“In” Love

Some years ago, when I was reading many of the works of Charles Williams,¹ I came across a brief theatrical interlude between Mary & Joseph:

Mary:  “Joseph dear, I’m in love.”

Joseph:  “In love – with whom?”

Mary:  “Not in love with anyone, just in love.”

Joseph:  “But dearest wife, if you’re in love, you must be in love with someone.”

Mary: “Oh, my husband, you do not understand.  The love I’m in is not with anyone or anything; I am in (the fullness of) Love itself.”²

This has stayed with me for many years, perhaps as a hope, a yearning, or a guidepost. I have loved, and sometimes well. But have I ever had this “in” love itself?

George Ritchie

Then, recently, my son pointed me to a book by George G. Ritchie, “Return From Tomorrow” ³ – a fantastic account of his return from death (he was technically dead for nine minutes) experience of a 20-year-old young soldier in the latter years of WWII.

Two things from his writing influenced me deeply.

One – The Face of Christ

His guide, mentor, and teacher for this out-of-body near death journey, which seemed to last for some days, was none other than “the Son of God—Jesus” Himself.

“This Person was power itself, older than time, and yet more modern than anyone I had ever met. Above all, with that same mysterious, inner certainty, I knew that this Man loved me. Far more than power, what emanated from this Presence was unconditional love. An astonishing love. A love beyond my wildest imagining. This love knew every unlovable thing about me…(p58)

Afterward, Ritchie hungered for that Presence again and again. And then, after some months of what I personally call “the silence” ⁴ something shifted, “… if I wanted to feel the nearness of Christ – and I did want that, above everything else – I would have to find it in the people He put before me each day” (p126)

Two – “Wild Bill”

Then, at the very end of Ritchie’s book, comes the Crown Jewel of the entire book—his account of Wild Bill Cody in a German concentration camp. Now, bear in mind that nothing of what Ritchie writes is fiction; it is all real, actual human experience.

There’s no way I can summarize those three pages (pp 129-131) – they have to be read word for word.

Go here:⁵  https://bolstablog.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/wild-bill/ 5 ⁵⁵⁵”

Love in Human Experience

Many of my clients’ stories, begin with “being in love” – and then after a short or long while, a collapse. Love is supposed to be a promise. And it is, but it’s a promise involving a decision, a decision that is an entrance into an ethic – an ethic that involves a mutual release of self into a larger relationship, that as well as joy and ecstasy, and a simple companionship, will probably involve struggle (sometimes called ‘long-suffering’), betrayal⁶, forgiveness, courage, and (so often missing these days) the support of a larger community. A Love relationship, is a lot of work. Life is a lot of work.  As Zorba the Greek comments, “Life is suffering, only death is not.”⁷

Yet sometimes, when I casually see a person on the street, or in some ‘ordinary’ (i.e. not striking or glorious) setting, I like to imagine that person was sent out from home that morning by a partner who deeply and absolutely loves and adores him or her. I want that to be true. And I say a little prayer that it be true. Maybe I’m on the bottom steps of slowly becoming like “Wild Bill.”  I know it’s possible, I’ve seen it.

I recall a young wife client telling me after her first child was born, about the love she felt gazing at him – “like nothing I have ever felt in my life, not even for my husband.” I realized that as a man and a father that I probably could never totally enter that sacred mother/child space. But as a man I can support and protect it.⁸

Recently I performed a wedding for a client couple I’d worked with a few years back. And their primary ‘reading’ was St. Paul in I Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind…”  Some of you may know it by heart. Find a Bible (or Google it) and read it (now). Here’s a part of it.

“Love is always patient and kind; love is never jealous; love is not boastful or conceited, is never rude and never seeks its own advantage. It does not take offense or store up grievances. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but finds joy in the truth. It is always ready to make allowances, to trust, to hope and to endure whatever comes. Love never comes to an end…”  (NJB)

So often I come in contact with persons who have never had an opportunity to learn of this, or even the capacity. Or, sadly, never a direct experience – though they may grab onto just a shadow of it – frequently leading to betrayal.

But into this world comes the Holy Family of Bethlehem. Into this world come myriads of the suffering. Into this world comes Wild Bill Cody in a place of unspeakable horror.

And into this world come the faces this Love presents to us – teaching us to forgive and love others unconditionally, unreservedly, without judgment, without sermons, sometimes silently (as God seems to like doing).  And like “Wild Bill”,

“His compassion for his fellow prisoners glowed on his face… For six years… But without the least physical or mental deterioration.”  (p 130)

And with this “Great Exchange” (as Charles Williams liked to call it), we are healed ourselves – often of our own deep pain.

O Lord, give us eyes to see, and then respond. And maybe then to deeply Know it’s blessing in this life.

Pay Attention

Footnotes

¹  (1996-1945), English author, poet, playwright, and central member of the famous  “Inklings” (Tolkien, Lewis, Sayers, Barfield)

²  This is not verbatim but from memory years ago. I know the reference is somewhere in my library, but I cannot find it. (This is what happens when you wait until the last minute to write your Newsletter: You end up with no extra time to document evasive resources.) Yet it has stayed with me (almost verbatim) all these years.

³  Ritchie, George G., Return from Tomorrow. Grand Rapids, MI: Chosen, 30th-anniversary edition, 1978, 2007.  It’s not a book about religion; it’s a book about Love, the triumph of Love, and learning to Love.    ($10.01 on Amazon)

⁴  See my last month (July) Newsletter

⁵  Or email me and I’ll send you a copy – [email protected] (write Wild Bill in the subject line), or text me – 810-730-9454.

⁶  I’ve come to consider betrayal as a universal human experience, perhaps necessary to being human. There’s no literary art form that doesn’t wrestle with it. The Bible has it (necessarily) twice – once at the beginning and once in the middle.

⁷  Nikos Kazantzakis  (1952)   One of my favorites.  (Himself an Eastern Orthodox Christian mystic, though its quite hidden.)

⁸  As St. Joseph.  The old agricultural verb “to husband” comes to mind.