Back when I was a newspaper reporter, I dove into many in-depth feature articles as part of my story assignments, including one story in which I went back to school. Indeed, I was young enough at the time that I attended the local high school for the day as a student (similar to the Drew Barrymore film, Never Been Kissed, except I went only for a single day). The idea was to spend time among teenagers and get a sense of what their lives looked and felt like. While I don’t recall the specific angle of that story, I do remember my editor writing a headline that made little sense to me at first: Reporter Tells Tales out of School. I had never heard that expression before and therefore didn’t understand the witty pun he was aiming for; now I do and I am making similar use of it here, save for the undercover reporting angle.
You see, as I have mentioned in previous posts, each of my teenagers sees a counselor regularly, and, sometimes during these visits, I am more of a focus than I would like to be. Mind you, I am not upset or annoyed by this, because, honestly, in those sometimes moments, I have earned that focal point. Obviously, I am not thrilled by it and I am not proud of myself for it. Still, as I said, I have earned it, usually due to my words or behaviors. To say that it is a humbling experience to walk into a therapist’s office to face yourself in the words of your teenagers would be an incredible understatement. But that is completely on me, not my teenagers (though they tend to feel guilty or badly about it).
What I admire and respect about these two young women is their willingness to, “go there.” You know that phrase and that place. You know where there is. That place is an authentic and necessary place of conversation and even if it causes me discomfort (as it should), they need a safe space to process things. This mainly involves me heading in for the 5-10-minute check-in and then I bow out of the session and prop myself up as best I can, knowing there are words about me swirling just beyond the closed door that provides the safe space my teenagers need.
Clearly this is not an every week occurrence, but when it happens, it provides a genuine moment of humbling. Not the shameful kind, but the humiliation that invites us to consider ourselves honestly and to consider others before ourselves. In those moments, I call to mind the act of Jesus washing His disciples’ feet, even the feet of Judas Iscariot, His betrayer. Obviously, I am not equating myself with Jesus; but I am embracing the message of that moment between Jesus and His disciples, taking a bit of an example from both Jesus and His followers, especially Peter, who initially declares, “No, you shall never wash my feet.” to which Jesus immediately replies, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.” (John 13:8)
These therapy moments where I sometimes am part of my teenagers’ conversation with their counselor easily are Jesus & Peter moments for me. I don’t want to be the focus, but I made myself the focus and now I need the redemption moment. That redemption comes when I walk first into the room and confess to my teen’s counselor my angry words or my yelling (or both), and then when I leave the room, allowing my teenager to say what she needs to and to hear what she needs to.
We don’t always see it, but life truly is a series of sacred moments where we are invited consistently, relentlessly, to experience divine encounters. When we accept that invitation, when we willingly humble ourselves even in a moment of revealing our not-best selves, we walk away changed. Our lives are different. In fact, they are better for the encounter. And so despite the discomfort of the moment, I have come to love and respect those times when my girls “go there” and tell tales out of school, because I believe we are all better for their willingness to do so.