Tuesday, March 11, 2014

To Be Love

This week for Lent, I decided I would focus and meditate on the topic of love. Yesterday, I posted a link to a lovely essay my sweet 18-year-old wrote and, if I do say so (and unabashedly I will say so) it was poignant and truth-filled.

When I started out this 40-day journey, I had lofty, almost saint-like images of how and who I would be during Lent. You see, there’s an odd side to me that craves to be a monk. I read Thomas Merton with a touch of envy. From the outside peering through the glass window of his secluded hermitage, I see a spiritual being in touch with his creator, wrestling over the deep issues of the soul, taking long walks in nature in contemplative thought, and writing in his journal elegant and insightful truths. Yeah, I want to be that.

Here’s the irony of it, however. Ultimately, being that is more about the ego than anything. My ego wants to be this lofty, separated from the world, harmonious, love-filled saint. The thud-crashing reality, is what I'm really craving is a spiritual state that can only come from a lifetime of wrestling with who I am--grounded in this life with its disappointments, hurts, and confusion, and...oh, that's right...it usually includes a heavy dose of hard-earned humility.  

After Mother Teresa’s death, correspondences were discovered revealing that during the last 50 years of her life, she wrestled with the very core of her faith, if God even existed. By then of course, she was cast in a high-profile role in life. Was she a fraud? I doubt it. She was, perhaps like most people in life, on a trajectory she began and perhaps didn't know how to alter. But I have no doubt she was truly motivated by compassion and serving, despite all the feelings being, or not being, in place.

Oh, that’s the sneaky, tricky part of love, isn’t it? The feelings aren’t always in place, and yet the actions must be. I doubt Thomas Merton’s feelings were always as they “should” be. He wrestled with life. It is, in fact, from this very place of doubt and despair most saints or great, spiritual thinkers probably travel through to become who they ultimately became, the place we get to pick up on in their lives and read about.

Attaining to an image is the fragile stuff of ego. We want a reflection. The truth is hard work, life, doubt, pain, hurt, confusion, and yet clinging to faith—these are the things that carve and form the images we often look up to. Like rushing water that little by little forms a canyon, the daily act of living carves us into humility and action, even when, and probably more so when, the feelings aren’t all in place.

So this week’s Lent challenge is to act in love--not to feel loving, meditate on lofty images of love, or pray with some abstract saintly love. It’s just to be love. 

9 comments:

  1. Ohhh, to be lost in the conflict of our warring thoughts. That's the beauty of being human, the ability to change how we feel about anything, even ourselves in an instant. I think if we try to be who we want to be at least 99% of the time chances are, that's how others do perceive us. As kind, loyal, sweet, endearing, or patient. Hopefully knowing that we are who we're trying to be 99% of the time is enough to convince ourselves. At least most days. That we are "enough."

    As always, it was lovely read, Julie! :)

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    1. I sometimes forget to be gentle with myself and as you suggest, reward and embrace my intentions, if not my actions. Great comment. Thank you.

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    2. Speaking of being gentle...things are hectic lately since I'm gearing up to self-publish, and the anxiety is horrible. :/ I love taking a break from all of that and being able to read your posts. I reread your profile info above and I smiled at the line where you mentioned not to take things so seriously. I think I need to apply that in my life right now. Have fun with the process, and not take it too seriously. :)

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    3. Oh good heavens Anna, I'm queen of being too intense sometimes. Drives me crazy. Good, we can both remember to inject fun into our lives.

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  2. A reading assignment: Psalm 42. God is so good!!!

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  3. Julie, I loved the rushing water sentence. So well crafted in a wonderful and thought provoking essay. Namaste.

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    1. Jess and Sally, I've actually thought of you two quite a bit this week as I watch what is unfolding in the world on the news. It's disheartening, and I know in your travels you have seen much in the way of poverty, neglect and cruelty, as well as the beauty, love and joy of the world.

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    2. And the greatest of these IS love! ;)

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