Valentines?

This is something I wrote in November of 2009:

If you listen to the words of Bon Iver’s song flume - he says

“Only love is all maroon,

lapping lakes like leery loons”

and Everyone has a different opinion of what this obscure lyric means, I’m sure to a lot of people it just looks like a piece of trying to be individual emotional angst, but whatever. why does music ever deserve to be depreciated when made fair, as in, created by someone who felt it, so what if its emotional, its supposed to be. to me I see this as maroon being that color- when you visualize - so rich and passionate yet such a harsh painful color at the same time, almost like a blur of equally characterized opposites, for instance when you’re in love without conditions and are struggling to do everything you can without considering yourself at all. the weight of passion included in realizing how selfish your akin to be and how not youre trying to become for another, and at the same time the fervor you put into it, the time you spend without expecting anything in return and with no idea in mind of any distant focal point to aim for. Only love is that way, however painful it might be.

and a loon, as I’m told is the state bird of Minnesota which happens to be a very eery unexpected and mysterious kind of a creature that delves into water and comes up hundreds of feet away, just the imagery of this is amazing. those two vastly different lines i think come together to maybe tell of unexpectancies, of ourselves, of our ambition, of love itself. what we put in is what we wish to receive in return at most times, whether subconsciously or consciously, but in the end we get way more than we sought, by growth. its when people show for us nothing in return when they had the same advantage that we start feeling used, but why do we feel used.


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I find my thoughts really similar now to the thought process I seem to have had then, only then I think I was just beginning to grasp it, almost as if I knew its what I should have been thinking but I didn't know why. Now I know why and I don't at times know how to explain it.

Today is valentines day. What does that even mean. I just know that there is this deep, shape within me forming steadily and the only description I give it is the reason for waking up every morning, I guess one might call that love. So naturally a holiday to celebrate it (even if the holiday may trivialize it with tons of sweets and material things, expectations etc) to get back to the meaning of why the day was created- to celebrate love, I can only have a fondness for it.

In his book "the five love languages" Gary Chapman talks about how people receive love in so many different ways, and he narrows those ways down to five basic concepts:

He says to really administer love, you truly have to see the way a person them self would want to be love, and love them in that way. Not in a way most convenient for you. However simple this may seem, I've been entertaining this principle in my head for the last year it seems, looking at people as if they truly want to be known, which I believe they do. It's amazing how much we expect others to peer into our own lives and see, but we will not do the same for them, and we especially won't do it if we're not receiving some sort of gratitude or reaction of love.

But really, true love is exhausting. You know why? because it's love, it's not two people holding the ends of a cloth smoothly drawing near to each other. If that were truly the case, love would look something more like tug of war, someone is always providing more for the other, someone is always hurt unintentionally, and someone seems to always feel misunderstood or passed over. This imperfect pull between two [likely to be selfish at times] individuals can only be perfected with a certain kind of mercy.

Instead of refusing to bend over backwards for someone, you do because you love them. In fact, those words are not even considered; it is not "bending over backwards" its humbling yourself.

Instead of not being honest with someone because you know it would hurt them, you alter your language so that they would hear the truth lovingly, you speak in a way that the person can hear you, you love them in a way they wish to be loved.

I don't think a lot of people see how hard this is, it really is gut-wrenching. I'm sure there have been plenty of people who've experienced really liking someone without them knowing or feeling anything in return. There's an extent where to say too much would be overbearing, but to say too little would be passive. That fine line in the middle is what is difficult. We use persuasive and coercive language, even when we don't know we are, you've heard these words in movies and I'm sure even from other's mouths

"I need you"
"I want to be with you so badly"
" I want you to love me"
"I don't want to spend my life with anyone else but you."

In some sense of the word, some of these phrases could be taken sincerely, it feels good at times to think of someone saying this to you, or really being vulnerable with how they feel even if it may come off in a plea. But if this is how our language is presented, it may be translated as

"I need you to fulfill a part of me I don't have."
"I really hope that you'll want to be with me too"
"I have found something loveable in you, so I would like you to search for the loveable things in me, willingly or not"
"I've kept my options closed to you, you'll either hurt me by saying no, or make me the happiest person i'll ever be."

Perhaps some of these translations sound a bit harsh, or too direct for what the implied meanings are.....but I wonder if we were to look beneath the surface of our love, would we see the person more clear? or would we see ourselves? Would we see someone who we have a devout appreciation for outside of who they are to us, or would we see someone who we wish to conform to the likes of a relationship just to be with them?

I don't have to make this personal to see that I myself a lot of the times resort to someone who brings out the best in me, who sees me for who i am and understands me. Who wants to help me grow and desires progress. But if thats truly who I want, I might as well carve a sculpture with my own hands and make it hold a recorder saying all of the things I know would cultivate a seemingly good relationship.

Love doesn't seem to be like this, love accepts that even though we don't wish to say some of those things up there, sometimes thats just inevitably what we feel. Sometimes we are selfish, sometimes we are needy, sometimes we don't want to give love, we just want to feel it.

I'm saying this because I feel that the love between humans is incomplete, it cannot sustain us or ever make us feel warranted enough, there will always be something we require that another person will not be able to give us. This is not a reason to settle, nor to request something out of a person which they cannot provide. The only person that can provide that sort of love is the author of it, the only one that knows your whole heart is the one that made it. In light of that love, true love can be met with reasonable expectations, and not expectations that only the Lord may fulfill.

And when we know our needs our met, we will then change the word need to appreciation. Because there will be nothing else we require, there will only be gifts we receive.

Paul in Romans 9 says he would hand over his own soul to damnation and hell in order that the people he was ministering to would see the Lord. This is love. Paul wasn't trying to say he loved people over the Lord, no. Not at all. He was saying He knew the Lord's love to be truest of all, and if more people could see what he had already experienced in his lifetime, he would willfully confront the agony of Hell. Love when it is known, when it is true, when it is perfect, will do this.

In light of valentines day then, i hope you see the love the Lord provides;
you don't have to be qualified to love someone, you'll never be qualified enough, and a person who knows Christ's love will see that, and be able to love you anyway

you know your own weakness better than anyone, don't wait for someone to tell you before you change it, change it willfully. Change comes from who you are in relation to what you are.

People watch and observe you more than you know. This can be appreciated.

You may not be worthy of love at times, but the truth is, You are loved anyway.




in sincerity, in trying to display the gift of love God Himself gave me first,
Emily