Cain is always more interested in appearances than in truth. He is more concerned with how he looks than how he or anyone else feels. He must be right and will not give up until he convinces others to see things his way.
The minister’s wife repeatedly referred to their children as “her” children rather than “their” children. Foolishly, I verbalized this observation to someone at church. I learned later that this person with whom I shared my insight was not a trustworthy friend as I had initially thought, but a mole in the church who told the minister everything. Willing spies in the church gave him an edge on control and punishment.
I was in the church choir. Regular practices were Wednesday nights. Within days after my comment about “her” children verses “their” children, the musical director demanded a 9:00 a.m. compulsory, Saturday morning practice. It would have been hilarious had I not shown up, but being the people-pleasing Enabler that I was at that time, I arrived on Saturday morning as arranged.
About thirty minutes into the practice, the minister waltzed into the room with his young son. He announced to all of us that he was taking his boy to the national league baseball game, but first he wanted to stop by and see how the choir was doing. Presumably, this was all innocent, nonchalant and showed his interest in us and what the church was doing not on the fact that he was an egotist, focused on manipulation, control, and grooming his image and self-interest. As soon as he and his son left the building, the choir director announced that all the sopranos—of which I was one— could leave. My head was whirling. By then it was only 9:30 a.m.
I realized the cainistic minister had maneuvered and manipulated the compulsory choir practice to prove to me and all the choir members that he was, indeed, a loving, involved parent, and that the perception that his wife was the only concerned parent was 100 percent wrong. They were not “her” children but “their” children. Got it?
It did not matter to him that many people’s lives were disrupted that morning by his games. “Acting without feeling, they tend to be seductive and manipulative, striving for power and control,” points out Alexander Lowen, M.D., author of “Narcissism: Denial of the True Self.” What mattered that Saturday morning was that he controlled a positive perceptions of himself. The early morning practice also punished me for speaking the truth out loud. And I had better heed the warning or there might be more punishment ahead.
Cain is always offended if he is perceived as imperfect and will go to vast lengths to prove he is right and others are wrong. Appearances, much more than truth, are most important.
