Part 002: Mindfulness or Madness?
Continuing my story of Learning to Love
This is the continuation of my memoir.
I recommend reading from the start, so if you missed it or need a refresher please go back to read from the beginning:
Page One: Learning to Love
Endless cornfields to the left and to the right. Mile after monotonous mile the distant windmills were the only things to pierce the flat horizon. That morning I’d left Chicago, a city I’d just visited for the first time, and begun the second half of a loop back towards home, 700 miles away.
Continuing the story:
In our conversation the prior day Julia had casually mentioned that she’d stopped wearing headphones.
Full stop. What?!
We’d spent at least half an hour discussing podcasts. What did she mean? She doesn’t use headphones?!
She described to me how she likes to listen to podcasts: she sits in her room, on her bed, with her laptop, and just listens. “It’s easier for me to pay attention,” she explained, “plus, I realized that when I walked around with headphones it kept me from being mindful - noticing my thoughts and what was going on around me.”
This was the first time I recall ever hearing this word in the wild - mindful. It sounded kinda hokey - like marketing lingo for some pretentious yoga studio - with a generous portion of woo, but coming from her I was intrigued.
So here I was. Riding atop Shadowfax across one of the least varied landscapes in America. Just endless fields of corn and me and my thoughts.
My thoughts.
My thoughts.
My thoughts.
It was like a 7 hour shower - where the hot water ran out 6 and a half hours ago.
It started kinda nice, letting my mind run in all sorts of fanciful directions. I soon found myself imagining dreamed up scenarios with Julia. Maybe this *was* the start of a (mildly) steamy romance:
She invites me in at the end of night. We make love. I return home and we begin a long-distance relationship, complete with late-night phone calls where neither of us want to hang up first, good morning texts, and maybe some of what the kids call “sexting”. We can’t stand to stay apart for long, so I relocate to Chicago. Soon we get married. Perhaps we start a family. And everything is right in the world.
Problem was, besides the fact that all of this was just in my head, these thoughts were sinful. Wrong. Bad.
Feeling this attraction was rooted in lust. Entertaining these imaginings was a dangerous and slippery slope. And all of this was doubly sinful for me because…
I was already married.
Separated. But still married. Allowing my mind to have these thoughts and feelings was an offense against, not just my wife, but the supreme GOD-creator of everything.
Dun-dun-dunnnnn!
It was wrong for me to feel this way.
It was wrong for me to have these thoughts.
It had to stop.
But of course - the more I tried to stop thinking about the forbidden fruit, the more all encompassing the forbidden fruit became. This attempt at mindfulness was fanning the flames of a war raging within me. This was evidence in action of just how broken and wicked I was.
When she spoke such beautiful and insightful words her lips looked remarkably kissable…
“Remember this: the lips of a seductress seem sweet like honey, and her smooth words are like music in your ears.”1 - “Anyone who looks on a woman to lust after her has committed adultery with her in his heart.”2 - “The adulterer and adulteress shall surely be put to death.”3
But I hadn’t kissed her. We’d barely even hugged. Our interactions had been appropriately convivial yet chaste.
“Can a man walk on hot coals without his feet being scorched?”4 “Watch and pray so that you do not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”5
Wasn’t my marriage was effectively over though. My wife had moved out and wasn’t even speaking with me. I’d wasted years pitifully pining after ex-girlfriends long after the relationships had ended. Shouldn’t I learn from that and just move on this time?
“Be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”6 “Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.”7
Ughhh. This feels soooo exhausting!
“Take my yoke upon you[...] My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”8 “I will give you rest.”9
Didn’t I trust God? I should be able to simply say “you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”10 How dare I test or question His divine decrees? “Oh what a wretched man am I!”11
Clearly I was in violation of God’s law - God’s perfect and graciously given instruction on how He’d designed his image-bearers to operate. I was rebellious malfunctioning equipment. My purpose was to glorify my maker and enjoy Him forever. I was failing at that. Even with Jesus’s sacrifice and the Holy Spirit’s power I was incapable of lining up with my divinly commanded programming. Maybe all of this meant that I just wasn’t saved after all. Perhaps I just wasn’t among the elect few God had chosen to transform and pluck from the gates of hell.
The eternal lake of fire was waiting to consume me.
But... Jesus loves me. Wasn’t he already tormented and killed for my wickedness. And he wants good and beautiful things for me, right? Couldn’t this be beautiful? This could, maybe, be the start of a new romantic relationship, couldn’t it? Was it really wrong to just consider that as a possibility?
Yes. Wrong. Bad. Fire. Burn.
But!
Round and round the cycle went.
A spiraling descent into despair.
Was this mindfulness or madness?!?
Proverbs 5:3
Matthew 5:27
Leviticus 20:10
Proverbs 6:27
Matthew 26:41
Romans 12:12
Isaiah 40:31
Matthew 11:29
Exodus 33:14
Psalm 4:8
Romans 7:24
Always love hearing your story! Eager for more of the gritty deets in your next share! And I can relate to the christian guilt and madness...it kept me emotionally, mentally and physically paralyzed to a degree for decades. It bottled "me" into a corked jar, that thankfully I uncorked with my wicked rebellion 😉