02-23-2022
Stopping for a second while finishing reading A Severe Mercy. I wanted to go back on something I’ve been saying for a couple years now and that’s my desire to “love and to be loved” which has found its way into a handful of the things I’ve written since it came up in 2019. It is something that Sheldon Vaunauken said in his second to last chapter that kinda corrects what I’ve believed to be the truth over these last few years, not necessarily jumping out of the page though so subtly showing me that I could be wrong about all I’ve said to this point regarding my desire to be loved.
That is, in this chapter titled, A Severe Mercy (yes it is the chapter title and title of the book), he is dwelling on his now passed wife Davy. Reflecting on their time together and notating that some moments he has found to live “eternally” apart from other moments together. I feel like I should also say that this book has now taken me a little over two years to finish but were getting there. But nevertheless, he begins talking about his glimpses of the eternal in other things besides time with Davy, such as his dog. My first thought though is steeped in a little bit of frustration because I have no immediate memories that seem to live in eternity. I most certainly have good memories that I cherish but none that unmistakably seem like they’d live eternally or at least throughout my life, and that really bothered me. That was until I backed up over a sentence where he said, “Reflecting upon my perception of the total or eternal Davy, so much more completely to be known and loved…” (Ch.19 pg.199) that I began to stutter over my own thoughts. To be known and loved, so close to my thought of love and to be loved but so much more detailed. Maybe not detailed but more conscious, by that I mean maybe this whole time I’ve confused being “known” with being loved.
Looking back that makes much more sense than anything else I could’ve conjured up, being known is the whole reason I am who I am now. I want to be noticed I want to be desired I want to be appreciated and yes I want to be loved. But instead of prioritizing my desire to love others, I’ve instead prioritized this desire to be known first. Is that bad? Am I selfish for wanting to be known and confusing that for a desire to be loved? I’m glad this thought is in my head now because I would’ve never considered it without reading it here and now.
Do I feel loved because others show interest or because they know me already? But hold on to that, I fear that if people know me, truly, that they wouldn’t love me, that there’s something unlovable about knowing someone fully and the mistakes I’ve made throughout my life. The only one that fully knows me is God himself and much of my disbelief in him throughout my life has been wrapped up in the idea he couldn’t love me because he knows me, something that has taken time and frustration and those slow windows down drives to really work through. I know that I am loved immensely by God and that I am forgiven but its still such a foreign concept once I get down into the business end of things. No negativity here, just wanting to correct my prior statement of “love and to be loved” into wanting to know AND love someone alongside being known AND being loved in a similar fashion.
But why must it end there? Why have these past friendships and relationships grown so stale once all the excitement of getting to know them is done? Why has there been no excitement in the act of living life alongside others? I don’t mean that as if I don’t love my lifelong friends, of course I do, but maybe there’s an answer here to those other failed relationships and friendships. That sparky, excited to see them, heart punching feeling might only remain if I understand that the act of living life with them, not only knowing but really committing to a relationship with them, may only progress if that past-dwelling, initial relationship excitement fueled feeling is lost. Because I cannot live life while I’m still thinking about what was and what has been. Those “eternal” memories to be made should not hinder me, but coax me towards loving greater. Does that make sense?