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My love was born at my mother’s breast and in my father’s strong arms. It was a sucking, insatiable, infantile love. I was happily curled in the warm embrace of pure need.

My love was shaped in early days by my need to perform. I worked hard at home, in sports, and at school. I had a first-born child's natural sense that people would love me if I excelled.

My love turned inward and became hidden and personal with a series of best friends. Michael and Mickey and Lance and Steve and Mark and Kenny. We claimed the rights to our own lives and our own loves. We stood together against the world with our secret clubs and inside jokes.

My love thrashed against my arm like a tethered falcon when I discovered the beauty of ponytails and freckled smiles. A series of little girls first turned my head and then turned my guts into jelly. The falcon burst its tether and screeched, circling and diving, causing me to throw myself to the ground in a panic. Bonnie and Carmen and Kathy and Tracy and Diane and Laura and Julie and Elma. How I ached and longed and cried and failed and watched from afar. Waves of feeling rose up in my chest and cast me face-down upon my bed. There was no end to it and no relief because it felt so good and it hurt so bad.

In time I learned the proper words to coax the falcon back to my arm. I slipped the tether around its foot and paraded it about for a few years with an imagined sophistication. Oh yes, I had it all figured out for a time.

And then I went to college and met a woman with a swinging ponytail and brown eyes that were tender and crinkly when she smiled. She sat across from me at the Baylor cafeteria, and when she talked she revealed a certain, indescribable spark of personality that proved irresistible to me. My falcon took one look at her, snapped its tether, and disappeared over the horizon, never to return.

I became foolish again, like a small boy. She carried a basket instead of a backpack. Suddenly I loved baskets, the weave and feel and smell of them. She had pale skin, so pale skin became the loveliest skin in the world as far as I was concerned. Once I was able to pick her out of a crowd of young women in shorts because I recognized her knees. She had a smile that could light up my heart and brown eyes that were too beautiful and powerful for me to understand. I wanted to keep her. I wanted her to be mine. I wanted to hold her and defend her with my life against anything in the world that would harm her.

I had her for a few months, and then I lost her. I was inconsolable and fell into a time of loneliness. I could not feel love for any other woman. I worked. I paid my bills. I prepared to go to seminary.

Then an unexpected letter arrived, causing my heart to thrash about in my chest. There was a near-collision in a supermarket aisle, and then we were sitting on the floor of her apartment, both frightened. She of hurting me and I of being hurt. But our hands moved across the carpet like small creatures with wills of their own. Our fingers entwined, and all the powers of joy and fear and pain and love came together in that moment.

My love became our love. I felt like I had arrived, but the story of my love was only getting started. I now understand that we knew almost nothing of love at that time. For our love had not yet faced the 12 labors of Hercules.

We had to survive financial crisis and the slow loss of the passion of youth. We had to survive the exhaustion of work and responsibilities. And then there came three children, three sucking vortices of need. We had to cling to each other, blue eyes locked on brown, swearing before the heavens that we weren’t going to let these three angelic demons take everything from us. For it is the nature of children to take everything and the duty of parents not to let them.

Years passed, and we aged together. We learned to love our softening bodies with their new demands and needs. Sometimes, when we were very tired, we would say that it was the two of us against the whole world. Friends would change, the children would leave, but our secret club was forever.

Then a tragedy happened. I woke up in a bathtub filled with ice. There were stitches on the left side of my chest and a note that said, “Sorry, but we needed your heart.” I arose, dripping cold water on the floor. I had the face and the look of Gordon, but there was something absent from my eyes. My trademark silliness was gone. And I could not feel any of the happy things. I couldn't feel love or joy. I was numb inside and sometimes angry for no reason.

I carried on by the powers of obligation, duty, and shame. I put one foot in front of the other. I smiled at home and at church. I said the right things to the children. I tried to force myself to be myself, but that never really works. Jeanene learned to live with the zombie version of Gordon, which is its own kind of tragedy.

The doctor called it depression, and he gave me pills. They worked pretty well for a long time. I was happy and my boyish silliness returned. Jeanene and I began reconnecting. Our hands had to crawl across a carpet of fear to find each other, but they did and things were good.

This is so hard to write, but I fear something is wrong again. I’ve slowly lost the ability to feel happiness or love. Once again I have all of the words and none of the feeling. My need to be alone is becoming overpowering. I come home and want to go to bed or sit in a corner. The idea of interacting with people is painful even to think about. Jeanene and the three sisters obviously know something is wrong.

Damn it! I don’t want to do this again. I’m going to have to go back to the doctor and start the process over again. I hate the idea of medication. I hate thinking of myself being dependant on medication.

“Did you remember to pick up your medication?”

“Has anyone seen my medication?”

“Did I take my medicine yet today?”

Medication medication medication medication. Fucking medication. MY medication. Like it’s some treasured personal possession. Like it’s now an essential part of me, like a leg or something.

But I'm going to the doctor. Yes sir. I'm not hesitating this time. I already have the appointment. And I'm going to do whatever he tells me to do. If he gives me pills (and he will) I’ll smile and say, "Thank you, sir. May I have another?"

Because this is the story of my love. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is my love. My love for God and for ideas and for truth and for our church and for writing and for my friends and for the three sisters.

And for Jeanene. It's her love too. I have to remember that. I owe her my best effort to be the man she married.

If I am allowed to live a full live, then half of the story of my love is yet to be told. And I definitely want to be present and alert for part two.

rlp

Dear RLP,

I am distraught right now. I have done something terrible that I didn't mean to and it looks like it stands a good chance of destroying my marriage. I feel so lost and alone right now. I've been crying and screaming all night but I'm not doing anything stupid. I desperately hope you can give some words, perhaps your own, perhaps from the bible, that might offer some hope for me to grasp.

You are the closest I've been to a religious leader in some time because my wife and I couldn't find a church that seemed right to us when we moved. Sorry to come crawling but I don't feel like there's anyone else I could contact.

Thank you, and God bless,

Mike

*************

Dear Mike

Wow, this is a tough one. I don't know you or your wife. I don't know your history or any details about what you've done. I don't know if this is a first offense or another chapter in a history of behaviors that will perhaps be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

You don't need to write back and give me any more information. I simply want you to understand why I can't be specifically helpful to you as you try to figure out what to do next.

What I can say is that two people who want desperately for their marriage to work can almost always find a way to make it work. Of course, they must both desire healing and be prepared to work hard at mending the relationship. I hope that is true about you and your wife. I hope you are hurting and regretful and confused, but both still wanting to find a way to make this marriage work. If that is the case, I have one BIG word of advice.

Don't try to fix this yourself. It is likely that you will not be able to do that. If you two keep this problem a secret and try to sort it out yourselves, you will probably fail. Sometimes, when a marriage is in trouble, the things you do to try to help the situation and cope with your own grief and remorse are exactly the sort of things that cause your spouse to become sadder, angrier, more depressed, etc.  Vicious cycles abound in these situations. You do your best to help her, but you only end up making her more angry. She does her best to relate to you, but you become even more isolated.

It's called being stuck. And if this is a serious as you say it is, my guess is that you are stuck already.

Sometimes you run into a couple who has been married for - I don't know, a thousand years or something -  and they proudly announce that they never needed any damn counseling. They worked through their problems all by themselves, thank you very much, and look how long they have been married. But if you look closely at their relationship, the intimacy is gone. They managed to stay in the same house, but there is nothing left to the relationship except paying the bills and sharing an air conditioner.

You don't want that. So don't try to do this alone. Get help now. Find a counselor or a pastor or someone with some knowledge and experience to sit down with you and help you work through this. A serious counselor will pay close attention to your families of origin and your history as a couple. There are no shortcuts.

It's hard to get started, so MAKE YOURSELF pick up the phone and make the appointment.

You wanted hope, so here it is: If you both want a healthy marriage, and you are both willing to work - HARD, then there is hope for you. Many people find that their marriages are richer and more fulfilling after they have rebuilt them. This is your chance to set things right.

rlp

p.s. - Write me and let me know what happens, if you like. By the time you get this you can know that I've already prayed for you.

This letter, like all that I post here, is used with the permission of the one who sent it.

Jeanene and I went away together this week because we were feeling disconnected from each other. We are living in the busiest season of our lives, and our marriage is the only thing we can neglect without experiencing immediate consequences. If we neglect our children, they will let their suffering be known. If we neglect our jobs, there will be instant ramifications and acute stress. That leaves our relationship, which is the only thing we can let slide when our busy lives force us to focus only on our immediate needs.

Jeanene is a chaplain. She was promoted to head of pastoral care for her hospital about a year ago. That promotion has been very hard. We had no idea how inflexible her schedule would become. She has weathered the difficult transition and now seems to be enjoying this calling, but it takes a lot out of her.

You know the basics of my story. I was merrily working away as a pastor and a web designer when I decided to start a blog so I could write a little bit in the evenings. You know, for my own health and sanity.

I don't need to recap the last couple of years, but Real Live Preacher definitely has had a life of its own. I think I was in control of it for about a month. I'm not complaining, mind you. I wouldn't trade the last two years for anything. There's nothing a writer craves more than some excuse to take his or her writing seriously enough to work at it. Real Live Preacher has been my excuse, and I have worked at writing. I've worked hard and long into the night. I've hoarded time like a miser collecting scraps of soap and pressing them into mottled cakes.

If all writing required was a certain amount of time, then writing well would be a matter of scheduling. But good writing takes more than just time; it wants your best moments and the best of you. Writing demands your most focused and creative time, the hours when your heart, soul, and mind exist nowhere but in the line of words spilling out of the absolute focus you have somehow managed to find one more time.

That kind of writing takes something out of you that's hard to get back in time for dinner with the kids.

So if your wife is busy, and you are busy, and your children need that same highly focused time and energy, how will you pull off this miracle? How will you write? Something has to give, and if you are not careful, that something will be your marriage.

Jeanene and I are committed to one another, and that commitment is inseparable from our devotion to God. We both know that neither of us will cut and run because of one busy season. That security is a good thing, but also a dangerous thing.

This kind of commitment sometimes creates marriages that have length but no depth. They are measured by years but not by happiness. Some people plod through the decades together, caring for their children and dutifully paying the mortgage while their hearts starve for want of affection and love.

I have a lot of respect for people who remain faithful to their marriages because of spiritual or other commitments, but I want more than a white-knuckled fidelity. I want Jeanene to love me, and I want to love her. I want this marriage to be emotionally satisfying for her, and I want that same emotional fulfillment for myself.

If we want our relationship to grow and remain meaningful, then we must work at it. If we put our marriage on auto-pilot, we will give the very best of ourselves to the children and to our vocations, leaving nothing but tattered scraps for ourselves.

That's why we went away together this week. We went away because we looked at each other one night and said, “We're coasting. We're not taking the time we need to nurture each other.”

The busier you are, the more intentional you must be about your marriage. In the end, the children will leave, jobs will come and go, and even something as precious to me as writing may only be here for a season. Jeanene and I hope to be together until the end. And when the end comes, I do not want to regret our journey together, knowing that I shortchanged it because I was too busy doing “important” things.

Jeanene and I reconnected this week. We did a lot of talking and pledged to be more intentional about our relationship. We're going to work a little harder at this marriage. That's as it should be, because marriage is good work to do.