Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Monday, January 22, 2018
EXHIBIT 4: Peace while I wait
Love is patient
That is a metaphor.
Meaning the author is conveying an idea about “love” by showing us
something different. A metaphor is an
equation that presents the thing that we don’t know as the same as a thing that
we do know, i.e. A = B.
A Love = B patience.
The problem for me is that while I think I have loved, I am
not certain about the patience.
Certainly, one does not stay married for 25 years without having been at
least somewhat patient. The question for
me is what’s the measure of patience?
Does it have a limit? If so, then
have I hit it, gone beyond it, or fallen short of the mark?
Patient means to be at peace while one waits.
I must admit, that is not the first thing that comes to mind
when I think about love. It ain’t the
second or third or fourth thing either.
But it is the first thing that our pastor said to us about love when she
officiated over our wedding ceremony.
That day was hot. And
so was I, at least just before the wedding got started. Our ceremony was held up and I
was sitting in a car with my father waiting—impatiently—for the ceremony to
begin. There were other challenges that
day too. My train was put on inside out
and I had to correct it on the way into the chapel. My photographer took terrible
photographs. Some big things. Some small things. But a simple, union was consecrated on that
date. And so it was beautiful.
Weddings require a measure of patience. Marriages require more.
Love is at peace while one waits. Waits?
For what?
For whatever. But
chances are if one is waiting then it is likely for something that one wants
IMMEDIATELY. So if the waiting proves
too difficult. Too hard. One imagines that the love has been injured. That it’s been marred.
But no: Love is
patient.
So the difficulty in waiting, the perception of injury
happens elsewhere. Not to love—because love
waits patiently. And it doesn’t say for
how long. Sometimes the waiting seems to
be too long. But too long for whom?
Love waits peacefully.
So the perception of waiting “too long” happens
elsewhere.
Time. The perception
of a limit. An expiration date. That is not love.
After a quarter century of marriage, this simple revelation is clear evidence that God is giving me another opportunity to get
things right.
Now THAT is loving.
Monday, January 15, 2018
Exhibit 3: the will to love
Today after 28 years (nearly 26 years married) my husband and I chose to
love each other again.
He got up and
went out into the cold winter’s morning for donuts. We are together in a new city with our
youngest son. We don’t know where the
good donuts are so he looked up “donuts near me” on his phone. We debated the names and counted the stars
and the number of ratings. Then we made
a decision. 4.9 miles away.
After he returned with the donuts, he and I went into the
kitchen together and cooked pancakes, eggs, bacon. I washed grapes and heated chi tea. I know how he likes his eggs cooked, how much
cheese, how long on the heat. He showed
me the donuts he bought with me in mind.
We ate our meal together. We
laughed together. We touched.
Our family is aging, along with our love.
In 1992, when we headed to MI the first time, we got in the
car in DE wearing shorts and tank tops only to discover that August nights in
Michigan can be like fall. We were kids,
newlywed, bright and in love. New love
is great because it elevates and titillates and giggles and tickles and makes
us feel alive.
In 2018, we have returned under very different
conditions. We have property and kids
and cars and jobs as well as nearly 30 years of experiences that run the
gambit. We have doctors and lawyers and
networks. We have losses and gains,
portfolios, and such. We both have
winter coats, too, at the ready.
This love here knows something about the cold. And it dares to love regardless.
My husband chose, today, to zip up, hat up, glove up, boot
up, to venture out again—providing clear evidence that God still loves this
woman.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Life is not story
3 January 2018
My husband and I watched Armageddon, one of those old action films that pictures Bruce Willis as hero. He’s a cranky oil driller who’s called upon by the US government to save the world from impending disaster in the form of a giant asteroid barreling at incredible speed toward earth. I don’t like movies that hinge on high tension. My husband knows that.
He told me, “Don’t worry honey. The white man is there to save us.”
We laughed.
Yes. Armageddon is one of those tales that projects an image of the Nation as like the film’s unlikely savior—raw, unrefined, hard working, devoted, honorable, and sacrificial. Messiah.
Perhaps such films would matter more if they proved that the country was aspiring to be those things. But they don’t.
This film is but one of a trillion examples of the way we project that which we hope others will believe about ourselves. Rather than an action flick, it should be considered a farce given the violence and destructive nature of our country with it’s weaponry and endless wars and guns and desire for walls. We are far more likely the harbinger of death, than the belly that bears the world’s salvation.
Stories like this one demonstrate our ability—and I’m not sure who the “our” here is but I suspect is a very BIG “our”—to hold contradictions in our minds. We have a tremendous capacity to tell stories about ourselves which are in blatant conflict with reality. And to accept those stories into our psyche.
I watch this film aware that the “our” here includes me.
My health—physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual—no longer seems able to tolerate such contradictions. I am rejecting them. Not righteously like a Saint committing herself to walking barefoot among the poor. But involuntarily like a patient with lupus whose white blood cells have turned on vital organs.
To cite the problem is one thing.
To identify a solution an entirely different thing.
So I begin by turning toward the thing that is most painful to me at the moment. Feeling it. Fingering the jagged edge of it. The pain comes when that thing impales me. From the outside. Forced inward.
I want to point and scream at the one who hurt me.
Then I stop and turn my gaze elsewhere. Toward a playback of security camera footage taken of me when I was not aware. And I watch myself. Not in the Hollywood version, but in the grainy night light of the alley.
I weep and wail at the me who hurt others.
In the movies, the film ends after passing through the editing room. I love editing film. That’s where stories are made.
Life is not story.
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