BP7
The year is 1934. The location is the endless frozen prairie of the Ross Ice Barrier on the continent of Antarctica.
The indomitable explorer, Admiral Richard Byrd, has said goodbye to the rest of his expedition party. He will remain at the southernmost observation post in the world to gather meteorological data while his fellow Antarctic explorers return to the main outpost at least a week and a hundred crevasses away. Richard will be residing in a small subterranean shack dug into the frozen tundra when the temperature was a balmy 68 degrees. Below zero.
He will be living . . . alone.
Except for occasional excursions into the uninviting subzero outside world, Richard will remain buried in the isolated one-room shack for five months!
Part way into his stay, the sun will never rise above the horizon—for weeks and weeks. He will live in what feels like an eternal night. He is as alone as a human can be.
He is alive, but he is buried in the dark confines of a tomb. He nearly dies in the shack. He survives, but his heart is never the same afterwards.
Admiral Richard Byrd was not the only person to live so alone on this planet. Such is the daily existence of many men and women all around you. They don’t have to be buried in some small shack in the middle of nowhere to exist in a solitary social darkness.
You might rub shoulders with them at work or even at church. They might look normal and sound normal, but the truth is, they’re alienated from the rest of the world. So near to fellow human beings but yet . . . so far away.
They are entombed alone. In a dungeon of their own making: Their own hearts.
Sadly, someone may have terrified them when they were children. Someone may have abused them, enraged them, abandoned them, or embedded twisted seeds in their impressionable hearts that grew into covetous jealousy or seething bitterness.
Maybe they had to erect a wall around their hearts to protect themselves from repeated harm. Or to hide their secret shame. Or because they feared that if their ancient anger was ever unleashed, its intensity would destroy somebody.
The problem is that they remain in hiding long after the threat is over.
Just like Hiro Onoda.
Onoda was a Japanese intelligence officer who either didn’t get the news in 1945 that the war was over—or he refused to believe it. He spent almost thirty years hiding on a small island in the Philippines until his former commander traveled from Japan to inform him that the war was over and that it was safe to come out of his shack, so to speak.
What’s the moral of Onoda’s story?
There are several, but for this post, I will settle on one: Count the cost before you go into hiding, whether it’s a shack, an island, a house in the country, or . . . or even a dungeon in your own heart. You may never come out again.
One of the primary anchors of Designer Therapy is the concept and experience of Presence. Both Admiral Byrd and Hiro Onoda struggled to encounter it.
What exactly is Presence? It’s one of the most precious commodities in the universe—much more valuable than silver or gold or diamonds.
God designed you for Presence, and the lack of it is the reason for all your mental illness, relational difficulties and even physical pain and death (tracing the loss of Presence all the way back to the ancient garden).
DTFL/PSRT (psycho-spiritual-relational therapy) defines Presence as how others ‘communicate’ toward you. Presence may approach you in the form of thoughts, actions, verbal communication, facial expressions and attitudes from others.
Presence may be good, bad or absent. Obviously, good Presence invites us close while bad or absent Presence usually discourages us from drawing near.
But there is a variable that is often more important than how Presence approaches you in this world, namely, how you perceive Presence and then respond to it. Yes, your response to the Presence of God and other humans will determine everything in your life
Yes, everything.
So, what are the ways you can respond to Presence?
We can respond to the Presence of God and others by moving toward, away from or against it.
Let’s start by looking at what it means to move toward Presence.
I use the metaphor of a well and a bucket to portray bringing up needs, thoughts and the deepest parts of your heart to be seen by God and others. When you use the well, you will readily share emotions, especially with those you trust. You will express everything from sadness to anger; from joy to worry; from fear to a sorrow that leads to repentance.
The Well is all about transparency, honesty and allowing yourself to be seen—even the ugly parts. The Well response is healthy and leads to intimacy, to being known at a deep level. It’s about moving toward God and other people for relationship.
If you don’t move toward people with your needs, thoughts and emotions, you will remain hidden in the dungeon of your heart. Over time, sometimes after years of being locked away, your self will find its way out of the dungeon in two unhealthy ways. Both of them represent a sideways expression of your heart since the Well is shut.
The first unhealthy way is called Leakage. Your hidden, private self will reveal itself in a slow, seeping discharge. This discharge will ooze out in a myriad of different ways.
Some examples of the Leakage are depression, anxiety, perfectionism, control, blaming, obsessive thought patterns, passive aggressive behaviors, eating disorders, sleeping issues, irritability, sarcasm, nightmares, addictions, excessive humor, mania and physical symptoms like headaches, joint pain, GI disturbance, and possibly even cancer.
Leakage is clearly unhealthy and points to the fact that your heart along with its needs and emotions as well as your mind with its thoughts and imaginations are being hidden from God and others. All these expressions of your true self are buried in Byrd’s shack or secluded on Onoda’s island.
The result is an indirect expression of your heart that shows up in symptoms of mental, spiritual and physical illness.
The third way you can react to Presence (the second unhealthy expression if you avoid the Well and the bucket) is through the Volcano. The Volcano, as you will probably guess, often manifests in angry or explosive eruptions of emotion against others; or in acting out behaviors directed against others.
Hatred, bitterness and rehearsing thoughts of revenge are the lava that flow from this Volcano. Attack, slander and murder of the body or soul are its dangerous expressions. The Volcano does not create intimacy but is an instrument dedicated totally to separation and divorce.
Rage is a flamethrower that keeps everyone away.
In summary, remember that Presence is one of the most precious commodities in the entire universe. It is a gift from God that leads to the possibility of communication, love and intimacy.
Presence is bidirectional, meaning that not only does it approach you, but that you perceive it through your own unique filter and then choose how you will respond to it.
Your response to Presence will be through the Well and bucket (moving toward), through the discharge of Leakage (moving away from,) or via the Volcano (moving against).
Although you may employ all three responses at one time or another, most people have a deeply ingrained response preference that colors most of their interactions with others. For example, have you ever met a defensive person who is combat-ready to fight any and every perceived threat to his character? Here we have a clear portrayal of the Volcano.
In future posts, the Well, the Leakage and the Volcano will be discussed in more depth. As we come to a close today, however, the primary question is: Which communication style relative to the Presence of God and others best describes your heart?
If you experience lots of unexplainable and painful symptoms physically or especially emotionally and relationally, there’s a good chance your heart is experiencing Leakage.
In posts that lie ahead, we’ll consider how your heart may be as buried as Admiral Byrd in the Antarctic or as secluded as Hiro Onoda on the island in the Philippines.
In the meantime, examine yourself and see if any part of your heart is hidden from the eyes of God or other safe people. There’s always a reason for the hiding. But there’s always a cost as well.
Too much self-protection may even wall your heart off from the approach of love itself–or Love Himself.
Always remember, the great war in this world is between loving Presence and heart-starving separation. Which will you choose?
Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? ~ Jeremiah 23:24