Attending to Wounds
Face to Face with Deceit
I had been taken advantage of... deceived. Anger came, but I discovered sorrow and grief just below the anger. From a certain point of view, this person — this friend of mine — was gone. A stranger now stood in their place. I felt small and naive for having trusted. I told myself that trusting is not a character flaw, but the pang of having been deceived brought about a reticence to the sentiment. The task now lay before me: how to relate to the friend that had now become a stranger.
From a macro level, I feel as though I am somewhat adept at handling deceit. I don't answer phone calls from unknown numbers. I have no problem ignoring emails that look even the least bit suspect. I throw away all manner of mailings that advertise for this or that. All social media messages and friend requests from strangers are ignored and promptly deleted without thought. I don't often consume news, but when I do, I'm careful to take note of two things:
- Are they trying to convince me to hate?
- Are they trying to convince me to be afraid?
If either of these rings true, I feel as though their goal is to buy views rather than educate and inform. A discussion about news consumption might be a story for another time... the point being: deceit on a macro level is something I don't feel I struggle with all that often. This was something new: I had been deceived by a friend of mine.
I confronted them. They listened. I thought the discussion would bring about something restorative, but the friend still felt like a stranger to me and the grief that arose upon first losing them remained.
Meeting Deceit with Grace
I myself had been given much grace. Could I now provide grace to this soul before me in equal measure? What would that look like?
A compulsion toward a kindness independent of outside influence developed within me. Might that be the way? I remembered the Hafiz quote:
Even
After
All this time
The Sun never says to the Earth
"You owe me."
I think back to the grace shown to Jean Valjean by Bishop Myriel in Les Misérables. Of the bishop it is written:
There are men who toil at extracting gold; he toiled at the extraction of pity. Universal misery was his mine. The sadness which reigned everywhere was but an excuse for unfailing kindness. Love each other; he declared this to be complete, desired nothing further, and that was the whole of his doctrine. ~ Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, Vol. I, Book I, Chapter XIV, “What He Thought,” trans. Isabel Hapgood
Jean Valjean steals some silver from the abbey out of desperation. He is caught and brought back to the abbey to face Bishop Myriel. The bishop, knowing Jean Valjean has stollen these objects, says to Valjean, "I am glad to see you. Well, but how is this? I gave you the candlesticks too, which are of silver like the rest, and for which you can certainly get two hundred francs. Why did you not carry them away with your forks and spoons?" The bishop in the story is the personification of mercy and compassion. The contemplation of such a story gives rise to a hope within me: to approach such deceit with grace.
Is Honesty a Luxury?
The story also compels me to ponder the following: Is living a life devoid of deceit a luxury reserved for people of means? Les Misérables is a story rife with characters who use deceit out of necessity as I recall. Jean Valjean steals not because he is wealthy and seeks to acquire more wealth, but because he is starving and sees no other way to persist other than to become a thief.
Taking the thought a step further: Is living a life devoid of deceit a luxury reserved for people who have known love, care and acceptance in abundance? Would a life devoid of genuine care and affection spur one toward a life of deceit? Would a person be prone to a life of deceit if that person was surrounded by bad actors who themselves employed acts of deceit to achieve desirable ends? I'm compelled to answer in the affirmative. If need or want persists and the need or want is not offered freely, the desired asset — whether it be food or affection — will be taken by any means necessary.
A child that is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. ~ commonly attributed to an African proverb
Who am I to speculate as to the motives of such deceit?
A Safe Path Forward
The rub is that my inner child has been wounded, and that child deserves to be cared for and defended from harm. I'm the only one capable of doing that.
I've heard it said that to be "nice" is to respect the person in front of you and hold little to no respect for yourself. To be "kind" on the other hand is to say, "I respect you, but I also respect myself." Of the two, I feel it best to be kind.
I had a relationship of sorts with Deceit when I was younger. He had a whole host of companions as I recall: Fear, Loneliness, Anxiety, Guilt and Shame... just to name a few. To spend time with him, meant spending time with the whole lot, and they all were decidedly bad company. Moreover, I know that I hurt people I cared about when I shared company with Deceit. Would it not be an easy task to show grace to one who shares in such company?
If your life was a movie, and the audience were watching up to this point, what would they be screaming at the screen, telling you [what] to do with your life? ~ Chris Williamson
I suppose the conventional wisdom would suggest forsaking the deceiver, but I remain reticent to do so. I'd like to imagine a path that allows me to be "kind". To act in a manner that states plainly, "I respect you, but I also respect myself." Perhaps the kindest thing to do is to walk away. Is it folly to think that anything "good" might come of remaining in this person's life? To remain or to walk away: this is a dilemma I've sat with for months now, but perhaps the question of whether to stay or to go is the wrong one. Perhaps a better question to ask is, "What is this connection costing me?"
There will be times when I think to myself, "I am okay. I can navigate this fine." and then there are days when I become angry again and note the grief — I always see the grief — just below the anger. My friend is gone, and this stranger is all that remains.
Clean Grief
The Grief has come to be something of a welcome companion for me. It has become the solid ground my feet come to rest upon when the wave of anger subsides. Clean Grief, I call it.
“Grief is honest acknowledgment of loss, which is based on honest acknowledgement of value. Without value, there is no substantive loss…Lamenting the loss of one whom we love, for example, is most painful indeed, and yet the very grieving is a celebration of the richness that life has brought us.” (Hollis, 216)
The grief I’ve come to experience serves as proof that the connection was valuable. I feel fortunate to have shared in a connection so precious that a deep sorrow is now felt in acknowledgement of its absence.
I now relate to my friend differently than I had been in the past. I am slowly attempting to find a balance between showing kindness outwardly and caring for the inner child within. The task is often a challenging one, but I appreciate the challenge and am grateful for the personal growth it has prompted. I'm not where I'd like to be, but I feel as though I've come so far from where I started.
Works Cited
Hugo, Victor. Les Misérables. Translated by Isabel F. Hapgood, Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1887. Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/files/135/135-h/135-h.htm
James Hollis, Ph.D., Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, Avery, 2005
