Ezer Kenegdo

John and Liane in the Ahwahnee Dining Room, May 2016

I've received such a lot of encouraging letters (both the paper and the e-mail kind) recently. Not only letters of sympathy or prayer - though there have been plenty of those too, and they mean more than I can say.  Right now I'm thinking more of those readers who want to express their thanks for the encouragement they have found in the material I've been posting on my blogs, either here, or on Caring Bridge, or Receiving Me, or my math blog, or in other places.  Some want to say "your faith is so inspiring".   Some want to say "I count among my dearest blessings the opportunity to get to know you and to be touched by your wisdom and friendship." Some want to say "It is really remarkable how you combine rationality and science, your faith, and such a positive attitude on the realities of life, in such a beautiful way."  It is great to know that what was written partly as a way to share news and partly, let's be fair, as a kind of therapy for myself, has turned out also to mean so much to so many other readers.  This brings me great joy and thankfulness.  But it's also made it clear to me that I desire to make a public acknowledgment, a "thank you". Read on - this is it.

Yes, there is a public acknowledgment that I desire to make. Apparently, quite a few people find an unusual combination of insights in this corpus of writing I have created as death approaches. Okay, then, where do these insights come from?  Not just from me, that is for sure. If you had known me as a young adult you would have seen a clever guy, an argumentative guy, someone who knew a lot (though not as much as he thought he knew) about mathematics and theology and electronics and sailing and a whole collection of other things - but you would not have seen someone who was able to make the kind of personal connections that people are finding and valuing in my writing today. Though I would have affirmed (in the words of 1 Corinthians 13) that love is superior to all knowledge, all verbal dexterity, all checking off the boxes on charitable giving, I do not know how much that affirmation would have meant to me personally.  I was, at heart, a theorist: and the gospel is not a theory.

So, what is different now?  The answer has a name, and her name is Liane.  When I met Liane I was soon deeply attracted to so many things about her: her thoughtfulness, her character, her care for others, the detailed way all these things were expressed.  Yes, indeed, also the beauty of her smile. That beautiful smile still has the power to turn my heart inside out! But we met while I was on a relatively short visit to the US as a post-doctoral student; after that our courtship had to be conducted almost entirely by mail, with me in England and she in the US, so I didn't get to see that smile as much as I would have liked. (Yes, kids, "mail" does mean "snail mail" - waiting several weeks for each answer, each letter saved and treasured - we both still have them!) But beyond all that, through courtship and marriage and time in England and the USA, I was learning from Liane to prioritize people, not just ideas.  To build relationships, not just to execute calculations.  It seems dumb, but I think I remember saying to her in the course of some early discussion, "You mean to say that sometimes other things are more important than being right?"  Well, yes.  Sometimes - often, indeed - being right is not the top priority.  It may not help anyone (even if, as a matter of fact, you are right). Prioritize people instead. I needed to learn that.  If some of my readers are being helped by my writing now, I believe it's partly because I did learn it. And I learned it from Liane.

There is some divine humor at work here.  Liane would be the first to tell you that she is not naturally very skilled at relationships or people-orientation.  But from the day in her early teens when she committed herself to become a Jesus-follower, she realized that a relational focus, an orientation to community, is one of the key marks of the kingdom that Jesus came to establish.  "People will know you are my disciples by the way you love" (John 13:35).  So she strove to develop the mind-set and the skills that are needed to attend to others, to really listen, to keep up a personal connection from day to day and week to week.  When she met a guy who may have been intellectually sharp as a razor but who needed some - should we say tutoring? - in these relational areas, she was equipped to help him learn.

There is a wonderful Hebrew phrase, "ezer kenegdo", which is used in Genesis 2:18 to describe God's creation of a "suitable helper" for the male human, Adam. The poet Dryden rendered this as "help-meet" and this has got transmuted in some parts of modern Christianity into a lot of nonsense about how "woman" is naturally man's subordinate, the "executive assistant" to his "company president".  This idea is way out of line with the meaning of the word "ezer" for helper - which, apart from this passage, is almost always used of how God is Israel's helper and rescuer, hardly a subordinate position - and "kenegdo" which means something like "appropriate" or "matching" - "the embodiment of inner and outer encouragement", in the words of biblical scholar G. von Rad.   What I am trying to say is that our marriage - our "ezer kenegdo" relationship - made it possible for me to learn deeply what it means to prioritize people and relationships.  This was a gift that completely changed my life for the better - and when kind folks now tell me how meaningful my writing is to them, they are, whether they know it or not, giving thanks for the gift that Liane has been giving me for thirty years and more - not just for whatever gifts I may have started out with at the beginning of this journey.

The photo above shows the two of us in the dining room of the "Majestic Yosemite Hotel" in spring 2016.  We had just recently lost our child Eli (Miriam), and then soon after had received my diagnosis of incurable cancer.  This could (should?) have been the darkest moment of our lives.   But is that what you see when you look at the photo?  I don't see it.  What I do see is, well, "the embodiment of inner and outer encouragement" - going both ways, giving and receiving joy even in the depths of pain.  I have been so fortunate in this gift. If you get anything out of my writing I believe you are sharing in that good fortune.  I want to gratefully acknowledge it, from the depths of my heart, while I still can.  Beloved - thank you.

PS: There's a quite amazing backstory to this photo.  I'll post about that another time.