Musings on Love

How can love seem so tenuous at times? I have seen it draw 2 people so closely that not even the most dire or destructive circumstances could move them apart. Yet it sometimes it seems so fragile that a mere word could shatter it. It confuses, frightens and allures me like nothing else.


How many times has love melded a couple so closely together that they no longer cease to be individuals? They have truly completed each other: emotionally, physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually. Where one ends, the other begins. They finish each others sentences, knowing the words in their partners mind before they form on their lips. Where this is true, when one succumbs into the inevitable silence, it's as if there is a tangible connection between them. It's as if the one has fallen into a deep hole and as the gravity draws them farther down into death, the other can feel the tug. The loss has it's own gravity. The departure of the spouse pulls the other one into the blackness shortly thereafter. They must follow. To live alone would be unthinkable.


Love threatens to expose. It promises to lay all our secrets bare. If we dare to truly love, we will be left naked before our beloved. The physical realm is actually the easiest place to be naked. To be truly loved is to be truly known. Can you know love without vulnerability? Do you dare stand completely vulnerable and transparent before another? Such an enormous risk... The danger is very real, the worst consequence so easy to see. What if someone were to know EVERYTHING about you? Would they still choose to love? Can we ever really do this? How can we not? For we were made to love. To know and be fully known. For this we all yearn.

Some have locked this desire tightly away, but yet it still lives, even in the darkest and quietest portions of their souls. How can we truly love someone if we don't really know them? And yet that is part of the joy of romance. We never stop growing and changing. Each person is a forever evolving and shifting creation, as it were. In order to fully know a person we must be willing to ride the waves, be willing to take each turn on an incredibly winding trail. Love is messy and unpredictable.


Is there anything sadder than being bereft of love? I am not sure which is worse: to lose your lover because of what you did? to lose your lover because they found another? or to lose them because they have slipped beyond the veil? Is it worse to know that you will never see them again in their earthly bodies? Or to see them walking around but to know that their fire for you has dimmed or been completely extinguished?


The substitutes for love are so plentiful. Only something so precious, so essential could create so many imitations. How shallow those imitations are. How unfulfilling. It's like gorging on candy. It tastes good initially and it does satisfy the hunger, but the results are disastrous. It will hurt us. It will take it's toll. But we can somehow create in ourselves a craving for that which is false. We can actually start to desire the false more than what is true. It becomes our normal. It feels much safer to take control of this thing called love. We hide our hearts, locked tightly away so that nothing and no one can hurt it. And yet our hearts were not created for solitude. In fact locking ourselves away, desperately trying to protect it, is exactly what will kill it. We think that embracing the false substitutes for love will save us, will be a healing balm for our hearts, but it only hastens our destruction. Thankfully, our hearts are hard to kill.


We all know people who seem determined to kill their hearts. They let no one in. Will not expose who they really are to anyone else. And by doing this they forget who they are. When one comes to truly love them, they try all their old games and tricks. But what happens when one is determined to push through all the obstacles? How sad it is when a person can't reveal their true selves because they lost it.


There are many who do not want the love described here. It frightens them. It seems oppressive and restrictive. Yet when you are loved like this... You are truly free.  I do understand the reluctance of to try and enter into this kind of relationship. It seems idealistic and unattainable. How does one find this? It seems safer to stick with the substitutes. Have lots of meaningless sex, look at porn whenever you feel that desire, that loneliness will be dealt with, at least momentarily. But I believe Frederick Buechner is right: lust is the craving for salt of a man dying of thirst. And I also like this quote: Every man that enters a bordello is really looking for God.


The ache must be dealt with. You know of what I speak. Some may deny it, and even believe that they are somehow exempt, but they are incorrect. We were created for this. Yet it seems so rare. Why place such a desire in the heart of your creation and then make it seem so unattainable? Or perhaps it wasn't meant to be like this. Maybe WE are the ones that have made it so difficult, with our stubborn insistence on independence. Our demand and craving for individuality. We were created to be creatures of community.


Why divvy love up into so many different kinds? Brotherly, romantic, spiritual and Godly. Sometimes they seem so distinct and separate and at other times it's like they've all been mixed into a stew, taking a small bite is to taste them all. As a caveat to those who are single like myself, we do not need another person to experience this kind of love described here. Love is a lure meant to draw us to God. I have found that only He can truly fulfill and complete us. The ache was originally designed to draw us to Him. He talks to His beloved in whispers instead of shouts. Why does one talk in whispers instead of shouts? To draw the other closer, because the message is only intended for them. To think of a God who loves like that? It blows my mind. I find it an irresistible draw.


And yet. How often is there an "and yet" when it comes to God? It pains me to think of how many times I have run to the substitute instead of the genuine article. How often I have tried to cease the cries and ache of my own heart with what was designed to kill it? To harden it and make it ache more and also be less capable of desiring, detecting and even finding authentic love?


I am immersed in a world of people crying out for love. My goodness, listen to the radio for 30 minutes. So many songs deal with love in some way or another. So many people looking desperately for love, yes, in all the wrong places. They tear through life and activity and relationships with such ferocity. In their path they leave a trail of unsatisfactory experiences. It soothed the ache for a little while, and then it was on to the next thing once their "fix" faded. What really saddens me is that it appears that so many believe this is how life was intended to work. I wonder what it would look like if you could literally peer inside their souls. The image I have is one where there are many empty cans lying scattered around, some crushed, bent and rusty. There are different "brands" on some of the cans, but many are the same.


Inside their souls is a large cube. It is made of a glass-like substance that appears to be slowly turning to steel. It is impossible to touch, but can sometimes be viewed, for brief moments, if one looks intently enough and is observant. There hearts are locked away for safekeeping. It has been hurt far too often to allow it to be left out on it's own. They have become the wardens of it. What was intended to preserve and protect in reality is harming it and ensuring it's destruction. Like a harsh dictator or an extremely overprotective parent. These are the ones who revel in sarcasm and cynicism. They look at the world through sardonic tinted glasses. How often they boast of this! How proud they often are! As if the sadness and anger that has completely engulfed them is a trophy that should be displayed!


It is very difficult to get close to such as these. There hearts are so well defended. If you get too close, you will get hurt. You will walk away cut, pricked and bloody. The cloak for this is often humor. It is the great excuser. "I was just kidding" is the password that is supposed to permit almost any barb. And yet I am convinced there is something precious lying underneath all the defenses. But most will stop far before they get anywhere near who they really are. It's just not worth the pain and damage they experience to their OWN hearts to dare to continue anymore. Plus, some of us have become like ninjas protecting ourselves. Stealthy and deadly and very, very efficient.


That is the real conundrum with really knowing someone. In order to get to really know them, you have to lead with your own heart. YOU have to lay yours out there first. This is dangerous. It can be like going up to an unknown dog, hoping to pet it. You lead with your hand, slowly, cautiously, hoping to avoid the pain of a bite. But some love the exploration and discovery so much that we can't help but to try over and over again. We are the ones with the scars.


Have your scars stopped you? Have you let your wounds limit you? Do you still dare to live with your heart exposed? You realize you are actually a very poor defender of your heart, correct? Again, if you have it locked up, you are not really protecting it. You aren't protecting what is dying because of your "protection". But the heart, like almost anything else, will still try and live. It might get all shriveled up and get hard and unresponsive, like a plant left without water too long. But why do plants do this? They are trying to live! They are trying to conserve all the resources they can so they can survive just a...little...while...longer. Perhaps something or somebody will come along at the last minute to save it.


We have all been wounded. I get that. I am certainly no exception. But I seem incapable of barring my heart away. It is anathema to me. It is still hard to let anyone too close to me either. What if you really knew all the mistakes I have made? Would you still want relationship with me? Here I am though, once again pouring out my innermost feelings and thoughts. Hoping once again that mere words might possible help someone who would read this far into this note.


Your wound can't heal on it's own. You have to let someone in. Yes, of course, God is the chief of these. But most, if not all of the time, God wants to use another person to help heal the wound. Just like He uses Doctors and others to help heal deep physical pains and injuries. Have you ever had a bad cut? If not, let me explain what a joy that is. When you go to the ER, they have to give you a shot INSIDE that cut. It hurts like hell. It is similar to emotional or spiritual injuries. Injuries to your heart and soul. The only way to heal them is to enter them. It will hurt. But it must be done. The cumulative pain you will experience over the years will far outweigh the initial pain of dealing with your wound. Left to itself, your injury will fester and become diseased and will eventually affect and infect your whole being. Just like a physical hurt.


You say you have dealt with your wounds? Many have, no doubt. But if you really have dealt with it, why do you still remember the event that caused it so well? Why can you still hear those words with such crystalline clarity? Why do they resonate inside your head like a superball on crack? You carry the event, the time of wounding, around with you like a canteen. Every so often you stop and take a swig. You will also stop and try to get others to drink from your experience as well. "See how bitter it tastes!!! Isn't it terrible? Can you believe I have been given this? It's not fair, can't you see that?" Don't you see my friend? I have no doubt you have been given this "canteen", but it is YOU who continue to carry it around. You are the one who insists on drinking from it.


I am sure what happened to you was indeed unjust and hurtful. But you are the one carrying around the weight of the event. The person who gave it to you rarely carries around anything. I know, you feel that by carrying it around with you, you are making sure it is not forgotten. It's as if you think that if enough people will drink from your pain, it will somehow be reversed, that it will cease to have happened. You scurry from person to person, announcing to all the harm that has been done to you. Don't you see, the more times you tell the story, the more you INSURE that the pain will continue. The pain continues because you refuse to let it die. You are the one keeping it healthy, alive and active in your mind.


Yes, there are times our stories must be told. It is part of the healing process. The wound MUST be entered and discussed. It SHOULD be shared with a trusted, loved one. There is something so strange (to me) about why telling someone else about our pain somehow lessens it, at least for a little while. It changes nothing of the actual circumstance, at least most of the time. There is something soothing, refreshing, to know that SOMEBODY knows what happened to us and agrees that it was wrong, damn it! There's NO WAY that should have happened to you and I'm sorry it did. Is this not exactly we are hoping to hear when we tell our stories?


Ah, but a true friend, one that truly loves you, will go far beyond that. They will help you to put the canteen down and step away from the pain. They will help you to see the event in the context of a larger perspective. And sometimes, and this is rare and difficult to do well, they will gently help you see where you might have contributed to  or sometimes even caused your own pain. That really hurts. I acknowledge that there are definitely times where someone is truly a victim and they have dome nothing wrong at all. I suspect that these times of innocence are much rarer than we are led to believe. Whether you are a victim or not, it never helps to be a canteen carrier.


The wounds must be dealt with if we are ever to be truly known and loved. Otherwise, when people get to close, we become very scared and defensive. We send out very distinct warnings to those who would DARE to approach our wound. It's not very different than an injured animal crouching in a corner growling and snapping at anyone who would come to close, even those who wish it to heal it. Let the healing happen. I implore you. You can't be whole without it and you were created to yearn for wholeness. Sex, drugs, TV, work, beer, sports, movies, church, religion, isolation, entertainment or anything else will only numb it for awhile. To truly be healed, you have to take the wound to your creator. He made you, He knows how to fix you. Perhaps you don't believe in God, or don't believe He wants to heal you. Why not try it? Nothing else has worked. And why is there often such anger in some towards this solution? What if THAT has been "planted" there by one who seeks to continue your pain? What if you are being tricked? Perhaps you are ignoring this potential healing because it's not "logical" or doesn't fit your view of God. Try it. The biggest risk you take is losing your pain.


Sometimes the pain becomes a companion. Sometimes we don't really want the pain gone. It becomes a constant. It is always there, it is consistent and can then somehow, in a twisted way, be trusted. To lose it would be like losing a limb, it has been there so long. Let the amputation happen. Remember you can't do it alone. Love is waiting to permeate you. It alone has the power to heal. Some cliches are true. Love has been diluted, watered down to seem it is trite and ineffective. Something for overemotional people, chick flicks and greeting cards. What if love really is as powerful as we hope to believe? Wouldn't our enemy try to trivialize it to keep us away from what could heal us?