"Like one powerless and defenseless against Love's control, the knight of the cart fell into such thoughts that he lost thought of himself. He did not know if he was alive or dead, did not remember his own name, did not know whether he was armed or not, did not know where he was going or whence he was coming. He remembered nothing but one person, and for her he put everyone else out of his mind. He thought so much about her alone that he heard, saw, understood nothing." -- Chretien de Troyes, The Knight of the Cart

For My Friend

Why did we become friends?
Why were we immediately drawn to each other?
Was it because you'd never known a father's love
and attention?
And because I lacked everything feminine?

Or was it just because you were wearing that straw hat
and that pretty summer dress
And I was standing in the courtyard, alone in a crowd
holding a scotch and soda in one hand
and a gin and tonic in the other?

I told you that you looked 'vintage'
and you told me that there was something sexy
about a hard-drinking sort of old-fashioned man

Whatever it was, it was one of the best things I ever did
We could have been lovers
But instead we became friends

I was jealous, one time
because you had a crush on someone else
because you were paying attention to someone else
But it passed, and I saw that that was not who we were

When everyone else turned on me
You were still there
And when everyone else turned on me again
You were still there

And all these years later, you are still here

When I'm feeling lost, and down,
and like there's no one in the world who loves me
who gets me
who thinks well of me
I can write to you, and you'll be there
When you're at the end of your tether
and feel like you can't endure another second on this earth
You call me, and know that I will understand

And so, this is to say Thank You
and that I Love You
my dear, sweet, special friend

A Christmas Poem for You

I think I know now,
why I think of you at Christmas
Why, to me, Christmas means you

Christmas is
the most beautiful time of the year
And to me,
you are the most beautiful of women
To me, looking at your face
is like looking at a Christmas tree;
shining, sparkling, glowing, enchanting

Christmas means
a home full of love
the lights of tree and candles
the warmth of the fire
the glow of food and wine
the joy of giving and receiving
the peace of belonging
And those are all the same things
that you make me feel

At Christmas
there is that indefinable spirit in the air
That sense of hope, of excitement, of expectation
Of goodness, love, and deep and lasting joy
And those are the things I feel
when I think of you
when I am around you
when I just remember that you are in the world

Christmas is all these things;
sublimely beautiful, profoundly joyful
because at Christmas, we savor the sweet presence of Christ

And you are all these things to me
because in you, I also taste His presence
In loving you, I abide in His love

I don't love you because I feel love for you. I do feel love for you, but that's not the reason for my love; it's a result of it.

I don't love you because I admire and think highly of you. I do admire you, I do think highly of you, but that, also, is not the reason for my love.

Perhaps you feel that I think too highly of you. I have, admittedly, sung your praises extensively. It's natural to fear that someone who says they love you only loves what they have seen, and that when you reveal the less attractive parts of yourself, that their love and admiration will evaporate, or even turn into revulsion and antipathy. I have that fear.

So let me tell you why I do, in fact love you, and why my love won't go away when you show to me that side of yourself which you're afraid that no one can love.

I love you because I believe, with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, with all my strength, that God has revealed to me that You Are The One. I believe with everything that is in me that we are meant for each other, and that He intends me to marry you, and to love you for all of your life (or, more likely, for all of mine).

I wasn't very sure of this at first. Well, I wasn't sure at all, in the very beginning. The first time He spoke to my heart about you, was in the early days of our friendship. There's a song, which for many years had touched me deeply, and expressed everything that I had always most longed for (and believed I'd never have)....

 And one day, as I was listening to it, His Spirit spoke to my heart--that very same Voice which told me to put my seatbelt on a few minutes before my brakes failed. There were no words, just you; your image, or more like your presence, and the idea appeared in my heart, completely unbidden and unprecedented (I had not been thinking of you at all), that for me, this song meant you.

I immediately dismissed it. Well, truthfully, I indulged in the surpassing loveliness of the fantasy for a brief moment, and then I dismissed it. It was ridiculous. It was impossible. It was improper. Clearly, it was just some random thought of mine. Except it wasn't.

In that moment, before I hardened my heart to the Lord, I was about 10% certain that you were my love, the one He intended for me. But I set it aside and went on with my life, being practical, sober-minded, and pragmatic.

When I spoke to you of my feelings, I was around 50% certain. Well, I guess I was at 51%--I had just tipped over the edge enough to feel I should act. Your reply set me back, way below the halfway point, not only destroying my confidence in that conviction, but seriously (well, traumatically, to be honest) shaking and bringing into question my ability to hear Him at all.

You know what followed, so I won't go into it in detail. Let it suffice to say that I sought Him, with all my heart, and He let Himself be found by me. And over the following years, as I grew closer to Him, and grew stronger in my confidence that I could and did actually receive His guidance and hear His voice, my conviction that He had called me to love you grew and grew, and now is 100% (and has been for quite some time). This is the exact opposite of what should have happened, according to human wisdom, practicality, and pragmatism. My love for you actually grew in the face of opposition and discouragement, just as the Church grew in the face of hostility and persecution. That is characteristic of the Lord's work.

The point of saying all this is to say that the basis of my love for you is conviction. I know that there would be difficulties, disappointments, disillusionments, and disagreements in our relationship. There always are, among humans. But we would survive them, even profit by them, because I would be totally, completely, 100% committed to loving you. Why? Because I believe that it is the Lord's will, and I trust that He will guide us through every difficulty, and bring us to something better in the end than we could have even imagined before the problem appeared. I've been asked, numerous times, in discussing you with my confidants, what if I discover X or learn Y about you, after we are (hypothetically) together. My answer has always been, and still is, that if it is God's design that you and I marry, then we are what is best for each other, and that includes everything about us, even the things which appear at first to be not so. What is best for us is not always what might appear at first to be pleasant or desirable. God is wiser than we are, and He knows us better than we know ourselves.

When describing you to people (which I do more often than I probably should), I often use the analogy of the homes which Christ promised to prepare for us in Heaven. I don't know if they are literal houses. But I have often imagined so, and when I imagine mine I picture it as being so perfect for me that I could not have designed it so well myself--of continually discovering things about it which thrill and delight me, and make me say, "That is just perfect!" I see you the same way. Before I met you, I could not imagine a woman so perfect for me. If I had been given a build your own woman kit, I could not have done half so well, nor created anything half so lovely and amazing as you.

And that includes your flaws. If you have a flaw or a fault, then it corresponds to something in myself, which needs to be addressed, whether it's that you can help me, or that I can help you, or both.

And so, you see, that is why and how I love you, and why it would be okay if you should choose to open yourself, to make yourself vulnerable to me. You can trust me. You can trust me because my love for you is immovably grounded in my faith in God, and I would die for either of those convictions. Without a moment's thought or hesitation. And what's even more difficult, I would...no, I do...live for them.

I received these pictures this morning, from one of the outreaches I sponsor in India. They are celebrating my birthday (which I am not, although that cake looks delicious enough to make me re-think it). I found it touching and sweet (and humbling), so I thought you might enjoy them too.

It makes me unspeakably happy that these hungry children are eating, and eating my birthday cake. Since I was a child, when my mother used to say "Eat, there are starving children in...", I have often wished that I could send what I was eating just then to those starving children. This is like that actually happened.

He could not look at her enough; the more he gazed at her, the more she pleased him...looking at her restored and delighted him."

-- Chretien de Troyes, Erec et Enide

"The maiden was very beautiful, for Nature in making her had turned all her attentions to the task. Nature herself had marveled more than five hundred times at how she had been able to make such a beautiful thing just once, for since then, strive as she might, she had never been able to duplicate in any way her original model. Nature bears witness to this: never was such a beautiful creature seen in the whole world. In truth I tell you that Isolde the Blonde had not such shining golden hair, for compared to this maiden she was nothing. Her face and forehead were fairer and brighter than the lily-flower; contrasting marvelously with the whiteness, her face was illuminated by a fresh, glowing color that Nature had given her. Her eyes glowed with such brightness that they resembled two stars; never had God made finer nose, mouth, nor eyes. What should I say of her beauty? She was truly one who was made to be looked at, for one might gaze at her just as one gazes into a glass."

"Indeed  though beautiful  her good sense is worth even more than her beauty. God never made such a wise creature, nor one so noble in spirit."

"When I have (her) near me, I would not give a marble for the whole world: she is my delight, she is my diversion, she is my solace and my comfort, she is my wealth and my treasure. I love nothing else as much as her."

 -- Chretien de Troyes, Erec and Enide