A renewed interest in blogging stirred in me two weeks ago... (2000 words)
This journal is now called “In Rainbow Colors”. Besides its prominence in the My Little Pony Movies, rainbow imagery has come to be associated with aspects of LGBTQ2 movements in politics and society. My rainbow imagery does not derive from my involvement in such a movement. It’s quite the reciprocal: my involvement in such a movement, RMN, derives from my ‘rainbow’ understanding; so, the correlation is there, just not in the way you may have thought.
It must have been the ides of March. From naked perches along the highway to Holland, MI, legions of red-tailed hawks watched us pass in my Pontiac Sunfire. They are the symbol of my Creator’s eyes: watching. It had been a tough winter at the end of a tough year but I believed she and I were on the way to somewhere better. After a pause, she said to me “what if God really does see things in black & white?” I told her that God sees in rainbow colors. She did not understand. Something changed in her that day and I will never know the precise cause. Two months prior, we made a covenant to carry our partnership into marriage. That was her idea. A few months later, she was adamant that I not refer to us as partners. A matter of weeks before, we had been comfortable totally naked together; a few weeks hence, even holding hands was a conundrum to her. This journal is not about my personal laments nor is it an attempt to defend the physical or even the emotional and spiritual nature of our relationship. Our pace was questionable and I certainly had problems to resolve, not least of which was my dependence on her. Some of my issues were ‘third-degree ugly’. None should blame a woman for wanting better from her partner and I wanted to give her my best. There are a pair of exigencies here, however. First is whether it is fair to expect better from someone without partnering with them. The second is a question of God’s rods and cones: does God actually see in black & white? This is the topic I have written about in secret for two weeks now, unearthing too many thoughts to share on-screen.
She did all the ‘discerning’ without me. The black & white became her understanding of what God wanted, so that each decision carried the stamp of “God’s Will” and I, desperate to show her a better me, followed. Then I was told that men were supposed to be the spiritual leaders so I tried to lead. Then I was told that I wasn’t her husband and I could not tell her what to do. Every shade of love had become black to her, save for the idea of a perfect marriage. She had a vision of perfect man, cultivated since girlhood, to which she returned. That was white, to her, and she would not go near me anymore. At first, it was in the obvious ways (use your imagination) but then kisses became forbidden. Then hugs were wrong because they led to kisses. Then handholds were too much like hugs. Yet, I was a person who needed, deeply, to be affirmed through not just touch but through words. Eventually, she wanted to save “I love you” for her white-man; I decided to agree and hope that I could transform—-change into what she wanted. Going to sleep with guilt and inadequacy every night, I needed to feel acceptable. She told me to count on Jesus for my acceptance; I knew she was not wrong. Desperately, I wanted to feel like I had not made some critical mistake—-like someone else I know. I did not understand why I felt bad all the time. I still do not know why I had to feel so bad and why anyone I wanted to love so much could watch me feel dirty, like I was failing, all the time. Yet, I was determined to be disciplined and change the way I did everything, including faith.
The beginning of the end came right at the end of one of those happy days I have been trying to forget, the ones that make me feel like I really lost something. It was the first nice day of spring she and I had together and I took her down to Riverside Park so we could play catch and frisbee. As we were walking back, she mused that maybe we could set-up my hammock between the trees outside her new apartment in Grand Haven. That sounded like a wonderful idea—just like when we set-up a hammock between two trees at my Grandmother’s house the fall before or the hammock on her parents' porch where we had first discussed being ‘together’. I cannot make this stuff up. She changed her mind suddenly—-as if she remembered something. A few days later, I came across a passage in a book she insisted I buy: the author refuses to lay in a hammock with his fiancé. The book was by Joshua Harris –- be careful not to purchase such a book
This could be the part of the entry where I complain about the bad scholarship of the book and highlight how I studied interpersonal communication and I knew that it was quackery. The real ‘hitch’ is that I think the author wrote everything from the best part of his hyper-conservative heart. There were good things to be taken away, though as a whole it is a terrible book for couples. Yet, I played my part, trying to get to that black & white God that I thought I needed. At first, it was the black & white God I needed just to negotiate with her. Then, I was trying to sincerely worship that God. This was the God that was going to help me live in the world of bifurcations instead of diametric continuums. It is that safe world where you either eat ‘the forbidden fruit’ or you do not: the world where hammocks and cuddling are not allowed. Several arduous weeks later, she arrived with a smile on her face and all of the things she had borrowed. I was ready, with all that I had borrowed from her and a borrowed angel on my lap (a stray cat I named “Claire” who stayed with me that day and the day after—-cuddling). That day, she hugged me good-bye and climbed into a dented Jeep. She made a U-turn and disappeared over the crest of a hill to the West. I mean it. Every trace of her on the internet disappeared, too. I sent a birthday card and got no reply. She managed to do one, kind thing in her black & white world: to be completely gone. Whited-out. I have followed suit by not writing about her at all until this—and by being minimal here.
When I am not sleeping-in, I listen to a program called Mornings With Brant. Brant was broaching the topic of Bible-worship when he said something that reminded me of how I felt about Harris’s book. He said that Christianity was really about what Jesus did but that “it can be easier to relate to a book than a real, living being... a book is easier to control...”. Eliza turned to her conservative-lit rather than try to untangle my demons with me. I was tainted and she scrapped me—-perhaps she’ll find a mate who does things ‘by the book’ and be happy. I hope so, just as I hope I find someone who, like me, would light a buddy-burner* under the black & white books their ex forced them to buy and ceremonially dispose of this false doctrine. Literalists have missed the meaning of Genesis, chapter 3: its not history but an allegory for a struggle we have every day. It was not God who saw in black & white but us. The forbidden fruit, the knowledge of good & evil, is this all-or-nothing paradigm. We believed that if we could not be absolutely perfect and obedient, we needed to hang a curtain between ourselves and God. The fruit can be dealt with, it is the fig-leaves that keep us from God’s love. The temple curtain. As the Apostle Paul said “All things are permissible but not all things are beneficial.” Harris talked about keeping good boundaries and he was headed in the right direction; sometimes the right boundaries are less boundaries: torn curtains—not in romance but for all humanity.
Black & white had trouble holding me after she walked away. Black & white says you are a leper, so stay over there. Black & white says you are a gentile, so this Book is not for you. Black & white says you are unclean so you have to make atonement. Put your fig-leaves on, bitch. I’m not sticking-up for the forbidden fruit: sin is a serious problem. I am saying that fig-leaves, these safe bifurcations, are the lingering barrier. Sin is a serious problem that we need to address together, not from across barriers because we are afraid to make another mistake. The biggest mistake is to believe for even a moment that any discipline can replace Grace and Love in relationships. There is no book, not even the Bible, that replaces the living love of God passed from one person to another. There is no regimen that replaces being faithful to each other above our ideals. “In rainbow colors” is about Love.
...and if you believe Jesus was an aspect of God, you worship a God that sees in rainbow colors. Pharisees discredited him for associating with sinners like me and you. Silly Pharisees: yokes are for two! “My yoke is easy,” said Jesus, “and my burden is light” [Matthew 11:30] Jesus expected better from us but he was and still is a willing partner where others fall-short. So, I do not indict my ex here-- I merely make a point about what Love should be in The Kingdom of God.
This could easily decay into a sermon but instead I will draw it to a close. I found faithfulness in the support of friends and colleagues. I received good advice, and plenty of bad, but nothing but encouragement. I heard “I love you” from someone other than my mother: my best guy-friend. My ex-girlfriend was right in a way she never knew: our affirmations should never come from a person. They should come from a community acting as the kingdom of God. We can find slivers of God’s love in one-another’s eyes much more readily than on the pages of a text ...think about that the next time someone uses a passage from a book to push another away —especially if that book was meant to bring people together. The lasting legacy of my ex's interpretation of God’s will is that “God” will empower someone to disappear whenever the shit in your life is too deep for their liking; it is not what she meant but she did not stay long enough to clarify. That does not sound like the Jesus I read about in the Bible, or my best-friend who forgave me for dating this woman (Thom), or my previous ex-girlfriend (Christie) who got dumped for her and STILL took me to the ballet because she is my friend and she understands what it means to care about someone. This is not the Jesus that inspires people like my friend Becca F., who tells everyone “I love you darling” without ever cheapening it. As Christians, we need to have some staying power: we cannot disengage just because life does not fall into two, neat categories.
If you give the rainbow a chance, you will find the universe is much more beautiful when it has not been divided simply into stars and void—-hot oblivion and cold vacuum. All of what we are exists in between—-and I believe that we are Loved. Just ask Claire the Cat, if you ever see her.
