What is it that you most love in life,
and how do you express it in your
day to day routine?

Thinking about the aunts and uncles who’ll be at this year’s Christmas gathering, and realizing that the list is getting shorter. My dear sister-in-law, Connie, passed last Spring. And a life-long friend whom I haven’t had the best communication with, has had incredible health difficulties since taking a fall a few months ago. For my part, I’ve been so busy, with an almost around-the-clock sense of urgency tending to my job. Because of the freedom I’ve been given I feel the need to work all the harder to deliver the best possible learning experience for my students. That’s a blessing, but I still need to pause a moment and consider bringing the bigger vision into the daily routine.

I shouldn’t let a day go by without picking up my guitar. I shouldn’t let a day go by when I don’t write in this blog. I shouldn’t let a day go by when I don’t call up a friend just to say, “hi.” I’ve done these important things too infrequently this past year and that needs to change. After my uncle Joe passed, whenever I found myself relaxing for a moment, especially if the moment included a good IPA, I raised my glass in his honor. I didn’t do this because I thought that he might be haunting me or aware of my gesture, but because I wanted to honor the memory of his work ethic, what he contributed to in the life of his six daughters and dozens of grandchildren and just the man’s man who he was.

So, there needs to be more room for the meditation that I find in my guitar. Thus, last night when I should have been trying to get some sleep because I had an early morning video shoot (I was doing the behind the scene stills), I found myself listening to some Sarah McLachlan and then strumming along, then looking up the lyrics and chords for the song on the Internet, then learning the song and playing until my finger, that have long lost their callouses, forced me to quit. I’ve long felt a strong emotional connection to McLachlan, but when I listened to the lyric last night, something in the careful twist of words really connected it to the journey I’ve been on. I decided that this would be a good place to start getting back to the things/people I love in my life.

“Fallen“
Heaven bend to take my hand
And lead me through the fire
Be the long awaited answer
To a long and painful fight
Truth be told I tried my best
But somewhere long the way
I got caught up in all there was to offer
But the cost was so much more than I could bear

Though I’ve tried I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

We all begin with good intent
Love was raw and young
We believed that we could change ourselves
The past can be undone
But we carry on our back, the burden
Time always reveals
In the lonely light of morning
In the wound that would not heal
It’s the bitter taste of losing everything
that I’ve held so dear…

I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

Heaven bend to take my hand
I’ve nowhere left to turn
I’m lost to those I thought were friends
To everyone I know
Oh they turn their heads embarrassed
Pretend that they don’t see
But it’s one missed step you’ll slip before you know it
And there doesn’t seem a way to be redeemed

Though I’ve tried I’ve fallen
I have sunk so low
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so
I messed up
Better I should know
So don’t come round here and
Tell me I told you so

Sources:
* “Fallen” by Sarah McLachlan from her Afterglow CD

* youtube video: Sarah McLachlan Fallen Live – Macworld 2003 Keynote posted by cryotekk. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEKqFw9x_IM retrieved 12/11/2009

p.s., I used to catch hell for my affinity and attraction to artist’s like McLachlan. This person would tease me, saying that I needed to quit listening to the “lesbians” because the music was making me too moody. I’m glad that I didn’t stop listening. The music didn’t make me moody, it spoke to the shitty situation and my frustration with it. Making this song a part of my emotional vocabulary is a far better way to move past those trouble times than to pretend that they didn’t happen or wall off whole sections of ones life. There, I said it.

Sources:
blog: Is PSA on texting and driving too shocking? Technically Incorrect blog by Chris Matyszczyk. http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10318015-71.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20 retrieved on 9/9/2009

YouTube video: Graphic Crash, UK, Dangers of texting while driving PSA by Peter Watkins-Hughes and the Gwent, Wales police department, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdvFh95Yg6M retrieved on 9/9/2009

Blog Action Day 2008 Poverty from Blog Action Day on Vimeo.

Because of my religious upbringing I translated my experience of the Holy in Christian terms and that drove me in the direction of digging much deeper into the traditions and texts, to the point of crossing over from my Catholic background to Fundamentalist Christianity and earning a BA in Biblical Studies from Biola University. But I never quite fit in the confines of Fundamentalist Christianity. I was too intellectual for my Calvary brethren and too “Holy Ghost” for the traditional Biola crowd. While never questioning the reality of my experiences with such things as “speaking in tongues,” I clearly saw the psychological aspects to the practice. For me the psychology of non-verbal utterances didn’t invalidate the spirituality. Yeah, the Christians I knew didn’t want to hear about the psychology and the Intellectuals thought it was all mumbo-jumbo. Then after Biola I went to Fuller and absolutely loved the academic/intellectual study but faced a growing irrelevancy because neither my wife or my church cared one wit about what I found fascinating. When the marriage dissolved, I couldn’t make a working whole of all of these parts of myself and decided to walk away from my religious heritage. Having crossed the religious divide several times along the way, I found no need to declare the previous system a Lie or go on at great length about it being “all wrong.” I just pretended that it didn’t exist and would only revisit it when I was feeling nostalgic and then I’d put on a Mark Heard or Sam Phillips CD. Why does my story always return to this part of my history? My guess is that one thing I should learn from those 15-years “away” is that I cannot simply just ignore this part of myself. Thus, the continuing interest in Das Heilige.

My counselor during my separation and divorce, a Christian counselor, Dr. Carpenter, warned that he thought that I had the kind of personality that I could convince myself of nearly anything moral or immoral. My thought about that was I never attempted to bend the Bible to my own preferences as I’d seen many a wayward Christian do. Thus, while I felt connected to it and felt like it was part of my moral compass, I also recognized that I didn’t agree with the Apostle Paul’s condemnation of homosexuals as a whole, for example. I recognize the destructive nature that unbridled illicit sexuality, hetero- or homosexuality, can have for communities, but in drawing the line in the sand as he has, the tendency has been to condemn the whole group and the warning of illicit behavior gets lost. And while we’re on the subject, I’m not so found of this, largely classical Greek notion, that I am a tripartite being (body, soul and spirit), I am more draw to believe that I am one whole entity, that my mind and soul are materially biological, that they came into being and developed after I was born and will cease when I biologically cease. Note that I most definitely believe that something deeper is going on here beyond mere chemical reactions (which in itself are pretty miraculous). But I cannot play this game about what effects me biologically doesn’t effect me mentally or spiritually (gnosticism), or that I’m somehow not connected to what goes on around me in the physical world. I thought that it was a central teaching of the Master that when the King returns if he sees that we’ve neglected or abused the world that he entrusted to us, that there would be no reward afterwards. And how did that teaching become stripped of it’s stewardship of our relationships to all living things and become just about making converts?

I have to add that I am concerned that my friends from my previous community, City Lights Church, or my lifelong friends going all the way back to the Jesus-People days, would be disheartened at my opening disagreeing with the Bible. One dear friend said, as a joke, that she felt that I’d been led astray 20-years ago when I exposed myself to all that liberal stuff when I was a theology student at Fuller Seminary. It concerns me that my meandering heart can cause discomfort for those whom I’ve been close to, those I’ve prayed with, served the community with and revealed my personal struggles with. But this is who I am. I wish sometimes that I could be like one of my best-friends from high school who has kept to the self same faith that we professed as 16-year-olds, 34-years ago. I’m not that child any longer, but I’m still the curious one who can easily get lost in the beat and repetition of a good song but also has fond memories of reading Kierkegaard and putting my own spin on the Book of Daniel while in seminary. So, right now I have my doubts that I will ever find a “fellowship” with whom I could really be myself while at the same time feeling like I need to apologize to those whom I’ve worked with over the past five-years. I know this is not what they expected or would want from me. One good part is that the story isn’t over. Who knows what might happen next. Damn, is this what my counselor warned about, as far as my personality being too… liquid? Fuck it, if that’s who I am, I’ll own up to it. Next stop, Buddhism… Just kidding (I hope!). JBB

Music: “Take Time” by Lenny Kravitz from his “5“ CD

My twitter moment-by-moment assessment of the situation follows:

• awesome, my ext. 320GB HD isn’t mounting on my desktop. hopefullly just a cable glitch. Alas, all my music/podcasts are on the ext. HD. damn #
• Failed ext HD totally disrupted my normal morning routine, no podcasts or music. Damn #
• Things not looking good 4 lil’ ext 320GB HD, new cable, new hub, LEDs sweeping back & 4th but not mounting. Damn. “Not ‘if’ but ‘when’” Arch!!! #
• while I’m in the whining mood, 4 some reason I couldn’t pull down my podcasts from home yesterday b4 work, so that might still be down. ack #
• Important files on ext 320GB hd r backed up. need 2 backup the whole thing when i get home. thk god i ordered 320GB int hd 4 the mbp #

BTW, just in case you are not familiar with the Onion News Network, this is a parody/comedy website. But that doesn’t dismiss the actual thoughts presented in this “dramatization” of a football team falling apart because one member of the team and then eventually the whole team succumbs to despair following an existential epiphany. The comment in the piece that the only choice they have left is suicide reminded me of a comment made by Bart Erhman in his book “God’s Problem.” …

Over the past year I’ve been going through my own “existential epiphany” and one thing that struck me from Erhman’s book was that his lose of Faith made him appreciate all the more the good things that he has in his life. Instead of falling apart because this is all there is to life, he wrote that he feels all the more thankful for every day that he has here and that he feels all the more responsible to do what he can do now to help those less fortunate because this is all we really have.

creative commons by Zero_666

That’s why I called Erhman a “Voice in the Wilderness” in a previous blog entry, I identified with his faith journey and found some hope that he has made the transition with his sense of purpose intact. And maybe that’s the difference at coming to this place as a teenager/young adult versus dealing with this as a fifty-year-old. Whereas the teenager is going to rage and make a big stink because “everything they told us is a lie,” the 50-year-old is going to feel nostalgic for the connections of those former years but is going to want to focus his energy to have the good constructive connections that are going to make the remaining years of this life “good ones.” So instead of holding up in a locker room and filling pages with rambling scrawls about the injustice of it all, I’d rather go to the local pub with a friend and have a beer and just talk about life. To quote Keith Richards, “I’m happy to be here, hell, I’m happy to be anywhere.”

Music: “Ain’t So Easy“ by David and David from their “Boomtown” CD

Following the lecture Pausch garnered national and international attention with appearances on Oprah, Good Morning America, and before a Congressional committee in support of cancer research. Much more than having his fifteen minutes of fame, Pausch continued to “teach” through the example he set: bravely doing what he could to fight his cancer and seeing to the future needs of his children and wife. Even as the effectiveness of his treatments diminished Pausch made a surprise appearance at Carnegie Mellon’s May 18th 2008 commencement ceremony:

“The brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something. The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They are there to stop the other people!” – from The Last Lecture

Professor Pausch will be missed but his message and even more importantly, his spirit, will live on in the students and colleagues he has inspired. I know that I have been touched and inspired by my brief exposure to this incredible man’s life. jbb

Click the “Read more” link to view additional Pausch videos.

Technorati Tags: cancer, community, heroes, media, death, teaching, video, work, writing, youtube

Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Randy Pausch’s testimony to the Labor, Health and Human Services

Pancreatic Cancer Action Network PSA with Dr. Randy Pausch

Music: What Matters from the album “In Reverse” by Matthew Sweet

So I bared my soul and recieved resounding… silence. I confessed that my faith was being wounded because I have a hard time experiencing the love of God when I have been feeling so unloved in the here and now. Reading through Matthew’s gospel Jesus said that if we fallible human know how to give good gifts to our kids, how much more does God know how to give us what we need. Well, having discovered that I was “meant” to live a life-shared and my former rogue existence had been a lie. I have a hard time with God’s promise in view of my persistent failure to have a fully functional relationship with the person I have loved. And before I go any further with this, I’m not saying that any of this is her fault: it’s just the way things are. But this unmet need digs into my ability to trust and give back.

Before, when faced with this hope-yet-unrealized, I would examine my own life to try to figure out what lesson I needed to learn, trying to find what thing I yet lacked before I would fully enjoy this desired love. No one ever told me to do this. That was my natural response every time I was separated from her. What yet do I lack? It probably helped that it seemed like she had little choice in her circumstances, but in the time following her divorce that line of reasoning has been more difficult to maintain. I mean, it was funny how perfectly I could see areas in my life that needed “renovation,” just when some set-back would happened, And I would soldier on. Yeah, that got old and I eventually reconciled with myself that this lesson learned, the lesson that I’m not supposed to be alone, wasn’t dependent on her or her responsibility and so I did the e-Harmony thing. Well, in that I’m writing these words, e-Harmony or more directly, meeting people at church hasn’t worked out too well. And going through the upcoming holidays is going to be a bitch.

So, it’s become harder and harder for me to maintain my vigil, It’s getting to the point where this stupid little thing is getting in the way of my expression or experience of Faith. I mean, he promised it and I endeavored to maintain my end of it. I know we can be legalistic about it and find all the areas where my stupid human nature gives Him an escape clause, but that would be the way a shitty father would treat his kid, “Yeah, I was going to give you a PS3 for Christmas, but remember that one time when I told you to take out the trash eight-years ago? Well, you didn’t or at least didn’t until your mom nagged you to death. So that’s why there’s no PS3 under the Christmas tree.” Nah. That won’t fly. What yet do I lack?

My friends are really looking forward to 2008 and I’m afraid that it’ll be a year filled with the same emptiness and excuses. JBB

Music: Skepticality #043 – Skeptic’s Caltech Lecture Series: Sam Harris

This image of Jesus separating the good people from the bad people, like a shepherd separating sheep from goats, is something that I remember as a Catholic kid growing up. It expressed the kind of relationship that I thought we had with God, him being the judge and we the helpless animals awaiting judgment. There was so much fear about not being good enough, of going to that bad place because I hadn’t done or wasn’t doing the right things. It probably didn’t help that the words, “Can’t you do anything right?!” spoken by my father rang in my childish ears.
I had actually figured out as a nine- or ten-year-old, that my eternal destiny was dependent on whether I was “caught” being good or being bad when I died, like randomly hop-scotching between a square marked “Good” and one marked “Bad.” And given that I was just as likely to be doing something Bad as I was doing something Good it all seemed pretty random to me and more dependent on when I died instead of whether I was really Good or Bad. Of course, that pretty much changed when I became a teenager and began to explore my sensual appetites, then all i did was “Bad.”

Funny how, after becoming a Christian this need to be “good enough” still persisted. But this passage is not about being good enough or even about doing the right thing. It’s a parable about how different things will be in the Kingdom of God. First is that Jesus will sit as King upon a throne instead of being this largely rejected itinerate prophet. The next thing is that one will not be judged on the basis of personal public piety, but one will be judged on the basis of ones hidden acts of kindness. How we treat one another is more important than prayers in the synagogue or other outward displays of righteousness. The care and concen for others, that comes from the heart, is what the King is looking for from his subjects. “Good enough” doesn’t even enter into it.

Again, it’s not about the self but about our relationships with one another. In the Kingdom the good that we did for one another is what is most important. It’s pretty antithetical to the typical modern existence of living with ones head down, focusing on achieving some important business or career goals and not letting anything or anyone distract from reaching those goals. What’s the point, if one has done it all with no regards for those in ones life or those desiring to be in ones life? More importantly, we serve the King when we serve one another. Good, bad, worthy or unworthy, none of it matters as much as seeing the King in the eyes of those around us and serving them with our whole hearts and with all that He’s given us:

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me
Matt. 25: 35-36

JBB

So the apostles were gawking at the impressive structures that made up the Temple complex and Jesus responded by telling them that the whole thing was going to be leveled in a judgment from God. Okay, that got their interest. They asked three questions: (1) when will this happen (the destruction of the temple, (2) what will be the sign of your coming, and (3) what will be the sign of the end of the age? (Matt. 24: 3) My first thought is whether these three questions are referring to one event (end of the age/destruction of the temple/Jesus’ return) or to three events. The second question, putting the question back into the context of the last weeks of Jesus’ ministry, why would the disciples be asking about when he would be coming back? I mean, he’s standing right there teaching them.
One train of thought might be that they are asking him, in essence, when are you going to come in power and establish your kingdom. When they heard about this distruction then the natural assumption might be that Jesus would then take his place as the political leader, being after the line of David. That makes sense, but my more literary/scholar self sees that these questions would be most applicable to Matthew’s readers 40-years after the events. This is not to say that Matthew was writing history as if it were prophecy but the disciples asking about Jesus’ return in the context of the destruction of the temple would be a screaming headline for those who were about to, or had just witnessed the temple’s destruction at the hands of the Roman General Titus. In which case, the warnings to flee when they saw the temple’s Holy of Holies descecrated, warnings that according to Josephus, were followed by the Christians, very much ties these passages to the events of 70AD. (Matt. 24: 15-22; Dan. 9:27)

But clearly Jesus didn’t return, and the end of the age in the sense of either God establishing his Kingdom (politically as well as spiritually) or the final judgment did not happen. So, what does this mean? The words, the warnings were instrumental in the survival of the church when Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed, so there is a historical context that has happened. But the teaching or warning about how people will act in times of destress (judgment) still applies. And if anything Jesus makes it pretty clear that his coming will be very much unlike his ministry at the time in that it will be universally observed and obvious to the whole world (not in the desert and not in the inner room). (Matt. 24:26-28) Oh yeah, before the coming things are not going to get better for you Christians, but they are going to get worse, to the point where Christian will turn on Christian (hmmm, that hasn’t happened before…).

Then Jesus warned the disciples to be diligent and observant for his coming and to not be caught unawares. He mentioned the days of Noah and how people carried on with life right up to the moment the flood hit, not unlike our own experiences with natural catastrophes over this past year (Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of New Orleans, for example). Of course, in his example the one “taken” is the one lost to the flood, which has somehow, in current Christian theology, been changed to mean that the ones “taken” are the ones saved by God from the tribulation before the End of the Age. How does that work? I know Paul refers to “meeting the Lord in the air” (1Th. 4:17) but I’m not sure if stretching these verses in Matthew to fit the scenario gets in the way of Jesus’ point, that we need to be ready.

Also problematic is this business that when Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” (Matt. 24: 34). Clearly Jesus’ contemporaries (or Matthew’s or even those who witnessed the destruction of the temple) have passed away. So what does this mean? I don’t know that I can answer that one. That he would spend so much time making it clear that no one (not even the Son) knows when he’s to return, that we’re to be diligent (the homeowner against the thief, the servant at the master’s arrival, and in the next chapter the 10 virgins and the bridegroom), but then to say that this would “all” happen before this generation passed away? That’s a problem.

I remember in the ‘70s that we were thinking that this meant the generation that saw the re-establishment of the nation of Israel and so we all expected His return to be some 48-years (a typical generation…. I don’t know who came up with that number) after the Jewish state came back into existence (1948 plus 48 = 1996), so this was supposed to happen some time before 1996. Oops. I guess the Calvary Chapel followers now know what the Millerites and Jehovah’s Witnesses went through when their “set” dates came and went. I want God to establish His Kingdom. I want to see the beatitudes in the opening chapters of Matthew fulfilled and the prophecies of Isaiah about the Kingdom come to pass. But the truth of the matter is that, as a 48-year-old, the end of my “age,” my personal experience is very real and very imminent. Rapture, no rapture, pre-milenial, post-milenial, it doesn’t really matter because my time will come just as assuredly as the sun will rise in the morning. And whether I believe in any of this or protest like Homer Simpson that I don’t even know this “Jebus,” my time will come to an end and what will matter most will be how I lived the days that were given to me and whether I left the place in a better condition or worse

Music: >Nasa-TV – Space Shuttle Discovery launch

In-n-Out, Long Beach. Late lunch/early dinner
Man, I did’t even sit down before my order was ready. Yikes. I’m out and about shopping for odds and ends, basically finding an excuse for leaving the apartment after sequestoring myself for the past week or so (w/ one afternoon off on Saturday for my grandbaby’s baby shower… sigh). Following the good-bye kiss on the cheek I’ve spent a lot of time on my website, cleaning up things and updating my “Jacob’s Ladder” Blog. I guess it’s my way of dealing with the end of the relationship by immersing myself in this long-running narrative.

“When I said, ‘I love you’ on my birthday, why didn’t you respond in kind?”

“… I was afraid.”

I didn’t need to ask her what she was afraid of. I already knew that for the past year she didn’t feel like she could handle her feelings for me or my feelings for her while still living with her husband. So, even though she’d filed for divorce over a year ago, she had chosen to shut off those feelings and keep her heart closed to me and, in many ways, herself.

Relationship Autopsy
On Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005, at approximately 20:35 in Anaheim CA this relation was terminated and in the intervening 14-days no effort by either party has been made to resuscitate it.

Cause of termination: Female’s inability/unwillingness to return and/or receive the love/affection/attention/support offered and/or required by the male. This resulted in the male’s unwillingness to continue as “general utility friend.” Emotional termination resulted in the male as a result to prolonged exposure of profound “root” emotional attachment with vague, little or no response from the female coupled with an inconsistent expectation that the male would always be there at a moment’s notice whenever the female needed a friend to talk to, a shoulder to cry on or a lover to make her feel loved.

The life and death of this relationship might be understood by looking at four phases that it may have gone through:

Phase one: “Infatuation” lasted about ten months beginning with an innocent email correspondence beginning in Feb 2002, escapist friendship/flirtation for the first several months, resulting in an unexpected explosive overwhelming affair.

Phase Two: “Looking for Help” overlaps phase one by a few months after the male broke up with his then-girlfriend (not the female of the relationship under report) (August 2002) and the pressure became either ending the relationship and/or her looking for help to deal w/ the initial reason she had looked outside her marriage for love. She did secure counseling by the end of Aug and her husband began participating/getting his own counseling by the end of October. The male’s own “cry for help” came in Feb. 2003 when, after another seemly terminal set-back of the relationship, he reports having had an epiphany resulting in re-establishing of his identification with his former faith.

Phase Three: “Longing” began in November (5th) 2002 and lasted until approximately September 2004. This phase began after the female and her husband began getting counseling together and the female decided to give the marriage another chance, thus seeming to terminate the relationship. The female told her husband that she was in love with someone else and confessed to the affair. The male threatened to reveal the affair to the children and her family if she did not cease the relationship. She attempted to comply and the husband began essentially around-the-clock surveillance (following her into the bathroom and when she changed clothes, forbidding her from working late hours or weekends, taking away her cell phone or the phone at home, and requiring some verification such as receipts whenever she went shopping). But because of the imprinting the love had on the male and female neither really believed that it was over and after a few weeks the female began to communicate to the male through cryptic cell phone text messages (e.g., “12,” which meant “i love you babe,” the number of letters if the message were spelled out). This periodic one-way communication went on for a couple months.

Phone communication resumed after Christmas 2002 with the male believing that the female was going to act and end the marriage. Another communication break/relationship crisis occurred in February 2003 when the husband discovered the communication resumption and demanded the female to choose with the threat that if she were to divorce him he’d demand full custody of their two boys. The pressure was too much and she chose to break communication with the male. This happened three times during this phase, the first being the beginning of this phase in November 2002, second being February 2003, and a third in June 2003. Each time the female was not ready to choose and communication was essentially terminated. Within two to three weeks, however, some message was sent by the female to the male and hope was maintained.

This phase is called “Longing” because the overall theme of the messages was that of future hopes to be together or just to be together at that moment. When this phase began the female felt completely in the wrong and believed that she needed to do whatever it took to keep the marriage going (even though both she and her husband knew that she no longer loved him and that his form of love to her no longer reached her). The pressure was all the more on the female because she was the sole breadwinner of the family and had been for the past ten years. Over the months she slowly fought back against her husband’s mental abuse and came to believe that it was right for her to end a dead marriage and filed for divorce June 2004.

But because she wanted to keep the family home she was advised to stay in the home, even after filing for divorce. Her husband told her that he was going to break her and refused to move from the master bedroom, to find his own place or to find gainful employment. Her husband also made it her job to tell the children of her decision to divorce him.

Phase Four: “Friendship” Begun around June 2004 until relationship termination August 3rd, 2005. There had always been some growing tension between the female and male because of the length of time it seemed for anything to move forward with her divorce. This was particularly true around the winter holidays and their respective birthdays when being together was often impossible.

Because the husband refused to move out or to cooperate in any reasonable fashion without causing her some grief, the female felt forced to use all of her emotional energy to maintain the belief that it was right for her to end the marriage and at the same time keep everything as “normal” as possible for her two young sons. Consequently she felt unable to receive or return the love of her former lover and chose to relate to him mostly as a needed friend. The male understood this and chose to maintain his role to support her believing that it would only be a matter of time before things would move forward enough for her feel free enough to receive and reciprocate his love.

As the months passed she continued to grow in her immunity towards her soon-to-be ex-husband’s attempts to upset her or “break her” as he had promised to do to her. But while she was growing in her immunity towards her husband she showed no signs of accepting the male into her life in any greater capacity than as the voice on the phone during the last ten-minutes of her commute home. In fact, as the pressure increased for her in terms of her husband’s continued failure to cooperate and comply, she communicated even less with the male. Something had changed in their communication.

In phase one and two it had been continuous by phone, text-message, instant message/chat and email. In phase three communication was frequently broken, often for weeks. But the communication of all three phases shared one thing: this communication was continually filled with expressions of love and hope and longing. In phase four the messages of longing ceased. The words “I love you” continued, for the most part, but they seemed to take on the level of assumption, something taken for granted. It almost felt, to the male, like it was something more familial than the intimacy previously shared between the male and female. Instead of becoming closer to the male, following her filing for divorce, she seemed to be increasingly more distant.

She hinted at the reasons for this change when they had their last conversation. In phase one and two she was able to give herself completely and without reservation to the male because her worlds were completely compartmentalized and she maintained the fantasy that they would never be breach. In phase three her worlds were partially breached when she confessed everything to her husband. But his unwillingness to take responsibility for his part and his continued and increased abuse of her vulnerability worked to make her cherish the love she’d had with the male all the more. In many ways, her husband’s actions and reaction confirmed the reality of the love she’d discovered with the male. It was harder for her to maintain the balance, but communication tended to be so infrequent that it was somewhat “doable” to keep the hope alive even though she knew that her husband knew.

According to the male, the one thing that really changed in phase four, the reason that she chose to not allow herself to even think about the love that had gotten all of this started was the confrontation she had with her children when she had to tell them that she and her husband were going to get divorced. That breach hurt her so much because of how much it seemed to hurt her two boys that she determined that until the divorce was final she could have “friends” in her life, but would not permit herself to feel anything greater than that. Because her husband continued to pretend that everything was okay in front of their children and that whatever problem there might be was their mother’s making, she felt pressured to go along and minimize anything to the contrary.

Granted, none of this changed the fact that the female still had a need to feel loved and so, about once every three or four months, she would become more “accepting” of the male’s affection. That hadn’t really changed over any of the four phases (though there were often stretches of over four months when the male and female wouldn’t so much as see one another, much less share any real intimacy).

During all of this the life for the male continued to change and pressures in many ways increased with his employment and his decision to earn a doctorate degree. The female was supportive in the sense that she encouraged him to move forward and not “wait for her” as far as school or church things were concerned. But then about midway through phase three, just after another missed holiday, the female made it clear to the male that he could not expect her to be there for him because of her struggle with just getting to the filing stage. He partially accepted this, again believing that it would only be a matter of time. But then a couple of months turned into four and then six months and then more than a year. So after trying to hold on to hope for one thousand, two hundred and seventy-nine days (over three years) and seeming to get an ever decreasing slice of her time on the phone and even less of her heart, the male determined to confirm his beliefs about her status and if confirmed, to let go of something that was never really his in the first place.

Thus on August 3rd, 2005 this relationship was pronounced dead, though its ghost will no doubt color the thoughts of the male for some time to come. Alas, the body may well be dead but the spirit has an unfortunate tendency to linger whether welcomed or not. Hopefully once 21-days have passed the male will feel … well, will feel period and then perhaps he’ll be able to move on from there. JBB 08/18/05 04:15