97. Dark Continent

Missionaries - the Other White Meat

 I so dislike confronting people. Especially when I’m losing.  One of my basic character flaws, I guess.  I have many, but I tell myself they have either lessened with age or I remember less of my misdeeds as I get older.  I’ve taken my concern to Harpo, my spiritual director.  He suggested I get in touch with the person inside me that is leading my life.  Both the current version of him and the younger version where I feel I made a lot of mistakes.

I tend to want to present a complete picture when I speak of myself.  Of course, it will be inaccurate because we hardly ever see our actions in any other light than that of self-love.  Have you noticed that so far in this blog I’m most often correct in my opinions and decisions?  And when I am occasionally wrong, I have a good excuse for my mistake?  “Good ol’ Jesse, he’s not perfect but he has a good heart,”  would be what I’d want you to say about me, I suppose.  The process of self-justification takes place automatically in our brains, I think.  There is evidently a naturally selected advantage to thinking well of ourselves.

I haven’t said much about my experiences in Africa because every time I write about those few years and read it back I am disappointed in myself. Short of creating a fictional piece with Jessse The Great as the hero, even my majestic ego cannot find a noble protagonist in my Dark Continent story.  The short of it is I just don’t like the person I see when I write about him.

Forty odd years later I can admit I was a dumb-ass kid who overestimated his physical and mental abilities, his capability of love for mankind and ability to get along with others and just about every other meager talent in his inventory.  And this many years later I still cringe when I remember some of my behaviors and how they affected others.  I know, I know … I’m probably overestimating my importance in the scheme of things, but although I’ve learned in recent years that some of the people whose work or plans I upset don’t even remember me, I still have to live in judgment of myself.  Unless I accede to the view of my confessor and spiritual director, Harpo,  who has always told me I’m wasting time thinking about myself.  (I wonder what Harpo would think if he knew I was writing a blog about myself!)

“Did you ever know a Brother with whom you often disagreed and who you did not appreciate?”  Harpo asked me one afternoon when I asked him to hear my confession just so we could dispense with The Silence so I might talk about myself, my favorite topic.

“Sure,” I replied, “Zipper would come close to the bottom of my list of favorite pilgrims on the path.”  Zipper had been with us for five years back in the early 1980’s.  He earned his nickname from his habit of reinforcing The Silence by making a protracted and dramatic gesture of zipping his lips when anyone said anything before the evening dispensation.  He left us and the Order of the Holy Varlet in 1986 to attend law school.

“Did you not pray for him?” continued Harpo.

“I think so, yes,” I answered, “but I cannot bring any specific memories to mind.”

“Okay,” laughed Harpo, “did you not know you should pray for him and wish him well?”

“Yes, I knew it.  I really think I might have prayed for him.  Probably. Maybe. Not sure,” I said.

“But you could.  So if you can pray for a brother you don’t like, why can’t you pray for that person you were 40 years ago?”  he asked.  “Call him Jesse The Younger.  Forgive him, love him … as you should have done for Zipper.”

“Can I yell at him, too?”  I interjected.

“Sure,” said Harpo.  “Bare your soul to him.  Let it all out. But end by forgiving him. 

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll do that if I ever meet Jesse The Younger again.”

“You will never “meet” him again,” said Harpo.  “That’s why you should put all of this in a letter to him.”

I talk to myself all the time, but I seldom write to me.  I was sure Harpo’s suggestion of a letter was meant to help me objectify my self-image  so that I could better see my attributes, good and bad.  However, on my first attempt, I kept mixing up Me Now and Me Then.  Thinking about a realistic observation of myself, it occurred to me that a guardian angel would see the real me and would presumably care enough to be fair.  And gentle, of course.  Now my enthusiasm for this work began to grow as I thought of how Sally would write lovingly to me.  And in the end, the imaginary Sally, the Guardian Angel, produced an imaginary account of what might be an imaginary Jesse.

Have I used this lately?