This morning I went for a walk in the state park by my house. I began on the trail that follows the railroad tracks and is flat and easy for running. It connects with another trail that splits off and runs along the river. I took the split and walked with The Giant beside me.
It amazes me that the Giant can walk through the woods without breaking trees. His foot-falls are gentle and he deftly manuvers among the branches and plants. We came to a muddy place and I went to the edge of the water. I walked out onto a small bank of shells and rocks, crossing bits of water and slipping on mud to get out there.
I looked down at the water and noticed that there were tons of snails. Tiny snails with long spiraling shells, freely cleaning the rocks. There were so many snails that I couldn't begin to count them. I thought to myself about taking some home to put in a fish tank.
Why do we see beautiful things and want to capture them?
There was this water skimmer that was dancing in circles. It moved fast, turning here, twirling there. It was a picture of freedom. I decided that I want to be like the water skimmer - free to dance on the waves.
I began to think about freedom and pursuit of love. It's funny that we often use hunting as our analogy for love. You get the thing that you want in your sight and then you capture it. We try to capture love. We try to find someone or something and put it in a cage so that it can't leave us, it can't hurt us. We are afraid because love is not tame.
Love does not capture, but it sets free.
I imagine a hunter off in the woods after a beautiful deer. He sees the deer and begins to chase it with reckless abandon. He runs through the woods, trees slapping his face and arms, following where it goes. He comes to a place and the deer stops. He looks around. He has come to the home of the deer, the heart of the deer. He is in awe of the beauty of this place.
The deer walks to him, freely, choosing to come close. He does not want to capture the deer he wants to watch it move in freedom and grace. This is it's home. He stays there for a time and the deer stays by his side. As he leaves, the deer follows. They are both free.
Love sets the loved one free. And real love sets the one who loves free too. So much human interaction is about control and capture. We fear the wildness of love. We put love in a box so that it will not leave, but love cannot be put in a box. God is Love. God cannot be contained.
It is hard to trust that we will be loved in return...
What if we free those we love. Risk. In running after one that we love, we may be led into dangerous even harmful places, but as we let the other run free, we stay free.
Will we trust that Love himself is trustworthy? Will we have faith that in freeing the other to choose not us, we also free them to truly love us? Will we believe that even the pain and the suffering of unrequited love can develop our character and make us better at loving? Will we learn to love those who leave us and hurt us? Will we move beyond our cynicsm and try and become more like Love, who freed the object of his affection and suffered in love?
Will Gomer be faithful? Will Gomer be free?
1 comment:
((don't read if you have a headache ^___^)
Well, I think love depends on a lot of things.
I'm 15, and if I wanted to fall in love with someone who would love me back I would have a really hard time trying to find someone near my age, because when your young, you don't want to stay in one place, you want to run free and explore new things, so that you can find out who you are, so basically, if you haven’t found yourself completely, then how can you love, you don't even know what you want....
AND
Even if you know what want, there are so many other people who don't know what they want yet- so it's hard when your younger, but if your older, and you've been their done that, and you know what you want, you have discovered that no ones perfect, and that things are always greener on the other side,(but turn out to be just as bad) then yeah, it'll be easier for you to stay in one place, to be thankful for what you have,to find perfection isn't love, and most of all, being able to live with it.(Even though some older people know less about what they want than a 3 year old trying to choose between cheerios and fruitloops -_-) Love is looking at someone and realizing that they ARE perfectly flawed! It takes a long time to discover that (and beable to live with it), and until then, I think people should just lay back and enjoy finding new things, and figuring out what it really means to love someone.
To Katsu: love is possible, I have seen real love in real life, it just isnt a fairytale, it has flaws, and thats okay....
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