Change and Confession

Too much change in the air:
So much change that I could blog a dozen blogs on that one topic;
So much change I only really have time for one.

I could talk about my son going to college.
I could talk about going back to teaching after summer break.
I could talk about beginning a new "moonlighting" job selling wares at Farmer's Markets, town festivals and hopefully church bazaars. I'm sure I'll blog on this one as I wade deeper into a whole new community of people: the crafters. (smile)

Mostly today though, I need to focus on the one change that appears to be under the spotlight of my spiritual and relational life. My husband has joined a Christian rock band.

Several things strike me about this band:
--It is a ministry band, so it is something my husband has prayed to have in his life for a long time, and now it is being given to him. But...they play music that sounds like a cross between Van Halen and Heart (they have a gal singer.) Because of my own tastes, even in rock music, being quite far removed from this sound, I can't say I draw any affinity-inspiration from hearing them. (By no means am I saying this to be critical, for they are quite good at what they are doing. I'm just stating it as a necessary element in this string of self-reflection.)

--It is a band that has decided to practice in our basement. Because their sound resonates outside the house (particularly the bass and drum parts) I skulk out to the garden to water it of an evening, hoping I don't wind up being the one to take the lashing if any neighbors should decide "enough of this!" And I duck my head when I'm out front and people drive by, turning and staring with a startled look as they pass the house with their car windows open. My problem: I really don't want to get a "reprimand" from the community group. Having always been a quiet, cooperative and accommodating neighborhood member in the past, the thought of this change of personality in the community makes me unsettled, especially if I wind up being the front man should criticism be raised.
--I fear what it will ultimately demand of me personally. The band members are wonderful people, I really like all of them a lot. They are enthusiastic in what they are doing, but sometimes this frightens me in terms of what requirements will unconsciously be laid at my feet based on their priorities. How do I decide what boundary to set about my own time? Am I "supposed" to watch their kids and cook them meals as they practice since they have decided to practice at our house? So far, I've resisted this because of my own personal history. I've been drawn into that type of situation before, and I know how difficult it is to set a boundary after "services rendered" become the norm and the expectation. It is especially frightening because the future is a big unknown as they book gigs and look to grow now that they have a full complement of players/singers. Taxation without representation started a revolution once, and a fear of such a state of being for myself seems to be steeped in my own personal roots. One of the other band member's wives forgot to pick him up after rehearsal last night, so I'm wondering if I'm not the only one in the wings struggling with these feelings, but I can't speak to her feelings definitively.
--Paradoxically, that last point leads me to consider the one non-change that I think is troubling me the most. Minor points of change I could take if it were not for this one thing: the lack of power to positively affect the directional flow of the waters of my own life lo, these many years. This has been really tough for me. Now past years already cast in stone and stony shadows of the future loom as I once again experience things presented to me one way that then pan out to be something different. Somehow this taps some hissing volcano in me, because even in small things, this sense of encroachment prompts me to react badly, as it is all too familiar.

Am I alone when I notice that life seems like a constant uphill battle against manipulation? Is this a female thing? A middle-class Christian woman thing? And how do you fight it without looking like a hag, for none of it is conscious manipulation, it is just everyone pressing against the nearest wall as they seek to make their own priorities the ones that come out on top in a priority scramble. It's the American way, after all. But as has already been noted by contemporary sociologists, there's no vast frontier to launch our dreams across, in fact there's so little space left for "growing" in America now that for someone to grow literally and figuratively means someone else has to give up space. How do we take turns and play nice? And do I as a woman have a turn at all? No wonder the women's and civil rights revolutions happened. Or maybe that's putting the chicken before the egg. But waxing philosophical hardly solves my problem.

So how much space will I give up? For instance, how do I react when this space is invaded: I'm repeatedly told one thing, but then another happens...and not by forces unavoidable, but by some level of choice, and in a way that puts a negative turn on my own life. The first few times this sort of thing is accompanied by an apology, but when that proves too painful or maybe too obviously repetitive to justify, then come the times when I'm presented with the argument that the "change" from the original plan should be seen as justified because it is such a small change after all, or even worse, because I am supposedly mistaken in the way I remember things anyway. That last one makes me want to put a fist through a wall in frustration, because it feels like I am being told to swallow something dishonest, it feels like I no longer warrant the apology--and a fist through a wall seems the only way to make some space and get some oxygenated air. But maybe this is the very place where You, O God, are trying to teach me to quit trying to breathe. We all are called to die daily. Why am I surprised when I find I have trouble sucking in air? Why am I making it about me? So I come back to this:

It is important to remind myself that I am not intending to say all this not as complaining, but as confession. I can't believe that all these self-protective fears and whining are the right way to go.

My husband dreamed once that he and I were walking in a fun house; a spotlight over us helped us find our way. But as we went, that spotlight kept shrinking until in the end of the dream, the lighted floorspace was only large enough for the two of us to stand in. Currently, I feel a shrinking on my side of the light. And as I read today's devotions, I came across a pertinent quote: "You husband will never truly be yours until you have first given him back to God. He is yours only when you are willing to let him go wherever God calls him and do what God wants him to do." (Lisa Trotman) I thought I'd done this, but I forgot that in being one flesh with him, this "giving back" feels like cutting off a limb. Oh, God, as You call my love to follow the dream You planted in his heart, am I the one asked to pay the price? Am I the one called to cook everybody pizzas while he is down having fun flailing on the drums? (smile) Is his dream my drudgery, not according to his plan, but according to Yours? So do I wish for him to abandon his dream? Of course not. He's loving this, and I love it for him. But my question is whether I am allowed to dig my heels in and say I won't be a band flunky. I feel guilty because my reactivity seems inordinate. I'm reacting in part through what I've learned over the years as musicians have been everywhere in my world, and almost all of them assume that everything in life is peripheral to the nucleus of their music, and when it is music for You, well I feel ashamed for reflecting even this much on the topic of my "rights"...

You told me, God, that You were going to work on fear in me--that You were going to teach me to be less fearful. I must admit, this one hits right to the quick of me. Without Your strength, there's no way I can help but fear that if You decide to bless my husband's music ministry, it will consume every shred of freedom I have left after the havoc of these last few years. None of this is attitude-stuff to be proud of, so I can certainly understand why You'd roll up Your sleeves and go to work on me.
I read this morning in the Psalms.
"When I kept silent, my bones grew old
Through my groanings all the day long,
For day and night Your hand was heavy upon me;
My vitality was turned into the drought of summer."
This summer has indeed been a summer of drought. Every evening I have to water my garden. If I don't, forgetting to water for even one day, the plants begin to wilt. The garden has produced faithfully, and richly; but it has required much work, some cutting away, some sacrifice. Surely, down in the depths of me, these conditions mean something larger to my soul.

So what does the Psalmist do when he realizes his drought-ridden life?
"I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, 'I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,'
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin."
In this Psalm, transgression means rebellion, sin means missing the mark, and iniquity means moral crookedness. God's responses are forgiveness, literally lifting; covering, literally hiding away or concealing; and not imputing, literally not counting.
My wrongs are not toward my husband and his band--although I may already be coming across as brittle about being drawn into the life they are building together, and for this I should apologize. My sin is in not believing that You can take my husband into this without at the same time making the "drought of summer" even worse in my own life. Right now, so much of what I come across seems to hammer home the idea that submission to him means I become invisible to You, woman lost yet working hard to support all the glory that You have intended for man. And I am not the originator of this thought. Many would say it is exactly the way You ordered life, but part of me feels like it is a "moral crookedness" that leads to the "rebellion" that is in my heart. Justified or not, my own brick of iniquity has its place in the wall of life's imperfection and needs confession.
Like the Psalmist, I give it to You, God.
I pray that You mold my heart into something that is able to rightfully support my husband without becoming a sad puppet of a human myself as I seek to accomplish this goal. I pray I still have a place in his life as he chases so many dreams that all seem to call out to him. To quote the Psalmist one more time:
Leads us both in the paths of righteousness, for Your name's sake.