To seem unbreakable and to wear a fake smile takes enormous energy – energy invested in untruth. Dishonesty. I was dishonest to myself about my unbreakability. I was dishonest to the world by my fake smile.
All the while I was burning that energy on untruth, I believed I was being “strong” and courageous. I thought “strength” meant being unbreakable. In fact, I have been broken for quite some time, and the reason I know that is that I craved and sought “being strong.” And everyone else told me, “You are strong,” or, “Be strong,” or, “You got this.”
Keep acting as if I were unbreakable? Keep acting with untruth and dishonesty toward my own self and toward others?
I misunderstood “strength.”
My well-wishers misunderstood “strength.” We got “strength” wrong.
What about the other kind of person? The kind of person who does not invest their energy in “seeming unbreakable,” and exhorting other people to also seem unbreakable, strong? Are their smiles real, not fake? Are they more truthful, more honest? I think so.
Are they less exhausted than I am?
I do NOT think so.
The difference between them and me is where we each invested our energy. We both invested it, so we are both exhausted. But we invested it in very different markets.
They invested their efforts in vulnerability to brokenness. To be vulnerable takes an enormous amount of energy, even when the risk has a positive outcome. But their vulnerability was true, and honest. Why are they not bitter and fed up with their exhaustion? It seems that the Jesus in the exchange above doesn’t want us to “seem unbreakable” or to wear “fake smiles,” so I therefore guess that he is uninterested in making us unbreakable or always happy (smiling).
I wasted my energy by anxiety – which burns energy with no productivity. Why was I anxious? I was fearful that my untruth and dishonesty would be found out, so I had to expend a lot of energy “seeming unbreakable,” while all the time actually being breakable and broken. A fake smile burns a lot of calories by hiding my secret. Shame is not a zero-sum game.
I wasted my energy by trying to control outcomes, instead of being true and honest about who I am, how I see the world, and how the world is.
They invested their energy in rising back up each time they were broken.
This Jesus in the exchange seems unconcerned with breakability or happiness, always and everywhere. But it also seems like a mistake to assume that he wants to carry us always and everywhere. My world would not seem right to me if – always and everywhere – in my wake were only one set of footprints which were not mine. That would strip me of my dignity. To be a child of his same father, made in that “image and likeness,” must mean that we are not pathetic puppets, but that we have extraordinary worth, and therefore extraordinary dignity.
In the exchange above, we hear that he has waited for me to let him carry me. That means that he will not force himself on us as if we are inanimate puppets without him. He clearly doesn’t demand that we always be “strong” in the sense of unbreakable, or always smiling. Those are not conditions for him to carry us. The single condition is that we be willing. That we surrender. That we let go of our fake unbreakability and fake smile. That we repent (“change mind”) and cease our untruth and dishonesty. That we be, in a word, vulnerable.
I am flawed, breakable, broken, imperfect, in need of help. And so is everyone else who has ever walked this earth. I am NOT different in that regard. The one who will carry us insists that we confess this on our own. He will not rip our dishonesty and untruth from our grip.
The longer I cling to my untruth, the deeper I fall. Untruth is its own reward. I have burned such enormous energy maintaining this façade that, “I can’t do this anymore.” It is neither him nor his father who break me. It is “the world.” And I have created my own fake world. I have set myself up as unbreakable king of my world. And his kingdom is not of that world. His kingdom is within me.
His kingdom is within me? What the hell does that mean? It cannot be covered by my façade of unbreakability, if it’s inside. My protective shell of a fake smile can hide the kingdom from everyone else, but not from me.
An enormous portion of my life’s energy so far has been invested in fortifying my image of unbreakability, and defending that wall with a moat of fake smiles.
How have more self-honest people invested their life energy? They also get exhausted, and broken. But their smile seems not to be fake. Not at all. They seem to be more content with their exhaustion than I am. They seem to be OK with appearing breakable and broken. In a word, vulnerable.
It seems to take an enormous amount of life energy to be vulnerable. Brené Brown would indeed have us believe that “wholehearted” vulnerability requires enormous energy, but that burning that energy exposes us to enormous goodness. Then, the stories we tell can be true. We can speak our truth. And the true truth is the only truth that sets us free. Free to be content about how we have spent our life energy. It does not matter whether our investment succeeds or not. We feel content regardless of the outcome.
We can surrender control. This *is* vulnerability. It costs energy, but… When we are vulnerable, we are open to a share in the energy other more truthful people are expending. We don’t have to waste our energy on the ridiculous façade that, “No, that’s OK. I’m fine. I got this.” Of course, the most profound tragedy of that untruth is that we fool no one but our own selves. In fact, people who have spent their energy more honestly than I have are people who, no matter how hard I tried to make it seem, knew I was breakable and broken. Knew my smile was fake.
As I tried to show the world how “strong” I was, and how happy I was, so much of that energy was being spent on no one but me. My defenses. Not on those people whom I imagined that I was helping. While I thought I was giving giving giving, I was also burning energy to appear as “the boy who seemed unbreakable.” for so very long, I resisted the confession that, “Jesus, I can’t do this anymore.”
In the exchange above, the response of this ever-kind Jesus was, “Daughter, I never wanted you to.” A less kind Jesus might also have added, “And you never really were anyway.” You were never totally unbreakable. And you were rarely happy enough to smile. He knew that, and most of the people in my world also knew that. It wasn’t honest. The whole time I was giving giving giving, I was also hoping or expecting that I would receive receive receive in return. That’s not what I was thinking or believing at the time, but now I know.
I don’t like to think of myself as resentful, but that is what I have confessed. “I can’t do this anymore.” I thought that my giving giving giving was love. I thought that my seeming-strength and my smile made me seem loving and kind. I did not know that, not only was vulnerability OK, but vulnerability was *required* if ever he were to carry me. I got love wrong. My energy had been spent largely on me, not others. It was poorly invested, but it was a lot of energy, and that’s why I feel exhausted and feel like I can’t do this anymore.
In large measure, that giving giving giving was actually selfish. My smile mask meant that people thought I was happy, or at least OK. But I secretly resented them for not asking me how I am. I resented them for not insisting that I accept their help. All of which, when you look at it this way, and with objective honesty, is insane. I believed that relationships were give-and-take. That relationships always demand compromise. That relationships are, in a word, reciprocal. In another word, transactional. My expectation was that if I give give give, I will also receive receive receive.
What might this Jesus character – who apparently never wanted me to do what I was doing, and who apparently is entirely willing to carry me – have ever said about giving giving giving and receiving receiving receiving? All along, I’ve known damn well what he said about giving in the gospel records: Do so without thought of receiving. Do not let the left-hand know what the right hand is doing.
But I’m only human. How could I honestly give without thought of receiving? Well, I’ve confessed, “I can’t do this anymore.” I do not have energy for maintaining this untruth that I can give give give without thought of receiving. It seems this Jesus wants to carry me until I can recover some more energy. After that, how will I invest my energy? Well I combine my energy with his, and with all the people who do not pretend they are unbreakable?
This Carrier character has exposed there are enormous chunk of my life energy was not love. That I got love wrong. How do I get love right? I hear it with my ears, and I know it with my head, that I should give without expectations. That I should love without conditions. Will that make me unbreakable? Will that put an honest smile on my face forever more?
Hell no! That’s ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous? Oh my, the answer is so blatant and so simple. Do you want the world to know you by your words, or by your actions? I’ve mentioned the words of this Carrier. What of his actions? And I don’t mean all of the detail and minutia of all the actions he performed – the healings, the miracles… What was THE BIG ACTION that summarizes the story of his life? I would put it this way:
Be vulnerable, and die.
For me, and for all of us whom he would carry (which is everyone, ever), it seems he will allow us to reverse that. To die, and then be vulnerable. The death is the death of the ego. “I can’t do this anymore… On my own.” And now, once again, in that context, with the addition of “…on my own,” the response comes:
“I never wanted you to, I’ve been waiting…”
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Neil D. 2024-01-23 [5 days after The Carrier carried my own mom to his home, which is no less hers]
For more on The Waiting Carrier watch Brennan Manning’s Ragamuffin Gospel condensed here
and/or see my poem about wasting my life’s energy to bring me to the now, so that I could be carried, with one set of footprints in my wake, until he sets me back down on my own feet, vanishes, and leaves me to hear the call he has always wanted me to hear, in My Advent Prequel To Footprints (you can also watch it narrated here by me, or here by an AI voice)
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