40 Days For Life

I'm going to be praying outside an abortion clinic this Friday, from 9:00-10:00. I've never done anything like this, and indeed never knew where the primary abortion clinic was in Grand Rapids, but now I know. One of the members of the adult community group I've joined couldn't be there during the time he signed up for, and so I offered to do it. We'll see how it goes, but I certainly would love your prayers...and if any of my GR friends would like to join me, please do so!

Sparrows

We are facing difficult times at work, and as a lead negotiator, I'm in the thick of it. We had three days of intense negotiations this weekend, and tonight we shared with the rest of our colleagues the shockingly regressive proposal we received from our management over the weekend. In essence, with cuts in salary, weeks and increases in health care costs, the cuts would equate to nearly 25% of our income.

I find myself at peace, and I realize that this is solely the result of the grace of God, and as a result of the journey I've been on the past few years. I used to be a constant worrier, but now, thanks to God, I am learning to trust more in Him. It doesn't matter if my income is lowered: it's all for my betterment. If I lose 25% of my income, God cares more for me than the sparrows. He will provide, and as Paul says, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The truth of the matter is that the board, and our management, honestly has little control over my life. God oversees all!

When I arrived home from the meeting, I found myself smiling as I walked into my house, thinking that nothing that management can do can truly impact my life in a negative way. If their regressive proposal causes financial hardship, well, that will be a gift from God. So be it. I'm in His hands, and I thank God for the perpetual desire on His part to cause us to turn towards Him, and how hardships are often used as the tools through which we realize our need for Him. We're all in His hands, thanks be to God. I feel a strange sense of joy, since in these difficult times ahead, there's nothing to do but to take each day as it comes, and trust in Him. That's a good place to be, and exactly where I believe He wants us to be.

Two Quotes from C.S. Lewis

The first, for my insomniac friends, from a letter dated 27/xi/53:

"About sleep: do you find that the great secret (if one can do it) is not to care whether you sleep? Sleep is a jade who scorns her suitors but woos her scorners."

The second, wisdom on loving, from a letter dated Dec 22d 1953:

"Remember it is not being loved but loving wh. is the high & holy thing."

Thoughts on Christmas Eve

Our lives are beautiful. We lurch forward, day to day, sometimes stumbling, sometimes standing, often bowed down by grief and trouble, occasionally filled with the lightness of boundless joy. Dreams are dashed, or sometimes granted beyond our wildest imaginings, and yet often we realize that our dreams, if fulfilled, would have fallen far short of what we imagined would bring us happiness. We are scarred by wounds that befall us, marked by the battles we wage in our lives each and every day. But in it all is the constant beauty of God's loving hand, always guiding us, always lifting us up, always binding our wounds and drawing us to His loving arms. All that befalls us is transformed into our good, and when we reach that far shore, we will be welcomed with open arms, and our scars will be testament to God's healing grace. We will wear them as a badge of honor, and say to anyone who will listen to us, "See this! This is where my Heavenly Father healed me! I was afflicted, and he tenderly cared for me. This wound here? I brought it upon myself, but Our Savior took it upon Himself, and bled for me in my stead. How glorious is His love for us, He who binds our wounds, wipes away our tears and brings joy out of sadness."

Our lives are far richer for the sorrows that befall us, because of God's inestimable grace and lovingkindness. Praise be to God, for His compassions fail not, and they are new every morning.

May we never be healed of the wound of living.

I've been reflecting a lot lately on living the single life. I've come to a point where I can see that this is a gift in my life right now. I'm no longer bucking against it, and even though I still long to be married, I'm realizing that my life will change in drastic ways when and if I get married. I've realized that I will miss my solitude. There is a gift in solitude and I've often thought of Thomas Merton's words that when we feel most alone, it is then that God desires to travel with us in the most intimate ways possible. Merton wrote that the Israelites' 40 years in the desert were viewed by God as an idyllic time when He could travel alone with them. I am seeing glimpses of this and I've come to cherish my solitude at home.

But even in the midst of that, there is a profound sense of longing for companionship. I have come to realize that companionship with God is always present and I know He desires me to rely completely on Him but the longing within me to be married is so incredibly strong. Maybe I'll only get married when I reach a point that it doesn't matter if I get married. I'm not there yet, however, but I've come to reach a point where anytime I feel loneliness, the only response that can salve that pain is to unite it with Christ. And for me, I offer it up on behalf of Meg. How ironic God is, don't you think? Glory be to God, because in doing so, I can not only endure the suffering, but say, "bring it on." That's God's grace! How beautiful it all is to me, and I know that I could never have learned these lessons if Meg and I had been together. As it is, I think I love her more than I ever have and there is nothing that I desire more in life than that Meg become fully enveloped in the love of Christ. Nothing in life matters to me more than that. I am finally beginning to see a glimpse of how Paul could say that he rejoices in suffering. What wouldn't we do for those whom we love? This is clear evidence of God's grace in our lives! This is not the way we, or the world think, but praise be to God that He transforms us, through our very struggles in life.

Praise be to God, for He is good.

I suppose one advantage to insomnia (or perhaps the only advantage) is that you have plenty of time to think. That's a curse and a blessing. The whirling away of my brain that began as soon as I turned off the light at midnight turned into a blessing.

I feel like I had an epiphany tonight about God's love for us. I was thinking about Meg, and wishing that there was some way that I could relate to her and communicate the love that God has for her. (I think it's often easier to desire things of that nature for other people as opposed to ourselves). As I reflected on the concept of God's love, I envisioned Christ's sacrifice on the Cross for us. And suddenly it hit me: I've always viewed the Cross completely wrong. Tonight it seemed like the verse that we all know by heart, John 3:16, came to life for me, surprisingly in my thinking about Meg. The thought came to me that I'd do anything to know that Meg could know the love of God. And that thought brought the love of God for me to life in new ways.

Since I'm not a father, it's hard to know what it must be like to have such love for your child that you would do anything for them, so the impact of imagining what Our Father's love for us must be like doesn't resonate with me as strongly as does my love for Meg. Tonight I realized that I've always viewed Christ's death and sacrifice on the Cross as something that "just had to be done," as if Christ was duty bound to die for us, and God the Father was duty bound to offer his only begotten Son on our behalf because it was what the rules required. Sure, it was motivated by love, but it was really done regretfully, to fix the screw up that Adam arranged for all of us. Basically I think I've just seen the situation as one where God's been batting clean up ever since with a constant tsk, tsk and a roll of the eyes.

Tonight, a glimmer of God's overwhelming love wedged it's way into my thinking. I realize that I have absolutely no concept of how much God loves me. None. I know rationally that He does, I accept the truth that He does, and indeed I see evidence of His love in my friends, family and life but it all feels rather intellectual. The magnitude of His love for me, a love that exists as more than an academic reality, is something I don't believe I have ever come remotely close to grasping. Tonight, I saw clearly that God WANTED to offer His Son on behalf of us, because of His love. I know it's something I should have learned back in Vacation Bible School, but apparently it didn't stick. Here's what I saw tonight: He offered Himself up for me because He delights in me, and everyone else who's ever walked the face of the planet. His love for one person is more immense than the purest love of all of humanity. And here's the most remarkable part for me: it's not a love that's motivated out of obligation from the Maker to the made, but rather it's motivated out of love that stems from a God who genuinely LIKES us.

I guess tonight was a good night not to sleep, since I began to see a glimmer of the fact that indeed God happens to like me.

And really, that's more profound than knowing He loves me.

My Neighbors

Last night I hung out at my neighbor's place until about 2:00 a.m. He's 21 and has friends who are about his age. They all work together at Lowe's, and for some reason they've taken to me and seem to think I'm a cool "old guy."

Here's the reality: the youth of today are some hurting campers. They were talking about the gossip at Lowe's, who's sleeping with who, who's "servicing" who in "receiving," who's pregnant with whose baby and and on and on.

I hope and pray that I can shed some light of God's love in their lives. There's one poor girl who's beautiful and adorable and her boyfriend just ended their relationship. She's drinking the pain away, many times drinking all night long. She drinks to be able to fall asleep and she told me last night that just the other day her alarm went off for work and she was still up with people, "partying." I'm going to be praying for her! The reality is that I'm old enough to be her father and my heart breaks for the pain she's in. She grew up in a Christian home but got burned by a friend and her youth pastor who violated her trust when she confided in them the tragic story that she had been raped in Mexico when she was 15. That caused her to become disillusioned with the church. How much pain there is in the world! I'm going to pray for her, and since she knows about my own heart break with Meg, the next time I see her I'm going to tell her that every time I feel the pain of the loss of Meg in my life, I'm going to be praying for her.

It's all so sad. One girl who was there last night went into the hospital with the belief that she was about to give birth. She became pregnant, and for some reason, probably out of some bizarre twist of shame, she was telling people that she got raped, but confessed in a moment of honesty to one of the girls who frequents my neighbor's house that it wasn't the case. But God bless her for keeping the child! And the guy she went to the hospital with tonight is not the father of her baby, but a guy who started dating her when she was 8 months pregnant. He's a good guy, only 19, who got burned by a youth pastor too. He got "grounded" from church for a month two years ago for not showing up to a rehearsal for the Christmas program. You know what he did tha night? He "got laid" and got drunk, and hasn't looked back. But imagine this: who would willingly enter into the life of a woman just about to give birth to a baby that isn't yours? When I see him, I see the love of Christ in him, but ironically I don't think he knows it himself.

I have two thoughts about these people: I hope I can be a messenger of God's love to them, but more than that, I want to work on cultivating friendship with them. I think too often we view people as a "mission field" first, but I find that repugnant. I want to nurture a relationship with people first and foremost, and pray that hopefully I can bring the light of God's love to their lives as part of that.

I'm giving them some tickets to my concert this weekend, and tomorrow night I'm going over there to play Guitar Hero with them. It should be fun, and hopefully soon I can call them friends. Though I think that's already happened. And it sounds like anytime I go to Lowe's, I'm going to be getting a discount too!

Say a prayer for them, especially the two girls, will you?

Man, I'm in a major funk. I wrote for a couple of hours today and I find what I'm writing is very difficult. I reliving memories that were very painful for me and it takes its toll on me. I know I need to write my story, but it's hard. But I think all great things are difficult, and I truly believe that what I'm writing needs to be written, but that doesn't make it any easier.

And today, I accidentally sent a draft of an email to Meg. I wrote it several months ago when I received that random text message out of the blue saying that "Megan" was in love with someone else. I happened to be looking through my draft mailbox and saw it there, and it accidentally got sent. I've purposely kept communication with Meg at a bare bones minimum, in fact only once since November of last year, and I certainly didn't want that email sent. It caused me to think about her more, and she already replied and it makes me keenly aware of how much I miss her, and how much I enjoyed her company and that I'm still very much in love with her.

God help me, but will those feelings ever go away? I've been apart from her longer than we were together.

Heavy sigh.

Incidentally, she doesn't know anything about the text messages, which is as I suspected, but I didn't need to send the email to confirm that. Sending the email seems pretty pathetic, even if it was accidental. Oh well, what's done is done I guess.

Thomas Merton

I think Thomas Merton is absolutely brilliant.

The opening sentence of No Man Is An Island is like a pin prick of light that brightens exponentially with each word that follows. It's one of the most profound sentences I've ever read, and it is a seed of an idea that grows throughout the first chapter to become one of the most succinct description of Christianity that I think I've ever read. The chapter is called "Love Can Be Kept Only By Being Given Away." It's stunning, and I think everyone should read it.

Here's the opening line:

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.

That is everything that our life is about! We all desperately desire to be happy, to find peace and joy in this difficult life of ours, and we find all kinds of ways to fill the void, to fill the loneliness and emptiness we feel. The crutches that we turn to time and time again never fail to disappoint. It is by loving others out of selfless love where we find true joy.

Here's the next paragraph:

There is a false and momentary happiness in self-satisfaction, but it always leads to sorrow because it narrows and deadens our spirit. True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared. There is no end to the sharing of love, and, therefore, the potential happiness of such love is without limit. Infinite sharing is the law of God's inner life. He has made the sharing of ourselves the law of our own being, so that it is in loving others that we best love ourselves.

And another powerful passage:

The first step to unselfish love is the recognition that our love may be deluded. We must first of all purify our love by renouncing the pleasure of loving as an end in itself. As long as pleasure is our end, we will be dishonest with ourselves and with those we love. We will not seek their good, but our own pleasure.

Imagine if marriages were approached this way? I don't think we'd have a 50% divorce rate! As Lewis says, we need to be about the business of heaven: expending our lives on behalf of those around us. That's loving with an unselfish love, which, as Merton says, "not only prefers the good of another to my own, but it does not even compare the two. It has only one good: that of the beloved, which is, at the same time, my own. Love shares the good with another not by dividing it with him, but by identifying itself with him so that his good becomes my own."

That cuts through me like a knife.

A Story of God's Grace

This is a story about a trip to Texas, a computer, a printer, a recital a priest, an overdone steak and a flat screen TV.  It's a story about a bottle of wine, a brother, the sound of children sleeping, a dog named Pearl and a guy named Chad.  This is a story about God's boundless love and grace given in a time of need.

My story begins on Saturday when I bought a new printer.  Ostensibly Macs are "plug and play," but I couldn't get the printer to work.  It was frustrating to say the least, but little did I know that my frustration would be part of the puzzle of God's plan for my life for this past weekend, one of many pieces in a puzzle that fell into place in such a way that I would become keenly aware of God's love for me and that I am never outside of his watchful gaze.

The priest is of course my brother, who called me on Friday with a request to use my Costco membership to help get one of the best deals on the planet for a 50" plasma flat screen TV.  He sent me a link through email, but I didn't have time to order it.  He had hoped that I would order it online, and have it shipped to his house, which I would have been happy to do.  Some questions arose about taking advantage of the additional $150 rebate deal, and if I could do it in his name, so it was decided that I would go to Costco to ask in person on Saturday.  We were hoping to avoid him coming the hour and a half to my hosue.  Meanwhile, I received a text message from Steve, telling me to wait before proceeding further, since he needed to pray about the TV more.  It was a big purchase, and he wanted to make sure that God approved.  Eventually that was resolved, and Steve felt that his house could be a comfortable haven for fellow priests, friends and family.  He felt that it had God's seal of approval.  Little did he or I know how fundamentally important that TV would be for both of us, and that indeed, his purchase of that TV was ordained by God.

When I went to Costco, I found out that if the TV were to be purchased at the store, and if at the same time a contract with DirectTV was established, it would be even more of a savings.  The monkey wrench in the plans was this:  whoever would be using the DirectTV programming needed to be the one present in the store.  I called Steve back, thinking for sure that he would not be able to come, but since his Sunday afternoon and evening were free, we agreed to meet in the late afternoon.

He had commitments in the early afternoon, and I had a recital to play at.  We had planned to meet at 4:45, but the recital I played at started late, and Steve's hospice visitations went long as well.  Our time at Costco was further delayed by crossed paths, Steve filling up a gas station since he thought I would be later than I was, me heading in before him.  All in all, we were late in our schedule, and I was feeling the pressure of time, since I needed to pack for a trip to Texas that I'm on right now with my brass quintet.  It seemed that things were conspiring to make the evening last longer than it should, but we now know that was orchestrated by God.

At Costco, we discovered that the TV was too large to fit in Steve's car.  We decided that the best option was for him to order the TV online and have it shipped to his house.  I didn't see any reason why he needed to do it right away--he could certainly have waited until he got home that evening.  There was no reason for him to come to my house, but since I had already mentioned the printer debacle, and since he's a Mac devotee, he offered to come home and assist me, since I needed to print some things off for my tour.  It is important to realize that I have functioned without a usable printer for well over year--I realize now that it was no accident that I decided to purchase a printer on Saturday.  It was all ordained by God.

After we made the decision about Costco, we headed to Logan's, my favorite steak joint.  We both ordered medium rare, and Steve's steak came back like a hockey puck.  It took forever for our waitress to return for him to ask for a new one, and then quite a long time for the new steak to come back.  Meanwhile, I was feeling the time crunch even more because of my upcoming trip, and the fact that I hadn't packed at all.  It was getting late, but I was enjoying dinner with my brother and I decided that I would be packed when I was packed and just enjoyed the evening.

We finally headed home, much later than I had planned or anticipated.  My goal had been to be on the road to my brother Jim's house by 8:30 or so, and we arrived at my house at around 7:30, two and a half hours after we had met at Costco.  What we did there didn't need to take that long, but it did, and what we both realize now is that Steve was supposed to be at my house at 7:39 last night.

It was at that time that I received a text message on my phone.  There are very few people who text me, and I assumed it was someone from work.  Steve was busy ordering the TV, and I grabbed my phone to see what message had been left for me.  

This is what the message said:

"dis (sic) is Megan...I LOVE CHAD!"

Whoa.

Yikes.

Ouch.

Where did that come from?

I felt like I had been stabbed in the gut.  My body suddenly became hot, I felt pressure in my chest and I was instantly filled with gut wrenching pain.  I was confused and baffled and reeling from such an unexpected incursion into my life.  I tossed the phone to Steve, and asked him to read it.  He was stunned as well.

It felt like a red hot poker being thrust into my heart.  I told Steve that I knew in fact that it wasn't Megan--it wasn't her phone number, and the Megan I know would never do such a thing.  I could only imagine that this guy Chad, presumably the boyfriend of Megan, had somehow, in some bizarre chain of events, found my phone number on Meg's cellphone and decided to do something to the man who used to date his girlfriend.  Steve described it as being perverse and cruel and it was--it hurt like hell.

It didn't take too long for it to dawn on us that all of the events leading up to this moment were brought together because God loves me.  He knew that this moment would be terribly painful for me, and that I wouldn't have the grace to deal with it on my own.  There, in my room sat my brother who hasn't been in my house in four or five months, in my house, with me, at the very moment that this painful text message came into my house.

I was reeling with the shock of it, talking it through with Steve, and soon our talk turned towards suffering.  I have learned about suffering in this year and a half, and especially these past six months, and this is part of my continuing eduction.  As my brother said to me, suffering is an invitation to enter into the suffering of the cross.  I am a better man for Meg's rejection of me.  I have reached a point where I view my loneliness, and the pain of her rejection as gifts from God that allow me to offer all of that up on behalf of Megan.  As I sat there with Steve by my side, what I saw in the midst of the pain of that unwanted text message was an opportunity to enter deeper into service of Meg, to work towards what I care more about than anything in the world:  that Meg would know God's grace and love for her, and that she would be redeemed.  I could honestly say that the pain of that text message from this guy Chad was a severe mercy to me.  I am beginning to feel like Paul, that I can consider it a joy to be able to suffer on behalf of Meg.

In moments of grace, in those clear moments where I have come to firmly believe that any pain I feel of rejection or loneliness can be offered up on behalf of Meg, I have found myself praying, asking God to heap pain and loneliness on me.  I love Meg so, so much, and I want to be the kind of man that would be willing to suffer whatever pain it takes to bring her to Christ.  Yesterday, in a very harsh and bitter way, God answered that prayer.  But what I am left with, in the very heart of that tremendous pain, is a keen awareness of how much God truly loves me.  My brother was there.  My brother was THERE, by my side, in that moment of extreme pain, pain that I'm still feeling today.  My brother was there to come alongside me, to encourage me to choose the path of love, to choose to enter into the suffering, and to embrace it and to offer it up on behalf of Megan.  As he said so clearly, the path of suffering is a choice:  we either choose bitterness or we choose to love.  He was there to help encourage me to choose the latter.

That is my prayer, and I'd ask that those of you who read this would pray that I am courageous enough to choose that path.  Megan is so worthy of a love that would offer up everything to find for her salvation and peace, and I am beginning to feel that offering up all of my hopes and dreams for companionship on behalf of Megan is my vocation right now.  Salvation is a costly thing, and a life spent on behalf of someone's salvation is a life well lived.

In one of my moments of anguish over Meg's rejection of me, I asked God to reveal to me why he hadn't brought me to my wife instead of to Meg.  The answer was quick and clear.  God said to me, "I did this so that you would pray for Meg."  In that moment I wondered if all of those years of singleness, of yearning for that one with whom I would share my life were there to bring me to a relationship with Meg.  Someone who isn't a believer I think would find this all a bit melodramatic, but I think this is how God works.  His ways are not our ways!  I truly believe that my calling right now in life is to pray and suffer on behalf of Meg.  I tell you, my brothers and sisters, I gladly embrace that calling, and pray for me that I can be faithful to it!

I fear I will be lonely a long time, but I am more convinced of this than ever:  every moment of walking into my empty house, or seeing happily married couples, or attending a wedding, or pining simply to have someone to have dinner with--those are all moments I will live through on behalf of Megan.

Little did Chad know that his biting and perverse text message to me was a gift, a cruel thing transformed by the boundless grace of God into a tool more powerful than he can imagine on behalf of the one he purports to love.  It was a eucatastrophe, and all I can say is praise be to God!

Steve and I said our farewells, with many a hug, both of us floored by God's involvement in our lives yesterday.  I was still in pain, but what I will remember more than anything is God's orchestration of our lives that day, and that in his mercy he ordained my brother to be there.  As Steve left, we declared this TV to clearly have God's seal of approval, and blessing, and I look forward even more now to watching this TV!   

I had a lot of packing to do, and I contemplated the day and the text message, baffled and confused at the turn of events that led to the text message being sent.  It's a ripple from a life that is no longer shared with mine, an echo of the woman I love still.  I don't understand what motivated the message, but now I know that it was used by God, and for that I'm thankful.

I looked forward to getting out of the house however, and heading to my brother Jim's place.  He was taking me to the airport this morning, and I looked forward to sleeping under his roof.  I arrived after midnight, and he and his two oldest sons were up.  He had cracked open a bottle of wine and we talked into the wee hours of the morning, talking about the text message, about suffering, about God's will for our lives, and how God transforms things meant for evil into good.  We went to bed far too late, but it was good for my soul to have time like that with another brother.  

I brushed my teeth, and then went upstairs to my nephews' room where I always spend the night.  All three of them were fast asleep, and on my bed lay Pearl, their family's beloved golden retriever.  The ceiling fan was whirring gently in the background, and as I pulled back the covers, Pearl lifted her head and wagged her tail in greeting.  I pushed her over and found the bed warm where she had been lying and gladly snuggled in.  As I listened quietly, I heard the soft regular breathing of my nephew Zach, the occasional cough of little John, and a random snore or two from Josh.  I reached down and patted Pearl who inched ever so slightly forward to meet my hand and I quietly thanked God for my family, and for his grace and love.  I lay awake for a long time, listening to the comforting sounds of my nephews and finally drifted off to sleep.

I was mistaken when I said earlier this week that I felt like the storm was passing. I was lulled into thinking that a calm breeze in the air meant the worst was over. It seems that the storm has begun anew, but with increased intensity and with new forces at work. I feel as if I'm in the middle of a volcanic thunderstorm where the air is filled with acrid stench. It turns out there is sulphur in my heart. I have found myself filled with an intense hatred towards Meg, the intensity of which I have never felt before in my life. I am tempted to live in that hatred and to feed it and feel nothing but vitriol towards her. I want her to hurt as much as she has hurt me and I want to know that she's feeling that pain. I want her heart to be ripped open, just as mine was ripped open by her.

These feelings have taken me by surprise, but they shouldn't, should they? I am after all a mere man, a son of Adam, a fallen creature. The natural response of a man is to feel anger and hatred towards anyone who has harmed him. Up until now, I've been able to keep these feelings at bay, but now, all I feel is rage towards her. It's profound, and once again I'm confounded by how dramatically she has impacted my life. I'm angry all the more because of that. I just want to expunge her from my life and my memory, and I want her to know that's what I want to do. It's awful, isn't it? I think this could be the most profound struggle I will need to face in all of this: to love her anyway.

I told her a long time ago that love is a choice. Will I have the strength to fight these feelings and to love her, not with a romantic love, but with an agape type love? I don't want to have anything to do with that right now. I have written so many visceral and cutting emails in my mind and I'm so tempted to send them. But I can't, because I know it will serve no good purpose and any satisfaction I would feel at sending them would be illusory.

I've been thinking a lot about grace lately. In the past, I would have really beaten myself up for feeling like I do about Meg right now and telling myself that I need to stop those feelings at whatever the cost. Stifling is better than living in a moment of hatred, right? I'm not so convinced of that now. My growing understanding of grace is this: God KNOWS us, and knows how we are and knows our weaknesses and strengths. Grace to me is a God who says, "It's OK--I love you anyway." He of course says to us to go and sin no more, but this I know: God understands why I'm feeling hatred towards Meg right now. He doesn't excuse it or condone it, but he certainly understands it. As for me, I think it's part of the process of healing, and in some anthropological framework, I think I need to go through this phase, and work through it, and fight it, to wrestle with it. God is there, and understands better than anyone the profound pain and heartbreak I've felt over this. I still try to pray for Meg, even in the midst of these feelings of utter disgust I feel towards her. In the face of these awful feelings I have towards Meg, I'm trying to still love her. Lewis says that virtue, even attempted virtue, brings light. But in my current state, what I want to do is to scream at the top of my lungs and call her all sorts of vile names--and I've even done that in the car on the highway. I'm not proud of it, but God understands. And He forgives me. Where sin is, grace abounds. Thank God. I need to confess those feelings, and what I've said, and ask for his continued help to love her like he loves me.

I don't find it surprising that the temptation to feel such vitriol towards her happened this week. Sunday night I was praying in earnest for Meg, praying for her salvation, praying that any pain I feel from losing her could be used on her behalf. Talk about God's grace--that's a rare moment of seeing Meg through the eyes of Christ. It was moving and it brought me to tears.

It was the very next day that I was screaming at the top of my lungs, saying the worst things imaginable about her, things I could never have imagined myself saying in a million years. I was filled with rage and hatred like I've never experienced before in my life. It was as if someone was telling me all the ways in which she had hurt me, how she had rejected me and telling me that she was only to be hated. I don't think I should be surprised about that either.

There exists in all of us, I believe, that petulant child who wants the world to be exactly as we wish it, and when we don't get our way, we throw tantrums. The rage in my heart is just such a tantrum. I demand that she loves me, but if she won't, then screw her. I have found that unrequited love can produce the most intense feelings of hatred. I don't think there's an uglier thing than love turned to hatred. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis talks about love transformed into hatred. He would argue that it was never love in the first place, but just selfish desire springing from our needs.

Of course it's more complicated than that. It's never just one thing or the other, and in our human weaknesses and frailties our love for others will never be wholly pure, nor will our love for others be purely bad. I've striven to love Meg with a selfless love, but of course it's tainted by my own selfish desires and needs. Right now, that has reared its awful, ugly head and I see it for the monster it is.

As usual, Lewis provides great insight for me:

Need-love cries to God from our poverty; Gift-love longs to serve, or even to suffer, for God; Appreciative love says: "We give thanks to thee for thy great glory." Need-love says of a woman, "I cannot live without her"; Gift-love longs to give her happiness, comfort, protection--if possible, wealth; Appreciative love gazes and holds its breath and is silent, rejoices that such a wonder should exist even if not for him, will not be wholly dejected by losing her, would rather have it so than never to have seen her at all.

--The Four Loves, ch. 1

It's clear that what I'm feeling right now is motivated by "Need-love" and is rooted in my pride at being rejected by her and by desiring to have what she provided me. At other times, I have felt the others to a much stronger degree, but in the face of not having her, is it possible that my true feelings are really rearing their ugly head? Deep down, I do desire what is best for her, but that's a choice. And having that noble desire is something that I want to strive for. I want to be the kind of man that can love her even though she's rejected me, but that's very, very hard.

In the emails of my mind, I've wanted to tell her that I wish I'd never met her, or that my love for her was like pearls thrown to swine, and that if I'd known what I know now, that I would have walked away the first time I saw her. (The petulant child once again.)

It would seem that these words of Lewis were written for me:

If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities...

Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.

I believe that the most lawless and inordinate loves are less contrary to God's will than a self-invited and self-protective lovelessness.

--The Four Loves, ch. 6

I'm not interested in damnation, so I'm not going to keep my love in a coffin. But right now, my heart is a volcano erupting from the depths of my soul. Not a pretty sight. May God help me to love her. It's fucking hard.

A question

I wonder sometimes

if the time for moving on
comes the day
you wake and find
yourself weary
of being sad

Some Poetry

THE WIDOW'S LAMENT IN SPRINGTIME

by: William Carlos Williams

Sorrow is my own yard

where the new grass

flames as it has flamed

often before but not

with the cold fire

that closes round me this year.

Thirtyfive years

I lived with my husband.

The plumtree is white today

with masses of flowers.

Masses of flowers

load the cherry branches

and color some bushes

yellow and some red

but the grief in my heart

is stronger than they

for though they were my joy

formerly, today I notice them

and turned away forgetting.

Today my son told me

that in the meadows,

at the edge of the heavy woods

in the distance, he saw

trees of white flowers.

I feel that I would like

to go there

and fall into those flowers

and sink into the marsh near them.

Thoughts On a Dreary Saturday Night

People ask me how I'm doing lately. I'm never really sure what to tell them--should I be honest with them? Do I cover it over for the sake of social decorum?

The truth is, I'm doing terribly. I'm in mud and quicksand and feel like everything I do to try to extricate myself from the morass just causes me to be sucked in deeper. I have no energy for anything--I take no delight in anything and joy is completely absent from my life. I take that back: I had one moment of joy this week, on stage, while playing Sibelius's Fifth Symphony. Apparently music can enter the cold, dark place that is my soul right now. Because of Sibelius, I had about a minute of sunshine during the dress rehearsal. Hopefully it will repeat tonight during our concert. It's glorious music, written by a chronic Scandinavian drunk. Hope in the face of hopelessness from a fellow depressed Finn.

It's amazing that someone has the power to impact my life so much. Better to have loved and lost, I know, but it's hard at this moment to remember the times of joy that we had. And when I do, it just adds to the pain of losing her. I can understand the appeal that Buddhism has for people who've suffered great pain: eliminate pain and suffering by squelching desire. Of course it's absurd, but it is tempting in the moments I find myself of late to want to never risk like I did with Meg again. Squelching desire and emotions--that is the safe choice, the coward's choice. I'm reminded of C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands again:

"Why love, if losing hurts so much? I have no answers anymore: only the life I have lived. Twice in that life I've been given the choice: as a boy and as a man. The boy chose safety, the man chooses suffering. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal."

I pray that I can view the pain now as part of the happiness then. But of course that's the case with death; with a relationship, if things work out, the joy then is compounded into even more joy now. In this case, my loss is a loss permeated with rejection. It's hard to think of the joy then, without inducing heart rending pain now, a pain that tempts one to never risk feeling such pain ever again. I suppose I'll be healed from this pain when I indeed am willing to risk loving again.

That could be a very, very long time.

I sometimes wonder if Meg could possibly fathom the impact she has had on me.

Wow.

Lighthouses

In the midst of the these gales of October, there are occasional beacons of hope, and I forgot about one of them from earlier today. I saw my former college band director today, the man I studied with to earn my conducting degree. He was conducting an honors band today and I was there to do a master class for the trombonists. It was terrific to see him because, like all of his former students, I have great affection for him. We were able to catch up briefly. I asked him how his move to Texas was treating him, and how he was enjoying retirement. He then asked about me. I told him the usual stuff: the job's fine, I love my town, I'm not anxious to move, etc. Then I mentioned that I was still a bachelor, which prompted him to say that this is something we needed to work on. I relayed that I had thought I'd found the woman who I hoped to marry and that she rejected me just about a month ago.

To this he responded with a kind and avuncular smile and said, "Well, before you know it and when you least expect it, you'll meet someone and you'll be smacked right between the eyes, not knowing what hit you, and you'll be so glad and thankful that things didn't work out with this woman. This is the way things work, and the way they're supposed to work. You'll see."

It was nice to hear an old teacher and friend say such encouraging words to me today, in a manner that wasn't patronizing or said in a somber tone to encourage me. He said this with complete faith, with a glint in his eye that allowed me for a moment to grab a hold of a vision and a belief that it would all work out. He has no idea how much hearing those words meant to me. He gave me a glimpse of the shore.

There was another beacon today--I heard God today, and I'm keeping that to myself. Ironically, what I heard made me love Meg all the more, but in a very different sense than any sort of romantic love. It was definitely another glimpse of the shore.

Stormy Weather

It would seem that I'm going through my Dark Night. I'm sure it's one of many, but it will take grief of a magnitude exponentially greater than what I'm feeling right now to top this. I'm raw, completely undone and frayed around the edges. I started to cry at work today when talking to a friend about questioning whether or not I could serve on our negotiation committee because of my current state, and almost cried again during rehearsal of Die Fledermaus by Strauss, a joyful piece of music if there ever was one.

I'm usually not so easily emotional and usually am completely composed. People are beginning to notice that I'm not my usual bubbly self. This grief at losing Meg is really taking it's toll on me, and it seems that there has been renewed vigor in the gut-wrenching department in the past few days. I understand that the tide of grief ebbs and flows, but you really notice the tides when your safely on shore. Right now, I feel as if I'm in the gully of a 30 foot wave and can't see the horizon or any sign of safe harbor--all I see are storm clouds, all I feel is hail raining down on my heart.

Tides

Grief ebbs and flows. Yesterday was a rough day for me, but the days prior were not so bad, though it's clear to me that every day finds me in a state of mourning the loss of Meg. My grief pales in magnitude to the loss of a colleague of mine whose child was stillborn last week, but yet this grief is mine, the grief that confronts me each day. I'm in that state which so many have been in before me: everywhere I turn, I am reminded of her and how much I love her. Ironically, even the aspects of my life that usually can be counted on to be a diversion for me cause me to think of her. A new copy of Gourmet magazine arrived yesterday and it felt like a life preserver, since I can get lost in the pages of a new food magazine quite easily. But here's the rub: so can Meg, and as I flipped the pages, my only thoughts were of Meg. Surprisingly, those thoughts started out as if we were still together, as I instinctively thought how much Meg would enjoy this or that recipe, or how much fun it would be to prepare this dish for her, and on and on. It hit me hard when I turned the page and saw a section on fun cocktails, something that Meg and I enjoyed experimenting with, which is something that she brought into my life. We would occasionally go buy one new liqueur and then dig up recipes to try and it was immense fun. I'd even have a turn at making up my own--some were hits, and some were duds, but we enjoyed it so much. But that is gone from my life, for good, and the fun that we shared with cooking is gone forever, and it pains me.

Sometimes I am bowled over by the magnitude of what it means to have lost her and I always have a physical reaction of pain deep inside of me. I am not alone in having felt this, but it is my life right now, and it is incredibly hard to deal with. I've decided to live in it, in each moment of loss and sorrow when the knowledge hits me that she will not be in my life. Some people have told me that I need to choose to move on, but I decided recently to not force moving on, or to put my love for Meg to death, willfully. I'm going to continue to love her just as much as I ever did, and let time, and God, lead me forward.

In the meantime, I'm praying for her constantly. That's the only way I can express my love for her now. When I'm praying for her, I sometimes think of one of my favorite lines from A Man for All Seasons, when Sir Thomas More is kneeling before the executioner, attesting his firm belief that he will soon be with God. The executioner asks him if he is sure of that. More responds: "He will not refuse one who is so blithe to come to Him." When I pray for Meg, I pray more fervently than I've ever prayed for anything in my life--I pray for healing, peace, joy and most of all that she would turn her heart towards God. I echo More, and believe that God cannot refuse to answer the heartfelt cries that go up to Him from one who is so blithe to see the one he loves turn her heart towards God. God, may it be so!

Pray for Meg, will you?