Love.

Agape love is: profound concern for the well being of another, without any desire to control that other, be thanked by that other, or enjoy the process. (Madeleine L'Engle)

I've had the audacity to think myself capable of such love. The truth is God's the only one who can pull it off, and we can try and get so close, but still in our hearts there will be some voice which screams to be recognized and acknowledged and requited.

And there will be beauty in the way we love. And also pain, I think.

The only hope for me is that I believe God himself is fully love...agape and every other kind...and that because he is the essence of all that love is meant to be he can not act in a way that is unloving towards anyone at all.

This is a mystery. Like an eternal moment. Like unrequited love which keeps on loving. Maybe its because we've seen God love and love and love when no love has been returned. Maybe thats the only way we can bear it. Because there is something so right about continuing to love whatever the cost, about living by the gentle and free law of love...

You're my badlands
My grand canyon
My empty stream
You're my reservation
My second place consolation
My devastation
A thorn
A pang
A deep dark heartache
My greatest fear
A lonely tear
Hopelessness
An empty caress
An earthquake
A broken plate
Lost innocence
A cheap defense
My delusion
My confusion
A cancer
A wrong answer
A lost game
Fickle as fame
A bad critique
A glass that leaks
A fallen leaf
Talk too shallow
Ground that's fallow
Fatal attraction
You're my silence
My violence
You're a sad song
You're a long, you're a long, you're a long way from home...

...Cause you won't let go of everything
Until you're quiet one dark night
And you've given up the fight you've fought so long...

And you let it rain
You let it flood
You let it drive out all the pain of love.

Unrequited.

On my good days it makes sense that I should love something I can't have.

It rings of a certain nobility; speaks to an inner strength I dream of actually possessing. The most annoying part of my head even dares to whisper that these unfulfilled longings make me better...stronger, somehow - or more and more who God has made me to be.

Then there are bad days, or moments, where I wonder what the heck is going on.

I become Charlie Brown: "Nothing can take the taste out of peanut butter like unrequited love." I rationalize brilliantly about why and how I should have these desires fulfilled. I can even convince my ego-saturated self that I am praying for selfless things:

*God...I long for a vision for these students. Help me know how to love them well and open their eyes to the reality of your kingdom.
*Please meet with these students, Lord...they need you.
*Show me where you want me to serve and use the gifts you've given me, God...

Then other times I sound like I'm about 12:

*God I NEED a dog.
*Or better yet, a horse...haven't I asked you for a horse for years?
*Why do I look like this? Why can't I look like that?
*God, don't you know I love him?


And if by some chance a moment of introspection lingers, as I'm trying to force it to do now...I understand and acknowledge that those things that I desire are reflections of deep, raw, soulful yearnings.

*the desire to know God and how he is at work restoring the world, and to bring other people into contact with the ultimate reality of Jesus and the kingdom.
*the need to be fully integrated into a community that likes Jesus. or a community period.
*the desire for companionship, and I'm just an animal person.
*the desire to see beauty, and maybe to see beauty in myself.
*the need to love and be loved in return.

I desire all these things. It is painful to have them as-yet unfulfilled.

To be continued...

Unrequited Love.

Thornton Wilder's one-act play "The Angel that Troubled the Waters," based on John 5:1-4, dramatizes the power of the pool of Bethseda to heal whenever an angel stirred its waters. A physician comes periodically to the pool hoping to be the first in line and longing to be healed of his melancholy. The angel finally appears but blocks the physician just as he is ready to step into the water. The angel tells the physician to draw back, for this moment is not for him. The physician pleads for help in a broken voice, but the angel insists that the healing is not intended for him.

"Without your wounds where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men and women. The very angels themselves cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children on the earth as can one human being broken on the wheels of living. In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve. Physician, draw back."

To be continued...