It Takes What it Takes
Last week I read a book that a good friend gave me for Christmas, “Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion”, by Gregory Boyle. Per the book’s jacket description, “As a pastor working in a neighborhood with the highest concentration of murderous gang activity in Los Angeles, Gregory Boyle created an organization to provide jobs, job training and encouragement so that young people could work together and learn the mutual respect that comes from collaboration.”
The book is a series of essays arranged by theme. The book jacket goes on to say, “With Gregory Boyle’s guidance we can recognize our own wounds in the broken lives and daunting struggles of the men and women in these parables and learn to find joy in all the people around us.”
As I work on myself and my relationship with Travis, this was just the right book to read at just the right time. I’m betting that my friend knew that when she sent it to me. At the same time, I think that everyone can gain something by reading this book.
I have written about some of the book’s themes in the past. It is always a great idea to revisit them.
One being that it is easy to show compassion to those that love us. What about those that don’t treat us well? Showing compassion is not always easy. It is a choice we make.
Boyle says, “No matter where people live or what their circumstances may be, everyone needs boundless, restorative love”.
Read this next quote from Boyle twice, “Here is what we seek: a compassion that can stand in awe at what someone has to carry rather than stand in judgement at how they carry it.”
I know for certain that the life I have lived has resulted in me being a compassionate person. I also know that I still have work to do. I am learning to be grateful for my core wounds. That it is better to have suffered and learn something as I got through it than be unfeeling to the pain of others.
Many of the themes that came up in the book are exactly what I am working through with my therapist.
Travis and I pinky swore. I promised that I would never give up researching, trying to find ways to help him feel better. Help him become the best version of Travis possible. He promised that he would try my ideas. The therapies, the diets, the supplements and medications.
As time went on, I continued to give 100%. But did he? I realize that he may not have the capacity to give 100%, but did he give his all?
In one of the stories in the book, Boyle said this to a gang member that didn’t show up for a job that he had arranged, “You taught me something tonight. You taught me that no amount of my wanting you to have a life is the same as you wanting to have one. Now, I can help you get a life - I just can’t give you the desire to want one”.
This is a concept that I have been working through the past few months. I can unturn the stones, but Travis needs to do the work. The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter if he is capable and unwilling, or incapable. Either way, I can’t give him the desire to change his life. Travis’s mental illness may be stealing his desire, but I can’t fix it just the same.
The theme? This is one I am working on. Acceptance.
Travis and I both worked on keeping our promise to each other.
Travis couldn’t know or understand the complexity of this promise at 9 years old.
Travis may already be the best version of himself. He is perfectly imperfect. We all are.
Travis constantly telling me, “I’m done” could be his way of saying, “Can we be done unturning stones?”
I’ve done my best and that is enough. I’m not giving up on him. Let the guilt go.
Another theme in the book and that I am working on in therapy? Surrender.
Per Boyle, “In 12-step recovery programs they often say, it takes what it takes. This is true enough when it comes to change. The lightbulb appears and it brightens, who can explain how or when? We can’t do this for each other.” It is as simple as that. “Change awaits us. What is decisive is our deciding.”
Travis has to decide when his life is going to get better. And do the work.
Travis has to decide when to let go of his anger. And do the work.
I need to surrender my need for results, outcomes, success.
Boyle says, “You stand with the least likely to succeed until success is succeeded by something more valuable, kinship. You stand with the belligerent, the surly, and the badly behaved until bad behavior is recognized for the language it is, the vocabulary of the deeply wounded and of those whose burdens are more than they can bear”.
Wow. Travis is deeply wounded. His burden is more than he can bear.
I am working on acceptance, surrender and healing.
Healing is my word for the year. As part of my healing, I am working on finding the strength to let go and trusting that it will be ok. I need to find a place of balance. I have been “burning out completely in the delusion” of fixing Travis’s pain. I need to trust the value of simply showing up.
Boyle says, “In the stillness of meditation and the sweetness of surrender, I found a place of balance and perspective”.
Per Boyle, “I want to lean into the challenge of intractable problems with as tender a heart as I can locate, knowing that there is some divine ingenuity here, the ‘slow work of God’ that gets done if we’re faithful”.
As tender a heart as I can locate. I have to be honest. I am a work in progress on this one. I always start out with a tender heart. I am also weary, and my patience has worn thin at times.
My therapist tells me to keep unturning stones. But now unturn them for me. Work on my healing and have faith that in time Travis will find his way.
Because “it takes what it takes”.
And as Mother Theresa says, “We are not called to be successful, but faithful”.
“Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.” - Simone Weil
“Just assume the answer to every question is compassion.” - Author Unknown
“Ours is a God who waits. Who are we not to? It takes what it takes for the great turnaround. Wait for it.” - Gregory Boyle