Slam The Door In My Face

Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth it. Sometimes I wonder if it would be easier for me to simply lock myself in a closet and only come out when necessity calls. Then I would never get hurt because I would never give my heart away--I would never place it in someone else’s hands that could very easily break it. Sometimes I truly think that that would be the easiest thing to do. No vulnerability. No heartache.

...Since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
No one has ever seen God;
but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us...
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear,
because fear has to do with punishment.
The one who fears is not made perfect in love...
If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar...
1 John 4: 7-21

But then I’m reminded that that is not what I am called to do. If Jesus hadn’t opened himself up to hurt, then I wouldn’t know the peace that comes only through his spirit. If God hadn’t endured extreme heartache because of love, then I wouldn’t have the promise of a life always connected to God. We are not called to lock ourselves in our closets. We are called to serve...to love one another...even when it hurts...which it often does.

...To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap is carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell...If man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloved whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God, not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armor. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it.” (**CS Lewis. Readings for Meditation and Reflection. Harper Collins Publishing. 1992.)

So keep on loving. Even when everything around you tells you stop. Yes, keep on loving. And remember that love oftentimes comes with silence and space and prayer and cut-offs and forgiveness and letting go and frustration and hurt and more sacrifice than words, presence, and advice could ever make.

We might be struck down, but we will not be destroyed. So follow the heart of the Christ who loves us all—period.

Cut off my ear, throw it away.
Then
Stab me in the heart and rip out its broken pieces.
Regret your words, eat them, drink them
Hate that you opened the door so
Slam it in my face.
Cut, throw, stab, rip, regret, hate, slam
The door
in my face.
It’s brown, wooden.
I’m looking at it while waiting
wounded
For you to open it back up and do it again.
Cut off my other ear...--dd

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I originally wrote this thirteen years ago on April 4-5, 1998. I have edited it a bit since then, but it is mostly still in its original form. While I feel like I have grown so much over the past few years, I am humbled to realize just how much my thoughts and struggles have remained the same. [This humility actually began last week as I read through my first book of poems and sat speechless—and sometimes in tears—at the thoughts and feelings that I struggled with even then.] While I know that I’ve grown and that my ability to understand and more healthily react to life, people, systems, and what my place is in those systems, I also realize that so much of me has remained the same. My counselor once told me that we each tend to struggle with the same four or five issues for our whole lives—that the struggle just changes form depending on where we are in our lives. I think she was right. I struggle with my capacity to love—because it is so deep that it leaves me vulnerable to hurt. I struggle with perfectionism—which often leads me to feel inadequate, unappreciated, and not good enough. I struggle with guilt and shame—which are terrible weights to bear. And I struggle with fear—especially the fear of rejection and being left alone. What about you? What do you struggle with? Can you see how your struggles have been woven into the fabric of your life? Christ’s love sets us free, yes. But I’m coming to believe that we must daily accept that freedom—along with grace and hope and peace and love…