Feeding the Starving Artist Soul

Love, Fire, & Salty Puddle Pools.

It just doesn’t make any sense to me.

Why would God love someone who doesn’t know how to love him back?  Why would he fall in love with people who would inevitably leave and betray him?  Not once but time and time again. Why would he love someone who can’t love him back in the way he deserves?  Why would he subject himself to the imperfect love of a prodigal?

Why would he choose to be the fool?  Is his delight so strong?

It’s true: the love of God is folly. All lovers are fools. Any of us who are lovers will fall into that same category at one time or another. God’s love is absolutely foolish.  A stunningly, bewildering act of brave vulnerability. To invite intimacy is also to welcome rejection. To want someone like that… fearful, apathetic, broken, wayward. To want be in communion with someone like that… It confounds all reason.  

(“The heart knows reasons that reason knows not.” -Pascal) 

Why would God love us who have made it so terribly difficult just to receive it? Why would he lavish his love on us, pouring out goodness and unwarranted grace on us like a rainstorm when our hearts are just like cement sidewalks unable to receive? Why does his love wait for us when we’re so ready to run and hide? 

Why are we so scared of love?  Why are we so scared of being open to it? I’m not afraid of being foolish; I’m afraid of not recovering. I am afraid of the beating in my chest that haunts me seemingly without my consent. I am tired of being interrupted by feeling.  I’m just trying to keep the waters calm, and at a moment’s notice I’m ambushed by this pulse inside my chest. I wish I wanted less! I wish I could hardwire my desire to God and God alone.

I wake up every morning with a heart of ice and everyday God has to melt it. I wish my heart could remain ice-like all the time. It’s the intermittent melting that gets me in trouble. I know it’s God’s goal for me to live with a heart completely thawed. But to do that well requires a measure of courage, strength, wisdom (and perhaps foolishness) that I’m not sure I possess. 

There’s no getting around it. Love begets love. Love feels like fire; which sounds romantic and poetic until you actually experience touching a flame. It’s painful and unmistakably interruptive, like the best art. Its presence will always change something. Its presence, and its absence, matters. And love means suffering. If not, it’s just affinity. It’s not a fire, it’s a breeze. 

And now I understand- I understand the appeal of an unfeeling, selfish existence. I understand not wanting to be touchable. I understand feeling threatened by anything that really makes you feel, anything that gets too close and melts your defenses. Because in the end there’s nothing more terrifying than being truly vulnerable.  Care about anyone and you give them the power to hurt you. 

But there’s no way around it.  

So where’s the resolve? Somewhere down by my shoes in salty puddle pools. Someone much wiser than me once said that our tears are our best prayers. (Even the ones we wish we didn’t have.) There’s no resolve for feeling. We were made to feel. 

So as much as I have, of late, bemoaned feeling how I do, I have to open my hands and offer it up to the God who created the heart He gave me.  And until a resolve comes, God can catch my prayers in his salt-stained hands. I hope he will.  

Sometimes the heart must break.

One of my favorite movies is called “Becoming Jane”, a film which catalogues the true story of Jane Austen’s yet untold personal love-and-loss story.  In the third act of the film, Jane has a meeting with an older, successful female authoress. She asks Jane, “Of what do you wish to write?” Jane answers aptly and succinctly: “Of the heart”. To which the older woman postures the ever important and honest question, “Do you know it?” 

That may be a long way to say, I’ve been thinking about heart-knowledge today. 

And perhaps it seems rather elementary, but I think sometimes the heart must break.  Ms. Austen’s knowledge of the heart was called into question at that juncture because of her naivety. She was, perhaps rightly, perceived as being inexperienced in matters of the heart.  There are places in us that can only really be discovered and known by being broken.  

There is a time for every activity under heaven; seasons for planting and sowing.  But who would try to plant on sidewalk or an asphalt parking lot?  Can you imagine it?  The ground must be prepared, plowed, tilled.  Our pores must be open, able to receive. 

I think the best kind of art is the kind that breaks your heart.  Yes, at the same token, much art can be restorative.  (“Its leaves used for healing…”) I like anything that forces you to check your pulse.  Okay, the word “like” may be too generous a statement. I appreciate anything that forces you to realize you’re alive, that your soul and emotions are active… I like art that cracks through the ice on our soul and plunges through to the raging waters below.  Sometimes this process is quite treacherous. 

I’ve never been any good at guarding my heart; perhaps this is why movies affect me so much. I take it all in. I applaud the principle behind it, agreeing that the heart is the wellspring of life and worth guarding.  I have a feeling mine might be a bit too porous. //There are times when that’s entirely false, however, and God probably asks as he asked Adam in the garden, “[Andrea], where are you?” // But more often than not, this porous heart of mine is absorbing and expelling love like water.  It’s hard to close the floodgates, to keep it under wraps, set behind specific parameters of decorum. Or wisdom.  But it knows no other way. 

The more I reflect on it, the more I see just how much I tend to give my heart away like co-signing on a thousand micro-loans.  (Some loans for greater amounts than others.) It’s not primarily someone else who breaks my heart; they’re just being human with the investment I’ve given them.  So in essence, I break my own heart when I sign up for them.  

Perhaps I’m biased, but I’m starting to think that the number of relationships you’ve been in isn’t the major factor to count when it comes to how “experienced” you may be, how knowledgable you are in matters of the heart.  I think there is more to do with how much you have had your heart broken and (hopefully) put back together. 

The heart that is alive will inevitably have to contend with a constant ache that is uncontrollable and unquenchable. The more you love, the more you will have a broken heart.  Considering the fever-like, chill-like, sore-like symptoms you’re bound to experience as a consequence of this action, I know it’s not altogether appealing. 

But at the very least- a bleeding heart still beats.  And for all intents and purposes- in the arena of keeping you alive, able to offer to the world - perhaps the world needs more hearts willing to be bravely foolish and live broken.  And amidst all of the chills, aches, sweats, and broken pieces, there is a beauty and a glory and a pulse more Divine than can be told this side of Heaven.  We serve a wounded healer.  A lover.  And a fighter. You can’t be a very good lover and not be a good fighter as well. 

In the end, I think God does some of his best work when he’s stitching our hearts together.  The Lord is a mender, his needle always threaded.  And I’m grateful for art - and the art in others - that awakens me to feel just about anything. 

May we be people who choose the daring way of the broken heart and artists who mindfully sow seeds of value into the fertile ground of open hearts- perhaps starting with our own.  But be careful, little ones, take care. (Take heed, my soul!) Your heart has much value within it. 

Much. 

We are open, God.  We are open. 

On Dating: “Maybe he’s just your pace car.”

“Maybe he’s just your pace car.” Not the person you’re supposed to be with.  Just someone to keep the bar high.  Maybe the two of you were never meant to work out as that kind of pair; maybe he was just a signpost. 

I think at times, my brain jumps to too many conclusions. There are MANY reasons someone can be brought into your life at any given time. Not all of them are romantic.

The ones that aren’t romantic aren’t UNimportant or even LESS important.  All moments bear the same seeds of potential for deep growth and meaning.  But sometimes I forget that.

Sometimes, when you thought they could be your partner, it can be rather disheartening… to have your heart awakened only to be kept entirely at bay. It’s far from comfortable. I think I would rather not even see the possibility, than to live with the tension of its absence. I tend to not be able to close the heart doors that people leave ajar. 

What’s the point of meeting these people?  What’s the point of meeting someone you think you could potentially want to be with long term, if it never comes to pass? Some days it just seems cruel. Like salt in a wound. And I don’t understand it. 

Yet I know God has purpose and intention behind everything. The mystery of that does little to sooth the low-grade fever kind of ache you feel when you’re forced to live this unrequested reality.  There’s no shaking it off.  There’s no shaking the “un” from your “unrequited-ness.” There’s nothing to read into. There’s no hiding in fantasy. Sometimes you just have to live your hurt, if you have the courage to do so.  

(So what’s the point?)

As much as we bemoan it, perhaps that person’s purpose in your life wasn’t to be your partner (no matter how much it seems like it ought to be.)  Perhaps they were just meant to be your pace car. Maybe they were just supposed to come in and completely rewrite the script of what you thought you wanted.  Or what you needed.  Maybe they had to enter the scene and set your bar much higher so you won’t waste your time looking elsewhere. 

Maybe they were just meant to keep your sights high. Maybe they were meant to inspire you to become a more true version of your best self.  Maybe they were there to reaffirm your calling, to keep you traveling in a specific direction. Maybe they were there to remind you that you ought to look for someone who will help you to flourish.

Or maybe YOU were there to speak something into their life that you wouldn’t be able to at another emotional proximity.  Maybe you’re the exact distance away to bring the perspective that they need. And maybe they need to hear it. 

Trying to guess the purpose doesn’t make it really any less painful to bear. It’s hard to live with an ache you can’t do anything with. It’s a little bit like catching lightning in a jar and wanting to toss it up into the sky.  But I can’t toss any of my heart-lightning into the sky.  But God knows it’s there. Right next to all of my questions. Questions about being awoken and broken. And pace cars. 

Swimming in It

“How like the anxious fish in the Sufi legend I often am - swimming to and fro, hunting for the water that in actuality surrounds and sustains me.” -Benner (Surrender to Love)

When I go to bed at night, I’m tucked in and covered by softly folded layers of love.

When I wake up in the morning, I’m greeted by light prisms and anticipated whispers of love.

When I stop to take a breath, my lungs- they fill with your love. 

The love you surround me in. 

When I wait, your waiting room is decorated with love (for me). Deep, unshakable, un-apathetic, un-disinterested, un-unmoved love.  All around me.

When I drive throughout my days, your love fills all my empty spaces.  Every intersection. The pause between every song. Every opening and closing door. 

When I dance, I even sweat your love.  Your love fills my every open pore. 

Because your love is everywhere, written in silent melodies. Your love is like water and I’m just barely wading in it.  

Yet I very rarely swim or even float.  But Your love is everywhere. And I’m just swimming in it. 

God’s Benediction

It takes a while to learn it.  The Lord places his hand upon our heads and blesses us. He speaks worth and value and beauty and truth deep inside us.  

The world doesn’t do this; God does. 

Only God can cure our loneliness. Our emptiness. It’s funny how much I try to hide from those feelings.  (Too dangerous.)  It’s funny how God chases us when we run.  Whether we want him to or not.  

But God only made one of me. I’m not supposed to be anyone else. He has lined my path with blossoming trees.  He leads me on paths untaken.  Disregarding all others, I am reminded that God is the one who sees me. (Genesis 16:13-15) 

Friend, will you believe my love for you?  Will you offer me your trust?  (Psalm 78:22)

I’m still learning God’s benediction. Still learning how to let it in.  

Why I Choose Anyone Else, I’ll Never Know

Why I always look for other lovers, I just don’t know.  Call it human frailty, weakness, or glory.  Call it impatience, call it sin.  Call it natural. Call it what you want; the only love that moves me is just an echo of the Divine Shout.  I’ll chase and tumble down rabbit holes in search of it.  I’ll look under rocks and trace trunks of trees and stumble through my days, wrapped up in all kinds of things except You.  I don’t deserve your kindness.  I don’t deserve for you to call my bluff. I don’t deserve for you to seek me.  Not now, not at the end of my day.  Not after all I’ve done and gotten myself tangled into.  Just grasping at vapors that just remind me of you.  You whose love is not shallow.  Or fickle. Or absent.  How dare I forget you, who never once forgets me.  Only lies suggest anything otherwise.  You are supremely good.  My God, you see the good in me.  You see the beauty that you started and that you will finish.  You see the promise you planted inside of me, Jezreel.  You plant.  You purposed me and led and followed me, all my days.  Your love sees just right through me, an x-ray I often don’t want to share.  You pick me up when my heart’s just a puddle on the floor.  You stop me and surround me; you remind me that you and I are slow dancing, we’re just a mile away.  And it won’t always be that way.  This marriage, this life is indeed the battlefield.  Someday we will rejoice, you and I.  Faith made sight.  We’ll talk about your faithfulness… how you kept us together.  How you kept me together.  How you put me back together, time and time again, when so many would-be lovers and circumstances broke my heart.  We’ll talk about how great you are, and we’ll be right.  You are my last call of the day.  You’re the one I want to run to, and you come to me, even when I don’t look for you.  You understand my hidings. You beckon me to life.  You sing me to sleep, quietly you come.  You show me who you are; I should never be surprised.  Generous, you are.  Generous with me.  All I desire is an echo of you.  Who could blame me?  Why I choose anyone else, I’ll never know.  

Love: Lost in Translation

I had an interaction with someone today that prompted a very interesting vision in my head.  It was with an acquaintance of mine that I know from work.  His name is Andy.  I say he’s an acquaintance because I don’t see him that often, I don’t know his last name, and he’s hard to get to know.   

Andy comes by from time to time in his motorized wheelchair.  I don’t know where he comes from; I don’t know where he goes.  I’m not particularly certain what condition he struggles with- if it’s cerebral palsy or something of the sort - but we do our best to communicate as much as we can given the circumstances.  It can be frustrating at times - when I want to be able to love on him but I can’t understand him - and how actually sad it can feel when that happens.  I want to befriend him and treat him like royalty, because I’m sure that’s how God sees him.  That’s how I ought to see everyone. And I wonder if Andy knows how I feel in that moment.  Like, I really really wish I could understand you.  I really don’t want you to feel alone.  I don’t really know how you feel at all.  I don’t know what it’s like inside your skin.

And I just thought about heaven.  I thought about it kind of like the end of Beauty and the Beast, where all the chipped teacups and feather dusters and chest of drawers suddenly became fully glorified (animated) people!  I envisioned meeting Andy again, not as I know him now, but as transformed and released being.  I wonder what it would be like.  I wonder who he really is inside.  

I wonder if he’ll know how I felt in those moments where I just couldn’t understand, but wanted to.  And I began to wonder if God would- in all his generosity, his glory, his extravagant love- allow us to receive all the love that got “lost in the translation” here on earth.  All the love that was meant to be received but was missed. Misunderstandings.  Timing.  Rejections.  Distance.  Or even just the necessary limitations, the boundaries of intimacy we have to have on earth that we won’t have to have in heaven.  (As I’ve heard it described, heaven being a place where we can enjoy  ”multiple intimacies without promiscuity.”  Because we’ll be HOLY.  Compelling thought, yes?)  

And I wonder if God would allow us to also GIVE the love that we have wanted to give on earth but that never fully came across.  Perhaps God will allow us to walk through old memories of life here, and walk hand in hand with the friend we wanted to bless.   Like a father watching an old film projector with his two little boys, one on either side.  Maybe they’ll get to see then what they don’t see now or what they didn’t see in the past.  What a beautiful discovery and blessing it would be for them! Don’t you think?  

And in walking through old memories of broken or missed relationships, we won’t be sad there! We won’t be broken by the lack of love because we will be in the very presence of it!  Him. It will be all gift!  I wonder if people will see or hear the prayers we prayed for them.  I wonder if we’ll see and hear the prayers of those who prayed for us.  Though we know that prayer ultimately brings all of us to God Himself, not to us.  Think of all the joy that could be.  

I don’t know what it’ll be like.  I only know that my shallow attempts at love down here are sin-tainted and frail.  But the thought of heaven gives me hope.  I’m grateful for stories that remind us that this isn’t all there is.  We’re not totally free, not fully glorified just yet.  Neither is our love.  But oh the redemption that must await us in heaven..