Something tectonic in me shifted this past Tuesday afternoon, about which I’m only slowly coming into words. I remind myself the gift is the visceral freedom, the felt-sense of release and receiving both at the same time, neither of which can be grasped by prose. Poetry is un-grasping language, but even poetry may not touch the feeling I yet want to honor, point to, even give witness? Might I be comfortable being a “good news of healing” voice today? An evangelical for healing? (Wry smile, tongue in cheek, reminding myself not to bite down and hurt my tongue or cheek).
When you have friends deeply attuned to body-wisdom(s), you get help in honoring the feelings, even from afar. “...again I feel the electric nature of it” I received via text this morning. Blessedly.
The weekend offered yet another round in what my beloved and I refer to as The Great Matter. We no longer give credence or energy to her by name, even as we recognize each new round is yet the next invitation into healing we both need.
He came to speech about his inability to believe truly he did nothing wrong, even though everyone has affirmed there was absolutely no misconduct. We have all the paperwork to prove the danger of church-damage comes from her, not him. All the same, he knows not how to forgive himself, to receive that his mentoring and hope for leadership-formation in a young staff-woman in his charge at the church was offered with pure heart and beautiful wisdom. How does he forgive himself when there is nothing to forgive? That is his challenge, his sacred invitation. He needs to resolve and relinquish his regret, learn to refuse the self-condemnations that come so easily in his deeply wounded ancestral lineage(s). Shorthand is that he needs to forgive himself (because he perceives misdeeds). He needs to quit being so proud, avoiding the fallible reality that he missed it. He didn’t see it. He couldn’t see what was happening. He tries to blame himself by blaming some grief he carries, but even there, there was no wrong. He simply didn’t know a lot of which he knows painfully now. As many men do, he feels deep shame when he doesn’t know what he feels he ought to know. He should stop that now, already. Those of us who love him deeply and well are waiting for him to season his pride with sacred fallibility and vulnerability to our love now.
I realized that my work–surprise surprise (eye-roll)–has to do with deepening trust in him, in his capacity to act for his own well-being and mine, for our own well-being alongside that of his church. I spoke forcefully about this a week before this “next round” unfolded over the weekend: “You simply canNOT act for your own well-being, in seemingly any way! You don’t value yourself enough to act on your own behalf, EVER!” Yes, I was frustrated. Yes, it was not an artfully loving way for a wife to say she loves her husband. But I do, and I’m afraid that he cannot advocate or act for his own health, well-being, needs. I don’t trust him to do so, particularly in this situation, which can paralyze him in fear–of accusations, of loss of job, of shame and humiliation as a man facing a scorned and unhealthy young woman whom he had attempted to mentor. So I came to speech about my inability to trust him in this way… Because in his fierceness for me, as he can see it? His devotion and tenacity are rabidly loyal. But if it also benefits him, is for his own well-being, he stalls, unable.
Blessedly, and with deep gratitude for a world that gifts when we risk our gifts: Our mutual incapacities have yet led to this sense of tectonic shift somehow…a feeling of movement, peaceableness, shift open. Perhaps because I did step into trusting him in a new way even as I also offered my own gifts and position on behalf of him, his church, and our marriage.
I pursued an opening that was offered me over dinner with friends on Friday night, doing so from my presbyter-role which did not require full disclosure with my husband…yet. When it became timely, I shared with my husband, as his wife, what I had begun, unknowing whether it was truly an opening or not. His near panic attack scared me and if anger or fury were his way, he would have been furious with me. He probably was. So this was my trusting that he would eventually realize it was the right call, even if it was not his idea, choice, or instigation. Within the hour, I learned that it was an opening, that I would be speaking to my colleague about The Great Matter, if only professionally, with boundaries and caution for confidentiality. As much confidentiality as could be mustered to protect while also speaking truth gently and with lament. My calling as presbyter who is charged with the honoring and protection of congregational members required it, even were it to bring ire and legal accusations motivated by projection and hatred. This “ruined” the days-away with my beloved, in one sense, even as they were apparently just as they were supposed to be, for our deepening connection and growth personally and as a couple. He did thank me for stepping out in faith, 24 hours after his near-panic attack about it.
So what leads here, into freedom?
Part of the tectonic shift for me was being welcomed by the church, in a particular branch of the Church, “because there was something on my heart that I needed to share.” Those words from the associate pastor softened something in me. The opening prayer brought open a gentle exclamation–or maybe invocation–Oh, I love the church, I said. I love the church. [This effusive exclamation will surprise many who have known me best these last years, given my work of digesting bewilderment and a sensate awareness of abandonment :) I wouldn’t have said it if I hadn’t felt it so deeply–then, and now]. This day, I felt the energetics of Spirit and spirit listening about to open with two other folks in this Body of Humanity (that denominationally can often be so inhumane). I spoke as a presbyter first, then as a preacher’s wife. I tried to speak as sparely as possible while yet naming the potential damages I could see, have experienced myself. I closed us in prayer. As I walked out, there was something electric in me, changed, charged.
I had been deeply heard.
What I felt nudged to name was awkward, but deeply appreciated by those receiving it.
It was costly to name, but useful.
It opened the way for a confidential, established discernment process to deepen, then conclude.
This round finished.
I called a friend on the way home, left a voice message. I then called another who I rarely call unscheduled but who is close-in most days anyway. We spoke for the 5 minutes each of us had. They felt the change, the charge.
The gift is the visceral freedom, the felt-sense of release and receiving both at the same time, neither of which can be grasped by prose. I spent some time in a darkened, solitary and silent sanctuary, gratitude overflowing into song.
Vindicated? Is that it? Finally found to be right or justified from without, and completely honored from within (myself & my marriage) when previously ignored or refused to be so? To be honest, the tender part of me probably does like that word, but it doesn’t really name the mysterious forgiving force that found us this weekend too. It was a sense of Intimacy or Spirit that drew me to the sanctuary. Not being right or justified.
A visceral freedom and felt-sense of release, relief, gratitude.
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