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This is a difficult writing to write, but one of the most joyfully challenging I have done. Partly, because of it being so personal. Partly, because it seems so unlike the more “spiritual” material I usually write. So, I say at the outset: Romantic love, with all its aspirations, frustrations, sex, children, divorce, remarriage, … is a spiritual process. Romantic love is an expression of the OneLife, Love, God, Your Essence.
I hope this writing delights and challenges you, from its opening with the Creation Story of Genesis 2 to its ending with wise words from Kahlil Gibran. As you read through it, it might seem disconnected; however, be patient, read to the end, and I think you will see the thread of meaning. Also, note that I use both "love" and "Love" for the same Reality, for they are the same Reality.
Remember the beautiful story of Creation in Genesis 2. In that story we see that gender, romance, sex, childbirth, … are all part of the destiny, the design, of human life and culture on earth. Such love, with falling in love and learning what that means together, is meant to be celebrated as sacred and beautiful by us humans. This is one reason that pornography is so evil: It desecrates something so sacredly beautiful. Pornography objectifies a subjective Mystery. Obviously, there must be something romantic about Life:
18Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him [lit. “one with mutual fit,” “helper” is not in the original, which has been used to contend for the inferior status of woman]." 19So out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,
"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman [ishah],
because she was taken out of Man [ish]."
(This statement is emphatic in Hebrew: the man was enthused at what he was seeing.).
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24Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (ESV)
True to my typical response to a challenge in writing, I am going to do it anyway. I will practice some self-divulgence, call it vulnerability if you will, hoping that will help some of you get in touch with your own feelings at a deeper level. To do this, I have to reveal some of my own brokenness, believing that such is a normal part of the struggle of us each to realize True Love, which is simply Love in its many diverse forms. Love is as much love whether in the passionate embrace of your human beloved or in deep meditation with the Infinite. Anyway, is not Love willing to appear weak and broken to love others, even through a daily writing? So, my writings must emulate that, do you not think? And, if such divulgence makes one uncomfortable, then, is that not touching some aspect of the reader that needs bringing into the Light?
I visited the movie rental store over several weeks and kept resisting the temptation to rent “The Notebook,” though it appeared to be a very good movie. On the front is Ryan Gosling, who plays young Noah, and Rachel McAdams, who plays young Allie, holding each other and about to kiss, while being drenched by the pouring rain. See, I am one of those persons that, generally, avoid renting romance movies. Now, there is nothing wrong with the genre “Romance.” But, I am like more and more persons in their 40s and beyond: single, once-twice-or-more divorced, and a long way from those days when we dreamed of meeting that one-meant-for-me-by-God and living happily ever after. In fact, I was married in my early 20s. The marriage lasted sixteen years. The marriage was a wonderful friendship, but ended peacefully, as each admitted there was something more we had never known with each other and wanted to know with someone. I made the frequent mistake of persons following divorce: I married in less than a year. That marriage lasted only three years. No, I am not admitting these divorces as failures, though technically that could be true if we wanted to talk semantics. Rather, I view such “failures” as part of the Journey. They are only failures if I choose them to be failures. Otherwise, they are steps toward learning what I am here on earth to learn.
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