So ...yesterday I (again) got creative in the kitchen. I usually check out Tesco's half-price shelf first thing when I shop there. They are constantly adding to it and there are some real bargains. 500g of lamb/mutton mince was at half price so I snapped it up and started checking out recipes.
What I decided upon was Moroccan-style kofte (flattish meatballs) with Ras El Hanout seasoning, fresh chopped parsley, onion and pine nuts. (Autocorrect just decided I couldn't have meant "kofte" and changed it to "kaftan". I can guarantee you that not only did I not serve a kaftan, I didn't even wear one while cooking.) I mixed up my own Ras El Hanout from a recipe on the Internet. It has 13 different spices, and none of them is salt!
Along with the kofte I served wheat bulgur pilaf with sautéed onion and red and yellow pepper strips, seasoned with more Ras El Hanout, lamb broth, lemon and ground sumac. The flavors blended beautifully together. A and I groaned with gustatory delight and savored each bite.
Why am I bothering to blog about this?
Because food preparation and presentation is one of the many things at which I excel, but for which I receive no financial remuneration! I spend much of my time these days thinking about, learning Brit's ways with, collecting recipes for, cooking and eating FOOD. This used to be a sideline hobby, but now that I have time to indulge, it has become perhaps more absorbing than it ought.
I didn't want to get a job and then ask to take a week off right away, so I put off actively seeking part-time employment until after my kids had come and gone, which they did last week (and a wonderful time was had by all, even though it was perishing cold). We toured Shaftesbury, Bournemouth, Poole and Salisbury, visited with A's parents, ate proper fish and chips, and celebrated a great Thanksgiving dinner together.
Now it is approaching the Christmas season, and there are no notices for help needed up in the shop windows. I have always loved to bake for Christmas; but there are now only 2 of us, we have not yet formed real friendships with anybody here, and if I baked like I normally do we would both be elephantine come end of January. What to do?!
I have decided (deep breath) to offer homemade European-style Christmas cookies for sale at 15 BP/kilo and see if I get any takers. These days so many people no longer have time, inclination or, let's face it, a talent for baking, yet would rather not simply put out a tray of store-bought. I realized I can offer something different from the usual suspects here at Christmastime, which seem to be primarily mince pies, Christmas fruitcake and iced cut-out cookies. I lived in Austria for 30 years and have lots of authentic recipes from there, around Europe and the USA, none of which are common here. I know how to arrange an attractive serving tray of several different types of cooky (biscuit, in Brit) and confectionery. And if I sell by weight, it balances the more-expensive-to-produce cookies out with the less so, ensuring a profit for yours truly.
So I checked out the Internet as to what prices were being asked for home-baked goods, and have also kept an eye on the Farmer's Markets. Often 6 mid-sized cookies sell for from 2.10 to 2.50, which would mean that for 15 BP, they would only get 16-18 cookies! A kilo of cookies will certainly be more than that, numerically, so it is a fair price. (Of course one could simply shop Tesco's mass-produced 3-for-a-pound and be done with it, but this is a luxury item.)
I figure if I advertise on Facebook and ask to put up a notice at church, I may get enough orders to make it worth my while. I would want to be baking anyway, and there is nothing else much to take up my time until I am employed, so why not give it a whirl?
Wish me --luck? good fortune? blessing in my endeavors? SUCCESS!
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
The Observer
Now that A and I have been away from CAWKI (Church As We Know It) for over a year, reading books and blogs and theological tomes which have expanded our understanding beyond that place, attending a church service is rather like being on the outside looking in.
As is always the case, you get to know your own culture (or subculture) better when you have had some degree of separation from it. I remember my first trip back to America after the first 3 years in Austria as the strangest experience. I had never before noticed just how loud, boisterous, colorful and candid Americans generally are. Some aspects of American culture, which I'd never particularly paid attention to before leaving it, actually made me cringe.
This is known in missions circles as "reverse culture shock". Once you have become accustomed to a new culture with new norms, experiencing the one you had formerly been comfortable with and in can come as a real shock to the system. Something like that is going on now, though it is sadly not quite so innocent.
Yesterday morning A and I attended a service of the church we had visited last September, when looking into this town as a possibility to live in. It's a relatively informal, friendly place. There were a lot more people present than last year, though it is summer. We were greeted by an older chatty woman at the door as per usual, with a photocopied order of service. It was clear we were noticed as newbies to the group.
Worship began shortly after we were seated-- young man with a guitar, young woman at the keyboards, usually both singing; older man at the projector, willing but not very accomplished at his job yet. I closed my eyes and tried to enter into worship, because corporate worship singing is one thing I have really missed about a congregational setting. The leader was a little hard to follow but I was managing. Then the Observer kicked in, and I ended up struggling for most of the rest of the service.
The Observer is a person who sits in my brain and analyzes what is going on according to her own mean little spirit. I know her to be my enemy. During the Toronto Outpouring, I had to identify and squelch her, in order to receive anything of what God was doing. Well… she's back. This time she has me categorizing and criticizing everything according to my previous (admittedly rather extensive) church experience:
"Aha, the holy 4 chords. Older songs-- don't they do newer stuff here? Hm, they need someone at the sound desk to pay attention."
"I like the leader of the service-- he seems to be actually enjoying himself."
"Oh yes, the obligatory scatty prophetic-type woman who has a word in every service and usually cries while giving it."
"Kids' service-- of course, summer break for the children's workers-- ouch. Is that the message we want kids to get?"
"Ah, the lady who greeted us outside the building has cornered A while I was in the bathroom. She has the piercing gaze I associate with 'on-fire' people. I do hope she doesn't start prophesying over us. Whew, she didn't…"
And so on, ad nauseum.
As A said afterward, exposure to this environment-- one in which I used to feel very at home-- creates reactions which reveal to us what's in our hearts. And right now it's not very pretty in there. I know, despite all my forgiveness work and my righteous-sounding legal words, that I still hold resentment in my heart against the Church.
What it feels like is this (and yes, I am aware this is completely subjective and one-sided, but it is how it feels): I spent over 30 years serving the Church and when I was most in need of her support, she majorly let me down. It is too reminiscent of my former marriage, where I often felt I was the one making most of the sacrifices (especially emotionally) but when I was personally in need, I had to go elsewhere to get those needs met.
But the Church is "Christ's Body" on earth, so in actuality I am holding resentment against him. And it's very hard, as A pointed out, to receive any good from or do any good to someone you resent.
This is the dilemma in which I currently find myself. Here I am, for all practical purposes internally judging and shoeboxing perfect strangers who are doubtless very good and sincere people who wouldn't harm a fly, let alone me. Yet there is suspicion in my heart. And it will block me from developing the very relationships I need, both in order to thrive myself and to be a blessing to others.
Cutting myself some slack, I do realize these things take time, and I am very new here. It took some conscious decision, but I eventually came to the place where I have long been comfortable in both Austrian and American cultures, able to appreciate the uniqueness of each one without requiring it from the other; able to enjoy myself thoroughly in one environment although I knew through personal experience there were other ways, perhaps ways I personally preferred, of doing things.
I would like to reach that place in this situation, where I can silence the Observer and simply enter in to whatever group of people are worshiping the same Jesus I do, though we may well disagree on how he sees things or on how we see him. I want to retain what I have learned of God's character (he is always so much better than we think!) even in an environment where he may not be recognized or honored in that way. I want to appreciate the Church as the Bride of Christ who is beautiful because he has made her so through his love for her, and not necessarily through any innate beauty of her own. (This will hopefully enable me, though, to see the unique beauty each body of believers does have.)
But right now I am struggling with the Observer, with my own jadedness, resentment and suspicion. I know deeply that God himself is good and to be trusted, but I am leery of his people. And that's not a good place to be.
Help me; help us, Holy Spirit.
As is always the case, you get to know your own culture (or subculture) better when you have had some degree of separation from it. I remember my first trip back to America after the first 3 years in Austria as the strangest experience. I had never before noticed just how loud, boisterous, colorful and candid Americans generally are. Some aspects of American culture, which I'd never particularly paid attention to before leaving it, actually made me cringe.
This is known in missions circles as "reverse culture shock". Once you have become accustomed to a new culture with new norms, experiencing the one you had formerly been comfortable with and in can come as a real shock to the system. Something like that is going on now, though it is sadly not quite so innocent.
Yesterday morning A and I attended a service of the church we had visited last September, when looking into this town as a possibility to live in. It's a relatively informal, friendly place. There were a lot more people present than last year, though it is summer. We were greeted by an older chatty woman at the door as per usual, with a photocopied order of service. It was clear we were noticed as newbies to the group.
Worship began shortly after we were seated-- young man with a guitar, young woman at the keyboards, usually both singing; older man at the projector, willing but not very accomplished at his job yet. I closed my eyes and tried to enter into worship, because corporate worship singing is one thing I have really missed about a congregational setting. The leader was a little hard to follow but I was managing. Then the Observer kicked in, and I ended up struggling for most of the rest of the service.
The Observer is a person who sits in my brain and analyzes what is going on according to her own mean little spirit. I know her to be my enemy. During the Toronto Outpouring, I had to identify and squelch her, in order to receive anything of what God was doing. Well… she's back. This time she has me categorizing and criticizing everything according to my previous (admittedly rather extensive) church experience:
"Aha, the holy 4 chords. Older songs-- don't they do newer stuff here? Hm, they need someone at the sound desk to pay attention."
"I like the leader of the service-- he seems to be actually enjoying himself."
"Oh yes, the obligatory scatty prophetic-type woman who has a word in every service and usually cries while giving it."
"Kids' service-- of course, summer break for the children's workers-- ouch. Is that the message we want kids to get?"
"Ah, the lady who greeted us outside the building has cornered A while I was in the bathroom. She has the piercing gaze I associate with 'on-fire' people. I do hope she doesn't start prophesying over us. Whew, she didn't…"
And so on, ad nauseum.
As A said afterward, exposure to this environment-- one in which I used to feel very at home-- creates reactions which reveal to us what's in our hearts. And right now it's not very pretty in there. I know, despite all my forgiveness work and my righteous-sounding legal words, that I still hold resentment in my heart against the Church.
What it feels like is this (and yes, I am aware this is completely subjective and one-sided, but it is how it feels): I spent over 30 years serving the Church and when I was most in need of her support, she majorly let me down. It is too reminiscent of my former marriage, where I often felt I was the one making most of the sacrifices (especially emotionally) but when I was personally in need, I had to go elsewhere to get those needs met.
But the Church is "Christ's Body" on earth, so in actuality I am holding resentment against him. And it's very hard, as A pointed out, to receive any good from or do any good to someone you resent.
This is the dilemma in which I currently find myself. Here I am, for all practical purposes internally judging and shoeboxing perfect strangers who are doubtless very good and sincere people who wouldn't harm a fly, let alone me. Yet there is suspicion in my heart. And it will block me from developing the very relationships I need, both in order to thrive myself and to be a blessing to others.
Cutting myself some slack, I do realize these things take time, and I am very new here. It took some conscious decision, but I eventually came to the place where I have long been comfortable in both Austrian and American cultures, able to appreciate the uniqueness of each one without requiring it from the other; able to enjoy myself thoroughly in one environment although I knew through personal experience there were other ways, perhaps ways I personally preferred, of doing things.
I would like to reach that place in this situation, where I can silence the Observer and simply enter in to whatever group of people are worshiping the same Jesus I do, though we may well disagree on how he sees things or on how we see him. I want to retain what I have learned of God's character (he is always so much better than we think!) even in an environment where he may not be recognized or honored in that way. I want to appreciate the Church as the Bride of Christ who is beautiful because he has made her so through his love for her, and not necessarily through any innate beauty of her own. (This will hopefully enable me, though, to see the unique beauty each body of believers does have.)
But right now I am struggling with the Observer, with my own jadedness, resentment and suspicion. I know deeply that God himself is good and to be trusted, but I am leery of his people. And that's not a good place to be.
Help me; help us, Holy Spirit.
Saturday, April 20, 2013
Forgotten Treasure
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
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 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
Wednesday, March 20, 2013
I Am Tired
I've known a certain lovely woman for the better part of her life, since she was a rather wild teenager in a very staid Christian family. B was always considered a "problem". Raised by a depressive father and a mother who was an uptight enabler, B --though very bright-- didn't get much attention by being a good girl, so she wasn't one.
I've helped walk B through her first disastrous boyfriend and through an only slightly less disastrous marriage (or was it two?). I've heard her say, in varying forms, the same things all her life. I've seen her ups and downs, her stable times and her flip-outs. I've always loved her, though she can be difficult. And I rejoiced when she remarried.
All her life, she claimed what she really wanted was just to be married to a decent Christian man, live in a certain part of our city and raise children. That's the life she has, for the past 10+ years, been living. And now she imagines that she'd be happier as a single mom of young children, chasing after a fantasy relationship that is highly unlikely to happen at all.
I hear from a mutual friend she wants my advice about it -- again (we have discussed it and I gave her my opinion, which hasn't changed). And when I saw her name on my cell phone, I instinctively didn't answer.
I confess, love her as I may, I just don't want to talk to her right now.
I have found over my many years of pastoral ministry that people will do what they want to do if they want to do it hard enough; and nothing you or I say about it, however wise and inspired it may be, will make a shred of difference. This is B's life, not mine. Unfortunately, her decisions also strongly affect the lives of her husband and 3 young children, but I have already given her my opinion on that. What she is considering is, in my opinion, a selfish act hurtful to everyone who loves and trusts her, and most especially to her children. But that is, however I believe it to be true, only my opinion, and has no binding effect on her choices.
Every parent knows: you don't have to approve of someone's choices in order to love them. You may grieve at what they choose, but sometimes all you can do is wait for it to fail and be there when they need you in the shards of their life. I regret that I won't be here to walk B through the consequences of her latest poor choice (yes, I have judged it as being a poor choice, but I still affirm her right to make it).
I watched my former husband make choice after choice after choice which reflected what his heart really wanted, irregardless of what his mouth was saying or what he thought he believed was right. The only warnings he responded to were those regarding how his actions looked, which (I had to conclude) was what he genuinely cared about. But in the end, against the warnings and advice of every single person he consulted with about it, he made his choices (thus freeing me to make mine, which I do not at all regret).
I mention that to emphasize that the reason I don't want to engage with B about this any longer is that I sense her mind, too, is already made up. And
I AM TIRED
of making judgements on other people's decisions.
I AM TIRED
of being expected to, as a "Christian leader", carry a certain responsibility for what others choose to do with their lives.
I AM TIRED
of the CAWKI expectation that I should use guilt, shame and condemnation as "weapons of righteousness", bludgeoning someone into doing "the right thing" when their heart is simply not in it. (How can that last? And if God looks on the heart, WTF are we doing trying to con him?!)
Now, I'm certainly not against people genuinely choosing of their own free will to do what they believe is right rather than what they want to do in the moment. And sometimes they need an outside perspective to reach such a decision. This is how society stays stable and how personal maturity is won. But I am against joining with the Accuser of the Brethren and expecting his tools to do God's job. If it is really sin, only Holy Spirit can genuinely convict the heart, anyway. And if it's just my scruples, what business do I have inflicting them on you?
I can hear the voices now: Oooh, you've gone soft on sin! This is what happens when you over-emphasize love and grace, you lose sight of God's holiness and righteousness and the REALITY OF HELL!!
Well, I've stated before I'm not at all convinced the Bible teaches that the default setting for all of humanity which does not belong to a small portion of the world's population who has "prayed the prayer" is hell (a fairly modern concept). And the more I learn from people who have spent their lives studying this, and not just gone to Bible school like I did, the less I can buy that.
Soft on sin? Well, if Jesus is my example, he could certainly be accused of being soft on sin.
I'm not soft on my sin, which is the only sin for which I am responsible. I just no longer believe it's part of my job to monitor yours.
Mark Lowry says it well: “Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job… How about you hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin and let’s just love each other!”
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” —Jesus, in John 13:34-35
That is what we are to be known by. Not by our "righteous standards of living". Not by our hatred of sin. Not by our disassociating from those we consider sinners. Not by trumpeting abroad what we believe to be wrong. But by loving, a more powerful voice than any of the above, and certainly a more attractive one. Why was Jesus a welcome guest among tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners of his day (and, conversely, why so abhorred by the religious establishment)? Because he loved them, and not just in principle; they saw it, felt it, experienced that he treated them --as he treats all of us-- with respect, honor, understanding and affection, not with condemnation.
And he still does. So who am I to do differently?
I'm not saying I'm there yet, or even anywhere close to it. But I'd like to get there, and I can't see wasting my time and effort on anything else.
And that's… about all I have to say about that, at this moment.
I've helped walk B through her first disastrous boyfriend and through an only slightly less disastrous marriage (or was it two?). I've heard her say, in varying forms, the same things all her life. I've seen her ups and downs, her stable times and her flip-outs. I've always loved her, though she can be difficult. And I rejoiced when she remarried.
All her life, she claimed what she really wanted was just to be married to a decent Christian man, live in a certain part of our city and raise children. That's the life she has, for the past 10+ years, been living. And now she imagines that she'd be happier as a single mom of young children, chasing after a fantasy relationship that is highly unlikely to happen at all.
I hear from a mutual friend she wants my advice about it -- again (we have discussed it and I gave her my opinion, which hasn't changed). And when I saw her name on my cell phone, I instinctively didn't answer.
I confess, love her as I may, I just don't want to talk to her right now.
I have found over my many years of pastoral ministry that people will do what they want to do if they want to do it hard enough; and nothing you or I say about it, however wise and inspired it may be, will make a shred of difference. This is B's life, not mine. Unfortunately, her decisions also strongly affect the lives of her husband and 3 young children, but I have already given her my opinion on that. What she is considering is, in my opinion, a selfish act hurtful to everyone who loves and trusts her, and most especially to her children. But that is, however I believe it to be true, only my opinion, and has no binding effect on her choices.
Every parent knows: you don't have to approve of someone's choices in order to love them. You may grieve at what they choose, but sometimes all you can do is wait for it to fail and be there when they need you in the shards of their life. I regret that I won't be here to walk B through the consequences of her latest poor choice (yes, I have judged it as being a poor choice, but I still affirm her right to make it).
I watched my former husband make choice after choice after choice which reflected what his heart really wanted, irregardless of what his mouth was saying or what he thought he believed was right. The only warnings he responded to were those regarding how his actions looked, which (I had to conclude) was what he genuinely cared about. But in the end, against the warnings and advice of every single person he consulted with about it, he made his choices (thus freeing me to make mine, which I do not at all regret).
I mention that to emphasize that the reason I don't want to engage with B about this any longer is that I sense her mind, too, is already made up. And
I AM TIRED
of making judgements on other people's decisions.
I AM TIRED
of being expected to, as a "Christian leader", carry a certain responsibility for what others choose to do with their lives.
I AM TIRED
of the CAWKI expectation that I should use guilt, shame and condemnation as "weapons of righteousness", bludgeoning someone into doing "the right thing" when their heart is simply not in it. (How can that last? And if God looks on the heart, WTF are we doing trying to con him?!)
Now, I'm certainly not against people genuinely choosing of their own free will to do what they believe is right rather than what they want to do in the moment. And sometimes they need an outside perspective to reach such a decision. This is how society stays stable and how personal maturity is won. But I am against joining with the Accuser of the Brethren and expecting his tools to do God's job. If it is really sin, only Holy Spirit can genuinely convict the heart, anyway. And if it's just my scruples, what business do I have inflicting them on you?
I can hear the voices now: Oooh, you've gone soft on sin! This is what happens when you over-emphasize love and grace, you lose sight of God's holiness and righteousness and the REALITY OF HELL!!
Well, I've stated before I'm not at all convinced the Bible teaches that the default setting for all of humanity which does not belong to a small portion of the world's population who has "prayed the prayer" is hell (a fairly modern concept). And the more I learn from people who have spent their lives studying this, and not just gone to Bible school like I did, the less I can buy that.
Soft on sin? Well, if Jesus is my example, he could certainly be accused of being soft on sin.
I'm not soft on my sin, which is the only sin for which I am responsible. I just no longer believe it's part of my job to monitor yours.
Mark Lowry says it well: “Love the sinner, hate the sin? How about: Love the sinner, hate your own sin! I don’t have time to hate your sin. There are too many of you! Hating my sin is a full-time job… How about you hate your sin, I’ll hate my sin and let’s just love each other!”
"I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” —Jesus, in John 13:34-35
That is what we are to be known by. Not by our "righteous standards of living". Not by our hatred of sin. Not by our disassociating from those we consider sinners. Not by trumpeting abroad what we believe to be wrong. But by loving, a more powerful voice than any of the above, and certainly a more attractive one. Why was Jesus a welcome guest among tax collectors, prostitutes and other sinners of his day (and, conversely, why so abhorred by the religious establishment)? Because he loved them, and not just in principle; they saw it, felt it, experienced that he treated them --as he treats all of us-- with respect, honor, understanding and affection, not with condemnation.
And he still does. So who am I to do differently?
I'm not saying I'm there yet, or even anywhere close to it. But I'd like to get there, and I can't see wasting my time and effort on anything else.
And that's… about all I have to say about that, at this moment.
Thursday, February 14, 2013
Full Circle
My ex is re-marrying (finally) in May.
I found out about it on facebook; his fiancée announced it subtly. Then I checked with my kids, who confirmed it. Then I got an email from P himself, informing me personally (and explaining why he wouldn't be inviting us, giving much the same reasons I'd had for not inviting him to mine).
Several people have asked me, "How does that make you feel?" and my response has been "It's a relief, actually; he's finally doing what he left me and his old life in order to do." It really does feel like a kind of closure. And I'm glad it will occur before I leave Austria. P has chosen to live out his life here, and I choose it elsewhere. Close this book and start a new one.
In a strange twist of fate, my ex is getting married in Graz (ironically, in the same hall A & I used!) on the very same day my spiritual advisor is getting married in California: one man who drove me crazy and another man who kept me sane. In the last months of my marriage to P, D was the one to whom I could pour out my heart, bring my questions and doubts, frustrations and fears. I was continually describing the situation, asking "Am I crazy?" and he continually affirmed no, you are not crazy. Yes, what you are experiencing and how you interpret it is true, although it is only part of the truth. Yes, no matter the outcome, you will survive, and even thrive.
I really don't know how I would have survived, though, without his life-giving advice, prayers, friendship and mentoring throughout the toughest period of my life. Thank you, D, with all my heart.
I have known D maybe 12 years now. I met him within 6 months of his first wife's death by cancer. Whenever he's visited over the years, we've had rich times together. D is a deeply spiritual man without losing any of his masculinity; sort of a long and lean Christian Marlboro Man. He has great wisdom and much experience, coupled with a good sense of humor and proportion. (Plus, he is always ready for a good glass of red wine!) In other words, he is precisely what I needed in crisis. And he was the only one A & I could imagine officiating at our own marriage ceremony.
So here we have come full circle: D has been an essential part of my New Start, and now I get to share in his. No, we won't be going to CA for the wedding, but he and his new wife B will be traveling to Paris for their honeymoon (B is, not to put too fine a point on it, loaded) and there, they will hold a reception A and I will definitely attend.
Paris in the spring? You bet! I have friends who have nagged me for some time to come to Paris and visit so I think housing will be affordable. It will likely be our only holiday to speak of this year, since our energy and money will go into moving to another country.
And I see a kindness of God in all this, too. In case the thought of my ex marrying the young woman he left our marriage for should ever twinge a bit, I now have something else to remember on that very date, something I can unreservedly celebrate and be glad in.
I genuinely wish them all joy in their new lives together.
I found out about it on facebook; his fiancée announced it subtly. Then I checked with my kids, who confirmed it. Then I got an email from P himself, informing me personally (and explaining why he wouldn't be inviting us, giving much the same reasons I'd had for not inviting him to mine).
Several people have asked me, "How does that make you feel?" and my response has been "It's a relief, actually; he's finally doing what he left me and his old life in order to do." It really does feel like a kind of closure. And I'm glad it will occur before I leave Austria. P has chosen to live out his life here, and I choose it elsewhere. Close this book and start a new one.
In a strange twist of fate, my ex is getting married in Graz (ironically, in the same hall A & I used!) on the very same day my spiritual advisor is getting married in California: one man who drove me crazy and another man who kept me sane. In the last months of my marriage to P, D was the one to whom I could pour out my heart, bring my questions and doubts, frustrations and fears. I was continually describing the situation, asking "Am I crazy?" and he continually affirmed no, you are not crazy. Yes, what you are experiencing and how you interpret it is true, although it is only part of the truth. Yes, no matter the outcome, you will survive, and even thrive.
I really don't know how I would have survived, though, without his life-giving advice, prayers, friendship and mentoring throughout the toughest period of my life. Thank you, D, with all my heart.
I have known D maybe 12 years now. I met him within 6 months of his first wife's death by cancer. Whenever he's visited over the years, we've had rich times together. D is a deeply spiritual man without losing any of his masculinity; sort of a long and lean Christian Marlboro Man. He has great wisdom and much experience, coupled with a good sense of humor and proportion. (Plus, he is always ready for a good glass of red wine!) In other words, he is precisely what I needed in crisis. And he was the only one A & I could imagine officiating at our own marriage ceremony.
So here we have come full circle: D has been an essential part of my New Start, and now I get to share in his. No, we won't be going to CA for the wedding, but he and his new wife B will be traveling to Paris for their honeymoon (B is, not to put too fine a point on it, loaded) and there, they will hold a reception A and I will definitely attend.
Paris in the spring? You bet! I have friends who have nagged me for some time to come to Paris and visit so I think housing will be affordable. It will likely be our only holiday to speak of this year, since our energy and money will go into moving to another country.
And I see a kindness of God in all this, too. In case the thought of my ex marrying the young woman he left our marriage for should ever twinge a bit, I now have something else to remember on that very date, something I can unreservedly celebrate and be glad in.
I genuinely wish them all joy in their new lives together.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
In Good Faith
In processing all has has occurred in and around my life in the past several years, I've been thinking lately about the term "in good faith". What is normally understood by the phrase is "honesty; a sincere intention to deal fairly with others". As defined in legal dictionaries, "good faith is an abstract and comprehensive term that encompasses a sincere belief or motive without any malice or the desire to defraud others. It derives from the translation of the Latin term bona fide and courts use the two terms interchangeably."
One legal dictionary was particularly helpful to me in that it added:
"Effort made, information given, or transaction done, honestly and without a deliberate intention to defraud the other party. However, good faith does not necessarily mean 'without negligence'." (Italics mine.)
What am I understanding through this, that I did not see before?
One of the enduring pains of the breakup of my first marriage and the lack of understanding or support by my local church, was how almost all people instinctively leapt to P's defense, believing he was acting in good faith. Sometimes I felt that in their minds, good faith excused almost anything, including directly contradictory behavior. And I realize now that part of the reason I was seen as the baddie in all this is that I had stopped believing in P's "good faith" years before, at least in regard to me and to our relationship. So in their minds, I was acting in bad faith by not supporting what they saw as P's good faith in seeking counseling, which I knew he only entered after he realized he was in love with someone else. In other words, to my mind, I was never worth that effort, but she was.
P does have a way of being apparently completely open and honest in the moment, which is admittedly very disarming and appealing and for heaven's sake, you want to believe him. I did for many years. In that moment, as far as he is aware, he IS being honest. There's just a whole lot going on under the surface that will most likely torpedo that good intention as soon as it touches certain core issues. The problem in our marriage was that these fleeting revelations P genuinely had never translated into habitual supporting actions, in fact, often quite the reverse; and when one challenged that fact, one was somehow made to feel one had misinterpreted everything which had gone before. Not even written accounts of previous conversations or agreements could shake his viewpoint.
How can one continue to believe in the good faith of someone who can genuinely believe his re-write of history to his own advantage?
Since reading the book "Why Does He DO That?", I've gained a much greater understanding of P's protective, narcissistic mindset, the fruits of which I had experienced for years but the cause of which I had not been able/willing to identify. Years of painful experience, including attempts at counseling, had continually confirmed that when push came to shove, P seemed constitutionally unable (and certainly unwilling) to place anyone or anything, but most especially me and my needs, above his overriding felt need to protect himself. (This wouldn't have been so bad but for his retaliatory lashing out and making this fact my problem.)
But because I genuinely believed marriage was for life, and so much of our marriage did work, and we had a good family life, eventually I concluded he had an emotional disability I just had to live with; so I adjusted my hopes way downward, stopped challenging him, and tried to simply keep the peace at my own expense. That sounds so martyrdomish, but I really didn't experience it that way, and it was not particularly noble. I figured it this way: if he were a paraplegic, we would find ways to work around it; so if he is crippled emotionally (and the more I found out about his childhood, the more I understood that!), even if he couldn't see or admit he was the problem, I could still work around it.
Which I did, with varying degrees of success, until I found out he really could love someone above himself after all.
It just wasn't me.
So in one sense, I understand that people around him read his late efforts toward inner healing as being in good faith. And I can understand them thinking I was cynical for not believing that. (Though even the fact I was proven right in the end doesn't yet seem to have entered their minds.) They read it correctly in a sense, because having developed such strong compartmentalization capabilities, as far as he was aware of his own motives P genuinely had no "desire to defraud others". So the fact that he repeatedly did do so may fall under the category of that last definition quote: "However, good faith does not necessarily mean 'without negligence'."
Yes, P repeatedly neglected our marriage and my needs within it, whenever those conflicted with his primary need of self-protection and the need to be in control. The fact that we had adjusted the marriage to work in spite of that doesn't change the fact itself. And when push came to shove P, through his choices, also effectively betrayed his church and the people who had most tried to help him. But before those actions became visible, what the church people and I were seeing differently was perhaps more along these lines: they were seeing what appeared to be P's genuine good faith, and my disbelief in that, without being aware (as I was) of the negligence that had been going on a long, long time.
In law, one can be prosecuted for provable negligence even if one did act in demonstrable good faith. So my sense of injustice finds corroboration here. (The same can be said for the financial disaster, which had very similar dynamics.) However, I personally have made the choice to live under grace and not under law, and to extend grace and not law. All this knowledge really does for me now is help me understand what came about and how, not open a new court case against anybody! But this understanding that good faith does not exclude the possibility of negligence was helpful.
After all, don't we all know this about ourselves? We can have the very best intentions (as far as we know) and still act with disastrous consequences. We can do the best we can with what we know, and find out that neither our effort nor our knowledge was sufficient. We can put forth all the faith and hope we can muster and find it was misplaced.
Acting in good faith is good, but not always good enough. The Cross has to cover our negligence too, or we are hopelessly doomed.
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! - 2 Cor.9:15
One legal dictionary was particularly helpful to me in that it added:
"Effort made, information given, or transaction done, honestly and without a deliberate intention to defraud the other party. However, good faith does not necessarily mean 'without negligence'." (Italics mine.)
What am I understanding through this, that I did not see before?
One of the enduring pains of the breakup of my first marriage and the lack of understanding or support by my local church, was how almost all people instinctively leapt to P's defense, believing he was acting in good faith. Sometimes I felt that in their minds, good faith excused almost anything, including directly contradictory behavior. And I realize now that part of the reason I was seen as the baddie in all this is that I had stopped believing in P's "good faith" years before, at least in regard to me and to our relationship. So in their minds, I was acting in bad faith by not supporting what they saw as P's good faith in seeking counseling, which I knew he only entered after he realized he was in love with someone else. In other words, to my mind, I was never worth that effort, but she was.
P does have a way of being apparently completely open and honest in the moment, which is admittedly very disarming and appealing and for heaven's sake, you want to believe him. I did for many years. In that moment, as far as he is aware, he IS being honest. There's just a whole lot going on under the surface that will most likely torpedo that good intention as soon as it touches certain core issues. The problem in our marriage was that these fleeting revelations P genuinely had never translated into habitual supporting actions, in fact, often quite the reverse; and when one challenged that fact, one was somehow made to feel one had misinterpreted everything which had gone before. Not even written accounts of previous conversations or agreements could shake his viewpoint.
How can one continue to believe in the good faith of someone who can genuinely believe his re-write of history to his own advantage?
Since reading the book "Why Does He DO That?", I've gained a much greater understanding of P's protective, narcissistic mindset, the fruits of which I had experienced for years but the cause of which I had not been able/willing to identify. Years of painful experience, including attempts at counseling, had continually confirmed that when push came to shove, P seemed constitutionally unable (and certainly unwilling) to place anyone or anything, but most especially me and my needs, above his overriding felt need to protect himself. (This wouldn't have been so bad but for his retaliatory lashing out and making this fact my problem.)
But because I genuinely believed marriage was for life, and so much of our marriage did work, and we had a good family life, eventually I concluded he had an emotional disability I just had to live with; so I adjusted my hopes way downward, stopped challenging him, and tried to simply keep the peace at my own expense. That sounds so martyrdomish, but I really didn't experience it that way, and it was not particularly noble. I figured it this way: if he were a paraplegic, we would find ways to work around it; so if he is crippled emotionally (and the more I found out about his childhood, the more I understood that!), even if he couldn't see or admit he was the problem, I could still work around it.
Which I did, with varying degrees of success, until I found out he really could love someone above himself after all.
It just wasn't me.
So in one sense, I understand that people around him read his late efforts toward inner healing as being in good faith. And I can understand them thinking I was cynical for not believing that. (Though even the fact I was proven right in the end doesn't yet seem to have entered their minds.) They read it correctly in a sense, because having developed such strong compartmentalization capabilities, as far as he was aware of his own motives P genuinely had no "desire to defraud others". So the fact that he repeatedly did do so may fall under the category of that last definition quote: "However, good faith does not necessarily mean 'without negligence'."
Yes, P repeatedly neglected our marriage and my needs within it, whenever those conflicted with his primary need of self-protection and the need to be in control. The fact that we had adjusted the marriage to work in spite of that doesn't change the fact itself. And when push came to shove P, through his choices, also effectively betrayed his church and the people who had most tried to help him. But before those actions became visible, what the church people and I were seeing differently was perhaps more along these lines: they were seeing what appeared to be P's genuine good faith, and my disbelief in that, without being aware (as I was) of the negligence that had been going on a long, long time.
In law, one can be prosecuted for provable negligence even if one did act in demonstrable good faith. So my sense of injustice finds corroboration here. (The same can be said for the financial disaster, which had very similar dynamics.) However, I personally have made the choice to live under grace and not under law, and to extend grace and not law. All this knowledge really does for me now is help me understand what came about and how, not open a new court case against anybody! But this understanding that good faith does not exclude the possibility of negligence was helpful.
After all, don't we all know this about ourselves? We can have the very best intentions (as far as we know) and still act with disastrous consequences. We can do the best we can with what we know, and find out that neither our effort nor our knowledge was sufficient. We can put forth all the faith and hope we can muster and find it was misplaced.
Acting in good faith is good, but not always good enough. The Cross has to cover our negligence too, or we are hopelessly doomed.
Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift! - 2 Cor.9:15
Friday, November 23, 2012
Why Is This Okay?
A said something just as an aside the other day, and it's stuck in my mind ever since. I don't even remember the context clearly, but he mentioned (as if it were obvious) that the evangelical Christian church is the only workplace in which it would be tolerated that I would essentially be fired from my only money-earning position, simply for having divorced. In no other sector of society but the Church would that be grounds for losing one's livelihood, especially when the agreement to divorce was a direct result of my partner's extra-marital relationship.
And I realized I had simply accepted this as part of the price of choosing, in the face of his choices, to end my marriage to P. I was, of course, hurt and at first quite angry that it didn't seem to occur to anybody in leadership of the church I had co-founded that some sort of monetary recognition for my 20 years of service might have been in order. I did eventually ask them for a continued monthly pittance of €100 in order to keep my health insurance payment covered, to which they agreed; but now I find myself wondering if anything at all would have been offered had I not specifically requested that. And that too ended, of course, when I resigned my membership.
I did eventually hear that P had tried to convince the then-LT that it was their responsibility to take care of me financially, which they resented, and they wanted him to take responsibility for me financially, which he resented. In the end I suppose everyone may have assumed the other one did it, so nobody did. And it's quite true that I took poor advice (from, as it turns out, an enabler of P's) and did not request much in the divorce settlement, nor any alimony beyond 1 years' support. I simply did not have the energy to fight for more (and believe me, it would have been a fight), nor did I think it was necessary. After all, I had assured plans to sell part of the investment which was a large part of the settlement-- not having been informed that it was already spent and thus worthless. That would, as I have mentioned in earlier posts, have been a few years' assistance.
Don't get me wrong; the price has definitely been worth paying. The life I now live is in so many ways much simpler, freer and happier than the one I had before, though more financially constrained. I would not go back for the world. But it does seem odd that it has been pretty much universally accepted that of course I could not possibly continue in any of my paid competencies within a local church context.
I understand compassionate leave was in order, and I did continue to receive a reduced paycheck the second half of the year we divorced, though I was not "working". I suppose that was considered a form of severance pay. It's true that I had been ministering more in an outside context than within for several years, but I was still considered "in leadership". And it's also true that, by that time in a very long and painful process, I was trusting nobody in that leadership team, so it's likely none of them felt they could even talk to me without running the risk of getting their heads bit off. (To be fair, they didn't even try.)
But it's still a bit odd that we all accepted this, if I may call it that, financial abandonment (no pension, no lump settlement) as a matter of course, after 20 years' service. I know people in the congregation were hurt and confused by the divorce (did they think I was not?!). And I myself was certainly knocked back and did need a break from active ministry.
But I didn't lose all my wisdom, practical knowledge, spirituality and authority just because my marriage failed.
Nor have the other "ministry ex-wives" out there who got the raw end of a male mid-life crisis. One effective bilingual missionary girlfriend of mine (whose husband was indisputably the cause of the breakup) ended up moving back to America, though the call on her life is missions. Yes, she has a place to live but after several years she is still single and she is still poor, that last mainly because her ex (who remarried the day the divorce was finalized) has never fulfilled his responsibilities to her required by the settlement contract --and nobody, including her own believing children whom their Daddy treats and pampers, seems to either be aware of that or to care much if they are.
I can't help feeling that in a community of which Jesus said "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35), this sort of thing
simply
shouldn't be
considered acceptable.
And I realized I had simply accepted this as part of the price of choosing, in the face of his choices, to end my marriage to P. I was, of course, hurt and at first quite angry that it didn't seem to occur to anybody in leadership of the church I had co-founded that some sort of monetary recognition for my 20 years of service might have been in order. I did eventually ask them for a continued monthly pittance of €100 in order to keep my health insurance payment covered, to which they agreed; but now I find myself wondering if anything at all would have been offered had I not specifically requested that. And that too ended, of course, when I resigned my membership.
I did eventually hear that P had tried to convince the then-LT that it was their responsibility to take care of me financially, which they resented, and they wanted him to take responsibility for me financially, which he resented. In the end I suppose everyone may have assumed the other one did it, so nobody did. And it's quite true that I took poor advice (from, as it turns out, an enabler of P's) and did not request much in the divorce settlement, nor any alimony beyond 1 years' support. I simply did not have the energy to fight for more (and believe me, it would have been a fight), nor did I think it was necessary. After all, I had assured plans to sell part of the investment which was a large part of the settlement-- not having been informed that it was already spent and thus worthless. That would, as I have mentioned in earlier posts, have been a few years' assistance.
Don't get me wrong; the price has definitely been worth paying. The life I now live is in so many ways much simpler, freer and happier than the one I had before, though more financially constrained. I would not go back for the world. But it does seem odd that it has been pretty much universally accepted that of course I could not possibly continue in any of my paid competencies within a local church context.
I understand compassionate leave was in order, and I did continue to receive a reduced paycheck the second half of the year we divorced, though I was not "working". I suppose that was considered a form of severance pay. It's true that I had been ministering more in an outside context than within for several years, but I was still considered "in leadership". And it's also true that, by that time in a very long and painful process, I was trusting nobody in that leadership team, so it's likely none of them felt they could even talk to me without running the risk of getting their heads bit off. (To be fair, they didn't even try.)
But it's still a bit odd that we all accepted this, if I may call it that, financial abandonment (no pension, no lump settlement) as a matter of course, after 20 years' service. I know people in the congregation were hurt and confused by the divorce (did they think I was not?!). And I myself was certainly knocked back and did need a break from active ministry.
But I didn't lose all my wisdom, practical knowledge, spirituality and authority just because my marriage failed.
Nor have the other "ministry ex-wives" out there who got the raw end of a male mid-life crisis. One effective bilingual missionary girlfriend of mine (whose husband was indisputably the cause of the breakup) ended up moving back to America, though the call on her life is missions. Yes, she has a place to live but after several years she is still single and she is still poor, that last mainly because her ex (who remarried the day the divorce was finalized) has never fulfilled his responsibilities to her required by the settlement contract --and nobody, including her own believing children whom their Daddy treats and pampers, seems to either be aware of that or to care much if they are.
I can't help feeling that in a community of which Jesus said "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35), this sort of thing
simply
shouldn't be
considered acceptable.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Matron or Bride?
Awhile back I wrote a post called "Sorting More Than Clothing", in which I related sorting out the Ministry Clothing I no longer need. I could have jumped off that introduction to any number of related subjects, but in that post I chose to go the way of exploring titles and the expectations attached to them. Today I'd like to jump off this base onto another aspect of what MC represented to me, and how my thinking has since developed. Below I repeat two early paragraphs of that post and then continue rambling on:
The purpose of this wardrobe was, while well-dressed enough not to give offense, to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman. I think part of that motivation was a good one; ie, especially when in ministry, I want people to be able to look past me and see Christ ministering to them. I consider myself a delivery person of God's blessings, and the packaging should not detract from that... However, I think I went a bit too far in the opposite direction... When I looked at my row of businesslike blazers, matronly trousers and shirts I wouldn't pair with my usual jeans or leggings, I became a bit thoughtful. Why was I being someone else? Whose expectations was I trying to meet, besides my own?
My thinking has changed partly because, in those same years when I was speaking and ministering in many different contexts, wearing my rather matronly MC as a matter of course, God was in the process of taking me on quite a different inner journey: that of morphing from Matron into Bride. I know, I know; at my age? And isn't that a little backward anyway? Isn't one first a bride, then a mother, then a matron? In human terms, yes, very much so. But since my identity in the natural as a bride had never really been developed, due to deficiencies in the relationship with my first husband, Dad had an agenda to focus on that area of my spiritual/inner development.
This may sound rather weird to you; I know it did to me. But it is undeniable that my relationship with Dad and with Jesus changed quite a lot during those years of working closely with Holy Spirit.
In the relatively quiet years just before beginning to travel internationally in 1999, I had developed quite a close personal relationship with my heavenly Dad. There was a period of parallel development of my relationship with my natural father; each seemed to reinforce the other, and gave me inner confidence I'd never had before. In the early years of traveling it was very easy to, as it were, curl up on Dad's lap and be his favored daughter (his term for me). But when I started visioning, it was mostly Jesus whom I encountered. So that relationship began developing along deeper lines as well.
Early on I had a few quite intimate visionary experiences with Jesus in which I, to my disappointment, realized that I could not quite relax with him as my Bridegroom. The intimacy problem was all on my side and I knew it. But as always, there was not even a hint of reproach from him, simply a loving willingness to patiently love me at whatever stage I was in.
At the same time he was in a sense "wooing" me from the outside; I repeatedly got unsolicited personal words from people who had no idea about my inner journey, speaking of the beauty Jesus saw in me, "engagement with the Bridegroom", "entering into the love relationship of the Godhead" and such things: all pointing in one direction and confirming my rather shaky, because unprecedented, inner journey. I also (re)discovered some of the old Christian mystics, many of whose experiences closely paralleled my own, if not even wilder. I didn't feel so alone.
In early 2006, my then-husband P and I went on a sabbatical. We'd been in ministry in Austria for over 20 years without one. It was supposed to be a time of rediscovering and enjoying each other, as well as looking toward the future and seeking what God had in store for us next, as it was clear to us when we'd left that we should soon be moving on from VG. However, due to the unhealthy dynamics in our marriage, this didn't really take place (and we never left VG until forced out). Most difficult for me was the fact that, because we were together for 5 months 24/7, I was unable to have enough space for my usual life-giving "down time" with God. By the time we returned to VG in May I was physically refreshed, but spiritually gasping for air.
You see, my times with Dad had been a counter-balance to (some would say a compensation tactic for) the emotional privations I experienced in our marriage. I was anything but a bride to P. He preferred a different body build, disliked many of my personal habits, disapproved of many of my personal choices, yet he also wanted motherly nurture from me (household functions) to compensate for what his own mother could never give him. I had accepted the matron role partly as the easiest way out of never being ale to satisfy P on most other levels.
With Dad, though, I was loved as just me; not only loved, but affirmed, treasured, appreciated, called forth, found beautiful-- all the things missing in my marriage. So as you can imagine I was very eager to crawl back into Dad's lap and "fill up" again-- and I was devastated when I found great difficulty getting back into that place. It was as if a door had shut. I simply couldn't enter in, and it was driving me mad. I did the usual "Have I sinned? What is wrong on my end?" agonizing but got nowhere.
Until Dad made it clear to me that nothing was wrong, that this was a deliberate stage on my journey. He wanted to introduce me to Jesus in a new way, as a bride and not just as his little daughter. It was clear he thought I was grown up enough now to take a journey I'd bypassed. As a new Christian I was very enamored of Jesus and rather afraid of The Heavenly Father (as he was represented); I'd picked up the wholly inaccurate idea that Dad was pissed off at sin, and therefore at me, and it was only Jesus' standing protectively between us that kept me from being smited on the spot. Hard to love a Dad who's holding a belt.
But somewhere along the way of developing into first a conservative biblicist, then a renewed Evangelical, then a River Rat... I found Dad to be completely different to that picture, and basked in his fatherhood. I suppose this basking filled some holes that had been there from my childhood; my own father was of the era that didn't really show affection. He was a righteous man but not a very warm one. And as I said, growing closer to my own father after the death of my mother was part of this healing process.
But Jesus as Bridegroom-- not just of his Church, but my very own? A concept I'd certainly heard expressed, but could not identify with. Isn't that what single girls who'd like to be married console themselves with? How does this apply to me?
As my marriage deteriorated more quickly after our return from sabbatical (and in hindsight, it's clear to me that it did-- we did not have the same goals, passions, or values and our personal choices increasingly reflected that), I drew inwardly closer to Jesus. This is hard to put into words, but he comforted me the way I had always wished P would. He understood me even when I was being unreasonable-- and since menopause was starting, I know I sometimes was, and am! He became very real to me.
So real, in fact, that we went through my wardrobe at that time and he -- this does sound strange, I know-- pointed out to me which clothes were just too matronly for me to keep. Shapeless dresses, baggy trousers, things I had worn to cover up the body P didn't like. Things that did not reflect what Jesus thinks of me: lovely and loveable, just as I am.
Then Jesus brought a flesh-and-blood bridegroom into my life, one who shares his opinions of me! This was such a surprise to me (and to A). I'd known A for some time as a friend, liked him very much, and knew we shared values and worked together well. In my hardest times of the past few years, A was the one friend who faithfully stood by me when it seemed everyone else was too full of shock, anger, and judgement about my divorce to recognize that I was really hurting and in need.
And there came a day I looked into A's eyes and saw what I'd prayed for years to see: Jesus' eyes, full of love for me. Not all too surprisingly, just as Dad had done when the development of my relationship to my natural father supported and undergirded a similar development in my relationship to him, through A I have finally been able to identify with Jesus as my Bridegroom. I now know what bridegroom love is like (you can find it in 1 Cor. 13). It is protective, kind, thoughtful. It thinks of the bride's needs first. It is not at all blind; it sees the bride's failings, but they are simply irrelevant. It delights in what she considered foibles or quirks. Most of all, it simply, faithfully, quietly loves in all circumstances.
If I ever do stand upon stages again to represent my Dad, I will do so not only as his favored daughter, but as his beloved daughter-in-law. Jesus is my Bridegroom, and A is my bridegroom: I am a bride, not a matron, and my clothing will reflect that. Whereas I earlier wrote: The purpose of this wardrobe was...to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman, I now know that my glory is in being a woman, not a man. I don't need to (nor should I be expected to) dress like, speak like, or otherwise minister like a man, because Jesus' delight and Dad's glory is that I am a WOMAN.
Over half the Body of Christ has been disenfranchised (this is a large subject for several other posts!) for far too long, and even when "allowed" to minister, have had to conform to male standards in a male-oriented environment. I call to mind an intern in the ministry with which I formerly served. This was technically a woman, yes, but all her mannerisms and her ministry style were masculine (and no, she is not gay), because that was the acceptable standard. I no longer have any interest in conforming to or supporting that system. What you will get will be me, Just Holly, and that includes all my gender roles, not only the inoffensive ones.
So although I still won't wear a plunging neckline (for my own peace of mind) while ministering, I won't wear 3-piece tailored suits, either. I will wear what I find comfortable, practical, and-- dare I say it-- feminine.
Because that, world, is who I am.
The purpose of this wardrobe was, while well-dressed enough not to give offense, to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman. I think part of that motivation was a good one; ie, especially when in ministry, I want people to be able to look past me and see Christ ministering to them. I consider myself a delivery person of God's blessings, and the packaging should not detract from that... However, I think I went a bit too far in the opposite direction... When I looked at my row of businesslike blazers, matronly trousers and shirts I wouldn't pair with my usual jeans or leggings, I became a bit thoughtful. Why was I being someone else? Whose expectations was I trying to meet, besides my own?
My thinking has changed partly because, in those same years when I was speaking and ministering in many different contexts, wearing my rather matronly MC as a matter of course, God was in the process of taking me on quite a different inner journey: that of morphing from Matron into Bride. I know, I know; at my age? And isn't that a little backward anyway? Isn't one first a bride, then a mother, then a matron? In human terms, yes, very much so. But since my identity in the natural as a bride had never really been developed, due to deficiencies in the relationship with my first husband, Dad had an agenda to focus on that area of my spiritual/inner development.
This may sound rather weird to you; I know it did to me. But it is undeniable that my relationship with Dad and with Jesus changed quite a lot during those years of working closely with Holy Spirit.
In the relatively quiet years just before beginning to travel internationally in 1999, I had developed quite a close personal relationship with my heavenly Dad. There was a period of parallel development of my relationship with my natural father; each seemed to reinforce the other, and gave me inner confidence I'd never had before. In the early years of traveling it was very easy to, as it were, curl up on Dad's lap and be his favored daughter (his term for me). But when I started visioning, it was mostly Jesus whom I encountered. So that relationship began developing along deeper lines as well.
Early on I had a few quite intimate visionary experiences with Jesus in which I, to my disappointment, realized that I could not quite relax with him as my Bridegroom. The intimacy problem was all on my side and I knew it. But as always, there was not even a hint of reproach from him, simply a loving willingness to patiently love me at whatever stage I was in.
At the same time he was in a sense "wooing" me from the outside; I repeatedly got unsolicited personal words from people who had no idea about my inner journey, speaking of the beauty Jesus saw in me, "engagement with the Bridegroom", "entering into the love relationship of the Godhead" and such things: all pointing in one direction and confirming my rather shaky, because unprecedented, inner journey. I also (re)discovered some of the old Christian mystics, many of whose experiences closely paralleled my own, if not even wilder. I didn't feel so alone.
In early 2006, my then-husband P and I went on a sabbatical. We'd been in ministry in Austria for over 20 years without one. It was supposed to be a time of rediscovering and enjoying each other, as well as looking toward the future and seeking what God had in store for us next, as it was clear to us when we'd left that we should soon be moving on from VG. However, due to the unhealthy dynamics in our marriage, this didn't really take place (and we never left VG until forced out). Most difficult for me was the fact that, because we were together for 5 months 24/7, I was unable to have enough space for my usual life-giving "down time" with God. By the time we returned to VG in May I was physically refreshed, but spiritually gasping for air.
You see, my times with Dad had been a counter-balance to (some would say a compensation tactic for) the emotional privations I experienced in our marriage. I was anything but a bride to P. He preferred a different body build, disliked many of my personal habits, disapproved of many of my personal choices, yet he also wanted motherly nurture from me (household functions) to compensate for what his own mother could never give him. I had accepted the matron role partly as the easiest way out of never being ale to satisfy P on most other levels.
With Dad, though, I was loved as just me; not only loved, but affirmed, treasured, appreciated, called forth, found beautiful-- all the things missing in my marriage. So as you can imagine I was very eager to crawl back into Dad's lap and "fill up" again-- and I was devastated when I found great difficulty getting back into that place. It was as if a door had shut. I simply couldn't enter in, and it was driving me mad. I did the usual "Have I sinned? What is wrong on my end?" agonizing but got nowhere.
Until Dad made it clear to me that nothing was wrong, that this was a deliberate stage on my journey. He wanted to introduce me to Jesus in a new way, as a bride and not just as his little daughter. It was clear he thought I was grown up enough now to take a journey I'd bypassed. As a new Christian I was very enamored of Jesus and rather afraid of The Heavenly Father (as he was represented); I'd picked up the wholly inaccurate idea that Dad was pissed off at sin, and therefore at me, and it was only Jesus' standing protectively between us that kept me from being smited on the spot. Hard to love a Dad who's holding a belt.
But somewhere along the way of developing into first a conservative biblicist, then a renewed Evangelical, then a River Rat... I found Dad to be completely different to that picture, and basked in his fatherhood. I suppose this basking filled some holes that had been there from my childhood; my own father was of the era that didn't really show affection. He was a righteous man but not a very warm one. And as I said, growing closer to my own father after the death of my mother was part of this healing process.
But Jesus as Bridegroom-- not just of his Church, but my very own? A concept I'd certainly heard expressed, but could not identify with. Isn't that what single girls who'd like to be married console themselves with? How does this apply to me?
As my marriage deteriorated more quickly after our return from sabbatical (and in hindsight, it's clear to me that it did-- we did not have the same goals, passions, or values and our personal choices increasingly reflected that), I drew inwardly closer to Jesus. This is hard to put into words, but he comforted me the way I had always wished P would. He understood me even when I was being unreasonable-- and since menopause was starting, I know I sometimes was, and am! He became very real to me.
So real, in fact, that we went through my wardrobe at that time and he -- this does sound strange, I know-- pointed out to me which clothes were just too matronly for me to keep. Shapeless dresses, baggy trousers, things I had worn to cover up the body P didn't like. Things that did not reflect what Jesus thinks of me: lovely and loveable, just as I am.
Then Jesus brought a flesh-and-blood bridegroom into my life, one who shares his opinions of me! This was such a surprise to me (and to A). I'd known A for some time as a friend, liked him very much, and knew we shared values and worked together well. In my hardest times of the past few years, A was the one friend who faithfully stood by me when it seemed everyone else was too full of shock, anger, and judgement about my divorce to recognize that I was really hurting and in need.
And there came a day I looked into A's eyes and saw what I'd prayed for years to see: Jesus' eyes, full of love for me. Not all too surprisingly, just as Dad had done when the development of my relationship to my natural father supported and undergirded a similar development in my relationship to him, through A I have finally been able to identify with Jesus as my Bridegroom. I now know what bridegroom love is like (you can find it in 1 Cor. 13). It is protective, kind, thoughtful. It thinks of the bride's needs first. It is not at all blind; it sees the bride's failings, but they are simply irrelevant. It delights in what she considered foibles or quirks. Most of all, it simply, faithfully, quietly loves in all circumstances.
If I ever do stand upon stages again to represent my Dad, I will do so not only as his favored daughter, but as his beloved daughter-in-law. Jesus is my Bridegroom, and A is my bridegroom: I am a bride, not a matron, and my clothing will reflect that. Whereas I earlier wrote: The purpose of this wardrobe was...to draw as little attention as possible to myself or to the fact that I am a woman, I now know that my glory is in being a woman, not a man. I don't need to (nor should I be expected to) dress like, speak like, or otherwise minister like a man, because Jesus' delight and Dad's glory is that I am a WOMAN.
Over half the Body of Christ has been disenfranchised (this is a large subject for several other posts!) for far too long, and even when "allowed" to minister, have had to conform to male standards in a male-oriented environment. I call to mind an intern in the ministry with which I formerly served. This was technically a woman, yes, but all her mannerisms and her ministry style were masculine (and no, she is not gay), because that was the acceptable standard. I no longer have any interest in conforming to or supporting that system. What you will get will be me, Just Holly, and that includes all my gender roles, not only the inoffensive ones.
So although I still won't wear a plunging neckline (for my own peace of mind) while ministering, I won't wear 3-piece tailored suits, either. I will wear what I find comfortable, practical, and-- dare I say it-- feminine.
Because that, world, is who I am.
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