Reflections: Year One

Here's a snapshot of the last year: getting married, moving across the country while simultaneously separating from my family for the first time (with parents who were not yet prepared to release me); a desperate job search and it's subsequent victory; adjusting to a new and foriegn culture; emotionally supporting a wife in a very intensive grad program; trying to connect with a whole new set of friends and find a support network while trying to maintain at least some ties from the old; dealing with some health issues that are fairly intrusive into not only my quality of life but now also my wife's...Here's a cartoon I found that pretty much sums up a lot of life over the past year.



Things are starting to settle down though.

I'm currently working at the Doheny Eye Institute. I'm currently helping to develop algorithms to help interpret retinal images. The job can be pretty fun, and if we're successful, we will end up helping to save quite a lot of people from losing their vision.

Married life can also be pretty fun. We've gone on a number of adventures around LA. There is so much to do here. This weekend we went to see "The Taming of the Shrew" in park. We had a picnic while we watched the performance. It was peaceful and grand. We are starting to have a lot of fun at the beach. We've tried surfing on longboards, and bodysurfing--both of which are a blast. We have a lot of fun together. I like being married to Desiree. We are a good match, and life is so promising together. I am a better person for it.

When we were dating we took a "pre-marriage" class our church offered. We had extensive pre-marriage counseling. We read books and talked to others so we were not unprepared when our marriage was strained with our rather intense number of substantial transitions. Calling marriage hard seems cliche and not exactly accurate. More to the point, transitions are hard. Poor health is hard. Actually seeing someone, and being in a state to see them when they need to be seen, is hard. Asking for what you want is hard. Confrontation is hard. Being present to someone is hard. The articulation of feelings and the "deep waters" of my heart is hard. Looking at the painful things I am so much better at hiding and ignoring is hard. Looking at the painful things in my wife's life is hard. But in the end, it was our ability to see and connect with one another on such a deep level that led us together, so there is a certain joy in all this hardness, which makes married life so good.

Dez's program has really helped make sense of a lot of the messy stuff that has been in our lives for quite some time. Her program is "Spiritual Formation & Soul Care", which, on the outset, sounds perhaps a little fluffy. The program was developed by a guy named John Coe, who spent 18 some years in graduate education, and earned numerous degrees in philosophy and theology, and then spent a number of years teaching at a school of psychology. All this is to say, he's created a very fascinating program that seems very historically and theologically grounded in a topic all but forgotten by the evangelical world I was birthed from.

This idea of spiritual formation, then, is taking a closer look at how exactly a believer grows and develops over time. At First Free, my old church, this was a very simple model...You are saved...you learn the staples of reading your bible, worship and prayer...you learn a lot of theology...you serve the church. And that, really, is the end of the line. Anything after is either more service or more theology. The "deer panting for water" and the subsequent "living streams" are just sort of circumstantially magical feelings we are to embrace when present and stoically endure when absent. The result of such--what I'll call isolated spirituality--is the unfortunate stereotypical Christian that has so much knowledge yet remains so immature--not only in a spiritual sense but in a holistic sense. One of the talks I've heard Coe give is entitled "Why do we sin when we know so much?", and it is a fascinating look at the mechanisms that cause us to behave in certain ways despite our best efforts. These mechanisms live in what Coe calls the "hidden heart", and his basic premise is that the extent to which we don't know our hidden hearts is the extent to which we have no control over our undesired behaviors.

Spiritual formation, then, looks more carefully at this process, with the aim of helping people open up to the way the Spirit would grow and mature us--not in theology or service alone, but as whole people--as messy as we can be. And, not unlike many things in nature, there are certain growth patterns that can be observed and studied. But perhaps the most fundamental concept is a very old idea summed up by John Calvin..."There is no knowledge of God without knowledge of self...there is no knowledge of self without knowledge of God". The basic journey then is the Holy Spirit leading us into the parts of ourselves we'd rather not see--and yet when we are able to look, God is there, waiting for us.

We talk a lot about having "a relationship with Jesus", but I feel I am only now discovering just what exactly relationship is. Marriage is a good teacher. Having found safety in my wife, it is easier to accept the safety offered by God. Having begun to accept the truths about myself reflected back to me by my wife (who serves so often as a mirror), I have allowed God to enter parts of my soul previously dormant. The program has given us both language to describe some of the process, which has been especially helpful for me since I am so fearful of it.

The largest realization I have had since moving out here is perhaps the awe of how dreadfully small my world has been, at every edge and corner. There is a certain directionless though substantial anger at this felt imprisonment, along with a certain lostness at the size of my new world. But there is life, too, as the long oppressed explorer is unshackled. Like the Israelites upon their release from Egypt, a part of me wishes to return to the old world I know so well--it is perhaps easier than standing straight when my back is so used to my defeated slouch. One of the larger questions on my mind is how to relate to that old world. Then, perhaps it was never the world that changed at all...only me. And perhaps when I say world I mean the old shoes I used to wear, as opposed to the new shoes I wear as man, husband, and lover. Maybe I mean both. I do not know yet.

Another big development in life lately is my health. Some of you may recall my difficulties sleeping. It has put a large burden on our marriage. My wife was a very good sleeper till I came around. Once we had health insurance I went to see a doctor about it, who referred me to a specialist. The saga has gone on all summer, but at last it seems to have come to a point--I have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. The current solution is very effective I'm told, and involves sleeping with a mask over my face connected to a CPAP machine. Like, perhaps, Darth Vader. I'm not terribly excited about that. Then again--the thought of sleeping through the night is profoundly joyous.

The time I have to myself I spend writing and drawing in my sketchbook. I journal. I am designing and building a somewhat elaborate board game to humor projectless hands. Poetry visits from time to time as I try to articulate various irrationalities and feelings. (Sample my latest below.) But it is difficult to think I have something to offer at this junction in the way of art or writing. When one's world is small it is easy to become master of it, and once a master it is easy enough to write about it. But now...I feel as if I know nothing. And if I wrote about anything it would surely be obsolete in a months time. Rest assured the urge is there and ever present for large grandious projects, but currently such fruit is awaiting thicker branches to grow upon. My immediate plan is to write and create as needed to grow into this new and larger world.


Voyage's Dawn
by Brandon Weaver
7.7.07

Songs and tales and gestured faces
Ships and swords and preparations

Sails and seas and unseen shores
Sun and stars and sturdy oars

Storms and waves and splintered wood
Snakes and squids and siren's 'hood

Spears and knives and wounded breast
Sweat and blood and hunger's test

Gold and gems and journey's quest
Life and death and questions wrest

Seed and hull and shedding skin
Soul and sprout and to begin

Surfing.

We got the opportunity to go surfing a weekend or two ago. It was pretty much the coolest thing ever. I couldn't help but giggle at all the people that have since asked "did you get up?" Yes, I "got it up."

If I haven't scared you off with innuendo's, I have a picture.



Now, the story goes something like this. After some initial attempts, I realized that just sitting out there in the water on the board is harder than it looks. Balancing on water is very different. After learning to balance (well enough that is) one has to learn how to catch waves. I have a lot to learn about this yet. After you catch a wave, you must learn to ride it. To stand up and walk. This, I thought, was simultaneously the easiest and most fun aspect of surfing. Once you have some balance and have caught a good wave, standing up is just sort of standing up.

In the above picture, a friend and classmate of Dez's was surfing next to me, and she fell off and her board collided into mine. If you look closely at the picture, you can see her board on top of my own.

I look like I'm going to fall in the picture, but I didn't. I rode the wave out. It was at that moment, for the first time that day, that I allowed myself to believe I was actually surfing. Now I'm pretty much sold on the idea, and hope to surf more before the summer is through.

Dez had fun too--she rode some waves in. We had fun swimming together. It's the first time we've been swimming in the ocean since we've been out here. Unfortunately, our sunscreen didn't hold itself up to the task, and we both get burnt, despite reapplications and such. We've since done some research and switched to another brand.