When I first got sober, I asked some "believing" friends to help me. I felt that I needed to be away from some dysfunctional family patters in order to stay sober and get healing. These friends and I drew up a contract, doing all the stuff right. I sure wasn't well behaved, I was newly sober! I didn't do anything crazy but the first time I cried, and was really hurt, they threw my four year old and I right out onto the street. Thank God I had been attending 90 meetings in 90 days and found a nice Jewish lady who offered to take us in. These people put us on the streets because I acted like the hurting person I was.
Since then, I have seen this time and again. Friends who have gone through horrendous things withdraw until they are "better". People in the midst of their pain are told others are "sending good vibes" or "praying for them" and sometimes they even send food. Friends stop contacting those in pain because they don't know what to say, or they assume they'll reach out when they need help. Posts circle about "if you ever feel suicidal, call me anytime"...not offering to show up at your door unannounced with shoulders to weep on or to offer to clean the house.
Showing up WHEN we are hurting is not how we roll in our culture. We want to be all patched up before we show ourselves. We want posts to be inspiring, well thought out, coming from a place of all healed and mature. This is what we expect from others, though not said, and it is definitely what we expect from ourselves. We "want solutions" or "to see the way out" rather than live in the muck and mess and just feel it. When did we become like this? Have we always been this way? Have we always wanted to just skip right through hard times?
I was speaking to my client about the book of Job. Her dad always makes mention of it, and so do most evangelicals. Yet, when I was in the throws of anguish after my second miscarriage, and this time twins, our rabbi came over. He told me that the book of Job is not as much about suffering as people think. Job is about Jobs anger, and his ridiculous friends who kept wanting to offer a solution or insist there was a reason, and that Job had done something wrong. 30 some chapters of them arguing with Job and him getting PISSED! His wife insists he just off himself because none of what's happened makes any sense. The good thing about those friends, is that they at least showed up. But, they showed up with an agenda. They wanted him to be better, to admit a wrong, and to move on.
So, perhaps we have been like this all along. Did you know that Hashem rebukes those friends? I wonder what Hashem would say to all of us when we insist we have it figured out before we post, before we show ourselves in public again, and so on. How many of us put on a face or smile when we feel like dying on the inside? What would it look like if we start letting people show us their messy without judgments?
Cause life is messy. Like is painful. We do things from hurt places. We behave out of hurt. There isn't always a solution. And? Can we live with that every now and again? Can we allow others to as well?
