Contemplating the Chart of Complex Love

 

Yesterday, I invited you to make a chart of the various relationships and expressions of love.  On the left, you wrote down the relationship: parents, grandparents, aunts/uncles, spouse, children, friends, and church members.  I invited you to name names and try to describe the texture of that love.  The third column of the chart, trying to define how love was OR wasn’t expressed.  This is often the hardest part.  It can be painful to say that a parent withheld love.  It can brush or bump up against an old scar to say that love has faltered, or forgiveness was not given in a relationship.  Today, I want you to notice God who is next to you, looking over the chart.  There are two prayers I have for this invitation.  First, for you to see the complexity and contradictions around the four letters of love.  There is a reason why we find love both fascinating and frustrating, which you can begin to see when you write down all the ways love has both held and hurt you.  When you are honest that your dad's leaving you was traumatic and caused love to lose its luster.  When you are honest about your grandmother’s love, which was through food, but never in hugs, or maybe came with expectations too high a pole vaulter couldn’t clear them.  When you are honest, you drag into your life these experiences (good, bad, and ugly) of love like a piece of toilet paper stuck to your shoe that you don’t notice.  Second, I believe this chart helps us see the expansiveness and diversity of love that we hold in our hearts but don’t often talk about.  This helps us see the experiences that have shaped you, made you who you are.  You may think, “No wonder I am suspicious of all this love talk when I see firsthand that I’ve never felt the unconditional and unceasing part of God’s affection.”  Or no wonder I doubt that love is a force, because too many people have used love to manipulate.  While God’s love doesn’t come with terms and conditions in fine print you can’t read, human love rarely can embody God’s call.  We keep trying.  The more we awaken to how the past is impacting the present, the more we can begin to let God have the brokenness and less-than-perfectness of affection in our lives.  May you discover and uncover God’s presence as you keep working, adding to, writing on your chart of love this week.  Amen.

 

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