The Real Story

I saw some Illinois friends at a Keller Williams conference in Austin earlier this week.  That was fun.  We all started something good and they are still at it.  I am forging ahead with a great opportunity as a result of the risk they took when they hired me.  With internet and cell phones and airplanes, we will keep in touch and even see one another again, without a doubt.

One of the younger of the crowd pulled me aside and, very seriously, asked me to tell him what “really happened” in Champaign to make Dave resign from pastoring.  I was glad to disappoint him by not having any juicy, “real” story.  The story hasn’t changed.  We were ready to go, we were free to go, and we went.  So simple that it must be complex. 

So here it is again.  Dave did not burn out and I did not burn out on ministry.  Dave did not have an affair nor did I  have an affair.  Neither of us is seriously ill.  We are not running away from debt or scandal or fears or relationships or responsibility or flat, corn-filled landscapes.  We simply were ready to move.  Now, we are in a new environment to continue growing into all God created us to be. 

I have no question about the wisdom of my move to Bucks County.  I have no secrets from my time alone here.  Dave is happy today in the mountains of Colorado, he just told me, but ready to leave there.  I don’t think he has any secrets, either.  And no question about his decision to spend the summer at Bear Basin Ranch.

So, the real story is that we are still, very simply, who we are–committed to sticking with our promises to God and to one another.  Committed to not assuming that the way things are is the way they will stay.  Committed to learning and laughing and leading while being sanctified.  That’s the real story, no lie.

Yikes! Where will we put him???

Dave is just about ready to leave his Colorado cowboy experience.  After Labor Day, he is free to head east, old man!  He is ready to go forward with his Mexico adventure trip plans and ready to come home to Bucks County.  He is really enjoying the brilliant early fall sunrises and sunsets in the mountains, though.  I hope he will be able to be glad for the experience without too much melancholy at leaving.

A few mornings ago, I was getting dressed and looking around the closet in our bedroom, and it dawned on me that there is not much room to squeeze another person into our condo.  It actually did go through my head, “Where will we put him?” 

Joel and I are doing great in our small but adequate condo.  We have an unspoken schedule that works for us.  We see one another every evening…I get home around 5:30 – 6:30 and we either grill out or comment on what the other is thinking of eating.  We always check the Cubs score online.  Sometimes, we walk up town to eat or to get water ice.  I tolerate Joel’s television watching that involves a lot of Power Rangers and Avatar.  He tolerates my internet and freecell focus and doesn’t mind me disappearing out on our balcony to read.  On the weekends, we go somewhere.  Yesterday, it was the shore.  We have been trying restaurants around Doylestown once a week or so.  We still have the Philly zoo and a train ride we are talking about. 

I need to begin to consider just how we are going to assimilate Dave into this low-key and simple existence we have settled into.  Of course, Dave will only be here a week or so before he heads out to Mexico wtih Bob Strong and a group of his, so he will probably feel like he is just visiting us! 

It’ll be good to have Dave home here in Pennsylvania.  There are PA license plates on my car and I have a PA car title and inspection completed.  This is home, now.  And, after 35 years, that means I will need to not just find a place to put him, but to welcome him here and absorb him into life as I have come to know it and adjust to life here with him.  Things will change and that is good. 

Wow.  There is a lot that I have experienced apart from Dave.  People I know who he doesn’t.  Ways to get places that he will have to figure out.  Habits I have settled into and preferences I have formed.  A connection and at-home-ness that I feel in Doylestown and all of Bucks County.  It hasn’t even been four months, but I have made the adjustment.  If we could remember the vows we made to one another back there in Austin, Texas in August of 1973, I imagine something we promised would cover meshing into a new life here.  Just like it covered allowing the separate pull to Colorado. 

We’ll find a place to put him!

35th Anniversary

So, now we are on year 36.  There’s a certain comfort in staying married that feels good.  Our wedding was on Dave’s parents’ 37th anniversary.  Their 35th had included a huge party at the farm, complete with roasted pig, of course.  I missed that, since Dave and I met in February of their 37th year and got married in August of the same, but I have seen the photos and heard the stories and managed to get in on a few other farm events.  We even had a pig roasted for Luke and Ani’s wedding feast.

I went to Colorado and saw the mountains and rode the horses with Dave for our 35th celebration.  (Actually, I rode horses once with Dave and once with others….strangers…..and I think Dave owes me for that one!  He probably doesn’t, though.)  We took a long walk up a mountain and sat in the steambath and and planned and considered and weighed options.  After three days, we settled in on plan.  Now, Dave is free to enjoy the mountains and the horses without distraction from opportunities.

Recently, a new friend quizzed me a bit about Dave.  Out here in PA, no one knows Dave and just have to take my word that I have a husband.  It was nice to have someone ask questions about my husband and our relationship.  Sitting on the deck with roasted chicken and a glass of wine, it was good to consider how I would describe our marriage to someone who told me she “doesn’t know much about evangelical Christianity.” 

Dave and I are comfortable with one another.  We have deep respect and trust for one another.  We are truly connected and going forward together to a future that is full of hope…and reality.  I like having someone know me so well that when I describe something that happens to me, Dave puts it into a perspective that knows what else I have experienced.  Though we are able to be apart right now, we miss each other.  Though no one should describe our relationship as romantic, we love each other.  Though we have weathered much challenge and disappointment in the past 35 years, we are committed to one another and our marriage and are happy to be together.

Sticking together is the point.  My mother-in-law, Aletha, used to write us letters and describe evenings when she and Paul would sit by the fire with their cat, Big Sur, in their laps.  No one in the family really believed her, since no one had ever seen her sit still for more than 5 minutes.  I don’t ever remember seeing her and Paul being affectionate with one another.  But, I understand that with kids out of the house, with farm responsibilties lessened, and with many years of sticking together, they had a familiarity that afforded some nice nights in front of the fire.

I’m glad to have gone to Colorado, even though it was expensive and I don’t really get that Rocky Mountain high from the mountains like my husband does.  I’m glad to have been a good sport and to have worked hard and gotten dusty participating in my husband’s cowboy job.  I’m glad we have stuck together and have another who knows all the experiences of the past 35 years so that we can go together strong into the 36th.

Postscript:  I don’t have photos of the trip.  Just like on our backpacking honeymoon to the mountains, Dave takes pictures of mountains, not people.