Go

I met with her. After a few minutes of light, genial conversation she dropped the bomb, "Well, I'm seeing somebody, and I wanted to make sure you knew that."

What?

What kind of person does something like that? She spent the rest of the conversation continuing to drive hard on this point that she wanted to be friends with me. I mean, what do you do with something like that? I eventually was forced to come to a conclusion: she had/has a very misguided idea of how to love me. This has forced me into yet another chapter of trying to understand the deep mysteries of love.

I've been listening to this song by Switchfoot a lot lately, "Enough to Let Me Go." The general premise of the song is one person conversing with another simply asking, "Do you love me enough to let me go?" This seems so counter-intuitive, but is it really? Love, necessarily, must know when to hold tight and when to let go for the sake of the beloved.

In my Christian Moral Life class in college, love was one of the most important things we talked about the entire semester. Along with being drilled on the basic principle, "knowledge leads to love which leads to unity," there was another key, essential point that I walked out of that class with: love is making the wants and needs of the beloved your own. Love is totally centered on the other person, it's totally focused on what their needs are, their wants, their dreams and how you can put those ahead of your own. Mark Hart summarized it once saying, "Love is not give and take, love is give." Powerful words, for a very powerful virtue.

Can one love through letting go? I would submit that yes it can, and even in some circumstances it must. Consider the parent who loves his child so much, but understands that what is best for his beloved child is to let him go away for college to grow as an adult. Consider the best friend who has to let his friend go to a certain extent as life's circumstances change (i.e. new jobs, marriage, different opportunities) all because he understands that these other circumstances, which require a "letting go" are going to bring about the happiness of the beloved best friend. Think of even Christ Himself, Who ascended into heaven, knowing that sending of the Holy Spirit was going to be the best for His apostles and for His beloved Church. He had to let go of being with them in the physical, tangible, earthly sense so that His beloved could grow in holiness in a new and dynamic way that His physical presence could otherwise hinder.

Love must not be selfish, it can't be called love if it is. As I consider everything with Ashley and her continued insistence on being "friends" after all of the heart-wrenching agony she caused in my life, I'm forced to conclude that she must genuinely not have a true grasp on what love really means. A lot of people have a very misguided sense of love, that love means grasping a hold of and never letting go, keeping people close because that is the only way that they can be loved, but in reality, sometimes that isn't even love, it's just selfish need for attention. I have been forced to conclude that everything with Ashley simply boils down to that: she wants my friendship for the "warm-fuzzies" she may receive for it, but has no consideration for how my soul feels or where my circumstance lies. If she truly loved me, she would understand that she needed to love me enough to let me go, and that is really all I can hope for in regards to this terrible heartache that I've been left with. Let me go.

Risky

"Love is risky" -Rob Bell

It's one in the morning here in New Mexico and as I was trying to slip off into sleep there's just been this part of me that has been unsettled. A thought has continued to buzz back and forth across my subconscious, occasionally bubbling up into my consciousness and finally forcing me to pay attention to it. The thought is simple, it is not difficult to understand, but it is difficult to live out, to practice, to truly implement. The thought is this, "love without reservation." Simple, elegant and tangible, yet at the same time complex, crude and inconceivable. Why do these thoughts continue to plague me? Why is it that I simply cannot get these ideas out of my head, I think it's because God is trying to do something in me, and it is absolutely terrifying.

When I walked away from the business with Ashley, that was truly my heart's intent to walk away and never look back. Months of bitterness, confusion and anguish have melted away into prayers leading me to believe God is not done with that relationship.

What?

Absurd? Yes. Completely fabricated in my own mind? Quite possibly. Yet there are these subtle nudges, gentle whispers in odd circumstances that force me to consider things in a different light. Tiny ways of God moving that continue to tap ever so gently upon my intentions and worldview. I come to God in prayer saying, "I only want Your will" to which I feel He responds, "Even if it means going back to the cross?"

Not necessarily the words I want to hear.

It started months ago, one night Rita and I sat, talked and shared. She turned to me at one point and said, "Do you think there's any chance that things could happen again between you and Ashley?" I responded simply, "I don't know, God would really have to make things very clear for me to know He wanted me to go back to that place." Weeks passed, the spring slipped uneventfully into the summer and I began to get the itch, I wanted out of this place, there was no community that I could see in front of me, I missed the people I loved so dearly, I would have traded my soul if it meant I could leave. Then God used Omair and the song, "Reidi Gul" to change my heart, my mind and help me to see the beauty of the desert. Conference came and went, the thoughts began to creep back into my mind, "Maybe I should try again..."

Try again? After all that hurt? All that pain? All the brokenness that invaded my life?

I dismissed it, "Nonsense, completely ridiculous." Weeks continued their slow, steady march. Then, one Friday morning, I walked out of mass, expecting yet another bout of non-communication between she and I. "John! Wait up," she said to me. We talked, and it wasn't weird, it wasn't riddled with bitterness, it wasn't excruciatingly painful, it was simply real. It was a re-introduction to why I fell so hard for this girl. She expressed pain, loneliness, a lack of community. Suddenly everything that I had been struggling with for the past two months connected. She was going through the exact same thing. I left for Denver, the dreamland that I was hoping to connect with, to truly love and say, "This is where I have peace."

That peace never came.

As beautiful as it was to be up there, as much as I appreciated the time I had there, there was just a simple nagging in my soul saying, "You need to go back home, there's beautiful things waiting for you." I couldn't wrap my mind around it. On the drive down I was reflecting on everything and I began to feel an incredible sense of peace returning there. Exclusive of anything that may be associated with Ashley, I genuinely wanted to be back here. He is doing something I'm simply not privy to yet.

I've been writing a song, not necessarily to perform for anyone, not necessarily for anyone to ever hear. Just a song that if I truly had the gumption, the guts or motivation for, I would sing to her. My father noted my facebook status simply saying that I was trying to write my own song the other night. He asked me, "Are you writing a song for that lady you're missing? Send her a flower, tell her she's missed, see what happens. Sometimes you have to fight for what you want." My dad never shares any advice, he never comments on my love life.

Sometimes you have to fight for what you want? Seriously?

I was re-reading through sex-God tonight, hoping to find something to connect with, to soothe my soul, and to cast out all of these idiotic assertions of trying once again at this same old song-and-dance. I stumbled across this, "Love is handing your heart to someone and taking the risk that they will hand it back because they don't want it. That's why it's such a crushing ache on the inside. We gave away a part of ourselves and it wasn't wanted." Truer words have never been spoken. I know that pain all too well, and I'm not keen on hopping right back into another almost assured heartache.

Then, I consider St. Joseph. God asked of him some of the most absurd, ridiculous things, but he always did what was asked, even if it hurt him. Marrying Mary, knowing she was pregnant and that he didn't have any hand in that? Packing up his new family and moving to a foreign land? He did what was asked even if it was painful and confusing, because St. Joseph understood that a true love is a crucified love. Love is a truly dangerous wonder. It's what we're made for.

What if God is asking of me to do something I would never do? What if He is asking me to put my heart on the line once again not being assured of the ultimate outcome? What if He's asking me to love and potentially have my love be unrequited once again? How many times have I done that to Him?

Here's to discernment, here's to trying to figure out what God is asking of me, and here's to realizing that nothing in life is guaranteed and that truly, love is risky.

Flower

These past few weeks have been terrible. My soul was so broken leaving the people I love so much back in Kansas City. I hit a wall after having such an incredible experience of being around a community that I feel so genuinely accepted by, people that I would do anything for, and I know they would do anything for me as well. The scenery was green, the leaves on the trees shifted gently as the soft blow of the wind breezed through them, I sat and talked and joked with the people who have come to capture my heart, their friendships have made me a better person. All of these incredible, small experiences lifted me up, I felt rejuvenated and refreshed. Then, I got on that plane, and I flew back to the desert.

I looked around and the reality of it all began to sink in. I was back in a place where spiritually and emotionally I've been dry. I hit a wall, in those first few moments of being back here I would have traded anything to simply go and turn right back around, to go back to that place of true love and acceptance which, often times, I feel like I've truly been lacking here. Yet, here I am, in the desert, quite literally. My soul just yearned to be surrounded by those people who mean so much to me.

In the difficulty and craziness of the past few weeks: the brokenness of my heart, the business of ministering and planning, have just quite simply left me feeling dry. There are times that I sit and stare blankly around my apartment and think to myself, "I feel so alone." Especially romantically, I've never felt so hopeless, so stranded, so broken. Last Wednesday was an especially hard day for me, I just wanted everything to stop, I wanted to reverse whatever crazy path that I've found myself on, and I caught myself asking God, "Are you sure You put the right person here?" After that especially difficult night, I called one of my brothers and I simply said to him, "I just don't know any more." He responded saying, "Dude, I don't know if New Mexico is the right place for you, you just need to move up to Denver, be surrounded by good community again. These past few months, I have noticed a distinct lack of joy in your voice, and I think you need to take a serious inventory about being there, I don't think that New Mexico is ultimately the place that God wants for you to stay permanently." In that moment, it just hit me, the thing that I was lacking: true sense of community and belonging. I catch glimpses of it here and there: with my co-worker, with some friends that I've made here, but ultimately, community just doesn't permeate my life here.

So, these past few weeks have been difficult, and in all of the questioning and internal debate, one of my brothers, Omair, shared this song with me. As I watched this song with the translation of the lyrics, the sheer beauty of it all overtook me. The lyrics just hit my soul where I was at and truly permeated my entire being. They resonated with me in a way that music hasn't in a long time. It was almost as if God Himself was speaking to me through this song. The translation (I'm taking some liberties here) goes roughly like this:

In a desert, once, on a hunt I found

A flower so fair with a radiant smile

Sadly I approached it and sighed,

"Ah! You are one just like me

A hapless flower from a beloved's hair

Frail fingers won't take you

To a soft face so close

Nor will you be kissed by lips

So delicate like a rose."

With a silent smile the flower replied:

"Don't lose heart."

With a silent smile the flower replied:

"Don't lose heart.

This desert I wouldn't give up

For the gardens of Iran,

Here I stand alone,

While legions like me are there.

Amidst this cursed soil I stand apart,

In this gray desert I am a flame of Divine light,

I'm beauty's silent song, a miracle from the sky.

In your garden there are thousands of flowers,

Just like me."

"In your garden there are thousands of flowers,

Just like me."

"Amidst this cursed soil I stand apart

In this gray desert I am a flame of Divine light

I'm beauty's silent song, a miracle from the sky.

In your garden there are thousands of flowers,

Just like me,

A nameless droplet in a nameless sea

Don't feel lonely in your desert,

To behold you at last will be a sore Ghani Khan"

The flower stood alone in the desert, the man approached it saying, "I know just how you feel, I'm alone too, I'll never be loved, you'll never feel love's tender kiss, just like me. You are alone." The flower responded not by wallowing in despair like the man, but changed the perception of the circumstances, "Here, alone, I stand apart, I am different and by the very nature of the fact that I am alone out here in this cursed land, I am a bearer of the Divine flame." Talk about a gut-check. As of late I've felt like that lone flower in the midst of a vast desert, surrounded by only death and dying of the soil around me. I think of my friends out here who (generally) seem to have someone else beside them, to love them. Yet I stand alone. I think about my friends in Kansas City and Denver that have strong community there, that have people to simply be around and be surrounded by. More often than not I am alone. I could take the view of the man when gazing upon the flower and say, "You'll always be alone, just like me." Yet, I could take the view of the flower, "I wouldn't trade this desert for the gardens of Iran, there are thousands of flowers just like me, here I stand apart." Consider this: the flower's being alone is it's true beauty. Amidst a sea of flowers, it does not stand apart, it cannot bring about anything spectacular, but there, alone, in the desert it has that ability. The flower can inspire, can glorify and magnify how great our God is simply by the very fact that it is alone.

That was the click for me. That was when everything made sense. I am like that flower in the desert, alone, cast off and surrounded by the cursed soil of the desert. This is my means of glorifying God. I can either wallow in seclusion and begin to doubt every little thing that happens here, or I can praise and thank God for where He has placed me, realizing that even if I do feel alone for now, I have that opportunity to magnify and glorify His name in my loneliness. Here I can be that testament to the Divine light, I can be beauty's silent song. He has placed me here, like a flower in the desert, and I wouldn't trade it for the gardens of Denver or Kansas City.

Limitless

Tonight I went to go pray in St. Benedict's adoration chapel, the place where so many nights of my collegiate career were spent, the place where I truly began to understand the depths of Who God is and realize that I'll never fully know all of Who He is. I have a very mechanized view of God sometimes, like He's some almighty gum-ball machine. I put in "good things" I say "prayers" and I expect Him to respond in a very specific way, and when He doesn't do it, I get angry and feel deprived. There are times that I just want things to work out in a very linear fashion, I come to God and I have a laundry list of things that I want/need, "Take care of _____ first, then after that happens ______ and finally wrap it all up with _______, thanks God." Something that came to me as I was praying tonight was simply this, "Do not limit Me, seek only the greatest things and I will answer them." How many times when we come to the Lord with our laundry list of things for Him to accomplish are we really and truly limiting Him and all that He does? We're subliminally saying, "I know what's best, and You need to settle in here to follow things my way." What? Where does that even remotely make sense? Have any of us ever really stopped and considered the reality that God wants what's best for us? He doesn't want to settle for the small things that we anticipate will make us truly happy, He'll forego those things and bring us to even greater love, greater holiness and greater happiness. Don't limit Him, seek only His will, He'll answer that desire.

Gone

I've been listening to a lot of Ray LaMontagne recently, there's something about his music that is just soothing to my soul and seems to breathe fresh life into me. I've had my ups and downs these past few months, and quite honestly I am rather angry with myself for not getting over things like I want to. As much as she hurt me, as much as she freaking took my heart and shoved it into the dirt, there is still a very real, very palpable portion of my being that simply wants to win her heart. What in the world is the matter with me? Why is it that I still toss and turn at night with thoughts of her haunting my consciousness? Why do I want to just scream over and over again until I can't even speak anymore? Is it wrong that I just want to cry my eyes out until they've dried up? What was so different about her that continues to bind my thoughts? I heard this song, I know this is so wrong, but this is so real, and I thought of all those things she told me she has a hard time with. All of those worries and anxieties, those little portions of her soul that she continued to worry wasn't "good enough," wasn't "presentable" to others and how those things, those were the things that I was so deeply attracted to. How real she was with me, how I could just hold her and all my worries and anxieties simply melted away. There's this part of me that wants her, but the thing is, I want to be with her, I don't want to simply be another "guy friend" that she so vehemently insisted she had an ample amount of. I just want to go to her affections and simply place myself out there saying, "Let it be Me."

Great

How great Your love for us,

How great our love for You,

That grace could cover us,

How great Your love

There are a lot of random little conversations from college that I very vividly remember. One such conversation was with my good friend Andrew as we talked about the song, "How Great" by David Crowder. I've had a fondness for this song for a long while, and during this random conversation with Andrew he noted to me, "I don't know how much I like that song, it kind of bothers me." When I asked him his reason for this he responded, "I get the 'how great' His love is for us, but the 'how great our love for You' part is what bothers me because our love isn't that great." I initially responded by saying that may have been the intent, to highlight the difference between our love and His, that His love is so great and in comparison "how great" ours is really isn't that much.

Today I was listening to this song repeatedly throughout the course of the afternoon, letting the lyrics really sink into my soul. Something occurred to me in my musings and reflection upon this song: I don't think that it's too far off to say how great our love can be. We talk in theology about how God's grace builds upon our nature, but does not override it, and that the difference between our love and His is that we love because we see good in whatever it is we love, His love however is what makes things good. We as Christians are called to live, walk and breathe the life of grace, and when we do that we participate in God's own being, in His very essence, His grace makes us like Him.

Perhaps by our own nature, our love is nothing special to look at, but consider the transforming love of Christ as seen in those who truly live the life of grace. I personally can list off countless people who have transformed my life, lifted me up and made me a better person because of their love, in a way, their love made me good. The beautiful thing is this: when we live in grace our love grows and flourishes as we participate in God's love. We talk about how great His love is, why are we so afraid to recognize that we too can participate in that same love that makes things good? In grace, in life with God we too are capable of, and indeed are called to have, the type of love that makes things good. Grace does this, grace reaches out to our limited human nature, builds it up and raises it far beyond anything we could accomplish when left to our own devices. It's a never-ending circle, God's love is so great and the Trinity is a perfect union of love between the three persons and, by grace, we are able to participate in that, not only in loving others but more importantly in our loving God. We are meant to be that little taste of the trinity in the world, we are meant to enter into the world, offer our love, and thereby, transform and allow our love to make things good. How great, His love for us, and how great our love for Him... through grace.

Depleted

Deliver me, out of the sadness

Deliver me, from all of the madness,

Deliver me, courage to guide me,

Deliver me, Your strength inside me

I've come to a place where I am just so incredibly weak. I feel so terribly and utterly exhausted: physically, emotionally and most especially spiritually. I preach the gospel to my teens but I feel like it doesn't reside in my heart sometimes. I skirt this line between being a man of faith and a man of iniquity. I just feel bankrupt, dried up and out of gas. I'm sitting here in my apartment at 2:30 in the morning considering all of the circumstances surrounding my life right now and I just feel overwhelmed by what I have to do, and underwhelmed by the good things God is doing in my life. I consider a few months ago when I was convinced that I had met the one person I wanted to give my heart to unreservedly and grow old with, despite only having known her for a few months, and I was so much happier then. Since then I've had my times of consolation, but right now I've found myself in an enormous rut, feeling expended beyond my limits and secretly wondering if this really is the best thing for me. The enemy has found a way to continue to prod and tear at me, and this thorn in my side seems like an insurmountable object, ever-constantly draining me, breaking me and leaving my soul in the dust.

It seems to have gotten to the point where all I can legitimately pray anymore is, "deliver me." When your heart is so heavy that you can't even seem to lift your head up to face the heavens, you begin to feel downtrodden. I feel like all I can do is cry into the dust saying, "deliver me, deliver me, deliver me," hoping and praying that He'll hear me. There is just so much sadness in trying to recover from the deep wound Ashley caused; there's so much madness in my workplace that I don't think I have had a chance to catch a breather in a while; my courage seems to have been depleted; all I want is His strength again. So here I sit: broken and engulfed in doubt; all I can do now is cry out, "deliver me."