
Newt: People like you, don’t they, Mr. Kowalski?
Jacob: Oh. Well, I’m, uh, I’m sure people like you, too, huh?
Newt: Not really, no. I annoy people.
.— Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
Ponderings on personal things. My heart.
Newt: People like you, don’t they, Mr. Kowalski?
Jacob: Oh. Well, I’m, uh, I’m sure people like you, too, huh?
Newt: Not really, no. I annoy people.
.— Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them
I don’t need her love to love her all I can.
I don’t hold with having heroes or hero worship. That said, there are two living people whom I admire so very deeply for various reasons that I have to be vigilant in not allowing admiration to become pedestal-building. One such individual is Dr. Ravi Zacharias (recent events trouble me, but they. don’t leave me angry or disillusioned. Rather, I am humbled by the realization that, ”There, but for the grace of God, go I.”, and that even those who genuinely love and serve God struggle with the sin inheritance we all share.), and the other is Andrew Peterson.
I’ve spent the last two years being told by the important people in my life that I’m crazy. Of those who love and support me, I’ve felt that no one has really understood my heart and thoughts. Then I discover this song written by my favorite singer/songwriter; an amazing artist, book author, and sincere and dedicated servant of God… He understands. Someone understands. At least one person understands.
I don’t need her love to love her all I can.
That said, those telling me that I’m crazy or a fool were quite correct. I wouldn’t listen. I discounted their feedback, not so much because I doubted them, but because of the, necessary at the time, and awful and so very painful now, stealth nature of proceedings. They weren’t “In the know.” Well, OK, yes, and because I doubted them and thought their hearts informed by the taint of this sinful world; a world so infected that healthy and God-honoring appear alien and foreign. See what I did there? I claimed to be on the side of the angels and consigned everyone else, even (especially) those poor misguided fools who disagreed with me, to be unknowingly agents of The Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age. Down that path lies, if not madness, then certainly nothing but unfulfillment, compounding sorrows, and repetitive painful lessons.
Things still do not, for me, process correctly and completely, and so leave me ever ill at ease. Imagine striving and expending all ones’ resources to reach a destination only to have some kind-hearted person make the observation, far far down the road, that you’ve been holding the map upside down from the outset. I bounce between certainty and self-doubt. Admitting error means not only acknowledging being in the wrong, but also accepting that the terrible terrible loss will forever and unchangingly be so. I still can’t entirely let go of this belief which I held. Cowardice? Sorrow? I fear that I am the one who misapprehends reality and I question my own faculties. How much more or less than a few vowels and consonants separate lover from lunatic?
So much pride in what I thought my ability to apprehend and perceive the heart of others. How is it that I, so very emotionally stunted and damaged; trained by a sociopath to emulate a sociopath; having made a decades delayed start at compassion and empathy; delude myself so unreservedly?
Perhaps the song speaks of a madman. If so, then I am that madman.
I don’t need her love to love her all I can.
Perhaps in this situation, ‘loving all one can’ means acceptance of failure, of foolishness, of error, and voluntarily incarceration of an organ harmful to others. “If loving is wrong, then I don’t to be right.” becomes the meaningless magpie cry identifying a selfish and unkind heart.
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
This shall be a work in progress for a while. I’ve not bandwidth and shan’t for a while. However, I wish to get the thoughts out before I lose them.
I’m coming to re-recognize the obvious.
Waking dream of failing to dissuade Rain from her horrible purpose.
Ravi or Ray Comfort, HAVE “nobody has ever been argued into the kingdom”. Nobody has every been argued back into love once they’ve established a fictional perspective of the past.
I can do nothing.
I have no choice but to accept.
I’m no stranger to having the past, especially the parts that matter most to joy and the heart, torn and mangled and made poison. Bitter awful poison. And no choice given, no chance of appeal. Like Socrates, I am made to drink.
I noticed something over the last few days. My heart is growing cold to relationships almost across the spectrum of my life. A part of me knows that this is just hideously awful but the rest of me is just glad of the respite and doesn’t want God, or scripture, or church family to interfere. That part just wants to double-down on nursing and turn my back on the remainder.
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
A question has been on my mind a great deal lately, and for all my pondering, I am no closer to an answer. Truly, I sort of took a jab at it and realized a very short time later how absolutely foolish the reasoning behind that jab was… it made good logic sense, as long as I set aside my awareness of the emotional side of things. In other words, no sense at all.
The question is, how do you make the observation to someone of, “I get what you’re saying in the here-and-now, but it is completely at odds with what you did and said in the before-now.”
I’m beginning to believe that the answer is, “You don’t.” If someone has carefully constructed an alternate reality/belief, or has pick-and-choose-en which information to retain, to give focus to, and to emphasis, and which to treat as inconsequential, discountable, perhaps even forgettable, they’ve done it to relieve emotional/mental discomfort.
As badly as I want, for myself (and I tell myself for them as well), doing so is selfish and unloving. I think that pretty well changes the question of “How To?” to a resolution of telling myself, “You Cannot, regardless of the effect upon you!”
It doesn’t matter how convicted I am. It doesn’t matter how much it hurts. It doesn’t matter if it feels ‘unfair’ or like a wrong which needs righting, or like the reality of the universe has gone all off-kilter and spun into the nuclear corona of a gas giant. If I claim to love, then I must also act in love.
And. I must pray for strength and resolve to overcome selfishness and weakness when the hurt and temptation begin to better my weak-man.
I’m loving little serendipitous happenings and trying to hold onto them as tethers to this life… trying with deliberation not to let them slip by unnoticed, unremarked. As such I want to relate the serendipity before explanative background. I’m chuffed and a little bewildered.
This morning in the last 10 minutes of Sunday worship practice it was decided that I should have a go at playing a cello part for the special music during the offering. I was delighted and a bit terrified (though surprisingly not troubled by jitters). We played a song I’ve long wanted us to play, Your Glory as performed by All Sons & Daughters and I was privileged to join the beautiful piano, guitar and drums of Ingrid, Adam, and Stephen, and beautiful (During practice, beautiful. On stage, I’m not certain I heard them at all.) vocals of the first two and our Glyn holding down the low end of the vocal spectrum.
I’m honestly not certain how good it sounded, but it felt good and it did seem people were worshiping, and several were deliberate in giving affirmations afterward.
So, to the backstory. I’ve always loved the cello. I feel it has a physical resonance with the human body that allows it to touch and penetrate and stimulate and comfort where other instruments do not. That said, in all my other musical affections, the cello has always felt a bit beyond grasp. I’ve had Great Highland Bagpipes. I’ve built a practice set of Uilleann Pipes. I have three early system flutes, two of which for certain were built in the 1800s. I’ve gotten to own and have enormous pleasure from all sorts of whistles, recorders, guitars, banjos, a concertina, mandolins, a violin, a Bodhrán, a Glockenspiel, pianos, clarinets, and a bouzouki.
At university, I studied flute and bassoon and played in community ensembles. Unfortunately for ensemble work, I’ve always struggled with getting lost, confused, and muddled if playing anything not holding the core shape of the melody.
For some reason, the cello seemed beyond grasp of my silly hobbyist’s desires to make music with all the beautiful clever contraptions that have caught my fancy.
Then, a couple of years ago something very unfortunate happened. A good friend and musical mentor passed away suddenly leaving the church bereft of a bass player to lay foundation and harmonically underpin the melodic texture of the other instruments. Also, by serendipity, a young man of our church had moved on to different missional adventures, leaving behind a beautiful Ibanez 5‑string electric bass, and every time I’ve inquired if he wanted it back, he has responded by saying, “If it’s being used to further the kingdom, I think it probably where God wants it.”
I started teaching myself to play the thing while sitting at the soundbooth during worship practices, without much hope of being able do the harmonic thing where I’ve always tended towards the melodic. It turned out to be surprisingly easy and fun and not the bugbear I’ve always made it… I want dots on a page, not Alphabet figurings. I fear the abstract and cling to the concrete.
I do love the bass and it’s growling percussive sometimes smooth voicings, but it put me back in mind of yearning for the beauty and resonance of the cello. Each year I would attend our association of churches’ Faithwalkers Mid-west conference and be joyfully transported when Lucas Shogren of Clocks & Clouds would lay down his bass and pick up the cello. As the bass began to seem within my reach it seemed to draw the cello along with it. If I could teach myself to fill a role on one instrument, perhaps I could do the same on one very similar in many respects.
I did not think to have the opportunity to try as cellos are very dear and I could never justify the initial outlay just to journey down a road a piece to see how I got on. I talked to friends about looking for one, but only in a vague wishful way. Enter Facebook Marketplace. I try not to look so that I don’t find a bunch of things I didn’t know I need to have. In one of my rare moments of weakness, I found what looked to be a beautiful used full-sized cello here in town when I happened also to have a few unbudgeted kopeks rattling around in my pocket. It seemed a rather low price for a lovely student-model instrument in a very good hard-side rolling case with not much more than a small f‑hole crack to provoke concern. I felt bad about talking the owner down to a price I could afford, but which probably could not have purchased the case new.
Of course, I quickly found it to be unplayable with a tuning peg that had no affection for the pegbox to which it should adhere, and a bridge that was placed nowhere near where it should be and had been inexpertly carved to uselessness so that if the bridge were to be positioned correctly, the strings would lay on the fingerboard. I had to find a skilled luthier and save my shekels (They seem to hold value better than do kopeks) for a while to engage him to stop the crack, replace the peg with one stout enough to stick properly, and carve a new bridge.
I got the work done but life intruded for a couple of months, and I never got a chance to get the thing out and play with her now that she was a playable instrument. It’s been growing on my mind for a while that I need to put down the bass guitar, which is fun and relaxing to play, and start the hard work of the neophyte learner. Halfway through this last practice I remembered that determination and got my little girl out and tuned her. She tuned. Right away, things were looking up *chuckle*. I started figuring out where notes make their home. I had hoped that I would have this under my fingers somewhat considering that the Mandolin, Violin, and my Bouzouki are all tuned to GDAE. Nae. A bit of a mental rearrangement as the cello lives a perfect fifth below but doesn’t quite make it to the low B I love on the Bass. In the middle of the song they were practicing, they asked me if I was going to play with them Sunday morning for the special. I thought they were havin’ a go, as this was pretty much the first time I’d done more than fight to tune and saw out a few scales.
This morning during practice, things really sort of clicked into place. One of my friends on the stage has told me in the past that she values boldness so I decided that I could either stay silent and wonder and wish, or be bold and risk doing poorly. Risk was rewarded. As vague and wishful as the cello has always seemed, and as surreal as playing it during worship felt, this morning it was made solid.
The potential was made solid. Before me lies a good deal of work and frustration; to pull from various sources to try to learn good technique and not practice in poor habits that will hold me back further on. Before me lies the investment to make as familiar and comfortable, the notes of first-position of the cello as they have become on the bass, and to build a toolbox of techniques and ornaments to add richness and variety.
My goal is feasible. I want only to do what I’ve been doing with bass, but do it with an instrument that makes me want to simultaneously hold my breath and weep. I want to use this instrument and ask God to use me as His instrument as we seek to worship and facilitate the worship of others in our family.
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
There seems to be a strange disconnect between our valuation and perception of Love and our valuation and perception of Respect. We’ve learned much about authentic love over the past couple of decades. Certain wisdom (God-based) on the subject has emerged and come to the fore in attempt counter certain world-dom that seems pervasive. So, now, we echo statements like “Love is a Choice” and ideas expressing that genuine love is unselfish and sacrificial, putting another first even though they may not seem, to some, to be worthy or deserving. Another way of looking at the “worthy or deserving statement” is to say that one holds expectations, which, realistic or otherwise are or are not being met. Part of “Love is a Choice” is choosing to realize that one’s expectations might be unreasonable, overly high, or, not to put too fine a point on it, unloving.
Respect, however, seems to be regarded very much differently by these same people. Really, when you get down to it, how can respect be any different? Respect is a choice. Respect is less dependent on the person one is or is not respecting, and more dependent on the barometers and expectations we impose upon others. How often has someone said, “I can love this person but I could never respect them.”? It sounds a little schizophrenic to me, and I’m certain that I’ve said the same on more than one occasion. Cognitive dissonant much? I need to take a good hard look at myself and see if I’m not talking nonsense.
Myself, I would be devastated to think of myself as an unloving and uncompassionate person. I would lose sleep over it and be distraught if I, or worse, others, failed to see me as loving and compassionate. In times past, I think I would have experienced very little discomfort were I accused of being possessing a heart of disrespect.
I would probably feel and maybe express that I am completely justified in depriving another of my respect because of some fault I perceive that person to hold. Well insulated by my justifications, I would probably never even stop to consider if my heart of disrespect might be sinful, disobedient, in need of repentance, and deserving of effort to change just as much as would an unloving heart.
I think that if I’m reluctant to self-examine in this area, it is because I’m willing to make a show of surrendering on the very easy; the unloving heart, provided I can use it as a justification to hold out on the very difficult; the heart of judgemental disrespect.
Should not I; should not anyone, be just as anxious to come-clean and work to correct one as we are the other?
Knowing I possessed an unloving heart would cause me to hurt, then reflect, then fret and ponder [hopefully stopping short of useless rumination], to seek the help of a counselor, to submit in accountability to those I trust to challenge me and disciple me to change. I would yearn to roadmap a solution and then persevere to completion.
I think my cognitive dissonance would maybe push me not to see a heart of disrespect as anything like the same kind of bunny.
We can just choose to keep the cold heart and mind that cannot [or refuses to] give to another a quantity of respect one minim greater than the other has ‘earned’ or ‘merited’. We can continue to wonder perplexedly why, despite our accumulation of gold foil stars for having loving and compassionate hearts, the kind of loving relationships with others we yearn for continue elude us.
I want to begin applying the same ἀγάπη love standard to my respect standard.
Grace is unmerited favor. Nothing more, and certainly, nothing less.
I want to be as grace-giving with respect as I seek to be with love.
I want to be as heartbroken by my possessing a disrespecting heart as I would be possessing an unloving heart.
I think back to my childhood and I see now clearly, that a parent may cover up a twisted heart of selfish abuse in their own minds by lavishing ‘love’ and proclaiming to all who will listen, what a loving parent they are… all the while, shredding their child’s heart with constant unrelenting meat-grinder scalpels of withheld respect or expressed contempt and disappointment.
My father may have been correct every time he contemptuously expressed how I failed to meet even the base expectations a child should meet, and how worthless I was. [ He was entirely incorrect. ] Even if he had been correct, his goal was never to make me a better boy, a better person, a better future man. That which I have accomplished in those areas, I have had to do entirely on my own under the hostile rain of his discouragement. This I have done in spite of knowing that I would never earn his favor. He believed himself justified in withholding respect. He is now beyond all capacity to give. Perhaps he always had been.
When I visited my father in Branson during my freshman year in high school, he even told me that he had been trying to parent me using Dobsonian “Tough Love” and that if he had gotten it wrong, it wasn’t for lack of trying. By his next words, he proved that lack of trying figured strongly into things. Had he truly read “Love Must be Tough” (The book in which Dr. Dobson coined the term “Tough Love” before giving it to the world as his lasting legacy to misquote and misuse), as he claimed to have done, he might have known that the book was written to help and encourage the husbands and wives of spouses who refuse to repent of and turn from sins such as verbal, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, and infidelity.
Imagine namedropping Dobson as scapegoat for all the pain one inflicts on another. Paul might well respond, “μη γενοιτο”. My father was certainly not alone in having made the attempt.
I think it is clear, going forward, that when we see these little tendencies in ourselves to inflict upon others, that which was inflicted upon us, our heart’s cry should be a desperation to do whatever must be done to remedy. Once brought to our awareness, the absolute very last thing we may allow ourselves is excuse and self-permission to continue living life in this manner. We must counter our hearts of non-respect as strongly as we must hearts of unlove.
To acknowledge and then make excuses or pass responsibility and not make desperate effort to change is additional retroactive abuse to the child we were, a visitation of the abuse we suffered as children upon our adult selves, and of course, abuse of those God has put into our lives for us to, serving as His proxy, shower with His love and His respect.
The best response I could have ever made to my father was not to fight him, not to hate him, not to resent him, and certainly not to try to show him that he was wrong and that he should repent. The best response is to instead to make certain that I become the healed and impenetrable wall through which his influence is never again permitted to visit hurt on another.
We are instruments capable of serving as proxy for another.
Do we allow ourselves to be used as the tools of those who have hurt us, or do we offer ourselves up to the Heavenly Father who loved and sacrificed all to save us?
This subject has been an ongoing ponder for approaching a year. To this point, I’ve not had the courage to say what it was that gelled ponder into a need to write this article.
Confession. Contrition. ὁμολογέω/homologéō.
Recently I have been in a situation where people I very much love and very much respect (as Emmerson Eggrichs would say, “People of basic good will”) have done some things I regard as needing remedy/redress. I try not to put people on pedestals anymore, but it’s more of a struggle with folks I very much do love and respect who are in a position of authority. I think that the fact of their being just as human as the next guy engenders in me feelings of betrayal, which is unfair and ridiculous on my part. Rather, I hurt for a goodly while refusing to remember that they are fallible persons of good will with their own fears and hangups and foibles. In my hurt, I hurt back and feel justified doing it.
I am responsible for not just what I do with such knowledge, feelings, situations, but how I do it.
Emmerson exclaimed in a verbal conflict with his wife Sarah, “You know you can be right, but you can be wrong at the top of your voice.. I’ve always had an inkling of what he meant, but I think I understand his meaning better now.
Sometimes it’s much less about feeling respect than treating another with respect.
A friend pointed out to me while I was doing it that I was clearly distraught and maybe should find another time, venue, and method.
I felt justified based on the other person’s action and my hurt, so I continued unheeding.
It’s difficult. My mind is still thinking up ways I could have better used the opportunity to devastate resistance and drive home what I perceived as reality.
Meanwhile, my heart is breaking, and all these thoughts on respect are crushing me down.
My heart is telling me that respect… true respect… would be to not speak from my hurt… would be to make effort and figure out how to accomplish what I feel is apocalyptically important, but in a way that did not give voice to a heart of disrespect. These folks are certainly worth it. I’m worth it. Christ is worthy of all and infinitely more.
I don’t know that I’m capable. It seems an entirely impossible task. It seems that by the time I figure out how to accomplish it, it may be too late for real-world events.
Respect means trying in spite of all that. Respect means turning to God to be strong where I am newborn blind-kitten weak.
On the phone, before I started sobbing, still talking through with the doctor (who later started sobbing herself) how hopeless the situation was, Hawthorne in the other room started grief howling for the first time in his life. He knew the little brother he’d come into the world with and had been inseparable from for his entire life was leaving him.
When I make a promise, I bear witness that my future with you is not locked into a bionic beam by which I was stuck with the fateful combinations of X’s and Y’s in the hand I was dealt out of my parents’ genetic deck.
When I make a promise, I testify that I was not routed along some unalterable itinerary by the psychic conditioning visited on me by my slightly wacky parents.
When I make a promise I declare that my future with people who depend on me is not predetermined by the mixed-up culture of my tender years.
I am not fated, I am not determined, I am not a lump of human dough whipped into shape by the contingent reinforcement and aversive conditioning of my past. I know as well as the next person that I cannot create my life de novo; I am well aware that much of what I am and what I do is a gift or a curse from my past. But when I make a promise to anyone I rise above all the conditioning that limits me.
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
“Love seeketh only self to please,
To bind another to its delight,
Joys in another’s loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven’s despite.”
Blake’s “And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair.” measures well against my top standard as it seems a phrase I would expect from C.S. Lewis, Peter Kreeft, or the lyric giftings of Andrew Peterson.
This particular serendipity occurred as I traveled to that lovely meal shared with friends. I was again listening to what I am certain is the absolute best book on understanding true covenantal and joyful marriage I’ve ever found, and I doubt the like of my ever finding one better. A recent discovery, I’m on my fourth listen and still finding little precious gems. My physical copy of “The Meaning of Marriage” by pastor Timothy Keller will join books by Lewis, Eggerichs, and Kreeft in a place of honor upon my bookshelf once I’m done filling it’s margins with annotations from the heart.
Keller throughout illustrates that the covenant of Marriage as prescribed by God; love through companionship, service, and self-sacrifice, bears precious little resemblance to the postmodern social-humanist me-centred marriage that is so pervasive today. One would expect that God need not check the box labeled, “Substitutions not permitted.” or “Dispense as prescribed.”
Truly, it seems that throughout history, mankind, even the Israelites, God’s Chosen People, have chosen designs that deviate greatly in critical respects and suffer greatly for the deviation. When Christ clarifies that the adultery of the Ten Commandments takes place in the heart, mind, and eyes as much as in the bedroom; when He rebukes the religious leaders arguing over divorce telling them that God granted divorce to them only due to the hardness of their hearts we doubt not that the curse on relationship that fell upon us through Adam and Eve was doing its painful work then amongst the Isrealites as terribly as it does for all of us today.
A fallen world produces only highly imperfect replicas of the archetype. Understanding the archetype helps to shore up weaknesses, correct transcription errors, and repair imperfections one pair of hearts at a time, and I think that is what Keller has done here in providing such understanding. He discusses and then sweeps away the world’s rubbish and then expounds upon and makes accessible and understandable… and most importantly, desirable God’s greatest gift and blessing to His children available, to us this side of heaven. He shines ray of bright light dazzling The Shadowlands. He teaches the only method capable of building a Heaven in Hell’s despair.
I am a clod. A joyful clod of clay in full awareness of God’s blessings, not a pebble lulled by the endless mindless tuneless music of the rill passing over me, bombarded by beauty, lessening appreciation until I value it not.
This view of marriage and ourselves is somewhat allegorical of God’s love for us. We clods of clay don’t merit a second glance.
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
This is an area in which we should exercise the most discernment, and yet, consistently for myself and others it seems to be the area where we practice discernment the least. We keep poor defenses against the enemy without and seemingly reserve no margin of safety from the supposed ally within.
An excellent Faithwalkers Seminar titled “All You Need is Love: The Simple Path to Marriage” planted some seeds that may only now four months later to be sprouting. They lured us in by promising us a methodology that counters the last 25 years of Christian dogma on dating and relationships. Something different, and something far less complex, onerous, and dictatorial. A breath of fresh air maybe, right?
Here’s the seminar description:
Thousands of books, seminars, and counseling sessions have been spent on trying to figure out exactly what you need to get married. I think the path to marriage is a lot simpler than it is often made out to be. Of course simple doesn’t necessarily mean easy, but let’s get together and talk through the Biblical principles of love that provide a simple path to marriage.
Pastor Paul Johnson opened the seminar [LISTEN] by handing us a 20 item list of all the great chestnuts of rules and advice that we’ve all been told by youth leaders, pastors, and our Christian mentors about seeking relationship. They asked us to classify each one as either 1) a command, 2) a principle, or 3) a preference. I’ll list them here; a whole list of externally imposed [musts/shoulds].
S’wha? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that last one. Perhaps they made it up to round out an even twenty items.
Two I think? Yes, two. Two of those are biblical commands. All of the rest fall into the categories of good principles (one may read Proverbs for that), and preferences. We have all experienced those who give advice and instruction (whether solicited or not) with the attitude of you [should/must]. They tend to be rather legalistic about it and they suffer no discussion or disagreement. Questions are shamed to silence by being called sinful. Unwillingness to let go of something is responded to with accusations that the something has become an idol. Principle becomes Command and well, Preference too in most cases.
An longstanding irritant to me has been the careless and thoughtless use of the admonition “Guard your heart?” or the challenge, “Are you guarding your heart?”. A helpful phrase turned mantra instead does harm. I sometimes have the hyperbolic image in my mind of a married youth pastor telling a young man on his first and ill-considered foray into love to “Guard your heart.” who, even though the young man has matured and has his eyes set on finding a Godly companion for the road of life, is thoughtlessly chastised each successive time to “Guard his heart.” Played out to the ridiculous end, the scenario changes venue to a nursing home where the no longer young man, bachelor his entire life, shows interest in a widow on the same ward, only to be told by sign language to up the volume on his hearing aid by his curmudgeon of a youth pastor so that he may hear his youth pastor’s admonishment to “Guard Your Heart.”
The seminar leader pointed out that the bible gives us a word for people like that who do those types of things: Pharisees. As bad as these outward Pharisees are, they often pale in comparison to the Pharisee many of us keep inside of ourselves.
I know that in my own life I impose ridiculous, sometimes impossible ‘shoulds’ on myself. My arrogant Pharisee also then decides for others that since I fail those standards others must be protected from me for their own good. They really must be allowed no say in the matter.
So how do we guard against the outward and inward Pharisee? I’m only the rudest novice in this new discipline, and as such, I only have a list of things I am testing out for possible inclusion in a personal how-to list.
Over several years, and under the guidance of Chaplain and beloved friend Bart Larson, with some reinforcement from my pastor at church, I have tried in my communication to replace “you statements” with “I statements” and most importantly the “you should statements.” Likewise I have been trying not to use hyperbole like “always” and “never”. I’ve tried to put in check a tendency when excited to carelessly use superlatives, sweeping generalizations, and exaggeration. Needlessly to say, despite trying a million times, I always always fail and never ever succeed in efforts not to use the very most egregious exaggerations and worst hyperbole. Actually, it’s a process and I’ve made so much wonderful progress down that road. I still slip from time to time, or forget and grow careless. Success has been very rewarding as it has allowed friendships to go deeper and prevented much offence that leads to argument. I’m grateful to both of these men
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
Work in progress as I read the book.
I’m not certain what brought this book to my attention but marriage is at the foremost of my personal interests, most especially Godly marriage, and many years have given me a deep respect for the teachings of Tim Keller.
I’m 2⁄3rds of the way in and I’m rethinking how I need to write this review. There is simply too much outstanding content in each chapter to cite even a portion it all.
I’m absolutely loving this book as one of the best I have read in a long long while. I often think people find my views and ideas on marriage to be a little archaic if not strange. It’s very affirming to read a man such as Tim Kellar not only sharing many of those ideas but expounding upon them in a much more erudite manner. The man frequently, I mean very frequently, cites the wisdom of C. S. Lewis and prefaces it with an explanation of ‘why’ that far outstrips the one I’ve been giving my pastors and armchair theologians for decades. Same reasons, far better spoken.
Society’s idea of a Soulmate: A perfectly compatable match
…we quickly came to see that we shared the secret thread that C.S. Lewis says is the thing that turns people into close friends, or more…
You may have noticed that the books you really love are bound together a secret thread. You know very well what is the common quality that makes you love them; but you cannot put it into words. Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling of that something which you were born desiring? — C. S. Lewis
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.) I’m inclined to be more definite on my update of 2017-03-18. I’m not the ‘right’ man.
“A man cannot convince a woman that he is the right man, he must instead simply be the right man and give her the opportunity to convince herself.”
We men try very hard to be at our best and to show women the best truth of ourselves. There is nothing wrong with this as long as it’s honest; however, if honest, need we to make such effort? It is difficult to separate our anxious desire for her to love and value us from our desire for her know us on the deepest level and judge for herself.
I think we essentially argue with her cautions and fears and wisdom to see a truth we believe, but which she does not yet believe she has sufficient cause to credit. Not aloud do we argue. We try to anticipate objections and fears and present ourselves as the experiential counterargument. If consciously done and to bad purpose, this may be regarded as an attempt to manipulate. Nothing of value or strength may be built atop a foundation of manipulation.
If any of what we do is different than what we normally do in the course of our daily lives, then it is likely unwise. We present to her the man we desire to be, not the true man on which she may depend.
When, in the normal course, it becomes evident that she has come to opposite conclusion, we may, in desperation or fear, try to move the argument into speech, at which point any potential for the future is likely quashed.
One may convince another through argument or even deliberate demonstration, but that conviction will not stand when, inevitably, we fail to to entirely be the best of ourselves. This breeds only feelings of betrayal, anger, and disgust towards the one who pushed the other to come ’round to their own way of thinking.
Instead a woman must see things her way and in her own timing, without feeling pressured or manipulated. Any conclusions she draws must be her own based on her own observation and experience. That conviction then may stand when small challenges present themselves.
She must see us at the times we are not prepared for her to see us. She must see us when we are struggling without having awareness that she is watching, to overcome our sinful selves in a sinful world. This means acting natural both when she is and when she is not around.
Therefore, we as men need to just be the right man, not just for her, but for God, for ourselves and for always. She may reach her own conclusions that she likes and appreciates what she sees, and so might desire deeper relationship with us; commitment shared between the two of us. She may not. If she does not, nothing else we may do may bring her to these strong convictions no matter how convicted we ourselves are.
From that seed is the true potential that only seemed present in the fertile ground.
In rereading I can see that I really did seem to be making that idea the focus.
I am reminded of the Chief of the Duffers and his supportive chorus of underlings in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
My attempts to explain that the focal point of the article was supposed to be the Telling vs. Being, not the what you are or are not telling or being were not enough to override that original impression.
I tried to use an analogy, but even that was unsuccessful, so it seems a rewrite is in order. That analogy follows.
I’m a fan of Subaru and Toyota cars, so I used one as the focus. I said something along these lines:
Imagine that you’ve gone to a car dealership having researched vehicles, reviews, ratings, cost of ownership/maintenance figures, and awards. You have a very clear idea that you want a Subaru Forester 2008 Gen 2.5 X L.L. Bean edition, and you know which two of the nine available paint/interior options would thrill you.
At the lot you are met by a salesman who half-listens to what you say you’re looking for and then asks to show you a newer and more expensive Honda CRV.
You explain that you like the CRV, but you’ve done your research and thought about it and you want the Forester.
Instead of changing his tack, he instead tells you what is wrong with your choice and why the CRV, even though a goodly bit more than you had budgeted is a better choice. He too cites awards and reviews and ratings, and little facts about both vehicles that make you vaguely suspicious and untrusting, wondering if he’s being straight with you. You’ve been lied to in the past, cheated and are determined not to be led astray again or drop your well constructed and needed guards.
He’s persistent and first leaves you confused and then thinking that maybe your research failed to make you aware of the problems inherent with a Forester and indeed all Subaru vehicles. Maybe you hadn’t really given Honda a fair viewing. Eventually, against your better judgement and in spite of your safeguards, you let him talk you into the Honda and you purchase it.
You start from the lot with some confidence, but soon your decision does not sit right with you, especially because you ended up having to make loan payments much greater than you had budgeted for.
Immediately you start noticing little annoyances… little things that are different than what you had fallen in love with in the Forester. Things that are missing or that don’t work the same. The ride isn’t what you were anticipating experiencing in the advanced AWD vehicle. You quickly grow disenchanted. You begin to have a mild dread at looking at the vehicle, getting in, starting it up. Some of the things you wanted the Forester for are just not possible in the CRV.
Finances are tight, and always looking up at you from your budget is that larger than planned for loan payment which is making the budget tight.
Inevitably something breaks down, or there is a recall. You think to yourself, “The Subaru is much more reliable, and their repair shop is so much better to deal with after the sale than the Honda shop has shown itself to be. Even if a break-down is a reasonable expectation, you hold it against Honda as evidence that their entire brand is rubbish. Not like a Subaru.
You get to the point that you can’t wait until you’ve paid down the loan and can sell it and get your deposit and some of the payments back and buy a vehicle you do like. Looking at your budget, you realize that you’re going to have to keep irritating driving this vehicle for a long long while yet. In researching market values you see that your CRV has held none of its value so you’re upside down and won’t get enough from selling it to even make the large down-payment you like to make when purchasing a vehicle.
You try to remind yourself that it was your decision and so you make the best of it, but you resent having to do so. You’ll “never be going back to that dealership again, and that’s for certain!” You’re a good steward and believe that you have to accept the consequences for your bad choices and can’t just dump the car and get another. You can’t help but badmouth Honda even though you know deep down that they’re actually pretty good cars.
Now imagine the opposite. Your salesperson listens and doesn’t have that vehicle but makes some calls and finds one they can get in soon. He affirms your choice and commends your research and good thinking. It takes a few days longer, but you end up driving off the lot with no misgivings about the planned-for very little bit you had to finance.
Immediately you keep falling more deeply in love with the features, design, amenities and performance that have met or exceeded your most hopeful expectations. When things inevitably need repair, you take it in course and view the cost and the service you receive with a lot more accepting and forgiving attitude. You tell others about your ‘baby’ and how great Subaru vehicles are and that they should consider becoming a Suba-nut like yourself.
You enjoy driving the thing. All the needs you expected to have have are met and the ones you wanted but weren’t possible with the Forester, well, you knew that going in and you had made the decision that it was still the vehicle for you.
When you eventually drive it into the ground, long past when it was still as comfortable and still met your needs. You love that car. You almost want to bury it in the back 40 and keep the hood ornament emblem on your keychain instead of selling it for scrap.
The above analogy breaks down somewhat. Marriages aren’t to be sold and traded like cars. We don’t get to trade-in when things are difficult or less than we had hoped for down the line. We as men need to quit trying to be car salesmen.
I don’t know that it clarifies the thing. The idea here is that even if the salesperson was honest and didn’t misrepresent things, the choice to buy the CRV is one you were talked into, not one you’d really have come to on your own in the absence of high-pressure outside influence. You feel that if the CRV was just ‘being’ all those things, you might have chosen it yourself instead of being pressured by someone who was ‘telling’ you to trust his conclusions and to make a decision you were not happy with.
Many friends have read and processed and given feedback on my previous article, “All Chances Gone. No Beagle Puppy”. They have also extended to me much love and support, for which I am very grateful.
I too have read and reread, edited a bit here and there as something such as this, put out there for public consumption should be painstakingly authored. I have reread and processed, and taken into account much of the feedback and advice, and even exhortations I have received from others.
I do after all, ponder.
I came to the conclusion that I was still being manipulated and controlled… by my own fears. Was I frightened of a emotional bugbear blown out of all proportion over the years even if that bugbear may prove, in fact, to be realistic in some ways?
I was giving him too much power… where he has none.
I was letting fear be justification for not doing what I truly wished to do, forgoing two opportunities, one of which will never come again, and the other which may never be offered to me again.
The first opportunity is that of being able to say ‘goodbye’ and tell my father that I loved him in every way left open to me, and those ways fiercely. Perhaps it is selfish, and I don’t know if I have a need or not yet, but I would very much not like to realize down the road that I have need for this closure. I acknowledge that time might dampen some feelings and allow other feelings to have primacy and with those, find only regret at having made a mistake.
The second is to see family that I dearly love and have had little opportunity to be close to. The lack of closeness was my own fault. I was so withdrawn into a shell of protection that I self-denied myself one of the best gifts I have and ever will have been given. The association was too strong. Again, I think this was driven by a sort of fear. I spoke of regrets above. This regret already exists and is far greater than I anticipate the other might ever be if I again let those fears control me.
Time marches relentlessly onward and I have already lost much opportunity as now age and disease, and its thieving nature may have already robbed (No, my hurt and foolishness did the robbing, alas.) me of what I most desire. I could easily spend a lot of effort and hatred toward myself for this foolishness, but it is pointless and I must act on the lesson of giving the grace I give others to myself.
I don’t know about Beagle Puppies. That scenario, with time and temperance, seems less likely, but I do acknowledge it is still a possible reality. I honestly don’t how to handle it if those fears are realized. I only know that I cannot let those fears dictate what I do.
I had for a few days tried to pass the responsibility for how I handled those fears off onto the shoulders of my father. That is nonsense. He can do nothing to me, then or now, and he cannot ‘make’ me fearful. Only I have that responsibility. It’s past time I owned that. Another opportunity for self-grace in that I think that trying to pass the responsibility was an inevitable part of the process, but that grace only has meaning if I also admit it was wrong and chose to do that which is right.
I could wish that Beagle Puppies played no role. Such lament is useless, self-indulgent, and wasteful. I could lament that Beagle Puppies ‑ever- played a role, ‑ever- were a ‘thing’, but lamentations do not alter. Lament only hinders one from progressing forward if maintained longer than is appropriate and healthy.
I will, from this point redefine Beagle Puppy to mean only something that I very much love. I will discard that other definition in a box of useless things destined for eventual annihilation in furnace inferno. There is one Beagle Puppy like no other. He slumbers on the apex of his dwelling… when he’s not patrolling the skies over France, keeping them safe from the menace of Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen. He admirably serves as perpetual shortstop and never lets a ground ball past in formal and pickup-games. He did once make a failed bid to forcibly replace Charlie Brown as team manager, but we will speak only of his successes here.
I had more loved images than would make sense in-line in a post already pushing those limits, so here are the remainder:
A follow-up article has been added here: Facing Fears — My Father’s Passing
All the chances I might have had to finally figure out how to forgive and reconnect with my father, and hopefully, lead him back to a saving relationship with Christ from his jaded atheism ended five days ago.
A relative searched out my contact information and let me know last night that my father was discovered by police on a requested wellness check. They estimate he passed away four days previous.
A lot of mixed emotions. There is remorse for my failure and inability; remorse for times when I became righteously angry at his (continuing) mistreatment of my mother, my sister, and myself. There is regret that he seemed a textbook Sociopath that might have never been reached by any efforts of forgiveness and reaching out. There is prayer that God gives grace to those who may have their free will compromised, through no fault of their own, by mental damage/illness. The remorse is mostly quiet remorse and it may grow more intense as God works on my heart, but I can’t see how I could have done anything much different than I did.
I am glad that he is no longer able to affect my mother and myself. My sister has been beyond his grasp since passing away at the beginning of 2005. Glad, but I did not wish him dead. I wished him all the life it took to come back to God in humility as a supplicant, and then, perhaps, a life remainder of quiet peace. Not the false peace of a sociopath unable to know of troublesome things, but of one who knows, knows he is forgiven through no act of his own, and who is able to accept that forgiveness and wrap it around himself like a comforting blanket.
If there were to be a funeral service as nearby as Kearney, Nebraska, and had I a surfeit of time and money, I would very much like to attend, and tell him that I loved him in every way that was left open to me and that I hope that in spite of my failure to reach him that he is somehow covered under Grace.
My mother suggested that I should attend for another reason, and one which, even the possibility of would make me chose not to attend even were I able. She suggested that I might get a Beagle Puppy, and since I am trying to find a way to pay for Nursing School, that it would be a very wonderful blessing to have a Beagle Puppy. I cannot stomach the idea of one more controlling manipulation, one more carrot and stick, one more act of twistedness being done to me.
Briefly, as a child, perhaps 6 years old I had been given a copy of the American Kennel Club’s Dog Breeds Book because I was nuts about anything/everything ‘dog’. I loved its bright yellow cover (my favorite colour then) and all the black and white photos of different breeds. I had poured over it like other boys pour over baseball cards memorizing stats, or in this case, characteristics, classifications, temperaments, grooming needs, and so on. I had paper-clipped pages for different breeds and honestly, I would have liked to have all of them, or even just one of them. There was one at the time that stood out among the rest and that might have met my father’s stringent requirements of an acceptable dog. It wasn’t Benji, Benji after all being a shelter dog of mysterious heritage. It wasn’t my present day loves, Shih-Tzus (I don’t think we’d yet doggy-sat me mum’s boss’ Roxy and knew Shih-Tzu joy) and Border Collies (They weren’t even recognized by the AKC at the time and more’s the pity they ever were). It wasn’t a Samoyed or an Alaskan Malamutes like my beloved (ok, she belonged to my sister Allison, but she lived with me for several years) Nikki. The page I came back to over and over; the page with two paperclips and a third big one on the few full-colour pages in the center, was the Beagle. I wanted this small scrappy smart trim little dog who just looked like it had a heart bursting with love for a little boy. Constant “Beagle Puppy” desire followed but gained no traction with my parents… or rather with my Dad who must control everything.
Mayhaps not so briefly. My parents were active in the church I had grown up in as bible-study leaders, youth ministry helpers, and as drivers for the church van. It happened that the youth group decided to go on an outing to the almost-better-than-Disneyland-way-better-than-Six-Flags Knott’s Berry Farm. It also happened that the day of the trip was my 8th or 9th birthday. When we reached the park I was given the ‘choice’ of going around the day with my father, or with my mother. How can you make a wrong choice when there’s no real choice at all. My mother made such things fun and exciting. My dad complained and groused about the price of food which he would never have purchased anyways. Mum would get small treats when she could but as she really didn’t have much of ‘her own money’ (her nurse’s salary was taken and controlled by my father), even those occasions were rare. He criticized and belittled everything. He condescended upon everyone, especially international workers and visitors. There was no fun with my Dad, no joy. He refused to ride any roller-coasters (some of the best were at KBF, The Corkscrew, Montezooma’s Revenge, etc), and my mum was a roller-coaster-nut. I went with my mum. Later in the day we reconvened at a covered picnic area and there was a surprise birthday cake and party waiting. It could not have possibly been a more perfect day and would have stood in my childhood as one of maybe 3 or 4 actual happy memories (Meeting Benji(Benjean) and her trainer was one, a certain Day at Angeles Crest Christian Camp was another).
It’s not. It’s not one of those. It was one of the other kind of days of which there were so many, and this the one that still hurts the most. As we were leaving the park and getting back in the van and I was nursing the fireball candies (They had to last. Whenever would they come again?) my mother had disobeyed my father and bought for me, my father took me aside. He pulled out his wallet and from that took a clipping from the classified section of the L.A. Times. I still remember the smudged newsprint attempt at including a photo of a litter of Beagle puppies and their mum… a little hard to make out in pure black & white process. My dad told me that he had planned, if I were to come with him for the day, for us to leave the park while others were enjoying the rides and attractions and to go and pick out a puppy from the litter, but as I had went with my mom, I would be getting no puppy. Not today. Not ever. I don’t remember how I reacted beyond sitting at the back of the bus for the long trip back to central LA with a forgotten fireball burning a hole through my cheek as I neither felt nor tasted it, crying, being embarrassed and thinking that I just didn’t want to continue. I ‑think- it was around this time that I tried and failed to commit suicide with my dad’s .22 auto that I had no idea how to charge or un-safe. I couldn’t bear the thought of my ‘mistake’ and that it would have ‘forever’ effects. To children, ‘forever’ means ‘ever after’, not ‘until circumstances one day change’. I didn’t think in terms of ‘unfair’ because I had never known ‘fair’. I had had so much fun with my mum, and I should have had fun with my mum, but I didn’t realize I was unwittingly making or breaking some Faustian bargain at the time. I didn’t want to be alone with my father, not before, not that day, not ever, and because of it my ‘mistake’, there would never be a puppy to replace Rascal and Samson who had both passed away long before I even got to really know them. I would never have a puppy. I don’t remember anything after that until my mother moved us out of his house. It’s all blanked out. I think I shut down. I think I was crushed beyond caring about anything at all.
Could he really be that twisted so as to do it again? Could he put some stipulation in his will where I would be ‘rewarded’ for making the ‘right’ wrong decision and punished for making the ‘wrong’ right decision. Nobody could possibly do something that heinous, could they?
I don’t want a Beagle Puppy. I don’t ever want a Beagle Puppy from him. I don’t want to miss his funeral, but I very much wish I had been able to miss that birthday at Knotts Berry Farm.
The answer is, “Yes, he could.”. Money has always been his go-to method to control and hurt or bless (not altruistically, but for the returns it brought him) people in his life.
My answer is, “No, I cannot. I Will not.” Today I would say, “I Shan’t.” but it just doesn’t seem as appropriate here. I will find some other way, like everyone else, to take care of Nursing School and other needful things, and the harder it is, the it will be all the worthier for the difficulty.
I hope he’s been granted grace and understanding for the difficulties of his own childhood and for the mental derangement(s) he suffered.
I feel free. Freedom that being half a nation away could never bring. Free of that nagging worry that he could still find some way to hurt my mother or less likely, myself. I wouldn’t have traded his life for that freedom, but the equation was not of my making.
I suppose I am finally free to change my last name to something that doesn’t hurt because now doing so won’t hurt him. I wonder at even bothering to wait, but I know it was in the hopes of reaching him for Christ. Would that I could embrace the wonderful Cepelness that was a small part of my life, my Uncle Al and Aunt Carol and all their kids and their kid’s kiddos, and a fair bit of good Cepelness back in Nebraska, but put together, all represent a drop of joy in an ocean of hurt.
(*Update: This post had been unpublished while I worked to gain some perspective. I have done so. I am in a different place. I am republishing for purposes of honest continuity.)
2008 was the year I desperately clung to Christmas while sobbing. This was the year I did all of our traditions alone, miserable but not knowing what else to do. Sobbing and holding the pups and telling them that their mommy would be back knowing I was trying to convince myself and failing to convince any of us. Feeling like a child who had something done to them, something they had no capacity to understand, unable to see anything other than the hurt and unable to believe such hurt was possible. Wondering if it would get worse, or easier, if it would ever stop, or if there had ever been a reality without the pain… All before, even the massive pain of Christmases in childhood seemed like a self-deluding fantasy made up to try to distract from the only thing I could ever, would ever, had ever known.
God was there. Through God, Bart Larson was there. Greg Cranston was there or soon would be.
It is 2016 and I have chosen for the first time to put up a Christmas tree. A gifted tree and many essential bits given by friends who love me, whom God had put there to make Christmas 2008 look like a dreadful long-ago nightmare, the David and Sarah Cranstons, the Colin and Barbara Smialeks, the Dwights, the Cindys, the Boltons, all the people of Valley View, The Berrys, the Elder Cranstons and me mum Kay who has been growing in wisdom and inner strength and become able to counsel back.
I will put up trees each year and will hang, like delicate heirloom glass ornaments, more names on each bough.
There will be a time when it’s not only my hands doing the hanging, but those with slender more delicate fingers than mine, and more delicate slender hands to join in years following. We will hang names until the boughs creak under the weight and I will feel only gratitude for the Christmas Tree of 2008 for making me know what else is possible so that I might never take for granted that which is.
At the top we will illuminate one name, bright, above all, encompassing all, making all possible. Like a brilliant star will sit the name of Jesus Christ.