Contractually speaking

I read all the "How to be Married Books". I never thought I would need to read, the "How to be Divorced Books." Clearly, I didn't comprehend what I was reading in the first book or the reference to the lack of necessity for the second book would be a mute point. I told my soon to be ex-wife, that if I sucked at marriage, she could rest assured that I was going to suck royally at divorce. With the "soon to be" adjective on the aformentioned spousal unit, it begs the distinctions of what makes her such.

We were living in North Carolina and the law in that great state is that you have to be separated for one calender year before you can file for divorce. I guess that's North Carolina's way of giving you the opportunity to say, "Ah, we didn't really mean it!" or "Let me think about what I meant when I was down at the altar 12 years earlier almost shouting how much I loved someone making incredible proclamations about for better or worse and till death do we part crap." I suppose they assume that you will come to your senses in that year, use that opportunity for an obvious tune-up on your relationship and then just get on with your lives.

I thought we were going to get to exercise our "opportunity." Wrong! I don't know why we're bothering to even wait till next Friday. My wife was so resolved with her "new contract" and so confident in her decision that she didn't even need to think much less bother with the process of mutually discussing our original contract with a third party. Crazy me. I thought that when we agreed to the better or worse or the richer or poorer, particularly the death till we part part, that we actually meant it. We even went so far as to agree verbally, I guess in a weak moment, to even eradicate the "D" word from our vocabulary and no matter how bad it got, we would fight for our contract. Confident with our contractual agreements both written and implied, we proceeded joyfully!

Today, what was originally agreed upon has somehow been superceded by an apparently more binding agreement. A trump contract if you will. It's interesting how in our original contract or "covenant," there was no attorney needed. The trump contract however, seems to require an attorney to make sure that we uphold the "new" agreement. I wonder if I should get an attorney to make sure that we follow our original contract? I thought we had some pretty binding statements. Some items that I thought would override any other agreements particularly the part about death being the only way to terminate the agreement. I mean hell, we said it in front of a bunch of people who spent money on clothes and transportation in support of our contract. I was so confident in our contract that I begged my dad to spend a bunch money on feeding all of those people fancy food that I couldn't even pronounce. The weight of this agreement was so monumental that we planned for months about the execution and where we would actually make this contract official. But one of the most important things about this contract was that it created three other people who were now affected by "said contract". You can you see where I thought that it was the most binding of binding contracts!

The power of this "trump contract" actually reeked havoc on that contract. I wasn't even a part of the planning or the discussion of that contract. You would think that the negotiations of this contract would be a huge ordeal. It wasn't. In less than thirty seconds without even a phone call, the trump contract was played. Proper notice wasn't even given to the people that spent all that money on clothes and transportation. There was no big party. No food. In the previous agreement, I met with the executor of the original contract countless times to discuss the outcome of the contract and how we could make the contract work. I didn't even know the women who had the authority to create a document with "trump" power. I don't even think she met the created parties that were a product of the original contract. Somehow it seems they should have at least been brought into the discussion though they weren't part of the binding agreement just the product of the executed contract. Even if their opinion wasn't going to be considered. Like mine.

Nothing. Notta. No cigars. No flowers. Just signed, sealed, delivered and the deal was done. It was like standing to close to the track when the train goes by. You're left standing in the breeze with your breath gone, heart racing, not believing what just happened.

So I guess the one year seasoning option that North Carolina imposes is a way of at least dragging it out in hopes that either the trump contract is dissolved because of clear cut definitions spelled out in the original contract, death and all, or that taking a whole year somehow gives the trump contract more validity.

Poor North Carolina. While I appreciate their attempts, I don't know why they bother. With a trump like that, I mean really!

and that is.....?

I know. What is a missionary to the poor? It seems somewhat self explanatory. It's the "to the poor" part that is somewhat, well, vague.

When the "powers that be" sent Paul out. Of all the advice they could have given a missionary going on the road, they chose only one thing. They didn't advise Paul about having a support staff, proper locations, financial supports, newsletters or anything of the sort, they mentioned one thing and Paul was reminding the Galatians that very thing when he was writing them, "2:10...remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." It was the only thing they asked.

Somehow, that very statement speaks volumes about the heart of the pioneers. It permeated their lives. You notice Paul didn't say, "Oh, I was planning to get to that,"or "I know someone we can get to do that." It's the eager word that throws a kink in the whole dang thing. We all know of how Paul preached the gospel. How he traveled extensively spreading the Word. We rarely hear about the things he was eager to do.

I was sitting in a conference once. That's not true. I was walking in the back of a conference once pushing a stroller back and forth praying fervently that my newborn son would give up the ghost. He was willing to go peacefully as long as I kept moving. So I walked a mile and listened to a woman talk. Every few minutes, on my familiar path, I was compelled to stop and slap my forehead in utter amazement. The kind of slap that happens when a light goes off that you can't believe you hadn't already seen and your dumbfounded by the fact that a light so bright had gone unnoticed for so damn long!

The woman's name...Jackie Pullinger-To. If you ever get a chance to hear her, don't. Unless you're already "eagerly" remembering those people because if you're not you're going to come away with a bloody forehead. Jackie has a gift of guiding you down a path littered with bright beacons that somehow can't be seen by the regular eye. This path unfortunately doesn't have a return access point. You can't back up. Oh, I guess you could but the retina burn is permanant. The only cure is to continue down the path or live a life unable to see anything properly ever again.

To try and describe Jackie's story in a few words, like compelling or amazing or unbelievable are so trite that it's painful. I'll deal with Jackie later....

Wake up!

I would imagine that the first entry is always the hardest. Wanting to be profound and also wondering if you've guessed right as you fumble your way thru the setup. I face my insecurities and I begin.

My first question is..."Why in the hell would anybody care?" Yet I still feel compelled to share and strangely excited about the process. The unfortunate thing is that personal revelation can never be translated. It's impossible for me to transfer the light going on for me! I found that in a book! I would like to say that was my revelation. It wasn't. But none the less, a huge revelation exploded in my head so much so that 2 years later I am still "quaking" from the revelation that it produced.

I realized that I had spent the first 40 years of my life trying to translate my revelation to other people. That if I could just convince you of what I had seen, you would somehow get the revelation and the world would function a little bit better and more like the Kingdom! Fooled again.

The book I am referring is by Anthony de Mello called "Awareness". Anthony freed me when he said, "People are born asleep, they live asleep and they die asleep. It is much easier to stay in bed than it is to wake up. Jesus was the most awake person and lived in the moment like no one else. I am! The Great I Am!" Altered I was.

He went on to "piss me off" by saying that if I wanted to change the world, that I should dance my dance the best I could and that would change the world. And here I had spent all this time trying to educated, explain, encourage and admonish people....all of which was good, but the better thing was to dance my dance!!!!

So the revelations that begin to unfold from those few statements are what I want to share. Hopefully, I will educated,explain, encourage and admonish people to Wake Up as I share my life with those who want to hear.(Still can't figure out why!) Sad isn't it?