“What you are in love with will affect everything.”
Last week a friend shared that profound thought on Facebook. I was unmoved at first reading but then after re-reading it for a second and even a third time, I began to see the profound implications this little thought would have on my life moving forward. It was simple, eloquent and true. The best thoughts usually are. After reading it repeatedly, I stopped and started to process it. It began to unravel at a furious pace in my mind and heart. To give you a visual of what I was watching in my mind it might help to imagine a small fire starting. The smoke trial starts out as one tiny little stream but as the fire grows, the smoke billows outward in every direction, as branches growing off of a trunk reaching wistfully towards the stars. As love has the tendency to do, all of a sudden I found myself hoping, wishing and reveling in a joy that seemed to well up from thin air.
My mind and heart observed as the idea of LOVE, of what I love, branched off and grew into every area of my life. My hobbies, my joys, my skills, my idiosyncrasies, my time off, my time working, my friendships, my enemies, my family, my desires, my sins and finally my relationship with Jesus Christ. With some of these thoughts, I was pleased and right away saw the reason I was so attracted to a certain behavior or person. Clearly, my love inspired this particular relationship or hobby.
Take my love for books. I have a large library. It is my mancave. It is where I go to be me. To relax, to be alone with my thoughts, dreams and fears. As I thought of the maxim above, the reason I feel so comfortable around books became clear to me. It hit me as hard as a cold breeze on a winter morning. From as far back as I can remember I have always felt different, like I did not belong; as if I was a mistake, never meant to be alive at this time or any time really. I have yearned to feel what it is like to not be an outsider, a reject, an outcast. Yearning for an escape from the pain of loneliness, I turned to books, to fantasy. In the old, musty pages of large tomes, I found my escape. These books welcomed me to their world. When I entered the novel, instead of the lonely loser I was here, I became the hero. No longer awkward and chubby, I was transformed into everything I ever yearned to be. Most of all, I was noticed. Somebody saw me. Whether I was defending minorities in courtrooms, or charging the black gates of Mordor, I was SOMEBODY. My love for books was cultivated by my deep longing to be somebody remarkable, to do something remarkable; to be the man that everyone loved. To be the man that one woman loved.
As I watched the smoke rings become more intricate, things became clearer to me. The things I love now are related to certain parts of my heart; some because of mysterious wounds I have hidden away into the cavernous recesses of my soul, some because of the great joy I have experienced in my life. Either way, I was discovering the reasons behind why I love what I love. The possibilities were jumping out at me, offering explanations to questions I have always asked of myself. Excited and apprehensive at the same time, I was unsure of how to progress, so I grabbed a pen and began to write. Two poems came out, both polar opposites. One dealt with light and hope, the other, darkness and despair. Both however were related to the love of a person. The more I delved deeper into these thoughts the more I craved to know what this pain was. It seemed bottomless, yet I felt like I was making progress. I yearned to know what it was that drove me on in this mad quest, yet as I pressed onward, I felt in my heart I knew the answer but for some odd reason was avoiding it. So I stopped avoiding “it.” I looked it dead in the eyes. Damn, I was immediately sorry.
I did not want to see the answer. I was right; I knew what it was all along. I worked relentlessly and without remorse to attempt to bury this pain so deep, I would forget it existed. But again, it reared it’s ugly head. I recoiled in anguish as I recalled the reasons I buried this. Back from the grave again, it began to torment me. Angry and ready to break under the pressure of bearing this burden for even another second, I immediately quieted my heart and the longing it was expressing. “What I love will affect everything.” I cannot argue with that truth. Whether my love is wrong or my reactions to the denial of what I love are the problem, I do not know. I am too blinded by pain to see the path I must tread to achieve healing. I am not ready to go there yet. Yet, I’ve never been more ready to begin than right now.
Loneliness; I’ve always been crushed under the burden of it. I bear too many sins upon my back, carrying not only the guilt of poor choices, but also the pain of excommunication because of them. It is as if one day the curse of my sinfulness took over my life and cast me from the joyful childhood I was living into a realm of obscurity and shrouding. A dream turned into a nightmare. A smile deformed into a scowl. Songs into dirges, light into dark, hope into despair, life into a living death. Throughout it all, I have learned nothing but how to wear my mask of happiness. Joyfully parading around as if life was a party while underneath I howled in unquenchable rage to encounter one person, just one person who would truly understand me. What I love has affected everything I see in my life. It has burdened me with a desire to see everything as a beautiful gift, as a mystery, as fireworks exploding in a cavalcade of lights and promises, against the growing storm of discontent and hatred. My love has bestowed such a vision upon me of the world that I fear what I would have become if not for the yearning that tears me apart. My grief did not wound me mortally, quite the contrary, it gave life to my desires, meaning to my wishes, fulfillment to the promises and a sliver of hope to all that I was hoping for. What is that hope? Someone to see in me something that no one else has ever seen before.
As I mentioned before my love for books drives me, encourages me and comforts me. I have always felt close to certain stories and one in particular is my favorite. Clever readers would have noticed it already. I cannot help but go back to this narrative and see in it a chance for someone like me to find what drives me, to quench the thirst I have always had. The story inspires and urges one to have hope beyond all darkness that the dawn is coming. Nevertheless, my heart is weary and not ready for another battle. Yet…what I love…what I love will affect everything…
I am roused to believe that I will not despair, I will not cry out, “Let them come!” in hopeless defeat when I sense the demons of surrender gathering around me. I will fight, I will pray and I will strive to be the man I yearn to be. Hoping against all hope that my heart will taste the sweetness of the love I thirst for. The maxim that inspired this rambling collection of sentences rings even more true to me now than ever. What I love affects EVERYTHING. I am the man I am today because of what and who I love. I am not perfect, but I am what I am. I am wounded and broken, soiled and unclean, poor in body, mind and spirit. But I am me and I believe that because of my ability to love, I am worth something. Yes, what I love truly has affected me and effected change in my life but what I love is not my wound. My wound is much deeper and I fear, unable to be healed.
For who could ever learn to love a beast?
Last week a friend shared that profound thought on Facebook. I was unmoved at first reading but then after re-reading it for a second and even a third time, I began to see the profound implications this little thought would have on my life moving forward. It was simple, eloquent and true. The best thoughts usually are. After reading it repeatedly, I stopped and started to process it. It began to unravel at a furious pace in my mind and heart. To give you a visual of what I was watching in my mind it might help to imagine a small fire starting. The smoke trial starts out as one tiny little stream but as the fire grows, the smoke billows outward in every direction, as branches growing off of a trunk reaching wistfully towards the stars. As love has the tendency to do, all of a sudden I found myself hoping, wishing and reveling in a joy that seemed to well up from thin air.
My mind and heart observed as the idea of LOVE, of what I love, branched off and grew into every area of my life. My hobbies, my joys, my skills, my idiosyncrasies, my time off, my time working, my friendships, my enemies, my family, my desires, my sins and finally my relationship with Jesus Christ. With some of these thoughts, I was pleased and right away saw the reason I was so attracted to a certain behavior or person. Clearly, my love inspired this particular relationship or hobby.
Take my love for books. I have a large library. It is my mancave. It is where I go to be me. To relax, to be alone with my thoughts, dreams and fears. As I thought of the maxim above, the reason I feel so comfortable around books became clear to me. It hit me as hard as a cold breeze on a winter morning. From as far back as I can remember I have always felt different, like I did not belong; as if I was a mistake, never meant to be alive at this time or any time really. I have yearned to feel what it is like to not be an outsider, a reject, an outcast. Yearning for an escape from the pain of loneliness, I turned to books, to fantasy. In the old, musty pages of large tomes, I found my escape. These books welcomed me to their world. When I entered the novel, instead of the lonely loser I was here, I became the hero. No longer awkward and chubby, I was transformed into everything I ever yearned to be. Most of all, I was noticed. Somebody saw me. Whether I was defending minorities in courtrooms, or charging the black gates of Mordor, I was SOMEBODY. My love for books was cultivated by my deep longing to be somebody remarkable, to do something remarkable; to be the man that everyone loved. To be the man that one woman loved.
As I watched the smoke rings become more intricate, things became clearer to me. The things I love now are related to certain parts of my heart; some because of mysterious wounds I have hidden away into the cavernous recesses of my soul, some because of the great joy I have experienced in my life. Either way, I was discovering the reasons behind why I love what I love. The possibilities were jumping out at me, offering explanations to questions I have always asked of myself. Excited and apprehensive at the same time, I was unsure of how to progress, so I grabbed a pen and began to write. Two poems came out, both polar opposites. One dealt with light and hope, the other, darkness and despair. Both however were related to the love of a person. The more I delved deeper into these thoughts the more I craved to know what this pain was. It seemed bottomless, yet I felt like I was making progress. I yearned to know what it was that drove me on in this mad quest, yet as I pressed onward, I felt in my heart I knew the answer but for some odd reason was avoiding it. So I stopped avoiding “it.” I looked it dead in the eyes. Damn, I was immediately sorry.
I did not want to see the answer. I was right; I knew what it was all along. I worked relentlessly and without remorse to attempt to bury this pain so deep, I would forget it existed. But again, it reared it’s ugly head. I recoiled in anguish as I recalled the reasons I buried this. Back from the grave again, it began to torment me. Angry and ready to break under the pressure of bearing this burden for even another second, I immediately quieted my heart and the longing it was expressing. “What I love will affect everything.” I cannot argue with that truth. Whether my love is wrong or my reactions to the denial of what I love are the problem, I do not know. I am too blinded by pain to see the path I must tread to achieve healing. I am not ready to go there yet. Yet, I’ve never been more ready to begin than right now.
Loneliness; I’ve always been crushed under the burden of it. I bear too many sins upon my back, carrying not only the guilt of poor choices, but also the pain of excommunication because of them. It is as if one day the curse of my sinfulness took over my life and cast me from the joyful childhood I was living into a realm of obscurity and shrouding. A dream turned into a nightmare. A smile deformed into a scowl. Songs into dirges, light into dark, hope into despair, life into a living death. Throughout it all, I have learned nothing but how to wear my mask of happiness. Joyfully parading around as if life was a party while underneath I howled in unquenchable rage to encounter one person, just one person who would truly understand me. What I love has affected everything I see in my life. It has burdened me with a desire to see everything as a beautiful gift, as a mystery, as fireworks exploding in a cavalcade of lights and promises, against the growing storm of discontent and hatred. My love has bestowed such a vision upon me of the world that I fear what I would have become if not for the yearning that tears me apart. My grief did not wound me mortally, quite the contrary, it gave life to my desires, meaning to my wishes, fulfillment to the promises and a sliver of hope to all that I was hoping for. What is that hope? Someone to see in me something that no one else has ever seen before.
As I mentioned before my love for books drives me, encourages me and comforts me. I have always felt close to certain stories and one in particular is my favorite. Clever readers would have noticed it already. I cannot help but go back to this narrative and see in it a chance for someone like me to find what drives me, to quench the thirst I have always had. The story inspires and urges one to have hope beyond all darkness that the dawn is coming. Nevertheless, my heart is weary and not ready for another battle. Yet…what I love…what I love will affect everything…
I am roused to believe that I will not despair, I will not cry out, “Let them come!” in hopeless defeat when I sense the demons of surrender gathering around me. I will fight, I will pray and I will strive to be the man I yearn to be. Hoping against all hope that my heart will taste the sweetness of the love I thirst for. The maxim that inspired this rambling collection of sentences rings even more true to me now than ever. What I love affects EVERYTHING. I am the man I am today because of what and who I love. I am not perfect, but I am what I am. I am wounded and broken, soiled and unclean, poor in body, mind and spirit. But I am me and I believe that because of my ability to love, I am worth something. Yes, what I love truly has affected me and effected change in my life but what I love is not my wound. My wound is much deeper and I fear, unable to be healed.
For who could ever learn to love a beast?
RSS Feed