Shunning is a waste of energy

I wish I could look back on the last few years and say I had had a tremendous success in putting the pieces of my life back together but that would be a flat out lie!  I still despise my ex-husband for his philandering and I hate the whore he married (though I wouldn't wish her on a dog).  I still have nothing to do with the exPresident of the University who lied thru his teeth when he did not renew my contract but he got his in the neck.  My sister's children do not speak to me because I insisted that she take care of my brothers will as it was written by him and some don't speak to me because I took care of their mothers, etc!

But what I have done well is to go on with my life in spite of their intended malice and forge a new kind of positive life.   Some might call it shunning but I call it self-preservation and it has taken me into a life of love and satisfaction!   Do I miss the drama of it all?  No!  Nor do I miss the negativity or the back biting!   I handle the relationships that occur;  but I just don't set up the happenings!   I was at my lawyer's house for a party recently and he said, "What's your crazy family doing to you now?"  Most of them have been deleted from my cell phone so I have no contact!   Wishing won't change the game; neither will jumping back into the old rules!  Someone has said,  "We shun to protect ourselves, to draw essential boundaries!"   

The boundaries give direction...and a sense of personal peace!

Putting a family back together!

I am going to work on this project!  For years I have been concerned and it gets worse: four years ago I wrote about my ex-husband, my sister Betty's relationship, my relationship with the church and John Owen situation and mt wounded feelings about my severance from the University!

Little did I know how bad it would really get!

Sunday, August 7,2010

August is coming upon us and I think of last August when we lost Warren. Here is the picture of Betty and me and the Nixons at the Capitol. Sometimes I can hardly believe he is gone from us and we have made it almost a year!

No one was funnier than he was. And no one was so predictable--Mr. Candy Man of the Snickers game. He did what was expected--I will always remember his doing his part when we lost Velna--walking to the cemetery, sitting for the visitation, and coming to the dinner at the church. Betty tried to get him to go home after the service but he would have none of that. He said: "People will expect me to be there."

One week later he came to Cape for my festivities and I introduced him to the crowd. He stood and announced that his nickname for me was "Dirty Neck".

He was a force that we were privileged to reckon with.

Return of Prodigal Son

I will never forget the day a few years ago when I was visiting the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia and I stood in front of this painting by Rembrandt. Rembrandt was a master of capturing the psyche of his subjects. There are two primary figures--the father and the disheveled son. The father is stooped, his hands hardened by the years and his eyes are closed but I could not escape the overwhelming kindness evidenced in him.

The son has fallen out of his shoes; his head is shaved as though he were a slave; he does not dare gaze at his father but looks off to the side Whether the son is up to his old manipulative tricks or whether he is filled with remorse is not a question anyone can answer. Psychology allows each of us to consider the thoughts that are going through the father, the son, and the older brother. Other people are depicted who had to be making judgements on their own.

I love this painting. To me, it shows the true spirit of forgiveness where the father reaches out in joy to receive the son back into the fold. We don't know all the answers--whether the older brother stayed around, whether the two of them ever reconciled, whether the father was alienated from his older son, on and on.

But the one thing I hold on to is that the father reached out to forgive--unconditionally.

The Return of the Prodigal

Rembrandt painted it. It changed the life of the author Henri Nouwen, who wrote a book of the same name after meditating upon the painting. Three characters: Father, son and elder brother. Son and elder brother responded as could be predicted. The father did not. He ran with grace and forgave his son and his elder son welcoming both back into the fold.

I once was lost but now am found. The father of the story is the true hero, the true protagonist. We cannot understand this story unless we see it through the eyes of the radiant father., without whom there is no hope or joy.

Laying Out a Fleece

I wrote last week about laying out a fleece before my birthday to see if anyone in my family reached out to me in forgiveness. I kept track. The Lord did for me far over my expectation as always and far different than I could imagine.

I asked for forgiveness from family but the four areas from which I sought forgiveness were family, Bill Stacy, the lst Baptist Church, and the Administration of Southeast. I kept my eye on the family and the cards, calls and emails came in: My sister, Jennie; my nieces, Betty Ann Warford and her children, Amanda, and Elliott; my nieces, Susan Brown and Catherine Bird. Then I heard from Jamie Shelby's children: James, Daniel, and Janice. My niece, Amy Galemore, and I received an email from my niece Leigh Hammond. I did not hear from other siblings but this was a wonderful response of healing especially from Leigh and from Jamee's children. It would have been the fleece I sought that said that forgiveness was possible.

But then I received a card from the President of the University and his press person invited me for lunch. The alumni director came by with a card and I got a card signedby everyone in the Development staff.

I also asked Judi Hutson, who sent me an email, if I could go to church with her, which I did, and the congregation blocked the aisles to speak to me.

I felt the fleece of forgiveness far more than I intended by the piercing of my heart to let by gones be bygones whenever they emerged their unforgiving heart. I responded to the 94 visits, calls, emails personally and I really wanted to go to church. I laughed around with the President letting him know that I carried no hard feelings. This was a good sign to me.

Sandi Patty- Living on the Edge

I recently reviewed Sandy Patty's book and liked her comments on forgiveness. I figured she knew a great deal about it since she had trouble with men and there was talk about adultery and etc. At the time it was a scandal in religious circles. I always assume that someone who has been through the mill knows something about forgiveness from both sides of the circle. She says:

"It's God's grace, his promise to forgive us when we ask, that lets us live life on the edge..Choosing to accept forgiveness and take advantage of a do-over means we have to change.

I handwrote in my trusty notebook that my fleece takes me wherever God wants me to go. I had another episode with family about my daughter taking a brass bed from her Uncle Jim --one that had caused immeasurable damage already since one sister wanted it for her granddaughter and Jim did not want her to have it so it was literally taken off the truck. I don't know if there was talk about this and I did not stay around to hear about it.

My birthday is Friday and I am keeping away from all sides. It is my prayer that the family will reach out to me and seek conciliation. I need to be inactive and placid in all of this. I have tried to send branches of peace but this time, I sense God's presence and seek peace. When I try to do it all, it is an uneasy peace. Somehow, I know, intuitively that there are people who are God's hands in this world who are members of this family which is crumbling. I shall put out this fleece like Gideon and wait.

Right after I made this decision, Susan Burton called me from the office. I have not heard from her since I retired. We have definitely been at odds and this telephone call was a sign, to me, that God was already working on me and my situation. Not in the way I intended but in his Way, which I had not foreseen. It, to me, was a fleece which could not be denied.