My friend Terri has accurately coined the way my mind works using the analogy of a ping pong ball. I love this because it really does describe how I think. I bounce all over the place, but usually, if someone sticks with me, there is some meaning to my madness. So, if you wait this out, there is a point.
I was just about to write a blog on co-dependency, but I changed directions after meditating on a quote that was written by my friend Sarah in one of her blog posts, "Loving the Sharp Places." Speaking of her daughter, she says, "How else will she learn of love, that it has more to do with the lover than the condition of the beloved?" Isn't that a powerful quote? Just so happens that Shakespeare has written a Sonnet that fits this quote wonderfully.
Sonnet 130: William Shakespeare
My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red;
If snow be white, why her breast are dun;
If hairs be wires, then black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damasked, red, and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare (extraordinary)
As any she belied, (misrepresented) with false compare.
Shakespeare is writing this sonnet in the voice of a lover for his beloved. Ironically, most poems are written in form of a man who adores a woman who has a long list of beautiful characteristics that makes her beautiful to him; however, not in this Sonnet. This is written exactly the opposite. The man portrayed here, uses nauseating language to describe his beloved. He says, in a nutshell, that her lips are not red, her cheeks not rosy, her hair is black and wiry, her breasts are dull brown, her breath stinks, her voice is not like the sound of music, and finally, she is not a goddess. She walks on the ground. This is a fairly insulting way to be described. Clearly, this man does not have this woman placed on a pedestal.
However, he says that his love for her is rare and nothing compares to her. According to this sonnet, there is nothing attractive about this woman. Her features are repulsive; however, he is vowing his undying love for her. What Shakespeare is describing here is a transcendent love; one that surpasses the condition of the object of his affections. This is a poignant rendering of God's love for us.
I tied all this into a conversation that I had with a friend last night. I was telling him about Sarah's quote. I said, "Isn't that an awesome quote?" He said, yes, that it made him think of hugging a cactus. Okay, that was one of my ping pong comments. I laughed. I said, "How did you get hugging a cactus out of a beautiful quote?" He said it made him think of God and that we are like cacti to Him. He chooses to embrace us despite the fact that His holy nature and our unholy nature clash.
As I meditated deeper on this, I came up with more conclusions. God gives up his rights to befriend us. He relinquishes His power as God. He does not change His mind about sin and our sinful nature. However, He suppresses His rights as God when He does not demand that we change our wrong behavior. He does this to love us out of our sins, not eradicate them by snuffing our lives out just because He is God and has the power to do so. He relinquishes a real part of who He is to embrace us. This is apparent on the cross when Christ died.........Jesus gave up His Godhood, His glorious crown in heaven, to wear one of thorns. Christ relinquished His power as the Son when He refused to come down from the cross. Instead of saving Himself (which He was urged to do by a mocker while on the cross) He hang there, allowed those whom He created to mock Him, and died.
Jesus never chose the easy way out. He chose the path of love which made Him vulnerable to being hurt by those He loved. We might want tell someone, "Get on with it. Grow up out of your mess." However, God, although having full power to do so, does not. He patiently waits for us to come to Him instead of saying to Himself, "Let's hurry up and get this job done." God does not strong-arm us into change. This aspect of God makes Him both good and fearful in the same moment. God comes to His sanctuary, our inner selves, and begins to snoop around in there and "bug" us about things that displease Him. He does not do this because He is demanding His own way. He does this because those things that displease Him, destroy us.
God's love is not about our condition, but about the transcendence of His love.
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