They say hindsight is 20/20, so on that note, I really don't think it was an accident that the fella I thought I would marry is a Professor, an English Professor no less.
I met him on the his birthday, the worst birthday on record for him, because he was mourning the loss of his mentor who was buried that very day. He was miserable and distraught. But we had one thing in common: we were willingly hanging out with people we knew to be quite lacking in character or drive.
I went out with his 'friend' John, a guy James did not like, and described as "smarm." The word sounds dirty, even shady, just like John, and he is really just another guy just as empty as anyone else (if not more so) and blown up with lots of charm and lots of personality -- something for which I think James was most jealous because he was just as empty but so unwilling to display it, or even be broken by it.
I can say this because I was just as guilty. I was empty, thinking of myself as full. Full of life, full of love. I was there, sitting in that karaoke bar, knowing this John character was beneath me and what I deserved, and I was toying with him because I had absolutely no interest in him whatsoever other than to curb my boredom. What's even worse about this is that he was late to pick me up and he didn't buy one drink. I knew I had hit bottom. Jeez, I was in a karaoke bar and I can't even sing.
I do not say this to be cruel. Even in those days, when I filled myself up with self help, self love, and liquor, I knew I deserved better, but accepted less --willingly. I say this because it paints a picture I'm sure many women who read this will feel in their core, and that, ladies, is called conviction, and it is good.
But when James appeared, boy! That was much better -- a Professor! I could put all my faith in him. He could save me from a night of boredom, he could save me from feeling lonely that night -- and that's what he did for nearly three years, while I tried to fix him, having no clue how impossible that task is.
What fun it was to match wits and size each other up, making an eager display of our fragile, delicately painted ego's grounded in self and knit with our own brands of academic know how.
I cannot deny I loved him -- I cannot deny that I still do, either. Trouble is, I loved him too much. I loved me too much. He loved me too much -- He is as much a part of me as I am of him, and throughout this story you will see why.
You see, because we had it all wrong. This is Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew, and this folks is a painting that put the Catholic Church in an absolute uproar. See those windows? See those clothes? This painter not only invites you into this scene compositionally, but he also references Michelangelo's hand in the Creation of Adam panel of the Sistine, but he also places Christ in a bar, with common, everyday, broken people in the contemporary slums of Counter Reformation Rome.
I'll tell you: that karaoke bar was probably one of the most seedy joints I've ever been in. It is interesting to note too that I had never been in one before or since. The astonishment of Matthew, that Christ would call on him? Him? This is a shock and awe we would both share, respectively. I do believe that is the same shock and awe that James verbalized in his first poem to me, describing sitting between a red headed gal for whom he held great distain and me as the 'raven haired huzzah' that stirred his affections.
For nearly three years I mothered him. I tried to model love as I knew it, to the very best of my (and then unknown to me) - fractured-ability. I played the part of the desperate girl who saw his potential. I cleaned him up, taught him things he should have already known three years shy of forty, and in the process learned how fragile he truly was, but how great he could -- and hopefully -- one day will be.
He was raised in the Deep South, where good ole boys were driven to small whitewashed churches by the mothers they loved. They all loved Jesus, but never really knew why, except because it was a tradition. Mama and Daddy and Grammy and Grampy did. Approval's snare is a sharp and deadly blade in the south. When you don't have it, the wounds run deep and cut to the core.
Knowing James put my suffering into perspective. I had the freedom to wear my anger on my sleeve via my dress, my pink hair, the black clothes, etc, but he -- no he coped as many do, in a way that is much worse. He silenced his screams, existing in a body that went unnoticed unless it was bullied, much like I was. He faked happiness, frolicked in fantasy -- with the fake companions of D&D and an addiction to Cosplay and the creation of his identity, wrapped up in a fictitious character of an English Sci Fi Show, Doctor Who. I do not say this specifically to be cruel in anyway, but rather to point out his preference --and possibly yours-- to surround himself with "friends" to puff him up in a false sense of security and value, rather than let God love him. One day he will, because I know God uses everything for good, and his self sufficiency will be positively obliterated when the Lord truly reveals Himself to him.
Cosplay is his distraction, his means of pretending to live. To this very day if you were to look at his Facebook -- and he is not alone -- you will find nothing but a foundation built in sand.
After that night in the Karaoke bar, we began to date. Shortly thereafter I realized I had a choice to make. I had actually been talking to a fella via Facebook I had known for about a decade who was, shall I say, an electrifying conversationalist, and had my interest piqued. And it hit me:
I was chatting with two men -- a first ever for me. Both named James. Both 37. Both with beards. Both with dark hair and blue eyes. One lived in Louisiana, the other in Dallas. One was a very poor choice that would certainly lead no where but a very good time and trouble and the other, well, he had a promise I couldn't quite put my finger on.
I chose Professor James. I chose him because that was the first time I ever heard God, and that is no lie. It was a tiny squeak, but still just as powerful. Anyone who was around will tell you -- that even as a non Christian -- that in the very moment I realized the similarities between these guys with the same name-- something told me-- something I could not identify as anything other than the 'universe.' It told me to choose Dallas James. So I did. No matter what, for that choice, I am eternally grateful.
I was set up -- literally. Jesus himself was in our matching.
A month into dating James, I told him he would be the one to save me. After saying that I totally forgot about it -- until it happened.
He just shared with me in October his fear when I told him that. He knew even then he was walking in the shadows, in his created facade he calls life. He knew he could talk theology all day, but could not talk of Christ, but would rather hide behind systemic theology and argue over circumcision and conspiracy theories.
James, and the few fellas before him were my weakness, for I kept dating the same emotionally or physically unavailable guy. Just as he will continue to date me over and over and over again until he does business with God.
You never date outside of your emotional circle. Mother Theresa would never marry Hitler. And I can readily admit and apologize publicly that I spent --at the very least-- the last year of our relationship feeling emotionally superior to him, when in fact, we are both equally broken. As a matter of fact, it was in the moment I (catch that I) tried to fix him, my life changed forever.
A Way was made for me, because I do not know I would have ever known this had I never met and loved James.
Here I was, a broken girl who desperately wanted love met a teacher in a bar. Jesus meets you where you are at, and can -- and will -- meet you anyway He chooses.
Kinda reminds me of that painting.
Funny.
James.
I do believe that was Jesus' brother's name. I wonder what James went through when he finally admitted Christ as Lord.
Oh, he wrote a book.
Go figure.
I met him on the his birthday, the worst birthday on record for him, because he was mourning the loss of his mentor who was buried that very day. He was miserable and distraught. But we had one thing in common: we were willingly hanging out with people we knew to be quite lacking in character or drive.
I went out with his 'friend' John, a guy James did not like, and described as "smarm." The word sounds dirty, even shady, just like John, and he is really just another guy just as empty as anyone else (if not more so) and blown up with lots of charm and lots of personality -- something for which I think James was most jealous because he was just as empty but so unwilling to display it, or even be broken by it.
I can say this because I was just as guilty. I was empty, thinking of myself as full. Full of life, full of love. I was there, sitting in that karaoke bar, knowing this John character was beneath me and what I deserved, and I was toying with him because I had absolutely no interest in him whatsoever other than to curb my boredom. What's even worse about this is that he was late to pick me up and he didn't buy one drink. I knew I had hit bottom. Jeez, I was in a karaoke bar and I can't even sing.
I do not say this to be cruel. Even in those days, when I filled myself up with self help, self love, and liquor, I knew I deserved better, but accepted less --willingly. I say this because it paints a picture I'm sure many women who read this will feel in their core, and that, ladies, is called conviction, and it is good.
But when James appeared, boy! That was much better -- a Professor! I could put all my faith in him. He could save me from a night of boredom, he could save me from feeling lonely that night -- and that's what he did for nearly three years, while I tried to fix him, having no clue how impossible that task is.
What fun it was to match wits and size each other up, making an eager display of our fragile, delicately painted ego's grounded in self and knit with our own brands of academic know how.
I cannot deny I loved him -- I cannot deny that I still do, either. Trouble is, I loved him too much. I loved me too much. He loved me too much -- He is as much a part of me as I am of him, and throughout this story you will see why.
You see, because we had it all wrong. This is Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew, and this folks is a painting that put the Catholic Church in an absolute uproar. See those windows? See those clothes? This painter not only invites you into this scene compositionally, but he also references Michelangelo's hand in the Creation of Adam panel of the Sistine, but he also places Christ in a bar, with common, everyday, broken people in the contemporary slums of Counter Reformation Rome.
I'll tell you: that karaoke bar was probably one of the most seedy joints I've ever been in. It is interesting to note too that I had never been in one before or since. The astonishment of Matthew, that Christ would call on him? Him? This is a shock and awe we would both share, respectively. I do believe that is the same shock and awe that James verbalized in his first poem to me, describing sitting between a red headed gal for whom he held great distain and me as the 'raven haired huzzah' that stirred his affections.
For nearly three years I mothered him. I tried to model love as I knew it, to the very best of my (and then unknown to me) - fractured-ability. I played the part of the desperate girl who saw his potential. I cleaned him up, taught him things he should have already known three years shy of forty, and in the process learned how fragile he truly was, but how great he could -- and hopefully -- one day will be.
He was raised in the Deep South, where good ole boys were driven to small whitewashed churches by the mothers they loved. They all loved Jesus, but never really knew why, except because it was a tradition. Mama and Daddy and Grammy and Grampy did. Approval's snare is a sharp and deadly blade in the south. When you don't have it, the wounds run deep and cut to the core.
Knowing James put my suffering into perspective. I had the freedom to wear my anger on my sleeve via my dress, my pink hair, the black clothes, etc, but he -- no he coped as many do, in a way that is much worse. He silenced his screams, existing in a body that went unnoticed unless it was bullied, much like I was. He faked happiness, frolicked in fantasy -- with the fake companions of D&D and an addiction to Cosplay and the creation of his identity, wrapped up in a fictitious character of an English Sci Fi Show, Doctor Who. I do not say this specifically to be cruel in anyway, but rather to point out his preference --and possibly yours-- to surround himself with "friends" to puff him up in a false sense of security and value, rather than let God love him. One day he will, because I know God uses everything for good, and his self sufficiency will be positively obliterated when the Lord truly reveals Himself to him.Cosplay is his distraction, his means of pretending to live. To this very day if you were to look at his Facebook -- and he is not alone -- you will find nothing but a foundation built in sand.
After that night in the Karaoke bar, we began to date. Shortly thereafter I realized I had a choice to make. I had actually been talking to a fella via Facebook I had known for about a decade who was, shall I say, an electrifying conversationalist, and had my interest piqued. And it hit me:
 |
| Me, just hours before our first date. |
I was chatting with two men -- a first ever for me. Both named James. Both 37. Both with beards. Both with dark hair and blue eyes. One lived in Louisiana, the other in Dallas. One was a very poor choice that would certainly lead no where but a very good time and trouble and the other, well, he had a promise I couldn't quite put my finger on.
I chose Professor James. I chose him because that was the first time I ever heard God, and that is no lie. It was a tiny squeak, but still just as powerful. Anyone who was around will tell you -- that even as a non Christian -- that in the very moment I realized the similarities between these guys with the same name-- something told me-- something I could not identify as anything other than the 'universe.' It told me to choose Dallas James. So I did. No matter what, for that choice, I am eternally grateful.
I was set up -- literally. Jesus himself was in our matching.
A month into dating James, I told him he would be the one to save me. After saying that I totally forgot about it -- until it happened.
He just shared with me in October his fear when I told him that. He knew even then he was walking in the shadows, in his created facade he calls life. He knew he could talk theology all day, but could not talk of Christ, but would rather hide behind systemic theology and argue over circumcision and conspiracy theories.
James, and the few fellas before him were my weakness, for I kept dating the same emotionally or physically unavailable guy. Just as he will continue to date me over and over and over again until he does business with God.
You never date outside of your emotional circle. Mother Theresa would never marry Hitler. And I can readily admit and apologize publicly that I spent --at the very least-- the last year of our relationship feeling emotionally superior to him, when in fact, we are both equally broken. As a matter of fact, it was in the moment I (catch that I) tried to fix him, my life changed forever.
A Way was made for me, because I do not know I would have ever known this had I never met and loved James.
Here I was, a broken girl who desperately wanted love met a teacher in a bar. Jesus meets you where you are at, and can -- and will -- meet you anyway He chooses.
Kinda reminds me of that painting.
Funny.
James.
I do believe that was Jesus' brother's name. I wonder what James went through when he finally admitted Christ as Lord.
Oh, he wrote a book.
Go figure.
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