“Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.” ~C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce~
You know what’s something I never think whenever I hear of actual people who’ve had affairs, either through social media, or with someone they know from church or work, or however and wherever else these things happen? I absolutely never think, under any circumstances, that the people involved in the affair must be meant for each other. There is no thought of, Hmm. I guess their spouses weren’t the rightful people after all.”
Heck, no.
There is no thought of, “Maybe in another life, somewhere down the road, those two people will end up together.” Can I empathize with how relationships can be hard and complicated and how the people involved in them are deeply flawed individuals with their own hosts of problems? Yes I can. Do people have weakness and proclivities that serve as fuel for poor choices that get them into trouble even if they didn’t go looking for it? Yes. But never in a million years does affair equal destiny. The ramifications, the absolute horrors that would have to play out if this were true, is unthinkable to me.
“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.” ~2 Corinthians 4:7~
It’s a resting in bed and working on homework kind of day. Sometimes I come down in the schoolroom on the guest bed. There’s more light down here and it’s less secluded than our bedroom. I also like it because it’s the same guest bed I used to sleep on when I was little. My grandma called it the pink room because it had pink carpet and the decorations in the room were pink. When they moved from their house and were getting rid of and giving away most of their stuff, I requested the guest bed. I never did find a new bedspread for it, but instead have been using one that she had.
I did go to the pool again this morning. I didn’t really swim though, I more just danced. That’s what we’ll call it anyway. There’s a water aerobics class that takes place at the same time. I’ve always liked that swimming is a sport that even old people can do. The women who come to this class aren’t old. I would guess they range somewhere between their 50’s-70’s. Beside me in the lanes though were two old men. Another middle aged man came in from the locker rooms, stood there for a minute, then left. All of the swim lanes were taken up. For a split second, I wondered if he was mad that I was taking up a lane with my ballet. I normally would’ve swam more, but was still more tired again today.
Last week I started compiling some lessons I’d been learning in all this. I’m only remembering one at the moment. The lesson is that you can’t rush healing. When I see now where I was over a year and a half ago, I can see that I was trying way too hard to rush and condition my body back to health and normal. While conditioning would work for other kinds of weakness, that’s not how it was ever going to happen with this. Our primary healings only come through rest. It meant I needed, and was given, lots of time for doing nothing, a time for simply laying there and letting God hold me.
A friend asked me how I was doing today. I said I was doing fine and she looked at me like I was lying. I was, but saying fine was easier than saying that the organs in my core were feeling constricted again. Today was our annual chicken fry at camp. Despite the rain, we had a good turnout, and I remember thinking my husband had done a wonderful job with the sermon. Somewhere toward the end of the chapel service, I got up to leave and stand outside. I suddenly felt like I was about to start crying. I never did.
It mostly just feels redundant to talk about. Some of the things I’ve written here have been wildly tame. Anxiety isn’t a sufficient word to describe what this is. No I cannot stand in line for an hour. I actually have to go sit down in the shade. No I cannot be the person to jump into the kitchen fray with the dozen plus volunteers who barely seem to halfway know what they’re doing. I actually should be going to lay down. I carried a friend’s baby from main camp to our house and hours later still feel like I am trying to catch my breath.
The boys had friends who were visiting for the weekend. Their mother is a woman I met during the days of my first blog. She and I and another mom had a fairly regular email thread that lasted several years before life just continued to get busier and busier. At the time we all met, one had four kids, I had five, and another had six. This weekend the one with four came and visited with her ten. My boys and hers have been pen pals for several years, though now they tend to email more and have times for approved and limited online games. She and I have gotten together a handful of times, and this is the second time our boys have been able to play together in person.
We had a wonderful weekend. I have to say, five kids isn’t nothing, but ten kids is a whole new thing entirely. Absolutely delightful, every single one of them, and it was a joy to finally meet them all. The only way I know how to befriend a mother with ten children is to make myself useful however I was able and not be offended when she couldn’t really talk. When I needed to sit down, and left her standing with her tiny group of wonders, I wouldn’t have known how to even begin to explain.
Again, so much more than I could’ve done a year ago. I do continue to thank God for that. I keep thinking how homeschooling the boys had been easy, even though I’m seeing the needed good in this change. The other night I asked my big kids if they thought I was old. They said no. I asked if they thought I was different from before. They said yes. I asked them how so and one of them said, “You don’t do anything”, then added, “I mean, you do things, but not like before.” Yeah.
“To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and where all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dreamland.” ~Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life~
Penciled into the margin where I first encountered these words are an asterisk and the personal note “Not true”. It was my knee-jerk reaction, my displeasure made manifest, my un-slowness to speak, my definitive statement in response to his. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had something more to say, like the kid in the back of the classroom whose hand and voice rises to challenge the beloved and seasoned teacher.
That’s not what the Bible says. “But the new heavens, and the new earth, that’s not a dreamland”, says the child, “It’s real, every last bit of it, and that’s what we’re waiting for.” Of course I don’t believe the author would’ve disagreed with that. He wasn’t talking about the coming world. He was talking about this one. Prior to the above quote he says, “There is much mental suffering in our world. But some of it is suffering for the wrong reason because it is born out of the false expectation that we are called to take each other’s loneliness away. When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves and into the arms of our companions, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships and suffocating embraces.” He’s saying God is the dream we will never wake up from, and when we do, we’ll find his love is even better than life.
It’s hard to be a dying romantic in this place. It’s even harder to be a cynic or a skeptic or any of those other aggravating words that take us away from the heart of God. I was a little annoyed by something I said yesterday, when I talked about the fondness I had for the homeschool years and the people who filled them, as if a mere sentiment is all I’m walking away with. If fondness had been my only reward, my only great possession in exchange for youth and time, what a colossal waste of life and energy it would’ve been. But as it stands, I was given something more, more solid and stable. I was given the door that swings wide open, handed the shores of the kingdom of God.
“When we say that ‘God is love’, we do not mean that God’s love is the same as any earthly love that we have known…We are saying, though, that there is a reality, love, that exists; it is the most precious relation in the world. It is what we are like if we are ever at our best–what we should dream to be.” ~Steven Cone, Theology from the Great Tradition~
I don’t know any other way to say this, but for a long time, homeschooling really was kind of the dream life. The journals I kept remind me that it wasn’t always, but the fondness I hold for our homeschooling years and the people who filled them is something that can never be taken from me. It’s funny, even leading up to the week before, I would run into a pile of math books and think, “You know? Maybe I really could do this again.” As I type, the book piles remain as a work in progress in the schoolroom. Again, the week before school, when I had yet to fully decide in my heart which path we were taking, or to fully accept the path already laid out for us, I came across The Epic of Gilgamesh. I started a new pile, designated as “Books We Are Going to Read This Year.”
But every time I tried to take that path, it was like an image appeared in my mind of a door. I somehow knew that the door was for homeschooling. Taped across the door was a sign with bold letters, with a single word: “No.” In front of the door, as if I was watching myself from an outside place, was my body on its side, curled up in a ball. My head rested on a rock as a pillow. It was like the part of me that had always said, “I can do anything, I will do anything…” had laid down in front of the door and said, “I can’t”. The other parts of me looked around. They said nothing to each other and nothing to the part of me curled up in a ball. It was no use trying to tell her to reconsider or get up, not that anyone tried to do so. They stood there in silence and said, “Ok”.
This morning I went to the Y and swam. This was the second time I’ve gone this week. The grade school is only a few miles away from the Y, which is a different one than I have gone to in past times. Even more than walking, where my legs and heart must carry the extra weight of my upper body, the non-weightbearing activity I’m allowed in the water feels to me doable and healing right now. The paddle-boarding has also been good. Overall school for everyone here has been going well. I’ve got an assignment due this weekend where we’re supposed to use our readings and scholarly articles to write a 5-page paper about self-care. Five doesn’t seem like enough pages to cover that, but I’m also glad it doesn’t have to be any longer. That’s what I’m needing to get started on now.
When our oldest son was a baby, he had a babysitter named Jennifer. She was a seminary wife and mother of four who lived on campus. She watched four babies during the day, one of them being her own. The babies names were Madison, Judah, Ethan, and Anna (her baby). Even though I would normally think that one woman watching four babies would be way too much, I felt better in knowing she was an experienced mom.
Josh was a student and I was a student. When we first started dropping him off, he was still refusing to use a sippy cup or bottle. On the longest day, he would be with Jennifer from 7AM-5PM. I remember wondering what I was supposed to do regarding him drinking. He was an older baby, eating a diet of ham, cheese, green beans, and peaches nearly every day off of the baby lunch plate we sent with him. Because he was getting food, I knew he wasn’t starving and wouldn’t starve while I was gone. I was worried about him being thirsty.
In the afternoon break between classes I’d drive the 20 minutes back to Jennifer’s house and nurse him. I also wondered whether or not this was going overboard. With Jennifer not being a first time mom, I was certain this was something she would not have done. Ultimately my concern for his welfare overruled any concerns I had about whatever someone else might possibly think about me. Eventually he began drinking water out of a sippy cup. In the evenings when I’d be watching him from the couch, he would toddle up to me saying “muck, muck”. Once he started standing up and leaning over my side-laying body to nurse, I decided it was probably time to wean him.
He nursed for 22 months, the second longest of all my kids. The longest was the youngest who weaned at age four. On his third birthday I told him that he was big enough to not need baby milk anymore. “Baby milk” is what he called it. This is the one who I never needed to potty-train, because he learned by watching his older brothers. He would take his diaper off in the morning and leave it next to his potty in the bathroom. Then he’d put on his underwear and walk around in that for the rest of the day.
The ones in the middle received their attention too. My daughter nursed for 15 months, my next son for 18, and the next one for 20. Weaning my daughter when I did was something I ended up regretting, having done so hoping I’d get pregnant sooner, later feeling as though we had missed out on bonding time. The other two were weaned after I was pregnant, when something about the hormone changes made it too painful to nurse.
“Instead of bombarding us with everything that needs to change, God shows us, piece by piece, where growth is possible.” ~Skills for Effective Counseling: a Faith-Based Integration~
This year the boys are enrolled at one of the local Lutheran grade schools. Earlier this month I went and toured the school and met with the enrollment coordinator and principal. If I had more of a story or a reason behind why I did this, I’d say so, but I don’t. I was mostly just exploring an option, wanting to see what the options even were, and find out whether or not the financial requirements would even be an option for us.
I’d heard this school was good about accommodating homeschoolers. I had originally gone to inquire about working out something for the afternoons where the boys could come for some electives. I asked the principal to be honest with me about how they feel about having homeschoolers come part-time. She said that while she could see where it’d be fun to come in the afternoons, for her money, she’d rather see students come for the mornings when the core curriculum classes take place. Using a block schedule, the core classes are Religion, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies.
Today was their first day. They are signed up for the half-day mornings, 8AM-12PM, five days a week. I think we’re all going through our own adjustments, but overall everyone is on board, and they had a good day. In many ways I see this simply as a continuation of the learning we’ve been doing: “Okay, boys, this is what school is and this is what going to school is like.” I continue to be grateful for this journey we’re on.
“In that day the LORD of hosts will be a crown of glory, and a diadem of beauty, to the remnant of his people…” ~Isaiah 28~
Toward the end of St. John of the Cross’s work The Dark Night, he writes about the three faculties of the soul being acted upon by God. He identifies these faculties as the intellect, the memory, and the will. Through the soul’s dark night, which can also be representative of the Christian’s earthly pilgrimage to his eternal belonging and reunion with Christ, and which was suffered most acutely by our Lord himself on Calvary’s cross, the intellect becomes faith, the memory becomes hope, and the human will is transformed into love. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love are our present partaking in Christ by which Christians are given victory over every earthly enemy.
He pairs the heavenly gifts of faith, hope, and love with the Christian’s enemies; the devil, the world, and our sinful flesh. Against the devil we are given the gift of faith. When describing the armor of God, St. Paul identifies the shield of faith as the element by which we extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one. Faith comes by hearing the word, and the word of God is divine power to silence the devil in his temptations, words of condemnation, and terrors. Hope is the strength by which we now face the world. Looking beyond it’s meager pleasures and enticements, still residing in a world where death, decay, and corruption would only lead us to despair, hope is the turned renewal of forward vision toward the God who rich in mercy has promised to love us all the way home.
“This is the ordinary task of hope in the soul;” he writes, “it raises the eyes to look only at God…” He is the only one whose grace is sufficient to sustain us when life’s storms would swiftly destroy us. He kneels there beside us in trials and sorrows, and opens his hands to collect every tear. To look to God is to behold again the one who loves, knows, and created us, who does not hide his face when we need him but holds the treasures of life and peace before us of remaking and restoring our innermost being and raising up our flesh and bone. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins, a nightless hope laid up in heaven, a home in whom the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.
During our wedding ceremony I remember being embarrassed by what the pastor was wearing. The heat index was nearing 100 degrees and he had on what looked like a furry grey poncho. I’d never seen a pastor wear anything like that. I was already uncomfortable with the fact that the word “Homily” was in our wedding bulletin and that we were saying The Lord’s Prayer. My family and friends, my high school music teacher who I would’ve married in a heartbeat had he not already been so himself, all these other people, though Christians, weren’t Lutheran. I wasn’t either.
My mortification increased substantially the second he pulled out the meat cleaver, which could’ve been some kind of hatchet or ax for all I knew, and started swinging it around during the message. “Cleave to, not from” are the words from that day I will never forget. He had many other wonderful words, ones that I did not remember as readily, but would be eager to find again and absorb. For a long time I was ashamed of the wedding pictures taken during the ceremony. The onlookers seemed amused and delighted by the hatchet, but the look on my face reveals I was not.
I again recall a fight we had after our first pre-marital counseling session. The pastor hadn’t prayed with us, and I thought that was weird, like it seemed to me that the man who’d be guiding us into something as serious and monumental as marriage should’ve at least at first, or at some point along the way, consulted God in the matter. And such was the beginning of a history of poorly played notes, a record of wrongs I never dreamed of obtaining, nor ever intended to keep. Be gone the day, that horrid day, when I traded good intentions for being stuck in my ways.
“If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.” Praise God for forgiveness, the most beautiful of gifts, that has been granted to us alongside everlasting life. “Hold up the cross, never hold up the cross”, he said, something like that, as the homily went on. The words were as good, true, and beautiful as the marriage bond itself, this covenantal union that heals and simultaneously breaks our hearts. It breaks them as inside and out there still exists evil, and this world is not yet itself fully healed.
And it heals them because true love, of any kind, drives us to God, to Jesus our Savior, the healer and lover of all and most perfect of bridegrooms. It’s not a knock on me, or an insult to any other, to speak the truth about who Jesus is. For it is in his word of truth that our hearts are set free. He wants us to come to him with whatever it is that is on our minds, burdening our souls, or tearing open our hearts. And when we do he listens, and loves, and turns us back, that we might enter into the heart he shares and love again more fully. A love that blesses, and heals, and forgives, and lives on.
“Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them.” ~Psalm 111:2~
Anymore it seems to me like the reason we are here on earth is to enjoy what God has given us and love other people. If we’ve been given a mind that thinks and works, we can enjoy a life thinking on the things of God, and love others by sharing the thoughts that God gives us. If we have been given the gift of days, we can live a life of praise with our bodies, where every step is an offering of love, every breath a song that God placed in us.
When I survey the wondrous cross On which the Prince of glory died My richest gain I count but loss And pour contempt on all my pride
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, Save in the death of Christ my God! All the vain things that charm me most, I sacrifice them to his blood
See from his head, his hands, his feet Sorrow and love flow mingled down! Did e’er such love and sorrow meet, Or thorns compose so rich a crown?
Were the whole realm of nature mine That were a tribute far too small Love so amazing, so divine Demands my soul, my life, my all
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