Love as the Lindy Hop
9/18/08
HE:
In those days, I was learning to dance the Lindy Hop with my true heart. "Toss me high" she'd say, and I did. While in the air, she decided (too late) that she didn't actually want to be tossed, and folded her arms in defiance. This, of course, made it hard for me to catch her without hurting me or herself. But I managed it (barely and a bit awkwardly).
"Swing me over your hip" she said, and I complied, because I knew she liked the rush of the movement. I swung her, and she didn't like it, because she liked the rush.
And I know that's complicated, but that's how it is with my true heart, brilliant radiant being that she is; wanting to be affected but resenting my effects.
(At least that's how it was in those days)
"But I keep dancing with her" I thought to myself, "because never have I had a partner so well suited, so ideal, so wonderful. And soon, I will learn her steps."
SHE (then):
And he lifts me, spins me, then collapses torso-deep (feet ever moving), resting his head on my bosom. "Is this man or child?" I wonder at times, as he swings me high, insisting that I honor his strength; then draws me close, searching (nay, beseeching) for my embrace.
"I am powerful" his eyes scream to the world, as he lifts me above his head. But in that brief moment when he brings me down into his arms, cradling like a fireman snatching me from a fiery edifice; in that brief moment before he tosses me back into the dance, his eyes say, to me (and me alone): "Don't... hurt me."
Confusing I know, for who can tell which to believe? The powerful or the vulnerable? The him he shows me, or the him he shows the world?
And still I dance; feeling our steps, our movements, begin to fit each other, but not always knowing if I want them to.
(At least that's how it was in those days)
Untitled
4/17/07
Alone, I bemoaned the sorrows that accompany the many joys and advantages of spiritual development. For every step that I took forward, it seemed, I was less able to relate to others.
On that day, I asked the Father a question, "How do I keep my feet on the ground when I'm supposed to be touching the clouds?"
"Grow" He replied.
"Questions Without Answers" or "A Lesson To Learn"
3/7/07
Behold the beauty which wraps me up in its warmth
dropping me deeper into the blanket-like embrace of my Creator
In it, I walk without feet, I breathe without lungs
I float in GOD's comforting words spoken beyond tongue
Those pieces of my heart which were vacant and numb
are soon filled with the pleasant and radiant awe of this divine touch.
The question I heard spoken into my soul:
"When you look into my eyes, which you do you see?"
Then, "When you look into their eyes, which you will you be?"
In a Seuss-ian moment, I wondered which me was me?
The years flood past me, and I hope to grasp onto this one intangible lesson:
"…"
GOD in Your Words - (A lil ditty about the power of words)
12/03/2007
I was trying to describe some intangible things to someone, and I found myself a bit frustrated by the struggle to do it to my own satisfaction. As I'm usually relatively good with words, I wondered why I could not seem to fully convey what I wanted to. Later, after much Alan-type pondering, I came to a few conclusions, which follow herein.
Words are best used to communicate, not to deconstruct. That is to say that when we use words to convey an idea of some sort, we sometimes run the risk of coming to think that these words have encapsulated the idea in its entirety; the same folly as mistaking a photograph of the ocean for the experience of deep sea diving. The photograph communicates the idea, but is not equal to the experience. When we mistakenly attribute to words the ability to define an idea in its absolute sense, we expose ourselves to intellectual entanglements. It is within this sort of entanglement that we find ourselves able to rationalize beyond reason, and stumble at simplistic paradoxical queries such as, "Can God make a rock so big that He can't lift it?"
Here, we are tempted to think that the paradox points out a shortcoming in the concept of omnipotence, when really, what falls short is the ability of words to properly and fully convey this concept of omnipotence.
So, when one endeavors to arrive at a full understanding of such transcendental ideas as God or love through conversation, writing or conjecture (rather than experience), the attempt is doomed from its inception.
This is not to say that words have no place in the search for understanding of intangible things. If I had never seen a photograph of the sea, I would perhaps have no idea of what to expect on a diving expedition. The ability of words to communicate pieces of a greater reality makes them precious and vital; thus their intrinsic value makes it easy (particularly for those of us who make an art of words) to imagine them to possess a power that is quite frankly beyond their inherent limits.
Simply stated, seek to know GOD, to know love, omnipotence, glory or any of the like only through words, and you will find yourself either frustrated or woefully misdirected.
This very principal has been the erosion of much theology and philosophy; the attempt to come to a knowledge of something simply by thinking it through, or talking it out.
If then, experience is necessary along with words and rational thought to come to this knowledge, when faced with a personal curiosity about the nature of GOD, love, etc., we may do well to ask ourselves this question: "What am I doing to experience it?"
"Oxygen has a crush on Fire" or "Men are From Air, Women are from Flame"
or...I dunno, you pick
10/3/2007
With Oxygen, Fire burned most brightly.
Oxygen, envisioning his life, a self-contained soul, existing happily alone, yet still a catalyst for the elements around him.
Fire, immensely fearful of letting go; that perhaps being her full self would consume everything and everyone she loved.
Oxygen, who found that as he inspired change in others, his own strength was depleted. Thus he isolated himself.
Fire, who lit the torches of anyone seeking a new path, but was frightened of scorching out her own unchartered path.
When once they casually embraced, Fire exploded into new resplendence, and Oxygen was reborn in parts of his soul that he'd thought forever lost. Fire deeply inhaled a new breath, Oxygen radiated new warmth.
For that fleeting moment, Heaven opened, the Earth paused in awe, and Time bowed its head in mystified reverence. What wonders could Oxygen and Fire work together?
Too soon, their embrace ended, and they departed separately to their respective homes.
Somewhere, the elements began to weep.
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Romantic tripe... a story in 3 parts.
The Wrestling Match
11/13/2006
For most of his life, he had given his mind to the pursuit of the divine. Yet in this pursuit, he had alienated nearly everyone around him.
Or perhaps they had alienated him.
He couldn't tell; was it that they had failed his expectations or that he had failed theirs? Had they excluded him, or had he withdrawn?
He had spent so much time alone; with GOD, that he sometimes felt as if his tongue could no longer articulate human speech. He opened his mouth, but his words clumsily molded curious faces into blank stares.
He could feel their minds fading away, and he wanted so desperately to connect. What was he saying, and why couldn't he communicate it? Was he describing a color that no one had seen; a sound that no one had heard? Was his meaning carried away on words too lofty for the people he hoped to reach?
Moreover, he asked himself, was this the price of that connection with GOD that he had so vigorously sought after? Alienation? Loneliness? Pain?
"Were you lonely?" he asked Jesus, in his tearful and silent prayers. "What is my purpose if no one understands me, Lord? What is my place if I don't fit anywhere? What am I here for, Lord, and where can I rest?"
He felt arrested by the burden of his distinctions, and he wept. He stood for GOD, and lived his life as though he were afraid to embarrass Him.
And he was.
He never wanted to be a reason for people to mock his closest Friend. So he loaded himself with the task of walking through his life with a contrived aura of confidence and togetherness.
In the eyes of the people around him, he was unique, strong, handsome, brave, confident… but within himself (the only world that mattered to him), he was weak and soft; hurt and small. He was not good or unique or special on his own, and he knew it.
But even deeper within him, further beneath his internal disdain for himself, there resided the Radiance of his Being, the Bright Morningstar that shined through all of his shortcomings. GOD shined strength through his weakness, staunchness through his softness, healing through his hurt, and immensity through his smallness.
"I am small" he would say earnestly, and the world laughed in amusement.
"I am great?" he would joke, and the world accepted this resolutely, as they whispered tales of his apparent arrogance.
"It is not me. I am not special. I am weak, and all that I have is GOD to make me…"
His sentence trailed off as he noticed that no one was paying attention. Wearied by the weight of his weakness, he wrestled to embrace the potential of all that GOD shined through him. The divine aspects that had been placed within him were ever at war with the human frailties that had been with him from birth.
When he tried to share this struggle with others; his feelings of weakness and his inner conflict, there was little empathy available to him.
This was because the world around him was most often blinded by the resplendent luminescence of these qualities that GOD had wrapped him in. When they looked at him, the glimmer of GOD's gifts was what they saw, and they thought these things came from him. But it was GOD's doing, not his. He was not special.
"How can you complain of weakness, Richard? Look at you!"
He did look at himself, and again, he wondered, "Will I always be alone? Will no one ever understand me? Lord, where can I rest?"
Then his lonely thoughts were consumed with the voice of the woman who loved him. For some reason, he could never see her face in his mind's eye. But he could hear her voice, and all that she promised him.
When he looked at her, her eyes were a promise. Her lips were a promise, her hips were a promise. Her hugs, her smile, her walk, her tears, her glow…they were all a promise to Richard.
In her laughter, he would hear, "I am your rest." In her embrace, he would hear, "I will be your comfort." In her kisses, he would hear, "You can trust me to take care of you, even when you feel weak."
He was immersed in the love that she professed for him, and he feared that he would drown in his own love for her. He had built a wall around his passion for her; this mighty rushing river that he kept restrained. But her voice reached beyond that wall and called him to her.
Could he release all that he carried? "How can this woman's love be real?" he wondered to himself, recalling all of the times that he had been hurt and betrayed by past loves.
This woman, who by her very existence, by virtue of her unique and beautiful soul, represented the possibility of the happiness and joy that had always eluded him… he feared that if he reached out for her, she would vanish, and he would never fully know the bliss of her love.
Was it better to be lonely and alienated, or to brazenly open his heart to a new love and risk being agonized again?
He realized that he was so afraid of disappointing GOD; so afraid of giving into the weakness that he wrestled against, that he could not clearly see his way to the love of the woman who would be his rest. Would he ever be as special to her as she was to him?
How could she help him with his struggle, when no one could see it? Would she ever see him for who he truly was, and if she did, would she still love him?
He had no answer, and again, he felt his eyes fill with tears.
Pt.II of the first short story.
Remorse
10/25/2006
Her eyes opened involuntarily, as the morning sunlight blazed through her bedroom window. There she lay alone, exhausted and slightly sore from the revelry of the night before.
She had danced and laughed and celebrated with people who she did not particularly care for, and who she knew cared very little for her. It was in these times; these quiet and reflective Sunday mornings, that she was overcome by a mounting disgust for the things she had done the night before, and the people that she'd done them with.
Not that she viewed these things as terrible; the drinking, the dancing, the fun of it all. But she hated the fact that she so often damaged her connection to what was truly important to her in order to pursue these things.
She had a man that she loved, she wanted to be closer to GOD, she wanted to grow as a person and bring some significance to her life.
Jana closed her eyes and tried to let her mind wander, but she could only see the looks of hurt and disappointment that she had so often brought to the face of the man that she loved. It made her feel miserable to think about it. She wanted a change.
From Sunday to Wednesday, she could firmly remember the importance of what she truly wanted in her life, and she could see it clearly. But by Thursday, she felt a craving for the wildness of what was out there, and she could never seem to resist it, even if it meant breaking promises or disappointing the people who were important to her. In that moment, her craving was the most important thing to her.
It was all that she felt, and right then, her feelings seemed to control her, and make her a person that she didn't want to be.
But every Sunday morning, she awoke feeling deeply saddened, because the things that had seemed so important the night before had only left her feeling empty, hopeless and alone. It made her angry at herself to think that she regularly strained the relationships that were most important to her in order to chase after trivial things that left her feeling hollow and depressed.
"Why?" she asked herself. "Why can't I hold on to the things that are important to me? Why can't I escape?"
She felt that her search for love, marriage, godliness, happiness and everything else that she yearned for would be forever fruitless, because she could never be consistent in her pursuit of them. She would reach out for them, and they would dissipate into a dismal smoke.
She wanted to anchor herself with the elements of her life that were real and concrete, so that she wouldn't float away into the harsh expanses of folly and emptiness. She thought of the soaring freedom, the beauty; the love that blanketed her when she was touched by the man she loved. She considered the elation that filled her and lifted her when she could truly communicate with GOD.
This was more important, more fulfilling, and more pleasing than the empty things in her life. How could she have ever chosen the emptiness over what truly made her happy? And so often?
She even began to wonder what she would have to pass on to her children if she did not embrace these vital relationships. Right then, Jana decided that she was going to…
Her cell phone rang, and she answered it. "Hey, Jana, it's your girl! I know we don't usually do anything on Sunday, but there's this new spot opening tonight, and ladies get in free! You're coming, right?"
"Of course, girl! You know I won't disappoint you! Call me tonight, and I'll be ready. Talk to you then!"
Jana hung up the phone, and thought about what she could wear to the club that night...
pt. III
A Woman's View of Beauty
10/18/2006
When she looked deeply enough into his eyes, it wasn't him that she saw.
This alarmed her, because it placed her squarely on the other side of an unbalanced equation that had plagued her throughout her own life, unsolved: people; men and women, who admired her intently, but never truly saw her.
Over the years, it was something she'd learned that she must accept as the way of the world, but Jana knew what it meant to be isolated and cut off from that very same world, simply because people found her attractive.
When, in her youth, she had tried to connect with others on the basis of things that she considered substantial; her personality, her character, her convictions, her intellect, her self… well, no one was interested. They wanted to know where she got her outfits, if they could date her, who did her hair?
It was almost as if she was trapped in her body, and it made her invisible. No one could see her.
Worse, there was never an empathetic ear for her loneliness, because who could really stand to hear the gripes of a woman who felt isolated by her beauty? To them, for her to share her trouble was unbearable; something akin to hearing the wicked dictator despairing over the burden of his oppressive power.
So she carried it alone, and accepted her isolation.
Isolation was a strange word for it, she thought, because she was perpetually surrounded by people who wanted to be in her life. But they wanted her simply as an asset to their own lives, and few people cared for her as a human being.
Yet, as she sat gazing into his eyes, she couldn't see him.
It started out normally enough. She would consider him and think, "What a peculiar man." He would behold her in a way that was unusual to her; not as a reward or a treat, not as a feast for his own eyes- he would observe her, and she could feel him surveying her soul. He could see her.
Somehow, this frightened Jana, because his gaze provoked within her an explosive compulsion to sink deeper into his eyes; to know what secrets resided in his mind; what sweetness abided in his soul.
When his gaze caressed hers, she felt warmth rising out of her soul; sunshine sweeping up gently past her shoulders and across her face. That's when she stopped seeing him.
In his eyes, she saw her future, the potential of his love, their children who were yet to be conceived. She saw the flickering flame of her bond with GOD being reignited. She saw goodness, lightness, and freedom that she'd never known could truly exist.
She searched his eyes, and felt overwhelmed by all that he was, and everything that his eyes told her about herself. Her heart was flooded with a sense of the greatness that he could bring out of her; the breadth, width and depth of his capacity to love; and she yearned to be immersed in it. She scrutinized him, and the eyes of her soul were blinded with the radiance of the Divine shining through him.
And in the light of his eyes, she felt small and unworthy. He extended a hand to her, and she refused it. She was wrong, not good enough, not GODly enough. She looked at him, and felt blanketed in the filth of this world's evil.
"Foolishness," he said, and then extended his hand again. "We all fester in unrighteousness until we take the hand of the Most High. I am not special. I give you my hand so that you can reach to Him."
She tried. She looked into his eyes again, and still she did not see him. She saw only the ways in which she felt unworthy of him. She turned away, and she could feel his patience ebbing.
"You would deny your Creator because you feel unfit to stand beside me? I am not significant enough for that." He spun her around and pulled her to him, squeezing her so closely that her breath ran short.
"You want me to kneel before you" she protested.
"I do not. I want you to stand beside me."
Again, he squeezed her tighter, and resistance drained from her body, along with her fear and her dismal appraisal of herself. He embraced her and moved her, as if they were dancing. Her spine straightened and then arched, as she gasped with the birth of a new vision within her.
She could suddenly see something new. She could feel the woman that he had always seen inside of her, and the freedom that he desired to give her. She looked into his eyes, and she finally saw herself.
For the first time in her life, she felt truly beautiful.
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