To live like Water ~ Lao Tzu

          When life is in flux, or it's time to let go, or change is the only constant, or all of the above, the wisdom of ancient eastern sages offers perspective.   Here's Lao Tzu, Stanza 8, according to Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching:

"The supreme good is like water,
which nourishes all things without trying to.
It is content with the low places that people disdain.
Thus it is like the Tao.

In dwelling, live close to the ground.
In thinking, keep to the simple.
In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control.
In work, do what you enjoy.
In family life, be completely present.

When you are content to simply be yourself
and don't compare or compete,
everybody will respect you."

Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands

            One day you’re on the go, vibrant, athletically active, and doing heavy labor for a landscaping project.  The next day, your teenage daughter is dressing you, bathing you, and tying up your hair.  Both of your hands and wrists are bandaged up.  In the coming days, she and your 21 year-old son will be opening the fridge for you, pouring your water, making you sandwiches, tying your shoelaces, clipping your fingernails, driving you wherever you need to go, and cleaning whatever you and they agree to, which is not much, leaving you with a home and a yard in much disarray.  You have to Let Go.

            That was me in August, 2022 after I had fallen six feet from my kids’ play gym while clipping tree branches from it and the beam I was leaning against gave way.  Thankfully, I immediately fell into a dream-state which cushioned the force of my fall, spared me from pain, and protected me from shock for the first 90 minutes after my fall, as described here in Part 1.

            It’s said that physical pain is mental, something I now know first-hand.  For the first hour and a half after I fell, I was in a dream-state and unaware of pain.  Once I began to regain normal consciousness, I became aware of a mild headache.  As it grew, I complained of it and asked for some pain medication.  The doctor said I could have no medication until the CT scan had been completed and examined.  To me, he seemed nonchalant to my growing headache, but he was probably smiling to himself that I was not complaining of pain in my two broken wrists (or the yet-to-be discovered crushed ligaments in my right hand).  Not until about three hours after my fall and a half hour or so before I received pain medication did I begin to feel the pain in my wrists and hands.  Quite how much physical pain that dream-state spared me from I will never know.  But for that and much more, I will always be grateful.

            “Thank goodness I had no concussion,” I texted my mom and two best friends the following morning with my working fingers.  “Back & neck OK, I can walk and 4 working fingers.  And 2 kids who are awesome – much to be grateful for.”  By divine mercy, I was also naïve about how little I could actually do and how long my recovery would be.

            A week after my fall, I texted them again with my orthopedist’s warning to do barely nothing through August, and closed, “I’ll heal, but this is hard.  Thank goodness I didn’t injure myself more.”

            “I know taking it easy isn’t your style,” one friend replied, “I hope you find ways to relieve your anxiety.  Healing takes time and better to not re-injure those delicate bones.”

            I agreed.  ”I’m working to keep it all in perspective, especially that I wasn’t more injured.  The orthopedist was surprised my injuries were minor compared to what they could have been.”

            But I didn’t agree enough.  I kept improving, able to do a bit more each day, and kept wanting to try something new every day.  Two or three weeks after my fall, “new” meant simple tasks like sweeping the floor, straightening the blankets on my bed, pouring water, wiping up the water I had just spilled, making toast and spreading margarine on it, cleaning a few dishes, heating soup in the microwave, and making coffee.  That last one turned out to be harder than expected.  My coffee maker has its own reusable filter that needs to have the old, wet grounds knocked out and cleaned before scooping in new grounds.  In addition to opening a lid, pouring water, and scooping new grounds in, I also had to knock out those old grounds, a simple task that sent pain surging from my fingers to my elbow.

            I was counting on good news at my four-week appointment with the orthopedist, but she informed me my x-rays showed that while my left wrist was healing, but my dominant right was not.  “Our bones are like twigs,” she warned me.  “Too much bending or stress builds on the break.”  Again, I texted my trio: “my body is not invincible and I have a very hard time releasing myself of that delusion!”

That I am not invincible was just the start.  Life without hands showed me I had much to learn:

Humility: when your teenage daughter is bathing you and your college student son is clipping your fingernails, you have to become very humble very quick.

Take nothing for granted: when you celebrate a thumb that works so you can dress yourself, you start to see how much you’ve taken for granted. 

A gentle touch:  You don’t realize how hard your touch can be until every touch brings you pain.  You’re starting to get better, so you’re now opening doors, pressing the walk button at a crosswalk, closing your dresser drawer, shaking someone’s hand, patting your teenager on the back for a job well done, squirting out hand cream, and knocking out those coffee grounds: those things you’ve done every day for years and taken for granted, and now they bring pain.  You wonder if your touch has been too hard, and then you wonder if your speech has been too hard, and if you need to seek a more gentle way to touch, to speak, and to live.

Forgive yourself:  You were foolish and you fell.  Now forgive yourself and learn.

Release yourself from other people’s expectations: there are those who think you should heal fast and get back to life.  But your body knows, and it tells you.  Listen to your body and set yourself free from those who think they know your body better than you do.

Show compassion: If you find yourself impatient with anyone, remember they might have just fallen.  Maybe they can’t use their hands.  Maybe there’s something else they can’t do that you can’t see.  Show compassion.

Slow down!  You’ve forgiven yourself – good.  But if you don’t want to re-injure yourself, slow down!

Let Go!  No matter where you are, where you’ve been, how hard you’ve fallen, nor how stupid you were when you fell, let it all go.

 

            By the time of my fall, I had already and very recently had to let go of more than I ever thought I could.  Within the past year, I had already lost both my marriage and my teaching career, both of over two decades, and both so seemingly strong.  My marriage had been a strong partnership for service and home projects, parenting, and friendship and concluded itself amicably, after turmoil and grief along the way.  In my teaching career, I was continuing to excel, even with my office and classroom moved into my bedroom for the pandemic, but I was caught in a political drama outside of me, a pawn by top administrators, mostly new and from far away.  I learned that no matter the excellence of my own performance, I am not invincible.  To release a career I was passionate about and my marriage all at once called for super-human strength in Letting Go.

I discovered a remarkable truth, one that people say, but you have to discover for yourself: there is much freedom in losing and letting go.  When everything we’ve thought we need to do and need to be is taken from us and we can’t do and can’t be what we’ve thought we needed to, we discover we don’t need to do that or be that.  We have the freedom to let go of all of those expectations we’ve placed upon ourselves and that we think others have placed upon us.  We also discover that whether or not others have in fact placed those expectations upon us doesn’t matter.  Either way, we have the freedom to let go.

As we let go, we also learn one of life’s greatest lessons: Life will work for you if you let it.  This is true even when you lose what you love.  As I was learning to literally let go during my life without hands, I had no knowledge that before the year was out, I would have to let go yet again, also of something very significant, from a fire to the place where I worked and played, a story I hope to share in a third part in a few months.

The universe provides what we need for our own growth and, ultimately, for our abundant life.  Security and being in control might be what I had wanted, but they were not what I needed.  What I did needed: to surrender, slow down, and Let Go!

Return to Letting Go, Part 1: The Fall

© 2023 by karina. All rights protected.  Please use with permission and/or a link to this blog post.

Letting Go: A Return to Hibernation

         In August, I fell six feet from a play gym while leaning against an insecure beam to clip tree branches.  Only a miracle protected me from being no more injured than two broken wrists and soft tissue damage to my right hand.  Still, without hands, I had to let go.  The metaphor of my injury – losing the use of my hands – fits so perfectly into the season of my life.  In 2021 and 2022, I lost my career, my marriage, my two kids off to college, my next place of work destroyed in a fire, and in the middle of those losses, the use of both of my hands.  In each of these, I had to “let go,” and in one of them, literally.  Last month I began a series here, with the story of my six foot fall on “Letting Go.” 

Currently, I’m drafting “Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands,” to describe the experience of literally letting go of everything, what it was like, and what I was learning from it.  To do so takes some time, and I hope it will be ready in March.  Meanwhile, I’ve been marveling over the preoccupations that began to capture my imagination during the pandemic.  Should I be chilled or awed by the prophetic nature of some of my posts in the past couple of years, like this one, this one, this one, and, especially, at the start of 2022, this one. 

Little did I know in January, 2022 quite how much “Hibernation” would mark my coming year.  Here is a repost of this poem from a year ago; then below the poem is a small sneak peek for the experience and the lessons of “Letting Go.”

 

Hibernation

The creatures of fur follow the signs of Nature

We creatures of skin run to and fro

no matter Her works of beauty or terror

Snow coming, forecasters warn

The furs, ready, hibernate

The skins, deaf, go about their day

 

All afternoon, snow surprises

dumping,

dumping,

softly,

quietly,

deceptively

 

The day still young

the sky turns black

Snowflakes stream,

glistening the darkening sky

in lights of white

haloed in orange

 

Any who slow themselves

who sit

who watch

fuse with the flakes in stillness

 

5 am, calls go out

Schools are closed

Businesses are closed

Roads are blocked

All are snowed in

 

What if calls come the night before?

Or before quittin’ time the day before?

When the creatures of fur,

with no forecasters,

are already nestled in hibernation?

 

“Take My yoke upon you,”

says the master,

“For My load is light, and My burden is easy.”

Racing about, we wonder how

 

Could we hear the wisdom of the furs

who follow the signs of Nature

and work when it is time to work

play when it is time to play

rest when it is time to rest

 and who know there is a season for outings

and a season for hibernation?

 

I of skin,

used to the race,

am paralyzed, mute

Could I learn from the furs?

Could I learn

of a time to speak,

a time be silent,

a time to walk,

a time to rest,

and a season to hibernate?

 

            I think this is precisely what I’m learning.  Although August and September were hardly months for “Hibernation,” they were for me, when I could do little and go nowhere.  It was like Life was saying Let Go and Hibernate, and while you do, you’ll reflect and learn the beauty of letting go.  As a sneak preview, some of this is that I am not invincible; to have humility, gratitude, a gentle touch, and take nothing for granted; to forgive myself and release myself from others’ expectations; to slow down and let go!; and to build compassion and sensitivity for others in whatever limitations or trials they may have. 

Letting Go:

Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands

Letting Go: Part 1: The Fall

Letting Go (part 1): The Fall

             “Did I call you?” I asked my son, unaware of whether I was awake or dreaming.

            “You did.”  My son, home from college, spoke in a voice firm but gentle.

            “That was smart of me.”  My voice felt wistful, barely audible, yet demanded much strength.

            “It was very smart of you.”

 

            Seeming to open my eyes that were likely already open, I found myself lying on a wheeled bed-cot in a clinical room with my son sitting in a chair next to me.  A steel rail guard to my side, as high as my upper arm, separated me from him.  To find my way between its beams to reach for his hand would require an energy I lacked.  Saddened, I looked down to my hands instead and saw them limp, dirty, and injured.  I realized I could not move either hand anyway.

            The Emergency Room.  Clarity was dawning, but I wondered if I was dreaming.  Hoping so, I mustered the energy to speak.  “I dreamed that I fell from the play gym.” 

            “You may have dreamed it, but you also did it.”  My son’s voice was quiet and caring.

            “I must have been sleepwalking,” I said, wistful.

            “Maybe.”

            “Did I call you?”

            “You did.”

            “That was smart me.”

            “It was very smart of you.”

 

I didn’t know it yet, but an hour and a half had passed from my call to my son to that moment in the ER.  I remembered my activity before the fall, the call to my son, and very little else, but wondered whether all of it had been a dream.  My son was entering his senior year of college and home for the summer.  We had a swing set and play gym in our backyard that he and my daughter, about to be head off to college, no longer needed, and I had a friend had shown interested in it.  “I’ll cut off the branches from the tree and then you can come see it,” I texted her.  If she and her family would dismantle and take it away, they could have it for free.  But I, at least, needed to make it accessible by cutting off the branches from the nearby tree that were now enveloping the play gym.

            I began the project on the ground, beneath our gorgeous but looming maple tree, and I clipped many branches from there.  But with my limited tools, other branches could be accessed only by climbing up onto the play gym itself.  Many more I clipped by standing on the wooden structure, beginning with those to the side and then to those in front, some of which were further out, but still very much in the way.  The play gym had not been used in a long time and had weathered many of our region’s harsh winters.  I should have checked the stability of the wooden 2 x 4 beam, nailed into the wooden beams to my side, before I leaned against it to cut these further out branches.  The wooden beam gave way.  “I’m going to fall,” I thought. “It’s okay.  I’ve dreamed many falls.”  I entered the dream state and let go, then fell six feet.

            My next memory has me lying flat, face up, on the grass in our backyard.  I remembered that my son was home and my daughter was at work, so I screamed his name, and kept screaming, but neither he nor any of neighbors heard me.  “Do I have my phone?” I wondered.  Reaching for it in my back pocket was a strain, but it was there!  With much strength, I pulled it out and clicked Contacts.  “Thank goodness he’s an ‘A,’” I thought as I scrolled for my son’s name and clicked the call button.

            After that, including the call itself, I remember very little until I found myself in the ER.  My other clear memory of events was seeing my daughter next to me, driving our car.  My son was in the back seat.  In that brief moment, I knew she was driving us – me -- to the hospital. 

The following morning, back at home with both of my hands and arms bandaged (later to receive orthopedic casts), my son told me why I knew: he had told me many times his sister was coming home, “and then we’re taking you to the hospital.”  She was at work and had the car.  He had called her to come home and informed me of this.  He also told me what else he had done: how he had lifted me up at my armpits from my fallen state, walked me to our patio swing, got me some pillows and water, brought me inside to my own bed, propped me up there, and kept talking to me.  Once my daughter was home, they both helped me to the car, and my son buckled me in while saying, “We’re taking you to the hospital.”

I didn’t remember any of these events, and I thanked him for handling my rescue and my care so well.  I also told him I was astonished by the text thread on my phone, used by him  to share the news of my fall and give updates to his dad (my recent former husband), my mom, and my two best friends.  My phone recorded details of what had transpired, complete with time stamps: my entrance into the ER, my tetanus shot, the doctors’ concerns, my CT scan, my x-rays, the report of my CT scan as normal, and my responses along the way.  “I don’t remember any of that until I was wheeled in for x-rays,” I told my son, shaking my head.  Then I smiled.  “I most remember learning the good news that my CT scan came out normal.”

I then shared with him the misty memories I had just after the fall, not only calling him, but also the interaction about it -- that I had asked him if I had called him, that he said I did, that I said that was smart of me, and that he replied it was very smart of me.  My son laughed and said that interaction was “a broken record,” something I had asked many times, always the same way, always with the same replies from him, and always with the same reply from me, something he now found charming and amusing.

            I chuckled.  “I really thought I was dreaming.”

            “I know,” he interrupted with another chuckle.  “You kept saying, ‘I dreamed . . .’ and I kept saying, ‘You might have dreamed it, but you also did it.’”

            “Another broken record,” he said, laughing.  I joined him in laughter and praised him.  Had he complained that my repetitive question had already been answered, he might have thrown out me of a state of mind that was protecting me.

            “It seemed to calm you,” he replied, “so I kept doing what seemed to be working.”  He said he didn’t mind my repetitions as long as I was speaking and awake, but it was worrisome, and the doctors were concerned about a brain injury.  My own sense was a very dim perception of a possible concussion overlaid with the continued sense that I was dreaming.  Although I lost memory of most of the actual events, I shared with my son what I remember of my thoughts, that part that thought I was dreaming.  What I call my “whispers of mystery” were coaching me.  You’ve injured yourself.  Stay alert.  Keep talking.  Talking took enormous energy, and I was too delirious to say anything.  My whispers kept encouraging me.  Keep talking. What do you remember?  My strength was waning, but I continued to comply, succeeding only in a couple of broken records.  But importantly, with my son’s loving replies, I succeeded in what most mattered: staying enough awake to maintain consciousness.

            It wasn’t until I was informed of the good news from the CT scan that my thoughts became clear.  By that time, my daughter was with me in the ER.  Due to COVID protocols, the hospital permitted only one guest in the patient’s room.  One of my dim memories in the ER was asking the nurse if my daughter could come in too and hearing her apologize that only one guest was allowed.  I understood, but was sad.  Then I heard my daughter on the other side of the wall say, “But I can hear you, Mom.”  That comforted me; I told her I love her, and heard her say the same to me.  I could breathe better having heard her.

            Then, while I was away for the CT scan and the x-rays, my kids switched places.  When I was wheeled back into my room, I saw my daughter sitting there, another moment I remember, still with dim dreaminess.  I was happy to see her.  I don’t recall what she and I talked about, nor how long we waited for the health care workers.  But I do remember the moment the nurse shared the news that no damage to my head was shown on my CT scan.  My whispers returned. You can relax now.  The nurse checked my vitals, left the room, and I took in a very deep breath of relief.  “I can relax now.” 

“Did they tell you that?” my daughter asked.  I knew my daughter’s pronoun “they” referred not to my whispers, but to the health care workers.  How could I respond?  The doctor then arrived.  “Maybe he can tell us."  The doctor reported the test results: I had shown symptoms of a concussion, but the CT scan showed no physical evidence of one.  “But you broke both of your wrists.”  I wasn’t yet ready to take in what that might mean and thought, “At least I still have my head.” 

We didn’t ask him whether I could now relax, but I knew I could.  Ironically, that was also the moment when my need to strive so hard ceased.  I found myself awake, no longer in the dream-state.  Maybe I needed to hear that my head was fine before I could fully wake up. 

The dream state protected me in ways that chill me to consider.  I had fallen six feet.  I broke both of my wrists and injured my right hand, but I broke nothing in my legs, nor my feet, nor my back, nor my neck, nor my head.  Miraculously, I walked in and out of the hospital, never needing a wheel chair.  I had limped my body into a dream state, lightening the force of my fall.

In dream mode, I had let go.  I was in a season of letting go: letting go of my husband through the official end of our marriage four and a half months earlier, letting go of my kids off to college, letting go of my teaching career through early retirement the prior year.   Now, instantly, I would be called upon to let go of much more.  I was entering a time in my life without the use of my two hands, about to learn what it literally means to “let go.”

Continue to Letting Go, Part 2: Life without Hands

Winter Solstice 2022

            The longest night of the year.  The least daylight.  And this day does feel bitter cold.  In my town, temperatures are forecast to reach down to -5˚F.  Our freezing temperatures are matched across the country, with freezing and blizzard conditions coast-to-coast. 

            Today is also the day for my Winter Solstice message, now the third in an annual tradition.  I had begun journaling and brainstorming ideas for this message in November, mostly the lessons I had been learning while paralyzed from doing not much at all, braced in both arms from a six-foot fall in August that broke both of my wrists and injured my right hand.  My message, with more specifics and less metaphor, was to mimic my poem, Quietest before the Dawn, posted on November 30.  On the day I posted it, I really felt that I was arriving at the “dawn,” and feeling its hope. 

            Two days later – yes, only two days – a significant calamity hit, one that impacts many, and me especially.  I thought the dawn was here, but it is not.  Winter is here.  So is Hibernation.  I began the year in hibernation (see post here), and I end the year in hibernation.  Thank goodness I’ve been learning the beauty of hibernation.

            It seems that we collectively may also be in a season of hibernation, begun in March of 2020 to “stay at home” and now in nationwide snow, ice, freezing temperatures, and winter storms.  I reflect back on my first Winter Solstice message of 2020, when I cited the Prophet Daniel envisioning a future time of people running to and fro and knowledge increasing.  Daniel was so overwhelmed by this vision, he laid dormant on the floor for three days.  Over these past few years, I have been learning much about the need to slow down, to cease running to and fro, to stay at home, to rest, to hibernate, and to take one day at a time. 

            At this moment, when I am feeling the cold and the dark, I lack the words of hope in my Quietest post, or my Hibernation post, or my Winter Solstice 2020 message, but we humans also need to learn to allow ourselves to enter into the darkness and to be honest that we feel it, and that it is hard.  Could it be that I keep entering the darkness because I try so hard to hide that darkness exists and that it is hard?  If so, I admit today I feel the darkness, and it is hard. 

            In much gratitude, however, I have been glimpsing mysteries of humanity and have grown in ways that are precious and priceless and can never be taken from me, “treasures in heaven where neither moth nor rust can destroy.”  Perhaps in January, I will begin a Hibernation or Winter or Quiet series that shares some of what I have experienced and some of what I’ve learned.           

            For now, whether you are feeling the warmth of the holiday or the cold of winter, I send my own warmth and love to you for this long night, this holiday season, and this coming year, and bless you to soak in Panadonix's amazing rendition from their Christmas CD of The Sound of Silence.

See also:

Quietest before the Dawn

Hibernation

Winter Solstice 2020

Winter Solstice 2021

Quietest before the Dawn

It's darkest before the dawn

we’ve heard
and know
but don’t
or forget
 
Do we hear?
Do we know?
It’s also quietest before the dawn
 
You no longer hear the crickets
or the owls
or the bats
nor yet the birds
 
The only creatures you might hear
but might not
because they are moving
careful, cautious, silent
are the fishermen
 
You see not
You hear not
You feel
your heart pounding
your spine tingling
 
The fishermen too?
Do they feel
their hearts pounding?
their spines tingling?
 
My uncle was a sailor
sometimes a fisherman
a reluctant one
resisting the early rise
Sometimes, though,
he dredged himself up
from the warmth of his bed,
because, he said,
there’s nothing like a sunrise
 
The fishermen know
They remember
Just before the sunrise
comes the stillness before the dawn,
a chilling
fearful
yet magical
moment
when all of Creation is
Quietest before the Dawn

Davie's Return, Part 2 (Conclusion to "Just like Eve")

 Dear readers, this is it, the final selection of "Just like Eve!"  If you are joining us now, you could start at the beginning, begin with Jasmine’s most recent discoveries or with Jasmine’s serve.   For Davie’s processing, see his conversations with his mentor here, here, and here. For Jasmine’s, see especially her later insights here and here.

Storyline: "Just like Eve" follows the forbidden love story and the spiritual quest of married heroine Jasmine, ordered out of her church for a kiss with the youth pastor, Davie, also married.  Jasmine and Davie both contend with their unfitting marriages, their forbidden love, the rules of the church, and the conventions of marriage and divorce.  Meanwhile, for the kiss, Jasmine is accused again of being “just like Eve,” a phrase she heard at eleven for asking why Noah let God drown the world.  

She's prompted to investigate the figure of Eve from its original Hebrew text and discovers not only that Eve is seeking wisdom (to be admired), but also that the Hebrew word for serpent is linguistically tied to the word for messiah, and that the Hebrew word ezer, translated as “helper” for the woman, is closer to “life-saver,” a play on words for Eve (havah) which means “life-giver."  She first notes even the plain text in English presents Eve as cursed not only with child-birth, but also to “desire her man” who "will rule over her.”  Unwittingly, Jasmine turns Augustine’s interpretation of Eve, still widely accepted today, on its head, liberating Eve, herself, and women from "centuries of misunderstanding."

 

September 27, 2012, Glendale Racquet Club, Colorado Springs, CO

Davie’s Return, Part 1 conclusion:

Kristina is now on Jasmine’s side of the net, muttering, “Speak of the devil.”  How is Kristina standing here?  Didn’t I just see her on the other side of the net, about to flip her racquet?  Jasmine had not realized how deep in thought she had been.  “Oh, sorry, I guess I shouldn’t say ‘devil,’” Kristina chuckled.

BD, in a voice bold, deep, and victorious, snaps Jasmine out of her trance.  "It looks like we no longer have a perfect eight!"

Jasmine sees her partner glancing over to the corner of the furthest away back court, raising his arm high with a thumbs up.

A surprise is leaning against the wall, with one foot crossed over the other leg, the casual stance of a figure who belongs right where he is.

Davie.

 

And now, for the final conclusion of Just like Eve, Davie’s Return, Part 2: 

Davie is four tennis courts away, but to Jasmine, he feels so close.  They haven’t seen each other in seven months.  After their kiss, the church elders sent her out of church and told him, their youth pastor, to quit their tennis group’s Mixed Doubles Night.

Davie returns BD's thumbs up, pushes himself away from the wall, and turns his head to Jasmine.  Her heart, flushing, feels like it’s doubling in size.  With a slow pace, Davie begins to walk toward her; she matches his pace and meets him between the second and third courts.  They stand together silent, breathing in rhythmic synchronicity.  With a warm smile, he hugs her.  It seems she is right where she belongs.

In a quiet voice, Jasmine breaks their silence.  “They finally let you go.”

“I finally quit.”  Davie’s voice is also quiet, but with conviction.  “Three weeks ago.”

The same time as her divorce?

BD pats Davie on the shoulder.  “It’s been a long time, Bro.  Partner with her.”  Stepping back, he says he’ll sit the first four games out.

“Let’s skip the racquet flip,” Kristina says, offering the serve to Davie and Jasmine.  Davie shakes his head, says he hasn’t played in a while and asks them to serve.  Despite his absence, Davie holds his serve, as do all the players.  They’re tied up 2-2, but with nine players, it’s time to rotate BD in.

“Where has Davie been?” Stephen asks once the players have all gathered with BD at the bench for a water break.  He turns to Davie.  “And what are you doing now?”

“Where I’ve been is complicated,” Davie replies, but now he’s teaching high school PE and Health. The school is taking a chance on him, because he doesn’t have a teaching certificate.  They wanted someone more qualified, but no one came forth.  He was called in at the end of August and given a substitute until he was ready.  “I started Monday.”

“That’s a big change.” Jasmine’s smile indicates her pride.

Davie shifts his weight from his right foot to his left.  He has an even bigger change to reveal, but needs to build up to it.  “I’ve been learning a lot about myself,” he says, bowing his head, and whispering into Jasmine’s ear, “since our kiss.” 

Jasmine blushes, but the other players don’t see the whisper or the blush.  They’re calling out to Jaime, a tenth player walking onto the court, who BD invites to partner with him.  Davie smiles and suggests to Jasmine they play singles.  As they walk onto a new court, Davie tells Jasmine he wanted so much to be “good” that, without realizing it, he let his family and then Pam make his life decisions.  “Until all the pieces of my life started to fall apart.”  Davie looks up to Jasmine, one of those pieces, and then bounces two balls to her.  “You serve first.”

She plays a powerful game, takes him to two deuces, but still loses her serve and doesn’t mind.  How appropriate on the day of his return, his return breaks her serve.  He’s returned, and he's left his job, what might come next?

At their water break, Davie pulls a sheet from his pocket and holds it up.  “My resignation letter.”  He opens it and begins reading. “Jesus said spirituality is simple.  Love God and your neighbor as yourself.  That’s it.  But we pastors complicate it with rules and doctrines just like the religious leaders Jesus condemned.”

“You’re the pastor people need,” Jasmine says quietly.  “And you’re leaving.”

Davie casts his eyes down with sadness, then returns to his letter.  “But maybe what Jesus said is not that simple.  How ‘simple’ is it to love ‘God’ when you don't know who ‘God’ is?  And how can we love our neighbor before we’ve learned to love ourselves?  And can we love ourselves before we know ourselves?”

“Most people don’t ask those questions.”

Davie replies that’s something he really admires about Jasmine.  She does.  He’s starting to, and said so in the letter, quoting a phrase he’s heard, “You can't know who you are until you find out who you are not.” 

“I’m starting to learn who I am not,” he reads.  “I am not a pastor.  I am the son of a pastor, who wanted me to carry on his occupation, one that involves preaching doctrines I don’t believe.”

 “What don’t you believe?”

With a smile, Davie says he almost put that in but refrained.  He doesn’t believe in Original Sin, in a God who kills, in hell, nor, looking up at Jasmine, he adds, “You’ll like this one, a ‘Rapture’ or people ‘Left Behind.’”

Jasmine laughs, recalling their jokes of bumper stickers on Noah’s Ark, satires on those like “If the Rapture comes tonight, where will you go?” or “In case of Rapture, this car will be de-manned.”  They could be mad, but instead they take to humor.  Davie quotes one of their satires: “If the Flood comes tonight, will you float or drown?”  Jasmine holds her tummy, laughing as she did that night. 

Davie chuckles with her, then returns to the end of his letter. “I could also list my grievances for injustices, but they no longer matter.  They led me to what does matter.  I don't know who I am and I need to find out.”

“That’s big.  I’m also starting to find out for myself,” Jasmine replies.  “Grievances?”

“You.  Kicking you out of church for our kiss.  I kissed you, and they kicked you out.  ‘What Would Jesus Really Do?’ Not that.”

Jasmine blushes.  Davie stuck up for her, even quit his job.  Attired in the wonder woman shirt and skirt from their friends, it seems she’s wearing the wonder she feels.  He places a ball into Jasmine’s palm, while touching the top of her hand beneath.  “Time to play.”

This time, Jasmine holds her serve, perhaps because he lets her or perhaps because she doesn’t care whether she wins or loses.  After seven months apart from Davie and now divorced -- barely, but divorced -- she most wants to hear more from him.  Davie must feel it too, as he lingers with her at their next water break.

“I finally had to make my own choices,” Davie tells Jasmine, shifting into his bigger change.  Not only did he let his parents decide his career for him, he also let Pam decide for him who he would date.  In college, he wanted to date Pam’s friend Jenny, but since Pam was pursuing him, he found it easier to date Pam than ask Jenny out. 

Shaking his head at his laziness, he admits he might have been hiding behind his rational exterior, not yet aware of what he really felt or longed for in a wife.  He looks upward.  “Did you know that Greek has multiple words for the English word ‘love.’” 

Jasmine nods.  Her eyes are inquisitive over his change of subject.  Davie says he finds it ironic the New Testament was written in Greek, but its many words for the concepts of love all get translated into a single word in English.  “Greek has a word for unconditional love like a parent for a child.”

“Agape,” Jasmine smiles.

“Right.” Davie beams, unsurprised she’s aware of these Greek words.  “And one for friendship.”

“Phileo.”

            “And one for affection.”

“Eros.”

Davie nods, smiling. “You can will yourself to agape or phileo love anyone.  But you can’t will yourself into or out of eros.”

The church wouldn’t like this perspective, Jasmine thinks.  Too inconvenient. But true. 

“Affection comes to you,” Davie continues.  “You don’t ask for it.  You can’t will it to come, and you can’t will it to leave.”

Even more inconvenient.  Jasmine chuckles to herself that Davie thinks at odds too.  Maybe that’s what “thinking at odds” really is: thinking what’s inconvenient, but true.  Or at least valid.  People don’t like what’s inconvenient, but if they can’t offer a defense, they’ll either ignore you or mock you.

Jasmine asks if he’s shared any of this with the church leaders.  He has, but they confuse affection with lust because sexual desire is usually intertwined with it.  “But lust is fleeting,” he adds.  “If affection stands the test of time, you can’t call it lust.”

Jasmine coaches her quick-pumping heart to slow down.  Their bond has withstood the test of time. “Lust is superficial,” she says.  “Affection is real.”  His eyes on her suggest he agrees, but for the church to believe it would be a tall order.

“I willed myself to love Pam unconditionally and in friendship.”  Davie pauses.  “But I can’t will myself to love her in affection.”

This conversation is getting heavier, Jasmine thinks and asks whether Davie would like to head to The Alley, Glendale’s sports bar, early.  He smiles, nods, and calls out to the other players to meet later at The Alley, where he and Jasmine are now heading.  They walk up the stairs in silence, find a booth, and thank the server for the water she brings them.  Jasmine takes a sip and asks how Pam feels. 

Davie takes a deep breath.  He finally mustered the courage to tell his wife how he had let her lead him into marriage, despite what his heart had most longed for, and to hear this was very hard on her.  She feels all three of the Greek forms of love for the man she thought she married.

“Thought she married?” Jasmine wants to be sure she heard that right.

She did.  In marriage counseling, Pam came to discover the Davie she wanted was the one he was pretending to be, but not who he really is.   Davie pauses.  “She also doesn't want to be married to a man whose heart is with someone else.”

Jasmine’s heart flutters.  Davie adds he can’t go backward and change his previous choices, but he can go forward now, especially before he has children.  “It’s time now to make my own choices.”

“You need to choose for yourself,” Jasmine replies, connecting their stories, “and I need to think for myself.”  She reminds him she was mocked for “thinking at odds,” so she started letting her family, and then Tim, think for her.  Mimicking Davie’s statement, she says “It’s time now to think on my own again.”

“You don’t think like the church,” Davie smiles.  “That’s one reason why I love you.”

Jasmine’s heart stops.

“Jazzie, BD hinted to me that you and Tim may be splitting up.  I don’t want to interfere with your marriage or wherever you are in your process, but if you ever become available—”

Jasmine lifts up her left hand.  Her ring finger is bare.

Davie lifts his too.  His fingers are also bare.  He takes her left hand into his, clasps it, and gives Jasmine’s hand a gentle squeeze.  Jasmine’s heart flushes hot.

Jasmine shares her own discoveries of her husband Tim like a rock, while she is more likea ball rolling down the hill further away from him.  Their marriage counselor had encouraged them to create a “truly new new,” but she came to realize Tim was an authentic rock, a good one, and she could never come into her own true self with him. 

“With Tim, I’m stuck.  With you, I thrive.”

            “With you, I thrive too,” Davie smiles.  “You’re willing to ask hard questions, to get mad at God when He’s not fair, and keep pressing until you find the answers.  You will put your life on the line to reach for that forbidden fruit: the knowledge of God.”

Davie grins, “You’re just like Eve.”

No one could have paid her a finer complement.

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