Red Wine

Back from the reunion a week now: unpacked, laundry finally zeroed out, garden somewhat tended & house slightly cleaned up in the wake of the three selfish offspring who enjoy it when we're gone, yet take little notice of the need to clean it before we return.

Re: Wine? A contested topic hereabouts, but all the more so after drinking DH's for him just now. Zygote drinks it when DH buys it, though she bids him: "Avoid it like the plague!" He doesn't listen.  Good Baptists, we were, tending toward teetotalers, imbibing only at restaurants, on anniversaries and such, & training the children away from the mocker... or so we thought.  When the twenty-somethings graduated from their very conservative colleges, they returned home with a very hip need to imbibe: you see, Jesus drank wine, so, we all should too, they insisted.  That's all it took.  Now, DH brings it home quite regularly. I complained, only to be shot down by the young'ins, & so I've given in, too.  Anti-depressants hold nothing to this candle. And it's cheaper.  Socially acceptable, too:  tell people you take an anti-depressant, and watch them slowly nod and pretend they understand.  Walk in the door with a bottle of Chardonay (i have tried to spell that 19 diff. ways, and no dictionary I own will help me), or enjoy a glass of red wine with the crowd, and be embraced as one fit for society. (Don a glass of water and feel the ire of the whole room...)

Nevermind that six family members have shown in past generations, or are now showing, all the earmarks of, well... the 'A' word.  One member has wisely addressed the issue; wisely turned away from the cursed liquid and mindfully determined to live life for what is real rather than for what the fruit of the vine promises, but never delivers... Rehab miraculously worked for this person.

So, why do I partake? Why does DH continue to bring it home? Oh, blessed psychotherapists of the world, please answer!

I long to know WHY a lot of things.  

That 'enabling' word comes to mind, and though we've discussed its meaning, DH is programmed by The Fall to render all discussion vaporous.

I think that's when I decided to spend my entire family reunion at the kitchen sink doing everyone's dishes: when I saw the giant stockpile of wines, vodkas, rums and bourbons --or whatever that was, all arrayed across the washer and dryer in the rental cabin kitchen-- my affections froze.

All my hopes for some real conversation --you know, the kind people actually remember the next morning-- were dashed.  Then, a day or two later, they all said goodbye, & there I was: eating watermelon and catching up on a cable TV movie (the one that I'd walked out on when D#2 took me to see it three years ago. TheDevilWearsPrada. Better believe he does).  All alone, in my big Twain Harte rental, wondering what The LORD would show me when I dared to ponder the cost benefit analysis of the whole effort, having rented the place for an entire WEEK... Would my sisters have liked me more if I'd gotten drunk with them? Would the Gospel have been furthered if I'd just stood there with a drink in my hand pretending to be cool with it?  And yet, who cares??  I didn't plan the weekend to proclaim Jesus, but just to re-UNE with my family for heaven's sake. It had been ten years since we last gathered. The hypocrisy of the matter is too boggling for the sinner that I am to reconcile: I want alcohol, but only when I'm alone or with DH.  I hate alcohol, but only when others are enjoying it.  I crafted a Statement on Spirits many months ago, long before any cabin reunion bubble started forming; but only officially declared it MY OWN reaffirmed stance on one or two occasions, & even then, to no avail, as the family members were, let's say, hardly impressed. 

I declared that:   

"Wine, beer and spirits
are to be enjoyed in the context 

of 

drawing together
married couples 

in the privacy of their own chambers

for the furtherance of healthy 

marital conjugation, 

this being the standard ingredient

upon which marital fidelity depends,

the euphoric enjoyment of God's created gift, sex,
for the purpose

of  

permanently uniting two fallen people
into becoming
OneFlesh. 

(Kinda like bikinis, yes?)

This settled it in my own mind.  

Alcohol, even taken moderately, gets me DRUNK. The Bible proscribes drunkeness. It clearly cites an event which I, more than most, must NEVER occasion: "getting drunk causes the HOLY Spirit to dissipate...re-mooooove Himself...  Become distant, thin, SHALLOW, LEAKED... Empty." 

How can I allow the scarcity of a thing which I only have the weakest grasp upon in the first place?

Kudos to James & Shirley Dobson,  whose own 50th Wedding Anniversary was today, and who inspired the idea once upon a time, by recommending that the virgin bride be plied with champagne on her wedding night to help her overcome the hard transition from "Thou shalt not!" to "Thou shalt, every day, and with vigor and enthusiasm," else I doubt I'd have ever come up with it... the drinking part, not the bikini part, altho, they'd probably agree there, too.

(Can I just say how much I love Jim & Shirls???)

Now, if only I had the courage, no, the INTEGRITY, to stick to my own convictions.