♡♡♡♡ The Day of Love ♡♡♡♡

I refuse to write a blog, today, that is mopey and weepy. If you’re looking to feel sad and depressed about yourself because you’re so very lonely, go elsewhere. The internet is full of sad weepy blogs. I’m temporarily single; it’s Valentines day. I can chill out about it–you should too. Today is, after all, just like most other days. Love is no more in the air today, than it was yesterday, or will be tomorrow. Though, in my case, it would be true to observe that today has historically been a good date day for me, and I’ll add that today is going to be no exception.

I will, of course, admit I didn’t ever expect to be single with my thirtieth birthday looming in the not to distant future. And, I’ll also admit that sometimes Valentines day sucks: maybe you’ve recently been dumped, maybe you’ve been single for a while. Or, maybe you’re just feeling down about today.

I hope to cheer you up. I can’t promise you what the future holds, nor can I guarantee you’ll meet someone great soon, or that girl “x,” or guy “y” will come back to you. But, as someone who not to long ago emerged from the disorienting fog that is rejection, I can assert things will get better.

Let’s suppose that things have gone, or are going, badly for you. Let’s suppose you’ve recently heard something like:

“I don’t want to date you, and will never date you. I will not miss you if I leave [fill in your city here]; you are just like all my other [insert your sex] friends. It will not bother me if you start dating someone else.”

Perhaps, to you, this will seem like some kind of hyperbolic overkill. Or, perhaps you noticed the quotes. Yes, I have had the joy of hearing this phrase from someone I was interested in for a very long time. Yes, I even got to hear parts of it twice. Hurray!

So lets say you find yourself here.

Yes, it sucks.

The truth is, I can’t say anything that will help you with the pain. It will get better. Things probably won’t go how you want them to. The crappyness is just something you need to endure; you’ll learn from it; you’ll become stronger for it. But, even if you can see truth in my claims, they won’t provide comfort now.

Don’t try and pretend you aren’t hurt. Don’t try and avoid the feelings, or put them off. Don’t get angry. Yes, it is shitty–know that you’re right in feeling that. But, don’t dwell on it. Don’t try and make sense of it. Don’t try and figure out what happened. You’ll just be torturing yourself.

Know that your life will continue, and that the world will regain its colors. You’ll meet other people. Eventually, you’re interests will lie elsewhere. You will feel the joy and excitement of being interested in someone again. It might take a while, but you never know when someone great will come into your life.

In an injured state, maybe you’ve gotten it into your head that this person was “the one.” Or, that maybe things will work in the future.

Maybe they will, but don’t count on it; don’t hope that they will. Know that there is no “one.” “The one” makes for great fairy-tales, but life isn’t a fairy tale. A few of you will want to push things further. Maybe you think that you have theological reasons for thinking that there is a “one.” You don’t; there are no good theological reasons. Perhaps you’ve felt, or do feel, as though the Spirit is leading you. Wisdom says that you should be extraordinarily careful here. I won’t say that the Spirit isn’t, or doesn’t guide people in romance. I will say that if the other person disagrees with what “the Spirit” has been telling you, then more than likely it isn’t, regardless of what “coincidences” have happened. It’s easy to say, and think, that the other person is blinded by something. Fight letting your mind go here.

[Something you might want to think about is whether, or not, the belief that God is going to give you romance advice has any kind of foundation in Scripture, or tradition. Let's also just acknowledge together that just because something appears in Scripture doesn't mean that it is prescriptive, that it is intended to be normative, or even that it is good. Think Gideon and fleeces. It would also be wise to think about whether or not your view of the Spirit pre-supposes that it will give you advice about all, many, or most, life decisions and whether this is accurate.]

I Hope this helps.

Keep your chin up. I promise, it will get better–no matter how bad right now feels.

Now, I’ve got some flowers to pick up, and a date to be going on.

d.r.t.

A Wounded Heart (Or, the blog that wasn’t yet.)

For more than a while the idea for this blog has been kicking around in the back of my head. But, now that it comes to writing it, I’m not sure that I feel its going to be as good as I imagined.

So I’ll stall.

Yesterday, and early this morning led me to pondering what makes up beauty. My housemate and I, as well as, two friends went to Mission, B.C. and then down to Mt. Baker in Washington. We slept under the stars on a vista not far from the top. I awoke to a beautiful sunny day, and to the realizaion that we’d been sleeping in a location with a beautiful view of the snow covered mountains and of a lush valley.

Many different things can be called “beautiful”, and so, the question is what is essential to them all? What defines beauty?

I don’t think I have it all figured out, but I do think I’ve figured out at least a minimum requirement. And, I think that’s contentment. You see, the view I woke up to could have been improved. It could have had a clear blue lake, fed by a waterfall–which would have made it that much more spectacular. But, it didn’t. And, it didn’t need one. The mountains were beautiful in precisely the way they presented themselves. If they had been any different they wouldn’t have been those mountains.

Now, lest you get me wrong, beauty isn’t made up entirely of contentment. And, contentment doesn’t necessitate beauty. But, I think that contentment with whatever it is that is described as beautiful, is a necessary condition for beauty.

Sorry about how long this post is going to be… but I didn’t post last Sunday. So I feel like I owe you–which brings me to my second stall. Someone said to me recently “You don’t write anything personal on your blog, and sometimes I don’t get the point.” Well, assuming you read this “random person,” the reason I don’t write personal things is because I’m trying to avoid something.

You see, of recent–meaning the last year or so, I’ve been dealing with what is rightly called loneliness. In fact, its been since early high-school since I’ve felt lonely. I’d forgotten how it feels. And, how bad it is for me. The battle isn’t over yet. In fact, lonely isn’t the right word. “Alone” captures it more.

I won’t go into the details of why–but the truth is that if you’re reading this, chances are that I really like you. In fact, I can’t think of one person I’d rather have read this, than call me up or email me. You see–one of the problems with blogs is that they are is some sense the commodification of me. Commodification–the analogy isn’t perfect, but here is how I think this goes down. You role in here whenever you want at whatever time you want, read what I have to say, probably don’t post a comment, and roll out. We don’t dialogue. We don’t talk. You get a little dose of my thoughts, figure out where “I’m at”, and then leave like a phantom.

I don’t think that’s a good thing. Now–I know that some of you call me/email me and that for you people my blog is an additional supplement. You can’t get enough of me–I dig that. But, don’t let reading my blog be our primary source of interaction. I guarantee you that if you blog, I don’t read it, or if I do I post comments regularly. Have you ever wondered how technology de-humanizes people?

I’ve just told you how.

In a way, this space is me. But, at best it is a poor knock off. In part, because my thoughts are more polished when I write, but in part because once something shows up in this space I’ve already processed it. You are reading old news, so if you try and fire up a conversation about something here one of two things will happen. I’ll either regurgitate what is here, or I’ll be disinterested. In either case the conversation won’t be impressive.

Don’t get the impression I’m angry here. I want you to be interested in me. I like that you like my thoughts. I’m happy to give you a privileged view into my life, and to narrate that view. But the truth is, you calling me up or emailing me, would mean a whole lot to me–and it’d be good for me. Don’t do it right this second, but do it sometime.

At this point I just don’t have the emotional energy to write more. As I mentioned the original idea for this post has been coming for a long time, and in itself it is an emotional topic. Here is a teaser:

We’re all hurt by someone, at some point.

The question is, what do you do next?

drt.