self-conscious – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

Smiling, the student welcomed me into his apartment. He had come a week or so earlier to start his first semester of studies in this new land.

“I am sorry”, he began – self-conscious and embarrassed – “I do not have a comfortable chair for you”.

Nodding my thanks as he gestured to the straight-backed chair, I took in the sparse surroundings. My goodness, I thought, even though this is a fine campus apartment, it’s virtually unfurnished. Only a couple sticks of furniture rested on the pristine carpeting spread throughout.

That surprise ‘aha moment’ was followed by more of the same as I made my rounds to welcome newly arrived students over the coming days. It left me both astonished and bewildered. What could be done to alter this scenario? The question persisted.

How does a newcomer on a tight budget – a young person virtually unknown by anyone inside the host country – tackle the task of furniture shopping in this place? The hurdles grew in number

No vehicle of their own (much less a driver’s license)
No friend with a pickup
Unaware of the uniquely American tradition called a ‘garage sale’
The list grows

There is a God in heaven. So goes the quote.

Drawing on what imagination capital we could muster, our ragtag team landed on a purely experimental game plan and pinned a name to it. From then til now ICO’s annual Furniture Fest has kept gathering wind in her sails.

What’s more (in the perky language of an ancient TV game show), The Price is Right.

klip-Thump – klip-Thump – klip-Thump.

My shoes mocked me. I never thought a set of footwear could mock. Or embarrass. Or harass. But in the world of a self-conscious adolescent they could. And did – with an impish tinge of spite.

The worst places by far were school hallways.

The polio virus had sent me to the hospital after I started Fourth Grade. Released months later I resumed my schoolboy life.

I’ll never forget my first day back to school. How awkward it felt, keenly aware no one but me was bumbling down the hallway with a pair of accessories called crutches. When time came to retire the crutches I was overjoyed. I felt like skipping, and on the inside I did.

I was probably the most self-conscious kid in the history of Wilson Elementary – and afterwards of Preston Junior High. The crutches were long gone but not my limp. Nor the reason for my limp, and that aggravating klip-Thump mantra.

The culprit was the arch of my left foot – rather the absence of an arch.

My first polio bout left me with this keepsake – a left foot with a diving-board-flat arch, and non-functioning tendons. I had nothing to give the foot lift. So the left shoe didn’t know how to step – only to flop or Thump to the floor. My right foot, by contrast, was arched especially high, like a startled cat. So the contradicting sounds my shoes made when crossing any surface was striking. Efforts at treading softly were futile. To my anxious introvert-ears the klutzy sounds of my cadence still sounded – with embarrassing annoyance.

It strikes me as humorous sometimes now – my shoes and me. Our perpetual, private shouting match of those years.

KLIP-THUMP!, KLIP-THUMP! – “shouting” upward from the hallway floor at me. Me scowling downward with a silent retort, Just SHUT UP!

My high school graduation ended all the years of limping self-consciously through school corridors. It was then I started seeing it. I was surprised. And more than a little embarrassed.

I had wasted a lot of time looking down.

Today I try to remind myself (when my lazy left foot catches and sends me into a clumsy stumble or the like). Obsessing over my deficiencies serves a purpose. But not a noble one. It shifts my attention from the All Sufficient One to my pitiful, inadequate self-sufficiency. It leads me to choose anxiety over peace. A really bad tradeoff.

It seems our most paralyzing afflictions aren’t necessarily the physical ones. Indeed, a lot of my limping – my unbelief-limping – issues out of paying attention to concerns that are really of no concern at all.

The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. – Psalm 23

Tag: self-conscious

Have A Chair

‘Arch enemy.