Love me tender

I have a way of writing in ambiguity such that most of what is documented becomes unfathomable, it feels personal yet detached, it seems clear yet incomprehensible. I never cared whether people reading this understood what I was talking about, whether they could relate to shared accounts, because writing, to me, is very much for the self.

But this entry shall be different; I have an experience to share and I am going to do so as explicitly as I can.

I began my semester wondering what love is. In one of my older entries in August, this is how I felt:
What is love, really? I am starting to believe, that love is made of emotions rising at certain moments, it is made of impulsiveness, it is made of sonnets that romanticize the mysterious thing that nobody knows, of songs that sing, “He fills my soul with so much love that anywhere I go I am never lonely”. But how long does it last, that after the years that passed, that you still could be passionately swept away.

Characterizing love is not difficult. In love, there is some care and concern, pain and tears, happiness and sadness. And love is varied, holding different kinds of relations together, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, brothers and brothers, sisters and sisters, men and women. I seem to be able to tell what love is. Yet, to look at a scene of tenderness or to feel a certain emotion, realizing that is love and telling myself this is love is something I have difficulty doing. I think I know what love is, yet I am unable to pinpoint it.

These few weeks have been days of small discoveries and growing. I do not have clear answers but it is a notion that is becoming less vague. The biggest revelation to me is actually very simple: To feel love, one must allow to be loved.

I went to church a couple of Saturdays ago after a long hiatus and made a choice to open my heart. Service was scary as much as it was impactful. I was amazed by the level of faith and belief that others held, and I was more aware of the huge disparity that lay between me and them. Stepping up and taking a leap of faith was definitely not a moment of awakening, of certainty or conviction. As I stood, the only thoughts that were running through my mind was that it is very cold, am I ready for this choice, I ought to be more prepared this time round, it is really freezing.

This bout of doubt and uncertainty comes from the mindset that one’s level of faith has to reach a certain benchmark for the threshold of something new. In faith that dwindled, and amongst faith that appears unwaveringly strong, I felt I was not ready. But I had made a decision, a second one, and within insecurities and doubts, I decided to give myself a chance. On Sunday night, the same night I wrote an entry and said, “Tonight I will try”, I took out the bible that has been kept away for years and read it. I was expecting revelations, tears, an impact, a great one, I was bent on looking for the breakthrough force that people always talk about. There was none, I read it, it was comforting, but there was none.

When I related this to a friend the next day, he said many things, but the one thing that struck me was this, “Faith is like a muscle, you’ve to exercise it. Love is a choice.” I reaffirmed my choice that same night, in reading and in prayers in the nights that follow; I only wanted to reach out.

But sometimes, it is difficult. Stepping into and out of church is, like what another friend told me, “crossing between two worlds”. Returning home and going back into the world of realities feels like leaving something behind. Sometimes, in this sphere, within the walls of my room, in school, in between journeys, all that I really long for it to recreate that same experience in church, feeling His presence. So in faith that is on a constant fluctuation, some days big and other days small, I did the same thing I have been doing since the first night: reading and keeping in prayer.

And when I say the notion of love is becoming less vague to me, it is because I am able to pinpoint it, even as intangible, as invisible as it may seem, I find myself moved.

Last night I was confronted with the same feeling of loss that comes from leaving church and returning home. I fell asleep with “Remain in me, and I will remain in you.”

He works in ways we least expect. This morning, I received a letter, it is truly through God’s grace that I received it and in my shocked happiness, as I read the words on the letter, the only words that registered are those I read last night. As the letter is perhaps a new beginning of sorts, that Saturday is definitely a new beginning.

To feel love, one must allow to be loved.