"He loved her without reservation, without hope, unconditionally."

-- Gustav Flaubert

"It is said of her beauty that no man of flesh and blood had ever gazed at her with enamoured eyes, and not loved woman and noble qualities ever after."

-- ibid 

"He that never had sorrow of love never had joy of it either."

-- Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan 

My back hurts all the time. Sometimes, it's only a low-grade discomfort. On the best days, it's just barely noticeable so that, for moments, I can almost forget it.

It's always been like that with my emotions, too (though it's getting better now). I spent so long, from my early childhood, never having happiness or peace that it's like I physiologically forgot how; like the neurotransmitters weren't working, or just weren't there anymore.

When I listen to Jacqueline play, though, it actually physically makes me feel better. I get that warm, glowing tingle up and down my spine that washes away the pain like warm water washes away the dirt and sweat. It feels like a mild dose of opiates.

The other thing that does that to me is Your presence. When I'm with you, it takes away my pain. Your voice soothes my body and my soul. Your eyes lighten my spirit, and your smile gives joy to my heart. Your music transports me to better places. Even when we're not talking or interacting, I can close my eyes and, just knowing you're near, sink into that warm pool of happiness and be at peace. You are like morphine.

"Then he found himself in a hall, which had an iron door at one end. This door he unlocked with his golden key, and he passed through into a vast chamber which had a roof of blue sprinkled with golden stars, and a carpet of green silk soft as turf. Twelve windows framed in gold let in the light of the sun, and on every window was painted the figure of a young girl, each more beautiful than the last. While the prince gazed at them in surprise, not knowing which he liked best, the girls began to lift their eyes and smile at him. He waited, expecting them to speak, but no sound came.

Suddenly he noticed that one of the windows was covered by a curtain of white silk.

He lifted it, and saw before him the image of a maiden beautiful as the day and sad as the tomb, clothed in a white robe, having a girdle of silver and a crown of pearls. The prince stood and gazed at her, as if he had been turned into stone, but as he looked the sadness which was on her face seemed to pass into his heart, and he cried out:

'This one shall be my wife. This one and no other.'"

-- Long, Broad, and Quickeye, Bohemian Fairytale

The Valentine's Day that Never Came

This has been sitting, waiting for a Valentine's Day when I could give it to you, for quite a long time now. It's a little outside your usual style, but I thought, when I saw it in the shop window, that it was perfectly lovely, like you. It's handmade, and so completely unique, like you. It's heart-shaped, and I was going to say, when I gave it to you, something about giving you my heart. And it's set with rubies, which is perfect because "A virtuous woman who can find? Her worth is far above rubies."

That verse, or rather that chapter, has a special meaning for me in relation to you. When I was going through that initial dark time, struggling with trying to discern the leading of the Lord and to sort it out from my own thoughts and desires, a strange thing kept happening. I would pick up my Bible, time after time, and it would fall open to Proverbs 31. Not just once, or twice, or ten times, but more times than could possibly be coincidence. So often, that I started to wonder if my Bible just had a crease in the spine in that place. And then, it started happening with other Bibles that I would pick up and read. And also, since then, my main Bible has stopped doing it, so it can't be the crease thing. (Except that it happened just the other day, for the first time in a long time.) Now, I don't practice bibliomancy. But I do think sometimes God speaks to us that way, especially if we don't go looking for it. And I think he was comforting me, and giving me hope.

So the point is that to me, Proverbs 31 means you, in a very special way.

But I don't regret those missed Valentine's Days. Nor all the rest of it. When I imagine that hopeful someday, when we would talk about our past, I can honestly say that if all this time, and all I've been through, was the price of that "now", then it will have been worth every second. The pain now is part of the happiness then.

You are my Joy. Happy Valentine's Day, my Beautiful Love.

Just so you know: this change I've experienced doesn't change my love for you in any way. Actually, it has liberated and refreshed it. My love, like everything else, had been weighed down. But now, it's fresh and intense again, but without the pain and fear I had before. My love for you now is completely free: both in the sense of unbounded and unfettered, and in the sense of being gratuitous and unconditional. It's like, I love you more than anything or anyone in the world, and I would love to marry you and spend every moment of the rest of my life with you; but I don't really mind if I don't.

Finding my Way

This post, though it's going to take a bit to get there, is following on what I wrote a few weeks ago, about how I've been stuck.

I've been reading The Quest of the Holy Grail. In the course of his quest, Sir Perceval is taken to an island in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no shelter, no companionship; where he is tempted and tested, like Christ in the wilderness, before he's going to be allowed to continue on his quest for the Grail. The Lord appears to him under the guise of a holy man and gives him instruction and support, then the devil appears under various disguises, trying to steal and pervert what He said. Like in the Garden. During one of his tests, the devil comes to him again, this time in the form of a beautiful woman, and begins offering him a way off the island, saying that nobody is guiding him, nobody is going to help him, and he's only going to get off, and live, if he takes action and helps himself. This dialogue is from that episode:

"'And now I want you to tell me how you have managed since you were stranded on this island, where all will soon be up with you unless you are rescued. For you can see for yourself that none lands here from whom you can get help, and you must either get away or die. Therefore, unless you want to perish, you needs must make a pact with someone for your rescue. And since I am the only one who can get you off, you are obliged to come to terms with me - if you have any sense, that is, for there is nothing worse in my opinion than people who refuse to help themselves.'

'Damsel,' said Perceval, 'If I could leave this place and if I thought it was God's will that I should do so, then would I go, but only then. For there is nothing in the whole wide world that I would wish to have done if I thought that it displeased Him: I should indeed have been knighted in an evil hour were I to use my arms against my Maker.'

'Leave all these matters be,' she said, 'and tell me whether you ate today or no.'

'In truth, I had no earthly meat today, but a holy man came here earlier to comfort me, who fed me with words of wisdom in such plenty that I should never want to eat or drink again for as long as his memory endured in me.'

'Do you  know who he is?' she asked. 'He is a sorcerer, a spawner of phrases who makes words breed a hundred fold and never tells the truth if he can help it. If you heed him you will be lost, for you will never get off this rock, but will die of hunger and be eaten by wild beasts. The prospect should be plain enough by now; you have been here for two days and two whole nights and as much of this day as is already sped, and he whom you speak of never once brought you food, but left you stranded then and will so leave you, for he will never come to your aid.'"

As I read this, and contemplated it afterward, I of course saw the analogy in Perceval's dilemma to my own: not only his being stranded, but in the devil's words. They are the exact same ideas that I have struggled with all along; the arguments with my rational side, and the well-meaning but wrong advice of people who don't understand the spiritual significance of what I'm going through. And I suddenly saw what I had to do. "If I could leave this place and if I thought it was God's will that I should do so, then would I go, but only then." Perceval is saying that he will stay there, where God has brought him, even if it means he starves to death. And he accepts it. I saw that this is exactly what I have to do: God has led me to this island where, like Perceval, I am alone, isolated, and deprived. And I have to accept it. I have to accept that, unless and until His way off the island manifests itself to me, I will starve. And that I may starve to death. But that nothing, whether I live or die, will separate me from the love of God. Though He slay me, yet shall I serve Him.

And as soon as I did that, made that full surrender, I felt different. Like I'd found my way. I had another one of those nights, like the one years go, in which I went to sleep and then woke up feeling like the whole world has changed. I feel--un-stuck. At last.

And since then, I've been feeling better than I have in forever. The last few days, in particular, I've been feeling...dare I say?...happy. It's just gone--that thing that's been weighing me down, and holding me prisoner. That cloud of shame, and all the things that went with it. It's ironic. It's a lesson that you have to learn a thousand times, in a thousand different ways, as a Christian: you have to die to live.

Here's another thing I wish I'd done differently.

That morning, when you said hello, and I grunted and grimaced. I wish I'd smiled, and said, "Hi, Sweetie," or something nice. You took me by surprise, to be honest: I didn't expect you to speak to me. It's hard for me to do what to most people comes naturally: to dissimulate about my feelings. Especially to act nonchalant, casual, and friendly when my heart is full of something intense and profound. The only way I can do it is to detach myself from everything altogether. But then...that happens. It's like I have to take a few moments to prepare my reaction, because if I let out the one that's in my heart, it would be like opening the flood gates. But I didn't have the chance, that day. The moment came suddenly, and was gone. But still, I'm sorry about that morning. I know it must have taken a real effort for you to try, and that I probably hurt your feelings.

Sometimes I wonder, if that moment had gone differently, maybe the whole thing would have taken a different course.

"Sir," said Sir Bors, "for all a man stems from an evil stock, namely from wicked parents, this gall is changed to sweetness the moment he is anointed with the holy chrism; therefore it seems to me that it is not fathers and mothers that determine whether a man be bad or good, but his own inclinations. A man's heart is the helm of his ship and steers it where he lists, to harbour or to hazard." -- anonymous, The Quest of the Holy Grail