We stand, you and I, on the edge of the languid pond; we are looking together at the small boats bobbing and bending along with the wind-sighs of a balmy, New York afternoon sometime in the Spring. Compounds of young and old move past us in differing versions of the same stroll around the sculpted edges of the pond, edges which seem to have an agreement with the water : to stay in concert with one another and to provide an orderly experience of boating.
One boat, a perfect red dash crowned with white triangulated splashes splayed outward to catch (to it, a gale) the soft-blowing wind, breaks from its compatriots who toddle safely at the far corner and dares the high seas at the center. It sails true and straight for a glorious thirty seconds and seems never to mind the end of the world ( it's world is rather squarish wherein one does not fall off, but rather splinters on an unforgiving and orderly wall). The wall, now, as we watch in fascination and some horror (imagining tiny people asleep at the helm), does not forgive. There is a splintering sound and a 'whosh-flap' as the sails crumple into the shallow water.
We do not speak, we wait- for what? Perhaps we are waiting in morbid curiosity to see what the owner will do with the remains of the red dash. A boy comes, plodding rather than running. To my surprise, he does not waste too much time in mourning his art-work toy: straight to the great green garbage receptacle he plods and without cermony, lets it fall to the bottom with a humiliating myriad of thuds.
You do not turn towards me, for we live in different universes now. I only hear you say, as if from very far away, "That reminds me of a relationship- you know, maybe that boy loved his boat. But he was not afraid to admit that it was broken beyond repair, and realized that he would just have to get rid of it-hard. That's why I like that 'thud' in the trash."
I do not answer, for you will probably not hear me; your philosophy comes from so deep inside that it is not something I can counsel you about; and also it places us far apart. I cannot be with you in this, the philosophy of the broken boat. I will not. But I live outside it, and pray; and discuss to myself, to make clear to my own heart what bothers me so about it.
I suppose I understand this philosophy from a natural standpoint: I guess I've had experience both as the broken boat and also the trash-man. However, my soul and all I know of God's love makes me reject this philosophy absolutely. I must here differentiate between a relationship which is disordered from one in which each person has struggles and deep flaws, causing hurt to the other. In the former case, the cause of the disorder must be remedied in charity, according to the laws and will of God-in charity. Sometimes the remedy is indeed an ending of the relationship- but it is done in prayer and charity. In the latter case, with the flaws and such, it is different: and I think of this now, as you begin to turn and walk away slowly...
When one person holds the philosophy of the broken boat, whether in a courtship, marriage or friendship, the other person becomes aware of the guillotine hanging unobtrusively over the relationship, and the whole thing becomes a dance of fear. It is a dance of control, of waiting for a flaw to appear and be judged: hurt does not become a chance for spiritual growth, but rather a tally mark on some ledger-sheet in the heart. A wall is built, and the one willing to love and work on the relationship will often feel a temptation to escape (and perhaps escape is just what is needed). The one who understands true love must call the other out and be willing to lose this relationship on the altar of reality, of real love: for love will be tested, either by the lovers or friends or by the providence of God and the trials of life.
For love is not meant to be a perfect sail on a balmy night. It is meant to help us grow towards Our Lord, who gave Himself up to death for love. Love is meant to make us heros and saints: it demands nothing less. That is why the disillusionment in any longstanding relationship is actually a good thing; for in the moment of disillusionment we have the profound and divine choice to really LOVE: not for gain, nor pleasure, but rather for the other. Our self-life begins to die as our life in Christ grows in exact inverse-proportion. Love is not fundamentally fun. It is fundamentally real, worth great risk and pain. The fixing and re-fixing of the boat is true love.
The other kind of relationship, the disordered kind, needs remedy before it can even approach the fixing and re-fixing of love. You and I, my friend, and all friends, how can we love if we are starving spiritually, or in sin, far from the Source of Love and Life? How can we navigate the storms on the pond without formation or the Sacraments, or the sanity of the True Theology? How can we discern anything through disorder? As you disappear into the trees beyond the pond, this is what I grieve the most: that I was not capable or willing, perhaps, to love the way God would have wanted me to, and to let you be His first and not mine.
In this fundamental disorder, God is ready to rescue at the slightest humility and willingness to let go: for even in disorder, to let go (not to throw in the trash, but more akin to the boy allowing Someone else to take the boat who could perhaps fix it and sail it better for him), yes, to let go is the beginning of real love and the beginning of hope of order.
In any real love, to begin to lose oneself truly in the love of God is to begin to be able to truly love anyone else. It is only after really loving this way, perhaps often in the dark, that one begins to understand the depth of love. It is the true meaning of the prophet who married the harlot as a sign of how God loves His own though they stray.
You know, my friend, as I watch your shadowed form slowly climbing the hill across the way, I sense that you know that real love is much more demanding than the toughest mountain-climb- and you say you don't have the courage for it. None of us do, I whisper, hoping the wind will carry my message of hope. That is why you need the Sacraments, the 'body and soul' love expressed in the life of the Church. It is Her purpose: to cause us to be able to love, like the wind in the sails. The strength of the Eucharist, the healing of confession...
How can I express it? I feel that I am failing to convey it! I remember that love of God you first felt, even as a pagan of sorts, when you were suspended in the deep blue; that infusion of the knowledge that He would never leave you, that He would reach you wherever you were and walk through death for you. It was a mark of deep understanding that was imprinted on your soul, it shone through your eyes: a kind of never-ending explosion. You thought that somehow a relationship was tied up with that- and in some sense you were right; but yet you carried the pagan broken-boat philosophy with you, like an extra change of clothes, a just-in-case.
And I failed you, miserably. The mysterious thing, is that perhaps He allowed us to fail-to give us a chance to learn to love as He does: or to know beyond doubt that He is the Alpha and Omega of everything, but especially of love. Love in courtship, or marriage, or friendship, must begin in Him and His law and will, it must continue thus, and end thus. When any relationship fails in His law, or tries to live outside it or in selfishness, it becomes demonic. The only remedy for this is not to trash it because it hurts, but to repent and to seek after His will once more: whether His will is to seek Him together or apart.
But when you are seeking His will, and His will for you is to have a broken boat, or to be one, do not despair. Rejoice. Again, I say, rejoice...for He gives you the power, His power, to love beyond measuring, beyond and in failure, and this makes you Christ in this sphere. You become a true witness to the other and to those who observe: and you give witness to the truth that the final end of any love-whether it be agape, philia, eros, or storge-is to draw everything to heaven through the love of Christ. No love can remain love and be an end in itself. You are only left with childish anger and despair at a broken, expensive toy.
I know, my friend, that God will ask from you a love no less than His love, for your good. If you ask for the courage, He will give you His own, the courage of the One who stumbled to Golgotha for love. Love those whom God has placed in your life with that love, a love that never forsakes, that always wishes for the other's good: that good of the other being to dwell in the House of the Lord forever. Heaven is constructed on this selfless love, and I pray that He will fill you with the grace to love this way, for it is all His doing. It is begun in our willingness to have God transform us as we surrender our own precious philosophies which do not conform to His Truth. It is the seeking after His Truth as the 'doe longs for flowing streams'.
For me, I know I am nothing, nothing, next to the love of God in the relationships I have now- I just want to be in that love, immersed in that ocean. My peace, in my clingings to selfishness, is that God knows He must change me, and that I want it. This wanting is also a grace given by Him. I know I always retain my free will: and I hope to use it to be willing to love without thought of measuring the cost, to love even when someone is imperfect or seriously flawed, or when I have been seriously hurt.
Perfect love casts out fear. Fear, begone. Sweet Courage of Love, enter in!
