Seal it for your courts above…

“When I sat down on the bed next to you
You started to cry
I said, maybe if I leave, you’ll want me
To come back home
Or maybe all you mean, is leave me alone
At least that’s what you said

You’re irresistible when you get mad
Isn’t it sad, I’m immune
I thought it was cute
For you to kiss
My purple black eye
Even though I caught it from you
I still think we’re serious
At least that’s what you said”

At Least That’s What You Said  Wilco

The song lyrics above are from a Wilco song that i  have been thinking about lately.  Jeff Tweedy, the principal song writer for Wilco, somehow manages to capture a lot of how i feel about marital strife.  There have been plenty of times where i have felt that it would be better for me to leave for a while so K would want to make up or where i was “immune” to the tears i had caused.  And that is shaming and sad and dysfunctional.

I also spent some time today googling links looking for information about a former favorite musician of mine.  I had come across information about his newest album and tour so i decided to go look him up on wikipedia.  While reading his bio, i came across a mention of his second wife.  Second Wife, i thought, what happened to his first?  So much of this man’s music is about his first wife, hell a lot of what drew me to like him in the first place is how he wrote about being married.  How can he have a second wife?  Well he does and as Billy Pilgrim would say “And so it goes”.

I have had divorce come up a few times in my peripheral lately.  Aside looking through google links for gossip, i have had a couple of conversations about the film “The Royal Tenenbaums” and by extension Wes Anderson’s films lately.  At a party for my birthday a friend of mine mentioned that the film saddened her because of the rampant dysfunction in the family in the movie.  I agree, the film is full of sadness and melancholy, disappointment and isolation.  Indeed that may well be the point.

I shared with her, and the others who were discussing the movie, an observation that i have had when talking to other friends about the film.  What i have found to be true is that by and large “The Royal Tenebaums” is perceived differently by people whose parents divorced in childhood then those whose parents remained hitched or separated later in their kids life.  I know it to be true for me and K.  I identify very strongly with the grown children in the movie and Rushmore remains her favorite Wes Anderson film.  Coming from a home where my parent’s marriage crumbled, i find myself sensitive to, almost prone to fear of my own relationship with K failing.  And talking about the movie got me thinking about what makes marriages and families work, or not. 

Thinking about this post and what inspired me to write it reminds me off a dream i had when i was a teenager.  In the dream my mother cheated on my stepfather, a man that i greatly looked up to and respected, and in the dream i was forced to chose between siding with her or him.  Waking from the dream i was simultaneously really angry with my mother and confused about the depths of my identification with my stepfather in the dream.  Now years later, i understand that what i was truly identifying with was opposition to the potential for infidelity in myself.  I was afraid of my own heart being unfaithful or inconstant.  I vowed were i to ever get married that i would never be untrue to her.

But, here is the difficult part.  I had no idea then and am still learning now just what faithfulness means.  It is not just not having sex with people other than my wife or avoiding other outlets of sexual release, it is so much more complicated then that.  I cannot be faithful as i should be merely by not doing things, by avoiding things that are bad.  That is just the first step, the “easy” part.  The harder part is to start adding faithfulness to my life.  To seek out ways to do and to serve for my marriage.  I need to fight to keep her, i can never take anything for granted or hope to coast through avoiding bad things.  She does not deserve that. And neither do I.

And of course, if this true of my relationship with K, then it must also be true of my relationship with the Father.  It is not enough that i flee from sin, this just the ”easy” part but i need to put myself forward to work on our relationship.  I need to have holiness added to my character not just see sin stripped from my heart.  Sanctification requires me to engage myself to allow the Blood of Christ to penetrate my being, to be transformed into his likeness.  To take up his work, to add to my load, to want to grow in the things that He was about, that is the direction of faithfulness that i must move in. 

And i know i will fail to do this perfectly.  God is not surprised though.  He is aware that i am prone to wander.  God wants me to come home, and stay there, now in all that i do and does not need time alone to be ready to receive me and he is certainly not immune to my tears.  So as much as i love that song by Wilco, thank goodness that God is a better partner than me or Jeff Tweedy.

~ by jephit on May 2, 2008.