Loving A Hidden God
THE JOY OF HUMAN LOVE
My dear friend, you are hidden from my heart. I command it to bear up bravely under your absence, but it pays little attention. How else can I explain the desire to be with you that tears me apart deep inside my self? You are someone whose absence is too unbearable to be borne bravely. But yet this sadness gives its own peculiar satisfaction. My great joy is that I am unable to avoid being happy when you are with me and am unable to avoid tears when you are far away. My consolation now is in embracing my sadness.
Letter 27, 1
Augustine's letter to an absent friend quoted above, expresses the sometime joy and sometime heartache that comes when we are deeply in love with another human being. His sentiments are reflected in God's great love song to the human race, the Canticle of Canticles. The words of the canticle remind us of two glorious facts about our life just now: first, we are waiting for the coming of a God who loves us; second, it is possible for us to experience the bliss and wonder of true love even as we continue our somewhat laborious way through life. The canticle sings:
For steadfast as death is love
relentless as the nether world is devotion;
its flames are a blazing fire.
Deep waters cannot quench love,
nor floods sweep it away.
Were one to offer all he owns to
purchase love,
he would be roundly mocked.Canticle 8, 6-7
When Augustine was a young man he admitted:
There was only one thing that could delight me: to love and be loved.
Confessions, 2.2
What he was saying was that any day on which we find a human to love is not totally bad. With love present we can wait courageously in our days of darkness for some light to come. As he would later say to his friends:
Love brings with it courage. If you really know how to love, you can endure anything and everything for the sake of your beloved.
Sermon 299E, 1
If we love and are loved, we can survive the insecurity and pains of this life. As Augustine told his good friend, the lady Proba:
Good friends seem to spread no small comfort about them even in this life. If poverty pinches, if grief saddens, if physical pain unnerves us, if exile darkens our lives, if any other misfortune fills us with foreboding, may we be surrounded by good friends, friends who know how to "rejoice with those who rejoice" as well as to "weep with those who weep" (Rom. 12.15), friends who are skilled in helpful words and banter. If such friends are with us then in large measure our bitter trials become less bitter, the heavy burdens become lighter, perceived obstacles are faced and overcome.
Letter 130, 2.4
If we have never felt the passion of human love, it may be difficult for us to understand God's love. The apostle John expressed this truth in the following words:
Dear friends, let us love one another because love comes from God. Whoever loves is a child of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.
1 John, 4.7-8
Augustine repeated the same idea when, after trying to explain what the love of God might feel like, he cried out in exasperation:
Give me people who love! They know what I mean! Give me people who yearn! Give me those who are hungry! Give me those desert people who are thirsty and sigh for the waters of eternity! Give me those people! They will know what I mean. But if I speak to people who are cold, they will not know what I am talking about.
Commentary on the Gospel of John, 26.4.3
True love must be freely given. When we are embraced by one who really loves us, we know it is because they really do care for US. We are cherished for what we are. Such love brings a quiet calm into our lives. Though not passionless, it need not be passionate. Though intimate, it need not have constant verbal communication. To rest in the arms of a beloved is a quiet thing, as close to becoming one with them as we can make it. The sound of their breathing becomes indistinguishable from our own. Our hearts beat in unison and our spirits join together. We face the world now not as two but as one.
In such an intimate love, though each is possessed by the other, neither is consumed. Indeed, a lover's individuality and freedom is enhanced by the expansion of spirit that the beloved brings. You cannot devour those you love as you would sometimes like to do because you can never be more that a part of their lives. So too, you cannot give yourself totally to them because they can only be part of your life. Even if you have a lifetime romance, you can still only clutch a piece of each other's lives. This is part of the pain of being loved by and loving another human being. We always die wanting more. In this life we never taste enough love. There is never been anyone in this life who can give us all the loving we want. There is only one lover who can do this: God himself. He is the only one with an infinite capacity for love and an eternity to exercise it.
Sad to say, even the greatest love between humans is a fragile thing. Even a slight tug of selfishness can separate us. Hurt feelings, misunderstandings, foolish and misdirected passion, pride ... these are the fingers that untie the knots of affection that bind us to each other. Even simple indifference causes our bonds to dry up and rot. We are left with nothing but yellowed strands of a love that once was new and strong but now is no more. To be tied to another by love needs constant care, a weaving and reweaving of joined lives. Without attention and nourishing, the connection can break and we drift apart without even realizing it.
It is truly a shame when I lose a love who was so much a piece of me. I lose one who was inside me, who knew those inner parts of me that no stranger ever sees: my secret fears, my passions, my hopes, my childish confusions. All of us have our public facades, those presentations of ourselves that others expect of us. It is not a deception because our public side is part of our person, but it is only a part. Sometimes it is a part that is distorted by our puffing up this or that attractive aspect of ourselves (our gentleness or sternness, our exuberance or dignity) which seems demanded by the moment. Our public side may occasionally make loud noises in favor of positions only lightly held.
Thus, there are times when we are scared to death at the very moment we play hero for our loves. At other times we play the saint for those who come to us for a prayer or an answer to the mysteries of their lives. We never hint that deep down inside we are just as confused as they are. If we become adept at such roles, we may even come to believe that we are indeed lovely and brave and holy. We should know better. Our dreams and fantasies should show us that we are not all sweetness and light, that we are only a "cracked" human being like all the rest. The joy of having a true love is that they will love us despite our wounds. A true love is one to whom we can reveal our secret selves without fear of being rejected. A true love is one before whom we can stand naked without fear of laughter or horror.
If we have such a true love, we can have fun with them without embarrassment. When two lovers swing arms as they stroll down city streets or chase each other merrily over seaside meadow, on-lookers smile and say: "Well, what do you expect? They are very much in love". Indeed, our human loves allow us to play the child again. We can crawl on the floor with our baby. We can walk hand-in-hand with our fiancee. We can hold in silence that one whom we have loved for a lifetime. Erratic behavior is expected when you are in love. And love does make us do strange things. Augustine gives an example of such lovely eccentricity:
A maiden might say to her love: "I don't like you dressed in such a cloak!" and he will not wear it. Perhaps in the middle of winter she will say: "I really love the way you look in your summer tunic." And he will choose to shiver and shake rather than displease her. He fears more than anything to hear her say: "You will never see my face again!"
Sermon 161, 10
In truth, the ecstasy of love can be a dangerous thing when it makes us forget about everything else.
One of the great joys of human love is that it can bridge the chasms in our lives. I say to those I want to love: "I am here and you are there. How can I bridge the gap?"
And the words of Sacred Scripture responds:
"Only by love!" (1 Corinthians, 12-13)
Love draws me out of myself to distant places. Left to myself I would live only here and only now. I would perish sitting trapped in my solitary present. To live I must move beyond such deadening solitude and it is my love that moves me. In my heart I live wherever my loves live. I exemplify Augustine's observation:
In the act of loving we dwell with our heart.
Commentary on the Gospel of John, 2.11.2
Even distant loves brighten and color the times of my life. In the words of Augustine:
In caring and being cared for, each drop of time becomes precious.
Confessions, 11.2
In my heart I live in past precious moments by holding my loves once again. In my heart I live in the future possibility of holding them forever. When I love someone who is not here just now, I lean towards that future when we shall be together again. When I am far away from the one I love, I live each moment in that distant treasured place that holds them.
But can I truly love someone who is far away? Yes, indeed! I do so every day. Some of my loves live in distant places. Some of my loves are on the other side of death. I no longer can see my distant loves but I am still warmed by their memory. I am comforted by my dreams of them. I look forward to being with them again someday. I know that I have not lost my distant loves because the ache of their absence is part of my every "here" and every "now".
Some have proclaimed "Seeing is Believing" and this may very well be true in some instances. But it is not true that "Seeing is Loving". We can be alone even in a crowded room, separated from each other by clouds of indifference or hate or suspicion or fear. It is also not true that "Loving depends on Seeing". As I sit by myself in my solitary room, I rejoice in the affection of those I can no longer see. Love is not seeing. Love is choosing and I can choose and be chosen even though separated by space and time from my love.
We are fortunate if we have given our love to another human being because this prepares us to give ourselves in love to the Lord when he comes. Having given ourselves to another in love, having forgotten about ourselves for the sake of our human love, we open up space in ourselves for God. Our love stretches us. We reach out of ourselves to a good that is beyond ourselves. We become bigger as our spirit strains towards the good that is our beloved. Just as our heart and mind and spirit (nurtured by memory of past times together) can continue to live in the place where our distant love lives, so too we can learn to live in a land of love that is our future, a land where we will walk forever in the embrace of our Lord.
We are indeed lucky if we can wait for the Lord in the embrace of a human being who loves us. No human love can take the place of divine love but true human love can help us wait for the Lord in hope. We must take the terrible risk of loving another human being and offering ourselves as an object of their love. Why must we do so? Because apart from some special miracle we can come to believe in divine love only if we have had the experience of the fire of human love.
The apostle John tells us that God is with us when we are joined to another human being in love. Augustine is even more specific when he writes:
If you begin to love you become more perfect. Have you begun to love? Then God has begun to dwell in you.
Commentary on the First Epistle of John, 8.12
We don't know in what guise the Lord will come to us in the future. Perhaps in the past he came dressed as he was at Cana, ready to dance with us at the good times of our lives. Perhaps he came dressed as he was when he embraced the Judean children, ready to play with us and hold us and bless us. Perhaps he came dressed as he was when he came to Martha and Mary, ready to weep with us by the grave of a human love. Perhaps he has already come to us dressed as he was on Calvary, ready to lie with us naked and alone on the cross of our life. Perhaps he has come in an infinite number of different ways in the past, but none of these can predict how he will come the next time. But this we do know: however he comes he will come as a lover.
Augustine says that our joy in heaven will consist in our enjoyment of God and also our enjoyment of our human lovers forever and ever. (City of God, 19.13) The joy in our loves then is beyond our comprehension just now. Augustine becomes almost lyric when he tries to describe it:
The act of love, my friends ... its power, its flowers, its fruit, its beauty, its allure, its nourishment, its drink, its food, its overpowering embrace ... is everlasting. If it so delights us in this life as we are on our pilgrim way, imagine how it will delight us when finally we arrive in our eternal home.
Commentary on the Epistle of John, 10.7.3
As Augustine adds:
We shall never again weep for one who has gone before us. Never again shall we worry about someone to come after us.
Commentary on the Gospel of John, 32.9.3
And, for the first time in our lives, we will not fear to reveal ourselves to them. As Augustine told his friends:
When you get to heaven you will be as pleased to show each other your thoughts as now you are pleased to show them your faces.
Sermon 243, 5
It is hard to understand how this can happen. Just now I fear that my earthly loves would run away if they ever saw my fantasies, my vanities, my confusions. I am not sure that my human loves could stand seeing me as I really am. I do love them dearly but I don't want to hurt them or lose them. Thus when now I say the words "I love you" I sometimes speak from hiding. I keep secret my mad passions, my doubts, my fears. I hope there is no meanness in this. It just seems realistic to admit that now we can sometimes wound each other with the truth. Just now we need secrets to protect true love. Indeed, I suspect that not a few marriages are saved by what has been left unsaid!
In heaven things will be different. All of us will just be filled with those noble, pure, caring, wise thoughts that we pretend to think about each other in this life. In heaven I will finally be mellow. My loves will be able to drink of my cool, clear feelings for them and be refreshed. And perhaps then they will come to understand that even now I am loving them as best I can.
We know that God will come for us at the end of our time on earth as a lover. He has already written in Sacred Scripture the love song that he will be singing. It is a song that echoes in the heart of every human being who have ever been in love:
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
See, the winter is past
the rains are over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of pruning the vines has come,
and the song of the dove is heard in the land.
Arise, my beloved, my beautiful one,
and come!
Canticle 2, 10-13