A Rewrite

So... I rewrote some stuff.  Here's the stupidly naive, ignorant or self-centered thing about it all... I didn't expect to have to do so.  I'm not quite sure what all was going on in my brain, but I think that maybe those narratives I shared were so ingrained in my memory that I didn't think about how they'd feel to those closest to Erin.  It was stuff that happened.  That's it.  It was, however, my view on the things that happened.  I'm fully aware that other viewpoints exist.

Another crazy thing is that I shared these posts with quite a few friends before sharing on Facebook.  Each friend I shared them with would be someone I'd describe as insightful and honest, most of whom love and care for Erin.  Yet none of them challenged me on anything.  In fact, some of them thanked me for the attitude with which I wrote the posts.  Maybe they were just avoiding conflict .  Quite possibly the intention with which I thought I was writing the posts actually came through.  Maybe they saw the bigger picture of what I was trying to do and thus didn't think much of the parts that would be labeled as "hurtful."  Whatever the reason, we all clearly missed something.  For what it's worth, I take some solace (i.e. feel less like an insensitive idiot) that those people missed it.

Then those closest to Erin read the posts.... that's when the proverbial shit hit the proverbial fan.  I guess it would suffice to say that they believed me to be forming a narrative that made myself look good by demeaning Erin.  Which, surprise, surprise, they believed to be slightly below board (or just downright inexcusable).

My initial reaction was to be defensive, "of course you have to say that, you're family."  Upon further reflection, I decided I needed to listen to their perspective, which means I do two things: 1) apologize and 2) rewrite the parts perceived to be out-of-line.

Later on, also upon further reflection, a lot of those friends who first didn't see much hurtfulness came back to me and said, "Donnie, I can certainly see how some of what you said could be perceived as hurtful."

I for sure need to listen to those voices, so I am.

Years ago, when I was leading a church, I had some difficult conflict.  All pastors go through it, but this was my first time handling something of that magnitude.  As is often the case, I had no idea it was going to cause such a shit storm, but it sure did.
I had some voices from outside the situation, people for whom I have great respect, telling me, "it's okay, Donnie, you did nothing wrong, stand your ground."  So I adopted that siege  mentality and stood firm.
Needless to say, that didn't work so well.

So now I find myself in a similar situation.  This time, I'm going to listen much more readily to the voices of dissent, those telling me that what I did was wrong.  They can obviously see something in my actions that I was either blind to or intentionally ignoring.

I can be "right" and alone or gracious and apologetic and stay in relationship with people.

Two things convinced me, last night, that I needed to make some changes and apologize.
1) I read this quote:
"Behavior which is superficially correct, but is intrinsically corrupt always irritates those who see beneath the surface."
- James Bryant Conant
I think it's quite possible that the former in-laws who are off-the-charts mad at me are able to see some motives in my writing that I'm not consciously aware of (at best) or justifying away (at worst). I'm not able to figure out the answer to that now, but I have listened to them, which means I'm rewriting some stuff and apologizing to them.  I took the parts of my story that I shared that they construed as hurtful and unnecessary and rewrote them with a much more neutral narrative.

2) My mom asked me, on the phone last night, "didn't it occur to you that what you wrote would be hurtful to Erin"?
"No," was my honest answer.
"Had she written similar things about me, it wouldn't have hurt me."
"Well, Donnie, she's a woman, so she feels things differently than you."
"Good point, mom.."

My mom used to always tell me, as a kid, "if you hurt someone, even if you don't mean to, you have a responsibility to apologize."

So I'll deal with personal apologies, but take this as my public apology.

I think that re-writing those hurtful parts allows me to focus upon what the whole point of what my blogging was in the first place, to talk publicly about the taboo topic of Christians and divorce, allowing myself and others to battle the shame that grows in the hiding places.

A mentor of mine, who prayed for us at our wedding, asked that we'd always remember the nine most important words of a marriage, "I was wrong.  I am sorry.  Please forgive me."  Well, that didn't work out so well for the marriage but I think those words also apply to navigating life after a marriage.

Causing pain truly wasn't my intent, but it happened, so I've gotta own that.  And I've gotta apologize for it.

So I adopt those words of my mentor as my own, again.