“[A] Christian sexual ethic is a process of transforming eros into agape.”

– Richard Beck

Love is hardly love if it is lazy.

The death of a spouse after a long and fulfilling marriage in quite a different thing. Perhaps I have never felt more closely the strength of God’s presence than I did during the months of my husband’s dying and after his death. It did not wipe away the grief. The death of a beloved is an amputation. But when two people marry, each one has to accept that one of them will die before the other (xii–xiii).

Such insightful and poetic words from Madeleine L’Engle. It is true: Either Carla or I will predecease the other, and that will feel like an amputation.

Reading A Grief Observed during my own grief made me understand that each experience of grief is unique (xiii).

I must remember that as I age and my friends’ spouses die.

Like Lewis, I, too, kept a journal, continuing a habit started when I was eight. It is all right to wallow in one’s journal; it is a way of getting rid of self-pity and self-indulgence and self-centeredness. What we work out in our journals we don’t take out on family and friends (xiv).

I appreciate her recognition that, as Carla has taught me, it is important to vent so that we don’t hurt those around us.

I am grateful, too, to Lewis for having the courage to yell, to doubt, to kick at God with angry violence. This is part of healthy grief not often encouraged. It is helpful indeed that C. S. Lewis, who has been such a successful apologist for Christianity, should have the courage to admit doubt about what he has so superbly proclaimed. It gives us permission to admit our own doubts, our own angers and anguishes, and to know that they are part of the soul’s growth (xvi).

Geez. Had I only known people were so comfortable with their own doubts about God and Jesus and the whole shebang when I was going through my throes of existential doubt!

And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief. Except at my job—where the machine seems to run on much as usual—I loathe the slightest effort. Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much. Even shaving. What does it matter now whether my cheek is rough or smooth? (5)

Warning! When Carla dies, still take your walks. Call people to hang out. Do your work. Unless you want to just die, too.

The act of living is different all through. Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything. (11)

Lewis is not outshone in poetry by his formidable foreword writer. I am certain Carla’s death will seem just like he describes. It will (dis)color everything.

But her voice is still vivid. The remembered voice—that can turn me at any moment into a whimpering child. (16)

Again, I suspect the same will be true of me when Carla dies.

‘Because she is in God’s hands.’ But if so, she was in God’s hands all the time, and I have seen what they did to her here. Do they suddenly become gentler to us the moment we are out of the body? And if so, why? (27)

The poor Calvinist!

Sometimes it is hard not to say, ‘God forgive God.’ Sometimes it is hard to say so much. But if our faith is true, He didn’t. He crucified Him. (28)

Wrong.

Come, what do we gain by evasions? We are under the harrow and can’t escape. Reality, looked at steadily, is unbearable. (28)

No, it’s not.

Doesn’t all the prima facie evidence suggest exactly the opposite [of God being good]? (29)

No.

Feelings, and feelings, and feelings. Let me try thinking instead. From the rational point of view, what new factor has H.’s death introduced into the problem of the universe? What grounds has it given me for doubting all that I believe? I knew already that these things, and worse, happened daily. I would have said that I had taken them into account. I had been warned—I had warned myself—not to reckon on worldly happiness. We were even promised sufferings. They were part of the programme. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accepted it. I’ve got nothing I haven’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not in imagination. Yes; but should it, for a sane man, make quite such a difference as this? No, And it wouldn’t for a man whose faith had been real faith and whose concern for other people’s sorrows had been real concern. The case is too plain. If my house has collapsed at one blow, that is because it was a house of cards (36–37).

Crucial, both for those who know they are doubting because of the problem of evil and for those who think they aren’t.

In which sense may it be a house of cards? Because the things I am believing are only a dream, our because I only dream that I believe them? (39)

That’s an important distinction of which I’d never thought.

They call Stephen the first martyr. Hadn’t Lazarus the rawer deal? (41)

An excellent one-liner. Ah, but it was Lazarus’ experience that brought us the Gospel according to “John”!

A sinful woman married to a sinful man; two of God’s patients, not yet cured. I know there are not only tears to be dried but stains to be scoured. The sword will be made brighter (42).

Who knew belief in purgatory existed among Protestants? Certainly not I. But now I do: Richard Beck, Jerry Walls, C.S. Lewis, Brad Jersak—heck, all the universalists, I suppose. Thinking of the afterlife makes so much more sense with a purgatorial hell.

What do people mean when they say, ‘I am not afraid of God because I know He is good’? Have they never been to a dentist? 43

I love it when Lewis zings.

You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately; anyway, you can’t get the best out of it. ‘Now! Let’s have a real good talk’ reduces everyone to silence. ‘I must get a good sleep tonight’ ushers in hours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst. Is it similarly the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feel we are staring into a vacuum when think about our dead? (45)

I remember those October laps around the Holiday Inn in Orlando.

For a good wife contains so many persons in herself. What was H. not to me? She was my daughter and my mother, my pupil and my teacher, my subject and my sovereign; and always, holding all these in solution, my trusty comrade, friend, shipmate, fellow-soldier. My mistress, but at the same time all that any man friend (and I have good ones) has ever been to me. :perhaps more. (47–48)

This is how I view Carla, and I told her so.

Getting over it so soon? But the words are ambiguous. To say the patient is getting over it after an operation for appendicitis in one thing; after he’s had his leg off is quite another. After that operation either the wounded stump heals or the man dies. If it heals, the fierce, continuous pain will stop. Presently he’ll get back his strength and be able to stump about on his wooden leg. He has ‘got over it.’ But he will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones; and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off. Duties too. At present I am learning to get about on crutches. Perhaps I shall presently be given a wooden leg. But I shall never be a biped again. (52-53)

My, but does his man has a knack for finding the right metaphors to explain his thoughts! L’Engle and Lewis agree: Losing a spouse to death is an amputation.

The notes have been about myself, and about H., and about God. In that order. The order and the proportions exactly what they ought not have been. And I see that I have nowhere fallen into that mode of thinking about either which we call praising them. Yet that would have been best for me. (62)

God, You equipped me to not repeat Lewis’ mistake here. Thank You.

An incurable abstract intellect

Excuse me, Mr. Lewis. Did you call me?

To me, however, their danger is more obvious. Images of the Holy easily become holy images—sacrosanct. My idea of God is not a divine idea. It has to be shattered time after time. He shatters it Himself. He is the great iconoclast. Could we not almost say that this shattering is one of the marks of His presence? (66)

Sure seems like it.

And now that I come to think of it, there’s no practical problem before me at all. I know the two great commandments, and I’d better get on with them. (69–70)

Amen, preach it, Brother.

To make an organism which is also a spirit; to make that terrible oxymoron, a ‘spiritual animal.’ To take a poor primate, a beast with never-endings all over it, a creature with a stomach that wants to be filled, a breeding animal that wants its mate, and say, ‘Now get on with it. Become a god’ (72)

Indeed. Thanks a bundle, God. No really, I mean it: It’s absurd and exactly what I want at the same time.

My overall takeaway: It scares me a little that I have read this and Dementia in the same year. Carla may very well predecease me, and I appear to be attempting to get ready for that contingency.

The main way to be ready: Remember to continue to live after she dies! But remember to grieve ferociously in order to do that!

“…[w]ith humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves…” (Paul). This is a crucial verse for me if I’m going to bear the fruit of love. It’s this regard of others as more important than myself that is going to turn up my inner hearth of love for others. Without that phrase, my love risks being too mechanical, too principled. If I can honestly regard others as more important than myself, I will fulfill the second Great Commandment.

To love = to give a damn about (1) the good of and/or (2) the enjoyment of relationship with

My new definition of love: to devote oneself to the good, wellbeing, or flourishing of and the enjoyment of relationship with.

In order for me to maximally productive at work, I have to be cutthroat with all non-work items. I have to forcefully box out distraction, daydreaming, and other (non-work) people and their agendas.

But that’s no way to live your home life!

Love in one’s home life means primarily the enjoyment of relationship with those around you and acting for others’ good by relating and enjoying and resting with them. Work is necessary in home life—and indeed, even for love’s sake it is necessary—but it isn’t primary. It serves the primary purpose of enjoyment. And besides, home life flows like water, it’s stochastic, it’s unpredictable, it’s got a bunch of other people and animals and neighbors and friends that can’t be controlled like one’s own attention can be controlled.

So I need to have two mindsets:

At home, I will not abandon my getting-things-done agendas, which are after all mostly built on love, but I will let the direct relational and enjoyment modes of love take precedence. I will go with the flow comprised of everybody else’s wishes and needs (and my own, for that matter—let’s not forget that rest and occasionally following one’s whim is important).

At work, since love in one’s job life is indeed primarily about productivity for the sake of the “family farm”—although not entirely (think of the joys of turning my attention 100% to others when they interrupt me!)—I will continue to hone that blade.

“More than anything else I am thankful to Jesus for being patient with me and for remembering me when I have forgotten whose I am” (John Swinton, Dementia, x).

You know the allure of your own little child first thing in the morning, how it’s irresistible to give them all your loving attention, to hold them, coo over them, think the world of them, and feel ready to give the world to them? Two notes about that:

1. This is the way God feels about you.
2. This is the way God wants us to feel about each other, not just our own kids.

“Not one of those men had ever suggested that a person could be ‘called to anything but ‘full-time Christian service,’ by which they meant either the ministry or the ‘the mission field’” (Jayber Crow, 43).

You can be called to anything in which you can love.

Before opening my mouth I always ask “Is what I’m about to say edifying?”

To which my brain answers, “One way to find out.”

— “Failing Pastor”

I have asked You, Lord, for answers to the following questions, which are really the same:

• Why was it Your plan that Jesus be crucified?
• What, objectively, happened at the Crucifixion other than the obvious? Where, other than in the minds of humans, does the Crucifixion accomplish anything?

Tonight, I believe I received two more pieces to the answer in the form of questions put to me:

1. “What, objectively, happens when you spank a child or put him or her in timeout?” The answer is nothing. What happens is all in minds: the mind of the child, the mind of the parents, and the minds of observers.
2. “If Carla ignored you for a year, would it be OK to simply forgive her and let bygones be bygones, and pretend nothing happened?” The answer is no—for her sake and for mine, no.

That latter point is related to Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo.

Yesterday on our drive home from Sullivan’s band concert at Park Forest Middle School, Carla asked what our distinguishing traits were within the family. We ended up calling her hilarious, Sullivan inventive, Éa strong, and, after “stinky” was offered, “kind” and “loving.” How about that! My life is complete.

I enjoyed today how although I was worried that I wasn’t going to be able to bring anything to church, at the last minute as we approached our taking of the wine and bread, I thought of “What A Friend I’ve Found” by Delirious?, which I had just run through with Carla, the Rookes, and Ben last weekend on a whim. I need to remember not to worry so much. Just follow my whim. Especially with music making. I ought not make music simply because I have a voice for it. I ought to make music when it is in the service of love only. Is love the post hoc pretext that covers a selfish ambition for praise or usefulness? Or is love the actual, prompting reason I’m doing the singing? Let it always be the latter.

I feel a certain reorientation in my reading life these past two days, and it has to do with love. If I am to do everything in love, then I am to:

• choose what to read in love, that is, in thanksgiving that there are so many good books from which to choose,
• choose what to read for love, that is, thinking of the books’ relative capacity to facilitate or express my love for God and love for others—by which I mean specific others around me, not just books that will answer questions raised by what other people on the Internet are thinking about,
• read savoringly, because to do so any other way is a waste of time that benefits no one, including myself, unless I’m reading purely for information, and is therefore unloving. Reading for understanding, entertainment, or aesthetics doesn’t even happen if I don’t read savoringly.
• read only at times when I can read savoringly, a constraint which will have the added benefit of making my responsiveness to the actual world around me much better and thus my actual total quantity and quality of love in any given day.

Also, when I switch to reading articles, I should be selective enough with my Instapaper queue that I find it easy to pay close attention to each article I do read and I get through it all in a timely manner. Basically a miniature version of the above rules.

With movies, it is easier:

• I love God while watching movies because I watch them in thanksgiving.
• I love Carla while watching movies because she wanted time to watch movies together to be a part of our life. We wouldn’t be watching movies together if I didn’t like her.
• Movies are shared activities, if passive ones. They are much easier therefore to meet the “to the enjoyment of relationship with” portion of my definition of love.

love noun 1 fondness and esteem that leads one to act toward the good of and the enjoyment of relationship with

love verb 1 to esteem someone or something as to be gladly willing to donate of one’s self (e.g., attention, energy, time, material resources, money) for the their good 2 to esteem someone or something as to prioritize their needs

“God loved us while we were yet monsters.”

— Richard Beck, riffing on Paul

The Cross was for us, not for God. What glorious condescension!

Twitter is a way to surround yourself with the most interesting people in the world—to the detriment of your engagement with the people around you.

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

— Maya Angelou

When the apostles returned, they gave an account to Him of all that they had done. Taking them with Him, He withdrew by Himself to a city called Bethsaida. But the crowds were aware of this and followed Him; and welcoming them, He began speaking to them about the kingdom of God and curing those who had need of healing (Luke 9:10-11).

Sometimes—probably often—Jesus gave preference to the needs, desires, and priorities of others over His own.

After an evening with Ben for the Roomful of Teeth concert at Schwab Auditorium, a lunchtime with Ernest yesterday, and a long campus walk with Mark last night, I reported to the Rookes that Carla says I abuse introverts. I hope it’s not true. Lord, may I be slow to speak.

Baby, I need your lovin' Got to have all your lovin'

— The Four Tops

I woke up with these lines in my head yesterday morning. They were not accompanied by any assurance that they were from God. Perhaps I should stop noting the ones I’m not sure about, lest I give the impression that I’m suffering from severe confirmation bias.

Yet there is no reason to not make something good of this delivery from my subconscious mind: God wants all my loving. Actually, to be more precise, my first, most prophetic-sounding idea from this lyric was one of keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead, not frittering my attention on wasteful, lustful, unloving. It’s basically a reiteration of [1 Corinthians 16:14](1 Corinthians 16:14).

We are ready to send Everett and Oak home. But we’re not. I’m sure these are the typical feelings of a foster parent. Life is going to be different. Quieter. This evening without them because they’re with Mommy and Daddy makes that sure. But as Everett would surely reciprocate, “I will miss you, Everett.” And I will miss you, Oak. We still have three weeks with them, so let’s make them count.

We asked Éa and Sullivan today whether they’d like to foster again. Sullivan said, “I’d like a year.” And Éa said, “Yeah, in like, five thousand weeks.”

A home is fuller if you’re stretched for the sake of relationships. Let us dig in to more people. Let us “love [our] enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return” (Luke 6:35). Then I will live without regret.