love is different....

That is the title from a Caedmon's song from a few years ago, an intriguing tune that always makes me wonder, "Is love, in fact, actually different than we think?"  

I have gone through varying brands of love in my life. So many versions of what I thought that word actually means.  There were times that I thought I loved, and then I would find myself manipulating them.  Other times I would say that I loved helping someone, or a group of people, or an individual person, but I would deny them my love by denying them my time.  For me, quality time is my greatest demonstration of love.  For you, it may be something different.  I'm talking about romantic love, love for humanity, love for the poor, love for books, love for God, I don't care what it is.  For me to love, it means that I want to spend time.  Good, long, quality time.  

But it goes higher than that.  Or deeper.  Or "further up and further in". How is that?  Well here is the thing, at some point in any kind of relationship (I mean this in all senses of the word) then you will undoubtably face doubt.  You will question the worthiness of that love.  You will be tired.  You will have a conflict.  That woman will flirt with another man.  What will happen is that you will begin to question your commitment to all of this.  You will begin to wonder if any of this is worth the sacrifice.  It almost always, in all forms, involves disappointment, heartache, a sickness in your stomach.  You will feel the pain. Do you know what Leonard Cohen said about that?  He said "I've seen your blood on the marble arch/Love is not a victory march/Its a cold and its a broken 'Hallelujah'".  

This sounds ridiculous, but I'm more and more convinced that it is true.  I hate to get too preachy here, but no matter what you believe, you have to look at Jesus when you consider a thing like love.  Here is this guy who has all the power, all the authority in all of everything.  I know that you may doubt that, but I ask you to put that paradigm aside for just a moment and consider the story.  All of that power, all of that influence, and this guy starts off as a baby.  Completely dependent on Humanity to keep him alive. 

Here is this guy with his dirty feet and his knack for wood working and his big dreams and vast mind and endless compassion and he decides that the best way for him to get people to understand that he loves them, that he truly, earnestly, desperately loves them is that he will, first, not be powerful.  I know that he did miracles.  They were some pretty cool tricks and all but they weren't that amazing.  Not when they are compared to the stories of magic and wonder in other religious texts.  Thats not the point. These miracles were not meant to offer us a mystifying magic show.  If that were the case, he could have done a lot better.  Jesus, it seems, does not get too excited about smoke and mirrors.  The point is that these miracles point to something bigger.  Its a grander notion, its a higher frequency.  Its that he loves us. Its that he wants us to get well.  Then, he goes around talking about the "Kingdom of God."  He says that its "at hand".  Well naturally, we're going to be curious.  And Jesus wants us to believe so you would think that he would lay all of this out pretty straight forwardly, correct?  Not at all.  You ask the guy what this Kingdom of Heaven is like and he starts telling you that its like a mustard seed or a lamp or a coin.  Why would he be so guarded about something if he definitely wanted us to understand it, find it, enjoy it?  

Well I think that its this: that he could have forced it all down our throats.  He could have given us logic and miracles and wonders that would have changed humanity in an instance.  We would have all fallen down to worship him in a moment.  But that is not love.  Love is different than that.  Love, true love, takes on the nature of a servant.  It manifests itself by lowering itself, by sacrificing. Love will allow for personal suffering, for heartache, because love knows that you can't be afraid of the pain. As The Alchemist says, "The fear of suffering is greater than the actual suffering."  

When you love someone, or something, or whatever, then you will suffer for them.  You crawl weeping and broken for their sake, for their happiness, for their good and their joy.  You will begin to assess those relationships, and you will realize that you would take on their pain.  That you would take their sicknesses, their cancers, their death.  You would take a bullet.  

Love is different than the movies. Its different than a song.  Its not a funny feeling in your stomach.  

Its a cold and a broken crawl.  And that is what makes it beautiful.  That is what makes this all worth while.  Because every cliche that we have ever come up with comes back to this idea that anything worth having is worth fighting for.  Not with force, mind you, but with sacrifice.  With humility.  Its poor, mournful, meek, hungry, thirsty, merciful, pure, peaceful.  Do you get it? 

You will. You'll have that chance.  That crossroads-with someone, somewhere.  And you can decide.  Do you quit?  Do you go for the safe bet?  Do you take the valley with the safe and well traveled road or do you take the high pass? That rocky and dangerous way that is so risky, but the view, the experience will change you to your core? 

Thats the difference.  You can love and it may kill you.  But that is what makes this life "to the full." Thats what makes love different. 

his grace is sufficient

His Grace Is Sufficient

At first glimpse at this phrase, I thought to myself that the key word was “sufficient”. Then my eyes scanned backwards to “Grace”. Whose grace is it? It is His grace. Finally, “is” tells us so much. Lets break it down.

His…

I can extend grace all day long. I can tell you that it is all going to be okay. I can hold your hand or your hair back while you vomit. That is my grace. My grace cannot maintain the oxygen flowing through your blood. My grace cannot give you peace while you sleep or hope in the future. My powers of persuasion do not extend into the realm of the spiritual. His grace has a stamp of authority. You can trust it because he has been found trustworthy. He has earned the right to be heard, to be trusted, to be loved, and even to be worshiped.

Grace…

We are such consumers. My whole life growing up in the faith, I wanted to experience Grace. I wanted to be overcome, shuddering from the emotional ecstasy of acceptance. I wanted to hear a song or a sermon or read a poem and fall to the ground in tears with the Awakening of Gospel Truth. This is not grace. That is blessing. It can also go by the name of Christmas Morning, an event that is managed by Santa Claus, not a bloody Jew gasping for breath on a two planks of wood. Grace is something that we have all experienced. Adam and Eve experienced it in the garden when they sunk their perfectly straight and white teeth into the fruit. They didn’t know it at the time, but they should have died. It was the breath of the unspoiled God that was circulating through their blood and their blemish should have called for an immediate evacuation. Make no mistake, that air your breathing is Grace. Everyday that I am reminded of how I came into this world, I am aware, cognizant of Grace. But that is not experiencing it. I am constantly experiencing grace through every moment of everyday. The spiritual aspects are present. I know God, the Truth, has been revealed to me. I have been given talents. But less than that is simply the grace of being here. Feeling the grass beneath my toes, using the two eyes in my head to interpret the vision of spring or Saint Paul’s Cathedral, these things are grace, and they are as eternal and as infinite as the God who lavishes it.

Is…

Time is a number line with an infinite amount of points between 0 and 1. Grace is operating like this as well. Paul didn’t get his grace when the light blinded him or when the scales fell off of his eyes. David says in Psalm 139 “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Therefore, we are in a constant state of grace since before the day we went slipping down the birth canal. That is the genius of Paul’s writing.

Sufficient…

To her mom: What more could you want? You have kids. You have friends. You have people that consider themselves dependant on you. You are needed. You are the manifestation of grace in your daughter’s lives. Justin Fisher held on and never gave up hope. Long after he could no longer experience a blade of grass across his toes, he held on. Frederick Buechner said that to write was “to open a vein.” To live is to do the same. We have to respond to the grace of God by opening our veins to one another and bleed our way to healing. We own it to one another to hang on. And the fact is, we can hang on as long as the heart pumps oxygen to the lungs and to the brain. The grace that has been given to us is enough. We have a responsibility to make it, even if that is all it is, until the next Christmas morning. Even if that morning is eternity, when it comes is not up to us to decide.

knowing each other...

Here are some selections from a recent Relevant Magazing article...for the full deal, go to http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life_article.php?id=7391

..."We live in a world where success is being polished, put-together and cutting edge. Even our junk, if we admit to having it, needs to be of a certain type—needs to be cool, extreme or counter-cultural. Nobody wants to just be a mess. We have to spin our stuff just right or figure out which tone of voice to say it in, to make sure that when people hear us, we come out looking good. So we learn the tricks. We pick up a vocabulary that makes our struggles sound mild (really, we have it all together) or interesting (don’t you just wish you could be as cynical/jaded/messed up as me?), and we shade everything we say just right.

So nobody ever knows us.

But the fact is that we were made to be known, both by God and by other people. Allowing others to know us is terrifying, and sometimes we get burned, but the alternative is worse. Because without the vulnerability and openness that real relationship requires, we live our lives cold and alone, starving for community that we just can’t find any other way.

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