Effortless Effervescence

John replied, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor. If you have food, share it with those who are hungry.”
Luke 3:11 (NLT)

Right now, many Americans are scared, frustrated, and angry about the economy. Even those of us who aren’t facing foreclosure or bankruptcy are feeling a distinctly painful squeeze: every trip to the grocery store or the gas station leaves us feeling physically, not just fiscally, drained. I know that I’m cutting corners and making hard choices; for those of us who have already cinched our figurative belts as much as we possibly can, it’s disheartening to realize that we must find creative ways to trim even MORE fat from our budgets.

I’ve stopped reading articles about how to save money in small ways, because they have nothing new to tell me. Cut out the daily $4 latte? I brew my coffee (generic, bought on sale) at home. Change your own oil? Just yesterday my husband changed the oil in both our vehicles (though I kindly pointed out to him that we didn’t save THAT much money over taking the cars to the shop since he is a motor oil snob and will only buy the top-shelf product). Cut out unnecessary entertainment expenses? The last time I saw a movie in a movie theater was when I took my mother-in-law to see Sex and the City. The time before that? My husband indulged my desire to see Sweeney Todd. (No movie screams “Go vegetarian!” like that one.) So I think I’m averaging a ten-dollar movie ticket about once every twelve months.

In short, I’m doing almost everything I can to keep a lid on my cash outflow (I won’t deny some unnecessary expenses; I am thrifty but not inhuman) and I’m still feeling the burn. As America slides towards a recession - some would argue we’re en route to another Great Depression - I can’t find anything new under the sun, and I doubt I have any great advice to give to families struggling to make ends meet. Well, except for one thing.

Give.

Say what? Yes, give. Oh how darlingly cliche, you think, Emily must subscribe to those touchy-feely Christian sad-itudes like “It is more blessed to give than receive.” Well, almost. I feel awful damn blessed when I receive. I LOOOOOVE getting free stuff. More than one employer has persuaded me to stay late by offering me a free meal. Christmas is my favorite holiday not just because of the peace-on-earth goodwill-toward-men Tiny-Tim bullcrap but because I like getting presents. (Throw stones if you must; I’m just honest. And immature.) However, my self-indulgence also works in the favor of my friends and family: I like giving presents almost as much as I like receiving them. And as corny as it sounds, some of my favorite Christmas memories involved delivering food to needy families during the holidays. Or shopping for people I don’t even know so they’ll have gifts under their tree, too. One of the many things I learned working at a local church: there are a lot of people out there in worse shape than I am. And it feels good - really good - to give to them.

It has occurred to me that a lot of us probably feel so stretched financially that our first reaction is to be selfish, to reign in our spending by saying no to charity gifts. I think that’s the worst mistake we can make. When times are hard, we will all inevitably have to rely on the kindness of friends and family - sometimes on the kindness of strangers. Not only does it make good business sense to build up our charity karma, and it also gets our minds out of the “poor me” mentality.

A few months ago, my husband and I were talking about how heartbreaking it is that many homeless Americans are American veterans. That conversation inevitably led to us remembering, out loud, that no matter how bad we’ve got it, we at least have a roof over our heads. Thank God! For that reason, we chose to make a monthly donation to the DAV’s Homeless Veterans Initiative for the first year of our married life instead of spending hundreds of dollars on party favors for our wedding guests. Oh, I still had a gift to hand out at the reception - heart-shaped American flag pins accented with a yellow ribbon and affixed to a card informing guests of our pledge and offering additional information about the initiative. I felt exhilarated at the idea of giving our guests a small trinket that symbolized something much bigger - rather than giving them a handful of chocolates emblazoned with our wedding date.

Interestingly, our wedding date fell right in the middle of my company’s annual United Way campaign. As I considered what I could give at the office, I thought, “Well, I’m already giving X amount of dollars to homeless veterans. Isn’t that enough?” I decided, no, it wasn’t. I make room in my budget for cigarettes and wine, for goodness sake. I can make a little more room in my budget for charities that make a difference in my geographic area. A $10 per pay period gift may not be a lot, but it’s a small stretch for me. It’s $10 to help someone that doesn’t have the same opportunities and support system I have. It’s something. It’s the right thing to do.

Look, I’m not Bill Gates or Angelina Jolie. My financial donations will not save a third-world country, but they may cover a hot meal for someone who is lonely and feeling unloved. I’m not a particularly wonderful person. What I am is someone who has been humbled, over and over, by the generosity of others. And I feel obligated - even honored - to open up my heart and my pocketbook to someone else. I feel that it’s essential to my economic survival, because when we close our hearts to someone in need, we close our hearts to having our own needs met, in the most wonderful and surprising of ways, when we cannot meet them ourselves.

I was married five days ago.

It was a windy, overcast day and I had planned an outdoor wedding and reception at a city park near the water. Despite my obsessive checklists and tireless preparations, quite a few things went wrong. The tablecovers wouldn’t stay down for the wind, despite the liberal use of thumbtacks and swearing. I was late returning to the site after dressing because I left my engagement ring - a family heirloom! - on the bathroom sink. The centerpieces and favors were never properly displayed, so the picnic shelter was sadly chaotic and messy (much the way my home looks on any given day). Our order for hors d’oeuvres and desserts from a local supermarket was incomplete. My hair looked like hell, thanks again to the wind. My husband, who had been in charge of transporting the massive quantities of food from our home to the site, had forgotten the side dishes. (So I STILL have 15 lbs. of potato salad and 10 lbs. of cole slaw in my refrigerator. I don’t even like cole slaw!)

The ceremony, however, went perfectly. I wrote a good deal of it, and stole the rest. It was exactly what I wanted for us - honest, realistic, but romantic. Both my husband and I have been married before. We’re a bit jaded, but perhaps we are better prepared for the adventure ahead of us. Our wedding ceremony was unique from any other I’d ever attended, and our vows were completely different from the ones we’d each spoken years before. I wanted our wedding to be uniquely us, and it was - in the chaos of good plans gone wrong was the peaceful, joyful declaration of our love for each other. Our intention to be faithful and steadfast.

In the midst of chaos, peace. If that is not a metaphor for life, I don’t know what is.

One of my favorite lines from the ceremony is this: “A wedding is just one day, but a marriage is every day.” After cleaning up and carting home the many tons of leftover food, my husband and I sat in our back yard, going over the things that went wrong and the things that went right. That part of my personality I’ll call “Bridezilla Barbie” was mourning the passage of the day and wishing she could go back in time and put those centerpieces up, dammit! As I (channeling Barbie) bemoaned the lack of order and elegance, my spouse offered this bit of wisdom: “As far as I’m concerned, the only thing that matters is what happened in front of the minister. And that part went perfectly.”

Barbie does not like saying, “You’re right, honey.” Luckily I wrestled control of my mouth back from her and said it myself.

He is right. We both showed up, and in our vows promised to “show up” every day. The potato salad in my fridge has an expiration date; flowers wilt and my wedding dress will go out of style. My marriage, however, is a living relationship that can flourish for many years, if I will only make the decision to focus on what is important: me and my beloved.

A couple of the bloggers I follow have recently posted their rules for life, and today a friend emailed me the lessons she had gleaned from friends and her own experience. After commenting on her list, I thought today was the perfect time to offer my pearls of wisdom to the blogosphere.

First, what I pulled from other’s lists:

Don’t be “nice.” Be kind.

Realize you’ve been given a gift. Every single one of us is in the position to do great things. Every single person reading this can change — if not the world! — someone else’s life for the better. Every single person has the opportunity to create a difference, on a small scale, on a grand scale, on a scale that could transform reality. Be grateful.

And from my friend: “Always wear comfortable shoes. Those who say sleeping on the floor is good for your back, LIE! Get a mattress. Make it a good one. When you have it to give, give it. When you need it, it’ll come back to you.”

I would probably say, however, to wear comfortable shoes most of the time. Sometimes the psychological benefits of fabulously uncomfortable high-heeled shoes outweigh the physical benefits of a sturdy pair of flats. And yes, yes, YES - a good mattress is a lovely thing to own.

Now, what life has taught me:

• A good night’s sleep will cure most of what ails you. What it doesn’t cure it makes easier to bear.
• Also in the vein of problem-solving and stress management: Never underestimate the power of a good cup of coffee or tea, a good glass of wine, a good song or a good story to improve your mood.
• Neither “I’m sorry” nor “I love you” is a good thing to say unless you mean it.
• Love something bigger than yourself. This may be your God. It may be your sorority or community center. It may be the local animal shelter where you clean cages once a week. It may be a particularly brilliant physics theorem. Whatever it is, it’s got to take your mind off of mundane self-interest for a few minutes a day. It’s got to make you feel connected.
• Share your space with another living being: a plant, a pet. Being responsible for someone else’s life makes yours feel more relevant.
• Do something that scares you, something that will teach you. If you burn water, take a cooking class. If the only items you read on a daily basis are the comics and Dear Abby, join a book club. If you don’t know the business end of a hammer, build something. Make yourself proud with what you manage to accomplish, and enjoy a good laugh at your own failures.
• Loneliness and fear are never excuses to be in a bad relationship. And a bad relationship includes one where you don’t love the other person.
• Sometimes it’s okay to eat ice cream to make the hurt go away.
• Sometimes it’s okay to lose your shit and embarrass yourself with emotion.
• Learn when it stops being okay, when to get your shit back together and throw away the ice cream.
• Learn to give good hugs, and give them freely to people you care about. Learn, too, how to put up physical boundaries with people that make you uncomfortable.
• Learn to say, “No.” Learn how to say it again for the benefit of people who do not listen.
• Learn to hear “No.” Respect the boundaries of others.
• Sleep late once in awhile. The world will not end if your day begins a little late.
• And get up early once in awhile. The world is magical at dawn, and a few extra hours in the day can make quite a difference.
• If your house is not spotless, that’s okay, so long as it is comfortable for those who live there and welcoming to those who don’t.
• Learn to appreciate and admire the strengths of others, and when appropriate, to imitate. Remember, however, that you are meant to be one person: YOU. Don’t let your admiration of someone else become disappointment in yourself. You will never succeed at trying to live someone else’s life.
• Keep in touch with the people that are important to you - your family, whether by birth or by choice. Just calling or emailing once in awhile says “I love you” loudly.
• Hydration, in the form of lip gloss, moisturizer, and tasty beverages, is an essential life skill.

What are YOUR rules for life?

Every relationship requires a rebound, and I’ve already dated my “rebound church.” Over the past few months, I visited Coastal Community Church’s Glenwood Campus several times. I chose Coastal because one of my friends is a member, and I needed a “wing woman” on the first step of my journey. I’ve met most of the clergy staff and I knew that the service would be upbeat, contemporary, and casual (jeans and flip flops FTW!) I also chose Coastal because they had a late Sunday morning service and I am completely out of practice when it comes to getting up early on the weekends.

Coastal was a good place for a tentative re-beginning, to find out that no, I won’t be chased away from church by a gaggle of congregants wielding Sunday School attendance pins and holy water. “Where have you been for the last five years? How dare you drop out of good Christian society without any warning! And what’s this about getting divorced and living in sin? Hypocrite! Whore!” Surprisingly, no one cared that I was there. I was the only one who was sorely aware of how far I had “strayed.”

Correction: someone else was aware of how I’d spent my time over the past half a decade. God was, and if anybody had a reason to be p.o.’ed with me, it would be him. But he wasn’t. I felt his presence in that church, I knew he was speaking to me through the worship and sermon, but at no point did the ceiling of the joint crack open and a Charlton-Heston-like voice boom out, “Emily, what makes you think you’re allowed in here with respectable people?” Lots of folks say they’d be incinerated if they put a toe over the threshold of a house of worship, but I am living proof that one truly doesn’t have to worry about that! The widespread lightning-bolt joke makes me wonder how many people believe in the idea of a “Terrorist God” instead of a loving God. You must know what I mean by the Terrorist God - he’s the moody, violent guy that we often interacted with in the Old Testament. Interestingly, some Christian leaders tell us that we’re not taking Terrorist God seriously - just read J. Lee Grady’s recent column titled, “Whatever Happened to the Fear of God?”

Grady refers his readers to Acts 5:1-11, in which God struck a married couple D-E-A-D when they didn’t put all their pennies in the offering plate. (It was the trend at that time for folks with mature investments to sell them off pool their resources with others so all the believers could have food and clothing and shelter. Ananias and Sapphira, the crooks in question, sold some real estate and gave part of the money to the church, but they told everyone they gave it all. Sneaky, right? And how many of us wouldn’t be tempted to do that… heck, how many of us would say, “Forget it!” to selling off our condo in Florida so some other deadbeat can enjoy a free meal, am I right? Well, Ananias and Sapphira ended up stone cold on the floor, and everyone else in the community was FREAKED OUT. Can you blame them? Grady says that in order for believers today to be as blessed as the first-century church (you know, miracles and healings and daily converts by the thousands) we’ve got to be afraid of cross Him. We’d better take Terrorist God seriously and toe the line.

I have to call baloney on that one. Is this the message we’re trying to get across to the “unsaved?” That God’s standards are so high that even people who work for God and give huge sums of money to the cause of Christ are doomed because they didn’t do enough? I’m not saying that what A & S did wasn’t shady. It was. But find me someone on this planet who isn’t shady at least part of the time. If the people who are going above and beyond - and let’s face it, donating your retirement to church around the corner is both above and beyond - are on God’s smite list, then who can be saved? Who can step foot into God’s house without being terrorized?

Years ago, I was the Perfect Christian. Okay, okay, no one is truly perfect, but if you’re looking for a reasonable facsimile thereof, I’m your girl. I didn’t just go to church regularly and know my Bible verses and tithe. I gave sacrificially of my time and talents to the work of God. I counseled and prayed for hundreds of people. I physically labored in the ministry more than 80 hours a week, sometimes for minimum wage, many times for free. I gave well over 10% of my income to my local church every single week, I gave occasional offerings to other ministries and charities, and several times a year I purchased groceries, toiletries, and holiday gifts for families that were too poor to provide for themselves. I prayed for at least one hour every single day, both alone and with other believes, and some days I spent up to three hours in prayer. I was constantly immersed in Scripture, reading it daily, memorizing passages, meditating on its meaning. I was sexually pure, abstaining from relations with my husband-to-be for four years until we married. I kept my mind pure, listening only to Christian music and rarely watching secular television shows or movies. I loved God passionately, and I gave my entire life, every single inch of it, to his kingdom.

And you know what? I still did not feel that I was good enough. Why? Because of leaders in the church - not just my church, but in the global church - who could not, would not communicate God’s message of love and acceptance. I rarely heard of the divine pleasure and pride the God takes in his followers. All I ever heard was that we were doing it wrong. A quack doctor doesn’t want you to get better because you’ll stop buying her medicinal cures of dubious origins. A crooked mechanic won’t ever truly fix your car because he wants you to keep coming back. Many prominent worldwide ministries make a lot of money from people who feel that they disappoint God. These people want to know how they can be better, and the charlatans & tricksters are ready to tell them how - for a price.

When I lived a “perfect” life, I felt a constant shame. That shame became so systemic that I still feel it today. Because of that shame, I avoided God’s people. I avoided God’s presence. How ironic that when I enter a church today, I am keenly aware of the mercy and grace of God, the true message of the cross. What was required for me to fully embrace God’s love? Failing. Living a life that is the opposite of what I expected of myself, and experiencing God’s unfailing love anyway. I will not worship or serve a terrorist God. I believe Jesus came to give us life abundantly. I believe the greatest thing is love. I believe that all the law and the prophets can be summed up in this: Love God, and love your neighbor.

I have often compared finding a new church to dating again after coming out of a long-term relationship. You’re ready to move on, you want to find someone new, you’ve overcome the fear and you’re filled with excitement. You take the plunge… only to be rewarded with boring conversation, lack of chemisty, or unrequited affections. Bad dates make you want to spend Friday nights watching reruns of Will & Grace with your cat and your two best friends Ben & Jerry. Bad church experiences make you want to do anything but spend time with other Christians on Sunday morning.

I had a series of very, very, VERY bad church experiences years ago. I would give up on this Jesus thing entirely if it weren’t for the fact that I also had some very good church experiences mixed in the with the bad. Actually, that’s not accurate. I had very GOOD Jesus experiences, some of which happened to occur within a church setting, and I had very BAD human being experiences, also within that church setting. Organized religion itself did not hurt me, and Jesus didn’t hurt me. People hurt me; one person in particular hurt me deeply. That person was my pastor and close friend, so recovery has been slow and painful. When scandal exploded at my former church in April 2003, the fallout covered every surface in my life, and seemed to permeate even my hidden layers. It’s no wonder I’ve been largely absent from church for five years; I needed time to wash all the dirty laundry and come to grips with the stains that will never come out.

But now I’m ready. I’m hungry for fellowship, and I’ve decided that the finding that fellowship is worth getting up early, worth the awkwardness of finding the correct parking lot and building entrance, worth the curious but distant stares from comfortably entrenched church members, worth sitting through some mediocre sermons and fumbling through worship songs I don’t recognize or like. For some people, a relationship with the Divine is so private they discuss it with only their closest friends and family members, if at all. I am not one of those people. Just as I crave God’s presence in my heart, lungs, liver, bone marrow, I also crave connectedness with other believers. I can pray alone, but sometimes I want someone else to hold my hand and pray with me. I can read the Bible on my own, but I want to sit in a circle of Christ-followers and hear their thoughts on the same passage I just ingested. When churches fail, they are at best well-run and well-staffed social clubs. When churches succeed, they are family trees with outstretched, heavy-laden branches. They shelter, protect, and bear fruit. I want to nest.

My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.
James 1:19-21 (NIV)

Biblegateway.com returns 270 verses from a keyword search of “anger” in the New International Version. The first 257 of those verses are from the Old Testament, and the majority of those verses refer to God’s anger, not men’s.

Why is it, then, that we are cautioned by James to be “slow to become angry?” If God so often burns with anger towards his people, why aren’t we allowed to do the same? Why are Christians shamed by their fellow believers when they express anger towards those that have wronged them, and towards God when his promises are not kept?

An e-friend of mine recently lost her mother after a four-year-long battle with Alzheimer’s. At the end of her mother’s life, it was my friend who was fighting; her mother’s fight was completely spent. My friend is still fighting, wrestling with the complexities of grief and the parts of her life that were on hold while her mother convalesced. She’s fighting with herself, too, trying to make sense of her feelings, beating the most uncomfortable ones into submission. She’s angry, and that’s understandable, but she’s resistant to expressing her anger except in contexts and with people that make her feel safe. Why? Because anger is not pretty. It is not demure or politically correct. Sometimes it’s fearsome in its violence. Sometimes it’s laughable in its impropriety. And although it’s an emotion that every single person feels at times, often for legitimate reasons, it’s an emotion that’s shushed and shamed. Because anger makes people uneasy, we hide it and deny it for fear of driving others away. And that shame, that fear? Just makes us ANGRIER.

My ex-husband and I fought very well (something one wouldn’t gather from the fact that we are divorced). We rarely raised our voices or took cheap shots at each other; we discussed our differences rationally. I can remember only two instances where I “lost my shit” with him, and he remembers them clearly, too. In one instance, I stood up and began kicking everything around me, babbling incoherently. (It’s a good thing I was wearing steel-toed boots at the time.) In the other, I picked up the closest object - my Bible - so I could throw it for emphasis. In the back of my mind, I remembered that the object I held was an expensive gift from my mother, so I didn’t want to ruin it, but goddamn I was pissed. So I waved it around with what my ex describes as a Jack-Nicholson-type-crazy look in my eyes. We still laugh about that; he says he was certain I was going to beat him with the word of God. I finally just put the book down because I didn’t want to damage it. And because I felt silly.

But why did I feel silly? Was my anger unjustified? No, it wasn’t. My ex admitted, when all was said and done, that his actions/words had been unacceptable, and after we made up, he didn’t do or say those things ever again. Still, for many years, when I recalled those two events, I felt sheepish. Why had I lost control? Sane, rational people don’t do that, do they?

Yes. Yes, they do. Sometimes people wrong us, and sometimes they wrong us in epic ways. Sometimes life wrongs us, and there is no one of blame except God himself. And the hugeness of the wrong, the sheer unfairness of life, pisses us off. We think, “Good grief! I’m a good person, I pay my taxes, I feed my cats, I wash behind my ears, and what the hell do I get for my effort? I get stabbed in the back! I get screwed over! I get the rug ripped out from underneath me! This sucks! And I’m mad!”

God “lost his shit” sometimes, too. Throughout the Old Testament there are stories of him exclaiming, “Good grief! I treat you people well! I give you food and shelter and protection and what do I get in return? Dissed for a golden calf! What do you people WANT from me?” How do we reconcile what we know of God with the instruction of James to rid ourselves of moral filth - including anger?

My theory is that unrighteous anger is “anger gone wrong.” When we don’t deal with the big wrongs of life, when we repress our feelings about true injustices, we become petty and irritable. I’ve noticed that my road rage goes off the charts when I’ve been consistently avoiding the real issues in my life. I specifically remember a time when I felt that a close friend was regularly disregarding my feelings. In the middle of that nasty business, I became blind with anger one day and let loose a string of obscene words and gestures when another car tried to pull in front of me. That’s not righteous living - that’s downright embarrassing. After letting my friend know how I felt, I began experiencing peace again and graciously letting go of minor driving annoyances. Since then, how I react to people in traffic has become my barometer for repressed anger. When I become a she-bitch on wheels, I know there’s something I need to deal with.

Let’s follow God’s example, then, and be honest about our feelings, in appropriate ways. Let’s be honest about who has made us mad, and confront the situation candidly. (Not abusively, mind you - but that’s a topic for another post.) If we cannot discuss our issues with the person that has wronged us, or when the issue is larger than just one person, we’ll need to find a safe space to hash out our feelings, as the friend I mentioned at the beginning of this post has done. When you’ve lost someone you love, there’s no one to point fingers at, but it’s likely there are people you can trust to listen to you rant about the injustice of it. Own that anger, don’t be ashamed of it. And for goodness’ sake, don’t try to hide it, because it will resurface, and make some unsuspecting - and undeserving - person its target.

Continuing my thoughts from yesterday’s post…

If true love requires understanding of the individual, perhaps love, then, cannot be defined. What love is for me may not be what love is for you. John Gray touched on this subject in his wildly successful book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, Gary Chapman wrote about it at length in The Five Love Languages. Both of these authors are trying to bridge the gap between lovers and friends by helping us understand how our actions are sometimes inadequate, and how to tailor our expressions of love so that our beloved will truly hear us. When we become exhausted because our efforts aren’t recognized or reciprocated, it’s time to ask ourselves if the love we show is tailored to our partner’s desires or our own.

Looking back over my life, I can see the role that understanding - or lack of it, rather - played in the relationships that ended painfully. I lived for several months with a young man I loved dearly but whose personality and approach to life was vastly different from mine. When he struggled with depression and homesickness (having moved across the continent to be with me) I had dozens of answers to his problems, but they were all answers that satisfied my soul, not his. Both of us reached out to each other, but were only willing to reach so far, and we found ourselves further apart in the same room than we had been when we lived on opposite coasts. Though I haven’t spoken to him in over a year, I believe I understand him better now than I did before, and I regret the ways I pushed him to conform to my ideas of a perfect mate instead of searching his heart and learning how I could perfect myself.

One of my most treasured high school friendships eventually imploded because of misunderstanding. I refused, over and over again, to honor my friend’s need for space during a conflict. I pushed her for answers, I was aggressive and insistent. She could not - or would not - understand the choices I made in my marriage and faith. Recently she extended an olive branch to me via Facebook. Can this friendship be reborn? Or will we never fully understand each other? I don’t know. I know both of us have had time to cool off, reflect, grow up.

And oh yes, my marriage. I could blame all the external factors - the many years we spent serving in a local church, our relationship policed and controlled by our pastor; the betrayal we both felt when we learned that our pastor was having an affair and had his hand deeply buried in the offering plate; my father-in-law’s sudden passing shortly after the three of us had moved into a new home. In the end, though, our marriage suffered and died not only because of what happened around us, but because of what happened - and didn’t happen - inside us. Each of us reacted to the tumult of our lives in different ways, and we judged each other for being different, for not doing it “right.” He clung to what was comfortable, I rebelled against it with all my might. He wanted me to be predictable, I wanted to be free. I just wanted to get away from the pain, and I figured getting away from him was the best bet. I was wrong.

Looking back, I know that each of us failed to love the other fully, rightly. We barely understood ourselves, let alone one another. We both needed love so badly, and had no idea how to meet each other’s needs.

Let me tell you something: Divorce sucks. I mean, it sucks really bad. You can’t understand how bad it’s going to suck until you’ve gone through it; and sadly, no matter how much someone else warns you that it’s going to suck, you’ll still be surprised by how much it sucks. You’ll lay awake in the middle of the night, in the middle of a big empty bed, and think, “How did I get here? Didn’t I have a family a few months ago? And now it’s just me. There’s no one to be worried when I get sick. There’s no one to care when I have a bad day. There’s no one to help me carry the groceries in, and when I feel like crying - like I do right now - there’s no one to hear me, no one to take care of me. Sure, I have friends, but this is what a partner is for. And I have no partner. It’s just me against the world, and when there’s no one else on your team, the world seems a whole lot bigger.”

Let me tell you something else, and this will actually be a surprise, I think: Divorce is worth it if you let it teach you. When you’re lying in that big empty bed, when you’re carrying the groceries in by yourself, when you laugh or cry alone, you’d better take some time to understand yourself, and to understand your lost mate. You’d better figure out how you loved badly, and how you loved well. Divorce is worth it if the next time you love you can give more, forgive more, listen and learn, hold on tight.

Practicing love is seeking to know yourself as well as seeking to know your partner, your children, your parents, your friends. Like anything else that takes practice, love will challenge and perplex you; you will never get it “perfect.” Letting go of perfection, however, and embracing the process will enable you to understand better and love deeper than you’d ever thought possible.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8

I began reading Nancy Friday’s My Mother, My Self a week or so ago. Like many books about relationships, it doesn’t hand out answers, but challenges the reader to ask herself new and difficult questions. Often the questions we ask about our problems aren’t the right questions, so the answers we arrive at aren’t helpful; having a guide point out where our thinking’s gone down the wrong rabbit hole helps us find out way out and off in a better direction. Friday states that because no mother (in fact, no parent) is perfect, we must give up the idea of perfect parental love. We must come to terms with how our mothers failed - as well as how they succeeded - in loving us. She also asserts that so-called expressions of love are often muddied by other emotions and selfish desires; because of the un-love we label as love, the word has become ambiguous and cheapened.

What, then, is love? Real love, not the counterfeits people pass off as love? As a Christian, the definition of love that springs to my mind immediately is the definition in 1 John 4: “God is love.” Not as helpful as one would assume; I cannot see or smell or touch God, in that same way that I cannot see or smell or touch love. One may equal the other, but both are a mystery to me.

Shedding more light on the subject is the (in)famous love passage in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, words which are printed on countless wedding bulletins each weekend, sung in churches around the world, framed and hung on the walls of hundreds, if not thousands, of homes here in America. Many pastors have preached on this passage, about the fact that it is a sobering reminder of how often our “love” falls short of these guidelines and how often we add to Scripture’s definition (I see nothing in those four verses about “chemistry” or “butterflies” or “compatibility”). Certainly, these verses give us more insight on the nature of love (and of God). Love is (God is) kind, patient, not proud, not self-seeking, not easily angered. Okay, that helps.

What I noticed while reading Paul’s words this time, however, is that his definition of love is still lacking: It’s more than half IS NOTs instead of ISs. Why do we define things by what they aren’t, instead of truly seeking to understand what they are? I know I’m not loving someone when I keep a record of wrongs, but how do I know when I’m actually loving them? How do I avoid the pitfall of doing a halfway decent job of caring but not truly loving as fully and as deeply as I am capable?

Recently, a good friend shared with me a passage from Thich Nhat Hanh’s True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart, in which Buddhism’s “four elements of true love” are described. The part that struck me deeply was this (emphasis mine):

Training is needed in order to love properly; and to be able to give happiness and joy, you must practice deep looking directed toward the person you love. Because if you do not understand this person, you cannot love properly. Understanding is the essence of love. If you cannot understand, you cannot love. That is the message of the Buddha. If a husband, for example, does not understand his wife’s deepest troubles, her deepest aspirations, if he does not understand her suffering, he will not be able to love her in the right way. Without understanding, love is an impossible thing.

Pure wisdom. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a variant of the complaint, “He/she just doesn’t get me!” We want to be seen. We want to be understood. We want someone to do the hard work of figuring us out - when we’re not even sure we can figure ourselves out!

My former pastor used to say: “Love is giving people what they need, not what they want or deserve.” At times in relationships, the people we care for may deserve a good tongue-lashing, but what they need is gentleness. Sometimes we want others to excuse our bad behavior, but what we need is firm boundaries. Discerning what kind of love a person needs requires that we seek to understand their motivations, fears and hopes. We aren’t truly loving others, and we will never give them what they need, until we stop dressing them up in our expectations and begin seeing them as they truly are. Understanding allows us to let go of grudges, to release jealousy, to delight in the goodness of others, and to be a conduit of goodness into their lives.

You know the cliche about personal progress? One step forward, one step back; two steps forward, another step back; three steps forward, two steps back? Cliched or not, it describes my life perfectly, and I’m often frustrated by my start-stall-stop-start approach to life. I always want to change, I always have good intentions, but my follow-through leaves something to be desired.

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine wisely observed that true progress and movement is not always linear. In fact, she said she thought it’s almost always not linear. It moves in circles and cycles, and who are we to question it? Or, for that matter, to blame ourselves?

I want to quit smoking. I’ve done it dozens of times; once for four years during college and more recently for a whole year. I know I have the discipline in me to do it. I just have to engage that discipline.

Same with healthy eating and exercise. It’s not a linear process, I tell myself. When self-hatred almost crushes me, when I feel like my identity is only what I eat or what I weight: It’s not a linear process.

Career and vocational goals. Am I making a daily practice of writing, creating? No, I’m not. Am I further, more creative, more inspired than I was five years ago? Yes, I am. So I have moved forward. Just not in a straight line.

Relationships. I’ve seen many years now of my hardest work being destroyed in an instant. To leave a lover may be a step forward, a step in the right direction, a new beginning, but it is also an ending. In that moment of death, when I realize that all that I hoped to experience with this person will never materialize, I can’t appreciate the new life that’s beginning. I feel like all I invested, every dream I bothered believing in, was a waste.

But it’s not. Because it’s not a linear process. Death and birth all along the way moves me toward the final destination. That destination isn’t accolades or financial bonuses in the workplace, a published book, marriage, children. It’s not my last cigarette, or the final payment on my debt, a size four pair of jeans or finally buying my own home. That final destination is on the other side of the curtain we call “death.” I won’t stop growing, changing, or learning until then.

Until then, I will always move forward and back, make wrong turns, be surprised, say “oh no!” and “aha!” I won’t let it discourage me. I will only let it teach me.

But the meek shall inherit the earth,
And shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.
Psalm 37:11

A friend asked me today, “What do you want?” Rhetorically, globally - not what I want for lunch or what I want to do this weekend; rather, what am I craving, right now, in my soul. And I answered, “Peace. Inside and out.”

A few hours later I opened my journal (a lovely spiral-bound hard-backed notebook with different verses printed on every other page) to do some brainstorming. At the top of the fresh new page was Psalm 37:11. A promise of peace.

Dictionary.com describes today’s connotation of the word meek as “overly submissive or compliant; spiritless; tame.” The “obsolete” meaning: “gentle; kind.” Considering how much pride Americans take in their ever-ascending levels of rudeness (which often masquerades as “standing up for one’s rights” or “not taking any shit,” etc.) I can see how we’ve come to equate gentleness with being a pushover. Although I do not advocate lying down and letting one’s family, friends, coworkers and the world at large steamroll over oneself at will, I do believe that we’d all benefit from cultivating an attitude of meekness.

This is a lesson I’ve hard to learn and re-learn over and over again, just as I’ve had to learn to boldly set boundaries when people try to take advantage of me. These attitude readjustments are two sides of the same coin, and have to work together. You cannot put your foot down and hope to preserve a relationship without incorporating some kindness in to the mix. Conversely, you cannot be gentle without courage. Fear is what makes us brash and defiant when others wrong us, fear that this person’s opinion or actions have the power to obliterate us. Refusing to lash out at people who wrong us takes self-control and self-assurance. Choosing to look beneath the surface and see all their insecurities, worries, pressures, and badly-bandaged wounds, so we can understand the pain that drives their anger, is a feat that requires tremendous inner strength. Human beings like to think they are so evolved, but when we are hurt - physically or emotionally - we want to scream and cry and carry on, and we want to hurt someone or something else just as badly. Why do people punch walls in fits of rage? Why do people kick the door on which they just stubbed their toe? Why do the abused so often become abusers?

Exchanging gentleness for brutality is counter-intuitive, but it’s the very thing that will give us an abiding peace. Peace that comes from doing the right thing. Peace that comes from settling arguments quickly and moving on with one’s life. (I rarely hear back from someone when I respond to a hateful email with kindness, whereas any time I’ve given tit for tat, the conversation lasted for hours - even days! - and eventually deteroriated into the verbal equivalent of two monkeys slinging fecal matter at one another.) Peace that comes from refusing to let someone’s ill-conceived actions control us.

Today and tomorrow, I will cultivate meekness. I’ll get angry, yes, I’ll get hurt, yes, I’ll think life isn’t fair and people suck - yes, yes, yes. But I’ll take a deep breath, remember that what I crave in my soul is peace, and I will choose to give kindness to those who need it most.