I’m a researcher and my research is individualized.
I’m on my own and I like it.
And the constant plea in my career is “just leave me alone and let me get my work done.” Reality obviously confronts this independence. I’m part of a department. I’ve got colleagues and students. There are committees to run, people to schmooze, life to live. But still, I want to be on my own, at work on the things I love.
Yet, as a Christ-follower, I know that the greatest danger in my life may be this independent spirit. I recognize it and know that I have to work against it.
A Team
To counter this independence, I’ve consciously committed myself to the local Cru ministry here. While I’m deeply connected to them, I honestly have to make an effort to stay connected. My independent spirit resists dependence on others. Yet I know I need these men and women more than I realize.
For me, the secret however to countering this independent spirit goes beyond this team commitment.
I need someone to whom I can tell everything—especially the stuff I don’t want to tell anyone.
A Friend Confessor
Such disclosure is an assault on independence. It requires trust. It’s risky—but it works.
In his book on the Spiritual Formation of C.S. Lewis, Lyle Dorsett points out that Lewis visited an Anglo-Catholic confessor by the name of Father Walter Adams. After Lewis had begun to see Adams in late October 1940, he said that his times of confession to Father Adams “were like a tonic” to his soul.
From researching Lewis’s correspondence and hours of oral history interviews with friends of Lewis, Dorsett concluded:
“It is doubtful that anyone had as great an impact on Lewis’s spiritual development during the spiritually formative years from 1940 – 1952 as Father Walter Adams.”
Unfortunately, in contemporary evangelicalism, we don’t have many “father confessors” around. So, for me, I’ve had to find a “friend confessor.” This friend confessor has become a tonic for my independent soul—a tonic hard to take at times, but one that provides the medicine I need.
I don’t think it’s at all naïve to admit that the sexual orientation of our culture also contributes to an independent secrecy. As one committed to my marriage and to my family, I must work against the lusts such a culture inspires.
My friend confessor is on the front line of my defense.
Dan Jensen
Air Force Academy