House Pests

Last week, Charlotte commented on a post I wrote called The Price of Ego. It seems that she’s been challenged in her living situation, because she has an unconscious person visiting for about a month. I’ve found, as many of us who are always working at becoming more whole and more aware of our aliveness that there’s nothing more bitter to the ego than having a house pest underfoot.

We know that’s what they are: house pests. We say, “Oh, I have a house guest for a month,” but the roll of the eyes, the tone of voice, and the shrug of the shoulders indicating the awful weight of the guest all combine to mean house pest. Yet, in the spiritual kingdom, they are God-sent gifts, intended to cause us enough suffering that we may break free from the shackles of our little selves just long enough to see how controlled we are by externals.

I’m talking about myself, of course.

The Price of Hospitality

Over the years of our marriage, my husband and I have opened our home to scores of different people. Sometimes they’ve been relatives; sometimes strangers. Sometimes the people have been tiny babies that we’ve fostered; other times they have been angry teenagers or embittered, middle-aged wanderers. Like many other people of faith, we’ve housed addicts, drunks, righteous people, preachers, teachers, the physically and mentally ill, the homeless, the wounded, orphans. Sometimes, they’re just normal people who need a place to stay, or a place in between their past and their future. They have stayed for days, weeks, months, and sometimes years.

They’ve driven us crazy.

We have loved them, and we’ve hated them.

We have served them dinner, given up our physical space, trusted them with our children (or not–and slept as a family in one room), welcomed their relatives, their pets, stored their belongings, adapted ourselves to them, trying to help. Our pests have driven our cars, worn our clothes, used our water, gas, and electricity. They have never given back to us an nth of what we’ve given to them, and I’ve come to see that they are not meant to. They are in our home and in our lives to receive, and even to take, from us until we feel pain right where we are attached to our stuff, or our egos, or our own self-righteousness and greater-than-thouness. They are there to get what God is after: a heart of flesh, in place of our hearts of stone.

It always happens that the irritation begins. The honeymoon is over within hours or days, maybe weeks or months, but it always ends. We begin to notice that the house pest has bad breath; they talk too much; they chew their food with their mouths open; they don’t use deodorant (not healthy, you know); they eat special foods and drink special drinks (ours are not good enough); they sometimes offend by being too loud; other times they are too quiet; they snicker at us sometimes; we make asses of ourselves just for their benefit, and then we hate ourselves and them. They roll their eyes at us, they use a certain tone of voice; they complain about just how awful it is for them to have to live in this situation (this situation that is costing them nothing but their pride, while it is costing us our pride AND a pretty penny); they make themselves available to us when they want to, but we, on the other hand, must be available to them whenever they want us.

We do not have lives of our own, when we have house pests.

Yes, they drive us mad.

And yet, I love my house pests, because they provide handy targets for my projections, and as such they help me to see just how messed up I can be.

Not-So-Happy Anniversaries

I wrote recently about how anxious I’ve felt lately. I have to admit that I’ve also felt irritable, and been subject to a general malaise that seems to come from outside of me (but doesn’t). My old sin body– the part that always misses the mark somehow, for that’s what sin is–is experiencing some anniversary reactions due to the time of year. This time of year reminds me of some losses that occurred in my life, some of them very early on. Knowing that I have these old sufferings and like to tell stories about them from time to time (in regular cycles, it seems) is helpful. It’s helpful because I can catch myself telling my tales of woe.  Today as I started telling myself another old tale of suffering, loss, and woe, I stopped in the moment and asked my self, “What is this about?”

Pause.

And then, “Who is this about?”

Of course I knew immediately. It was about my old nemesis, a character from my past who done me wrong. It should come as no surprise, then, that I regularly find myself surrounded by smaller versions of this character, all of them exhibiting the same characteristics.

I listed some of the traits of this person who caused me pain in the past, and they included:

• Attention-seeking behavior such as loudness, large physical movements, briskness and high physical energy.
• Takes, demands, or receives from others, but does not characteristically give.
• When giving, seeks or even demands attention and praise for giving, so that service becomes a spectacle, too.
• Oblivious to the sacrifices, discomforts, pain, or needs of others around them (most of the time), especially to the discomfort or pain they themselves cause.
• A lack of empathy for people, but a great deal of empathy for animals and objects; can be deeply moved by pathos but not by people.
• Endangers other people by putting them in perilous positions; unconscious to the safety needs of others (and thus, of course, to their own).
• While unconscious to safety needs, are hyper-vigilant when it comes to survival needs. They know what they need and want, and they will persist to get it.
• Lack of physical boundaries; they get in other people’s spaces in one way or another, whether through loudness, actually getting in the physical space of another person, using or abusing resources that belong to others without asking permission (assumes a lot), etc.
• Talks and talks and talks at, to, and about others or himself, but does not ask questions. Rarely asks questions or has reciprocal conversations. Does not take time to look into your eyes, gaze at your face, notice your body or your presence.

As I mentally listed these traits, I immediately saw that my house pests have lately been escalating these behaviors, which (naturally) means that I am probably drawing these behaviors to myself, as well as exhibiting them to those around me.

Being Enough

I’m blessed, though, to have the kingdom of God within me; I need nothing more than I am, and I have nothing else to give to God. Jesus was strong on this point of I AM: the Son of Man didn’t even have a place to lay his head, and He was, and had, enough. I follow in His footsteps when I am enough, and I see that others are enough, and I live in the universe of every single moment of acceptance of what is.

I know to become quiet. The more loud my house pests become, the more quiet I must become. I move quietly; I slow down my pace; I feel my feet in my slippers, the bricks of the kitchen floor uneven beneath them. I see the people I live with; I look at them. I listen. When they are loud and talk a lot, and quickly, I breathe.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

b r e a t h e

b   r   e   a   t   h   e

I want space; I give it. I want quiet; I give that, too. I want stillness; I am stillness.

I am Loved

I want to be loved.

I want to be loved, and that’s what this is all about, because my old story is about not being enough, not being wanted or loved, not being chosen or welcomed. It is about being born at the wrong time in the wrong way, even to the wrong people. It sounds like an adoption story (but it’s not).

My old story is the one that informs the suffering that led me to Christ and to a journey to wholeness that I would not trade for anything, not even for the perfect house guests! So I’m grateful to my nemesis and for what was, and for what is right now. And I am cheering Charlotte on, Charlotte and her house pest; as I am cheering for every single one of you who is living with a house pest.

Even if you are your own worst house pest (we all are, you know).

We will continue to find house pests outside ourselves until we center ourselves and become responsible for all the loose, uncontrolled, wild energy we send out into the world every day, the energy that says YOU’RE DRIVING ME CRAZY!

No, I am driving myself crazy, and until I can breathe, breathe, breathe and arrive at perfect stillness, perfect acceptance, and perfect peace, and (most importantly) perfect love (love that says, “you are enough!”). I’m in no place to point the finger. Yes, that other person probably is unconscious. Yes, he probably is acting out of his own old story and old pain. Yes, she has even bigger issues and problems than I do, and she really is being loud, demanding, attention-seeking, and oblivious.

No Root, No Branch

But (and this is the thing, and then I’ll be quiet about this) even if the house pest is being a pain, as it says in Proverbs 26:2, “Like a sparrow in its flitting, like a swallow in its flying, so a curse without cause does not alight.” If there is no branch growing out of my root, there is nothing for the sparrow to alight on. Similarly, if my house pest is loud, so what? There’s no need for his loudness to bother me if I have no branch growing out of a root of “loudness means something bad, something painful, something death-dealing” inside me. He is simply loud. I can be with him in his loudness.

Or supposing my house pest is attention-seeking, demanding in her own particular way (as nice as it may appear); it feels cloying and overwhelming, as if one might be swept away with it at any moment (as I was swept away as a child, with nothing to cling to). What is it to me if she’s like the wind-tossed sea? Like Peter, I can walk on water to the Lord. There’s no need for me to be afraid or upset. I can even sleep in the boat, if sleep is what’s needed during a storm. The outward situation is powerless, unless I give it power–a branch for an old fowl’s roost.

I will no doubt still feel irritable, anxious, a little fearful, and somewhat sad as my spring of anniversaries unfolds. I have my old stories and scripts, and my house pests have theirs. We use one another sometimes, without meaning to, because we are still sometimes unconscious.

But God, who is so good, gives me just the right medicine to cure my ills; medicine that so often looks like human beings.