Born to love

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I began Lent with a bang by going to church twice. Once to my parish and once with a friend to his Roman Catholic parish. I certainly had ample opportunity to reflect on what this season might mean for me this year.

Several years ago I ended the traditional Lenten practice of giving up something. Sweets. Chocolate. Starbucks. Movies. Eating out. I’ve had friends give up all sorts of things. And while I used to do, it really didn’t  touch anything within me. I really don’t want to give up my chocolate if it isn’t going to result in spiritual growth!

I have a friend who is a pastor in Richmond. She is giving up God. Getting rid of God. Her discipline is rooted in Meister Eckhart’s prayer – God, help me to get rid of God. She wants to relinquish her notions and presuppositions and understandings of God in order to have a deeper and more authentic experience of who God really is, rather than what we make God to be. This sounds good, but to be honest, like too much work for me. That sounds lazy, and it is. But like New Year’s resolutions, it’s pointless for me to set out on a path which I know I can’t stick to for forty days.

So I know what I’m not going to do, but not what I’m going to do. Yet. I do know what I want to accomplish. Lent is a time for me to reflect on myself. Jesus spent his forty days coming to understand who he was and what his purpose was. That’s a tall order for me, and I don’t know that I want the challenge of finding my purpose, but I can take baby steps. I can seek to better understand who I am.

Probably the most recurrent theme in what I write, what I pray about, what I contemplate, is love. A friend recently posted a note on her Facebook page which talked quite a bit about love.

We believe we are hurt when we don’t receive love. But that is not what hurts us. Our pain comes when we do not give love. We were born to love. …. The world has led us to believe that our well-being is dependent on other people loving us. …. The truth is our well-being is dependent on our giving love. It is not about what comes back; it is about what goes out.   --Alan Cohen

I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.
- Ivor Smith-Cameron, Pilgrimage, An Exploration Into God

So maybe this is where I start my Lent. In seeking to give love without return. This is maybe hardest of all. But I think Alan Cohen is right – we are born to love. Our existence comes out of unimaginable, infinite, total generosity. Our being is in the image of Love. May I learn to see myself as this – a creature with the sole purpose, the single goal, of love.

-David

Craziness

Back when I was young, in high school, as difficult an experience as that was, life made sense. There were pretty straightforward rules and everyone pretty much knew where they belonged and where they stood in the scheme of things. You knew the rules of relationship – to whom you could speak and where you could go. This didn’t change much in college, except that those years were marked with an increasing struggle for self-identity. As my life history attests, I chose to create an identity that was not authentic. But that’s another topic.

After college, as my world continued to expand, those old rules seemed to break down. Life became more fluid and confusing in a way. Freer actually. But freedom can involve fear. Rules, even if you don’t like them, are clear. Freedom is not. It was the death of my mother, far too young, in my early adulthood, that upended my understanding of the way the world worked. I found everything I believed about family, relationships, God, purpose, everything, completely challenged. And I grew a great deal during that time. I came to see things more clearly for what they were and less what the world and other people said they were. I learned to define more earnestly for myself what was important. My coming out, 14 years later, was a sort of end point of that process. Not that I don’t continue to challenge myself to authenticity, but that was a watershed moment unlike any other.

I find myself now at a point of new craziness. Someone very close to me calls it a time of things undefined. I’m happy to have resolved issues around this very significant relationship, but only to bring up others. At moments things seem so clear and at others not so much. I could do with a transfiguration moment. The bright light, shining clothes and faces, the voice from heaven. No mistaking what was going on there. I would like to know what I am looking at. But I don’t. I don’t want to get hurt, and yet there is some hurt. And honest relationship can’t exist without that risk. It involves giving a part of yourself into the keeping of another. That’s true no matter what the relationship, but especially where romantic feeling or love are concerned. I can only go forward in honesty, but at times it is hard to so expose myself. I have to trust in my own love for myself and another and know that no matter what, all will be well.

-David

I do choose

I have had one serious roller coaster of a couple of weeks. The end of a relationship which was fairly serious for me. Certainly more serious than it was for him. And there was quite a bit of hurt. But none of it intentional. I usually try to keep my emotions under control, but finally I just let everything out with him. I was fine until he said that something that implied I was acting without trust, and that sent me over the edge. It was actually a really good thing. I had been dealing with stuff myself but it was hard and slow and getting it out let us work through it together. On the other side was forgiveness and peace and a different degree of love. Life is much better.

 

In the Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus says to a leper who has come to him demanding to be healed, “I do choose.” It’s always interesting to me what jumps out at me as I listen to the readings. It’s usually some short phrase that leaps from the air and grabs me. This morning it was “I do choose.”

I often think of God as a cosmic dispenser of infinite mercy and justice, knowing that no matter what I do, God’s love will always be there for me and that I am always in God’s care. And that is certainly true. But this morning I was reminded that though God’s nature is generosity and love, God has chosen to love. God chose to create. God chooses to be in fellowship with us. It is both God’s nature and God’s choice. One of those mystery things.

It also makes Jesus much more human to me, to hear him say that he chooses. The he isn’t just an automaton acting out the divine will. And it reminds me that each and every day, in everything I do, ever act I take, I am choosing. Whether I give conscious thought or not, I am choosing. And for each of my choices I bear responsibility. Some are good and some are bad. But none are beyond the pale of God’s grace. And I must remember that applies to the choices others make when they relate to and with me.

-David

Progress

Today my Facebook status has been “grateful” for most of the day. I do feel gratitude in my heart, though not for any particular thing. Maybe it’s just gratitude that I have life and breath, and that really is quite enough for me to be grateful about forever!

The last couple of weeks have a particular hell for me. It’s nothing unique to me. And it’s not the first time for me to have a romantic relationship end. But I’ve never had one end quite this way. In any event, I am slowly trudging through and riding the emotional roller coaster. At least I don’t feel angry anymore. I don’t really do anger well and I’m glad I’m past that. Much of the hurt is gone. But there’s sadness still. Often at the little things. Being at the store and having a memory triggered. A smell or a sound. Or someone mentioning something that makes think of something we shared. I really don’t remember any of the bad moments or the doubt or the fear. Just the good and the fun and the happy. There is that to be grateful for right now. I still have a lot of love. Love that needs to fade or change or something. I know it will, with the passage of time, but I wish I could hurry that up!

It is progress along the journey.

I have been listening a lot to a Mary Chapin Carpenter album a friend gave me. One of my favorite songs ever is on it. Jubilee. Wherever we are, that’s where we’re headed. To that place where we are known as ourselves, loved because of who we are, and where we know we belong because we belong to each other and to the one to whom all things and all lives belong. And perhaps the biggest thing we have to do while we are here is be companions to one another and help each other along the way. I could do with knowing that I’m headed to a big party!

-David

Small Things

Life could be going better for me, but things are not as bad as they were. Today is my birthday. Not really in a celebratory mood, though. But, because it is also my younger daughter’s birthday, I do have something to celebrate. Though I may not be in such a good place, I am reminded that my life is filled to overflowing by my precious daughters. No gift can ever be greater and no sorrow can ever erase what they mean.

A friend of mine recently posted a poem by an author I didn’t know, but whom I obviously need to read. Her name is Gunilla Norris and the poem is from her book, Becoming Bread.

Gathering Up Crumbs

Be careful with the crumbs.

Do not overlook them.

Be careful with the crumbs;

the little chances to love,

the tiny gestures, the morsels

that feed, the minims.

Take care of the crumbs;

a look, a laugh, a smile,

a teardrop, an open hand. Take care

of the crumbs. They are food also.

Do not let them fall.

Gather them. Cherish them.

Sometimes all you have in life are the crumbs. The little things, sometimes leftover. There is something in the ability to behold them as gifts, as valuable. To know that nothing that passes by us, nothing that circles into our lives, is without worth and value.

What is a loaf of bread, but many, many crumbs?

- David

Wings like eagles

Most Wednesdays I try to take a minute and read the Scripture readings assigned for the coming Sunday. Just a chance to get them in my mind.

One of the nice things about Scripture is that no matter where you are in life, if you read a large enough chunk, you’re likely to find something that speaks to you, where you are.

“those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” From Isaiah. I could use some wings now. Something to let me soar, to fly, to think about nothing but sky and air and light, rather than the muck I’m stuck in. I don’t really know how to wait for the Lord, but I’ll be doing it. All I can do is wait. Wait for things to feel less raw.

From the Psalm come the words, “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.” This really is more where I am. And as much as I would like to lay blame, I can’t. I’m not saying there isn’t blame, but I can’t lay it. Doing it just breaks and wounds more and I think I hurt enough right now for everyone. I know my wounds will be healed and I hope my heart is restored, but for all I know it, I can’t feel it or believe it right now. I suppose that it is good that I feel, that I’m not just numb. Surely you have to feel in order to move forward.

Part of me thinks I deserve this pain. I certainly caused enough by living a lie. One reaps what one sows. Karma. But I think those concepts work when you can connect the dots. When the path from what you sow to what you reap is clear. Here, the only connection would have to be cosmic, some sort of divine justice or retribution, and I don’t buy that. God wants me to love and to be loved. To be whole and perfect and to know that and to believe that. That kind of God doesn’t visit this pain on the children of the divine.

I was feeling especially hurt last night. And then I lashed out a bit in anger and meanness. Maybe it was appropriate and maybe it wasn’t, but I know I don’t want to be that way. I desperately want to walk in that way of love which intends and seeks good for the other. I need to do that, not for him, not for God, but for me. To be true to myself.

I didn’t earn this pain and I don’t deserve it. But he didn’t intend for me to be hurt, either. Here is where I am, and there he is. They aren’t the same place anymore and I walk alone now. I have walked alone before and doubtless shall again. Maybe in the lonely emptiness and silence I will hear a still small voice of love.

- David

Love Unrequited

Love. So much of what I think about, contemplate, wonder of, is about love. I generally desire to love more and to love better. But right now, I wish I could love less. Or even not at all.

I’ve always looked askance at the, to my mind, too strict delineation made between the kinds of love – agape, eros, phile. In one sense, for me, love is love. Different in degree and expression, but all rooted in a desire for the good and wellbeing of another. And that’s why it disturbs me when love gives pain and I find myself wanting it gone.

I’ve dated on and off, but nothing serious, until the end of last September. I was asked out by someone I had recently met. I liked him a great deal from the start. We talked all the time and seemed to share many values. I felt good. From the beginning, he seemed to feel the same. He talked quite a bit about serious, long-term issues. At those times I seemed to be reluctant, we talked about this rational part of me that constantly warns me to hold back, to be careful. But his sincerity wore away at that and eventually I just let myself enjoy what was happening. And I fell in love.

For him, however, it didn’t last. I’m not sure if he felt love as I did or just infatuation, but it faded. Or something happened. To be honest, I’m not really sure what. I haven’t even really asked, preferring to allow him to work his way through his confusion and share things with me. And then I reached a point where I couldn’t ask. It just became too painful and hurtful for me. I haven’t even told my closest friends the whole story because I don’t want to risk becoming angry and more hurt and end up replacing what I feel for him with anger.

Unrequited love is a bitch. In the worst of ways. Rationally I can say there is no reason I should be in love with this man, because it’s one way. But I can’t undo what I allowed myself to feel. I want him to be in love with me, but that’s not there. I don’t want to hate him or be angry with him and if I try too hard to end being in love, that’s what I’m afraid will happen.

To love and to be loved. That really is what we live for. And I am in such a struggle with both.

- David