out of the darkest place

Have you ever sat across from someone and become awakened to all your flaws?

I'm sure many of us have. Yet, have you sat across from someone, awakened to all your flaws, and realized how lovable you are anyway? How your flaws do not make you any more damaged or crazy than anyone else? That these flaws - so ingrained in your psyche as something you must fix, work around, keep hidden, and apologize for - need none of that attention?

I started writing this on Friday and today I was awakened to these poetic words from Roy Croft:

Love
by Roy Croft

I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am when I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what you have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.

I love you for
the part of me that you bring out;
I love you for
putting your hand into my heaped-up heart
And passing over all the foolish, weak things
that you can't help dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out into the light
All the beautiful belongings
that no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.

I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern, but a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.

I love you because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.

You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it by being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
being a friend means, after all.

----------

So it is I sit across from him awakened to all my flaws and love myself even more than I ever thought I could in spite of them.

From this love I can now truly hear and, most importantly, understand the voices from the few friends who remain so, so, so close to me:

Beyond the Reflection
by Thomas Merton

The beginning of love is to let those we
love be perfectly themselves, and not to
twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise
we love only the reflection of ourselves
we see in them.

----------

So yeah, I process a lot here in my LiveJournal. As I go back over my posts, I find that, at times, it seems like the only thing I write is a lot of downhearted and/or extremely contemplative and self-judgmental posts. I tend to miss out posting those moments of great love and learning even though they are so abundant in my life.

That is how I process though; I write. I rarely share life's grievances at me with others, it just doesn't feel right. Nor does it sit well with the base of my honor code:

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a harder battle." ~Plato

TigressSky~