'Your life and my life flow into each other as wave flows into wave, and unless there is peace and joy and freedom for you, there can be no real peace or joy or freedom for me. To see reality - not as we expect it to be but as it is - is to see that unless we live for each other and in and through each other, we do not really live very satisfactorily: that there can really be life only where there really is, in just this sense, love. This is not just the way things ought to be. Most of the time it is not the way we want things to be. It is the way things are. And not for one instant do i believe that it is by accident that it is the way things are. That would be quite an accident.'
Buechner made this conclusion following his ideas about why the Good Samaritan was good...the Samaritan stopped not out of some greater moral strength than the others who passed the broken man on the street, but because he recognized that that broken man was the same as himself.
i think that's why poverty kills me. I think that's why i always turn to extremes to try and somehow fulfill this urgency i feel to do something about people's suffering. when people suffer, i suffer. my family suffers, my best friends suffer. it's the beauty and the beast that is connectedness.(i'm surprised it's only my fifth, sorry to all you non-greenvillians who have no idea what this is about.)Everything thing is connected.
And perhaps the world's biggest problem, its greatest indifference, exists because people refuse to see the poor as equal to themselves... if only they could see that they breathe the same and feel the same and experience the most basic things together; if they did, they would surely do something because there is so much shit...so, so much.
..... moving on.
so what is the purpose of marriage? what is the purpose of that relationship? what kind of significance and attention does it deserve? what's it's role?
i think i've grown up viewing marriage as some kind of ultimate end - marriage was fulfillment, marriage was happiness. So the significant other inevitably takes the role of some kind of god figure and problems happen...or they die and all of sudden marriage isn't the ultimate whatever.
the closer i get to marriage, and the closer i get to God (and whatever ultimacy that implies or entails) simultaneously the more i realize how much stock i've put into something mortal and finite, and how definitive of my character and motives i've let it become. i want to get away from that...i'm tired of idolizing this relationship.
but it's hard because i can't find a balance. how much of myself do i give? how much do i love you? because it's a lot easier to love you than it is to love God, but only God seems to have that dependable perfection i know i need. it's a lot easier to give myself completely to you, to live my life for you and with you and about you, but that's just not healthy...but i don't want to be scared of loving you.
how do i get to that point where i'm loving God by loving you? i guess it's when i can be happy outside of our relationship...which i can, it's just being brave enough to act on it. it's being brave enough to give you up in hopes that i'll get you back.
it's when you stop being my underlying purpose, backbone, support, escape, etc...and it's when i finally stop being a damn light switch and learn to give myself to you and this ultimate relationship with God...or maybe when i give myself to you because of that relationship.
i dunno. but i could use prayers from those great friends of mine who really care.
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2 comments:
Caitlin, many thoughts come to mind reading your recent posts. My heart aches for you. Please read my email and reply when you get a moment.
There may be a key to the door you are yearning to be opened.
By chance I read an article today about the couple who owns the Panda Express chain and the man said a couple of things that immediately made me think of you. First, he says if we can only figure out that each of us can do little things with great passion, the whole world would change. Secondly, he says he's learned that the way you do anything is the way you everything. I thought that was worth pondering for awhile.
Every once in a while it hits me that no one in the entire world has any idea what it means to be me, to know what I'm thinking or feeling about being me. And right behind that is always the other thought that every single human being on this earth is in exactly the same situation. I've never been able to adequately explain this concept much less the effect it has on me, but it does something way deep inside.
I'm beginning to get some answers for my seemingly endless search of who am I and how did I get there. And it's a double-edged sword. I read somewhere that the really tragic thing about Altzheimer's is that people realize something isn't right with them, but they are helpless to do anything about it. I think that is true about other situations as well.
You are not alone! You will find what you are seeking, even if you really don't even know what you're truly looking for. But realize you will only find it when you look within yourself. I love you.
first, i think you are more ready for marriage then you think. i say this because you are aware of the potential idolatry in a male/female relationship of love (be that dating or marriage) and i think being aware of that sort of thing helps a lot in preventing idolatry from happening or ends it before it goes too far (if there is such a measurement).
second, i don't know much about readiness for marriage as i don't even understand it all that well, but those were my thoughts as i read this.
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