arrogant Archives - Lisa Colón DeLay

So, a dear man died one week ago. Dave, to his students (because he preferred this), and Dr David Dorsey, PhD officially. On Tuesday the chapel was packed for his funeral as hundreds resolutely braved sub zero wind chill to pay respects, support his family, share memories and express their sadness at the loss. For us who remain in this world and knew him the hole of his absence hurts. It actually feels painful.

If I tried to tell you all the things that I loved about my former Old Testament Professor, or the countless benefits to me, or the simple and genuine ways he loved on me and others, I would be typing for days. Suffice it to say just about everyone on Tuesday was in tears and everyone felt the weight of the loss as we remembered his light in this world.

In the next few weeks I hope to share some of the insights I gleaned from this amazing scholar and human being.

For now, I’ll share with you something Dave taught us about faith. Granted, I won’t do it justice; and if you read this and heard differently from him, please add your own amend in the comments section.

So, here goes…
He said the faith of the patriarchs of Israel might not be the kind of faith we suppose it is. Hebrews 11 gives us a “Hall of Fame” of the faithful. We may think that these people trusted and relied on God. They did. But we get the pedigree of it all wrong. The practice of faith is much richer than we might suppose, especially at first glance reading the list of the faithful.

Instead, it’s something like this:

Faith is not about being hopeful about what lies beyond the bend in the future. It not really about a “blind” ascension to trust either. Those are good and important in their ways, but when we speak of the life of faith in terms of the Old Testament faithful, like Abraham leaving everything he knew for the wilderness for instance, we are really talking about a concept much like “putting all your eggs in one basket.”

That’s how Dave put it. The word picture stuck and it stuck good.

With the Life of Faith…
You are deeming God good, trustworthy, and loving and then you put it all on the line.

(So, it’s rarer than you think!)

You stop hedging your bets. You stop saving a little security for yourself. You stop holding something back that gives you a sense of control. You bet the whole thing. You leave nothing back. You. go. in. wholly.

Sometimes, I find eggs in my pockets, or around the house, or in places that I didn’t know they were, like a weird easter egg hunt. Not chicken eggs, of course, but the eggs of my worries. I may have thought I handed the basket over, and perhaps I really did, but life can make you lay a few eggs. Sometimes people throw them at you too.

Faith, Hope, Love. Those are what remain, yes?

Faith = a Basket of Eggs.

It’s a shocking level of vulnerability: the life of faith.

You can tell when you do it too. You get a mixture of feelings. Great relief that your job is over, your poor skills are not needed any longer, and someone more capable is now responsible and in charge. Whew! Then, you may get a twinge of terror at the power you gave up, but probably never really had anyway. You become all at once very hopeful and very dependent. It’s precarious.

There’s a rare beauty to it.

Sometimes we give up our baskets and sometimes they sort of get pried out of our hands.

Dave was gravely ill for over 3 decades. His was a life of faith. It had to be. And he handed over eggs.

It was a wrestle match, he would tell you. He didn’t always feel faithful. He made mistakes. His candor was humbling. But, through his honesty he became faithful all the more.

There’s something about growing to trust God for each breath, and believing that God revealed himself as a thoroughly good and gracious and generous Creator and Sustainer in the passages of the Old Testament that transformed this brilliant man into a true saint. Not sappy, but real. All at once very strong and stable and yet achingly weak.

Dave was not self-righteous but gracious. Not arrogant in any discernible manner, but loving and open to others. Concerned with others and their lives and largely uncomplaining. Free with his humor and goodwill.

Hear this: You don’t get the privilege to meet people like this very often. You don’t get to be a person like this often. It’s takes an amazing about of formation, re-formation, and transformation. It doesn’t happen by accident or by genetics.

A life of faith means that you hold nothing back. See the difference?

It’s not using power to feel better. It’s giving it over to be fully won over.

In a life of faith you love whole-heartedly. Not because it’s safe. It never is. But, because it is good. A life of faith means that you have a sharp, ongoing sense of your own weaknesses and dependence, and that goes overflowing into compassion for yourself and others.

A few days after Dave’s death I was praying in the car out loud as I do sometimes. (I take more comfort in doing this now. People talk on the phone hands-free all the time in their cars and look like they are talking to nobody. Now, I just look like I’m having an important conversation. In fact, I am, especially when I shut up.)

So, I was in the car and I was warring as I too often do with things in the distance. Shadows, possibilities, next steps. I was planning, wondering, and worrying–like I was holding a bunch of eggs and walking on a lake of ice.

And then I said, “No, this just won’t work. I see I’m holding too tightly. I think I have to go all in. I have to have faith. I have to put all my eggs in one basket. Your basket.”

And a song sung by Ella Fitzgerald came to mind. I’ve embedded the audio so you can hear it after you finish.

Then I simply burst into tears, because that’s what a godly and good legacy looks like. Literally, one leaves words to live by. Dave’s words of life and hope and faith were ringing true in my mind in everyday life, even after he’s gone. And I thought, “That’s an amazing man and I was given an amazing gift to know him.” I kept having to wipe away tears for awhile.

Spirit, you know, is “breath of life”. (The Hebrew and Greek words for breath carry this meaning.) God is Spirit. When you see goodness, when you see sacrificial love, when you see wrongs being made right, you see God. You see the Spirit of the unseen God. Those describers are just part of what and who is impossible to confine or describe fully.

God isn’t just Life Force, but God is that too. And I don’t think Dave lost his own spirit or the Spirit. I think God became greater. The Spirit got so great that it filled him, and his body of water and carbon gave out, finally. It birthed something new and better and unseen and lasting.

And this Spirit and the part of Dave that is Dave (his truest self–his soul) joined up in union with the Great Spirit, somewhere and everywhere, the One, True, Living God who defies reason, explanation, and the limits of us, and even of the universe.

But, Dave didn’t completely leave us. But, my does the sting smart, right now! From my experience I know it dulls in time; but the pain is, at first, ultimate.

Yet, the fragrance of his spirit remains. And it is sweet.

It’s around us when we remember him. The Spirit remains, and Dave’s flavor fused with that true Spirit carries on with us. We miss the more familiar everyday interaction with him so dearly, and always will, until the same happens to us and we are joined somehow together again.

To those who grieve him: his family and friends, I join you in your deep and powerful sorrow. I join you in your joy–that is bitter and sweet–that realizes the gift he was–having known him, been enriched by him, and been intimately connected to him. Your loss is not small.

May you feel the comfort, presence, shalom, and holy goodness of the Spirit of God.

Amen.

-Lisa

P.S.
Here is a brief local obituary posting of David A. Dorsey.

With these links you can enjoy two of his most well-known books:

(egg photo is a Creative Commons image.)

Once I had the unpleasant experience of over-exposure to a narcissist. (Okay, there’re been a few.) I’m not alone, right?

My gut would keep saying, “Something really isn’t right with this person…keep your distance.” I wish I had known then what I know now about the narcissistic personality. Class is in session.

We first tend to think of the narcissistic personality (NP) as a person who loves his/her own reflection, but that really is the stuff of myths. No, seriously (read about the specific greek myth here).

Sure, archetypal NPs are easily identified, perhaps as vain or self-centered, but a more mild version can creep into our surroundings insidiously even as authority figures, pillars of the community, sought-after experts, and accomplished leaders. Once you let them, they start to suck the life out of you. Sometimes their presence is unavoidable, but figuring out who they are and how to manage your interactions, before you lose your cool with them is invaluable wisdom.

What are the qualities of said NPs?
Here are 12.

A lack of empathy colors much of they do. They may say, “How are you?” or ask a seemingly thoughtful question, when you encounter them. They are only working from memory. They have little or no interest in how you are. Another example: They might also mention something like a disaster or someone’s personal tragedy more as trivia, and seem callous or lack understanding of the emotional gravity of the situation or what others are going through.
Mirroring. Virtually all of their ideas or ways of behaving in a given situation are taken from cues of others–people they know or perhaps think of as an authority (mirroring). They will adapt to situation and tell a group or person what they assume will intrigue them, or say what one wants to hear. For instance, with women, a male NP make act sensitive and pro-female, and then in a situation with males, buddy-up and put on very different aires to fit the part.
Appearance. Continual concern with looking the part, body image, and attractiveness. (Including altering appearance to compensate for perceived imperfections, or the aging process.)
Poor conversational skills. Their sense of self-importance and lack of empathy means that they will often interrupt the conversations of others, or overshadow conversations. They don’t seem to sense when they have gone on far too long, and when others speak, they may be oblivious to the conversation itself; positioning themselves instead to interject at the slightly brief to start speaking about themselves.
Self-Importance as a main feature. They may wish others to do the mundane aspects of projects, and create those situations. Association with importance dominates their duties or their tales about what they’ve done. (Name-dropping falls into this category too.)
Consistent self-focus. Listen for the ever-present use of “I”, “me” and “my” when they talk. Lots of self-promotion will appear as they speak…something like a walking infomercial.
Little awareness of inner life. They find it difficult to talk about their inner life: memories, dreams, emotional wounds, or character weaknesses. Such talk is rare, brief, or non existent. (This makes growth, or spiritual maturation quite difficult.)
Superiority issues. They will feel that the typical rules don’t apply to them. They will be disparaging of others and other groups often.
Lawless disposition. They commonly cheat / steal as opportunities present themselves if they think they can get away with it. (taxes, rules, traffic laws, installed procedures, unspoken or mutual understandings, etc) They don’t think of it as cheating or stealing though.
Self-appointed leader. They may seize leadership positions, or fill varies power vacuums to become the center of attention. They may delegate work or projects only to then interfere by micro-managing them. If all goes well, they take the credit, if things goes badly they blame or focus attention on the person they delegated it to.
Tension or Stress Creators. Higher levels of stress with people who work with or interact with a narcissist often turn into decreased interactions/avoidance; or in the work environment, absenteeism and staff turnover. They won’t be able to trace this to themselves though.
Preeminence. They grow (often unconsciously) impatient and restless when the topic of discussion is about someone else, and not about them. They enjoy thinking that they are crucial linchpins in situations of which they are a part.

yep. Whether it’s a co-worker, family member, neighbor, or other association, NPs make life difficult. What should you do?

Here are 5 ideas.

• Plan ahead. Determine how much time you can bear allotting for contact with the person, and prepare boundaries for your time together. This may mean sandwiching them among other appointments, so you can get away, or taking other steps to minimize interactions.

• Ditch constructive criticism. Don’t try to “help them out”. Observations or altruistic suggestions will be seen as an attack. Always. Just let them fail; it can’t be helped. (Of course, Prayer may be helpful…but, likely, more for you than them.)

• Keep your low opinion of them to yourself. Sure, you’ll find lots of support and corroboration of their obnoxiousness. You might even crave some company in your time of misery, but somehow they’ll sniff out even the slightest displeasure, and you’ll enter their crosshairs faster then you can say. “Shoot to kill.” Heed this not, and they will aim to destroy you.

• Use kid gloves. Sometimes a NPs confident style will fool you into thinking that his/her ego is more sturdy then, say, a moth’s wing. Not so. Under the veneer of certainty deep seated insecurity and rage lays right under the surface. Spiteful and thin-skinned is a terrible combination, so beware.

• Grace. Chances are this person will not, and maybe, cannot change. It’s hardwired in their brain to be such. Try to think of them as functionally “brain damaged”. They are likely considered a relational plague by many others… so, actually, that’s pitiable. Let that knowledge help balance your responses to them. Use compassion + common sense. Don’t waste your time or energy on thinking about their ways more then is absolutely necessary (let it go. deep exhale).

Have you ever dealt with a NP? What qualities did he/she have?

What helpful advice you do have to share?

(Some info adapted from here: http://winning-teams.com/recognizenarcissist.html)

Tag: arrogant

What is a Narcissist Really & What should you do about it?