Permission

Just a few minutes ago I read a message from a friend on that great hub of virtual relationship, Facebook. Two things that were said have brought me back to this blog, a place I have avoided for a couple of weeks. The first was relating the story of her mother-in-law and how difficult it is to watch life go on around you when you are in the midst of tragedy. The second was this phrase, "don't be too busy to deal with your own feelings". In light of those two things I have returned to write a few thoughts, not necessarily profound ones, from a father.


While sitting at my desk, surrounded by the familiar trappings of an office with more books than shelves I am met by something very unfamiliar, my hands are shaking. It isn't a violent shaking mind you, more like a subtle tremor, but I have not yet seen 32 Januarys; something isn't right. if I were to try and narrow it down, take the time to deal with my own feelings, as it were, I think the reason comes down to one simple fact... I'm angry.


I'm angry at the fact that this blog creates the aura that people understand what we're going through to the extent that many no longer ask; over the past three weeks one person has asked me how I am doing, not how my son or my wife is doing. I'm angry that this statement will probably be met with some form of the notion that maybe I should help teach people how to walk with those that suffer; for once I'd like to take off the pastor hat and just be a person. I'm angry that my evenings are now filled with wrestling with kids that are dealing with this stress in their own ways and processing all of that with my wife such that, by the time the kids are asleep and we are done talking my eyelids are closing involuntarily; my relationship with Jess right now seems more founded upon desperation than delight... I hate that. I am angry that the one thing that I told multiple people when they asked me at the beginning of this whole ordeal, "What will you need Rick?" is the one thing that has not happened. I'm angry that every day and every night I feel the need to munch on a bottle of Tums when there seems to be no reason to be stressed. I am angry that two friends are going to the hospital today for tests, one with the possibility of her fourth bout with cancer before she's even out of her 30's and the other to have their son tested for Cystic Fibrosis; I want to scream! And yes, I'm angry at the fact that when I go to the grocery store, stand in the check out line, and look at all the "news" that is plastered in full color on the cover of magazines that I have to resist the urge to rip every one of them off their metallic holders, move to the middle of the store, and burn them in a glorious conflagration of irrelevance. Quite honestly, my son (and lots of other sons and daughters) have cancer, is it really that important rich blond with more money and time on her hands than is helpful or healthy thinks that she is addicted to plastic surgery (whatever that means). I'm angry that my habitual ways of dealing with life don't help; they simply compound grief with the futility of my brokenness.


As I tell folks that I counsel though anger is generally a second tier emotion. That means that we get angry because it makes us feel strong and powerful. What is below that anger is normally what is more true of us and generally more difficult to deal with. "Don't be too busy to deal with your own emotions." The reality is that what I feel is not anger... fear, hurt, confusion, maybe... but not anger. The anger of my apparent forgottenness is really the hurt of someone wanting to know if he's still seen. The anger of the expectation that I should teach others how to walk with the grieving is fear that my life will always be governed by the expectation that my personhood takes second position to my title. My anger with the suffering of friends is the confusion that comes with a world driven mad by sin and my fear that there is nothing I can say or do to ease their suffering. My anger at the state of my marriage is more fear that habit will set in and that our relationship will be more about being a crisis management team than a picture of the mutual delight of Jesus and the Church. My anger at my own broken methods of dealing with life is really fear that I won't have anything left if I give up these tactics; I will be left exposed to the harsh winds of reality with not even my fig leaf to cover me. 


It is at this moment that the Gospel of Jesus seems so far away. My vocation is the weekly, and daily at times, preaching and applying of the Gospel of Jesus to the lives of others. Yet, at this moment, I struggle to see it in relation to myself. That's not true... not really. That is the easy answer that I want to give. The honest truth (as opposed to dishonest truth??) is that I don't like the Gospel of Jesus right now. What I want the Gospel to do right now is take away my fear, my hurt, my confusion, my pain, cancer, loneliness, weariness, CF, abandonment, sin, estrangement and relational violence, even stress. I want right now what the Scriptures call shalom. Want is perhaps too weak a word; right now I am demanding that Jesus give me this. I don't like this feeling, a feeling that somehow conjures the image of a large vacuous space in the middle of my abdomen. I don't like longing. I want to fill it with something, anything that will numb it or fill it temporarily. The writer of the book of Hebrews likens the Christian life to that period in the history of Israel when they wandered in the wilderness. They were out of bondage but not quite in the Land of Fullness yet. It seems so easy at times to wonder at their incredulity, their capriciousness, and their grumbling. I wonder though if, when they had been walking in the desert all day, carrying everything they owned in carts and on their backs, and they finally stopped for the night, I wonder if they felt the same feeling that I am now. I wonder if their own disappointments simply got the better of them like mine are. I wonder if, when they seem so ungrateful and flippant, it isn't really just that the intensity of their longings met the forcefulness of their fear of those longings remaining unfulfilled and the result was enshrined forever in the pages of Holy Writ. What is educational (such an awful word) to me is that even in the midst of this two things remained true, the Pillar still stayed with them, and they still followed it. 


My own anger, hurt, fear, confusion, all of it, doesn't somehow frighten God off or cause Him to fly into some uncontrollable rage as if His ego is so tender that he cannot relate to anyone who struggles with life and relationship with Him. No, the Pillar is still there, right where its always been, leading me while I stumble along through this desert. At the same time I am stumbling along. As much as I rage against the fact that Jesus has not fully brought shalom to this world yet, I also know full well that if He doesn't bring it, it isn't coming. I can play at the idea that i can fill my longings in other ways, I can even try it out, but you and I both know it doesn't work. The reality is that I long for Eden but, when I strike out on my own, I only seem to find my way back to Egypt. The way to a world without pain and sin and cancer and tears and death is through Jesus. And so, like the Israelites, I will follow the cloud during the day and the flame at night. I will stumble and fall and need help standing. I will, at times, not be able to do much more than crawl; but this vacuous space will only be filled in the land to which the pillar is leading and so I will keep crawling. In the meantime I will live in this strange place where my longings are answered but only in part, where I still have to deal with my issues and the issues of others, where I have to take time so that I'm not "too busy to deal with [my] own feelings." 


Thanks Erinn, I guess I needed permission.