Cubit
Back when I was eight years old
Hiding in the shower all alone
With the shouting echoing off the wall
And they wonder why it’s still so hard to call
Back when Mama left with another man
She said that “one day I would understand”
I still don’t know, but once I did,
I found no point but pain in marrying
Afraid that I would end up just like them
I vowed to never speak of diamonds
One might find a way to finally cross the breach
But I still want to go on loving at arm’s reach
Every unhealed childhood affliction
Grows up, becomes adult addiction
The love I labored to avoid
Twisted into lies to fill the void
Entrusted with a daughter’s dignity
Slaughtered with an airbrushed infantry
Scrap the lyrics and the tune
But no human love can heal this wearied wound
Afraid that time will tend to only tell
How I’ll reduce her to a hollow shell
Her innocence fuels courage even strength
But I still want to go on loving at arm’s length
Shards of shame shall shatter all the gifts
Whittled down by worries and what ifs
Selfishness seems sown throughout
Impatience inflates each ballooning doubt.
To dream that death won’t come from quests to cope.
That cardboard butterflies don’t hinder hope.
But reality will interject
Precisely when the plot seems to perfect.
Afraid that chances will go mostly missed
Vulnerability I’ll leave unrisked
Authenticity can’t settle for a myth
But I still want to go on loving at arm’s width
You can go and live alone,
but whose feet will you wash?
You can go your separate way,
but who will give your wounds a touch?
An empty glass can never fill another up,
But with a Fountain, kenosis is enough.
Afterword
I wrote "Cubit" a number of years ago, as a sort of therapeutic outlet for the ideas emerging out of counseling sessions and other reflection, as I was heading headlong into addiction recovery. The title is a reference to the old unit of measurement that was roughly the length of a forearm. It expresses how the poorly managed conflict and ultimate breakdown in my parents’ marriage left me avoidant of relationships with others, particularly romantic ones. Even as I met amazing individuals who were attractive on so many levels, I kept them at a distance out of fear and shame regarding my childhood experiences and the pornography addiction that followed (which I wrote about elsewhere on the LGW blog: part one and part two).
It wasn't a lack of desire for love. I simply lost hope that a love stronger than my wounds existed. I recognized that my brokenness couldn't be healed by a human love, and so I stuck to a superficial love that required little vulnerability or intimacy but also fell short of my desires. This left me torn regarding the risk of love, facing a choice similar to Sheldon Vanauken in the prologue to A Severe Mercy.
The outro of "Cubit" illustrates what ultimately led me to follow in Vanauken's footsteps. The first line is an allusion to a quote from St. Basil the Great: "If you live as a hermit, whose feet will you wash?" The startling implication of Jesus instructing the disciples to wash one another's feet (John 13) is that it is likewise a command to have one's feet washed by another. Behind the order to "love one another as I have loved you" is the logical sequitur that we must allow others to love us in the very same manner that Christ does. Outside of community, we lack opportunities to do so. If you fashion an existence outside of community, into whose messiness will you journey, and who will journey into yours?
The term kenosis comes from the Greek word for "emptying" that appears in St. Paul's Letter to the Philippians. It was the Incarnation I had in mind. The reference to the Fountain is an allusion to Sheen's book Three to Get Married, where he says, "Two glasses that are empty cannot fill up one another. There must be a fountain of water outside the glasses, in order that they may have communion with one another. It takes three to make love."
In marriage, a husband and wife are called to pour themselves out in love for one another. But their love in and of itself is insufficient ... empty really. God is in Himself an outpouring of love, a communion of persons. Ultimately it is God's love—descending to our humanity—that elevates human love to a divine level stronger than our frailty. Christ not only calls us to communion. His perfect love is the very means by which we do so. Thus perfect love casts out fear, and it did so in my own journey of healing.
About the author
John McLain lives in his home state of Missouri, which he often thinks might be etymologically connected to misery. His parents divorced when he was nine. He went on to complete his Masters in Theology at the Augustine Institute and now teaches math and other wonderful ideas at a Catholic high school. John attended his first Life-Giving Wounds retreat online in the fall of 2020. When not making the world a better place one pun at a time, he is either hoping a new baking experiment will pan out or leading off a conversation with baseball nerdiness.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
What do you think of John’s use of the unit of measurement of a cubit to working through his own struggles with vulnerability?
“If you fashion an existence outside of community, into whose messiness will you journey, and who will journey into yours?”
Knowing what you know now, what would you say to a young John to help heal the wound he is experiencing?