Stay Here

My dear, why do you always move away from the suffering of the world?

Stay here with me for a bit.

Let the pain break you open; let your tender heart spill all over this damn place. Then, just maybe then, we’ll have a chance.

De-armor yourself.

You were not made to be perfect. You were not made to have a perfect life. You were born of blood and bone and human frailty.

You were born to die.

What is it you must do here before that happens? How many things must you collect before you think you’re happy? How much money do you need?

How much control must you fool yourself into thinking you have before you can finally say, “Okay, okay, now I can open.”?

There is no safety here. Every breath you take in this place is a risk.

I hope someday the terror of that sinks all the way down into your belly.

I hope you shake and tremble and truly understand just how temporal it all is.

Maybe then you will give yourself up.

Maybe then you will stop waiting, you will stop trying to gain some sort of hold before you get busy with the real work: the loving.

You are here to love.

Even the angels in heaven are jealous of this human heart you have, the chance you have to experience all of it — the pain, the pleasure, the suffering, the joy — the treasure of the universe.

But you refuse to participate! You refuse to let it all in and to be all here.

Because you think you need to be good. Because you think you can get something. Because you think you will avoid pain and death.

You will not.

This world will shatter you. It will break into ten thousand pieces and then break you again.

The only choice you have is to say yes to your own destruction.

And that yes will ring out through the galaxies and announce how God has been born in flesh and then finally you will know: You were made to love.

xx