My birth-mother was nearly 20 years old when I was born. Having surrendered me for adoption, she eventually got on with her life. She was professionally successful, but I was (and am) the only child of her womb. She didn’t marry until her late 40s. In fact, I have been married longer than she has, and I like to tease her husband that, without knowing it, when they were married, she was already a grandmother.
On an ‘existential’ level, though, she dearly wanted to be a mother, and they set about trying to adopt a child of their own. Sarah came into their lives when my birth-mother was 50 years old, and was immediately a tremendous joy for them.
When I first met Sarah, on my first visit to my birth-mother’s house after our reunion, she was three years old. By an odd coincidence, in the weeks/months before reunion, Sarah started telling her parents that she wanted a brother. Which left them in a bit of a quandary as to how to tell a three-year-old that, much as they’d like to give her a brother, it wasn’t going to happen. Then, suddenly, I burst onto the scene, and - voila! - Sarah had a brother. Just not a baby brother; in fact, she had a brother who had children of his own, who were older than she was. I vividly recall, from that first visit, while the three of us were in the car one day, Sarah singing a little song to herself – “I don’t like it / when Mommy likes Desmond / so much.”
As the years passed, Sarah became as much a part of our family as my birth-mother. Which isn’t terribly surprising; she came along virtually every time my mother came to visit us. She and 2F became especially close, being closest in age of any of our kids, but the two of them also shared a strong-willed temperament, and seemed to understand each other on some intrinsic level. Because of the large difference in our ages, and her closeness in age to our kids, Sarah never really ‘functioned’ in my life as a sister; more like a niece.
As our kids got older, and we became immersed in our troubles with 3M, and then 1F, my conversations with my birth-mother took on a darker tone, as Sarah started having troubles of her own. She went through a succession of schools, as her parents spared no effort (or expense) trying to find one that could get through to her, mostly without success. Her friends were of a nastier sort than her parents were comfortable with. And there were hints that she was doing more than dabbling in recreational pharmaceuticals.
Sarah was a talented musician (she played the violin) and actress, and through her teens, she landed several good roles, for which she had to compete with other talented kids drawn from a large metropolitan area. And she just loved to perform.
She did finally graduate from high school, and before long she had moved out of her parents’ house. Her behavior became increasingly wild and erratic (although she talked to her mother on the phone every day, without fail). Her boyfriend eventually broke up with her, because he simply wasn’t willing to go with her any further into the Wild Side that she seemed determined to explore.
Finally, a little over a year ago, a month shy of her 21st birthday, Sarah didn’t call home. She died of a fatal drug overdose.
My heart just breaks. It always seems like a tragic waste when anyone dies so young. I was looking forward to a mature, adult Sarah, who might someday come to seem more like a sister to me.
But even more, my heart breaks for her parents – my birth-mother and her husband. Parents should never have to bury their children, much less their not-yet-21-year-old children. I can’t help thinking, too, of the sacrifice they made in adopting Sarah in the first place. Her parents were both over 50 when they adopted Sarah; they signed on for raising a child during years when most of their peers were coping with their empty nests. When most of their peers were traveling, or volunteering, or otherwise enjoying their freedom-at-last from the rigors of parenthood, they were just getting started, signing on for a term to last into their 70s. All parents, I’m sure, see their children, at least in part, as their legacy – a part of them to live on after they’re gone. But there will be no legacy here. Without meaning to say it crassly, they’ve got nothing (except their own memories) left to show for 20+ years they invested in raising their daughter; an investment no one forced them to make – they did it freely, even generously. It just breaks my heart; I can’t think of another way to say it.
Friday, July 11, 2008
Monday, June 30, 2008
Love Hurts
“If I never loved, I never would have cried.”
Simon & Garfunkel
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared with love in dreams.”
Dostoevsky
“[Jesus], having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
The Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 1
Mother Theresa was fond of saying that our main task in this life is learning what it really means to love. She was also fond of saying that there is no spiritual growth without suffering. And I’ve come to understand that the two – love and suffering – are not so very separate from each other.
I think we’re sort of conditioned by our culture to think of love in terms of mellow warm feelings toward another person – taking pleasure in their presence in our lives, wanting to do things together with them, or give our time and energy for their sake. But if warm-fuzzies is all that we mean by love, it winds up being pretty shallow and lame.
In a fallen world, it comes to seem that any love worthy of the name inevitably has a tragic aspect about it. We are all fallen, broken persons, and our fallen-ness and broken-ness redound to the pain of those who love us. And hobble our ability to love others as we ought. We inevitably hurt and disappoint those who love us, and in many ways, the measure of love is the manner in which it deals with those hurts and disappointments.
Our kids have taught some of this to Molly and me. When 1F was the ‘perfect’ adolescent, it was pretty easy to love her; to soak up the accolades we received for having raised such a wonderful girl. But, I don’t think I’ve ever been more deeply wounded than I was when she walked away from our family to live with the F-bomb. And I never, in my worst dreams, would have imagined one of my daughters having a baby out-of-wedlock. But, you know, in the ensuing years, I think we’ve come to a stronger love for each other. I found out that my heart could bear more pain than I thought it could, and that I loved my daughter even though she had hurt me like I’d never imagined I could be hurt.
Likewise for 3M – it was easy to love him when he was a cute and precocious child, when we got appreciative pats on the back for his wit and intelligence. But when he ran away from home, and defied us in every possible way, he simply broke our hearts. And such is the tragic aspect of love – real, down-and-dirty, harsh, dreadful love. He is not today what I would really want him to be, but I think we have learned to love each other for who we are, apart from any questions about ‘approval’.
All of our kids, in one way or another, have suffered from my (and, I suppose, Molly’s, although even to say so evokes thoughts of the Log and the Speck; besides which, it feels like ‘talking behind her back’) failures of love. 1F and 3M are just the glaring, nuclear examples. 2F suffers greatly to this day that we didn’t love her as she needed us to – that we were so dazzled by her sister’s ‘perfection’, and too easily put off by her more strong-willed personality. 4M can be a male version of 1F – ‘perfect’, except when he thinks we’re not looking. 5M too easily gets lost in the chaos that swirls around his older siblings, and 6F has had to endure all manner of trials that we wished we could have been more effective in helping her through. But perhaps we are learning, just a little bit better, what it means to love. Perhaps we can dig a little deeper, and give our kids the love they need, where once we’d have come up short. Perhaps. At least, I hope so. . .
It’s not just the kids, either. As much as I love Molly (and she me), there is, even still, a tragic aspect to our love. She has not avoided disappointing me (or, to be certain, I her), even though she is still the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Some part of the measure of our love is coming to know – really know, where it hurts to know – each other’s weaknesses and character flaws, and keep moving forward. Even to cover for each other’s weaknesses (whether or not we ever thought we should have to).
So, again - the measure of our love is not the absence of our disappointments with each other. The measure of our love is what we DO with the inevitable hurts and disappointments that we inflict on each other – can we let “love cover a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8), or not?
And then we have the example of God Himself, who “demonstrates His own love for us in this – while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus didn’t wait for us to get our shit together in order to make a gift of Himself for our sake. He loved us, “to the end,” even in all our fallen, broken, garbage.
In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said that, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” And I think it’s likewise when it comes to ‘learning what it really means to love’. To love greatly is to risk being hurt greatly. To ‘pour ourselves out’ for the sake of the beloved, with little or no regard for what we have left when we’re done.
“And greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Jesus, with all trepidation, I ask of you. . . teach me how to love. . .
Simon & Garfunkel
“Love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing, compared with love in dreams.”
Dostoevsky
“[Jesus], having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.”
The Gospel of John, chapter 13, verse 1
Mother Theresa was fond of saying that our main task in this life is learning what it really means to love. She was also fond of saying that there is no spiritual growth without suffering. And I’ve come to understand that the two – love and suffering – are not so very separate from each other.
I think we’re sort of conditioned by our culture to think of love in terms of mellow warm feelings toward another person – taking pleasure in their presence in our lives, wanting to do things together with them, or give our time and energy for their sake. But if warm-fuzzies is all that we mean by love, it winds up being pretty shallow and lame.
In a fallen world, it comes to seem that any love worthy of the name inevitably has a tragic aspect about it. We are all fallen, broken persons, and our fallen-ness and broken-ness redound to the pain of those who love us. And hobble our ability to love others as we ought. We inevitably hurt and disappoint those who love us, and in many ways, the measure of love is the manner in which it deals with those hurts and disappointments.
Our kids have taught some of this to Molly and me. When 1F was the ‘perfect’ adolescent, it was pretty easy to love her; to soak up the accolades we received for having raised such a wonderful girl. But, I don’t think I’ve ever been more deeply wounded than I was when she walked away from our family to live with the F-bomb. And I never, in my worst dreams, would have imagined one of my daughters having a baby out-of-wedlock. But, you know, in the ensuing years, I think we’ve come to a stronger love for each other. I found out that my heart could bear more pain than I thought it could, and that I loved my daughter even though she had hurt me like I’d never imagined I could be hurt.
Likewise for 3M – it was easy to love him when he was a cute and precocious child, when we got appreciative pats on the back for his wit and intelligence. But when he ran away from home, and defied us in every possible way, he simply broke our hearts. And such is the tragic aspect of love – real, down-and-dirty, harsh, dreadful love. He is not today what I would really want him to be, but I think we have learned to love each other for who we are, apart from any questions about ‘approval’.
All of our kids, in one way or another, have suffered from my (and, I suppose, Molly’s, although even to say so evokes thoughts of the Log and the Speck; besides which, it feels like ‘talking behind her back’) failures of love. 1F and 3M are just the glaring, nuclear examples. 2F suffers greatly to this day that we didn’t love her as she needed us to – that we were so dazzled by her sister’s ‘perfection’, and too easily put off by her more strong-willed personality. 4M can be a male version of 1F – ‘perfect’, except when he thinks we’re not looking. 5M too easily gets lost in the chaos that swirls around his older siblings, and 6F has had to endure all manner of trials that we wished we could have been more effective in helping her through. But perhaps we are learning, just a little bit better, what it means to love. Perhaps we can dig a little deeper, and give our kids the love they need, where once we’d have come up short. Perhaps. At least, I hope so. . .
It’s not just the kids, either. As much as I love Molly (and she me), there is, even still, a tragic aspect to our love. She has not avoided disappointing me (or, to be certain, I her), even though she is still the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. Some part of the measure of our love is coming to know – really know, where it hurts to know – each other’s weaknesses and character flaws, and keep moving forward. Even to cover for each other’s weaknesses (whether or not we ever thought we should have to).
So, again - the measure of our love is not the absence of our disappointments with each other. The measure of our love is what we DO with the inevitable hurts and disappointments that we inflict on each other – can we let “love cover a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8), or not?
And then we have the example of God Himself, who “demonstrates His own love for us in this – while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus didn’t wait for us to get our shit together in order to make a gift of Himself for our sake. He loved us, “to the end,” even in all our fallen, broken, garbage.
In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said that, “When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” And I think it’s likewise when it comes to ‘learning what it really means to love’. To love greatly is to risk being hurt greatly. To ‘pour ourselves out’ for the sake of the beloved, with little or no regard for what we have left when we’re done.
“And greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)
Jesus, with all trepidation, I ask of you. . . teach me how to love. . .
Monday, June 23, 2008
Stepping Out?
Probably my closest friend for my entire adult life has been a guy who, for blogging purposes, I’ll call H. We were college roommates for two years, and when I was in graduate school, he and I lived in a house together with a group of other guys. We got married just a few months apart, and we were each other’s Best Man. H and his wife (call her F) bought a house a block away from Molly and me, and we both had daughters, again within a few months of each other. 1F and H/F’s oldest daughter have been best friends since they were both in diapers, which is really unusual these days, and really cool.
H/F’s second daughter married the son of GF2 (remember her?) and her husband, and they now have a baby daughter of their own. It has been really cool to see the relationship between the four ‘co-grandparents’, who were good friends before their children married each other, but having a grandchild in common has made for an even closer bond between them.
A while back, Molly and I were at a party at GF2’s house; one of her younger children was graduating from high school. Her kids and mine are all aware that, back in the day, we dated each other, and from time to time, it becomes the focal point of some humor among them. And this was one of those times. So, when the young parents (the son of GF2 and the daughter of H/F) arrived at the party with their little girl (the ‘common’ grandchild), I held the little girl briefly and said, “You know, I used to date your grandma.”
F was standing nearby, and heard me. Whereupon she said, “Hey, you dated BOTH of us!” Well, F is a very good friend, but she was never my girlfriend, so I had no idea what she was talking about. At first. But then I remembered. . .
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Several years ago, a buddy of mine, knowing my serious musical jones (nyuk!) for any and all things Beatle, scored tickets to see Paul McCartney (even before he was Sir Paul), and picked up a pair for me (for which you can be sure I was grateful). I told Molly about the tickets, and she was ambivalent about going. “Why don’t you go with H?”
So, I offered my second ticket to H, figuring that we could have some guy-time together at the concert, but he wasn’t particularly interested, either. “But, I bet F would love to go with you – heck, she even went to see the Beatles way back when. . .” Well, I didn’t know about that – my buddy’s wife, and all.
But Molly was all for it. “Go ahead and go to the concert with F. She’ll appreciate it, and you’ll both have a great time.” So we did.
I admit, driving the hour-and-a-half to the concert venue was a little odd, but not so bad as all that – Molly and I had been doing things together with H and F since before we were married, and I had a good friendship with F even apart from her being married to my best friend.
We got to the arena, and we had a great time. F told me stories about when she went to see the Beatles when she was 12, and it was cool. Paul came out with the band, and played a great show, and F and I had tremendous fun singing along with the songs, remembering our youth, and just generally having a lot of fun.
When the concert was over, we hung around the arena for awhile, waiting for the traffic to thin out before we got back in the car. While we were standing by our seats, we saw a couple we both knew – former members of our community, who we hadn’t seen for probably ten years or so. They came over to talk with us, and the whole time, they were both looking at us oddly, like, “I thought you were married to. . .” After a few pleasantries, they moved on.
F turned and hit me on the shoulder. “You didn’t say anything!” she squealed.
“Neither did you,” I responded. “Besides, it’ll be interesting to see if any rumors come back around from it, don’t you think?”
“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!” To which I only smirked.
-------------------------
As far as I know, there were never any rumors spread about us. And I haven’t ever run into that couple again, to ask what they thought when they saw F and me together.
But, I have to admit, in all candor, that I can’t say anymore that I stopped dating other women after I married Molly. Heck, Molly even said it was okay (and so did F’s husband, for that matter), so long as I tell her about it when I got home. . .
H/F’s second daughter married the son of GF2 (remember her?) and her husband, and they now have a baby daughter of their own. It has been really cool to see the relationship between the four ‘co-grandparents’, who were good friends before their children married each other, but having a grandchild in common has made for an even closer bond between them.
A while back, Molly and I were at a party at GF2’s house; one of her younger children was graduating from high school. Her kids and mine are all aware that, back in the day, we dated each other, and from time to time, it becomes the focal point of some humor among them. And this was one of those times. So, when the young parents (the son of GF2 and the daughter of H/F) arrived at the party with their little girl (the ‘common’ grandchild), I held the little girl briefly and said, “You know, I used to date your grandma.”
F was standing nearby, and heard me. Whereupon she said, “Hey, you dated BOTH of us!” Well, F is a very good friend, but she was never my girlfriend, so I had no idea what she was talking about. At first. But then I remembered. . .
-------------------------
Several years ago, a buddy of mine, knowing my serious musical jones (nyuk!) for any and all things Beatle, scored tickets to see Paul McCartney (even before he was Sir Paul), and picked up a pair for me (for which you can be sure I was grateful). I told Molly about the tickets, and she was ambivalent about going. “Why don’t you go with H?”
So, I offered my second ticket to H, figuring that we could have some guy-time together at the concert, but he wasn’t particularly interested, either. “But, I bet F would love to go with you – heck, she even went to see the Beatles way back when. . .” Well, I didn’t know about that – my buddy’s wife, and all.
But Molly was all for it. “Go ahead and go to the concert with F. She’ll appreciate it, and you’ll both have a great time.” So we did.
I admit, driving the hour-and-a-half to the concert venue was a little odd, but not so bad as all that – Molly and I had been doing things together with H and F since before we were married, and I had a good friendship with F even apart from her being married to my best friend.
We got to the arena, and we had a great time. F told me stories about when she went to see the Beatles when she was 12, and it was cool. Paul came out with the band, and played a great show, and F and I had tremendous fun singing along with the songs, remembering our youth, and just generally having a lot of fun.
When the concert was over, we hung around the arena for awhile, waiting for the traffic to thin out before we got back in the car. While we were standing by our seats, we saw a couple we both knew – former members of our community, who we hadn’t seen for probably ten years or so. They came over to talk with us, and the whole time, they were both looking at us oddly, like, “I thought you were married to. . .” After a few pleasantries, they moved on.
F turned and hit me on the shoulder. “You didn’t say anything!” she squealed.
“Neither did you,” I responded. “Besides, it’ll be interesting to see if any rumors come back around from it, don’t you think?”
“I can’t believe you didn’t say anything!” To which I only smirked.
-------------------------
As far as I know, there were never any rumors spread about us. And I haven’t ever run into that couple again, to ask what they thought when they saw F and me together.
But, I have to admit, in all candor, that I can’t say anymore that I stopped dating other women after I married Molly. Heck, Molly even said it was okay (and so did F’s husband, for that matter), so long as I tell her about it when I got home. . .
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
Back In the Blog Life Again. . . Sort Of
Well, maybe not quite. Mainly, I just regretted deleting my old blog, and I thought it would be better to have almost a year’s worth of my old blog posts back up, in case anyone would ever want to have a look at them (does that seem incredibly vain?) Plus, a couple times in the past year, I’ve wished I still had my blog, so I could post some thoughts that were burning a hole in my brain at the time (that’s not nearly as painful as it sounds). So, here I am.
I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up. My intention is not to post very often. If at all. I simply can’t ever go back to ‘full-time’ blogging; I have too many other things going on in my life. I expect I’ll be one of those frustrating bloggers who posts just seldom enough that you want to say ‘the heck with it’, but then a new post appears. But such is life in blog-space. Actually, to be perfectly candid, even as I sit here saying I don’t intend to post much, I have half-a-dozen ideas for new posts floating around in my brain. So, maybe some stuff will trickle out here and there, until the flow of ideas dries up, and then I’ll go dormant for a while again, until something else gets stirred up in my brain.
-------------------------
Since I’ve been gone for awhile, I should probably take just a moment to bring you all up to speed on what all us Joneses are up to these days, and where we’ve been.
Molly and I, and virtually all of our kids (except 8M) have spent time in counseling over the past year-and-a-half (I talked about it some here). I think it’s been helpful. At least, we’ve got a few more tools for how we relate to each other that, if we remember to use them, help us to defuse a lot of the conflicts that arise in the course of our family life. Molly and I are learning just to be more empathetic with our kids, to just throw an arm around their shoulders, and ‘be there’ for them. Which, over the years, has been our major failing as parents. It isn’t always easy to do, with so many of them. But it’s necessary; and worth the time and effort. And we’re getting better at it. I think.
Molly and I continue to be madly, passionately in love with each other, even after nearly 28 years of marriage. I can’t help it; she’s the most amazing woman in the world, and the hottest 50+ year old any of you will ever meet. . .
1F is steadily getting her life back on track, although not without some struggle. She’s been back in school, taking single classes for the past year, to get herself re-acclimated to the whole ‘school’ thing. Her daughter is now two-and-a-half years old, and cute as a bug. The ‘open’ adoption is still working really well for all parties concerned.
2F has spent the last year doing mission work in Detroit. She has tended to get short shrift here, and in real life, just because her siblings on either side of her have drawn so much attention. And that has left a few scars on her psyche. Under the age of ten, she was probably our most difficult child, but these days, she’s quite a shining star. Once her mission year ends this summer, she’ll come back to finish her schooling and see what life has next for her.
3M is doing much better. Since he graduated from high school, he’s spent a fair bit of time getting educated by The Universe. The first year after high school was especially painful for us to watch. But the past year has been better. He’s held a job, and has mended fences on several of the relationships he’d trashed. And our relationship as father/son is as good as it’s been in a long, long time. There’s still lots of room for him to make some better decisions for his life, but for now, he seems to slowly be absorbing the lessons The Universe is giving him.
4M has had a bit more adversity over the last year than what he’d been used to. He’s still an A-student, star athlete, All-American Boy. But, whereas a year ago, he had colleges knocking on his door to come play football for them, his junior season pretty much ended those prospects. When you play quarterback, you can be a great athlete, but if you make bad decisions under pressure, it doesn’t go so well for you. We’ll see how his senior year goes, but now he knows that he’s much more likely to earn his living at something he learns in the classroom than he is on the football field.
5M has also had more adversity than he’d bargained for, starting in 8th grade, when he was peripherally involved in some trouble at school, for which he was very severely punished (way more severely than the ‘offense’ warranted, in my opinion, but that’s another story for another day). He has also tended to get lost in the swirl surrounding his older siblings, but we’re learning not to do that.
6F has had a difficult transition into teenager-hood. Aside from being the only girl living at home in a sea of testosterone, middle-school social drama and barbarian middle-school boys have made her life more stressful than I wish it was.
7M, our ‘miracle boy’, is still brilliant, still volatile. We started him on piano lessons six months ago, and he’s already run miles down the road with it. Just like 1F used to do when she was younger, he tends to play the piano for stress-relief. And he’s gotten pretty good at it. The bad news is, he feels stressed a lot. We’re getting better at helping him get on top of his emotions, but it isn’t always easy.
8M isn’t a baby anymore, even though he’s every bit the ‘baby of the family’. He was in kindergarten this past year, meaning that, for the first time since before 1F was born, Molly was home alone during the school day. He’s showing signs of being genius-prone like 7M and 3M. We’ll see about that.
And that’s the short version of where we’re at these days. Life is both harder and richer than we’d anticipated. And God is merciful.
I don’t want to get anybody’s hopes up. My intention is not to post very often. If at all. I simply can’t ever go back to ‘full-time’ blogging; I have too many other things going on in my life. I expect I’ll be one of those frustrating bloggers who posts just seldom enough that you want to say ‘the heck with it’, but then a new post appears. But such is life in blog-space. Actually, to be perfectly candid, even as I sit here saying I don’t intend to post much, I have half-a-dozen ideas for new posts floating around in my brain. So, maybe some stuff will trickle out here and there, until the flow of ideas dries up, and then I’ll go dormant for a while again, until something else gets stirred up in my brain.
-------------------------
Since I’ve been gone for awhile, I should probably take just a moment to bring you all up to speed on what all us Joneses are up to these days, and where we’ve been.
Molly and I, and virtually all of our kids (except 8M) have spent time in counseling over the past year-and-a-half (I talked about it some here). I think it’s been helpful. At least, we’ve got a few more tools for how we relate to each other that, if we remember to use them, help us to defuse a lot of the conflicts that arise in the course of our family life. Molly and I are learning just to be more empathetic with our kids, to just throw an arm around their shoulders, and ‘be there’ for them. Which, over the years, has been our major failing as parents. It isn’t always easy to do, with so many of them. But it’s necessary; and worth the time and effort. And we’re getting better at it. I think.
Molly and I continue to be madly, passionately in love with each other, even after nearly 28 years of marriage. I can’t help it; she’s the most amazing woman in the world, and the hottest 50+ year old any of you will ever meet. . .
1F is steadily getting her life back on track, although not without some struggle. She’s been back in school, taking single classes for the past year, to get herself re-acclimated to the whole ‘school’ thing. Her daughter is now two-and-a-half years old, and cute as a bug. The ‘open’ adoption is still working really well for all parties concerned.
2F has spent the last year doing mission work in Detroit. She has tended to get short shrift here, and in real life, just because her siblings on either side of her have drawn so much attention. And that has left a few scars on her psyche. Under the age of ten, she was probably our most difficult child, but these days, she’s quite a shining star. Once her mission year ends this summer, she’ll come back to finish her schooling and see what life has next for her.
3M is doing much better. Since he graduated from high school, he’s spent a fair bit of time getting educated by The Universe. The first year after high school was especially painful for us to watch. But the past year has been better. He’s held a job, and has mended fences on several of the relationships he’d trashed. And our relationship as father/son is as good as it’s been in a long, long time. There’s still lots of room for him to make some better decisions for his life, but for now, he seems to slowly be absorbing the lessons The Universe is giving him.
4M has had a bit more adversity over the last year than what he’d been used to. He’s still an A-student, star athlete, All-American Boy. But, whereas a year ago, he had colleges knocking on his door to come play football for them, his junior season pretty much ended those prospects. When you play quarterback, you can be a great athlete, but if you make bad decisions under pressure, it doesn’t go so well for you. We’ll see how his senior year goes, but now he knows that he’s much more likely to earn his living at something he learns in the classroom than he is on the football field.
5M has also had more adversity than he’d bargained for, starting in 8th grade, when he was peripherally involved in some trouble at school, for which he was very severely punished (way more severely than the ‘offense’ warranted, in my opinion, but that’s another story for another day). He has also tended to get lost in the swirl surrounding his older siblings, but we’re learning not to do that.
6F has had a difficult transition into teenager-hood. Aside from being the only girl living at home in a sea of testosterone, middle-school social drama and barbarian middle-school boys have made her life more stressful than I wish it was.
7M, our ‘miracle boy’, is still brilliant, still volatile. We started him on piano lessons six months ago, and he’s already run miles down the road with it. Just like 1F used to do when she was younger, he tends to play the piano for stress-relief. And he’s gotten pretty good at it. The bad news is, he feels stressed a lot. We’re getting better at helping him get on top of his emotions, but it isn’t always easy.
8M isn’t a baby anymore, even though he’s every bit the ‘baby of the family’. He was in kindergarten this past year, meaning that, for the first time since before 1F was born, Molly was home alone during the school day. He’s showing signs of being genius-prone like 7M and 3M. We’ll see about that.
And that’s the short version of where we’re at these days. Life is both harder and richer than we’d anticipated. And God is merciful.
Monday, March 3, 2008
Lent
During Lent, I am struck again and again with the conviction that the Christian life is a lot more serious than I generally take it to be. It is so easy to play at Christianity – to talk the jargon, do the theology, know the Scriptures, even – to get real good at the outward appearances, but miss the inner transformation, the knowledge of God.
-------------------------
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in Heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us” (from The Weight of Glory, by CS Lewis)
Alas; and I am the most half-hearted of all. I cannot escape the conviction that God is in deadly earnest about a way of life that I’m content to dabble with at my leisure. But –
“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” (from The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
I just want to drop the pretenses. I know who I am before God; I’m certainly not fooling God.
“Before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:13)
-------------------------
O Lord, have mercy. I may fool myself, but I don’t fool you. You “discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12); “you know my inmost being” (ref. Psalm 139:13-16). Alas, alas. Not a pretty picture, is it? And yet you won’t let go of me; you won’t leave me to my own devices, no matter how half-hearted I am.
O Lord, I only want to know you. And yet I find that the biggest obstacle to my knowing you is. . . myself. I ought to pray, but I am irresolute. Too often, I go through the motions, “warmed from without, but not aflame within” (Imitation of Christ 3:2).
And yet, O Lord, you call me on, for reasons I can’t discern, except that your love and mercy are unfathomable. . .
-------------------------
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of Heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in Heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us” (from The Weight of Glory, by CS Lewis)
Alas; and I am the most half-hearted of all. I cannot escape the conviction that God is in deadly earnest about a way of life that I’m content to dabble with at my leisure. But –
“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” (from The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
I just want to drop the pretenses. I know who I am before God; I’m certainly not fooling God.
“Before Him no creature is hidden, but all are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” (Hebrews 4:13)
-------------------------
O Lord, have mercy. I may fool myself, but I don’t fool you. You “discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12); “you know my inmost being” (ref. Psalm 139:13-16). Alas, alas. Not a pretty picture, is it? And yet you won’t let go of me; you won’t leave me to my own devices, no matter how half-hearted I am.
O Lord, I only want to know you. And yet I find that the biggest obstacle to my knowing you is. . . myself. I ought to pray, but I am irresolute. Too often, I go through the motions, “warmed from without, but not aflame within” (Imitation of Christ 3:2).
And yet, O Lord, you call me on, for reasons I can’t discern, except that your love and mercy are unfathomable. . .
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
He Is Risen!
"He is not here; he is risen, as he said."
- The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28, verse 6
"and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain."
- The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 17-------------------------
This past Sunday was Easter, or, as it might more truly be called, the Feast of the Resurrection. My Eastern Orthodox brethren call it Pascha, which is wonderfully evocative of the imagery of the Jewish Passover, and all the connections that evokes - the Sacrifice Lamb, and all that.
Easter, or, more to the point, the Resurrection, is the very crux and focal point of Christianity, its sine qua non - without the Resurrection, you don't have Christianity. With it, you have everything.
Over the years, I've had many rich meditations related to Christmas and the Incarnation - it has been an almost limitless source of deep and textured thought for me. Not so Easter and the Resurrection, and I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why. I mean, theologically, and all sorts of other ways (except commercially, I suppose) the Resurrection is a much bigger deal than the Incarnation, so why should I be so full of thoughts on Christmas, and so reticent about Easter?
I think, when you come right down to it, that there really isn't all that much to say about Easter - it is what it is, or it's nothing at all. Very stark, very cut-and-dried. Either Christ is risen, and Christianity is true, and we all owe our lives and our very being to the God who raised Him, or He isn't, and 2000 years of Christianity is a lie and a sham. Those are pretty much the only possibilities. Yes or no? And all of life hangs on the answer you give to that question.
It is easy for me to get rather overly 'theological' about it, but the basic fact of the matter is straightforward - either the tomb was empty, or it wasn't. If it wasn't, then there really is no particular story to tell - a good man died unjustly, a sad story, but history is full of those. But if the tomb was empty, then that demands that we come to terms with that very brute fact, and its implications for our lives. There is no in-between position available.
For myself, I can say that, "I know whom I have believed." (II Timothy 1:12). And I am only too happy to encourage any of you to make His acquaintance. I can honestly say that knowing Christ has made all the difference, and "the power of His resurrection" has transformed my life.
But each of you must reach his/her own conclusions - "what do you make of Christ?" And the whole Universe hangs in the balance. . .
-------------------------
As my Orthodox brethren say,
Christos Anesti! Alethos Anesti!
Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
Happy Easter, everyone!
(10 comments)
- The Gospel of Matthew, chapter 28, verse 6
"and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is in vain."
- The First Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, chapter 15, verse 17-------------------------
This past Sunday was Easter, or, as it might more truly be called, the Feast of the Resurrection. My Eastern Orthodox brethren call it Pascha, which is wonderfully evocative of the imagery of the Jewish Passover, and all the connections that evokes - the Sacrifice Lamb, and all that.
Easter, or, more to the point, the Resurrection, is the very crux and focal point of Christianity, its sine qua non - without the Resurrection, you don't have Christianity. With it, you have everything.
Over the years, I've had many rich meditations related to Christmas and the Incarnation - it has been an almost limitless source of deep and textured thought for me. Not so Easter and the Resurrection, and I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why. I mean, theologically, and all sorts of other ways (except commercially, I suppose) the Resurrection is a much bigger deal than the Incarnation, so why should I be so full of thoughts on Christmas, and so reticent about Easter?
I think, when you come right down to it, that there really isn't all that much to say about Easter - it is what it is, or it's nothing at all. Very stark, very cut-and-dried. Either Christ is risen, and Christianity is true, and we all owe our lives and our very being to the God who raised Him, or He isn't, and 2000 years of Christianity is a lie and a sham. Those are pretty much the only possibilities. Yes or no? And all of life hangs on the answer you give to that question.
It is easy for me to get rather overly 'theological' about it, but the basic fact of the matter is straightforward - either the tomb was empty, or it wasn't. If it wasn't, then there really is no particular story to tell - a good man died unjustly, a sad story, but history is full of those. But if the tomb was empty, then that demands that we come to terms with that very brute fact, and its implications for our lives. There is no in-between position available.
For myself, I can say that, "I know whom I have believed." (II Timothy 1:12). And I am only too happy to encourage any of you to make His acquaintance. I can honestly say that knowing Christ has made all the difference, and "the power of His resurrection" has transformed my life.
But each of you must reach his/her own conclusions - "what do you make of Christ?" And the whole Universe hangs in the balance. . .
-------------------------
As my Orthodox brethren say,
Christos Anesti! Alethos Anesti!
Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!
Happy Easter, everyone!
(10 comments)
Monday, April 2, 2007
A Few Questions From a Friend
One of my blog-friends asked me a few questions, which I believe will help you all understand me better (and I'm just vain enough to think that you would want to). So, forthwith. . .
- What moved you to embrace Catholicism?
This demands a bit of a complex answer; you would be very kind to bear with me. I’ve posted about it, way back when, but perhaps I can expand a bit here.
I suppose it started the first time I went to a Catholic Mass, when I was in high school. My Jesus-freak buddy and I took on a project of visiting as many different kinds of churches as we could find. When we visited the Catholic church in town, I was very surprised by how much scripture was woven into the liturgy (I’d been told that Catholics just didn’t ‘do’ scripture), and how prayerful it was. So, my first impression was, “hey, this is a lot cooler than I expected it to be.”
When I went away to college, I was sort of ‘rootless’ in a church sense. I went to the college-town church of my ‘home denomination’ once, and was quite underwhelmed. I started going to a charismatic prayer meeting, and felt immediately at home. I took up with a young lady, who happened to be Catholic, and she began regularly inviting me to go to mass with her. Which I did, quite a lot, and it mainly reinforced my first impression.
At the same time, I took up an independent study of Church history – I was interested in what had happened to Christianity in the generations immediately following Jesus and the Apostles – how the second generation of Christians received the gospel from the Apostles, and how they, in turn, passed it on to the third – and I wondered how it had gotten from Bible days to my own. I don’t say that such a project would affect everyone the same way it affected me, but I came to see Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) as being in historical continuity with the first Christians, and if I wanted to be in that kind of ‘spiritual continuity’, I had to at least deal with that question.
I undertook to be received into the Catholic Church when I thought that the young lady (GF2, if you recall her) and I would get married, but for various reasons, we broke off our romantic relationship while I was in instruction (we are good friends today, tho). By then, though, I was already thinking of the Catholic Church as my spiritual ‘home’, and I completed my instruction on my own initiative, and was received into the Catholic Church.
Once I was safely Catholic, a few things sort of ‘cemented’ my conversion. Catholic sacramental life turned out to be a good deal richer than I’d anticipated. I recall hearing a Pentecostal preacher talking about a trip he’d taken to Poland, and he drew a fascinating parallel between communion and an altar call – “people standing in line to receive Jesus”. That thought has never left me, and to this day, I will often quietly hum ‘Just As I Am’ in the communion line.
I also discovered what I’ll call the ‘Catholic Intellectual Tradition’ – Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, GK Chesterton, the whole Natural Law tradition – and I was instantly smitten. This was only reinforced when John Paul II became pope. I had never encountered anything quite like it (aside from CS Lewis, I suppose, and to a lesser extent, Francis Schaeffer).
- If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
I wish I weren’t so selfish. It is altogether too easy for me to go through life thinking about myself and my interests and what I want/need, when Molly and the kids need more of my ‘brain space’. I can do OK where Molly is concerned, especially when I’m feeling horny. But I really need to give more of my thoughts and attention to the kids. It’s altogether too easy for me to retreat into my ‘private world’ and tune them out. And that is not unrelated to the troubles that a couple of them have had. . .
- What is the best and worst thing about having a large family?
I want to say that they’re the same thing – you’re rarely alone. There’s never a dull moment, for sure. It’s very gratifying to see the relationships they have with each other – much as they bicker with each other, as they grow up their relationships really do develop some depth and affection. With eight kids, that’s 28 separate relationships of the kids with each other (45, if you throw Molly and me into the mix). And, as the kids get older, it’s very gratifying to see them cultivating a ‘family identity’ – all that shared experience has started being a ‘bonding’ thing. And, I’ve definitely improved my odds of having grandchildren. . . ;)
But, the bickering can reach truly epic proportions, and sometimes I just want to lock them all in the basement and let them have at each other, and then we’ll just go on with the survivors. I’m also a guy who seems to have a more-than-average felt need for some low-key solitude, and that just doesn’t happen very often. And I won’t even get into the grocery bills. . .
There has been a certain good-news/bad-news aspect when it comes to the troubles we’ve had with 1F and 3M – in the course of dealing with those situations, there are six other kids who get sort of short-changed in the process. But, they can also soften the grief for us, if we’re paying attention. . .
So, there you have it. I'll gladly entertain any follow-up questions any of you might have.
I enjoyed this; I hope you all enjoyed it, too. . .
(23 comments)
- What moved you to embrace Catholicism?
This demands a bit of a complex answer; you would be very kind to bear with me. I’ve posted about it, way back when, but perhaps I can expand a bit here.
I suppose it started the first time I went to a Catholic Mass, when I was in high school. My Jesus-freak buddy and I took on a project of visiting as many different kinds of churches as we could find. When we visited the Catholic church in town, I was very surprised by how much scripture was woven into the liturgy (I’d been told that Catholics just didn’t ‘do’ scripture), and how prayerful it was. So, my first impression was, “hey, this is a lot cooler than I expected it to be.”
When I went away to college, I was sort of ‘rootless’ in a church sense. I went to the college-town church of my ‘home denomination’ once, and was quite underwhelmed. I started going to a charismatic prayer meeting, and felt immediately at home. I took up with a young lady, who happened to be Catholic, and she began regularly inviting me to go to mass with her. Which I did, quite a lot, and it mainly reinforced my first impression.
At the same time, I took up an independent study of Church history – I was interested in what had happened to Christianity in the generations immediately following Jesus and the Apostles – how the second generation of Christians received the gospel from the Apostles, and how they, in turn, passed it on to the third – and I wondered how it had gotten from Bible days to my own. I don’t say that such a project would affect everyone the same way it affected me, but I came to see Catholicism (and Orthodoxy) as being in historical continuity with the first Christians, and if I wanted to be in that kind of ‘spiritual continuity’, I had to at least deal with that question.
I undertook to be received into the Catholic Church when I thought that the young lady (GF2, if you recall her) and I would get married, but for various reasons, we broke off our romantic relationship while I was in instruction (we are good friends today, tho). By then, though, I was already thinking of the Catholic Church as my spiritual ‘home’, and I completed my instruction on my own initiative, and was received into the Catholic Church.
Once I was safely Catholic, a few things sort of ‘cemented’ my conversion. Catholic sacramental life turned out to be a good deal richer than I’d anticipated. I recall hearing a Pentecostal preacher talking about a trip he’d taken to Poland, and he drew a fascinating parallel between communion and an altar call – “people standing in line to receive Jesus”. That thought has never left me, and to this day, I will often quietly hum ‘Just As I Am’ in the communion line.
I also discovered what I’ll call the ‘Catholic Intellectual Tradition’ – Thomas Aquinas, John Henry Newman, GK Chesterton, the whole Natural Law tradition – and I was instantly smitten. This was only reinforced when John Paul II became pope. I had never encountered anything quite like it (aside from CS Lewis, I suppose, and to a lesser extent, Francis Schaeffer).
- If you could change one thing about yourself what would it be?
I wish I weren’t so selfish. It is altogether too easy for me to go through life thinking about myself and my interests and what I want/need, when Molly and the kids need more of my ‘brain space’. I can do OK where Molly is concerned, especially when I’m feeling horny. But I really need to give more of my thoughts and attention to the kids. It’s altogether too easy for me to retreat into my ‘private world’ and tune them out. And that is not unrelated to the troubles that a couple of them have had. . .
- What is the best and worst thing about having a large family?
I want to say that they’re the same thing – you’re rarely alone. There’s never a dull moment, for sure. It’s very gratifying to see the relationships they have with each other – much as they bicker with each other, as they grow up their relationships really do develop some depth and affection. With eight kids, that’s 28 separate relationships of the kids with each other (45, if you throw Molly and me into the mix). And, as the kids get older, it’s very gratifying to see them cultivating a ‘family identity’ – all that shared experience has started being a ‘bonding’ thing. And, I’ve definitely improved my odds of having grandchildren. . . ;)
But, the bickering can reach truly epic proportions, and sometimes I just want to lock them all in the basement and let them have at each other, and then we’ll just go on with the survivors. I’m also a guy who seems to have a more-than-average felt need for some low-key solitude, and that just doesn’t happen very often. And I won’t even get into the grocery bills. . .
There has been a certain good-news/bad-news aspect when it comes to the troubles we’ve had with 1F and 3M – in the course of dealing with those situations, there are six other kids who get sort of short-changed in the process. But, they can also soften the grief for us, if we’re paying attention. . .
So, there you have it. I'll gladly entertain any follow-up questions any of you might have.
I enjoyed this; I hope you all enjoyed it, too. . .
(23 comments)
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