In my previous post (which has been some time due to my lack of inspiration and struggling with the surprise threat of seizures), I said that my next topic was going to be “What is Love.” Well, now, as I start to write, I realize just how hard it is for me to answer a question that, for me and maybe for many of you, is allusive and intrusive into your heart that we fight to keep people away from. You see, we all don’t want to be hurt inside and the fear of opening our hearts and subject ourselves to the risk of being broken-hearted. I’ve been hurt and broken-hearted but always willing to share what is on my heart.
While there is a sting of rejection, being open and honest about what is on your heart, for me, has been worth the risk. As Jesus said, “the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-33). Therefore, especially as I get further down my life journey road, I have that comfort, even in times of depression.
My depression comes mainly from being cut off from my passions and self-perceived failure to “finish the job” that I wanted in life for my loved ones and me. This last line may be a good segue into the thing we call love. The only way my mind can work if I am genuinely trying to make some points is to deviate from my albeit meager prose and poetry and put my thoughts into bullet points. So here is the opening barrage.
God is Love. Equally hard to understand if we are honest and not just reciting Christian song lyrics and thoughtful sermons. I always find myself defaulting to Isaiah 55:8 when trying to grasp ahold of Him. Because God is so hard to understand most of the time, so love is a mystery as well, especially if they (in my mind without a doubt) are the same thing. The following is the Apostle Paul’s definition of love. (1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ESV)
The Way of Love
13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;[b] 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
These verses are used at countless weddings and other occasions. Sometimes, however, shortly after the wedding, we as God’s unruly children, can drive that into the ditch of envy, carnal lust, tit-for-tat relationships. Relationships that demand reciprocity, an intimacy that grows cold all too soon, career hijacking passion, child-rearing, and a host of other things and distractions that push God aside from the center of the mutual bond and it unravels. Many (thank God) avoid these things and live out their years through the bumps and smooth paths because they never let the distractions keep them apart and keep God at the center. I can self-convict on all the above, for as I have confessed earlier, I have been married now for 42 years, but the caveat is that that it took me three marriages to get there. The first was for 18 years to my college sweetheart, the second was for two years, who was my answer to lost passion (see above), and my last for 22 years (we celebrated our anniversary Sept 5th.)
I can only speak to this topic by personal experience; thus, I’m not a philosopher or theologian, just another in the fraternity of humankind trying to figure some things out. One thing I’ve observed in my life when in relationships I can share, and hopefully it will be useful if not pathetically amusing, I loved and still love my two previous wives. My first, in general, is not too happy with me and still views me with disdain as I hurt her when I ended our relationship as husband and wife. While nothing is ever one-sided, I must take responsibility for ending it. All the things mentioned above were in play. She says she has forgiven me, and the last communication we had was via text after my stroke and soon evolved into a replay of the financial settlement issues, so I guess that trumps any attempt at reconciliation on her part. But I still love her, because love isn’t a subject, for me at least, relegated to finite time and space. Once I have experienced love, it never leaves me.
While born out of a thirst for “something more” than a marriage falling victim to again, all the above things came loving wife number 2. She was the victim of a hard and tumultuous life, and she was looking for honest compassion, and I was looking for vitality in my personal life. What started in carnal ways evolved to shared love even though, in perfect hindsight, a bad choice. However, because God loves us, and we screw up so much, he blessed us with a closeness that, while not physically shared these days again, lasts forever and blessed us out of all the chaos a precious girl who is now 28. We finally gave up on a relationship, and it was very painful as it always is. Today our daughter lives with her and takes care of her in her poor state of health. We pray for each other every day, and love will not be broken by broken, misguided choices we make. Like God, Love transcends all.
Through all the chaos of life, a failing business, failed hopes of a career; only music remained as a passion. Enter my last marriage. By then, I was worn out with marriage and misguided choices, but someone God surely must have sent to have mercy upon me. In her words, she married her best friend, and that is what has kept us together. She is 11 years my junior but about the same age mentally. She stuck and still does through all the hard times, as now is one of those hard times for me battling all I have mentioned previously.
Jesus said, “no truer friend is there than one who lays their life down for another” she has met that test and more for she lays down better alternatives, better just about everything that a slug-like me, yet she perseveres because she loves me agape with little expectation for the outcomes, she just loves. And I, as I get older, will love her till the end.
You see, love never dies. We just misplace it once in a while like that old worn bible. Both my present mate and I were void of compassionate, caring, and honest love. She, with a trail of relationships, with the exception of one, that were more about being the one who gives and the other side taking and moving on. The serious one ended in a tragic death, and finally, a guy (that be me) who was sent out of no logical circumstance to be her mate for life and her mine.
To give a synopsis as to who I am. I have not been intimate with many women in my life, because I was timid and never considered myself as “desirable” to women. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not the hunchback of Notre Dame, but not (pick the male idol of your choice) either. I was always the gentleman at the beginning of relationships, and then when I thought they could handle it, expose them to my more crass and earthy side. Through all of this, if intimacy was initiated, I was always the tender giving put the partner first kind of guy. No matter how out of order, I got it only on rare occasions was intimacy a casual thing either initiated by her or by me. In my way, sex was just one way to express my heart and compassion (not just passion) and respect and considered myself in a more servant capacity, not a dominant personality. I think on my few occasions, this is what those women really wanted. Someone real, even if it was a bit clumsy now and then.
In my weak moments, I let my carnal side dominate. I know, because of my compassionate side,the relationship became something on their part that went beyond my good heart. I pulled back and realized what I allowed to happen and, as gracefully as possible, pulled away. I can’t be dishonest no matter how the truth of self-conviction hurts or hurts others for the better. Here lays the case for abstinence. Now looking back, life would have been less tumultuous. I would have had the good sense and wisdom to let God run the show. Love doesn’t go by the numbers, and leads us in directions that we are not prepared for but is always present. In its truest form, it’s experienced, not felt.
In possibly a bizarre non-sequitur, some old pop songs say it well. Boston More than a Feeling is a metal rock way of saying it. How deep is Your Love by the Bee Gees asks the question and poses the answer of the from the heart love we have that is true. Amy Grant and Pablo Cruz, Love will Find A Way, Foreigner asks the question we all seem to ask 40 years later, I want to Know What Love Is. So, in these words, I don’t think I did a very good job of answering the Foreigner song question either. It’s a mystery, but without it, we are nothing. Check back tomorrow for a continuation of this topic
Tales from Depression and Dealing with it. 