Well, I'm home at Dad's house for this wonderful holiday break. It's good to be here with family. I'm currently sitting in a cute little extension of the kitchen that my dad is building - a breakfast nook! It's beautiful. I love it.
But I love a lot of things.
All of us do, don't we?
Family. Friends. A special girl or boy that captures our heart.
Food, clothes, TV shows, books.
Ideas, songs, poems.
It's different though, isn't it?
I mean, different kinds of love.
C.S. Lewis talks about the four main words for loves in the ancient Greek language.* This implies our (English) lack of variety when using this word. I've met people that use the word freely with no meaning, and those who use it freely with much meaning. I've met people who have never really said it that much because of the weight it carries for them, and more who are scarred to say it, thinking that if they call what they experience 'love' then it will quickly cease to be there soon after.
I've always been the sort to be quick to say it and quick to feel it. I've fallen in love with probably a hundred girls, and told dozens of them that fact. I'm a romantic, and have a tendency to thrive on the chase. Some days with utmost confidence and others with an incredible amount of insecurity. Generally, there have only been a few girls who could trump my suavity or quick wit to swoon and give me knees so weak that my stomach is convinced it's a foot because it ventures into my shoes, and my heart is convinced it's a candle and melts at the slightest bit of warming.
See what I mean? Romantic.
But is this love?
I mean, sure it is.
We only have one word to describe all these things we feel and do. So hypothetically, I suppose nearly anything could be written off as love.
Now, there are enough people out there writing blogs about how love is not a feeling but an action, to which I must inform you that I agree whole heartedly. I can't help but feel though that is being said by enough people, and I would rather talk about something that maybe isn't really being said.
I can't say I know what that is, though.
I guess I'll try and find it by going to the root of why I was compelled to write this post (aside from me being the only awake [wired] person in the house at 4:30am).
I'm convinced that I love a girl. And I'm convinced she doesn't love me back. But this isn't anything new to me. I've been here before. In fact, I've been here several times before.. with several different girls.
Before I can go further, I have to confess something to you:
I'm addicted to the Chase, and the more I can't get it, the more I pour my heart into it.
Isn't that strange?
What triggered this post was when my brother Jamie showed me an animation that someone created from his macbook. It was a beautiful rough sketch animation done to a song by The Weepies, incorporating dance. It was purposefully created with a lot of ambiguity for the sake of personal interpretation. Afterward, by brother told me his interpretation, which was much like mine, though he worded it more beautifully than I could. It was about the Chase.
The Chase for the ideal of a love that we create in our minds. We chase and chase, and when we finally arrive holding what it is we were after, it becomes real. It becomes known. It becomes... like us. And we don't want us. We want a Savior.
As long as we don't have what it is we are chasing, we can make it a cure for us. A cure that we can't have, but all the same we can convince ourselves that a cure exists, we just can't have it. The makes the chase even more painful.
But you know what...?
It's not real.
The cure we're looking for, I mean. At least, it's not where we have been looking for it.
Instead, what is real, is the person in which you have been chasing.
She is flesh, blood, bone, cartilage. She is messy. Just like you.
She has bad days, and even if she does love you, she will have days where she questions whether she wants to or not. Just like you.
Her dirt is just as dirty as your dirt.
I believe this is what really makes or breaks a relationship, is understanding that your ideal of what you are chasing doesn't exist, and romance is what it is, and it's a beautiful thing if you let it be. You just
can't
make
it
God.
Because it's not.
But here's the trick. Here's where I think people get hung up on this. You can fully understand this, and still not get it.
Because you can understand that people are messy, and they aren't perfect, but as long as you are ignorant to their specific dirt, you will still put a halo on their head, thinking it is something that it is not.
"Sure, a person is messy! I still want to love them!"
What about their addiction to pornography because their uncle sexually abused them? That hurts. Do you still love them?
What about when they are needy and want to be around you and freak out when you can't be there. Do you still want them around?
What about their anger issues when they start throwing things? Depression? Cutting? Drug use? Insecurity? Annoying personality?
do you love them?
After all, their dirt is going to get you dirty.
What if their dirt is being addicted to the Chase. Could you love them still, while always wondering if they really love you, or simply just pursuing you?
I am convinced that this idea you and I have of love is fragile and weak. We desire love, but the love we desire and long for so deeply, we want it to be so close, but our ideals are so far away that we
miss it.
We miss what is really happening.
This person is too quiet. I don't them for the rest of my life.
This person is too loud. I couldn't live with that.
This person has too much baggage. I'm not up to dealing with that.
Folks, we are missing it. Some of us are terrified of love, some of us are addicted to it. Some married people are starting to think they married the wrong person, and some single people are beginning to think no one will love them when honestly they have neglected dozens of people who were willing to love them.
I have another confession:
I don't really know where I'm going with this.
I'm definitely not talking about something I have figured out. I guess I just want to talk about it because it's very real to me right now.
I am fully convinced of one thing, and this I am learning. But let me tell you, it's hard to live.
It is what I believe to be the 'secret' here to love:
You. Are. A. Vessel.
And you have the ability to carry within you the love of Christ. It is not your love, though it can (and will) transform you. It makes things different.
With this love, you also have the ability to freely give it to everyone.
I don't want to go much deeper here. It's honestly not my intention to rant about theology.**
More than anything, I just want to learn one thing, and with this I will conclude my post:
I want to learn (eventually, when I am in a relationship again) to finally give up my dirty rags I've been holding on to, thinking they were worth something, and love this woman by the power of the love of Christ shining through me; bursting through my chest like a cannon, until nothing she could be, say or do could stop this love. Even if she chose not to have me.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Enjoy your family today, and enjoy the love of Christ among you.
Jonny
* "The Four Loves" - C.S. Lewis
** Although if you did consider any of this theology, I would like to think it is practical theology.
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