Not A Charade-Longing for Intimacy In Marriage

 I’m gesticulating wildly in the midst of a game of charades. I’m focused on the faces of my teammates.  “Three syllables, sounds like...” Trying to get the picture across. The clues aren’t connecting. Pointing to my chest and making drawings in the air isn’t helping.  At the end of the round, my ex turns to me and says, “You are way to intense.” Words that cut like a sword.

My friend, my wife of fourteen years, affirms my intensity. On the same hand she is wired with soft and gentle edges. She is the reason we get invited to parties. With that mix, like any mix, it is easy for us to hurt each other. With words. Or complete silence. To insist that she be more like me. Friendship should be different. “Iron sharpens iron,’ is friction which renders a positive result.

Marriage is meant to be more intimate. If you want it. Authentic connection isn’t easy. Sister, I’ve got wounds and warts. I’m bent in ways that will hurt you. If I wound you, if you wound me; where do we go? Cry to Christ.

Nobody likes to hurt. At gut level I’m not going to pursue relationship if it hurts self. Painful words, wounds from my parents and previous partners lead me to protect my heart.

“I’m sorry. I was wrong. Please forgive me. I love you.” This is a mantra that my wife’s family picked up at a Christian youth conference. Now we use it in circumstances ranging from silly (it really did need salt!)  to serious (I’m sorry I screamed at you). It’s about commitment to the covenant.

I long for that intimacy. It’s only going to come when I lean inward with courage not outward with fear. It’s so crucial to have the relationship be a safe sacred space. As Keith Green once sang, “For there are many where friendship's unknown, they live together but really alone. And the days go their ways in silence, tense hours of woe. We do not mean to have it so."

 

I'm Giving Up Sleep For Lent

 Not all sleep, of course. It’s my first time ‘giving something up’ for Lent. Ideally, it’s an opportunity to identify with and appreciate the significant suffering that Christ went through on my behalf. People give up all kinds of stuff, chocolate, fish, social media and sports. I know of one person that sacrificed sarcasm.

I don’t want to approach Easter with arrogance. Nor do I desire to enter into self-flagellation as Martin Luther did before he understood his justification by faith. Seems the season should hold some sacrifice alongside a reflective posture. Loss and discipline. Remembering and celebrating. Perhaps you’ve come across people where their supposed sacrifice seems ho-hum, “I’m giving up salads!” I felt like I should loosen my hold of something that’s got hold of me. Something my friends recognize as my attachment. My wife’s loud guffaw when I told her I was giving up sleep let me know I was giving up the right thing.

Why sleep? I love my sleep. I have friends that enjoy sunrises. I don’t. Sunrises happen early in the morning when people should be sleeping. If I were on the show Survivor, giving up food would be a tertiary problem. What would ruin me would be giving up sleep. And coffee. The coffee which I need because I’m waking up---from sleep. It comes easy to me; in cars, on airplanes, in chairs and beds. I go to bed late and get up late. But not this season.

I’m not the watchman waiting for the morning, but I’ve been surprised to find a richness in rising earlier. My own voice encourages me to rise up saying, “It’s Lent!”. There’s been no mystical experience, no deep insights into Christ’s suffering. Nothing earth-shaking at all really. There has been this; a settling quiet. A peculiar calm as I sit at my desk drinking my coffee and reading my books. Beneath all that is an expectancy for Easter, the most earth-shaking of events preceding the raising of Christ, the First-fruits of those who are asleep!

Photo by CHUTTERSNAP on Unsplash

When The Poem Ends

At very first glance, her beauty slays,

She’s there in the flesh, not a vapor,

Pulse revs up and breath gives way,

As you put pen to paper.

Every line a work of art,

Every word has you stirring,

Oh the joy I feel in my heart,

With every rhyme that’s occurring.

 

Happy days of cheese and wine,

Sweet chocolate and red rose,

All things come to the end of their time,

As poet writes their last prose.

 

Rapture gone that once was mine,

Your lips no longer ignite,

Darling we’ve reached the end of our line,

No more words to rhyme or write.

Radical Hospitality

 

 A hotel stay in California during the Pandemic was far worse than staying home. It was more like paying your neighbor hundreds of dollars to sleep in his garage. You had no access to food, kitchen or coffee. Amenities disappeared. Hoteliers, to protect housekeeping staff from germs, only had them enter your room days after your stay. One favorite aspect of vacation was now ruined. Hospitality, a word once associated with the industry, had lost meaning. It was in the midst of this dark time for travel that my wife and I experienced a most memorable inn experience.

Though strangers, The Lancaster hotel greeted us as friends returning from a journey. Our California experience was insipid and antiseptic. Here we were welcomed with champagne in fluted crystal glasses accompanied by macaroons. We were shown through halls of beautiful paintings and sculptures to our room. Tiled, Romanesque and beautiful. The most comfortable bed ever slept in. Fluffy robes and slippers.  After all of it, the next morning, the hotel manager granted us a choice. Though most eating establishments still required outdoor seating, we could have breakfast inside! Not on Styrofoam or paper but porcelain. Hoorah, Houston! That’s how you celebrate hospitality.

Hospitality is a core biblical principal, taking care of orphans, widows and strangers without neglect. Andi Ashworth models this beautifully in her life. “But if you can latch on to the truth that caring for human life is a very powerful work that actually changes the shape of people’s lives and the way they experience the world, you will have a vision that can hold you even in the midst of dismissive cultural attitudes.”

Porches are now built in the backyard and not the front yard because we no longer celebrate community. Hospitality is a radical lifestyle that moves your “porch” back to the front yard and invites neighbors into your life. It’s exciting, cruciform, giving and scary. They could break that mug your daughter gave you! Steal your silverware! I’m set in my ways and rhythms, and inviting people into my day can disrupt my “precious’ plans.

Can I share one more story? My wife and I had invited this single guy over for dinner. During the meal, nearly weeping, he thanked us for the invite. He generally ate alone, and nobody had invited him to share at their table!

This conviviality is an invitation to the great table. The hosts breaking of bread with us during Covid was gracious and risky. In an age of safe spaces and selfies, us and them, pandemics and phobias, hospitality risks it all.