My friend Roberta arrived here in Piegaro as another new kid in town the same week as me; however, she was unable to set up her apartment for a while because of one notorious soul. While she was otherwise occupied, she left a window open to allow in the fresh air when an intruder invaded her home. Within a short time the fiend had damaged much of her furniture claiming as his own, the cat had left his mark everywhere. Roberta was the victims of the notorious Piegaro cats who like to spray their scent on anything that is not moving.
After weeks of cleaning and taking cushions and sofa covers to the laundry Roberta was finally able to settle in. She never saw her intruder and has told me that whenever she sees any of the local cats she wonders, “Sei stato tu?” It was a high cost for leaving a second story window open (the climbing vine provided entry) for just a short time, literally as the cleaning costs mounted. But it seemed such a good metaphor for life in general and for Valentine’s week.
So often we like all the answers, we want to know the who, what, where, how and why of things are they way they are. Roberta tells me that Italians are much more spontaneous than Americans, and certainly speaking for myself, living within my thoughts and thinking things to death is a way of life for me. Playing detective, coming up with new ideas and creative solutions to problems are my normal patterns, constantly trying to unravel life’s mysteries.
However, just as Roberta will never know which cat struck her apartment, so we will never solve the mysteries of life. The bible often reminds us that God is beyond the fullness of our knowing, for God is so much more than we can imagine. I like to think that principle also applies to love, seeing how God is Love, both in verb and noun form. We physically feel the peak of our existence when in the throes of romantic love, and we know the importance in our lives of the verb to love when others show us compassion and the agape love of kind neighbors. While we can explain how to love neighbors, the draw of our hearts to do so is mystery, and even when we can name what attracts us to another person romantically, we can never explain the mystery of falling in love with another person.
One of the great joys to be found in life is when we live in our hearts and put aside the need to think through all the questions of this world and simply inhabit the mystery. The mystery of the sacred, the mystery of the love, the mystery of all the moments we experience that forever change us and bring us to new places that can excite, exhilarate, and bring us to the fullness of feeling the entirety of our created being.
How do you embrace the mystery of God?
Is it easy or difficult to let go of the questions that present themselves in life? How can you release the little mysteries of life into the grace of God….and the big mysteries…to let them go and simply BE??
BONUS TRACK – Elizabeth Barrett-Browning’s 14th Sonnet from the Portuguese:
If thou must love me, let it be for naught
Except for love’s sake only. Do not say
“I love her for her smile – her look – her way
Of speaking gently, - for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day” –
For these things in themselves, Beloved may
Be changed, or change for thee, - and love, so
Wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry, -
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
Though mayst love on, through love’s eternity.
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