Category Archives: radical attachment disorder

Swimming

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We went east instead of west. We cancelled the trip we had planned for the one we had known could happen.

Well, I knew.

But even I had not anticipated the jackknifed truck across the bridge, the hours of waiting and praying as my father died hours away from me.

I had to let him go.

We stopped in Mobile, exhausted, not there yet. They were so kind, they gave us snacks. Snacks at midnight.

The next morning we knew he was gone. I swam laps in the hotel pool. Not just for grief but because you had a fit, one of your usual hold-my-family-hostage-in-a-public-space fits.

So I swam while you took a time out. Then I reminded you that staging a tantrum at an indoor swimming pool on the day of your adopted grandfather’s untimely demise was a weenie move.

After all that happened then and after I know…I might as well have been speaking Swahili.

Forgiveness. Tough gig.

Milk Names

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I once lived in a country rich in cultural rules and ancient traditions. One I remembered: give your children ugly nicknames so that the spirits will not snatch them away. Seemed logical.

As a Christian I adapted this idea somewhat–live in a broke-down house, even live a broke-down life, but treasure the eternal.

So I did. My house was a mess. My hair was a mess. My children were bright orbs of light. I thought I had it mapped out.

But I had not calculated the cost of broke-down minds in our broke-down life. Everything like shattered glass in their heads.

I am shocked by the damage. I survey the damage. No easy answers, only the beacon of truth–our lives themselves are the houses, mansions, temples, of the eternal God of love.

Who will give us our real
Names
Someday.

All Our Happy Endings

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Been readin’ some quotes–GK, CS, JC…the usual dudes, and then a couple off the beaten path.

Hitler, for instance, said that it was harder to overcome faith than knowledge.

And Christopher Hitchens recounting an anecdote about a Rwandan survivor who had lost everyone–her whole history and future wiped out.

Faith indeed, to say there is a God to answer that.

But I do believe, not in spite of the Hilters and Rwandas littering the floor of history. No. I believe because of them.

See– if adoption is a mirror of our relationship with God we should face the raw stink of the adoptees–us.

We stink.

We kill
We maim
We steal
We lie about it.
We do it again.

But that is the heart and soul of the story–a perfect and compassionate Parent adopts the worst kids in the universe.

A real mess.

Only His love can change us.
And it does.

But remember–no faking. He can tell when we are lying about the state of our deadly hearts.

And we are all gonna get a bath eventually–one way or the other…

Better the hands of Love

The second day

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I remember people exclaiming that I had lost weight. When I told them why I had lost weight they would look stricken. It was a striking story.

But the truth was worse than I ever could explain.

I could get past the discomfort of being punched, kicked, and bitten by my adopted daughter. I could mitigate her curses..and her violent imaginary friend.

I could push through the shock and discomfort others felt when I told them our children had been abused by her brother, my adopted son.

I could live beneath the heavy weight of the years my children spent in the company of a child abuser.

But I could never adequately describe the devastation created by our own family and others we had known for years.

Family was the worst. They made excuses. Coddled the perps, lashed out at young, very young victims.

Some were dismissive. Some skeptical. Some cruel.

Even after years and deliberate distance, their reactions still shock me.

I can still describe the diet.

It is simple:

Eat sorrow where once there was bread

Eat loss where there used to be community

Eat anger in the place where the family should stand

In a circle around their littlest victim
Dogs for children.

Dogs. For. Children. Indeed.

Anatomy Lesson

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Mark 7:20-23 (NIV)
He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him `unclean.’ [21] For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. [23] All these evils come from inside and make a man `unclean.’ ”

Think of this as your house
Or the room you rent somewhere
Clean, spare or messy
With or without a maid.

Now you are inside
This home you have made
A party for intimates–strange names
Evil Thoughts
Sits on the couch
Sexual Immorality stirs the drinks at the dinette
Theft, Murder, and Adultery scan your copious
Movie collection
You scan the crowd
Know all their names
After all you invited them here,
These friends with monster faces.

You realize
Perhaps too late
You cannot evict them
They hold the deed to your heart
Which is conveniently ensconced in a bowl surrounded by chips on the coffee table

Of the life you once assumed
Was yours
Alone

No more

Pruning Time

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Whoa! There are a lot of saints in February

How many do you recognize? I looked them up not because of Valentine’s Day. An experienced gardener once told me to prune my roses on a feast day in February. I think the 17th…

Sea’s birthday is the 16th. Time marked by anniversaries. Winter haunts.

Jesus rebukes the hypocrites for useless traditions–

Mark 7:9-10 (NIV)
And he said to them: “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions! [10] For Moses said, `Honor your father and your mother,’ and, `Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.’

My erstwhile adoptees were cursers. I would point this admonition out to them. I understand that they never “got” the umbilical bond of love. I even “got” why. They were lost from the beginning. They needed to feel love and when it wasn’t there the whole world went dark for them.

The cost of light is consuming.

But I believe in a Rescuing God.. He’ll get them. Because He loves them. Because He paid. Because He sees their faces from when they were babies lost in the world.

His beautiful lullabies.

Borrowed House

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Years ago I lived in a beautiful old house. It had three stories and a creepy-ish basement, some mice, and a lovely wilderness of a backyard. It was the house I lived in on my wedding day.

I managed it for a friend. Some of my roommates were amazing. Some were annoying, and a couple were nuts. The crazy ones were no fun for anyone. They were paranoid and antisocial and they ended up in the house because I was a softy.

I am a little tougher now.

But mostly I think about Jesus. He tells these elegant, terrifying stories of rampant, evil tenants trashing vineyards and killing messengers.

We humans are stubborn like that. We like to ignore the Landlord.

Jesus is reminding us we live in a borrowed house. We don’t love it like the Owner.

But one day we will or…be shocked to find that this borrowed house was not just shelter.

It was our home

Hypocrite.

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Mark 7:3-8 (NIV)
(The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing, holding to the tradition of the elders. [4] When they come from the marketplace they do not eat unless they wash. And they observe many other traditions, such as the washing of cups, pitchers and kettles. ) [5] So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with `unclean’ hands?” [6] He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: ” `These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. [7] They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.’ [8] You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.”

When my children were still very young they knew two big words-psychological and hypocrite. The first was introduced by my adopted daughter’s precipitous mental slide.

The second was my adopted son’s favorite go-to epithet for any of us who opposed him.

I always thought his use of the word ironic. Now I think–more tragic and disfiguring. He was consumed by appearing one way and hiding who he was in secret.

The Pharisees and teachers of the law saw themselves as the good guys.. They were the power players. But they were so consumed by the appearance, the trappings of clean, they abandoned the pursuit of holy.

Holy should freak us all out. Holy is scary.

Until holy becomes a man and that man quotes Isaiah and then that man lives out holy all the way to a Cross. Perhaps then it should scare us more.

Lent is about the unclean hands and heart–lifted in honor of a sacrifice so unbearable that only it, only He can make us clean.

Making hypocrites into honest men? Same thing as resurrection.

Imagine–dead to life again. All things made new.

What only God can do.

Stormaphobe

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Mark 6:50-54,56 (NIV)
because they all saw him and were terrified. Immediately he spoke to them and said, “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” [51] Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down. They were completely amazed, [52] for they had not understood about the loaves; their hearts were hardened. [53] When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret and anchored there. [54] As soon as they got out of the boat, people recognized Jesus. [56] And wherever he went—into villages, towns or countryside—they placed the sick in the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.

I have to get out of this chapter.

But I haven’t yet because I need the reminders-

Sometimes God does send us into deadly storms
But he never abandons us
He walks through them, abides with us, then commands the storms to cease
Because he is God.

The people Mark describes in this story have an almost comic energy–they run en masse to and around Jesus. Like a school of fish or a herd of sheep…only in this case their lack of dignity and frenetic searching make perfect sense. Jesus means God saves.

They run to an offer they would be silly to refuse.

And ultimately I am with them– no dignity left, desperate and silly, running to the God who saves.

Chapter 6.

The Rest

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Mark 6:30-31 (NIV)
The apostles gathered around Jesus and reported to him all they had done and taught. [31] Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

He fingers the cheap rhinestone nose ring. Asks me about it. I say, I got it when you were a baby after something really bad happened. I got it to remind me that even when bad stuff happens, God is good.

My definition of quiet rest.