Already Beloved

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.

Thomas Merton

Dear Friend,

I remember saying to you a long time ago, I think I’ve forgotten how to write. I remember your response:

“Write like Cheryl.” 

So that’s what today will be. My trying to remember how to write by acknowledging I’ve been afraid to write, but doing it anyway. This could be rough. Thanks for hanging with me. I mean it. Thank you.

Let’s start here. I don’t think the fear that silenced me has anything whatsoever to do with cancer. I do not. This feels important to say, because you do not have cancer and I don’t want you, or anyone else for that matter, to find grace for me that you might not be willing to accept for yourself.

No. This is not cancer, and I don’t think it’s even related to the disease. Recently, I have been tangled up in words. Or maybe a better way of saying it is that I have been clumsy with my words. Or maybe I just haven’t been as careful to watch where my words were going, and they’ve run into people and probably left some marks that I never intended them to leave. But going silent is probably just as clumsy and maybe even more hurtful. I will try to be more careful today, but will also rely on your H of G when my words run ahead of my intentions, which they inevitably will. And if that is too big an ask (and it might be), I honestly understand.

Okay…that’s enough insurance.

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I often hear people say that the phrase, “Fear not,” or “Don’t be afraid,” (or some version of that) appears in the Christian Bible 365 times. Maybe there’s another one hidden in the margins somewhere to account for leap years.

I don’t know if this is true or if it is not true, but it ought to be true. Because it suggests to me that the Christian faith recognizes this simple fact: Fear is an everyday part of being human.

Christianity’s sacred text does not say, “Knock the sand off your shoes before you walk through the door,” even though it’s great advice if you live at the beach or in the desert. But not everyone does, and sand on one’s shoes is not an intrinsic part of being human.

But maybe fear is. Maybe not forever. But at least for now.

I used to hear the words, “Fear not” as directive, but I have come to believe them to be more a compassionate invitation than a command. I once and recently put fear into the same shame bucket as doubt. They seemed to be neighbors or something. I associated fear with the absence of faith just as I defined doubt as lacking sufficient faith. I might have thought perfected faith would be manifest, at least in part, by the complete absence of fear. That may be so, and it may be so someday, but I think the idea of perfected faith resides far beyond my vision, and even if I could somehow see it, my strength and stamina (and my limited earthly lifespan) would fail me long before I docked on the island of perfect faith.  I no longer think fear is something to be ashamed of, unless being human is something to be ashamed of. And we don’t need cancer or betrayals or disappointments or epic failures or devastating losses for our fear to be valid. 

All we need is a beating heart.  No shame in the gift of a beating heart. 

I am not saying I want to be afraid. Of course not. But I pretty fully reject my once held thought that fear is something of which I ought to be ashamed. Ironically, it’s shame that would most likely prevent me from accepting the compassionate invitation to fear not. Somehow, and for a long time I missed the part about “Don’t be afraid” being a “come as you are” invitation.

I suspect you know what I mean.

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In response to the recent post about doubt, my new friend, Kim, wrote:

I think God has a special place for us doubters. Because to doubt means pure, earnest willingness to know. It's a genuine authenticity. That's the seed. To me. I am asking the questions with every cell of my body, and every bloom of my heart.

(If you can, pause for a moment and let that soak in. A little longer if you dare.)

I think Kim is suggesting that when we stop hiding from our doubts,  God offers us the fullness of Grace. Not only that, but acknowledging our doubts and the longing behind them is a necessary condition to accepting the fullness of that offered Grace. I think the exact same thing may be true of our Fear. That the road to the fullness of Grace passes right by the house of Fear, which happens to be next door to the house of Doubt. 

And that seems consistent with what often (usually?) comes after the “Fear not.”

I will be with you.

Always. With. You.

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Merton again:

Selfless love consents to be loved selflessly for the sake of the beloved. In so doing, it perfects itself. The gift of love is the gift of the power and the capacity to love, and, therefore, to give love with full effect is also to receive it. So, love can only be kept by being given away, and it can only be given perfectly when it is also received.

I came across this a few months ago, and it has haunted me ever since. But until now, I’d never really thought of it in the context of fear. Now I think it’s all about fear. Can you see it? Bear with me. 

Do you remember the time when you dropped by a friend’s house to give him a gift that you knew he would cherish. I think it was a sourdough baguette that you wrapped in butcher paper and carefully put in your carry-on bag on a flight from New York because a few months earlier your friend had casually mentioned the best sourdough he had eaten came from a particular bakery in Brooklyn, which you spent most of a day looking for. You knew he would love it, and you simply couldn’t wait to hand it to him. To see his response. To recognize how deeply  you loved him. 

He was beyond grateful, and even said so. So touched that you would have heard him, and remembered him, and loved him in this particular and personal way.

This may have gone one of two ways: He might simply have thanked you and invited you in for coffee. You may have had a lovely conversation about sourdough starter and the Superbowl or your mutual admiration for David Wagoner, or whatever it is the two of you often talked about.

Or, he might have slipped into his office and reemerged a few minutes later with a candle - still wrapped from his company Christmas party the night before.

I don’t want to minimize the kindness of his act of reciprocity, and knowing you, I suspect you cherished his thoughtfulness. But I also think it may have hurt a little to see him respond as if he believed your gift came with strings attached. That he somehow believed that you expected something in return, or that his belovedness, at least from your perspective, was still in question. That he was unable to consent to be loved selflessly. Again, no shame on your friend. Just noticing the difference in how his actions might have landed with you. Does this make sense?

I wonder if when we consent to be loved selflessly, we are surrendering control of our belovedness to our lover. Not trying to manage it. Not taking it upon ourselves to make ourselves more lovely. Not trying to ensure we are keeping pace. Not keeping score at all, and refusing the temptation to turn our lover’s selfless act into a transactional one. I had a conversation with a friend recently about how often thank you notes these days seem to come with well-intentioned gifts, and how responding to a gift with a gift sort of takes the air out of the intent of the original gift.

I get it. It’s really hard not to reciprocate. Hard not to keep score. Easy for me to imagine the inner voice:

“She will think you selfish or entitled if you don’t offer something in return. She will love you less. Can you really trust her to love you as you are? Seriously?”

I wonder if consenting to be loved selflessly is an implicit acknowledgment that there is nothing we can ever do to earn or guarantee our true lover’s true love, but even so, to accept it. To cherish it. That seems excruciatingly vulnerable. Dangerous. Terrifying.

I wonder if contenting to be loved selflessly is the same as accepting Grace without striving, without cheapening it by trying to earn it. That acceptance might be the most terrifying thing I can imagine because it’s complete surrender to the one offering Grace. Absolute trust.

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Can you remind me of the context of Kierkegaard’s “leap of faith” quote? I wonder if this is one of those quotes that was corrupted when it found its way into English, or if the context was truncated and it lost most of its meaning by the time it got to me.

(I’ve always appreciated how you can help with these, and how my perspective shifts when you do. I’m definitely warming up to Pascal, and find his description of the wager far more compelling and far less cynical than I though it could be. Lovely, even. Especially his rejection of any intellectual “proof” of God’s existence. I’m noticing the similarities in Pascal and Kierkegaard and the cases they were making for the essential role of faith - rather than placing all our hope and confidence in our very, very fallible brains.)

Photo credit:https://rnli.org/magazine/magazine-featured-list/2018/july/how-to-float

Anyway, I’d always understood Kierkegaard to be saying there is a point at which logic and reason inevitably fail us, especially when it comes to God. That God is (fortunately) beyond our complete comprehension, and when we reach the ends of ourselves, the ends of our intellects, we have a choice: To take a leap of faith, not knowing where or or even if we might land - or refuse to leap and try to find a way to live in or live through despair. And there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground. It’s betting on God, or living in despair.

I’ve also heard his quote translated as a “leap into faith,” and I find that far more beautiful and compelling. The idea that we are leaping not into an unknowable and terrible abyss, but into something that, once we abandon our illusion of control, can hold us and sustain us. As if we are swimming, and the leap into faith is like that moment we stop fighting the water and let it suspend us That moment we surrender instead of doing the work ourselves, and in so doing, stop resisting the water’s buoyancy. It’s a terrifying moment to be sure, but how lovely when we find ourselves on the surface and no longer struggling against that which lifts us up.

But I find myself wishing he had used the term “leap into Love.” I can’t help but wonder if this is what Merton was getting at when he wrote of consenting to be loved selflessly: The complete and total abandonment of self into God, into Love, and there, and only there, finding meaning - with the one who is Love and delights in us. And our only role is to accept that love. To trust that we are beloved, not because of how lovely we make ourselves, but because our true love loves us truly. Already.

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Okay. That’s certainly plenty for today.

H of G friend. Remember?

Oremus,

C

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Personal notes:

• My physical health seems unchanged. Next round of chemo begins on Thursday if my blood counts remain good.

• Next scan is in early August.

• Another new friend, Andrea, received news that her cancer is back. I’ve never met Andrea face-to-face, but this was weighty news. Andrea seems to live love, which is so much better than simply writing about it. Please say a prayer for Andrea.

• I have been so blessed (and I don’t use that term lightly) by the notes and letters and kind words from you and others. I have not been great about responding. I’m sorry. They are treasures, each of them cherished. Thank you friends.