South Carolina doesn’t know what to do with its governor.  Gov. Mark Sanford disappeared into the ether for several days, and apparently no one–not his staff and not his family–knew where he was.  When queried, his staff said that he “was hiking the Appalachian Trail.”  When he finally appeared, he admitted that he had been in Argentina visiting his mistress, Maria Belen Capur. 

Since then he has made a number of puzzling statements.  He has said, variously, that

–his Argentine mistress is his “soul mate.”

–he wants to patch up his marriage.

–Christian friends have advised him, concerning Capur, “the first step is, you shoot her.  You put a bullet through her head.”  (Apparently he didn’t quote them literally.)

–he has in the past asked permission from his wife, Jenny, to visit Chapur.

–he has had dalliances with other women, but never had sex with them.

–he wants to continue to be governor.

Many of the leading S.C. Republicans and at least 6 newspapers are calling for his resignation.  But there is no law in the state that would require a governor to stand down unless the governor is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”  The state constitution says nothing about resigning if you find your “soul mate” and fall off the deep end. 

So what happened to Sanford, and what should he do?  Let me take a crack at it.

Gov. Sanford was interviewed by Stephen Colbert, who called him “the most boring man I’ve ever met.”  Now Stephen must have met lots of really boring people, so this statement is interesting.  What makes people boring?  (Because no person who is genuinely alive to the world is boring.)  Well, as my gestalt therapist/trainer used to say, “Boredom is keeping the lid on.”  I think Sanford his been doing just that.

So I want to suggest that perhaps the scenario went something like this.  Sanford has for years been going to meetings where people pose and posture.  He withdraws from this.  He has seen lobbyists wheel and deal, and big money win the day most of the time.  He grows cynical.  He and his wife–well, she has been involved with the children.  Perhaps she and Mark have grown apart during the years he has been in public office.  Maybe they no longer make love, or have any erotic connection.  Maybe what they have is an arrangement, a practical arrangement, but not a speck of passion.  So he withdraws from her, as well.  He has four sons–they don’t know him well, for he isn’t home much.  He begins to feel that his life has no integrity, no meaning.  Everything seems flat and tasteless.  He endures this condition for months, then years.  He thinks he will never be vital and alive again, as he once was. There was a time when he had dreams, when life seemed full of possibility, but now he plods ahead, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time, day after day.

Then Mark Sanford meets Chapur.  They have a few drinks.  She smiles.  She listens.  She touches his hand.  Both his body and his emotions respond, and he is swept into a new world, a world where the flesh is tied to spirit, and he feels regenerated.  The life force that he thought was gone forever has returned, in spades.  He knows only that he has to be with Chapur.  Nothing else matters. 

He is married, he has children.  So he knows he shouldn’t have sex with Chapur.  And at first he doesn’t.  And then he does.  The strange thing is, it’s not the sex so much that matters.  It’s the woman.  She is his life now.  He continues to see her, because he must. 

But wait a minute!  Each time he leaves Chapur in Argentina or in New York, where she flies to be with him, and returns to South Carolina, he enters the Old World again, the world of the Dead.  He knows what is required.  He goes through the motions.  But his colleagues find him distracted, unfocused.  His aides shepherd him through, but he is increasingly ineffective as a leader.  Colbert finds him truly boring.  He is actually not there at all during the interview.  He is in Argentina. 

So what is he to do? I think he should choose life.  I’m not sure if Chapur is that new life, or just represents it, but he has been dead, and he has a taste of what it means to be alive, and he should follow that leading.  Relationships cannot stay the same when any one of the couple changes–so his wife may change, or they may decide to part.  If they part, it is important that the four sons have both a mother and a father in their lives.  But giving them a father who is dead to the world is not giving them a father at all.  If he does not love their mother, the children will know it even before the parents themselves know it, so exquisitely tuned are they to the emotional life of the household. 

Right now Sanford is torn and confused.  He has to choose.  He may think that his choice is between two women, but this is not the case.  His choice is life, or not-life.  He can be governor–that is, he is able to govern, however poorly.  The question is whether or not he really wants to be governor.  Does this job lead to more life, and that more abundant, as the scripture says?  Or is it cutting off his life and killing his spirit? 

So the choice is not between women, or countries, or jobs, really.  The choice is what gives life and what diminishes it.  Only Mark Sanford knows.  I hope he chooses well.