My new understanding of my imaginary companion (when I was 3!😎)
I was just 26 months old when my younger brother Kerry was born. He was a premie, and apparently had some serious problems post partum, so he was in NICU for a period of time. (The lack of detail about this crisis is a family dynamic worth discussing but at another time.) In any case, I was put in the care of a lovely and caring worman, Joyce Hilden, who was a friend of my mom's and a close neighbor just two houses away.
I have only a couple of fuzzy memories of that time: I insisted on picking out my own clothes to wear; and I became known for my oft repeated "me do myself". I also developed an imaginary companion; a large, friendly bunny named George who went everywhere with me. I talked to him, offered him food, and I think I remember saving a chair next to me at the dinner table for him to sit by me.
George would have disappeared into the mist of history except for another interesting, kind person who crossed my path. I was a student at South Dakota State U taking a lot of psychology and child development classes and one of my favorite profs was the bearded Dr. Darryl Matter. I came to his attention when he gave a graduate child development class I was taking (in preparation for application to grad school in psychology) a creativity test: in 2 minutes list all the potential uses for a brick! 🤨 My list was 20 items and growing when the time ran out. I had the longest list so Dr. Matter had me read my list. I guess he was impressed; I know I really like him-smart, approachable, and obviously creative and flexible too. My kind of professor.
I had taken all the child development classes offered, including Nursery School Teacher practicum, and the only option left was a research project so I approached Dr. Matter to discuss my options. He had asked one of the classes I took from him if any of us had an imaginary companion, and that triggered my memory of George the oversized bunny when I was a toddler. So he proposed a survey of the parents with children in the University Preschool run by the Department and staffed by CD students to see how many children had imaginary companions and to catalogue the imaginary companions by type, duration, etc, I did but left for grad school at TCU before the paper was finished. I later learned that Dr, Matter had written the article and published it with me as second author!! (one of my graduate school classmates at UT Southwestern had seen it in a literature review he was doing, and asked me if I was the Karlson in the Matter and Karlson article on imaginary companions?) How weird!
I was one week ago old when I had a revelation about George. I heard the Alabama song "Angels Among Us" and shortly after that, in my prayer time, I realized that George was an angel!! Here's the lyrics...
The following Sunday the pastor at Gateway Church (I watch online now that I am in Madison, SD) asked how many of had a the kind of relationship with Jesus that Paul did, that is, a personal, conversational relationship. Another revelation! I realized that had one since childhood and it was normal for to talk to Jesus/God any time. Since my imaginary companion experience, I was used to talking to, and believing in, a kind, loving, large being others could not see. While I could no longer see Him either (not to worry) I could feel His presence, almost always when I paid attention to Him.
These revelations have increased my faith as I know that God has intervened in an unusual way to bring me comfort, beginning when I was just two years old. Since then, I have heard His voice clearly a hardful of times, sometimes in response to a prayer, sometimes unexpectedly. Always the messages are loving, sometimes with guidance, sometimes with "what are you doing?", sometimes with insights about my relationship to Him (a facilitator posed the question: When is God happiest with you?" and immediately I heard His voice clear as day "When you are singing"!)
My recent revelation about the reason for Creation is just the latest after I just asked the question in my prayer time "Why did you create the Universe" and the answer came immediately "I needed to have someone to love to be fully Me". Mind blowing. God needs us as much as we need him. Love is a choice for us and Him. He chose us to love and because He's love and there is no love if there is no "beloved",
Bottom line: I now believe that my imaginary companion George the big bunny was an angel in disguise, and that his presence was not only comforting at the time, but opened the door to lifelong expectation that Jesus was a person I could talk to long before I had any knowledge of the "giving your life to Christ" theology.
Further developments on this topic:
ReplyDeleteI am weird. A recent contact from an insightful woman on LinkedIN confirmed what I had always know but had not put into that one all-encompasing word. Birgitta Granstrom, the founder of LifeSpider coaching and community of weird, opened my perspective about being weird and began to remove some of the shame I have felt since I was a child.
As I said in my story above about my imaginary companion, the large bunny George, I started being weird early. I remember "the look", that side eyed look of tolerant but unmistakable judgment when I insisted that George needed a place to sit at the dinner table, and that unspeakable feeling that I was doing something wrong. That experience was repeated many times in my childhood since I was insatiably curious, so much so, that once I learned to read (very early) , the response to my insistent questions became "go read your book".
That rejection became the pathway to one of my greatest strengths and emotional resources. I became an insatiable reader. By the time I reached 6th grade and had my first reading achievement test, I was reading 1000 words per minute with a comprehension level of 90 %. My weirdness grew, as I had knowledge beyond my years, growing empathy that is the direct result of reading lots of fiction, a wide variety of interests in art, music, cars, sports, space exploration, and...parachutes.
I realized that there was something wrong with my mom (untreated post partum depression, I recognized in grad school for the first time), that my dad was clueless about what was wrong and what to do about it, and that being a good kid. was not going to fix it (I tried that and it didn't help). As i reached 6th grade my social wisdom,(much of that imparted by my fiction reading I now understand), gave me a perspective on my dad's desire to be promoted from controller to general manager at work. As he had discussed with my mom in my hearing, he believed that he deserved the manager job because of his financial insights into the organization and his years of faithful and dedicated service. Later, I told my mom that dad would not get the job because he didn't have the same personal connections that the other candidate, the father of one of my friends, did. (I was right, that guy got the GM job.). I got rejected by my mom, who became increasingly critical of me. I became depressed and suicidal.
As a freshman in high school, my dad insisted that I take a debate class. I was puzzled but obedient, and I found the class to be a gateway to learning critical thinking tools and to an activity where I could travel away from home with my smart friends to debate tournaments and meet other smart kids (some weird kids too). I thought that since my dad promoted the debate class that he would like to have some political discussions/debates about some of the hot issues of the time (Viet Nam was a daily news feature). Uh, no, he would not. A couple of early attempts to engage him over dinner were angrily shut down (I was initially surprised until I figured it out). Back to silent dinners (a Swedish cultural tradition, I later learned). Regardless, high school debate was an emotional lifeboat, with kind and encouraging coaches, and smart and engaging debate partners (3 other smart guys, one of them weird--in fact we called him "weird Al") who provided a nearly weekly 2 day escape from home for 5 months of the debate season every school year. I read foreign policy and economics papers written by the recognized experts of their domains and collected hundreds of "quote cards" to use as ammunition in our cross-ex, switch sides debate tournaments all through high school. (I also now recognize, after reading the cognitive dissonance research) the importance of taking opposing views and advocating them in public speaking as another component in my growing empathy, both emotional and intellectual.
More later...college opened the door to my multidomain weirdness!!
I have been a fan of Simon Sinek from the first time I saw his TED talk. Today I watched one of his latest videos as he talked about his dissatisfaction with traditional ways of introducing himself. Rather than starting with his credentials and accomplishments, he said he now starts by talking about his vision. Brilliant. As a vision guy myself, I believe in the power of a clear and inspiring vision to create a community with a common purpose and with a shared commitment to bring that vision into reality.
ReplyDeleteMy vision (rough draft version)
for everyone to understand that a loving God created the universe just so He could love us.
that science strives to understand how the Universe was created and to understand the exquisite order that is evident in every natural object
that faith is the answer to the "why"" the universe exists, and is a complement to science,
that paradox, fractals, and complexity are fundamental to understanding both the natural world and our human experience of it,
and that leadership is the outward manifestation of an internal faith in the underlying order, creativity, and unique value present in every person,
and that I live out that in my leadership, teaching, writing, music, creative works, personal and professional relationships, and public speaking so that there is more love and agreement and less division and strife in the world.
Thanks to Ashley the talented writer, here's the compact and powerful version...
Delete“My vision is to help people see that faith and science are not opposites but complements — that a loving God created a beautifully ordered universe for us to explore, understand, and reflect through our leadership, creativity, and love for one another.”
“I believe true leadership is faith in action …..bringing more love, understanding, and unity into a divided world."