Keeper
Language of Love
A couple of weeks ago, a friend and I were talking and he mentioned something he had read or heard about the difficulties of understanding the various ways of expressing love. Some talk, some do. It seems I’m married to a “do-er” as it were. I’ve tried watching carefully for the past week of two to see if I can understand this. Interesting trial.
He does. He went to Walmart for something, and while there, hunted down a cable I needed for my iPod so that I could use it in the car — 2 cables, it turned out. In the past, he bought me a 12-string guitar for my birthday (one I had looked at, played and liked very much.) He calls on his way home from school (he’s a teacher so he’s off earlier than I) to see if there is anything needed at the store. There are more things that he does. Many more.
This is not my preferred communication method. It’s hard to see it. It requires work on my part to pay attention enough to see that this is his way of caring. I am much more in tune to to talking, sharing, emotion. That I understand that without so much work. But, I think this might be impossible for him.
This weekend the second reading for mass proclaims that love is the most important. Perhaps it is not only important to love, but also important to try to understand and accept the sometimes cryptic way others attempt to love us.
What’s next?
I’m retiring — well, I retiring from my “day job” at Auburn. Not happening until the first of April, but it seems it’s happening. It is not lost on my friends that my first day as a retiree will be April Fool’s Day (and I have an 8 am dentist appointment, to boot.)
The questions begin: “What are you going to do?”
I have lots of answers ready at hand. I’m going to be able to go to the gym in the mornings! At 8, which might happen, instead of 5:30am, which is not happening. I’ll be able to head up the road to Birmingham to visit more often — this is important since the 3rd grandchild is scheduled to make his/her appearance in Birmingham the first of June. I’m planning on having more energy available for my second and third jobs — mostly web development for the Vincentian Family and anybody else who would like to compensate me for the work. I’d like to actually learn to speak and understand Spanish, make the Pilgrimage to San Juan Compostela, hike parts of the Appalachian trail, spend time with my granddaughters in Florida (and go the zoo – I love zoos!), make some quilts and visit my friends in NY.
Plans! We all have them. It remains to be seen how many of these will come to pass. Mostly, I hope to live well, grow in faith and appreciate the life I have.
Third Way
The other night my husband was watching one of the science channels. The show was about physics. Is light a particle? Or is light a wave? And the answer is “Yes.” I don’t understand the math or the physics beyond the simple idea that relativity and quantum physics are mathematically incompatible. I understand that understanding light fully will require a “third way” – and the candidate is string theory. Something that will make two incompatible explanations work…
Incompatible ideas, dreams and hopes seem to be a part of everyday human existence. Yesterday I saw it in myself again. I sat face to face with a dream or hope that seems so incompatible with my reality and other dreams and hopes I have. To follow one fully seems to require leaving the other behind. And yet, I find I must hold both within in me. Both are precious. I seek a “third way.”
I struggle to understand and to accept that things that I feel are in such conflict. I struggle to find a way through the narrow, twisty maze of passages that is my journey. I find a part of my answer in the second reading for mass this weekend. It’s that passage from i Corinthians 13 on Love that is used so often at weddings. We all know it: love is patient, love is kind… It’s then end of that passage that speaks to me:
Love never fails.
If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing;
if tongues, they will cease;
if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing.
For we know partially and we prophesy partially,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I used to talk as a child,
think as a child, reason as a child;
when I became a man, I put aside childish things.
At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror,
but then face to face.
At present I know partially;
then I shall know fully, as I am fully known.
So faith, hope, love remain, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.
It seems that Love is the glue that binds. Love is the “string theory” of life. Love is the way through the twisty little passages. Love will allow me a way to hold my conflicts within me and know that there is a way to be true to myself and my creator.
Now the mystery becomes Love. How do I begin to grasp that one?
Action
Time flies by and I fail to take the time to post. But, it’s raining, and I have just completed the formation weekend for the Women’s Cursillo to be held in March at Holy Trinity. And, I’ve had to take time to think and write, as I am giving a rollo (talk) on Action – apostolic action.
These talks present me with problems at times. I find myself on a different page of the book than the outline for the talk seems to come from. This time wasn’t so tough as the other talk I gave a few years ago. But, still — it pushes my comfort zone edges to do this. And, that is a fine thing to do.
Of late, I’ve taking actions that force me out of the comfort zone. I’ve put in the paper work to retire from the University, effective April 1. Now, that is stepping out of a zone that is familiar, if not always comfortable. After more than 25 years it will be quite a change. One that evokes both excitement and anxiety. I can set my own schedule. I can take on projects that I want. I can be free to visit my children and grandchildren. How will I keep myself from turning into a bon-bon eating couch potato? Can I find enough contract work to fill the gap between my current salary and my retirement “pension”? I look forward to the chance and the change. I fear that I will make a miserable mess of the whole thing.
That said, preparing the talk on action seems opportune. The Holy Spirit seems to know her business quite well. I am forced to wrap words around ideas. I am called to action, as it were. What I hear in my quiet time with God, what I learn from my reading and study, I must turn into action. If I sit with God, if I am present in my relationship with Jesus, then I must reflect what I learn, what I know, in my daily walk. Reaching out to others. Listening to those who need an ear. Allocating a part of my income to help a friend who is struggling and coming up with a whole lot more month than money. Sharing of myself to draw others in to prayer when I lead music at mass. Continuing to do my best at a job where I am truly a lame duck.
Stepping out of the comfort zone is scary — and invigorating. And, a call to action.