Becoming Me

In the Bob Dylan biopic “No Direction Home,“ Bob reflects back on his life and says, “As an artist, you can never get into a place where you’re thinking you’ve arrived anywhere. You’re always in a process of becoming. If you can get into that place [of becoming], you’re going to be O.K.” This is not a new idea to me nor unique to Dylan, but it struck a chord in my heart.

There are many things that I want: a steady paycheck, a house of my own, a child to love me, recognition, style, to be considered funny, erudite, and clever. These are the point where I would know I had arrived.

I want to be labeled. I want to be categorized. I want to be prejudiced against in the best possible way. I want the benefit of the doubt that comes from past achievement. I want my ego stroked. I want the validation that comes from television, money, and seeing my name in print.

But perhaps it is these vain garments that I must shed to unleash the “becoming” artist (and person, Christian, husband, friend, etc.) within me. I am starting to think that it is difficult to have something real to say, a thing that is important, something that may change the world, while also trying to make people love you. It is hard to be honest about who you are when you are also trying to make everyone happy.

I have reached a place where I have nothing left to hang my value on. I cannot make other people love me for what I can do. I cannot prove I am worthy of love by my academic thought, my skills as a preacher, my ability to make money, a full head of hair, or discipline to regularly write. Even the small amount of money I was contributing to our bank account from a part-part-time job is gone because work is slow.

I am nothing.

But perhaps this is a gift. That I have reached this point relatively early in my life might save me from the despair that often comes in old age. I’m sure there are people who are successful by whatever standards are applied to them who look back on their lives and think the same thing that I am thinking at twenty-seven. For some, the search for deeper meaning may only come after a lifetime of striving after the goals they set for themselves.

If God is involved in my life (and I hope so) maybe the reason I haven’t been vaulted into the realms of vocational success is that I have been given the particular grace of being forced to find a reason for doing things (work, play, prayer, write, read, etc.) that has nothing to do with money, or recognition, or establishing the reasons I deserve to be loved.

These days I understand a little more what it means in the Bible when it says that it is in our weakness that we are made strong. For if I can be loved now, with no dowry, and if I can accept the love that comes to me, then maybe I can let go of all those standards of success that I measure my “arrival” and instead embrace the “becoming” of my life.

He Who is Without Sin...

I met an old lover the other night. I hadn’t seen Hostess Twinkie in years. I know that it has been at least since I’ve gotten married, probably longer. I had run into her occasionally, mostly at gas stations, a couple of times at the grocery store, but neither of us ever said anything. Neither of us acknowledged the history between us.

Why would a happily married man go out and indulge in confectionary? It was a mistake. But I was feeling bad about myself; about looking for work and not finding it. I admit that I went out cruising for comfort food. I’m not proud of what I did, but I did it and I’m owning up to it.

When I was younger, Twinkie and I were great together. She was at all my birthday parties. She met my parents and grandparents. I tried to see her as much as I could, in fact I couldn’t get enough of her. We made each other happy. But a man has to grow up. I knew we couldn’t last. It just wasn’t meant to be. A man can’t take that much sweetness all the time. A man needs salty, bitter, and spicy. I had needs that Twink just couldn’t meet. So one tearful night, we went our separate ways with only our sweet, sweet memories.

It was at the corner Shell Station that I saw her. She looked exactly the same as she did in my memory. I mean exactly. She hadn’t changed a bit. She wore the same wrapper and still had the same cowboy tattoo. I could even tell she sat on the same while cardboard square. Looking back, I realize that on some level, I may have even wanted to run into her, to make something happen between the two of us.

And I’m not going to lie. It was great, over 700 calories in four cream-filled yellow cakes. But afterwards, as I cleaned up wrappers and cardboard, I felt guilty and bloated. What had I done? How could I have done this to my wife? She occasional sees Reeses Peanutbutter Cup, but she assures me their relationship is purely platonic, nothing like this. When she found me trying to wash away my transgression with glass after glass of milk she demanded to know what I had done. I explained what had happened, that I was sorry and that it would never happen again. She was understandably upset, but she insisted that we could work this out together.

So we started culinary couples therapy on Monday. I admitted that some of my Twinkie problems go all they way back to childhood, how I never got enough sugar as a kid. Plus, Caryn agreed that she had been comparing me to her old boyfriend, Diet Coke. He is a great guy and my friend too, but our therapist, Mrs. Fields, says we need to accept one another as we are: a mixture of sweet, sour, and spicy. Just what we really need.