Signs and Wonders
D really impressed me today. She sent me an email titled "Background info", which was a synopsis of her online research regarding our true marital status. Conclusion? We are still married. She visited several different sites searching for Bible proofs on one side or another. When I replied and asked her she felt about coming to this conclusion, she impressed me yet again. She's still a bit day-to-day from the stress of her move and new job, getting the boys settled into a new school, Christmas, et al, so it was no surprise that she expressed feelings of reservation about adding our marriage to her pile of things to deal with. I think we both see the grace in being able to be absorbed in settling our own lives without having to fight over whose issues take priority.

She also admitted to feeling a spark of hope and expressed an eagerness to see me again. Soon.

So it looks as if I will be spending New Year's in suburban Baltimore.
- posted by The Drake @ 6:26 PM 3 comments

 
Ex Sex is the Best Sex
Obviously, the Drake has been in seclusion on the heels of his divorce from D. Tonight, I sit before my canvas tasked with relating what may be the most confusing part of my life to date.

D. and the boys came to visit for the weekend.

Yep, you heard right. Three weeks after she walked out the door, and into her new life, we were back in each other's arms. We went to a local farm, picked out a Christmas tree, and put it up together. We went Christmas shopping for my kids together. She took me out for a steak dinner to celebrate my 46th birthday. Hmmm... What else did we do? Oh yeah, we made some of the most passionate love in the history of our relationship. Frequently.

Yet on Saturday morning, I awoke full of misgivings. I had pretty much looked forward to the weekend as the event that would transition our relationship from that of a married couple in trouble to fuck buddies with no other agenda than mutual gratification. However, I found myself longing for more than a once-a-month fuckfest.

D herself began to experience problems yesterday morning, the result of her own surfacing emotions, which were released by our use of ganja as an aphrodisiac on Saturday night. Assailed by doubts on both sides of the argument, she couldn't stop crying for about an hour. I guess it didn't help that I smoked 3 cigarettes during the time she was there, despite the fact that I'm up to about 3/4 of a pack a day at the moment. Nor was she too keen to learn that I'd also scored some blow from the neighbor. Usually, I'm not too keen on the stuff myself, but I enjoyed the lift it gave me in the face of my lingering funk.

We also had some great conversations about things. We both agreed that this separation was the best thing for both of us. It gives her an opportunity to re-establish her own sense of life competence, without feeling like she has to have my approval over every little thing. It gives me an opportunity to clear out the cobwebs in my head and think about my priorities and the consequences of being an ass.

One of the best conversations we had was about whether this was just about sex. I'm sure that there's at least one reader out there scratching their head and wondering, "What the fuck are these two doing?" A question D and I were asking ourselves and each other all weekend. While it's obvious that the impulse that drove our decision to get together this weekend was predominantly sexual, the reality of the experience showed that there was more there for both of us than we had anticipated.

Here's my take on the whole dynamic. Men and women simply don't get together for any other reason than to have sex. Oh sure, there's this whole built-up infrastructure of dreams and expectations of "true love" or some other horseshit. And I believe that if a person is raised right, sex is the last-laid brick of a solid relationship. But whether you are a solid, raised-right Christian or a couple of wandering misfits recovering from the wounds of a dysfunctional childhood, sex is the super glue that binds couples together for a lifetime. It is the launching pad and foundation for a much deeper intimacy, one where the other person becomes indistinguishable from self, and the thought of being apart is painful to contemplate.

Without sexual chemistry and tension, men and women would really have no reason to hang out together. Politically incorrect, I know, but undeniably true. At least in my case. Most of the women I've ever known are people with whom I have nothing in common from which to build a relationship. There are exceptions, of course. There are a few that I've really enjoyed with absolutely no sexual context, but very few.

The Lord gave us the gift of sex as a means of comforting and pleasing one another, and the strong urge to get busy as a built-in motivator to overcome the inevitable frustrations, tensions and obstacles of dealing with another being who might as well be an extraterrestrial, for as well as we understand members of the opposite sex.

This situation also raises for us an difficult theological question: can reconciliation and restoration be legitimately available to divorced couples? What is the status of a couple like myself and D, who are legally divorced and living apart, but still in a relationship with intimate overtones and open to a reconciliation? Is it biblically wrong for D and I to even have sex because we are not legally married? Or do the facts of our relationship and sexual exclusivity negate the societal sanctions and dictates of marriage contracts and divorce decrees?

Let's get this discussion started!
- posted by The Drake @ 2:44 PM 15 comments

 
taking care of things
I may have already alluded to this, but I think that one of the great lessons that God is teaching me in these post-D days is to learn to care for other living things. There's Miss Maddie, she of the innumberable pee stains on the second floor carpet. Since D's been gone, Maddie has pooped inside the house twice and peed once. Now that may not seem like such a good tally for only three days, but I've just started teaching her how things are gonna be now that the clean freak is in charge. Now that her and I are the only creatures needing to be cleaned up after.

Continuing on that theme, I went out and spent $200 on houseplants. D took the kitchen table we used in the breakfast nook, so I had to move the one I was using in the sunroom over to the breakfast nook. I never liked it in there anyway. It took up too much room. I've wanted to line the front and back walls with countertops for quite a while, and this is my chance. The front window faces south, so it gets a LOT of sun. AND there's about 12 feet of window frontage, and two skylights.

So I am going to dismantle the humongous entertainment that D left and build countertops out of them. I bought about 10 plants from Lowe's, half flowering and the other half foilage. A couple of hanging plants, and I'm good to go.

Like everything I attempt to do, I'm hoping to do it big. Plants in every room. My grandmother did this, and she always had things looking healthy. She was also the matriarch of the angry branch of our clan. So I guess I take after her. Word is the it took her most of her life to soften to the point where other people could enjoy what she had to offer. She was 83 when she died.

I hope I'm a quicker study than she.

That's why I'm doing caregiving rehad. Taking care of simple things and not living in filth are my first steps. Maybe after I learn how to love and nourish simpler life forms, God will introduce me to someone that I won't push away.
- posted by The Drake @ 11:01 PM 2 comments

 
Yo! Anonymous!
anonymous,

first, i'd prefer that people who choose to confront me do so in person, or at least tell me something about where they're coming from by using a blog handle.

it's easy to sit in the shadows and take potshots. the only thing that I know about you is that confess the Lord, Jesus the Christ. This obviously is a good thing. In fact, it's the only thing. And why? Because everyone on this planet is so fucked up that God had to come here in human form and take care of it for us.

But once a person makes that confession, the rest of the people in this country seem to want to believe that we lose our demons. Not true. I've been battling anger, drug addiction and sexual impurity since my teens. Has Jesus helped me stop? Most definitely. The results were amazing, but the lure turned out to be too powerful to resist.

This is what comes of a child who is not cared for. I am such a child. A 46-year old child who just wants to be accepted and loved for who I am, not what I COULD BE. If you want to impact the world for Christ, take care of all the children you come in contact with. If they're yours, let them know that even if they turn out to be the next great serial killer freak, you'll be there for them. If they're not, make sure they know that you will give them refuge and advocacy, if needed.

It's a rough world out there, and for all of the so-called revival movement of the '70's and '80's, evangelicals have made much of a difference in the culture. Oh sure, we created a lot of wealth, but at what price? The church is as full of broken people as the culture, and these people are STILL being neglected.

Neophyte Christians are made to feel so afraid of transgressing against the Lord that they are faced with limited choices -- instead of limitless possibilities. They can leave and look for Christians with a clue. They can maintain their denial and learn how to act around their sibs, and then they're on their own to figure out how to conquer their demons.

I choose a third way. To confront. There are a ton of things wrong going on in the church, and it doesn't have anything to do with the divorce rate or premarital sex or addictions. From the perspective of the human world, these are the diseases, by in the eyes of the Father, they are but symptoms of a much graver disease.

We all know the cure, but do we spend enough time considering the cause? Christian churches are filled with people who have mastered the art of looking good, but precious few who have learned to love and extend themselves on behalf of others, as Jesus did for the whole world at Golgotha.

My friend Samson has a saying that Christians are the only ones who shoot their wounded when they've outlived their usefulness. This has pretty much been my experience. Honesty is practically non-existent within the churches. Secrets are rampant. Hope is scarce. Joy? Forget about it! We'll fight everyone we meet over abortion, while we actively kill the spiritual babies in our midst. Terri Schiavo's ordeal was nothing compared to the slow murder we endure all over this world from our 'shepherds'.

I realize that this painting with broad strokes, but I'm just tired of WASP Christianity. Give me a good Catholic, big family any day. You fight, yell, get evil with each other, but you also hug and kiss and say love each other.

You accuse me of fault finding. Guilty. Considering that for the third time in 23 years, a woman has agreed and sent me packing, you might just be right. Except this time, of course. But it's emotionally the same thing. This woman who just left me was an exceptional person who would have made an amazing wife. But she didn't want to be a Christian wife, and I wasn't always willing to be a Christian husband.

So forgive me if I continue to grieve and find my way through this. I've found THE PATH. I've even walked along it quite a bit, but it's a hard road to walk. Especially when you neglect asking your guide which way to turn every now and then. Or choose to ignore what you know for a more amusing detour.

But you know what bothers me most? The assumption you seem to have that I don't already know these things after 26 years of living with my faith. You know that faith is a gift, right? What that means is that it was given to you, and you can't get rid of it. You can try and ignore it. You can complain about it. You can try to drown it in self-destructive, defiant behavior. Or you can take care of it, and enjoy its benefits. They are sure nice to have around when you need them.

So I'll tell you what, anonymous. You get real with me, and then we'll be on the same playing field. I'm not going to stop expressing myself, but I do develop a more respectful tone when someone shows me that they're willing to put something of themselves out there as something more than a critic, or more accurately in your case, a well-meaning, but ineffective Christian cheerleader. Just ask Jeanne.

I know that sounds harsh, but we're called to more. The Master gave us tools that we ignore to play performance games. He said that the world will know that we are Christians if we love one another, not if we succeed in making sin illegal.

So man up, anonymous. Who are you, really?
- posted by The Drake @ 9:03 PM 3 comments

 
Various and Sundry
So I spent my first night alone in my big, empty house. Initially, I felt very lonely, but quickly diverted my focus on patrolling the place to see where I should begin my work. I picked up a new vacuum cleaner, which is a total piece of shit on the carpet, forcing me to go in search of parts for my old one. Miss Maddie enjoyed the greater degree of freedom of free roam of the house, since I no longer have to worry about her being with people who won't pay attention to her and train her. She also got to spend the night outside of her crate, which is a pretty good thing, except for the hour she spent between 4 and 5 am licking herself at the foot of my bed.

All in all, I am embracing a new routine of going to work, giving it my all here, coming home to take care of my little, four-legged princess, and organizing the tasks I need to start working on to get my house transformed into a home that will be a refuge for my family biological and in Christ. Room by room, I am hatching masterful plans to use my space to its best effect.

Projects that are at the top of the list:

1. Reconfigure the basement into a workshop for getting the other stuff done. I'll be moving walls, mostly, so it shouldn't be a big problem.
2. Setting up a second floor office for myself.
3. Switching the dining room and TV room so that I can fit more people around my table.
4. Installing countertops and shelves in the sunroom to start growing some houseplants. I love doing that stuff, and I have some literature for forcing bulbs to bloom inside during the winter. I will be growing daffodils, hyacinths and tulips.
5. Putting an opening into the dividing wall between the sunroom and breakfast nook to allow more light and interactivity in my kitchen space.
6. Setting up a workout room on the second floor.
7. Putting up hooks and shelves for coats and hats in the entryway.

Before I do any of that stuff, however, I need to clean, clean, clean. Nothing has been done for well over a month while the exodus of D was taking place. Now I am much, much more motivated to bring this dump up to my level of cleanliness.

Shifting gears, I wanted to write a bit on the Jerry Bowyer afternoon talk program on WORD-FM. When I first wrote about Jerry, my perspective was completely colored by my knowledge of the events surrounding his divorce and re-marriage. After listening to his shows for three months, I have to say that my opinions have changed quite a bit. Jerry is a very knowledgeable person in a variety of areas - politics, theology, church history - and is very capable of conversing intelligently with people from all sorts of traditions. Additionally, he's not as hostile to things going on as Minto was. That aspect is a bit of a double-edged sword for me, as he tends not to take real strong stands on significantly questionable theology that many of his callers seem to have, but that has also tended to elicit a much more varied response and open dialogue.

It appears that Jerry is now an Episcopalian, which tends to lead to a lot more discussion surrounding the history of Christian liturgy and the origins of various theological traditions and worship practices. Which I find intensely interesting.

As I've continued to tune in, I've found myself wanting to dig deeper into these things myself. For instance, although (like The Unseen Blogger), I could probably never become a Catholic, I am beginning to believe that many of the practices of the RCC and other liturgical denominations have major benefits for those who could implement them in their approach to God with integrity and understanding. Confession, for instance, is something that is sorely lacking from most evangelical contexts. Confession, as I understand it from Scripture, is BOTH to God and to OTHERS. The RCC practice of confession seems to take into account what evangelicals consistently miss. You can't just go around confessing your sins to everyone with whom you happen to enter into a conversation. Most Christians that I know simply can't be trusted to not use that information in some way that will come back to hurt me. Moreover, even those whom I do trust aren't getting the whole story most of the time because of the enormous amount of shame that goes along with having committed sin in the first place. And yet, the impulse to go to another person with my burdens can at times feel overwhelming. It almost feels as if I NEED to tell someone else. The RCC structure of confession takes those feelings of need, shame and mistrust into account by virtue of the priestly vow of confidentiality. Anyone who is burdened can walk into just about any Catholic church during confession times and have access to this gift. It gets a little squirrely for me when you get into penance, and I would avow that you can choose any believer as a confessor, as long as the trust and confidentiality are present.

There are a bunch of models within evangelicalism that seem to try and get at this. In our church, we have something called the Triple Cord program, which is really an accountability and prayer group of around three men. Some of my friends meet every week to hold each other accountable for being mentally faithful to their wives -- i.e. - not checking out chicks all day long, wondering what they'd look like naked, and focusing on the way other women arouse you when you're trying to make love to your wife. I think it's fair to say that this is a prevalent issue among any man with a pulse. I know it is with me. But what about those deep, dark things that you struggle with that may not be easy for others to hear and still maintain a loving attitude towards you? It's clear to me that Scripture teaches us that the only way to be free of these issues is to continually bring them into the light until they disintegrate in the Spirit's purifying fire like a vampire dissolves into a dust pile if they get caught outside at daybreak. Part of that process has to be confession to another person. Studies have shown that actually calling a thing what it is, without clarifying or rationalizing, is critical to breaking out of destructive patterns.

Anyway, I've become an interested listener of the Jerry Bowyer program and believe that there is a great potential to have certain conversations that need to be had within the Christian community surrounding the 'Burgh. I'd also be interested in starting some conversations about how sincere believers and followers of Christ can borrow and use traditions other than their own, as opposed to taking militant stances in attacking the things they either don't understand, aren't called to embrace, or reflect conclusions of practicality to which they've not yet arrived.

It's becoming very apparent to me that this is one of the biggest problems facing the church. Reformation is needed, but prior to reformation must come understanding, humility and submission to the reality that none of us knows everything.
- posted by The Drake @ 10:31 AM 3 comments

 
The Splitsville Epilogue

From the brightest star
Comes the blackest hole
You had so much to offer
Why did you offer your soul?
I was there for you baby
When you needed my help
Would you deny for others
What you demand for yourself?

Cool down mama, cool off
Cool down mama, cool off

You speak of signs and wonders
I need something other
I would believe if I was able
But I'm waiting on the crumbs from your table

U2 - Crumbs From Your Table

Last night was one I'll never forget. It started off with me, Samson, Bibby, John, Bill and B-Wag having lagers and eats at Applebee's. Except Bibby, that is. He started off strong with an iced tea and quickly moved down to water. Wuss.

This circle of men left their newborns, pregnant wives and domestic chores to spend an hour or more with me while D loaded her UHaul with a some friends from work. Each of these guys brings a different dimension of friendship to the table. Samson and B-Wag are the ones with whom I can talk theology, politics, and culture. Most of them golf. John is the ABF leader and has a real gift for preaching, if not for theology. Bibby is one of maybe 3 other 40-something guys in the group. And Bill is the guy whose private adoption fell through, only to have the birth mother change her mind again and give the baby back. I've had a unique beginning to my relationship with him. When the adoption fell through, I wrote he and his wife an email that conveyed -- somehow -- the depth of feeling I had for their pain. It is one of the few times I have felt that my writing has really succeeded in communicating my heart. It opened the door for us to open a dialogue, and he was the first one to step into the breach with me after I sent out the group email I posted yesterday.

These brothers, and a few other siblings, have materialized in front of me as a core group of leaders in our midst, whose hearts for God and others have encouraged me over the past week. I am not going to let go of this gift as easily as I let go of my marriage.

By the time I got home, D was fully loaded and putting her boys to bed. Seeing as her bed was in the truck, I quickly realized that the only Christian thing to do was to offer to share mine. And share we did. Three times, including this morning's wake up call. What I gave her over the course of those couple of hours was the best I could give in that area. Yet I felt no sense of loss this morning as I examined the dime-shaped love bite she laid on my left shoulder.

I honestly believe that I made the best possible choices in comporting myself through these last two days of our relationship. No recriminations, just the best I knew how to let her know that I will miss her and regret that she will miss out on the winter flowering of my restoration. But maybe it couldn't have happened any other way. There was just too much focus on the pain in each of us by ourselves and an unwillingness to set it aside to focus on soothing the pain of the other.

As she stood at the front door at 6 am this morning, ready to leave for her new life, things broke down a bit. Stiff upper lip, and all. A quick, but gentle kiss. A last look into each other's eyes, seeing the finality of it all and accepting it.

And that was it. No hug. No I love you's. Just the freedom to let go and walk on without either of us having the last word. Maybe it's a sign that the last word hasn't been spoken. Bridges intact and doors left open, but also no backward looks.

Time to get my feet back on the path.
- posted by The Drake @ 9:44 AM 2 comments