A Story of Love: The Breaking of A Dream (Part 1)

Once I dreamed of love, and as a story it went something like this.

Once Upon A Time,
I believed that no matter what other people thought or said I would be in love.
I believed I was loved even when my feelings were hurt, my hopes crushed, and my dreams discounted.
I believed I was loved unconditionally, before I knew what "unconditionally" meant but knew its freedom.
I believed I was loved despite being alone, unpopular, excluded, hurt or misunderstood.
I believed I was loved with a simple trust with which I could sing with certainty, "for the Bible tells me so."

And as with all stories, some years went by.
What I once believed became so contradicted by what I saw and heard from others.
What I once believed became mere childhood fantasies as reality emerged from the haze of imagination.
What I once believed became redefined by words like "expectations," "disapproval" and "contingency."
What I once believed became overwhelmed by broken promises, hurtful rejections, and misguided advice.
What I once believed became lost in uncertainty and contradictions.

Once love was not defined by anyone else, but then became just another area of failure.
Once love taught me I was enough, but then became a measured expectancy.
Once love felt like freedom, but then became a manipulative contingency.
Once love was understood as being for everyone, but then became withheld from and refused by some.
Once love satisfied any pain of doubt, but then became an empty and hopeless striving.

Once I dreamed of love, but this was the breaking of a dream.

To Be Continued....

taking a break...

...or other such justification for procrastinating.
Whatever you call it, my brain is spitting out thoughts...I assume in an attempt to make way for the deluge of information I'm cramming in at the last minute (as always).

Wherefore we find ourselves lost to reason we find faith. And upon such end we must search for hope, or perish. Else it is a desolate end of man that by hopeless reckoning we suffer an illusion of certainty. For incomprehensible to reason are such truths of grace and love, which are only articulated by faith and grasped by hope.

...okay, now back to work.

Union

This past semester I have been dwelling upon such concepts as Community, the Church, Christian responsibility to Love, Relationship, honor, grace, and abiding with Abba. I have so many questions, thoughts, and floating bits of information in my brain that I can't seem to put into my own words. But here are some of the more poignant words I've recently meditated on in light of my readings, which touch on so many other areas of theology and praxis, summed up in Manning's chaper called 'union.'

"When then, eternal Father, did you create this creature of yours?...You show me that you made us for one reason only: in your light you saw yourself compelled by the fire of your love to give us being in spite of the evil we would commit against you, eternal Father. It was, fire, then that compelled you....You are the fire, nothing but a fire of love, crazy over what you have made."
-'The Prayers of Catherine of Siena'

"The starting point of [St. John's] Theology is abiding in restful union....Words such as union, fusion, and symbiosis hint at the ineffable oneness with Jesus that the apostle Paul experienced: "It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me" (Gal. 2:20)....[Union] is a word pregnant with a reality that surpasses understanding, the only reality worth yearning for with love and patience, the only reality before which we should stay very quiet."

"The fantasy [of self-development] is that if one heads in the right direction and just works hard enough to learn new things and grows enough and gets actualized, one will be there."
- Gerald May

"In retrospect, my ponderous ponderings on purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of my spiritual life, my assiduous search for shortcuts to holiness, my preoccupation with my spiritual pulse and my fasts, mortifications, and penances have wrought pseudobliss and the egregious delusion that I was securely ensconced in the seventh mansion of spiritual perfection. What would I actually do if I had it to do all over again? Heeding John's counsel, I would simply do the next thing in love."

"Once again, love by its nature seeks union. With the grace of recognition comes the awesome and alarming awareness that Jesus, the incarnation of the furious longing of God, wants more than a close relationship with you and me; He seeks nothing less than union."

"Union not only transcends every political, social, cultural, and religious consideration and not only infuses them with ultimate meaning, but defines the very purpose of life itself."

"THE INVITATION TO UNION IS EXTENDED NOT ONLY FOR CHRISTIANS OF IRON WILL, AUSTERE SEEKERS OF GOD, THOSE WHO PREACH THE GOSPEL AND GET DOCTORATES IN THEOLOGY....THE OUTSTRETCHED ARMS OF JESUS EXCLUDE NO ONE, NEITHER THE DRUNK IN THE DOORWAY, THE PANHANDLER ON THE STREET, GAYS AND LESBIANS IN THEIR ISOLATION, THE MOST SELFISH AND UNGRATEFUL IN THE THEIR COCOONS, THE MOST UNJUST OF EMPLOYERS AND THE MOST OVERWEENING OF SNOBS. THE LOVE OF CHRIST EMBRACES ALL WITHOUT EXCEPTION."



All excerpts taken from brennan manning, the furious longing of God (2009).

WOOHOO!!!!

It is raining
...pouring
with a chance of thunderstorms, oh what a glorious deluge!

Christmas Time is Here

It is upon us, once again, the time of festivities, of joy we seem to lose over the course of the following year. The time so filled with cheer and joy, gratitude and grace. A time of blessing and being blessed, when laughter surrounds us, and friends and family are near. When we are filled with hope and love. But for many it is not only a time of merriment, but a time of stark remembrance.
For this time is not a naive bliss of merry and light, because inevitably the times of greatest happiness, of most fervent joy, are when we most strongly feel the absence of love lost. It is now we feel the tug of our hearts missing another in greater measure, and it is this time when laughter is halted by a thought of the way things should be, and those who should be here.
We remember those lost to us. Those who we parted with in relief of their suffering, those with long lives to celebrate, those who fought tragic battles and left a legacy for family to follow. Of those who were taken suddenly and tragically, wrenched from us before we could let go, those too young and too loved to leave...but however their going, they are gone. And here we are, this time is here again, but this time a love is missing and only a memory remains.
And this is not morose or unfounded grief, but a recognition that even the most glorious blessing and joy is so blessed because of a suffering that makes it so. And the presence of happiness reminds us of the absence of it, the feelings of joy remind us of sorrows...we remember but are not overcome.
This Christmas I am with family, I will see friends...some, but not all.
There have been many partings among us over these past few years, more than I would like to count, but in my heart I will remember each with a specific joyful memory. And for a moment be filled with missing, and a wish for them to be here, and a memory of a time they were. But I will turn, with a new love and joy for those who are here, and be all the more blessed for their presence and for this time in which they are here.
For some grief is still very near, so for them we remember and pray:
For joy to meet them in sorrow,
For blessing to meet them in missing,
For love to meet them in love lost.

May this Christmas find you counting your blessings.

Here am I

Here am I, where are you?
In what distant and unreachable space
Are you held captive and afar
From dreams and hopes and futures
These things can never be.

And here am I, wishing for you
Until I can be freed from this place
But I am held fast and bound
Life by which this planet's gravity keeps
That which arrests me.

And here am I, remembering you
Breaking from confines of reality
Holding a memory of joy
Once you were here in my love
Though it be all that lives on.

Here am I, where are you?

Now

It is here
The place where reason
And action
Become the proof.

This is when
Time and thought merge
It happens
Facing a decision.