

I did some work on the curriculum this morning. Right now, my plan is simply to explain as many exercises as I can, especially the ones I feel are important for a high school curriculum about forum theatre. This is, in some regard, merely grunt work. Anyone, I suppose, could write out instructions to a theatre exercise, but my familiarity with the exercises gives me an advantage to understanding not only how the exercises work but also what their purposes are. Purpose is really important (in all things, it seems) as many of the exercises involve some rather silly activities that, without explanation, are just silly activities. I explain some of them in my earlier blog entries.

I finally mustered up enough courage to go shopping. This was shortly after my Internet connection died. There are times, though not always, when my irritation about something compels me to be productive. That being said, I went shopping. Everything went fine, even the checking out, despite my fumbling with the money. The grocery store was the one Diana had shown me, which is just a couple blocks from her flat. I bought ingredients for spaghetti, all the while hoping I had enough. I also bought some more hot chocolate, as it seems to have become a favorite among the three of us. I felt very happy as I was leaving the store, knowing I had just taken another step forward in confronting my discomfort with being in a foreign country.

The Internet still wasn’t working when I returned, despite all my efforts to repair it. Something about the cord that connects to my computer isn’t working. In some respects, that was a relief for me, as it meant the issue wasn’t with my computer. Needless to say, though, I was able to rack up a bit more irritation, which compelled me to go do the dishes and start making supper. (I want to make it clear right now that I in no way want to imply that irritation is the force that compels me to be egalitarian. That would be a considerably destructive formula. I do, however, want to point out that sometimes being productive is the only way for me to get my mind off of what is irritating me. This just so happened to be the case in this situation. I find it to be a somewhat less destructive formula than the one already mentioned.)

I was disappointed with the spaghetti sauce I had bought, though really couldn’t figure out a way I could’ve made a better purchase. Having very little knowledge about the variety of spaghetti sauces in general, I chose the one I felt would be the most user-friendly. I think I also bought into the scam of mass marketing. The sauce had neither the natural tomato paste look nor the natural tomato paste smell, therefore implying to me that I had purchased a paste that was manufactured on the basis of quantity mores so than quality. All I could think of was generic, artificial, Chef Boyardi, Spaghetti-O smelling sauce which, I’m sorry, doesn’t appetize me at all. Oh well, work with what you’ve got.

I don’t think I really impressed anyone by making supper, but that didn’t matter to me. I just wanted to make supper, and I wanted Diana and Corina to enjoy it. If they did enjoy it, I haven’t found out. We ate at separate times and in separate locations. Usually they’re pretty exhausted by the end of the day and just want to relax in their room, which I completely understand. I just made it available to them, explained how the process went, and allow them to help themselves however they wished to. I made the noodles and sauce separate (an old habit from home) so that they had the choice of noodles with or without sauce. I also bought some Parmesan cheese, which was made available. We all then retreated to our respective rooms for the night.

I read some more of Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be before going to bed (sounds like a wonderful read to end the day, don’t you think?) I read three chapters before calling it quits, the second of which was called “Masquerade.” One section of this chapter, called “The Mask of Sanity,” talks about the “psychopathic phenomenon,” a phenomenon I’m afraid I’m all too familiar with. It wasn’t so much the word psychopath or even sociopath that caught my attention, but rather the characteristics of each. Plantinga writes that “such persons are often intelligent and attractive, even charismatic – qualities that make them superb players of confidence games. Psychopaths wear the mask of a genial and trustworthy human being, but underneath it everything is self-protective chaos.” To put it bluntly, which Plantinga indeed does, psychopaths and sociopaths are “people without an active conscience and a capacity for remorse.[1]”

You may have guessed where I’m going with this. I was thinking about my father as I read those words. To use the word psychopath or sociopath to describe my father is almost unthinkable, yet the words intelligent, attractive, charismatic, and lack of conscious are words very close to home. In fact, these words describe my father so much that he doesn’t appear in my mind to be my father anymore. That’s a sad thought to me.

I haven’t seen or spoken with my father in over three years now. Part of my struggle on this earth will always be my asking the question, “what if?” or “what could have been?” I think my trial as a Christian is not to let those questions negatively influence my daily walk. I remember a time when he was always there, in my face, not even physically but psychologically. High school was very difficult for that very reason. After I stopped my correspondence with him, things started getting better daily. I wasn’t plagued every minute by thoughts of him, or scared about what he would do next. Proximity also helped. I was in another state, quite a few hundred miles away from him. This past summer, though, when he returned, I suddenly had to refortify my internal defenses against the haunting of a man I barely knew. He’s out there, somewhere, my memory keeps telling me.

I don’t think he’s ever going to go away. I remember in high school I just wanted him to die. He had been making suicide threats, and if he would only follow through with them I know I’d finally be rid of him. I don’t feel that way now, thankfully. Such vengeful feelings rarely make the situation easier to deal with, nor do they somehow fix the situation. Anger, when left to its devices, only produces more anger, until you become such an angry person that not even you can tolerate yourself. At that point he’s won, or at least inadvertently driven you to such a point that any superficial move he makes will send you into a frenzy. He now has control over you and he didn’t even have to lift a finger. You did all the work for him.

I know I’ll be dealing with these feelings for a long time and I know that as a trial my only recourse can and should be to give up those feelings to God. I learned this past summer the importance of praying for your enemies. The Bible speaks about that in a number of places, especially in Jesus’ ministries, and the idea is so backwards when you actually place yourself in the context of it. When you truly identify an enemy and then are confronted with the commandment to pray for him, a whole new world of theology, religion, and faith is opened before you. Either you become even more stark-raving mad or the entire idea of redemption begins to make sense, especially in the context of praying for an enemy you just so happen to love. I love my father. I even pity him, feel sorry for him, can trace hypothetically the deteriorating course he set himself upon and followed through much of his life and thereby even understand him. I also know that I can’t get through to him, so I shouldn’t try. Way too much of my energy would be wasted. However, even in the face of great opposition, obedience is asked of those who love the Lord. The Lord asks that we pray for our enemies. Who am I to defy Him?

Blessings.
Kailen

[1] Plantinga Jr., Cornelius. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995. pg. 97.