Broken Beer Bottles

After the last set of marriage and family therapy intensives last week, I left in between feelings of doubt and excitement. Dan Allender, in his customary dramatic manner, spoke often of the hostile environment marriage counseling produces. He likens it to two arenas: a mud wrestling match or a bar brawl. “Have you ever been in a context where someone is trying to take a bottle that they just consumed and split your head open? Have you ever been hit in the face? Have you ever been knocked down? Have you ever been kicked in the stomach? Again, these are metaphors. Maybe.”

Good Lord. This is not what I signed up for. I picture myself in control, the couple attentive, amicable and agreeing. Dan makes me feel like I better bring a bullet proof vest to work everyday. Maybe I should’ve stuck with engineering. Math problems are much easier to solve than human beings.

To compound what feels like a monumental task is the fact that I would characterize myself as a ‘nice boy.’ This is part of a typology we have used in class, where a nice boy steers away from confrontation, one who will often agree to avoid conflict. Where does a nice boy fit into a bar brawl?

This is what I was left with, holding both a discouraged and excited self at the same time. Yet while I have a lot of work to do, and while I may be a ‘nice boy,’ I know there is a drive and passion that dismisses me from that same label. And Dan has reminded me of the call to step out of safety and into war.

I am reminded that Christianity is not an escape to a peaceful heaven, but a call to engage in the horrific injustices of this world. You will have to fight and lose terribly, get bloody and angry and suffer and scream at God, and actually feel something for this world, rather than pose an indifferent smile. How often I want to forget this. How often I want to turn down the knob of reality. How often I want to escape into a 'spiritual' place, yet I forget that my flesh and blood is spiritual, and we are called to engage in the flesh and blood of life.