Easter people

A lot of people who really seem to get this Jesus thing are those people who have been so down and out that there's really no place lower to go. We recognize each other sometimes without even having to swap stories- I encounter a more than usual amount of tenderness in her eyes, an extra bit of care in his tone of voice. There's a level of pain, an experience of incomprehensible hurt that brings these things out in us. The thing is, I think more people have access to this than actually grasp it. It's not just the pain that softens us, it's the acceptance of that pain- hurting, sitting with it, experiencing it, feeling it.

I was asked to participate in the Palm Sunday service (March 16) at Crossings. I really like being a part of things on stage, so I accepted. I had some misgivings about what Bill and Mark wanted me to do- specifically, smearing and splattering black and red paint all over a picture of Jesus and therefore destroying it- but I decided to go ahead with it. We walked through it before the service, getting blocking down, coordinating our movements with the music. Mark made it very clear that what he wanted was for us to beat the canvas where Jesus' face was soon to be painted- sling paint on it, destroy it as thoroughly and violently as we could without actually getting paint on the stage or knocking the canvas over. hmmm... Did I really want to be that agent of destruction, however symbolic? No. But am I in reality a force with that destructive potential, in more than a symbolic nature? Yes.

We finished the run-through. I wasn't feeling it, but I'd signed on, so there I went. When the time came to go through with it, when the music swelled and signaled our first dramatic strike on the canvas, I found myself more than able to act out this violence. My misgivings were nowhere in sight as I wailed on the canvas, portrayed utter contempt as I slung paint from my hands onto Jesus' face, as I smeared paint over it and obliterated the image. My body was expressive as was my face: I really got into it. I surprised myself again at how easily destruction comes to me, how easily I can hurt the One who loves me. Thinking about this, realizing that it wasn't just that particular group of Jewish people or Ananias or Caiaphas or even Pilate who crucified Jesus, but that I did is important and true... and I don't want to own up to it at all.

I've been reading What's So Amazing about Grace? by Philip Yancey, and I'm really enjoying it - drinking deep, so to speak. He points out that a lot of Christians want to convert government and politics to their cause, to intertwine functions of state with the gospel, even though it was government & politics mixed with religion (Judaism) that played the major role in the Roman state's execution of Jesus. I think this impulse to mix government and religion, thereby sanctioning our own stance and world view, is at least partly fueled by our nonacceptance of our own guilt, of our own compliance in Jesus' death. It's a humbling thing to sit with the knowledge that my sin hurt the God who is ever so gracious in His love for me. We all shout, "Crucify Him!": Jews, gentiles, Christians, atheists, pagans, the whole lot of us. Jesus said to his disciples that the world would hate them as it hated him. And as followers of Jesus, we resist this hate. It's not much of a surprise. I refuse to look at and sit with my own rejection of Jesus, my own sin. Spiritually, I am a marathon runner. I run from pain, from hurt, from confrontation, from anything that might reveal my act of sin. But in doing so, I avert my own healing. By His stripes we are healed. Healing comes through the acceptance of my own pain and hurt, both that which I've given and that which I've received. I have to accept and experience my own pain in order to heal. Quite frankly, I hate that; it scares me. But Jesus accepted His cup, a cup far more bitter than mine, and was raised to life. If I drink the cup I've been given, I trust that I can and shall be healed.

So what it all boils down to is that Cee-Lo is badass. There's a song by Gnarls Barkley called "Smiley Faces" that's amazing and pertinent and true: "Your worries and fears become your friends, and they end up smiling at you." If I'm really going to be an Easter people, if I'm really going to live a resurrection life, I've got to absorb the weight, the gravity of Good Friday and the Saturday in between them. I've got to go through the darkness to live in the light.

And yes, I did just make "people" a singular noun.

Gravity: life after divorce

"The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to ourselves."
-Montaigne
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This is a post about life after divorce. The first part is about living with the hard truths- the ones that just hurt, the ones I can't change and instead just have to sit with... and find I am better for having sat with them.

The second part is about the bits of thankfulness I found in the shards of the broken relationship as well as the rebuilding process- where I can go from here, what I have to work with, how I move and change.

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It's Thursday night, October 25, and it's the first time I've really connected with the hard truth of our divorce. There's nothing special about the date, but today I've come face to face with a reality I never knew how to deal with. I was happy to have someone beside me, even if he wasn't the best match - I underestimated how much I took the joy of companionship for granted. It really doesn't make sense to divorce in hopes of finding someone better - there's too much hurt. All the platitudes I've given and received these past two years are bunk. It's hard, though, to look friends in the face and tell them they're lying when they think they're helping you. Especially when I wasn't admitting that to myself.

The odd thing is, everything is just flat. There's no emotional upheaval here, just... flatness. Maybe the crying will come tomorrow, I don't know. It's not so much that I have to deal with it as it is that I have to bear it and sit with it. I've run from this for so long, and now that I find myself here, it's not so bad. It just is. And I feel sternness from God. This is hard.

I wonder about relationships: what makes them tick, keeps them going day to day. How do two people stay together for 60 years? When I think about these things, this adage comes to mind: "It's not love that keeps the marriage together; it's marriage that keeps the love together." I think it's pertinent. I think it's true. I wasn't ready for marriage. Most people probably aren't ready for it when they marry, but they stick with it and tough it out. And I wonder why I didn't. What happened? I doubt I'll ever have an answer to that that will satisfy me. And that is something I shall have to live with.

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On the other hand though, we weren't a good match: I wanted to go out and dance; he wanted to stay in and read. Our families were very different, and he wasn't interested in getting more involved with mine. I was interested in rebelling against his parents' concept of what is OK. How does anyone make sense of all the dysfunction? Yet, if there were love and care underneath it all, dysfunction may not be such an unmanageable issue.

I can't say that I really did love him; I can't say that I really did care- certainly many of my actions said I didn't. I was in the relationship for myself, for selfish reasons, for success. Instead of being motivated by love for another person, I was motivated by self gain. I'm sure if we had really hung in there, God could have done something amazing with us and our marriage. But who knows what could have been? I see the needless torture of "what ifs" and avoid them and their ilk. I am planted more firmly than ever in the NOW.

And I have been moving differently of late- internally, that is. It's as if I got a new operating system, and it's muchlike a new toy in that I'm trying to figure out how it works. Little by little, I'm not so interested in clinging as I am in observing; I'd rather accept what actually is than long for what could be. I have let go of holding on (mentally, emotionally, spiritually) to so many people, mostly friends, and I feel so much lighter - it's like getting your sea legs when you get on a boat. I have moved closer to living life as I was created to live it, coming from a place where I can give, where I'm not emotionally or spiritually in the red. It's new, and I'm thrilled about it! I've been wanting to be where I am for so long, and now that I'm here, the challenge is not only to continue it, but to enjoy it. Knowing how to belong to ourselves is crucial, but also overlooked, undervalued, and not easily attained. I feel a freedom I have never known, and it is brilliant, but- I must continue to choose it.