photo © 2006 Hamed Saber | more info (via: Wylio)My physio is one of my heroes. I suffer from a condition called Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction and started seeing him almost exactly eleven years ago. The condition started during my second pregnancy and rendered me unable to walk.
I was told it would get better after the birth, but it didn't..
then after I stopped breastfeeding, but it didn't...
then after my son was a year old..
but it didn't!
I was seeing physios on the NHS, but it wasn't improving.. and then I heard that there was a physio who could help, and so I spent money I seriously didn't have to go and see him. It was worth every penny a hundred times over.
Not only is he a miracle worker, he is a really good guy. He is candid, honest, caring, wise, respectful and fun. I see him about once every six months these days, and for me it is like seeing a Spiritual Director.
We talk about the church, society, morality, spirituality, and he bends my ear about where the church is getting it right or wrong. Is he a Christian? - no. Will he ever go to church? - no way! I found out why very soon into our friendship:
When he was eighteen, he married his seventeen year-old girlfriend. They thought it was a good idea. It wasn't. They parted on good terms and were divorced within the year.
Some years later, he fell in love and wanted to marry his sweetheart.. in church... It was important to his wife-to-be, I think they were both reasonably spiritual, and she had always dreamed of marrying in her village church.
Well you can guess what happened.
The answer was no.
He was hurt.
Angry.
He felt like he was being told he was no good.
He had committed the unforgivable sin.
He was a second-class husband.
When my physio told me this story, the anger and pain raged in his eyes, which was shocking really, because he is such a warm and happy man, with twinkly, shiny, mischievous eyes. It was also shocking because the event had happened over twenty-five years earlier.
So I wanted to ask him whether he could find it in his heart to forgive the church. But I didn't, because I knew he would respond by saying that the church refused to forgive him, so why should he forgive them?
I guess this story is not unique.
I was reminded of my Physio yesterday. I was writing the Order of Service for our wedding and was anxious to get it right, dot all the 't's and cross all the 'i's.... oops - that isn't right is it?
Anyway.
I was on the internet trying to find out what we must do, who we must speak to, as divorcees, where the Winchester Report might be found and what it says (the report that allows divorcees to be married in church).
In my Googling, I got more and more depressed. It sapped all my joy. The church appeared to be begrudging, small-minded, judgemental and generally miserable. Furthermore, psychologists will tell you that it is pointless and naive attributing blame... marriage breakdown is complex and simple stories of blame are to be treated with suspicion. But it feels that the church does blame, so either they didn't do that sort of research or thought it was irrelevant. In the reports, divorcees appeared to be thought of as second class, woefully negligent and broadly an unwelcome embarrassment.
Blimey.
Nothing like feeling loved, accepted and forgiven.
And the reports of the Church seemed to be nothing like those things.
I understand the hurt of my physio so much more now.
I have picked up a bit since surfing the net, but I feel like there is a disapproving shadow that the church casts, and it is painful. It really does hurt. The truth is that most Vicars are much more caring, loving and forgiving than the reports suggest... but there again, I guess it can be a bit of a lottery.
Of course, if you murder your ex-partner, serve your time and say sorry you can remarry in the Catholic Church or any Church of England church, I believe.
Murder is forgivable... for some it seems that divorce is not.
10 comments:
I am sorry to read that ... thought we'd moved away from being judgemental. I know when I conduct marriages for those whose first marriage didn't work out it is possible in preparation to be sensitive to the past but recognise that this is a new relationship. First time couples don't have the same scrutiny that those who've been divorced seem to require!
Here we are asked to seek the bishop's advice ... but in my experience the bishop is guided by the clergy's attitude. We are not required to act on the bishop's advice.
Only once did I feel that the couple has little chance of staying together beyond the first week or two and indeed they never did get married (or stay together). I'd have had the same reservations about going ahead even if they'd been a first marriage situation ... the outsider could see the controlling and potentially abusive signals a mile off and thankfully they did too, before it was too late.
What am I rambling on about .... just that I'm sorry the church is (or appears to be) so unforgiving, unloving, so judgemental ... I wish we could be more like Jesus.
Jesus said "What GOD has joined HUMAN BEINGS mustn't separate". Meaning that God keeps to Godself the right to separate. The problem lies the assumption that God doesn't do that.
You only have to look at the story of Jeremiah at the Potter's shop (good reading for a second marriage!) to realise that God is right in the business of saying "Well, that didn't work out how I planned, let's try something different". (Jeremiah 18:1-5)
Failing that, when a church or church leader says divorce is unforgivable, hand them a stone and invite them to throw it.
Lesley,
Know where you are at, and your physio' too!, remarriage is a positive and a right thing for the Church to be offering.
Praying for you both as you prepare for your wedding.
Take a look at my blog - might agree, might not, but you've stirred me up.
Blessings,
Vic
The prophets of Israel say that God is a divorcee.
I gave faithless Israel her certificate of divorce and sent her away because of all her adulteries. (Jeremiah 3:8)
God goes through a divorce.
Discuss - in the light of the fact that the church is described as the bride of Christ.
Have you seen the form that is given to prospective ordinands if the have been divorced and remarried? It made me very angry indeed. They interview the ex partner, want to interview people who knew you at the time, make sure your currently marriage is a "serious" relationship. I've held back intending my form in because of this and because although I'm fine with these questions - well I'm not I'm bloody annoyed, but can cope with them, I fear my ex wife will not.
Revs Elizabeth, Kathy and Vic, thank-you - all extremely pertinent - Kathy and Vic you shone new light on it for me.
BTW the link to Vic's blog is here
Anon - gosh God is a divorcee who has remarried? Good point!
Other Anon. No I haven't but I hang my head in shame that people in the church I work for have to go through that. I have received an email on the subject and I hope to publish it anonymously if I get permission.
My dad always used to say that people would tell him about hurts inflicted by the Church that went back years. They didn't forget them - he thought it was because they felt the church was saying God condemned them much more than he loved them.
What does it take to break a seven-year old's heart?
As a child, my parents allowed me to go to Sunday School with my best friend (I think they were glad to have a peaceful Sunday morning).
One of my earliest recollections of this dates from when I was probably seven years old. It was March and we'd all been told that we needed to come early the following week as there was to be a special service for Mothering Sunday and, before the service, we would be tying bunches of violets to present to our mothers during the service. I was so excited!
On returning home, I immediately told mum the good need, fully expecting her to be as joyful as myself. I was therefore totally unprepared for her reaction. With a face as dark as thunder she said, "I will not have flowers from that church in my house. In fact, Graham, I shall never set foot in that church again as long as I live." With tears streaming down my face, I ran upstairs and buried my head in my pillow. Never before had I heard my mother speak like that. Never before had I felt such bitterness, such seething anger, such rejection from anyone, let alone my mum.
Of course, that all happened almost 50 years ago. And now I think I understand why my mother felt like that. But the pain of feeling rejection from my very own mother still remains with me.
You see, my father was a bastard. And a Yorkshireman. He'd married young, possibly in order to get out of a home where he'd been the eldest child, but never "one of the family". In an attempt to build friends, he'd taken on all
sorts of voluntary roles as secretary of this and organiser of that. And then came the second world war. Dad was in a protected occupation, and so once again all thoughts of evenings and Sundays with his wife and son vanished with him becoming a member of the Home Guard. I suppose it was no surprise, therefore, to those who knew him, to discover that his wife took up with another man at the end of the war; an Italian prisoner-of-war, to boot.
Shamed by folk who made fun of his manhood and compared him unfavourably with his wife's new lover, Dad left his beloved Yorkshire and moved to London, where he stayed with an aunt. A divorce followed.
From what I understand, mum and dad fell in love the first time they met, at the Streatham Locarno, where they danced and danced and danced...
My mum was then in her thirties, so it wasn't long before wedding bells were ringing.
Only, of course, there were to be no bells. I don't know exactly what was said when she turned up at the Vicar's door with dad in tow. But it left my mother devastated. Like Monica (in the TV series Friends), my mum had spent years of her life planning her big day. And now, the rejection she began to feel bored deep into her very soul, bringing with it a festering mess of bitterness.
In the event, mum and dad were married in a registry office many miles away. And theirs was a contented marriage that lasted to the end of their days.
But the pain of rejection brought on by the church that refused marriage never really left her. And that's why I'm so pleased for you, Lesley. Knowing that you and Alan are to be married in church is fantastic!
I just long for the day when friends of mine, who don't share the same gender orientation as myself, can also come into church and there make a public commitment to be faithful to each other, for as long as they both shall live.
I pray that this story may touch the hearts of those who read it and that they, like myself, will always look for the positives in any relationship, encourage those positives and freely pronounce God's blessing on anyone and everyone who exhibits elements of his character (such as love and faithfulness). I never, ever, want to see anyone turn their back on God in the way my mum did.
Gosh that made me cry. Lord have mercy that we as the church do these things to people.
Amen...
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