True Stories

I was sitting in a hospital waiting room once, watching people and wondering what was going on in their lives. (I find hospitals and airports are good for that, given you spend so much time just sitting, and waiting.)

I started taking notes in my journal, I'm not sure why, and at one point copied down snatches of a phone conversation being had by a woman nearby: "I hate this place...I know, I know, listen to me. I haven't told anyone else—I haven't told anyone else. As much as it would kill me, I would do that for you. I love her more than me."

I couldn't possibly grasp any of her meaning, of course, but the next thing I wrote in my journal was simply, she's in pain. And then I stopped writing, I suppose because I was either done waiting, or couldn't bear to speculate any more about what was going on in the lives around me. Probably both.

I think about that woman now, and wonder why she hadn't "told anyone else" about this thing that was clearly a source of pain. And I think about the man on whom I was waiting in that room that day, a man who used to be very sick with AIDS, and who is now relatively healthy with AIDS, and I think about how you could never, ever know a glimpse of his true story just to look at him.

I think about how no one could ever know a glimpse of my true story to just to look at me.

Truth is, I've become convinced that every person has a story that can't be guessed at from the surface—they're stories that need to be told, if only someone was willing to listen.

A woman I admire recently posed the question, "why, as a society, are we not encouraging people to heal?" It's a good question, and it's something I've wondered myself for years, ever since I realized I had true stories that needed to be told in order for healing to come to pass. I’ve wondered, because some of them are stories that I can still barely share, having experienced that most people either don't want or don't know how to receive them.

The question at hand is not why we are inclined to keep our true stories to ourselves, but rather, why are we so inclined to try to shield ourselves from the brokenness of others (and consequently discourage people from healing)? It's pretty ironic, given that I have yet to get to know a person and then find that they haven't been broken in some way, themselves.

Every year, my church does a series of Sunday mornings in which our pastor interviews some folks who have been broken in one way or another. It's largely done to be authentic to the reality that a life of faith is not “perfect”-Christian-flavored peaches 'n' cream, and that it's disingenuous (not to mention unhealthy) to pretend it should be.

As a secondary effect, I imagine it can potentially be pretty cathartic for those being interviewed. I know from experience, though, that being in such an exposed situation might be much more than cathartic; it might be absolutely, terrifyingly necessary. Which is why it makes me sad to hear of the occasional complaint that, "this thing you’re doing up there on the stage— it isn't church." If you can't tell your story in church, where people are supposed to “be like Jesus” and therefore love you no matter what you've done or what has been done to you, where can you tell it?

So I guess it's no surprise that, having no such directive to love unconditionally, the rest of the world tends to be wary of people’s true stories (or tends to assume that one can guess at these stories, based on surface appearances). And I’m sure social scientists could point to some cultural, spiritual or other sorts of trends that have led to such mindsets. But none of that is the point, is it?

The point is that socially, we are somehow shamed into silence, when we should be encouraged to be open. Take, for example, the many women enduring some kind of abuse or exploitation who don't seek help because of shame, because the pain they live in somehow seems better than the pain of being exposed. Some cultures actually even hold to the belief that a woman who has been raped has been shamed, and that she ought to prefer death to being exposed and bringing that shame to her family. It's an extreme example, maybe, but it all stems from the same root problem, doesn't it? We aren't okay with being up-front-and-personal with the darker elements of that woman's story.

If we want to be healthier individuals with a healthier society, we must become a society that encourages people to heal. And this can only genuinely happen when people feel the freedom to share their true stories. So yes, it will probably take working through a good deal of discomfort to first enter into a world of brokenness, whether your own or someone else’s. But the thing is, the sense of shame, and the silence it causes—they’re holding us back.

I think about the woman on the phone in the hospital, and wonder where her life is now. Has she been able to tell anyone?

[photo by rwangsa on Flickr]