Taboo Topics: Singleness – meet Kate Sherry

Defending the gift of singleness

Ah, another discussion on Singleness. I steel myself against the well-meaning platitudes of the Marrieds, and bite my tongue on my real take on this issue. I have discovered that, bar a precious few, it’s easier to agree blandly and change the subject than try to get my point across.

But now for once I can say, uninterrupted, what too many church people seem to find threatening or evidence of an embittered soul. I’m not ruling out the latter possibility (not trying to delude anyone that I am completely undivided on this question), but I do believe I have a valid place in the church as a single person, and I’m tired of being pitied.

I am gifted with singleness. Although it appears in Christian gifting questionnaires, it’s the one everyone hopes they won’t “get”. Everyone is much more enthusiastic about Genesis’s “It is not good for man to be alone” than Paul’s “I wish everyone could be as I am [i.e. single and celibate]”. But it’s true: singleness is a gift. In most ways that matter, and unlike many people I know, I’m good by myself. I like my own company, my life has more meaning and purpose than I can handle, and when it comes to my three lovely married siblings (two younger than me), I notice other people’s anticipation of my supposed comparative misery before said misery even appears on the horizon. Not to say that I don’t have dark moments, when I rail at how life can be so bloody hard when it’s “just you”. But I have no illusions that marriage would automatically be better.

Yet somehow, married people still feel obliged to reassure me that my state is temporary, and “God has someone for everyone”. Come ON. That’s simply not true, and even if it was, I’m not sure I want it to be. God is far more creative than that.

In the secular world, the view of singleness is quite different, although somewhat confusing. I once read a magazine article titled something about the joys of singleness, hoping to find a few amusing comments about being able to brush one’s teeth in solitude, and eat the yoghurt straight out of the tub. To my surprise, it was all about how being single set one free to couple (mainly physically, but also to some extent socially) with as many different people as one wants (or can get). My 20-year-old cousin recently informed me that all of his friends were breaking up with their girlfriends in anticipation of a wild New Year’s Eve in Plettenberg Bay. It seems that rather than celebrating the benefits of being unhampered by a partner, even the marriage-skeptical mainstream can’t quite picture a happy life on one’s own.

Needless to say, I value singleness for entirely different reasons. (It would be false to deny that sex is appealing, but very honestly, the side-effects of the anti-depressants deal with that quite nicely – another story entirely). I love being alone.  As sanctimonious as it might sound, I love the quiet time I get with God. I love that it’s just him and me, and that I am entirely free to co-labour with him wheresoever he might take me. Had I been married, I might never have got to spend five mad years living and working in the wilds of the former Transkei, or take on a PhD that sees me returning there to live three months in a hut. Married people certainly do those things (and when they are both dedicated to such work, are sometimes able to sustain such lives for longer), but most would cite kids, mortgages, or one or the other’s career as a discouraging factor.

It’s not just doing slightly outrageous solo missions in out of the way places. Even in suburban Cape Town, I have a role in my family and amongst my friends that I could not fill were I married. The maiden aunt is traditionally the object of pity and embarrassment, but how is a village meant to be able to raise a child if all of them are absorbed with their own children? One of the most influential people in my life is an unmarried woman in her seventies, and it never occurred to me to wonder why she wasn’t married. She was (and is) too awesome for that even to be a question. She was a midwife in the hospital where all four of us were born, she was our favourite babysitter, she gave me my first job, and she was the one whom I could talk to best when the Transkei put me on psychotropic medication. I aspire to be a little like that for my six nephews and nieces (even though they currently insist that as an unmarried and childless person, I’m not a “proper grown-up” and must still be twelve years old – bless them). Our current relationship revolves around fireman’s helmets, trampolines and an inexplicable phenomenon called “The Rock Game”, and I’m hoping that I will still be the “cool” aunt when boyfriends and teenage tantrums are at issue (and so do their parents!). I am of course extremely fortunate to live near them right now, but when I didn’t, there was never a shortage of other children of all ages needing a grown-up other than their parents to relate to (and parents needing another grown-up to share just a little of the burden of keeping a small person alive, or a conversation about something other than sleep-training). The extended family is alive and well, not limited to blood relations, and has a vital place for single people.  

My last point. Single women have things today that few women in history have ever been able to contemplate. I am blown away when I think of the millions of women throughout history, and in the world today, who could never think of learning to read (let alone have a postgraduate education), to drive a car, be financially independent, or of not being considered a source of shame for themselves and their families. My situation represents the tiniest drop in the ocean of women throughout time, and I cannot believe God has not done this for a purpose. (Jesus proposed a view of women that was radical in the ancient world, and the church was for a long time light years ahead of mainstream society in their equal honouring of women – notwithstanding how this was twisted in later times).

I’m not against marriage, by any means. I think it’s wonderful. But I think that singleness has its own wonder, and contrary to popular (Christian and secular) belief, I’m not stuck in some kind of “meanwhile” waiting until The One arrives on my doorstep. My One has come, and we have a life together now.

Married friends and family, I love you. I love how you complement each other, and how you restore my faith in relationships when the media gets depressing. I love how you include me and open your homes to me. But I would love you to love where I am too, and acknowledge that marriage is not God’s only solution for a full life. If it really was the be-all and end-all, why isn’t there marriage in heaven? Not everyone is destined to get married, any more than everyone is happy being single. Let us accept and enjoy each other’s differences, and get on with the more important business of reflecting God’s all-embracing, all-honouring character to a fragmented world.

Kate has a blog called Tales from the Coop, which you can get following over here.

[for another great story about Singleness by my friend Cilnette Pienaar, click here]

[for a great post titled, ‘Singleness is not a prelude’, click here]

Parents [of all shapes and sizes]

So i may not be a parent, but fortunately i know people who are. And some of them are incredibly inspirational and some of them have just about managed to stay alive [which is quite inspirational in itself]. All of them have shared their stories and ideas and strategies and created this amazing resource page which I hope will help and encourage and inspire you as a parent or friends of a parent and please feel free to use and pass on:

Parents of young children [when it has not been all that easy]

Some great questions to ask at the dinner table to enhance your meal times

Some great stories and ideas on how to raise your children as World Changers

I gave the phrase ‘To Be A Mom’ to a number of people and this is how they responded

I gave the phrase ‘To Be A Dad’ to a number of people and this is what they had to say

When your child throws a Tantrum

this.

i hear you rant against my this

and listen closely to your diss

i walk away somewhat bemused

another day i’d be amused

but what I’ve heard

those words you spat

the ‘this’ i own is not your ‘that’.

 

you make a case against ‘my god’

the words you use are rather odd

cos hard as i might try to see

your ‘him’ sounds nothing like my ‘Thee’

the ‘him’ you talk of sounds so mad

so distant, proud, aloof and bad

i really strain to hear your claim

they only sound alike in name

and as I hear these words you use

i know that’s not a ‘god’ i’d choose

how can this be? I have to know 

what caused your picture to be so?

 

some time has passed

i have returned

astonished at some things I’ve learned

i’ve found you’re not the only one

whose view of god is less than fun

i’ve met with those who loved His way

but church helped them to end their stay

by having a much stronger sense

not what they’re for, what they’re against

and while they claim to look above

it’s obvious they don’t ‘err’ on Love

still others found it too much bother

that churches fight amongst each other

the crusades, wars, apartheid, shame

so much justified by ‘his name’

as actions worked to bring a curse

someone, somewhere quoted a verse

as religion was proven to be dud

my Saviour’s name rolled in the mud.

 

i dry my tears

with fresh resolve

i long to see this thing resolved

to have some chance 

to right this wrong

to play for you a different song

to draw you to a sacrifice

show you my God who gave His life

who led by dropping on His knees

who hung out with ‘the least of these’

who asked, ‘who does condemn? Me? No!’

who taught us to embrace our foe

who said, ‘to follow, you must die’

and gave His life to show us why.

 

i hear you rant against my this

i think i understand your diss

I know it’s going to take a while

but as i leave i softly smile

i know now that it’s up to me

for i’m the One you’re going to see

the life i live must show you that

the ‘This’ i love is not your ‘that’.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

psalmthing to chew on: psalm 57

I want to start at the end of this Psalm, so we see where the writer ends up,

9 I will praise you, Lord, among the nations;
    I will sing of you among the peoples.
10 For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;
    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;
    let your glory be over all the earth.

The writer sounds excited and as if they are in a place of thriving and life to the full exhuberance… and it is important to recognise that and hold on to the image that this last part of the Psalm envokes and then maybe apply it to your life and your present circumstances as we wander through the rest of the psalm listening to some context:

1 Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,
for in you I take refuge.
I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings
until the disaster has passed.

4 I am in the midst of lions;
    I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts—
men whose teeth are spears and arrows,
    whose tongues are sharp swords.

6 They spread a net for my feet—
    I was bowed down in distress.
They dug a pit in my path—
    but they have fallen into it themselves.

This echoes a number of other psalms – life is not so good right now, God. It’s difficult. People and situations seem against me. But, when I am afraid I will trust in you…

Which reminds me of an old song we used to sing that still moves me deeply. In fact it is a duet we used to song at Westerford which is the High School I went to and for four years we would look forward to being in matric [grade 12] and being able to do the harmony part of ‘You are my hiding place’ which goes like this:

You are my hiding place
You always fill my heart
With songs of deliverance
Whenever I am afraid
I will trust in You

I will trust in You
Let the weak say
I am strong
In the strength of the Lord

[I will trust in you.]

The song is credited to a number of artists but it looks like it was written by Michael Ledne, who based it on a verse in Psalm 32 [7] and Psalm 56 [3] with bits added from 2 Corinthians 12.9-10

‘The author, Michael Ledner, composed “You Are My Hiding Place” at the age of 27 when he
was going through a painful period in his life, a period of separation from his wife. He shared the
song with several friends, made a recording of it, and set it aside. Nine months later he shared the
song with a group while they were serving at a kibbutz (communal settlement) in Israel. These
friends took the song back with them to California, and after it was sung there, Michael was
contacted by Maranantha! Music who wished to record “You Are My Hiding Place.”‘

In fact, here is the Maranatha Singers giving their interpretation of his song [I did try to find a more up tempo rock version that captures the Westerford matric rendition, but alas, most of the versions are more slow and orchestrated like this one, and none of them seem to have the same duet harmony vibe, but it is nonetheless still such a powerful song so worth the listen]:

 [To return to the Intro page and be connected to any of the other Psalms i have walked through before now, click here]

Taboo Topics: Cancer [specifically to caregivers of cancer sufferers] – Meet Robert Martin

Introduction

In the summer of 2012, my wife and I began a rather interesting journey together. And by “interesting” I mean the same sort of “interesting” that is implied in the ancient apocryphal Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”. You see, my wife was diagnosed in July 2012 with (to use the medical techno-geeky terminology) Type II invasive ductal carcinoma. For those of you less involved in the whole process, this is breast cancer.

This put me in a role in which I don’t think I really have ever excelled at. I’m the big strong Daddy, the strong and determined husband. I’m the intellectual, the rational, the factual person. I’m the one who thrives on logic and reasonable, predictable progression. Emotions need to be subject to the mind. Me, give compassionate, loving, gentle care to someone dealing with a serious illness? Don’t make me laugh.

And yet, that is where I found myself. My choice was reduced, then, to not whether or not I’ll be a caregiver, but more what kind of caregiver I’ll be. This had been a serious wrestling point for me as it was entirely new territory for me and way beyond my comfort zone. I searched and sought for some sort of set of guiding principles of what this should look like for me. As an Anabaptist, I gravitated to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 as that, traditionally, has been the set of guiding principles for Anabaptists for centuries. The Beatitudes immediately stood out to me and I started really thinking over them and meditating on them. The more I pondered them, the more I saw them as not just a general description of what members of the Kingdom of Heaven should be like, but how they could be applied to this role as a caregiver.

Now, forgive me, but I might come across as “sermonizing” in this. When it comes to taking Bible passages and putting them to use, giving a “sermon” is my default mode. But this, really, is where my journey took me.

Being “Blessed”

First of all, I want to point out that when these Beatitudes say the word “blessed” (or “happy” in some translations), it doesn’t mean what we think it means. There’s a difference between what Jesus is saying here and what we think about being “happy”. “Blessed” is a state of mind similar to what James mentions when he calls people to “consider it pure joy”, that the circumstances of life, difficult as they currently are, will lead to something better down the road and this hope is the source of our deep satisfaction. So, as I walk through the beatitudes, I’m not saying I am happy-go-lucky all the time, but there is a hope further out that I’m aiming at and that is where my “joy” comes from.

Poor in Spirit – The first Beatitude is about being “poor in spirit”. As a caregiver, I know what this is about. As a caregiver, there’s all sorts of weight and pressure on you. Not only do I have to take of my wife, but because she’s less capable than she had been, I find myself having to do a lot of her jobs. This feels so crushing, sometimes. But the “poor in spirit” gets the Kingdom of Heaven. And what is that? Well, it’s this immense community of people, lifting each other up. I am the pinnacle of a pyramid of people, each person lifting up the other, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. This is my joy, that I am not alone and, even in the pressure of being a caregiver, this network of people holds me together.

Mourning – My wife is not dead, nor is she in danger of dying right now at all. But I’ll tell you, there’s a lot of stuff in my life that, at least for now, is as good as dead. Our lives have been turned upside down, my wife’s physical body is not as it “should” be, my daughters no longer have the innocence of a world where Mommy and Daddy are always going to be around, and so on. The “comfort” in the Beatitudes, though, comes very easily. It’s not a comfort of “everything will be OK”, it’s a comfort of being held while I cry and leaning heavily, both on Jesus for my spiritual support and on my friends and family when I need a pair of human arms.

Meek – This is probably one of the harder ones. Meekness is not letting people walk all over you. But it is about setting aside my own desires, my own wants, my own priorities in favor of my wife’s desires and needs. And beyond that, what God wants out of me needs to take priority. Now, Jesus talks about “inheriting the earth”, but it seems to be more than just getting a big ball of rock, but more of finding a peace away from the battles of fighting against all my enemies. Just stop fighting, stop striving to get my way, my things, my stuff, and give it all over to what God wants and what my wife needs. What I’ll get in return is this amazing peace that comes from knowing that I don’t have to fight any more, that god will do the fighting for me and I can enjoy where I am, this earth that I’m on.

Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness – When my life is filled with caring for my ill wife and doing all the jobs that two parents normally do as a single parent, there’s almost no time for keeping my life on track. It’s so hard to find the time to spend in getting my spiritual life in order when there is so much of the physical to attend to. So, I’m “hungry and thirsty” for getting closer to God and I don’t see any easy way to do so. But the Beatitude says that I “will be filled”. There is grace and mercy available and, even though I’m stuck in the mundane of the physical, God will be there for me, he will help me find my fill even in those little “snacks” I get, and God will certainly fill me some day.

Mercy – Mercy is not, in the biblical sense, putting someone out of their misery, commuting a sentence, or relieving a pain. That plays a role, perhaps, but when it comes to being a caregiver, or even a Christ-follower, it’s much bigger than that. It is a kindness and compassion. As a caregiver, during my wife’s recovery, my days are spent exercising kindness in immense quantities. Refilling ice-packs, refilling water bottles, getting pillows, helping her get out of the chair, bringing her a meal, etc., all come under this immense kindness. But I realized that mercy is also in treating the person in a way that relieves the soul. Not being a woman, there are aspects of the cancer treatments that just don’t hit me as hard. It took another woman offering to take care of some of those needs for my wife that I just couldn’t meet that showed me the effects of mercy. Not only was my wife shown mercy, but I received a mercy in that the weight of responsibility for those parts of my wife’s care was no longer on my shoulders. What a relief. This is God’s mercy and, as I showed mercy to my wife, I received this mercy from God.

Pure in Heart – Purity in heart, when it comes to righteousness and such, does not really apply to the role of a caregiver. There’s plenty of time to talk about that in other places. For a caregiver, this purity in heart manifests in a different way. With every test, every procedure, every treatment, every surgery comes a whole host of possible complications and side effects and long term problems. These things are very real to us. Our loved one going through it all is facing, every time, the possibility of something going horribly wrong. I need to be able to hear her fears and return with confidence and peace. It’s extremely difficult to do this when I am fighting the same fears and uncertainties. This beatitude promises, though, that this purity of heart, on dwelling on the good things of God, will allow me to actually see God. This does not mean that I’ll actually see the dude with the white beard riding on a cloud or anything. Instead, if I’m focusing on the good things of God, just like if I’m focusing on a star in the sky, or focusing on the words on a page, God will become that much clearer to me in the events and happenings of our lives. When I seek that purity of heart where it is unsullied by doubts and fears and worries, then the beauty and goodness and shalom of God becomes so real, I can see God.

Peacemaker- I know for a fact that a life that involves cancer treatments certainly does not feel peaceful, at least by the world’s standards. There are doctors and treatments and surgeries and more doctors and nurses and chaos and insurance claims and bills and all sorts of stuff. Add to that maintaining some semblance of sanity for our two daughters and their lives and our lives with appointments and meetings and church stuff. Peace? What’s that? Shalom? Where? he promise that goes along with this beatitude, on the surface, just doesn’t seem practical at all in the face of the stresses of being a caregiver. What does being a child of God have to do with this? Aren’t I that already? Then I remember something: God doesn’t ask shalom of us because he wants to give us an impossible task. God asks shalom of us because God is already in shalom with us. The peacemaker will be called a child of God. This is not a “bonus” for being a peacemaker. Being a peacemaker is evidence of something I already am. My peacemaking in my relationship towards my wife is something that will naturally grow out of my sense of shalom in my relationship with God. As God’s child, I can help my wife know this shalom, this sense of “rightness” in her life by living it out myself in my relationship with her.

Persecuted/Put to Flight – After reading about Richard Wurmbrand and others like him, I really hesitate to call simple troubles and trials “persecution”. In the case of my wife’s illness and the issues surrounding what it means to be a caregiver to a loved one, I certainly am not, by that standard, persecuted. At least, certainly, not by human beings. But in this beatitude, behind the word “persecuted” is a greek word that translates more into “put to flight” than it is any sort of violence done against a person. As a caregiver in the USA today, living a Christian way, trying to be righteous, I cannot say I’m persecuted. There are times, honestly, when the burden becomes very, very difficult. While I’m doing all I do as a caregiver, I’m providing strength and comfort and support for my wife as she, too, is feeling a lot of the same pressures as I am…and more. And in all of this, I need to keep it together. I need to do what I’m called to do out of love. I need to be that strength, the confidence, that support for my family. I need to be a witness to the rest of the world about the different kind of hope and contentment that followers of Jesus are supposed to have. Under all that pressure, I feel like I’m being pursued and chased around by big, ugly, scary guys with bad teeth and tattoos on their eye-balls ready to do me bodily harm. To quote those zany British guys, “Run away!!!” But I have to remember, in all this, that I have a King, Jesus, who faced grief. “Jesus wept” is the shortest memory verse… but it is also the deepest. Jesus knows what it means to face grief and pain. And because he’s been there and knows what it’s like, he sends people to us who have been there and know. My wife and I have been constantly amazed at how people pop-up out of the virtual woodwork to give us a blessing of some sort, whether it is food, a ride, or simply just a shoulder to cry on. This is the Kingdom of Heaven, the body of people who support and lift each other up in the hard times.

It all comes full circle then. As I support my wife, she actually supports me. And we have friends, neighbors, family, and fellow believers supporting us both through all of this. Perfect strangers lift us up in prayer daily and even offer such small blessings as a phone call, an offer of a ride, or just a few moments to listen. The Kingdom of Heaven is an amazing place to live. When I feel like I just want to run away, I can take comfort that I have such a place to call home where I know that, even though the shadow of death pursues me, God is with me.

Pastis before Swine…

so yesterday i got to meet Stephan Pastis, creator and draw’er [i guess] of the greatest cartoon strip alive, Pearls Before Swine… [more importantly, he got to ‘meet’ No_bob, the world’s most famous stuffed dolphin]

The Far Side, on it’s good days [and when it was good it was great, and it was usually good] is definitely up there.

so is Dilbert [Scott Adams who draws Dilbert got me started on Pearls Before Swine and i never looked back, don’t tell him, sh! no seriously cos i used to buy a bunch of Dilbert annuals and now i exclusively buy all of the Pearls books] and Garfield… but with less good days less often… and then Calvin and Hobbes was also definitely up there.

but for some reason, i have come to settle on Pearls. for the moment anyways [or the last ten or so]. i love the characters he comes up with [from innocent stupid Pig to cynical mean and despotic Rat to the ‘outrageously stoopid’ crocs and the exasperated ‘zeebas’ they are constantly trying to eat to the many lesser known or occasional characters such as guard duck Duck [usually seen holding a bazooka] and Andy the god with big plans for his life that are constantly thwarted by the post he is chained up to in his yard, and to the ridiculously silly such as Pastis himself reminded us, Pig’s ‘sea anenome enemy’.

i love the humour – cynical, witty, overly and obviously corny ad punderful on occasion [oh Pastis works for those puns] – the fact that he is the only cartoonist who features himself regularly in his own cartoons and usually about to be ‘taken out’ by Rat for another dreadful pun – the way he is able to laugh at himself, with himself, at us and with others and sometimes all at once.

yes, there is an occasional miss, but even like episodes of Friends, the bad ones are better than most of the good ones of most other stuff. [‘Friends’ is now ‘Parks and Rec’]

i dunno. it’s really hard to say why and do it any justice, i think there is a element of loyalty as i was one of the ones who ‘discovered’ him early on via Scott Adams blogging about him and i am so glad i did – has brought me much fun – and feels like i’ve been on this journey with him from close to the beginning.

[he still hasn’t agreed to create a stuffed dolphin character called ‘No_bob’ who doesn’t in his strip yet, but i think he’s just playing with me… and that the more people who emailed pearlscomic@gmail.com and suggested he do so, the sooner it would likely take place!]

anyways, i was perusing Twitter and saw that Stephan was going to be doing a book signing about an hour away and told tbV and she said we should go and so we headed out. i was expecting it to be a little awkward and stalkery i guess but he gave a brilliant and funny presentation and then he sat and working his way through 100 plus people in a line [i was 46!] posing for photos, drawing a character in each book and engaging in a little bit of small talk with each person. i was really impressed [and i think tbV was too cos she came home and grabbed an old annual and started reading!]. it doesn’t take a lot of effort to not be a jerk and Mr Pastis didn’t do so admirably.

Catch the daily strip here…

Mark, my words: chapter 5-8

Continuing with my walk through the book of Mark as i make short video clips with insights from each passage i read:

Jesus frees the demon-possessed man

a dead girl and a bleeding woman

a prophet in his own town [aka unlocking the potential]

Jesus sending out the twelve in twos to try out the stuff

John the Baptiser loses his head

Jesus feeds the crowd with not a whole lot of food.

Jesus walks on the water

The traditions of man vs. The things of God

Was Jesus being a jerk?

Removing Jesus from your deaf and mute box

The Request for a Sign

Jesus warns His followers about the yeast of these

Jesus gets it wrong?

Deny another day