Yesterday was a day of extremes.
I got up early (seven hours sleep!!!), showered, got my kids fed and ready for church, picked up my mother in law, got there in time to pray with the pastors and the worship team.
Most of the songs didn’t seem to particularly pluck my heart strings with a poetic guitar pick, but I did feel a bit of internal spiritual movement.
There is a Sunday School class I am sort of helping out in (I’ll be the “sub” in a month or so, but my current role is being “the weird guy in the corner with the odd ideas”).
We were looking at chapter six of The Shack and the theological question of whether of not God abandoned Christ at the cross (having given up His part of the Godhead in order to bear the sins of mankind). The theology ran a little heavy, with scriptures and learned commentaries being consulted. That is until I threw in one of my too frequent odd ideas, which went something like this:
“Well, I might be wrong, in fact I probably am, but these thoughts occur to me...
“I’ve read that autistic children often swing their arms and legs about not because they lack control, but because in moving their bodies they are better able to distinguish who they are, where their body ends and the rest of the world begins. For most of us, we have a very clear idea of who we are, focussing on this physical body, and not really consider anything beyond it as being a part of “us.” We know exactly where our skin ends and clothing begins, and what is of us and what is of the room or the furniture.
“I’ve also read about a scientist who studies the mind and the brain, and he argues that the brain, the physical organ within the skull, is not the producer of the mind, but actually limits what the mind can express. His evidence is intriguing. In looking at folks with brain injuries, he notes how they are limited in the mind’s thought processes. If the injury is repaired, there appears to have continued the larger abilities though the brain was unable to express them. It seems that there is something beyond the organic brain which screens the mind and limits its capacity, its potential.
“Additionally, I have thought it interesting that all matter at the quantum level is an expression of six types of sub atomic particles called quarks, which may be “strings vibrating in 12 dimensions” and in those vibrations “sing” an expression of particles. It is interesting that these particle are “sung” into existence in quantities of thirds, as if there is a trinity behind the physical reality of the universe.
“Now, if that trinity which sings the universe into being is the same trinity we call “God”, then even though God is actively creating the universe, we still have free will, to be self-centered, which is the core of sin. God is not apart from us, though we sin.
“Now, consider, perhaps in becoming a man, in Jesus being born of a woman and living as a human being, He was sort of extruding Himself into the reality of our world, filtering Himself into this expression of himself in a way similar to how the brain might be limiting the mind. He was still, most of him, doing His part in the trinity in maintaining the existence of the universe, yet the part that was on Earth, was not only fully divine, but also completely expressed as a mortal being.
“And if sin is about being self-centered, in turning away from God and focussing on ourselves, then in opening Himself up to our sins, in grasping and turning to hold, to behold, to take in the self-centeredness of the world, His limited expression in being mortal was turned away from His Father. He turned away, and in doing so took His eyes, his human, physical, ordinary mortal eyes, away from the trinity, and He experienced the abandonment we all feel when we turn away from God.
The class sat stunned for a moment. Then a buddy I work with said: “This is the kind of stuff I have to put up with every morning!” and everyone laughed.
I sat back, feeling a little better at having distracted my heart and mind for a few moments from my absent wife.
She came over later. She had spent the night at her AA sponsor’s on a mattress we had taken off a spare bed. She now wanted to borrow my van to go to John’s house to retrieve her hope chest and dresser.
I repeated that I thought it best if she stayed at her friend’s, a neutral place where she can get to know herself before deciding where she really wanted to be, what she really wanted to do, with her life.
She left. She took about an hour longer to retrieve her things than was necessary. She came back, feeling sad for leaving him. She said she loved him.
I took a deep breath, consciously forced my arms, my body, to relax, remain calm. With as much restraint as I could muster I spoke firmly, almost fiercely, with clipped, well-chosen words.
“You are so fickle! You spend an hour or so here, see the responsibilities involved in raising these children, see how much they love and miss you, and say you want to move back. You spend an hour over there and say you love him and can’t bear to leave him.
“You don’t know what the hell you want!
“Go to your friend’s house. Stay there a month. Learn who you are and what you want, and decide, once and for all. You can’t be here. You can’t be there either.
“This isn’t good for our kids. This isn’t good for me. And this isn’t good for you!
“You have been sneaking and lying, and pretending, and dancing on the fence. Stand up for who you are. Discover who you are! If you really love him, a month won’t matter, you will know that being with him is truly where you belong. But if this is all about your confusion and dependancies, then you need to set yourself apart from both of us and get to know your own heart and mind.
“But do not contact him. If you want to go to him, come to me first. Be honest with yourself and with me. Say what you want. Don’t sneak. Don’t lie. Stand up for who you are and act with integrity. Tell me the truth and then follow through with it!”
So that is where we left it. She moved her pieces of furniture back in. I reglued a broken drawer and a runner. Isaac’s eyes brightened, hoping his mother was returning. I cautioned him not to read too much into this.
That evening I went to an Al Anon meeting while she went to her AA meeting. Waiting for the doors to open I walked a couple of houses away, she joined me.
“This isn’t going to work, Will.”
“OK...”
“I can’t keep stringing you and the boys along, this isn’t fair to any of you.”
“That is your choice. But be sure that you can live with that decision. Can you say that you believe there is no hope for our marriage?”
She hesitated a moment or two.
“That’s what I think. I don’t think you will ever be able to trust me, and I don’t know if I can forget John.”
“OK. Fine. Would you please drop by the courthouse in Oregon City tomorrow and pickup the divorce papers? They will cost $5. Do you need any money?”
“No, I have enough.”
“Also, pick up a quit claim, probably a realtor’s office, so we can take care of the property.”
“I’m sorry. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Don’t worry about it. We need to move on from this insane balancing act.”
I went to the meeting. Announced our decision. Left early.
I woke at 5:00. I had fallen asleep about 11:30. A little more sleep than usual.
Got showered, ironed my clothes, fixed my lunch, got the boys up and dressed.
She said she’d be by to fix the boy’s breakfast, but she was late, calling just 20 minutes before Isaac needed to board the school bus.
I told her it was OK. That I would go ahead and take off. I passed her a couple of blocks away.
Then she emailed me:
Hi. Sorry about running a little late this morning. I will take an alarm clock over to Kerri's so that I can do better from now on. Kerri reminded me last night that this separation is supposed to be to help me figure out what I really want and that I don't have to make any decisions yet. I guess you are right about being influenced too easily one way or the other. I just want all the hurting to stop and it seems to me that making a final decision is the only way to begin, but she is right I need to take the time to really decide what I want. I know that I don't want to leave you and the boys in a bad spot. I have made everyone too dependent on me and now I feel trapped because they are, that is my own fault I know it is. I am sorry. I hope you have a good day. I will be here when Isaac gets home and take him to the oral surgeon appointment this afternoon. Then perhaps if you don't mind I will fix us all some dinner, or bring some home depending on the time. See you later.
I’m not sure what that means. Doesn’t sound like a path to marriage to me. I sent a simple reply:
OK...
Get well.
Be calm.
If you want to hold on on divorce, DO NOT SEE JOHN AGAIN.
If you do want to see him, don't sneak, tell me first. We can handle it like adults.
Even if you leave, it is worth the effort to begin to rebuild trust, even if it ends in divorce, I need to believe what you tell me.
I love you.
Take care.
Dinner is OK.
So there it is.
I have no clue what is going to happen. But I am exhausted, and ready to toss in the towel. Perhaps some will see me as failing in my marriage. But from my perspective, I have been patient, loving, forgiving, supportive, and tolerant. Those are her words as well.
If she doesn’t want to work on this marriage, if she wants to continue this affair, that is her choice.
I want a partner. I want a marriage. But that is an equation with two parts. If she does not want it, then I am exhausted enough, weary enough, and perhaps even wise enough, to see that going our separate ways is best for all concerned.
So there you are... from weird thoughts about the brain, mind, soul, trinity, quantum physics, the Crucifixion, and the nature of sin, to resignation, resolve, and willingness to allow her to choose, I continue as a parent, a teacher, and a friend, while I wonder about my role as a husband and a man.
Man, I hope I get enough sleep tonight.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
Locks
“So, you’ve locked me out of my own house!”
“You left me for another man! You left! There are consequences for that!”
“I paid for that house too! It’s my house too!”
“Look, I’m sorry you’re hurt and angry. But when you walked in on me the other day while I was on the toilet so you could throw something away, it got to me. I didn’t even know you were in the house.
“You have been secretive about where you are, where John lives, and yet you can come and go here as you please? You left me for another man! Think about what that means to me!”
“So that is how it is. Fine.”
“Look, I want us to get together again. I love you. I would love to work this out. But I need some control over my own home. You left. This doesn’t have to be the final thing between us. If you stop seeing him, if you get help for yourself, I won’t divorce you. I’ll keep you on my health insurance. I will help you in any way I can. But you need to demonstrate I can trust you”
We were walking our dog, Rocky, in the woods.
As we started the walk she had reached out and taken my hand. We walked like that a ways, making small talk.
I had told her that I hoped things could work out, I was working my way around to telling her I had changed the locks on the house.
“I know,” she said. “I love you, too. But I also love John.”
I let go of her hand. We walked on in silence.
I mentioned that I had had a bad night, four hours' sleep, nightmares.
I knew she would not take the lock thing well.
She had called before coming over, just as I had asked her to in a text message earlier.
“How are you set for money?” I asked.
“I’m OK. John gave me $20.”
I pulled a $20 out and gave it to her.
“No, that’s all right,” she said. “You keep your money.”
“I don’t want you broke. Take it.”
We walked a little further. I opened my wallet again looked at the $7 in it. Opened the hidden pocket, took out my stash, another $20, gave it to her. She protested a little more firmly, but ended up taking it.
We did a couple of laps on the looping wood-chip paths of the woods a mile from our home.
“This isn’t a situation I am happy with,” I told her. “I want it to be different. We can divorce if you want, but I want to work things out. This is a path toward reconciliation if you want it. Stay somewhere neutral, get yourself better, don’t see John, and it can work out.”
“I get it! I get it!”
The conversation grew tense, and then sad. We went “home.”
She had come with her clothes packed in the car. She was indeed moving out from John’s. She had planned on moving her stuff back into our home and staying with her AA sponsor for a while.
She told me she was going to an AA meeting tonight, across the river in Wilsonville. That she was meeting with her sponsor at a Starbuck’s at 7:00 before the meeting and she would ask her if she could stay with her (she had offered before).
The afternoon was... weird. She was angry, upset, but had no where to go, and suddenly, she finds this house is no longer her home. She asked if she could go lie down in our bed, maybe take a nap with the dog.
“Of course.”
After a while I went in, lay beside her, read a bit. She was crying a little.
I got up when I heard the dryer chime, announcing it had finished drying the load of Levi’s.
I fixed dinner. It was strange.
She seemed to suddenly get it. She was my guest. This was no longer her home. She came out when the phone rang, answered it. I asked her who it was when she hung up.
“Someone taking a poll.”
I treated her as I would a guest. Fixed her a coffee. She offered to help with dinner. I told her to just go and relax, that I could handle it.
She apologized for answering the phone. I told her it was all right.
She said she wanted to put her clothes in the closet. I told her that was fine.
“I guess I can come by when the kids are here and get changes of clothes when I need them.”
She was hinting that she would like a key to the house. I didn’t respond.
While I fixed dinner she made trip after trip from the car to the bedroom, putting her things back.
Isaac had a sly smile brightening his face, he was struggling to hide his hope. He thought she was back.
We sat down for dinner. I reached out and took the boys' hands for prayer. The readily took my hands and she saw that we had changed the way we began our meals. We no longer say grace over our food with each of us clasping our own hands. Things have changed.
She insisted on doing the dishes. She and I talked a little about appointments, things she could come over and help with. She wants to fix them breakfast before school on Monday, get here about 6:30.
When it got time for her to leave I was in the living room reading to the boys. She announced she was taking off, that she would see us tomorrow. Isaac’s face darkened.
So, she has gone to her meeting. I’m listening to Pavarotti. I don’t understand Italian, but I like his voice anyway.
It is dark outside.
“You left me for another man! You left! There are consequences for that!”
“I paid for that house too! It’s my house too!”
“Look, I’m sorry you’re hurt and angry. But when you walked in on me the other day while I was on the toilet so you could throw something away, it got to me. I didn’t even know you were in the house.
“You have been secretive about where you are, where John lives, and yet you can come and go here as you please? You left me for another man! Think about what that means to me!”
“So that is how it is. Fine.”
“Look, I want us to get together again. I love you. I would love to work this out. But I need some control over my own home. You left. This doesn’t have to be the final thing between us. If you stop seeing him, if you get help for yourself, I won’t divorce you. I’ll keep you on my health insurance. I will help you in any way I can. But you need to demonstrate I can trust you”
We were walking our dog, Rocky, in the woods.
As we started the walk she had reached out and taken my hand. We walked like that a ways, making small talk.
I had told her that I hoped things could work out, I was working my way around to telling her I had changed the locks on the house.
“I know,” she said. “I love you, too. But I also love John.”
I let go of her hand. We walked on in silence.
I mentioned that I had had a bad night, four hours' sleep, nightmares.
I knew she would not take the lock thing well.
She had called before coming over, just as I had asked her to in a text message earlier.
“How are you set for money?” I asked.
“I’m OK. John gave me $20.”
I pulled a $20 out and gave it to her.
“No, that’s all right,” she said. “You keep your money.”
“I don’t want you broke. Take it.”
We walked a little further. I opened my wallet again looked at the $7 in it. Opened the hidden pocket, took out my stash, another $20, gave it to her. She protested a little more firmly, but ended up taking it.
We did a couple of laps on the looping wood-chip paths of the woods a mile from our home.
“This isn’t a situation I am happy with,” I told her. “I want it to be different. We can divorce if you want, but I want to work things out. This is a path toward reconciliation if you want it. Stay somewhere neutral, get yourself better, don’t see John, and it can work out.”
“I get it! I get it!”
The conversation grew tense, and then sad. We went “home.”
She had come with her clothes packed in the car. She was indeed moving out from John’s. She had planned on moving her stuff back into our home and staying with her AA sponsor for a while.
She told me she was going to an AA meeting tonight, across the river in Wilsonville. That she was meeting with her sponsor at a Starbuck’s at 7:00 before the meeting and she would ask her if she could stay with her (she had offered before).
The afternoon was... weird. She was angry, upset, but had no where to go, and suddenly, she finds this house is no longer her home. She asked if she could go lie down in our bed, maybe take a nap with the dog.
“Of course.”
After a while I went in, lay beside her, read a bit. She was crying a little.
I got up when I heard the dryer chime, announcing it had finished drying the load of Levi’s.
I fixed dinner. It was strange.
She seemed to suddenly get it. She was my guest. This was no longer her home. She came out when the phone rang, answered it. I asked her who it was when she hung up.
“Someone taking a poll.”
I treated her as I would a guest. Fixed her a coffee. She offered to help with dinner. I told her to just go and relax, that I could handle it.
She apologized for answering the phone. I told her it was all right.
She said she wanted to put her clothes in the closet. I told her that was fine.
“I guess I can come by when the kids are here and get changes of clothes when I need them.”
She was hinting that she would like a key to the house. I didn’t respond.
While I fixed dinner she made trip after trip from the car to the bedroom, putting her things back.
Isaac had a sly smile brightening his face, he was struggling to hide his hope. He thought she was back.
We sat down for dinner. I reached out and took the boys' hands for prayer. The readily took my hands and she saw that we had changed the way we began our meals. We no longer say grace over our food with each of us clasping our own hands. Things have changed.
She insisted on doing the dishes. She and I talked a little about appointments, things she could come over and help with. She wants to fix them breakfast before school on Monday, get here about 6:30.
When it got time for her to leave I was in the living room reading to the boys. She announced she was taking off, that she would see us tomorrow. Isaac’s face darkened.
So, she has gone to her meeting. I’m listening to Pavarotti. I don’t understand Italian, but I like his voice anyway.
It is dark outside.
Right and Wrong
I think folks have an innate sense of right and wrong. I believe it is a gift from God, and that for most of us most of the time it is easy to know what is fair, what is right good and just and kind and loving.
But...
I am having a lot of trouble on this one.
My wife has left, though she has made small overtures toward reconciliation. My children are hurting. I am hurting.
And I am exhausted.
I am torn between staying true to my wedding vows and in admitting that there isn’t any hope in repairing them. I am torn between what scripture says about forgiveness and love, and protecting my children, my home, and myself. I am torn between helping my wife get healthy and whole, and letting her make her own choices, using the free will God gave her.
Last night we had another Moon Howlin’. I had a bratwurst on a stick hovering over the coals while four buddies and I talked about anything and nothing. And of course, important things.
Yesterday was a strange day. Brenda came over in the morning. We went and walked the cemetery and talked.
She was apologetic, saying she was sorry, that she wished she hadn’t done what she had done, that she would fix it if she could, but she can’t.
I asked her several times if she would really wants to. She was evasive, but finally asked what I was thinking.
I told her I felt she had three areas of her life that were really messed up. That she needed to get help with them.
She needs to work her AA steps and get a grip on her alcohol dependency. She has a sponsor to help her, and she should listen to her, work those steps.
She needs psychological help. She is so angry, so hurt, so confused, so self-destructive. She needs counseling and to work through those internal demons and find a way to heal her heart and mind. She has been hurt for years and she in needs a psychological counselor to help her work those steps.
She needs spiritual help. A marriage should have two people pulling in the same direction. She feels God is cruel, callous, uncaring, and vindictive. I have been growing in one direction spiritually and she in another. She needs someone who can come alongside her and show her how God is loving, kind. That the hurts of the world do not come from Him, but from the evil choices people make.
I also told her she is too proud. She doesn’t put herself under authority easily, and that is why it is hard for her to take such steps.
She and I have experienced hard things together. But sharing experiences does not mean we feel the same way about them.
For her, Willy’s death was a bad thing. A terrible thing. But it happened and it is over. For me, I cannot think back to it and not feel guilt and great sorrow. For me that event was a watershed event which pours through all the years which followed.
For me, the church fire was a bad thing. A terrible thing. But it happened and it is over. For her, she cannot get away from that event and sees the presence of Jeremiah in our home as a constant reminder of the problems he represents, the burden he will always be for her, a watershed event which continues to pour through all the years which follow.
We experience such things very differently and now we are so far apart.
As for our marriage, it is over if she stays with him. Flat over. I told her she needs to find some other place to live, a neutral place. Her AA sponsor has offered her a place.
At the counseling session yesterday the counselor asked her what she was doing there if she was seeing this other man. What did she want?
Brenda suddenly became very angry and said she didn’t know and left.
The counselor turned to me. I sat there, a little stunned. She told me I had to leave as well. If I stayed Brenda would not feel the counselor was impartial.
Brenda was surprised to see me coming out into the parking lot.
“What are you doing out here?”
“She kicked me out.”
I explained why.
"I hate that woman."
"I don't know why. She isn't taking sides and is just asking whatt we want out of counseling. I was surprised when you left.
"I thought you would have told her we were there to learn to better communicate, or get a little help in working through this mess..."
We went back in together.
Bottom line, she said she would move out from John’s by Saturday. She needed to get someone to help her move the furniture she has over there and she didn’t want to ask him to do it.
At first, that sounded to me like she was taking the right step. She is going to move to a neutral place, and promising to stop seeing him.
But...
She is giving herself two more days there.
That isn’t an indication she is serious. If she were, she would have spent the night somewhere else.
Maybe I am tired. I only had four hours sleep again last night, typical of the past week, and those hours were filled with nightmares.
I think I have to divorce her.
Gazing into those coals of that fire last night things seem simple. A fire is like that. An elemental part of the world.
But in gazing at my life right and wrong doesn’t seem to be always so clear.
But...
I am having a lot of trouble on this one.
My wife has left, though she has made small overtures toward reconciliation. My children are hurting. I am hurting.
And I am exhausted.
I am torn between staying true to my wedding vows and in admitting that there isn’t any hope in repairing them. I am torn between what scripture says about forgiveness and love, and protecting my children, my home, and myself. I am torn between helping my wife get healthy and whole, and letting her make her own choices, using the free will God gave her.
Last night we had another Moon Howlin’. I had a bratwurst on a stick hovering over the coals while four buddies and I talked about anything and nothing. And of course, important things.
Yesterday was a strange day. Brenda came over in the morning. We went and walked the cemetery and talked.
She was apologetic, saying she was sorry, that she wished she hadn’t done what she had done, that she would fix it if she could, but she can’t.
I asked her several times if she would really wants to. She was evasive, but finally asked what I was thinking.
I told her I felt she had three areas of her life that were really messed up. That she needed to get help with them.
She needs to work her AA steps and get a grip on her alcohol dependency. She has a sponsor to help her, and she should listen to her, work those steps.
She needs psychological help. She is so angry, so hurt, so confused, so self-destructive. She needs counseling and to work through those internal demons and find a way to heal her heart and mind. She has been hurt for years and she in needs a psychological counselor to help her work those steps.
She needs spiritual help. A marriage should have two people pulling in the same direction. She feels God is cruel, callous, uncaring, and vindictive. I have been growing in one direction spiritually and she in another. She needs someone who can come alongside her and show her how God is loving, kind. That the hurts of the world do not come from Him, but from the evil choices people make.
I also told her she is too proud. She doesn’t put herself under authority easily, and that is why it is hard for her to take such steps.
She and I have experienced hard things together. But sharing experiences does not mean we feel the same way about them.
For her, Willy’s death was a bad thing. A terrible thing. But it happened and it is over. For me, I cannot think back to it and not feel guilt and great sorrow. For me that event was a watershed event which pours through all the years which followed.
For me, the church fire was a bad thing. A terrible thing. But it happened and it is over. For her, she cannot get away from that event and sees the presence of Jeremiah in our home as a constant reminder of the problems he represents, the burden he will always be for her, a watershed event which continues to pour through all the years which follow.
We experience such things very differently and now we are so far apart.
As for our marriage, it is over if she stays with him. Flat over. I told her she needs to find some other place to live, a neutral place. Her AA sponsor has offered her a place.
At the counseling session yesterday the counselor asked her what she was doing there if she was seeing this other man. What did she want?
Brenda suddenly became very angry and said she didn’t know and left.
The counselor turned to me. I sat there, a little stunned. She told me I had to leave as well. If I stayed Brenda would not feel the counselor was impartial.
Brenda was surprised to see me coming out into the parking lot.
“What are you doing out here?”
“She kicked me out.”
I explained why.
"I hate that woman."
"I don't know why. She isn't taking sides and is just asking whatt we want out of counseling. I was surprised when you left.
"I thought you would have told her we were there to learn to better communicate, or get a little help in working through this mess..."
We went back in together.
Bottom line, she said she would move out from John’s by Saturday. She needed to get someone to help her move the furniture she has over there and she didn’t want to ask him to do it.
At first, that sounded to me like she was taking the right step. She is going to move to a neutral place, and promising to stop seeing him.
But...
She is giving herself two more days there.
That isn’t an indication she is serious. If she were, she would have spent the night somewhere else.
Maybe I am tired. I only had four hours sleep again last night, typical of the past week, and those hours were filled with nightmares.
I think I have to divorce her.
Gazing into those coals of that fire last night things seem simple. A fire is like that. An elemental part of the world.
But in gazing at my life right and wrong doesn’t seem to be always so clear.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Just a Bag of Meat
It is Wednesday morn and I stepped in to the boys’ room to see if they were ready to get up. They weren’t of course, but I needed to at least let them know I was up, that I had showered, and that we would be taking off in a couple of hours.
I’ve been up early again. Long before the sun rose I walked along the beach and managed to keep my feet dry this time.
I haven’t taken any Xanax to calm my nerves, just listened to that Estonian choral music I mentioned the other day.
I suspect that Brenda has not moved out her stuff like we had planned. Oh I’m sure she came by and picked up some clothes, a few small items, but I just feel it, that she has avoided taking real steps to complete the separation her actions started. Just as she has been trying to straddle the fence all along, she has not made the commitment to move out that her actions dictate she should.
I suppose she is keeping her options open.
After all, I have been forgiving and accommodating, and have sought to help her at my own expense for so long, why would she think that I need her to get out?
This isn’t only about her infidelity. Or about her attitude towards our children. There are many things that her actions shout out telling me, telling the world, that she is one very mixed up, hurting, damaged human being.
Her attitude toward God, the view that He is cruel or capricious, or at the very least, uncaring, is an obstacle in our marriage as well. We are in such different places in our faith that it isn’t easy for me to hear what she thinks or feels, and my actions which show how much my faith means to me must certainly create tension in her.
There is a large part of me that wants to rescue her. After all, I love her, I want her happy.
It was pretty chilly last night. Unusual weather for this time of year. With the wind chill it was barely above freezing. I heard the snow level was down to 500 feet.
Still, I walked the beach in the dark, praying and thinking.
When we return the difficult situation will be in our laps again. I wish I could help her, set things right, but she must want this marriage if it is to work. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it, if she does not want this, then it cannot be.
I’ve often thought there are some things about my beliefs, my faith, that are rather odd. I’m inherently a selfish being. I am born into this world expecting, demanding, all my needs be met, and I slowly, ever so slowly, learn to mature away from that paradigm to where love, altruism, caring, giving, become more important. My faith helps me along that path, but I know that by the time I reach the end of my days I will have grown very little in the larger scheme of things, the eternal view of things.
That is what is so strange about my faith.
I’m not sure what the afterlife will be like, but it seems to me that I will stumble into a realm of love and caring and joy and I will be amazed, mystified at how different that reality will be.
I will be with beings that have existed before there was time, older than the 14 billion years that have passed since the creation. I picture those august beings moving gently about, giants who take care that their robes of power and grace do not crush me as they pass towering by. I picture these mighty beings rumbling and singing something akin to the choral melodies of Arvo Part, Te Deum, and bowing low, almost to a level where I can perceive their faces of shining love revealing a glimpse of thoughts they have mulled over eons, in honor of the glowing center of all things, a trinity of beings. A trinity that in its existence demonstrates the central reality of love, grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice.
I imagine I will find comfort seeking out those who also managed to enter a side gate of that sacred place, a gate so small a camel would have to crawl to pass through, just as I will do. I will see my loved ones, my grandmother, my child, friends and spiritual celebrities, all sliding in that side gate, paying a borrowed bribe to be let in. And that would have been barred from us if the bribe wasn’t the blood which flowed from one of that trinity, that central glow of love and grace.
I suppose it would feel strange to know that I had lived less than a century, yet I could move about that great place, among those august presences.
Why should I be there?
There are a few basic rules God has given us to guide us in proper behavior, for creatures which have souls, though they ignore the implications. I have failed so many of those rules. I have envied. I have lusted, and stolen, and lied. I have made my desires more important than those of my Creator.
Yet, He has done all He could to allow me the chance to accept that payment, that bribe that permits the magistrates, the gate keepers of the side gate, to overlook the list of my crimes and let me in.
Why did He do that?
I am nearly an animal. I live upon the lives of other living things, plants, animals, the very minerals of earth, air, and sea, and despite this heritage of corporeal life I am welcome to eternity.
Why did He do that?
I am a strange mixture of base animal needs and desires, sprinkled with a longing for things of the spirit, testimony that I’ve a soul in addition to the mind that can plan things good and things evil.
Brenda just called. She is sounding... hurt, scared, sad... sorry. She says she will be at the house when we return. I think she wants to come back.
Hmmmm...
I notice I just wrote “house” not “home”. I have read that the word “home” is an English word that doesn’t have identical counterparts, the same conotations, in other languages. Home is more than a place to live. It is the center of our lives, of comfort. Home can also mean larger things, the town where we grew up, the nation we come from if we are abroad. The fact I wrote “house” rather than “home” is an indication of my feelings right now. When a home loses its heart, it becomes just a house.
Perhaps that is what is so wonderful about Heaven. We sense that it is home like no other place in this world can ever be. That it is literally the center, and that our souls instinctively know that when we slip in through that side gate, and Saint Peter (an amusing mythical concept) looks over the description of our lives, sacrificial blood will have blotted out our deeds, our weaknesses, our failings.
The reason for all those transgressions we do while our souls animate these blobs of flesh is because we are self-centered.
The hurts my wife has given me is because of her placement of her self above all other things. A little pleasure. A little escape from responsibility. A little sense of freedom, and the nasty streak of decay that she has tracked across our lives creates a stench that nearly overwhelms me and my children.
Much like the filthy stains of sinful slime every human being has left trailing through their lives sins Eve said “You know, I think I do want that.”
It must seem strange for those august beings to find themselves surrounded by infant spirits, just beginning to see a greater realm, a greater truth.
I suspect that is what was behind Satan’s anger, envy, pride. I suspect he simply believes we should never be allowed through the gate. He didn’t want to share those shining halls with the smelly, ephemeral creatures which sprung from soil and consuming other things so they may sweat, and grunt and defecate and reproduce and then sing alongside majesty to the same center that he had been created for.
But the Boss, the Creator, the Living Word is the ultimate authority, and He knew that if He paid the price with His perfection, that the Spirit would shower us with a cleansing baptism that would permit us to walk through that gate without trailing the muck from the swamp we had passed through.
I think it is too easy for us to believe that we somehow deserve that. After all, He has been forgiving and accommodating, and has sought to help us at His own expense for so long, why wouldn't such self-centered creatures as ourselves expect He won't let us come home?
Brenda thinks He has been cruel, making her barren, giving and taking a child, providing two children for adoption who ultimately demonstrate they will be something like children all of their lives.
She doesn't see that the majority of the hurts in our lives, in all the world's lives, flows from the freedom to do what we wish, our free will.
Despite the constant rejection of the love and sacrifice He repeatedly offers to us, we choose to run to the things which ultimately hurt us and those around us.
The hurts we create are because of we place of ourselves above all other things. A little pleasure. A little escape from responsibility. A little sense of freedom, and the nasty streak of decay we track across our lives creates a stench that nearly overwhelms the promise of true freedom, to true love, to home.
In a few hours I will be having a conversation with my wife. I believe she is seeking a path out of her mistakes, a way around the consequences of her sins of self-centeredness.
I’m not sure what I can, or should, do.
It is good to have the example of my Lord, but I am still a walking bag of meat that has as its initial motivation a sense of self preservation.
I’ve been up early again. Long before the sun rose I walked along the beach and managed to keep my feet dry this time.
I haven’t taken any Xanax to calm my nerves, just listened to that Estonian choral music I mentioned the other day.
I suspect that Brenda has not moved out her stuff like we had planned. Oh I’m sure she came by and picked up some clothes, a few small items, but I just feel it, that she has avoided taking real steps to complete the separation her actions started. Just as she has been trying to straddle the fence all along, she has not made the commitment to move out that her actions dictate she should.
I suppose she is keeping her options open.
After all, I have been forgiving and accommodating, and have sought to help her at my own expense for so long, why would she think that I need her to get out?
This isn’t only about her infidelity. Or about her attitude towards our children. There are many things that her actions shout out telling me, telling the world, that she is one very mixed up, hurting, damaged human being.
Her attitude toward God, the view that He is cruel or capricious, or at the very least, uncaring, is an obstacle in our marriage as well. We are in such different places in our faith that it isn’t easy for me to hear what she thinks or feels, and my actions which show how much my faith means to me must certainly create tension in her.
There is a large part of me that wants to rescue her. After all, I love her, I want her happy.
It was pretty chilly last night. Unusual weather for this time of year. With the wind chill it was barely above freezing. I heard the snow level was down to 500 feet.
Still, I walked the beach in the dark, praying and thinking.
When we return the difficult situation will be in our laps again. I wish I could help her, set things right, but she must want this marriage if it is to work. It doesn’t matter how I feel about it, if she does not want this, then it cannot be.
I’ve often thought there are some things about my beliefs, my faith, that are rather odd. I’m inherently a selfish being. I am born into this world expecting, demanding, all my needs be met, and I slowly, ever so slowly, learn to mature away from that paradigm to where love, altruism, caring, giving, become more important. My faith helps me along that path, but I know that by the time I reach the end of my days I will have grown very little in the larger scheme of things, the eternal view of things.
That is what is so strange about my faith.
I’m not sure what the afterlife will be like, but it seems to me that I will stumble into a realm of love and caring and joy and I will be amazed, mystified at how different that reality will be.
I will be with beings that have existed before there was time, older than the 14 billion years that have passed since the creation. I picture those august beings moving gently about, giants who take care that their robes of power and grace do not crush me as they pass towering by. I picture these mighty beings rumbling and singing something akin to the choral melodies of Arvo Part, Te Deum, and bowing low, almost to a level where I can perceive their faces of shining love revealing a glimpse of thoughts they have mulled over eons, in honor of the glowing center of all things, a trinity of beings. A trinity that in its existence demonstrates the central reality of love, grace, forgiveness, and sacrifice.
I imagine I will find comfort seeking out those who also managed to enter a side gate of that sacred place, a gate so small a camel would have to crawl to pass through, just as I will do. I will see my loved ones, my grandmother, my child, friends and spiritual celebrities, all sliding in that side gate, paying a borrowed bribe to be let in. And that would have been barred from us if the bribe wasn’t the blood which flowed from one of that trinity, that central glow of love and grace.
I suppose it would feel strange to know that I had lived less than a century, yet I could move about that great place, among those august presences.
Why should I be there?
There are a few basic rules God has given us to guide us in proper behavior, for creatures which have souls, though they ignore the implications. I have failed so many of those rules. I have envied. I have lusted, and stolen, and lied. I have made my desires more important than those of my Creator.
Yet, He has done all He could to allow me the chance to accept that payment, that bribe that permits the magistrates, the gate keepers of the side gate, to overlook the list of my crimes and let me in.
Why did He do that?
I am nearly an animal. I live upon the lives of other living things, plants, animals, the very minerals of earth, air, and sea, and despite this heritage of corporeal life I am welcome to eternity.
Why did He do that?
I am a strange mixture of base animal needs and desires, sprinkled with a longing for things of the spirit, testimony that I’ve a soul in addition to the mind that can plan things good and things evil.
Brenda just called. She is sounding... hurt, scared, sad... sorry. She says she will be at the house when we return. I think she wants to come back.
Hmmmm...
I notice I just wrote “house” not “home”. I have read that the word “home” is an English word that doesn’t have identical counterparts, the same conotations, in other languages. Home is more than a place to live. It is the center of our lives, of comfort. Home can also mean larger things, the town where we grew up, the nation we come from if we are abroad. The fact I wrote “house” rather than “home” is an indication of my feelings right now. When a home loses its heart, it becomes just a house.
Perhaps that is what is so wonderful about Heaven. We sense that it is home like no other place in this world can ever be. That it is literally the center, and that our souls instinctively know that when we slip in through that side gate, and Saint Peter (an amusing mythical concept) looks over the description of our lives, sacrificial blood will have blotted out our deeds, our weaknesses, our failings.
The reason for all those transgressions we do while our souls animate these blobs of flesh is because we are self-centered.
The hurts my wife has given me is because of her placement of her self above all other things. A little pleasure. A little escape from responsibility. A little sense of freedom, and the nasty streak of decay that she has tracked across our lives creates a stench that nearly overwhelms me and my children.
Much like the filthy stains of sinful slime every human being has left trailing through their lives sins Eve said “You know, I think I do want that.”
It must seem strange for those august beings to find themselves surrounded by infant spirits, just beginning to see a greater realm, a greater truth.
I suspect that is what was behind Satan’s anger, envy, pride. I suspect he simply believes we should never be allowed through the gate. He didn’t want to share those shining halls with the smelly, ephemeral creatures which sprung from soil and consuming other things so they may sweat, and grunt and defecate and reproduce and then sing alongside majesty to the same center that he had been created for.
But the Boss, the Creator, the Living Word is the ultimate authority, and He knew that if He paid the price with His perfection, that the Spirit would shower us with a cleansing baptism that would permit us to walk through that gate without trailing the muck from the swamp we had passed through.
I think it is too easy for us to believe that we somehow deserve that. After all, He has been forgiving and accommodating, and has sought to help us at His own expense for so long, why wouldn't such self-centered creatures as ourselves expect He won't let us come home?
Brenda thinks He has been cruel, making her barren, giving and taking a child, providing two children for adoption who ultimately demonstrate they will be something like children all of their lives.
She doesn't see that the majority of the hurts in our lives, in all the world's lives, flows from the freedom to do what we wish, our free will.
Despite the constant rejection of the love and sacrifice He repeatedly offers to us, we choose to run to the things which ultimately hurt us and those around us.
The hurts we create are because of we place of ourselves above all other things. A little pleasure. A little escape from responsibility. A little sense of freedom, and the nasty streak of decay we track across our lives creates a stench that nearly overwhelms the promise of true freedom, to true love, to home.
In a few hours I will be having a conversation with my wife. I believe she is seeking a path out of her mistakes, a way around the consequences of her sins of self-centeredness.
I’m not sure what I can, or should, do.
It is good to have the example of my Lord, but I am still a walking bag of meat that has as its initial motivation a sense of self preservation.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
The Difference Between Science and Poetry
The lights are still out in the boys’ room, though I’ve been up walking the beach for hours.
A king size bed is pretty large for one person, and laying beside a pillow isn’t very satisfying.
A waning gibbous moon was gliding toward the western horizon as I walked the moist sand in wet shoes.
There is something calming about the sound of the waves, the steady slow beat of its crash ending in the drawn out whoosh of the sand drinking in the diminishing flow. It is like the heartbeat of the world... like, as a child, I heard my father’s heart beating his salty blood in his chest. Walking along the ocean’s edge I can hear the natural rhythm of the world’s pulse, beating to a greater heart.
I know the waves are caused by the accumulated push of breezes and winds over thousands of miles of water, and suddenly squeezed and concentrated from its dark depths to the slanted shore along this coast of North America.
But, as it is with most scientific explanations, there is something missing, a lack of whole truth in the explanation. Not that the explanation isn’t true. It is just incomplete.
Science loves precision, fine details of measurement, the inclusion of all variables, from the wind and moon to the way the way electrons tend to spend more “time” rounding the oxygen atom in a water molecule making them cling to each other,
and to sodium, and all the other carefully monitored and explained stuff floating in the sea.
But science’s precision avoids poetry. And there is often greater truth in poetry than is found in the periodic table.
The stars were out, the air was cool (38 F), a breeze was blowing, my hands were cold, my heart heavy.
Ever read any Walt Whitman? There is a poem of his that describes this disconnect between science and the truth found in beauty:
When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
It is strange to be mourning my marriage when I know, deep in my heart, that it simply isn’t any good. It’s like loving something beautiful that has died... died, decayed, gone.
I loved that child I buried 15 years ago, but I would not enjoy seeing what his little body has become by now. The beauty in him is what is left in my heart and in what now resides in eternity.
I love my wife. But, being brutally honest with myself, we are no longer compatible. When we met we were smoking pot, drinking beer, partying quite a bit. She worked hard, I fumbled around with various harebrained attempts at earning a living. In the end I grew up. I went through six years of college, getting a master’s degree in education.
My taste in music expanded. I came to love not only the classic rock of my teen years, but learned to love jazz, bluegrass, motown, Indian (Shankar, etc.), folk, blues, and classical. I haven’t been able to get into hip hop or rap, which I’m told is accurately spelled starting with a silent “C”.
As I walked the beach this morning my iPod lent the spiritually choral strains of Arvo Part Te Deum as a sound track for my thoughts, watching the foam of the crashing waves catch the light of the moon, the rippling water sparkling with reflections of stars who’s light began streaming toward this sad soul thousands of years ago.
This is not music my wife enjoys.
She does not enjoy many things I do, or at least the way I do. Art, church, theology, science, our children, our marriage.
I have changed. So has she.
Though I would have loved to work hard to find each other, to find each other’s hearts, minds, spirits, she has moved on, finding someone else who is living a life closer to the one she prefers.
I look in the mirror, and I see an old guy I barely recognize. I haven’t cut my hair since August and its shagginess, the grey in my beard, the bags under my eyes, it must be someone else on the other side of that looking glass.
The cell phone just chirped. I snatched it up, hoping it was a message from her. It was only singing out to tell me that it had finished recharging (I’m still unused to it, as this is only the third day I have had it).
That is a good example of my heart. I sit here in this hotel room chair, tapping away at a keyboard, pondering the differences between my wife and I and how I know we really cannot find each other again, and even if we could, my trust in her is so shattered that even if we glued it all back together with care, counseling, and kindness, it would forever show the deep cracks and chips of our mistakes.
Yet, at the thought she might be contacting me makes this rebellious heart of mine to leap at the hope of hearing from her.
When we get home tomorrow there will be empty places where she had removed a piece of furniture, taken away a family photo, cleared out a shelf of books, removed clothing from the closet.
I’ll have to do something about those empty spots. Move stuff around, rehang pictures, shuffle furniture here and there, redistribute contents of cupboards.
I’m going to be OK. I really am. I know it. But my breath gasps in starts and stops, my heart races, and tears spring to my eyes.
She hasn’t the commitment to marriage, to adoption, that I have.
That is a truth. It is the sort of measured truth science could explain by listing in neat columns her actions, her views, her lies and betrayals.
But it doesn’t convey the destructive poetry I feel of watching this forest fire in my heart consume 28 years of looking at a forest I thought was very different from the one that was actually growing there.
Well, the sun has come up...
I’m going to go check on my boys now.
A king size bed is pretty large for one person, and laying beside a pillow isn’t very satisfying.
A waning gibbous moon was gliding toward the western horizon as I walked the moist sand in wet shoes.
There is something calming about the sound of the waves, the steady slow beat of its crash ending in the drawn out whoosh of the sand drinking in the diminishing flow. It is like the heartbeat of the world... like, as a child, I heard my father’s heart beating his salty blood in his chest. Walking along the ocean’s edge I can hear the natural rhythm of the world’s pulse, beating to a greater heart.
I know the waves are caused by the accumulated push of breezes and winds over thousands of miles of water, and suddenly squeezed and concentrated from its dark depths to the slanted shore along this coast of North America.
But, as it is with most scientific explanations, there is something missing, a lack of whole truth in the explanation. Not that the explanation isn’t true. It is just incomplete.
Science loves precision, fine details of measurement, the inclusion of all variables, from the wind and moon to the way the way electrons tend to spend more “time” rounding the oxygen atom in a water molecule making them cling to each other,
and to sodium, and all the other carefully monitored and explained stuff floating in the sea.But science’s precision avoids poetry. And there is often greater truth in poetry than is found in the periodic table.
The stars were out, the air was cool (38 F), a breeze was blowing, my hands were cold, my heart heavy.
Ever read any Walt Whitman? There is a poem of his that describes this disconnect between science and the truth found in beauty:
When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
It is strange to be mourning my marriage when I know, deep in my heart, that it simply isn’t any good. It’s like loving something beautiful that has died... died, decayed, gone.
I loved that child I buried 15 years ago, but I would not enjoy seeing what his little body has become by now. The beauty in him is what is left in my heart and in what now resides in eternity.
I love my wife. But, being brutally honest with myself, we are no longer compatible. When we met we were smoking pot, drinking beer, partying quite a bit. She worked hard, I fumbled around with various harebrained attempts at earning a living. In the end I grew up. I went through six years of college, getting a master’s degree in education.
My taste in music expanded. I came to love not only the classic rock of my teen years, but learned to love jazz, bluegrass, motown, Indian (Shankar, etc.), folk, blues, and classical. I haven’t been able to get into hip hop or rap, which I’m told is accurately spelled starting with a silent “C”.
As I walked the beach this morning my iPod lent the spiritually choral strains of Arvo Part Te Deum as a sound track for my thoughts, watching the foam of the crashing waves catch the light of the moon, the rippling water sparkling with reflections of stars who’s light began streaming toward this sad soul thousands of years ago.
This is not music my wife enjoys.
She does not enjoy many things I do, or at least the way I do. Art, church, theology, science, our children, our marriage.
I have changed. So has she.
Though I would have loved to work hard to find each other, to find each other’s hearts, minds, spirits, she has moved on, finding someone else who is living a life closer to the one she prefers.
I look in the mirror, and I see an old guy I barely recognize. I haven’t cut my hair since August and its shagginess, the grey in my beard, the bags under my eyes, it must be someone else on the other side of that looking glass.
The cell phone just chirped. I snatched it up, hoping it was a message from her. It was only singing out to tell me that it had finished recharging (I’m still unused to it, as this is only the third day I have had it).
That is a good example of my heart. I sit here in this hotel room chair, tapping away at a keyboard, pondering the differences between my wife and I and how I know we really cannot find each other again, and even if we could, my trust in her is so shattered that even if we glued it all back together with care, counseling, and kindness, it would forever show the deep cracks and chips of our mistakes.
Yet, at the thought she might be contacting me makes this rebellious heart of mine to leap at the hope of hearing from her.
When we get home tomorrow there will be empty places where she had removed a piece of furniture, taken away a family photo, cleared out a shelf of books, removed clothing from the closet.
I’ll have to do something about those empty spots. Move stuff around, rehang pictures, shuffle furniture here and there, redistribute contents of cupboards.
I’m going to be OK. I really am. I know it. But my breath gasps in starts and stops, my heart races, and tears spring to my eyes.
She hasn’t the commitment to marriage, to adoption, that I have.
That is a truth. It is the sort of measured truth science could explain by listing in neat columns her actions, her views, her lies and betrayals.
But it doesn’t convey the destructive poetry I feel of watching this forest fire in my heart consume 28 years of looking at a forest I thought was very different from the one that was actually growing there.
Well, the sun has come up...
I’m going to go check on my boys now.
.........................
Addendum: Brenda is sending emails, sounding very apologetic. I've got mixed (very) feelings.
We went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium this afternoon. The boys liked it. Here are some pics...
Teeth!
Those stretched penny souvenirs
Shark!
Shark!
Seals
Why, I otter...
...stick my nose on the glass!
We went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium this afternoon. The boys liked it. Here are some pics...
Teeth!
Those stretched penny souvenirs
Shark!Shark!
Seals
Why, I otter...
...stick my nose on the glass!
Monday, March 24, 2008
Ashes for Beauty
I feel the need to write, but I have no clue what to write about.
Brenda and I exchanged text messages this morning while I was walking the dog. She sounds concerned about me.
Hell, I’m concerned about me... and my sons.
We are in the hotel room in Newport. I'm in the boys' room. Brenda had reserved a room for them and one for she and I. It isn't much fun being in that room alone.
The boys are watching TV. They don’t want to do anything, they would rather be home. The idea of us being there while she picks up her stuff sounds worse.
We brought the peach and pumpkin pies Brenda made before she left.
Just as we were heading out from Canby a pair of jays flew out in front of the van. The trailing one tried to reverse direction and the van hit it a glancing blow. I saw it fluttering in my review mirror. It managed to hop across the road dodging traffic headed the other way. I wonder if it will be OK. I’d hate to think that one of that mated pair will die.
Yesterday was pretty rough at church. There were a lot of people, of course, Easter Sunday and all. I felt pretty conspicuous sitting there beside Jeremiah, no Brenda, no Mary (Brenda’s mom who usually goes with us, but had stayed up late the night before with Jehovah Witnesses), Isaac sitting on the other side of the room with friends.
I did my best to worship, to concentrate. I took my glasses off, as usual, shut my eyes, as usual, lifted my hands and worshipped, as usual, the words sank in, tears flowed down my cheeks...
Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross
I really want to lay this burden down. I really want to trade these ashes for beauty. I really want to kiss the feet of mercy.
My head tells me that what I’m doing is right. She had an affair 13 years ago. I forgave her. She started another a year ago. I forgave her, she ended it. She started it up again. My head tells me that I can not trust her. Even my heart says I can’t trust her.
Still, I gave her my heart, I gave her my fidelity. I thought she had done the same.
This is a hell of a post. Moping in a hotel room, thinking of a bird struck by my van as it flew with its mate, recalling tears in church.
The church is creating a photo directory. I emailed the guy taking the pictures. Told him that I would like to retake that photo with just me and the boys in it. I don’t want a picture of the four of us smiling in a directory that will be around for years.
I really want to write something inspiring. I really want to connect my head and my heart and my spirit to spiritual truths and show that I can stride through the crap in my life without getting my pants dirty.
I suppose it helps to write. Just write. Writing helps me process. It is the way I think. It helps me make those connections, the ones between my head, heart, spirit, and truth.
I know this isn’t a very pleasing, or perhaps interesting, post to read, but this little corner of the internet is also my journal, a record of my thoughts, and this mish mash of emotions and feelings belongs here just as much as the pithy words of spiritual epiphanies.
Brenda and I exchanged text messages this morning while I was walking the dog. She sounds concerned about me.
Hell, I’m concerned about me... and my sons.
We are in the hotel room in Newport. I'm in the boys' room. Brenda had reserved a room for them and one for she and I. It isn't much fun being in that room alone.
The boys are watching TV. They don’t want to do anything, they would rather be home. The idea of us being there while she picks up her stuff sounds worse.
We brought the peach and pumpkin pies Brenda made before she left.
Just as we were heading out from Canby a pair of jays flew out in front of the van. The trailing one tried to reverse direction and the van hit it a glancing blow. I saw it fluttering in my review mirror. It managed to hop across the road dodging traffic headed the other way. I wonder if it will be OK. I’d hate to think that one of that mated pair will die.Yesterday was pretty rough at church. There were a lot of people, of course, Easter Sunday and all. I felt pretty conspicuous sitting there beside Jeremiah, no Brenda, no Mary (Brenda’s mom who usually goes with us, but had stayed up late the night before with Jehovah Witnesses), Isaac sitting on the other side of the room with friends.
I did my best to worship, to concentrate. I took my glasses off, as usual, shut my eyes, as usual, lifted my hands and worshipped, as usual, the words sank in, tears flowed down my cheeks...
Trade these ashes in for beauty
And wear forgiveness like a crown
Coming to kiss the feet of mercy
I lay every burden down
At the foot of the cross
I really want to lay this burden down. I really want to trade these ashes for beauty. I really want to kiss the feet of mercy.
My head tells me that what I’m doing is right. She had an affair 13 years ago. I forgave her. She started another a year ago. I forgave her, she ended it. She started it up again. My head tells me that I can not trust her. Even my heart says I can’t trust her.
Still, I gave her my heart, I gave her my fidelity. I thought she had done the same.
This is a hell of a post. Moping in a hotel room, thinking of a bird struck by my van as it flew with its mate, recalling tears in church.
The church is creating a photo directory. I emailed the guy taking the pictures. Told him that I would like to retake that photo with just me and the boys in it. I don’t want a picture of the four of us smiling in a directory that will be around for years.
I really want to write something inspiring. I really want to connect my head and my heart and my spirit to spiritual truths and show that I can stride through the crap in my life without getting my pants dirty.
I suppose it helps to write. Just write. Writing helps me process. It is the way I think. It helps me make those connections, the ones between my head, heart, spirit, and truth.
I know this isn’t a very pleasing, or perhaps interesting, post to read, but this little corner of the internet is also my journal, a record of my thoughts, and this mish mash of emotions and feelings belongs here just as much as the pithy words of spiritual epiphanies.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Easter
Tomorrow is Easter Sunday. The high point of the Christian calendar. The day we celebrate life over death, grace over sin, immortality over decay and corruption.
This is the time of new beginnings, new hope.
We’ve had a very large tree in our yard all the years we have lived here. It was forked at the bottom, splitting into two trunks that were each over two feet wide. I understand it’s the type of tree from which Solomon built the first temple, often called a cedar of Lebanon, though it isn’t like any sort of cedar we know of in the northwest. Its wood is stronger, denser. It was, to me, just some sort of pine tree.
One of the trunks was growing over our house. Its angle and size showed it would someday prove a danger to our home. We knew it would have to come down.
My brother knows a guy who handles large trees, and taking down this one was a very small job for him. It was his company which removed a large portion of that grove of trees where the owl at the cemetery lived, the one who has been gone for months now. I think “Joe the Tree Guy” agreed to do it for $700 more as a favor to my brother than anything else. He said we can take as long as we want to pay him. The deal was he would chip and haul off the small branches, cut the remainder into firewood length, and leave it for us to clean up.
Pretty good deal. A friend and I rented a hydraulic splitter to handle all that wood. We were surprised how five hours of hard steady work by two adults and two teens (and Brenda and Jeremiah pitching in for the final hour and a half) weren’t enough to get it all split. I finished it up over the next week by hand with wedges and a maul.
It generated about two and a half cords of wood for our wood stoves.
My friend took a pickup truck full. We stacked the rest in the backyard.
The front yard looks, feels, naked without that tree. I’m sorry to cut down anything so beautiful. But it threatened our home, it had to come down.
A couple of weeks ago I planted a peach tree between that stump in the yard and the street. It is located where it will get plenty of light, have enough room from the driveway, and grow back into some sort of privacy barrier again.
It has already begun to bud flowers.
That’s one of the great things about living in the Willamette Valley here in Oregon. Spring hits with a vigorous verdant explosion. The daffodils and tulips spring up, the grass grows a dark green so quickly it seems you can almost see it moving.
There’s no school on Monday as it is the beginning of Spring Break. It seems appropriate for Spring Break to start (this year anyway) the day after Easter.
I’m taking the boys to the coast for a couple of days, using some sort of hotel credit card points we have accumulated over the past few years.
While we are gone Brenda will be moving her stuff out of our home and into her boyfriend’s house.
I have taken my wedding ring off my left hand and placed it on my right.
I spent some time in the Prayer Room this morning. I wrote tiny letters of praise and scripture and pleas for help in the shirt the carpenter is wearing in the image I’m sketching on the wall.
I’ve shed a few tears, but I feel a sense of relief that things are moving on.
I told Brenda that I will still be taking her mother to church on Sundays. She loves the sense of community she gets from attending our church, and even though we are divorcing, she is still the grandmother to my children and I do not wish to take that from her.
My mother wrote me a letter, and followed it up with a phone call last night. She is a gifted artist in Southern California. She has had a vision for a new painting, a man running a race, crowds on either side. He has my face.
She says she does not know what has been going on (I haven’t told her) but she says she senses I have been going through trials these past few months.
The pine tree is gone, given its life over to warm us in coming winters. The peach tree has been planted, and already promising fruit, though it only stands three feet tall.
My heart aches. But it is Spring, a time for new beginnings.
It is Easter.
He is risen.
This is the time of new beginnings, new hope.
We’ve had a very large tree in our yard all the years we have lived here. It was forked at the bottom, splitting into two trunks that were each over two feet wide. I understand it’s the type of tree from which Solomon built the first temple, often called a cedar of Lebanon, though it isn’t like any sort of cedar we know of in the northwest. Its wood is stronger, denser. It was, to me, just some sort of pine tree.
One of the trunks was growing over our house. Its angle and size showed it would someday prove a danger to our home. We knew it would have to come down.
My brother knows a guy who handles large trees, and taking down this one was a very small job for him. It was his company which removed a large portion of that grove of trees where the owl at the cemetery lived, the one who has been gone for months now. I think “Joe the Tree Guy” agreed to do it for $700 more as a favor to my brother than anything else. He said we can take as long as we want to pay him. The deal was he would chip and haul off the small branches, cut the remainder into firewood length, and leave it for us to clean up.
Pretty good deal. A friend and I rented a hydraulic splitter to handle all that wood. We were surprised how five hours of hard steady work by two adults and two teens (and Brenda and Jeremiah pitching in for the final hour and a half) weren’t enough to get it all split. I finished it up over the next week by hand with wedges and a maul.
It generated about two and a half cords of wood for our wood stoves.
My friend took a pickup truck full. We stacked the rest in the backyard.
The front yard looks, feels, naked without that tree. I’m sorry to cut down anything so beautiful. But it threatened our home, it had to come down.
A couple of weeks ago I planted a peach tree between that stump in the yard and the street. It is located where it will get plenty of light, have enough room from the driveway, and grow back into some sort of privacy barrier again.
It has already begun to bud flowers.
That’s one of the great things about living in the Willamette Valley here in Oregon. Spring hits with a vigorous verdant explosion. The daffodils and tulips spring up, the grass grows a dark green so quickly it seems you can almost see it moving.
There’s no school on Monday as it is the beginning of Spring Break. It seems appropriate for Spring Break to start (this year anyway) the day after Easter.
I’m taking the boys to the coast for a couple of days, using some sort of hotel credit card points we have accumulated over the past few years.
While we are gone Brenda will be moving her stuff out of our home and into her boyfriend’s house.
I have taken my wedding ring off my left hand and placed it on my right.
I spent some time in the Prayer Room this morning. I wrote tiny letters of praise and scripture and pleas for help in the shirt the carpenter is wearing in the image I’m sketching on the wall.
I’ve shed a few tears, but I feel a sense of relief that things are moving on.
I told Brenda that I will still be taking her mother to church on Sundays. She loves the sense of community she gets from attending our church, and even though we are divorcing, she is still the grandmother to my children and I do not wish to take that from her.
My mother wrote me a letter, and followed it up with a phone call last night. She is a gifted artist in Southern California. She has had a vision for a new painting, a man running a race, crowds on either side. He has my face.
She says she does not know what has been going on (I haven’t told her) but she says she senses I have been going through trials these past few months.
The pine tree is gone, given its life over to warm us in coming winters. The peach tree has been planted, and already promising fruit, though it only stands three feet tall.
My heart aches. But it is Spring, a time for new beginnings.
It is Easter.
He is risen.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Tugging at My Ring
It's late. I should be sleeping.
I was tired. I was beginning to slip off into a fitful sleep, but Brenda started talking. She started with apologies. Soft, gentle words to comfort me.
We have been talking about divorce all afternoon.
There was a point, while I was driving back to Canby, when I was tugging on my wedding ring, beginning to pull it off and say that I just didn't believe we could make it... and she said that maybe she could learn to be happy in our home.
I let go of the ring. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
Stopped by work to pick up my van. I told her I'd be home in a little while, and stopped by a local bar to have a whiskey with ginger ale and bitters.
Brenda had her mom over for dinner. It had been planned.
After dinner, I put on my pajamas, crawled into bed, closed my eyes, prayed for almost an hour.
We watched a movie.
I went to the restroom during the movie. Took my ring off my left hand, moved it to my right. i looked at it for a little while. Slipped it back on my left and rejoined her in the bedroom, taking the DVD payer off pause and finished watching a depressing movie about injustice in Africa.
When the lights went out she started whispering the kind words, words of hope, of how things may work out. The words turned to her frustrations. And the words drifted toward threats of how I have to be different...
I told her I wasn't in the mood to hear her complaints about the past again.
She has gone to sleep in the living room and I am tapping at this keyboard once again, having trouble sleeping.
I understand what is going on.
When we went to pick up my van I had told her I needed an answer.
I at least needed an answer about when I would have an answer. I told her I could wait a week, maybe even a month, but I cannot hold on to "maybe's" any longer. We need to decide if we are going to try to save our marriage.
I think she wants to, and she doesn't.
I think she is incapable of making that decision.
I think she will waiver atop this fence until I make the decision.
And it is a hard decision.
I love her.
I want a real marriage.
I want to be loved.
I do not want a marriage where we pretend to be OK.
I'm just trying to do the right thing here. I don't believe in divorce. I love my wife, despite how she has hurt me.
But, for the very reasons I don't believe in dovorce, I believe in marriage, a real marriage.
We have reserved a hotel room at the beach for Monday night. Spring Break next week. We need to talk about this.
You know, I have tried to be a good man. I have tried to live with integrity, honesty. I know that I have made mistakes and I want to be the best person I can be. I have tried to assess my own failures and take responsibility for who I am, what I do.
One would think that such qualities would make me someone a woman could love.
Somehow, that isn't enough for my wife to love me the way a wife should. Before things got tense she said that she thought maybe she could learn to love me alike that again.
These half promises, these hints of what I want, balanced against the constant threat of losing her... it is too hard.
So... somehow we have managed to stay in limbo. The threats of divorce and the promises of reconciliation flow to and fron almost on an hourly basis.
I'm going to take another Xanax and another sleeping pill. I'm in no frame of mind to ponder this any longer tonight.
Lord have mercy.
I was tired. I was beginning to slip off into a fitful sleep, but Brenda started talking. She started with apologies. Soft, gentle words to comfort me.
We have been talking about divorce all afternoon.
There was a point, while I was driving back to Canby, when I was tugging on my wedding ring, beginning to pull it off and say that I just didn't believe we could make it... and she said that maybe she could learn to be happy in our home.
I let go of the ring. My knuckles turned white on the steering wheel.
Stopped by work to pick up my van. I told her I'd be home in a little while, and stopped by a local bar to have a whiskey with ginger ale and bitters.
Brenda had her mom over for dinner. It had been planned.
After dinner, I put on my pajamas, crawled into bed, closed my eyes, prayed for almost an hour.
We watched a movie.
I went to the restroom during the movie. Took my ring off my left hand, moved it to my right. i looked at it for a little while. Slipped it back on my left and rejoined her in the bedroom, taking the DVD payer off pause and finished watching a depressing movie about injustice in Africa.
When the lights went out she started whispering the kind words, words of hope, of how things may work out. The words turned to her frustrations. And the words drifted toward threats of how I have to be different...
I told her I wasn't in the mood to hear her complaints about the past again.
She has gone to sleep in the living room and I am tapping at this keyboard once again, having trouble sleeping.
I understand what is going on.
When we went to pick up my van I had told her I needed an answer.
I at least needed an answer about when I would have an answer. I told her I could wait a week, maybe even a month, but I cannot hold on to "maybe's" any longer. We need to decide if we are going to try to save our marriage.
I think she wants to, and she doesn't.
I think she is incapable of making that decision.
I think she will waiver atop this fence until I make the decision.
And it is a hard decision.
I love her.
I want a real marriage.
I want to be loved.
I do not want a marriage where we pretend to be OK.
I'm just trying to do the right thing here. I don't believe in divorce. I love my wife, despite how she has hurt me.
But, for the very reasons I don't believe in dovorce, I believe in marriage, a real marriage.
We have reserved a hotel room at the beach for Monday night. Spring Break next week. We need to talk about this.
You know, I have tried to be a good man. I have tried to live with integrity, honesty. I know that I have made mistakes and I want to be the best person I can be. I have tried to assess my own failures and take responsibility for who I am, what I do.
One would think that such qualities would make me someone a woman could love.
Somehow, that isn't enough for my wife to love me the way a wife should. Before things got tense she said that she thought maybe she could learn to love me alike that again.
These half promises, these hints of what I want, balanced against the constant threat of losing her... it is too hard.
So... somehow we have managed to stay in limbo. The threats of divorce and the promises of reconciliation flow to and fron almost on an hourly basis.
I'm going to take another Xanax and another sleeping pill. I'm in no frame of mind to ponder this any longer tonight.
Lord have mercy.
Post Script
I staye up too late last night. almost 1:00. Reading.
She slipped into bed just after I had hit the snooze button the the alarm at 500 a.m.
I pulled her into my arms.
"I think we can try to save our marriage. I think we can work it out," she said.
I'm not so sure,"I mumbled, "but I want to do what is right. But we can try. It means a lot of work. "
"I do love you," she said.
"Well, thats's a start."
I'm so tired, I'm wobbling when I walk. I staggered around the cemetrery this morning. Tring to pray. The owl has been silent for weeks.
I was sort of looking forwad to the new challenges in running my home alone, the work that would cosume my thinking hours. Instead... I see a mountain bbefore me I need to climb.
An old spiritual comes to mind...
She slipped into bed just after I had hit the snooze button the the alarm at 500 a.m.
I pulled her into my arms.
"I think we can try to save our marriage. I think we can work it out," she said.
I'm not so sure,"I mumbled, "but I want to do what is right. But we can try. It means a lot of work. "
"I do love you," she said.
"Well, thats's a start."
I'm so tired, I'm wobbling when I walk. I staggered around the cemetrery this morning. Tring to pray. The owl has been silent for weeks.
I was sort of looking forwad to the new challenges in running my home alone, the work that would cosume my thinking hours. Instead... I see a mountain bbefore me I need to climb.
An old spiritual comes to mind...
Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it
The way may not be easy
You didn't say that it would be
But when my tribulations get too light
We turn to stay away from thee
Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it
Who cares we bring on to you
You told us that we could
But you have also tried and help them self
And I believe that we should
Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it
Lord don’t move that mountain
Give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it
The way may not be easy
You didn't say that it would be
But when my tribulations get too light
We turn to stay away from thee
Lord don’t move that mountain
And give me the strength to climb it
Please don’t move that stumbling block
But lead me Lord around it
Lead me Lord around it
Lead me Lord around it
Lord, guide me. Tell me what You would have me do, and
i will do it.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
It’s Going to be OK
I’m OK.
Things are rough, but I’m OK.
Today was Palm Sunday. We were in our usual spots at the beginning of the service. Well, actually I was a little late, but so was the worship team. We were all in the pastor’s office doing our usual prayer when the pastor came in to tell us it was show time.
There was a procession of little kids waving palm fronds (did you know the palm tree’s name comes from the Greek “palma” meaning "hand" because the fronds look like hands?) and singing songs. The green leaves waved as they wound their way through the aisles, like raised hands of praise.
It is a reflective moment... thinking about that first Palm Sunday when Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem before Passover (did you know the name of that city stems from the words for Jew's peace?). I think, perhaps, some in that crowd would also be on hand early the coming Friday morning demanding He be put to death.
The little kids sang a song. And then another. I could feel Brenda's tension growing. A third song began, and she stiffened even more. I leaned over, whispered.
“Do you want out of here?”
Her eyes suddenly reddened. She nodded.
I took her by the hand and led her to the Prayer Room. She sat on the couch, oblivious of the image of the carpenter on the wall above her, the one made of prayers and scribbled copies of the Gospel of John (see recent posts).
“I hate sitting there and seeing other people’s perfect children,” she cried.
“I know.”
“I don’t know why God hates me.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Then why did He give us a baby that died and retards for the next two?!”
My words jerked out firmly, sharply.
“First, I don’t see those three children as bad things. I am constantly sad that Willy died, but I see his being a part of my life as a blessing, no matter how short it was. Secondly, I love those two boys and I count them as blessings also. Thirdly, you have called yourself a ‘slut” lately, and I don’t see you that way either. It upsets me when you talk about yourself that way. You can feel anyway you choose, but I will not remain silent when I disagree about such important things because that implies agreement. From now on, when you say something I disagree with, I will either state how I feel about it, and you can accept that I have another view, or I will walk away.”
The conversation went down hill from there.
I tried being gentle, giving her space to breathe, but she couldn’t bear it, and she left. I went back to my seat. I listened to the message, I worshiped at the end.
She came back at the end of the service. Collected her mom.
I went down to the Sunday School class where we are discussing the novel The Shack. I’m supposed to be helping the discussion in that class somehow, but I don’t know if I’m doing any good.
I went home. She was fixing lunch for the boys. I took a walk. She was gone when I returned. I noticed she had packed stuff, suitcases were missing.
She came back. She had a bottle of red wine and a bottle of some sort of Bailey’s knock off wine. She poured herself a tall glass. If she drank it she would be breaking her sobriety.
“Are you sure you want to do that? I won’t tell you what to do, but you may regret doing this.”
“I want to get drunk.”
“I would like to talk about our future, as we said we would, but I don’t want to be able to say we had the conversation when you were half crocked.”
“I won’t be.”
I took a funnel out of the drawer. Put it in the wine bottle.
“It is your choice. You can still drink it later, but I would prefer you wait until after we have this conversation.”
She didn’t take a drink. But she didn’t pour it back into the bottle either.
We went outside to talk.
We talked about where we are at. We didn’t raise our voices. We didn’t interrupt each other. We spoke about how we had hurt each other. We spoke about the possibility of divorce. How this Thursday's counseling session will probably be the time we make that decision.
She drank that glass.
And another.
And another.
On Sunday nights she usually goes to an AA meeting, and I go to the Al Anon meeting downstairs. She, of course, wasn’t going to the meeting tonight.
“I’m going to the meeting anyway,” I said. “Whether or not we stay together, I need the tools they have there to know how to live and deal with an alcoholic."
She was surprised.
When I went in I saw her sponsor through the door. I nodded at her. She came over. I thanked her for telling Brenda that she could stay with her, that it is good she has options. I said I want what is best for her, even if it means difficult times for me.
I just got back from that meeting. She is passed out in bed.
During our conversation this afternoon she said that when she got home from church she thought seriously about taking every prescription medicine we have. All her antidepressants, all of mine. All of Jeremiah’s anti-seizure medicine, and all my sleeping pills. Isaac's Ritalin. All of her mother’s meds for schizophrenia and anything else she could find.
She didn’t.
I just paused to rushed in and check her... Is she breathing? Yes. She is just asleep...
Right after church today a woman came up to me. She said Isaac had asked her to come visit Brenda this week. To pray for and with her.
Isaac is worried.
I just tucked him and Jeremiah into bed, said prayers over them. I tucked Brenda in as well. I went out to the car and got the antidepressants out of her packed luggage and brought them in. Sat her up, Made her take the pill. Tucked her in.
She asked if I had dumped out her wine. I told her I had. I said she had already gotten out of it what she wanted. I hid the bottle of cream stuff she bought me. It’s full. Hard to toss full bottles of anything.
In putting Isaac to bed I told him I knew what he had said to the woman in our church. I did my very best to reassure him that I love him. That Mommy loves him. That it is my job to worry about him, and Mommy, and Jeremiah, and Rocky and paying the bills and all that. I told him to do his best not to worry, just know he is loved, and concentrate on being a kid. I could tell he felt better.
Last week I wrote a post about “John”. I wrote about the Gospel of John and the three other books of the Bible attributed to him. I talked about other uses of the word, and how they all mixed together in my heart. But there was something really important in that post as well (if you haven’t read it, check it out... it is the most difficult thing I can remember writing).
One part of that post was a prayer. At the end.
I want to just say that since I prayed that prayer, I have felt a certain relief. My heart still aches, but some of the poison I have been carrying was countered by that antidote of prayer.
During the Sunday school class this morning there was a brief conversation about helping each other by sharing each other’s grief. One woman, a very sweet woman I love a great deal, said something like: "All pain is the same." I know she meant that we all get hurt, and in being hurt we can empathize with others enough to help each other.
I made a stupid statement correcting her on the point of pains being the same, though I knew I was parsing the words too carefully for the discussion.
What they didn’t know was that while I had my head down, listening to the conversation which had sprung from a portion of the novel The Shack, describing a terrible pain the central character was experiencing, I was reliving my greatest pain.
I was thinking about that boy of mine who died fifteen years ago, and how much I loved him, and how much I still miss him (similar to the hurt of the character in the story, but still, very different). I was thinking about my wife, fleeing our church at the sight of healthy happy children. I was thinking about my son who sought help for his mother today when he saw her leave the service with tears in her eyes.
No one saw me wipe the tear from my eye. Everyone heard me critique the statement that all pain is alike.
This world hurts. This world is a constant groan from the aches and pains born of free will and self centeredness.
I’m really OK.
I know that there are difficult times ahead. It may be that within the week I will remove my wedding ring, in learning our marriage cannot be saved. It may be that within the week I will be given fresh hope that it can be saved.
I know that tears sometimes come when wounds are opened, whether new or old.
Whatever path my life takes, I know there are difficult times ahead.
But I know I’m going to be OK.
Things are rough, but I’m OK.
Today was Palm Sunday. We were in our usual spots at the beginning of the service. Well, actually I was a little late, but so was the worship team. We were all in the pastor’s office doing our usual prayer when the pastor came in to tell us it was show time.
There was a procession of little kids waving palm fronds (did you know the palm tree’s name comes from the Greek “palma” meaning "hand" because the fronds look like hands?) and singing songs. The green leaves waved as they wound their way through the aisles, like raised hands of praise.
It is a reflective moment... thinking about that first Palm Sunday when Jesus was welcomed into Jerusalem before Passover (did you know the name of that city stems from the words for Jew's peace?). I think, perhaps, some in that crowd would also be on hand early the coming Friday morning demanding He be put to death.
The little kids sang a song. And then another. I could feel Brenda's tension growing. A third song began, and she stiffened even more. I leaned over, whispered.
“Do you want out of here?”
Her eyes suddenly reddened. She nodded.
I took her by the hand and led her to the Prayer Room. She sat on the couch, oblivious of the image of the carpenter on the wall above her, the one made of prayers and scribbled copies of the Gospel of John (see recent posts).
“I hate sitting there and seeing other people’s perfect children,” she cried.
“I know.”
“I don’t know why God hates me.”
“He doesn’t.”
“Then why did He give us a baby that died and retards for the next two?!”
My words jerked out firmly, sharply.
“First, I don’t see those three children as bad things. I am constantly sad that Willy died, but I see his being a part of my life as a blessing, no matter how short it was. Secondly, I love those two boys and I count them as blessings also. Thirdly, you have called yourself a ‘slut” lately, and I don’t see you that way either. It upsets me when you talk about yourself that way. You can feel anyway you choose, but I will not remain silent when I disagree about such important things because that implies agreement. From now on, when you say something I disagree with, I will either state how I feel about it, and you can accept that I have another view, or I will walk away.”
The conversation went down hill from there.
I tried being gentle, giving her space to breathe, but she couldn’t bear it, and she left. I went back to my seat. I listened to the message, I worshiped at the end.
She came back at the end of the service. Collected her mom.
I went down to the Sunday School class where we are discussing the novel The Shack. I’m supposed to be helping the discussion in that class somehow, but I don’t know if I’m doing any good.
I went home. She was fixing lunch for the boys. I took a walk. She was gone when I returned. I noticed she had packed stuff, suitcases were missing.
She came back. She had a bottle of red wine and a bottle of some sort of Bailey’s knock off wine. She poured herself a tall glass. If she drank it she would be breaking her sobriety.
“Are you sure you want to do that? I won’t tell you what to do, but you may regret doing this.”
“I want to get drunk.”
“I would like to talk about our future, as we said we would, but I don’t want to be able to say we had the conversation when you were half crocked.”
“I won’t be.”
I took a funnel out of the drawer. Put it in the wine bottle.
“It is your choice. You can still drink it later, but I would prefer you wait until after we have this conversation.”
She didn’t take a drink. But she didn’t pour it back into the bottle either.
We went outside to talk.
We talked about where we are at. We didn’t raise our voices. We didn’t interrupt each other. We spoke about how we had hurt each other. We spoke about the possibility of divorce. How this Thursday's counseling session will probably be the time we make that decision.
She drank that glass.
And another.
And another.
On Sunday nights she usually goes to an AA meeting, and I go to the Al Anon meeting downstairs. She, of course, wasn’t going to the meeting tonight.
“I’m going to the meeting anyway,” I said. “Whether or not we stay together, I need the tools they have there to know how to live and deal with an alcoholic."
She was surprised.
When I went in I saw her sponsor through the door. I nodded at her. She came over. I thanked her for telling Brenda that she could stay with her, that it is good she has options. I said I want what is best for her, even if it means difficult times for me.
I just got back from that meeting. She is passed out in bed.
During our conversation this afternoon she said that when she got home from church she thought seriously about taking every prescription medicine we have. All her antidepressants, all of mine. All of Jeremiah’s anti-seizure medicine, and all my sleeping pills. Isaac's Ritalin. All of her mother’s meds for schizophrenia and anything else she could find.
She didn’t.
I just paused to rushed in and check her... Is she breathing? Yes. She is just asleep...
Right after church today a woman came up to me. She said Isaac had asked her to come visit Brenda this week. To pray for and with her.
Isaac is worried.
I just tucked him and Jeremiah into bed, said prayers over them. I tucked Brenda in as well. I went out to the car and got the antidepressants out of her packed luggage and brought them in. Sat her up, Made her take the pill. Tucked her in.
She asked if I had dumped out her wine. I told her I had. I said she had already gotten out of it what she wanted. I hid the bottle of cream stuff she bought me. It’s full. Hard to toss full bottles of anything.
In putting Isaac to bed I told him I knew what he had said to the woman in our church. I did my very best to reassure him that I love him. That Mommy loves him. That it is my job to worry about him, and Mommy, and Jeremiah, and Rocky and paying the bills and all that. I told him to do his best not to worry, just know he is loved, and concentrate on being a kid. I could tell he felt better.
Last week I wrote a post about “John”. I wrote about the Gospel of John and the three other books of the Bible attributed to him. I talked about other uses of the word, and how they all mixed together in my heart. But there was something really important in that post as well (if you haven’t read it, check it out... it is the most difficult thing I can remember writing).
One part of that post was a prayer. At the end.
I want to just say that since I prayed that prayer, I have felt a certain relief. My heart still aches, but some of the poison I have been carrying was countered by that antidote of prayer.
During the Sunday school class this morning there was a brief conversation about helping each other by sharing each other’s grief. One woman, a very sweet woman I love a great deal, said something like: "All pain is the same." I know she meant that we all get hurt, and in being hurt we can empathize with others enough to help each other.
I made a stupid statement correcting her on the point of pains being the same, though I knew I was parsing the words too carefully for the discussion.
What they didn’t know was that while I had my head down, listening to the conversation which had sprung from a portion of the novel The Shack, describing a terrible pain the central character was experiencing, I was reliving my greatest pain.
I was thinking about that boy of mine who died fifteen years ago, and how much I loved him, and how much I still miss him (similar to the hurt of the character in the story, but still, very different). I was thinking about my wife, fleeing our church at the sight of healthy happy children. I was thinking about my son who sought help for his mother today when he saw her leave the service with tears in her eyes.
No one saw me wipe the tear from my eye. Everyone heard me critique the statement that all pain is alike.
This world hurts. This world is a constant groan from the aches and pains born of free will and self centeredness.
I’m really OK.
I know that there are difficult times ahead. It may be that within the week I will remove my wedding ring, in learning our marriage cannot be saved. It may be that within the week I will be given fresh hope that it can be saved.
I know that tears sometimes come when wounds are opened, whether new or old.
Whatever path my life takes, I know there are difficult times ahead.
But I know I’m going to be OK.
Friday, March 14, 2008
Email Update
I just don’t feel up to writing tonight... but I know the last post was cryptic, so I thought I’d let all of you know what’s going on.
But... I’m lazy right now, and I thought I’d just copy the following interchange of emails with a friend to let y’all in on my state of mind. Hope you don’t mind the second hand reprint... I don’t think my friend will mind that I post this either...
My friend:
just making sure you aren't suicidal....
Me:
No...
Actually I'm better than I have been in a long time.
not saying things aren't screwed up. They really are.
At the counselor's I let the usual complaining over my past mistakes run for a half hour. Most of what she had to say was about two decades ago, or about how hard it is dealing with the boys.
then I pushed the conversation, gently, toward where I knew she was headed... That she didn't want this life anymore.
I pushed her enough to get her off the topic of the past and onto the present.
Said I was tired of this whole thing.
Asked if she could imagine us having the kind of marriage we should have.
She had trouble saying she could. Kept talking about how she has these responsibilities to deal with.
I told her I didn't buy it. Though it would be hard, I would finish raising the boys if she didn't want to be here. I said that it sounded to me like she didn't see a future here and I said OK... now lets talk about how to do this divorce thing amicably.
We left the counselor with the promise that next time there would be no longer talk of the past... just present and future.
All the way home I told her that I loved her, I wanted what was good for her, but without a commitment to marriage, I give up. We talked over the details of divorce.
Then...
she started apologizing for the choices she has made, how she has hurt me...
I have accepted those statements, but have made it clear that I am still assuming nothing... that I am looking ahead to getting this cleared up at our next session... the present and the future... tired of the past.
I think she is a little scared... a lot ashamed, has some very harsh words for herself...
But, I'm pushing for either a divorce, now, or a real effort to fix what is wrong.
She said I could keep the house, and if I ever sold it or moved I could give her what was her share then.
I told her nope.
I didn't want to have to figure out at some future date how much equity was hers at this time compared to then... That I would be glad to sit down, look at our assets, our debts, get her what is fair now. Even if it meant that she should get a thousand dollars or so we didn't have, I would be willing to put it on a credit card and make payments just to make things fair and ended.
So...
I'm OK.
I figure there are some tough times ahead.
If divorce, then the mess of figuring this all out and the hard work of raising the boys.
If reconciliation, then the mess of figuring that out and the hard work of working on our marriage.
I know I'll hurt either way... but that someday the hurt will end.
Willy's death hurt so bad that I am still bruised from it. But that event is no longer the central focus of my life.
This will also, one day, something that happened. not something that is happening.
love ya...
'Leaf
My friend:
wow - excellent will. I'm proud of you.
Me:
I think that last post I wrote... about John... helped somehow.
I'm still feeling pretty mixed up enough about it... seeing all those connections between faith, anger, sexuality, forgiveness...
But, I think making the effort to pray for him, of all people, did me good.
I recognize Brenda's role in all of this, I do not accept more blame than I am responsible for... but, I'm not afraid of divorce. If she cannot be the woman I need her to be... OK... her choice.
And...
Perhaps I can even take some of that blame... meaning I chose poorly. I decided to marry her. no one forced me...
I made that choice as well.
I can also choose to say, this is enough.
I am willing to work through it with the counselor if she wants to heal our marriage... but if she doesn't...
fine.
The counselor asked her where would she live if she left.
She said she didn't know, probably with john.
I told her that she could do as she pleases, but, I strongly urge her not to move in with him. not because of jealousy, though I feel some of that, but because she should not jump from one relationship to another without getting herself straight. I told her that there must be someone she knows in all those AA meetings with a spare bedroom she could rent.
I told her I love her, I want to help her, that if we divorce I will do that with as much integrity and honor as I can. I will be fair, kind, loving.
I will do what I should.
: /
My friend:
great note BUT Will i wouldn't give her advice of the "future possibility". She may feel it's add'l control over her choices. If she goes she needs to go on her own....just my unasked for opinion : )
I would hope she would choose to stay and get healthy BUT again, she has to make her own choices as hard as that is to observe.
Me:
Yeah... I just want what's best for her... and I think she understood that was the underlying message.
I'm feeling OK right now.
Feels kind of weird.
My friend:
well enjoy the weirdness of feeling at peace as peace can be under the circumstances. I doubt Brenda thought you'd reach this point.
Me:
Yeah... she's moody again tonight.
She started on a rant earlier when I got home... something about all the meetings and stuff we have to do for the boys. I said, "Don't do 'em. Tell me what you don't want to do, I'll call, and schedule it for me to do."
Then, each time she got a little grumpy, I just smiled and walked out of the room.
I understand she is unhappy. She should be. I understand she has low self esteem... she earned that too.
I'll help her if I can... But if I can't, well that will be up too her.
And you are right about possibilities. My biggest concern here is that she continue to try to find a middle ground... that she just suggests we might work it out... so she can releave her guilt by martyring herself caring for the boys.
I need to thread that needle right.
If we are going to work it out, it will have to be an earnest commitment.
I haven't told her that I can get those phone records out. I'll just see how it plays out. Couple more weeks with the counselor should make it very clear if she is really going to stop sitting in the compost pile of the past, or turn toward a future. If it looks iffy... then I'll see if she has been making calling to where he works, and call her on it.
But... I'll give the counselor a shot. Heck, it's been seven months and still haven't quite lost ALL my marbles. What's another fortnight?
So there you are folks... a quick update courtesy of an anon. friend.
Love you all.
Will
But... I’m lazy right now, and I thought I’d just copy the following interchange of emails with a friend to let y’all in on my state of mind. Hope you don’t mind the second hand reprint... I don’t think my friend will mind that I post this either...
My friend:
just making sure you aren't suicidal....
Me:
No...
Actually I'm better than I have been in a long time.
not saying things aren't screwed up. They really are.
At the counselor's I let the usual complaining over my past mistakes run for a half hour. Most of what she had to say was about two decades ago, or about how hard it is dealing with the boys.
then I pushed the conversation, gently, toward where I knew she was headed... That she didn't want this life anymore.
I pushed her enough to get her off the topic of the past and onto the present.
Said I was tired of this whole thing.
Asked if she could imagine us having the kind of marriage we should have.
She had trouble saying she could. Kept talking about how she has these responsibilities to deal with.
I told her I didn't buy it. Though it would be hard, I would finish raising the boys if she didn't want to be here. I said that it sounded to me like she didn't see a future here and I said OK... now lets talk about how to do this divorce thing amicably.
We left the counselor with the promise that next time there would be no longer talk of the past... just present and future.
All the way home I told her that I loved her, I wanted what was good for her, but without a commitment to marriage, I give up. We talked over the details of divorce.
Then...
she started apologizing for the choices she has made, how she has hurt me...
I have accepted those statements, but have made it clear that I am still assuming nothing... that I am looking ahead to getting this cleared up at our next session... the present and the future... tired of the past.
I think she is a little scared... a lot ashamed, has some very harsh words for herself...
But, I'm pushing for either a divorce, now, or a real effort to fix what is wrong.
She said I could keep the house, and if I ever sold it or moved I could give her what was her share then.
I told her nope.
I didn't want to have to figure out at some future date how much equity was hers at this time compared to then... That I would be glad to sit down, look at our assets, our debts, get her what is fair now. Even if it meant that she should get a thousand dollars or so we didn't have, I would be willing to put it on a credit card and make payments just to make things fair and ended.
So...
I'm OK.
I figure there are some tough times ahead.
If divorce, then the mess of figuring this all out and the hard work of raising the boys.
If reconciliation, then the mess of figuring that out and the hard work of working on our marriage.
I know I'll hurt either way... but that someday the hurt will end.
Willy's death hurt so bad that I am still bruised from it. But that event is no longer the central focus of my life.
This will also, one day, something that happened. not something that is happening.
love ya...
'Leaf
My friend:
wow - excellent will. I'm proud of you.
Me:
I think that last post I wrote... about John... helped somehow.
I'm still feeling pretty mixed up enough about it... seeing all those connections between faith, anger, sexuality, forgiveness...
But, I think making the effort to pray for him, of all people, did me good.
I recognize Brenda's role in all of this, I do not accept more blame than I am responsible for... but, I'm not afraid of divorce. If she cannot be the woman I need her to be... OK... her choice.
And...
Perhaps I can even take some of that blame... meaning I chose poorly. I decided to marry her. no one forced me...
I made that choice as well.
I can also choose to say, this is enough.
I am willing to work through it with the counselor if she wants to heal our marriage... but if she doesn't...
fine.
The counselor asked her where would she live if she left.
She said she didn't know, probably with john.
I told her that she could do as she pleases, but, I strongly urge her not to move in with him. not because of jealousy, though I feel some of that, but because she should not jump from one relationship to another without getting herself straight. I told her that there must be someone she knows in all those AA meetings with a spare bedroom she could rent.
I told her I love her, I want to help her, that if we divorce I will do that with as much integrity and honor as I can. I will be fair, kind, loving.
I will do what I should.
: /
My friend:
great note BUT Will i wouldn't give her advice of the "future possibility". She may feel it's add'l control over her choices. If she goes she needs to go on her own....just my unasked for opinion : )
I would hope she would choose to stay and get healthy BUT again, she has to make her own choices as hard as that is to observe.
Me:
Yeah... I just want what's best for her... and I think she understood that was the underlying message.
I'm feeling OK right now.
Feels kind of weird.
My friend:
well enjoy the weirdness of feeling at peace as peace can be under the circumstances. I doubt Brenda thought you'd reach this point.
Me:
Yeah... she's moody again tonight.
She started on a rant earlier when I got home... something about all the meetings and stuff we have to do for the boys. I said, "Don't do 'em. Tell me what you don't want to do, I'll call, and schedule it for me to do."
Then, each time she got a little grumpy, I just smiled and walked out of the room.
I understand she is unhappy. She should be. I understand she has low self esteem... she earned that too.
I'll help her if I can... But if I can't, well that will be up too her.
And you are right about possibilities. My biggest concern here is that she continue to try to find a middle ground... that she just suggests we might work it out... so she can releave her guilt by martyring herself caring for the boys.
I need to thread that needle right.
If we are going to work it out, it will have to be an earnest commitment.
I haven't told her that I can get those phone records out. I'll just see how it plays out. Couple more weeks with the counselor should make it very clear if she is really going to stop sitting in the compost pile of the past, or turn toward a future. If it looks iffy... then I'll see if she has been making calling to where he works, and call her on it.
But... I'll give the counselor a shot. Heck, it's been seven months and still haven't quite lost ALL my marbles. What's another fortnight?
--------------------
So there you are folks... a quick update courtesy of an anon. friend.
Love you all.
Will
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Friends...
Thank you all for your prayers.
I am uncertain about the future, but I feel resolution is coming.
There is freedom in where I am.
I haven't any idea which way things will go... I suspect there is joy and sorrow ahead... but He has told me it will all be all right.
Your continued prayers are sweet gifts...
I'll be writing again soon.
I am uncertain about the future, but I feel resolution is coming.
There is freedom in where I am.
I haven't any idea which way things will go... I suspect there is joy and sorrow ahead... but He has told me it will all be all right.
Your continued prayers are sweet gifts...
I'll be writing again soon.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
John
Caution: tough post. PG13 or worse. Fair warning. Not even sure I will really post it.
"For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
This is probably the most famous verse in the Bible.
It is the focus of videos, books, and countless sermons.
The verse has its own article on wikipedia.
It’s the one referenced in countless signs held up at sporting events, nailed to trees and fences, painted on barns.
I googled it, and I see it is on coffee cups, patches, T shirts, bumper stickers, all sorts of rather mundane merchandise.
This verse is probably the most quoted, most referenced verse of the Bible.
Rightly so. I can think of no other passage which so succinctly capsulizes our faith.
But this post isn’t about this important passage. In a previous post I mentioned the Gospel of John (the shirt Jesus is wearing is made by writing out the first chapters of that book.) This post is about “John.”
The Gospel of John differs from the other gospels in that its focus is on the person, the Christology, of Jesus. Through this account we see a more empathetic view of Christ, closer to the Jesus in the picture I am drawing on the prayer Room wall. We also see the author appearing in important roles, the one who asks Jesus who will betray Him, the disciple who stands witness through Crucifixion, the disciple Jesus asks to care for Mary, Christ’s mother. He is referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved.”
This “John” is considered by many to be the author of the two epistles of John (John I, and John II), and the book of Revelation.
I enjoy this gospel for its warm, affectionate, reverent, loving view of Jesus.
On the other hand, The Revelation of John is probably my least favorite book of the Bible. This attitude stems from my aversion of trying to scry the future (after my stint in a yogic ashram, I have felt no desire to look beyond the now).
So... The Gospel of John literally forms a great part of the artwork I am doing, the prayers which I write out in our Prayer Room, as I work through the anxieties of my heart.
(See previous post for more about this image.)
At the same time... “John” has another effect in my life.
Over a dozen years ago my wife had an affair with a man named John. He was an unwashed biker without a motorcycle and no permanent address. That affair lasted three months, and hurt me deeply. And I was angry. I sought to recognize my failings, my part in the condition of our marriage, and work to solve those issues.
I tracked him down at one point. Found him in Milwaukie, Oregon near the railroad tracks. He saw me coming. He ran. I caught up to him. Told him clearly to leave my family alone or he would regret it. He did.
I thought about him off and on over the next few years, hurting as I imagined my wife with him.
But I grew a little. I came to a place where I did not fantasize about driving him to the middle of Montana and leaving him far from my home.
I tried to forget that John.
This past summer my wife had another affair. His name is also John. I found notes he had written to my wife, notes she had kept. Details in those notes I wish I could erase from my mind. Notes which I scanned and have kept hidden deep in a corner of a computer’s file. The originals she took and burned the same day I found them, as soon as I returned them to her.
John.
He is a custodian. A man who does not see a wedding ring as a barrier to his desires. A man who avoided me those first few weeks when my suspicions began. When I called him and he said he didn’t know who she was, and sent her home as soon as she arrived at his place a few minutes later.
John is a man I have spoken to once after I had more than suspicions, to tell him to stay clear of my family, that I saw him as a threat to my family and I would do what I could to protect my home. He is a man who continued to secretly contact my wife through emails, text messages, and methods I am probably unaware of.
A man I believe who lacks integrity.
A man my wife has opened he body to, her heart to.
A man whose very existence stirs up the worst in me, goading me to action that is not what I do anymore. Though part of me screams to act, to do the sort of things my father would have done. The actions of a “real” man.
John.
A man who has, according to my wife, a smaller penis than I. (She knew how that would eat at me.)
A man I’ve never laid eyes on, but has affected me deeply, stirring emotions which have torn at my heart, my faith, even my health.
So many thoughts have raced through my mind over “John”.
I’ve thought how toilets are sometimes called a “john”.
I’ve thought how the customers of prostitutes are called “johns”.
I’ve thought about Johns I know who are good friends and I am ashamed how my heart picks up its beat even in thinking of them.
And I’ve thought of the disciple who is pictured so often, laying his head on Jesus’ shoulder, wrapping his arms around Jesus’ mother as she gazes at her dying son. The John who wrote that important verse in the Bible.
And it all gets stirred together. The uses of the word. The two men named John who have tempted my wife. The man who walked with my Lord and called Him friend.
What am I to do here?
This next step is particularly hard for me to write, to do...
Jesus has told me to love my enemies.
This man is my enemy. He has hurt me, my family.
He is also a man with a past that has brought him to a place where the actions he has taken, the actions which have hurt me, have seemed right to him.
Can I forgive him? Should I?
Seems a hard thing to do.
But Jesus forgave even those who whipped Him, drove nails into His body.
Is my sorrow so great? Can my anger, jealousy, rage not wither under the light cast by the forgiveness cruelly nailed to the cross?
Is the mourning I’m going through over my marriage stemming in part because my heart isn’t quite large enough to encompass this man?
I fantasize about going to his home (after I would discover it, a line I have not allowed myself to cross), and beating the crap out of him.
But... that is not what I am called to do. Nope. Far, very far, from it.
Shit.
OK, I understand. I am flawed. I have things about me which need forgiving. I have disrespected God far more than this man has disrespected my family.
He lacks integrity.
Not my business.
He is a coward, an amoral jerk, a philandering cretin creeping about the shadows of my family.
He is a human being.
He is an individual who has little regard for right and wrong and has damaged the lives of myself, my children, and my wife.
He is someone Jesus died for, someone my creator loves.
He’s the son of a bitch that is behind my racing heart, my need for medication and counseling, a cause for my loss of joy in my work, in my life.
He is the source for an honest self reflection on who I am so I may become something better.
He is John.
John is a threat and John is the disciple Jesus loved. John is a toilet, and the name of friends. John is a prostitute’s customer, and the prophetic author of Revelations.
This John is someone I need to get over. I need to forgive him. I need to move past this disgusting mess in my heart. For my own sanity I need to acknowledge he is not the problem in my marriage, and that he isn’t someone I should spend energy, thought, emotional commitment over.
So, here goes...
Heavenly Lord. I am angry at someone and this anger is driving my heart in directions You would not have me go. I am having a difficult time in being the servant You want me to be. Please help me Lord to get to a place where I can stop thinking about this man, stop making connections of all sorts of things to him. Help me Lord to be just a little more like You, and forgive. This is something I cannot do without You. Help me Lord I pray. Help me Lord to pray for my enemy.
Lord... bless this man, John, to be who You want him to be. Bring people alongside of him to help him come to know You better. Give him peace in this strange time when my wife has separated herself (I think, I hope, I pray), even if it is temporary, from him, so he can be more than he is .
Lord, help me to be more sincere in this prayer, than I am.
I am angry, hurt, I even feel violent toward him. This is not who You would have me be.
I love You, Lord. Tell me what You would have me do, and I will obey.
I pray this prayer with as much sincerity as I can muster.
Amen.
"For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16
This is probably the most famous verse in the Bible.
It is the focus of videos, books, and countless sermons.
The verse has its own article on wikipedia.
It’s the one referenced in countless signs held up at sporting events, nailed to trees and fences, painted on barns.
I googled it, and I see it is on coffee cups, patches, T shirts, bumper stickers, all sorts of rather mundane merchandise.
This verse is probably the most quoted, most referenced verse of the Bible.
Rightly so. I can think of no other passage which so succinctly capsulizes our faith.
But this post isn’t about this important passage. In a previous post I mentioned the Gospel of John (the shirt Jesus is wearing is made by writing out the first chapters of that book.) This post is about “John.”
The Gospel of John differs from the other gospels in that its focus is on the person, the Christology, of Jesus. Through this account we see a more empathetic view of Christ, closer to the Jesus in the picture I am drawing on the prayer Room wall. We also see the author appearing in important roles, the one who asks Jesus who will betray Him, the disciple who stands witness through Crucifixion, the disciple Jesus asks to care for Mary, Christ’s mother. He is referred to as “the disciple Jesus loved.”
This “John” is considered by many to be the author of the two epistles of John (John I, and John II), and the book of Revelation.
I enjoy this gospel for its warm, affectionate, reverent, loving view of Jesus.
On the other hand, The Revelation of John is probably my least favorite book of the Bible. This attitude stems from my aversion of trying to scry the future (after my stint in a yogic ashram, I have felt no desire to look beyond the now).
So... The Gospel of John literally forms a great part of the artwork I am doing, the prayers which I write out in our Prayer Room, as I work through the anxieties of my heart.
(See previous post for more about this image.)At the same time... “John” has another effect in my life.
Over a dozen years ago my wife had an affair with a man named John. He was an unwashed biker without a motorcycle and no permanent address. That affair lasted three months, and hurt me deeply. And I was angry. I sought to recognize my failings, my part in the condition of our marriage, and work to solve those issues.
I tracked him down at one point. Found him in Milwaukie, Oregon near the railroad tracks. He saw me coming. He ran. I caught up to him. Told him clearly to leave my family alone or he would regret it. He did.
I thought about him off and on over the next few years, hurting as I imagined my wife with him.
But I grew a little. I came to a place where I did not fantasize about driving him to the middle of Montana and leaving him far from my home.
I tried to forget that John.
This past summer my wife had another affair. His name is also John. I found notes he had written to my wife, notes she had kept. Details in those notes I wish I could erase from my mind. Notes which I scanned and have kept hidden deep in a corner of a computer’s file. The originals she took and burned the same day I found them, as soon as I returned them to her.
John.
He is a custodian. A man who does not see a wedding ring as a barrier to his desires. A man who avoided me those first few weeks when my suspicions began. When I called him and he said he didn’t know who she was, and sent her home as soon as she arrived at his place a few minutes later.
John is a man I have spoken to once after I had more than suspicions, to tell him to stay clear of my family, that I saw him as a threat to my family and I would do what I could to protect my home. He is a man who continued to secretly contact my wife through emails, text messages, and methods I am probably unaware of.
A man I believe who lacks integrity.
A man my wife has opened he body to, her heart to.
A man whose very existence stirs up the worst in me, goading me to action that is not what I do anymore. Though part of me screams to act, to do the sort of things my father would have done. The actions of a “real” man.
John.
A man who has, according to my wife, a smaller penis than I. (She knew how that would eat at me.)
A man I’ve never laid eyes on, but has affected me deeply, stirring emotions which have torn at my heart, my faith, even my health.
So many thoughts have raced through my mind over “John”.
I’ve thought how toilets are sometimes called a “john”.
I’ve thought how the customers of prostitutes are called “johns”.
I’ve thought about Johns I know who are good friends and I am ashamed how my heart picks up its beat even in thinking of them.
And I’ve thought of the disciple who is pictured so often, laying his head on Jesus’ shoulder, wrapping his arms around Jesus’ mother as she gazes at her dying son. The John who wrote that important verse in the Bible.
And it all gets stirred together. The uses of the word. The two men named John who have tempted my wife. The man who walked with my Lord and called Him friend.
What am I to do here?
This next step is particularly hard for me to write, to do...
Jesus has told me to love my enemies.
This man is my enemy. He has hurt me, my family.
He is also a man with a past that has brought him to a place where the actions he has taken, the actions which have hurt me, have seemed right to him.
Can I forgive him? Should I?
Seems a hard thing to do.
But Jesus forgave even those who whipped Him, drove nails into His body.
Is my sorrow so great? Can my anger, jealousy, rage not wither under the light cast by the forgiveness cruelly nailed to the cross?
Is the mourning I’m going through over my marriage stemming in part because my heart isn’t quite large enough to encompass this man?
I fantasize about going to his home (after I would discover it, a line I have not allowed myself to cross), and beating the crap out of him.
But... that is not what I am called to do. Nope. Far, very far, from it.
Shit.
OK, I understand. I am flawed. I have things about me which need forgiving. I have disrespected God far more than this man has disrespected my family.
He lacks integrity.
Not my business.
He is a coward, an amoral jerk, a philandering cretin creeping about the shadows of my family.
He is a human being.
He is an individual who has little regard for right and wrong and has damaged the lives of myself, my children, and my wife.
He is someone Jesus died for, someone my creator loves.
He’s the son of a bitch that is behind my racing heart, my need for medication and counseling, a cause for my loss of joy in my work, in my life.
He is the source for an honest self reflection on who I am so I may become something better.
He is John.
John is a threat and John is the disciple Jesus loved. John is a toilet, and the name of friends. John is a prostitute’s customer, and the prophetic author of Revelations.
This John is someone I need to get over. I need to forgive him. I need to move past this disgusting mess in my heart. For my own sanity I need to acknowledge he is not the problem in my marriage, and that he isn’t someone I should spend energy, thought, emotional commitment over.
So, here goes...
Heavenly Lord. I am angry at someone and this anger is driving my heart in directions You would not have me go. I am having a difficult time in being the servant You want me to be. Please help me Lord to get to a place where I can stop thinking about this man, stop making connections of all sorts of things to him. Help me Lord to be just a little more like You, and forgive. This is something I cannot do without You. Help me Lord I pray. Help me Lord to pray for my enemy.
Lord... bless this man, John, to be who You want him to be. Bring people alongside of him to help him come to know You better. Give him peace in this strange time when my wife has separated herself (I think, I hope, I pray), even if it is temporary, from him, so he can be more than he is .
Lord, help me to be more sincere in this prayer, than I am.
I am angry, hurt, I even feel violent toward him. This is not who You would have me be.
I love You, Lord. Tell me what You would have me do, and I will obey.
I pray this prayer with as much sincerity as I can muster.
Amen.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Wood Working
Today we had our church’s monthly 24 hours of prayer. We get to sign up for one hour sessions.
I managed to get four sessions. I wanted the peace that usually comes from prayer.
Usually comes. Today I left feeling as heavy as when I started.
Worked on a picture on the wall there. Jesus as an ordinary guy... a carpenter. He’s using a chisel to notch out a large beam. I’ve drawn him slightly larger than life. His eyes down, looking at His work, making clear, sharp edges so it will fit another beam. He is wearing a sort of apron, nothing authentic, I just made it up, but it has a couple of pockets. in one pocket the handle of another chisel is barely seen. In another, four large nails.
I’m doing my usual thing, creating the image out of writing prayers and scripture. Slightly new technique though. I'm overlapping the writing where I want it to create darker areas instead of simply writing smaller. The effect has a little more control for color, but less detail. I think it's better.
I wrote stuff about my marriage there, but I know no one will be able to read it as it is written and rewritten and even I can't make out what is there once it gets covered a couple of times.
So, it will be our secret, OK? The picture is a little nicer than usual, and more personal. This time I know that when a year rolls 'round and it gets repainted, I will feel a greater sense of relief in covering it over. And hopefully it will be at a time when all this current mess is behind me and it will indeed be a new beginning.
Folks will wonder why I would want to paint it over, try to convince me I shouldn't. I will smile inside, knowing intimate prayers of hurt and sorrow have been offered, received, and wiped clean again.
Brenda is at an AA meeting. She will be home soon.
The counselor gave us a handout to read and make notes on. It’s about communicating fairly, owning our emotions, the sort of stuff one would expect from a marriage counselor.
I feel anxious all the time. I’m not spying on my wife, investigating her whereabouts... nothing of the sort. I’m just learning to accept the mess I’m in and preparing my heart to do what is right.
This is a time in my life when I need to be very careful. The decisions I make will affect me and my family for a very long time. I don’t want to be in a position when I might look back and regret not doing, or doing, something. Whatever this year brings, I believe that when that picture is painted over this will be behind me. One way or another.
I’d like to sit and watch the Carpenter work. I’d like to be in that casual space of His workspace, the time before He began His ministry.
Right now, that is the Jesus I seek in my prayers. The guy who shaped things out of wood. I’m willing to let Him shape me now.
I managed to get four sessions. I wanted the peace that usually comes from prayer.
Usually comes. Today I left feeling as heavy as when I started.
Worked on a picture on the wall there. Jesus as an ordinary guy... a carpenter. He’s using a chisel to notch out a large beam. I’ve drawn him slightly larger than life. His eyes down, looking at His work, making clear, sharp edges so it will fit another beam. He is wearing a sort of apron, nothing authentic, I just made it up, but it has a couple of pockets. in one pocket the handle of another chisel is barely seen. In another, four large nails.
I’m doing my usual thing, creating the image out of writing prayers and scripture. Slightly new technique though. I'm overlapping the writing where I want it to create darker areas instead of simply writing smaller. The effect has a little more control for color, but less detail. I think it's better.
I wrote stuff about my marriage there, but I know no one will be able to read it as it is written and rewritten and even I can't make out what is there once it gets covered a couple of times.
So, it will be our secret, OK? The picture is a little nicer than usual, and more personal. This time I know that when a year rolls 'round and it gets repainted, I will feel a greater sense of relief in covering it over. And hopefully it will be at a time when all this current mess is behind me and it will indeed be a new beginning.
Folks will wonder why I would want to paint it over, try to convince me I shouldn't. I will smile inside, knowing intimate prayers of hurt and sorrow have been offered, received, and wiped clean again.
Brenda is at an AA meeting. She will be home soon.
The counselor gave us a handout to read and make notes on. It’s about communicating fairly, owning our emotions, the sort of stuff one would expect from a marriage counselor.
I feel anxious all the time. I’m not spying on my wife, investigating her whereabouts... nothing of the sort. I’m just learning to accept the mess I’m in and preparing my heart to do what is right.
This is a time in my life when I need to be very careful. The decisions I make will affect me and my family for a very long time. I don’t want to be in a position when I might look back and regret not doing, or doing, something. Whatever this year brings, I believe that when that picture is painted over this will be behind me. One way or another.
I’d like to sit and watch the Carpenter work. I’d like to be in that casual space of His workspace, the time before He began His ministry.
Right now, that is the Jesus I seek in my prayers. The guy who shaped things out of wood. I’m willing to let Him shape me now.
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