I think love is like life –
amplified. Everything is stronger: pain, joy, fear, everything.
I don’t know what the rest of my life holds. I’m not God – I can’t see that far. But I do know this: if I search for
perfection I will never be happy. Ever. People aren’t perfect, so the relationships they
create can’t be either. And I’ll always
be half the problem (sometimes more!). But if I was looking for my perfect – the perfect that fills my
holes, balances my weaknesses, and lets me be at ease in a way I didn’t know I
was capable of before, well, then I’ve found my perfect.
He is strength without crushing, he is laughter without
derision. He is kindness that I've hungered for. He is more precious to me than
life, and how do I know that for sure?
Because I would die for him in a
heartbeat.
Love is worth it. It’s
worth fighting for, it’s worth appreciating, and it’s worth the frustration and
tears that it brings at times. Because
even though those nights seem endless, and the morning dawns uncertain at best,
I’d rather spend my worst day next to him than my best day alone. Because everything will turn around, and he
is the best reflection of Christ’s love that I’ve ever met in another human
being, and I love him. I can’t help but
love him.
Love is such a funny thing, but it’s completely and utterly
worth it.
Prose poems and poetry poems...are really out of my wheelhouse, as I know I've told you before. Because I'm a former English major, I keep trying to reconcile the poetry and the prose in these two posts, trying to see how, if they are autobiographical, the jigsaw edges might match up.
ReplyDeleteWritten at different times, in different moods, after different sorts of days or nights? Or one or the other more or less an exercise, not autobiographical at all, just a writer practicing craft (if I had to guess which one was the exercise and not anchored in autobio, I'd guess the poem)?
I have no religious experience at all, but I have been in love. My experience in love is that She crowded everything else out, made every second until I saw her again meaningless and pointless. So, for me, it wasn't that life was amplified. If anything, life was made smaller. SHE was huge, everything else was nothing.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that how some Christians act (substituting holy love for my profane one, of course.)
First of all, you hit the nail on the head. These two pieces were written one right after the other, but the prose piece was autobio and the poem was an exercise on craft.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, I love the way you explain love here - it's so much simpler than what I wrote. And Simplicity is beauty in writing (quite often). How just one aspect of your life - one person in it - becomes everything. But I didn't write that piece first, so I guess I'll have to be okay with what I wrote. ;)
And you're right - that is how Christians ought to act. If we really believed what we believe is really real, then Christ should be completely everything. The Bible calls Christ a "consuming fire." Nothing else should important but Him and the furtherance of His work and His kingdom, and bringing others to Him and the relationship we are privileged to have with Him.
But so often, unfortunately, our heads and our time gets crowded. And we forget what should be first, and last, and everything in between.
I guess the world is divided into those who want life to be a consuming fire and those who simply want to stay warm, take a walk, eat a meal, have a laugh or two, etc. In other words, people with an eye on eternity and those in the here and now.
ReplyDeleteI'm very much in the here and now group, and I can't help thinking that those with an eye on eternity ought not to feel guilty that they also spend a few years enjoying God's world and its good things, a world whose Creator they presumably honor by living right and doing good in life--not that works are sufficient for salvation! (Even someone as ignorant as me knows that!)
Mr. Goldfine, you're a better at knowing how Christians should be than some Christians I know (if that makes any sense).
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you. Too many Christians begrudge people for having any fun - but God is the one who created laughter in the first place! Sort of the point of my book 'Searched the Heavens' (if books can have only one point) was a concept similar to this - life is short, and God wants us to enjoy the slice of it that we have. The bad may be plenteous, but it can't outweigh the good. Not if we have the right attitude about it.
"The bad may be plenteous, but it can't outweigh the good. Not if we have the right attitude about it."
ReplyDeleteThat's more or less what your friend in Africa says--hmm, an attitude like that might be catching!