Tale from the Tech Booth

So I'm up at Centerstages helping to light a show and an acquaintance, one of the regulars out there, drops by the tech booth to chat. As we talk theatre stuff and inconsequentials, she steers the conversation toward the subject of Connie and Bruce. This is a pattern I have grown to recognize. I begin to pull in my emotions and prepare for an uncomfortable moment or two.

It usually begins with commiseration, "I don't know how you got through it," or some such. Then a gentle tugging, an attempt to pull out my feelings, i.e. "It must have been rough," etc. I usually try to be honest without being explicit or detailed.

This time I said, "It was the worst thing I've ever been through, and it's probably obvious I'm not completely through it yet."

She said, "I don't know Connie very well, but from what I know of Bruce I can't find it in me to respect the man."

"I'm sure he has his good qualities, but he is not one of my favorite people right now," I offer, "I guess everyone would expect that opinion from me."

"Well, I don't think much of him, going after another man's wife like that, and there was that other married woman he was also seeing at the same time he was seeing Connie."

I'm stunned. I wonder what this is all about. The acquaintance doesn't seem to be eyeing me to see my reaction. I judge she is just venting her own feelings. I manage to tell her my feelings and then stop, "I'm sorry to hear that. It makes me sad."

"Well," she said, "I may be wrong--maybe it wasn't while he was seeing Connie, but it was just before she left you."

"I still love her, and I hoped at least one consequence of this mess might be she would be happy." I shut myself down.

I kept myself from saying more. I was about to spill over. I've decided if talking about it could have saved the marriage, then it would have been saved, because I have a lot of words. They flow from me as if I have what my mother so crudely use to call "diarrhea of the mouth." I'm glad I didn't let myself be pulled into giving details.

"I don't know," she is dropping into a tone of wry regret, "a man who doesn't respect other's wedding vows probably won't respect his own. I couldn't be happy with someone like that."

I have nothing to say. I don't dare open up any more. After a brief silence we drift back into conversation about inconsequentials.

Afterwards, I'm sad for days.

Like a Ghost Who Continues to Haunt You

Okay, so what is now years ago, I'm in what at that time was a rare argument with my then-wife, Connie. I think I know her better than I know anyone else in the world. I know I love and trust her more than anyone else in the world. She is saying unbelievable, never-heard-before things to and about me: "I don't love her." "I never was a good husband or father." "Bruce (her "special friend") will be so much better a father for our son than I." At one particularly low point she said she "wished I was dead." I am reeling in shock at what she is saying, at her never before seen or heard vitriolic anger.

I manage to form words I thought would console her, or defuse her, or something her, "You are upset, you can't possibly mean what you are saying."

She explodes, "Don't tell me what I mean. The only time I say what I really mean is when I'm angry. The rest of the time I say what I think I'm supposed to say."

"So unless you are angry, you are not really telling me truthfully what you think?" I'm dizzy, heart palpitating, veering between crying in frustration and laughing at the absurd statement.

"Yes, I have to be angry to say what I really think!" Discussion ended. No more words to be said or listened to.

So today, here I am listening to phone messages from her inviting me over to her house tomorrow afternoon for an informal birthday party she is giving our son.

But there is still more background:

For the last two years Connie and Bruce have ignored me whenever we meet in public and no one we know is near. However, when there are observers--people we know--nearby Connie and Bruce are civil, even cordial.

In addition, the other party she had for my son recently was a cast party for one of my play casts last year. I found out there was a party when one embarrassed kid asked me if I would be upset at students who went to the "secret party." I pretended to know all about it, feigned exhaustion as my reason for not attending, and reassured the kid it wasn't really a secret party.

Finally please note: While we were married Connie never was comfortable hosting a cast party. Out of a hundred productions, I can count on one hand the times we hosted my students.

So with the swirling nightmare above as context, today I find myself listening to her recorded messages to see if she sounds angry so I can decide if this is a sincere invitation or something else.

I wryly decide she is probably insincere because she doesn't sound angry. After a moment the absurdity of this whole convoluted nightmare hits me and I begin to laugh.

More than one consoling person has told me--with a direct gaze and falling inflections--that, "Divorce is like a death" * pause, deep look * "You have to go through the stages of grieving."

If that is true, then an ex is like a ghost who continues to haunt you long after death. I don't believe exorcism is one of the stages of grief. It should be.

Where the pygmies rule, everybody else has to crouch.

I believe Richard Mitchell's writings are out of print. They are worthy reads. Check the link for internet copies. Below is a short excerpt from one of my favorite sections. Though the metaphor is not original ("Bureaucracy is a giant mechanism operated by pygmies." Honore de Balzac), Mitchell's use of it to describe our schools is dead on.

Where the pygmies rule, everybody else has to crouch.

"For years, I have been looking around for the key, the master metaphor, the one striking analogy that would clarify and dramatize the nature of our schools. They are . . . like some island nation in which the traditional, mild, but inefficient governance once exercised by a genteel but effete and distracted aristocracy has been taken over, without any bloodshed at all, by bands of persistent pygmies from the unexplored interior. The less than worldly aristocrats, far more interested in watching for comets and collecting Lepidoptera than in zoning rules and customs control, were not displeased to accede when the pygmies drifted in and offered to do all the hard work. It seemed such a good idea at the time, but by now the pygmies are in charge of everything, and the bemused aristocrats, whose ancestral estates have been converted to miniature golf courses, find that they are sipping their soup out of very small spoons."

Mitchell, Richard. The Graves of Academe. Accessed 25 December 2004.

Character Below the Belt

Bland buttocks untouched by light.
Flaccid, blank mange moons,
Balling beneath, puckered waistband, beige belt.
An ash ass undistinguished from the

Moon face ascendant,
Obverse facing, obtuse face,
Crowning brittle, black, comb over,
Wisping, above the pale forehorizon.

Below, blank craters and black pebble pupils.
Slow blink blinding as
Parsing lips push out:
“I’m so, so, sorry . . . We couldn't help it.”

Self-absolving, self-absorbed,
Slipping responsibility,
Fleeing free will,
Avoiding agency, guilt, blame,

Character slumps below the belt.

Job and Losing Children

Recently I read a poem as part of the funeral services for a girl who grew up in our congregation. Though she was nearly thirty when she died, my strongest memories of her are as a young teen. I have known the family for nearly two decades and watched the girl grow up. The event filled me with feelings and fears of loss.

Reading the poem was surprisingly difficult. I felt for the parents' loss, but the strongest feelings came because I couldn't separate the event from the possible loss of my own children. I was nearly wrecked emotionally. I have always lived close to my emotions and have only recently had urges to bury them or hide from them. Because my emotions tend to be on the surface, they do not usually surprise me, but recently, I have been startled by a rush of feelings coming from nowhere to hijack me. When I stood in front of the congregation, my old performance focus asserted itself, but for two hours before I began to read I was a sweating, heart-thumping wreck. After the funeral, I couldn't shake the malaise that set in.

Rolled into this was an e-mail from my oldest friend about the death of a young person from his congregation and the grief of the parents. The grief and loss put my friend in mind of Job. He mentioned this to the father of the lost child. The father responded that he hoped he was not like Job. My friend asked me if I thought Job had a good ending.

My first thought was, I don't know. Our Wednesday night class has been reading through Philip Yancey's book Disappointed With God, a topical study on spiritual alienation drawn from Job. I've given our study only fragmentary attention, but after the funeral, I went back, looked at Job, and decided I may have never given it any close attention. I remember reading bits and pieces; maybe I've even attempted to read completely through it in my personal study. Several years ago, I read the Bible in one of those congregational programs, Read Through the Bible in One Year. I'm sure I ran my eyes all the way through Job with some level of consciousness then, but I have no memories of the text details. So what do I know about Job? Perhaps I'm too ignorant to have an opinion.

I've had contact with the book; why do I not remember it? I've read about Job, heard my good friend preach a sermon on Job, and discussed the book with him before. I've been in the play J.B, Archibald McLeish's poetic dramatization of Job. (During rehearsals, when a question about the biblical source came up, i.e.: "Did Job's wife really tell him to curse God and die?" The director would answer--in this case, "yes"--and say, "It's somewhere in Ecclesiastes." At that time I couldn't remember anyone anywhere in the Bible saying, "curse God and die" and went digging through Ecclesiastes, to discover Job wasn't there; he's in Job). I've listened to other sermons from it, but didn't retain any comprehensive detailed knowledge, probably some kind of avoidance on my part. In fact, that may be the significant question. Have I been avoiding thoughts of Job for my whole life? I want to be God's man, but Job? He's not the role model that leaps to mind. The price he paid for faith was fearful. My petty struggles have nearly overwhelmed me. I'm afraid I couldn't be a Job. In that sense I'm like the grieving father, I hope I'm not like Job.

I do think Job has a good ending, but I think how good the ending seems to a person depends somewhat on their personal emotional perspective. One who has just lost a child may not wish to be like Job, mindful of the other things Job lost. Being like Job would mean many more losses to come.

There has been a time recently when the merest passing thought of losing my children, or my parents sent me into a heart palpitating panic. I was loss sensitized. The loss of Connie, our marriage, my family--at least as I had always thought of them; also, the loss of my life, as I had always thought of it. These losses were almost more than I could bear. They took me to the edge, where I remain, occasionally glancing into the abyss. The idea of more loss immobilized me. I could barely see through the loss I was experiencing. The prospect of further loss blanked out everything.

After a deep loss, one can't see through the grief and pain to any ending, good or bad, and the thought of further loss is unbearable. In my experience, strong emotion can blind one even to a visceral reality, can blind one to an obvious-to-others truth, and certainly can blind one to the intangible belief that situations will end well no matter how bad they look in the present. It's in this black pit that one encounters thoughts of suicide, the abyss below the blank grey future.

Then too the "good" ending of Job involves what appear, superficially, to be replacement children, "And he also had seven sons and three daughters." (Job 42:13) I have no problem with replacement possessions, but I feel no other children could fill the emptiness created by the loss of Phillip or Veronica. While other children would be their own blessing, at best they would be a kind of mitigation of heart damage, not a doubling of, nor a replacement of the blessings of being Veronica's and Phillip's father.

These are strong feelings and I'm afraid they exaggerate earthly experiences above their true status. To God, I'm sure, the earthly relationship of father/child is ephemeral, brief. So regardless of how I feel, the important qualities of the love I share with my children must be the eternal ones, and not those qualities and experiences dependent on physical, earthly proximity. I understand scripture to say our eternal relationships are most important to God. Compelling evidence of this to me is God sent his son Jesus to earth to be tortured and die at the hands of those in open rebellion to Him. It is my understanding this sacrifice was made so everyone could be reconciled to Him for eternity. It is my feeling that this sacrifice could only be made when the true verity is eternal love and not earthly physical associations. Sitting in a puddle of my earth spattered feelings I stretch to embrace the eternal qualities of love.

In his e-mail, my friend's final view of Job is precise, clear, and on target. As is frequently the case, he's a pillar anchored in bedrock and I'm a wood chip on the waves. He wrote:

In the end, God calls Job, "my servant." He said Job had spoken what was right concerning God. Job's brothers and sisters comforted and consoled him over all the trouble God had brought on him. Then God blessed him. I don't want to be noticed by Satan, but if a lot of bad things happen to me because I was noticed, I want God to say, "my servant."

This then is the good ending of Job: to have God say, "My servant." I think this would be a good ending to any task, experience, or even to a life.