I can’t abandon my belief in the miraculousness of things. I can’t abandon my childlike trust that GOD does, indeed, sometimes lead by the very mysterious and inexplicable ways that seem almost magical, and that He can make the impossible possible.
And yet – there is this recognition that terrible things happen, and often the reality of things is all there is. You know what I mean: the apparent randomness and tragedy of things, with no miraculous Divine Intervention sweeping in to change the course of events.
It’s a hard thing to come to terms with. It’s enough to shake even a strong person’s faith.
Writing from the mind? Well enough. But writing from the heart is another thing altogether.
Writing from the heart means facing down the feelings that threaten to overwhelm. It means sitting with the uncomfortable sense of being plunged into darkness with only a thin beam of light to guide the way.
The writing that comes from the heart is sturdy, stirring, true, and good. But it isn’t easily obtained. Indeed, the person wishing to write such material is often asked to evince a certain fearlessness – a reckless disregard, even, for that most precious commodity, his ego.
To write from the heart, a writer must strip himself to the bone and deal unflinchingly with what he sees. He must take it all in – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and seek to understand how it all hangs together, and what it means. Or perhaps he leaves the task of understanding aside, merely striving to reproduce what he has found, like an ornithologist recording in his log-book the movements of birds, except that he is recording the movements of human emotions: fear, sadness, anger, joy.
Is he up to the task? Is he armed with enough courage to walk through a landscape of his own human longing and regret?
His writing will reveal him. If he’s entered the depths and returned to tell the tale, his words will strike you with their sincerity, heft, and, quite possibly, beauty. For the heart, after all, doesn’t bother with trying to look perfect or funny or smart. It’s too busy feeling and loving and suffering the pangs of human experience – and there’s usually no room for artifice amidst all that.
“If you are unacquainted with the art of unrequited love, you have been spared a very painful—but, oh, very human and useful!—experience, my friend.”
…
Bursting with love and desire. How does she function? How does she contain herself when the love – and the desire to express it – is all-consuming? What does she do with all her longing? Where is she supposed to put it?
Living in this state is not sustainable. Feeling such intense passions is hard to manage – mostly because there is no outlet, no receiving end.
If the love were reciprocal, she could pour it out – again and again, all the time. But as it is, the door is closed and the way is blocked.
And yet, she loves. She loves so intensely that she is overwhelmed – nearly ripped apart with the desire, the yearning, the need to express the depth of profound care and appreciation and tenderness that she has, continually, for this man.
But what to do? He is beautiful – but he is beyond her reach. He is free – and she must always (wants to always) respect his right to choose as he pleases.
That’s true. But what about this desire? She can’t wrestle with it much longer. It’s bursting at the seams – dying to express itself, unbridled and free.
She keeps striving for detachment, but it’s hard – it feels a little inhuman. It isn’t easy to keep telling herself that she can’t be in love – when the love is, in fact, holy and joyful and good.
She sees a lifetime of good they could do together. She sees it clearly. And yet – all she can do is wait on him, wait on God. Wait on him to be ready, to have a heart that’s free and clear and ready to love. Ready to love her.
But then, of course, she has to ask: Will that ever come to pass? What if she’s been stringing herself along? All this time.
The season of waiting is nearing its end. It’s not a position she can occupy anymore. It’s been so long and something must give. She can’t stay caught in the in-between.
Giving up her hope creates a very real sense of loss. For contrary to belief, unrequited love isn’t simply some fantasy or infatuation. It is, as the name implies, love. It’s just that the goal of love – union – has been denied.
Yes, she loves him with her entire being. He’s the one in whom her soul delights. But the pull of his heart is so far gone that she doesn’t feel it anymore. She’s like a stranger to him, looking in on his life through a cloudy window. A stranger with an unusually ardent desire to wish him well.
Her love, I guess, is a fact that must remain between her and God, or in the scribbled pages of her diary, for at the end of the day, he simply doesn’t love her back.
First and foremost, I want to say that you’re not insane. You’re not now; you never were. You were simply following the guidance of your heart, and that kind of knowledge sometimes seems strange in the light of analytical thought.
I’m not saying that you should ignore your rationality, or count it out. But I am affirming my belief – which is strong now as ever – that there are things which defy the appearance of sense and which are nonetheless true. And when you commit yourself to following these things, you sometimes end up walking by a very unusual way.
People might call out to you: “Hey! You, over there! You’ve lost the road; the path is over here!” Take that advice for what it’s worth. It’s certainly well meant, and perhaps you’d like to travel the beaten path for a while. Maybe there’s something you need to do, or discover, there. That’s O.K. But if you’re hesitating because you think there’s value in keeping on, through the brambles, in and out of the dark wood, wherever your heart might lead – well, just know that I understand.
For what is life – life really and truly lived – if you can’t listen to the promptings of your innermost being and respond – uncertainly, perhaps, but also simply, delicately, wildly, unabashedly – with love?
I like to say that I’m going to be a writer, but the sad reality is that I barely write.
So my question is: Why do I avoid the things I feel drawn to – called to, in fact? Is it because I know that they will take a lot of work and demand a lot of me? Is it because they will challenge me? Is it because I’m afraid? How do I reconcile the two parts of myself: the part that says “yes, I know that this is the path of my purpose and joy – this is what I desire” and the part that promptly and stubbornly runs away from it all?
It’s tiring, isn’t it, to walk around as a bundle of contradictions. No wonder I’m prone to stomach problems – my insides are twisted from being pulled this way and that, and I’m getting dizzy from the constant change of direction. Can anyone else relate?
