A Little More on Zane and Other Sundries
I wrote about Zane here, not long ago. I haven't talked to him again, but I did talk to his ex-wife today, for something like three hours. I called just to get Zane's brother's number again. Zane's brother, I'll call him Bill, called me back as we were out the door for SF, and I lost his number by the time I had a moment to call again. He was a good man, a friend as well, and someone I thought could give me another perspective on Zane.
Not content to just give me the number, Zane's ex, I'll call her Susan, wanted to talk. About Zane, about Estella my first wife, whom she saw at a wedding last summer (with Robert and two children in tow; that took some time for me to process, though I didn't write about it here; it was the first time I heard for sure they were married and had children). There was more of the same sad and dark from Susan's life as well. Her church, my old church, kicks any member out for initiating divorce barring abandonment by a non-Christian spouse or continual adultery. This means that if your spouse had an affair but now wants to get back together, or loses his mind as Zane tragically has, or becomes an addict...you cannot divorce him or her without being, in essence, excommunicated.
What kind of hard-line shit is that?
I'll tell you what kind. The kind that looks into the NT for a new law beyond the law Christ gives us. That looks for proof-texts in the NT, one from Jesus when challenged by legalists and another in a letter Paul writes to a particular church on a particular occasion, to be the complete practical law regarding divorce for an entire congregation in myriad circumstances 2000 years later. Isn't it odd that while Jesus provides no way to remarry after divorce in his remark, unless the other partner is unfaithful (he doesn't say one can't divorce), Paul cuts a bit more slack in the case of the unbelieving partner who leaves. But then, Paul may not have had access to extensive Jesus-tradition, or sought to memorize it. He was consumed by the kerygma itself and not part of the original community. Or he may have felt the right to reinterpret the edict situationally, something Jews had been doing for centuries.
Enough soap box for tonight. No matter what, I cannot see how kicking Susan out of her twenty year church was anything short of religious abuse.
The hardest thing about talking to Susan was not talking about Zane, though but talking about Estella. Susan didn't have any real information, just spoke to her at a wedding last summer and once on the phone some time back. Supposedly, E quoted me as saying long ago that "Zane is wound so tight he's going to snap one day"...though maybe, Susan said, I was quoted by the woman who was getting married. It's hard to imagine Estella using my name in a conversation at all. It sounds a lot more like the bride, a woman I knew years ago. As for saying that particular thing, I have no recollection. Looking back, I can see warning signs that Zane might end up seriously depressed...but psychotically paranoid, I would never have predicted that.
Susan had questions from our last talk; she wanted the whole Robert and Estella story, the story I haven't even told here yet it is so hard to write. And I told it. The emotion hot on my skin as though I was submerged in its fire, while I fought to keep out of clinical obsession and stay in the hot stream of the feeling itself. Pretty much, I was able to do that. That was a victory. Susan wanted me to follow up with the medical board and try, after all these years, to pick up with the complaint I filed more than a decade ago about Robert's unethical conduct. I just don't know. She also talked a lot about narcissistic personalities, something I appreciated. For surely, Robert, a man I called the nefas in my own mind for years, the unspeakable evil...surely he was narcissistic, self-absorbed, and dangerous to his clients. But now, you see, I begin to tell the final chapter.
Talking to Susan both times has been good and I found the pain a fraction of what it was the first time we talked. I don't know how Zane would feel about it, but I have no intention of telling him. Susan tells me they used to go places and he would think the way cars were parked, or the way someone walked past them, a sign of an imminent conspiracy plot. Such tragedy.
Now I sit here and write. And writing like this in blog, while a far, far cry from speaking in a supportive group, is surely something. S is at her mom's all weekend; Mikey is now asleep. I have to take him to school at 8:00 tomorrow, but then I go to old-guy grappling class after I drop him off, a group of older men, mostly prison guards oddly enough, who meet to train moderately without adding to their individual injury lists. I love that time. Since it is only 10:30 at the moment, I sit here and stare at the screen in wonder. How beautiful to write here, now. What a luxury. You are now free to roam about the keyboard.
And so this becomes sundry blog. Littla this, littla that...
Carson and Moo have impressed me with their Introduction to the NT. The conclusions are traditional-conservative, yes, but for an approachable NT intro which describes various schools of thought on critical issues and manages to take a side without being defensive...it's a useful beginning, truly. I've paused in the middle of Wright's VOG; honestly not because I don't understand him, but because his positions are so idiosyncratic, on the synoptic problem or some of the parables for example, that I want to see the larger picture first. C and M do that, as does the L.T. Johnson cd series I'm listening to in my car (almost done with all 18...this has made my commute a pleasure).
I taught myself the greek alphabet and am beginning to read a little biblical Greek. Why not? As soon as I can afford a good primer I'm going for it. If I do go to seminary in four years, I hope to have considerable coursework done in my head. Much less stress that way. If I never go, the questions are so vital for me I can't help myself exploring. May God bless my chaos.
Peace and love to all.
Not content to just give me the number, Zane's ex, I'll call her Susan, wanted to talk. About Zane, about Estella my first wife, whom she saw at a wedding last summer (with Robert and two children in tow; that took some time for me to process, though I didn't write about it here; it was the first time I heard for sure they were married and had children). There was more of the same sad and dark from Susan's life as well. Her church, my old church, kicks any member out for initiating divorce barring abandonment by a non-Christian spouse or continual adultery. This means that if your spouse had an affair but now wants to get back together, or loses his mind as Zane tragically has, or becomes an addict...you cannot divorce him or her without being, in essence, excommunicated.
What kind of hard-line shit is that?
I'll tell you what kind. The kind that looks into the NT for a new law beyond the law Christ gives us. That looks for proof-texts in the NT, one from Jesus when challenged by legalists and another in a letter Paul writes to a particular church on a particular occasion, to be the complete practical law regarding divorce for an entire congregation in myriad circumstances 2000 years later. Isn't it odd that while Jesus provides no way to remarry after divorce in his remark, unless the other partner is unfaithful (he doesn't say one can't divorce), Paul cuts a bit more slack in the case of the unbelieving partner who leaves. But then, Paul may not have had access to extensive Jesus-tradition, or sought to memorize it. He was consumed by the kerygma itself and not part of the original community. Or he may have felt the right to reinterpret the edict situationally, something Jews had been doing for centuries.
Enough soap box for tonight. No matter what, I cannot see how kicking Susan out of her twenty year church was anything short of religious abuse.
The hardest thing about talking to Susan was not talking about Zane, though but talking about Estella. Susan didn't have any real information, just spoke to her at a wedding last summer and once on the phone some time back. Supposedly, E quoted me as saying long ago that "Zane is wound so tight he's going to snap one day"...though maybe, Susan said, I was quoted by the woman who was getting married. It's hard to imagine Estella using my name in a conversation at all. It sounds a lot more like the bride, a woman I knew years ago. As for saying that particular thing, I have no recollection. Looking back, I can see warning signs that Zane might end up seriously depressed...but psychotically paranoid, I would never have predicted that.
Susan had questions from our last talk; she wanted the whole Robert and Estella story, the story I haven't even told here yet it is so hard to write. And I told it. The emotion hot on my skin as though I was submerged in its fire, while I fought to keep out of clinical obsession and stay in the hot stream of the feeling itself. Pretty much, I was able to do that. That was a victory. Susan wanted me to follow up with the medical board and try, after all these years, to pick up with the complaint I filed more than a decade ago about Robert's unethical conduct. I just don't know. She also talked a lot about narcissistic personalities, something I appreciated. For surely, Robert, a man I called the nefas in my own mind for years, the unspeakable evil...surely he was narcissistic, self-absorbed, and dangerous to his clients. But now, you see, I begin to tell the final chapter.
Talking to Susan both times has been good and I found the pain a fraction of what it was the first time we talked. I don't know how Zane would feel about it, but I have no intention of telling him. Susan tells me they used to go places and he would think the way cars were parked, or the way someone walked past them, a sign of an imminent conspiracy plot. Such tragedy.
Now I sit here and write. And writing like this in blog, while a far, far cry from speaking in a supportive group, is surely something. S is at her mom's all weekend; Mikey is now asleep. I have to take him to school at 8:00 tomorrow, but then I go to old-guy grappling class after I drop him off, a group of older men, mostly prison guards oddly enough, who meet to train moderately without adding to their individual injury lists. I love that time. Since it is only 10:30 at the moment, I sit here and stare at the screen in wonder. How beautiful to write here, now. What a luxury. You are now free to roam about the keyboard.
And so this becomes sundry blog. Littla this, littla that...
Carson and Moo have impressed me with their Introduction to the NT. The conclusions are traditional-conservative, yes, but for an approachable NT intro which describes various schools of thought on critical issues and manages to take a side without being defensive...it's a useful beginning, truly. I've paused in the middle of Wright's VOG; honestly not because I don't understand him, but because his positions are so idiosyncratic, on the synoptic problem or some of the parables for example, that I want to see the larger picture first. C and M do that, as does the L.T. Johnson cd series I'm listening to in my car (almost done with all 18...this has made my commute a pleasure).
I taught myself the greek alphabet and am beginning to read a little biblical Greek. Why not? As soon as I can afford a good primer I'm going for it. If I do go to seminary in four years, I hope to have considerable coursework done in my head. Much less stress that way. If I never go, the questions are so vital for me I can't help myself exploring. May God bless my chaos.
Peace and love to all.
Comments
I don't have the time or energy to write anything meaningful right now - and I'm supposed to be working on five essays for my application to re-enter seminary, anyway - but I wantedto drop you a line to say that I'm glad that you were able to share more of your story. The ability to speak the unspeakable gives us freedom from its power. It no longer hangs over us, dominating us. As we call it by name - to use the old mythic language - we own it, we dominate it, they way that it used to dominate us. If you can make this pain your own, you can start to be free from it. I'm glad you were able to do that a little.
Even while still attending there, I was not pleased with the new regime and their (his) harsh way of handling things. It was made further difficult for me because, at that time, my own father was on the elder board--the chairman, in fact.
The new regime was a significant contributing factor to my husband and I leaving that church and moving down to Huntington Beach to run youth programs for the church plant there.
thanks again for your warm words.
And Sherry, I had forgot your father's role. Thanks for your support here. The situation is deeply tragic. I'm going to call Zane's brother right now and see if I can find any way to help.
t