Acid flood

Picture taken from here

Today I learned again what it feels like to be in the middle of a flood of verbal turmoil. Adults who are angry, feel unfaired against, and who are trying their best to look after their best interests, all wrangling about in an enclosed, small space. The undertone was emotionally charged and at times, hostile. Being a person who doesn't like conflict, I felt like a caged animal, incapacitated and unable to get away. Old history rehashed and dire prophecies made about the future. At one point I fantasized about jumping up and leaving, but this was a situation from which I could not flee.

It is interesting to me, how God's peace and the knowledge of being in His will can hold and support one during such times. The comments I choked out, that seemed to nearly strangle me as I spoke, and that heightened everyone's anxiety for the moment, was where I found God today.

There's no great lesson here. Only that the power of force, volume, vitriol--none of these things can overcome the protection and peace that God can provide. Thank you, God.

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Lord will raise up a standard against him. (Isaiah 59:19).

Embrazio

Sam is Puerto Rican. So everyone who comes into our house gets hugged either as they arrive or leave. It doesn't matter who they are, they still get a hug: my friends, colleagues, dinner guests--that's what happens. Sam feels that people don't touch enough and could stand to be much closer.

When we were first married I was eager to invite my colleagues over for a meal. They were either stuff-shirt types, who were probably used to eating at the best eateries, or redneck types, who viewed our furniture and paintings on the walls with awe. We happily milled around, eating a wonderful meal and chatting into the night. When it was time to say goodbye, Sam sprung into action. As the first man reached for his hand to shake, Sam pulled him into a back-slapping embrace. The man stood rigidly, arms dangling at his sides. No matter, Sam whopped him on the back and then reached for his wife. She got the hug and back patting too, only she seemed delighted. By the second couple, people seemed to be prepared for it and all was well for the most part. Foolishly, I was mortified and was concerned that my colleagues wouldn't think my husband was very refined, thus think less of me.

I opted not to comment on my wounded ego, but tried to intercept Sam next time we had company. This time, it was the deacon and his wife from church. Bernard was a crusty older man who probably had never hugged his own father. Diane, his wife, was surprised, but hugged Sam back when he reached for her. Bernard hung back, and then jutted his hand out toward Sam. I thought Bernard will pass out if Sam hugs him, but it didn't matter. Sam had already pulled him into a back-slapping embrace. Bernard stood stock still, as straight as a ramrod, his lips pulled taut in a thin line. There was no leaning into Sam or back slapping on his part. In a word, he was flabbergasted. I smiled wanly and saw them out.

No, I can't change Sam. I didn't marry him to change him. I have to learn how to live with someone who can make my friends and colleagues think negatively about me. I made this choice to marry Sam and now I need to adjust accordingly. So think all forty-something first-married women when it dawns on them that they are somewhat defined by the one they marry. I should be grateful that I even got married, and that the man I found is half-way normal. Especially when one sees who is out there for the taking! So I prayed for grace and kept on loving my husband. What a martyr.

About a week after my colleagues had come over for dinner, one of them stopped by my office to see me.
"How's Sam?" he asked.
"He's doing fine," I replied, bracing myself for a comment about the behavior that had left us both chagrinned.
"He's a wonderful man, Sam. So warm." His eyes misted. "You don't find that everyday."
I shook my head, mutely.
"You landed a great guy."
"Thank you. I think so."

That Saturday when we saw Bernard, he leaned into Sam, whopped him on the back and laughed nervously. Ever after, he sought Sam out for conversation. He and Diane became some of our dearest friends. Never did a visit go by without a hug, and Bernard initiated most of them.

I'd like to think I've learned a thing or two in life. Maybe grown up a bit.

People don't get touched enough. Many walk around with a bad case of skin hunger. There is something very attractive about people who live large and unapologetically. Their hearts show through. They are not bound up with notions of being appropriate. They are tuned into life. And I am all the richer for Sam and his hugs.

Surprise!

An acquaintance of mine works as a nurse in a urologist's office in a large metropolitan area. Laughing hysterically, she called her sister and told her the following story:

She saw an elderly man into the exam room and left him there with his wife, who would help him undress. He was given a paper gown and told to take off his clothes, put the gown on, and sit up on the exam table. A few minutes later, the nurse went by the room and heard the woman shouting at her husband about what he was wearing. His underwear was awful. Apparently, he found a pair left out on his dresser or something, and put them on while he was dressing for the doctor's office. They were his old shorts that his wife had been using to polish the furniture with and they were a picture!

Love stories

Many years ago when I was a practicing nurse, I worked in the post-surgical recovery room. Typically, each nurse was responsible for two patients. I had a nursing station with monitors on each side and a desk between two gurneys where sleepy people woke up after surgery. I really liked this job: patient in, patient out. Family members weren't allowed due to the proximity to the sterile surgical suites. Most people slept or were quiet until they were awake enough to be moved on to their hospital rooms. For an introvert, it was a perfect place to work: quiet, no crowds, and only one or two people to talk with at a time.

The sights and sounds were interesting, too. There was a good amount of retching and groaning in pain. One patient got up on one elbow and regaled us with bird calls for about 15 minutes. Another repeatedly asked where we had hidden his cows. One elderly woman did a slow stiptease with her pale blue hospital gown, grinning drunkenly at me. But most people rested quietly and chatted with me to pass the time.

One of my favorite questions to ask elderly people was, " How did you meet your wife?" Most people would perk up and respond with a lively story that was their own fairy tale. They'd laugh and tell me all the sweet little details of how they first noticed one another, their first date, and their first kiss. They often told me things about marriage and their lives that they'd not verbalized to anyone else. Some told me that they didn't recommend marriage but that it was nice to have someone waiting for them while they were in surgery. One man told me, "I'm married to a fat little angel. I love every ounce of that woman!" As a single person studying family therapy, this was all very fascinating.

One day an older woman came through the recovery room who had some emergency surgery like having her gall bladder or appendix removed. She hadn't the time to do anything with her hair and she looked like most of us do when we hope no one will ever see us outside the house. She was badly in need of a perm and her white frizzy hair stood straight up on her head. She looked so awful that she was cute. Her dentures had been removed and she sputtered happily in response to my comments.

"So how long have you been married?" I began the usual conversation.
"PFifty-eight yearffffph" she sputtered.
"And how did you two meet?" I eyed her sideways while I wrote in her chart.
At this, Mrs. Patient became quite animated. Her eyes widened and her face took on the look of someone who was about to tell me the greatest secret in the world.
"I met him in the canteen."
"No!" I exclaimed, trying to see how hyped up I could get this lady.
"Oh whyefffph!" she began. "Pfffeee, I uphfed to work in the canteen pfhelling drinkpf and the pfhoda counter." She swallowed. "oooh. I'm pfhitting cotton!" I gave her a sip of water and she continued with an air of great mystery and drama.
"The boyfph ufphed to come in there jufpht to fphee how pretty I wafph."
I looked at her for a long time trying to imagine that, as she looked like she'd been shot out of a cannon.

"Fphee, the boyfph came in to get their daily cofffphee and they brought thifph new boy becaufph they told him, 'hey, you fphsould fphee the new girl in the canteen.' Fphso in they come. I fphseen him and yup, he wafph a looker, too. When they come to the counter to pay for the coffphee, he done it. He looked me right in the eye and laid a dime in my hand."
She pulled herself up on one elbow and reached for my hand to show me how he had given her the dime.
"He had a nickel, but he wanted to toucfph my hand fpho he afphsked for phchangphe. And when hifph fphingerfph toucfphed my hand," her eyes were wild with the telling, "an electric fphshock phfshot fphtraight up my arm." Here eyes looked as though she'd just backed into a hot stove. "An I knew I'd marry him, and fpho did he."
She stared into my eyes for a long moment and lay back on her pillow with a dreamy smile on her lips. "We got married two weekfph later an we never been apart fphinfph."
I put down her chart and looked into her little wrinkled face. "And you never have regretted it, have you?"
"Never!" She jabbed me in the arm with her index finger for emphasis and settled back onto the gurney. Her face wore the expression of satisfaction.

That night I mused for a long time about my patient's delightful story. After I'd finished chuckling about how she looked, I thought how fortunate she was, tucked into bed with him in their home. They'd only slept apart twice during their marriage. There was something important for me to learn from her and I didn't want to miss it: what began as a romantic notion had grown into something beautiful. That was her story and she had stuck with it all these years.

There is something romantic about wartime bride stories during my parents' era. People saw each other across a darkened room and determined that they'd grow old together. They might dance together and feel safer in each other's arms than they'd ever felt before. Fifty years later, they'd still be dancing. And these were the stories I heard growing up and later, from old men and women who were only too happy to share them with me.

All of these marriages could not have been happy all the time, as most said they were. Maybe Betty complained that her Joe wasn't good with kids, or Mary wished her Bert was more handy like Sarah's Hugh. That's how life was and if that was as bad as it got, then they had nothing to complain about. But as they aged, they remembered more and more the positive, good things about each other and their lives together. Tense years and discordant phases of their marriage were not even remembered as they told me about how much they love one another. I've seen this phenomenon in my own parents. They look fondly at each other and tell me they'd do it all over again, a hundred times over.

Selective memory. In these stories, only the good stands out. No looming memories about the time she felt he talked too long to the woman neighbor, or when she threatened to leave him and take the children. Selective memory means they have forgiven each other for sometimes being unkind, insensitive, reckless, or unthinking. Their love overlooks these things and they have made peace with all the rough patches. Their love has endured and still shines through. That is why I can't hear enough of the love stories of our elders.

No Fear

This morning I was reading Martin Luther's commentary on the book of Galatians in the Bible. I had gotten up out of bed rather early, with a sincere desire to connect with God by meditating on His Word. So I opened up Galatians and started in. It had been awhile since I really spent time meditating this way, and my soul was starved for God. I could understand how the Psalmist, David, wrote so many times how his "heart and flesh cry out for the living God," and things to that effect.

I have also noticed that when a person is well read or well educated, much of what is read cannot be taken at face value, period. There are so many other theories or ideas, or experiences in the mind, that one becomes distracted by trying to make it all fit together. So the most simple scriptural declaration is food for equivocation. When this happens to me, I often find my mind wandering off onto other areas and latching onto other oblique issues. It keeps my mind busy, but I can't quite capture the true meaning of the verse, for example. It's similar to the experience one has when looking into the sky on a sunny day. It's easier to see what is in the sky when not looking directly at it, but sideways, or with peripheral vision. This is my experience reading the Bible. It makes me wonder if I have ADD sometimes because this behavior feels like that characteristic distractibility must feel.

So I struggle off and on, annoyed with myself for always getting my mind hijacked. I've seen preachers who can quote Bible verses--huge portions of scripture--and my mind is a perfect blank. I can quote a few Psalms, and a couple portions of chapters that correspond with Handel's Messiah. But other than that, there's not a lot that is immediately accessible to me. I can quote along with other people who are reading the Bible aloud, so it's not unfamiliar to me. But to bring it to mind when I want it makes me go blank and I wonder if I really know anything at all in the Good Book. It is easy to lose the assurance of salvation if you can't bring to mind enough verses to support what you know in your heart is true.

With this feeling of despair that I will ever be a good Bible student, that I will never be able to explain to anyone else why I believe what I do, or help anyone along their spiritual path, I picked up my Bible this morning and turned to Galatians. I should be so lucky to get it straight in my own mind why I believe in God and believe that there is hope for me as a sinner.

"Oh foolish Galatians..." I'd read this so many times before.

That's another thing. When you grow up a Christian and hear hundreds of sermons about every conceivable thing, it's hard to read the Bible with a clear, unbiased mind without hearing the chorus of voices intoning numerous interpretations and meanings about what you're trying to read. In a few minutes I was distracted by Otis. He always wants to play first thing in the morning and he yowls until I flick his feathery toy around on the couch for him to chase. In a few minutes I was miles away from Galatia. I really needed something to anchor my thoughts and bring me reassurance for the hope that I have. On the internet, I found Martin Luther's commentary on the book of Galatians. It helped me stay focused. Here is a statement that leapt out at me and that was so concrete, specific, and clear that I immediately felt relief, hope, joy, and gratefulness all at once:

By His resurrection Christ won the victory over law, sin, flesh, world, devil, death, hell, and every evil. And this His victory He donated unto us. These many tyrants and enemies of ours may accuse and frighten us, but they dare not condemn us, for Christ, whom God the Father has raised from the dead is our righteousness and our victory.

Jesus is my righteousness and my victory. It is not my faulty memory, my distractible mind, my insufficient scholarship. Jesus is my righteousness. There is nothing more complete than Jesus, no lack of anything in Him. He is also my victory. My habits of self denial or self-control, as good as they are, are not my victory. Jesus is. My talents and ability to do some things has nothing to do with my acceptability with God. Jesus is my righteousness and my victory--even though I'm a sinner and sometimes feel as though I'm falling apart at the seams. He is all that I need. What more is there?

Dumb Questions

I was reminded this week of a very funny and perhaps unfortunate story that happened when I was a therapist in training. The way I came to think about it was that one of my students came to me rather sheepishly and blushing, said, "I have a really dumb question that I'm afraid to ask you."
It seems that students think I have always known what I know now, and have always had a sense of self-confidence. I haven't. My student heard this story:

When I was in my first year of therapist training, my supervisor told me one day--not asked, but told me--that I'd be giving a talk on safer sex to a group of pre-teen gang wannabes. What an appalling idea, from a girl who had grown up very sheltered and who had had very little sexual contact with anyone. I think my actual response was, "I'd rather be thrown to lions." Because I came from a nursing background, he felt that I would have more credibility than he would. I hardly thought so. He was cool and the member of a minority group--as were most of the gang group members. I was White, uninitiated in gang life, naive, and I didn't know what kinds of words they used in their world to describe sexual acts. No matter. My supervisor handed me a pamphlet. "Everything you need to know is in this booklet. It's really good. You can do this--I know you can."
Well, I didn't know anything of the kind.

I took the pamphlet home and so anxious was I, that I never bothered to fully read it, or the title, or anything else about it. It was important to find the right words--the street words--that I could use and not be laughed at. I could just imagine myself saying words like vagina, intercourse, ejaculation, and see them howl in derision of me. I just couldn't take that. But I didn't feel that I could use vulgar language, either. Just thinking about it made me more anxious. As I leafed through the booklet, I kept seeing the word, works. It's your works that infect other people. Wash yourself well, especially your works, with chlorox after contact. Wow! So that's how they refer to genitalia, I thought. I never heard that before! Well, whatever.

A couple days later, I sat at the head of a conference room table holding a condom in one hand and my notes in the other. They looked at me warily. I just knew what they were thinking: What does this woman think she's gonna tell us that we don't already know? What indeed. They had probably had more sex at age 14 than I could even dream of, and I was 30! They began squirming and looking at each other with those knowing looks that make older people feel like fools.

"How many of you know how to use one of these?" I held up the condom. Snorts and dismissive noises all around. I'd have to hit them with some fact that would get their attention and respect. "Listen you guys, did you know that if you're having sex without protection that there are things you can do to keep from getting infected with AIDS?" I'd get to the heart of my message right then and there. "The public health people tell us that if you're not going to use a condom, you have to wash yourself with chlorox after you have unprotected sex." The guy sitting closest to me drew back in shock, his eyes squinting at me as though I were an alien. "Chlorox!" he repeated. "Yes," I said with authority. If you aren't going to be safe, you will have to wash your privates with chlorox to be sure there aren't any germs on you." There. I had them, even though I wasn't using the right words. They sat silently regarding me with a mixture of surprise and fear. "But chlorox..." one guy said.

I don't remember much else from that experience. My supervisor told me that I did a really fine job, even though I groaned about how mortified I was to have to talk to these tough little guys about condoms and sex. He said I was great. He must have been asleep.

Nine years later I had just moved to the Midwest to get my PhD. As I was unpacking my boxes of stuff into my new digs, I came across a pamphlet entitled, "Safety for needlesharing partners." I had no idea that I even had such a book. I leafed through it absentmindedly. Half way through, I had to turn it upside down because the other half of the book was entitled "Safer sex for teenagers." Then it hit me. When my supervisor gave me the book I was so anxious that I never noticed that there were two completely different topics discussed. Of course, "works" refer to needle paraphernelia--I knew that. But why didn't I pick that up back years ago? As I sat on the floor of my new apartment by the closet, putting away all those old papers, I had the fantasy of a bunch of young boys in Southern California with bleached pubic hair. "But she said to use Chlorox!"

The moral of this story? Everyone has dumb questions and some dumb questions could save the reproductive health of our clients! The second thought is that it's a good thing to be able to laugh at yourself. Some of us have more to laugh about than others.
Oh, and get your facts straight. I'm still working on that one.

Roach House

One of my first memories of life came to me as a snippet--a vignette. I was lying in my crib after waking up from a nap. I was on my back, looking up at a window over the crib. There, on the window, was a cockroach. Nearby was some sort of lizard or salamander. It was very quiet and the three of us were very still. I remember being transfixed by these creatures unsure of what they were, but fascinated by the cockroach slowly moving along the glass and the salamander doing his little pushups on the glass.

I told my mother about this memory one day and asked her where she thought it took place. "Oh, it must have been the Roach House." She shuddered, "Horrible place!"

When I was about a year and a half old we moved to Mississippi where my father was to teach at a new boarding school. It was so new that all the faculty homes had not yet been completed. So we were put in an old house at the edge of the property until ours was finished. We called this transition house "The Roach House" for obvious reasons. It was an unpleasant, rustic kind of existence for two months or so. Then we moved into a cute new 60s bungalow on Faculty Row.

We currently live in a rental home, and the longer I live in it, the more certain I am that it is only a transitional housing solution. Whoever painted the bathroom its garish blue color didn't use painter's tape around fixtures, the shower, or mirror. It is hideously done. The hall and front door moldings are a medium taupe color and the walls are off-white. It leaves much to be desired. Someone spilled liquid vitamins in the cupboards and it smells awful. The mechanical whiz who plumbed in the water line to the icemaker for the refrigerator left a triangle cut out of the drywall, so one can see the studs in the wall if you move the fridge. You can see the light of day when you look under the sink where the water pipes come in. Every faucet either drips or leaks under the sink. Outside, there are potted banana palms next to a dying apple tree. The roots of an enormous maple tree broke up the patio concrete. Someone cut the roots of the tree and it lists to one side, menacingly over the roof. It is truly a disaster waiting to happen, and we will be very happy to leave here in another few months when we buy a home.

There are a number of situations in life that are temporary and that are less than optimal. Some things are good transitional items. A person takes a lower paying job at a good company in the hopes of moving her way up the administrative ladder. Graduate students take a class from a professor in hopes that he'll be noticed by someone he would like to serve on his dissertation committee. We go on dates with people whom we will not marry, but whose company keeps us from feeling in the dumps until we meet Mrs. Right. All of us have Roach Houses: temporary fixes that we chafe against until we get what we are ultimately waiting for. Perhaps we could say that life on this earth is only a waiting time until we will have eternal life and see God forever. It's not always pleasant, but it can be made liveable. So we make life the best we can for the time being, grateful that the Real Thing isn't like this, and that soon we will be in our heavenly homes that are being made ready for us.

Is it just me?

We used to live near this place. The business sponsored the local evening news. Every night we'd hear, "Tonight's broadcast is sponsored in part by Wetnight RVs." No one ever cringed. We did.

Jesus' Wife

I have a student, John, whom I knew years ago. He's a couple years older than I am, so it is interesting to have him as a student now. We were both single for years, living in a community where there were lots of singles. I invited him out for a date one time. Actually, it was a group date and I had no idea who I should invite. So someone else invited him and two other guys to go on a date with me and my two roommates. No one knew who had invited whom, and it was really wierd. We went to a concert, I think. But I have no specific memories of it.

Now he's my student, and the rest of the story has come out. The other evening while I was assembling my new furniture at the office after most people had left, there was a knock on my door. It was John. "Do you want help with that?" he asked. "I spent most of my life doing maintenance type of work, so I'm good at this." Two hours later I thought he probably was very good at fixing pipes and building walls, but he can't read instructions worth a flip. But it gave us time to chat about old times.

"You know," he confided, "I think I have a larger than life picture of you in my mind." I laughed out loud and protested. "No," he continued. "You don't understand. See, I always thought that you and Sarah (my roommate) were like..." he paused to find the right words, his forehead furrowed with sincerity, voice hushed. "...like...I thought you two would qualify as Jesus' wife!" Howls of laughter from me. "I thought that since I wasn't a doctor, and so many people around here are, and seem to be fixated on marrying a doctor, that you probably deserved someone at least as good as Olaf. So I never tried." Olaf was the local tall, dark and handsome heart throb whose name was on the lips of every single woman. He was a doctor. He was also a heart breaker and I knew better than ever make a try for him. I just didn't trust him to be there at the end of his approach-avoidance dance.

John asked me why I hadn't gotten married until I was in my mid-forties. "I never got over being crushed when I was in my early 20s." I told him briefly that a fiance had called everything off one month before our wedding by telling me that I wasn't educated enough, attractive enough, intelligent enough, sophisticated enough, and that my life goals were inadequate somehow. "I'll never forgive myself if I marry you because you'll hold me back from my career and my life." I believed him, sad to say, and I gave up because I thought if anyone would know, it would be him. John was visibly irritated when I mentioned this. "None of it was true," he intoned, looking kindly at me.

I hadn't meant to say anything about my personal history to John. He's my student, after all, and I am very happily married to Sam. But John was there before Sam and he understood because he had been single for so long, too. I didn't tell him that my fiance had been seeing another woman who had told him, "Why are you settling for hamburger when you can have prime rib?" So I started spending time with another man after I finally felt that I could at least be out in public without feeling ashamed of myself. After two years of hoping for a romantic relationship to form, this new guy let me know that Ms. Primb Rib and he were dating. Of all the irony. And I was good enough to be Jesus' wife. I wish I'd known then.

We got my desk assembled by 10:15. He'd called his wife to warn her that he'd be home late, and I called Sam to say that I'd get home in a few minutes. When John drove off, and I got in my car with a wave and a chuckle. Jesus' wife. Hmmmm.

What I remember about those years is that I fel absolutely horrible about myself. I felt angst about how I looked (even though I was rather attractive for many of those years) and felt defined by the fact that I didn't own a home or have money; that as an older adult student I was a late bloomer. Than no man would want to date a doctor. That I'd been rejected by so many men for so many years that I'd just given up. My light had gone out inside. And this guy was there all the time, thinking I'd be better than anyone he should aim for.

Someone once told me that being shy is really a form of narcissism. I think that not feeling good about oneself is, too. Because all the focus is on what one is not, or what one needs but doesn't feel one has. The emotional energy is consumed with questions like, "Do I look okay in this?" "Is anyone going to talk with me?" "What am I supposed to say?" "I hope I don't say something awful." "Why do I always have to be alone."

Jesus' wife. There are many people who walk around without knowing that others esteem them highly or admire them for something they say or do. Just saying the words to them can make them walk taller. I have, this week.

Good Friends

When I was a youngish 20-something, first living out on my own, I happened to meet Doris at the church I was attending at the time. She and her husband took me home, fed me, and called often. What cemented our new friendship was when I needed to move to another apartment and they helped me move everything in their truck. Their generosity surprised me, but it was only the beginning of things to come.

Doris has been part of my life since 1983. She has hiked me up mountains, taught me how to cure olives, given me her delicious frozen raspberry jam, and spoiled me over the last two years when I visited her. She's sent me cookbooks, and has given me a beautiful carved African birthing chair that sits proudly in my study. She never had children of her own, and she calls me "one of my girls." There are four of us women in our forties, all of whom love her and think of her as a West coast mom.

Her husband has died now, and she is alone. God has put other people in her life who live closer to her and who can help her. But little bits of my heart are there in her living room and kitchen--with her. If you sit in her armchair by the front window, you can look straight up into the mountains, that look like they've been swept up from her front yard. I know fewer more beautiful places than the little Oregon town where she lives.

I was thinking about Doris today and how her influence is felt in my life every day. I'm privileged to have many people close to me who are my joy and my very breath, too many to name. Today I wanted to say thank you not only to Doris, but to all the wonderful people who give me more than I deserve in their kindness and generosity.