I’ve been on a jihad — inner spiritual struggle — the past few weeks to reconnect on Facebook with friends from my past who are no longer in my life.<\/p>\n
Last night, I leafed through my 1983 and 1984 Placer High School yearbooks and friended about a dozen people.<\/p>\n
Many times as I think about reconnecting with old friends, I wince. I wince at stupid things I did. Reconnecting with the past forces me to reconnect with who I was and am. It’s not always pretty.<\/p>\n
I am single. I live alone. I don’t have to confront myself as much as when I am in a relationship.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I’ll be shopping at the supermarket and I’ll see someone I used to be friends with and I’ll wince. At that Shabbat dinner, I thought I was being so very funny, but instead I was only needlessly provoking and losing friends. <\/p>\n
In therapy, I’ll talk about stupid things I’ve done and my therapist will say things like, “Luke, you were only 12 years old.”<\/p>\n
She suggests that when I encounter people I was a beast to, I can apologize and try to forge new beginnings.<\/p>\n
* I need to find and apologize to that chubby girl from fifth grade at Avondale Primary School. She liked me and this made me feel nervous. I responded to her affection by placing tacks on her chair and even kicking her. <\/p>\n
I’ll never forget something she said to me that year,– “One day you’ll find out what it is like to love somebody who kicks you.”<\/p>\n
* Going back to Loma Linda University<\/a> this weekend has enormous emotional meaning to me. It’s like stepping back into my past.<\/p>\n Not that I spent much time there as a kid. I think I was there only once and that was 18 months ago<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Loma Linda University is a Seventh-Day Adventist institution. That was the religion in which I was raised. That was the host for many of my childhood sins. That was the church I was determined to flee.<\/p>\n Upon adulthood, I fled the church but found out that my essentially insecure self had not changed.<\/p>\n When I was a kid, I had to listen to thousands of hours of sermons. I hated most of them. I always thought that I could do better. That I would be sharper and smarter and funnier. That I wouldn’t waste time talking about righteousness by faith. <\/p>\n We’ll see how I do Saturday afternoon<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I’ve been on a jihad — inner spiritual struggle — the past few weeks to reconnect on Facebook with friends from my past who are no longer in my life. Last night, I leafed through my 1983 and 1984 Placer … Continue reading