grown

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​Sometimes words mean one thing, but we understand them to mean another thing. For instance, the word love - to me, that word should be synonymous with freedom. However the way I've experienced the word love; from my parents, friends, partners, children, etc.- the word is actually synonymous with obedience. Not, I love you, therefore I want you to do what you want to do- but, if you loved me, you'd do what I wanted you to do.

Do you see the difference? The difference between being LOVE & being LOVED?

When we were children, we were taught that in order to be loved, we had to do what our parents told us to do, when they told us to do it. Otherwise they were cold, angry, rude & judgmental. And just like the worker who gets bossed around dreams of being the boss who bosses workers around - when we got old enough to exist in love relationships outside our parents, our first order of business was to establish dominance: IF you love me, you would DO what makes me happy. And if our beloved didn't acquiesce to our demands, we were cold, angry, cold, rude & judgmental. And just like children who eventually move away from their implacable parents in order to live their own guilt-free lives, so have the people who promised to love us put distance between themselves & our mean asses, in order to live their own guilt-free lives. 

At this lonely, bewildering crossroads, we can arrive at one of two conclusions. We could decide that 1) No one has ever figured out how to love us or we could 2) recognize that we have never figured out how to love. For the Bible says that "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always perseveres...love never fails..."

Welp, that sounds dangerous & vulnerable & uncomfortable af, don't it? It sounds like Bible love can get you run over out here in these relationship streets. Its much safer to protect yourself with strict guidelines, strong boundaries, & frequent reminders about all the shit you ain't finna tolerate based on all the shit you already tolerated that you shouldn't have tolerated. 

Protection, safety, boundaries- these are also words that perhaps don't mean what we think they mean. For we tell ourselves these words mean we've taken the necessary steps to ensure we are secure; but strong insistence upon security indicates an underlying belief that whatever we're trying to secure is in actuality, insecure.

Over the next month, we will be forced to realize that all our fancy footwork around the requirements of love is a poor disguise for the fact that we've been too weak & scared to engage with love directly. Love is a lion-hearted game & we've been playing pussycat. Do you know how mama birds make sure their little baby birds know how to fly & support themselves in the wind? She kicks their ass out the nest, that's how. She gives them something more important to focus on than fear: survival.

Do you know how the Most High makes sure His little beautiful baby-lows learn how to soar spiritually & muster the strength to support themselves? He makes them fall in love, that's how. He gives them something more important to obsess over other than themselves: another.

That last part of that bible verse about love says, "When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."

Expecting to be loved is proof of a childish mind. Desiring to love is evidence of maturity.

Over the next 30 days, we're all being blessed with a reason to grow the fuck up.  

Let the church say, Amen.