love boldly (close your eyes if you have to)
Jim November 24th, 2007
there are times when i wish i could go through life with the eyes of my heart closed. i still sometimes protect myself as not to feel too much. in an email a friend wrote, “For years I thought everyone had that ache every time they saw anything of beauty or love, even a sunset – that anything of truth/beauty/love was so intense emotionally that it almost hurt. I remember consciously having to turn down the wattage because I thought it could become overwhelming, feeling love so intensely, crying at the sight of a full moon, for example.”
it has been said that the source of all suffering is attachment. you know, we become attached to people, places, things and outcomes, and that sets us up for heartache. and yet, i never got the feeling that Jesus lived a detached life. he wept. so, maybe what we develop is a sort of redeemed attachment. we go through life and embrace it all fully. we don’t hide and strive to protect ourselves. we live. we laugh. we cry. we hurt. we heal. we feel the depths of compassion for those who suffer. we love boldly. and yet it’s not a self-destructive, unhealthy attachment because we know Love is always at work conspiring to make all things whole, beautiful, and free.
i’ve mentioned before our postal worker friend melvin who works at the local post office. we always make sure we get in his line when we have a package to mail. he especially is fond of Jessica. pam and jessie were at the post office a couple days ago, and melivn purchased a set of special Christmasy stamps for jessie. she came bursting through the front door when they got home to tell me all about it!
when the eyes of my heart are open i see the beauty and value of the simplest things…a small kindness, a caring hug, a listening ear, an expression of affirmation, looking straight into another’s eyes and saying, “i love you.” this has to be God because i was the chief of all self-protectors until God’s love unfroze me.
i’ve discovered you can’t really have it both ways. if the beauty of the sunset brings tears, so will the hurt and pain you see or experience in the world. in the end, it’s all part of the journey of being fully alive like Jesus was. Jesus carried a certain trust that allowed him to be fully human. there was no need to back down. we “walk by faith” because we carry this same trust. it’s like a precious treasure at the center of our soul – a certain “knowing.”
[photo by chub! (:]
- Life , Love , Wide Open Spaces
- Comments(6)
This is an excellent post. My instinct is to avoid the pain, even at the cost of losing the goodness. It’s hard to stay in touch with these things, even though the payoff is so great.
I sometimes feel like a freak because I am surrounded by people that not only don’t cry at the moon, but don’t notice it. Then my heart breaks for them because even though experiencing the beauty of life comes hand in hand with feeling the pain – I wouldn’t trade it for feeling nothing.
I got the book yesterday and am soooooooooooooooooooo into it. Oh man, its even better than I thought and trust me I had high expectations
Truly a beautiful post….it conjures up several small but vitally important moments that have occured this week alone which made me feel deeply. I think we need to arrive at the end of our week to a place of reflection.
I particularly like how you ended this piece…….the “knowing” in the centre of our soul? I believe is where the light shines from and in order for it to be turned on to shine, one has to be comfortable with the feeling of true vulnerability.
I’m glad I followed Barbara’s link and found you……..
take care.
Jim.
Hello my Brother, greetings from thr frozen Northlands of Ontario. Burrr!! Another great post! Anyway, For many years I struggled with expressing love. I did not recognise love, I wanted love, but I did not want love. I was uncertain. cold, calculating and direct. Sometimes sneaky with bad motives. I did not know love. Jesus is Love. God is Love. This horse hockey about men not crying is horse hockey. Just plain old silly. It is perfectly acceptable for a 6 foot two, two hundred and eleven pound Nurse type, tough as nails strong like bull, cheese head to weep at a kids movie in front of perfect strangers. And if I can not cry about this or a cartoon then I am going to have to ask myself to step outside and have a wrestle – dance party; Someone is going to get hurt. Love like Jesus does; ALL THE TIME, EVERYWHERE. I JUST DO NOT CARE IF YOU THINK I AM A GIANT MARSHMELLOW.
Love,
Mikey
lovely post today….this portion hit me quite
hard….
when the eyes of my heart are open i see the beauty and value of the simplest things…a small kindness, a caring hug, a listening ear, an expression of affirmation, looking straight into another’s eyes and saying, “i love you.” this has to be God because i was the chief of all self-protectors until God’s love unfroze me.
could be because i feel like God is helping me
to “downsize” instead of “supersize
when it comes to noticing His activity around
me….
not that epiphanies and
bells and whistles are bad….but hoping to
“experience” that stuff all the time blocks out
the small, but beautiful graces that surround us
so often……
Good to find your blog and site, I hadn’t heard of you until the shapevine webinar post went up, so googled and love the blog. If I’m not there on Shapevine it is because it will be 1am here in the UK! :0)
Blessings