Rambling

As tough as a divorce may be, I wonder if it would be easier than this?

I know... I’ve made it pretty clear I don’t believe in divorce. I don’t.

OK... backing up now...

I’ve been working hard to keep my family together, to help my children feel safe, to let my wife know that I love her and can forgive her (while making it clear I will go through with my promise of not tolerating further...), and trying to maintain my own mental health with exercise, sleep, and meds my doctor suggests.

Saw the good doc yesterday. He doubled my antidepressants, and told me it would be OK to double the sleep meds for a while.

Thursday morn I saw my good Moon Howlin’ buddies (we meet at 6:00 a.m. every Thursday morn), and it felt good to talk a little to them about how I feel and to learn how I can support them.

Not that I am such support right now.

My prayer life has been empty lately. It isn’t that I don’t feel God is near. I do. I know for certain He is aware of my needs, that He is watching over me. It’s just that my conversations with Him haven’t been about specific things.

When I think about the things I want, the specific things I think that will make things better, the words simply don’t feel right. So I don’t pray them.

I can’t seem to pray for specific things for others as well.

I can pray for general things... wisdom, patience, understanding, strength... qualities that flow from Him.

The prayer I did on canvas during the Christmas service told me a little about myself (see previous posts). I went and picked it up yesterday and felt a strong urge to toss it into the trash. I half feel like putting a thin wash of acrylic colors over it, tossing in a dash of yellow and green to indicate hope.

But my prayers aren’t that whole yet.

There are shadows which play across my spirit.

Sometimes my wife draws away... I see the flush in her face, the hint of tears which want to surface.

I believe she is grieving over him. Over the loss of a dream of freedom from the responsibilities of taking care of her mother, of dealing with our children, of living with me.

Yeah, it sucks.

So, I sometimes wonder if divorce would be easier than this.

There is a part of me which wishes not to take the long road to help her recover from her alcoholism, from her self-destructive behaviors, from her self-hatred.

Hmmmm... telling paragraph, that last one. Even in desiring to be rid of the crap in my life I put it in terms of what she needs, not what I want.

I suppose I really do love her. Without conditions. I love her not because of what she can do for me, or what she can do for my children... I simply love her. I want her to be healthy, happy.

Still, over the last week or so I have come to a place where I can imagine filing for a divorce if she slips off to him again. It is freeing in a way. I no longer want to save our marriage at any cost. Further breaking of our marriage is not something I can live with.

So... another electronic missive stuck in another electronic bottle tossed into the sea of the world wide web.

I’m unhappy... short of sleep, depressed, and resolved to do what is right as long as it does not cost me more than I can afford.

I’m rambling... It’s good to just ramble a little.

It's how I pray.

Thinking

My mind and heart has been jumping around quite a bit.

There were the usual visits to family over the last week. Visited my brother, visited her aunt, had Christmas dinner at her sister’s.

There were moments when I thought things were getting better, hopeful. There have been moments when I have been thinking about divorce, steeling up the courage to toss her out. There has been times when I have toyed with thoughts of suicide... though that may be a side effect of the antidepressant I’ve been taking for two weeks. Throughout most of it my heart has been racing. I have had fitful sleep, nightmares and waking up many times through the night, despite the sleeping pills I take before going to bed.

I told her this morning that I wanted our marriage to work, that I didn’t want to divorce her. The message I was trying to give her was that I have been thinking about doing that, but I don’t want to do what I know will hurt her.

She got angry. Guilt, shame, resentment are powerful emotions in her heart and she defaults to the memories which tell her that her actions were justified.

I don’t want to be one of those statistics which say that 50% of all marriages end in divorce and that it isn’t so different for Christ-followers.

But I think about what it would be like to fill out the paperwork, file it, have her pack and leave, and then put my wedding ring in a box in a dresser drawer.

I’ve been thinking about the last picture I did (see previous posts) and how what I am thinking and feeling shows in that image, despite my intentions to say something else with it.

I don’t want to hurt my children. I don’t want to hurt my wife. I don’t want to hurt anymore myself.

My prayers are husks. I cannot seem to pray for specific things. I just walk and talk and wonder and ask and really don’t seem to have much in particular to say.

Scribbling a Prayer

Sunday I did another picture during a church service. It was our Christmas service, I felt honored to be asked.

I prepared for it, perhaps not completely, but I did have it fairly planned out. The canvas board was on an easel upon the stage, the nativity sketched out in pencil. Pens, markers, even paints with suspension gel, brushes, water and rags were laid out in case I decided to change directions.

I planned on doing it all in pens. I wanted the image to be entirely made up of scripture passages, prayers, and thoughts about the moment when eternity intersected with the mundane. I would use tiny letters with the thin points for darker areas, watercolor pens for variety of shades, thicker regular Sharpies for the heavier portions.

The emphasis in this picture was to be on the animals. The dirt and smell and stink and filth of a stable where the Creator chose to enter the world. The foreground would have a large cow staring straight out, on the other side a camel looking toward it, and the middle ground would have a variety of other animals, donkey, sheep... In the background was the glowing wonder of the infant Messiah.

What I was really looking forward to was the over two hours of solid prayer. I can tune things out fairly well, and so when the service began I found myself looking at the blank canvas and my surroundings dropped away. The iPod plugged into my ear sockets helped.

I prayed steadily. I let my creativity and my sense of color mix with my prayers.

Not much happened.

There were small difficulties to overcome, the watercolor pens didn’t show up like I thought they would, the fine point Sharpies didn’t either. I did the entire image with the fat points of regular tipped Sharpies, a limited color palette.

But that isn’t really why not much happened.

I was grieving.

I prayed and thought about my life. About the mess of things in my home. I thought about the mess of a stable, of shit on the packed dirt and unwashed shepherds crowding around a newborn lying in a feeding trough.

I thought about what a mess the world is in general, and how amazing it is that I know God, that He knows me, and yet I walk through crap.

Perhaps that is why that when the picture was done I slipped quickly away from those in our church, avoided talking to them. I didn’t want their praises or congratulations or questions about how I did it or anecdotes about art they have enjoyed. I wanted to run away. I wanted to toss the picture far away and just let the whole thing go.

A friend of mine wrote me an email that night, after she read the previous post. I hope she doesn’t mind if I quote part of it:

Will, dear friend, you have turned the corner and have become more aware of the past and present and how the two are joined together. That's good.
I hear your cries and I hear you being very hard on yourself since more and more is being revealed to you. I understand all of that and it's tough to face and very painful.

But Will, you must let it go. What I see in you is gloom coupled with an amazing love for Christ. He came to give you light and life, not doom and gloom.

I understand that you need to let it out, but after that you have a decision to make; move on.

I love to see you paint, but the colors reflect much of who you are. I long to see yellow in your art, bright yellow, bright greens, etc. etc. It's there Will, I know it is. Joy is not colored in black and dark blues, but in the Glory of what Christ did for us. He is Risen, Risen indeed, and that brings all the colors in the rainbow forth, like a huge Hallelujah Choir.

Get in touch with it, Will. Rise with Christ and let the colors sparkle and inspire you.

I think it interesting how she says that I am tearing myself apart at the same time that I love my Lord so much. Weird dichotomy. A little like the weird pairing of a perfect eternal God lying in a feeding trough with shit on the floor.

I also like how she pointed out the color choices I unconsciously made. She saw something I didn’t. I do remember that nearly throughout the whole thing I had four shades of brown and a black pens in my hand. I’d like to feel a little more yellow, a little more green in my life.

I went to an Al Anon meeting last night. I suppose it did me some good. It was hard to talk. But I think it was good.

How I Screwed Up

Note: I can hardly believe I posted this. I sat down and wrote it a little while ago. I fear that this will offend some of you, that you will know some of the ugly parts of me... But, this is where I try to be honest with myself. So, though I am tempted to delete this post, I will let it stand.


When I met Brenda I was struck speechless. I must have mumbled something to keep the conversation going... something like “Why haven’t you brought such pretty girls around before?” to the fellow who brought her.

I was in love.

I felt something instantly. I’m not sure how I feel about reincarnation, but if it is true, then this was a soul I have known for a very, very long time.

Afterwards all I could do was think about her. She meant everything to me.

She wanted to move in right away, but I was reluctant. Even though I knew I loved her, I was afraid she might hurt me like the previous relationship I just ended.

She showered me with attention, doing everything she could for me. I was extremely flattered. She helped me feel like somebody, not like the discarded trash that the previous woman had made me.

She took charge of lots of details. It was a little irritating, but I saw how much she wanted to help. And it felt good to have someone do all that for me.

I balked a little over her taking over the paying of my bills, but she had everything lined out and clear, so much better than I was doing it. And when I argued with her she became so unhappy. In fact, she got angry several times.

I was pretty irresponsible at the time. I had once had my own business, a milk route in Corona, California, and I always managed to keep my books straight, collect the money from customers, pay the milk bill, and though I knew how to do it still, I felt like letting everything go to hell because I had been the responsible one in the previous relationship and I just wanted to party.

Brenda wanted to party too.

But Brenda had a real knack for making sure that the partying did not push out what had to be done. And I let her do it. I was lazy, and immature, and the one time I took back the check book and bills she hovered so much, asked so many questions about what was being done, that I knew she wouldn’t let it go. So I gave over my responsibilities to her.

I was jealous too. Early in our relationship she went to see her old boyfriend. I was uncertain what happened (though I later learned nothing happened), I let my jealousy control my heart.

I let jealousy control a lot of what I thought and felt.

A roommate insinuated later that Brenda had been messing around with her husband, and Brenda told me that he had been hitting on her while I was away. I’m ashamed to say I broke his nose over that.

Brenda loved to drink. It made me nervous. She would stumble and fall in the creak, trip on stairs, yell and sing and seemed to be having such a good time, but I always kept from drinking so I could be there to catch her if she fell.

There were times when she got angry. Very angry. When she did I got angry too. We had dreadful fights.

Sometimes her anger flared suddenly, surprising me. Most of the time it was over something I had done, or hadn’t done.

I see now that she was also fearful. She was afraid of not being loved, not being thought beautiful. It didn’t matter that she was beautiful. She had such bright eyes, curly hair, a little nose with a small turn at the end... It didn’t matter that she was beautiful. She thought she wasn’t, and I was unable to convince her that she was.

That was partly due to my having soft porn around. My dad had stacks of Playboys in his closet, my brothers had even harder stuff. My previous girlfriend would buy them for me. I was immature and liked looking at the pictures with women who looked out from the pages at me as if I was someone special, someone they wanted to be with. I kept that trash around and it hurt Brenda.

She didn’t think she was beautiful and my looking at those pictures reinforced that idea in her.

Sex was (is) confusing for me. It seems amazing that women would want to sleep with me. When I wanted sex (which wasn't as often as it should have been) I didn’t know how to politely get it. It seemed crass. It seemed base. It seemed inappropriate to come from someone so pretty.

I let Brenda take charge there also. I waited for her to indicate that she was in the mood. And then I was so clumsy. Often I just lay there, unsure what to do... and she did it all. I enjoyed it, of course, but I was also so unsure of myself that I didn’t know when to progress to the next step, how to make her feel good.

I wished that I knew what to do with a woman like my brothers and father did. I didn’t know what was wrong with me.

I think a part of it was that I simply thought too much, didn’t act enough. There was also the fact that I have a low sex drive, low testosterone. But I think that in general I simply had no clue what to do with a woman.

When she smiled at me I felt so good. I still do. I still love her so much. And I still don’t know what to do.

I let my immaturity, my fear of making her angry, my laziness from taking the responsibility of running my own home, run my life.

I see now how this has set up a relationship with her where she feels she is the only one who can do things in our home. I walk around, pathetically asking her how I can help. The roles have gotten entrenched.

I want to break free of them. I want to treat her as she needs to be treated.

I can see how the chaos of her young life, her abuse, her lack of real parents to care for her, has prompted her to take as much control over her life as she can.

I can see how my immaturity, my reluctance to upset her, my laziness, the wish to run away from responsibility, set us up.

I still love her deeply. I can see how her anger and resentment has built up over the years and she has lashed out to me. I can see how flirting with other men was her way to rebel against the constraints, the responsibilities, in my home. I can see how her affairs were a way to say “Screw you!” to me, and do what she knew would ultimately hurt me the most.

Ironically, before her first affair I tried to change things. I tried to please her in bed the ways I thought she wanted, but she would push me away, insist on satisfying me. She thought I hated it, that I didn’t really want to.

And I didn’t know how to convince her otherwise.

Before this more recent affair, about the last year or more, I tried to get away from everything with her and just walk, just talk. I tried to prompt the conversation toward areas where we could grow, but she got more and more distant. More and more angry.

I’m an idiot for not knowing what to do with this wonderful love, this beautiful woman.

Now I want to help her heal. I know that if she does not get past the angry response she has to the world she will never be happy. I hope and pray that she can get past it all. That we can communicate in new ways, can love each other as I know we should.

I still see that beautiful girl who stood on my porch that leap year’s day, 1980. I still love her.

If I can help her to heal, even if it means that she still leaves me, if I can help her to get past those early hurts that happened to her, and the later hurts that I stupidly caused, then maybe she can be happy...

Hurts

It is a slow realization, an indication of my own limitations, that my wife is ill.

It has been difficult to see past my own hurts, those of long ago as well as the recent injuries, to see the wounds on her.

I see that my life with her has frequently been marked by the evidence of those hurts, but I was too immature, too self centered to see.

I have been contemplating a divorce for some time. But I am starting to see things in a slightly different light.

First, when I think about dissolving this relationship I worry about what it would mean to her. It would mean she would have a very difficult time housing and feeding herself. It would mean that her physical ailments may go untreated without my insurance. It would mean her psychological ailments would also go untreated. I care for her. I love her. I cannot do that to her.

Next, I am beginning to see that her actions are not only hurtful to me, to others, they are also self-destructive. She is so hurt, so angry, that she is willing to lash out at herself in ways that would harm her forever.

My wife is ill.

How can I abandon her when she needs me most? It does not matter that I have been hurt. You cannot blame an epileptic for the injuries one gets from the flailings of a seizure.

This is not easy for me. But perhaps that is an indication that it is the right thing to do. Doing the right thing is often difficult. The wrong thing is often easy.

I will do all I can to protect my family, my children, myself, my wife.

I am seeing she is afraid of growing old. She is afraid of living a life that is about caring for others, our mentally handicapped children, her schizophrenic mother.

I am seeing that this affair of hers was about the fears in her life.

I see her controlling nature has been about her hurts. When a person grows up in chaos there is a strong impulse to reorder the world around her. This is even truer for eldest children who have been given too much of the responsibilities their parents should have kept.

My wife needs healing. Her infidelity was not only a hostile act toward me, it was a hostile act toward herself, her future.

There are ghosts of hope sliding in and out of our conversations. Perhaps they will become more tangible.

I can’t quit on her.

Fooled

I’ve a got a good friend fooled.

He thinks better of me than I am.

He sees the gifts I have been blessed with, creativity, love of science and literature, a knack for stringing words together on glowing screens, and thinks I’m special.

He’s pretty special himself. He has a great passion for his family, for nature, for teaching children.

If he sees my flaws he keeps it to himself.

I think that is what I fear, that people will know what is really wrong with me. It is probably what most of us fear.

I fear the flaws which caused me to say and do things which alienated my wife’s affections. I fear revealing my sins will rob me of the affections of all who I would have love me.

Despite what my friend thinks, I am flawed. More flawed than he knows.

I suppose he is flawed as well, though I do not know what those flaws are.

Why are we so desperate to hide our true selves?

I think for several reasons.

First, we absolutely need to belong.

The other night Brenda and I went out to a movie, I Am Legend with Will Smith. It is a post-apocalypse tale. The protagonist, immune to a deadly virus, has lived three years with no other companion than his dog.

A part of the story deals with his reactions in coming in contact with other people. He is borderline insane from his isolation.

Tom Hanks also displayed the symptoms of isolation in the movie Cast Away. He created a friend out of a soccer ball.

I once spent over two months without speaking, or even seeing, another person. I read a lot, satisfying a curiosity about world faiths. When I left that cave on Saddleback Mountain I was terribly awkward with people. I had trouble making simple conversation.

Such isolation turns us a little odd, it can create Ted Kaczynski’s.

We need people. We need people for our mental health We need people to give us a place in the world, a place with others. Without others we start unravelling.

A second reason we are so desperate to hide our true selves is because of our egos. We start our lives having every need cared for by others. As we become more independent we secretly wish to remain the center of all things.

Could people really love us, really want to be near us, if they knew we weren’t perfect?

You have probably guessed, I’m headed toward the point about how we question God’s love.

I’d like to take it a little further.

Imagine if we were perfect.

Imagine if we never sinned, never had dark secrets to keep from each other, from ourselves.

Our lives wouldn’t be the mess they are. We wouldn’t worry if people loved us or not. We would love everyone, never hurt them, never betray them, and they do be the same.

Sounds pretty nice.

Sounds wonderful.

Sounds like Heaven.

Sounds like the way God must feel.

His perspective must come from the absolute knowledge, the absolute experience, the absolute being that is thoroughly good.

If we were like that... if we were without sin, without the sense of failure and sorrow, we would be able to love so much more deeply. I would guess that if I were like that I would be able to see the goodness in souls which wanted to be different than they are, which longed to be free of sin. It wouldn’t be an affection for them out of pity, either. I would love them because I saw in their heart the desire to become better, to become pure. It would be a love for them simply because love is the center of being perfect.

I look at my life, at my failings, at the things I am which make me think that I am fooling my good friend, and I know that there is someone who does know all those things about me, and loves me anyway.

He loves me because that is who He is.

He loves me because he sees in me the spark of our soul, the part of me that is made in His image, which wants to love and be loved, and simple be love.

I’m a screwed up mess. But I am loved by perfection which stretches throughout time, beyond time, beyond the realm of physical matter, and simply wants me to stop hurting, to stop beating myself up, to simply pause and experience a little of what He feels for me.

Well Water

When I was a kid we lived in a house that had well water. Sort of. The well was running dry. The water was brownish and the pump once sucked air.

I don’t know if there was a drought or some subterranean dilemma causing my parents to promptly move to another house.

Sitting in church today I felt a little lift. Not a big one, just a little of my old self responding to the worship music. I shut my eyes, stood up, raised my hands. I was the only one standing.

I didn’t care.

For a moment I felt connected to God.

It was like the water pump in my well had gulped a small surge passing through the water table.

I was watching TV last night with Brenda and an ad came on for worship CDs. The faces in the commercial seemed completely transported by the music they were singing. The advertisement implied that purchasing these CDs would make me feel good too.

I didn’t say anything. Brenda is just keeping up appearances of her faith and I didn’t want to say anything which might seem critical of our faith.

But I was thinking about something.

I was thinking that faith isn’t like that for me right now. All joy for God's love, radiance beaming from my face.

I don’t feel enraptured by the relationship I have with God.

I feel something more... serious.

I don’t hold God responsible for the problems in my life. I understand how the choices people make, a natural result of free will, can create situations which harm me. I also understand how a living world, such as ours, will have disasters which hurt people as well... earthquakes which shrug mountains, volcanoes which vomit toxic gases.

I love God.

Not because of what He can do for me, healing me of my psoriasis (which is acting up again, splitting my skin), or leading people to come alongside my wife and encourage her... I love God because...

How can I explain this?

I am so very sad, so very tired. So much so that I have trouble praying.

But I pray, I still pray, sort of.

I have been having trouble asking God for things, even things that are very important to me. Instead I have been having conversations with Him. Just stating what is going on, what I am feeling, what I think.

I know He is listening.

More importantly, I know He is real, He exists, because I can sense Him in the wonders of the universe, the elegance of the balance of things great and things very small. I know He is real because of the odd gaps which continually appear as science pushes forward and our Lord smoothly maintains the space for faith, deftly sidestepping faith-destroying proof of his existence.

When I raised my hands in worship this morning it wasn’t because of the wonderful skills of the worship team or the inspired lyrics and melody of the song writers.

I raised my hands because I knew He was there, holding me close while He holds the universe together.

This isn’t to say the music had nothing to do with my response. In fact the lyrics of the song which opened and closed the service fit the sentiment I am awkwardly trying to express here:

"It Is You"

As we lift up our hands
Will You meet us here?
As we call on Your name
Will You meet us here?
We have come to this place
To worship You
God of mercy and grace

It is You
We adore
It is You
Praises are for
Only You
The heaven's declare
It is You
It is You

Holy, holy is our God Almighty
Holy, holy is His name alone, yeah
Holy, holy is our God Almighty
Holy, holy is His name alone

It is You
We adore
It is You
It is You

As we lift up our hands
As we call on Your name
Will You visit this place
By Your mercy and grace
Holy, Holy is His name alone

I love Him because He is God and I am not.

I have felt this low, this sad, only a few times in my life. I do not think my marriage is going to make it (I may be wrong). I have been thinking about divorce and that I won’t make a decision about it until after the holidays (no sense in creating that association for my children).

I do not despair or blame God, or think suicidal thoughts (though I couldn’t help staring at a policeman’s gun the other day, which was weird, thinking about that deadly tool hanging so casually from his hip).

I still feel God is near, though our conversations often begin with:

“Dear Heavenly Father, SHIT!!!!!!... I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!!...”

My pump has been sucking air of late, the water is brown...

Still...

I am here, He is near, that is enough.

Fresh water will somehow flow again, I know it.

Tired

I was exhausted last night. I went to bed right after dinner, but had trouble falling asleep. Turned the TV on, volume low, and let our large dog lay across my cold feet.

There was a silly comedy on, The Office, about a dysfunctional paper company in Scranton, Pennsylvania, led by a clueless, dysfunctional manager who was just dumped by his new girlfriend (apparently on the first date he had proposed and swiped a picture of her family, photoshopping his face over her husband’s to make himself look like a part of the family).

As he moaned about his love life through the rest of the show I became increasingly embarrassed.

I saw too much of myself there.

His friends tried to console him, took him out for dinner and drinks, listened to his pathos, the agony of it all.

I am tired of all of this. I am tired of the situation where my wife’s heart is elsewhere, where I think constantly about trying to save a relationship, where I moan through the internet about my love life.

I’m tired of being depressed. I’m tired of counseling and walking through the minefield of marital conversations and even of praying, at least about this.

I’m tired of the idea that people are reading this stuff and seeing a dysfunctional, moaning, Christ-follower.

I feel myself becoming more rigid, less willing to be understanding. I feel myself readier to call it quits, to fill out paperwork which would dissolve this legal and emotional relationship.

I’m not Hosea. My life isn’t an object lesson for a nation about the relationship between men and God.

I’m just someone who wants to do the right thing.

And I’m tired.

The Problem With Hope

Twenty six years together provides a sense of another person which borders on extrasensory. I can instantly judge her mood, spot the nuance in a word, tone of voice, body language.

Lately she has been trying to show me she can be kind, caring, that we may be able to work things out.

But between the moments of slightly forced reassurances I see the troubled waters sliding beneath.

I simply don’t trust her.

I think she has awakened to my emotional condition, that I am fragile, barely hanging on. I think she is a little worried as it occurs to her that my preoccupation with our marriage, my concern for her and our children, my difficulty in sleeping, may cause me to not be the best I can be as a teacher. She is beginning to see that the complexities of instruction, class management, dealing with the shifting patterns in the hearts and minds of adolescent children requires the best from me, and it is hard to provide that when I am thinking about the icebergs grinding against the hull of our marriage.

Today we have another counseling session. We need to go. We need to make progress, keeping moving, even if the movement is very small.

I feel almost like giving up.

I can’t do that of course. I want to help her heal. Help her through her alcohol dependancy treatments. Help her work through counseling that will help her heal from the hurts of her life. I have to hang in there.

I have set up clear boundaries, that she is not to have contact with that other man. I suspect that last Thursday she broke that agreement. I pretended to believe her account of where she had been.

Since then I believe she has been too busy to break that agreement. And, she has started treatment which is a part of the road to her recovery.

So, the past few days have been hopeful. The other day she has said things about our future which makes it look like she her heart is changing.

There is a problem with hope.

In hope lies risk. Especially when the hope is dependent on someone else, on circumstances beyond one’s control.

In hoping that things are going better I am riding a roller coaster to the peak of another hill. It is a fine view from up there. I can see farther, see a future where things look promising.

I have trouble believing I will stay up there long.

I recognize that I am thinking, writing, from a place of exhaustion, that I am not getting enough sleep, enough rest, and that I am shaking inside as much as my hands sometimes tremble late at night.

I recognize that I am probably clinically depressed, that my body is not producing the chemicals, seratonin, that I need to feel better about myself, about life.

Hope is a good emotion. It lifts us up when things look dark. All good things come from God.

Or... that is the way it is supposed to be.

We can put hope in anything. We can hope we do well in a job interview. We can hope our favorite sports team will win. We can hope for a good draw in a game of poker, hope the right ping pong balls pop into the tube of the lottery machine, that someone who holds our heart will prove trustworthy.

Those are thin, poorly chosen hopes. They are based on chance, on circumstances beyond our control, on the moods and choices of another.

Those aren’t valid hopes.

We are aliens and strangers in your sight, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope. --1 Chronicles 29:15

And we know it. Sometimes, perhaps often, we try to stack the deck, ask God to intervene...

"Oh, that I might have my request,
that God would grant what I hope for,
that God would be willing to crush me,
to let loose his hand and cut me off!”
--Job 6:8-9

I’m not so desperate that I pray God would remove me from this world as Job did, I have too much to do, I have children to care for... still, I deeply understand the urge to beg things of God. Indeed, we are to take our requests to Him.

Part of me rejects this. Such rejection would eliminate much good, much opportunity for my Lord to work in my life, but I often feel I should just suck it up, and bear what burdens are placed on my back, and trudge on.

Part of me wants to simply speak to God about how I am doing, what I am grateful for, seek to know what He would have me do. I don’t want to use Him as a vending machine, seeking He grant large, and even more so the small, things in my life.

I fear the urge to think of Him, the Creator of all things, my Maker, as a puppet who’s strings I might attempt to pull.

My hope should be beyond such concerns. I would like to have instead, to hold dear to me, the hope Paul wrote of to the Believers in Rome:

“Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” --Romans 5:3-5

I want hope that is simply based on Him. He is bigger than my problems. His love is mightier than my entire existence.

“His pleasure is not in the strength of the horse,
nor his delight in the legs of a man;
the LORD delights in those who fear him,
who put their hope in his unfailing love.
Extol the LORD, O Jerusalem;
praise your God, O Zion...”
--Psalm 147:10-12

That is what I want to do... simply love him, hope in Him.

That is what we are all to do, even governments, nations:

“A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory.

In his name the nations will put their hope."
--Matthew 12:20-22

But I’m a silly man, a small person who feels like he has clung to his life as best he could and feels he cannot cling to this bit of flotsam for much longer.

I hope Brenda does the right thing. I hope my marriage survives.

I’m such an idiot.

Death

Please bear with the literary analysis here, but Will S. put this rather well
(read the stuff in parenthesis only if you wish the condensed version):

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
(to exist, or not...)
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
(is it morally right to fight against all odds...)
And by opposing end them?
(even if it means my death...)
To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
(This life is full of such troubles, wouldn’t it be better to end it, especially in fighting for what is right?)
To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
(The visions that sleep may bring when we shrug off this body which traps us...)
Must give us pause:
(But, since we don’t know what will come we cling to the troubles we have, the troubles we know...)
there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
(And we just suck it up, all the crap of our lives, the health problems of aging, the trespasses of others against us, the sneer from the wealthy and sophisticated, the arrogance of those who govern but no longer care about those who suffer, the rejection and unfaithfulness of those who swore to love us, the imposition that we be patient to those who are not worthy but believe they are superior...)
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin?
(When we could end it all with a sharp knife...)
who would fardels bear,
(who would carry heavy burdens...)
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
(except that we fear that after death...)
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns,
(the foreign land for which there are no maps and no one returns...)
puzzles the will
(saps our resolve...)
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
(and we suck all this crap up because we are afraid to step out of what we do not know...)
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
(and therefore, we stick with what we are, we are cowards...)
And thus the native hue of resolution
(and our resolve is colored...)
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
(by the shadow of our weak minds...)
And enterprises of great pith and moment
(and our hopes to do great things, do the right thing...)
With this regard their currents turn awry,
(drift away...)
And lose the name of action.
(and we fail.)

Hamlet wasn’t suicidal. Neither am I.

He was torn between to world views. Anger and revenge versus love and forgiveness. Standing up to do the right thing would cost, cost him everything, perhaps his life. His pain was so great he would do almost anything to make it stop, and in fighting against all the resources of the king it might kill him, and wouldn’t that be a good thing too? Except... what is death?

There are all sorts of death. It is the natural result of life... at least life as we know it, based on entropy... in consuming the order created by plants and animals, and sucking a little energy from them before turning them into excrement.

Some deaths are easier to take than others, but most are at least a little hard.

A favorite pet, the loss of a good job, the chilling of a friendship.

Some deaths are not so easy.

Willy’s death was so hard I haven’t recovered yet. It will be fifteen years this Saturday since he died in my care.

His death wasn’t a single event. It was a spiked twisting thing which beat within my chest for over a year. It was a shattering of my identity, losing my fatherhood, losing my dreams of teaching him about science and art and literature.

It was a time of stumbling through days, a walking death of grief which made me a zombie to joy and love and beauty.

I did my best. I maintained straight A’s in college, studying art and literature. I dove into Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, Philip K. Dick. I learned all I could about architecture, the development of art, the basics of color and design.

But it was all ashes in my mouth. Every bit of news about suffering in the world, every milestone of grief, every reminder of his time in my home, stabbed me, bent me, made me ache to fly to that “undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveller returns.”

I contemplated suicide that year.

There was the death of hopes and dreams before that which echoed in his death. When we learned that Brenda could not have children there was the death in losing the promise of a family I had always hoped for.

In adopting my current children those dreams were reborn, and then died slowly as we became aware that they couldn’t fulfill my dreams of teaching them about science and art and literature.

I feel I am experiencing a death again. My marriage has been dealt a terrible blow. Even if it recovers I fear that my trust, my hopes for our future, may die.

This death feels much like the pain of Willy’s death, except I no longer have the luxury of stumbling through my life. I have children who need me. I have a job which requires I pour the best of myself into my charges.

The sadness I feel has taken root and I need healing, spiritual cleansing, to drive it out.

Death is fearful because it is a door into the unknown, and perhaps because the deaths we know have taught us that death is often painful.

Shakespeare grieved over the death of his child, Hamnet, and his writing was steeped in that grief. That is one reason he touches us still. Shakespeare understood the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune."

But death is also the source of life. The energy mined from the life of plants and animals gives us life. Indeed, aside from the source of energy the sun provides plants, all life sucks at the decomposition death brings.

Likewise, there is a death I experience every time I sin. It is the loss of a tiny portion of my soul, of the goodness, the image of God created in me.

The decomposition of those small deaths I fling at the universe, at God, and they are absorbed by the cross.

I think the only true life I can glean is from the source of energy the Son provides.

I am in a dark place today. I suppose I should seek Sonlight.

"A Woman in Love"

She laughed in my face, told me good-bye
Said "Don't think about it, you can go crazy
Any thing can happen, anything can end
Don't try to fight it, don't try to save me"

She's a woman in love
And he's gonna break her heart to pieces
She don't want to see
She's a woman in love, but it's not me

Well all right, do what you want
Don't try to talk, don't say nothin'
She used to be the kind of woman
You have and you hold, she could understand the problem
She let the little things go

She's a woman in love
And he's gonna break her heart to pieces
But she don't wanna know
She's a woman in love, she can't let go

Time after time, night after night
She would look up at me and say she was lonely
I don't understand what she needed
I gave her everything, she threw it all away on nothin'
She's a woman in love

--Tom Petty

Boy, You're Gonna Carry That Weight...

Brenda promised.

For what it is worth, which may be very little, she has promised to not contact the other man while she is in my home.

I don't believe her.

This doesn't seem to be about healing our marriage. That may happen, but I don't think it is likely.

She went off to work last night. She has been working days, Mondays and Tuesdays, and a half day Thursday evenings. On Tuesday she said something about it being her last day there, which was odd since she said she would also being working Thursday evening.

She went off to work, an extra careful job on her make up. She looked nice.

But instead of coming back at 9:00 or so as I expected, I found her on the front porch at 7:00, drinking a beer. She confessed she had gone hoping to "say goodbye" to coworkers. She had gone to a tavern and so has fallen off her AA wagon. She says she'll climb back up on that metaphorical vehicle to sobriety, but not last night.

She is here because she cannot relinquish her sense of responsibility toward our children. I am giving her space to stay, in the thin hope our marriage will heal, but primarily because she has agreed to go in for alcohol treatment and to provide her with the medical coverage she needs.

But I do not believe it will last.

We spoke for a while last night. We didn't fight. But we talked quite a bit. She says she still loves this other man.

I have been trying to hold on, to be strong. To walk the halls of my work with a plastic smile and with gentle words to my students. But on the inside I feel I am slowly unraveling.

This is a sadness which has permeated me, very much like the year after my son Willy died. I can't sleep. I can't eat. I have obsessive thoughts, and an irresistible urge to write blog posts. I fear that I might start twitching and barking any day soon.

We have our 24 hour prayer for the month today. I was in the Prayer room at 5:00, after quietly showering and shaving and leaving my home that no longer feels like a place of refuge.

The prayer room is quiet (I'm there now).

I was walking around the cemetery yesterday morning, very early.

It feels like the song from the Beatles, about carrying a heavy burden.

A friend encouraged me to keep these times with our Lord and I have been. She told me to go listen for the owl.

As I walked I listened for the owl. He was silent. I thought that the recent construction near there had driven him away.

"Lord... things are so screwed up. I hurt so badly. I feel like sobbing, but nothing comes out. I walk and walk and it feels like I am carry a 200 pound pack on my back. I need help, Lord. I know you understand betrayal, you understand sorrow. Please draw near me now Lord for I feel I can barely take another step."

The owl replied from the darkness of the grove of old douglas firs.

I've made an appointment to see my doctor on Wednesday. It is clear that my emotions are out of control and that this mood is becoming a "default setting" for how I live. I cannot live this way.

Just a Post

I had trouble sleeping last night. Brenda had gone to sleep on the couch and I did a little lesson writing for the new trimester. An hour later I took a prescription sleeping pill. Forty-five minutes later, another. Another forty-five minutes after that, a third. I had so much trouble getting going this morning. I was practically staggering as I got ready for work.

I feel like I am barely hanging on.

We woke up late on Sunday. It was one of those rare nights where she came to bed in the early hours from her place on the couch and we snuggled in our half conscious sleep. We woke up snuggling. I told her let's just skip church.

Not going to make a habit of it. But she needed a break, and frankly I did too.

I am so tired.

This current situation is set up to let Brenda heal. She isn't being particularly mean or anything. She is fixing supper, doing laundry, all the usual stuff.

But toward me she seems either angry or indifferent.

How can it be that I feel lonely? I feel so unbearably sad?

I want to do whatever my Lord asks of me, but this marriage seems to be such a heavy burden.

I have been a jerk. I have hurt her, decades ago, and now I am paying a price that seems to bankrupt me.

I was immature. Now I'm growing up. And it hurts.

She has much good in her. But it isn't for me anymore. Will it be someday?

Perhaps our marriage will heal. This week she is in a bad place because she is being forced to quit her job. I try not to think of the goodbyes she is saying/doing at work.

I had a student stop me in the hall today. Awkward kid. One of those with emotional, and social disabilities.

Good kid. He fell in beside me as I was striding down the hall. I barely slowed to allow him to keep up.

"Mr. Greenleaf... Can I ask you something?"

"Sure D_______, what is it?"

"Well, I hope I'm not out of line, or that you'll get mad or anything, but I was wondering... You seem sad this year."

I stopped and turned.

"Was it OK to ask that?"

"Well, I don't feel comfortable talking about my personal life with students, but I can see you are a good boy who just cares about me. Thank you. I've just got some things on my mind, that's all. You are a pretty perceptive kid, you know?"

"Yeah, I guess. I think that babies can always tell how people feel. I think most people grow out of it. I never have. I can always tell how people are really feeling, even if no one else does."

"You're a good kid, D________. Catch you later."

Sweet kid. I wish what I felt didn't show.

She has a very strong sense of responsibility and wants to see the task of raising the boys through. She does not think I can do it alone.

Additionally, the legal mess with Jeremiah has tied her down. She insisted on being his sponsor for citizenship, partly because of her lower income it makes his getting social security benefits while being granted citizenship easier, but mostly because she had more time to see the lawyers and such. If she leaves that creates a real legal mess for Jeremiah. She could take him with her, but I wouldn't allow it and besides she really doesn't want that. She wants to run away from all of this and that would be just taking the biggest part with her.

There is the fact that if we divorced she would have no health insurance, and she has a fibrous tumor in her uterus and a hemmoraghic cyst on an ovary. She may need surgery.

There is a part of her that cares what people think. She doesn't like where all of this puts her.

There is a part of her that cares for me. I don't know if it is love. Perhaps a little. There is also guilt and shame, and doing penance makes her feel that she is nobler than if she simply left.

She really doesn't want to leave me in a mess. Though I am in one already.

There's the dog, which she loves.

All of this sounds stupid.

I grieve so much for my marriage. I am such a wimp to want her.

I want her happy, healthy. Even if that means she leaves me when she gets on her feet.

I was walking around the cemetery today. I paused... told the Lord that I am so sad right now that I can hardly bear it. That it is almost like when Willy died.

I told Him that I know he understands sadness, betrayal, and I appreciate it.

I know that so many people in the world have it so much harder than I... still... I feel I can hardly breathe.

This is a tough week for Brenda. I am forcing her to quit her job, quit seeing this other man. She does not like to be forced. She is going to AA meetings every night. Her sponsor has told her to do 90 meetings in 90 days.

I think she is planning to hold on until Isaac graduates.

Isaac is a Junior. He graduates a year from June.

Jeremiah's green card should be available in February. Then we start with his citizenship process, which might take as long as five years.

So, the expiration date for this little half gallon of misery is June 2009.

Sheesh. I'm so full of shit. Even in stating simple facts I have to craft it into some sort of weird layered phrase. No wonder she is tired of me.

Tram or Burro?

I was watching an absurd comedian on television a few weeks ago. He was telling of a trip to Greece with his wife and a side excursion to the top of some minor mountain top.

"Now the tourists have two options to the top... you can take an aerial tram, takes two minutes, or you can ride a burro, which takes all friggin' afternoon.

"The guy renting the burros has to have about the worst sales pitch in the world...

" 'You can take the burros to the top of the mountain, or you can take the tram. The price is the same.'

"Now I don't know about you, but if I was trying to rent burros, I'd keep that little piece of information to myself."

He got his laughs, I smiled a little. I knew the point wasn't about the comfort or the speed to the top of that grecian mountaintop. It was about experiencing Greece. It was about going to the top to watch the sun set, or appreciate the archipelago. The whole point in going on a trip like that is to appreciate the place itself, its beauty, its culture. It isn't about speed.

I might very well choose the burro if I had the time.

I understand his point though. We like to do things fast, easy, conveniently.

Want to lose weight? Surely there must be a pill for it. Let's fax it, email it, order it online. Let's do it virtually, swallow the capfull, drag the ol' Ab Do-er into the living room.

Want to get closer to God? Change the radio station to a Christian one, or get to your seat in church on time.

Want life to be easy?

Me too.

I walked into the counselor yesterday. We made small talk. I sat silently, impatiently. We finally got to business. Brenda reported the events of the past week.

What a mess.

I had three options for Brenda and they had one trait in common trait: they were quick. Each had a finality about them, an immediate resolution. A nice and tidy conclusion to a messy situation.

The counselor had a fourth option. One that hasn't a quick resolution. One which requires more work, more prayer, more patience from me.

It offered help for Brenda, healing, time to catch her breath, time to learn to make good decisions.

Being human is a strange thing. We are spiritual beings trapped in physical bodies driven by animal needs and desires. We are so far removed from our true home, the one we have been adopted into. We are visitors to this world, this foyer into eternal life.

We are sort of like middle schoolers. No matter what is next in their schedule they are eager to be dismissed from their current location to rush to science or math or Language Arts. I would like to rush through this, get past the messy part.

The point of being here isn't just to complete the task. It isn't about getting to the top of the mountain and getting the snapshot that can be emailed home or uploaded onto a blog. The point of being here is to learn, to grow, to understand who we are, what we are about, even if the learning is difficult. Maybe it is even to help each other, especially those we love.

I may be just a visitor to this mortal life, but I know that sometimes I should take the burro, not the tram.

I want this to be over. I want us to move on. I want my wife to say she is sorry, that she loves me, that we can be whole again.

Instead I find that my wife needs me, that she is ill and it is my job to do as I vowed, to love and cherish in sickness and in health.

So, there's a steep mountain ahead. The fellow renting the burros tells me the tram is faster and the same price. But I know that the purpose here is to do what is right, to experience this “vacation from eternity.” Besides, I think the guy renting the burros is my Lord in disguise.

Ultimatums II

We went to counseling today. Earlier I had gone home, talked with her, told her I had three options for her.

Option 1: Return to our marriage. NEVER speak to this other man again. Quit your job. Dedicate yourself to letting the past go and building on a future together which is to last at least another 26 years, not until some shorter goal such as getting the kids out. NO MORE speaking harshly to our children. I consider what happened last night abuse and will not permit it. Try to love Jeremiah, and if you fail in that, at least convince him you do. Go to counseling. With me for our marriage, and alone to work through your own demons. Find the excitement in me as a man, honor and respect, and even fun, in and out of the bedroom.

Option 2: Divorce. We'll tally up our debts, compare them to our assets, and I will do what I can to keep the house. Make payments to you, pay the debts myself, whatever. I will finish raising the children. We may work out visitations, but the task is mine. I love these children. I will protect them from anything, including you. You will have your own life, I will work to rebuild ours.

Option 3: A separation until Jeremiah's legal issues are resolved and then a divorce. I will treat the separation as a divorce. Remove my wedding ring, separate you from the house. You will not be able to come and go as you please. You may not come over and play "mommy" to them. I do not trust you with them. Your statements to Jeremiah were abusive and will not happen again. Your statements about not sure if you believe in God to Isaac shakes his faith. I am the head of their spiritual development. You may hold whatever opinion you wish, but you will not assist them in questioning their faith. You may continue on my health plan for as long as the separation holds (J's legal issues are resolved) but if you need anything beyond that, sorry, but we will be going through a divorce and you will have to solve that on your own.

During the session Brenda confessed her unfaithfulness, her breaking of our agreement, her leaving, her returning, and the harsh things she said to Jeremiah last night.

The counselor talked to Brenda about her alcoholism, how she makes bad decisions because of it, even when she isn’t drinking. Even when she hadn’t been drinking for years, a “white knuckle alcoholic,” he said.

He asked me what I wanted to do. I read him the three options I have written here.

I told him I wanted the first option. He said that Brenda could not keep to that agreement. That she would stray, that we would be back in the same situation again. He said he could just about guarantee that she would break the agreement.

I felt pretty trapped.

“So, I must choose one of the other options? I don’t want to end our marriage. I want to help her, heal her. If she cannot keep to the choice of healing our marriage then I must go with one of the other choices.”

“There are other options, Will. Those are either-or options you have painted and your marriage will not survive any of them.”

I started to get a little ticked.

“So, what are you suggesting? That she and I go on living with her running off whenever she feels like it? I won’t do it. I can’t do it. I’m coming apart as it is. I’m not eating, I’m not sleeping. I won’t last much longer this way. I need to take care of myself I won’t be any good for my kids!”

“There are other ways to see this, other ways to help her heal and perhaps get what you want as well.”

He permitted a dramatic pause. I bit:

“So. Let’s see this rabbit of yours.”

“You can see Brenda as having an illness. That she cannot make good decisions in this condition. She is an alcoholic and whether or not she is drinking she makes choices based on it. You could have another sort of separation.”

“So, she moves in with him? We stay married and she runs off to ‘get well’ and does what she likes?”

“No, she gets treatment and finds some neutral place to stay. With relatives or something. Imagine she is in a hospital bed, unable to make choices right now. She is ill and needs healing.”

We all stopped talking for a few moments.

“I will stay,” she said. I’ll stop seeing John and I’ll quit my job.”

All of us exchanged glances.

“I’ll stay home, and I’ll quit my job, and I’ll get treatment.”

We spoke for a bit longer. Worked out some details.

So...

Option 4: She breaks off all contact with this other man. She quits her job. She goes in for a psychological evaluation and they determine a real treatment, not just AA but a real treatment for the underlying causes behind her decision making and her alcoholism. We continue to go to counseling. I go to counseling. I give her space. I do not push her to be affectionate or pretend to be my loving wife. She stays here, in our home, and I back off, letting her work through her issues. I will try to find opportunities for her to get away for a day or two at a time, stay with a friend, perhaps someone fro our church or something, so she can have a little peace to sort through things.

I suppose it is better than the choices I gave her.

I suppose it gives me a little room to relax, this added distance between her and this other man, and it works on the underlying issues.

It isn’t all rainbows and fluttering blue birds, but it provides a better hedge around her than my plan and it provides her guidance for healing.

I’m not saying I am overjoyed with the situation. I am saying it is a place where I can see room for the Lord to work and perhaps heal what is broken in this home.

My gratitude to all of you for your prayers.

Firm Grip

Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Firm Grip

She sat rigidly in her seat, a stoic approach to being in a public place, a place where nearly everyone puts their best foot forward, their shiniest, happiest face.

I sat beside her, doing my best to look calm, at peace, ready to worship.

I love worship. I shut my eyes, tune out everything but the words, the music, and within the chambers of my heart turn the lyrics into prayers. Today it was hard to do. I shed a quiet tear or two as I thought about the love I have for Him, the love He has for me, the love she doesn’t have.

The songs where about His mighty love, His sovereignty. I felt there was little control in my life.

The night before had been a rough one. The day had begun well. Brenda did house cleaning. I pitched in, starting on the half bath off the living room. She instantly became testy, intense. She complained about my being in her way, argued about how I was doing it, yelled about being left alone.

She calmed down, confessing she doesn’t want help, that she has a system, that we wouldn’t do things right. We went out to shoot pool. Her hurts and anger surfaced quickly. A time for us to be together became an endless stream of anger pouring from her. Her frowning face was only inches from mine as she vented over things done and left undone twenty years ago.

Last night, after hours of being told about how she was patient for years with me, we fell asleep. Or rather, she fell asleep. I lay awake in bed for hours.

These tongue whippings are hard to tolerate. I stand there, under the torrent of her anger, and listen carefully to her complaints. I acknowledge what is true, shelve what is not. I don’t pick up my own experiences to whip her with. I simply love and forgive her.

But there, late at night, her gentle breath belying the storm within her, I think... about divorce.

I can’t do it.

After church yesterday we were on the back porch...

“I don’t want to quit my job.”

“I know. It’s a good job. It is good for you. It pays well for part time, its hours match our needs, it places you in an environment of learning and gives you a sense of growing and learning. But it is where he works and it is a temptation you need to place far from you.”

“I don’t even see him there. He doesn’t come into the learning center. And if I wanted to see him, not working there wouldn’t stop me.”

“It isn’t a matter of removing all possibilities. It is a matter of reducing temptations, to help you, to help us...

“Look Brenda, I don’t like telling you what to do. I generally don’t do it. But I haven’t any choice here. I lay awake most of last night thinking about divorce. It would be so much easier to just quit. There isn’t anything in this situation which brings me happiness.

“But I can’t divorce you for three reasons. First, it would be bad for you. You need to heal, to grow out of the ugly place you are in. You need to be restored. And I want to help heal you, help care and nurture you. I want to encourage you to be happy, to be healthy, to be what I know you can be.

“The second reason I can’t divorce you is because of the boys. They love you. It would hurt them so badly for you to leave. I don’t know how they can possibly handle it.

“The third reason I can’t divorce you is I simply can’t. And not because I love you, though that is part of it, I love you and want to help you. But I can’t divorce you because I am trapped in this marriage. I took a vow to love you, to stand by you always. As long as you say you are going to stay and work on our marriage I cannot abandon my vows. I am trapped by what I have sworn to do, and that is to stand by you. Tell me you won’t work on our marriage, tell me that you won’t stop seeing this other man, and then I will be freed from my vows.”

She frowned.

I used to think that divorce is what happened to people without the willpower to stick through tough times. I don't anymore. I know longer judge such people. Or people who do all sorts of things I may not do, or may not approve of. My job is not to judge them. My job is to simply love them.

While in church, while thinking about how I feel I have no choices, that I must do what I am doing, no matter how it hurts, I thought of how God is holding me. I felt His presence during the worship songs. I felt a longing for Him, a love for Him deeper than my mortal frets and worries.

I can’t run away. I can’t fly this situation. I can’t force someone to do, to feel, what I want. All I can do is what is prescribed for me to do.

When I was in college I took a year of fencing. It was great exercise.

We practiced the lunges and quiding the movements of the rubber-tipped blades, how to move our bodies to place that tip exactly wherever we needed it.

We were told how to hold the handle of those fencing foils. We were told to imagine we were holding a small bird. The bird wants to fly away. We grip it in our hand firmly enough that it cannot escape, but not so tightly it is hurt.

The Lord holds me firmly. My vows hold me. I struggle with my lack of choices in the middle of the night, but I still remain firmly in His hand.

But not too tightly. Brenda has told me once again she loves this other man, that I’m not her type. This bargain we have struck is too fragile too last.

Last might I went on line to find out where I could the legal forms for divorce.

During church the other day I felt the Lord’s firm grip.

I squirm and flap my wings trying to break free. I have a growing sense I soon shall be.

Unhappy

She is unhappy.

I think I understand.

When she came back I made demands on what she must do if she were to stay.

She had left, I thought for good. After a night of comforting my children morning found me checking on each of them.

Isaac was upset. He wanted to talk to her.

He had asked to talk to her eleven years ago when she had run off the first time. His crying for her had brought her back. Afterwards, her resentment showed in her interactions with him for a long time.

I didn’t want that to happen again, but he was desperate to talk to her. I sent her a text message. If she called it was because she felt like talking, not because I had put him on the phone. She called. The boys answered, came and told me she was coming over in a few hours.

She came. The boys cried, her heart melted, she said she would stay. I cautioned the boys we had things to work out first.

I had demands on what she must do if she were to stay.

I told her that there could be no more deceit, no more loopholes, no more half measures.

I told her she must break off all contact with the other man.

I told her she must remove the temptations which invite her to stray. She agreed to give up her disposable cell phone and seek another job.

I told her she must work on our marriage, not as a stop gap to buy time but with the goal of building a marriage that would last another 26 years. She agreed.

Yesterday she kept busy. She cooked a Thanksgiving Day meal, just for the four of us (well, Rocky got a little too).

Today she wasn’t so busy. She fell into a depression. Over the course of the day I watched it turn into resentment.

She is unhappy. She feels guilt. She feels the desire to eat more of forbidden fruit. She feels she is a slut. She feels unbeautiful.

“How ya doing?” I asked.

“All right for someone is spending her life serving other people who can’t help themselves.”

That sounds bad, but it isn’t really. She has a huge heart, an enormous, self-sacrificing sense of responsibility to take care of others. That is why she is here.

The years of taking care of our special needs children, of nursing her mother’s mental health to the point where she can now live in her own apartment, even to seeing to my needs, has often been at the expense of her own desires.

She has recently had a taste of freedom, stealing moments of pleasure and having someone focus entirely on her. I have demanded she walk away from that open door in order for her to satisfy her need to complete the obligations she took on in adopting our children.

Some of the things I have written here are harsh. I am pointing out flaws in my wife that are very unflattering. So, to be fair, I need to point out that I have not been overly kind in this situation. I am being demanding, drawing firm lines, boundaries. Even though those demarcations are for the purpose of restoring my marriage, it is important to recall a few things. I wanted our marriage to survive, and I am getting what I want (or at least it appears so). I am getting concessions from another person through her sense of obligation and responsibility. In a sense I am taking advantage of good and noble traits in her to gain what I could not from her freely. In other words, I am taking another person’s freedom to get something I want. Perhaps I am not as kind as I would like to believe.

While I have been typing this post she has been bustling about, fixing a supper for the boys and I. She is cheerful now. Is it real? Does she feel a little happiness in serving us a meal? Is she making the best of it? Has she simply moved out of her love lorn funk?

She and I just stepped outside, played with the dog in the yard under a clear but cold Oregon night sky ruled by a full moon. Silly dog loves to play with that binky of his that squeaks as he bites it.

She does seem sincerely more cheerful. As I type this post she is responding to an Email from a church friend, a no nonsense woman who tries to be loving while telling it like it is (thank you CN).

Humans are fickle creatures. Perhaps women even more so. Hmmmm... probably get some flak for that statement. I suppose from my perspective women are ruled by emotions more than men, so they seem to be more mercurial.

I have tried to be a steady person, holding true to what I believe, even in trying times.

But I know men can be pretty fickle too. My father is a good example. I believe he has given up on marriage. Five of them was enough. Now he keeps various girlfriends in various parts of the world and doesn’t worry too much about steadiness.

And I know of other men who are as unsteady as the heart of my wife.

I suppose I was more on target with the first statement: “Humans are fickle creatures.”

And the Lord God, creator of all things, of galactic super clusters gonging 42 octaves below middle C every few thousand years and of the lady bugs I release in my garden each year, loves us despite the fickleness of human hearts. The Lord God, maker of ancient mountains and fleeting rainbows, loves us though we are cast our love to every changing breeze.

I have been frustrated over the infidelities of a single human heart. How much greater must be the patience of such a being as The Creator who watches His creations made in His likeness chase after phantom pleasures?

I suppose I am glad with what he has given me and am willing to continue in obedience to the tasks He set me to. I can be happy in that.

Happy Anniversary/Thanksgiving

Today is our anniversary. Twenty six years.

Yesterday morning I was comforting my sobbing son Isaac, telling him not to think that he had anything to do with Brenda leaving us. He said he wanted to talk to her. So I sent her a text message and she called back, saying she was coming over in a few hours.

My friend and pastor came over, gave my sobbing children hugs and prayed for them. He left.

She showed up.

Isaac begged her to come back. She said she would. I said we needed to work some things out first.

We went off to talk. She said she couldn't leave. I told her that I didn’t see how we can rebuild the broken trust between us.

She didn’t beg or plead. She did mumble a “sorry.”

I told her that if she were to stay that we could not continue the way things have been. There isn’t room for three in our bed.

I told her that if she did stay she would have to find ways to remove temptation and make me feel comfortable enough to try to trust her. Working at the same place as him and having a disposable cell phone which keeps no records of her calls were two things that made it easier for her to sneak around.

“Beyond what this does to me, what it does to us, being secretive and sneaky is not good for you. You need to live an open honest life.”

She slid her cell phone across the table to me.

“I don’t want to take this. It’s like I’m your daddy or something and am punishing you by taking away your phone.”

“You aren’t taking it, I’m giving it.”

She says she will not contact this man again.

She says she will seek another job.

Though I was reluctant to do so, I agreed. How can I refuse her when I made a vow to love and cherish her always? I must forgive her. I must take her back. Even though she spent the previous night with another man.

I knew I must at least do all I can to make this work.

So I emailed him at work:



Subject: Brenda

John:

The hiding and sneaking must end.

I love my wife. I want to help her as best I can. I want her to be happy and am willing to do anything to make that happen.

But we cannot move on with you in the picture.

When she tries to follow her two hearts she is miserable, unhappy. Hiding in shadows is not healthy for her. It places her in a position of living a lie.

If she chooses you, then that is at will be. I will permit that.

But if she chooses to stay, then she must live a life that is not about hiding in shadows, stealing moments, stealing integrity.

I suspect you may not be a man of integrity, since you have fostered this double life in her.

If she chooses to stay with you, fine. But if she makes a choice to come home and love our children and work on finding the happiness I know she can find if she will deal with the deep hurts she carries, I will do all in my power to help her.

I will also do all in my power to make this relationship with you a clean break.

That is my biggest concern for her. That her continued duplicity will eat away at her soul. So I am asking you... If you have any sense of right and wrong, if you have any integrity, do not continue a relationship with a woman who is trying to repair the damage done in her home. Making love to a woman with a wedding ring is wrong.

I would never do such a thing. I pray that you would see that it is hurting her (and others as well).

If she chooses to break it off, make it easy for her to stay true to that choice. I will do the same.

If it comes to it, I am willing to meet with you and discuss this rationally.

In anger, frustration, forgiveness, and love,

Will Greenleaf


So there it is. It is Thanksgiving. A day for counting our blessings and being grateful. It is also our anniversay. I have mixed feelings about both.

May the next 26 years will be better than the last.

Gone

She left.

She moved the clothes from the washer to the dryer, told the boys what was happening, and left.

In a way it is a relief.

No more suspicions. No more wondering. No more trying to heal her hurts.

I will continue to pray for her.

Right now I am busy comforting my children. That is going to keep me busy for some time.

I was praying with them, as I do each night, when I heard the car start up and drive away.

An hour ago I went out to catch up with her on her walk with our dog at the park. She was on her cell phone, talking, laughing. She hung up quickly when she saw me. With a few deft clicks she deleted the number.

A few moments later her confession made things clear.

She tried to tell me how hard she tried. Tried to tell me that it was her fault, not the man I said lacks integrity.

Isaac cried bitterly tonight. Huge racking sobs.

“This hurts so bad,” he told me. “Worse than when I cut myself. This hurts deep down inside.”

“I know. And it will hurt for a very long time,” I told him. “But you will somehow eventually fall asleep tonight. And you will wake up, and suddenly remember what has happened, and it will hurt all over again. But we will go through our day, and I will come up here again to talk and pray with you, and you will fall asleep. You will continue to sleep and wake and slowly this hurt won’t be so bad. You won’t forget this. It will always be a part of you. But the hurt will get less and I will always love you. I will help you and I will be there...”

I stayed with him for a while. He asked for a special prayer and I did my very best. He asked me to pray for Brenda, and again I gave my best, praying for her, blessing her, asking the Lord to protect her and to help her find healing and peace. He asked me to call our pastor and make an appointment for him to talk to our church’s shepherd. I did that.

I found her credit cards on the kitchen table, her reassurance that she was not going to hurt us financially.

The dog has been wandering the house, whining.

And I’m sitting here in bed, tapping at this keyboard watching Mike Rowe attempt the dirtiest jobs in the country while I try to let my heart settle.

I’ve been awake since 4:30 this morning and it is now 11:00 p.m. Perhaps I should try to get some sleep.

It's Over

She left.

Dreaming

“I’m not evil.”

The words awoke me as they left my mouth.

Brenda stirred, awakened by my strange statement in the middle of the night.

“You’re not evil. You’re a good man.”

It was comforting. Comforting words from her have been rare.

That afternoon she told my I am "too good."

“You can’t be too good,” I said.

“Yes you can.”

“No, you can’t be too good. And I’m certainly not too good. I have far too many flaws, have made too many mistakes.”

“No you haven’t, and you are too good.”

Is that possible? It isn’t a matter of being perfect. Only one man achieved that. But perhaps I have made her feel she is worse than she is by my hesitations in drinking, partying, by seeking to be obedient.

Lately we have been going to a local tavern for pool and beer. It has been fun. Somewhat.

I had another dream last night.

I was in charge of a new construction work site. There was a house nearly finished, and I noticed water bubbling from the soil under the foundation. It began to stream down the little hill, turning the dirt to mud.

I grabbed a shovel and started digging, seeking the pipe that was leaking.

The water picked up in volume, the dirt churning away. There were lumps in the water, I realized it was a broken septic line.

I kept digging, searching for the broken clay pipe, the four inch line that was gushing water, tissues, brown lumps around my feet.

The stream became a flood. It rose up around me as I dug quickly, trying to find its source so I could replace the defective plumbing. I was knee deep in shit.

I understand most people don’t recall their dreams very well. I remember them just about as well as my waking life. I remember the colors, realistic colors or the occasional filtered colors of particularly odd dreams. I remember sounds, textures, smells.

Such as the smell of being knee deep in shit.

I’ve a very active dream life. Nearly every night I take strange excursions through my subconscious, granting the metaphors of my mind temporary imitation life.

Dreams have a quality, a texture, that makes them feel different from reality. Well, most of the time anyway. These past couple of months have seemed like an awful dream. It has been the unreal quality of a mental disconnect, of realizing what seemed impossible is actually the truth. That sense of the unreal is wearing off.

We know what is life, because life seems real. It seems like... work.

I think we are going to stay together. If we can find a way to forgive each other, build each other up.

A dream usually does not feel like effort. This feels like effort. It is effort. I fake trust. I hope someday it will be more than that.

Today we had the dedication of our new church building. Finally we will move beyond the chapter of our lives which contained the charred remains of the old building, the deep excavation and framing and furnishing of the building, beyond the gushing glee of my church family in their happiness of a fresh new building, and onto the gentle work of using this new framework of a physical building to do His work.

There are two women in particular who have helped us during this awful, dreamlike chapter. They didn’t tell us how we should feel. They didn’t tell us to “get over it.” Instead, they listened. They heard.

I am grateful to these two sisters in Christ who knew how to help us in a small way.

So, I’m waking up to the uncomfortable situation of life today. I see I am knee deep in shit.

I’ll just have to grab the shovel and go to work on what's broken.