Death... Thank God for my Divorce! (part 2 of 7)

I drank an entire bottle of Pinot Noir in 3 minutes!

When the sidewalk started spinning, I thought, 

"Perfect, that's the way I feel inside."

My world was reeling. The woman I love no longer wanted to be with me. 

One blessing of my divorce is a learning about Humility. Although I knew that something wasn't working, I simply could not find it in me to ask for help. I could delude myself as long as she stayed. I could convince myself things weren't all that bad, but on the day she took me to the judge, denial shattered. 

photo by Suzanne

We weren't making it. We weren't flying. We weren't even close. 

"That's the ground rushing up at you, Len. That's the end of the rope you're hanging on to."

I finally had to admit that I don't know what I'm doing. I began to realize how smart that woman is. I've read a few relationship books and listened to a few gurus,  and I'm amazed at how much of what they tell me is an echo of something she told me years earlier. 

The thing is, I wasn't listening.  The shock of knowing that this woman I adore thinks her life is better without me in it, that shock activated a new response, something I hadn't tried before. I shall call it listening. When I finally sobered up, I began to ask questions and listen. 

First question: "What the hell just happened?"

Answer: "Your wife doesn't like you or trust you."

Second question: "Why not?"

Answer: "Do you really want to hear this?"

I would ask her and then interpret the answer to suit my preconceptions. I thought I already knew so I only half listened, enough to patronize, not really intending to hear. For some reason, I finally heard the problem clearly when a man explained it to me.

At this point, she was too deeply hurt to talk to me, so I started asking around, and by Grace I happened to ask some men with thriving families who were anything but gentle in letting me know how many ways I had ignored the signals. 

Why did I hear when a man said to me all the same things my wife had been saying for years? I don't know but that's the way it worked out. Somewhere there's a man reading this and I hope you hear me, cause there's a good chance your woman has already told you what you need to know and you think she's just crazy. 

I am grateful for my divorce because it taught me to listen, even when I think I know. 

I threw up on that sidewalk after midnight in February of 2005. Not the most beautiful ceremony, but certainly fit for occasion. A place to bury denial. A moment to confront death. 

More painful than heartache, more necessary than knowledge, the death of an ego. 

Photo by Rory Peters

When the student is ready, teachers appear. . .

If It Ain't Broke... Thank God For My Divorce! (part 1 of 7)

I do not believe in divorce. I am a divorced man.  The irony is not wasted on me. 

Thank God for my divorce?

I've heard people use that phrase in so many ways. Often the connotation is "thank God I'm finally rid of that person, 'cause I really can't stand them."

I am not happy to be rid of my wife. I miss her very much. I think our relationship was highly successful and we're just getting to the good parts. Crazy as it may sound, divorce is one of the best things that ever happened to us. Let me tell you why.

photo by Zoe Pamintuan

I knew our marriage wasn't working. It wasn't all the way broken, just cracked, so I would invest only  enough energy to patch it up so we could limp along another mile. We would maintain it enough to survive until the next winter. I knew that we could be more, but how to get there? At that time there were precious few examples in my life of a thriving marriage. 

Thriving has always been far more attractive to me than surviving. If we're simply trying to survive marriage, or for that matter, survive life, I think it's time to make a choice. One option is to let go. The other is to grab hold with both hands and create what you envision. It's like Andy Dufresne says in Shawshank Redemption, "Get busy living, or get busy dying."

My choice was to go along, to remain passive. Just so we're clear, when there are options and one is to live,  the other may cast various shades of passive complacency, but it is nevertheless a choice to die, slowly. Over against vibrant marriage, the default choice is slow death, the hope that our bodies will give out before our marriages do, at which point we can consider that a successful marriage. 

Really?

About one year into marriage I realized it takes more than just love to make things work. I'd actually just read something by M. Scott Peck that left me knowing I needed to understand commitment on a deeper level. 

I didn't know what needed to change. I also didn't want to find out, because that would require work. I was in love, but lazy. What I did know was that change is difficult and painful. I was afraid to face the pain of becoming the man I could be, so I just let things lie. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?

When I asked God how to engage my wife in real, unfeigned love, the response was,  "your relationship is based on lies; we'll have to take it apart and put it back together the right way."

I really like something Professor Henry Foster shared with me. In a discussion about business paradigms, he said, "If it ain't broke, break it!"

I think that is what God did for me. He broke my marriage to save me from surviving it, and for this I am grateful. 

photo by Jade Pondella

Inner Man

30 days at the beach. My photos drew comment on Facebook. Some wished they were there. Some feigned jealousy well enough to fool me. One comment jabbed me right in the soul...

"it's beautiful there, but you're all alone"

It stuck. And it stung. 

For $11.75 at the box office I can buy vicarious strength 90 minutes at a time. But the movie ends and I'm left with the reality that I'm weak and tired. Not strong enough, never was. Nobody's hero. 

Some people are energized by social interaction. I have to get away and be still, alone with God. People drain me. I love people--they still drain me. It's one of the great ironies of my life. I'm an introvert assigned to extrovert duties. 

When divorce took me apart, there was deathly silence on the 6th floor. I had thought to always have company in my soul, at least while I live here. Instead I find myself entertaining echoes. Time slowed and sound departed. 

By various means of amusement and distraction, I set about to avoid being alone. Movies, visitors, conversations, self-improvement, study, overwork, business and busy-ness. 

I went home to make peace with loneliness. Loneliness is part death, and there comes a time to face them both. For me, it is time. The conversation to which I was summoned, required that I appear on my own. To stick my feet in the sand and make sure they still fit. My soul hung out to dry from the weariness of living. 

On the beach God reminded me about Sabbath and Marriage. Monument and memorial to Rest and Intimacy. 

On that beach I read Graham Cooke's "Towards developing a powerful inner life." Thank you, Laura and Leslie, for that gift. 

Ephesians 3:16 prays strengthening for my inner man. It's a prayer for internal fortitude. For a stronger shadow. 

 

I've never been weaker. I'm ok with that. 

Power Pilates Trainer

Boeing 757. 

She's reading "The Omnivore's Dilemma," by Michael Pollan. I'm in the window seat; she has the aisle. One empty between us. She opens the conversation:

"I hope nobody takes that seat. Should be a pretty light flight." 

She's a fitness trainer from Florida.  A self-proclaimed purist, she practices the teachings of Joe Pilates. 

"Joe Pilates was a machinist. He built a machine to help people do the routine. I like the method the way it was created and I try to stay very close to it. It's a very systematic routine and it builds on itself as you get stronger."

I'm thoroughly impressed at how well she knows her subject. But of course she does--she's been doing this over 25 years.

Back to the machine...  "It's not like a piece of gym equipment. You have to be present and centered. You don't have to count. Don't think too much. Just feel it."

She's on her way to see her husband. It's his birthday today. 

"I'm his present," she jokes. "There's a reason humans lose their vision as they get older. It's so your husband can't see you properly so he still thinks you're beautiful."

"I use a lot of imagery when I teach. Not all images work for all people. Like I might say to one person, funnel your ribs, and to another soften your ribs. I might say, pretend you're putting on a vest and now go through the process of fastening each button. Ideao-kinesis, it's what Tiger Woods does..."

"Pilates has a rhythm to it. Sometimes it's quick and staccato, and sometimes more waltz-like. If you saw a group of teachers being taught by another teacher it would look like ninjas."

I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation. I'm glad that seat was empty. 

She's right--it is really hard to stand still on your toes with your eyes closed. I tried it after we landed.

A single phrase to describe my friend Sue Elliott: Excellent Traveling Company

Late in the evening

First thing I remember, she's dancing round the kitchen with a cup of sugar floating in her hands, yeah...

Record player in the corner, Paul Simon's One Trick Pony. 

She's a professional video editor, working in film and tv. It's very cool watching movie trailers made by someone you know.

Last weekend she produced the 48-hour Film-A-Thon, a collaboration of film-makers at Cinema Divina, creating a short film from start to finish, idea to screening, in 48 hours!!!

Next thing I remember, there's a pie crust on the counter and I'm making sure I roll the edges thin, yeah...

It's been such a fun day. 

Earlier, at the tarpits, I asked for 5 things I didn't already know about her. Got more than 5...

Likes rockclimbing

Studied martial arts and fencing

Loves the smell of a photography darkroom

Had her photography published in Performer magazine

Studied theater for two years and even started a theater club

Filmed a documentary in India about a young girl sold into slavery

Salmon and broiled Chard, Big Chill soundtrack, apple pie from scratch, Coen brothers filmography. 

That's what it is! 

It's the way she connects then and now, contemporary with old school. It's that she's teaching me what's new in film-making, but her shoes and her dance and her art and her dreams belong to earlier times. That's what it is. It's that I'm in the 20's and the 2000's at the same time!

Last thing I remember,  we're Raising Arizona and I'm heading for the door and walking home, yeah...

It's late in the evening, and the music's seeping through. 

A single phrase to describe my friend Julia Alty: New Old School

At least one

Office phone rings...

"Good afternoon, Hollywood Adventist Church, this is Lennox."

Voice on the other end: "What's up, Lenny Len! I'm heading your way. 

Got a spot in North Hollywood to show you."

I've been hoping to catch up with this guy for a few weeks now. He's got a lot going on, so I completely understand when our schedules don't coincide. 

California Subs turns out to be everything he promised. Their mixed fruit smoothie and Italian Sub on sourdough leave nothing to be desired.

We talk about his growing success as an actor. His recent performance on CBS's Cold Case airs May 3. 

I once asked him why it is that he gets roles when others can't even get auditions.  He said, "You gotta know what you want and if anyone says you can't have it, that should upset you. If you tell me I can't get it, that pisses me off."

Today he adds, "I would much rather live on the dangerous side, than not realize my full potential."

I ask him what he likes so much about acting. He says it's the chance to feel so many different life experiences and make them his own. "You can experience firsthand what people go through."

I ask if he has fans. He replies, "at least one"

He was on audition recently and practicing his lines when another actor, auditioning for the same role, said "You were on Eleventh Hour, right? I only watched one episode and you were in it. I thought you were really good!"

At first he thought someone was playing a joke on him, but then he realized the guy was serious. Amazing to me how humble is this friend of mine, so talented, so informed, so brilliant. 

I'm also a fan. I'd say you now have at least two fans, sir. My guess is there will be thousands more. 

A single phrase to describe my friend Dennis Hill: Actor Ambassador King

The Other African

She pulled me aside on the ramp outside the main room at church. She's so fun. Exciting to be around. Some people just have that presence. It's not that she talks all that much or cracks jokes all the time, because she doesn't. But there's such fire in her eyes, you definitely sense a real live person in there watching you. Dancing with you, even when you're standing still. 

She's said so many encouraging things to me before. From the first moment we met, she's been building me up. 

She says I'm a gifted musician, and what musician doesn't love that? She says I'm a great songwriter and guitarist. I'm eating this stuff up. When she slows me down this day on the way out of church, I'm braced for another helping of compliments, thank you very much.  

"You were great today, Len"

"Thanks." I'm smiling. Yeah, I like this. 

"Do you believe all that stuff you were saying?"

"Yeah, of course. Don't you?" 

Strange question. Seems an odd way to set up the next compliment. But I'm down with variety. 

"So how come you're not living it?"

"huh?"    and by huh,  I mean "What the...?"

"It's called Lip Service, Len. Clever words about how much you love God and how much you love your wife, but that's not what your actions represent. When are you going to stop paying Lip Service and actually live the stuff you say?"

Emotional Response In My Head: "Who the hell do you think you are, Merna Osborne? And what gave you the idea I want your opinion right now?"

What I Say Out Loud: "duh, ah, um, well, ayah, uh, hmmmm..."

Proverbs 27:6 Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but deceitful the kisses of an enemy. 

My friends don't always say nice things to me all the time. That's how I know they're my friends. About 5 years ago, my friend asked me some tough questions. I am grateful to her for caring enough to tell me the truth. 

 A single phrase to describe my friend Merna Osborne: Dancing Spirit Action