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Love

re: Love

Postby Pete » April 4th, 2006, 9:33 am

Chris, thanks for being so honest. I think I experienced a similar thing recently also, as you're going through. I must say though, I admire your honesty. :)
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re: Love

Postby sehoy » April 6th, 2006, 9:52 am

Thanks guys.

Eros is back with a vengence. I didn't realize that all I've been doing all these years is stamping down the glowing embers, which takes a massive amount of energy to keep stamped down.

So. I figure there are three ways to deal with eros love: either stamp it down and feel dead inside, or keep it contained and controlled in the woodstove, where it can give heat and light and energy; or set the fire ablaze in the middle of the room and burn down the house and everything around me with it.

I choose the woodstove this time.

I've done the other two and they don't work for me.

My problem is I fall in love with just about everyone, and I don't know what to do with it.

What am I allowed to do? What is expected of me? I see a good and true heart, or integrity, or some kind of beauty, or the naked vulnerable soul, and I want to fall at it's feet and worship it and kiss it and follow it around like a silly lapdog and shout that I see what I see.

I was taught all my life to ignore and pretend I don't see what I see, but I can't. It's like I'm in love with the whole world, but if I let eros wake up again I'm afraid it's going to get me into trouble again, because I don't know what to do with what I feel and too many people misinterpret it and think I want sex. Well I don't. That's not how I worship goodness and truth and beauty. But I also don't want goodness and truth and beauty to just pass by without my acknowledging it. I want people to know that I saw the beauty inside them. "I saw it and it was standing right there, for a few moments!"
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re: Love

Postby WolfVanZandt » April 6th, 2006, 11:19 pm

Wow! You should see me - that would cure you of that....

:)

Things with goodness, and beauty, and honor, and integrity, looks like God, which should be the recepient of our worship, but we often confuse what looks like God for God and it goes bad for us.
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re: Love

Postby princessquitealot98 » April 7th, 2006, 6:44 am

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re: Love

Postby sehoy » April 8th, 2006, 7:35 am

cor meum vigilat
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Re: re: Love

Postby Pete » April 8th, 2006, 10:29 am

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re: Love

Postby sehoy » April 8th, 2006, 3:13 pm

Thanks Pete.

I really am on a journey. I'm supposed to write a book called Wayward Daughter, which is the female equivalent of the prodigal son :cuss: , but wayward could also mean that I'm on the way to where I'm supposed to be.

The day I posted that No can do response to you, I seriously asked God if I was on the right track. For the first time ever, I asked for a sign that I was on the right track. I asked to see an arrow. Not just any arrow. It had to be a bow and arrow kind of arrow, which I figured would be pretty near impossible here in Germany. I wanted it to be something really hard.

After I asked, I got into a discussion with my husband about heirarchy and egalitarianism and heirarchical egalitarianism and I completely forgot about the request I had made.

Three days later, I'm standing in the German Post Office to buy a notebook and the postal lady is taking a long time to wait on the customer in front of me. I start looking around at all the stuff in the post office. It's taking a looooong time for this other customer. I turn completely around and I'm looking at things in this obscure corner and suddenly I see an arrow and remember the request. I'm thinking, "No way!" It's a bow and arrow kind of arrow. And not just one, but about twenty of them. They're lighters shaped like arrows and they're all pointing up. The advertisement for these lighters is a black and white photograph of an American Indian in full headress. I almost lost it right there in the post office.

It was like God was saying, "Did you get my message? Could I be any clearer?"

It was almost like He was getting flashy with me. Like He was showing off. :)

I got the message. I'm on the right track.
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re: Love

Postby WolfVanZandt » April 8th, 2006, 6:04 pm

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re: Love

Postby sehoy » April 9th, 2006, 8:54 am

cor meum vigilat
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re: Love

Postby WolfVanZandt » April 9th, 2006, 6:45 pm

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Postby Fea_Istra » May 27th, 2007, 7:50 am

Sorry I haven't read the whole thread :tongue:

Of course it's possible for non Christians to love others in a real, sincere way; I know such people. But often I find that people who have been deeply hurt in the past are almost afraid to forgive, love, and trust others. This is where God can really help. As Lewis said once, it's not that Christians are always better people. It's that they are changed people, and better than they would have been otherwise. Angry and bitter people get better, and those who are already kind and loving improve even more. I know that I found it really difficult to forgive people, let alone love my enemies, before I became a Christian. I'm not trying to say that I'm superior to non believers, because it is only by God's grace that I have been changed, and I am still far from perfect and have a long way to go. Christians are just as guilty as everyone else.

I think that as we get to know and love God, we are transformed. In fact you can't truly know Him and not be changed somehow. As we experience His love, we are supposed to start loving others in a similar way...it's a deeper, more meaningful type of love than the world offers. It is self sacrificing, not selfish, and goes beyond tolerance. I think CS Lewis said something very profound in 'Weight of Glory':

"And our charity must be a real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner - no mere tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies merriment"

This is how God's love is, I think. He wants to take away our sins, but He loves us as we are and we don't have to make ourselves holy to approach Him. After all, Christ died for sinners, not for perfect people.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that some of what is often called 'love' in our society is very limited and shallow compared to God's love, which we are told to imitate as Christians. This is not because we belong to a particular religion (this has nothing to do with religion!), but because we really do need supernatural help to truly love everyone, especially enemies or people we see as 'unworthy'. It's still a struggle for me, and I guess it would continue to be so while I'm on earth.
"Where, except in uncreated light, can the darkness be drowned?" ~CS Lewis
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Postby Lancashire Lad » May 27th, 2007, 8:26 pm

On another forum I frequent, my signature line is the following:

".... love thy neighbour as thyself." is the hardest thing I have ever done....

Perhaps we miss the point of ".... love thy neighbour as thyself." The hardest part of this is loving thyself.

I know I fall short of the standards of God, I try really hard certainly, but I know I am imperfect.
I am imperfect because it is 'I' who is doing the trying. I cannot hope to achieve the desired perfection on my own.

It's been suggested to me that every minute of every day I should be in communion with the Lord, and I fail at this too, but the more I talk to God as I go about my day the more my heart and mind is of the frame to actually love my neighbour.
If everything I do at work and at play during my day I talk to Jesus, I find I talk to the people I come in contact with the same way, with love. Even people with whom past experiences have not been good.

It's not easy, and don't for one moment think I always practice what I preach, I try, but not enough. I do however think it is the only way to ".... love thy neighbour as thyself." with the love of God working through me during my daily conversations with Him.
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