TO HAVE & TO HOLD

June 16th. Our day. That was the day the knot was tied, the vows were said, the cake was eaten. The day it all started was actually weeks and months before that. I don't remember it being an actual moment; more like an unfolding. We didn't shake a Magic 8 Ball. There was no Rock, Paper, Scissors, or coins tossed. There was a bit of ignorant bliss, romance, naivette, hormones, young love and belief that this was a match made in heaven. At least that's the way I remember it.

We didn't use the traditional vows in our marriage ceremony. We wrote our own and they definitely had an early 70s zeitgeist of peace and love to them, but they were sincere and have stood the test of time.

When I speak of traditional vows I'm talking about those that go something like this:

I, ____, take you, ____, to be my husband/wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, until death do us part.

First, we didn't even know what "to have" and "to hold" meant. Next, we were kids. We were invulnerable to stuff like worse, poorer, and sickness much less death. Why bring all that crap into the celebration?

As I think about this anniversary of our wedding, I'm 52 years older and I still am not sure I understand what have and hold mean. I could guess; and I will before the essay is finished. All these years later I don't know that I would want those words in our vows if we were to do one of those vow-renewal things. That sounds so possession-y, like some kind of claim of ownership. Like maybe: "I promise TO HAVE control over you and TO HOLD you back from being your own person" or something.

I think my attitude has been marred by all the focus on that twisted theology that religious fundamentalists call "complementarianism". I would love to write about how I feel about it but I'm not going to let it be a dark cloud over my intent of writing a heartfelt sentiment about how blest out of my heart, head and soul I am to have been married to My Amazing Missus for more than half a century.

So, here's how I'm viewing and understanding having and holding. Let's start with the dark side of having/holding.

Remember poor old Peter? The guy that was known for eating a lot of pumpkin; so much in fact that he has been known for eons as Peter, Peter, Pumpkin Eater?

He had a relationship problem. Or, was his problem a wayward woman, or maybe he had signed up for a doctrine that somehow believes that wives are subordinate to husbands. The question that other men seeking submissive wives might have is: how in the world did he get her into that pumpkin shell and in what state was she in that he was able to keep her there "very well"?

Sometimes seeking to have and hold turns into an ugly form of possesion--dehumanizing another to the point that they exist only for the other's use: like a commodity.

Let me illustate with the this little excerpt from a newspaper article:

The drab free port zone near the Geneva city center, a compound of blocky gray and vanilla warehouses surrounded by train tracks, roads and a barbed-wire fence, looks like the kind of place where beauty goes to die. But within its walls, crated or sealed cheek by jowl in cramped storage vaults, are more than a million of some of the most exquisite artworks ever made. --New York Times.

I realize that it seems like I'm using an inanimate object: art, to try to make my point about being fully human, created in the image of The Creator. But think of it as representing something bigger. Let's call it "beauty". Somethings are just not meant to be KEPT. Having and holding are so much more than that.

Let me try it this way. If you are a parent or a grandparent, or maybe an aunt or an uncle, this next sentence will cause a burst of images and memories, joys and maybe a few sorrows, but sublime all the same. Ready?

We HAVE a new baby and I got to HOLD him.

Can you feel the honor in that? The joy? The desire to share the news.

Here is a picture of My Amazing Missus and me. It is moments after the birth of Jeremiah our youngest Grand. We are crammed in the window seat of the hospital in Enid, Oklahoma, with all of the other Grands, taken January 19, 2022 at 2:11p.

Had he been born a few weeks later the hospital would have been locked down because of the pandemic. Selfishly, I cannot fathom what it would have cost me emotionally to not be able to be there for that moment--that first moment of HAVEing a new grandson and HOLDing him.

That's what it means to me to have and to hold. Obviously I didn't HAVE him. His beautiful mom Brooke did all that work with steady support from his dad, Kyle. And, obviously HOLDing is more than physical, literal holding.

If I haven't made my point yet, then I'm a lousy point maker. It's just that if I were to tell my bride of 50-something years that I am committed to having and holding, I would want her to know it is all about cherishing and celebrating and sharing.

I understand the concept of one thing complementing another. I'm intimately familiar with peanut butter and jelly. But, in a true complementary relationship one thing is not subjugated to the other. That is an ugly distortion, and it is one that I'm vulnerable to. In fact, I've done that kind of crap to others. Hopefully I've haven’t justified it by being a christian, a male, old, white, democrat, introvert, bald, cynical, peanut butter & jelly loving jerk.

Happy Anniversary to My Amazing Missus. Like the old song says, "I love you more today than yesterday, but not as much as tomorrow." I'm still here; to have and to hold from this day forward.

REMEMBERING AUNT BETTY

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

Has a better opening paragraph ever been written? I've chosen to start this essay with it because it is in the spirit of what I want to talk about, but I don't have the ability or insight to craft a sentence like it.

A few days ago I stepped into a time capsule and whooshed back sixty years or so. In a little ghost of a town named Dubach, Louisana, we gathered with cousins to remember our Aunt Betty, Dan and Philip's mother and my dad's last living sibling. The night before her memorial service we gathered and told stories of childhood.

My cousin Dale said to me, "Do you remember that time we were playing Tag in the dark in Aunt Betty's backyard and you ran into the clothesline? It caught you right in the neck. Your feet went flying and you slammed on your back. We all stood around you, looking down to see if you were still alive."

I didn't remember it. Maybe I blocked that memory, but others seem as fresh as they did when we were just kids. Dubach was one of those places and the halcyon days of the late 50s and early 60s one of those times when we could run unfettered from morning to night with little to worry about; save a clothesline.

Remembering playing Tag? Did your version provide a homebase where you could be "safe" from the the pursuit of the person who was "it"?

Dubach, and more specifically, Aunt Betty's home, was a safe base. Aunt Betty took grace and eternal hope seriously. To a casual observer she might appear to have a side to her that seemed stern, strict, springing from a devotion to her faith. In reality she had higher aspirations for us all than we even had for ourselves. Make any sense? How about an example:

She was a fine musician. If you had the slightest interest in music (as I did), you would feel sort of a weird accountability to her to get it right. Dig in. Learn more. Practice, practice, practice because the art demanded it. For her, music was created by and was a gift from God. If you claimed to be a musician, you had a responsibility to honor that gift. I can't thank her enough for being my first and foremost teacher of music appreciation.

It was not just music, but in life that she expected the best. We were implored by her example to unrelenting devotion to family and faith.

Those priorities were the super glue that bound my father and his little sister. In the birth order of the six children of Chroley and Bernice Fuller of Dubach, Louisiana, Dad was fourth, Aunt Betty, fifth. Apparently, from stories we've heard many times, Dad saw himself as guardian and protector of his little sister. Later she became his spiritual and doctrinal guide.

Dad, being a Baptist pastor during a time before Baptist fell into the abyss of authoritarianism, sort of complied with the common beliefs and interpretations. One day years ago we were gathered. The subject of the role of women in faith came up. Mention was made of the current fad of religious leaders putting women in their subjective place. My Dad, who grew up with a mother who was a cornerstone in their local church and a sister who was the glue of that church, said, "I tend to agree with that view." His sister, my Aunt Betty turned from the kitchen counter where she was preparing a dish and said, "Brother! You know better than that." Turns out he did know better. He knew empirically and experientially that to view women as subserviant to anyone in the work of faith is untrue, unjust and ungodly.

A few years ago, My Amazing Missus and I were having dinner with my parents. Dad told us he and Mom wanted to talk with us about their last wishes. He said, "We've decided to be cremated upon our deaths." I was so surprised. This had never been mentioned in our many conversations on the matter. Where had this come from?! He continued, "We were visiting with your Aunt Betty on the phone the other night. She has been praying and reviewing scripture on the matter and has come to peace with a decision in favor of cremation for herself."

That settled that.

That's one of the things about homebase, that safe place from the "its" of life. There are trusted voices. People with high expectations for us but also a deep, abiding love that lets us try, and whether we succeed or not, they are there.

That's why even at 70-something, with the passing of my Aunt Betty, the ground feels a little less sure. The certain voices of my early life are passing. But we have their wisdom and spirits with us still.

After the service, a few of us cousins and spouses gathered at the cemetary in Dubach. There are so many headstones there with the "FULLER" name, that if that's your surname, you wonder how there can be any left. But, there we were, the kids who once ran around that little town, who ate at Aunt Betty and Uncle Steve's table. For a few moments, as the sun was setting and the mosquitos were beginning their attack, we were all at home base, safe, about to return to grown up life trying to outrun "it".

MORE THAN A FAST CAR

SOMETIMES I CLOSE MY EYES. Maybe if I don't see it, it's not real. Usually though, I want to be able to see. I think most folks do. "I can't see!" is one of the first frustrations we learn to express as kids.

Remember those early TV consoles built to look like furniture, the ones where the picture tube was six-ish inches off the floor? Invariably, there would be a younger sibling messing around right in your field of view just as Lassie was about to save Timmy's backside for the 997th time. "But Mom, I can't see! That's why I gently nudged him out of the way with my foot."

This post isn't about the physical ability to functionally see with our eyeballs, rods, cones, etc. It's about sensing, looking behind the curtain, having a crystal ball, having vision in the big--you might say--biblical way.

We need (or think we need) to see--the whole picture. I also like to be able to see far enough ahead to know that things will resolve well. Fifties and Sixties TV gave us that, but real life is more; real.

I worked with teenagers for most of my adult life. I consider it a privilge to have had that calling. It was not all pizza and volleyball though. The worst parts sprung from seeing the heartbreak; knowing the stories of those who had been dealt a crappy hand. In most all of those lives there was an inability to see: to see what could be, to see a way out or through, to see there is some goodness and beauty somewhere. The lack of vision didn't come from a lack of desire. Sometimes the weight of life makes us nearsighted or blinded.

Whether we can see around the corner, or beyond the moment, or not, we need to know that there's a way out, something or someone that will deliver us somewhere else, something to get us unstuck--call it rescue. We don't know where it might take us, but sometimes we just need to be elsewhere and a way to get there. Maybe we shouldn't think of this as an escape though. When we're trying to escape we might choose poorly, escaping by means of self-harm, self-loathing or desperation.

A while back, March 26, 2023, I wrote a post called GIRL POWER. It is a theme for me to try to do something that is affirming and encouraging to young women. Since then I've written a few times on the subject. Today, I'm writing another. This is for me the tough kind of writing, where each word needs to mean something. I can feel Hemingway's desire to be able to write "one true sentence".

As I oftern do, I want to use the words of another; a poet. Someone who sees this life from a deeper vision than I have. This time the young lady's name is Tracy Chapman. The words are lyrics to her song, "Fast Car". It is a song, that along with Janis Ian's "At Seventeen", is torturous. It is real and raw and paints a picture we need to spend time pondering. My hope is that when I have done that, I will be kinder, more attuned, more resolved, more focused on the things that really matter.

I've included the lyrics here so that Tracy can have the last word. But, PLEASE PLEASE; don't just read these. Go to YouTube and listen to her sing it. CLICK HERE.

---

You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Any place is better
Starting from zero, got nothing to lose
Maybe we'll make something
Me, myself, I got nothing to prove

You got a fast car
I got a plan to get us outta here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
Won't have to drive too far
Just 'cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
Finally see what it means to be living

See, my old man's got a problem
He lives with a bottle, that's the way it is
He says his body's too old for working
His body's too young to look like his
When mama went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said, "Somebody's gotta take care of him"
So I quit school and that's what I did

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so we can fly away?
We gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I, had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
We go cruising, entertain ourselves
You still ain't got a job
And I work in a market as a checkout girl
I know things will get better
You'll find work and I'll get promoted
We'll move out of the shelter
Buy a bigger house and live in the suburbs

So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I, had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
I got a job that pays all our bills
You stay out drinkin' late at the bar
See more of your friends than you do of your kids
I'd always hoped for better
Thought maybe together, you and me'd find it
I got no plans, I ain't going nowhere
So take your fast car and keep on driving

So I remember when we were driving, driving in your car
Speed so fast, I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped 'round my shoulder
And I-I, had a feeling that I belonged
I-I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone

You got a fast car
Is it fast enough so you can fly away?
You gotta make a decision
Leave tonight or live and die this way

---

For a fleeting moment she felt a couple of those life essentials, the ones everyone deserves: that I belong, that I could be someone.

"Search my heart O God" for prejudice, for misogyny, for racism, for deceit, for arrogance. Help me to see in myself the stuff that I do not want to admit is there. Help me to see the hurting, the injustice, the abuser and the abused. And grant me the courage and honesty to do something and say something.

TED!

I've taken a few days now to let things settle, for emotions to level off. When you make a statement that includes phrases like "the best ever" or "the worst ever", you need to strive to be at your most objective. Wait; that's not true! We're not talking science here, this about art and life; deep feelings, wide-ranging emotion, stuff of the heart and soul. Hyperbole is in order.

Still, I needed a cooling off period before declaring that "Ted Lasso" is the best broadcast series ever. The pause between the end of the finale series episode and this writing was not because there was any doubt, I just needed to have my wits about me. And yes, I did watch "Downton Abbey". No, I didn't watch "Breaking Bad" or "Succession". Yes, I'm a sentimental sap and a sucker for fantastic, once in a lifetime writing of brilliant comedy and dramatic moments that border on corny but make you want to believe they're true all at the same time. Higgins, one of my favorite characters in the series said of the series, "It pulls at your heart and hits you in the funny bone."

I love this kind of stuff. It's the magic recipe of writing that makes it possible for me to watch any Richard Curtis movie over and over; films like: Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994), Notting Hill (1999), Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), Love Actually (2003), About Time (2013) and Yesterday (2019).

Surely Jason Sudekis is a fan as well. Just check out the Ted Lasso parody episode of Love Actually.

Now the series has ended, but only the episodes. Ted Lasso will last a long time.

There are a few people out there that if I see their name in a by-line, I stop and read it. People like Anne Lamott, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Tish Harrison-Warren who is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America and writes a weekly newsletter for the New York Times. In a fairly recent edition of her newsletter she wrote this:

Each Wednesday night my husband and I tune in to watch “Ted Lasso,” the Emmy award-winning Apple TV+ comedy series. The show’s protagonist and title character, played by Jason Sudeikis, is ebullient, kind and, though smart, persistently silly. In the pilot episode, Ted, wide-eyed and folksy, arrives in England after relocating from Kansas with his friend Coach Beard. They climb into an impossibly small car, and Ted calls out to Rebecca, his serious, conniving new boss, “Look! This car has an invisible steering wheel!,” mimicking steering on the left side of the car (as we do on this side of the pond). It’s clear that he’s a sort of clown, with this scene even hinting at a clown car shtick. We discover throughout the series that it is in this very silliness that his power is found.

There is no shortage of religious archetypes in literature and in popular entertainment. There are famous “Christ figures” like Gandalf in “Lord of the Rings,” Dumbledore in the Harry Potter stories, and Anna in “Frozen.” Seen through this lens, Ted Lasso is another kind of religious archetype: a modern-day holy fool.

The holy fool, or yurodivy (also spelled iurodivyi), is a well-known, though controversial, character in Russian Orthodox spirituality. In his book “Holy Fools in Byzantium and Beyond,” the historian Sergey A. Ivanov writes that in the Orthodox tradition the term designates “a person who feigns insanity, pretends to be silly, or who provokes shock or outrage by his deliberate unruliness.” In other words, the holy fool is a person who flouts social conventions to demonstrate allegiance to God. Holy fools dwell in ordinary, secular life, but they approach it with completely different values. Rejecting respectability and embracing humility and love, holy fools are so profoundly out of step with the broader world that they appear to be ridiculous or even insane and often invite ridicule. And yet, they teach the rest of us how to live.

Not to crown myself A Holy Fool or to compare myself with Ted Lasso, but I do find something familiar in that character. Maybe that's why I find the show so relatable and wonderful. In life in general and in roles I've had, I feel like a fish-out-of-water, like a guy who knows nothing about soccer coaching a team of English "footballers".

My two main vocational pursuits have been youth ministry and banking. I came to each of these accidentally. I stayed in each of these roles for a considerable time, roughly 30 years in each, with some overlap. Ironically, I'm not and have never been a theologian. I suck at Bible trivia games. On a scale of irreverent to reverent, I drift leftward, but respectfully so. When I was offered a position working for a bank, I shared honestly that when we were first married, My Amazing-Missus took away my checkwriting privileges because of my lack of monetary discipline. I now get to have a debit card on a probationary basis. Thankfully the CEO and board of the bank saw something redeemable there or they have deep pity. Probably a combo.

According to the Pearson-Marr Archetype Indicator® assessment, based on Jung’s archetypal work, my archetypes are Creator and Jester. Of the Jester the description is:

Jesters are most fulfilled when they can use their ingenuity and wit. Naturally playful, spontaneous, and humorous, they enjoy light-hearted truth-telling and can motivate others to see the value of fun. They’re usually excited and challenged by opportunities to lighten up stressful situations. Jesters need to be careful to stay on task when getting routine work done; avoid using humor in hurtful ways; and not come across as being unable to take anything seriously.

Maybe for the first time in my life I feel like I'm in a role that suits who I am. Now it's ABOUT being POPS. All that's required is making them laugh and have fun, helping them stay curious and innocent, encouraging them to look deep into stuff, to see the spiritual, the scary and beautiful spiritual.

If you've watched Ted Lasso at all, I'm guessing that you have done so religiously and that you know the characters well. I love them all but especially Roy Kent. He's so tough and narrow-minded that as a coach, rather than wear a whistle, he just yells, "WHISTLE!!" If you know Roy, this little snippet of dialog between Roy and Ted will make you smile and maybe tear up just a little. If you don't know the show, I hope it is still profound for you.

Roy Kent: For the past year I’ve busted my [expletive] [expletive] trying to change but apparently it hasn’t done [explitive] because I’m still me.

Ted Lasso: Wait. Did you want to be someone else?

Roy Kent: Yeah - someone better. Can people change?

Well, now I'm all dewy-eyed like Meg Ryan in "You've Got Mail" or "Sleepless in Seattle", and I can barely see to type. So, I'm going to rely on the words from Tish Harrison-Warner to close this one out.

"In a time when our culture is marked by outrage, division and cynicism, Ted Lasso calls us back to humility. He asks us to lighten up a little, to not take ourselves too seriously. In doing so, he reminds everyone he encounters — including us watching at home — of our shared humanity. We are all, in the end, not winners or losers, successes or failures, pure heroes or villains, but people who long to be known, loved and delighted in. This is the gift of Ted Lasso. He shows us what’s possible when we give up winning — soccer games, power grabs, professional success, culture wars or online fights — and, however foolish it may be, choose to root for the people all around us."