Furthermore

Therefore, in summation. . .nevermind.

Returning to the provisional thesis of my last post, I wonder if it would be better said "to remember is to love." But it is true as it is. To remember is an essential element of love. So what does doing so entail, or even look like?

Deuteronomy 6 shows God instructing the Israelites not merely to know the covenant, but rather to have it "upon your hearts." He goes on to say (paraphrasing): "tell your children! Talk about these commandments wherever you are, whatever you're doing! Let the city, your house, your very body be painted with this Law."

And so to remember is to take your love with you, wherever you go. Within or without a temple, with or without a Bible in your hand, it is to remember. In doing so you take not just your love with you, but also WHAT you love with you.

With the Old Testament prophets, God used memories of past blessing to woo and lure the Israelites back into covenant. "Remember how I showed my love to you?" he would insist. "Remember Egypt and how I freed you, then personally led you for forty years in spite of your unfaithfulness? Will you refuse to remember?

We are a culture that relies on being reminded rather than remembering (like cell phone alerts, palm-piloted schedules, and etc. not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that). How often, at Sunday lunch, do people mention they have already forgotten the day's sermon? And how poorly most of us know the stories of the kingdom we are heirs to. So let us look back as we press on. Let us remember, and let us love.

Unyielding as the Grave

Two years ago today, my grandfather was dying.

There at the house I sat on the love seat and stared at the hospital bed that had replaced Grandaddy's recliner. Grandaddy would fall asleep and wake back up, over and over to no particular rhythm, and I would try to do my homework for Advanced Intro to the New Testament. Mom and Mamaw talked on the couch, and we took turns getting things that he needed when he woke up. But there wasn't much for us to do. He hardly ate. I played my guitar for him and he fell asleep. When he was awake, he asked me to comb his hair for him.

There wasn't much for us to do.

One day Mamaw brought him a Valentine's Day dinner: a small steak and a baked potato from Tumbleweed, their favorite restaurant in town. He was pleased, ate all of it, and the family was encouraged. Our hopes had fallen with his weight, but this was different. My prayers changed in tone and I was grateful, even allowing myself a few guilty daydreams of a full recovery and a triumph over cancer.

But we knew.

Through it all I watched my grandmother take care of her husband and marveled at her strength. I didn't understand how she wasn't a complete emotional wreck, angry at God and lamenting the ruin that her once-vibrant love had become. She asked no questions about the existence of cancer, or how it could be visited on and take host in a man so beautiful. Rather she humbly, quietly, and lovingly served. Rather she stayed by his side and waited until he left.

I have never seen true "until death do us part" before, and I am only beginning to understand it. This was a love stronger than death. This was true love.

I can't believe it's been two years already

A Decision

Yesterday I wrote of being unsure what to do. Things have fallen apart around me and I have nothing to show for months of. . .whatever dramatic thing you want to call it. But I know what I will do. I have decided.

I will continue to love.

I will continue to write to her in my journal, to care for her, and to think of her. I will buy a guitar and sing for her, even if she does not yet listen.

Maybe then she will see. Maybe then she will turn and remember her love of old.

For love is greater than time or distance. Love is slave to no power, and will not end as long as my heart beats.

"Place me like a seal over your heart,

like a seal on your arm;

for love is as strong as death,

its jealousy as unyielding as the grave."

Did she wake you up to tell you that it was only a change of plan?

I confess to you, I feel lost.

My greatest fear has always been that no one would be able to love me. Someone convinced me of otherwise and now. . .this. I thought things were getting better, but I was wrong.

I simply do not know what to do. What to do with the journal I kept for her? Or the necklace I bought in Toledo? What to do with the pictures of myself I collected to send her? What to do with the music mix I was preparing? What to do with the flowers pressed and drying in my Bible, in between poetry and prose and pictures of her? What to do with my Christmas break, since she doesn't want me to visit her?

I don't even want to acknowledge that Christmas will be. It is the holiday to spend with loved ones, and I will be here, alone. Now I have spare time and spare money and I don't want either.

I am sorry to write this depressing mess, but it is all that is on my mind. I cannot get my mind off of it. It is no easy thing to walk a mile and spend three dollars just to hear the One my Heart Loves tell me she doesn't even know how she feels about me anymore. And then to pour my heart out to her and find that she isn't even at the computer, reading what I said.

How can a heart change so much in four weeks? How can distance change a person?

It is all undone.

Life Lessons from Old Women

Every other Tuesday, several of the advanced-age women at our church meet here to put together quilts. They give these quilts to sick people, to children pulled out of abusive homes, to families who have lost loved ones, and so on. They also gave me one after my first summer here.

This summer, they have taken to inviting me down for lunch with them when they take a break from working. It is typical potluck fare, including some homemade bread, so I always join them.

And I love it. I try not to talk at all, so I can hear all the more, but I still am fascinated that 60-70-year-old women would talk to me almost as a peer, instead of asking me what I want to be when I grow up.

Sometimes I just sit and listen to them talk over each other detailing their personal ways of cooking oatmeal or what diets they have tried, what items they forgot or lost in the past week, or their gripes over crummy businesses in town (especially automotive services). But my favorite is learning from them.

They talk of the rare times their husbands will do the dishes, the times when husbands are practically obligated to do the dishes, wishing their husbands would let them help with projects around the house, the special vacations they took before they had children, the different-sort-of-special vacations when kids did come along, going camping with the whole family, and all the little day-to-day moments that gradually and then suddenly make up a lifetime.

Frankly, I can't wait to share this with someone. I want to grow old with someone. I can't wait to share stories with friends and grandchildren, to brag on my wife. I can't wait to take a picture with her in front of our first house. I can't wait to debate over names for children and paint colors for rooms and when I am going to get around to fixing the heater. To ask her to hold something while I frantically pound nails into it off-kilter, to work on her car, to surprise her with breakfast in bed (french toast, maybe), to drive across states with her, to serve her.

I am glad that men don't read my blog, haha. Well, I don't think anyone reads it anymore, so my masculinity will remain intact. I'll write about sports next time.

Love and Bible Class

Today (Saturday) was a full one.

The Thing That Scares Me that I did today happened twice. That is to say, I attended two weddings.

Being a non-married 22-year-old male who just graduated from a Christian college with a Youth Ministry degree alone is enough to mess with your head. But when you attend two weddings in one day where all four parties are younger than I am? Man. . .

The first one was on top of the Colorado National Monument, on top of mountains. It was sunny and lovely and I am a little burned as a result. The ceremony was no-frills, short, and intensely sweet. We ate food and I fought back memories of being in Colorado and being in love with women who don't care that I exist anymore.

I went on a bike ride afterwards to proactively avoid those same memories and worries. Came back just in time to wear the same clothes to the next ceremony, deciding that wearing anything else (only nicer options remain clean) would almost be akin to showing favoritism. And so I successfully avoided a tie and went.

During the second, I noticed that I was losing it when I began writing my own future vows in my head. I looked at older men who still sat with an arm around their woman and then to the young children who are oblivious to any concepts of love and low self-esteem and sighed. Amey's vows touched me when she told Shawn, "I praise God for you."

On Thursday, Harvest was something of a success. We had more people than I expected (about 20-25) and a sense of anxiety hung in the room. The teens did not know what to expect, and so we talked of what the world sees in Christians, and what we should strive to show them. So many people have such negative views of our faith and I encouraged the teens to dream of the day when their faith causes a reaction such as what Paul writes in Ephesians 1:

"Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, I have not stopped giving thanks for you."

I have a hard enough time thinking that anyone could ever love me. Can I really cause someone to thank God incessantly? Could my faith and love really turn a heart to take song?

Harvest received positive feedback, but I got little active participation and a lot of tired, empty eyes. I left exhausted from nerves and honest prayers and more than a little disheartened. The teens left the class thanking me and not God, and singing no songs.

It is still early, so please keep praying for a change. For a fire. For a harvest.

And I guess pray that someone will ever marry me.

Tired.

I have three finals tomorrow. I want to study for this many of them: 0.

Two posts ago, I wrote about love and how that is what I want to do. Well, I'm not doing it right.

I have been worried this entire semester about an ex-girlfriend who tells me that she wants us to be friends and then promptly ignores me. Splashed around in this maddening cycle are sporadic periods of anger. I thought we were to be friends! I have been trying.

I keep thinking, especially while at church, how we aren't supposed to even be at the assembly if our brother has something against me. But what can I do? I have tried.

Now the main result of this semester has boiled down to whiny journal entries and a palsying fear of relationships.

No, I'm just not loving right.

Love is not against the law

Shane Claiborne came to town last night and spoke in a high school's gymnasium. He summed up his book with his striking and surprising southern accent and then fielded some questions. He said some marvelous things.

For one, he mentioned that singleness is almost frowned upon in the church. This is true. When a man gets to be about forty or so and is unmarried, people start to talk a little bit. And singles classes are, like Shane intimated, essentially dating services. But it is a time when one can be completely devoted to God for love. Completely promised to him.

And he mentioned that if singleness were celebrated more in the church, people who choose to be so due to being attracted to the same sex would feel less alienated.

Very interesting thoughts.

Another great thing was a quote by Mother Teresa, saying that we cannot do great things, but we can do little things with great love.

All my life I've wanted to change the world. I've wanted to write a book or sing a song or take a photograph that makes people think and changes them and leaves them closer to God. But not just them, but all of their friends and families and pets and etcetera! I've wanted to be able to speak to a crowd and make them laugh and then make them think and make them jealous of my abilities and make them love God.

And so I've waited and waited for my mediocrity to pass.

I'm sorry to say that it has not. I will do no such things.

So I will teach. And be poor. And love.

And so now I just need to learn to love well.