Let not your heart be troubled

I am re-reading this morning from Debbie’s journal of July 2009.

………………..

July 13

Debbie wished her mom a happy birthday and wrote:

“Yesterday I pulled weeds and loaded wood in the wheel barrow and cut hedges and I think it helped me. Joseph and I went out to Boteco (a Brazilian restaurant) to listen to Bossa Nova music. While there, we met a UM Dean Leo & Angie. They seemed quite nice. We have no idea what the future holds, but I am confident that you are in control; I just want the best for us. Joesph worries about it too much, I think. Each day is an adventure for me.”

She was right, I worry too much.

Last night I went to see my friend Dr. Sam Lopez about my A-Fib condition. We found that there was a large area of emotional grief that was contributing to the stress on my heart. There was also a lifestyle component (too much alcohol) and a physical cause (too much weight and not enough rest). 

We re-framed the grief to reduce it. There was also a fairly high level of dread about the future that comes from my anxiety about the next step (a full time job). Sam went back into my past when I was six years old and helped me reprocess my memories of my dad going from cheerful and playful to withdrawn and morose over financial problems.

When I was thinking about my grief over all of these things, I visualized myself giving my troubled and stressed heart (physically and emotionally) to Jesus.  I had a distinct impression of Jesus coming to me and saying “You believe, in God, believe also in me – let your heart not be troubled!” As soon as I repeated the verse to myself, I broke and began to weep. It felt profoundly significant. 

There are intellectual atheists and there are pragmatic atheists: I guess I have been the latter. 

John 14:1: Let notyour heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me.

Have faith in God

Today, I am reading through Debbie's journal entries from 2009. I came across this in July of 2009:

"What have no idea what the future holds, but I am confident that you are in control; I just want the best for us. Joesph worries about it too much, I think. Each day is an adventure for me."

She was so right about me worrying too much! I gotta get that under control somehow. I found out that I have Atrial Fillibration last week ...and as an adjunct, at the bottom of the university surplus labor pool, I do not have health insurance.  I have been slipping back into a depression after doing really well for about a year. I don't want to lose the will to live. 

So now I am meditating on Mark 11:22

Have faith in God.

Apparently, I have some kind of emotional trauma relating to money issues. Each time I get into a tight spot, I get discombobulated. 

Debbie wrote this on June 28, 2009:

"I guess we just have to live life as fully and fearlessly as possible until we come to death."

Silly dreams ....

I got into a one-sided discussion last night in my dreams apparently. I was spending time with Debbie, and I looked at her and said

“I’m confused. You are here with me, but I distinctly remember putting your body in a box and putting it in the ground.”

She just sat there and smiled.

“So you can’t be here. You are in Ohio in a box in the ground. How can you be in two places at once? This is confusing me.

She just smiled and then I woke up.

But before I completely woke up, I found myself jogging in Bogotá Colombia. I kept running and running down streets that I vaguely remember, trying to find my way back home. Part of the time I was barefoot, part of the time I had running shoes on. I was also have trouble seeing …. I had to squint to make out the street signs.

When I awakened, I remembered that I am in Miami, Florida and that Debbie is resting in Johnstown, Ohio.

Silly dreams ….

A tree in winter: Desolation in black and white.

The lonely tree in winter

I have been trying to find images to describe a feeling that I have had lately. The only thing that comes close is a memory I have of a bare tree standing alone in a field at the end of November, roughly around Thanksgiving weekend. The sky in Ohio is typically overcast, the ground is wet with soggy leaves on the ground and the temperature is hovering around 35 to 40 degrees. Not cold enough for snow, but still too cold to enjoy the outdoors. This mental image in my mind comes with a feeling of sorrow and desolation, a feeling of decaying death and solitude. Rather melancholy, yes?

This is how I feel now in this season of my life. Desolation in black and white. Just a few years ago, in the middle of Debbie’s seven-year battle with cancer, there was a brilliant sunset lighting up the breath-taking reds, browns and oranges of the turning leaves. Life was hard but it was so GOOD. Such beauty. Courage in the face of overwhelming odds. Nobility of spirit.

However, just as there is really only one such breath taking weekend near the middle to end of October, the brilliant fall season in our lives was gone far too quickly. But I was unprepared for November desolation!

I tried to find a photo on the internet that would capture my feelings. I tried googling “bare”, “soggy”, “cold”, “fall”, “black and white”, “lonely” and came up empty. Perhaps the closest I came was this photo (B=below), which still does not convey the hopeless cold desolation the image in my mind carries.

I think back to the many years of raising children and planting churches as the ‘summer’ of my life. In the words of the immortal Beatles,

♪ “Those were the days, my friend, we thought they would never end …”

When I reminisce about my early years of marriage, and the truly exciting spiritual discoveries we were making, as, what appeared to be a whole new world opened before us, it would seem to me to have been the exhilarating “Spring-time” of our lives. Babies, new life, new growth, love was in the air!

But now here I am standing before this old bare tree, at least in my memory, feeling alone and desolate. I hope the first snows hurry up, perhaps there will at least be an austere beauty in the winter.

There is a scene from the Lord of the Rings second film, “The Two Towers” which describes this feeling better than anything else I can think of. It is when Elrond is trying to convince Arwen to leave Middle Earth and he prophesies to her the end of her life after her love, Lord Aragon has died. 

I realize that this post was entirely dark. A good post should have a ray of light SOMEWHERE, right?  By now, you are all undoubtedly deppressed with me. Not necessarily a good outcome. So, I ask myself, is this it?

or is it possible that after a beautiful and quiet winter I might experience another Spring time of love and new life? After all, we all experience the changing of the seasons repeatedly, multiple times throughout our lives. Well ... I will let you know as soon as I find out .... stay tuned or tune back in, in a few months!

The unhealing wound of a heart amputation

I feel the pain tonight,
Deep in my gut,
The feeling of loss
The emptiness of your absence
The unhealing wound of a heart amputation.

Will it never go away?
Will this heart-wound ever heal?
Will I always feel this way?
I guess it was true love
If it hurts this much.

I have good days
and bad days
and blah days when I do not give a shit ...
But this sick feeling in my stomach is always there.
I miss you.
It’s not, and never will be, the same without you.

Secret Garden - Once In A Red Moon

June 10, 2010 "I release you"

I have finally found some grace to begin organizing my papers and going through files (about time after almost 2 years!).

I came across this letter, which for some reason was not included in the original journal entry for that week but was written as an afterthought and place in a file with our wills. I have not cried much for the last 3 years, but I caught a soft sob in my throat as I read this ....

...and then you were gone

Dust to dust,

Ashes to ashes.

We met, we loved, we fought, we made up.

But most of all, we loved.
Back-to-back, we took life head-on.

And then you were gone.

And my soul wanders on, lost, alone and incomplete.

I arise today .... "Faeth Fiada" St. Patrick's Breastplate (originally written in Old Irish from the 5th to the 8th century)

I arise today Through God's strength to pilot me:

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's host to save me

From snares of devils,

From temptations of vices,

From everyone who shall wish me ill,

Afar and anear,

Alone and in multitude.

I summon today all these powers between me and those evils,

Against every cruel merciless power

that may oppose my body and soul,

Against incantations of false prophets,

Against black laws of pagandom

Against false laws of heretics,

Against craft of idolatry,

Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,

Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul.

Christ to shield me today

Against poison, against burning,

Against drowning, against wounding,

Finding Solitude

"All human beings are alone. No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do. Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness. The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude. Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful. Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

 

Letting our aloneness grow into solitude and not into loneliness is a lifelong struggle. It requires conscious choices about whom to be with, what to study, how to pray, and when to ask for counsel. But wise choices will help us to find the solitude where our hearts can grow in love."

A meaningful person and a high purpose

2014.01.05 John 14

My first journal entry of 2014. I read John 14 this morning, “Let not your heart be troubled … trust me!”

I talked with Brian E. yesterday. I had told him in an email that I was having some discouraging thoughts … thoughts of checking out or wanting to find an exit from the world. Of course he called me and we talked.

 I told Brian that my life lacks meaning and purpose. For almost my entire adult life I had a meaningful person in my life – Debbie. And with her, together we discovered a grand purpose, serving God together! Which later translated more specifically into church planting and missions (and some years pastoring). Together we evangelized and discipled numerous young people. In all three churches, we started with young people. All of the churches (except the house churches at the end) are still healthy and thriving. That was my life with Debbie – a meaningful person and a high purpose

Those two things have been objectively removed from my life. Regardless of my state of mind on a particular day, I live with that double void.  I can be in a good mood, going to salsa class … but the void and the sense of meaninglessness is there.

So… I suppose in addition to grief (I think I am passed most of the grief), I am trying to adapt to this massive Teutonic plate shift in my life. I have some goals ….goals for this year, for the next two or three years …. But no sense of overriding purpose. And certainly, I have wonderful friends, but no “meaningful” person to share my life with.

I think my insight this morning as I write this is that in my past life, the person and the purpose were inextricably interconnected. It was something we shared, something we did together. What are the chances of that ever happening again?

Am I condemned to live the rest of my life from day-to-day, just doing whatever needs to be done, with no sense of high purpose? Just drifting from one activity to another? Or worse yet, from one person to another?

Another thing that I realized as I was talking to Brian is that, both the person (Debbie) and the purpose (our calling) were given by God, gifts of grace in this highest possible meaning of the phrase. As I write this, I am filled with a profound sense of happy gratitude. Who was I, an insecure farm kid from Ohio, to be SO graced by God with a wonderful person and a high purpose? It changed my life and the overflow of that grace brought me to this place I am at today, living in Miami with four wonderful children, a multitude of friends in 3 different languages and serving young people with my education.

So maybe I need to surrender the sense of high purpose (as I already have let go of the meaningful person) and just spend the rest of my life thanking God and expressing my gratitude. That would not be a bad future.

“Christ the center” wrote Dietrich Bonhoeffer (I turned and looked up at his book on the shelf—its good to  be back with my friends!). If Christ is the center of gravity, then I need to reorient my life in orbit around him.  Maybe that will give me the firm place to stand, and not just theoretically.

Bonhoeffer also wrote about “religionless Christianity” … that is what I have been questing for these recent years. Maybe that is my new high purpose – to discover a path through the secular, postmodern wilderness (without going ghetto), and leave markers for young disciples to follow.

I need to stop looking for a new person … even unconsciously. If God does not send her to me (like he did Debbie), I will undoubtedly regret finding her.

The Buddha said that the root of all suffering was craving. I need to let go of my craving.

Well! I am glad I had this talk with myself! I read from page 63 of George MacDonald’s “Knowing the Heart of God” this morning. The subtitle was “Only Those Doing it Know How Hard.” MacDonald wrote “Entering into the Kingdom of God was to Paul, a daily battle with his own self.”

Dear God, I need your grace to give me the desire to press into you, to renew my soul – my strength. I need to know Jesus in a deeper way. Please show me the way. Lord, behold the void in my life … my soul feels empty. I trust you to fill me in your time. I trust you to seek me and find me and show me the way forward. Lord teach me how to live alone, without a meaningful person to share my life in this season, and how to love you and follow you without a high purpose.

As I finished praying, Ortega's Lonely Road came on Pandora. I sometimes wonder if that is a means of Gods communication to me.

Lonely Road -Fernando Ortega