Test
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Reconsidering
Today I was driving down the highway with the windows down. With the wind in my hair, I just felt ... well happy. I find myself feeling happier more often now.
Why would I feel happy? I don't think it is the drugs. They have kept me from staying down, moderating the the bad moods but not causing any better moods. I'll get off them in a couple weeks and see if that changes anything (besides getting rid of the heartburn, fuzziness and constant ringing).
I'm happier driving alone. I'm happier hanging around with the kids. I'm happier at work and able to put more in there and connect with more people. I'm not unfortunately happier in my marriage. In fact, I'm likely happier because I've coming to terms with it.
After 21 years with M_, 10 years of counseling, and 6 years after I committed to making this marriage work even though M_ wanted to end it and kick me out, I am coming to realize that it is not going to change. Without it changing, I do not see how I can have a real marriage.
Lack of communication is a common reason for a marriage break-up. Marriage counseling should be able to fix this. The classic case would be a wife dragging a husband into counseling to get him out of his shell and talking. But now I'm talking and M_ is not listening. And for the past few years, M_ has felt hurt and inadequate when I ask her to listen so we've spent more time trying to support and encourage her. As a result, more and more things are put aside and not discussed. I try to bring up only one or two small things but still cannot be heard. As a result, nothing gets done. The house falls apart, kids get inconsistent messages, nothing is planned or executed together.
I've lived like this for some time, so why change now? Its because I felt hope and M_ was not a part of it. I felt it at Discovery. M_ first demanded that I go back in May 2006, and I dutifully did. I felt something there so I continued through even we she did not. I've been going back each year and this year I realized just very happy I was with the acceptance of the people there. Even more, I found that I could dream when I was there and have purposeful goals. I can find what I want to do with my life but ... M_ knows nothing about this.
M_ has struck down my dreams before. Even plans that I make for the weekend can become such burdens to her that I try not to make them and certainly can't tell her of my disappointment when she ignores them and makes her conflicting plans. We don't share Discovery, which has become a highlight of my year. We don't share sending support to Rwanda. We don't share helping high school kids. We don't share music, prayer or God's word. We at least had the latter at one time but they have been gone for a while. I miss the physical intimacy but much more I miss sharing hopes and dreams. And so I find myself not following my dreams.
I feel very selfish to close down our marriage over this. I do love M_ and know that she is a wonderful person. However, I feel I have had to close down myself these past few years. I've had to give to her and then hold things in because she would not respond or support me. I feel I have to make a choice between myself and her. As much as I love her, I just can't keep ignoring my own needs. It feels so very selfish to seek out my own happiness but it feels like I will slowly die if I don't.
It is all very confusing and distressing. However, I'm looking for the things that will make me happy. I can start with just feeling the wind. But it is also being a friend in Discovery. And being out in the world serving others. I wish I could feel M_ by my side in this but instead I find her questioning, being frustrated with it and holding me back.
Why would I feel happy? I don't think it is the drugs. They have kept me from staying down, moderating the the bad moods but not causing any better moods. I'll get off them in a couple weeks and see if that changes anything (besides getting rid of the heartburn, fuzziness and constant ringing).
I'm happier driving alone. I'm happier hanging around with the kids. I'm happier at work and able to put more in there and connect with more people. I'm not unfortunately happier in my marriage. In fact, I'm likely happier because I've coming to terms with it.
After 21 years with M_, 10 years of counseling, and 6 years after I committed to making this marriage work even though M_ wanted to end it and kick me out, I am coming to realize that it is not going to change. Without it changing, I do not see how I can have a real marriage.
Lack of communication is a common reason for a marriage break-up. Marriage counseling should be able to fix this. The classic case would be a wife dragging a husband into counseling to get him out of his shell and talking. But now I'm talking and M_ is not listening. And for the past few years, M_ has felt hurt and inadequate when I ask her to listen so we've spent more time trying to support and encourage her. As a result, more and more things are put aside and not discussed. I try to bring up only one or two small things but still cannot be heard. As a result, nothing gets done. The house falls apart, kids get inconsistent messages, nothing is planned or executed together.
I've lived like this for some time, so why change now? Its because I felt hope and M_ was not a part of it. I felt it at Discovery. M_ first demanded that I go back in May 2006, and I dutifully did. I felt something there so I continued through even we she did not. I've been going back each year and this year I realized just very happy I was with the acceptance of the people there. Even more, I found that I could dream when I was there and have purposeful goals. I can find what I want to do with my life but ... M_ knows nothing about this.
M_ has struck down my dreams before. Even plans that I make for the weekend can become such burdens to her that I try not to make them and certainly can't tell her of my disappointment when she ignores them and makes her conflicting plans. We don't share Discovery, which has become a highlight of my year. We don't share sending support to Rwanda. We don't share helping high school kids. We don't share music, prayer or God's word. We at least had the latter at one time but they have been gone for a while. I miss the physical intimacy but much more I miss sharing hopes and dreams. And so I find myself not following my dreams.
I feel very selfish to close down our marriage over this. I do love M_ and know that she is a wonderful person. However, I feel I have had to close down myself these past few years. I've had to give to her and then hold things in because she would not respond or support me. I feel I have to make a choice between myself and her. As much as I love her, I just can't keep ignoring my own needs. It feels so very selfish to seek out my own happiness but it feels like I will slowly die if I don't.
It is all very confusing and distressing. However, I'm looking for the things that will make me happy. I can start with just feeling the wind. But it is also being a friend in Discovery. And being out in the world serving others. I wish I could feel M_ by my side in this but instead I find her questioning, being frustrated with it and holding me back.
Monday, June 6, 2011
Where to?
I feel too much stress in my life but I don't know what to do about it. Stress about my marriage: Marion continues to interrupt, argue and control with no indication that she will ever do otherwise - or even admit that she has hurt me in any valid way and so should consider changing her attitude and actions. I can't really quit the marriage, considering the pain to the kids and to Marion and I. Besides Marion does admits fault just enough to argue that she might try a change but this typically just turns into an argument that I should just forgive her and quit asking for her support. So I feel very stuck - not just unable to escape the relationship but alone in feeling like the relationship is painful for me and is not healthy.
In work I also just feel unable to perform. This begins with feeling the stress at home carried into my work day. But then once I'm behind I don't really have to motivation to catch up. Building better computer chips just doesn't inspire me. I think about going to teach high school or something with more service but feel I would have no support for doing so. So I linger on without doing much of anything.
The worse part is that I am doing nothing to change things. I can barely build enough energy to just carry on. So looking for a change is not possible.
What I'd like to do:
1) Think about someone else and support them once a day. I get so caught up trying to support myself that I miss others.
2) Play more music. I wish I could find a group to play with but I could compose some at home. Unfortunately, I feel I have little time for this.
3) Just make it through my emails one day. Get caught up a little without the weight of feeling I cannot do it.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Not so Tickled about Phyllis
Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth. –Prov 27:1
Reading a bit of Phyllis Tickle's “The Great Emergence,” (and I haven’t read it all, so I have limited ability to comment) I have come to respect it as an analysis of cultural influences on the modern western church, but I find it too limiting to support its thesis that we are in another great movement. After years of trying to figure out what post-modernisms really is, I’m beginning to conclude that it is more the end of modernism than the beginning of anything new – we are still looking for that meta-narrative as we deconstruct the meta-narratives of others. Phyllis Tickle is solidly Modern in presenting her meta-narrative (meta-history) that hinge-points in history occur every 500 years and we are in another such emergence today. She focuses on exclusively on Western culture (for example the hinge-point that occurred in
But even with this sloppiness in logic, her message is enthralling. Who does not want to be living at the hinge-point of the next great era? To rub shoulders with the next Martin Luther or, even better, make in into the history books ourselves. Of course, I want to hear that my church is looking to the future and that our style of worship (that looks different than the main-line church down the street, so it must be different) will be vindicated as the new church. But aren’t we being a bit self-important in listening to this? Isn’t it too comfortable to just believe this story of our great place in history?
I understand Phyllis to be challenging us to cut the cords and let this great emergence happen. The old (Modern) meta-narratives found in religion are no longer valid in their traditions (we do church differently now), reason (we are more experiential now) and Scripture (we should move beyond our previous standard of sola scriptura, carefully excluding the parts that don’t fit our culture). But then she just sets up another meta-narrative one where the old religion (meta-narrative) must exit since it has been around for 500 years and where the emerging church contains the next great hinge-point. She is just asking me to exchange one set of cords for another – one meta-narrative for another. Her argument is not that the new cords are better but rather they are new and it is time for a change. But shouldn’t our challenge be to find the right cords and connections to God?
I guess I just don’t feel challenged by what Phyllis Tickle has to say. I may have some urge to complain that her thesis could use more support but she has tied some useful themes together. However she hasn’t challenged me to live differently or to seek God in new ways. She has presented another meta-narrative, another Modern reading of religion, to help us feel comfortable where we are, but one that just throws us out into the open with no direction – just keep doing what you are doing because it brings the change for the next 500 years. It’s an attractive message, even persuasive, but it is not inspiring.
Thanks to Paul Roberts for his thoughts on this topic.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Cutting the Cords
This morning in Sunday School we were discussing Phyllis Tickle’s analogy of religion being a cable the holds us to God. Now I have not read her books (I don’t think many in the class had) though I did find some of her talks on the internet. I looked this up because I wasn’t really following our conversation very well, getting confused about where the analogy was going. Anyway I found reading the transcription of her talk to also be confusing. She moves from one generalizations about a world trend to another (pulling theological images from Matrix, equating Martin Luther to a couple of the most liberal theologians of today, and explaining the emergence of Christian Science and Mormonism in a couple of sentences). My head was spinning just trying to figure out if the last five things she said were true so I could determine if the connection she was making made sense. Hopefully her book has a lot more detail and documentation for her claims.
Anyway back to the cable. Phyllis has religion connecting us to God like a cable made up of different strands and layers. Her idea is that when the layer is opened up, we play with the strands, rearrange them a bit and then put it back together. This is why Protestantism looks different than Catholicism and Pentecostals worship differently than Episcopalians. But we started talking about just these cables that connect us with all kinds of things - God, church music, money, sports, each other, etc. The idea was that we get so connected we have to start cutting some of these cables. So having organ music in church is a cable that was cut when we introduced guitars. And some cables (the liturgies that Journey now follows, like writing names on a rock) are worth holding onto because we like them. When we started talking about cutting away the letters of Paul in the same way we discussed not holding onto having fancy altar rails, I got a little concerned. Why not just cut all the cables (one person suggested this was the plan) and just float along the streams of our culture with no intention of a connection with God. I appreciate the questioning about holding things to be too important but something has to be important and we don’t seem to talk about them.
This got me thinking about the music at our church. They’ve got some great musicians who perform a couple of songs each week. But it’s a bit more concert than participation, no common repertoire holding us together. It’s like we have to bring in all this diversity of music but not connection and community. Phyllis’ comment is that the old organ hymns were “performance art, even by those who couldn't perform. It was not a participatory thing.” She then concludes that in emerging churches today (including Journey ?) “what the church failed to do was accommodate to that shift. It still tried to perform, and we still do.” I wish that she had stayed on this topic a bit longer but she quickly moved on to the next world trend (the Internet) without any guidance about what we are suppose to be doing. Do we just cut this cable also; unplug the guitars and let everyone have a voice in what we sing? Somehow, I doubt we’d do so nor would appreciate the cacophony that resulted.
It seems that everyone is telling the church to cut the cables (at least the ones we don’t like) but not what are connection we are suppose to be looking for.
Anyway back to the cable. Phyllis has religion connecting us to God like a cable made up of different strands and layers. Her idea is that when the layer is opened up, we play with the strands, rearrange them a bit and then put it back together. This is why Protestantism looks different than Catholicism and Pentecostals worship differently than Episcopalians. But we started talking about just these cables that connect us with all kinds of things - God, church music, money, sports, each other, etc. The idea was that we get so connected we have to start cutting some of these cables. So having organ music in church is a cable that was cut when we introduced guitars. And some cables (the liturgies that Journey now follows, like writing names on a rock) are worth holding onto because we like them. When we started talking about cutting away the letters of Paul in the same way we discussed not holding onto having fancy altar rails, I got a little concerned. Why not just cut all the cables (one person suggested this was the plan) and just float along the streams of our culture with no intention of a connection with God. I appreciate the questioning about holding things to be too important but something has to be important and we don’t seem to talk about them.
This got me thinking about the music at our church. They’ve got some great musicians who perform a couple of songs each week. But it’s a bit more concert than participation, no common repertoire holding us together. It’s like we have to bring in all this diversity of music but not connection and community. Phyllis’ comment is that the old organ hymns were “performance art, even by those who couldn't perform. It was not a participatory thing.” She then concludes that in emerging churches today (including Journey ?) “what the church failed to do was accommodate to that shift. It still tried to perform, and we still do.” I wish that she had stayed on this topic a bit longer but she quickly moved on to the next world trend (the Internet) without any guidance about what we are suppose to be doing. Do we just cut this cable also; unplug the guitars and let everyone have a voice in what we sing? Somehow, I doubt we’d do so nor would appreciate the cacophony that resulted.
It seems that everyone is telling the church to cut the cables (at least the ones we don’t like) but not what are connection we are suppose to be looking for.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Love and War
The Christian right and left are still at it. In the news, Proposition 8 was passed in CA defining marriage as between a man and a woman. This was filed and supported by Christians and then challenged and condemned by Christians. The Christian right look to the morality of God’s establishment of marriage. The Christian left uphold Gods love to all people. Millions (about $40 million on each side so far) were spent to argue that both sides are misrepresenting God. The rights of homosexuals to call themselves married has somehow become one of the most important religious issue in America. I wonder why the Christian right is so more concerned about homosexual marriage than the pain and misuse found in many heterosexual marriages. And why do the Christian left feel that the civil rights of homosexuals are more oppressed or important than others, say the 200,000 people forced into extremely overcrowded CA prisons. It appears to me that Christians on both sides are just responding to cultural influences and not seeking true purity and mercy from God. They are using what the culture is saying, what the culture is talking about, to support their arguments of right and wrong. Doesn’t God call us to think in a different way?
On a more personal note, I finally did receive a response from Fr. Warner, the rector at Christ Church about my removal from his church. He marked it as Confidential and did use divisive words that really should not be identified as coming from a church leader, so I will not quote directly from it. In it Cliff confirms he can make his decision to remove me without having to discuss it with me or anyone else (or to even provide a reason) and says that he did the best he could. I have since responded that I will seek reconciliation with him (seeking forgiveness not justifications), if would provide a way. I'm truly mean this from my heart but sadly I don't really expect to hear anything back from him. We have many ways to serve together but he has simply decided that I'm out.
I feel like a scapegoat. You know, during the Day of Atonement, the goat in (a mistranslation of) Lev 16, upon whom the sins of the people are symbolically placed and is then driven away to fend for himself. Cliff has created this uncertainty at Christ Church (or is it in his own heart - I'm not able to tell) and I am a ready target on which to place the frustration this has caused. So upon me it is placed and I am asked to leave the church. Of course, I am personally in no position to atone for the sins of Christ Church or its rector. However, this does give me some empathy with other scapegoats out there.
Most notably are the homosexuals who are forced to stand in the middle of a battle within the church. If they didn’t exist then the church wouldn’t be arguing, the Anglican (Espicopal) church would be unified and the money and time spent on legal actions could be used for more fruitful purposes. What a burden for these scapegoats to bear that they are responsible for splitting a church. As much as I agree with the theology of marriage taught by the Christian right, I must also agree with the left that homosexuals are people loved by God and not scapegoats for our power struggles. My concern is in realizing that these underlying power struggles will continue - globally in the Anglican Church and locally at Christ Church - so who will become the next scapegoat? The different factions in the Anglican church are even now discussing the role of women in church and types of worship that can be used. Will these and other issues be discussed or simply mandated with the new scapegoats to carry the burden?
On a more personal note, I finally did receive a response from Fr. Warner, the rector at Christ Church about my removal from his church. He marked it as Confidential and did use divisive words that really should not be identified as coming from a church leader, so I will not quote directly from it. In it Cliff confirms he can make his decision to remove me without having to discuss it with me or anyone else (or to even provide a reason) and says that he did the best he could. I have since responded that I will seek reconciliation with him (seeking forgiveness not justifications), if would provide a way. I'm truly mean this from my heart but sadly I don't really expect to hear anything back from him. We have many ways to serve together but he has simply decided that I'm out.
I feel like a scapegoat. You know, during the Day of Atonement, the goat in (a mistranslation of) Lev 16, upon whom the sins of the people are symbolically placed and is then driven away to fend for himself. Cliff has created this uncertainty at Christ Church (or is it in his own heart - I'm not able to tell) and I am a ready target on which to place the frustration this has caused. So upon me it is placed and I am asked to leave the church. Of course, I am personally in no position to atone for the sins of Christ Church or its rector. However, this does give me some empathy with other scapegoats out there.
Most notably are the homosexuals who are forced to stand in the middle of a battle within the church. If they didn’t exist then the church wouldn’t be arguing, the Anglican (Espicopal) church would be unified and the money and time spent on legal actions could be used for more fruitful purposes. What a burden for these scapegoats to bear that they are responsible for splitting a church. As much as I agree with the theology of marriage taught by the Christian right, I must also agree with the left that homosexuals are people loved by God and not scapegoats for our power struggles. My concern is in realizing that these underlying power struggles will continue - globally in the Anglican Church and locally at Christ Church - so who will become the next scapegoat? The different factions in the Anglican church are even now discussing the role of women in church and types of worship that can be used. Will these and other issues be discussed or simply mandated with the new scapegoats to carry the burden?
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