A sobering reality for memoirists: Everyone’s dysfunctional

A person I respect and love dearly said one day, “Every family is dysfunctional. Every family.”

I said to myself That can’t be true.

But within seconds I realized she was correct. Each family is dysfunctional—each person is dysfunctional—some in big ways, some in smaller ways.

To complicate matters, we all have blind spots—we can’t see our own quirks—our malfunctions, aberrations, incongruities, blips, irregularities, inconsistencies, impairments, or distortions.

I give a huge shout-out to those who understand they have big or little imperfections as well as blind spots and who work hard to improve. I applaud you!

To those who are too proud to admit they could be dysfunctional, Thomas Larson suggests we examine where we’ve allowed self-delusion to shape our identities and memories (The Memoir and the Memoirist).

It’s easy to identify those with glaring malfunctions, and we need to write about some of those people in our memoirs.

But even the most functional people—the most “together” people—have little glitches that make them imperfect. We need to write about some of those people in our memoirs, too.

Think about the bosses you’ve had, people you’ve worked with, people you’ve traveled with, people you’ve lived with. College buddies, fellow cheerleaders, people you go to church with.

In even the finest of them you might see glimpses of being:

• controlling/bossy
• impatient
• gruff
• proud
• lacking in self-control
• narcissistic
• stretching the truth

Think about siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, in-laws, children, grandchildren. In even the finest of them, you might see hints of:

• being enablers
• having a “poor me” attitude, a victim mentality,
• being touchy/overreacting
• being aloof/underreacting
• snobbish
• bitter and unforgiving
• obsessed/addicted: spending money or eating/drinking/drugging to ease pain
• yielding to peer pressure, longing to fit in

Think of neighbors, best friends, doctors, bus drivers, CEOs, people who have married into your family. People in your Bible study or your book club or your writing group. In even the finest of them you might detect traces of them being:

• unpredictable/unreliable
• cowardly
• gullible
• vengeful
• prejudiced
• judgmental/holier-than-thou

People whose blogs you follow. Facebook friends, Twitter friends. In even the finest of them you might see glimpses of them being:

• power-hungry
• overly competitive
• defined by their appearances, accomplishments, possessions
• insecure
• driven

Even people we love with all our hearts

have at least mild shortcomings—

spouses, parents, siblings, kids,

grandkids, in-laws, best friends.

But here’s the sobering part: You and I are dysfunctional, too.

All those people we’ve been thinking about—our bosses, our co-workers, people we’ve traveled with, college buddies, people we go to church with—they have extended grace upon grace to you and to me despite our dysfunctions and our blindness to them.

Our siblings, parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, in-laws, children, grandchildren—they have all extended grace to us despite our offenses.

Our neighbors, best friends, doctors, bus drivers, people who have married into our families, people in our Bible study or book club or writing group—they have all extended grace to us despite our rough edges and flaws.

Since you are dysfunctional and I am dysfunctional,

let’s recognize the grace and longsuffering

others have extended to us.

Let’s be grateful for their patience and forgiveness,

for the second chances they’ve given us.

Let’s remember The Golden Rule,

doing unto others as you would have them do to you,

or, as it reads in The Living Bible:

“Treat others as we would want them to treat us”

(Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12).

And in The Voice:

“Think of the kindness you wish others would show you;

do the same for them.”

Let’s write about them

in the way we’d like them to write about us.

Let’s offer others grace,

let’s be patient with them, forgive them,

and give them second chances in our hearts

as well as

in the way we write about them in our memoirs.

Your daily life: “Imagine the divine activities behind the scene”

In her Bible study, Esther, Beth Moore suggests that we “imagine the divine activities behind the scene[s].”

Those few words remind me of my challenge to all you memoirists writing stories with a spiritual dimension. You’ll often hear me say, “Connect your dots.”

By “connect your dots,” I mean this: Search for the ways God was involved in arranging the key events of your life, and then identify the ways He strings them together—how He “connects the dots.”

Beth continues, “If we could only see what is  happening around us in the unseen realm, our eyes would nearly pop out of socket. . . . So much that would thrill us lies beyond our sight. . . .”

Beth writes that God sometimes appears in the midst of a crisis “dressed in the best disguise of all: ordinary events. He tucks a miracle in the folds of His robe and sweeps in and out unnoticed.

“Only in retrospect do we realize that a divine visitation graced our cold, crude winter and the resurrection of spring is on its way.

“Sometimes we grab the hem of Christ’s garment for dear life. . . . Other times it brushes past us and we never recognize that the turn-around marking the months to come began with a single touch.”

She calls those events “so forgettably ordinary.”

So forgettable. So ordinary. Sigh.

That’s why memoirists must invest time in retrospection. That’s why memoirists must set aside time and make an effort to dig deeply into the past, to uncover, piece together, connect the dots, and make sense of what happened in the past.

Yes, that’s a lot of work—but, oh! The treasures you’ll discover!

Amy Carmichael wrote of new insights she received one day in reading Deuteronomy 11 when God was sending the Israelites to the land of milk and honey with the promise that “the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on [the land] from the beginning of the year to its end” (vs 12).

Amy wrote, “‘From the beginning of the year until the end of the year’—much is folded up in that. The day of the week, the hour of the day, every minute of the day, not one is outside His care.” (Edges of His Ways)

Think on those words

while you reflect and ponder and piece together your story—

while you connect your dots.

From the beginning to the end, God’s eye is on you.

Every minute.

“Never believe that the so-called random events of life are anything less than God’s appointed order. Be ready to discover His divine designs anywhere and everywhere.” (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

You don’t need to be perfect to write a memoir, but you do need to be real

“Editors don’t want” [and I add: readers don’t want] “stories of our great triumphs or success. Readers identify with failure and find hope in rising above mistakes” (Cec and Me, with Cecil Murphey and Twila Belk).

You don’t need to be perfect to write a memoir.

But you do need to be real.

Readers want to identify with you.

They can do so if you’re willing

to be vulnerable—transparent—with them.

They read because they want to learn from you,

so write about your struggles, your flops, your fiascos.

Admit to your messes and debacles.

But don’t stop there!

Tell readers why and how you fought through your failures.

Tell them what kept you from giving up.

Tell them what gave you hope and resolve.

Tell them.

They need to know.

Why?

Because they want to grab hold of the same courage

and tenacity and faith and hope you chose.

They want to rise from the rubble like you did.

Write your stories!

Are you willing to share your story? “Convinced that this period in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness.”

We need stories about integrity, and courage, and perseverance, and about doing the right thing.

We need upright people who will speak truth to power, who will be a voice for those who have no voice, an advocate for the abused, neglected, and the downtrodden.

We need people who take seriously what we call the Golden Rule: Jesus’ words about doing unto others as we would have them do unto us—or as it says in the Living Bible: “Treat others as we would want them to treat us” (Luke 6:31, Matthew 7:12). In other words, “Think of the kindness you wish others would show you; do the same for them” (The Voice).

Imagine what it would be like for you

to be mistreated by those in power,

or for your voice to be silenced or ignored,

imagine what it’s like to be abused, overlooked,

disregarded, oppressed, and beaten down—

wouldn’t you want people to speak up?

We need stories written by people who are thinkers and questioners,

by people willing to look at issues from various angles,

people willing to step forward and take a stand,

willing to expose evil and injustice,

willing to be leaders and role models for so many of us

who are cowards—or at least foot-draggers.

Recently I read Jewish Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night.

You’ve no doubt heard about—and perhaps read—some of his books, but he says in the preface that “ . . . all my writings after Night . . . profoundly bear its stamp, and cannot be understood if one has not read this very first of my works.” If you haven’t read his memoir, I encourage you to do so.

Elie Wiesel shows us what it looks like to put into practice this quote from his Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1986, below:

Maybe God is calling you to follow Elie Wiesel’s lead by writing your memoir.

Perhaps you can recognize yourself in what Wiesel wrote in his preface, “Convinced that this period in history would be judged one day, I knew that I must bear witness.”

Yet he also knew his “testimony would not be received. After all, it deals with an event that sprang from the darkest zone of man. . . .

“But would they at least understand?

“Could men and women who consider it normal to assist the weak,

heal the sick, to protect small children,

and to respect the wisdom of their elders

understand what happened there?

“Would they be able to comprehend how . . .

the masters tortured the weak

and massacred the children, the sick, the old?”

“And yet, having lived through this experience, one could not keep silent no matter how difficult, if not impossible, it was to speak.

“And so I persevered. . . .” (from the Preface to the New Translation [of Night])

Persevering is hard work. It can be discouraging work. Sometimes dangerous work. Often emotionally exhausting work.

Pastor Brian, my son-in-law, recently said, “Choosing to live and act with faith is hard. Will we trust God?”

That’s the hard part:

Will you trust God to help you

say what others need to hear?

Ask Him to help you speak not judgmentally,

but with grace and mercy.

Ask Him to help you speak with wisdom instead of foolishness,

with love instead of hate,

with truth instead of distortions,

with a cool head instead of a hot head,

with winsome words instead of fiery words—

words that build up instead of tear down,

that heal instead of injure.

Words that shine light in the darkness.

In what specific ways will you trust God

to help you write what others need to read?