Father’s Day and Divorce

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Growing up, the only real item on my bucket list was to be a dad, not just any dad, but like my dad. So, imagine my state of distress when I got divorced about 20 years ago and had no children. Every lesson at church, every aspiration, much encouragement from family all seemed to center around starting a family and raising children, children that it now looks like I will never have. It’s not for lack of trying. I was married, and I have proposed to three other women since then. Most of you didn’t know that until today.

Divorce shatters many things. It shatters illusions. It shatters expectations. It shatters confidence. It shatters hope. It shatters faith. For so many people who go into relationships with integrity and good intentions, it’s one of the greatest forms of betrayal. You kneel across an altar from someone who promises before God and witnesses to love you no matter what. They promise you the moon and then, for some reason, they give you the boot instead.

So my life shifted, and my life drifted. In the aftermath, it cost me so much money, that I initially had trouble eking out an existence. In the aftermath, since I was in graduate school at the time, it truncated opportunities and compromised others. In the aftermath, I found that women were unwilling to “risk” anything on me because I had a “failed” marriage; few bothered to find out why it failed. Eventually I ended up in academia because it was the only place I could find work, and I stayed because economic recessions made it unwise to leave and ultimately, I was unqualified to go anywhere else.

One thing didn’t change. I kept my faith and hope somehow, not just when I got divorced but also when my proposals were rejected. Despite the fact that there was no safety net in my Faith for men who get divorced, I continued to attend church and do what I could. At first, because of my marital status, they were reticent to ask me to do ANYTHING until I moved to Henderson and my uncle was made my bishop. He knew me and knew that I was more than the things that happened to me. That faith and trust bred other options later as I moved and Bishops saw that I had held callings, ultimately leading to my service a few years ago in a bishopric. I started holding “family home evening” in 2015 despite the fact that my only family was a dog. One bishop in Summerlin remarked how remarkable it was to see me sing hymns without a hymnbook and attend each week despite the fact that nobody would notice or be impressed or shame me if I didn’t come. He told me he knew that’s how I had a testimony because otherwise I would have found a reason to quit church and eventually to quit Christ.

I wrestled a lot with feelings of remorse, inadequacy and failure. Women didn’t want to be with a “failure”, and I didn’t like that I had "failed". I have trouble seeing any of my knowledge, skills and abilities as anything spectacular, so I don’t really act like I have a lot to offer. I know that in general we’re all equivalently if not equally endowed with gifts from God, and so mine might be different, but they are not superior. What ultimately got me to think differently was when my dog got cancer and fought to stay alive for as long as he could. If he was willing to put up with the pain and the bleeding, then there must be something wonderful enough about me to justify that.

That watershed moment opened my eyes to Christ too. He also fought to stay alive and put up with pain and bleeding for ME. My dog was a reminder that my Father God had neither forsaken nor forgotten me. “ Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.” Isaiah 49:16

I still don’t really feel like I have much to show or much about which to brag. My life is largely unspectacular except to a happy few students who express gratitude each semester. Since they never talk to me again unless they need a letter of recommendation, I don’t really trust their affirmations. However, I think back on the love of my dog and how he reflected the love of my God and realize that he was the best reflection of how God feels about me of which a dog is capable. So, I must have something to offer, even if my wife and other potential candidates for marriage chose to see other things in me.

My life looks vastly different from where I thought it would go and prepared for it to go. I have been single for many years. I haven’t even been on a date for over a decade. I am employed but not appreciated, needed but not desired, utilized but not included, and acknowledged but not chosen by nearly all the women I know. However, there are dogs on the various routes where I jog each morning who try to talk to me, who come to the fence so I can pet them, and who are excited to see me. So maybe one day there will be a God who welcomes me back, even if I walk alone. People may not choose me, but I know that Christ chose to bleed for my sins and rise from the dead so that He could lift me up. And that’s why I thank my Father God.

Clue and the Victim Card

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I had a thought the other day that I wanted to document for when people start stealing it. I was talking about lessons learned from the game "Clue".

There are lots of cards in the game. You have room cards, weapon cards, and suspect cards. There is no victim card, so stop trying to play it.

Falcons and Mockingbirds as a Microcosm for Men

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In spring of 2018 a mockingbird started attacking me as I came into work. He was protecting his nest in a tree near the door to my building. Despite the fact that I watched for him and defended myself, even during quarantine when almost nobody else was here, he continued to attack each spring. Eventually I took an alternative route in spring. This week I came in through that entrance because I was bringing things with me and it’s closer to the elevator and was shocked to not be attacked. When I mentioned it in the department office, one of the other professors told me that a few weeks ago a falcon had found the nest and killed and eaten the birds. I’m kind of sad, because it’s the end of an era and will never again be part of my morning routine at work. It is however also the circle of life.

Nature isn’t evil, and evil isn’t necessarily in our nature. As humans we sometimes ascribe negative denotations to people for things that are natural. However, in our dog eat dog world, if it comes down to a question of your survival or mine, you must confess that you would try to fight to survive. It is the nature of all living things to want to survive and reproduce. Most parents will steal or fight to feed their children or in some cases to feed themselves. So some crime isn’t because we are evil but because we are trying to survive. In fact that’s the narrative sometimes when the news decides to defend indigence.

Falcons are not evil because they kill mockingbirds. Most animals are omnivores, which means they can eat plants and animals. In order to survive, we must eat other living things, or at least parts of them. I don’t eat the entire plant, but I do harvest and enjoy tomatoes. I don’t eat the entire plant, but I do harvest and enjoy apples. You can also eat parts of some animals like lobsters and crabs and they will grow back and survive. Unfortunately for falcons, they are birds of prey and therefore eat only other birds. Falcons cannot survive on nuts or berries. Sure they could eat pigeons, but the mockingbirds were pretty aggressive, and an intelligent hunter would be eventually able to locate and attack the nest. And he did.

It is not evil to want to survive. Yes, the way we win matters, but we are also animals at the end of the day. Survival matters more. Soldiers kill other soldiers. Anteaters kill ants. Not even fungi confine themselves strictly to the already dead as a food source. The cherry I just popped into my mouth had cells that were still alive. Since it didn’t scream as I disemboweled it, we feel less churned about it than we would watching a falcon rip a bird apart, and because it doesn’t have a face, we cannot watch the emotion as others in the bowl watch us eat their friends and family. My coworker heard the screams of the other mockingbird as the falcon killed its mate and watched the falcon rip up the other bird. It bothered her. It would be wrong to condemn the falcon for killing these mockingbirds. This is what falcons do to survive.

It is also sometimes wrong to condemn our fellow men for their trespasses. While some crime is personal, some of it is also circumstantial. The law makes room for this with terms like differentiating murder from manslaughter. Both are heinous. One is worse. We do not know what moves a man to trespass against another. If he is starving or hallucinating, if he feels oppressed or depressed, if he feels like he has no other option, we respond differently. A soldier stealing for plunder is treated differently than one who steals because he is starving or because he needs paper for his house of easement. We are taught as Christians not to judge on outward appearances because only the Lord can see the heart, and that’s where He looks. The why of our actions also matters in addition to the what.

All tragedy is sad. I am sad because those birds lost their lives. I will actually miss being bombarded by them. However, I cannot pick and choose which prey the falcon eats. Just because it doesn’t just eat birds I don’t know and don’t like doesn’t mean I can hate on the falcon. It exists to control the population of other birds. There are natural checks and balances on life. He wasn’t doing it to spoil a memory or my day or destroy a family. Falcons have children to feed too. It is more sad when people do things they don’t need to do that hurt other people. And it is saddest when we are venom on people without trying first to ascertain their motives. In this way we could learn a lesson from the falcon and not think with the same bird brain. God after all endowed us with reason and for good reason. Come now and let us reason together saith the Lord and though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as snow. For with what judgement we judge we shall be judged, and sometimes men are not evil. Sometimes they are falcons.