Responsibility and control

I am convinced that one of the secrets to happiness is giving up being a control freak. I am one, so I know what I’m talking about; Enneagram type 1 for those of you who speak that language. Perfectionist is another way of putting it. My choices of profession haven’t helped: nurse, mother, administrator, event manager. I am highly organised and would like everything in my life to be just so. I wish my home and office were in a constant state of ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’.

But the grace of God and the winds of the Holy Spirit have a way of leaking into the most controlled of lives and liberating them.

Giving a Christian perspective on the ancient personality type system ‘the Enneagram’, Franciscan Richard Rohr maintains that the best treatment for the shadow side of each personality type is contemplative prayer, which tallies with my experience. Decades of daily prayer practice are freeing me, little by little, from the burden of perfectionism.

Learning of grace through silent prayer has taught me that that God loves me no matter how far from perfection I am. In fact, God can work with me better when I simply let God meet me where I am, which is often in a weak and messy place. As Saint Paul said, ‘God’s grace is sufficient for you, and God’s strength is made perfect in weakness’.

At this time and place, we are able to feel more in control than ever before in human history. We have the illusion of control, with our medical technology, our insurance schemes, our armies of people involved in the ‘risk minimization’ industry. In past centuries many people died young and in chaos; no one could kid themselves they were in control of anything much. Our outrage at the new scourge of terrorist attacks is only because we forgot for a while there that there is no way we can risk manage against death.

Accepting that we don’t have much control, however, does not mean we don’t take responsibility. In fact, it’s quite the reverse. Taking responsibility means that I do the things I can control with as much integrity as possible: endeavouring to be kind to others and myself, to work hard and to rest well, to make time for God, to use humour to give me a sense of perspective.

I try to work hard at my job and then stop thinking about it. It’s not up to me to save the world, or even to rescue the church. It is not my task to keep my adult children happy. I do what I can as well as I can and then try to let it go. It’s not easy for a natural control freak. But the more I manage to do this - and it gets easier each decade - the happier and calmer I am. The clearer I am about what is my job and what is up to God.

This article was first published in The Melbourne Anglican, September 2016 issue

Comments

[Julie Perrin]

I love your invocation of integrity, kindness and humour Clare. And I have witnessed those qualities
in you. I'll never forget how calm you were at Synod. I was in awe, nothing would terrify me more than that kind of responsibility. It is good to know that the gifts of perfectionism are taken up even as they are laid aside.