I Went to See a Counselor

So I said, “Well, it’s like I’ve done something wrong, but I know that’s silly because I know we’re not perfect and I cut myself lots of slack there, I never judge others, but I feel like I’m being judged. I feel guilty for something even though I know I’m innocent. It eats away on me day and night, but I just can’t seem to shake off this feeling of dread.”

“So, you have feelings of insecurity, then?” he said.

“I suppose.”

He began by clearing his throat; “What you must understand is that feelings of insecurity are nurtured by our tendency to think poorly of ourselves. We have this tendency toward poor self-esteem because of something our parents did, or something our uncle did to us, or something traumatic that happened to us when we were a child; something like being bullied by someone in school, maybe, or the loss of a small rodent kept as a pet. Am I right in assuming this is the case?”

I was astounded with his abilities and had to exclaim, “Wow, doc! You know exactly what happened to me! How did you know this is the case with me?”

“Well, son, it’s because of God’s spirit that dwells in my heart, and also because I have a license from the state of California to practice Psychiatry. You do know that I am a Christian Counselor, right?”

“Well, yes. That’s what my pastor told me when she recommended you. She also feels that a lot of my problems are caused by what others did to me as a child, but my parents’ pastor always preached that what the Bible calls ‘sin’ is the sole cause of everyone’s woes. But now you’re telling me that maybe I had nothing to do with it, that…..”

The doctor quickly interrupted me, “No, no. That’s not what I am saying. You definitely had something to do with your own inability to cope with life’s problems. This lack of ability is called ‘sin’ in the Bible. It is not a condemning word, however. We can think of sin as the inability to be god-like, for which we are forgiven. Sin is merely missing the mark, the Greek says. So when we set about to be as gods and fail, this is sin. Sin is not evil doing or disobedience to some kind of law that if you break you become damned. Maybe that’s your basic problem. You feel condemned because early in your life someone, probably a parent figure, convinced you that you are evil and going to hell.”

“Bingo!” I cried. “They told me that I was going to be judged by God for everything I did in this life. Are you saying this is the cause of my insecurity?”

“Something like that. Actually, we are just hitting surface symptoms. There are no doubt more deep-seated causational fixations that we will investigate one by one as we continue our therapy sessions over the next ten years or so. But we still have 45 minutes left and we should continue tearing down some of your old assumptions about life so we can mold you into a new creature in Christ, as the bible says we should.”

“That’s another problem I have, doc. This ‘tearing down’ process you speak of scares me. What about my self-identity and self-worth: Are these at stake here?”

“Oh, heavens no!” he assured me. “This process we speak of as tearing down means tearing down old notions of religion like ‘we must serve God or else,’ or ‘we must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ,’ or ‘if you don’t stop playing the drums all night I’ll take away your Mercedes’….that sort of nonsense.”

“So I’m not accountable to God?” I asked.

“Well, yes and no” he answered. “In the sense that we are all accountable to one another as fellow human beings and brothers and sisters in the larger sense of family and the oneness the whole human race experiences through the mothering nurture of God…in that sense we are accountable. But in the sense that we are accountable to some judgmental, father-image God, no way.” He grinned like a puckered Cheshire cat. Tears of relief and confusion ran out the corners of my eye.

Unsteadily, I managed, “So I can trust you in this ‘tearing down process’?”

“Oh, absolutely. Here…” he handed me a Kleenex and his business card. The logo was a snake eating its tail, inscribed with a phrase: ‘it all makes complete sense once you swallow the tale.’ I noted that the card said he was a member of the American Say-So’s.

“What is the American Say-So’s?,” I asked.

“We’re a positive affirmation society linked to the Global Organization of Doctors, he said. “In fact, I am credentialed for holistic medicine through the A.S.S.’s. Our motto is, ‘If we say so then it must be so.’ I trust that you can also come to this realization.”

“If you say so. Maybe that’s a problem with me. Am I a good citizen? A Christian? I don’t know anymore. Am I maladjusted?”

“Well, yes and no,” he began. “We are no doubt affected by our culture, our American culture, which although not perfect, is a basically good Christian culture. By Christian, I don’t mean we hammer on the Bible and push it down people’s throats. That, of course, is not the Christian thing to do. God is a gentleman, and so are good Americans. Interestingly enough, all religions in America are good, gentlemanly things that Americans practice as part of their true Christian heritage of tolerance, non-judgment, and love. So when we are out of synch with this principle of love, then we become maladjusted whether we are Americans or lemmings. Do you see my point?”

“Are you thinking that I am maladjusted because I am not tolerant? I mean, there are some pretty weird religions in America these days. Am I wrong in having Protestant beliefs?” I queried.

“Yes and no. What you need to learn is that even though our country was supposedly founded on Protestant principles, it actually was not. George Washington and Ben Franklin and Pocahontas purposely made up the history of our country, just so they could have instant propaganda to strengthen our newly born country. Our founding fathers were really no more Protestant than the Pope.”

“What were they? Mormons? J.W.s? Com’on!” I exclaimed.

“Of course not. They hadn’t been invented yet. But, perhaps this is the crux of your misunderstanding of the true nature of the world and our relation to the worldwide family of God. We all believe in God in some way. Even those who claim not to believe will find themselves praying to God when the chips are down. All of the churches, temples, mosques, missions, reading rooms, Roman Catholics, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Branch Dividians, Liberals, Fundamentalists, Shiites, Shittites, witchcraft covens, warlock rings, voodoo circles, Satanists, agnostics, atheists – I could go on and on – all of them are God’s children. We need to learn to love them and each other all equally and give them room to feel out God on their own. We need to let them worship their God they way they want to. This is the true heart of Christianity and the true heart of love.” He was almost breathless, and now he was clearly caught up in the emotion of the moment. He was toppling with love. He looked a windmill collapsing in a high wind, his arms the bent blades, his face a happy grin.

Admittedly, I kept wondering why I was still having a problem figuring out what it was he was talking about. The more certain of a principle he was (and what with the plenitude of self-validating gesticulations accompanying this certainty), the less sure I was “getting it.” Was I unloving? Judgmental? Not tolerant? Admittedly, I was brought up in Protestant churches and those guys have some close-kept feelings about love. But I was brought up to believe that the Protestants were protesting something bad and some of them came to America to escape the bad thing.

So I asked, “I was brought up to believe that Martin Luther was a sort of cult hero for the Protestant church. Does this influence have something to do with my lack of understanding about my relationship with God, or with the general concept of love itself?”

The Doc immediately answered, “Oh yes. Martinus had a disorder that we now know as ‘bipolar.’ He had severe bouts of depression followed by euphoric trips into what he thought of as God’s grace. Unfortunately, most of his writings that influenced his countrymen (and later the movement we call “the Reformation”) were spawned by his depressive episodes. In his psychotic state, he imagined God to be a wrathful, all-powerful being that metes out justice upon the wicked and rewards His chosen with eternal life. The only way to make peace with this overbearing God was to acquiesce to his terms. Grace is what Martin called it. This sickness has pervaded the entire church for centuries now, especially in America. Some of the religious kooks who came over on the boat were bent on stirring up the early colonies. It was sort of cheap entertainment, I suppose. Fortunately, the ecumenical movement has pretty much stripped that sort of harmful thinking from the modern church. We now concentrate on God’s love.”

I was impressed. “Wow, doc, you really know your church history, don’t you?”

“Oh, I learned only from the best theological schools. Plus, I read only the books recommended by the American Say-So’s. I also teach Sunday school and no one in my class can refute what I say, so it must be right.”

“You teach Sunday school?”

“Does that seem strange to you?” he asked.

“Well, to be honest, I just figured a guy like you must not have too much time for anything like teaching Sunday school. I just picture linemen and old ladies being the kind who do that. But you’re a professional.”

“Yes,” he said with a deep conviction. “And that’s why the church needs me. I make sure that any conversation that comes up about religious concepts like blood being payment for sin, and such like, are refuted by correct Biblical application and modern science. It also affords them the opportunity to receive news about my professional Christian Counseling business. If they choose to go on in the Lord, I am there for them,” he said rather humbly, glancing at the business card in my hand.

“Are you telling me that the blood of Jesus Christ is not payment for sin?” I asked a little too excitedly. “Even my pastor told me that the blood of Jesus represents something. I don’t know if she is of the opinion that blood actually pays for anything, but she did say that somehow it makes us feel loved by God.”

“Now, now” he said soothingly. “We’re not here to discuss religion, but relationship. Our relationship, or as I prefer to say it, our relation, to God is as one of sonship. Jesus guarantees this. Jesus was the Son of God. He showed us how to be sons of God. His blood is a picture of how we should be willing to serve God ourselves. In this relation of grace, we have peace through knowing how much God loves us and that nothing we could ever do can change that. So, when I say that blood does not make atonement for sin, I am talking about that primitive concept of animal sacrifice. Some people make Jesus out to be some kind of an animal sacrifice made for our benefit. A totally non-supportable theory. But we do need to acknowledge we ourselves have that loving relation with God that Jesus had, which is one of relation by grace, not by some bloody sacrifice. Jesus put that old Jewish religious stuff to rest. He showed us a better way of loving God than by observing religious rules. But getting back to your inability to cope with life’s problems…” he paused significantly, gently shoveling, or rocking, the air with his cupped palms… it looked like he was either offering me an armload of whale blubber or he wanted a response.

“My life’s problems?” I fished.

“Yes.” This seemed to be the response he was after. He went on, “The bigger issues of life are not what religion you buy into, or what system of morals and ethics you use, or what culture you grew up in. To be sure, these things are important, but your relation to God is more important.”

I could not disagree with this, I supposed. Besides, what would I say? ‘No, my relationship to God is not important?’

He continued, “Life’s problems can be categorized into ten areas of concern. I call these areas of concern the ‘Ten Pronouncements.’ The Ten Pronouncements break our problems into smaller units so we can deal with them. Our biggest problem in life is trying to bite off more than we can chew spiritually. This is the ‘sin’ mentioned in the Garden of Eden myth. Eve, representing our subconscious desires, wanted to have godship immediately, without going through the necessary cycles of reiterative cause-effect input-output relational feedback mechanisms, without which no person will see godship. Her sin, so to speak, was passed on by family traditions by the patriarchal domineering side of the equation. The husband, not fully comprehending the situation, blamed everything on her and made a religion of it. Sin was actually passed down by the man. The Jews borrowed from this error and made up their Male-Jehovah God who demeans women in general and witches in particular. This is a great evil in America today and so hard to remove from the collective conscience we call ‘guilt’. But... getting back to the Ten Pronouncements…”

“Doc,” I interrupted, “The Garden of Eden story is surely a myth, but you said you think that the man is responsible for passing down sin? What’s that about?”

“Briefly, so I can get back to my Ten Pronouncement concept – the Bible says that sin came from Adam, not Eve. So Adam, our cognitive processes, tries to blame the cause on our subconscious. Freud and others came close on this one, but they didn’t realize that our feminine side, Eve, was actually the best part of our being and should be listened to and followed, not torn apart and subjected to the conscious, male, mental process. Nature worship is an outward expression of this understanding of God’s feminine nature. The attack of the Christian church upon witchcraft has done much to keep us in the dark ages of the healing of the mind and emotions that modern psychiatric science has gone so far to remedy. Does that clear it up any?”

I guess I wasn’t really paying attention to this. I was still wondering to myself, ‘Adam is our what-process?’ I decided to nod him on so we could get to the Ten Pronouncements.

“Good,” He said. “Now, briefly, because we’re running out of time on your first session, the Ten Pronouncements can be seen as taking the place of the Ten Commandments. Not that there was anything wrong with the Ten Commandments, but we are in a new age and the Ten Commandments are Old Hat. Jesus and all the world’s teachers and prophets taught that there is coming a new age in which God will be acknowledged as inside all of us, not just this or that church or club.”

I smiled in agreement. I had heard this before from my pastor, who is also chairwoman of the local New Age in Arts and Sciences Foundation. This foundation pays particular attention to women in science and religion, so often neglected by patriarchal history.

He continued, “The Ten Pronouncements are a new way of looking at our problems and dealing with them as gods over our own destiny. This is what God wants for us. What good is it to gain the whole world and lose our own soul, is the way Jesus put it. So the Ten Pronouncements are a way of supplementing the Ten Commandment way of thinking so predominant in western Christian culture.”

“Pronouncement Number One is: ‘Tackle our problems not as one big problem but as a series of little problems.’” He was clearly excited at getting into fresh territory. “So, the thing we must learn out the outset of your treatment is, how to tackle your problems in little bites. That now leaves only nine more Pronouncements. Pretty easy, huh?”

I offered, “It sounds like the First Pronouncement is designed to take the place of the First Commandment that says something like ‘thou shalt have no other gods before me.’”

“Exactly, I mean, yes and no….” He seemed about ready to explain that, but maybe thought better of it. He continued, “So now that we have introduced the concept of handling our problems in small bites (something like the Ten Commandments must have been for the ancient Jewish culture) we go on to making our problems small enough to nibble. We can then make a snack of our problems without having to deal with a fearful father-god intent on making problems too big for us to handle ourselves.”

I must have gotten the meaning, because my head kept bobbing up and down with his.

He looked at his watch. “Well, I guess we have pretty much run out of time for this session. When you come back next week, we’ll go over the Second Pronouncement, which is: ‘Trust in your body wisdom.’ If you want, you can pick up a copy of my book The Ten Pronouncements, or ‘How to Mingle Christianity with the Ancient Art of Witchcraft.’

As I got up to leave, he came over and gave me a big hug.

“You’ll get better.", he said. "Here is a prescription for Risperdal. The Haldol you’ve been taking isn’t strong enough, evidently. God Bless. Must get the next customer in. The cashier is on your right on the way out. Bye.”

I paid at the desk and went out into the sunlight. It seemed like a ton of bricks had been taken off my shoulders, only to be replaced by a truckload of uncertainty. I had thrown away my religion, or had I? Strangely enough, I saw a misled youth on the corner handing out little leaflets and preaching, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is near.” He tried to hand me a leaflet with a picture of Jesus hanging on the cross, but I refused, explaining to him that I believe in Jesus already and have my own way of worshiping him. He looked rather sad at that, I thought.

As I walked down the avenue to my apartment, I felt an impending sense of doom as never before. I decided to stop in at the pharmacist and fill the prescription for Risperdal.

I wondered: Is there really a judgment day? When I got home, I popped a pill and looked down from my apartment to the street below. The leaflet preacher was walking down the sidewalk toward my stoop. I said to myself, He is just wasting his time. There’s no reason to talk to him about my soul. I was in the hands of professionals, now. He’s got to be wrong just because he’s not tolerant like me and my counselors. He’s wrong, that’s all there is to it. He’s certainly not right.

… Or is he?

- Chris Simonson

We encourage you to email the author to prove or disprove, from the Scriptures, the intent, meaning, purpose or doctrine of this piece. email Chris