[farewell]

I must be ready to learn new things. Or revisit old things in new ways in my now.

There are certain things that keep coming to mind, especially from my two summers ago season on Catalina, in entirely new and deeper ways. I read many pages, breathed cleanly, and learned so much that summer. I had no idea then that this much could have changed; who knows where I will be in another two years... I hope that I will be more ready to learn about love, to press in to my dreams, and to live more fully into my moments.

I woke up craving Hemingway this morning [and coffee and bacon. Hello, Saturday!]. Unfortunately, my A Farewell to Arms copy is off the shelf somehow, but I had this section copied into my Catalina journal and I keep thinking about it.

Love is complicated, but I'm getting a clearer picture of it. A lot of what I thought it looked like turns out to not be love at all.

Love is the deepest mode of knowing, because it is love that, while completely engaging with reality other than itself, affirms and celebrates that other-than-self reality. [N. T. Wright, Lecture 2007]

If I'm fairly parallel with someone, it takes a while for a break to appear. But when they do something I wouldn't, surprise me, expect something I can't offer, or show their other-ness, that's when love has a chance to respond to that break. And a lot of times in my life, it hasn't. I get upset. I am annoyed. I leave or criticize or offer cynicism instead of love.

Often, I damage myself the most when I don't let love fill in the differences between me and another person. I feed my self-righteousness by suppressing love. I live in frustration. I espouse my rightness, and their lack of it. And I distract myself from the possibility of choosing love.

Because love is harder. Love means I don't get to be right, get my way, am not defended, and have to sacrifice. Love has to show up and fill in those gaps between people, or they become canyons.

Love is something you can't understand until you choose it. Until it tears apart your heart, and you find that love is the only way you can breathe through the ache of not getting what you wanted. Love is always active and free. Love always hurts, but it is the only thing that can possibly heal.

[The Priest] looked at me and smiled.
'You understand but you do not love God.'
'No.'
'You do not love him at all?' he asked.
'I am afraid of him in the night sometimes.'
'You should love him.'
'I don't love much.'
'Yes,' he said. 'You do. What you tell me about in the nights. That is not love. That is only passion and lust. When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.'
'I don't love.'
'You will. I know you will. Then you will be happy.'
'I'm happy. I've always been happy.'
'It's another thing. You cannot know about it unless you have it.' [hemingway, chapter 11]

I think I'm closer to having it.