I realized that I may be delusional this week. I will give you three insights into my madness. I don't know if I'm insane or if I'm just an over-thinker—it is incontestably a combination of both!

I think about humans all the time. Each day gently teaches me more and more about what a gift it is to be here, what a gift it is to have to choose to love, and how precious it is to be able to spend time thinking about what everything is and what it means. Life is beautiful because its purpose is in knowing and loving others and our God. 

 ~The First Moment~

I was making the trek from my Monday morning archeological lecture to the Pryz for a sandwich with a friend from class when I noticed a new bench had been placed. I expressed what I thought was a normal amount of excitement, but I soon began to feel self-conscious when passersby started staring at me like I had suddenly sprouted feathers.

We continued walking, and I told my friend that I have a fondness for benches because one of my favorite things in the whole world is dedicated benches: not for the people who donate stuff or particularly important figures, but the ones for ordinary people who love each other. You know, when you walk through a park and you see an average-looking bench for a sister or brother, a friend, or a spouse to another, with a simple “I love you” or an inside joke.

Sometimes I get a little sad. It’s human to get blue once in a while. But then I remember that people do sweet little things like that, and I try to be brave again. That stuff takes me out.  

 ~The Second Moment~

I went to the National Portrait Gallery this week. Between funny arguments with my best friend about what art actually is and philosophy in general, I came across a bronzed statue. I still cannot exactly put my finger on why I was arrested by it, but the look between the two individuals' eyes had me mesmerized and standing in front of it like an idiot. The art before me perfectly captured that thing that I wasn't sure was real outside of classic films, but it made me think maybe I wasn't crazy for thinking that it does happen and that I had, in fact, experienced it before. 

You know when you happen to catch someone's eyes that you love (not just someone you love romantically, but like a best friend or someone who really knows you). It's almost always usually when you're busy or doing something mundane, and you happen to unexpectedly lock eyes with them. It usually happens at some level of distance that makes the encounter unlikely and sometimes even a bit awkward. This perception of one another is ordinary, but the knowing of each other in that moment is unique. 

You're both in your own days and moments and then they seem to come together by some mysterious gaze in a grand collision of your separate existences. I've seen it. I've been in it. I am arrested by it. I think there is a power to loving glances that say, "I want to know you," and that's how these bronze figures were looking at each other and why I stood there in front of them for a silly amount of time. 

~The Third Moment~

On Saturday I had an important conversation with a kindred spirit in the freezing air. On my way to CUA’s dining hall (where the company and discussion is usually more satiating than the food), I came across a wailing woman. She was sobbing, inconsolable, at first glance mad even—someone she loved had died suddenly. 

Why does love hurt so bad? I mean, best case scenario, you humiliate yourself for love and the person you love thinks you're weird or doesn't treat you as well as you'd hope. Worst case scenario, they are everything and you can still lose them. 

It was at this point in the week that I was feeling stupid—stupid for loving, stupid for believing in love, and really stupid for expecting to be loved back in the way I need from other people. The pessimism that seemed to sit in the back of my throat that afternoon would quickly be turned into a garden of hopeful flowers growing through the walls I’d spitefully built in the atria of my tired achy heart. Spring always comes. 

I caught my friend (the kindred spirit) a couple of hours after attending Father Joseph’s Theology of love talk, but coincidentally we started speaking about one of the best Father Joseph homilies I had heard during my time at CUA, which was about a year prior to the talk he had given earlier in the day.

I used to have the chronic debacle of not wanting to humiliate myself or reveal all of my love when I wasn't sure if someone else felt the same way. But God has changed me infinitely for the better—He always does, haha. The growth began sitting in the pews listening to Father Joseph’s homily, from what is now a long time ago. 

Father Joseph told the story of Mary Magdalene washing the feet of Christ in an even more beautiful way than I had ever heard in my life. He insisted that when we are honest with ourselves, love is humiliating. She became so overcome with sweet love for her Savior that she cried enough to wash His feet. She would have had snot. She would have had to have really been weeping. Being honest about how we feel and washing others' feet with love takes authenticity, which produces a real chance of rejection. 

When we show our love and reveal all of our cards, not everyone will respond positively. And actually, no one can respond in the perfect way Christ does, so in some sense, we always face a little bit of rejection. But what I have learned, what God had changed in my heart through this discussion, is that even though some level of rejection is inevitable because we can never be fully known and loved through anyone other than Christ, the rejection pulls us closer to Him.

When we love wholeheartedly with no expectation of reciprocity or give our hearts away even though we are terrified, we grow closer to the Heart of our King. He loves us so perfectly, and oftentimes, we don't accept it because we feel unworthy or because we fall away, and He just waits for us in His perfect love even though we can never love Him back in the way He deserves.

I learned from this not to be afraid of showing my love, for even in brokenheartedness, there is an opportunity to draw near, and I believe it is always better to "embarrass" yourself for love like the tender servitude of Mary Magdalene. 

~

My heart is full of peace because I have known love from others, and I am known by Love Himself. Being human is a gift, and having a heart is a gift. I think it pleases our Father when we listen to it to an embarrassing degree. I have no idea what the future holds for a mad philosopher like me, but I can say that I have lived because I have loved, and I have survived every loss.

I promise to keep trying to listen to this thing in my chest, even if it tells me to love. 

March 2024