Bauserman Cottage

October 14, 2008

Psalm 91:2

My refuge cont’d

And my fortress

Addendum to Oct 13

One of the confusing parts of being brain-addled, which I am sure is obvious immediately to the un-addled, is that, at first, you don’t know you are addled. Reference your neighbor last Saturday fixing our economy after two martinis. You think you are normal, and you were the last time you checked. I had had two intensive days of brain radiation and my first two days of chemo before I began to wonder, wonder mind you, on Thursday, if it was having any effect on me.  The other problem with the addled mind is that you don’t know how you are being affected.  Does your neighbor become more of a fiscal conservative or more of a social reformer. What is the specific change, and how does it shape perception and response.  Emotion does this to all of us every day. While it is easy to tell that your left hand does not work and to stay away from using things like sharp knives, in my condition, once again I realize that the mind is a terrible thing to mind.  I did such a disservice to the idea of refuge that I almost deleted but Barb would not let me. 

I have mentioned my Abiding project. I will happily say, though you have good reason to mistrust, that my sense of closeness to the Lord has become my refuge, and distance feels bad and motivates a trip to the porch, not that it can’t happen anywhere, at any hour of the day or night.  Abiding or dwelling is a critical part of understanding this psalm and I left it completely out.  Without abiding, dwelling, and continuity of relationship, there can be no refuge. Only continuity of safe and satisfying experience can teach us about refuge, with God or spouse or friend.  If you don’t know that, you will never find your refuge to be a refuge. It can never be safe, if it is sometimes safe and sometimes unsafe, like most of our homes. Then it is unsafe and we come in apprehensively. 

Iker, the storm cat, checked me out for half an hour every morning for a month.  Now she just climbs up and goes to sleep.  Refuge.  I relax the last twenty miles to Cape Hatteras.  It has never failed to be a healing place for me.  I am happy when I know when Barb will be home. Not that we haven’t had our moments, but our time together is almost always safe and good. Most of us have a sense of when we are distant from our spouses.  It feels bad.  It should feel bad. This type of suffering is a grace from God that something is wrong and needs attention. Hopefully our marriage isn’t always distant, and the signal means something to us and we know what to do about it. Most couples live relatively parallel lives in distant marriages that they accept as normal.   Often we know something is wrong with one of our children. It is intuitive. A grace from above that enables us to help them and bring them into refuge. 

The shelter of God’s wings is a permanently available refuge, and fortress, beyond the best we can do for each other.  The word comes from the Latin to flee back.   Back from what? I want to focus on this when I can.  Any threat, large or small: the accumulated poisons of this toxic world, stimulation and expectations, sickness and fatigue.  I had greatly overscheduled myself this week in my more severely brain-addled state, and yesterday was quiet.  I had four quiet times and also realized I couldn’t write, which was painful to face.  I feel like I only do one small thing a day.  How do you shirk that when your wife, sons and guardian angels are trying to do everything they can to make that possible?

A dear friend and erstwhile prophetic voice, keeps saying, “The healing is on the porch.” To me that means writing, but I know it really means refuge, seeking shelter under the Lord’s wings. In order for a refuge to be a refuge, it must also be a fortress. It has to promise that there are good things inside and always will be and it has to promise that bad things will be kept out and you will be safe and satisfied. There are two primary dynamic forces in the soul.  One is to find security and the other is to find fulfillment, that we could be ourselves in our unique, creative ways.  It takes refuge for these to happen. There are arrows that fly by day [you must write since you don’t do anything else] and terrors by night [how is a brain-addled, one-handed person going to do what you have to get done tomorrow?].   How we all need refuge, Lord willing, the complexities of the fortress issues will tumble out tomorrow.  Seems huge from here, but the other thing about being brain-addled is that you don’t know when you are getting better. 

Pursue refuge every chance you get; stoplights are good, and never stop thinking about how to transform your home and your marriage and your parenting and your friendships.  The Lord has big wings and we are all feral cats, or dumb sheep, choose your metaphor, looking for refuge.  Iker is sleeping soundly and now I can read my Bible, but I promise you that the Lord knows that you are jumpy and distractible and He will help you find rest and peace.  Please pray for the left side of my body before I fall on some innocent bystander at Ukrops.  I have lost weight but am still dangerous and mobile and brain-addled, perhaps like your neighbor on two martinis. Watch him near the good china.

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