All Is Grace: A blind, drunk “saint”
I met him once, briefly.
“Sit, with the opportunity to listen to one of the ‘saints in the land’ speak… this morning,” were the chaplain’s closing remarks of introduction before Brennan took the stage.
“In the words of Francis of Assisi as he met brother Dominique on the road to Umbria: ‘Hi,'” he began in a slow, measured voice with a grin.
The crowd exhaled in full laughter, their air having been held in their lungs a little too seriously during the astounding and gracious introduction about him was given.
Brennan Manning, christian author and speaker, was in his 70’s and his light blue eyes had already gone blind. His friend and traveling companion had to lead him up the carpeted stairs of the stage to the podium from which he would address our sleepy-eyed college-student selves. It was a Wednesday in early January, 2010.
It was the first chapel session that I had attended at my christian college since being back from my year studying abroad. I didn’t know that Brennan Manning, author of The Ragamuffin Gospel and grace-touter extraordinaire was to be the speaker.
But he was. As soon as our Chaplain began introducing him, my heart and ears opened.
I’d first encountered Brennan’s name and face when I was about 11 or 12 years old.
I was at the Christian book store with my mom, and a book, The Ragamuffin Gospel, caught my eye as it stared up at me from a “15% off” table in the center aisle. I picked up the book, and flipped it over to find a picture of Brennan looking back at me. He had wrinkled skin and white hair, and the short bio said that he lived in New Orleans.
I was impressed that a straight-laced looking, older Christian author lived in a place I only knew of for it’s debauchery on Mardi Gras.
When I first heard the news of Hurricane Katrina hitting the city in August 2005, I immediately thought of him and prayed for him and any family he may have there. I had not thought of him or his book at all since seeing that copy of the book several years before, but somehow, the information had stuck: There was a ragamuffin christian who lived in New Orleans. May God have mercy.
When I was in my early college years, I had been fully entrapped in the cycle of abuse and lies that my story unfortunately holds. Dying on the inside, feeling like I was never, never good enough to get out of the cycle, I found Brennan’s Ragamuffin Gospel again, and read it. Consumed it. I didn’t understand grace all of the way yet, but I knew, I knew I needed it.
And as I sat in the auditorium of my christian college, and as Brennan began to speak his famous message of grace, I was ready. I was familiar with grace now. I had realized that the grace of God on the hurting, the dirty, the trapped, the grieving, the sinning, the I-want-to-be-different-than-I’m-able-to-be’s was the only thing keeping me afloat. And Brennan’s words drenched me that morning.
I went up to him afterward, tears streaming down my face and urgency in my shaking voice as I spoke to him.
I don’t even know what I said to him, aside from “thank you, thank you so much for your message of grace today and in life.”
But I do remember that as he faced me, he took both of my arms, and clasped them right about at the elbow, holding our forearms parallel to one another’s as we spoke. He looked me in the eyes, though he could not see and his blue eyes were cloudy. They began to fill with tears in our short interaction. He thanked me, I thanked him, and we parted ways.
I didn’t think of Brennan the person (though I did use his books often) much for the next few years, until almost exactly 3 years later, when my life imploded, and the shrapnel of shame and pain went flying, lodging into anyone nearby.
About a week into the aftermath of that time in my life, in hours of searching through the book store for something to distract or help, I found it: Brennan’s memoir. It hadn’t been finished yet at the point I had met him, but I knew, this would be the book of the season.
The book is titled: All is Grace.
The reason Brennan knew grace so intimately is that he was such a “ragamuffin” (of his own naming). Ragamuffin meaning, one whose only prayer could be “God grant mercy on my soul, a sinner.”
In the beginning of the book, he writes this: “Warning: Mine has been anything but a straight shot, more like a crooked path filled with thorns and crows and vodka. Prone to wander? You bet. I’ve been a priest, then an ex-priest. Husband, then ex-husband. Amazed crowds one night and lied to friends the next. Drunk for years, sober for a reason, then drunk again. I’ve been John the beloved, Peter the coward, and Thomas the doubter all before the waitress brought the check.”
In his ruthless honesty about pain, about grief, about short-comings and sins, and shameful things, Brennan walked me through his life, and I found light in the broken places.
In a poem by Leonard Cohen, it’s written: “There is a crack in everything. // That’s how the light gets in.” That’s what I found in those pages — a testament that God loved my cracked self, and that he could pour light and grace into me, and hopefully, maybe one day, out of me as well.
Brennan’s honesty of his story was a tiny shimmer of light in a very dark season. I took my time over several months to read through the book. But I was finally finishing it on my way back from a trip to Israel in April 2013 when I heard the news — Brennan had passed away. I sat on the plane and cried a few silent tears. Tears for a man who was broken, who failed often, and who God used in huge ways to tell the world about the message of grace and love.
To this day, Brennan is one of the few Christian leaders who I would wholeheartedly recommend because of his ruthless honesty about who he has been, who God is, and that when you match those two up, the only conclusion is this: All is Grace.
——- ——— ——-
There’s a movie that’s about to be made about Brennan and his life which I’m really excited to recommend. It’s called “Brennan.” You can keep your eyes out for it to watch it, but more than that, there’s the unique opportunity to help it get created.
- They have a kickstarter page where they’re raising funds to create the movie.
- They also are going to do a movie tour that you can request to have stop in your town or community by contacting bookings@brennanmanningmovie.com
-
Ragamuffins Street-Team: for those who want to join on the frontline to champion the film, get updates on production, join the community of other ragamuffins helping with the project, and know how to pray for them.
The movie is being made by the same folks that created the film “Ragamuffin” a couple years ago about Rich Mullins’ life (which was, obviously, one of the lives touched by Brennan Manning’s message of grace for the outcasts of the world). If you know me, you know I sort of despise christian movies, but I’m really, really, really looking forward to this one. They will execute it well, and it’s a story well-worth telling and knowing.
——- ——— ——-
Lastly, this is Brennan’s “A Word Before” note at the beginning of his memoir:
All Is Grace was written in a certain frame of mind — that of a ragamuffin.
Therefore,
This book is by the one who thought he’d
be farther along by now, but he’s not.
It is by the inmate who promised the parole
board he’d be good, but he wasn’t.
It is by the dim-eyed who showed the path
to others but kept losing his way.
It is by the wet-brained who believed if a
little wine is good for the stomach,
then a lot is great.
It is by the liar, tramp, and thief; otherwise
known as the priest, speaker, and author.
It is by the disciple whose cheese slid
off his cracker so many times
he said “to hell with cheese ’n’ crackers.”
It is by the young at heart but old
of bone who is led these
days in a way he’d rather not go.
But,
This book is also for the gentle ones
who’ve lived among wolves.
It is for those who’ve broken free of collar
to romp in fields of love and marriage and divorce.
It is for those who mourn, who’ve been
mourning most of their lives,
yet they hang on to shall be comforted.
It is for those who’ve dreamed of entertaining angels
but found instead a few friends of great price.
It is for the younger and elder prodigals
who’ve come to their senses
again, and again, and again, and again.
It is for those who strain at pious piffle
because they’ve been swallowed by Mercy itself.
This book is for myself and those who have been around
the block enough times that we dare to whisper
the ragamuffin’s rumor —
all is grace.
If you’d like to support the Story Project (to cover travel expenses, costs of Stories for those who can’t afford it, etc.) you can do so below or contact me at storyofjoblog@gmail.com if you’d like to send a check. Thank you for your support!
To Donate to Stories By Jo: The Story Project click below
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
Put On Your Shoes: An ode to my protective big brother
He must’ve been about 6 years old. His head full of blondish brown curls. He was tall, lanky, apparently even the “slim fit” pants would fall down because of his narrow width.
I was a toddler, about three years old, with baby-fat chubby cheeks, big blue eyes, and blond hair bleached blonder by hours spent outside in the sun. I wore solid colored shorts with elastic bands (as is common for toddlers), and I’d always pull them down to the lowest point possible on my hips. (I don’t know if you knew this, but I liked hip huggers before they were cool. I was pretty hipster.) And I was a hard-core 3-year-old subscriber to the idea that barefoot is best.
Usually though, when I was doing things like riding a bike (with training wheels, because hey, I was a toddler and this is a true story) or a scooter, or rough and tumble things like that, I was required to wear my shoes.
One of our biggest activities as siblings was to climb this big mulberry tree we had in our back yard. We also loved to jump out of the tree. I was allowed to climb the tree barefooted, which really helped feed my desire to become Pocahontas when I grew up, but I was not allowed to jump out of the tree barefooted at this age.
And the same was true for the swings.
My brother Jason and I had this game where we would swing, and instead of just jumping off the swings like children of average talent, we came up with a more elite, challenging twist: One of us would jump off the swing and just as they jumped, the other would yell something that the jumper had to act out before landing.
Example: Jason jumps. I yell, “The Sun!” Jason puts his hands up to his face jazz hand style to display the sun mid-jump, then he lands. Somehow many of the shapes/things we acted out involved a very similar display of flaying arms and legs out to our sides and/or jazz hands. OK, maybe we weren’t above average ability like we thought, but our denial was strong.
One day Jason and I were out swinging barefooted in the afternoon sun, and I suddenly jumped off the swing. “Joanna!” he yelled. Which was weird, because I didn’t have to change my shape at all because I already was a Joanna before I landed.
“What?” I asked once I landed my jump with olympic precision. “Why’d you just say my name?”
“You know you’re not supposed to jump off the swings or out of the trees without shoes on,” he said.
“But I hate shoes.”
“We can play the game, but you have to go inside and put shoes on first.”
“Fine,” I said.
So I went inside and put on my saltwater sandals, knowing that option wasn’t up to par, but thinking I’d try it anyway.
I went back out and said, “Ok, ready!”
“Little girl, those aren’t shoes,” he responded, giving me that sideways glance that big brothers can give, even when they’re skinny bean poles with floppy blond curls.
“But, these still protect my feet,” I retorted.
“Fine, next time you have to wear shoes, though,” he relented.
“Yes! Ok, you jump first!” I said, full of glee at my triumph. I hopped on the swing, and pumped my legs as hard as I could to get up to speed with him.
“Flower!” I yelled as he jumped, and he kept his legs straight like a stem, put his arms out wide with splayed jazz-hand fingers for leaves, and made his face cheery like a flower while he landed.
———————
I’ve always remembered this instance, because it’s the perfect summation of who my big brother has always been to me.
He’s always been my friend and my playmate. But he’s always been there to protect me without inhibiting me as well.
But while he is there to be a voice of reason, a voice of caution, the most important part is the stableness in the fact that he is there.
In the aftermath of my life falling apart, I had one afternoon where I was sitting in my car, up on a hill overlooking the town and the railroad tracks. And it was the only time I have ever legitimately had both the desire and the will to run away. I saw the train coming in at a slow chug, and I thought, “This is it. Just leave your phone, your keys, your purse, everything. Just jump on that train and make a new life from scratch.” I used all of my willpower to force myself to stay in that car until the train passed, because I knew if I opened the door, it would happen. I would run.
As I told my brother and parents about this day about a year later, Jason came to me and hugged me, and said, “I’m glad you didn’t get on the train. I would’ve had to go and search and find you to make sure you were alright.” He said it with a veil of joking in his voice, but his message was real.
Note that he didn’t say he’d have to go find me and bring me home. He said he’d find me to make sure I was alright.
Jason has never tried to dissuade me from one of my various adventures or antics, but he occasionally does voice the helpful thoughts like, “You can jump off the swing, but you should wear your shoes.”
His protection is always selfless. And that’s a trait I have yet to find in anyone else in the world.
I know it’s not easy to watch people you love go off and traipse around the world, and have adventures that will probably turn into crazy stories, but that also have to potential to go wrong.
I know it’s not easy to be the big brother to the fearless three-year-old who will jump from the highest branch, or the galavanting 25-year-old who blows about with the wind. But he does it. Consistently. And he does it well. He has mastered the art of being a loving, protective big brother, while also letting me fly free and being happy for me as I go.
And while I live in different cities and states (and sometimes countries) from him, I still value the times we do get to do life together. Because he was my first best friend, and he’ll be one of my best friends until the end. And there’s something extremely valuable about someone who both tells you to put shoes on, and then jumps off the swings with you. Someone who would track you down when you ran away, not to drag you home, but to make sure you were OK. Someone who loves you like he does.
Happy birthday week to my dear big brother who I squabble with in love, talk to as a friend, and who takes up much more than his share of the couch when we’re watching a movie together as a family. There’s no one quite like you. I love you, Jas.
If you’d like to support the Story Project (to cover travel expenses, costs of Stories for those who can’t afford it, etc.) you can do so below or contact me at storyofjoblog@gmail.com if you’d like to send a check. Thank you for your support!
To Donate to Stories By Jo: The Story Project click below
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
Truth: The most important lesson I learned in college
We sat in a small, barren classroom with approximately twelve standard table desks, in three rows of four. A green chalk board spans the length of the front wall, and a small wooden podium sits off to the side at the front of the room — it holds handouts and chalk, but it won’t be used as a presentation platform this hour.
There are two dark blue plastic chairs to each table. Students dot the room with their informal, after-lunch presence.
Two girls in the back wear bikinis under their tank tops, either preparing to head to the waves right after class for a surf session, or having just returned from the water.
The table tops hold notebooks, pens, coffee cups and water bottles, snacks and parts of lunches stolen from the caf — what Point Loma Nazarene University (PLNU) students and faculty call the cafeteria (always “the caf,” never “the cafeteria”).
The class room is seated on PLNU’s picturesque campus by the sea in San Diego, though the room itself is unimpressive, sitting in the shade by the parking lot, the caf and the music building it’s only view.
This is where Intro to Journalism is held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 1:30-2:20pm in the Fall semester of 2007. The class is led by Dr. Dean Nelson, head of the journalism program at the university, author, journalist with bylines in places such as the New York Times and the San Diego Union Tribune. His students know him by his first name.
Dean would get up, most often wearing khaki slacks, a generic button down t-shirt, and either Vans or Converse shoes, and he would joke with us in brash ways as everyone filtered in. “Alright,” he’d begin, and either launch into a current events quiz (Mondays), an Associated Press Stylebook quiz (Fridays), or just straight into the lesson, either about ways to write an article, ways to get sources, or case studies that teach important journalistic lessons such as ethics, libel, or handling a tough story assignment.
My whole life I’d had this inclination toward English literature and English classes. But I am a painfully slow reader, so I knew I would drown quickly in the workload of a literature student, so I entered college majoring in broadcast journalism. I had experience anchoring, script-writing, videoing, editing, and producing news broadcasts for my middle school, and for our church’s hurricane relief efforts in Louisiana when I was in high school after Hurricane Katrina, so I thought maybe that would be a good fit. That’s how I landed in Dean’s Intro to Journalism class my first semester.
It only took that single class to make me decide to ditch the “broadcast” portion of my major, and to sweep me off my feet into the world of nonfiction writing. I’d been in love with stories told in any medium since as long as I could remember, but aside from the Little House on the Prairie books we read aloud in my young childhood, I didn’t have much experience reading non-fiction. Dean’s class changed all of that. Our assignments were sometimes to read non-storied non-fiction about the techniques of writing, but even those resources were often written with stories entwined. In a swift unveiling, I saw a world of true stories, written as captivatingly as fiction, and I knew I wanted to write like that.
One of the lessons Dean honed in on several times, however, is a writer’s temptation to make a story better than it is by embellishing, creating bias, under-emphasizing, and other tactics that would make the story more compelling or interesting.
I wouldn’t say I’ve struggle with this a lot, but I know that before this class, sometimes as I would tell stories, I might leave out the measuring details, to make something sound more grand. Or I may embellish my already poor skills of estimation. But the more Dean honed in on this lesson, the deeper it embedded its conviction in me.
Dean put it this way, and I’ve always remembered these words: “The truth is interesting enough.”
It is one of my mantras to this day. I’m not always perfect at this. But when I falter, I try to come back (often right away) and correct myself. It’s a matter of integrity as much as it is a matter of accuracy.
It’s the foundation of my assurance in the idea that everyone has a story, and that every story matter.
Because in the midst of photoshopped models, movied plot-lines, and social media platforms that allow us to edit our lives, I want to be someone who continually believes and lives out with conviction the idea that the truth is interesting enough. And if I want my life to be more interesting, it’s up to my living, not my writing, to make it so.
This is real life. We all live it, with its few glamorous and many monotonous moments. And it’s freeing to accept the truth for yourself that the true reality of your life is interesting enough.
If you’d like to support the Story Project (to cover travel expenses, costs of Stories for those who can’t afford it, etc.) you can do so below or contact me at storyofjoblog@gmail.com if you’d like to send a check. Thank you for your support!
To Donate to Stories By Jo: The Story Project click below
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
Finding the will before finding the way: A story about snow boots
I found myself wandering down the shoe section aisles at target about a week after I first had the idea for the Story Project.
And there they were, the snow boots I had looked at the year before and decided I didn’t need them, as chances of me going up to the snow enough times to merit buying snow boots had been slim.
It was the same situation this year (2013), plus the California drought. But I had just been to visit my friend Kate in Denver, and we had hiked a 14er (Mt. Bierstadt) in far too much snow, and as I soaked through my non-waterproof hiking boots, I had thought that snow boots would’ve been a good thing to have.
And the story project idea, though new in my mind, was unrelenting. I had spent every lunch hour and after-work hour for the past week sketching out ideas and researching highway routes through the country and looking up cost of living in various middle-of-the-US cities. I knew one thing: I would move East for the project. Far enough East that I’d need snow boots.
So I bought them. In faith. A week into the idea of the Story Project. With no firm plans, just a firm will. Though a little purchase, it felt like I was investing in myself, that I was taking the first small step to putting my money where my mouth (and heart) were. That I was willing to bet that I was really going to do this thing.
I find myself doing that more and more these days. When I have an idea that I’m firm on, a desire that I’m sure of, even if I don’t have a plan, I announce my intentions. Now, I always reserve the right to change my mind, but this out-loud and out-of-wallet accountability makes sure that I don’t end up never having done something just because I never got around to it.
I used to not announce my intentions until I had a plan. I was afraid of people’s questions. “Well, when are you going to do that? How are you going to? Where will you live? With whom? What college will you go to? What will you major in? What do you want to be when you ‘grow up’?”
Those kinds of questions used to paralyze me. I was always concerned about making the wrong decision on the plans, that I forgot to even let myself uncover what I wanted my intentions to be.
It’s taken changing course a couple times, taking some detours, and letting some bombs blow up my plans — but I’m finally to a place where I don’t have to have a plan to start telling you about what I want to do. And in that, I’ve found that I find help, advice, and connections along the way that I never would have if I had my plan completely figured out already.
It took a lot of rerouting of the way I thought about life to finally allow myself to let go, and to enjoy the process of discovering what I love and am passionate about, discovering what I want to do, and then finding the plan as it comes. It takes a lot of security in knowing that I am who I am, regardless of the paths I take, and that it’s OK to share myself with the world before I’m a finished, polished, well-planned person. I have ideas, I have dreams, and I’m starting to believe the creative minds who say that it’s best to start talking about them right away. It doesn’t just give you a finished product, it lets you in on the journey.
With that said, I’m heading to San Diego this week for the first stop of the Story Project. I have a couple stories lined up, but am hopeful to find a few more while I’m down there. More practice in living unplanned when we have to. Please keep me and the Project in your good thoughts and prayers as I search for people whose stories need to be told.
I’m hopeful to find the gems in the journey.
If you’d like to support the Story Project (to cover travel expenses, costs of Stories for those who can’t afford it, etc.) you can do so below or contact me at storyofjoblog@gmail.com if you’d like to send a check. Thank you for your support!
To Donate to Stories By Jo: The Story Project click below
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
Laugh at my Pain – A life lesson
To Donate to Stories By Jo: The Story Project click below
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
It’s good to remember: 11 years
Eleven years. It’s been 11 years since she died. My older sister. Julie.
Two years ago on my birthday, I wrote a column about celebrating even when it’s hard, and I talked about when my sister died, and the birthdays that followed. In the piece, there was this line: “When my older sister passed away, the timing was really terrible.”
We were at dinner — my older brother, my parents, and me — when I read them my column for that month. When I read that line, they all laughed. I laughed a little when I wrote it. Because it’s true, it was horrible timing when she died. As if death ever comes at a good time, but hers was particularly bad timing.
She died 3 days after her 21st birthday. Two months before graduating college. Three months before her one year wedding anniversary (they’d just purchased a cruise for the occasion). And in the first month following her death we had to celebrate my dad’s birthday, her husband’s birthday, my brother’s birthday, and Easter.
But I was glad that my family laughed at the line. Because that’s what I have begun to see as a sign of healing — being able to call things what they are. Being able to say that the timing was horrible and laugh at how irreverent it sounds and how true it is.
It took us several years as a family to know what to do with our “Julie week” of her birthday and anniversary of death. It was hard to talk about her for a long time. We each processed at different paces, and while some of us wanted to remember, it was too hard for the others. And visa versa other times.
Eventually, though, we ended up creating a sort of tradition when we were all living near one another (I’m the one that lives elsewhere some years, like this year). We get together and go out to dinner at the Olive Garden (her favorite — but give her a break, she was a 21-year-old broke college student/piano teacher. The Olive Garden was a splurge to her) and we tell stories to remember her. Not the stories that were told at the funeral. Those were too nice. Too kosher. For a long time, that’s all we or anyone would do — tell the funeral-appropriate stories. The ones where she seems so much more lovely, and so much less like the girl we grew up with and loved indefinitely not even despite, but with her flaws.
It took several years to find the freedom to remember her more accurately. To laugh at her precociousness, her sometimes judgmental nature, her infuriating stubbornness. To admit that amidst her mounds of talent, she was deeply insecure. To remember her harsh exterior that came out quite a bit, not just the softness that existed underneath, too. To remember the way her long red hairs got EVERYWHERE. It was literally over a year before I stopped finding her hairs woven into the fabric of my clothes from the laundry.
Again, I think it’s a sign of healing, of acceptance, to be able to laugh. I have this theory that I will teach my children if they are ever bullied — laughing at something takes it’s power away.
And I think for our family, when we were able to finally laugh again at the memories of our sister, it was a sign that we were taking power away from grief. We had to let it run its course. That’s not optional. But finally, we found our way to a place where we could remember what was true.
And with that allowance, it is a double edged sword, because remembering the real Julie, means acknowledging the realness that we loved that we don’t have anymore. It means acknowledging the loss, not of some idealized saint, but of our very real sister who we very real-ly loved.
I think we learned this from my mom. We grew up hearing what I would name the “rascal boys stories” — stories of her and her two brothers while they were growing up. But in the stories, there were two brothers, and in life when we were hearing the stories, there was only one brother. We were missing an uncle. He died before I was born. I only know him from the stories.
But the Uncle Randy I know was deeply troubled and deeply loved. He was a lovable little boy. But he had a lot of problems socially and relationally. He got into trouble. He lived a rough life. But in the stories, I could hear him laughing. I could hear him crying. I could see him be tricked by his brother. And blamed for something his sister did. And I could see him yelling. I could see him getting arrested. I could see him dancing at his wedding. I could see him hitchhiking across the country to his new home in New York. And I could sense how much my mom and her family loved this very real, imperfect man.
I’ve never met him, but because of the stories, I know him a little bit. A non-idealized, real version of him. And because of that, he’s never felt like a story character — he’s felt like family. Real-life, living and breathing, blood and guts family.
That’s my hope as we move onward in this life and we carry the loss with us. That we will continue to choose to tell the stories of real-life Julie. That we will remember her as she was, and laugh at what needs to be laughed at and feel for the things that need to be felt. That we will love her in death the way we loved her in life. Real-ly. Because she was real, and our love for her still is. It is good to remember.
Please keep our family in your thoughts and prayers this week as her birthday is this Wednesday and the anniversary of her death is Saturday.
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon www.storiesbyJo.com
A story saved my life — Announcing Stories By Jo
One time a story saved my life.
That’s sounds dramatic, I know. It’s still true.
I was 14 when my older sister died. I let grief dictate life for a year. I mean that I did not give in and grieve, rather, I shoved everything to the shelves of my mind, I pretended I was OK, but for a year, I was dying inside. I was convinced that no one could know what I was feeling or experiencing. No one. No one could possibly understand. Until one night, I was up late reading my literature assignment for my 10th grade English class — a novel by Judith Guest called Ordinary People — and there was a simple, 2-page scene that wrecked me. In the story, the protagonist is a high school student whose older brother has died. The protagonist is in a therapy session, believing no one can understand when his therapist says, “let me tell you a short story.”
The therapist goes on to tell this “hypothetical story” about a perfect kid who had a younger brother, the not-so-perfect kid. And then the perfect kid dies. The not-so-perfect kid is left reeling — it should’ve been him. He’s not so perfect, after all. Where’s the justice? So he tries to become the perfect kid for everyone, even for himself. It works OK — they’re similar to begin with, being brothers and all, and the not-so-perfect kid is a good actor. But, this is the thing — the not-so-perfect kid — he’s dying inside. Because deep down, he knows he’ll always fail, because he will always be not so perfect.
I read that and I wept. It was like a bomb had just unleashed the waters of grief my self-made dam had been diligently holding at bay. Because there in front of me was proof that someone understood. A stranger writing a fictional book understood exactly what I was feeling. And the fact that I wasn’t alone — that changed everything. That book — that knowledge that I was not alone — that saved my life.
That’s what stories (true and fictional) have the power to do.
You have a story. You are not alone. Your story could change someone’s life.
On that note, I’m EXTREMELY excited (and slightly nervous) to announce that today is the official launch of an idea that caught ahold of me a year ago and which, through a lot of work, has now become a reality. I’d like to introduce you to:
Stories by Jo: The Story Project
(click above to visit full website!)
http://youtu.be/N4JfpxKeYrk
We’ve lost the art of storytelling. The Story Project hopes to help bring it back.
Stories are powerful. Seeing our own story helps us to understand ourselves better and to understand how our lives have led us to who we’ve become. And people who understand themselves are better able to share their story and connect with the world around them.
How It Works
This is where I need your help. I’ll be trying to arrange scheduling to do several stories in any given area that I travel to during the 2015-2016 project. I will be trying to focus efforts where I have connections as to try to keep the cost to the project participants down as much as possible while also making sure I’m at least covering my costs.
WHAT YOU CAN DO:
– FOLLOW THE PROJECT
Read the stories. Share the stories.
– PARTICIPATE
Browse the options for length of written piece and prices. Contact me to let me know you’re interested, where you’re located, and what length of piece you’re interested in.
– SPREAD THE WORD
Know someone with an incredible story? Encourage them to participate!
– DONATE TO THE GENERAL FUNDING OF THE STORY PROJECT
To cover expenses like travel, food and lodging, etc. Donate HERE
– HELP WITH CONNECTIONS
Do you have free hotel nights? A cabin or second home that I could stay in for a few days or a week? Hotel discount connections? Transferable Airline miles? Random gift cards for restaurants or cafes that you’re not using? A book publisher friend that might want to help in the process of giving this a print medium also?? (I mean, I didn’t think so, but it doesn’t hurt to ask.) Anything that could make this project work smoother and more effectively is welcome. Shoot me a line about your connections you’d be willing to offer to storiesbyjo@gmail.com
Whatever you end up doing, thank you for your involvement in this project!
Visit the website to learn more www.storiesbyjo.com
Quick Pieces of info:
- The Stories By Jo website and blog will be exclusively for the stories I’m writing about other people. My story is up there as the first story of the project as an example, but it will be filled with other people’s stories soon.
- I will continue to use this www.storyofjo.com blog as my own personal blog as usual. It may occasionally feature one of the Story Project stories, but it will remain a separate thing overall.
- This is not a money-making venture. In fact, I’m just really hopeful that some of you will donate to support the project and that enough people can and will participate that I can break even, but I really do believe in this idea and this project. I’m confident that it will be meaningful for everyone who participates, even as readers. I hope that will continue to include you along the way. Thank you for your support.
- Thank you for reading. My stories and the stories of others. Truly.
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
That’s a crazy story — A porn addict, a school assignment, & the birth of the story project idea
photo credit: Ti scriverò…. via photopin (license)
The idea came in waves.
As a journalism student in college, I was always writing news articles that answered the big 6 questions: Who, what, where, when, why, how, and the bonus 7th question: so what). My senior year ], however, was the first time I started to write more feature-length articles that were more people-oriented rather than event-oriented.
Following an interesting tip, I found myself writing my first feature-length on the stories of two women: one who was a current dancer (stripper) in the adult entertainment industry, and one who had been, but who now led a church ministry that reaches out to adult entertainment workers. Easily the hardest I’d ever worked on a piece and the most interested I’d ever become with my subjects. Their stories were so interesting to tell. The student Newspaper readership had to agree. I started to get stopped by students and teachers I didn’t know: “You’re the one that wrote the story about the strippers, right?” And then they’d have some other question or feedback for me.
What had started out as a beat in “under the rug” stories quickly found it’s focus in a particularly dusty area under the rug: the sex industry. And the most interesting part was always finding a subject — someone whose story would help me tell the larger story.
“Where were you the first time you ever saw porn?” I asked him.
I wanted to write about porn use and abuse, so I found a porn addict who was willing to speak with me honestly and bluntly. I was at a Christian University, so it was a controversial topic. We met in a secluded part of campus for the interview, and his name was changed in the article. But he let me tell his story. (He actually even told me I could use his name if I wanted at the last minute, but we decided it wouldn’t add anything to the story, and it may hurt him on campus.)
I remember while we were in the couple-hour interview, I had this thought: this is such sacred ground. He was telling me his shameful secrets. Allowing me to ask about the gritty details. Letting me in to a dark part of his past. I had never asked such candid questions, nor received such open answers.
The result was that I wrote an article about porn use, but really, I wrote this guy’s story. It just happened to have some porn in it.
The day the article came out in the newspaper, I went to the coffee shop on campus, and he was in there. He bee-lined for me and hugged me.
“I read the article this morning,” he said, “and I thought ‘that’s a crazy story.’ And then I went, ‘That’s MY story.’ And I called my mom and thanked her for the first time ever, for being there for me, for being both my mom and my dad when my dad wasn’t around.”
I didn’t write anything of his story that the guy didn’t tell me himself. But that was the first instance where I started to realize the power of hearing or seeing our own story outside of ourselves.
There is power in that. Even in just letting my story into the open these past 3 weeks, what started as whole-body anxiety and two-week-long nausea has turned into an acceptance that I hadn’t had before, an ability to breathe easier, and to see the power that my story has to change other peoples lives, to speak to them in the places where they thought they were alone, to share where I was and let it meet them where they are.
I’ve had my life changed by a story more than once. And I’ve found extreme power in seeing my story outside of myself. Sometimes it’s the power of healing and freedom, sometimes it’s the power of recognizing what I’ve gone through and thinking, “That’s a crazy story.” And sometimes it’s the revelation that I’m not alone.
This is why I’m starting Stories By Jo: The Story Project (see below).
If porn wasn’t what I was looking for, I may have found a different story entirely within that young man. So instead of approaching someone’s story looking only at a particular angle, I want to come in with fresh eyes and a non-newspapered freedom to say with a blank slate: “What’s your story?” And to see what we find there. Whatever the story is, I know this — it matters.
Also, in order to do this story project I’ve been going out on a limb of faith in what I believe will be an incredible and incredibly meaningful project and I have begun to work as a freelancer. The project participants will pay to have me write their stories, but to keep those costs on a more reasonable note and to still cover my project expenses, I’d like to ask you to think about supporting the project financially.
If you’d be willing to donate to help make this project happen, please click the donate button below. Thank you for your support and for reading!
Stories by Jo: The Story Project
Everyone has a story, but not everyone has the
voice, time, or platform to tell it.
Just as you would hire a professional photographer to come take a portrait of you or your family, you can now also hire a professional writer to come help you tell your story by writing it for you.
The story project is my idea of wanting to help people see that they have a story, to give them a tangible product that they can then share with their friends and families and can pass down through generations, and to provide a collection of true stories of American lives for the world to see and be changed by.
That’s the power of stories. They help us know we’re not alone.
Look out for the official website Launch Next Week!
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
“As we forgive our debtors” — But first, add up the debt (Part 3)
Story continued from last week’s Part 2 post. (read here)
Some names and identifying circumstances may have been changed for the sake of those involved. (If you don’t read it all, scroll to bottom for the most impactful photo project I’ve ever been a part of.)
Three: Uncovering more debt
In the middle of the week, we had this morning where we worked with a horse for equine therapy. (For the record, I felt like it was B.S. I still do.) You go into a corral with a horse, and based on how you interact with the horse, your group – it’s group therapy – and a couple of therapists kind of pry and make suggestions about “oh, do you ever respond to your wife/husband/father/etc the way you just did to the horse?” I didn’t want to do it because it felt fake, like a fortune teller. Before I stepped into the ring, I knew they were going to conclude that the horse was John. I was extremely closed off and defensive before I even began.
At the end of my time in the ring, I was facing the horse, petting him with one hand and had my other hand on him as a “boundary hand” as the trainer had shown those who’d gone before me. You’re supposed to use it when the horse starts to lean into your space — you push him back to show him that this is your space.
So I was petting him, and quickly he started to step toward me. I pushed back with my boundary hand, but before I knew it, someone had grabbed me and yanked me backward. I looked at the trainer and yelled “what the heck!?”
“You were about to be trampled because you wouldn’t let go!” She said in a harsh, scared way. I could tell she was shaken.
But I was pissed because I hadn’t been trying to pet him, I was trying to use my boundary hand to push him back. And I told her so. She was still flustered, and I was defensive and emotionally absent, so she had me be done. I went to the edge of the ring, and there my therapist and group members were waiting, watching.
“Would you be willing to hear some observations your group has?” My therapist, Jim, asked. I didn’t want to hear what they had to say because I already knew it would be B.S. stuff about John… but I said “sure.” So I listened, and that’s exactly what it was. The only response I could feign was: “Thanks. So am I done now?”
Jim said, “Sure,” and as I was turning to leave the ring, he just said, “You sure looked small there standing next to that horse.”
And without missing a beat I said, defensively, “I don’t feel small!” and I threw up my hands in a kind of “bring it’ way like I was going to fight him.
And I’ll never forget this. He said, “Wow, maybe that’s the problem. Let me rephrase. You sure are small next to that horse.”
And then the tears came as the full weight of that realization settled onto me.
It was later that afternoon that I recalled the first time John had later told me he’d first thought, “I’d like to kiss Jo.” I was 16 and we were on a mission trip. I’d remembered this admission a couple months before. But it was in group room 4 in a small town in Tennessee that I realized that the night he thought “I’d like to kiss Jo” was the day before he changed the dynamic of our relationship forever. We’d been talking about love languages, and he’d said he thought mine was touch.
“Yeah, I could see that, but it’s never come out as my top one on the test,” I said. He was convinced it was touch — “that’s what we’re doing the rest of the week!” He said proudly in front of my friends, “guys, we’re gonna help Jo embrace her touch love language.”
I distinctly remember sitting in the middle seat of a front bench seat in the truck, with John on my left driving, and one of my younger guy friends to my right. John grabbed my hand, laced his fingers through mine and instructed my friend to do the same with my right hand. I squirmed incredibly uncomfortable, but everyone in the truck was laughing like it was a funny joke, so I laughed, too. “I’m not going to let go until you like it,” John said. While my friend let go of my hand as soon as we got out of the car, John continued to hold mine tightly as we went into Starbucks, as we drove to the next stop, as we went into a store. And that was it. The beginning of it all. He didn’t stop until I liked it. One night he thought, “I’d like to kiss Jo,” and the next day he changed the entire dynamic of our relationship.
When I realized this, I was livid. It was the first time I could see how clear the answer was to the question I had asked myself over and over through the years “How did this happen? How did I get here?” The multiple therapists from multiple places were right in what they’d told me all along. I could finally see it. I was groomed.
For some reason, I have never realized that I am small. I was 16 when this started with John. And I look at other 16 year old girls now, and I think, there’s no way I would hold them responsible for this. I look at other 23 year old girls and think the same.
But I’ve always carried myself like I was big and strong. I’m sorry to myself, to his family, to everyone that’s been hurt in this that I didn’t recognize my weakness and vulnerability.
As a result, I played the part I did in allowing for this to continue for as long as it did. I am endlessly sorry for that.
I never thought to run away or yell for help. I thought I was big enough to use my boundary hand and push back.
I was not.
_____________
To admit that I had been taken advantage of, that I was a victim, it deflated me. It made me so angry, and so full of grief to accept this reality. But it wasn’t until I could do that that I began to make significant steps forward in my healing journey, and also in my forgiveness journey.
I went into Onsite feeling like my life had shattered and that I’d lost all of the broken pieces so I had nothing to rebuild with. I came out of Onsite feeling like I had found enough shards to start rebuilding something new.
But first, I had to get angry. Really angry. And distrusting. As I was healing and moving forward in many ways, I was also uncovering more and more of the ways that John had hurt me, duped me, manipulated me over the years, and the more I demonized him. This commenced months of nightmares with him as the star villain.
Come the fall of that year, people started to ask me if I had forgiven him. “No,” I’d always reply bluntly. I was not willing to be challenged on the matter. I’d forgive the mother-fucker on my time frame. Not theirs. And I refused to play the “Ok, I forgive him, Oh wait I’m so hurt and mad again, ok I forgive him again” dance for ages. I would be firm in my un-forgiveness until I was certain that it had arrived, that I had summited that large mountain I’d decided to climb.
Then came the “You need to forgive him,” comments once in a while, “if not for him, than for yourself,” which I respected, but still disagreed with. “I’m not ready,” remained my answer.
I’d talked with God a lot over the course of the year, especially as I was alone much of the year. God and I, we have really honest conversations. I talk to Him like I talk to anyone. And I’d asked Him to be gentle with me, to help me, but that ultimately, I knew I’d need to forgive John at some point, but that I just wasn’t ready.
But one day in October (10 months after confession sunday), I was out running and I had thought about seeing if one of my friends wanted to hang out when I came into town the next afternoon, which led to me thinking, “Wait, maybe she’s busy because of helping with the youth group.”
Which led to, “Wait, does she even help with the youth group any more?”
Which was a thought that hit me like an arrow to the chest. I used to be the pastor of that middle school youth group and I didn’t even know if one of my old best friends helped there any more. I sat down right on the paved path and hung my head. “This is so hard, God,” I breathed heavily.
And then it hit me out of nowhere: “I bet John doesn’t know what’s going on in the youth group either.” And that thought broke my heart for him. I’d been demonizing him and hating him for months, and out of nowhere I had this pang of sadness for him and his probable disconnectedness from the youth group he’d pastored for a decade. After a moment, I realized that I was sad for him, and I brushed the thought away, and looked up to the sky, and thought, “God. Stop it. Step back. I’m not ready for this.”
But it was too late, with that one surprise moment, I felt my heart start to soften for him as a human again.
And then, two days before Christmas, he wrote me a letter that absolutely ruined me. It opened up new chasms of grief that I didn’t even know were there. For a man who had only ever written me one Christmas card, and one sticky note in the 12 years of knowing him, I received an 8-page typed letter.
And it said everything that I had written in my version of the letter I’d written through tears at Onsite — the letter I had accepted that I’d never receive.
To be completely honest, when I first read through it it both pained me and outraged me. I won’t share all the details of why, or what all it entailed. But I was bitter and ready to spew my pain back at him.
I sat down on Christmas eve for a couple hours with the intention of trying to just get down my scattered thoughts onto a page to organize later into a letter. But what emerged was a long, unrelenting letter. Along with apologizing and asking for forgiveness for all of the things, he had extended an offer to give a window into my life those days. I was not going to spare him the details, because my life was still very dark, very lonely, very muddled by the fuckedupness, even a year after confession sunday.
“I’m hesitant to write to you for many reasons. 1. I don’t forgive you…” I began.
And I went off on him in bitterness at first. But what ended up coming out of me was sharing what I’ve shared here: what happened at Onsite. How I first found myself mad at him, hating him. How I first realized and admitted that I’d been taken advantage of. And what I’d learned about forgiveness, and the way we’re prone to want to do it too quickly, without adding up the debt we’re canceling.
And in the process of writing all of that out, I found my heart softening in mounds toward a man I had once considered family. Once I had gotten to the end, I let it sit for a few more days.
Then Sunday, January 5, 2014 after church one day short of the exact one year mark from confession Sunday, I sat at a Starbucks in Rocklin, California, and I added an addendum to the letter:
…And true forgiveness has to involve adding up the debt so that we can know what we’re agreeing to cancel.
This past year I’ve been becoming more and more aware of the debt of pain you’ve cost me. And as new parts have been uncovered, I’ve added it to the ledger. I have been consistently forgiving you for new parts, but discovering others.
With this letter, though, I feel like I’ve gotten a lot of the debt out onto the ledger. And I’ve found forgiveness for you for the things I’ve listed here. I don’t trust you. And forgiveness doesn’t erase the pain or the cost in my life. But it means I’m releasing the fact that you owe me anything for them.
I am hesitant to say I forgive you, because I am certain I will continue to discover new parts of your debt. As I am in relationships with men and sorting through my dysfunctions and insecurities. In my marriage as I struggle with trust. In the church if I ever get to return to ministry. I’m sure I will continue to stumble upon undiscovered corners of pain for years to come.
And knowing this is the case, this was the reason I planned to write to you telling you that I forgive you for the things so far, and I’ll continue to work on forgiving you as I know more in the future.
But as I sat there writing it, I just had a wave wash over me, a wave of visions of years from now, all the times I’ll stumble on new parts of the debt, and I realized I didn’t want to think of him in those times. I didn’t want him to owe me for those times. I was ready to move on and accept whatever pain I find later without any ties to him. And just like that, while the barista was walking by with the dust pan to go clean the bathroom, I let go. I forgave him for it all. Because that’s how forgiveness happens in my experience — in the un-monumental moments in the midst of real life. The decision may happen at an altar in a church service, or in front of the perpetrator. But the realization that forgiveness has come — that, wow, I’m finally at the top of this large mountain I’ve been climbing — it comes when it comes, it comes when its ready.
I forgive you for any future pain and discomfort or closed doors or lost relationships. I release you.
And for the first time, I think I know exactly the weight of those words, and I know that I mean them.
___
As I was telling a friend about the letter, and about the way I’d found myself unexpectedly forgiving John before I thought I’d be ready, I heard myself say this: “I’d been hating him for a long time, but I felt God start to soften me before I wanted him to. It’s been a year, and I’ve come full circle. Which is weird, because I thought I was just moving forward.”
I think forgiveness, like grief, is a path, a journey with many stages, and we have to walk them all, even if where we end up — at forgiveness — is where we tried to start. We have to walk through it all. We have to not simply decide to climb the mountain, we have to climb the whole damn thing.
*I asked a photographer friend of mine to take photos of me last year while I read parts of my letter to “John” aloud. Since I couldn’t deliver the letter in person, I wanted something to help me remember what it was like to be in that space – something other than a letter in the mail to capture the moments I found myself at the sad mountain summit where I both forgave and said goodbye.
If you want to support my free-lance writing career because you’re a nice person, you feel bad, you know that I have dogs that I have to feed, or because you actually appreciate what you read here, you can submit donations to me below.
Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
Other places are
instagram: @jrolicious twitter: @jrohanlon
“As we forgive our debtors” — But first, add up the debt (Part 2)
Some names and identifying circumstances may have been changed for the sake of those involved.
“I don’t forgive you.” Those were the words I wrote near the beginning of the letter.
He’d written me a letter apologizing for a mountain of pains and wounds, and asking me to forgive them. “I’m hesitant to write this letter to you for many reasons. 1: I don’t forgive you…” I began.
Let me rewind:
After confession Sunday, my life went dark for a long time.
It took me several months of therapy to finally get to a point where I didn’t feel like the situation was all my fault. I sat in my therapist’s office, afraid to admit dates and put an accurate timeline on how things unfolded because I saw her doing the math, I heard her mention “illegal” in her wondering of what happened. She and other therapists had told me since the beginning what they thought: This was abuse. This was not my fault. That this is what they call a “trauma bond” and it’s the same bond that kidnappers and pimps have with their victims and girls. That I had been groomed.
But I fought them on that. “I am not a victim,” was my mantra, and I was defensive, trying to explain our situation away — to make them understand that I was not a victim, I was a very broken, but very real culprit.
I was afraid to reveal things because I still believed my old youth pastor this had happened with, John (not his real name), was just a good guy who just spent too much time with me. That it was an innocent “slipping up” mistake of a situation. “I had all these boundaries in place for everyone. To make sure I led a good life. It’s like you just slipped in the back door,” he said several times in the course of the secret becoming public.
I was still conditioned by the years of not telling. Because I had always seen that it was his secret to tell or not tell. It was always his family, whom I loved deeply, who would be so hurt by it. It was always his ministry and job that would be lost — his ministry that had taught me everything I knew about God and the ways to love and care about the world and to live life well. And the decision was always not to tell, because it would hurt all those people. “It would be selfish to tell,” were the actual words he used one time as he told me about this painful decision he’d come to one of the myriad of times we were trying to figure out what to do, how to stop this from happening again throughout the 7 years of on and off fucked-up-ness. (That’s my term — please, pardon my french, but there is not a kosher term that is also accurate.)
Somewhere in those first months, I think my pastor or someone had asked me to start thinking about forgiving John. I don’t think I responded really, but as I thought about it then, I didn’t have much to hold against him. I thought that we were equal culprits in this, and I wasn’t mad at him, I was just devastated by the amount of pain we’d inflicted on those we loved, and I was devastated by the loss — his family were my closest people. The loss of other close friends that I had who either chose to step out of my life, or who wanted to be in my life still but were so pained by it that it would never be the same. The loss of my calling on my life to do ministry in the church. The loss of feeling at home in the church I literally grew up in. The loss of feeling at home in my hometown. The loss — I was just so broken over the loss. But I wasn’t mad at John.
And people told me I would be, someday. That I would realize his role as being so much bigger than I could see then. That I would someday need to see it for what it was — abuse of power. That I had been taken advantage of. I said, “No. You don’t understand.”
But I couldn’t move forward in my healing. I was devastated and I was stuck. I never hit that “numb” phase people tell you will come. It was just brokenness. Complete, vast, heart-decimating brokenness. Every day. And every night. Which led me to finally pursue something I’d heard about — Onsite’s Intensive Therapy Workshop.
There’s a place in small town Tennessee called Onsite Workshops, and they do these 8 day long Intensive Therapy workshops utilizing experiential therapy (which sounds like “experimental” therapy, but it’s not).
The intensives like this are supposed to be similar to a year or two of therapy in a week’s time, and for me, it was.
Then came Onsite.
“The problem we have with forgiveness is this,” my Onsite therapist, Jim, began addressing my group of 9 broken people in group room 4. “Forgiveness means to cancel a debt. But so often in our culture, we decide to forgive someone, but then later we feel that same anger or pain creep up again and we’re confused. ‘I thought I got rid of this! Why is this back?’ we ask. And the reason that happens when we just decide to forgive someone, is that we haven’t added up the debt we’re forgiving. And then as we discover more of the debt, we’re confronted with the pain or anger again. That’s part of what some of you may have to work on this week. Learning how to work through adding up the debt so you can really forgive.”
I had never heard of forgiveness in these terms.
But it made so much sense to me. I’d always been reluctant to just decide to forgive someone and declare it done in the same breath. It seemed equivalent with deciding to climb Mt. Kilimanjaro and saying I’d done it in the same breath. I’d always seen myself decide to forgive someone and then once I’d worked through the crap of it in my heart, I’d realize at some point that forgiveness was there. I couldn’t coax it out of myself before it was ready. This definition of forgiveness as wiping clean a debt, it gave me permission to take the time to count the debt, to take the pains to climb the mountain.
I want to tell you about three things that happened there that week.
One: Getting mad
Within the first two days, I had a realization that broke me. The very first time John outright proposed something explicitly across the line (“You touch mine, I’ll touch yours?” proposition when I was 18) I was outraged at the thought, said “No,” left, and came back to confront him later. He smoothed it over, made it seem like it wasn’t a big deal and that it didn’t change everything. He apologized and promised it would never happen again. So I trusted him. I so, so, wish I had thought to tell someone right then. But I didn’t even think of that option. I don’t know why. I just didn’t.
The realization that literally left me breathless, though, was this: At that point, had I gone screaming for help, or had I done what I did — he set me up to lose him and his family and to watch him lose his ministry and regular life right then. When I realized the fact that he set me up to lose right there — that’s the first time I ever truly hated John. And I hated my abuse-shaped self that didn’t even think to tell someone.
I still wasn’t mad at what he’d done to me. I was mad at what he’d set me up to lose — who he’d set me up to lose in the process. I had grieved the death of my sister when I was 14, which was largely what landed me in John’s family as a surrogate member. But the grief I had over the people I’d lost in my life after confession sunday, that was more grief than I’d ever known or experienced to date. It was like a massacre. And in an instant, I was enraged because it was the first time that I realized that he had chosen me. That it could’ve been anyone, but it was me. And he left me with no way to not lose people I loved.
Two: Accepting no apology
The next morning at Onsite, when everyone was together (40 people are in each workshop week), we had a seminar on forgiveness. “I want you to think of a person you need to forgive,” the director of the program started.
“Think of them, and think of the ways they’ve hurt you. Think of all of the ways. Now, imagine you go out to the mailbox one day, and in it you find a letter — a letter from that person — apologizing for everything, for every way they’ve hurt you. You got it? Can you read the letter in your mind?”
He paused for a moment. I was sitting in the front row and already silent tears were falling down onto my lap as I thought about it.
“Now, take this piece of paper, and write that letter to yourself from them.”
I knelt down on the carpet and used my chair as a desk to write this painful epistle. I wept while I wrote, finally starting to acknowledge the pain that he had caused me. I’d been able to see the pain the situation had caused for everyone else, but it was the first admittance on paper of the fact that he had caused me pain. That he had something to be sorry to me for.
“Now I want you to do something — I want you to accept the fact that you may never receive that apology. Let this letter, this one that you’ve written, be the invitation to forgive them. You don’t have to wait for them to be sorry for you to move on.”
I pulled myself up onto my chair, clutching my letter, the tears unwilling to stop. I sat between two men I’d met there, and they both put their arm around my shoulders and held me while I wept, letting the pain out in shutters, sadly accepting that there never may be as much as an acknowledgement from John. “Don’t hold back. Let yourself feel it, let yourself grieve it,” one of them whispered in my ear and then kissed the top of my head with an appropriate, fatherly affection.
It was then that I first saw that forgiveness is like grief — there are stages to both, and the stage of acceptance is the last in both cases. You can’t jump to that last stage on either path without first going through the other stages.
But, like grief, there are many mini-paths within the larger path, and that morning was the end of the small mini-path toward accepting that I may never receive an apology. John hadn’t apologized to me in his public confession. He may never. And I had with me now a letter with the things I needed to hear from him, regardless of the fact that it was written in my own handwriting. It acknowledged what I myself had taken months to acknowledge — that I was hurt by his actions, too. That I was left in the wake of great loss. And that my pain mattered.
And it was as I held that letter, one day after hating John for the first time, that I also decided to forgive him (which, remember, is different than having forgiven him). But the decision was made. I wasn’t ready. I’d need time. But I wanted to forgive him someday.
Read the rest of the story HERE.
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Jo O’Hanlon is an adventurer and storyteller. She tries to be honest about the ugly and hard parts of life, and the beautiful parts too. This blog is one of the places she shares her thoughts and stories.
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