Driving the Bus
For the last couple of days I have been struggling to keep my thoughts on point. They want to scatter, to remember, to sing stupid songs ("Hell No" by Ingrid Michaelson, at the moment, for no other reason than it popped up on Youtube when I went there to find a clip of Bela Tarr's The Werckmeister Harmonies, because who can watch the whole thing!? I did it once, and it was like trying to deadlift a postmodernist), or argue with people in my head. The only end to an argument in your own head is that you lose. So I've been losing a lot these last couple of days, and since I lost the arguments, I can't really say that it was unfair. I deserve to lose.
This is a sample of my head. And last night, when I finally finished showering, after changing my mind about showering this morning and writing a sunday school lesson, and praying about writing a sunday school lesson because I'm the idiot who did not adequately prepare when I should have, because I forgot, although I did accomplish my writing goals and earned the lego minifig (It's not enough. My students deserve better. We did origami, and that worked.) I could not sleep because my brain would not slow down.
In the temple this week, a place where I sometimes feel some respite from my mental illness, I did not. My thoughts were racing just as badly - sometimes on topic because I tried really hard to be obedient and pay attention, but mostly terrified that I had put myself on the wrong side of a semi-political religious controversy and that it somehow violated these sacred promises that I had made (it did not. THAT was clear enough, so I suspect it was not my thought) - and I could not make them stop.
But I tried. I made mistakes for which I will have flashbacks for decades, but I tried. I knew what my thoughts were doing, and I realized that my anxiety was driving the bus.
I am a bus full of thoughts and opinions and feelings and talents. A whole bus full. We all are. I'm the Bat-Bus, which is kind of like a rock band's tour bus, except with all the casual partying of a bookmobile. I'm a bus, and fear was driving.
I repeated to myself, unable to calm my twitches and fidgets, "the fear is driving." And I would try to put somebody else in charge, like love, or humility, or obedience. That worked for a little while.
Have you ever seen Speed (1994)? Fear should never drive the bus. He's the worst. He can only react in the moment to the things that are most frightening, and does not obey traffic laws or care about other people's safety because they're not on the bus, because fear is duty-bound and designed to protect the bus and the bus is all that matters. And when the most frightening things are in your head, people don't understand why you run them over.
Fear makes a really great air marshall. But he does not make a good bus driver. Fear does not pray. He does not chill. He does not love others properly. He does not slow down for courtesies or visitors. Fear tries to override your ability to make conscious choices.
I'm afraid. I'm afraid of big things and small things and personal things and political things. I'm afraid for strangers and afraid of myself. I cannot be 100% obedient to Jesus's commandment to "Be not afraid," if it was a commandment, which it probably was. I AM fear. But I can keep fighting so he doesn't get to drive.
I also don't drive under the influence of chill, because we all know what THAT looks like too.
Jesus makes a good bus driver, but he drives his own bus. And designed and teaches CDL training, which is nice.
We can't drive by committee. The bus would turn into a boardroom, and we all know how quickly THEY travel.
Who should drive my bus?
This is a sample of my head. And last night, when I finally finished showering, after changing my mind about showering this morning and writing a sunday school lesson, and praying about writing a sunday school lesson because I'm the idiot who did not adequately prepare when I should have, because I forgot, although I did accomplish my writing goals and earned the lego minifig (It's not enough. My students deserve better. We did origami, and that worked.) I could not sleep because my brain would not slow down.
In the temple this week, a place where I sometimes feel some respite from my mental illness, I did not. My thoughts were racing just as badly - sometimes on topic because I tried really hard to be obedient and pay attention, but mostly terrified that I had put myself on the wrong side of a semi-political religious controversy and that it somehow violated these sacred promises that I had made (it did not. THAT was clear enough, so I suspect it was not my thought) - and I could not make them stop.
But I tried. I made mistakes for which I will have flashbacks for decades, but I tried. I knew what my thoughts were doing, and I realized that my anxiety was driving the bus.
I am a bus full of thoughts and opinions and feelings and talents. A whole bus full. We all are. I'm the Bat-Bus, which is kind of like a rock band's tour bus, except with all the casual partying of a bookmobile. I'm a bus, and fear was driving.
I repeated to myself, unable to calm my twitches and fidgets, "the fear is driving." And I would try to put somebody else in charge, like love, or humility, or obedience. That worked for a little while.
Have you ever seen Speed (1994)? Fear should never drive the bus. He's the worst. He can only react in the moment to the things that are most frightening, and does not obey traffic laws or care about other people's safety because they're not on the bus, because fear is duty-bound and designed to protect the bus and the bus is all that matters. And when the most frightening things are in your head, people don't understand why you run them over.
Fear makes a really great air marshall. But he does not make a good bus driver. Fear does not pray. He does not chill. He does not love others properly. He does not slow down for courtesies or visitors. Fear tries to override your ability to make conscious choices.
I'm afraid. I'm afraid of big things and small things and personal things and political things. I'm afraid for strangers and afraid of myself. I cannot be 100% obedient to Jesus's commandment to "Be not afraid," if it was a commandment, which it probably was. I AM fear. But I can keep fighting so he doesn't get to drive.
I also don't drive under the influence of chill, because we all know what THAT looks like too.
Jesus makes a good bus driver, but he drives his own bus. And designed and teaches CDL training, which is nice.
We can't drive by committee. The bus would turn into a boardroom, and we all know how quickly THEY travel.
Who should drive my bus?
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