I’m Falling Even More in Love With You

For a long time now, I’ve been bewitched by the Gospel message of “good news,” and how that includes desire, longing, and the fulfillment of any type of union for which we are so desperately searching.

It’s just all about love.

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“Oh, I’ve loved you from the start, in every single way, and more each passing day. You are brighter than the stars, believe me when I say, it’s not about your scars, it’s all about your heart.” Mindy Gledhill, from the “Anchor” album.

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Loving God is so full-bodied, so deliriously full of desire. Why and how do we forget this?

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“I’m falling even more in love with you, letting go of all I’ve held onto, I’m standing here until you make me move, I’m hanging by a moment here with you.” Matchbox 20 “Hanging by a Moment.”

God is never going to ask us to move. She’s waiting for us to stand the fuck still and feel. All the shame, and inadequacies, and confusions, and longings. It’s all okay, all required.

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“Forgetting all I’m lacking, completely incomplete, I’ll take your invitation, and you’ll take all of me…I’m living for the only thing I know, I’m running and I’m not sure where to go, and I don’t know what I’m diving into, just hanging by a moment here with you.” Matchbox 20

Is there anything more holy? More indicative of the quest?

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St. Symeon the Theologian did not believe so. In his poem, “Awaken as the Beloved,” (10th century Byzantine), he writes, “We awaken in Christ’s body/As Christ awakens our bodies/and my poor hand is Christ, He enters/my foot and is infinitely me.

…For if we genuinely love Him,/we wake up inside Christ’s body/where all our body, all over/every most hidden part of it,/is realized in joy as Him,/and he makes us, utterly, real/

and everything that is hurt, everything/that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,/maimed, ugly,/irreparably/damaged, is in Him transformed/and recognized as whole, as lovely/ as radiant in His light/we awaken as the Beloved/in every last part of our body.” (in Roger Housden’s “Ten Poems to Change Your Life Again and Again,” pp. 119-20).

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“I looked out the window, and stared at the field, where the blue sky and green were colliding. I looked back at you, and I knew we were sealed, by a faith that has ways of providing, sometimes you get there in spite of the route, losing track of your life and what it’s about, the road seems to know when to straighten right out, the closer you come to Elysium.” Mary Chapin Carpenter, “Elysium”

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Our desires and longings for true and richly satisfying lives draw us closer to God. S/he is standing by saying, “What have you been waiting for? For God’s sake!” So much of what we hear and learn does not separate us from God, but draws us closer: love, the desire for union, passion for authenticity in all of our life’s work. To live as if love is already a given. Because it it. These are not things to be left to pop culture or peripheral verbalization. God has already tread this path and She is waiting for us to join her, with everything we have to bring. Everything.

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“This heart was almost taken, this heart had a love of its own. This heart was reawakened when you came along…this heart was stranded in the winter, was stuck out in a blizzard with its summer clothes. This heart knows when love comes and when it goes. This heart has heard your laughter, this heart has learned how to smile, this heart’ll be your true believer if you’ll stay awhile.” Nanci Griffith, “This Heart”