You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will receive me into glory. — Psalm 73:24
Susan suggested to me that, at times, I tend to write in more nonlinear a fashion than is actually necessary. This was a radical concept for me, of course, but after some thought, I have decided that she is probably right. A goal some writers have is to be understood, and it wouldn’t hurt me to aim for that. I want to benefit my readers, and in order for that to happen, they have to have some vague notion of what I’m actually trying to say.
So let me begin with a statement of purpose. What I hope to do in this essay is to reflect on what has made it possible for me to love someone new and commit myself to her, without forgetting Diane or abandoning my love for my former wife of thirty-six years. And along the way, I hope to use this as a vehicle for addressing the wider issue of what makes healthy change possible, and what can sometimes hinder its progress; and since life means change and transition, and no one can set foot in the same river twice, that larger topic is necessarily relevant to everyone. So keep that in mind as you proceed, even if I seem to meander a bit — I’m at best a recovering academic, who does find it very difficult to get to the point.
Most changes are slow and gradual, and sometimes imperceptibly so. Every young person, if they live long enough, eventually turns into a old person, as the two pictures of my beloved father (taken about seventy-five years apart) clearly depict. Aging is a gradual process, but a relentless one; there is no specific defined moment when it happens, but there is certainly a moment when one can look back and observe that it has happened. Most changes are like that, even ones that we characterize with metaphors of immediacy, like falling in love — it doesn’t take long to fall; ask anyone who is recovering from a hip injury if you don’t believe me. Yet some changes really are immediate, like the one described in John 5:24 — “he who believes… has passed from death to life”, all at once, instantly and irrevocably. And marriage is like that too — one instant a person is single, and in the twinkling of an eye, with the pronouncement of the verdictive phrase that changes everything, they are suddenly married. There are usually some early indicators that this is going to happen, yet there is a split second that is utterly transformative; and all that is left is for the recipient of the gift to proclaim, as on the Hallmark Channel, “This is all so sudden!”
Most of the time, though, moving from one mode of life, one manner of being, one structure to another involves a process of deconstruction and reconstruction, of dismantling and remantling (when the word I want doesn’t exist, I just make one up), like a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly — halfway in between it is just a mushy, viscous liquid. And that’s important, really, because it gives us the gift of time to let go of the old (but never completely) and reach out to the new. And it reminds us that we have to open our hands to receive a gift — a clenched fist can receive nothing. Descent, then ascent, is how you enter the kingdom.
Right now, I am ritualizing this change by going through my house and sorting possessions into “toss”, “donate”, and “keep” piles. This gives me a convenient excuse to sort things into piles, which I enjoy — we all have our hobbies, after all. My hope for many of the donated items is that they will bring as much joy to new recipients as Diane and I once experienced in owning them, and in that way will carry on her legacy and her story in a way. The tossed items will help to support the struggling landfill industry — have you ever wondered what people will do with their garbage when all the land has been filled? (“Earth First — we’ll strip-mine other planets later!”) But the retained items (though hopefully a small subset of the original undifferentiated mass of stuff) are the most important, because they are tokens and reminders of my cherished past. I can’t live in the past, mind you. But I can honor and cherish the past, which as Viktor Frankl once noted has safely been sent to the Printer for binding and storage.
We necessarily, in the fullness of time, move forward into the next step in God’s plan for our lives. But we are allowed to bring with us tokens of the past, reminders of God’s faithfulness over the years. We dare not turn them into idols, as Hezekiah discovered (2 Kings 18:4) when he found the people burning incense to the bronze serpent that Moses had made — “trapped in the past by a piece of brass”, unable to respond when God wanted to do a new thing. But we are allowed to honor them; and to forget the past entirely is to lose the continuity of the self, to shred the internal master narrative that makes us who we are. To know someone is to listen with respect and empathy to their story; and healing comes when we are willing to allow our story to be edited and rewritten, as in the title of one famous article, “My story is broken — can you fix it?”
God is fixing my story, and the woman whom in his grace I will soon marry is an important instrument he is using to do that. I can’t spend the rest of my life mired in deep grief, though like Jacob of old, I will always limp a bit from the hip. And this in-between time, this liminal space is one I hope to fill with the process of reordering the fragments of my past (not getting rid of them, but assembling them in a new way) in preparation for the next step in my ongoing journey.
And all of us are on a journey to the end of our stories, which will only occur at the appointed time, the opportune moment, the kairos. One can’t judge the end by the beginning; and, as the Midrash sagely notes, all beginnings are difficult, even pleasant ones. The full meaning of our days only appears at the end of them all — God is with all who will receive him each day, but we are only received into glory at the conclusion of the roster of the days. When the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there; but in the meantime, the roll is still partly hidden from view, like a spring that has not yet been unwound. Each day, I seek to make choices that cooperate with God’s program for my life, that help rather than hinder my growth in knowledge and grace.
So I have found that my heart is indeed large enough to honor the past and to walk toward the future; and all of us, whether soon or late, need to do both. We gather the lessons of the former years and take them with us as waybread to nourish us for the journey that leads us into what lies ahead; and when we do that, we find balance and peace, and a hope that does not disappoint. There, that feels linear to me. It isn’t, but it feels like it, which is close enough for now. See, I can adapt and grow and take advice. Wait, did I mention cats?
Lovely piece. Carry on meandering, rambling :) You connect the threads eventually.
We cannot cling to the past, but long may the memory bank store remembered fragments of the good times. I must learn to obliterate the not-so-pleasant memories of past hurts, as they do hold me back, and make me a lesser person.
Thank goodness you remembered the cats right at the end. I was beginning to fret.....
Well done Susan! I quite enjoy following you as you go round and round to get to the point…and there is often something to make me laugh en route. Your play on words usually amuses me but sometimes I groan. Moving forward, treasuring the past , is healthy. I wait to see what God has in store for me. I am fairly ancient ,yes even more ancient than you, but I hope to be of use. Meanwhile I am delighted for you that you have another love in your life.