Monday, April 14, 2008

My Love Triangle

Through many of the experiences of those I am in relationship with and through a bit of experience of my own, I have come to understand the difficult truth that many of the ideas that we grow up learning and adopting change throughout the course of our life as we mature and encounter new experiences. I have also noticed in my own life that when this cycle happens, it raises many questions. I see it as remodeling the mind, if you will. As things shift, that which once existed in a well-anchored form begins to weaken. Sometimes it doesn't require much alteration to firm up the foundation of the idea. But then there are those times when you have to strip down the entire idea and rebuild it using new materials that are more foundationally secure. On that note, with the idea (or reality, because at this point I am not sure it exists outside of God) of love, I am experiencing some big shifts. Now, we won't go into details, disclosing a ton of information that is unnecessary in communicating the point. The fact is that I feel like in many ways I have been misinformed, if not even mislead. So here is my confession. I was taught that it is good to be in a love triangle. It just so happens however, that my love triangle is incredibly dysfunctional. This is the story of how I have been mislead in my love triangle.

My old youth pastor used to give some of the most wonderfully inaccurate diagrams of love. I am sure that you all remember the triangle. God is at the top (angle a), and you and the love of your life are at the other adjacent corners (angles b and c). The diagram suggests the idea (or reality is some peoples minds, I guess) that if both lovers choose to seek God, they will indeed grow closer together. This is what I like to call the love triangle. That, my friends, is just not true, especially when you apply the subject of my post called "Truth from a Heretic." Can people not follow God and go in two completely different directions? It pisses me of that I was taught to reduce love to a mathematical equation. Those of you out there with any experience in the matter would agree that love is anything BUT a formula or theorem, right?

And what other teachers do we have out there who are telling us how love is supposed to be. Well, we have T.V., and we have movies like Romeo and Juliet, Meet Joe Black, The Notebook, Garden State, Sweet Home Alabama and many other wonderful feats of cinematography. We have romance novels that are coming out by the hundreds every year. We are bombarded with how love is "supposed" to be and not how it truly is to be manifested in our lives. No wonder we are struggling to focus on our own relationships and see the absolute beauty that exists in them. Bill Parish from Meet Joe Black says to his daughter:

"I want you to get swept away. I want you to levitate. I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a dervish. Be deliriously happy, or at least leave yourself open to be. I know it's a corn-ball thing, but love is passion, obsession, someone you can't live without. I say, fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who will love you the same way back. Cause the truth is honey, there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love....well you haven't even lived a life at all. But you have to try, because if you haven't tried, you haven't lived. Stay open. Who knows? Lightning could strike."

Although those desires may be real and true in each of us, does it really exist? I'm not saying it doesn't exist necessarily. But I do want to bring our attention to the expectations we are allowing to be set up through these avenues. Are we creating an expectation of love that is unrealistic? Are we taking that unrealistic expectation and making it the measuring stick by which we evaluate the success or failure of a relationship? But the scary reality is the possibility that the expectation that we have is all we know of love, and in removing it and starting from scratch with what love might really be we leave ourselves vulnerable to be utterly disappointed. Over the past few weeks, so many different people have willingly and unashamedly shared with me what they believe about how love should look. I guess you could say the action steps taken to manifest the love that is in the heart. So far, all philosophies and ideas of how love should look (even according to the scriptures) that I have heard from friends, family, acquaintances and lovers have made me want to vomit. They have been repulsive to me. I hear them speak so passionately about what they believe love should be and I leave feeling like there has to be more to this. Love has to create something more than this. If this is what love is, I'm not sure that I want any part in it.

So many annoyances are playing into the way that we view love. So lets just say that we want to view and experience love the way that the scriptures describe it. We read the scriptures, not to just read them, but to study them, learn them. And when we do, we read through the lens of what we are being told everywhere else, through our experiences and desires. So now everyone (okay, not everyone) has a different idea of what love looks like, leaving lovers resentful an unsatisfied all over the world. What do we take from all of this? I take that maybe it is something that is unable to be resolved. But does that mean we quit searching? What would life be like if we quit searching for meaning or understanding in the many areas of our life, love included? Lets wrestle. Lets fight. Lets get really angry and frustrated at each other because we don't understand. Because it doesn't make sense. And in that, may we all learn what it means to love, and to be loved in return. Thanks for giving my mess of a mind a chance.

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Umm...Do You Work Here?

"Umm....do you work here?"
- many a Borders Customer


Lately as a Borders employee, I have had many customers (some of them regulars) come into the store and ask me this question. This is a question that I have never been able to understand coming from most Borders customers. What is it that they don't get? And for some reason, this is a question that causes me to feel a strong desire to take my name tag and poke out the customers eyes. So for all of the faithful Borders customers out there who love to preface anything and everything they say to a Borders employee with the unnecessary and stupid phrase "umm....do you work here?" stay extremely far away from me lest your pathetic and worthless vision be in danger of my ruthless name tag.

For those of you out there who commonly use this ignorant phrase and are beginning to understand the unreasonableness of it, here are a few thoughts to support your new revelation:

- I walked up to you and asked you if there was anything that I could do to serve you. How many random people in a retail store have walked up to you and asked you if there is anything that they can do to serve you? I mean, if you are at a circus and you have lost your child, most people will just walk by you and not even bother to help you find your child, let alone a random saint in a bookstore help you find the new book #49 in Oprah's book club.

- I am wearing a 4"x4" name tag that not only has my name on it, but also strongly suggest the idea that I am a Borders employee there to meet your every need by having a rather large Borders logo on it. You may even notice the rather nice Borders insulated mug that I have in my left hand filled with berryblossom tea that also has a Borders logo that wraps from side to side.

- I have a walky-talky attached to my hip, an earpiece to my ear, and a microphone to my chest. I couldn't look more ridiculous unless I worked for Liberty Tax and had to wear that unbearable Uncle Sam costume as I stood out by the street with a giant arrow pointing towards some void over there.

- I'm standing behind a register.

My point is...of course I work here. So if you keep on asking me that same stupid question, I'm going to start walking around the store with my fly unzipped so that you won't want to even get close to me, let alone ask me if I can show you where "that new Oprah book" is.

"When the Roots Become the Fruits"

"Wake up, O sleeper
Rise from the dead
Christ will shine on you."

God spoke to me. He used a dandelion to do it. I was walking through Carroll Park in Long Beach. I was praying and singing over the neighborhood there. I feel as if God has given me a song for this neighborhood. The prayer (song) above is what kept repeating itself over and over again in my head. It was a strange feeling. Almost as if God was saying it through my heart. As if God was using my heart as his own. As I was singing this over the neighborhood, another scripture came to me from Isaiah that says:

9:2
The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death
a light has dawned.
You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy;
they rejoice before you,
as people rejoice at the harvest,
as men rejoice when dividing the plunder.
For as the day of Midian's defeat,
you have shattered the yoke that burdens them,
the bar across their shoulders,
the rod of their oppressor.
Every warrior's boot used in battle,
and every garment rolled in blood,
will be destined for burning,
will be fuel for the fire.
For unto us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called,
WONDERFUL
COUNCELOR
MIGHTY GOD
EVERLASTING FATHER
PRINCE OF PEACE.
Of the increase of his government and peace,
there will be no end.
He will reign on Davids throne and over his kingdom,
establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness,
from that time on and forever.

The ZEAL of the LORD ALMIGHTY will accomplish this.


So I picked up a dandelion and saw myself in it. I saw myself as a seed-bearing and dispersing creation. A creation that spreads seeds that birth new fruitful creations that spread seed. So I blew on it. I blew on the dandelion and watched the seeds parachute to the ground, blown about by the wind. But there really was nothing for the miniscule created creators to land on. There was really nothing for my little paratrooper embryo's to dig their roots into. The ground was dry. So dry it looked as if wherever you stepped turned to dust. This made me sad (in seeing my relation to the dandelion) to see that there was no way that I could make those seeds grow. I could not make them dig their roots deep into the ground and search out the nutritious, life-giving soil. So I realized that even my own seed-sowing heart doesn't have the capacity to make things grow, showing me that I am created in a way that demands a reliance on the "Great One."

Later that night it rained. It rained a lot, and the second it started raining my spirit inside of me welled up with joy. It seemed as if I could feel the soil soften. It seemed as if I could feel the seeds stretch, and grow, and dig firmly into the ground. It felt for a moment as if the Great One was completing the promise that he had made to me. I rejoiced in knowing and seeing that the Great One is about his kingdom that is talked about in the Isaiah passage. Let this be an encouragement to us all. Be faithful to plant the seeds that God has placed in you through the life of the Spirit. His words and truth do not end up void. May you live and move in the ZEAL of the Lord Almighty.

"When the roots become the fruits." - E. Trine
"Great One" - A. Totten