Practical, Therapeutic, Theological Thought
Nothing Notable
Motto: “All therapy ends badly.” — Sigmund Freud
Times have been tough. I have been on the knees of my soul, but I have not been doing something useful as Herzog recommended. No floor scrubbing for me.
I proceed with this column not knowing where it will go. I proceed in the faith that, if I face my emptiness and pain and allow it to come to the surface, it will be therapeutic. That is a radical conviction, even though it has been accepted as wisdom for some time. An old song asks: “Are you weary, are you heavy laden? Tell it to Jesus . . . .”
There is the scripture: “If my people, who are called by my name humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land” (II Chronicles 7:14).
In psychology, there is a conviction that what troubles us is often unconscious and, if we can get it out into the open, we can begin to understand it and work through it. This will help dispel its negative effects. Theology and therapy agree. Pretty clear and easy. The problem for me, though, is not thought. The problem is faith. Faith and the difficulties and ambiguities of living situations. The problem for me is anger and frustration. The problem for me is despair.
Now I am beginning to open up. Perhaps I need to do the 4th step of AA, “A fearless moral inventory,” after which I can proceed to a 5th Step in which I make full confession of the particulars of my wrongdoings to another person. However, I have been warned by the editors of this journal that they have no intention of turning this issue into my 5th Step nor of putting the burden of my 5th Step on you readers. I suppose they are right — at least this once. So, I offer you these therapeutic words of Walker Percy instead.
Four pm Thursday afternoon — The only thing notable is that nothing is notable. I wonder if any writer has ever recorded the observation that most time passes and most events occur without notable significance. I am sitting here looking out the window at a tree and wondering why it is that though it is a splendid tree, it is of not much account. It is no good to me. Is it the nature of the human condition or the nature of the age that things of value are devalued?
I venture to say that most people most of the time experience the same four-o’clock in the afternoon devaluation. But I have noticed an interesting thing. If such a person, a person like me feeling lapsed at four o’clock in the afternoon, should begin reading a novel about a person feeling lapsed at four o’clock in the afternoon, a strange thing happens. Things increase in value. Possibilities open. This may be the main function of art in this peculiar age: to reverse the devaluation. What the artist or writer does is not depict a beautiful tree — this only depresses you more than ever — no, he [or she] depicts the commonplaceness of an everyday tree. Depicting the commonplace allows the reader to penetrate the commonplace. The only other ways the husk of the commonplace can be penetrated is through the occurrence of natural disasters or the imminence of one’s own death. These measures are not readily available on ordinary afternoons. Conversations with Walker Percy, pp. 160, 161.