On 20 Years Of Marriage

June 17, 2019.Reading time 10 minutes.

Yesterday Lee and I celebrated 20 years of marriage.

The day we got married, there was no

fanfare – there was just us – Lee in his best shirt and tie and me in my $20 dress from Marshalls that I’d bought the year before because it was beautiful and I hoped I would get a chance to wear it somewhere nice.

And of course Ian was with us in nothing fancier than his cleanest T shirt and shorts.

It was perfectly imperfect in every way.

We began yesterday as we have almost every other day for the last two decades – waking up to take care of the needs of a 7year old. Ian was 8 when we were married so Lee and I have never been “just a couple”. There have always been high energy, high need little people in our lives who distract us from our “oneness”.

If you begin as you mean to go on, then we celebrated 20 years in much the same way as we began that first day – simply, with zero fuss, with no one the wiser. In a change to our routine, I brought Lee tea (on the weekends he always brings it to me). Then we did some laundry (with 4 kids still to manage, there is always laundry), went to a soccer tournament, and finally ditched the younger kids with the teenagers (another running theme in our marriage). Then we rode our bikes into town for a few hours of time to ourselves.

The story of how we began is simple and sweet. We met at Camp Cayuga in the summer of 1998. Lee was a returning staffer and I was there for the first time with a 7 year old in tow. The first time I remember seeing Lee was on the back of a banged up old work truck. Lee first saw me standing in the staff cabin next to another new staffer and naturally Lee thought we were a couple.

He quickly learned we weren’t and thus began our first summer together. We spent 4 more summers the same way except for the summer William was born, two years later.

Nyree came along three summers after that and her first summer at camp was our last, but, as the tag line for camp says, the memories will last a lifetime.

There were other adventures to be had.

We moved too many times to count, welcomed two more children into our clan, and said goodbye to my sister and Lee’s grandfathers before we were ready.

This is the hard stuff of life and it is a blessing to have someone by your side through it all. Babies are adorable, yes, but they will also break you if you aren’t careful (no one ever wants to admit that, but everyone who has ever had a squalling newborn or endured a difficult childhood diagnosis or other child related crisis knows exactly what I mean).

The grief you experience from burying the people you love most in the world is somehow softer, the edges less jagged, when you can cry in the arms of someone who has no other place to be than right by your side.

My marriage to Lee is the single most defining characteristic of my life, right there with being a mother to these 5 kids. When everything else has been stripped away – and it has all, at one time or another, been painfully taken from me – I always have this as my anchor: I am mother to these children and I am Lee White’s wife.

If there was competition between these identities, motherhood has, perhaps, had the edge. Raising young kids is like that – they demand undivided attention. This is why it is important to marry someone who shares your values: Lee never resented my focus on the kids – in fact, I think he loves me all the more for it.

That focus is slowly shifting and we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Over the next few years, as the kids need us less and less, Lee and I will have more and more time to spend on us.

Sometimes we get a small taste of it and it leaves me wanting more. I think this bodes well for our future.

One of the things I’ve learned after 20 years of marriage is that nothing stays the same. Our location has changed – often, lol! Our family composition has changed almost as frequently. And we have changed as people.

I love the person Lee has become. Lee has always had a tremendous sense of responsibility – it’s why he never once shied away from becoming a husband and a step dad. It’s one of the things I love most about him.

He will move mountains to help friends in need. “Friendship” is defined very loosely in this regard. An example: he’s invited many people without homes to come stay a while with us. Some were known to us, others were panhandling the day he met them. Nor does he care about money or what others will say – he will always show up for people.

Lee also finds a way to forgive. Don’t get me wrong, he has a temper and he has a well developed sense of the way things should be and how you should treat folks. But he cannot hold a grudge.

Together, no matter the egregiousness of the offense, we always manage to offer grace and forgiveness. At the beginning, we loved each other because of our best qualities. It is so much more satisfying to know someone so intimately that you can still love them in spite of their flaws. This is the gift of 20 years of marriage – to love when there are no more illusions.

I loved the man he was 20 years ago, I love the man he is now, and I cannot wait to see who he will become over the next 20 years.

We married 20 years ago for a green card. We married so we could live on the same continent. We married without a long term plan and without any money – some things haven’t changed!

But maybe that’s why we’re still together. The vows we made on that day mattered and even though we weren’t in a church and had no thoughts beyond that summer, we stayed true to them. For better or worse. In sickness and in health, for richer for poorer.

I didn’t really understand at the time what I was promising. I do now.

I have no idea where we will be in another 20 years. Probably not where either of us expect – for us, the best laid plans are always useless.

But I’m looking forward to seeing how it all plays out, not with the best man in the world (because I don’t think he exists), but with the man who has devoted himself to me (and I am under no illusions about how much work that takes!)

We will go on just as we started – with a cup

of tea in bed in the morning or a few peaceful hours by a river or up a mountain. There won’t be any fuss and no one will be the wiser.

If we’re lucky, it will be simple and sweet and absolutely perfectly imperfect.

Just like us 💙

Mary Magdalene

April 22, 2019.Reading time 8 minutes.

Sometimes people ask me how I can be a degree-wielding feminist and a Christian. The answer is simple.

Christianity exists because of the faith of women. Jesus might have been a man, but he was like no other, and he knew the value of women.

It goes like this:

On the third day after his crucification, Mary Magdalene discovers his tomb is empty and she raises the alarm. The men (the Deciples), seeing only with their rational mind, look into the empty tomb, and, seeing nothing (in this case, no body), give up and go home.

They had trusted he was The One, but with his murder, hope is lost. The empty tomb means nothing. Thieves and miscreants, most likely. Jesus is dead. What does it matter?

Plus, they have their own problems. If the Romans came for Jesus, as his friends and followers, they might be next.

But Mary stays. She doesn’t give up. She cries, (I love her for her tears – probably hot and angry, like mine when the world is unfair and people steal bodies from tombs or tell someone that they are to blame for their misfortune). She is determined. She asks questions, even from unlikely people. She will not leave until she finds him.

Mary looks again into the tomb. She sees angels. Joy at such a miracle, hope, mixed in with desperation probably sweep through her body, a rush of conflicting emotions. They ask her why she’s crying. She tells them – I can’t find Jesus!

Instead of telling her to Fear Not (as they sensibly have to others) they maintain their otherworldly silence. I imagine that as the fear returns, it arrives with something else. Mary must be annoyed. These are angels for goodness sakes, surely they can explain this!! But they don’t. They just sit there, marking the spot where Jesus last lay.

So she turns, probably grinding her teeth in frustration, and sees someone else just standing there. Like a bump on a log. Doing nothing in the midst of a crisis.

So typical.

Her thoughts were probably all over the place, desperate and supremely frazzled. Why are all these people just standing/sitting around? Don’t they realize that Jesus is gone?

He, too, asks her why she’s crying. Honestly, does she need to explain? Isn’t it obvious?

Her nerves must have been absolutely frayed. And unlike angels, this man will not receive her deference. Anger is coursing through, anger and too many other emotions to name.

This guy is probably nobody, a gardner. He likely has no answers. In fact, he might have even been a party to this monstrous act, this theft of Jesus.

She is a lone woman and accusing a man of stealing a body is probably unwise, but she does it anyway. Because even if no one else will lift a finger, she will leave no stone unturned.

Did you take him? Tell me where to find him and I will take him (no one has to know, she implies).

His response is so simple.

He calls her name.

Mary.

It probably took a heartbeat. Maybe two. Because it is not possible and grief is cruel.

Anyone who has ever lost someone knows the abject finality of death. In those first days, your thoughts are like a clock ticking off each minute since your loved one was alive. This is the first hour. This is the first afternoon – this time yesterday they were still here.

You know the rest of your life will be marked by the passage of time, from minutes to hours to days and months and finally long years of separation.

She tended his body. She is painfully aware that Jesus was well and truly dead. She is under no illusions. He wasn’t in a coma, a half sleep between life and death. Mary held the body of her beloved teacher and knew the counting of the days between what was and what was lost had begun.

Now, improbably, miraculously, he called her name.

For a second she probably thought it was her mind playing tricks on her – wishful thinking common to all who grieve.

But he calls her name.

And within a heartbeat or two, she knows.

I imagine the moment she realized it was no flicker of light, no trick of the mind, no village prank, no shift in the direction of the wind.

The moment she saw and understood – for the first time really – that of all the miracles he had performed, the water to wine, casting out of demons, healing the sick – nothing would ever compare to this.

Jesus was there, standing before her. Breathing in air, calling her name, his skin no longer sallow and cold to the touch but wonderously warm and full of life.

If she leaned in, she would hear his beautiful beating heart where hours before she heard only silence.

The moment grief and fury give way to…joy is too simple a word to encompass the shedding of all doubt in the instant it takes to understand that anything is possible. Anything.

Even the coming back to life of one who was horribly, murderously gone.

Jesus tells this woman of deep faith that he is alive. To go and tell the others.

Oh, to see the look on their faces when she tells them! We know at least one of the Deciples had to see it to believe it.

Also typical.

No matter. Jesus knew they would act this way. But he does it anyway – Mary is the First Evangelist and becomes the Evangelist to the Disciples.

She teaches them:

In Jesus, death is not final. Life has no end. Hope lives.

This is why I can follow Jesus. When you look closely, you understand that he Got It. Women stay and do the hard work. We declare hope when others give up and go home.

This is entirely compatible with the belief that women are of equal importance in the world. Jesus always knew this and he broke down immense cultural barriers to prove it.

Thank you to all the amazing women preachers, pastors, and keepers of the faith who, like Mary Magdalene, share the Good News that hope lives ❤️

The Endurance of Wild Flowers

August 5, 2017.Reading time 5 minutes.

A year ago today, I was fired.

Despite what all of the experts on LinkedIn say, this is not something easily managed. It is a stain that refuses to be cleaned. I still can’t write those words without feeling the pain and humiliation of that day rise up like bile in the back of my mouth.

Why was I fired? I am glad you asked. I was on vacation when I got the call and while I know that I was fired for retaliation, when asked directly for the reason for my termination, they refused to give one. This is perfectly legal in a “Right to Work” state like mine.

I will say only this: in deeply disturbing circumstances, I am proud of how I handled myself. I left that organization knowing that in all my interactions and in all of my words and deeds, I conducted myself with honesty and grace. My integrity is intact.

That being said, to say that this last year has been devastating is like saying the ocean is immense. I remain unemployed despite a severance agreement that guarantees positive reference language. I have applied for well over 100 jobs and have had dozens of interviews but no offers. The pain of this level of rejection and the self doubt it has bred has been, at times, crippling. As a result I am financially ruined for the foreseeable future and have suffered from serious bouts of anxiety and depression.

And yet.

I have come to see this awful experience as something more than a an unmitigated disaster. Strange as it may sound, my faith is more unshakable today than it was 13 months ago. I have been brought low, deep in the valley of the shadow, and I am still here.

My family, especially my parents, have been rock solid. My father is still my guardian and I could not love him more. Few friends know of my plight but I am so grateful for the support of the ones that do and who have supported and encouraged me.

Opportunities have arisen that would not have but for me getting the sack. As a result, I love my community all the more because I know her so much better!

And, once again, I can look myself in the eye and know that I did the right thing. I stood strong in my values, I did not take the easy road. I did not abandon doing what was right for what was expedient. I passed The Test.

Actually, I have passed many tests, none more important than staying rooted in my faith despite the length of time of this ordeal. I have never once been angry at God. Never once have I insisted that he prove His love by ensuring my gainful employment or that he reward me for making me and my family suffer for such a long time.

“This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad of it.”

Yes. Yes. Yes! There is still food to eat and miraculously, the lights are still on. There are people to love and children to raise. The sun shines. And the wild flowers, despite heat and draught and the lack of a manicured garden, are glorious.

I am a Wild Flower. I endure much, do without more, and in spite of everything, all is right with my soul. This is where true beauty is cultivated and this garden is bountiful.

It is a glorious world and I am blessed to be in it. So today, Day 366 of my Great Trial, I rejoice and give thanks and know deeply, intuitively, impossibly, that all will be well.