I am beginning this blog on January 23, 2012. A little less than a year ago, some allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct were made against a good church friend of Charlie and me. It isn’t necessary to go into any of the details, save to say that when my friend was made aware of these allegations, he and his wife came to our house to discuss this matter with us. He emphatically denied the allegations and has continued to do so. Apparently there is sufficient evidence to support these allegations, but I certainly haven’t seen it, and the Rector of our church has not allowed my friend to meet with the women who made the claims. So, nine months later, the issue has not been resolved.
Charlie and I have been put into the middle of this matter, knowing not just our friend who has been accused, but several of the victims as well. Most of the church members have distanced themselves significantly from our friend, and while I absolutely do not condone the actions that our friend is alleged to have made, I have wanted to continue to be available to him. I have given him ample, I think, opportunities to “come clean,” but he continues to deny. His wife, also a good friend of Charlie and me, at first tended to believe the allegations, but since then is now defending her husband. All of this has proven to be a gut-wrenching experience for me. Charlie and I have considered distancing ourselves as others have done, but have decided not to do so. As a result, we have experienced distance being put between some of our other church friends and us. I have struggled with the possibility that continuing to befriend our beleaguered friend is in fact enabling him to continue in his denial. But all the above notwithstanding, we continue to want to continue as we have been.
This dilemma has been causing me more and more mental anguish. We don’t have anyone (here on Earth) with whom to discuss this matter. I have prayed on it and we have tried, unsuccessfully, to discuss it with our Rector. I have been able to discuss it with another church friend, a retired Lutheran pastor, but I still don’t know if what we are doing is helping the matter or making it worse.
Today, I was re-reading Fr. Richard Rohr’s book entitled “Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the two Halves of Life.” Richard’s primary thesis in this book is that we spend half or more of our lives finding our identity and our sexuality and trying to achieve success and make our reputation. But Richard also believes that most of us, at one time or another, experience some significant failure or loss and as a result begin to ask questions like; “Is this all there is to my life?” “Is there something else I am called to do?” I have known these failures and losses and believe that I am now in the second half of my life. But, what I didn’t realize until now is that “falling upward” to our second time of life is not a one-time epiphany. Apparently, once we are in the second half of life, we continue to be challenged by God to become more and more of what He wants us to do and be, and I realized that all of this fretting I have been doing and continue to do, is in fact “necessary suffering,” the title of one of the chapters in Richard’s book. God is trying to get my attention to move deeper into this second half of life. All at once, I began to see more clearly what I thought I have known for some time. Jesus’ Great Commandment tells us to love the Lord with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. My friend is my neighbor. We are not to stop loving someone because he or she has sinned, after all who hasn’t, and God continues to love us. We are not just to love someone only after he/she repents; have we repented all our sins? God still loves us. Jesus befriended prostitutes and tax collectors and all sorts of sinners, and nowhere have I found in the Bible that he only did so after they repented. God wants us to repent, no question. But that is apparently not a condition for his love. For us to fully understand and feel God’s grace, we must repent, but God continues to love us and try to help us all the while. Maybe continuing to love my friend is one small way of “paying forward” what God has given to me.
So, now I have a clearer understanding of why I have been suffering. I have been suffering spiritually because my friend is suffering, and he is suffering more than I am. While not condoning what he has done, I pledge to continue to love him and support him.
