"It's easy to love somebody/It's easier than to be loved. "
I was listening to Colin Hay the other day, as I often do, and was struck by the above lyric. Struck by it because what Colin was saying is quite profound. It's incredibly easy to love someone, to bake cookies for them, to buy them a book they like, to call them up when you think about them. But to be loved is an entirely different story.
To be loved is to let someone know who you are. To let them know the things they could tease you about, hate you for, be disappointed in you for. To be loved is to let them know the secret delights you have and your wishes and dreams and foolish hopes.
A good friend of mine put it well the other day when we were talking. This idea that we all deeply want to be loved for every flaw and wonderfulness that we have, we want someone to know us completely. But we also don't want the person to know us fully because we believe that if this person knew they wouldn't love us in our entirety.
And the greater the person who we find so lovely and caring, the less we want them to know us for real because then they might not stick around and we want them to stick around.
I'm ridiculous with the people I care most about. I worry about being a burden on people. When I go to another city to visit someone I always have to have some reason other than them to come to the city and will just happen to see them while I'm there. I don't want them to feel overwhelmed by the fact that I want to hang out with them the whole time, so I create "outs" just in case they don't like me as much as I like them.
But what if we let people see us for who we are, for all our quirkiness, for our brokenness? What would happen then? I think...i think we would be transformed. Our brokenness will always be with us I imagine. But why continue to allow that shame to stop us from being loved by someone, loved in a way that will truly transform us if we let it.
I think that if we let someone know our true self, with all our mistakes and bruises, we actually are freed a bit each time from the weight of guilt and shame that we carry around in our flesh. This transforming power that God has to change us when we live in the reality of his love is amazing. And as we are loved, we throw off more things that entangle us and hinder us and have a chance to live in a little more freedom.
And when we, in turn, love someone and God shows them kindness through us they are filled with joy and want to love us back even if we're messed up. And the cycle continues, loving each other, creating thankfulness for the love, wanting to love more and so on and so forth. it is a beautiful and tranforming thing.
If we hold back from allowing people to really know us, we don't change. If we hold back we continue to dwell on the fact that we are broken people because we are confirming with our actions that if anyone really knew the depth of our dark hearts they wouldn't love us. ashamed of ourselves, not worthy of love we keep a cool distance.
However, if we allowed people to really love us, to give to us without a requirement of giving back and learned to be comfortable in our own skin we begin to allow ourselves to live in the light of those that are loved. Thankfulness and grace will begin to grow in our lives because we understand how unworthy we are and how loved we are at the same time.
The reality of our brokenness will always be with us but let's not keep living in the guilty and weight of that brokenness. We're messed up, that sense of failure is brutal but......let's keep going. We need to be living realities of people who are loved. The world needs to see it and we need it. Transformed. New Creations.
Maybe this post is only for me but allow me the chance to say it aloud even if it's only for my benefit. But i hope you can resonate with what I'm saying.
IN OTHER NEWS:
A few days ago there was a Hoola-hoop show down between myself and Emily. Several attempts were made but in the end the Universal Hool-a-hoop-a-thon was won by Emily. Oh....and an important detail...Emily is in grade 1 and about 3 feet tall. That's right, i lost a hool-a-hoop competition to a gr.1 kid. she was amazing, no effort at all. but you can't feel about loosing to such a great competitor.
And we should all go stand in the warm sun, and listen to "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens. I did it. It was lovely moment.
12 comments:
I like thoughtful & thought-provoking blog entries. Yay for another one!
I share similar sentiments of the whole love/community/growth interaction dealie as you've expressed here, bcakes. Rock on. Honestly, I believe with pretty much my entire being that community unhindered by fear & buoyed by love is precisely what Christ has had in mind for the Church since Day 1 (well, Day 6, if you wanna take it back to Genesis...) It was something that we investigated as a COLTS group and tried to foster in the greater camp community this past summer at Crow. As far as I can tell, it worked out very, very well (at least in proportion to the level people felt comfortable in becoming vulnerable with each other). Check out John 15-17 along with the book of 1 John for some nice Biblical support about this concept ;)
Oh, and by the way, Colin Hay rocks.
LE.
LE: I think that community does play a part in this but more so I worry that we have not struck a balance between understanding that God loves us and loving other people. I believe there is a deficit on the "God loves us" side of things. Because really...it is only out of an understanding of his strength and love that we can love each other.
So the whole community thing comes from our own intimate relationship with God. Bonhoeffer talks about this. "Let him who cannot be alone, beware the community"
God uses us out of our own connection to him. And people can draw us to him and he can use people, but we cannot hide from a relationship with him by just pouring ourselve into people.
Then I believe we are loving from bleeding hearts and bleeding hearts will eventually bleed to death.
Thanks for commenting.
lisa, i really liked and agreed with your post.
Mme bgateaux;
Couldn't agree with you more. Christian community can work only so well as it is connected to the Head. Likewise, wine cannot be made if the grape-bearing branches aren't connected to their central vine. I may even be so bold as to state, with trepidation, that true, bona fide selfless love may only exist when one has this such connection with the Root of Love (viz., "abiding"). Without such a relationship, does there exist only "love" grounded in selfish motives?
Something to ponder, perhaps... ...
that was good Lisa. Thank you. I suck at figuring this out... so it's good to hear it again.
Dave: thanks for reading
Michigan: i have by no means figured this out, just writing things i have been thinking about. looking forward to hanging out soon.
Hey Lisa, I just searched back in your old posts and read about the photocopier. It definitely made me laugh, especially after hearing the stories first hand.
I like your comments about letting others love us, it sort of goes hand in hand with a sermon I heard back in February, although a key point there was that love is more about the person doing the loving than the person being loved. Just in case you are interested: http://www.mckernanbaptist.ab.ca/home-cgi-bin/sermons.pl?sermon=20070204.mp3
Liane,
I didn't know you were a blogger. Exciting. I will check that sermon out. Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the story and since you know the Science teacher of whom I speak you can appreciate more than others :)
Hey Lisa,
I really liked this post. Did you know that you are an amazing writer?? You are and I loved reading this post. We should hang out some time.
Hope all is well
Kara
This isn't perhaps a response to what you have written as much as it is a comment that stems from a similar vein of thought.
I believe there is wisdom in the thoughts that you presented in this post. I believe that there is great need for communities with greater transparency and openness between souls. I think there is also a tendency, though, for a person to push too hard. It is possible, I am discovering, to allow yourself too much vulnerability. This can happen especially on the side of the one who is attempting to love another. I think it is important for love to be reciprocated, and trust to be built on both sides. Loving another person is not always an easy thing, and I believe that it is possible to give too much of yourself before the other person is ready to receive. Because we are humans and are vastly different from each other, vulnerability gives rise to the possibility of misunderstandings: of allowing too much of yourself into the open, only to discover that it is not understood by those that you have taken into your confidence. This is a situation that can result in enormous grief and great pain.
So while I think it is important to allow ourselves to be loved in all of our brokenness and humanity, I think it is also wise to guard ourselves. I think it is wise not to give too much of yourself until the person is ready to receive it. I think it is important ensure that interactions are free of misunderstanding, and that as you give of yourself you make sure that what you think you are giving is the same as what the person thinks they are receiving.
Love is powerful, but with that power comes the possibility of great pain.
thanks for your comment anonymous, i think in the past month or so since i wrote that blog i have come to realize the same thing.
"guard your heart for it is the well spring of life."
thanks for your thoughts.
I suppose I'm a little late to jump in on this blog conversation, but I liked it.
I think I understand what Mr. Hay is talking about, it being difficult to trust the love that we are offered or shown, and about the difficulty in taking a step up vulnerability to let someone confirm that love.
But I think what Liane said might be pretty significant. It is imortant to think about our own responsibility as people attempting to love. For example, what motivates us to be vulnerable? It seems pretty common for people to use vulnerability as a test, or more as a request for love, then as an act of love.
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