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Anniversary Gifts

She wanted a new mixer for their anniversary. Not the most romantic of gifts, but all the chefs on her favorite cooking shows have this mixer. She imagines all the wonderful cakes, cookies and pastries she could create if only she had the same mixer all the professionals use. Maybe start a business selling her creations. She’s been making baked goods for family and friends for years, but has always laughed off their suggestions that she should go into business for herself. “Taking care of my family is my business and it’s a full time job”, she tells everyone. But she dreams of doing what she tells everyone she doesn’t have time for, and she knows her husband understands this dream. They’ve never talked about it, but he knows how much she loves to bake; he’s aware of how many cooking shows are recorded on their DVR. He must. He complains about it constantly.

Instead of a mixer, her husband presents her with a canvas he’s painted–a portrait of her and their kids inspired by a photo he snapped at the Grand Canyon last summer. She tells him she loves it, how touched she is by such a thoughtful, personal gift. But she doesn’t love it. Painting is his hobby, not hers. If he’d thought of her instead of himself, he would have realized that she had her own dreams. None of which had anything to do with painting.

He wanted an easel and a new set of artist brushes for their anniversary. He works at the bank 40 hours a week, but only because he has a family to support. His wife often suggests that with his degree in fine art, perhaps the bank president would let him paint some canvases to replace the tacky reproductions currently hanging in the bank lobby. The first time she suggested it, he was excited about the possibility. It was only after he overheard his wife’s phone conversation with her sister that he realized she was being sarcastic. That she didn’t really think his art was good enough to hang in a small town bank lobby, let alone in any art gallery. Now when she makes that suggestion, he laughs and nods his head.  But it hurts just the same.

Instead of an easel and artist brushes, his wife gave him a new suit and tie. Dress for success she’d always heard. Besides, the senior loan officer at the bank was about to retire, and a promotion for her husband was a real possibility. Maybe being in a management position would make him happier at his job. Maybe even enough for him to put away his art supplies so they could reclaim the guest room back from his ever growing hobby. He tells her he loves it. She has the best taste in clothes, and he’s so grateful to have a wife who supports his career.

He spends the rest of the day painting dark clouds over the valley in his latest landscape.

And the elephants feed and grow.

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Editor’s Note: If this is the first post you’ve read in this series, you may want to check out The proper care and feeding of elephants, Part 1 for further explanation.

To me, he is simply known as the Old Man. I don’t know his name, and I don’t think I care to. Old Man is enough.

I’ve known him for nineteen years now, and he knows me. Knows me well. When and where we meet always seems to be his prerogative. He is always dressed the same—dapper pinstriped suit with a red handkerchief, black bowler hat, immaculately shined shoes, and a cane. And I am always wearing the same expression: horror.

The Old Man is my nightmare.

He arrived one night shortly after my near suicide, sitting on a park bench in my dream. He motioned me over to sit down, gently patting the section of wood beside him. I did. He offered me a deal: come with him, and all would be well. Don’t, and…well, he said, “The consequences will be unfortunate.”

I was convinced of that when he turned to face me and a worm fell out of his left eye. It wriggled onto my hand and then in, slowly crawling up my arm and into my chest, boring its way into my heart.

I woke up screaming.

He arrived again two weeks later wanting my answer: stay or go? I stayed. By the time he was finished with me, I wished I had chosen otherwise.

And that’s the way it’s been since. Not every night, sometimes not even every month. But for nineteen years now he has come for me at his whim in his pinstriped suit and bowler hat and cane, each time asking me different variations of the same theme:

Ready to go yet?

I thought at first he was the product of an overactive mind. Or too many Stephen King books. But when I wake up screaming and incoherent and then force myself to stay awake for days because I’m afraid I’ll fall asleep and never wake up, I’m not sure neither my imagination nor Stephen King’s is at fault. I’m not sure at all.

He’s tenacious, the Old Man. Smart. Knows just what to do to hurt me the most and has no qualms about doing it.

I suppose whether he’s a demon or a psychological manifestation of my vast emotional baggage depends upon whether you ascribe to God or Freud. I’ll leave that to you.

Me, I know this: there is an unseen war waged daily around us between light and dark, life and death. The world of the spirit may be hidden from human eyes, but we are all laid naked before it. I once gave this little thought. Denied it, even. But no more. Now I know better.

I’ve always suspected that the devil gets too much credit for the terrors of this world. It’s always easier to blame his wickedness than our own. Make no mistake, though—there is evil beyond this world. Darkness. I’ve seen it.

That’s why there will be nights of endless coffee. Why the upstairs light of my workout room will be on at three in the morning because I’m doing pull ups. Why I can quote movies like Grease 2, films so horrible they are banished to the wee hours.

Because I must stay awake. Because if I close my eyes he may be there. Waiting, smiling, asking if I’m ready to go yet.

My fear? That one day I’ll say yes. That soon I’ll tire of the fighting and the beating and the temptation, and I’ll walk away with him. You become willing to do most anything to find rest, even if it’s rest in shadows.

Ready to go yet?

That’s what he wants to know.

Ready to surrender? To lay down faith and hope? Are you ready to quit wanting to stand and fight, to rid yourself of the notion that you must keep going when you just don’t have to? Are you ready to stop seeking the light and instead enjoy the darkness?

Are you ready to go yet?

So far, that answer has been no. I’m not ready to go. There are people and things in my life worth the fight, worth the beatings.

I stand and fight and keep going not because I want to, but because I must. Because the darkness in my life makes the light in it shine brighter.

So today, I ask you this: Anchor your faith in the deep harbor. Set your eyes on truth. Seek God. Love. Laugh. Believe. And always, always hope.

Because in some ways, the Old Man is after us all.

“My true desire is to relieve others of their pain though I myself may fall into hell.”
–Bassui

I’ve got a few ideas for posts swirling around my head in their usual disorganized states of confusion. I’ve even written a rough draft for one in particular that I just need to research a bit more and tweak here and there. But until then, I came across a passage in one of the books I’m reading that beautifully reflected the heart of an artist who has chosen to follow Christ. “The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditations of Faith”(1) by Timothy Stoner (yes, that’s his real name) has served as a much needed reminder that the God of Mercy is also the God of Wrath. May I never forget that!

Anyway, the following passage reminded me of my dear friend and fellow believer Christine. So this is for you:

The artist who follows Jesus explicitly resides in the world and participates in culture in a truly unique way. She helps others pay attention to, take notice of, and celebrate the goodness of the good creation. She does not shy away from the dark and the broken, the sorrow and terror–but crafts it in such a way as to point toward hope. It is revealing a pathway out of despair and chaotic meaningless. Her work is a candle that flickers and flares.

Her art is for the good of the world.

She does it for the blessing of the world.

She is intent not on reinforcing the curse but breaking it. She has and is a gift. She is sent, like Jesus, to open the eyes of the blind, open the ears of the deaf, or give words to the mute. She is sent on a mission of freedom. Her mission mirrors that of her Savior. She is sent to break chains of despair, set at liberty those tied up with cords of emptiness, futility, and death, and bring sight to those who have lost the capacity to see. She is sent to give us the forgotten vision of the glory that peeks out behind the bush and branch and sea and life as it was meant to be. She sings and shrieks and falls to rise again, to give voice to what we’ve forgotten or refuse to hear.

She pours out her blood that a world may be saved.

She serves not always willingly or well but in her best moments, when she has forgotten herself, she serves.

Still, her loyalty is not here. She has had her idolatrous attachment broken. She is free to be in but not of . She is not slavishly loyal to the patterns, the values, the demands, and commands of a world in love with itself. Her eyes look up even as she looks out, and in looking around she sees through. She is not bewitched by appearances nor overly and permanently distraught. She has seen a city whose builder and maker is God, and she pines for the day when it will come here so there will be light forever.

And the light will be the love and the joy of her life.

She has this secret. Her heart has been captured by a lover who is out of this world. But He is coming back. She wants to make herself ready and her friends and ever her enemies , too. So she does her work as best she can and prays that it is good, that it will shine so brightly as to bring glory not to her but to Him.

Thank you, Christine. For recognizing the darkness and the light in my heart. And inspiring me towards greater works of art for His Glory.

(1) Stoner, Timothy.
The God who smokes: scandalous meditations of faith
published by Navpress, 2008