It seemed to Foy like people treated him differently in the weeks after the wedding prank. It seemed like people were quieter around him now that they knew he used to be a priest. More respectful but also more distant.

It’s probably just me. I always think people are paying more attention to me than they are. I always think people are looking at me and they aren’t. People don’t care about you or think about you nearly as much as you think. It’s probably just me.

At least once a week a group from the office would go to a local bar after work. Mostly the single people. During happy hour they smoked and drank and got bawdy and laughed a lot. They cut loose. Happy hour was like a miniature weekend that surprised everyone when it appeared in the middle of the week. Foy had been on one of these outings. He was uncomfortable, not because he had a problem with the booze and cigarettes and loose talk, but he never learned to do any of that stuff. He noticed that he hadn’t been invited again.

Yeah, but I never got invited that much anyway. Only the once and I didn’t really like it. It’s just me.

But it still bothered him.

Chuck called him “Father Foy” now, which he hated. But he instinctively knew that if he reacted to this, it might become a general nickname that everyone used. So he just smiled and ignored it. Chuck caught him in the break room one afternoon.

“Father Foy! Just the guy. I got something I wanna ask you.”

“Okay.”

“If God is supposed to be good and loving and all that. And powerful, you know, he can do whatever. If he’s all love and everything - loves the little children of the world, red and black and yellow and white…”

Chuck paused, as if he felt that Foy might need a moment to digest these deep thoughts.

“If that’s the case, then why is there so much evil and suffering in the world? Why doesn’t God do anything about it?”

He looked at Foy, waiting for a response, looking like the captain of the debate team who had just dropped a bombshell and was waiting for a rebuttal.

How many times have I had this conversation? 1000 times?

Foy exhaled loudly. “Man, I don’t know. I’m not a minister anymore. I don’t…nobody knows the answer to that. If you can figure that out you can write a book and make millions.”

Chuck looked triumphant. “See, that’s what I’m saying. That’s why I don’t go to church. It just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t figure. It’s just bullshit and people wanting money. Those preachers. That’s all they want.”

He paused. “Present company excluded of course.”

Foy was a master at manufacturing a smile, but his attempt to force a smile onto his face was an abysmal failure. There was no hiding his disgust.

“Yeah, I gotta go.”

He left the break room. He looked back in case Chuck was worried about whether or not his feelings were hurt, what with that smile and leaving quickly. But Chuck had already turned to someone else and was talking.

How can people not see how people feel? Why do I have to see it? Everything. I see every twitch on their faces. Every move that means anything.

One afternoon he got an email from someone named Paul. He couldn’t remember meeting him, but it came from within the office. It was in all caps, which made him wince.

MY COUSIN CLAUDE IS WONDERING ABOUT GETTING AN ANNULMENT. HE MARRIED THIS WOMAN THAT HE WAS GOING OUT WITH, BUT SHE’S TURNED OUT TO BE A TOTAL PSYCHO. THEY MADE THE MARRIAGE OFFICIAL, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I’M SAYING, BUT THEY WERE ALREADY SO IT’S NOT LIKE ANYTHING IS REALLY DIFFERENT. HE WANTS TO KNOW IF HE SHOULD JUST GO STRAIGHT TO HIS PRIEST AND ASK ABOUT IT, OR IS THERE SOME CHURCH OFFICIAL HE SHOULD TALK TO.

Foy punched the caps lock on his keyboard.

I DON’T KNOW. I’M NOT CATHOLIC AND I’M NOT A PRIEST. I HAVE NO IDEA.

The reply came back in seconds.

YEAH, BUT WHAT ARE THE GENERAL CHURCH RULES ON THIS? IS IT NOT HAVING SEX OR MORE A MATTER OF TIME. BECAUSE THEY WERE HARDLY MARRIED. JUST A COUPLE OF MONTHS.

Foy looked around. His cubicle was set away from the busiest part of the office, and no one was near. He put his head down near his keyboard. Rage filled him and he whispered with an angry hiss.

“I don’t fucking know, okay? If he married the bitch, then divorce her. Or go ask the mother-fucking pope.”

He straightened up and looked around, worried. No one heard him. He sighed and tapped out a response.

I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T HAVE ANY IDEA. TALK TO A PRIEST.

Foy wandered down the little hallway through the cubicles and felt emotion and desire drain out of him. When he first came to the office he was starting to feel like he might be close to becoming a regular person, someone who just goes to work and makes money and looks forward to the weekend and takes life as it comes. But now he felt like a non-person, somehow set apart from everyone. He felt emasculated. Sexless. Without desire. Sinless. Always nice. That Foy, what a nice man. So sensitive. So caring.

There were bursts of life all over the cubicle village. A woman was outraged by something. She walked quickly past Foy with short, angry steps. Her sharp complaints came popping out of her mouth. A friend walked next to her, trying to keep up, nodding in silent affirmation. A sharp laugh came from the other side of the office. Foy turned and looked in that direction, but he couldn’t tell where the laugh came from. He opened the break room door. There were several men by the coke machine. One of them was describing a fishing trip. He seemed so happy to be talking about it. The others were giving him their complete attention.

“So I said Roy, where the fuck are we? I can’t see land. And he says, You gotta trust the instruments. And I’m like BullSHIT, I don’t see land. We were drinking like motherfuckers, and all of a sudden it was like, I want to be in the ocean. I’ve never been in the ocean. So I took off my pants and jumped over the side.”

The men laughed while the one telling the story nodded, pleased with himself.

“The guys in the boat were laughing their asses off and screaming at Roy, Man overboard! And I’m like, holy shit I’m in the goddamn ocean. Then I got this horrible feeling cause who knows what’s down there and it felt like a shark or something was gonna come up and bite my balls off. So Roy starts coming in close with the boat and then zooming away. They’re all laughing, but that shark shit has really got me. Then I panic and start screaming like a little girl…”

Foy slowly closed the door and backed away.

How do they do it? How do they just let their emotions fly out in front of everyone?

A thought occurred to him. He was always going to be a minister. He had put on some kind of sterile, priestly personality, and now he couldn’t take it off. It didn’t matter where he was or what he was doing. He had lost the ability to let go and live and laugh and be with people.

And it’s me. It’s not them. They don’t care what I do. I can’t live, or at least I can’t live in front of anyone. Maybe I can’t even live with myself. I’m just floating around. Mr. nice guy. Father Foy.

He slipped into his cubicle. There was a file open on the screen, a report from marketing. He opened it and began reading it, whispering as he went. He made small changes here and there, smoothing it out. Then he froze.

Shit, even my job is making things look nice. Sound nice.

Panic and anger poured into his stomach. His skin got warm. He looked over at a coffee cup by his monitor. There were several pens in it and an X-acto knife, sitting blade upwards. The silver tip of the knife caught his eye. He looked back at the screen, typed for a few seconds, then his eyes went back to the knife.

Foy sat back in his chair, motionless for a moment. He stood up just enough for his head to rise above the top of the cubicles. He looked around, then lowered himself. He rolled up his left sleeve and looked at his forearm. The underside of his forearm, above his wrist, he didn’t like. It was too vulnerable and soft and white. But the top of his forearm, up from the back of his hand where the hair was. It was brown from the sun and tough. He took the Exacto knife and put the tip of the blade on his arm. He pulled it across his skin, leaving a little white line. He made several of these white lines in parallel rows. Then a rush of raw anger came. Anger at himself. His mouth tightened and he pushed harder. The last line turned red as the blade went along. The pain cleared his mind a bit.

He looked around and spoke in a soft voice. “I bleed like anyone.”

He reached over and jerked a tissue from a box on his desk. He wiped the blade and dropped it back into the cup. Then he pressed the tissue over the cut on his arm. After a moment he lifted it and looked under it. He folded it into a small square and fastened it to his arm with scotch tape. He pulled his sleeve back down and buttoned it neatly. He took several deep breaths and rolled his head around until his neck popped. Then he exhaled loudly and turned back to his computer screen. He worked for a few minutes more until he heard someone saying, “Foy.” It was Suzanne. She was standing in the doorway.

Foy smiled at her. “Hey, how are you doing?”

She shrugged. “I can’t complain. How about you?”

“Eh, same old same old.”

She nodded and looked around his cubicle. Foy recognized the look of someone who had something she needed to say. His general practice was to give people an immediate opening when he saw that.

“So what’s happening?”

“Well, I know it’s been awhile since we talked, but I wanted you to know I did the things you said. I got all of Jeremy’s stuff out of around my desk. Most of it I threw away, but there were a couple of things. And then, you know, a lot of his stuff at home. His blanket from when he was little and some things.

She paused, pulled her lips into her mouth where you couldn’t see them, and nodded deliberately.

“Uh, I got this cute kind of like a trunk at Pier One. It’s green, um, and it has this little key. And when I was putting some of the stuff into it, I could almost feel Jeremy saying, ‘It’s okay.’ And it was like, I own this. I can come here anytime I want and just see everything and cry or whatever. And, it just…feels so good. I wanted you to know.”

Foy stood up and walked over to the doorway. He put out his right arm as an invitation, but he didn’t square up and face her. He left a nice angle to avoid too much intimacy. Suzanne accepted and leaned into him briefly, giving him a respectful half hug. Her eyes were wet.

Foy’s smile was absolutely genuine. It came so naturally. It was real, and he felt real happiness.

“Hey, that is so great. Just, I know that was a huge step for you. I’m so glad.”

Suzanne smiled and walked down the hall. Foy watched her go. She was pretty. She had an interesting walk. It was like she might be wondering if he was watching her and had suddenly become a little self-conscious. The vulnerability of the moment was very endearing. He had quick image in his mind of the two of them eating dinner together. But now he had taken up a kind of priestly, counselor role with her. And it made everything feel wrong. He really couldn’t sort out what he felt. It was a kind of vague but impossible longing that evaporated pretty quickly. And then he was too tired even to think about how he would start thinking about how he might start something like that. Even the line of thought was too complex for him.

He sat back down and looked at the computer screen. His eyes drifted to the right, and he looked over the cup with the pens and X-acto knife to a spot on the padded wall of the cubicle. He stared at the spot with his mouth hanging open. His eyes jerked suddenly to the right and to the left and then up and back down. Like someone who is thinking. A small smile appeared on his face. He made a rumbling sound deep in his throat.

“Hmm.”

A good feeling came over him. It was the feeling of pushing everything away. It was the feeling of letting go of being a man and putting everything out of his mind. He slipped into this androgynous, oblivious state like a man closing the door to his home, dropping onto the couch, and turning on the television. It was too much. Everything was too much.

His eyes moved back to the knife in the cup for an instant, but he looked away quickly. He stopped himself from thinking about that even before he began thinking about it.

This is a good life, what I do and who I am. This is just the way things should be and are.

rlp

.

Well, I lost the data from the Franciscan Retreat poll. It was my fault. I didn't understand how the poll results mechanism holds its data. You can still vote and if you vote you can see the original results. But the details about people who cast votes originally are gone.

So this is important:

Yesterday I sent out about 50 emails to people, letting them know that details and sign-up procedures are online for our 3 summer Franciscan retreats. I sent these emails to people who left comments indicating interest at various things I've written about these retreats.

BUT, the ones who took the poll were some of those most serious about coming. So I had wanted to send everyone who took the poll a personal email to alert them that people are signing up. There is only room for 20 people per retreat. The first retreat was half full a few days ago, and I think 5 people sent emails yesterday.

So if you are interested in joining us, better do so soon. Click here for dates and information.

rlp

The following essay is one that I wrote for The Christian Century in 2005 following a retreat at Laity Lodge in the Texas Hill Country. Laity Lodge is one of my most favorite places on earth.

I'm posting this as a part of a blogging exercise with High Calling Blogs. A number of us are writing about experiences we've had with spiritual retreats. Other bloggers who write about retreats will be listed here.

*****

I can't imagine absolute silence, neither can I hear it. Even when I'm in a quiet place, my mind produces its own ghostly, seashell sound. The noise in my head is a faint but high-pitched whine accompanied by a lower rumbling that sounds like an engine pulsing away in the distance. These seem to be the default sounds of my brain. It's what I hear when there is nothing else to hear.

About the closest you can come to silence is to become silent yourself and hope for the best. Close your eyes and forsake your vision. Let go of sight and your desperate need to see. Embrace hearing and you will begin to notice the many layers of the sounds around you.

I became silent on the evening of July 11, 2005, while sitting in a swing hanging from a tree at Laity Lodge, a retreat center in the hill country of Texas. I became silent and told God that I would listen to everything and hoped to hear from him.

This is the prayer that I thought that night. "I am listening, Lord. This is my only prayer tonight. I wonder, do you sometimes speak to doubtful and wayward boys like me?"

I do not know if God spoke to me that night. I only know what I heard.

The first thing I heard were the crickets, who provided a throbbing background to everything. Funny, I hadn't heard them before I got quiet, and then suddenly they were deafening. In a juniper tree nearby an insect clattered away in the darkness. He was calling for a mate, or perhaps just singing the song of himself.

My tennis shoe scraped on the hardened earth beneath the swing. With my eyes shut and my ears open, it was an offensive noise, altogether artificial and out of place. I didn't like the sound of it, so I stopped moving my feet.

The ear can focus on things near and far, like the eyes. I turned my head to the left, pointing my ear back over my shoulder and toward the river. I picked up the distant and desperate cries of coyotes on the scent of prey. It was like hearing something from another world.

Suddenly, a sound to the right, and I turned my head back, probing the darkness. I heard a murmuring, a conversation in the distance between two men. I couldn't make out the words, but the voices were masculine and the cadence seemed friendly.

This side of the conversation, I heard a mysterious insect that made a "tick, tick, tick" noise. Another made a sound like a man compulsively rolling ball bearings around in his cupped hand.

When I had heard as far away as I could, I returned to the sound of the crickets around me. Listening hard, I heard two distinct cricket noises. There was a shrill, cricket chirping, but also a deeper, bleating call. The crickets made me feel at home. Theirs was a familiar and comforting sound. I was pressed on all sides by their presence. I was not alone.

I ended my prayer time by listening to the sound of my own breathing and the gentle creaking of the swing.

Everything I heard seemed like a cry of longing and need. The insects were breathing the cool air of the night and dragging their legs and wings together, little violins calling across the darkness for companionship or comfort. The coyotes in the distance cried out in their hunger and in praise of their primitive love of the chase and the kill. The indistinct voices of the men in the distance bore the sound of reason and the timbre of friendship.

And I too was calling in the night, hoping to find the God that I have worshiped and served since I was a boy. Did I hear him that night, or did I just hear the common sounds of creation?

This is prayer. You do not have to speak. Do not let anyone tell you that you must speak. You may speak if you wish, or you may simply listen in the darkness.

Listening is good. Listening pries open the secret places in our hearts where we guard our vulnerability from the dangers of the world. Listening brings layers of sound; it allows you to journey far away and then return to yourself.

Desire is a goodness. Mystery is another. Longing is the sharp tang on the edge of joy that turns it from storybook sugar to an aged and robust wine of the soul. Thank God a part of these three always remain with us. God save us from complete consummation.

Keep your longing for answers in check. Stand trembling at the edge of discovery and hold onto that sweet moment as long as you can. This too is a kind of prayer.

When I left the swing that evening, I knew for certain that I was but one more creature of the night, longing and listening and hoping for what I need. I'll leave it to you to decide whether or not I heard from God.

I do not know, and at this season of my life, it doesn't seem to matter.

rlp

The swing I sat in that night at Laity Lodge

Read my introduction to Sarah from yesterday.

Sarah may or may not interact with the comments. It might be a little much for her. But I think she will read them.

*****

During Thomas’s illness, we have been cared for by a lot of people of faith. Of course they are burdened with sadness for us and for Thomas. There is a secondary grief, however, that seems to flicker behind our saddest conversations. Questions like, “Why weren’t our prayers answered?” or “Why won’t God make Thomas better?” are unsaid but present.

Those are good questions, ones that theologians have been arguing over for hundreds of years. I don’t have any good answers, but I’ve had a lot of bad ones suggested to me since Thomas became ill. There are a couple theories that I pretty sure are bull-oney:

Theory #1: “We didn’t pray hard enough / have a good enough attitude / enough faith.” This one makes me the angriest. Half the saints of the South have been praying for us with fasting, alms, and tears. If cancer was a popularity contest, one using prayers or good works as “votes,” Thomas would have won.

Besides, that whole theory puts God in a bad light. It sets God up to say things like, “Sorry, Christian moms in Darfur whose children are stolen, raped, and made into soldiers. You didn’t have enough votes. Your child loses, while all kinds of good and bad parents in the US get to raise their kids in peace.”

Now, I don’t mean to discourage anyone from praying. I just think that, at best, the process of being healed is a mystery. It always has been. The Bible says Jesus was a healer, it’s true. But if you read those stories as examples of Jesus rewarding people for extraordinary faith or good works, I think you’re reading wrong. The hero of those stories is Jesus, not the heal-ee.

Before evangelicalism evolved in the US in the 19th century, Christians believed that Christ identified most with those who were suffering. They believed – Theory #2 - that suffering deepened our humanity and thus our identification with Christ. I believe that suffering simply sucks, but at least this is one theory that doesn’t blame the victim.

The main trouble I have with Theory #2 is that it quickly warps into Theory #3: “God makes you suffer so He can teach you something.” Lord, I hope not.

I’ve learned a lot of valuable lessons through the joyful events in my life. I also grew up believing that God was the source of creativity and wisdom. Theory # 3 would have me believe that God is slowly and painfully killing my son just to teach Thomas or the people who love him a lesson. I’m not buying it.

Sure, we’ve learned some things during this time. We’ve learned how to give intravenous meds; how to identify pain in an unconscious or sleeping child; how to make very, very sad phone calls. But there are plenty of people up at Children’s hospital who know these things and whose kids are going to get better, or who simply read about them in their medical text books. Suffering happens, and you learn things. But it’s clear that each can happen separately as well.

I’m obviously not going to wrap up the arguments over theodicy here. But what I do know for certain is that most people, religious and irreligious, are uncomfortable sitting with grief. I sure am. I’d rather believe anything else than the truth: this is happening; I can’t stop it; it’s going to hurt.

So this is my theory: Death is a mystery. Even for those who believe we’ll meet again in the sky, suffering and death are scary and sad. A thousand years may be a day for God; but for you and me, the space between the difficult now and the glorious hereafter is an awfully long time.

Interestingly, my bravest friends, be they Christian pastors or confirmed heathens, have tended to explain the least. Instead, they have quietly anointed us with their kindnesses. They have prepared meals for us in the presence of our bitter enemy. They are holding our hands as we walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

They have been, I mean, like Christ. We’re all scared as hell, but I think this is the best we can do.

Sarah Bickle

I met Sarah McManus when she was in 8th grade. This would have 1990 or 91. I was invited by THE David Gentiles, to whom “Blue Like Jazz” was dedicated, to come to the church where he was the youth minister and participate in a weekend Bible study. I was the leader for the 8th graders.

Sarah was tall, with thick, beautiful, red hair. She was so peppy and full of energy. She ran around the house in her socks that weekend, as often as not on her tip-toes. Here is how I interpret her walking on her toes: There was so much energy and excitement wanting to burst out of this child that she couldn’t keep her heels on the floor. She was the perfect Anne of Green Gables, and I told her so. If L.M. Montgomery’s work hadn’t come first, I would have sworn she modeled the character on Sarah.

The next year I came back for the Bible study weekend and was assigned the 9th graders, so I had a second weekend with Sarah and her friends. Then our churches went to the same youth camp a couple of years, so I saw her during the summers. After that we loosely kept up with each other. By the time she was in college, email had come into its own, and we exchanged them now and again. I was always charmed by her intelligence, her passion for life, and by her sincere desire that her Christianity be a serious life journey and not just a cultural label.

Sarah met Scott in college. They married and she became Sarah Bickle. As I got to know Scott I could see that he was the right man for her. They lived here and there, ending up in Dallas. Sometimes Sarah and Scott would spend the night at our house if they were in town. We had children, and they would watch us put them to bed and do various parenting things. I imagine they were wondering what it would be like when they had children of their own.

Sarah sent me an email when she got pregnant. I rejoiced along with all of her friends and waited during the pregnancy.

His name is Thomas, and he is the first-born child of Sarah and Scott. It looked like things were working out just as I hoped they would. Sarah and Scott were young and happy. They were throwing themselves into life and parenting.

And then came the news that Thomas had a brain tumor. The news was a terrible shock to all of us that know and love Sarah and Scott and Thomas. What followed was two years of treatment and hopes and disappointments and financial struggle and pain. They take turns. One works and the other stays home with Thomas. They have lived on prayers and desperation and the unexplainable energy that mothers and fathers have when their child is sick. Nothing matters but doing everything for Thomas that can be done. All else has been put on hold.

They have tried everything, but in the end it appears that cancer will end Thomas’ life just as it was getting started. They have stopped treating his illness and are seeking to give Thomas the best life possible while there is time.

Life knows nothing of fairness. I don’t mean that life understands fairness and rejects it. I mean that fairness has no part in life unless you or I are imposing it. Humans want fairness and sometimes work for it, but it is no part of the natural order. That’s one of the reasons why believing in a just and loving God is so hard for many of us.

Because God had not forced fairness on life and nature, there will always be families like the Bickles who endure unthinkable tragedy and hardship. Parents who are losing a child live in a world that is unknown to those of us who have not. No one knows this terrible journey but those who have taken it. There have been times when I was talking to Sarah on the phone and my inability to say anything was painful to me. What can you say to this mother? To this father?

Sarah sent me something that she wrote. I asked her if I could post it here because her words are important. No one dares write about such things except someone who has lived them. I’ve had a few people stand in for me as guest bloggers. Maybe two or three. Sarah was the first one back in 2005. I looked at what she wrote here in 2005 and realized that she was pregnant with Thomas at that time.

Tomorrow Sarah will be a guest blogger here. I will offer no comment or addition to her words. I only wish that Sarah be heard.

rlp

Visit the Thomas Bickle blog.

This is a follow-up to yesterday’s post. Due to a clerical error, I was without my depression medication for a time. I tried to pay attention to what was happening to me so that I could describe it clearly.

Calling it depression was a mistake from the beginning. What does that mean, exactly? Depression. My grandfather didn’t call it anything. He was just moody and lost his temper sometimes. When he was in “one of his moods” you stayed away from him. And when he got one of his “sick headaches,” he just endured it.

My mother never called it anything either. She had sick headaches too, and would go to bed with them. Sometimes her face would be slack and show no emotion. You sometimes saw that in photographs. Then she started slowly pulling away from everyone. At holidays you would see her in another room sitting quietly on the couch. If you went in there she would try her best to engage you and be a good mother. She would ask questions and talk to you, but you could tell she wanted to be alone so badly that it made her jittery.

Then there were phone calls where she would talk so fast you couldn’t keep up. And dad told us of nights where she stayed up cleaning the house, happy as a lark, laughing, thrilled to be alive. She would hardly sleep.

And then one of those highs caused her to have a psychotic break from reality. She didn’t know any of us or who she was. She went to a hospital, and they named it. They gave this demon a name. Bipolar Disorder, the doctor said. My mother started taking medicine, and it was like she had been born again.

In my case it was the sick headaches - the migraines - that got my attention. There were other physical symptoms. And I had become withdrawn and uninterested in life. My family noticed that part; I didn’t. It happens gradually. The doctor gave me medication, and it was like being born again. I remember thinking, “Oh yeah, I remember that this is how I used to feel and think.”

It was absolutely wonderful to be living again. And it’s been great all along. I’ve never stopped taking the medication.

So what do you want to call this thing? Depression? Depletion? Mental and emotional dysfunction sounds like it fits my experience. People who suffer from the many emotional disorders that we put in the category of depression often have a hard time describing what is happening to them. What follows will be my attempt to describe my emotional and mental state when I’m not being aided by medication. This is fresh on my mind, having spent some days without any medication recently because of a problem with insurance. This was actually good for me. I had been wondering if I really needed to be taking the medication.

Last week, as my Wellbutrin dwindled, I waited to see if I would feel a sudden mood drop. I did not. What happened was a gradual loss of interest and emotion. As I think about it now, I wonder if what I experience with depression is something like the experience of a psychopath. I can’t love anyone. I can’t feel any love for another person. It’s like someone removed that part of my brain.

This is a marker for me: When my depression has gotten me into a bad place, I don’t want to be around my children. I don’t want them touching me. I don’t want anyone touching me. I don’t want to look people in the eyes. Any kind of social interaction causes levels of discomfort you might expect if you were asked to walk into a ballroom in your underwear and start talking to people. You don’t want to be there. If forced to go into the ballroom in your underwear and talk to people, you can do it. But you hate it, and you can’t wait for it to end so you can just go home.

It’s kind of like that, only there is no good reason for me to isolate myself. I’m not being asked to go to a ballroom in my underwear. My daughter just wants to hug me and sit close to me on the couch. The people at church just want to talk. Normal stuff.

All of my desire goes away. Everything inside me that I identify with Gordon seems to wither. I have a good sense of humor, and I like to laugh. Nothing is funny. I’m passionate and curious and want to know about everything. All of that is gone. I adore my children and love to hug them and talk with them and be with them. They become like someone else’s children who have been in my house too long.

I can’t feel any familiar emotions. I force myself to go on living. I do all the things I need to do. But eventually the emotional stress of it causes me to despair. I start to panic and feel what I can only describe as a deep, hopeless despair.

You see, you need the emotions and feelings that you are accustomed to. Whatever yours are, you need them. You must have them. We are emotional, relational beings. To rip away a person’s ability to feel and interact is a violent thing.

When I’m down, my wife is the only person I can be with and feel no aversion. But I don’t feel love for her. I know intellectually that I love her, but I can’t feel it. The piece I wrote recently called “If Only” was an essay that got away from me. I wrote it as the Wellbutrin was coming to an end. I started with one thing, and I ended up writing about what it is to feel love for my wife. I couldn’t feel love, so I tried to write love. When I was done I knew the piece had started out as one thing and turned into something else. I could have torn it apart and made two things. But some instinct in me said to leave it alone. So I did.

In the worst of times, I could feel something when writing. That may be why I was so driven to write in the first two years of this blog. I suppose that’s why so much of what I write has a kind of sad, longing, emotional feel. My writing voice has always seemed to connect to people emotionally. Maybe you can feel the hunger and desire in me as I try to write emotions into existence.

So there it is. What can I do about it? That’s how I was feeling by Tuesday night. Empty and dead. Lillian came in to hug me goodnight. I put my arms around her and stared over her shoulder, gritting my teeth. I couldn't wait for it to be over. Now see, that's just not right. That is not me. Lillian is our last little girl. I've been treasuring her hugs, knowing that little girl hugs are just about gone. But Tuesday, I could hardly stand being near her.

I got my Wellbutrin back on Wednesday. It is now Thursday afternoon. I feel my interest in life returning. I’m at the church alone today, and I still want very much to be alone. But I can feel things again. Ironically, one of the first feelings to come rushing back is fear and anxiety. I’m very jittery. I feel like you might feel if you’ve done something wrong.

So I guess I’ll keep taking Wellbutrin. I hope very much not to have to take it for a long time. I don’t know how you stop taking something like this. I take three white pills every morning. Whatever that is doing to me is being done. Whatever that says about me is true. Whatever will happen to me because of this medication is going to happen. Because I don’t know what to do but take the pills.

I like being Gordon very much. And my wife and children love Gordon and want him to be around.

So okay. Give me the pills. I don’t care. I’ll do anything.

rlp

More insurance insanity. I don’t know if anyone is interested in what I’m writing. It’s all I can think about today. Maybe it’s a good case study. Our insurance situation is so complex that I can’t explain it fully here. The short version is that my wife no longer has a job, so we’ve been using the COBRA law to keep our health insurance with Humana, the insurance company used by her former employer. The COBRA law says that you must be allowed to keep your insurance for 18 months after you leave a job or lose a job.

At one point it seemed that I was going to have to leave Humana and lose my mental health benefits. That’s when I told you that I was trying to figure out how to buy Wellbutrin, the drug I take for depression, online.

This is one of the hard things about trying to figure out insurance. Things change all the time. Jeanene had to break away from our family plan because she needed some yearly examinations. We were worried that if the doctors found anything, she wouldn’t be able to get insurance later, when we have to leave Humana. Technically that’s true for all of us. However, my middle daughter has no other option but to remain with Humana until that coverage runs out. We’ve decided it makes better sense for me to stay on that plan with her and the other two girls. So I’ll have mental health benefits for another year or so. That means I can buy Wellbutrin with a reasonable co-payment.

Now there has been a colossal SNAFU with our insurance company. When Jeanene left Humana in March, they mistakenly cancelled the policy for our entire family. No one told us. We got no cancellation notice. I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescription two weeks ago and was told that my insurance had been cancelled. I knew a mistake had been made because we’ve never been late with a payment.

As I continue with this story, keep that in mind. We’ve paid these people. They have our money.

You would think this would be a simple matter to fix. I would call Humana and the Humana person would say, “I’m sorry Mr. Atkinson. You’ve paid us. Let me update the computer...done. You’re covered again.”

Only this is the world of insurance in the United States. Even if you pay them, nothing is easy or simple.

You see, with COBRA there is often a third-party involved. In our case, a company called Conexis collects our insurance payment, then notifies Humana that we have paid. This is because most employers don’t want to handle the insurance paperwork for people who no longer work for them. I certainly don’t blame them for that.

In theory, Conexis’ job seems easy enough. We pay them our health insurance premium online. They notify Humana that we have paid and our insurance continues.

Apparently this transaction isn’t so simple.

The first thing we did when we heard our insurance was cancelled was to call Humana. The person we spoke with couldn’t explain anything. She simply said that our insurance had been cancelled back in March. (We've deduced that all of this happened when Jeanene left our family insurance. Humana has never been clear about that.)

“But we’ve been paying all along. We paid for March and April.”

“Well, then Conexis hasn’t been notifying us of those payments. We have no record of them.”

Ah, so it’s the fault of Conexis. We called them with what seemed like a reasonable question. “Why have you been taking our online payments and not notifying Humana to that effect?” They didn’t dispute that we had paid. They said, “But we HAVE been notifying Humana. Humana does this all the time. We notify them, but they don’t update their system. Then your insurance gets cancelled.”

Okay, so it’s Humana’s fault. We called them back.

“No no no,” Humana said. “We have no record that Conexis has contacted us. Conexis does this all the time. You need to contact Conexis and demand that they do an emergency notification update. They will email us a record of your payment, and your insurance will be re-instated in 72 hours.

“72 hours? All of this is done by computer and email but it will take you 72 hours?”

“Sorry,” the Humana person said. “That’s the way the system works.”

So we called Conexis, angry now. They denied that the problem was on their end. “We’ve sent them the update,” they said.

“Okay fine, whatever. Will you just send it again?” They agreed. The Conexis rep said, “You know it will take Humana about 72 hours to get this updated. There’s nothing we can do about that.”

“Yeah, so we heard.”

Four days later I called the pharmacy, hoping to be able to pick up my prescription. I was informed that Humana was still denying that we we had insurance with them. By this time I had run out of Wellbutrin.

We called Conexis once again.

“Well, we notified Humana,” they said defensively, You know it sometimes takes up to 72 hours for the system to update.”

“Yes, so we’ve been told. But it’s been four days. Are you sure you notified them?”

“Absolutely. They’ve been notified of your payment. It’s their fault.”

We called Humana. They denied getting any notification from Conexis. “Call them back and ask them if they sent us an edi form by email. That’s what they’re supposed to send us. Now keep in mind that when we finally do get it, it will be...”

“We know. 72 hours.”

Okay, I think that’s probably enough. You get the picture. Let me go on record and say that I think this whole 72 hours thing is pure bullshit. It gives everyone a nice excuse. The people who are supposed to send notices can just tell you they were sent, but the system hasn’t been updated. You wait three or four days and then are told the notice was never sent. Do you see how this can drag on for weeks? In our case, 2 weeks.

AND ALL THIS TIME, THEY HAD OUR MONEY!

It’s funny, at times I felt like I hadn’t paid them. I felt like I was asking these people to do me a favor. And that’s how a lot of the people at Humana and Conexis talk to you. Like this is somehow your fault. We’ve paid them thousands of dollars over the last half a year, and this is how they treat us?

Meanwhile I was out of Wellbutrin and my daughter, whose medication is much more critical, was down to two days supply.

You know, I had been wondering if I really needed to be on Wellbutrin. When you’re on a medication for depression, sometimes you wonder what would happen if you just stopped taking it. I found out. I’ll tell you about that tomorrow. It’s a whole story of its own.

For today, let me say that Jeanene and I dedicated Monday and Tuesday to getting this worked out. Two educated adults, determined and intelligent, working diligently to get to the bottom of things, took two entire days to get one company to notify another company that we had paid them two weeks ago.

It’s insane, I tell you. Insanity. Do you know how we solved this problem? We took names and notes. We stopped asking if “they” had sent things and demanded to know who sent them, when, and to what email address. If we talked to someone we found out their name and their phone extension. If that person said, “This will be done in an hour or so,” in an hour or so we called them back. Every time. We badgered them and would not go away. With both of us tag-teaming on the phones, it took two full days for Humana to update our records to show that we had indeed paid them two weeks before.

This morning at 11:00 am, our insurance was reinstated. I drove straight to the Walgreens Pharmacy, got my medication, and took a dose. It will take a few days for this medication to get back into my system, but at least I have medication for the next month.

So what actually happened? There’s no way to tell for sure. We think that when Humana mistakenly cancelled our family policy, they notified Conexis but Conexis did not tell us, and they continued to take our money. This is one of the crazy things about the system. If you are one day late with a payment, alarms go off up and down the computer network. Everyone from Humana to Walgreens immediately knows that your insurance has lapsed. On the other hand, if they cancel your policy by mistake, somehow you can continue to make payments online and no one notices or says anything. If I hadn’t had to buy medication, how long do you suppose Conexis would have continued to take our money in spite of the fact that our policy had been cancelled?

I’m guessing they would have taken every penny until one of us got sick and found out in the emergency room that we had no insurance.

Note: The reason this isn't criminal is that the insurance company agrees that when you finally get it worked out, you are covered retroactively. So if one of us had gotten sick during this time, we would have eventually been reimbursed. So legally, they are fine. In the meantime, people who need medicine run out while they get jerked around by these companies.

One last thing.

Our next payment is due April 30th. We’ll pay them before the due date. However, if there is any mistake on their end, if Conexis does not notify Humana, or if Humana gets the notification but does not update their system, our policy will be cancelled. When you're on COBRA, they cancel you the day after your payment is due. There is no grace. If anything goes wrong, we’ll be doing this all over again.

The good news is, we understand the system now, and we have a bunch of names, phone numbers, and email addresses. If we have any trouble, I bet we can get it worked out in, I don't know, 72 hours or so.

rlp