Contradiction

I am going to be honest. There are more than a few passages in the Bible that I have trouble with, that leave me scratching my head thinking Surely God, surely you don't mean that? But the one that has been more difficult for me than anything else, that I have turned over and over in my mind and that has troubled my heart for a long time is Exodus 20:12: Honour your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

I was born into an extremely dysfunctional household, one where abuse was constant and the tension was palpable. I am the second youngest child of my father's third marriage, only girl amongst a pack of rough and tumble boys, born 11 years after my next eldest brother due to the fact that my mother did not want to bring another child into such a volatile environment.

The abuse I experienced was in a small part physical, but was mostly emotional. My father, a chronic alcoholic, possessed an unpredictable temperament, and when he'd spent his nights at the pub, none of us was sure whether the happy or violent drunk would greet us at the back door. But it was not merely his alcoholism that was to blame, his violent temper, or the threat of it, was used in the way a toddler throws a tantrum to get their own way, and if we dared question him we were guaranteed sore limbs soon after.

So where was my mother in all this? At the time she was our rock, holding everything together, or at least trying to. She was gentle but firm, and instilled in us a great sense of justice and fairness - which I think made life at home even more difficult for me to understand. Even as the years went on, and separations and reunions continued much to my dismay (I must have been the only child who would have been happy to see my parents divorced), I continued to view my mother as a heroine. Recently though, I have begun to question my mother's spiritual decision to stay with my father, especially as it put us, as young children, directly in harm's way. Knowing what I know now, I realise I am back at square one with no idea where I stand.

So this is what it comes down to: it has taken me up until only six months ago, to realise that both my parents have failed me in major ways. Now I know that we are all going to fail as parents on some levels, and as human beings we can never be perfect, but are some failures avoidable?

This is what I want to ask, and keep wrestling and struggling and getting myself into trouble about: if, as a parent, you perpetrate abuses of that responsibility (physical, violent, sexual, negligence), do you void your right to be honoured by your children? I don't struggle with honouring my mother, as much as I do my father. How do I reconcile honour with someone who has made my childhood a place I'm never likely to revisit with much fondness?



*NB. My father passed away almost 10 years ago. How I've reacted to that is a whole other story, or maybe not.

These Fragments

I love this poem by the young Rainer Maria Rilke, from his Book of Hours, an exquisite collection of 'love poems to God' that speak of the joy, elation, pain and excruciating tension of a life entrusting itself to Him

I am praying again, Awesome One.

You hear me again, as words
from the depths of me
rush toward you in the wind.

I've been scattered in pieces,
torn by conflict,
mocked by laughter,
washed down in drink.

In alleyways I sweep myself up
out of garbage and broken glass.
With my half-mouth I stammer you,
who are eternal in your symmetry.
I lift to you my half-hands
in wordless beseeching, that I may find again
the eyes with which I once beheld you.

I am a house gutted by fire
where only the guilty sometimes sleep
before the punishment that devours them
hounds them out into the open.

I am a city by the sea
sinking into a toxic tide.
I am strange to myself, as though someone unknown
had poisoned my mother as she carried
me.

It's here in all the pieces of my shame
that I now find myself again.
I yearn to belong to something, to be contained
in an all-embracing mind that sees me
as a single thing.
I yearn to be held
in the great hands of your heart -
oh let them take me now.

Into them I place these fragments, my life,
and you, God - spend them however you want.

I remember when I first read these poems, a non-church friend had lent the book to me as she thought I, as a Christian, might find them interesting, relevant. I was struck by the beauty of the words, but could not relate to the author, and developed a rather condescending attitude towards Rilke, who during this intense spiritual stage vacillated wildly between piety and debasement. I remember thinking, 'poor man, if he had really loved God he would never have done those bad things.'

Looking back, I can't believe how naively I had interpreted the situation. When I separated myself from the church, and looked at myself warts and all, these poems became somewhat of a beacon to me, notwithstanding the Bible. I felt his joy, and the ache of unworthiness in the face of God, so compassionate and benevolent. It helped me to embrace the tension, the duality of existence, to step outside the black and white.

After all, tension is balance. Whoever said it was going to be easy?