Reflections as I Plan to Live (Once Again) With My Husband: Part 2

This is my little tribute to the past nine months: the craziness, reflections, difficulties, and joys of the past months my husband and I have spent apart. Installment #2 is dedicated to reflections - what I've learned about myself, my husband, and my marriage after nine months of living far, far apart.

1. I really love my husband.
Living apart has taught me how much Daryl and I just "get" each other. Of all the people in the world, he's the one who knows me best, understands me best, and often knows what I'm feeling before I even speak. I love him, and when he's gone, part of me feels like it's gone, too.

2. No, I really love him.
Seriously.

3. I married a good man.
 We've both been insanely busy this year, Daryl with his first year of PhD studies and traveling to conferences, me finishing my MDiv while working a couple of part-time jobs and participating in a spring play. Yet every few days Daryl will pause to remind me that I am his priority and that he'd drop everything for me in an instant. In November when Eliot got so sick, he proved it.

Daryl has great ambitions and great skill. He is working incredibly hard in his program. Yet I know that, above all, Jesus is his first priority. After that, I am. Even with the prestige of his program, the responsibilities he has taken on, and the name he is building for himself in academia, his priorities are in line. He goes to church every Sunday. He carves out an hour or so to talk to me every day. He sends me sweet emails and notes to remind me that he loves me. He Skypes with his mom and keeps in touch with his dad and brother. He runs tech support for my family when their Macs break down. He occasionally drops everything to help me edit a paper or a job application.

I married a good man, and this year has only reconfirmed how lucky I am.

4. I'm stronger than I thought.
During the past couple of weeks I've done a couple of things without batting an eye that I never, ever did while we were married. I picked up a giant, dead cockroach (I know, right? My apartment building is fifty-ish years old and in quite a state of disrepair...) and threw it away. I cleaned kitty poo off of the rug in the bathroom. I cleaned out a scary, scary tupperware full of month-old soup in the fridge. I scheduled a doctor and a dentist appointment without Daryl reminding me. Little things, I know, but I did them without even thinking. Without balking or hesitating. I just did them, because they needed doing. I'm much more ready to have kids than I was months ago. Living alone has helped me to grow up a bit.

5. I'm weaker than I knew.
Some days I cannot pry myself out of bed with a crowbar. Daryl is good at getting me up on those days. He'll kiss me on the forehead, then talk to me, then shake me a little (if I really, really need it). His last resort is usually, "Well, I'm getting in the shower and you're going to be late..." That usually does it. When it's just me in a comfy, warm bed with two snuggly cats I can easily talk myself out of whatever I had planned for the morning. Early reading? Why? Getting ahead on school? But I can snuggle into my blankets for another hour! Some days I need an extra hand, and without it, I really struggle.

6. Touching is good.
When Daryl and I were first dating we hit a rough patch. We fought about a lot of little things as we worked to deepen our relationship, and I wasn't always sure how to love him in the midst of these arguments. Once, after arguing back and forth for awhile, I put a hand gently on his arm. Then I quickly removed it and apologized. "Sorry," I said. "Is it okay to touch you when we're fighting? Does it bother you?"

"Not at all," he responded. "Touching is good." This became a theme of our relationship. Not that we were overly touchy (we both subscribed to the abstinence-before-marriage program wholeheartedly), but we were free with our affection - an arm around the shoulder, a squeeze of the hand, a hug, a kiss.

The reassuring and healing power of touch is quite an incredible thing. I've read news pieces on third-world orphanages where babies actually die from lack of touch. A close friend of mine recently confided that she's frustrated with being single because no one ever touches her. In our society you touch family and significant others - all other touch is limited to a handshake or perhaps, rarely, a hug from someone of the same sex. Touching has become taboo outside of romantic relationships, driving people toward relationships they may not want or be ready for simply because they are aching to be touched or hugged.

In many other countries, this isn't the case. In much of Spain, friends of the same sex will walk around holding hands or with their arms around one another. In France it's common to get kissed on both cheeks when you're greeted. In Italy hugs come with handshakes. In America we tend to keep to ourselves and touch only our family. During a time where most of us live hundreds (if not thousands) of miles from our families, there is not much human contact.

A professor of mine lost her husband years ago. I sat in front of her at a lecture where the speaker mentioned how rare it is to experience any human contact if you live alone, "particularly if you have lost a spouse." I could hear the professor sigh heavily behind me. This rang true for her. But because of my student status, what could I do? I couldn't offer her a hug; I was her student, she my teacher. But my heart ached for her.

I've found this lack of human contact to be very true this year. By the time it's been two or three weeks apart from Daryl I am positively aching for a hug. Sometimes I go the entire two or three weeks without touching another human being. Sometimes the only human contact I have is handing a paper back to a student, accidentally bumping into someone at the seminary post office, or shaking the hand of a colleague. I realize that I'm lucky - this season will end for me soon. But what about those who go weeks and months between family visits and don't experience any human touch?

Touching is not only good, it's necessary. I don't know the solution - how to encourage more (appropriate) touch in our hyper-sexualized society. But it's worth considering.

7. I'm not doing this again.
I'm glad we did it. We were following the Lord's call and (as Scripture clearly shows), ignoring that is only done at our own peril. But barring another act of God, we are done living apart. Done. Fin. Fo' real.

8. I'm more adventurous when I'm alone.
Marriage has made me a little bit more safe. I take fewer risks when I'm happy and comfortable. This year, on my own, I've rediscovered a more adventurous side of myself. I dress more fashionably, I go out more, I hang out with people more. I'm home less often because there are more fun things to do out in the world than in my little apartment. I've also had time to make some incredible new friends - friends who have made this year not only bearable but full of joy, laughter, insightful conversations, and great fun.

I also got to be in a rockin' play. :)

9. Dietrich Bonhoeffer nailed this idea of what it feels like to be separated, and what we, as Christians, must do to survive it.

For my Ethics and Dietrich Bonhoeffer course I'm currently reading Bonhoeffer's Letters and Papers in Prison. I'm about halfway through it, and on the plane to visit Daryl in Nashville this weekend, I came across this passage. It was so akin to my own experience this year it was almost eerie...

Bonhoeffer was writing to his good friends Renate Wind and Eberhard Bethge. They were newly married and facing a time of separation as Bethge was sent abroad. At this point Bonhoeffer had been in prison for many months, separated from his fiancé, Maria.

"I should like to say something to help you in the time of separation that lies ahead. There is no need to say how hard any such separation is for us; but as I've now been separated for nine months from all the people that I'm devoted to, I should like to pass on to you something of what I have learnt...

"First: nothing can make up for the absence of someone whom we love, and it would be wrong to try to find a substitute; we must simply hold out and see it through. That sounds very hard at first, but at the same time it is a great consolation, for the gap, as long as it rem,ains unfilled, preserves the bonds between us. It is nonsense to say that God fills the gap; he doesn't fill it, but on the contrary, he keeps it empty and so helps us keep alive our former communion with each other, even at the cost of pain.

"Secondly: the dearer and richer our memories, the more difficult the separation. But gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy. The beauties of the past are borne, not as a thorn in the flesh, but as a precious gift in themselves. We must take care not to wallow in our memories or hand ourselves over to them, just as we do not gaze all the time at a valuable present, but only at special times, and apart from these keep it simply as a hidden treasure that is ours for certain. In this way the past gives us lasting joy and strength.

"Thirdly: times of separation are not a total loss or unprofitable for our companionship, or at any rate they need not be so. In spite of all the difficulties that they bring, they can be the means of strengthening fellowship quite remarkably.

"Fourthly: I've learnt here especially that the facts can always be mastered, and that difficulties are magnified out of all proportion simply by fear and anxiety. From the moment we wake until we fall asleep we must commend other people wholly and unreservedly to God and leave them in his hands, and transform our anxiety for them into prayers on their behalf." -Letters and Papers from Prison, 176-7.

Amen, brother. Amen.

Making Confession

I've been thinking about confession lately. I'm in a seminary class on Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and I'm doing a final project on his work Life Together. Apparently Bonhoeffer was a big proponent of following the biblical practice of confessing our sins to one another. According to Geffrey Kelly, Life Together's editor, this did not go over so well with Bonhoeffer's community of seminary students.

Notes Kelly: "[Bonhoeffer] suggested that they might want to confess their sins privately to each other or else to him as the director of the community. This surprised them and, for some, even stirred up resentment, since it was not considered the 'Protestant' thing to do."

Still, he persevered in advocating for confession, both to God (who is the one who forgives) and to one another, as a way to help break the illusion of perfection and to free people from the secret shame of sin. And eventually he won over his community, and they began to confess to one another, to forgive one another, and to grow together.

While I was attending an Anglican church back in Chicago, during Holy Week the pastors and deacons would offer confession. Not because they could forgive, but because Christ forgives and because speaking our sins aloud, to one another in the presence of Christ, is freeing and healing.

I'm still mulling all this over during this Holy Week. What does it mean for us to "confess your sins, one to another"? All of my thinking about confession brought to my mind a poem by one of my former professors (and favorite poets), David Wright. It's in his book "Lines from the Provinces" which is filled with poetry about Chicago El train rides, liturgical practices, and the lonely plains of his home state of Illinois.

Making Confession
by David Wright

Confess several sins right off, first date--
           Your selfishness, your love of candy
           The child you fathered in high school
           How much you hate your mother's cooking
           How much you love your mother.

Later, see what tolerance she has for real depravity:

            if she empathizes and forgives too quickly

            if she looks understanding but keeps a list

                        of flaws to help you overcome

            or if she simply sees through the ruse

                        of safe sins and habits of the past

                        if she knows how they will mask

                        tomorrow’s or today’s snarled lip

                        rolled eyes flared nostrils

                        that will wilt clichéd roses

                        you deliver to reconcile things done

                        and undone unforgivable in the present.

At last, confess your future faithless words

            impatient hours of pretending to listen

            making up wisdom on the spot

            having sex when you should make love

            making love when sex would be enough.

And if she calls them by name, sin, and confesses

            they will matter will make her wonder

            why she chose you a rock in her shoe

            working its way into her tough heel and sole

            then kiss her refill her coffee knowing

            just how much cream she takes

            and tell her all the wicked news she can stand

            never letting go of her small angry hand.

"Do Not Fear" - My First Sermon

Do Not Fear
Matthew 10:24-33

A sermon delivered by Courtney Ellis at the First Presbyterian Church of Burbank
June 22, 2008

The year was 1945. World War II was rapidly drawing to a close, but still thousands upon thousands of Jews and dissenters against the Third Reich languished in concentration camps. In one of the smaller camps, Flossenbürg, a young German pastor and theologian awaited the end of the war. He had been thrown in prison both for his participation in
the plot to kill Hitler and for his Christian teachings. He refused to give allegiance to the Nazi regime, and proclaimed only allegiance to Christ. But the war seemed to be at an end. The pastor felt a small glimmer of hope. It was possible that he would be released.

However, that glimmer of hope would go tragically unrealized. On April 9, 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, beloved Lutheran pastor and theologian was hanged. On April 23, 1945, Flossenbürg Concentration Camp was liberated, and the remaining prisoners were set free. Bonhoeffer had missed freedom—and life—by a mere two weeks.

The world’s loss of such a brilliant and sensitive theologian, a man who loved life so much, is tragic indeed. He was a profound writer, and there is no telling what he could have accomplished, not to mention how unthinkable it was for his family, friends, and fiancée to lose him at such a young age.

At the same time, Bonhoeffer was willing to die for Christ. One of his biographers, Renate Wind, published a poem that Bonhoeffer wrote to his mother and his fiancée, weeks before he died. One of its central stanzas goes like this:

Should it be ours to drain the cup of grieving
even to the dregs of pain, at thy command
we will not falter, thankfully receiving
all that is given by thy loving hand.

Do not fear. These are the words of Jesus to his disciples in Matthew 10. These are the words of Jesus to us today. These were the words of Jesus to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis. Do not fear. It was a phrase that Bonhoeffer knew well. He often thought about his own death—during Nazi Germany death was ever present, and standing up for Christ and the Jews meant that death was not only possible but likely.

Yet Bonhoeffer stood firm. He would not sacrifice his commitment to Christ in order to appease an evil empire. Bonhoeffer was unafraid, writing that the death of a believer in Christ “is really only the gateway to the perfect love of God.” Do not fear.

This command of Jesus was given to his disciples in these verses three times between verse 26 and verse 31. In Jesus’ time, when someone emphasized the same idea over and over again, it was like underlining it and giving it an exclamation point. Do not fear. Do not fear. Do not fear.

We need to hear this, don’t we? We are a very fearful people. But what exactly is Christ telling us not to fear? This passage is specific. Though the word used is “them,” and if we read above we realize that we are not to fear those who persecute Christians. We are not to fear the powers that actively work against God’s kingdom. Bible commentator William Barclay puts it this way: “There must be a certain courageous fearlessness in the King’s messenger which marks him [or her] out from other people.”

Christ calls us to follow him in fearlessness. This fearlessness is not of our own making, it is ours because Christ has already triumphed over the world. If we are in Christ, the Bible tells us, we are “a new creation. The old has gone and the new has come.” The old creation still lives in sin, it is fearful indeed. The new creation is not fearful of the world, for the world cannot harm it. As both the Psalmist and the author of Hebrews says in Scripture, “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can human beings do to me?” (Psalm 118:6, Hebrews 13:6) People can do nothing! God reigns over all and in all.

But wait—you may be asking—what about Bonhoeffer? Where was God then? It certainly seems as if the Nazis had their way with him, doesn’t it? Let’s begin to answer this question by looking back at verse 26: “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.”

We live in a world that can be scheming, underhanded, and deceitful. But here the Lord tells us that the truth will always triumph. Fearlessness is always coupled with hope and faith in the coming victory of God. In this verse God cautions us against fearing for our reputations. The fear of what people will think is one reason people hesitate to speak up for Christ.

The Nazis began by attacking Bonhoeffer’s reputation. He was not a nationalist (an accusation that meant certain persecution in Nazi Germany), he did not support Hitler. Bonhoeffer stood firm. He loved Christ more than he loved his reputation. Like Christ, when they hurled insults at him, Bonhoeffer did not return violence with violence. Today Bonhoeffer is an incredibly respected figure, among Christians and non-Christians alike, because he proclaimed the truth—that the Nazi regime was evil. Though his reputation was attacked, the truth won out in the end, even after his death.

Now, none of us have to stand up against Nazi Germany. And few of us will be faced with the incredibly blatant evil that Bonhoeffer was faced with. Yet, we still face fear of more minor persecution in our daily lives. When I attended graduate school for English, there were many occasions where my fellow students openly ridiculed the name of Christ. To my great detriment, I stayed silent. I was quite vocal about my belief in Christ at church and with my friends, but I was terrified of what might happen to my reputation if the people at my school found out I believed in Jesus. My fellow students were not the Nazis, of course—far from it. Most of them were just ignorant about who Jesus is. Several of them had never even met a Christian before, and assumed that all Christians were the uneducated, judgmental stereotypes we see in the media. Yet, I was still afraid.

As the program went on, I began to feel guiltier for these silences. If I couldn’t be obedient to Christ in such a central thing, how would I be able to serve him in other ways? God was faithful in my rocky road to obedience—opportunities to speak up for Christ continued to come my way.

One day a fellow student asked me flat out—right before class, when many other people were around—if I was a Christian. I was at a crossroads. Many of you have or will see yourselves at a crossroads like this. Sometimes choices seem a bit grey—you could do any number of things and still please God. But sometimes we’re faced with a crossroads—deny Christ, or acknowledge him. Obey him, or reject him. As we read in verses 32-33, “Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” This denial is not always a verbal one, like Peter’s in Matthew 26. We need not say, “I do not know Jesus” to deny him. We can also deny him by our silence, as I had been doing. I had a clear decision to make.

I took a deep breath, and, with God’s help, I said a soft, shaky, “Yes.” The student looked at me for a second, skeptically.

“Huh,” she said. “Interesting. I always thought that Christians were like circus freaks. But you're actually kind of smart..."

It was a small step, but even the smallest step, made in obedience, is progress. God tells us not to fear for our reputations, because the truth will always win out. God is truth. If that one simple acknowledgment of my belief in Christ had ruined my graduate school reputation forever, it shouldn’t have mattered to me. One day the truth—God’s truth—would be made known. The judgments of eternity will correct the judgments of time.

We must note here that speaking the truth is about much more than just being right. Christians have gotten themselves into a great deal of trouble over the centuries when they decide to proclaim rightness. We are called, as Christians, to speak the truth in love—not because we want people to know they are wrong, but because we love them enough to tell them truth. My graduate school friends may never have met another Christian their entire lives. If I had stayed silent, I would not have been loving them. If we really believe that the news of Jesus Christ is the best news, we cannot stay silent.

Secondly, this passage tells us that we need not fear for our safety. In verses 28-29, Jesus says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”

God doesn’t just notice when a sparrow dies—he holds all things, all creation, all of our daily lives—in his hands. Down to the tiniest molecule, nothing in creation happens that God isn’t aware of. It is also possible that the word translated “fall” here is a translation of the Aramaic word for “light upon.” In other words, God doesn’t just notice every time a sparrow falls, he notices every time a sparrow lights upon a tree branch or hops upon the ground. Nothing goes unnoticed—down to the tiniest sparrow. And if God is watching over the sparrows, how much more will he watch over his children!

Bonhoeffer knew this—even through the very end of his life, faced with torture and execution, he knew that his life was in the hands of the living God. Every moment he could cry out to his creator, for God was with him. Any time he felt anxious or fearful, any time he was tempted to despair, the Lord was beside him in his sufferings.

We live in a world that believes it is powerful. Satan—the one the Bible calls “the prince of this world”—believes that he is powerful. The Nazis believed that they were powerful. But the power of this world, the power of evil, the power of the enemy, this is not real power. Why? Because the worst thing, the very worst thing this world has to throw at us, is death. That’s its greatest weapon; that’s its ultimate threat. Death. And what do we know about death?

Christ has triumphed over death. Romans 8:38 tells us that not even death can separate us from the love of God. In his death and resurrection, Jesus has saved us from death. The Bible tells us that death has no power over us, that it has no sting. As Bonhoeffer wrote, “our death is really only the gateway to the perfect love of God.” The very worst thing the world can throw at us is the very thing that Christ has conquered. We need not fear.

But I’ve glossed over an important section. In this passage Jesus tells us three times not to fear, but he tells us one time that we should fear. “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.” We should fear one thing, and one thing only. We should fear God.

William Barclay tells the story of Hugh Latimer, a Christian bishop in England in the 1500s. Latimer was preaching when King Henry VIII was present. He knew that he was about to say something that would anger the king, and in those days, that could easily get a person killed. So in the pulpit he began speaking to himself, saying:

“Latimer! Latimer! Latimer! Be careful what you say. Henry the king is here.” Then he paused for a moment, prayerfully.

“Latimer! Latimer! Latimer!” he continued. “Be careful what you say. The King of Kings is here.” Latimer knew who his most important audience was. God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. He had a holy fear, a holy respect for God.

Fearing God means understanding that God made us and that at every moment, at every turn, our existence is dependent upon him. Thus, at any moment he could allow our existence to cease. But he doesn’t. Instead he sends Jesus to die so that we may live—in this life and in the one to come. But in this act of love God’s power and immensity is not minimized—we are still called to fear him, to receive his love, and to worship him. With God fear, love, and worship always go together.

Fearing God means understanding that we cannot hide from God’s presence. He is where we are. He sees the depths of our hearts and each thought in our minds. In God’s presence we are fully known and fully loved, and called forth to grow into the people he created us to be.

Fearing God is knowing that Jesus is Lord of all. He is Lord of our lives, of the universe, of our neighbors, of this church. He is all powerful. The fear of God is believing that he is God, and we are not. The fear of God shatters our perception of self-sufficiency. When we begin to know who God is, we begin to realize that we are utterly dependent upon him.

We should fear him because, as C.S. Lewis writes of Aslan—his literary symbol for Jesus—he is not safe. When young children are to meet Aslan for the first time, they are terrified of him. He is a lion, after all, and they are only small children. The lion is golden and shaggy and powerful and fearsome indeed. The youngest of the children asks her caretaker if Aslan is safe. “Of course he isn’t safe,” he replies. “But he is good. He’s the king!”

I was only able to speak up for Jesus when my fear of God, the realization that God is real, that the Good News is real, overcame my fear of my fellow students. I may have brought ridicule upon myself, but if I stayed silent, those students would have missed an opportunity to hear the Good News of Jesus. When we fear people so much, it is because we fear God so little.

This fear of God makes the shallow fear of persecution in this world appear as it really is. Even so, when we fear the ridicule of this world, God is with us, reminding us of his victory over the forces that work against him. His presence helps to teach us that we have nothing to fear in this world. Perhaps Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it best in a sermon he wrote in 1935, a decade before he would be asked to give his life for the kingdom of God. The sermon was called “Learning to Die.”

“Fear God—instead of the many things which you fear. Do not fear the coming day, do not fear other people, do not fear power and might, even if they are able to deprive you of property and life; do not fear the great ones of this world; do not even fear yourselves; do not fear sin. All this fear will be the death of you. You are free from all this fear; it isn’t there for you. But fear God and God alone; for God has power over the powers of this world; the whole world must fear God—God has power to give us life or to destroy us; everything else is a game—only God is in earnest, entirely in earnest. Fear God’s earnestness—and give God the glory.”

Amen.


The link to the sermon's audio is below, but it won't be posted for a couple of weeks or so.

First Presbyterian Podcasts