Sometimes what we think might not be who we are
As my latest book progresses I thought I would offer you another little sample (between us of course). This is a story that I wrote to explore the themes of the first few chapters. Again I will hold off from commenting on its philosophical connotations. All reflections welcome,
There were once two lovers who would spend each waking day together. At the same time every day the man would stop what he was doing, look his beloved in the eye and say, ‘Tell me, do you love me with all of your heart’. And each day he would receive the same answer, ‘yes, my dearest, I do’. He would then follow this initial question with another, ‘But tell me, do you really love me’. To which he would receive the same reply, ‘yes, my dearest, I do’ .
Eventually the woman tired of this ritual and thought to herself, ‘if I am really to convince him of my love then I will need to give him access to my deepest inner thoughts. Then he will know and not doubt my honesty’. So, later that day, she went to a well known wizard who lived on the outskirts of the city and asked that he concoct a potion that would enable the drinker to hear another’s inner voice.
The wizard accepted the challenge and told her to come back in three days with a bag of gold coins. When she returned he took the money and, in exchange, gave the woman a small vial full of odourless liquid.
The next day, like clockwork, her beloved stopped what he was doing and asked his girlfriend, ‘Tell me, do you love me with all your heart’?
However, instead of answering she held the veil of potion up and asked that he drink it. He accepted this small gift and, upon swallowing it, found that his ears where opened and that he could now hear the inner thoughts of his beloved. As he leant in close to her he heard, as clear as the sound of church bells on a still summer morning, a voice emanating from her mind. And what did he hear?
‘Yes, my dearest, with all of of my heart I do’.
The young man paused for a moment, then looked into her eyes all the more deeply and said, ‘Yes, I hear what you say, but still I wonder, do you really love me’
December 19th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
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December 19th, 2009 at 11:43 pm
I think about a lot of stuff that I fail to act on. I wonder if his mistrust lies in her action/inaction or his own.
December 19th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
“sometimes what we think might not be who we are”…
one of my favorite themes from battlestar galactica.
December 20th, 2009 at 12:37 am
In John 14 the disciples were concerned about being able to follow where Jesus was going. “If you really knew me you would know the way…” is one of his responses. Finally he gets to “If you love me you will obey what I command.” I think like the husband Jesus knew the intentions of the hearts of his disciples, but intentions, and words are much different than our actions. We need to do more than, say, write, and feel this way of Christ, it requires action. To quote one of the great power ballads of all time “More than words to show you feel that your love for me is real.” – Extreme.
December 20th, 2009 at 4:00 am
I wish it were not so, but all I have encountered in my study, my ministry, my family, friends and personal journey causes me to assert that until the beloved learns to truly love himself, he will be unable to receive the love that any other person gives. He will continue to ask daily, and never know love’s deep, transforming gifts, because he holds himself away. It’s natural self-protection from an awful vulnerability: wanting so badly to be seen, known, loved for who he is, but having not experienced this compassionately from himself, he is both in grave need and unable to fathom hers could possibly be true. Like this story speaks, he also will not be able to offer her a mutual relationship – his seeing, knowing, and gift-loving (vs need-loving) of her; his abundance vs lack to her – let alone relating subject-subject. She will endlessly (or not) perform the sorts of feats described here, relating more like a mother to a child than a woman to a man. He might live with this one loving him all his life, and know only fear, manipulation, performing, jubilation, suspicion, longing, withdrawing, anger, hope.
December 20th, 2009 at 9:31 am
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December 20th, 2009 at 10:44 am
Words alone can never satisfy – “feed my sheep”
December 20th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks, a great story for reflecting on the basis for which trust and love lie. Do you mean a ‘veil of potion’ or ‘vial’?
December 20th, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Kelly, great reply. Words are a necessary starting point, intentions follow, but action makes real.
December 21st, 2009 at 10:49 am
Perhaps the habitual stating of one’s love, and receiving the statement of love reciprocated, becomes so routine that we may not believe it. I regularly tell my wife that I love her…when we say good-bye on the phone, when I’m leaving the house, when we are sitting on the couch, when she enters the room. And I know my beloved believes me. I also believe her when she responds with the same phrase of affection.
But when I write her a poem, this strikes a nerve in her core that my spoken “I love you” does not.
I would agree with several commenters that actions speak louder than the words I speak. But sometimes actions are just actions. When I do the dishes and clean the bathroom and vacuum, this could just be interpreted as merely doing what needs to be done. Yes, I do it because I love her. But will that always be the motivation she derives from my actions? Is it obligation?
I will continue to tell my wife I love her.
But perhaps, instead of using the exact same phraseology (”…with all of my heart I do”) I mix it up a little so it is not just a pat answer, then maybe the new expression will show another side or a deeper intensity of my love.
What am I saying? I have no idea.
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:12 am
John L- Thanks for the kind words. As I have read the other responses I hear echoes of Manning, whose work also has spoken to me. I am introspective to a fault, it seems I am always questioning my own motives looking for God knows what. I live in the Midwest US in a culture where when someone meets you one of the first 3 questions they ask you is where you go to church. We still have a huge drug problem, unbelievable domestic violence and various sorts of abuse, but almost everyone can tell you who their preacher is. I have heard people talk about their faith and how it guides them my whole life, and then I look at their lives and it doesn’t match up. It can seem like the Gospel of Christ is a foreign concept. It bothered me so much that I walked away from the faith for a time as a teenager, but it bothered me more when I discovered it in myself. I have been driven by my zeal for Christ to be the worst kind of evangelist, believing that condemning people when trying to bring them to Christ would prove my love for him. Imagine the self loathing I discovered when I realized that, that level of spiritual manipulation did more to prop myself up in my faith community than show my love for Christ. I have deliberately not acted when I know I should have said a word, gave my time, confronted or intervened, because I believed that not doing those things would somehow display compassion. Imagine the grief I feel when I realize that cowardice is often revealed by inaction. I have let my words speak to a reality that did not exist within me. I have let my actions and lack there of deny a true and burning passion inside me. I have failed in my words and my actions, and have noticed that when the two aren’t in harmony I feel farther away from God and struggle to feel the presence and power of the Divine in my life at all. (Don’t worry I am in recovery and plan to be for the rest of my days.) I agree that our actions can be just as empty as our words, but what we say and what we do are the only manifestation of our internal selves; one reveals the other. Without these things our character is never revealed, the light cannot dispel darkness, and we are left as internal commentators at best. In my life that incongruence is more normally expressed in just going to church, mouthing the words, paying the tithe, living this “Christian life” all as if on autopilot. In my world, we all know the words to say, the things to do, the social markers that identify you as a part of the group, but how much of that looks even remotely like the life of Christ? None of us want the incongruence of hypocrisy in our lives, but for many of us Western Christians we want the discomfort that comes with fully embracing the call of Christ even less. Nothing reveals that more than our words and deeds. To quote a pastor I was recently warned about concerning his theological beliefs and his inability to preach the ‘reality of sin’ – “People are less impressed with our words than they are with our actions of love for one another. Your love for one another speaks volumes about God’s love: how loud is your voice?” -Rick Warren
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:06 am
It reminds me of a story Zizek tells of a man who is afraid of chickens because he thinks he’s a seed. After receiving treatment to cure him of this delusion he walks into the road and sees a chicken, which terrifies him. When the doctor who treated him eventually arrives to calm him down he asks says to his former patient, ‘Why are you worried, you know that you’re not a seed?’ To which the man replies, ‘Yes, I know that, but does the chicken know that?’
December 22nd, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Kelly, you said, “Imagine the self loathing I discovered when I realized that, that level of spiritual manipulation did more to prop myself up in my faith community than show my love for Christ.”
That makes two of us.
I am so grateful for grace and mercy.
Keep pressing into the heart of our compassionate Redeemer.
Shalom, dear sister.
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
I submit that we cannot separate belief from practice. They are one in the same. Or, more succinctly: what we do is what we believe. If I say that I believe in easing the suffering of the poor, but I do nothing to care for them, then I don’t truly believe in caring for the poor. Or, to use the story above, If a wife says she loves her husband, but doesn’t live in a way that shows it, then she doesn’t love him at all.
I think we are in love with belief because it fools us into thinking that we are better people than we actually are. Its also much easier to say we believe something than actually doing it.
Maybe the best way forward is a cessation of discourse on belief, as it almost always leads us down the path of irony (as Pete’s latest post starts to explore). Take the question of God for instance. I am frequently asked if I believe in God. Personally, I dislike answering this question as the inquirer is usually looking for a yes or no answer (which I am not prepared to give). But more importantly, I feel the question is irrelevant. I don’t care if God exists or not. My statement of affirmation or rejection (or wavering somewhere in the middle) says little about who I actually am and does nothing functionally in the world (though the conversation itself can be interesting). What is more important to me is my answer to the question: How are you living in such a way that brings God into existence.
If what I believe no longer matters, then I am left only with that which I do, which is a far better judge of what I believe; or better: how I believe.
December 28th, 2009 at 9:54 am
I particularly love it when stories are posted because I love seeing everyone’s different interpretations. What is interesting to me about this one is that everyone seems to pick a side. Is it his fault? Does he not love himself well enough and therefore constantly doubt the love of his partner? Or is it her fault, for merely using the same word, not giving actions? Isn’t it true that like all relationships this is a dance? Just like the story of the soldiers at the bar, this is a game between the two of them. Neither are completely content with the game, she is trying to do something to change that, but not nearly enough. Even when he’s reading her mind she’s giving her pat answer, which begs the question if either of them truly want to change despite the fact that they are discontent. I have noticed in my life as well as the ones around me, that any real change is scary. When you quit playing the game or try to subvert the game there is the possibility of finding the contentment, solving the ills you are so against, but there is also the fear of the unknown, because it is not the game you know. I imagine that if she had truly let him read her mind he would have heard, “How many times do I have to freaking tell you I love you? Quite honestly I’m tired of hearing the question.” Or maybe, “I’m hurt that you feel like you have to keep asking that, don’t you know by now that I love you?” But, that would have brought the internal conflict outward, that would have the potential of disrupting the game and depending upon the outcome, possibly the relationship. The game serves as risk management. We keep the relationship but also keep the internal conflict. So we keep the internal conflict in order to keep the relationship.
December 29th, 2009 at 9:25 am
there are different love “languages” and one of them is the verbal. some need the verbal, some don’t. surely verbal alone without the associated actions is pointless, but equally so — for some — the actions alone are not quite enough … they NEED the words. for some, the words ARE themselves an action/demonstration of love. i know, because i grew up in a family that said “love you” often (at least daily) to one another and now have a husband who very rarely says the words and i feel their absence like the absence of an essential vitamin/nourishment. those for whom word-love isn’t important can’t seem to appreciate that words can be very important to others and that this does NOT automatically indicate superficiality or lack of trust.
December 30th, 2009 at 12:54 pm
I think kelly is right. you cant just tell God u love him you have to reinforce that with action. But i think when peter wrote this he did not only have the relatinship beetween god and u in mind he also ment relations with your neighbor.
December 30th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
Seems to me this couple requires a repetition with a difference, but thus far have sought the wrong approach. Possibly the vial is the wrong remedy which can not effect an opening between them. Maybe the potion is as good as the wizard claims, but their perception remains blocked. What ever the reason, I suspect that their mutual frustration will mount to a point of crisis… then what? The relationship will crash and burn or they’ll give into mutual resignation? Maybe one of them will have an epiphany… I don’t know. One thing’s for sure, love is not a sure thing.