Why Life Sucks

You’re selfish.

So am I.

We all are.

It is our nature.

We are born being the center of the universe. Every need we have must be met by others taking care of it. We need feeding, someone else must do it. We cannot change our soiled clothing, we cannot earn, catch, or grow our own food. We are born tiny, helpless, and demanding.

That gradually changes as we learn to play alongside others, then with others, then in teams. The process of looking beyond ourselves takes many years.

I teach middle school children. Human beings who are still quite self-centered. It is also ann age when they begin to see a larger world and wonder if they can affect it.

We may be alone in this.

The Bible says little about the nature of eternal beings, but we can surmise a little.

They are creatures formed and existing in realms without the constraints of this strange three dimensional realm.

They exist in a place where omniscience and omnipresence is continually demonstrated. A realm where temptation is simply not a part of their fabric of being.

The human condition is quite different.

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how
infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and
admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like
a god! the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals—and yet,
to me, what is this quintessence of dust?” --Hamlet

Just as Hamlet struggles to know what is the right action to take, each of us struggles with our own natures.

We are animals. We seek shelter, food, resources, mates.

We are divine. We bear eternal souls that cry out for the freedom to simply be good, to rise above our base natures and enter a love that is pure, selfless, good.

I struggle with my own nature.

I sin. I think of myself before others far too often. I think of myself before I think about the love my creator gives me. I think of myself as I weigh my marriage in a balance.

Tomorrow we have another counseling session. I expect it to be rough.

I believe that my wife is not keeping her side of the bargain we struck a few weeks ago. I believe she has not kept herself away from that other man.

It was an ultimatum I gave her. I demanded she choose. It appears that she is unable to choose. That means I must.

I fear the decision I am being forced to make.

I think...

I think I will have to hire a lawyer.

Am I being selfish?

I would give her what time she needs, what resources she needs, to return to our home and rebuild our marriage.

If she wants to do the work that is needed to rebuild what has been destroyed... I also understand how we each seek what seems best for ourselves.

Butt a bridge across any rough water needs to be supported from each side.

Lord have mercy. Guide me... help me to rise above my animal nature and do justice for her, for us.

That is why life sucks. We are half animal. Blessed with minds and souls and crass cravings.

-----------------------

Well... it is much later than when I wrote this post. I did something stupid. I skipped out on a staff meeting and went to spy on my wife.

I thought he would show up at the end of her day. He didn’t. She saw me walking around the building a few minutes before she got off. (She didn’t see me in the adjoining computer lab, emailing a buddy for 45 minutes, keeping a jealous eye out for another man and proof of further infidelities).

We went to a bar and talked, and drank, and shot some pool.

Tomorrow is our counseling session. I suspect it is going to be a rough one as I plan on confronting her with my suspicions that she has not been true to her word of avoiding this other man. Not a shocker. Why should a promise made in counseling have more weight than our wedding vows?


Well... going to go. I’m tired. I am tired of so many things. My patience is wearing thin.

Lord have mercy.

-----------------

note: I wrote this off the cuff, no rereading or polishing. If I have stumbled and offended, I aplogize. I'm in a bad splace emotionally. I've been thinking about divirce (sorry Ann). who knows what the future will breing. (I suppose He does.)

Turning to Good

Today was the fourth Sunday in our new building.

It is pretty nice. It is comfortable, clean, very... nice.

I hear that there are a lot of new faces in the seats.

Somethings haven’t changed much. Many of us still sit in the same places, as if the chairs and the people in them hadn’t moved, while the building transformed itself around them.

My seat

I think people are moving after all. Perhaps the movement around us is helping us to move a little on the inside. Toward Him.

My wife and I have been pretty focussed on our own lives (more about that later). But between those myopic moments when I see nothing beyond my own yard, I see signs of promise in our new church.

For example, I got this in an email from a friend:

Though the new construction has been an immense source of pain for you, many people are finding the new facility a blessing. Over 300 attended the concert Monday pm. People raved about the acoustics of the room, including the 2 musicians who were enthusiastically impressed (sounds better in here than it did at Carnegie Hall after they hauled in $30,000 worth of extra sound equipment for our concert!). For the 1st time in my 20+ years here I have an office big enough to hold groups of people for leadership meetings, staff meetings, Bible studies, etc. For the 1st time ever people stick their head in the door, look around & say “wow, nice office.” I NEVER heard that before. It’s cool to see the youth in their new youth center Sunday mornings & evenings – they are jazzed. I could go on & on. Oh yeah, this is a big one, the new office area, big enough to hold all of us so we have a sense of community, 1st time for that as well. If Satan meant to inspire Jeremiah to do something bad, God has certainly turned it around for good for CAC.

That last part is interesting... “turning it around for good”...

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. --Romans 8:28

The old building, with the ancient wiring and undiscovered termite shelter is gone. In its place is a clean, safe, welcoming place. It’s modern enough that young families sit in a space which connects to their own sense of architecture and style. Comfortable enough that old timers feel a sense of invigorating freshness.

There is a reminder of the old sanctuary in the cross hanging on the wall. Large laminate beams supported the vaulted ceiling in the old building. A friend of mine, a craftsman wood worker, reshaped a beam or two into this cross. He selected beams which had been partially charred by the fire that swept through. The burn marks are centered, fading out at the arms’ ends. The symbolism is unmistakable.


The cross bears our sins. All of our sins. The heat and destruction of our selfish acts chars the intersection between God and man. But it does not overwhelm. All our sins fit easily upon the great symbol of God’s love and sacrifice.

That fire burned a lot more than a building of course.

It set a fire in my own home that chewed its way through us all. It affected all of us, but it hurt Brenda the most. She struggled to love Jeremiah. She read passages of love in the Bible; she kept finding new ways to let him know he was loved, half to convince herself.

She turned to me at one point to ask for help in starting a new project to help him. She wanted us to be involved in Special Olympics. I put her off.

To her it was more of a refusal. Perhaps it was.

Since the fire I had been trying to deal with that destruction in my own way. We committed to pledges toward the rebuilding fund which went beyond what we could logically afford. I prayed with and over both boys each night. I spoke with them each night, checking on their fears and anxieties and concerns. Especially Jeremiah. I did everything I could to help around the church, though the sight of the ruined building made me want to weep.

Brenda tried also. But she found herself withdrawing her emotions, her affections, from her family, from me. Her anger grew. She found solace elsewhere.

It feels like everything is pretty messed up in my life. That isn’t true of course; there are many things that are going well. But there isn’t any doubt that the heart of a home is the relationship between a man and a woman, and that is very messed up in my home.

It is my suspicion that Brenda has found a loophole, a compromise, in my ultimatum to choose. That loophole is to choose as I have demanded, for the time being. That is all she is committed to.

Of course I wonder if she contacts this other man. I purposefully avoid any investigations there. My mistrust would be poisonous to this fragile marriage. I intentionally force myself to trust, to rein in my tongue from the questions it begs to ask. If she is untrustworthy the evidence will present itself in its own time.

In some ways I can see that this whole mess might allow us to see each other in a clearer light, see who we really are. It might allow us to have a marriage that is more honest and real than we could have ever had otherwise.

But it may be that it won’t last at all.

Sitting in the new sanctuary, where everything is clean and fresh and intentionally designed to assist us in connecting our mortal messes to eternal perfection I am glad that the Lord has found a way to bring such good out of such a mess.

It tears at my heart when I think of how close so many of us, myself, Brenda, Norm, Mel, and Tim, came to being terribly injured or killed that day. The image of my friend thrown onto the driveway by the unseen forces of explosive gases, and I believe, an angel, him standing up in the horizontal column of smoke blasting through the door of the old building... holds sharp and clear.

This new building which makes odd little turns to follow apparently senseless wiggles of a foundation designed for different structures seems intentional in the whole, though quirky and capricious in its details.

Those of us who knew the old place well can still see the echoes of the board room, the pastor’s office, the old entrance, the library, the sanctuary. But the younger faces sitting with their younger children see a mothers’ nursing room perfectly designed, fiiting a whole, in the section that was once the board room. They see a beautiful window, its central frame creating another beautiful cross, where the pastor’s office once rested.


I see all these reflections of the old here and there... On Sunday morns when I pray with our pastors, I note the youth pastor is sitting in nearly the exact spot where Jeremiah knelt to coax a flame onto a sheet of paper from a candle.

I hear echoes of the past which hurt my family, hurt me, and I see wonderfully good things.

Brenda thinks that God is capricious, perhaps cruel. That our desire for children was turned against us so that our first child would die, that our subsequent children would be so challenging. I see good. I see children who have had the evil of their homeland stripped away and the best possible lives given to them against the most improbable of odds.

There are many examples of being able to see the bad or the good in so many things which have happened in our lives.

I believe that passage in Romans. I don’t believe God caused the bad things, but I believe He works for good through all things, good and bad, for those who love Him.

I love Him.

Perhaps that is all that really matters.

Perhaps I don’t even need to be overly concerned to see the good in the things that hurt.

Perhaps praying and worshipping and reading scripture and pondering Him through my writing is enough.

I love Him.

Perhaps that is enough.

The Ogress of Greenleaf Manor

It’s Halloween. I’m not feeling well, so I am in bed early, watching Young Frankenstein.


It is one of the funniest movies ever made. I might make watching it a Halloween tradition.

Today I went to a large electronics store to buy supplies for my tech program. It is a little odd speaking to a Hillbilly zombie about the advantages of one memory card reader over another.

Jeremiah had a costume party at school. He went as Darth Maul. It is his only real costume, but one he fixates on too much. I don’t like his fascination with powerful figures of evil. We let him hand out candy to kids who came to the door. The pumpkin he carved sat on the wicker chair on the porch, a glow stick illuminating it (no more candles in our home since the fire at the church!).

I let my misgivings about his costume slide and crawled into bed with this laptop and the funniest movie Mel Brooks ever made.


I tend to let things slide a bit in parenting. A sort of “Don’t sweat the little stuff” attitude. It probably comes from the nearly hands off approach my parents had in raising me.

Parenting styles are a natural source of conflict in a marriage.

Brenda tends to be firmer, stricter. I tend to be more laid back, more accepting of the ol’ “boys will be boys” philosophy.

She wanted me to become stricter. I wanted her to lighten up a little. We didn’t find a compromise. Instead she got stricter, angrier. I tried to lighten things up, joke her out of her mood.

I called her the Ogress of Greenleaf Manor.

You know, that didn’t amuse her as much as you might think.

When she was extremely upset I would back her up in silent tacit acquiescence, but not explicitly.

But, I worked on it. Became stricter.

As I tried to meet Brenda halfway she relaxed a little more.

I’m feeling pretty achy. The cough is deep enough, hurts enough, I wonder if I haven’t contracted a touch of pneumonia, an infection in the lungs. Brenda brought me hot chicken soup. Very hot. Hot enough to defend a castle. Sweet of her.

I know she is deeply unhappy in many ways. I know her heart has strayed far. I know she is confused and hasn’t a clear idea about what she wants.

It would be easy to vilify her actions. But I haven’t the right. I’m responsible for a lot of mistakes myself. I need to worry about that dang pressure-treated 2”X6”X12’ beam in my own eye. (I’m sorry about the ogress crack, Brenda.)

Discounting the vagaries of the modern calendar, Halloween marks an ancient cross-quarter day (half way between an equinox and a solstice; so does Ground Hog’s day). Perhaps my life is also at some sort of cross-quarter. My wife is still in my home. I’m lying here trying to eat scalding soup, and she is doing what she can to be kind and loving.

“You are talking about the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind,” Gene Wilder shouts at his visitor.


Sounds like one of my posts...

Happy All Hallow’s Eve.

Listening

I awoke in the middle of the night. Brenda snored softly, cuddling close.

There were no sounds from Jeremiah’s room on the other side of the wall, no sounds from Isaac’s room on the other side of the ceiling. I kissed Brenda’s head, went back to sleep.

I awoke again, the glow of the numbers on the clock told me it was not quite 3:00 a.m. The house was quiet. The elders of our church had been over the evening before, prayed over our family, prayed over each of my sons in their bedrooms. I felt no threat. Brenda’s breath was a soft gentle beat to a peaceful night. I touched her hand. She rolled over, clutched my arm, her briefly interrupted pace of soft breathing deepened.

I stared into the darkness, praying for my family.

I awoke again. The clock read 4:30. It would brighten in a half hour, music would gently swing up out of the silence.

“I love you,” I whispered to her.

She mumbled something softly, pressed her face into my neck.

I closed my eyes and prayed in the dark.

She groaned when the alarm went off. I hit the top middle button on the Bose remote, giving her another ten minutes of rest. She snuggled close. I pressed my nose into her hair.

The faintest of clicks marked the speakers awakening again. She moaned, pressed closer to me, I pressed the button commanding the growing music to silence once again.

I did the waltz one more time, silencing the musical interruption, giving her the peace that gives us peace.

When the music swelled up for the fourth time I let it rise. It was time to get to our day.

As she became conscious the muscles, the sinews, the vitality of consciousness stiffened her body. She moaned. Her legs withdrew from around mine. Her hands clenched and unclenched.

“Shit,” she said.

“Good morning.”

“I wish I didn’t have to wake up,” she complained. “I hate my life.”

“Your life is bad because you start each day with that mantra of how unhappy you are. You don’t have to feel that way. My life has had bad things happen, but I am happy, mostly”

“I’m not a Polly Anna.”

I rolled out of bed. This was a conversation best left unfinished.

--------------------------------------

I rushed away from the turmoil of my wife’s heart, went for a walk in the cemetery where my son is buried, listened to the songs of awakening birds chattering about their upcoming journey south.

I read from my Bible for a bit under the dome light of my van. Hosea.

--------------------------------------

A week or so ago I was praying and I asked my master... “How long, Lord? How long do I keep loving her? How long do I keep forgiving her?”

The gentle answer floated in my heart immediately.

“How long do you wish for me to keep forgiving you?”

--------------------------------------

The elders and my pastor and friend spent an hour in our home last night, prying gently at my children, asking questions, giving soft advice, praying blessings, exhortations for protection, commanding evil to flee.

--------------------------------------

I have no answers. I have no idea of where I am going. My wife is still in my home, at least her body is, if not her heart.

I’m unsure of my path, unsure of what will happen next.

A gentle answer floats in my heart:

“Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, and all of you mind and all of your strength, and love others as you love yourself.”

Off the Cuff

Your pardon... another off the cuff post.

I don't feel like writing anything witty or falling to lexiphanic hyperbole.

What's going on:

Brenda said she would stay, that she would break things off with this other guy. I haven't said much about it because I am a little gun shy about her intentions. I suspect she still wants to run away and sees the current situation as simply working on her parental obligations, leaving the future to be decided when it comes.

We are going to counseling every Wednesday, and it is tolerable.

Tonight my pastor and the church elders are coming to pray over our home and my children.

I went in for jury duty on Friday and am on a jury. Can't say anything about it. In fact, I'm supposed to avoid talking about it with anyone or meet up with anyone involved in the trial. Weirdly enough, we decided to go out to Portland Friday night, went to a comedy club (first time in 20 years) and the defense attorney was seated just two tables away. (We didn't say a word to each other.)

Things are better. I think.

Brenda has said several times how she does not want to be a mother anymore, yet she still cooks and cleans and tries to be sweet to them.

I have tried to write posts about God working for good in all things, and another post about predestination.

Frankly... I'm too busy working on my marriage and family to spend much time on blogging.

Catch you later...

Lifting Me Up

Ame took me to task for a whistful comment I made in my last post. She was right.

I had written: “It is all such a mess. A divorce would be cleaner, neater. This future is uncertain.”

I feel strongly I need to hold to my vows, need to hold steady to what is true, what is right.

Still, everything seems such a mess that finding a way to live life without dealing with her infidelities, her anger, her anxieties, and mercurial emotions seems a viable option when I am feeling down.

This blog has been a place where I can put my thoughts, my feelings, and have people share their concerns, their thoughts, their opinions, and most importantly, their prayers. It has lifted me up.

One of those prayers was remarkable enough I shared it with my pastor and friend, who then read a portion of it during the dedication of our new church building.

My friend, Justin, commented to the post Strange Dance words which lifted me up.

Whether by Jeremiah's hands the church burned down is not the question. It is however, why. Could be He needed to touch someone in the community and needed the new building to assist in welcoming this person to his house. Could be the old building was unsafe and through Jeremiah he made the necessary changes. Could be you weren't yet adorned with enough armor to protect you from what was yet to come and this was His way of preparing you. Whatever the case, it is done and you have forgiven him. He has forgiven him. Now you just need to forgive you.

I like that quite a bit. It is typical of the support folks have given me through this strange new sort of community, the blogosphere (we need to come up with a more dignified term for it.)

Ame's comment is along the same lines. People care enough to tell me when I am getting off track. People care enough to follow my story, and when I ask for prayer, care enough to give it freely. (And prayer moves the hand of God.)

In reflecting on our new church building I wrote about the Church being more than a building. I wrote about it being the Living God in our hearts. Church is also community. Whether it is people in the chairs around me on Sunday morns, or fellow believers sitting at computers around the globe.

Community feels good.

It lifts me up.

So, a quick update on the challenges in my life right now.

Brenda and I are being somewhat kind and gentle to each other.

The boys are still shaken by the undercurrents which thread their way through our home.

My church has made a commitment to help pray away the evil which I believe clings to Jeremiah.

Our marriage is very shakey (we had even briefly agreed to a divorce at the last counseling session).

And Brenda has a tumor on her uterus.

So, it is still a mess. But I don't want a divorce.

That's about it. The rains have returned to Oregon this past week, though it is sunny today. The leaves are falling and I'm raking them into the garden to compost. Work is going well, and my back has gotten almost back to normal.

And I'm thinking about this blog, where folks from Virginia and Norway and Hong Kong and India come to encourage me, pray for me, and lift me up.

We are taking off in a few minutes to coach Special Olympics bowling (regional tournament). We will miss church, this second Sunday in the new building, but I know that church is just a part of the Church.

I just want you to know that I am glad to be sharing Church with you, my fellow believer on the other side of that glowing screen.

God bless.

Mixed Metaphors

It was pretty rough.

There were the initial pleasantries about the weather or recent news or something, I really don’t remember.

He asked about new developments. Brenda sid something about deciding to stay, but I pointed out that she is still calling this other man on the phone.

I reminded them about the details of my ultimatum of the week before and the conversation spun toward the earth like a pilot in a World War I dogfight who had made the fatal error of letting a German Ace get in on his six.

We soon agreed on a divorce.

It was as if a grenade had been thrown into the room and our marriage had been splattered over the walls.

The counselor began to gently pry at the shards of our comments and found a common ground for us.

Neither of us are happy with the results, but the results are what they are.

She promised to stay and work on our marriage (the definition of what that means took some time to reveal), and not see or contact that other fellow, the one who doesn’t mind making love to a woman with a wedding ring on her finger.

She feels she is sacrificing her happiness of the sake of our children.

I agreed to not play detective and be watching to see if she breaks her word. He said that if she does, it would soon be apparent and we can then take the actions we thought appropriate.

We also agreed to give him the authority to advise us on what steps we should take to see if we can stitch together our marriage like some sort of creation of Dr. Viktor Von Frankenstein’s.

He said we were not ready for a marriage retreat. That there is too much work for us to do to place ourselves in such a crucible at this point.

He told us to concentrate on healing our current wounds, perhaps try to have some fun.

It is going to take a lot of work.

We had conferences tonight and I arrived home about 8:30. The bedroom lights were out and she was in bed.

I understand this is hard for her. She feels I am boring, that she is no longer attracted to me, that she wants something else.

But, here we are.

Perhaps this is a place where a miracle can happen.

Perhaps we can heal from these wounds. Perhaps she can find a way to be happy.

Perhaps we can rekindle a love that has been doused by too much nasty water.

A miracle.

Miracles of the heart.

Isn’t that where God works best? Isn’t that where my Lord dwells in His Church?

In my heart. In our hearts.

So... another chapter ends, another begins.

She was to make one more contact with this other guy, to tell him it is over.

I don’t know if she did it tonight or if she is waiting to do it in person, or simply wants more time.

I will try to be patient, understanding.

But my patience is wearing pretty thin.

This was her second affair. Strike two. (Sheesh, I’m mixing a lot of metaphors in this little piece of writing!)

She is in bed. I'll go join her. We'll sleep with our backs to each other, forming the deep canyon where our hurts flow between.

It is all such a mess. A divorce would be cleaner, neater. This future is uncertain.

But I will be patient a little longer yet.