More about Roger.....

May 4

If you haven’t read my post about Roger, you can do so here. Roger has been on my mind a lot since the interchange we had with him. One of the questions I ask myself is: why did he feel safe and compelled to share his life tragedies with us, total strangers, while sitting in a waiting room at the optometrist’s office? Here’s where my thinking has taken me.

In the early 1990’s a book came out by Alice Walker. It is titled The Drama of the Gifted Child. In a nutshell, the book is about healing childhood wounds from abuse. One point Walker made in this book has always stuck with me. She says that when a child suffers abuse, if there is even one person who sees the abuse and validates it for the child, this can save the child from years of pain and suffering. She says the same is true for adults.

Being consciously witnessed in our pain by another person can be the doorway to healing. This is what I think was happening for Roger as he told us one story after the other. Of course, many people knew about his various situations. Perhaps someone did actually see him and his pain. But it felt to me that his sharing these situations with us specifically in the way that he did, was a healing for him. Not because we hold any special healing abilities, but because we saw and accepted him at the level he needed to be seen, accepted, and validated.

What this means for the rest of this is this. When we are working on our issues and need some sort of healing, working with a talented therapist, counselor, group, or minister might offer the witnessing and acceptance we need to heal. This is one of the benefits of the 12-step programs where people tell their stories and receive validation from their sponsor or other group members.

If someone tells you a story where they suffered or are suffering some sort of pain, the one thing not to do is to start telling a story about your life where you suffered. People have a tendency to do this because they think it makes the person feel less alone in their pain. In actuality, it removes the focus from that person to you which is not helpful. This doesn’t mean you can’t share your story at a later time. Just allow them the space to be seen and heard first.

By the way, if you are a recovering Evangelical Christian (or any other type of Christian, recovering or not), you might enjoy reading a Substack newsletter Evangelically Departed by Todd Wiebe who was a pastor in an evangelical church for over 25 years. He says that after stepping away from what evangelicalism has become in our cultural context, he has found a greater depth of faith. Give it a read and subscribe if it resonates with you!