Diving for Glory in the Deep

It’s hard to believe I’m in year four of this weekly newsletter/blog. Thank you for continuing to read, share, and discuss important matters with me. To start off a new year of Once a Week, I committed to keeping newsletters in Theology & Therapy (which alternate with Thesis 96) to no more than 500 words (not including introductions like this, and the final quote and question). I’m telling you so you can hold me accountable if need be! Due to their more intellectual nature, Thesis 96 posts will continue to be longer, although I’m trying to pair those down as well.

My childhood pool is now a playground. I drove by it a few weeks ago to show my twelve year-old son where I lived when I was his age, and was shocked to see the apartment pool had been filled in and turned into a play structure. It was a sad sight. I have many fun memories of summertime swimming at this pool, which my older brother and I almost always had to ourselves. But I also remember fear. With no one else around—no raucous noise like at Great Wolf Lodge my family just stayed at—my highly active imagination filled in the gaps. In the deep end, that meant sharks.

Yes, that’s right. At twelve years old, while swimming in an enclosed space no bigger than 50ft x 30ft, I was afraid of being attacked by sharks. I would feel momentary panic when under water in the deep end, especially if my back was turned toward it.

It was a silly fear, and I knew it. Going under water, opening my eyes, and looking all around the deep end revealed a complete absence of teeth, jaws or dorsal fins. And yet I was still afraid.

In a place that symbolizes play and promises entertainment for kids of all ages and cultures and backgrounds, I was afraid.

^{AI image, under water in the deep end of a pool}

This memory came to mind while pondering a prompt from Terry Marks-Tarlow to

“Find a metaphor that captures your overall feeling about your identity as a therapist.”¹

I’m guessing I remembered that pool because of Proverbs 20:5, a verse I often quote to clients:

“The purposes of a person’s heart are deep waters, but one who has insight draws them out.” (NIV)

I play with the proverb and suggest that the “person of understanding” could be both another (like me, the counselor) and also the client himself.

The “deep water” suggests not only the need for insight, but patience. Pennies can be pulled from a fountain, but pirate treasure sinks into the deep. There is purpose in your heart and mine, but it isn’t immediately available. It can’t be known cheaply. Nor can it be known easily.

It takes also courage, for there are hidden, nameless things in the depths. Unlike the pool of Four Seasons Apartments, there really are monsters deep in our hearts. Whether of our own making or others or both, they are there. And they are scary. So we play in the shallows. We avoid the things that really matter—our depravity and our glory. Especially, perhaps, the glory. It means weight, after all, so it sinks to the bottom. Thus, in order to reach the deepest purposes of glory, we first have to fight off all manner of sharks and sea serpents, sin and sinners, guilt and shame. That’s best done together rather than alone.

So, here’s my answer to Marks-Tarlow’s prompt:

As a therapist, I provide scuba gear, diving lessons, and guided tours through the deep regions of the heart.

Quote from George MacDonald

Love alone gives insight.²

Question

Have you ever thought of an image or metaphor for your vocation? If not, try setting aside 15 minutes this week to reflect and see what comes to you.

1 Terry Marks-Tarlow, Clinical Intuition in Psychotherapy: The Neurobiology of Embodied Response (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2012), 184.

2 George MacDonald, The Gifts of the Child Christ, in The Golden Key and Other Fantasy Stories (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Co., 1980), 129.