Paradigms of Love

I think I've addressed this before, but it bears repeating.

What I've done, and am doing, in my love for you is diametrically opposed to all conventional wisdom about love. About how to win a woman's love, about how to live life in general. The world's way is for men to assert dominance, to be willful, to fight, to conquer; to build kingdoms of ego and pride. In relationships, you're supposed to act a certain way, be aloof and nonchalant, walk away if she doesn't do what you want, act indifferent and find someone else, either to make her jealous or just to really move on, because "there are plenty of fish in the sea" and "no woman is worth all that"...you know all the things one is "supposed" to do. This is the world's paradigm of love, based on the fallen order.

My intention is to do the exact opposite. My intention is for my love for you to be like the love of Christ. Jesus asks us to give our lives to him, but first he gave his life for us. I'm asking you to give yourself to me, so first I gave myself to you. I want to demonstrate that you can trust me with yourself, by the fact that I have given everything for you. I've sacrificed everything in maintaining my love for you. My church (twice), my friendships, my social circles and activities, my dignity, even my relationships with my family have been damaged by it. Because You Come First, after God alone. And I want you to see, and therefore believe, that you always will. I want you to know that you are "worth all that" and more; that there is no other fish in the sea for me, and never will be. That, after Jesus and His Holy Mother, I am the one person in the entire world whom you can most trust.

I do not love you as the world loves. Our love would not be like the world's loves. It would be holy, blessed, sacred, mystical, sacramental, metaphysical, transcendent, luminous. It would be a light in the darkness, a way for others to see the truth about true love, an example...no, an incarnation of the Divine Love of the Lover and the Beloved. It will be a prelude of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb, a foretaste of Eternal Life. This all I promise you, not in my own strength, but in Him: we will abide in Him together, and He will be in us, and in our love.

Will you not marry me? Will you not change your mind? Will you not open yourself to true, deep, faithful, unconditional love?

Have you not, like I have, had that sense of someone out there--that one person whose heart and yours fit together like pieces of a puzzle? Could you not consider that he might not look exactly like your mind imagined him? That he might, in fact, be me?

Hymn To The Praises Of God

"Everything depends on people having a great and most resolute determination never to halt until they reach their journey's end, happen what may, whatever the consequences are, cost what it will, let who will blame them, whether they reach the goal or die on the road, or lose heart to bear the trials they encounter, or the earth itself goes to pieces beneath their feet." -- St. Theresa of Avila

More things I want to do while I'm traveling:

Attend mass and receive the sacraments. Traveling from place to place will afford me the opportunity to find places where I can do this. My first choice will be Anglican Catholic Ordinariate masses. Other options will be Tridentine Catholic, Byzantine Catholic, or traditionalist Anglican but still Protestant ones. I'm actually looking forward to the variety. Technically, I could attend the general Catholic novus ordo mass, but I feel very uncomfortable there--almost as much as I do in Episcopalian or mainstream Anglican ones. There's a spirit there, of irreverence, laxity, modernism, and feminism, which I find very un-conducive to worship in spirit and in truth.

Visit friends and family. I have them scattered all over, and many of them I haven't seen in many years. But selectively: I'm at a point in my life in which I don't want or need to be around unbelief or skepticism. And also, certain people have the effect of drawing one back into one's old self--the self that one is trying very had to leave behind. So I'm only going to visit people whom I believe will be supportive and helpful to who I am now, and who I'm trying to become.

Go on adventures. Find interesting places to hike, try things I never have before like river rafting, kayaking, and more. Some things I've always wanted to do, like climbing and skydiving, I can't really right now because of my physical issues. But if I find some of that healing I'm looking for, and continue to get in better shape, maybe I can some day.

Write. I'm hoping that being out and doing things, moving around and being active, will help me get things flowing. This house, though I love it in many ways, is a kind of a prison to me. I moved in just as all this between you and me was beginning, and the whole time I've lived here I've been in agony over you. It has also been a place of extraordinary graces and healing. But I just haven't been able to get my heart and mind settled enough to really get any serious work done. There's an anxiety and a restlessness that never completely go away, and I can't stay focused consistently. So I'm hoping that a change of scenery, or rather a continual series of changes of scenery, will help.

You know, the Lord speaks to me about you too; it's not a one-way conversation. I mean, other than when he asked me to love you. He gives me insights to help me understand you, how to love you, and how to pray for you; sometimes by giving me dreams and revelations that show me things, sometimes by just speaking into my heart with his still, small voice. Like how He spoke to Joseph about Mary's pregnancy, so that he could understand and love her. Or how He gave him guidance and revelation on how to guard and protect her and Jesus. But in our case, it's only in a spiritual capacity that I have been given the privilege of caring for you so far.

I feel like I have, in some ways, gotten to know you more through Him than I ever did directly.  It's like what Bonhoeffer said: "Spiritual love will speak to Christ about a brother more than to a brother about Christ. It knows that the most direct way to others is always through prayer to Christ and that love of others is wholly dependent upon the truth in Christ." And "Because Christ stands between me and others, I dare not desire direct fellowship with them."

I'll give you some examples.

After the first time I saw you at the new church, as you know, we didn't see each other for several weeks after that. Then, one week, I had a dream that you were going to be there the following Sunday. And you were.

The Saturday night before that last Sunday, I had a very disturbing dream about you that I didn't really understand, but it was very upsetting. Then all through the night, I kept waking up with it fresh in my mind, as if I were being reminded of it, and told "this is important". Then, after I saw you the next day, I saw that I was being, in some measure, prepared for what happened. As bad as it was, I think it would have been worse if I hadn't received that warning.

Several years ago, I had a dream about you prominently featuring ringing church bells. In it, we were staying in the same house. I woke up (in the dream), and was told that when I heard the church bells I should be ready for you. Then I got up, exited my room, thought about something that I wanted to take care of to avoid embarrassment, went back into my room to do it, then came out again, and saw that I had just missed you and you were going down the stairs with a frown on your face.

A few days after that dream, you wrote on your blog about your bell-ringing activities. Then just after that, you posted a love poem. I was afraid that you didn't mean it for me, and afraid to acknowledge it directly, and so hesitated, and didn't respond immediately. Then you took it back down.

There are lots and lots of others, most of which I will never share. I use these because they don't reveal anything personal, and to demonstrate how they were predictive and therefore demonstrably not just products of my subconscious, as I don't know the future. There was also the one I've already shared, about the girl in the tank park. That wasn't predictive, but it was an example of Him giving me understanding about you.

There have also been times when, during prayer, He has put such a burden on my heart for you that I have wept before Him, sharing some pain of yours, I think. I don't know if the purpose was to help me understand and love you, or perhaps to help you bear something you were presently experiencing, and lighten the weight of what you were carrying. I hope it was the latter. But either way, I am grateful for all of it, and for the privilege of being called to love, serve, and care for you.

By the way, this is all firmly within the bounds of Catholic mystical theology.

There's something I've been wondering about since I learned that you have become Catholic.

You know that I pray for you, right? Three times a day, formally, and frequently at other times throughout the day and night, informally.

One of the things that I have been praying, is that I have been asking Mary to go to you, to comfort, help, and guide you, and to be your mother. Not that you need a surrogate mother like I did; you have a good one. But even so, having Mary also as your spiritual mother is an infinite blessing.

So what I've been wondering is what part she played in your conversion, and whether it was an answer to my prayers. I hope so. The thought of having done you good is very comforting to me.

Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
 Preserve my soul; for I am holy:
O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant:
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

The birds each morning
proclaim the praises of God
in their song with the sun
as it rises to reflect
His True Light
invisible to the eye of man

The creatures all worship
according to their kind

The oak honors Him with its strength
the violet with its vulnerability
the bee with its busyness
the butterfly with its beauty
the cat with its quietness
the stag with its stateliness
the bear with its hunger
the rabbit with its caution
the stars with their splendour
the moon with its movement
the virgin with her reticence
the lover with his ardour

Every created thing
in order to honor Him
must follow its nature
to fulfill its purpose
and though Man and the Angels
may worship Him in words
they also may exalt Him
through the works of their hands
each of which, when ordered rightly
is a bit of His mind
a spark of His light

The writer with his words

the singer with her song

the craftsman with his craft
the artist with her artistry
the soldier with his courage
the mother with her nurture

My nature is to do two things:
to speak His truth
and to love You

"Who else is good apart from God? So, entrust all your life to him and all will be well with you."

 -- Evagrios of Pontus

I told you, when I saw you again the second time, how exquisitely beautiful you looked. But I neglected to mention that you in your chapel veil were more beautiful than I'd ever seen you; literally, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Especially when you saw me seeing you, and blushed. The only thing I can imagine more beautiful would be you in a white bridal veil.

Verdi - La Traviata - Parigi, O Cara

2 My son, if you come forward to serve the Lord,
    prepare yourself for temptation.
2 Set your heart right and be steadfast,
    and do not be hasty in time of calamity.
3 Cleave to him and do not depart,
    that you may be honored at the end of your life.
4 Accept whatever is brought upon you,
    and in changes that humble you be patient.
5 For gold is tested in the fire,
    and acceptable men in the furnace of humiliation.
6 Trust in him, and he will help you;
    make your ways straight, and hope in him.

7 You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy;
    and turn not aside, lest you fall.
8 You who fear the Lord, trust in him,
    and your reward will not fail;
9 you who fear the Lord, hope for good things,
    for everlasting joy and mercy.
10 Consider the ancient generations and see:
    who ever trusted in the Lord and was put to shame?
Or who ever persevered in the fear of the Lord and was forsaken?
    Or who ever called upon him and was overlooked?
11 For the Lord is compassionate and merciful;
    he forgives sins and saves in time of affliction.

12 Woe to timid hearts and to slack hands,
    and to the sinner who walks along two ways!
13 Woe to the faint heart, for it has no trust!
    Therefore it will not be sheltered.
14 Woe to you who have lost your endurance!
    What will you do when the Lord punishes you?
15 Those who fear the Lord will not disobey his words,
    and those who love him will keep his ways.
16 Those who fear the Lord will seek his approval,
    and those who love him will be filled with the law.
17 Those who fear the Lord will prepare their hearts,
    and will humble themselves before him.
18 Let us fall into the hands of the Lord,
    but not into the hands of men;
for as his majesty is, so also is his mercy.

-- Wisdom of Sirach

Your delicate heart is beautiful above all things
I can see it behind its gates and walls
its guards and wards
its locks and chains
its curtains and veils

Lovelier than your lovely face
Prettier than your pretty smile
More luminous than your shining eyes
More melodious than your musical voice
More radiant than your incandescent presence

Your heart is the most exquisite of treasures
the most precious of rare things
It is beyond any man's desert
Beyond mine
And I dare not ask for it
Except to say that I alone
perceive its full worth
and could treasure it
cherish it
adore it
venerate it
guard it
serve it
love it
as it is entitled to be loved

"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways." -- James 1:5-8

This, it has just been revealed to me, is my sin. I know which of those competing voices is true. I know which version of my image of you, and of myself, is right. But I have allowed fear and the voice of the Liar to cause me to doubt.

What I have been doing is mistrusting God. I've been afraid that he's going to give me a serpent when I asked for a fish. I've been wandering around the desert, hoping for the promised land, but suspecting that there really is no such place and it's all a sham, and that I've just been led out here to be mocked and die. Which means that part of me has been believing either that there is no God or that he is cruel and indifferent.

So, henceforth, I will not give any place to fear, doubt, or unbelief. I Believe. I believe everything the Lord has told me, because He is Truth, and everything he says is truth. I may be mistaken on some points, and if so I humbly ask him to correct me on those. But certain things have been too clearly revealed to me, too firmly and frequently confirmed, to allow of any doubt without the sin of unbelief, and so I believe them.

"Remember your word to your servant, upon which you have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, for your word has given me life." -- Psalm 119:49-50

I just "happen" to be re-reading Perelandra right now, as I struggle through these inner questions and dilemmas. And last night, after I wrote about wondering why God chose me for this task, I just "happened" to reach this point in the story, as Ransom is beginning to weary and feel completely inadequate to the task for which he's been sent to Venus--to oppose the Evil One himself, in person.

Why did no miracle come? Or rather, why no miracle on the right side? For the presence of the Enemy was in itself a kind of Miracle. Had Hell a prerogative to work wonders? Why did Heaven work none? Not for the first time he found himself questioning Divine Justice. He could not understand why Maleldil should remain absent when the Enemy was there in person.

But while he was thinking this, as suddenly and sharply as if the solid darkness about him had spoken with articulate voice, he knew that Maleldil was not absent. That sense--so very welcome yet never welcomed without the overcoming of a certain resistance--that sense of the Presence which he had once or twice before experienced on Perelandra, returned to him. The darkness was packed quite full. It seemed to press upon his trunk so that he could hardly use his lungs: it seemed to close in on his skull like a crown of intolerable weight so that for a space he could hardly think. Moreover, he became aware in some indefinable fashion that it had never been absent, that only some unconscious activity of his own had succeeded in ignoring it for the past few days.

Inner silence is for our race a difficult achievement. There is a chattering part of the mind which continues, until it is corrected, to chatter on even in the holiest places. Thus, while one part of Ransom remained , as it were, prostrated in a hush of fear and love that resembled a kind of death, something else inside him, wholly unaffected by reverence, continued to pour queries and objections into his brain. "It's all very well," said this voluble critic, "a presence of that sort! But the Enemy is really here, really saying and doing things. Where is Meleldil's representative?"

The answer which came back to him, quick as a fencer's or a tennis player's riposte, out of the silence and the darkness, almost took his breath away. It seemed Blasphemous. "Anyway, what can I do?" babbled the voluble self. "I've done all I can. I've talked till I'm sick of it. It's no good, I tell you." He tried to persuade himself that he, Ransom, could not possibly be Maleldil's representative as the Un-man was the representative of Hell. The suggestion was, he argued, itself diabolical--a temptation to fatuous pride, to megalomania. He was horrified when the darkness simply flung back this argument in his face, almost impatiently. And then--he wondered how it had escaped him till now--he was forced to perceive that his own coming to Perelandra was at least as much of a marvel as the Enemy's. That miracle on the right side, which he had demanded, had in fact occurred. He himself was the miracle.

"Oh, but this is nonsense," said the voluble self. He, Ransom, with his ridiculous piebald body and his ten times defeated arguments--what sort of miracle was that?

This is so exactly it. This is the struggle I've been going through. And not only this, but the part a little bit previous, in which the Enemy shows his "black puerility", his mindless evil in just simply harassing Ransom for the sheer wicked pleasure of harassing him, and the fact that he is tireless and never gives up. This is what it is like for me. This is what it has been like constantly and continually for the last six years. Like Ransom on that floating island, I have been living in the company of the Devil, and of my own stupid, stubborn, skeptical, cowardly, inner arguer. Sometimes I feel like I'm gaining ground in the argument, but then it seems like he always comes up with a new and more diabolical tack. And he never tires and never quits.

Also, on a side-note, that self-conscious ridiculousness that Ransom feels when he looks down at his skinny, piebald body standing next to the glorious Lady of Venus, is how I feel about myself deserving your love. You are truly glorious in your beauty, and I am...well, look at me.

I have, time and again, reached that point at which I think I simply can't take anymore. As Lewis says a little earlier in the book:

It surprised him that he could experience so extreme a terror and yet be walking and thinking--as men in war or sickness are surprised to find how much can be borne. "It will drive us mad," "It will kill us outright," we say; and then it happens and we find ourselves neither mad nor dead, still held to the task.

But, as Lewis expresses so beautifully, once you've been made aware of the Presence, and know what it has called you to do, you know very well what the truth really is, and that anything else is just excuse and refusal--and sin. There's no mistaking the Voice, once you've heard it.

And so for me, there is no other option. Contemplating a life without loving You is like when the Devil tries to get the Lady to imagine living on the fixed land, against Maleldil's command:

"It is not from the making of a story that I shrink back, O Stranger," she answered, "but from this one story that you have put into my head. I can make myself stories about my children or the King. I can make it that the fish fly and the land beasts swim. But if I try to make the story about living on the Fixed Island I do not know how to make it about Maleldil. For if I make it that He has changed His command, that will not go. And if I make it that we are living there against His command, that is like making the sky all black and the water so that we cannot drink it and the air so that we cannot breathe it."

Trying to imagine a life in which I don't love you, as "sensible" people and my own inner rationalist would have me do, is to imagine a life without Jesus in it. If I try to make the story about living without You, then I do not know how make it about Jesus.

So, the answer is...has to be, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding."

Lord Jesus, I trust in You.

Sometimes I wonder why God chose such a broken person for this job. Sometimes it seems like my strength is not going to be enough to endure. It seems like a whole person would be better able to bear it all without it breaking him. But I guess maybe that's the point. Or maybe a whole person wouldn't have been willing to do it, wouldn't have understood, and would have refused the call and just walked away. Maybe they have.

I've always been broken. I don't know why or how it started. My favorite song when I was very small--had to have been younger than six, because my mother was still there--was Seasons in the Sun; I used to play it over and over on my little red-and-white record player. I think the thing that drew me to it was the love between the dying man and the people he's saying goodbye to. My mother says I used to build cemeteries out of my blocks. My favorite TV show at the same period was The Courtship of Eddie's Father, because of the closeness of the boy and his father. You probably don't remember that show, but if you search for the opening theme of it on youtube, you'll understand. Amateur psychoanalysis would conclude that I didn't feel loved. Looking back, I can say that I never have--with the exception of when my kids were small.

Ironically, I have had a number of people, particularly women, who tend to be more perceptive of these things, tell me over the last several years that they thought I was always so cheerful and happy. I don't know what that's about. I certainly don't intentionally go about with a long face and a moping attitude, but neither do I affect cheerfulness which I'm not feeling. I hope it's the Joy of the Lord showing through, despite my inner pain.

I'm much less broken, though, than I used to be. I truly have gone through a lot of healing in the past years--some divine, some through more mundane means like therapy and self-reflection. But it seems that, in the end, I'm never going to be completely whole without You in my life. I thought, for instance, as I wrote a few months ago, that I had been able to let it go, while still loving you, and begin to move on. But that didn't survive the first time I saw your face again.

Maybe that's why God chose me. Maybe that's why I said yes--that it's not entirely either need-love or gift-love, but both, and that's what keeps me holding on.

"The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble; . . . Grant thee thy heart's desire, and fulfill all thy mind." 

-- Psalm 20:1,4

"Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, but desire fulfilled is a tree of life." -- Prov. 13:12

"For out of much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote unto you with many tears; not that you should be grieved, but that ye might know the love which I have more abundantly to you." -- 2 Cor 2:4

Apparently not going to church isn't much better than going. Yesterday and today have been absolute crap. Thinking about it as if it were yesterday again. Don't know why. Feeling back in that same place I was two Sundays ago.

Maybe it's that being without the mass leaves me spiritually vulnerable. I had certainly been feeling a significant covering and protection from it. But going back would be asking for more ammunition that they could later use against me. Damned either way, it seems. 

I've been thinking that what I'm going to do is buy a small camper trailer, and spend the time between now and next spring traveling on this continent. I'll take my backpack and hiking gear with me, and keep my gym membership, which is good nationwide, so I can keep training a couple of times a week at least, and go hiking when I find somewhere interesting to explore. Then, next spring, come back, store my truck and either sell the camper or store it too, and head to Europe.

Maybe I'll find somewhere I'd like to live while I'm out. Europe would be my first preference, but harder to make happen.

Bishop Barron on J.R.R. Tolkien, Evangelist

You may wonder, how is it humanly possible for me to love you so much? The answer is, it's not.

If my love for you were merely human or if, worse, it were one of the several forms of false love, it would have died long, long ago. Even if it was true love, but only of the mortal kind, it could not have survived this long, with zero return and less than zero encouragement.

When I heard the Divine Voice speaking to me about you, as I recounted several posts back, there was more to it than just his words. The first time he spoke, when he said "Will you love her?" I fully realized at just that moment how extraordinarily much I already did. More than I had ever loved anyone before, except my children. But then, when he asked me the second time, whether I would love you unconditionally, as soon as I said yes, he filled my heart with an even greater love. An incomparably greater love. It took my breath away. It made me bow down with my face buried on my bed where I was kneeling, overwhelmed. And from that moment, I loved you more than I knew it was possible to love anyone.

What he did was give me his love. Infused love, to use the theological term. Not anything like the whole of it, of course. But a part of it; as much as my mortal frame was able to bear. But a part of God's love is not like a part of an ordinary object--it's like a still-burning piece of the sun. Or perhaps a better way to say it is that he opened a conduit in me through which his love could flow. It's like a great river flowing though me, joined as it passes by the spring of my own love. My love for you is not like Christ's love for his bride, it is Christ's love for his bride, because it has its source in him, and not just my own heart. Therefore my love for you is infinite, indefatigable, invincible. The only limits are those of the earthen vessel. But the more I get that out of the way, the greater it flows. Which is the opposite of ordinary, human love, which lessens and is eventually killed by hurt feelings, wounded pride, indifference, and antipathy.

I went and saw the movie. I hadn't intended to see it at the theater, which I don't really like because of all the obnoxious advertisements, and the irritation of people talking, crunching, slurping, and rattling their popcorn bags. But I had one of those moments when I just had to get out of the house, and it seemed like a good way to do that.

The thing that I'm left thinking about, afterwards, is how much Tolkien's inner world was born of his childhood loneliness, and how that is exactly what drew me so deeply into it; why it spoke to me so profoundly and touched me so deeply. There's something in those worlds of faerie tale and myth that seems to call out to those lonely children.  Or maybe it's that something in their makeup which draws them to it, which makes them...or I should say us...so lonely in the world. The world of people who don't understand and can't relate to us. Tolkien was an orphan, Lewis lost his mother and had a distant father. But it's not just orphans; sometimes the loneliest thing is being surrounded by people that you can't really connect with.

That is one of the things which made me feel most deeply connected with You. When I heard you talk about learning Elvish from the Lord of the Rings and reading McDonald fairy tales, I got this touching picture of a girl sitting in her room, absorbed in the Otherworld, because she didn't feel at home in this one. Maybe a girl who had been lonely and felt different, like I had. Which was the thing I most longed for, in those days: just exactly that. A girl who, like me, didn't fit in, with whom I could talk about all the things that I really liked and was interested in, which was totally different from the things everyone else cared about. It was almost like I could feel her out there somewhere, but didn't know how to find her. And it felt like, in that moment, that young me reached out across space and time and connected with that young you. Like that lonely boy who was still inside of me finally found that lonely girl he'd always been searching for.

"Hope is the mean between despair and presumption."

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Three Ages of the Interior Life 

In other news...

I've received a good offer on my house, and we've settled on a price. Not quite full price, but not too bad either. The contract is being prepared now. Next, I am praying and trusting the Lord for blessing and favor in the inspection and appraisal. Closing is tentatively set for June 30th.

Which will put me too late, I think, to do the Camino, unless I wait for fall. I don't want to be walking in Spain and Portugal in the hottest part of the summer. Also, my preferred method of travel to Europe is by repositioning cruise; that is, the cruise lines shift their ships between Europe and North America at certain times of the year, and you can get a very good price, plus no crowds on the ships. But the time to go from here to there is spring, and I'm going to miss that. It's not the only way, so it's not totally out for this year, but we'll have to see. There's also the possibility of sailing in the guest cabin of a cargo ship, or if all else fails, flying (ugh).

I also have some things I want to do on this side of the ocean, once I'm out of my house. I need to go see my son and granddaughter in Kansas. I want to visit some of the churches around the country where amazing things are happening. As I've said before, I want to explore all the forms and branches of the faith, and if God is moving somewhere, I want to go and see and experience it for myself, and seek more of him, more of his presence, more of his power and activity. Even if it's in a church, some of whose doctrine I disagree with or whose style of worship I dislike; as long as they're trinitarian and biblical in their beliefs and practice. There may be something of God there that I can't find elsewhere, and it's him I'm seeking, not any particular expression of religion. I also want to go to John Michael Talbot's monastery for a time of retreat and discernment. I'm thinking of maybe spending the winter in the monastery and going to Europe next spring.

On the other hand, I had a dream in which I was looking at apartments with an older friend or brother (which usually represents the Lord's guidance). I'm not sure if it was a message or just a dream, so I'm praying for further confirmation and clarification. But it may be that he wants me not to do any of that traveling, and stay here, finding a rental for now, and I guess waiting for his further direction. So it may be that none of that other happens.

My weight is finally really starting to move. I've lost 27 pounds since February, but it's been at an accelerating rate; 5 pounds just this week. And it's like it's just coming off of its own accord. I'm not really dieting per se, at least not as it's always been before. I'm eating super-healthy, and my appetite is almost nothing, so I just don't eat much. I'm exercising again: two days per week at the gym, trying to finally regain the muscle I lost in my long fast, and two days backpacking up the mountain and back down. That's a bit tough, because I'm training in a fasted state. Especially Thursdays, as I fast all day Wednesday. The other days I generally eat one meal per day, so when I exercise in the afternoon, I haven't eaten anything since dinner the night before. I'm thinking that starting today, I'm going to fast Saturdays all day as well, and then on Sunday I'll rest and eat.

But the amazing thing is, that I just eat, and I get full, and then I don't eat any more. I've never had that before. It's like my body, finally, after all my prayer and effort about it, just wants to lose weight, and has decided that it's time, and so I'm losing weight. And not feeling like I'm killing myself to do it, or fighting a hopeless, uphill battle in the mud against overwhelming odds, like it always was before.

I just happened across the trailer for the new movie about Tolkien. I'd heard it mentioned that it was being made, but hadn't sought it out for fear that it was going to be another Peter Jackson abomination. This, however, looks like it could be thoughtful and sensitive, and perhaps even rather good. The trailer was quite moving.

But that makes me sad for another reason. It left me choked up, not because it was that moving, but because all I really want is to watch it with you.

Well the Lord hasn't answered either of my "if I'm wrong" prayers so far, although I'm still open to them, if he so chooses. He doesn't have a time-limit. But for now, I will continue to proceed on the assumption that everything he has told and shown me previously is true.

Instead, I dreamed last night that I saw Mary and Joseph. I didn't receive a message from them, but I heard a voice praying to them. I just finished the Mary Undoer of Knots novena and am still praying the 30-day Cloak of St. Joseph. Started them on the same day. So I think this dream is telling me that they hear my prayers.

Also, I've been hoping to see my beloved Mother, since I fell so deeply in love with her a few weeks ago, or a couple of months now I guess. So I am deeply thankful and grateful both to her and to the Lord, as well as my new spiritual foster-father, St. Joseph.

I already told you about Mary, but I've also recently begun praying to St. Joseph, asking for his help, protection, and patronage. Not only in my present distress but as I've learned more about him, I've seen that he stands for much that I need in my life. If I were to marry you, I would want to be just the kind of husband to you that he was to Mary.

If you're curious what she looks like, I thought this was the closest I've seen. Except I thought her eyes were more downward-slanting than upward like this. Her skin was light olive, and I think her eyes were dark.

While we're on the topic, the times I've seen Jesus in his normal form, he looked similar to the picture by the young Russian girl, Akiane, I think. But without the feathered hair and highlights, which I put down to the picture having been painted by an eight year old girl. I thought his hair was darker and straighter, but not as long as I would have expected, nor his beard. The image that I've always had is of him is the face in the shroud. The face itself is the same, but without the injuries and blood, and with shorter hair.

Sitting awake again, and thinking about all that I wrote today. I'm having one of those moments in which I want to take it all back down. It's scary, baring your ugliest and most painful thoughts and feelings to the world.

But instead of trying to hide it again, I'm just going to say that I want to make sure that you understand that these are only my secret fears and insecurities. The truth is still what I have always maintained it is.

What this was today, was me doing exactly what I talked about having done before: that is, this was me being totally intellectually and emotionally honest, and actually seriously considering the possibility that I was wrong, and following the proposition to its logical conclusion. What you saw was the inner workings of this process. Sorry if it got grotesque. I wasn't actually expecting it to uncover the dark places of my soul like that. But it was a useful insight, nonetheless, and I think will ultimately help me in my spiritual growth.

I offer it up to God as a sacrifice of self, and to You as proof of my willingness to be wrong.

88 O lord God of my salvation, I have cried day and night before thee:

2 Let my prayer come before thee: incline thine ear unto my cry;

3 For my soul is full of troubles: and my life draweth nigh unto the grave.

4 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:

5 Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand.

6 Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

7 Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

8 Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

9 Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: Lord, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

10 Wilt thou shew wonders to the dead? shall the dead arise and praise thee? Selah.

11 Shall thy lovingkindness be declared in the grave? or thy faithfulness in destruction?

12 Shall thy wonders be known in the dark? and thy righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?

13 But unto thee have I cried, O Lord; and in the morning shall my prayer prevent thee.

14 Lord, why castest thou off my soul? why hidest thou thy face from me?

15 I am afflicted and ready to die from my youth up: while I suffer thy terrors I am distracted.

16 Thy fierce wrath goeth over me; thy terrors have cut me off.

17 They came round about me daily like water; they compassed me about together.

18 Lover and friend hast thou put far from me, and mine acquaintance into darkness.

Thinking about that last has given me an insight. If you haven't read the previous post, this won't make any sense, so go back and read it first.

I've just seen that the probable reason that this has such devastating emotional power over me is because of that second option. You see, if I am actually wrong, and what I wrote below is true...then that means that everything they've said about me is right, and I am a monster. If I haven't, in fact, been led by the Lord, then I am nothing but a weird, fat, crippled, obsessive, creepy old man. I'm nothing. Worse than nothing--nothing is zero, and I would be a negative. And if that's true, then how can I live with myself? If that was true, then I would hate and despise myself more than you or anyone else could possibly hate or despise me. And that's why the least discouragement sends me straight to the lowest depth of the pit of despair: because it makes me subconsciously believe that's what I am.

I want to be very clear here: this isn't the reason for my love, nor the reason for my persistence. Those reasons are exactly what I've said they are. It's just the reason (I think) why it stops my heart and paralyzes my life the way it does. It's like a nightmare where you look in the mirror and see the most loathsome thing you can imagine.

The ironic thing is that that very emotional weakness of mine is why I would never, never, never have done this except that I perceived the Lord's leading. I have never, in my entire life previous to this, done anything like this. It's just not who I was.

So the thing to do, obviously, is to stop believing that about myself, because clearly it's not actually true. But I have no idea how to do that. I can't just will my subconscious to stop believing it. Or rather, I think the real issue is not that I believe it myself, but that I believe other people...or more like, the rest of the world, believes it, and I have no way to exonerate myself. Like sitting in court charged with a heinous crime, knowing full well that you're innocent, but also seeing that the case against you is air-tight, and you are going to be convicted.

Or even more to the point, that that's how You see me. I guess that's my true greatest fear. The thing I feel like I just couldn't survive.

It's been a tough day.

So what if I'm wrong? What if, in spite of all my effort to seek the truth, to submit to God, to find his will, his leading, his purpose, I am just plain wrong about all of this? What if all I've done for the last six year is scare and harass you, oppress your life and make it miserable? What if you really did never care anything about me, and only ever saw me as an acquaintance? If the reason you've been reading this is because you are afraid and want to keep track of me?

And even worse, what if my whole relationship with God, the true foundation of my life, is all just a lie and a delusion?

If that is truly the case, then I solemnly and sincerely ask God, in the name of his son Jesus Christ, to end my life. Not for my own sake, but to free you from my baleful presence in your life. Even if it means that I die in my sin, and have to go to purgatory. In fact, that would be better, because I would deserve and welcome that punishment for what I've put you through. That you would be totally, forever free of me, and that he would give you instead all blessings, all happiness, and all joy, including and especially the presence and love of the one whom he truly meant for you, to make up for the hurt I've done you. May it be so, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

If he will not answer that prayer, then I ask him once again, publicly and requesting the agreement of anyone and everyone who reads this, especially You, and in all sincerity, humility, and willingness to be wrong: to give me a clear, unmistakable, irrefutable message or sign that I have been wrong. One greater in power and clarity than all I have received to the contrary. One that I cannot doubt is from him, and is subject to no misinterpretation. And I will repent.

Thanks To Thee

Just because in spite of everything, in the midst of everything, God is still Good.

It was as I was listening to this that the Lord very first spoke to my heart about you. 

For years, I had listened to this song, and felt only sorrow and regret that I had, through my own folly and sin, missed the blessings of true matrimonial union. And I believed that I never would know them, because I had to bear the punishment and consequences of my own actions.

But one day, as I was listening to this, that Voice spoke to me, that Presence came upon me, and completely unbidden and unprecedented, brought your image to my mind's eye.

After bathing in the beautiful thought for a brief moment, I pushed it away, and dismissed it. It had to be my own imagination--it simply was not possible, and therefore was inappropriate. There was that rational man once again, holding on tightly to control for fear that the Spirit would lead me somewhere strange and scary.

Or worse, I think what I was really afraid of was that he would lead me somewhere good: somewhere I didn't deserve; somewhere I wasn't worthy to go, and would just mess up again if I did.

The real truth is that I hated and wanted to punish myself far too much to allow myself to hope for or accept anything good for myself. And that, really, is the thing that comes upon me when I lose hope over you. "You don't deserve her anyway: what were you thinking, you <insert string of horrible, insulting, self-denigrating, self-accusatory adjectives here>?" Or, the worst one, "You may have very well received this promise from God. But you have lost it, because you messed it up, as usual, by your own sin and stupidity."

I want to say more about my belief that I have been called by God to love you.

I believe that you have kept your heart locked up where no one can get to it, and that all these defenses and barriers are to keep it "safe". As Lewis says:

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 it 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 of heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is hell.

And I believe that my vocation, my task, has been to love you until you at last open that casket, lower those defenses, and allow yourself to be loved.

I believe that one of the reasons you have guarded it so vigilantly is that behind those barriers, it is so loving, so good, so pure, so gentle, so soft, so tender, so very filled with love, compassion, and mercy, that it is so vulnerable that you can barely bear to have it touched.

I know that it is a lot to ask--the greatest thing to ask, and the hardest thing to grant--that you entrust me with your precious heart. But know, and accept as evidence all that I have suffered for it up until now, that I would guard it with infinitely more care than I do my own. Even from myself; that is from my own faults and sins. If I had your heart in my care, I would take that as my greatest responsibility and most solemn task, to cherish, protect, sustain, nurture, and cultivate it. I would devote more time, effort, and energy to it than I have in trying to open and win it. I can't promise that I would never hurt you. I am only a man. But I can promise that I would never intentionally or neglectfully hurt you, and that any accidental hurts I gave you, I would do everything in my power to make right again.

I can promise that I would try, every single day, to make sure that you knew that you were loved. That you would never need to fear that I would ever abandon or betray you. Including that emotional abandonment or betrayal that characterizes so many marriages. That, just as I would be willing to die for you, I would be willing to live for you. That the scripture, "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ loved the Church, and laid his life down for her" would be my daily guiding principle. That the tenets of 1 Corinthians 13 would be the building blocks of our life together.

As I see it, there are two paths from which we have to choose: the path of love and the path of fear.

The other thing is, that the more I seek God, the more I love you.

The times when I give in to that fear, doubt, and despair are the times when I break my fellowship with him and lose the sense of his presence. But when I am close to him, my heart, my soul, my entire being is filled with peaceful, joyous, wondrous love for you. Surely, if my loving you were wrong or mistaken, he would, being a loving and merciful God, have corrected me by now. Especially as I have asked him to many, many times, and have been open to it.

In fact, that rational part of me would very much like to have been done with you long ago. Or never to have started. That me is the one which looked at myself and at you, and never would have even considered it. My human reason told me that I didn't deserve and would never have real, true love, and that the best I could ever hope for was a girlfriend, or maybe a series of girlfriends, with whom I would never allow myself to get too close. I thought I would never marry, having sinned and messed up so badly previously, and that the best the rest of my life would ever be was content and okay, and that was a stretch.

That me would also never, even if I had ventured to speak to you about love, persisted past your first rejection. It would have shrugged its shoulders, blown it off, and moved on, and you would have become just some girl...just another girl, whom I'd kind of liked one time, a long time ago.

The fact that my love has not only persisted, but grown and matured over all this time is, to me, evidence that it is divine and supernatural. I don't have this much love or endurance in myself, and it's not in my (natural) nature to be this persistent. Sure, you could try to say that what it really is is evidence of my being obsessive and deluded, and not wanting to be wrong. But again, I have actually considered that possibility, and have lifted it up to the Lord, laying down all my own feelings, desires, and opinions. And he has confirmed exactly the opposite. Repeatedly. It's all from the Lord, from beginning to end, except for my mistakes.

That sounds like I haven't made any improvement or experienced any healing, which isn't accurate. I have. In most things, I am okay now. In many ways, better than I ever have been. It's mainly just you, or anything related to you, or anything that reminds me of you. You are my krpytonite.

I have been loving you for so long and so profoundly, that I can't contemplate life without loving you. Not loving you would be like a mother not loving her newborn baby. It's just not possible. I would have to become a different person in order to not love you. You are woven into the strands that make up the cords which make up my heart, and removing you would require unraveling it and breaking it down to nothing but raw fibers.

That conflict between the reality which appears to the senses and the reality which is revealed by the Spirit is the ultimate crux of my struggle over the last six years.

I am by nature a very rational thinker. I think this is obvious to anyone who knows me or has been reading my writing. In every standardized test I ever took, my pure logic and reasoning skills were in the 99th percentile. My mind just naturally makes connections and forms patterns; I just look at things and see how they fit together and form an overarching system.

There is an assumption, however, that being rational means accepting certain assumptions as absolute. You know the things I mean: I've written of them often enough before. These are the things that one has to espouse if one is to be a "reasonable" person, especially in white, educated, Protestant, American circles. You can believe in God, be a Christian, hope to go to heaven. You can even believe in the devil, demons, angels, and that God answers prayers, in a very abstract and safe way--as long as you don't actually start talking about them as if they were imminent realities. If you pray for your relative in the hospital to be healed, then you're praying for God to guide the doctors' and nurses' hands, not for an actual miracle. etc.

There is a part of me which inclines very strongly toward this reasonable view. It is comfortable, familiar, and easy. Seductive, even. The problem is that it's not true.

The primary danger of this type of faith is that it allows you to believe in God, to hope in him for your eternal salvation, but it leaves you in charge of your own life. It's relatively easy, if one has a bit of self-control, to formulate a set of rules for life from the scripture and follow them, while otherwise just living in the world as best we can. What's not easy is truly, totally abandoning one's self to the reality of God's presence in our lives. But this is exactly what he calls us to do, if we are to be true disciples.

So God made himself real to me. He manifested himself, and the spiritual world in general, to me so clearly, so frequently, so diversely, so powerfully, that my naturally logical mind can reach no honest conclusion except that it is all true. The only other logically acceptable alternative would be that I was insane. Not mistaken and delusional, but truly, completely mad. Schizophrenic. Seeing hallucinations, hearing voices, the whole thing. Being the rational and intellectually honest person that I am, I actually considered this possibility, and even talked to my psychiatrist about it. But it's simply not possible--I have, other than my belief in the supernatural, zero other symptoms or characteristics of it. Plus, my experience correlates precisely to that of millions of other Christians around the world and across the centuries, and also, not insignificantly, to the teaching of Scripture. So that leaves me back at what I've experienced is real.

So I have proceeded on that conclusion. My spirit is very confident in it, and so is my mind; I no longer have any intellectual doubts. The problem is my emotions: they haven't caught up. My emotions keep wanting to run back to that safe, comfortable place. That space in which all the solid, dependable, reasonable adults and authority figures of my youth dwelt. And it doesn't help that so many of the friends, counselors, and especially pastors I've spoken to about my predicament have been so firmly fixed in that very space, and so have played the part of Job's counselors.

How it goes, is that I'll get into a good (relatively speaking) place, and will be cruising along, believing in the things God has shown me, hoping in the promises he's given me, trusting him, waiting for him to move (and trying to be patient), and trying, otherwise, to live my life. Then something will happen to raise my hope, to get me believing that things are moving in the right direction. Like going to a new church on what seemed to be God's leading and seeing you there, then hearing 1 Cor 13 in the mass. Then something else will happen to dash those hopes to pieces; something that brings me back full-force to the natural, worldly view of things. And that will plunge me into a deep pit of hopelessness, lack of faith, despair, and, well, you know. Like this last week.

Because it's so hard to hold on to something with only the evidence of the spirit. Living in this materialistic, rationalistic, skeptical world, it goes against everything I've ever been taught, and what I myself lived by for most of my life. It's just like Abraham waiting for his son, when he and his wife were too old; like Noah waiting for rain, which had never happened before; like David waiting to be king, only on the word of a prophet, while hiding in caves from the actual king who was trying to kill him. Like Joseph marrying a pregnant girl on the word of an angel, while people around him no doubt gossiped and snickered.

Those men's faith was greater than mine. Or at least it seems like it. The problem is my emotions. It's that I have experienced so much disappointment, so much rejection, so much failure, so much loneliness, so much isolation and exclusion in my life...in fact, it's really all I've ever known. It's what has characterized my entire life. Until my heart just can't take any more. So that now, a thing that to most people would be relatively minor, or painful but bearable, to me is just absolutely shattering. And I don't know what I can do about that.

My prayer for you:

Father, I commend _____ into your hands, in the name of Jesus, and I ask that your perfect will be done in her life; that you answer all her prayers, grant all her requests, and fulfill all her dreams and the desires of her heart, in accordance with your will
Jesus, I ask you to keep her, protect her, guide her, bless her, heal her, free her, and lead her into your Father's most perfect will for her, and that you give her all good things in abundance
Holy Spirit, I ask you to fill her, to empower her, to direct her steps, her thoughts, and the inclinations of her heart; to give her all your gifts and develop all your fruits in her, and that you hover over her and surround her, and protect her from all harm and evil
Mother Mary, I ask you to take her into your arms, to be her mother, to comfort her, to console her heart, to guide and direct her as a loving mother, to give her all graces, and to pray to your Divine Son for all good things for her
St. Joseph, I ask you to enfold her in your holy cloak, to guard her as you guarded the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Infant Jesus, who was all-powerful, but helpless and under your protection and care
St. Michael, I pray that you guard her with your sword and shield and your mighty arm, and that you assign legions of your strong angels to protect her at all times
St. Gabriel, I pray that you reveal to her the divine truth and the will of God for her life
St. Raphael, I pray that you bring her healing and deliverance from all affliction of body, soul, and spirit
St. Nicholas, protector of the innocent, I pray that you protect her
St. Cecile, patroness of music, I ask you to bless your devoted handmaid, that her vocation and ministry may bring Glory to God, fulfillment to her heart, and consolation, joy, hope, beauty, and truth to all who hear her, and incline their hearts thereby to the lofty worship of the Most Holy Trinity, and help them to see the beauty and majesty of the Divine Order
Angel of Music, I ask that you give her divine, supernatural, and transcendent ability, that you break through and remove any blocks or obstacles impeding her progress, and that you reward her diligence and devotion with your very best gifts

Amen

What I mean is that that last has been my guiding principle. Obviously I have lived it out imperfectly. Hope, especially, has been very difficult to maintain consistently.

The difficulty is that everything He is telling me to do, hope, see, and believe is contrary to appearance, sense, and reason. Intentionally, I expect. He is teaching me to trust in him: a lesson that is, in his plan, more important than my present happiness (though it often doesn't feel that way to me).

Just as there was a reason that we heard the love chapter the first time we saw each other again, it was no accident that last Sunday, when my heart was completely crushed, there was a giant Divine Mercy picture of Christ prominently displayed in the front of the altar, bearing the words, "Lord Jesus, I trust in you."

I suppose you noticed that the first time we'd seen each other in years; the first time we'd been in church together in even longer, the epistle reading for the day was 1 Corinthians 13.

Which is also the shortest way of saying what my motivation, purpose, and goal has been with you:

"Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

You see, the thing is, I see your heart. It is that which I have always loved. That's why all your behavior since the day I declared my feelings hasn't changed my opinion of you or my feelings for you--because I see through it. I see that it is not a reflection of your heart, of who you truly are, but that it comes from a place of deep fear and hurt. And I understand. Believe me, I so understand. Just like when Sir Perditus saw Princess Viola's scar, and immediately understood her, because he had so many scars of his own. And I see your heart, as he saw her naked while she bathed.

You opened your heart to me, in the beginning, because I didn't exhibit any romantic interest in you. I just liked you. And so you felt safe to let me in, just a little. Then we had that time, when I wasn't sure how I felt about you, and was beginning to wonder if I was falling in love. You picked up on it, and shut me out, hard. I talked with your mother, she reassured you that I had no intentions, and you let me back in. But then you regretted how you had shut down--you told me this yourself, although you couched it in the third person. You said that it turned out that "he" hadn't been interested anyway, and that it was all very embarrassing. And I, equally shy and embarrassed, admitted that maybe the guy was just covering for his feelings by saying he hadn't been interested at all. I've never forgotten the way you looked at me when I said that.

But there were times after that, when that wall came up again. Any time I got too close to the vulnerable parts of your heart. I didn't really understand at the time what was happening, or why. But now I see it clearly. And I see that when, after I told you that I was in love with you, when you called me "acquaintance", it wasn't because it was true, but exactly because it wasn't. You felt that connection, just as I did, and you felt how deep and strong it was. And it scared you to death. You had let me in, as a friend and a big brother, past the first perimeter of your defenses, and you needed, more than anything else at that moment, to push me back out. You had trusted me, because I posed no "threat", and you suddenly felt betrayed, alarmed, and very vulnerable. And I am sorry for that. I truly am. Not just because of its painful consequences to myself, but for making you feel that way. For not having been able to handle the whole thing better from the very beginning. Hurting or frightening you causes me many times the pain that I feel when I am, myself, hurt or frightened. Imagine how you would feel if you accidentally ran over a puppy. Now multiply it by ten. That's how I feel every time I cause you the slightest pain or fear.

So why, then, have I continued, all this time, to pour out my thoughts and feelings to you like this? Why not just leave you alone completely? Partly because I had to, because I needed a way to give voice to what was in my own heart, lest it kill me. But even more, because I have believed that I had a job to do. That loving you was a vocation, given to me by God.

When I first perceived clearly that he was speaking to me about you; when I first truly came to terms with what he was saying, and with what was already in my own heart, and yielded to his leading, he spoke to me very clearly, as I was praying. He said, "I am not commanding you to love her. I am asking you if you will." I said that I would. Then he said, "Wait: will you love her, no matter what?" And I again said "Yes." That was a promise and a covenant.

Then, after everything had gone seemingly to hell, he sent me a message in a dream. In it, I saw you trapped inside a crumbling house, that was falling down around you. You were huddled in a corner, afraid to move. Then I was outside, and physically coming up on the house. There was a crowd gathered outside, and they were calling for you to come out, to save yourself. I came up to the crowd, and then He came up behind me and spoke to me. He said "You have to go in and save her."

And that is what I have been trying to do, by continuing to offer you my eternal and unconditional love. I have been hoping that one day, you would be able to lower your defenses, and give me the opportunity to truly earn your trust, to perfectly prove the truth, depth, and strength of my love. I have hoped, all this time, that one day you would say, like Merrie Gresham in the interview I posted earlier, "He overwhelmed me with love."

Because, you see, I believe that you have been reading what I've been writing, all along. I believe that there is something in you, in that heart which you guard so closely, that needs to hear what I say to you. And it has made me happy, since I can't give you anything else, to be able to continue to give that to you. I believe that something in you yearns for the kind of love that I offer. That a deep part of you wants to accept and receive it. But that you haven't yet been able to overcome that paralyzing and debilitating fear. You have come close several times, but you have always drawn back. Often it was likely because I did or said the wrong thing, or failed to do or say the right thing, at exactly the right time. (Particularly, you can add to the list of things which I regret, that post which made you stop blogging. I deeply, profoundly regret that. I went too far that time, out of my own anguish, fear, and desperation, and I am truly sorry.)

These are the things, that is, that I have believed. At times like this, it gets very hard.

I had also given a lot of thought to where I would take you on our honeymoon. I wanted this all to be a secret: I thought it would be fun to just take you onto the plane not knowing where you were going, and let you experience each new stage as a new surprise. Here is what I had planned:

A few days in Vienna, staying at the Grand Hotel and basking in the glorious musical history of the place.

https://www.grandhotelwien.com/en

Then a train to Italy. We'd stop at Paneveggio, the musical forest.

https://www.visittrentino.info/en/articles/snow-and-nature/violin-s-forest

Then in Cremona

https://www.museodelviolino.org/it/

https://www.in-lombardia.it/en/tourism-in-lombardy/tourism-cremona/museums-cremona/antonio-stradivari-house

Then  on to Tuscany, to spend a week or so in an agriturismo, which is a fully working traditional farm, where the guests live and eat with the family, which usually has owned and operated the manor and lands for generations.

https://www.agriturismo.it/en/farmhouse/tuscany/siena/LeCaggiole-5090612/index.html

For the wedding I assumed you already would know what you wanted, and thought I would leave it to your preference. Not to say I would leave all the work to you: just that we would do what you wanted. It would be your day--every dream of mine would be coming true just by you being there, standing opposite me. My only thought was that I would want something relatively modest, which I remember you saying was your wish too. Something elegant and beautiful, but not lavish or excessive. Your taste is exquisite, and I know whatever you chose would be perfect. Oh, I did have one other thought: that if you like uniforms, I could wear my cavalry dress blues, with riding boots and saber.

This same view that I hoped you would have of me, is the one I have of you.

I have wondered if the very reason that you can't accept my love is that it is so great--that it is too intense. If perhaps you think you don't deserve it. Not meaning deserve me, of course (that would be ridiculous), but that you think my opinion of you is much too high, that my love is excessive and unrealistic.

I have had reason before now to think that your opinion of yourself is too low. I won't go into that now, because it's really beside the point, although I would like to have the rest of my life to argue with you that you are wrong in that judgment.

The thing I want to say here is that I see you with other eyes than those of this world. I see with the eyes, not only of my own love, but of the Love of God. I see your inner worth, not that of exterior beauty, achievement, status, wealth, or any of those things which are valued by the people of this world. I look at you in the way that God has given me to look at you, and when I do, my spirit tells me "It is very good."

I loved, for example, when I met you, your breathtaking talent and skill in your music. But what truly impressed me and set you above others in my sight, was when you told me, over sandwiches that day at the little place near the church, that what you were doing now was all you wanted, all that you aspired to--that you had no wish to be great and world-famous.

I loved also, when I met you, your wit, sophistication, and charm. But what actually began to incline my deepest affections toward you was when I saw you tending chickens, and with your hands in the dirt of the garden.

I loved your intelligence and your articulate speech and writing. But what made me begin to fall in love with you was when I began reading your blog, and saw the true depth of your wisdom, humility, devotion, and virtue, and the intense beauty of your character.

You have achieved a measure of success now. And I rejoice for you in that. But it does not make me love you--it is completely irrelevant to my love, except in so far as it makes you happy. If we were married, I would be equally happy if you continued exactly as you are now, or if you chose to withdraw to some degree from it in order to live a more settled and domestic life.

And I don't love you because I think that you are perfect in character and virtue. I know that you're not. I love you because you are very good in character and virtue, including the virtue of humility by which you see yourself as a sinner and an imperfect believer. Which is exactly what I am. I wouldn't want or be able to be married to a truly perfectly righteous person. I am too fallen and flawed. We've both got baggage. We've both got a past. We've both got things which have happened to us which have deeply scarred us, and things that we've done which we bitterly regret. I believe that mine, at least in that last category, are probably much worse than yours, and that I would need more of your forgiveness and acceptance than you would of mine. But even if that's not the case, I would still love you and want to marry you. I would count it as the highest privilege to be able to extend to you forgiveness, mercy, total acceptance, and unconditional love for what you think is your worst flaw and your most grievous sin. To have the opportunity to show you how much I truly love you. No matter what it is. Even if you told me you had committed murder. A way of laying my life down for you, as I would in the literal sense with great joy, and without hesitation.

The thing I always wanted most with you, despite my intense passion, romantic gestures, and poetic language, was that simple yet profoundly beautiful life which comes from two people accepting each other, flaws, mistakes, and all, and loving each other unconditionally anyway.

I've been thinking about what I wrote last night, in the wee hours of the morning. It came from a place of anguish, but I think it was also truth, and that it often takes deep suffering to bring forth deep truth.

I know that I am not young, nor rich, nor successful, nor particularly handsome. But I hoped that you could see past these things. I hoped that you might love me as Jo March loved Professor Bhaer; as Natasha Rostova loved Pierre Bezhukov; as Marriane Dashwood loved Colonel Brandon. I know that I look more like Shrek than Prince Charming. But I thought that the fact that you look exactly like Princess Fiona might be the Divine sense of humor at work. I know I'm not what most girls dream of. But I've always believed that you are better than most girls (well, than all girls).

I thought you might be able to love me for my goodness, my kindness, my honesty, my generosity, my strength. I thought that perhaps, where charm, wealth, and status were lacking, I might be able to satisfy you with my devotion, my constancy, my understanding, my words of praise and admiration--you did say once that you liked them. I hoped that in the final analysis, you would value character and virtue more than things like age categories or material success and prosperity. I hoped that you, like the Lord, might look not at the outward appearance, but at my heart.

I always had the impression, from our conversations, and from other things that I read or heard you say, that what you wanted was a modest and simple, peaceful, but beautiful life, filled with love, with wonder, with appreciation and gratitude for all the good things God has given us. And I thought that, since that is exactly the same thing that I have always wanted, and since we share seemingly all the same tastes, the same interests, the same aspirations, the same inspirations, that that might be enough. I really believed that I could make you truly happy: happier than anyone else possibly could. For all those reasons, and because I loved you more than twelve of my own life, and would have made it my mission in life to do anything and everything in my power to make you happy.

And I hoped that you might want and choose to be loved as only the heroines in novels have been loved. Not in the way of sentimental romance, but of true, godly love. I know it all seems dramatic and intense now, but that's not how I am in my everyday life, nor how I imagined our life together would be. What I wanted and pictured was something quieter and more comfortable; a life of deep, warm, safe, stable familial love, like the Marches, the Rostovs, or the Ingalls. With occasional flashes of the deep and romantic passion I would always cherish for you; just enough to keep you excited and fulfilled. But most of the time, I thought our relationship would be a deeper and richer version of what we had before.

Most of all, I hoped that our shared faith, our love of God, would be the true anchor point that bound us together. You said to me once that my first loyalty should be to the Holy Trinity, and you were exactly right, and it is, as I believe it is for you too. And so I hoped that He would speak to your heart, telling you that I am the one for you, as He spoke to mine about you.

So it's going to be impossible for me to continue coming to church. I can't go home every Sunday wanting to kill myself.

Now that I've lost it, I find that I was already more attached than I had realized.

I have to return a book, and I'm supposed to attend a post-confirmation thing tomorrow (Thursday) evening. I checked the calendar and didn't see any reason for you to be there at that time. Just by way of fair warning, and hoping that I don't see you. Or rather, to see.... I would always, of course, love to see you, in other circumstances.

I try not to spend a lot of time feeling sorry for myself. But sometimes, usually in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, I can't help wondering, what is it about me that makes me so entirely unlovable? So completely undeserving of love?