Hope that Disappoints

Once, during this roller coaster that is my job, I had the experience of walking a labyrinth. A church had invited the public to come and walk the labyrinth on a very snowy winter evening. A small group of friends and I were game to try this, and we braved the weather to get to the church. We entered the building and followed paper arrows taped to the old walls. They led us to a basement auditorium dimly lit with candles. Unrolled on the floor was a very large canvas, painted with a Chartres labyrinth. It almost covered the whole floor in the large auditorium. A few people were there before us, carrying candles and walking silently around in their socks, to preserve the paint on canvas. Instrumental music played quietly in the background. A person greeted us as we entered and quietly gave us a few simple directions. This labyrinth design is a single pathway into a centre circle, and then a pathway back out. Since there are no choices (no intersections), only switchbacks, your brain is free to ponder whatever you like (or don’t like) as you walk. We were instructed to walk prayerfully, to pay attention to whatever came to mind as we walked, and to pass each other with only a silent nod. We lined up our shoes with the others along the back of the room, and one at a time, we set out.

I entered the labyrinth with a significant amount of angst. My current student was experiencing a long series of bad days. I was out of great ideas.

Almost right away as I walked the path, I arrived at a 180* turn. I didn’t like the feel of that. And then I came to another turn back, and another. I did not like this at all. And I immediately realized that this felt just like my current challenges with this struggling student.

The thing about a 180° turn is that you are turning back. I felt like I was undoing the ground just gained by walking forward. I stopped at every 180° turn, everything in me not wanting to turn back, with my heart getting heavier and heavier. This felt exactly like work did. Frustration. Annoyance. Anger, anxiety. Inadequacy, lack of control, feeling helpless. A new strategy discovered and ground gained, only to have everything go in the other direction a few days, weeks or another trigger later. Then back we go, unable to escape the challenges. And then a bit of insight, some progress, the feeling we are going somewhere again…hope rises… But another 180° turn lies ahead and back we go. Over and over and over again. It was like I walked right into my emotional state.

Every 180° turn felt like a letdown, and after quite a few of them, I realized that I was struggling with grief. This feeling was all too familiar to me. I was sad and made about what I cannot change in my students or for my students. I was feeling the disappointment every meltdown brings, and my continual concern over their future. It was the emotional part of trying to push forward, but then colliding with the wall — the part of disability that none of us can change, or what takes a long time to change — over and over again. And the more time goes by; the more I care about this young person, and the more I care the more I push, and the more I feel that regular collision.

When I eventually got to the centre, I was feeling engulfed in sadness. In the centre circle of the labyrinth are four indentations, almost like fat round petals on a flower. Instructions are to walk into each indent one at a time and see what we encounter in each one, or to say a prayer in each. I was hesitant but obedient. I sidled into the first indent.

Immediately, almost magically, I felt fear — and I knew right away it was my fear of what this student’s future will be. How will they succeed, given all their challenges? What will happen to them?

In the next indent I stepped right into anger. I was angry at what their challenges bring and the constant feeling of turning back they cause. I was angry at the unfairness of life, and how some apparently lose the lottery of how we are born and into what circumstances. I was angry at my own inability to change things more for them.

Then in the next indent, I was overcome with sadness. I was sad that so many think they are bad and were made wrong, sad that they know they are different, and sad for how much they struggle. I wanted to sit down and have a cry but I didn’t know if sitting was appropriate behaviour in a labyrinth. So I just stood there crying till my back was sore, and then I stepped into the next indent.

And there, I realized I had to let my hope go. It seemed a very wrong thing to do, because hope keeps us going, right? But I knew it was my hope that was wrecking me. Pushing my way forward in hope and then hitting the wall of grief over and over again was not sustainable. Somehow I had to come to peace about who my students are and the challenges that they will or might always have.

I cannot hope for what I cannot change.

From there I moved back into the centre of the flower, ‘set’ my hope down in the middle, turned, and started the walk out the other side, feeling emptied and wrung out.

But as I walked the twists and turns again, moving toward the exit tired and sad, I began to think. I slowly began to realize that while hope is good, the problem was that my hope was a false hope.

I can give as much as I can, and teach, model, love and support my student(s) as they practise and learn healthy ways to overcome their unique challenges. But no amount of determination or genius on my part can fundamentally change who they are. I can do my best to encourage growth and progress, but

I cannot erase a disability with love or methods.

Thinking like that can and will be damaging to both of us. Because even though I mean so well, to them my false hope will feel like a personal rejection. My efforts however positive, and my frustration, striving, sadness and anger will leak out onto them like a constantly dripping faucet. And they will know “You wish I was different. You want to change me. I am a problem. You are working hard to change me. And sometimes you are mad and sad about me, because you cannot change me or solve me.”

Is that really what I want them to know?!

I needed to set down my false hope and walk away.

I want to welcome and support them each day just as they are. Show them welcome and acceptance each day as it comes. Connect with each of them just as they are and just as I am. And help equip them for this journey they are on.

I want them to know they are valuable, and they are lovable. I want them to learn their weaknesses and strategies to overcome them, bypass them and live well with them — not because they are a problem, but because I believe they each have something to give to the world. I want them to learn their strengths for the same reason. I want them to know that both our strengths and our weaknesses make us who we are, and both create what we have to give.

I walked out the labyrinth exit feeling humbled and exposed. The twisty journey of forward and back had undone me. In the walking, my body had somehow connected my heart, mind and the Spirit to teach me. I processed grief over what this beautiful students of mine struggle with daily. I let damaging false hope go, and walked back out on a more productive and sustainable road for all of us.

Wonderfully, even though it led me forward and back over and over again, the path of the labyrinth still led me into the centre and out to the exit. As much as I wish life was a straight path onward and upward, it is really much more like a labyrinth.

My new favourite song is called Is He Worthy? https://youtu.be/1pBeDoSlUn

It begins by asking me

Do you feel the world is broken?

Do you feel the shadows deepen? I think of work and the struggles of ‘my’ kids and I say YES.

But the next line asks this all important question:

But do you know that all the dark won’t stop the light from getting through?

Honestly, I don’t, not every day. I forget, but this song reminds me.

It reminds me that this is what I am called to do — to be one who knows. Someone who knows that our dark won’t stop the Light from shining through. Someone who knows that our dark does not define who they are or who I am — it only defines what darkness is, and reminds us how much we need the Light.

This is where I need to put my hope.

Excerpted from Are You With Me Now? by Yours Truly…to be published late 2020…I hope.