Mea Culpa

I procrastinate

I spend too much time on social media

I let Gareth watch too much TV

I'm a bit vain

I hold grudges

I don't like to cook

I lie about stupid stuff to avoid looking bad or conversely, to look good

As I grow into my faith practices, one of the disciplines I WISH protestants had was confession.  Not that I need someone to tell me I'm forgiven; I believe that without much difficulty (though it still feels remarkable).  I wish confession was a part of my life because I've realized I need to be forced to admit my own flaws, my own brokenness, my own sin.  Because I would hide it all forever if given my choice.  Because I want to be perceived as a singularly perfect person.  Because if I could hide it I wouldn't have to deal with it or admit that I've got things to apologize for.  Because I like being right.  Having a confessor would mean I am halted from smug self-aggrandizement and continually confronted with my need for grace.  In a way, it seems like confession would help me be a better and more whole person.  Point to you Catholics.

One of the greatest dangers for me since Cliff's trial, conviction, confession and imprisonment (today is Confession Day) has been my tendency to rewrite the past.  I confess, it has become my practice to cast my memory back into our marriage (before "All the Evil") and to paint Cliff with a villianous brush; he's not here to defend himself, so I've got free reign.  I find fault everywhere, but mostly I recast myself as an almost virginal victim figure.  Imagine: I stand, garbed in white, clutching a sobbing child, as Cliff rages around me.  Poignant, yes?  True?  Probably not.  (Well...mostly not.  I wasn't wearing white and Gareth was asleep, but Cliff was pretty angry.)

I confess that I've learned to enjoy this practice and the kudos I get from folks who hear my story.  I'm so strong! And righteous! And patient!  And that's sort of true.  I've had to be strong and I've attempted to live righteously and I have exercised a lot of patience.  But I've also been whiny and irresponsible and short-tempered.  If I was traveling honestly back through all my memories, I'd be forced to watch the film of my own faults: when I treated Cliff with contempt he didn't deserve, when I condescended him in arguments, when I refused to admit fault.  

Our marriage was never easy - never. Our marriage wasn't always happy - I shed more tears than anyone can know.  But I was involved in the difficulty - because I was young and prideful, because I made assumptions, because I kept track of wrongs against me.  Ultimately, Cliff sinned greatly against me - yes.  And I am not in any way responsible for that great sin.  But I was responsible for my behavior in our marriage, and I must confess I was not nearly as admirable a figure in the midst of it as I'd like you to think.

2 years ago today, Cliff confessed to a room of our family, friends and news reporters that all the charges against him were true.  He admitted that he'd been lying for more than 20 months to all of us.  He confessed.  He says it was an act of contrition, a need to come clean after everything had been lost.  I've long suspected it was calculated to try and gain the pity of the jury (which it did not).  But the fact remains - he could have held his tongue and did not.  He named his sins into the permanent court records.

If there is something to be gleaned from this anniversary, perhaps it is my own need to come clean, to admit my sin, to confess my wrongs.  Cliff waited too long to purge his lies and it destroyed him - and our marriage.  I, however, have the opportunity to lay myself bare everyday to God and those who live with me.  To say I'm sorry.  To quit letting pride speak first.  To reign in my temper and seek reconciliation.  To give respect and reject contempt.  To name my brokenness and seek the power of God to heal and transform me.  My mom has always said "Everyone can always serve as a BAD example."  Perhaps today, though, I should let Cliff serve as a good example.   Perhaps today, I can let Cliff's confession lead me to make my own.

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have Mercy on Me, a Sinner.

Amen.

Choices Made

I run along the beach everyday.   When I was staying with my parents, I began to run on their treadmill, and whenever I would try to run on asphalt, along neighborhood streets, my knees would scream in protest.  But here?  Here my knees are silent, and the only sounds that fill the space of my morning runs are the crashing waves and the passing traffic and the labored sounds of my own breathing.  And of course, the occasional exclamation from Gareth as he enjoys the jog from the comfort of his stroller: "MOMMY! IT'S THE BEACH!"

Indeed, my precous one, it is.

I am hesitant to wax eloquently about the beach to you all.  I am firmly convinced that every day along this island, maudlin and sacchrine poetry is being written about waves and tides and sand and sunsets and I do not want to add to the growing mass of dramatic prose.  But there is so much power, my friends, so much clarity here.  I understand the need to put pen to paper and record even a hint of the emotions that overpower you when you stand facing an endless expanse of water.

In my first days on the island, I was standing in the rolling tides with Gareth when I realized that I was being overcome with something strange yet so familiar: peace.  Oh dear ones, you cannot know (or perhaps you may) how hard it was to stand under the crashing realization that I was no longer hemmed in by pain.  My son stood next to me with his shorts growing ever more soaked, chattering delightedly about the water and the sun and the sand and I was frozen with relief.  The crashing waves came again and again and in my minds eye all I could see was freedom.  Freedom from the landmarks of pain that Waco held for me.  Freedom from the frustration of the call process.  Freedom from the people I truly loved but who were unable to separate me from the suffering I'd gone through.  

Standing there in the ocean brine, holding my son's hand tightly so that in his prancing excitement he would not be washed away, I finally made a choice that I had been avoiding for so long.   The freedom of this place had to be total, my new life had to be truly new.  The waves can only wash away that which you give to them with open hands, and I closed my eyes and opened the tightly fisted hands of my soul and let the words rise out of me....

I need a divorce.

The words of the prophets still ring in me, the words of God about covenant and faithfulness and redemption and radical grace.  But a new refrain begain circling in me, a reminder that God had spoken through Jeremiah and told his people that he was making a "new covenant", not healing an old one.  That threaded through me, the whispering voice that asked me "are you trying to raise the dead?  are you trying to piece together that which has become dust?  Are you insisting on holding onto the old when God can make you something new?"  And I admitted to myself, that no matter how much I tried, and fought, I would never be able to let Cliff into the vulnerable places of my life.  Into my private moments, the quiet conversations held in darkness, the privilege of my body in intimate closeness, the times of brokenness and self-revelation.  I admitted that too much had been betrayed, that sin really and truly does change the landscapes of our lives and our souls.  That the gate I had been straining to keep open had truly been shut.

It has been a long journey to make this choice.  I have had therapy, spiritual direction, endless converstations, nights spent in agony and hope, days heavy with introspection and God's Spirit has hovered over it all.  I won't claim that this choice is God's Will; I still believe that God hates divorce because I hate it too.  I hate the sin and pain and suffering that led to this place in my life.  I hate that a covenant was shattered and that lives that should have been growing together have instead shredded apart.  I will claim, however, that God is dreaming a new life for me, for Gareth, even for Cliff.  That there is grace enough even for me.  

I am peaceful here.  Peaceful because God has led me to this church to serve and I am in the midst of that task.  Peaceful because it is new and unknown and the horizon of possibilities stretch out before me, uncluttered by past pain.  Peaceful because I have committed to this new life in its totality, accepting the death of what was and opening myself to the birth of what will be.   There are still days ahead that will be fraught with anxiety and anger, misunderstanding, desparation and loss.  But I am strong enough to stand in the midst of it all, wise enough to know that life is much like these waves I see everyday.  Life keeps coming, strong or gentle, violent or peaceful.  Life keeps coming and I can surely hold still if God is with me, holding my hand tightly so that I do not wash away.

Be free my friends.  May you all find a future that makes you leap with joy.

Remember Me Like This

Warning: Nerd talk ahead.

Yesterday I finished watching all seven seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  My sister was right - once I got through the first two season, the show, its characters, its themes, got deeper and more compelling.  It dealt honestly with issues of faith, love, suffering, ethics, war, peace and the compromises we make to bring about a future we want.  Gul Dukat was one of my favorite characters even though he was TERRIBLY EVIL; that actor managed to make him compelling, charismatic and even sympathetic.

You know you've watched too many episodes in a row
when you start to think, "Dukat's actually good looking."

Even more than that, Dukat was one of the most compelling characters on the show because he was one of the most complicated.  Throughout the series you saw him carry out acts of great evil and acts of great compassion, and we the viewers were hurt deeply by his betrayals because WE KNEW HE WAS CAPABLE OF BETTER.  He had PROVED he was capable of better, but chose otherwise.  That's great writing because it's what we all experience in real life.  No one is actually all good or all bad (sorry Aragorn).  Life is much closer to Game of Thrones than it is to Lord of the Rings.

The finale of the show was sad, but I didn't cry until close to the very end when Odo and Kira were saying goodbye to one another.  Odo had chosen to return to his dying people, to heal and lead them off the path of destruction.  That choice meant he would leave behind the woman he loved.  

FINALLY.  It only took 7 seasons.

She let him go because she loved him.  Before Odo rejoined his people, he shape-shifted to appear he was wearing a Tuxedo.  That was the way he wanted her to remember him, that was the last image he wanted her to have.  "Remember me like this."  I cried - not just because two people who loved each other were letting one another go.  I also cried because the separation that I experience from Cliff has none of the gentle release and honor that Odo and Kira underwent.

If only we actually had the ability to determine the anchoring images we leave in people's minds.  There are times when I can call to mind the good, the beautiful, the sacred images of Cliff.  But when I am especially angry and betrayed (STILL?), Cliff seems more like Gul Dukat: one who could have chosen better, knew to choose better, and instead wielded his choice like a weapon that severed me in half.

There is a maudlin moral to this: that we must be careful about how we live because we can never be sure what moment in time will become the image that someone brings to mind when they seek to remember us.  But it is more than that - we are all constantly being barraged by choices, choices that will define not only our lives but the lives of unknowable others around us. We do not have the benefit of a good writing staff to find meaning in the suffering or joys of life.  We only have each fragile moment presented to us and we have to be deliberately and unfalteringly AWARE of who we are choosing to become.  Gul Dukat was at times sympathetic and compassionate, but the totality of his choices made him evil and destructive.  The totality of his choices put a metaphysical asterisk by any act of good he did.

May you live a life that leaves behind images of compassion, sacrifice, love, forgiveness and grace.  May you live a life that does not require asterisks by your achievements.  May you be able to say to those you love "Remember Me Like This" and believe that they will. 

My Son's Toes

Here's a weird one for you - my son wants me to paint his fingers and toes with my nail polish.  Whenever he sees a bottle out, he points to his toes and hands and asks "Gareth's toes? Mommy painting?"  And I do it.  I've painted several of his toes and a couple of his fingers.  He even went to daycare this week with one of his toes on his left foot painted.  He usually wants it right off, but I realized I'm really conflicted about it.

Would this happen if Cliff was here?  Sometimes I worry about raising a boy without a constant male figure around - am I feminizing him?  And then I feel ashamed of those questions because lots of very "masculine" men are raised by single moms or grandmas or lesbian couples and then I run down the rabbit warren of questions of gender identity and parenting and feel frustrated by the lack of answers and my own uncovered prejudices.  Ex: Does a man really need to be "masculine" to be a man?

I guess I'm just going through my own version of the nature vs nurture conflict, but this time its in my own head as Gareth has polished toes and then makes his dinosaurs knock each other over.  I'm not the first mom to deal with the issue of little boys and nail polish - see this article.  And there is a growing conversation about transgender children and their medical treatment (see here, and here, and here) and how parents should respond.  I have no reason to believe Gareth is transgender and likely he is just interested in having painted toes because I have painted toes.  But, as I've learned in the past 2 years, life does not generally go the way you plan it to and people are almost always different than you expect them to be.

Much of my anxiety about Gareth and nail polish comes from the fact that I'm making all of the parenting decisions by myself.  I talk to Cliff about what we do and sometimes I ask for his opinion, but since I'm the one in the trenches (so to speak), the buck stops with me.  And there's just a lot to consider.  I've read enough statistics about the children of incarcerated men to make me sick, I've seen the blather about how we "damage" kids through single parenthood (this article will make you see red) and any blogpost or facebook update that laments the "fatherless" children in the world pierces me right to the heart.  So at times, I feel overwhelmed with the statistical likelihood that I will fail Gareth in some profound way - like I really need that.

I try not to let the borrowed guilt rest on my shoulders.  I try to expunge poisonous internal monologues and I skip over discussions that I know will trigger my grief.  And I paint my sons toe nails, hoping that mostly what we're doing is having a moment of shared discovery rather than a long-term gender choice to be criticized later.  And then, of course, we go play with the trains for as long as possible before Gareth goes to sleep clutching his "Percy" and "Gordon" tightly.

Not every part of parenting is complicated.

The Power of Staying

Yesterday I read this article and today I read this article and they got me thinking about the state of my own marriage.  Usually I agree with what Granderson has to say, but this time I had an immediate and vehemently negative reaction to his contention that the phrase 'till death do us part' is “just another fire and brimstone tactic absentmindedly handed down from generation to generation just to get people to stay in line.”  Now, to be fair, I have no idea if the phrase has roots in the “fire and brimstone” tradition of using hell and damnation as a tactic to compel believers to make moral life choices.  But even if it is in some way related, I absolutely did not mean those words in that way when I said them over 4 years ago.  When I said “till death do us part” it was about the totality of experience, about a  commitment beyond expiration dates and ‘rational’ expectations.  “Till death do us part” was a promise laced with God’s grace – words that revealed the deeper mystery of how God can affect human relationship.   Like Ms. Goldberg said in her article, I believe that the vows and ‘I do’s’ that you make at your wedding “launch the creation of an entity, a union, that exists apart from the daily ebb and flow of difficulties and joys” that marriage is an “absolute yes” without condition.

My beliefs about marriage stem from my beliefs about God, Christ and our lives as Disciples of Jesus.  And even though my marriage is in an unbelievable tragic state, I’m committed to staying married.  I’m staying married, to put it simply, because I’m a Christian.  And from what I understand, part of being a Christian is that your whole life is a reflection of who God is and what God does for us through Christ.  So, because God makes a covenant that lasts forever, because Christ’s death makes forgiveness for all sins possible, our lives – our relationships – our decisions, should reflect that truth.  And in my case, that means that even though Cliff violated our covenant vows, I will keep them.  It means that my love, my forgiveness, are not conditional – they are eternal and unconditional because God’s love is eternal and unconditional.  And my ability to love, forgive, extend grace and keep covenant is not by my own power, but by the power the Holy Spirit enables me to have.  I can love, forgive, remain faithful, and extend covenant grace because God has and still does.  I suppose this may be the cross that Christ warned me that I would have to bear – and I choose to bear it.

This choice has consequences of course.  My decision to stay will affect every other part of my life.  My professional life could be potentially derailed for awhile – my hope and dream to serve a church as Senior Pastor put on hold until a congregation can be found that has an open heart to my life situation.  Unless some miraculous intervention takes place, I will never have another child, will live a life of celibacy.  Because Cliff will remain my husband, I will raise our son alone – juggling a job, Gareth’s needs, our future, all by myself.  From the perspective of an outsider, I am making a terrible choice, and isolating, bizarre and naïve choice.  I’m choosing to see this, though, with (what I hope) are Kingdom eyes.  When I said “for better or for worse, till death do us part” I could never have known this would be what worse meant.  But each day, I wake up, thank God for the grace that I continue to receive….

And then I turn around and give that grace to Cliff.

That’s the power of staying.

Choices

Gareth is 1 year and 1 week old today.  He eats anything, he enjoys juice from his sippy cups, and we are still nursing.  And have no plans to artificially wean anytime soon.

I'm getting a lot of questions lately about how long I'll nurse, and I understand.  It's certainly an abberation (at least in the Western world) to see a baby nursed past 6 months, let alone past a year.  But as people ask me when I'll stop, I can't help but want to ask them instead: Why would I?

Gareth and I are happy nursing partners.  My love language is primarily touch, so the rewards of breastfeeding are huge for me.  He is an efficient and focused eater, so I never had to endure 45 minute nursing sessions.  And he is in no nutritional danger as breastfeeding is no longer his primary nutritive source.  So again, why should I wearn him now?

Because it is time?  Says who?
Because he needs other food?  He gets it!
Because I'm spoiling him?  How?! By showing him love and tenderness?

Gareth has already weaned himself off of several of our usual nursing times.  I nurse in the morning when he wakes up, I nurse again at 2:30 before his nap, and then I nurse him to sleep at night between 7:30-8:00.  I also still nurse at night because he isn't a very good sleeper, but that's usually only once.  And already he's showing signs of weaning himself from our afternoon session.  And although that's a little sad for me, it's also extraordinary to allow him the freedom to decide, to be flexible when he "relapses" when he's sick and needs to nurse all day, to feel no pressure to move on from our partnership till he's ready.

I know that my work situation is remarkable, that I have the luxury of nursing longer because I don't have to pump (what with his daycare being down the hall from my office), that I've lucked out by avoiding all of the breastfeeding crises (infections, cracking, thrush), that I have a family of women who all nursed their babies for advice.  But that just makes me more determined to keep a hold of this blessing for as long as Gareth wants. 

So my choice is not to wean.  My choice is to continue Gareth and mine's partnership for as long as he wants.  My choice, not anyone elses.