Bo's Café (18 page)

“But it’s scary too. It’s kind of like when we first begin to follow Him. We’re really excited, but at some point we begin
to wonder,
What’s God gonna do with me now that I’ve given my life to Him?
We become afraid again, of the very One who has broken through our defenses to give us love.

“See, we’re still convinced we’re not really worth being loved. And our acceptance of grace is fragile and vulnerable. You’re
incredibly successful, Steven, but deep down you’re convinced that you’re not
worthy
of that success. You’re not even worth being loved. So the thought of someone wanting to love you messes with your head,
doesn’t it?”

I’m looking out at the water, unable to respond to Andy quite yet.

“But you have to receive it. It’s a lot different than trying to love others or God enough. It’s learning to say, ‘If God
says I’m worthy of being loved, then I’m worthy. Forget what my old tapes tell me. I’m going with God’s assessment.’ ”

“Okay,” I say. “I think I can do that.”

“It’ll feel like you’ve opened Pandora’s box. Because you know
you
, and all the garbage inside. And you’re terrified someone else will now see it. But here’s the difference—” Andy leans in
even closer. “It won’t matter to you anymore. If they see the truth about you, you’ll actually be
happy
about it. You’ll feel completely different about yourself from there on out. And that’s because you’ll see all your junk
now only through God’s eyes, through the eyes of
love
, not condemnation.”

“So, I don’t have to get there all at once, do I?”

“You kidding me?” He leans back and laughs. “Look at Peter. He changed in and out of his new identity more often than Bette
Midler changed her wardrobe at a reunion concert.”

I’m no longer listening to Andy as much as watching him. He’s really enjoying himself. He’s waited for this a long time.

A breeze has picked up from the direction of the ocean. The boats in the marina are bobbing and creaking as we talk, as if
happy to be here.

“Andy, since the moment we met, I’ve been asking myself why you’re doing this. Was I a project? Were you doing a favor for
my dad, or what? You know what I think now?”

He stares at me.

“I think you wanted a friend. I think you wanted to care about me.”

“I do. I really do. I care about you a lot. Why else would I drive around with an arrogant jerk who thinks my sunglasses look
stupid?”

“Not stupid.” I smile. “They just make you look like, well, an old guy.”

He laughs hard. “Steven, look at me. I
am
an old guy. I was watching
The Ed Sullivan Show
the evening he introduced the Beatles to America.”

“On
what
show?” I’ve heard of the show, but it feels good playing him a little.

Andy looks at me with annoyance and pity.

“Besides,” he says, “today’s sunglasses cost too much, and they make you look like a bug.”

Andy pulls on the rope of a bell above his head, for no apparent reason.

“Yes. God has given me a real care and love for you, whether or not you ever figure out how to receive it. Whether or not
you ever figure out how to love or be loved by your wife. I’m going to be your friend. I want to stand with you.”

“I think I always felt if I let someone too close, they’d have something on me, leverage or control.”

“Control is an expression of superiority,” he says, “always using the power of position and title. That’s why you withhold
permission from everyone. But protection is an expression of love.”

“So you’re saying I’ll get there,” I say.

“Pretty much. And have you noticed, we barely talk about symptoms anymore? You don’t still think the goal is to fix you, do
you?”

“I guess not.”

“Pretty cool, huh?”

I nod. “Unless you have a wife somewhere in L.A. contemplating divorce.”

“Patience, my friend,” he says. “My guess is she’s contemplated divorce before today.”

I chuckle. “Thanks for the encouragement.”

He relights his cigar and starts puffing away again. “Okay, okay. Stay focused. I’m actually working toward a point here.
One more thing that protective love does—it creates vulnerability. My guess is you never imagined sharing the stuff that’s
been coming out of you these last few hours. That’s why this is never about technique, never about ‘five things to get someone
to open up.’ I never had a plan with you. I just wanted to allow this vulnerability to come out. My friend, this truth alone,
being lived out, is going to turn your marriage upside down.”

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, I think you’ve been sad over what you’ve done a thousand times before. You’ve been sad that you got revealed, that
you hurt Lindsey. I think you’ve felt
lots
of sadness, even remorse. But this might be the first time you’ve been able to face that it’s more than a behavioral problem—you’re
actually admitting you use anger to control your world.”

“Stop,” I say. “I said that?”

“I believe you did.”

I think for a moment. “Okay. I can see that. It just sounds like a pretty big deal when I hear you say it that way.”

“And you’re also discovering that you don’t know how to stop it. For the first time, you can take those truths and offer them
to God and to Lindsey. You get to really repent this time. Do you understand that? Repentance?”

I’m caught off guard, still thinking about my anger as a tool to control. “Uh, sure. Repentance. That’s when you stop doing
what you’ve been doing wrong and turn a 180. Right?”

He scrunches up his face. “Well, isn’t that special?” Then, with mock sincerity he says, “Gee, I don’t know why we didn’t
just do this before. Just stop doing what you’ve been doing wrong. Well, by golly, let’s get right to that. What do you say?”
He slaps his knee for mock emphasis.

I glare back at him. “Well, here’s another time when you make what I say sound stupid.”

“Yeah, I might be doing that. It’s just that those tired, mindless clichés are part of the thinking that got you into this
mess in the first place. Steven, don’t you think if you could stop doing what you’ve been doing wrong, you’d have fixed things
by now?”

I shrug with growing frustration. “I don’t know what you want to hear, Andy. I’m back in junior high and the science teacher
is looking for a specific answer. Why don’t you just tell me, and then I’ll know and we can move on?”

“I remind you of your science teacher in junior high?”

“Sometimes.”

“Did he have those little white balls of spit at the edges of his mouth?”

“Yeah.”

“Fair enough,” he says. “It’s just that when I give you the answer, you presume you get it, that you have it all figured out.
I want you to get it on your own so you’ll see that what you’ve previously believed won’t get you where you need to go. Even
right now you’re looking for a fix, the right words, to get things back to normal with Lindsey.”

He gets up and leaves the captain’s seat, walking over close to me. He says the next sentence slowly and intensely.

“And your version of normal is exactly what is forcing your wife to contemplate a life without you. Am I making sense?”

I sigh. “Keep going. It’s just that right now I’m fighting the clock.”

“Still don’t trust the old sea captain, huh? Still think you’ve got it figured out. You just need a few one-liners, and you’re
on your way. Steven, that’s like bin Laden thinking he just needs a round of golf with the Dalai Lama. Then he can come out
of hiding and start touring alongside Up with People.”

I gesture out to the seawall. “You’re aware no one’s steering the boat, right?”

Andy turns to take back the wheel… and then drops his hands.

“Hey, look at that. We’re coasting toward those big rocks. Wow, crashing into that would be bad news for everyone concerned,
don’t you think?”

I look at the approaching jetty. “Andy, don’t mess around. I get your point.”

“Listen, I keep driving weird. I keep making those big looping circles, and I’m always wanting to get up from the captain
seat and walk around. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why don’t you take over? You’ve been on this boat plenty of times.”

“Stop it, Andy. I have no idea how to steer the boat. I’ve never even watched them operate it. That’s not my deal. Now sit
down and drive the boat.”

We are now no more than two hundred yards from the rocks, moving slowly but still directly toward them.

“Whoa,” he calls out like a casual observer. “Those rocks are getting
close
. It seems to me that if I just showed you how to turn the wheel, you could get in the chair and get us out of this crisis.
I’d take the wheel if I were you. You’re the answer guy. You’re the big-time executive. This is your boat.”

Andy throws his hands up. “Suddenly I just don’t seem to know what the heck I’m doing.”

“Andy, knock it off!” I yell. “You’re putting your job at risk. You’re putting
us
at risk.”

He looks back at me. “Am I now? ’Cause I would have thought you could solve this. You don’t need anyone. Man, those rocks
look sharp, don’t they? I mean, imagine what they’d do to the side of this boat. I’ll sure have some explaining to do.”

I jump up from my seat. “Andy, you’re an idiot! You’re gonna destroy a boat to make a stupid point?”

I run to the chair, take the wheel, and spin it hard, trying to maneuver us away from the rocks. But it’s too late to steer
it away. I panic and turn the wheel back hard the other way.

Less than a hundred yards from the rocks, Andy walks up behind me and pulls the engine handles into reverse. The boat continues
forward for a moment and then slowly groans backward.

Andy sits back down at the wheel as I retreat to my seat.

“Wow, would you look at that,” he marvels. “I never knew what those handle things were for. That was a close one!”

He gently turns the boat gradually back into the calm waters toward the slips.

I’m breathing hard, clenching my fists and trying not to punch him. His ridiculous game has convinced me of my greatest fear:
he’s a complete maniac. Neither of us talks for more than a minute. He’s back to making lazy loops in the harbor.

“You’re a jerk,” I say.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking there.”

“Knock it off, Andy! Knock it off!”

He turns toward me again and quietly but firmly says, “No,
you
knock it off, Steven. Do you have any idea what I was doing a moment ago?”

“You were making a stupid point with a stupid analogy. And you almost damaged a really expensive boat while doing it.”

“Actually,” Andy replies, “we were never in any danger. We had plenty of time to make the turn. You just didn’t happen to
know that. If you kept trying to steer your way out of it, we might have been in danger. But as we were heading toward those
rocks no matter how hard you tried to steer, it was just too late.”

“I don’t want to listen to you anymore.”

“Look, you could be the best dang captain in the entire free world, and you still would’ve hit those rocks. Because you thought
your steering would make a difference.”

I can’t look at him right now. I won’t.

“Steven, this is exactly what you’ve been doing since long before I met you. That’s where your life is right now—about eleven
feet from the rocks. The boat is traveling at a pretty good clip, and you’re doing everything you can to make the turn. And
you can’t navigate it. You’ve finally reached a place where steering doesn’t do squat. Sharp course corrections don’t matter
anymore. God has been trying to teach you that lesson for a long time, but you’ve been making so much noise panicking and
floundering at the wheel that you can’t hear Him. Even right at this moment you still just want to get home and fix things
up. And this time it is not going to end well. Do you hear me? You’re about to lose your wife, your daughter, and your career.
And you’re irritated at me for trying to get your attention. Give me a break.”

It’s quiet again.

Finally, I ask, “So what do I do?”

“I’m gonna pretend, for the sake of argument, that you really want an answer to what you’re asking, Steven,” he says. “Let
someone protect you. I, me, the guy you’re sitting in front of, I happen to know, from slamming into rocks ten years ago,
where the reverse handles are on the boat. God can use me to get you out of this mess and into waters that are smooth like
glass, like you’ve never been in before.”

I finally look up at him. “So maybe I wasn’t quite as ready as you thought twenty minutes ago?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.”

“Andy, I honestly don’t know if I’m lying, bluffing, pretending, or telling the truth at the moment. Every time I think I’m
in, I’ve just been kidding myself. But I think for the first time, in this moment, I’m convinced at least you know what to
do with me.”

“Yeah, sometimes I do. Honestly, I’m just giving it my best shot most of the time. But none of us fully know how to do this.
I’m still a hack. Jesus knows exactly what to do for you,” he says. “And He probably wouldn’t make you feel so dumb for it
either. I’m sorry about that. But sometimes you just need someone who’ll listen to point you in His direction.”

“Forgive me for trying to take back the wheel. Where were we?”

Andy pauses and takes a deep breath. “I’m trying to get to the motive behind the behavior. It’s one of the things that separates
us from the Pomeranian. That and the whole opposable thumb deal. I think God wants you to stop just confessing your anger
and admit the shame that causes you to attempt to control your life with anger.

“When you tell Lindsey your game plan, when you admit that rage allows you to get control over everything around you, for
the first time in a very long time, she will believe you.”

“That’s it?” I hang my head. “All I have to do is admit I’m a jerk?”

“That’s right.”

“But that’s what I always do.”

“Ah,” he says. “But this time, you have your true self to offer her as well. And when you do that, that happens to be the
safest place in the world for her—the place where her own husband can be won. By making it about an anger problem and leaving
it there, you’re free to justify your anger. You’re convinced your anger wouldn’t be there if people would—if Lindsey would—just
get in line and shape up.