christian counseling today
Vol. 20 no. 2
63
I also know I had some toys in my
room that were placed on shelves in a
very precise order and “just for show,”
which often was quite a surprise to
my more normal friends. When I was
dropped off at school by my mom,
there were several prayers I had to
pray… and in just the right way. So,
from this vantage point, there is a pretty
good chance I might have qualified for
a separation anxiety disorder of child-
hood with some obsessive-compulsive
symptoms thrown in if the
DSM
had
contained more pages at that time, and
if there had been a psychologist in my
county.
I am also fairly certain I should have
been diagnosed with a learning dis-
ability. I sometimes reverse brag about
making the lowest grade in the entire
10th grade on a spelling test—and I
think I have already mentioned the rural
Georgia part.
I don’t mean to be making light of
these disorders. At the time, my anxiety
and verbal skills—that could not keep
within two standard deviations of my
math skills—were no laughing matter
and, in fact, became my personal dark
secrets. To this day, the process of keep-
ing those skeletons in the cupboard may
still fuel some deep fear that if people
really get to know me, I will be found
out to be a fraud.
However, there is also a sense in
which I have deep appreciation for these
deficits. I think it is precisely my child-
hood homesickness and attempts to
control anxiety by thoughts and actions
that have given me a very deep apprecia-
tion for the fact that as an unceasing
spiritual being, I am actually not from
around here. I only feel peaceful to the
extent that I am going home (several
times a day) to the invisible realm of
the here-and-now kingdom and hearing
God call my name and tell me how
much I am loved. My disorder may be
giving me a deeper appreciation for the
order of the universe.
The reading and spelling problems
have resulted in some things that are just
weird. Why would a person who still
cannot spell “bycicle,” and who found
math so easy as to be able to beat a slide
rule on most two-digit computations,
never take another math class after his
freshman year of college? And why
would he, instead, make most of his liv-
ing with words?
Somewhere along the way, I learned
that while my brain is like a Kaypro
computer, but with an even slower pro-
cessor and no spell check whatsoever, it
has a pretty good color graphics pack-
age. If it can absorb the information
(preferably through auditory channels),
it is easy to turn that information into
metaphors and teachable illustrations.
The bottom line is I think most abilities
having the wattage of a Christmas light
are often pretty close to some other
abilities that can light up a room. My
verbal disability has become a wonder-
ful lesson in humility and trust, and has
helped me to believe that God likely has
a good sense of humor.
When I first started working as a
psychotherapist, I had a fairly simply
system for understanding disorder. For a
while, I called it the compassion deficit
model. I reasoned that human beings
were designed to live in Eden, a place
that means “delight,” and awash with
the love and presence of God. If the
psyche is seen as an engine, the love of
God and others is the needed oil to keep
it humming smoothly.
However, to move away from God,
to live outside the garden away from
love and presence, is painful. Engines
without oil experience heat and fric-
tion and begin to shut down. A psyche
running without love and acceptance
experiences pain.
No normal human likes the warning
signals of pain. I believe psychic pain
most often signals a significant compas-
sion deficit. The pain of compassion
deficits can then trigger a person to
look for relief from the pain that may
be under his or her control. Hurting
people often pursue cognitive behavioral
“narcotics” to dull the real or perceived
absence of love.
My favorite “self-medication” took
the forms of perfectionism, workaholism
and control. The anxiety over possible
rejection or separation caused me to
work harder to feel worthy, to be impos-
sible to reject. This has often been both
ugly and exhausting. Yet, great beauty
can be found in the disorder.
I believe the three most common
symptoms of compassion deficits are
anger, anxiety and depression, and that
the flipside of these “conditions” is love,
joy and peace—the first three in the
Apostle Paul’s listing of the fruit of the
Spirit (Galatians 5).
What is my point? It is almost too
simple. Within much of the disorder in
my life, a clear path back to order can
be found. I am drawn to the beauty of
picturesque communication, in part
because individual letters and words
were so baffling and boring. I best know
willingness and surrender because I am
so prone to willfulness and control. It
is precisely my experience of separation
and fear that creates within me a power-
ful drive for union and love.
I am not saying we should celebrate
all disorder, not by any means. What I
am saying, however, is that we should
seek to learn all that disorder may have
to teach us about love and life in the
invisible kingdom, the new Eden, before
we work to make the symptoms go
away.
✠
Gary W. Moon,
M.Div., Ph.D.,
is the
Executive Director of the
Martin Family Institute for
Christianity and Culture and
the Dallas Willard Center
for Christian Spiritual Formation at Westmont
College. He founded, with David G. Benner
and Larry Crabb,
Conversations Journal
;
directs the Renovaré Institute for Christian
Spiritual Formation; and has authored several
books. Gary still teaches at Richmont Graduate
University when they let him.
