For two weeks, I let this — and a lot of other things — go by the wayside. Grateful that this is the prompt I’m returning to, and marveling at how often exactly what we need is waiting for us.
The tension between how I want things to look and the truth of how they are has caused so much useless pain to me and, through me, to others. For a long time I understood success in love and family to mean a product that was universally pleasing to look at. A family or a relationship could have its private side, might look and feel slightly different from the inside perspective, but if it was truly “good,” I thought, it would also appear that way to anyone gazing (or judging) from without. If I was a good parent, you would know it by my beautiful, well-behaved children. If I was a good spouse, you would know it from my happy, loving partner. That has made my love conditional at times. Be good, I am telling the people I love without words. Be good, so that I can feel good.
And it has failed, of course, as everything false eventually does. When things have gotten really hard, and only real love is strong enough to take into battle, I’ve had to stop arranging things so that the shadows are not visible. Then I see today’s readings, and I see it’s what we’ve been asked to do all along. “Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. . . . everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.” What that says to me is: Do not be honest only about what is “good.” What is honest is good. Stop being afraid that someone will see the challenges and differences and imperfections and ask: whose fault is this? The answer is right there: it’s no one’s “fault.” It just is, and in the fact of the challenge itself, we get to look for God. The bigger thing, the honest thing, the light, the truth.
— cpb
The tension between how I want things to look and the truth of how they are has caused so much useless pain to me and, through me, to others. For a long time I understood success in love and family to mean a product that was universally pleasing to look at. A family or a relationship could have its private side, might look and feel slightly different from the inside perspective, but if it was truly “good,” I thought, it would also appear that way to anyone gazing (or judging) from without. If I was a good parent, you would know it by my beautiful, well-behaved children. If I was a good spouse, you would know it from my happy, loving partner. That has made my love conditional at times. Be good, I am telling the people I love without words. Be good, so that I can feel good.
And it has failed, of course, as everything false eventually does. When things have gotten really hard, and only real love is strong enough to take into battle, I’ve had to stop arranging things so that the shadows are not visible. Then I see today’s readings, and I see it’s what we’ve been asked to do all along. “Live as children of light— for the fruit of the light is found in all that is good and right and true. . . . everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light.” What that says to me is: Do not be honest only about what is “good.” What is honest is good. Stop being afraid that someone will see the challenges and differences and imperfections and ask: whose fault is this? The answer is right there: it’s no one’s “fault.” It just is, and in the fact of the challenge itself, we get to look for God. The bigger thing, the honest thing, the light, the truth.
— cpb
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