Who Cares---The Double Entendre of Faith

My country is the world and my religion is to do good.         Thomas Paine

Some keep the Sabbath going to Church---
I keep it, staying at Home---
With a Bobolink for a Chorister---
And an Orchard, for a Dome.            Emily Dickinson

My business is rather humbling. Because psychotherapy deals with people and all their complexities, you can never know everything. I continually self educate: I have taught and taken hundreds of workshops, I regularly read books, journals and psychological articles. I have worked for over thirty years in this field and in this small town so I know the people and the quirkiness of living on islands. I am not a specialist, rather a generalist with an eclectic style. So I have a good deal of experience and have accumulated some knowlege. And yet, and yet, there is this quality of mystery as to how and why the counseling I do with my clients works. I can give you guesses and usually end up asking the clients, "how do you think we're doing?" or "what was the most meaningful or successful part of our therapy"? Most of the time I have internally guessed correctly, but sometimes what works is really beyond me. It is as though there is this 'synergistic other' equation that comes into play, in addition to the client and myself. If that sounds too 'woo-woo' I'm sorry. It happens and it is part of my belief system. In the 12 Step venacular it's "a power greater than myself."

To know what you do not know is the best. To pretend to know when you do not know is a disease.      Lao-tzu

One time, years ago, I was working with a man whose dear uncle had been murdered in another state. He was going to the funeral and wanted to prepare and to vent. "I need to read you what I've written to see if it's OK." Since his family was connected to a Plains Indian Tribe where the ceremony was being held, he put his thoughts down as a prayer/poem. As he read the poem he had tears in his eyes and I happened to glance out the window where something was happening. "I hate to interrupt," I said, "but you've got to see what's going on out there." By the window flew first eagles, then came hawks, and then I looked at him and said, "I think you are witnessing a fly-by." He said, "the eagle is the totem animal of my uncle and mine is the hawk." That folks, is something you can't explain and I didn't try. I still get goose bumps thinking about it.

Another time a woman who had recently lost her job, taken a medication for high blood pressure and had a very bad reaction. She was feeling "out of balance" and kept talking about it during the session. Then, and I swear this is true, out the window I saw a seagull land on the top of the telephone pole in the alley. No big deal, right? Right. Until a second seagull landed on the back of the first one on the pole. Again I stopped my client and said, "you've got to see this." She said, "now, there is some balancing act." We laughed at the goofy gulls. She figured out she had to ask for help sooner, due to that gull not to me. And the best part: I still got paid.

I want to be the change agent, the ticket agent to an improved life that is richer and fuller than the one they brought to me. The opportunity is always there to help my clients change their lives for the better or, at a minimum, slog through a difficult situation more easily. Sometimes no matter what magic tricks I have in my hat, their situation may not improve. People get dread diseases and die, friends or partners betray them, the business goes belly up.  This brings frustration and sometimes sadness into my life, no matter how evolved I am at letting go of their problems. And when this happens I turn to my church which has infinite height and vast width and enormous depth: the great outdoors. I walk or ride my bike and I say my form of prayers for whoever I'm worried about or whoever's heart is breaking. This helps me and I want to believe that it helps them too. God knows.

susansmagicfeather copyright 2012 Susan R. Grout all rights reserved