Strengths, or Weaknesses?

Not long ago, a friend told me, “Your greatest strength will also be your greatest weakness”; I dismissed him at the time, but I am coming to recognize his wisdom. From an early age, I have been both an academic, and a storyteller, and I cannot help but bring to Australia all the good and bad implied in those roles.

There is, of course, much good to be had from both. Above, I called myself an “academic”; if I were to separate the wheat in that expression from the chaff, I might rather call myself a learner, for that has always been the greatest joy of my life. I suppose there is something dangerous as well about claiming such an austere and private joy for myself—it might smack of egotism—but as I cannot strive for all virtue at once, I will hope for honesty at this juncture.

As a child, I was a voracious reader, devouring the Newberry Medal books from the first grade on (my snobbishness regarding prize-winning literature has not diminished). When my little sister went to the hospital with a respiratory virus, I spent days mixing together every viscous, pungent solution I could find in our medicine cabinet in an attempt to find a cure. I was likewise determined to discover a method by which men might travel faster than light before I was twelve. I pored over physics books and concocted wild solutions, which my dad entertained gravely, before delicately sending each scheme crashing around my ears. (Of course, when, on the eve of my twelfth birthday, I finally arrived at the correct solution, my father prudently counseled me to keep it secret, lest I become a target for international terrorism; I still carry the formula in my wallet to this day.)

I have long been a learner, but I think an even earlier passion may have been storytelling. For much of my childhood, I dwelt in dream worlds of my own invention, exploring strange worlds with alien companions, undertaking epic journeys that ranged across the whole of my family’s five-acre property. I had real friends, too, of course, two of whom have been my brothers in all but blood since I was three, but in many ways I have always felt more at home in my imagination. I think something deep within me yearned for mystery, magic, mortal danger. Everywhere I turned, men were shrinking the world: we landed on the moon, and found no Man; we stole the thunderbolts from Zeus' very hands; we traveled the world, and found no dragons (only alligators, rendered thoroughly unexciting through their ubiquity in Florida). What I yearned for was a true legend, a real quest, but it was only as I began to study as a storyteller that I found one.

I learned from my early exploits that neither chemistry nor physics were my field; my compulsion for storytelling quickly diverted my passion for knowledge into literary realms, and the two have interacted in profound ways ever since. My friends tell I write stories like a philosopher, and I think my analytical bent is what has prevented me from producing good verse. Likewise, I have learned to see the mythic overtones of history; to understand philosophy as an endless struggle carried out within, against, and on the behalf of each thinker’s culture; and, most important, to read the Bible as a one sprawling, messy, tragic, beautiful, redemptive epic. It was when I began to read the Bible as literature that I discovered my yearned-for quest: the gospel has become for me (alongside many other significant lenses) the story of a gripping rescue mission, climaxing in a furious battle, and leading out into a brilliant saga of resistance groups loyal to the Risen King pledging their allegiance to his coming reign under the shadow of the terrible Empire.

So, at my best, I, like Plato, the philosopher-dramatist, gladly occupy the role of mythic historian, philosopher-novelist, or epic bible scholar. I can even phrase my cultural commentary in the form of a haiku. (Did I mention that I’m quite modest, as well?) I am the sort who, with time, might dream dreams, and see visions from afar, and point out the next stage of our journey.

Of course, I must heed the insistent voice of the friend I quoted earlier: for all the good growth in my life, weeds nestle among the wheat, the two inseparable and inescapable. The role of academic is always on the verge of tilting away from “learner,” and into “arrogant prig,” a part I have played many times in my life. I vividly recall being six, and, leaning idly against the wall at my kindergarten, remarking in an off-hand way, “Of course I don’t know everything. I just know almost everything.” I was always the first to find the Bible verse in Sunday school; for much of middle school, I was the kid who sat by himself and read during lunch. I had a penchant for using big words that no one in the conversation (often including myself) would understand.

The only thing worse than a dusty scholar caged and peering down from his Ivory Tower is a dusty scholar observing a world of his own invention. In many children, imaginary worlds are places to learn bravery and ingenuity; very often, mine made me reticent and timid, fearful of real human engagement. As well, claiming a gift for inventive narration is really a kind way of calling yourself a talented liar, which is exactly what I have been at some of the worst moments in my life. I told stories to insulate myself from reality, and lying was that impulse taken to its furthest extent. Lying is always a means of escape, a posture of pressing your true self into the dust, of cowering beneath a façade of your own invention, and hoping the lied-to will not see through to your pitiful state.

So, at my worst (which I hope is behind me, but of course, we are never so great that we might not fall) I have been passive, fearful, and deceptive. I have used my gifts as a weapon to keep those who might wound me at an arm’s length. In short, I am a sinner, in need of grace.

Cataloguing one’s strengths and weaknesses fully would mean writing a biography, and even then, only the Lord knows all. I have left out much that would make you smile, or that would thrill your soul: stories of waves surfed, of mountain-conversation with good friends, of family drawn close by tragedy. I have left out much that might make you weep with me, or hate me, or both: stories of divorce, deception, and anxiety, of a house ravaged by hurricanes, of heartbreak and betrayal. However, I feel that the good I have written of—my inquisitive imagination—lies at the heart of most of the good in my life, and that the evil I have written of is likewise the root of all I despise in myself.

There is something very bold about writing so plainly of one’s character. Indeed, this sort of public introspection would have been impossible for me just a few years ago. I am beginning to understand what Paul meant, though, when he promised to boast of nothing except his weaknesses. I am beginning as well, to understand God’s response to Paul’s pleading: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” I struggle with intimacy, but I have wonderful friendships, and a beautiful girlfriend. I dreamed of magic, but I have begun to experience miracles. This is the power of God, seen in weakness; what more could I ask?