In preparation for our move to the UK, I've started going through things in the basement and papers I could only partially sort when I left the house where I'd lived with P. In a drawer titled "To Save" I found this poem I wrote to God in Autumn 2001:
You have drawn me
out of myself
into your arms
never taking "no" for an answer
knowing precisely why my heart could not believe
all the awesome plans you have
for me
Wooing, never pushing
drawing me in with a smile
never asking me to go
where you had not gone before
never asking me to go
alone
I found it hard to trust
and you proved yourself to me
though I hardly dared to ask it
though you didn't owe it to me
Sheer gift
sheer grace
has brought me to this place of knowing you
a little more
loving you a little deeper
letting go of the shore
wading in a little deeper
trusting you a little more
I'm learning to float
on your mercy
finally knowing:
you will not let me sink
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Pity and Judgement
At the end of March I got the news that P's fiancée has ended their relationship and is moving out... about a month before their planned wedding.
Again, I have mixed feelings about this.
I can't help but think that it is the best thing for her, as she is still quite young and has the opportunity to have a full life with a younger man, children and all the rest of it. And I admire her courage, actually... It was always a rather large factor in their relationship that because P is old enough to be her father, any children they had would be roughly the same ages as his grandchildren. This would be, though not unheard-of in society at large, certainly strange and awkward for the rest of the family.
I also feel pity for P; however, it's mixed with that same tendency toward Schadenfreude mentioned in my last post. Common sense says he chose what he wanted, claiming he knew the risk; he paid a very high price for it, and has now lost his gamble. You make your bed and you lie in it. Tsk-tsk.
But I did live over three decades with this man and I find I can't be that callous. My own family of origin had its issues but was only "normally" dysfunctional. I have no personal experience of what it is like to be raised by a mother who had no nurture in her, who didn't want you and is afraid of all things male, yet got affirmation from her surroundings by having borne you (the only male child). Or to be the helpless victim of a father who raped you for years as a child, claiming this was how you "became a man", and when challenged later denied it had ever happened. All this and more clothed in an outward show of piety and religion which allowed no questioning and provided no escape.
What does such an upbringing do to a person?
What compartmentalization of heart and mind is essential to survive such a childhood?
How possible is it for a sensitive individual to even face those demons, let alone find freedom from them? (And don't give me that trite old "all things are possible in Christ" line. They may be possible but they very often do not happen. We live in the tension between the Now and the Not-Yet, and many things we wish were Now turn out to be Not-Yet.)
A and I are currently halfway through a very helpful book by Dr Gregory Boyd called "Repenting of Religion". In it he explores many of the questions that have nagged at us in the "package deal" we have been sold as "Christianity". His bottom line on judgement is (in an unfairly abbreviated condensation) that it is simply not our job. Judgement as we know it is part of the original sin of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than from the tree of life. Jesus came to save the world and not to condemn it, and we are his followers.
Now, being a sheriff's daughter, I am waiting to see how Boyd distinguishes between "adjudging" a situation (in which we must be free to call something evil which is evil and see to it that there are consequences for that evil, in order to protect others from it) and "judging" the person involved as unworthy of our respect. I admit I have trouble respecting a person who deliberately harms others or who is so self-centered that they harm others without apparently thinking or caring about it. It is for me very difficult to "ascribe to that person inestimable worth" because of Jesus' dying on the cross for them just as much as he did for my own failings.
However, I fully admit that I'm a hypocrite in this, because I am able to still love and ascribe worth to myself when I've been an asshole; to see that act as the exception and not the rule; to know I am capable of better. If I really believed what Jesus did on the Cross, I would be able to transfer that to others without so much struggle.
But if there is one thing that is clear to me, it is that I do not have the information upon which to make an accurate judgement of another person. God is the only one with all the knowledge of DNA, family history, personal chemical imbalances, outside influences beyond their control, and all the other myriad factors which go into the process of a person expressing themselves through action (or the lack thereof). I can and do identify acts as good or evil (probably also inaccurately) and indeed, in order for there to be anything which could be considered a functional society, there must be recognition of such things. It's true that this life is set up so that to some degree we will always reap what we sow. This is built into the universe and it's senseless to fight it.
But when I go beyond that, as I so easily do, and say "Well, serves him right!" or gloat over someone's misfortune which I, in my supreme wisdom and impeccable insight, deem as having been brought about by himself, this is where I cross the line into judgement which was never intended for me. This only feeds death, both in myself and in the other person.
So I am in this place where I both pity P for what I have deemed his poor decisions, but am also genuinely sad about the authentic pain he is undeniably feeling. It doesn't matter who put the knife in, the cut hurts just the same. I don't know how capable P is of feeling others' pain-- it often seemed to me he simply could not grasp mine. But I know of myself that I have, through no fault of my own or credit to myself, better raw material built into me, a better internal infrastructure to deal with such things. It's just the roll of the dice, really.
I am sad for P at the same time that I hope this will be what helps him find the courage to examine how he got to this place. He sacrificed everything for what he wanted, and had it for 3-4 years. Now he doesn't have that any more, and has meanwhile lost most of what used to make up his life. Maybe in time this stark and uncomfortable reality will be enough of an impetus for him to examine why it was that he wanted those things in the first place, and find healing not only for this wound, but for the wounds which led to it.
In any case, the type of "closure" on my past marriage that I had thought would happen before I left Austria is no more. But in a way, this too is closure. If she left him now, she would have left him at some point anyway, and probably better before a marriage ceremony and possible children than afterward.
I'm moving on with my life and do not --yet!-- regret any decisions I have made. Part of me is sad that P can not be as happy as I now am. But part of me is glad that whatever happiness he does find in future has a better chance to be built upon reality than I believe this one was.
Again, I have mixed feelings about this.
I can't help but think that it is the best thing for her, as she is still quite young and has the opportunity to have a full life with a younger man, children and all the rest of it. And I admire her courage, actually... It was always a rather large factor in their relationship that because P is old enough to be her father, any children they had would be roughly the same ages as his grandchildren. This would be, though not unheard-of in society at large, certainly strange and awkward for the rest of the family.
I also feel pity for P; however, it's mixed with that same tendency toward Schadenfreude mentioned in my last post. Common sense says he chose what he wanted, claiming he knew the risk; he paid a very high price for it, and has now lost his gamble. You make your bed and you lie in it. Tsk-tsk.
But I did live over three decades with this man and I find I can't be that callous. My own family of origin had its issues but was only "normally" dysfunctional. I have no personal experience of what it is like to be raised by a mother who had no nurture in her, who didn't want you and is afraid of all things male, yet got affirmation from her surroundings by having borne you (the only male child). Or to be the helpless victim of a father who raped you for years as a child, claiming this was how you "became a man", and when challenged later denied it had ever happened. All this and more clothed in an outward show of piety and religion which allowed no questioning and provided no escape.
What does such an upbringing do to a person?
What compartmentalization of heart and mind is essential to survive such a childhood?
How possible is it for a sensitive individual to even face those demons, let alone find freedom from them? (And don't give me that trite old "all things are possible in Christ" line. They may be possible but they very often do not happen. We live in the tension between the Now and the Not-Yet, and many things we wish were Now turn out to be Not-Yet.)
A and I are currently halfway through a very helpful book by Dr Gregory Boyd called "Repenting of Religion". In it he explores many of the questions that have nagged at us in the "package deal" we have been sold as "Christianity". His bottom line on judgement is (in an unfairly abbreviated condensation) that it is simply not our job. Judgement as we know it is part of the original sin of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than from the tree of life. Jesus came to save the world and not to condemn it, and we are his followers.
Now, being a sheriff's daughter, I am waiting to see how Boyd distinguishes between "adjudging" a situation (in which we must be free to call something evil which is evil and see to it that there are consequences for that evil, in order to protect others from it) and "judging" the person involved as unworthy of our respect. I admit I have trouble respecting a person who deliberately harms others or who is so self-centered that they harm others without apparently thinking or caring about it. It is for me very difficult to "ascribe to that person inestimable worth" because of Jesus' dying on the cross for them just as much as he did for my own failings.
However, I fully admit that I'm a hypocrite in this, because I am able to still love and ascribe worth to myself when I've been an asshole; to see that act as the exception and not the rule; to know I am capable of better. If I really believed what Jesus did on the Cross, I would be able to transfer that to others without so much struggle.
But if there is one thing that is clear to me, it is that I do not have the information upon which to make an accurate judgement of another person. God is the only one with all the knowledge of DNA, family history, personal chemical imbalances, outside influences beyond their control, and all the other myriad factors which go into the process of a person expressing themselves through action (or the lack thereof). I can and do identify acts as good or evil (probably also inaccurately) and indeed, in order for there to be anything which could be considered a functional society, there must be recognition of such things. It's true that this life is set up so that to some degree we will always reap what we sow. This is built into the universe and it's senseless to fight it.
But when I go beyond that, as I so easily do, and say "Well, serves him right!" or gloat over someone's misfortune which I, in my supreme wisdom and impeccable insight, deem as having been brought about by himself, this is where I cross the line into judgement which was never intended for me. This only feeds death, both in myself and in the other person.
So I am in this place where I both pity P for what I have deemed his poor decisions, but am also genuinely sad about the authentic pain he is undeniably feeling. It doesn't matter who put the knife in, the cut hurts just the same. I don't know how capable P is of feeling others' pain-- it often seemed to me he simply could not grasp mine. But I know of myself that I have, through no fault of my own or credit to myself, better raw material built into me, a better internal infrastructure to deal with such things. It's just the roll of the dice, really.
I am sad for P at the same time that I hope this will be what helps him find the courage to examine how he got to this place. He sacrificed everything for what he wanted, and had it for 3-4 years. Now he doesn't have that any more, and has meanwhile lost most of what used to make up his life. Maybe in time this stark and uncomfortable reality will be enough of an impetus for him to examine why it was that he wanted those things in the first place, and find healing not only for this wound, but for the wounds which led to it.
In any case, the type of "closure" on my past marriage that I had thought would happen before I left Austria is no more. But in a way, this too is closure. If she left him now, she would have left him at some point anyway, and probably better before a marriage ceremony and possible children than afterward.
I'm moving on with my life and do not --yet!-- regret any decisions I have made. Part of me is sad that P can not be as happy as I now am. But part of me is glad that whatever happiness he does find in future has a better chance to be built upon reality than I believe this one was.
Thursday, April 11, 2013
Healthy As A Horse
I'm afraid this post is going to be a bit of a rant/processing-the-past one. If you'd rather be entertained than irritated, feel free to skip over it!
Before moving to the UK, where health services are reputed to be not as high-quality as what I'm accustomed to in Austria, I'm trying to get caught up on medical exams and necessary work before we leave-- hopefully, June/July. In the upheaval of my life the past few years, I'm afraid I've neglected most if not all of that. So in the next few weeks I have an appointment with my gynecologist, I'm scheduled for a hearing test, and I'm looking for a way to afford some dental work. And yesterday I had my first general physical exam in several years.
It was a more pleasant experience than I'd expected, actually; done at a local doctor's office, the staff were highly efficient and friendly, and it was all over within a couple of hours, though it seemed pretty thorough to me. These days with ultrasound, they can examine inner organs much more completely without any invasiveness. I think that's pretty cool. I am, of course, still waiting on the blood and stool test results, though I don't expect anything earth-shaking to come of them.
At any rate, while he was doing the examination my doctor kept exclaiming at the good results. "Ein sehr schönes Ergebnis" (a very good outcome), he would say, or "So ein schöner Befund" (such a good result). We've been to see him twice before for small things Ade required, so I know it's not his habit to say such things as a comforting bedside manner. Anyway, to make what could be a long and exceedingly dull story short, I am apparently as healthy as a horse, (apart from the high blood pressure, which is controlled with a minimum of medication): heart muscle and ventricles in great shape, good EKG, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, stomach and lungs all functioning as they should. I was weighed and measured and found to be (barely) within the "normal" range for my age and gender, so I'm not even technically overweight.
Shouldn't I be delighted at this news? Wasn't I?
Yet I have to admit I had mixed feelings.
Yes, I have felt I was healthy; I get some regular exercise and my lifestyle, though somewhat more sedentary in the past year or two, is not essentially unhealthy. But part of me was expecting bad news as almost inevitable, and didn't know how to fully receive the truth that I'm actually not only healthy, but doing rather well. And as I started to examine why that negative expectation was in me, I started to get angry. This post is an attempt to get some of that "out there".
Where did this surprise come from? Well….
Almost all my married life with P, I lived under his considered opinion that I am lazy, too sedentary, fearful, fat, unhealthy and therefore, a failure/disappointment. Why? Because I'm not just like him. I'm not a workaholic. I don't have a naturally wiry body structure, high metabolism resulting in an inability to gain weight, the constant desire to push myself to the limit physically, or a high value on athletic activity. I value other things, and I'm good at other things, many of which are complementary to the above. I laugh, I nurture. I taught P how to relax, something he did not know before. I taught him to appreciate, among other things, good food and wine.
This is not to say I didn't try to meet P's expectations. Over the years I have backpacked, X-country skied, camped, white-water rafted, hiked mountains, sailed in the Adriatic; I've done rollerblading, ice-skating, canoeing, zip-lining, bicycle riding, snorkeling, and countless other activities P enjoyed. I enjoyed some of them as well, but not as a lifestyle; afterward I was usually happy it was over and wanted to take what I considered a well-earned rest. And for P, it was never enough to budge the judgements he had formed against me.
Now, of course I understand that most of this was not my problem, but P's. Much of his judgement was based on his judgements of his mother and not on me at all. He'd told me several times that he always felt cheated because somehow he thought he WAS marrying an athlete, though I'm sure I never contrived to give him that impression while we were dating! And it's true that my physical limitations (sometimes very painful scoliosis in the early years, and iffy balance due to partial deafness in one ear) did hinder me from full enjoyment of some of the above-mentioned activities, and prevented others altogether: for example, he never could get me to try rock-climbing-- shudder!
But what the hell. What was he expecting?! I am only human. And I am ME, not P. If he wanted a clone, he was bound to be disappointed. I know I was certainly disappointed in certain aspects of his personality uncovered over the years, but I did not make myself the measuring stick for what would have been desirable in him. I was happy for him to pursue the things he enjoyed, but I didn't want to be forced into them myself, because I did not enjoy them. I didn't drag him along shoe shopping, to book or cooking fairs; why should I be dragged up mountains? I was so relieved when he finally found other people to do such things with, but he would always make these puppy-dog eyes at me because he would "rather do them with me". No matter what I did, he felt let down.
I had eventually learned to identify these things as not my issues and let most of them slide. But obviously I took some of these judgements on board, to the degree that at the doctor's office some part of me was surprised to hear that actually, I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. And so I'm not only happy to have my beliefs confirmed, but also upset that I still fight the phantom voice of my ex telling me how I will get sick and old before my time, it will be all my fault, and he will be forced to take care of me unwillingly because I was not athletic like him in the years when it would have made all the difference. (Yes, he really did say this.)
The ironic aspect of all this is that right now, P's elderly father is fading fast. P is much like his father, G. They each took pride in their physical accomplishments. Neither is a team-sport player; P always excelled at such sports as required that one improve one's own record, such as mountain biking, climbing, ski mountaineering, etc. But he and G always had a sort of competition going on, too. One of the reasons G is now so frail is that over 10 years ago he was riding his bike (in his late 70s) along a bike path and did not yield to an encroaching automobile (which had right of way). He was hit by the car, his leg was broken in several places, and without his helmet he would surely have died of head injuries. Ever since then he has not been the same, though he got right back on the bike and into the swimming pool as soon as the doctors allowed him to. G also had an operation for colon cancer a few years after that, from which he recovered, but he's been shaky ever since.
Now G has fallen and injured his back. His daughter wrote me he can't even get up without assistance and is very shaky indeed. His memory has been going for some time anyway and his small-motor movements are very poor. Everyone is gearing up for his not lasting all too much longer.
And here is the ironic part (you wondered if I'd get to that, didn't you?!): P's mother M, who is a couple of years older, is the one who was always made out to be the way I described in the first section of this post: lazy, fat, fearful, the family can't do fun things because of Mom, etc. And she is doing JUST FINE, THANK YOU. She's never had an accident or surgery. Sure, she's a woman in her 80s and she has arthritic knees. But she didn't drive herself to her limits all her life in order to prove something. She's taken care of the household and of herself while her husband was out doing things more appropriate for younger men. She has taken care of him as he declined. Her handwriting is still firm, she still sees well and her small-motor movements are not shaky.
In other words, M has proven both G and P so wrong. She is not the one who is now in need of care, though she is older than G. She, the "party-pooper", will outlive the one who judged her all their married life as physically inadequate, a judgement with which her son not only agreed, but transferred that judgement onto his own wife, however inappropriately.
The question is, will either G or P be able to a) see it or b) admit it? And does it even matter?
I can't allow it to matter to me. I have to, as with so much else, just recognize it for what it is and let it go. It's not my responsibility or indeed, any of my business any more, whether those involved come to anywhere near the same understanding of events that I do. I'm no longer part of that clan and it is such a relief to be free from that family system.
Yet I also understand that my own learning to live in freedom comes slowly. It's like having had the prison doors swing wide open, but the light is so bright and the flooring is so uneven that my steps into the "world outside" are somewhat hesitant. I recognize that though I don't want to remain imprisoned, much of it is not in the cell behind me, but in my head. Though I have left the cell, my Friend keeps exposing the bars which still exist in my thinking-- one by one, as I am ready to face them and dismantle them, to disempower them by consciously withholding my (up until that point, largely unconscious) agreement with them.
This is a process which could take the rest of my life. But it's a healing, a life-giving process. I really have to resist what Germans call Schadenfreude, that part of me which wants to gloat: "Told ya so!", while still recognizing the facts as they are. The fact is that M is better off than G, though all her life G judged her for the very things which have led to his demise and her relative well-being. (And I believe this pattern could repeat itself between P and myself, if he does not learn from his parents' mistakes.)
But in any case, I know the world outside the prison doors of those judgements is now mine to explore, in the light of my Dad's approval and the warmth of my A's love. So it's nice to know that my body will probably last long enough for me to have many years of discovering this new world outside the prison of both outward and inner judgements. May I learn to treat others with that same understanding, and enjoy my Father's world.
***
I've always loved this hymn:
This is my Father’s world, and to my list'ning ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done;
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.
This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring! God reigns; let the earth be glad!
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.
This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.
- Maltbie Babcock
Before moving to the UK, where health services are reputed to be not as high-quality as what I'm accustomed to in Austria, I'm trying to get caught up on medical exams and necessary work before we leave-- hopefully, June/July. In the upheaval of my life the past few years, I'm afraid I've neglected most if not all of that. So in the next few weeks I have an appointment with my gynecologist, I'm scheduled for a hearing test, and I'm looking for a way to afford some dental work. And yesterday I had my first general physical exam in several years.
It was a more pleasant experience than I'd expected, actually; done at a local doctor's office, the staff were highly efficient and friendly, and it was all over within a couple of hours, though it seemed pretty thorough to me. These days with ultrasound, they can examine inner organs much more completely without any invasiveness. I think that's pretty cool. I am, of course, still waiting on the blood and stool test results, though I don't expect anything earth-shaking to come of them.
At any rate, while he was doing the examination my doctor kept exclaiming at the good results. "Ein sehr schönes Ergebnis" (a very good outcome), he would say, or "So ein schöner Befund" (such a good result). We've been to see him twice before for small things Ade required, so I know it's not his habit to say such things as a comforting bedside manner. Anyway, to make what could be a long and exceedingly dull story short, I am apparently as healthy as a horse, (apart from the high blood pressure, which is controlled with a minimum of medication): heart muscle and ventricles in great shape, good EKG, liver, pancreas, gallbladder, stomach and lungs all functioning as they should. I was weighed and measured and found to be (barely) within the "normal" range for my age and gender, so I'm not even technically overweight.
Shouldn't I be delighted at this news? Wasn't I?
Yet I have to admit I had mixed feelings.
Yes, I have felt I was healthy; I get some regular exercise and my lifestyle, though somewhat more sedentary in the past year or two, is not essentially unhealthy. But part of me was expecting bad news as almost inevitable, and didn't know how to fully receive the truth that I'm actually not only healthy, but doing rather well. And as I started to examine why that negative expectation was in me, I started to get angry. This post is an attempt to get some of that "out there".
Where did this surprise come from? Well….
Almost all my married life with P, I lived under his considered opinion that I am lazy, too sedentary, fearful, fat, unhealthy and therefore, a failure/disappointment. Why? Because I'm not just like him. I'm not a workaholic. I don't have a naturally wiry body structure, high metabolism resulting in an inability to gain weight, the constant desire to push myself to the limit physically, or a high value on athletic activity. I value other things, and I'm good at other things, many of which are complementary to the above. I laugh, I nurture. I taught P how to relax, something he did not know before. I taught him to appreciate, among other things, good food and wine.
This is not to say I didn't try to meet P's expectations. Over the years I have backpacked, X-country skied, camped, white-water rafted, hiked mountains, sailed in the Adriatic; I've done rollerblading, ice-skating, canoeing, zip-lining, bicycle riding, snorkeling, and countless other activities P enjoyed. I enjoyed some of them as well, but not as a lifestyle; afterward I was usually happy it was over and wanted to take what I considered a well-earned rest. And for P, it was never enough to budge the judgements he had formed against me.
Now, of course I understand that most of this was not my problem, but P's. Much of his judgement was based on his judgements of his mother and not on me at all. He'd told me several times that he always felt cheated because somehow he thought he WAS marrying an athlete, though I'm sure I never contrived to give him that impression while we were dating! And it's true that my physical limitations (sometimes very painful scoliosis in the early years, and iffy balance due to partial deafness in one ear) did hinder me from full enjoyment of some of the above-mentioned activities, and prevented others altogether: for example, he never could get me to try rock-climbing-- shudder!
But what the hell. What was he expecting?! I am only human. And I am ME, not P. If he wanted a clone, he was bound to be disappointed. I know I was certainly disappointed in certain aspects of his personality uncovered over the years, but I did not make myself the measuring stick for what would have been desirable in him. I was happy for him to pursue the things he enjoyed, but I didn't want to be forced into them myself, because I did not enjoy them. I didn't drag him along shoe shopping, to book or cooking fairs; why should I be dragged up mountains? I was so relieved when he finally found other people to do such things with, but he would always make these puppy-dog eyes at me because he would "rather do them with me". No matter what I did, he felt let down.
I had eventually learned to identify these things as not my issues and let most of them slide. But obviously I took some of these judgements on board, to the degree that at the doctor's office some part of me was surprised to hear that actually, I'm doing just fine, thank you very much. And so I'm not only happy to have my beliefs confirmed, but also upset that I still fight the phantom voice of my ex telling me how I will get sick and old before my time, it will be all my fault, and he will be forced to take care of me unwillingly because I was not athletic like him in the years when it would have made all the difference. (Yes, he really did say this.)
The ironic aspect of all this is that right now, P's elderly father is fading fast. P is much like his father, G. They each took pride in their physical accomplishments. Neither is a team-sport player; P always excelled at such sports as required that one improve one's own record, such as mountain biking, climbing, ski mountaineering, etc. But he and G always had a sort of competition going on, too. One of the reasons G is now so frail is that over 10 years ago he was riding his bike (in his late 70s) along a bike path and did not yield to an encroaching automobile (which had right of way). He was hit by the car, his leg was broken in several places, and without his helmet he would surely have died of head injuries. Ever since then he has not been the same, though he got right back on the bike and into the swimming pool as soon as the doctors allowed him to. G also had an operation for colon cancer a few years after that, from which he recovered, but he's been shaky ever since.
Now G has fallen and injured his back. His daughter wrote me he can't even get up without assistance and is very shaky indeed. His memory has been going for some time anyway and his small-motor movements are very poor. Everyone is gearing up for his not lasting all too much longer.
And here is the ironic part (you wondered if I'd get to that, didn't you?!): P's mother M, who is a couple of years older, is the one who was always made out to be the way I described in the first section of this post: lazy, fat, fearful, the family can't do fun things because of Mom, etc. And she is doing JUST FINE, THANK YOU. She's never had an accident or surgery. Sure, she's a woman in her 80s and she has arthritic knees. But she didn't drive herself to her limits all her life in order to prove something. She's taken care of the household and of herself while her husband was out doing things more appropriate for younger men. She has taken care of him as he declined. Her handwriting is still firm, she still sees well and her small-motor movements are not shaky.
In other words, M has proven both G and P so wrong. She is not the one who is now in need of care, though she is older than G. She, the "party-pooper", will outlive the one who judged her all their married life as physically inadequate, a judgement with which her son not only agreed, but transferred that judgement onto his own wife, however inappropriately.
The question is, will either G or P be able to a) see it or b) admit it? And does it even matter?
I can't allow it to matter to me. I have to, as with so much else, just recognize it for what it is and let it go. It's not my responsibility or indeed, any of my business any more, whether those involved come to anywhere near the same understanding of events that I do. I'm no longer part of that clan and it is such a relief to be free from that family system.
Yet I also understand that my own learning to live in freedom comes slowly. It's like having had the prison doors swing wide open, but the light is so bright and the flooring is so uneven that my steps into the "world outside" are somewhat hesitant. I recognize that though I don't want to remain imprisoned, much of it is not in the cell behind me, but in my head. Though I have left the cell, my Friend keeps exposing the bars which still exist in my thinking-- one by one, as I am ready to face them and dismantle them, to disempower them by consciously withholding my (up until that point, largely unconscious) agreement with them.
This is a process which could take the rest of my life. But it's a healing, a life-giving process. I really have to resist what Germans call Schadenfreude, that part of me which wants to gloat: "Told ya so!", while still recognizing the facts as they are. The fact is that M is better off than G, though all her life G judged her for the very things which have led to his demise and her relative well-being. (And I believe this pattern could repeat itself between P and myself, if he does not learn from his parents' mistakes.)
But in any case, I know the world outside the prison doors of those judgements is now mine to explore, in the light of my Dad's approval and the warmth of my A's love. So it's nice to know that my body will probably last long enough for me to have many years of discovering this new world outside the prison of both outward and inner judgements. May I learn to treat others with that same understanding, and enjoy my Father's world.
***
I've always loved this hymn:
This is my Father’s world, and to my list'ning ears
All nature sings, and round me rings the music of the spheres.
This is my Father’s world: I rest me in the thought
Of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;
His hand the wonders wrought.
This is my Father’s world, the birds their carols raise,
The morning light, the lily white, declare their Maker’s praise.
This is my Father’s world: He shines in all that’s fair;
In the rustling grass I hear Him pass,
He speaks to me everywhere.
This is my Father’s world. O let me ne’er forget
That though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.
This is my Father’s world: the battle is not done;
Jesus Who died shall be satisfied,
And earth and Heav’n be one.
This is my Father’s world, should my heart be ever sad?
The Lord is King; let the heavens ring! God reigns; let the earth be glad!
This is my Father’s world. Now closer to Heaven bound,
For dear to God is the earth Christ trod.
No place but is holy ground.
This is my Father’s world. I walk a desert lone.
In a bush ablaze to my wondering gaze God makes His glory known.
This is my Father’s world, a wanderer I may roam
Whate’er my lot, it matters not,
My heart is still at home.
- Maltbie Babcock
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