Shakespeare in Love

I love Shakespeare. In High School, I got it, and that made me feel good. I got it, & I liked it & I enjoyed conveying it to those who didn't get it.
I love to read, and since High School, anytime I get to sit down & read Shakespeare to the point of comprehension & enjoyment is a victory in this busy
life - a victory I so rarely get.

When my daughters were born, I started a tradition. Every year at Christmas, I bought them a book. My theory was that if I started before they had hair,
then by the time they were old enough to read they would already have an enjoyable library. Now - at 9 & 10 - they love to read so much that I could put
nothing but books under the tree. Not that I ever would...

When they were 2 & 3, I bought a book called "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children". I loved it more than they did. I still do - simple text
conveying the wonderful stories in a way even a child can understand - Hamlet & Ophelia illustrated as children, even as they play out such adult themes as
betrayal, vengeance, or even suicide.

This summer, in my search for "things for kids to do after camp, so that the rest of the summer doesn't suck compared to camp", I found a class for girls
ages 8-18 at DePaul University. It was called "Shakespeare for Girls: the art of physical storytelling" Do I have to tell you what my girls did last week?
Jessica was Macbeth, & Rachel was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We pulled out the old book, we held plays in the living room, and once again, I got the joy
of watching my daughters enjoy something I enjoy.

Today, I went to church. I've been "back" at church for 5 months now. I am still overwhelmed by how much I took for granted "before"...before when I was
as much a part of my church as the bricks & pews. Now I have yet, in 5 months, to sit next to someone & know their name. It's the place I'm meant to be
right now, but it is nonetheless a strange place for someone who probably averaged 4 days a week in the same church over a period of 15 years ... "before"

So I'm sitting in church, settling in during the music, hoping for 1 more song to get my mind away from this headache & into the place where it needs to be.
I flip over the bulletin, to the place where I can fall into my obsessive disorder of filling in every blank, and instead of quizzing myself by seeing how
many of the scripture references I can get without looking them up, I'm faced with ... Shakespeare - Romeo & Juliet, to be precise - the balcony scene...

I immediately spot the sun & moon comparison, and relate at once to Romeo's disillusionment with false love shattering in the face of a love that is true.
But still, the sermon surprises me with a comparison of Juliet to Christ, and a fresh perspective is brought to bear on my life, my own disillusionment, and
most of all, on Christ in me, the hope of glory.

Late this afternoon, as I started up my favorite bike path in all the world, I was thinking about this place in my life where I find myself. It is certainly
a valley, one I hope doesn't last. But different from other low points in my life, I don't dread my time here or wish to escape it sooner than God would
have me to. This time, I find a sweetness & a humility in this place, and I am enjoying the knowledge that every nook & cranny of this place is designed for
my benefit, my healing, and my good.

Still, as I pedalled north, I pondered what it was about this valley that I wouldn't miss. The answer was "disconnection" - different from loneliness, as
that is not appropriate. I am busy, successful at work, in a good church, and spending better time with my children than I ever have. But I definitely
am lacking the intimacy that I have been accustomed to knowing in my relationships. Now, mind you, I left my church, divorced my husband & cohabitated
for over a year w/ a non believer, so one can hardly consider the current state of affairs as anything but for my benefit, my healing and my good. Yet
it wasn't difficult to pinpoint my least favorite part of this point in my life.

Lost in my thoughts, and easily winning the battle against self pity (again, there is so much good in this place), I missed the place where I usually
cross the river. Further north, I found a different bridge, that led right into the Batavia River Walk park. I heard amplified voices, & noticed a crowd.
It wasn't near dark yet, so I figured I'd take a break instead of going further on or turning around. As I approached, the costumes, the verbiage, the whole
flavor was unmistakable. Midsummer Night’s Theater presents Shakespeare in the Park - Much Ado About Nothing - Batavia River Walk, July 23 @ 7pm.

You've got to be kidding me. What was I just saying about feeling disconnected? Strike that, Lord. Leave me in this place, this place where you are
positively ridiculous, utterly hilarious, over the top, and completely committed to showing me how much you love me - truly, madly, deeply. And help me
to throw my head back & laugh with a joy I've never known to experience that love in big ways, small ways, medium ways, so many ways.

I am free to live. The very circumstances I bemoan leave me free on a Sunday afternoon to do what I want, when I want & experience something wonderful.
I am more free than I've ever been to live & work & parent & minister & laugh & love & read & be loved by one who would pursue me with such reckless
abandon as to leave heaven itself & bear the shame of a Roman cross and to further meet me in the park on a perfect midsummer's eve and remind me that
I am never alone, & least of all when I'm alone.

I'm the best mom ever...

I have, happy well adjusted children.

Perhaps you need to let your eyes roll over that a few more times. I know I do. I've been staring at these words for half an hour, and I'm certainly no less shocked than you are.
I'm not supposed to have happy, well adjusted kids. I'm supposed to have screwed up, neurotic kids.

Of all the moms at Camp Awana today, my kids are supposed to be the ones you worry about. They're the ones from the broken home, who's mom works too much, who were recently promoted to latch key kids at probably too young an age. They're the ones who's dad left 3 years after their mom ripped the marriage vows to shreds, who - in that time - watched their mom go to the brink of sanity & back, watched her carried away by medication, only to be brought back for the express purpose of watching their beloved grammie die. They're the ones who then saw her swept into a relationship that took her even futher from the Lord who would have rescued her at any point, watched that man move into their very home for over a year.

They're the ones who saw their daddy date girls almost half his age, one after another, always getting their hearts broken a little each time his was.

But today, oh today, what a day.

There are other moms. There are more well adjusted moms. There are more confident moms. There are moms who haven't failed at nearly every turn. There are moms with impressive records of faithfulness to God & husband behind them.

But not one of those moms has my kids. I have my kids. The happiest kids at camp. The kids who cried several times this week because they missed this flawed & insecure crazy person God has entrusted them to - but who, not for one minute, even entertained the possibility of giving up on the adventure & fun that Camp held for them. Kids who took a boat ride with me & told me what they learned from their Bible hour. Kids who made friends so quickly & well that by the end of the day, I was surrounded with kids. I was surrounded with kids that MY kids were taking care of. MY KIDS were encouraging these other kids!!! MY KIDS are memorizing scripture, telling me how they know they will go to heaven, and loving every minute of it!

I titled this blog, "I am the best mom ever" ... I was being ironic. I think rather that God is gracious & good, that he gives me more than I deserve. If you'd have told me on the day they were handed to me that this day would be like it was ... I never could have gotten my mind around it. I still can't. All I know is that every choice I've ever made for good or for ill led me to a nearly perfect day with 2 people who have blown me away & they're not even 9 and 10 years old.

They came from inside me, but now they are very much outside me, and I am so proud of them, and they are such a part of me that I don't know how to reconcile the pride I have in them & the humiliation I have known in myself.

Dear God, thank you for my children, for the ways You have protected them & molded them from such a flawed place, & for the sensitive people they are becoming. Keep them safe, and continue to reveal Yourself to them. May this week go quickly for me & may they savor every minute.

Luke 15:11-32

I don't know where to start. It's been some months since I poured all my heart into writing. And yet I have written so much in the last 3 years. I spent so much energy trying to be understood by one who was sure to never understand. Can I now pursue this effort not for his sake, but for the sake of those who might understand, who might take me before the throne and join with me in desperate pleas for healing & restoration? But where do I start? Who am I talking to? What do you already know?

I tried this the week my husband left. I tried to start writing some kind of history, some map of where I'd been in an attempt to figure out where I was at that moment in time.

I didn't finish. I got started on it, but I was hurt & scared, and when a distraction came along, I let it carry me away. Carry me away it did, and I feel now - almost 3 years later - like I've jumped mid air from the ride. I wasn't sure where it was going, but I was sure it was going "away", and before I knew for sure where "away" even was, I jumped. I feel like I've jumped out of a helicopter & I don't know where I've landed. I only know I'm closer now to where I need to be than I would have been had I stayed on that chopper for even another minute.

This time, I have not sought a distraction. I have avoided the opportunity to come upon a distraction. I have hidden from the kind of distraction that I would most likely pursue. I have buried myself in a different place. Perhaps that in itself is a distraction, but it's one that I'm ok with, the only one left that I trust not to land me further & further away from pain & disappointment.

The story of the prodigal son is such an obvious parallel, but last week, as I read another book, a new piece of it came to life for me, capturing my imagination. It says that AFTER the young man ran out of money, he "glued himself" to someone in that land.

I imagine when he made that choice, it looked like a good one. He was in a bit of a panic, having squandered what he'd thought would carry him through. Here he'd thought his funds were sufficient enough to avoid having to ever go back, to avoid having to ever admit to his error in having left, his error in having not loved his father so much that he could never ever bear to walk away & break his heart.

Yet he ran out of funds, his means came to an end.

In that moment, did he start to compile such a history, did he attempt to record his story, to figure out his life, only to gratefully find instead a distraction?

Perhaps a tall distraction with dark hair & blue eyes, smoking a cigar & drinking an apple martini, singing a favorite old song (probably that young prodigal had never heard of Cab Calloway, but I can imagine...)

I imagine a week wrought with worry as the realization became inescapable, "It's over, I don't have anything left, and I can't do it on my own" And so he "glued himself" to someone in that land. He didn't leave his father for this one, he simply did this at this time to escape any having to return. Of course, you & I know it was merely a postponement of the inevitable; but the prodigal didn't.

Or did he? How long into this "relationship" before he started having dreams of his father's house. I tend to think that the dreams preceded his envy of pigs. What justification did he use to quench the voice in his heart that told him ever so quietly that this was not what he was meant for. The voice that came when he started to see the lines around his eyes, when he looked at his children, when he realized how much his hands were starting to look like his father's hands. That voice, I'm sure, came before the physical hunger - it is a hunger all its own.
Did he tell himself that this world was better, people were real here - not fake & hypocritical. Everyone here has known pain & failure, and they don't beat eachother up about it. Did he say that his father was narrow minded & unfair? Did he tell everyone about his brother who still lived at home, the simple, foolish, coward... Did he tell himself that what he had here was real love, a love he had formerly been too fearful to embrace, a love he was lucky to have had the opportunity to find?

And yet, one day, in a single moment, a moment that surely followed so many moments - he found himself envious of a pig. All the constructions he'd tried to maintain around his choices came crashing down around him like a house of cards. All the lies he'd been trying to believe became plain.

Maybe he felt that "house of cards" analogy when he left his father's house. Maybe at that time, part of his rationalle for walking away in the first place, was just that... maybe something had happened that made him question everything, "I just gotta get outta here". You don't hear about the prodigal's mother. Did she die of pancreatic cancer just a few months before we pickup the story? Was he in love with his best friends wife, and she chose to stay with her husband? Or maybe she wanted to leave her husband & be with him, but he knew it would never fly in his father's world, and he resented his father for witholding that from him. Something made him say, "father, give me my share of the inheritance, I'm outta here"

He thought then that his whole history, all he'd ever known, was no more than a house of cards. Now he stands amid the ruins of his life again, but this time, he knows that the wreckage is by his own hand. What he has attempted to construct has not stood. He compares these ruins to the pieces of his life before, and there is a difference. Before when his life fell apart, though he didn't see it at the time, there was substance with which to rebuild (This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God may be glorified through it.). Here in this far away land, though, he looks at the ruins & sees not even ashes - all is gone with the wind.
He jumps out of the helicopter. He isn't even sure how to get home. He starts walking in the direction he guesses was right.

That one who had him dishing out pig slop, the one he'd glued himself to, did our prodigal love that one? Was it hard for him to walk away, even though it had gotten so bad? Did he go to that one first, and give them one last chance to beg to keep this relationship? Did he hope that one would see the light & make it work? Was our prodigal heartbroken when it didn't turn out that way? To realize that all the love he'd given was not returned, that this one would not try and hold on...

On the way home, was his heart breaking for what he was leaving behind? Did he almost turn around every day on the journey? Did he realize what a lie he'd fallen for? Did he think himself more foolish than any he'd ever accused of foolery? Did he come to realize that he'd been as dishonest as anyone in this tradgedy, pretending not to be of his father's house, pretending to belong in this far off land...

did he see others on his way? other's who would recognize him from his early days out of his father's house? "Hey, YOU, what's going on? Where've you been? Come walk with us!" Or maybe in his shame & melancholy, they didn't recognize him at all. He knew them, though, and they no longer drew him. He was painfully aware that they represented only a counterfeit, only a lie spoon fed to him by the father of lies. He marched steadfastly in the direction of his father's house, no strength left in him to risk anything that might further disappoint, only the strength to march single mindedly to the one place he knew he would be safe.

And yet his heart broke all the way. how long did it take him to get home? How many days & nights did he spend in doubt & fear of regret being piled on regret if all his hopes were proved wrong yet again? How many miles did he march, never trusting his own instincts, even the ones that had him marching back to his father? He only practiced his speech, knowing that if he knew it by heart, if he could stammer it out by memory, he could pour it forth from his lips without the requirement of having to think about it, without having to feel the words as they came out of his mouth.

But you know what happened. If you didn't, I wouldn't send you this letter & beg you to pray for me. You know that the father was watching, waiting, hoping for this one to return. You know that he had been all along. You know that he ran out to meet him while he was still a long way off, that he put the best robe on him & a ring on his finger. You know that there was a party and the fatted calf was the main course.

but the prodigal on his way home didn't know. the prodigal on his way home must have felt scared & numb & sorry & heartbroken. the thought of his brother's face must have caused him to vomit on the side of the rode more than once in fear of just what HE might say (or even worse, NOT say)

The story doesn't focus on this moment of doubt, what must be the darkest hour just before the dawn. The story isn't about that. All of what I've speculated here is just that - speculation - pure conjecture. And surely God will not leave me long in this place of doubt, surely my heart will not stay broken for that which broke it. But perhaps it will stay broken, broken before Him,
Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I'm constrained to be
Let Thy goodness like a fetter bind my wandring heart to Thee
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love
Here, my heart, Lord, take & seal it; seal it for Thy courts above