Bad Seed or Bad Environment?

Almost a hundred years ago a man was born who later became a drunk, a wife-beater, and raper of little girls. Obviously, Clive didn't start out in life as evil incarnate, but he certainly became evil by his own choices. I know nothing of his childhood homelife, so I have no clue as to what made him become the man he was.

When Clive was a relatively young man, he seduced Ella, the daughter of one of the few financially well-off men in town. She was only 16 and Daddy's girl. Daddy didn't approve of her boyfriend, so she eloped with him. At the time, I'm sure she thought he was wonderful, sophisticated, and handsome. The fact that he came from the "wrong side of the tracks" only made him more mysterious. She was at that age when parents seem narrow-minded and out to steal the joy from their children's lives. She had heavy responsibilities at home. Her mother had essentially abdicated her household responsibilities and placed them on Ella, who cooked, cleaned and cared for the younger children in the home. Compared to the life she was living, Clive's offer looked good, so she took it. She was to regret her choice.

Clive, too, had his regrets. He discovered that being married made it hard to live the kind of free, independent life he wanted. I'm not sure how soon the beatings with the rubber hose began, but it probably wasn't long. Clive liked his whiskey. He liked it much more than Ella thought. When he worked, he liked to spend his money the way he wanted to, and not necessarily the way it needed to be spent, like for food and rent. Within a year a baby girl, Melly, was born, and her needs were not significant to him. She was just another responsibility keeping him from feeling free.

In another two years a boy, Bill, was born and three years after that, little Vicki. With each birth I imagine Clive felt more trapped than before. The bars still beckoned. He still loved his whiskey, and if Ella complained, he just drew out his weapon of choice, the rubber hose. Ella learned not to complain, but it didn't make much difference when he was drinking. She tried to get odd jobs, even picking fruit, to get enough money to feed her children. Somehow they survived. But Clive had begun to use the hose on the children, and she was worried.

When Melly was about 10, Ella had something else to worry about. Melly was tall for a ten-year-old and looked a bit older than she was. One night in his drunken perversity, Clive visited the bedroom of his oldest daughter and robbed her of what could not be replaced, her innocence. How many times he repeated the offense, I don't know, but such an injury, repeated or not, leaves life-long scars.

Not long afterward, however, a miracle happened. Clive was killed in an automobile accident. He could no longer drink up funds, beat his wife and children, and rape his daughter.

Ella, still a young woman, found another man (Jim) who wanted to marry her, even with three children at her heals. He was a difficult man, hard on the children, strict in discipline, and not terribly loving to these young ones. But he was a hard worker; he didn't drink up what he made at work, and he helped this small family survive and eventually prosper. The children all managed to graduate from high school, marry, and go on to lead financially successful lives.

But Clive had left his mark on each of them. Bill and Vicki both became alcoholics. Melly, however, hated alcohol and wanted nothing to do with it or anyone who indulged in it. Their lives would bear out the influence of this bad seed.

Vicki married an alcoholic. Alcohol eventually destroyed their marriage, but not until after two children were born. Those two children were hurt by the constant fighting and the contaminated atmosphere of fear and distrust. After the divorce, these two struggled with their own demons, both choosing never to marry and have children of their own.

Bill bought two liquor stores and decided to make his living by selling a legal, addictive drug in bottles. His wife, also an alcoholic, gave him two children, Bill Jr. and Joan. These two innocents were raised in a home where their father was raging angry most of the time, no doubt a product of the home example he had. He intimidated them and drank before them. Their mother doted on the son but neglected the daughter who so desparately needed genuine affection. They hardly ever saw her without a drink in her hand, even in the early morning. One day, Bill Jr. found his mother lying dead on the couch, half of her body purple from the explosion of her liver, pickled with years of alcohol abuse. Less than five years later, Bill had to clean up his father's remains after they were blasted all over the floor of the liquor store he owned. Two robbers decided that the $40.00 in the register was not enough payback for them.

Bill Jr. struggles today with the same demon as his father and grandfather: alcohol. He doesn't beat his wife, but Clive's influence still reaches out to yet another generation: Billy and his finance, too, are trapped in its grip, a stranglehhold that seems relentless.

Joan created a fantasy life for herself. She couldn't face the demons that her parents actually were, so she created a fantasy memory of love and sainthood to replace the real but tragic memories. Her delusion became psychosis, to the point of disability from her job. In the mean time, she decided that what she needed was a child, but she didn't want to marry. So she checked out the male population and picked one that she thought would make a good contribution to the gene pool. Nine months later Missy was born.

Joan raised Missy in the pattern she saw at home--physical and verbal abuse abounded. There were others to influence that young life, and for a while, she did ok. When she hit her teen years, however, rebellion became too mild a word for her attitude and behavior. All the vices that Joan had hoped to prevent by her control over Missy's life reared their ugly heads--drinking, sex, and drugs. Missy married, but that didn't turn out too well. And one late night, at 23 Missy wrapped her car around a tree and left this earth forever.

And what about Melly, the daughter Clive raped at 10? She married a good man who didn't drink. She bore him three children. But the central influence on her life was not her biological father, but her Heavenly Father. When they were married only a few years, Melly and her husband met Jesus Christ. He transformed their lives and replaced the years of spiritual famine with years of plenty. The path has been filled with fallen branches, weeds, and rough brush, but the seed of faith planted in those hearts also bears fruit today in the lives of their children and grandchildren.

Public Transportation.

Although I've lived in big cities, I am for the first time using public transportation to finish the commute to my job. The first few days were no problem; I was one of only a handful of people riding. This week, however, the "traffic" has picked up, and I have found my self face to face (or eyeball to armpit) with many more members of the public.

The guy sitting next to me yesterday looked clean when he got on the bus. But as he chose the seat next to and slightly above my seat, I quickly discovered that he did not smell clean. I had to turn my head away from him to keep from losing my breakfast. Odors, however, are not the only unpleasantness about public transportation. Space is also a problem. I like my personal space and try to respect the space of others. Yet the morning bus ride seems to be more crowded every day. One day last week, all the seats were taken, and three people were standing, holding onto poles. And speaking of holding on, the bus driver on Wednesday seemed intent on driving us to our deaths--and in response we were holding on for dear life itself.

There are some positive elements to this new experience of riding the bus. I get to see some people regularly, and in polite, distant terms, I get to know these people. While I really don't know much about them, there is a comfort in seeing their familiar faces, reminding me that I am not really alone. I also get to see some of my students on this bus; our student/teacher relationship gets put aside on these trips; we enter into a kind of equality where we are just riders of the same bus.

We are all riders of a much larger bus--the earth--as it spins and traverses space in a way that does leave some of us holding on tight because it seems life will topple over any minute now. My survival doesn't depend, however, on how tightly I hold on because my safety is dependent on how tightly my Driver has hold on me. The Scriptures tell me that I am written on His hands and that underneath are Everlasting Arms. My head may spin as life's events occur, but He is never out of control, steering me to His appointed destination.

First Days Perspective

I was meditating today about the stress that occurs at the beginning of a school term. When I was a student, the first day of class was often stressful: I would wonder things like, "Will I like this teacher? Will the teacher like me? Will the class be fun and interesting? Will the teacher be fair? Will I learn something or will I be bored?" Now as a teacher, I know that many of my students have these same unspoken questions on their first day in my class. I try to answer these questions by my manner, my attitude, and through my policies.

But today I was thinking about my own unspoken questions as a teacher: "Will my students like me? Will they listen to what I have to share with them? Will they judge me by my appearance or by my age? Will I be able to motivate them to do their best work? Will they learn something?" I doubt that my students realize that I have these questions. But I do.

Teaching really depends on the relationship I create with my students. I have already determined to love them, no matter what they look like or in what ways they may differ from me. I cannot teach them until I do love them, and love is an act of the will. It is a choice I make every time I agree to teach a class.

Sold

Today I signed away our property to some people I don't know for less money than I thought it was worth through an agent who apparently felt more loyalty to them than to us, making more on the deal than we did. In fact, we took a loss on this house to the tune of about 5,000. I hate that.

My advice to all you out there thinking about selling your home is not to sell it yourself. Rather, avoid going through the big name real estate agents and find a discount broker. I wish I had. The discount broker works for the seller. He/she gets a set fee no matter how much the house sells for, and that fee is usually substantially lower than the regular broker. For example, there is a discount broker in my town whose set fee is $2500; for comparison purposes, my agent made over $8,000 on this deal. That $5500 difference would have made up for the loss I took on the price, and I would have broken even.

Hindsight is always sharper than foresight. Sigh.

Getting Real

This past weekend, we signed a contract to sell our house. So the packing begins. I've been dreading this time in many ways--the house will look a wreck for the next several weeks, with boxes and stuff we're sorting through all over the place. I hate clutter.

Clutter, however, seems to accumulate in many parts of life--in our houses and in our heads. It's hard to separate what to keep and what to toss in the ideas of life. We come across ideas that we ponder for a time, but we forget about them when other interesting ideas come along; they take up space in our cranial reserves. At some point, we may stumble across that idea, and then we must re-evaluate. Does this idea really have merit? Do I believe in its validity? Why would I think it has validity? Where's the evidence? What does the counter-evidence say? If I think through this idea and come to some conclusion about it, for me its like folding clothes and putting them away--the idea has its place and sits there patiently for me to use it. If I don't resolve these questions, the idea may just get tucked away in my mind as unwanted clutter.

All sorts of things in our lives can create clutter. This picture of my son is a good example. Today I began working on packing away the junk on my desk. I've been going through diskettes, zip disks, and CDs to see what gets packed and what gets tossed. This picture was on a diskette. I don't know when Philip drew this self-portrait. I wonder what he was thinking when he did. Does he remember it? Does he want it? Even if he doesn't want it, I can't throw this one away--it would be like throwing part of him away, and I can't do that.

Some people are comfortable with clutter. I'm not. Clutter keeps us from seeing the significant, the real. Part of my mission in life is to clear cluttered ideas and cluttered things from my life. It's a part of my personality that fuels a great deal of what I do.

Poltergeist?

Tuesday morning about 4:30am, I got up to use the restroom, and I heard the water running downstairs. At first I thought Drew must be showering, but it is not like him to be up that early and showering. So I decided to go downstairs and check. Sure enough, the shower was going, but there was no one in it. Just the cold water was on, the soap was on the floor of the shower, and the rug was damp because the shower curtain was open. I was afraid that some water line had broken or something, but I just turned the handle, and it stopped immediately. Very strange.

In checking with Drew the next day, he did not take a shower that night, and since we did not have any guests, the incident is puzzling. Any thoughts out there?

Moving On

I heard my son Drew sing a song at a concert recently. The tune was melancholy and the sweetness of his voice made the words even more so:

"There is a voice that Has no name,
It comes in Evening, or behind the rain.
I have no time now to stop and explain-
I just keep moving, 'cause it helps to ease the pain.

The night has music that calls to me,
across the canyons of an endless sea.
I seek the shadows, of yesterday-
Today can't hold me, so I must be on my way.

Speak to me softly but tell me no lies,
I see tomorrow shining in your eyes.
I have no time now to stop and explain-
I just keep movin 'cause it helps to ease the pain."

Life is full of crossroads, the places in life where we make a choice, or something happens to make that choice for us. Either way, we face a life that is different from the life we had before. Often, I want to cling to that old life because it was comfortable, and I was used to it; I may even have loved that old life. But it is gone. I have no choice; life is moving on, and I cannot stop it.

Sometimes the movement of life, the fact that life goes on, is a saving feature in sorrow. There are things to do, and as Frost said, "Miles to go before I sleep." Life's movement becomes a shield from the pain of change. At some point, however, we must move, too, not just rest on the movement of life itself. We must become agents, subjects who make the choice to move on with life, to dare to make a new, a better life.

Miracles

Today I accepted a job offer: come August, I will be Assistant Professor of Humanities at Kendall College of Art and Design. That might not sound like a miracle, but I assure you, it was designed and engineered by God.

Three weeks or so ago when my husband accepted a position at Western Michigan University, I was sent into a wild, last-minute desperate search for work in the same area. I checked the usual spots--JIL and the Chronicle (places where academics in English look for jobs), and then resorted to Googling for colleges in the area. I was astounded at the number, but began looking through their websites, just hoping for part-time work. I went to the Thomas Aquinas University site and just browsed through the English faculty page. I looked at the faces and suddenly felt compelled to call the chair of the department. Those of you who know me recognize that my calling someone like this, out of the blue, is about as likely as my flying to the moon. The chair was on sabbatical, but was checking voice mail, so I left a message. After a few rounds of voice-mail tag, we finally talked. He didn't have any work for me, but his wife was on the search committee at another school, and the search had ended unsuccessfully. He would pass on my information to them. I thanked him and waited.

I then decided that if the people ever called, they would still need my information, so I put together the usual application stuff and sent it off on a Friday. The following Tuesday I got a call asking me to fly back for an interview. So one week later I was on a plane to Grand Rapids. I interviewed on Wednesday, and today (Friday) the president called and made the offer.

This position is not only an answer to prayer, it is more than I asked for. God not only gave me work, he gave me a tenure-track job in an environment I will love--an art school--and with a lower class load than I have had in too many years to remember. He led me to a place I would not have found, and to a position for which I would not likely have applied because I would have thought myself not what they were looking for. And under different circumstances, they might not ever have asked me to interview if I had applied earlier!

The whole incident reminds me, once again, that "God always gives His best to those who leave the choice to Him." Amen.

Moving

About twenty years ago we moved our family to a house on Charing Cross Road, a house so big (to us) that I thought we would never fill it up (we did). At that time, I said I never wanted to move again. Now, two moves later, we are moving yet again. And again, I hope it's for the last time. My husband accepted last week an offer from Western Michigan University, so we are moving to Kalamazoo (sounds like a name Dr. Seuss would have made up, but he didn't; he did, however, use it in one of his many books). It's the packing I dread; what a hassle that is!

Moving means change, and change for a lot of people is difficult. No matter what we do to insulate ourselves against change, however, it will come anyway. As a Christian I have my life firmly and deeply rooted in heaven; that is my adopted country, the place of my eternal family and home. No matter where I live here on earth, my roots remain undisturbed. I tried to explain this to a friend the other day. I told her that we are but upsidedown trees. Our roots are in heaven, and our branches stretch out from place to place as God moves in our lives.

Moving to Michigan will mean some big changes in our lives. I will, once again, have to adjust to a new climate and begin a search for a group of upsidedown trees with which we can fellowship. God has trees growing everywhere. I have no doubt that He will bring us to the right grove.

Murphy

Murphy is my dog. I should say that she’s our family dog, and while she does acknowledge (even love and appreciate) the other members of the family, she has attached herself to me, and the feeling is mutual. She came to us when Philip, who at 16 was told he could not bring a puppy home from the flea market, did anyway. And so Murphy, named for “Murphy’s Law” (whatever can go wrong will go wrong) has been an integral part of our lives ever since.

After nine years she seems more than a dog. For example, I was sitting on the couch chatting with a friend of mine when Murphy, who was sitting sentinel at the window, found something in the neighborhood to comment on and began to make sounds. My friend said, “She’s almost human, she practically talks.” I don’t know if other dogs make these same types of sounds, but Murphy’s sounds (to project a human interpretation on them) have an emotional valence to them. Over the years I have learned to interpret these sounds to mean various things: “someone is coming; there is someone walking too close to our house; someone is walking with an animal too close to our house; a friend (dog) or enemy (cat, squirrel) is in the yard, so I must go greet (if friend) or frighten away/kill (if enemy) them.” In all of these cases, Murphy must be let outside. She will stand at the window and make these various and sometimes distressing sounds until I say, “Murphy, do you want to go outside?” Then she races me to the back door (still speaking in her doggy way), until I open the door. Then she races out to accomplish whatever it is she thinks she must do.

Murphy is both a joy and a pain in the petute. The petute part occurs when we’ve had a particularly active morning with members of the animal kingdom in my front yard (thus activating the aforementioned noise system and frequent trips to the back door). The joy part comes when I come home and big brown eyes look up at me and her happiness indicator (tail including her whole backside) wiggles with excitement. It also comes when she’s lying on the floor and a warm, soft head flops gently over my feet or when sitting next to me on the couch, she snuggles as closely as possible and puts her head over on my knees.

In spite of her name, Murphy has been one of the best things to go “wrong” in my life.

Perelandra

I suppose that of the many fiction books that I have read, few have influenced me more than C.S. Lewis's Perelandra. The floating islands as a metaphor of submission to the sovereignty of God compels me to title my blog page "Catch the Wave." While I know Coke used that phrase as a slogan several years ago, for me this phrase has an entirely different meaning. Instead of reflecting the public's all-too-eager impulse to do the popular, "cool" thing, to be a part of the big crowd, to feel on the "inside," this phrase reminds me that to live freely, I must catch the wave of God's will and ride that curl to His ultimate destination for me, His presence. My hope for all who know me is for them to know Him and to learn to surf that ocean.