March

There isn't anything in this world but mad love. Not in this world. No tame love, calm love, mild love, no so-so love. And of course, no reasonable love. Also there are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?...

Today, on the beach, an old man was sitting in the sun. I called out to him, and he turned. His face was like an empty pot. I remember his tall, pale wife; she died long ago. I remember his daughter-in-law. When she died, hard, and too young, he wept in the streets. He picked up pieces of wood, and stones, and anything else that was there, and threw them at the sea. Oh, how he loved his wife. Oh, how he loved young Barbara. I stood in front of him, not expecting any answer yet not wanting to pass without some greeting. But his face had gone back to whatever he was dreaming. Something touched, me lightly, like a knife-blade. I felt I was bleeding, though just a little, a hint. Inside I flared hot, then cold. I thought of you. Whom I love madly.

I think about all the times I have chosen "easier." For to love is to feel the knife-bleed of true living. I mean, really, who wants that day in and day out? If I were to take that path, wouldn't opening my heart allow the knife to sink only deeper? Exactly! Last night I saw the movie, "The Road." It is a apocalypse movie where a father and a son journey through the desolated earth along a road that takes them to the sea. The only beauty you see in the whole movie is the love between the two, and the innocent love of a child who was born after the world began to die. Their love grows as does their pain. Are the roads we take in our own lives much different? There is desolation and armegheddon threatening all around, and danger around every bend in the road. Yet we, if grace allows, stay on the road that takes us to the cleansing sea, even if once we think we are there, the waves froth with pollutants and defilement. We keep going. Until the cleansing "see" lets us know of mad love.

Who or what do you love madly?