What does "bitch" mean?

(I know it's a long one, but I tried to include a lot of pictures to keep things moving.)

Before we left for Christmas vacation, we went to a seminar about dealing with "Transitions" with novices from two other religious communities. We get together with novices from the Josephite community and a novice from Bon Secour sisters roughly once a month for formation workshops. This workshop is on "Transitions," and the psychology major in me has been looking for some terra firma in this journey of mine; papal encyclicals have not been moving the ball down the field for me. It is being run by a pastoral counselor (someone who blends spirituality with the behavioral sciences) who does a lot of work with religious communities.

To start off, she takes out a large pad and asks us to say words that describe feelings that have gone along with discerment. We all offer words that reflect a variety of feelings. Finally, somebody offers "It's a bitch." Most of us agree with that sentiment and that goes on the board as well. A few more words are offered, and then the floor is opened for questions. One of the Nigerians raises his hand; "What does 'bitch' mean? I have never heard that phrase before..." The rest of us shared that piece of our American culture.

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I have to confess, the psychology major in me finds this to be welcome material - theology has only been getting me so far in dealing with this change in my life. In fact, my experience in both handling life's changes, trauma, and adjustments well at times ands poorly in others focused on the skills she is sharing today.

What happens to all of us at many times throughout our lives is that we are faced with major life changes, many times in the form of traumatic events. This can be something as seemingly innocuous as changing jobs or moving to a new place to something as potentially devastating as losing a loved one or a life-threatening illness. And there is a process that we have to go through in order to work through it, and depending on the event, it can involve a lot of pain. The problem with pain, as I've found in my own life, is that it's... painful.

Despite "mixed" reviews from some less noteworthy critics, one of my all time favorite movies is Jackass. As most people who know me would tell you, the grosser some thing is, the more likely I am to laugh. In this area, Jackass more than serves up the goods. What I really appreciate about Johnny Knoxville and company, nay, ADMIRE, is that they dive head long into pain; alas I usually myself find myself running in the other direction. Now that's not necessarily a bad thing... except when it means I'm avoiding dealing with a major life events.

As the chart above demonstrates, there are two ways to avoid the necessary pain of a traumatic event. One is depression, when our system shuts down rather than cope with the "crap" that awaits in dealing with... well, whatever it is we need to deal with. Definitely have done my share of that. The other, and the one I am really suspicious of as I enter religious life, is top "Skipping over it all" part of the chart. I say that because I've seen a real danger in the past of using religion itself to "skip over it," whatever "it" might be. I've heard people try to invoke "the Spirit" to lift them above their pain, I've invoked the spirit to carry me over the ditch instead of through it... even Jesus in the "Agony of the Garden" wanted to skip over it all and prayed to God for just that favor.

If I seem to be doing a lot of excessive bitching and moaning, indeed "kicking and screaming," in my writing, that's me trying to avoid what's in the pit. The pit has a lot of anger I'm afraid to express, tears that a part of me thinks will not make me a man if I cry, a loss of control my ego is not comfortable with, and a fear of losing love in my life. And having no idea how long this process will take and where I'll be afterwards.

No, it's not fun... taking it a piece at a time has helped. But I also have a pet theory that it's also the place where I'll be meeting the God I've been trying to rationalize. The one thing that I do know, is that I will not be having any real or substantial conversations with that God, whether his name be Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, or Brian... unless I go down there. But it's fair to say that I don't have a lot of trust in religion coming from people who haven't bothered to make the trip, so if I am thinking about being a "dispenser" of religion, dealing with this stuff as it pertains to me might be a good idea.

I know that this post kind of turned into a psych lesson and there's a lot more to all this. I wanted to share this part of the process because, one, it's universal for everybody and two, this is as much a part of my discernment as morning prayer and apostolates. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when I first decided to make this leap I went through a pretty deep period of mourning... one that in some ways I am still pulling out of, even now. And if I am going to be talking about my spirituality, growth in my relationship with God, and how I am going about finding my place in this world, dealing with this stuff has to be the first place to start, whether it's me or anybody. As a spiritual director once told me, "You can't pray this stuff away."

Still, I get why people get turned off by the whole "psychoanalyzing" thing; later on that day I had one of the those George Costanza moments when he realized a great comeback 20 minutes after the fact ("The jerk store called, and they're running out of you!"). One of my fellow students sat right next to me on the couch, so I started joking that I wanted a toy train for Christmas. The Pastoral Counselor's inner Freud went immediately into action and she asked me, "Why a toy train?"

Even though I was a psych major, I had to roll my eyes; the reason a toy train came to mind was that it was the background of a Christmas concert I had seen the night before. But I of course could not let that comment pass. "I don't know... I have also been dreaming about holding two large melons a lot recently, and I have no idea what THAT means."

I felt good about the rebuttal, but it still felt a little rushed. Later on, on the way home at the end of the day, that same student came up with the reply that kept the spirit of the original yet still stayed within theme.

"What you should have said was, 'The train keeps going in and out of a tunnel... what does that mean?'"