Dr. Day

June 17, 2020

He had the look of a little wizened gnome and the wisdom of Yoda. Dr. Day was the psychologist for the kids at the group home where Linda and I were houseparents in 1975. His methods were unique, to say the least. I remember one time when he was counseling a boy who was standing on his head in a closet. Dr. Day talked to him through the closed door. He had written a paper on eye movement as a means of discerning when someone was telling the truth. When people are talking, they tend to look either to the right or the left; they don’t often look straight ahead into your eyes. In normal conversation, the pattern is pretty consistent, but when someone is lying, a right eye mover will look to the left, and a left eye mover will look to the right. There were other components to his methodology, but eye movement was the foundation of it. It’s surprisingly accurate.

Dr. Day also had a theory about counseling that has been largely abandoned, but remains valid. He didn’t believe in Rogerian therapy where the counselor merely listened to the counselee, asking questions and making comments to help the counselee clarify his or her thoughts and work their way through their problems. He once asked us, “Why do you suppose it is that traditional counselors get better while their clients get worse? It’s because the client does all the talking. People get better when they learn to pay attention to someone else.” His therapy consisted of trying to get the counselee to “shift attention,” ie, get their mind off their problem by focusing on someone else. In the middle of a counseling session, he would often ask counselees, “Can you ask me how I’m feeling?” 

Dr. Day was not a professing Christian as far as I know, but his therapy was true to the Gospel. People are emotionally, relationally, and spiritually sick because they focus on their own problems. Traditional counseling only exacerbates the issue by getting the client to talk about his or her problems when they really need to learn to pay attention to someone else. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love God with all one’s heart, soul, mind, and strength. It’s impossible to do that while focusing one’s attention upon oneself. The second great commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves; again, shifting attention from self to others. Sin at its root is choosing to pay more attention to self than to God and others. 

This morning, I woke in a funk. There was no discernible reason for it; it was just the way I woke up. But I had the good fortune that Wednesdays is the day for our north county pastors’ prayer gathering. I knew what needed to happen; as long as I dwelt on how I was feeling, those feelings would spiral ever downward, so on the drive to Dunkirk, I began deliberately shifting my attention to the Lord, to the wonder of his Creation and the joy of his salvation. When I got there, we talked and prayed, beginning with paying attention to the Scriptures, then listening to each other offer our prayers to God. By the time we were done, I felt great! I wasn’t thinking of how down I felt, but of how good it is to be in fellowship with others. 

Christian faith is a lifelong exercise in shifting attention from self to God and others. It is made possible because God led the way when Jesus prayed, “Not my will, but thine be done.” Because he thought of us, we are able to think of him, and in confessing and forsaking our self-centeredness and trusting in his grace and mercy instead of focusing on our guilt and inadequacy, we find life...real life. Thank you, Dr. Day, for unwittingly teaching me some of the most practical Christian theology I’ve ever heard.