Don't Need to Hear Your Story

I heard someone make a statement about a year and a half ago that offended me to no end. It’s taken me this long to be able to write the article that I knew then would come of it. A woman volunteering in our church had been deeply hurt by our church’s lack of love and support and had left us quite abruptly. She started volunteering for one of our sister churches here in our large city and was again treated in a superficial and shallow manner. A mutual friend had stayed in touch with her, working together bridging the two churches’ youth groups. I had been unable to personally get in touch with her for quite some time and was worried about her.

When our mutual friend called to discuss something about our church’s youth group with me, he mentioned that he had just spoken with her and that he was still frequently in contact with her. I asked him how she was doing and how had he supported her in her recent struggles. His response was really quite cold. He had no idea how she was doing on any sort of an in-depth level. He simply said, “I don’t need to hear her story in order to support her in her journey.” I tried to discuss with him how I was concerned about her happiness and how she was doing. I wanted someone to reach out to her in her time of need, but he really had no idea how she was, even though he spoke with her on a regular basis. He was quite content to keep the relationship very superficial and shallow. That was exactly the attitude that had driven her away in the first place and he was continuing the behavior.

Our church is rather open-minded and dare I say even a bit New Age and as such prides itself on being a place of love and light, of companionship and fellowship. Yet, nobody really knows much of anything personal about anyone else. We are all supposed to be happy and upbeat at all times. Don’t burden anyone with your negative experiences. I watch a lot of other folks in the New Age community and they aren’t any better. People don’t really connect with each other on a deep personal level. We New Agers point at the hypocrisy of traditional churches and yet we really aren’t very different. We tell ourselves that we are to love everyone regardless of what path they are on, and then we completely disconnect emotionally so as not to actually have to experience what that means. It’s easy when we don’t have much of anything to do with someone to say the words, “I love you and support you regardless of what choices you make.” Try actually getting to know someone and really being in their life, then say that and mean it.

In order to truly love and support someone on meaningful level, we have to hear their stories. We have to actually take the time to get to know them. What are their hopes and dreams? What are their challenges and struggles? Who do they want to be when they grow up? Who are they afraid of becoming? In truly getting to know someone then you are able to really mean it when you say that you love and support them. Otherwise, it’s superficial and fake. As a society, we all feel so alone and disconnected and yet we say that the New Age Movement is about love and light. Not if we are using extreme emotional detachment as our way of protecting ourselves from the real hassle of loving and supporting someone unconditionally.

Yes, some people are easier to love from afar. Some people are so messed up and dysfunctional that you have to distance yourself from them in order to even entertain the idea of loving them. Tell yourself the truth; you really do not love them unconditionally. You love them as long as they stay out of your hair and don’t bug you too much.

Some people will get stuck in their stories and allow their stories to define who they are. You find yourself wanting to ask them if anything of importance ever happened before that story and did nothing of importance ever happen to them after that story? Is that one story the only one about you worth telling? Tell me all of your stories. Tell me of the stories that you someday hope to experience. In hearing your stories, I can really come to understand you as a tapestry of memories and events, not just as a vague someone that I smile and nod at before the sermon starts on Sunday morning. How can I really love you and support you in your life if I have no idea how you came to be at this point? How can I really cry with you if I don’t understand why you are hurting? How do I help you to heal from the battle wounds of your life if I don’t understand what the battle meant to you? How do I help you choose a new path that would bring you real love and light if I don’t know why you are trapped in the darkness?

It goes both ways, you tell me your stories and I’ll tell you mine. If you only talk to me when I’m rich, successful, and happy, then how will I know that you ever really loved me? You don’t want to hear my stories? Then don’t tell me that you really love and support me. If you don’t want to hear about my struggles and challenges then how am I supposed to reach out to you when I’m in my time of need? I don’t want you to just say a prayer, sometimes I want you to actually roll up your sleeves and help me. How can you do that without hearing my story? Are you simply in love with the idea of unconditional love? You aren’t really practicing it if you cannot be bothered to hear our stories.

That’s what we do as humans. We share our stories because within our stories is our understanding of what it means to be alive. To close yourself off from hearing someone’s stories is to close yourself off from hearing about what their life meant to them. There is wisdom to be learned in hearing someone else’s story. There is compassion to be felt, share your stories with each other and you share your hearts.

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