Segment #4

Vacation Day Two: Then and Now.

When I was jotting down thoughts in my journal this morning, for some reason I turned back to the first thing I wrote after it was given to me as a gift of friendship. The wish expressed was that this would begin to open my heart and soul to God, and allow Him to speak to me through my writing; to start an anointed time in my life, and to embrace how God was going to use me. Mind you, I really struggle with this divine “here’s what I want you to do, Brian” concept. I had no idea at the time that the following words would lead to what feels like the complete deconstruction of my life...brick by brick…nothing remaining but the scaffolding.

The dedication written on the first page of the journal reads:
Tuesday, March 29, 2005

To Brian Kagan – Servant of the living God – my Brother, my friend.

I look forward to feasting at your table with the manna of the Harvest the Lord will give you as you set your heart to write once again. Listen to the Holy Whispers; write down the words; remember the faithfulness of our God.

I believe in you, so Write.

Then, my first entry reads:
3.29.05

“And the lamb roared.
And my heart whispered.
And my Lord smiled.

The vessel emptied
Is more than I can possibly consume.
I am bloated.
Yet He continues to drench my heart
with intoxicating grace
and a love,
a love so embracing and intimate
that I lose myself.
Dizzy, I collapse into His arms.

The rock rolls away slowly
Revealing the light through the darkness.
I believe.
‘Come with me now.’

The heart of God is the place the
human heart seeks and longs for, the
only place where our hearts will find rest.

One simple moment with our heart in
restful reflection with God is more revealing
than the total reasoning of mankind.”

For the longest time I figured that God’s throne was in this place somewhere above. Sure, the cloud images come to mind with people floating “cumulusly” in their white satin robes, perfect smiles…you know the scene. And then, I read this 17^th century Christian author who through the acceptance of his own, found a peaceful and majestic throne quietly nestled in his heart, absent of all external things or needs. The grandeur of a single flickering candle.

Fenelon/Meditations on the Heart of God

How prophetic, now looking back. A preview of what was to come; words and moments stained with tears glistening in God’s candlelight.

And now, today’s entry reads:
This “time alone with God” thing is not so easy!

Ache in the pit of my stomach. Wondering whether I remembered to take my meds this morning; if I did…they’re not working. Walking with Bentley this morning almost brought me to tears. Yesterday he did bring me to tears. Big tears. Long tears and shuddering cries. This part of the “honesty” thing is a bit tricky. I’m not sure how my Wild at Heart male peers will respond to the image of a 54 year-old man lying on the living room floor weeping, shaking, drooling, chest heaving, the dog licking the tear-mixed mucous streaks from my face as if he knows my pain… guilt… repentance… brokenness. And he still loves me. Not the macho, butt-slapping locker room image.

So, there’s the dichotomy. Then. Now.

Flipping through the journal, I begin to notice the pages where the dark began seeping into the light, subtle and miniscule at first, distributing its thick-tar poison into the surface and imbedding itself deeper and deeper into my wounds. Spreading. Burning. I remember conversations with my friends reminding me that “The Dark One” does not want us to feel real Love, Joy, Hope, Light, Friendship. These “good” feelings must be replaced with Jealousy, Doubt, Fear, Desperation, Loneliness. Still, I sense something that feels like a gentle whisper calling me to come closer. Inviting and encouraging me to come home. Like the silent voice and unmoving hands of the father, welcoming home and embracing the younger son in Rembrandt’s haunting masterpiece, Return of the Prodigal Son. Coming home, after being dead, embraced with gifts of love. Realizing there is a fine line between the pigsty, where we wallow in the slop of our futile attempts to “make right” the wrongs, and then a celebration. The Father showering him with unconditional love…just for coming home.

The room is very still. The dog is sleeping on the couch next to me as I write. His belly is full. It rises and falls, rises and falls….

Vacation Day Three: A Smile on the Way Back

OK, having read back through the last few entries I’m beginning to understand the full impact of Jim’s comment a few sessions ago, “It must suck to be you.” Truth is that it’s not all that bad, this alone thing. Well, the rest of the truth is that so far I have discovered that I have real friends giving me unconditional support and love and caring. Not that any one of them is trying to “make it all better”, mind you. An example came yesterday during coffee with a good friend. When he listened to some of the trails I have covered the last few months, a broad smile began spilling across on his face. Seeing my eyes widen into a post-bludgeoned look he inserted, “Please, Brian, please don’t take my smile as in any way minimizing the struggles and pain you’re experiencing. The smile is my joy in knowing that this is exactly where God wants you to be right now. It’s a great sign that He is softening and preparing your heart to do His work through the expression of your life. Wanting to see if you really trust Him to do all He says He can do. Not that I’ve personally experienced the same challenges you’re facing…and I have been exactly where you are a number of times in my life.” OK…so this is supposed to make me jump up and do the “I’ve Got Happy Feet” dance, right? After his comment, I also recalled a statement from a number of other friends, “God will only give you as much as you can handle.” That’s just great! Let’s see…His “encouragement” might sound something like, “Brian, here’s the deal. You don’t need your money; you don’t need your house; you don’t need your job; you don’t even need your wife, family or friends. What you need is… Me. So, based on the fact that you haven’t taken the invitation on your own, dude, and the fact that you’ve squandered all the treasures and gifts I’ve given you up till now, I’m gonna (God can speak in slang if He wants to, you know) take the next six months to be with you. No distractions. Lots of struggling. Lots of wandering. Lots of solitude. Lots of questions. Lots of conversation. Lots of tears. Lots of breaking. Lots of my forgiveness. Lots of my love. Lots of my holding you in my arms. And lots more.” I suppose it gives new meaning to the expression, “It’s my lot in life.” And so for me to say this has all been bad would sound like a pouting, woe-is-me, pathetic….right.

Last night during a sunset coffee with Bentley at It’s a Grind, I started reading Henri Nouwen’s Reaching Out, The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life. I was at Borders the night before finishing his Return of the Prodigal Son, and decided I would see what else he had to offer. Among all his titles this one’s cover grabbed me. The premise of the book, as it turns out, is broken into the three areas through which I am walking: The transitions from 1) loneliness to solitude, 2) hostility to hospitality, and 3) illusion to prayer. The first section deals with this “alone with God” thing. I must say that I’ve been doing an A+ job on experiencing the loneliness part. And I hate it when I fit right into the “if you’re here, it must really suck to be you” map location for spiritual mud wrestling. Nouwen compares the desperation and emptiness embodied in loneliness as a “retreat from humanity”. Isolation. Disengagement. Whereas his comparison of loneliness with that of solitude, specifically “solitude of the heart”, opens to “a deeper appreciation of time spent getting away from the societal models of competition and measuring up, moving into that place where the love of self and appreciation of your and others’ humanness resides”. This, coupled with cherished and celebrated “separateness and closed-ness” rang a bell so loud that I pray it keeps ringing in my ears for the rest of my days! It SO nails and supports exactly the counseling that Jim has been sharing with us these last three months – actually the same messages he’s been conveying for our ten years of counseling; two whole and separate individuals, bringing their selves to a relationship, where they can be in and out of their physical spaces, and still fully in each other’s presence. A few passages from Nouwen are worth sharing:

“This difficult road is the road of conversion, the conversion from loneliness into solitude. Instead of running away from our loneliness and trying to forget or deny it, we have to protect it and turn it into fruitful solitude. To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert [Jim calls this “wandering in the wilderness”] of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. This requires not only courage but also strong faith [Jim told us when we embarked on the commitment to separate that not only would this involve the courage to “be comfortable with being uncomfortable in the wanderings,” but also that “this will be a good test “to see if your faith has legs”]. As hard as it is to believe that the dry, desolate desert can yield endless varieties of flowers, it is equally hard to imagine that our loneliness is hiding unknown beauty. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play.”

Then, as if Henri and Jim shared office space, he says:

“When we live with a solitude of heart, we can listen with attention to the words and the worlds of others, but when we are driven by loneliness, we tend to select just those remarks and events that bring immediate satisfaction to our own craving needs.”

Feeling like I just slid all the way back down to the first row in the game, Shoots & Ladders (yes, I do remember that long ago!), he turns the screw a bit tighter when he continues:

“Unless our questions, problems and concerns are tested and matured in solitude, it is not realistic to expect answers that are really our own.” I sure love it when you get hit with one of those delightful “realistic” zingers – always adds a bit of spice to your guilt and stupidity appetizer.

Nope, not done yet… he turns the screw jusssst a bit tighter:

“There we can also become present to others by reaching out to them, not greedy for attention and affection but offering our own selves to help build a community of love. Solitude does not pull us away from our fellow human beings but instead makes real fellowship possible.”

This made me catch my breath, glaringly reminding me of how often my “reaching out” and “being present” to listen, hear, and support Valerie’s needs [and truth be told the needs of friends or clients] was more often than not mixed with motives of personal gain or some other agenda I was trying to manipulate… or maybe it was fear of inadequacy I was trying to hide. I admit that these actions became so “natural” and “sincere” that I never questioned possible negative impacts. And wounding.

And, then, as if the previous segments were not enough to make we wish for a Witness Protection Identity Scrub and Relocation Package to some remote town in Wyoming tending sheep, he offers the coup de gras:

“Without solitude of heart, the intimacy [a word that has been the subject of many of our counseling sessions – what it really means to have, share, and experience true intimacy of friendship, marriage and community] cannot be creative. Without solitude of heart, our relationships with others easily become needy and greedy, sticky and clinging, dependent and sentimental, exploitative and parasitic, because without the solitude of heart we cannot experience the others as different from ourselves but only as people who can be used for the fulfillment of our own, often hidden needs.

The mystery of love is that it protects and respects the aloneness of the other and creates the free space where he can convert his loneliness into a solitude that can be shared. In this solitude we can strengthen each other by mutual respect, by careful consideration of each other’s individuality, by an obedient distance from each other’s privacy and by a reverent understanding of the sacredness of the human heart. In this solitude we encourage each other to enter into the silence of our innermost being and discover there the voice that calls us beyond the limits of human togetherness to a new communion. In this solitude we can slowly become aware of a presence of Him who embraces friends and lovers and offers us the freedom to love each other, because He loved us first (see 1 John 4:19).”

I have wronged people. I have not been careful or respectful of my solitude of heart, and that of others. I have not been in the fullness of my or others’ presence. I have been self-centered. As I close this third day of my vacation, as I think of what to say and what it is for which I ask God’s help, I am reminded of a scene from As Good As It Gets. When Jack Nicholson is asked by Helen Hunt at a seafood restaurant to “say something nice” after being hurt and humiliated by his callous comments, he pauses and replies, “You make me want to be a better man.”

When I was walking back home from the coffee shop a smile slowed my steps and an unfamiliar feeling began to spread across my face. I realized that I was not walking alone.

Just a note: Some people have privately asked if Valerie is aware of this blog and book. Some wonder about her side of all this. The answers are: 1. She has read and has given me permission to work towards publishing the book. 2. Her side of the story is something you will have to ask her permission to discuss. We talk about all the sides...a lot.