Taking a break during the first year of being married

One of the things that I'm really looking forward to about being married is having time with Matthijs: time that is not taken over by planning a wedding or by organizing the next time we'll see each other. And there will no longer be 1.5 hours travel time before (and after) seeing each other! That means there'll be time to have lots of conversations and think together and laugh together and do nothing together. Yay!
A number of people have told me to take the time to enjoy that first year of being married and not to do too much other stuff. I know that's wise advise, but I still chafe a bit when I hear it. Perhaps it's simply because I don't like being told what to do or feeling like people assume that because I've never being married, I have absolutely no idea what it might be like (or what would be good for me). I don't know for sure what it'll be like, but I do have some ideas of what might be good. I am purposely trying not to plan too much for after the wedding, as I want to give us space to make plans together; after we get married, it's even more obvious that it's not just about "my" plans anymore but it's now "our" plans. So I am already kind of following the advice to take it easy - but the advice itself still makes me a bit uncomfortable. It's not like I'm not looking forward to spending lots of time with Matthijs (see first paragraph of this for a reminder); it's just that I'm uncomfortable with the idea of my whole life revolving around Matthijs and my marriage. I (we) do certainly want to invest lots of time in building solid habits and good communication for married life - that's why we're taking a marriage course now - and why we've spent lots of time and energy already on the difficult questions of expectations and desires and communicating well. And it will be nice to slow down and settle somewhat, so that the chaos in my life (brought about, I expect, by many of the recent changes) can decrease somewhat. And I do want to laugh lots and enjoy being married!

But we also want our marriage to be fruitful; in the beginning, some of the fruit we bear will be a solid foundation for our marriage - but even in building that solid foundation, we don't want to lose sight of the vision that our marriage is to be honouring to God, a means for each of us to be more the people God wants us to be, and a blessing to others. And I can see now already a bit of how that might be manifested: Matthijs and I both want the excitement and joy of being married, coupled with our now having a constant theological sparring partner, to bear fruit in my dissertation and academic endeavours (and maybe also some academic endeavours for Matthijs, too :)). And we want our joy of being married to spread to those around us - and who better to share that joy with than those we love: the community and other friends and family?
The Old Testament talks about a newlywed not being allowed to go to war or be obligated in any way (Deut 24:5): "he must be free to stay at home for a full year and bring joy to the woman he has married." If I do some practical exegesis, I assume that the intention was not that the man should do nothing for a year - I can't imagine too many women who'd find joy in their husband hanging around the house doing nothing! There is thus a bit of interpreting here, and my interpreting is that, especially in the first year, the couple chooses first and always for what's best for their marriage and can push other important obligations of serving God and society aside (this building a foundation for a healthy marriage is, after all, the best way to serve God and society). But that doesn't imply doing nothing - in fact, the need to do nothing can then also become an obligation that hinders our marriage. And it does not imply that we'll have to turn away from other joys (and challenges) in our life, like the community, singing, visiting, and playing soccer. Perhaps we need to make limits, but the hope and expectation is that those other things that bring joy and challenges would in turn be a blessing to our marriage.

So how does one prepare for a wedding?

Well, there's the usual ways of making lists and talking to people and buying stuff and making plans. And I've been doing that - sometimes too much, actually. But I've also discovered another way to prepare for a wedding: go to different weddings. And it just so happens that Matthijs and I have 3 weddings in October to go to. In my first four years of being in the Netherlands, I'd only managed to go to 3 weddings, and now, all of a sudden, 3 in one month! It makes it a busier month, but it also is fun to get ideas and perspective and have lots of fun, especially as I get to play honorary sister of the bride for the last one in October!

And if you ask, I'd tell you that I'm not stressed about the wedding. But last night I dreamt that I'd been brought to the wrong church, which started half an hour earlier, and I didn't even have the right shoes on (just my regular sandles) - and I blamed Matthijs for it all, even yelling at him. But I think after yelling at him, I felt better and I was still happy to have married him (even if it wasn't perfect). Eventually, probably when I kept being puzzled by how I could have had the wrong shoes on, I realized it was a dream and this couldn't be all happening - and I woke up. The only good thing about the dream was the realization that it's obvious that I'm looking forward to being married, even if it's not perfect :)

Productivitiy and Prayer

What with the wedding, there are a lot of things that need doing (and then there are other normal life things that ought to be done). And that puts pressure on me to be superproductive. It's not a bad pressure, except for one thing: prayer and coffee/tea drinking and mealtimes (normal parts of community life) are not exactly productive.

So in the midst of the strong sense that I need to be productive, my normal desire to attend prayer and other activities in the community is quelched. This sometimes means that I don't attend prayer - I allow other things to come first. But it also means that sometimes I choose to go to prayer, choosing to do something unproductive as a way of trusting that things will get done and be good without my doing something all the time. And this choice forces me to remember that even if being productive is a way of being faithful to God, productivity isn't the same as being faithful. And I don't want my life to focus on how I can do more but instead on how I can do things delighting in God and participate in what God is already doing.

Silence is golden

There's a saying in english about "silence being golden." It suggests that there is beauty in silence.

There's another saying with regards to silence that my mother taught me: "if you don't have anything good to say, then say nothing at all."

And I have been silent here on this blog. Not because I have nothing good to say, but because I haven't always known how to say it. Or haven't always had the energy to say it.

It's not that planning a wedding is so overwhelming - it's basically an incredibly long to-do list all focused on one major event. To do-lists are manageable. And thankfully I've had experience planning other things (one of the advantages of being a bit older when I get married), so planning this isn't so bad.

The challenge is that my life doesn't stop to plan a wedding - so there's other stuff that needs doing, too (and which takes time and energy).

And it's surprising what unknown things you bump into when planning, especially about expectations, communication, and relationships. Finding a healthy way to work through the stuff that comes up also takes up quite a bit of time and energy. But even if that part hasn't been always so pleasant, I am deeply thankful for the sense that I have grown in my relationships and my ability to relate to others well.

But I think I'm still very much looking forward to a break from it all after the wedding.

Weekend at a Convent

I spent the weekend at a convent, and it was good. I went expecting to meet God, and I was not disappointed. I had given myself permission ahead of time to waste time with God and others. As for my time with others, the only negative thing I can say was that the conversation and questions raised were too interesting and delightful to be part of! It was the kind of fellowship that you hope for and yet still are delightfully surprised by. But at the same I also wanted to spend time with God alone and listen/talk with Him far enough away from a world that had felt confining and confusing in the last little while. Although it took some effort to put aside both my book and the delightful distraction of others around me, it was worth the effort to hang out with God. I emptied (again) before God all of what had been happening in the last while, especially the pain, confusion, guilt, and anger involved. This release to God felt much needed - and although the presence of the others might have felt like a distraction from this really good part of the weekend, I think the laughter and delight in meeting the others made it easier to face with honesty the challenges of the last time. Even if I wasn't willing to share what I was struggling with, sharing in the laughter was enough - perhaps another time/day, it will be good to share more.

One of the best parts of the weekend was a strong feeling that this kind of religious life is for me (albeit transposed to a less Catholic setting and as a married person). One way was in getting some perspective; to be reminded that we are not the only community with its share of quirks - and laughing at these more would probably do me good. And another was the fellowship - the delightful sense of getting to be yourself and have opinions and puzzle together through things and laugh together; in all of these things, to celebrate the other person for who he/she is. Certainly with time, fellowship becomes more challenging because we bump more into how who each one of us is sometimes exasperates others - and then we have to learn to make space and celebrate the other still. And this is what I want to strive for in living in community - and even if it's hard and sometimes exasperating, it is worth the effort - as this glimpse of delightful fellowship let me see.

And perhaps the part that is the most confirming was the sense of having been ready to meet God. Even if I'm not always present for the daily prayers here (physically or mentally), even if I struggle with doing fellowship well, even if my goal of Sunday with God doesn't succeed so well, and even if I feel overwhelmed sometimes with things here, my normal life has still been shaped to be open towards God and others. And thankfully, even when I don't do as well as I want to in being open, God gently finds ways to meet me and remind me of how it can be - and how much I can delight in that.

looking at the Red Light District

I haven't written too much about my neighbourhood in the last while, but it is something that is often in the back of my head. So when I read Marco's thoughts about his experience here in the Red Light District, I wanted to share them with more people as I thought they might be a helpful way to have others see the Red Light District.

Marco begins thus:
"This neighborhood gets me down. And the worst thing is not the prostitutes or drug dealers. The worst thing is the tourists. Isn't it sad enough that humans have strange and dark needs and desires, that they can so easily fall victim to all-consuming addictions and that these are so universal that every major city has prostitution and drug dealing... must we make a TOURIST ATTRACTION out of it? What went wrong?

His further thoughts can be found at his blog, "songs of a soupman"

Resolving my commitment to the community with my commitment to my future spouse

In the last while I've been doing quite a bit of processing about my relationship to the community. This has to do with some of the things that have been happening in the community, especially changes in the core group. But a lot of it also has to do with the fact that my relationship to Matthijs changes pretty much everything.

Have I mentioned that I don't always handle change well?!?

So in the midst of these changes, I've been sorting out commitments and loyalties and looking closely at how I relate to people and what expectations I have (including trying to be honest about what's not healthy, in the hopes that it will become healthier). I'm deeply thankful for this processing, and I believe deeply that my relationships are generally improving because of this, but it hasn't been very pleasant - and not just for me, I know (Matthijs has received the brunt of my frustration sometimes, alongside of the lack of clarity found in being in the middle of processing, and he's still been really encouraging).

As part of the processing, I wrote an article for catapult magazine about communities and commitments and sorting out the balance. It can be found online: but nuns can't get married!. If you read it, it'd be helpful to remember the lack of clarity that's often found in the middle of processing - and that I'm still in the middle of it.

But even though it feels like the processing with all this stuff is not yet resolved, there's been some really great moments of clarity along the way. I have received a strong sense of two things -first: that I really want to be more honest, including in my relationships with others - and second: pray more. Those two realizations have been worth all the messiness of the processing.