Hey,
To love
anyone as you should is hard. It is hard because the heart has grown brutal, it
is hard because you do not want to enter the death-clench of a changing heart,
and it is hard because failure is necessary, as in all things, for success to
be certain. The image of apotheosis is not man climbing up a mountain but one
of man falling down to earth, human, broken, ready to be proclaimed. There is
no easy way to say this: love will break your heart, it will kill you. It was
always meant to.
You are never
right when you love or rather you are never right enough. There is always
something you are not doing well enough. It is like trying to sing one of those
great operas we always hear are brilliant and dark and deep. It is like
breaking into a rendition of “nessum dorma” with a broken voice and neither the
head nor heart for singing in tune. It is the endless wish that is always
beyond the grasp, the eternal stare into the bottomless pit.
I am not
trying to make it sound impossible or unfathomable to love. There is really no
option but to find it and keep it. It is not a dispute between us what love is
and why we should love. Your question is how to do it without feeling tired,
worn, used and alone. The question is what will be left of you when you forsake
balance and jump into the redeeming well. Our faith raises the bar on
existence: it says that to truly live you must forsake the tone and shape of
the ordinary life; you must die to it and get the more of eternal life. Love is
the highest ideal; the most conscious selflessness is more worthy than the most
planned and easy protection of self.
You may
think that there must be a palliative to this odd picture of a wound I am
painting. That somehow you can be self sensible and love. You may think that
her recent infidelities have scarred you, that by enduring them you have
reached the limit of your love. You may even imagine that by letting her go you
are giving her the freedom to be who she truly is. I do not share your
optimism. I do not think she is better off without you than with you. I do not
think that your obligation to love her, as best as you can, should end with one
act or one hurt moment. I believe that there is more for both of you on this
road to wholeness.
The
betrayal between a man and a woman is a deep thing. There is no easy remedy for
it. It is a hard road back to trust. It is not one you want to take. It is one
you should. The hardening of the heart is never the path to take. It is never
our best move. There is something larger at stake than hurt feelings and a
broken heart. There is the person waiting in the wings, the man you were always
meant to be. There is the reality of the God you serve and your love for Him.
There is the man He wants to introduce to you, you on the other side. There is
the woman she can become, the wife you always wanted. You heard of her in a
rumour in your heart, the stop-start talk with Elyon. He is never wrong and our
wrong cannot amend that.
I know I am
giving you platitudes, easy sayings that do not connect with your present
darkness. What else can I offer with mere words? It is not a conversation that
can end with a single word of wisdom. It is a start. Our conversations never
end. They will continue until He heals all wounds, answers all questions and is
ever present in our fellowship.
Am I
allowed to say one more thing? It may sound insensitive to the way you see
things now-that glow in the dark, the non-gleaming sense of loss, the idle
memories coming back to life and the distrust of everything you once hailed as
certain. Am I allowed to say that the pain is a sign of life not an indication
of the death of the soul? That it will get better or worse depending on what
you choose? That love is patient, kind,
forgiving and always right? That whatever happens we will be alright? That the
certainty we have is that there is an eternal stream of living that makes
adverts on earth about the life beyond? That by your conduct in loving her
through and through all as lover or friend is one of such adverts?
More than
one thing but to one point: love her. Go beyond yourself. Let it kill your
previous self. You could never have that forever. And if you give up your
hurting self you will find, as the great Clive says, everything else thrown in.
And yet brighter still…
