Freedom to love

A joyless bondage if deeply desired is still a joyless bondage | by Andrée Seu

One cannot love unless one is free. One cannot be free apart from consciousness, in the moment, of being enveloped in God's love. (Oh, for freedom!) This is the whole of the matter. The rest is details.

The freedom I mean is freedom from need. All the business in the songs of "Does he need me?" and "I need him to need me" has to go. It is abject bondage and misery. The horrifying thing is that those in this bondage don't see it as bondage. Or more inscrutably, those who see it as bondage want it anyway. Those in bondage choose it. They would kill to have it.

This curiosity of human nature (It must baffle the angels no end. The only way I can write about it is as a privy insider to the infected race, testifying personally to the truth of what would otherwise be too mad too contemplate.) is partly explained as a failure of imagination. Morally, it is a failure of faith. The offer of real joy is repeatedly extended from heaven; the creature repeatedly rejects it.

A woman loved her husband but felt he did not love her back. He had other interests besides her—like friends, or reading a book. She cooked and cleaned and worked her fingers to the bone for him, to get his attention. She had little "pep talks" with him to urge the seriousness of her plight. She interspersed these with the "silent treatment." Nothing availed.

The husband tried to reassure her. She was not reassured. He kept trying till, over the years, he became a defeated shadow of a man. Ironically, her happiest times were these, for at least she knew by his deep sighing that he was paying attention to her, that he was thinking of her. And when he was thinking of her, she knew she existed.

It's a wonder to me that anyone at all can manage to love even half badly. What but a hand grenade of grace thrown into her profound solipsism can show the woman what she is doing? Her strategies are darkness. They do not produce what she intends, but the opposite. Plead with her from the light, and paint pictures of the joy of freedom, but she will block her ears and shut her eyes, for light understands the darkness, but the darkness doesn't comprehend the light.

But let us imagine better possibilities, things pertaining to salvation (Hebrews 6:9):

The woman, after all this, receives unmerited favor from above. The light that has often tried to break in upon her, she one day sees and rather than refusing it again, seizes it. The hardest part is this first crossing of the great divide. She believes and surrenders to the love of the Trinitarian God. What she thought would kill her does not.

The idea of God's love begins to dominate her life. Out of it flow new adventures. Because she is loved, accepted, cherished, delighted in, by a Lover who will never leave her or forsake her, or be distracted from her, or too busy for her—a Lover who not only doesn't mind her barging in, but insists on it as a much desired daily rendezvous—she finds inner resources.

She is able to ask forgiveness of her mate, even in cases where the fault is not mainly hers, and even if he does not admit blame. She is able to overlook unintentionally hurtful remarks because she is confident in her status with her Lover—"The King is enthralled by your beauty" (Psalm 45:11). She is able to overlook deliberately hurtful remarks because she has behaved that way herself, and so knows the misery of its origin and is pained into praying for her mate's release. She "believes all things" about her mate and is able to visualize his future glory, when all blemishes will be removed to release the real saint.

Heaven has already begun. Already all our needs are met, and we can love because we don't need. We can also have a joy that is not hostage to another's insistence on misery. Already "the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining" (1 John 2:8). Why wait another hour? "For freedom Christ has set us free" (Galatians 5:1).

If you have a question or comment for Andrée Seu, send it to aseu@worldmag.com

Copyright © 2008 WORLD Magazine
February 09, 2008, Vol. 23, No. 3

Jesus will now perform another miracle–feeding a
multitude of people out in the wilderness. This miracle will demonstrate what has been hinted at all
along–Jesus is not only the new Moses, the consummate covenant mediator who will lead his people in a
New Exodus, but when Jesus provides the people of Israel with a miraculous provision of food in the
wilderness, this is a foreshadowing of the long-promised messianic feast and a sure sign that Jesus is
much greater than Elijah and far more than a prophet. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah who has come to lead his
people in a new Exodus. The New Israel will eat bread in the desert and be well-satisfied.

Who was St. Valentine?

It would be nice to know the true story of Saint Valentine, but alas, it seems to have been lost somewhere in the mists of history. Hard facts are hard to come by. According to Catholic Online, “Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome,” where he was beaten with clubs and beheaded. This happened in the year A.D. 270 (although not necessarily on February 14, as one might have expected).

That much is probably true, but what’s love got to do with it? According to legend, Claudius had Valentine killed because he continued to marry young couples in secret even after the emperor had forbidden it, possibly because he wanted Roman soldiers to remain single. Because of his defiance to the emperor’s anti-marriage agenda, Valentine became the Patron Saint of Lovers.

This is not the only version of the story, however. Early manuscripts mention at least three different Saint Valentines, all of them martyrs. One is said to have been a third-century priest in Rome, another to have been a bishop from somewhere else, and a third to have come from somewhere in Africa.

According to one version of the story, Valentine antagonized the Roman Emperor by preaching the gospel and by giving aid to the victims of imperial persecution. He was arrested and thrown in prison. There—according to yet another legend—he fell in love with the jailor’s daughter. Some say that he cured her of her blindness. Others tell a similar story in connection with the imprisonment of Charles, Duke of Orleans, in 1415. But in any case, the story ends with the doomed lover pouring out his love to his beloved in passionate epistles, and before his execution sending one final letter, signed “From Your Valentine.”

There are also various explanations as to why Valentine’s Day should be associated with February 14. Some people say this tradition goes back to Roman times, and that it is connected to the erotic Roman festival of Lupercalia, when sexual partners would be drawn by lottery. Celebrating Valentine’s Day was the church’s attempt to sanctify this pagan revel. Others say the custom did not arise until the Middle Ages, when the middle of February was considered to be the time when songbirds began to pair off. As Geoffrey Chaucer has it in his Parliament of Fools:

For this was sent on Saint Valentine’s Day
When every fowl cometh there to choose his mate.

There is, of course, nothing sacred about celebrating Valentine’s Day. On the one hand, the day does have its virtues. Certainly it must be said that most men need every encouragement to show tangible affection to the women they love. Are you surprised to learn that of the one billion Valentine cards that are exchanged each year, 83% of them are purchased by women? Not if you’ve been paying attention, you’re not. What could be more useful, therefore, than a holiday that encourages men to show a little romance?

Since at least the Fourteenth Century, Valentine’s Day has been an occasion for sending letters, flowers, and other tokens of personal affection. In the 1840’s people started sending commercially made Valentine’s Day cards, and in more recent times, it has become common to give jewelry and chocolates. Far be it from me or anyone else who wants people to stay in love to discourage these expressions of affection.

On the other hand, Valentine’s Day can be one of the hardest holidays of the year for people who get overlooked. At the same time that it embraces some people, Valentine’s Day gives other people the cold shoulder. And when romance is in the air, it is painfully isolating to be left out. So Valentine’s Day is a mixed blessing, at best.

Yet perhaps we can still make good use of the holiday by reflecting on some of its noble virtues. Whether they are true or not, the legends about Saint Valentine have a moral purpose.

Some of these legends encourage us to defend marriage. What threatens this God-given institution today is not some imperial edict, but the open acceptance of sexual relationships—whether heterosexual or homosexual—outside the sacred bonds of marriage. Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that marriage is a gift from God, and that it consists of one man living in a love covenant with one woman for life (see Gen. 2:24; Mal. 2:14–16).

Other Valentine legends promote sexual purity. Today sexual partners are not determined by lottery, but given the casual coupling that goes on in some communities, they might as well be. As we live in this sexually self-destructive and pornographic society, we long for the union of passion and purity that makes for the truest romance. Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that we were not made to engage “in sexual immorality and sensuality,” but to “put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (see Rom. 13:13–14).

Finally, the martyrdom of Saint Valentine encourages us to live for Christ, even to the point of sacrifice. Nowhere is this more necessary than in our romantic relationships. Especially for those of us who are husbands (or preparing to be husbands), Valentine’s Day is a good time to remember that we are called to love others more than ourselves, and to give ourselves in love through daily deeds of sacrificial service.

To think about these noble virtues is to be reminded of Jesus Christ, the lover of our souls. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). --Phil Ryken of tenth pres. in philly

http://womentodaymagazine.com/family/difficult.html