Writing Love Letters

It used to be so natural and easy to put a pen to paper, let the words flow from my heart and through the ink. I filled pages of my journal, jotted down notes to friends in class, labored over lengthy letters to people I loved. All those words. Really, all those feelings and thoughts. For that was what my words were.

One day. Boxes of love letters were suddenly once again mine. Returned. Read, enjoyed, saved. Then returned. My tortured thoughts and deepest feelings. Handed back to me in a shoe box. My heart, in a box.

I saved that box for years. It wasn't about him, but me. The letters, they had been about me. My outlet, the only way to keep everything inside from bursting outside. I couldn't read them again. I had lived the pain and joys once and it didn't seem right to try and live them again. But throw them away? So my heart sat in a box in my closet.

Eventually, in the process of moving so much, I decided to simplify and downsize all the stuff I had been dragging through Missouri with me. Out went the letters. My heart, in a box, now in a dumpster.

I want to write love letters again. I want an overflow of feelings to come out onto paper. I want to love that much. But I am learning that my writing and my love are not about me.

"For the Lord comforts his people
    and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

 But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me,
    the Lord has forgotten me.'

. . .  I will not forget you!

See, I have written you on the palms of my hands. . . "

I write love.

God writes me. 

 

Heart Transplant

I watched an episode of House, M.D. tonight that involved a patient who needed a heart transplant. Dr. House decided to lie about her psychological problems so that the transplant committee wouldn't exclude her from the transplant list. She got the transplant and promised to get treatment for bulimia.

As the episode wrapped up, I found myself thinking about people who get transplants. My general attitude toward these individuals is that they have a responsibility to take care of their bodies. The idea of someone going back to past bad habits and re-injuring themselves makes me feel sick - especially when I know how many deserving people don't get the transplants they need.

Enter conscience. Don't I claim that I've had a heart transplant of my own? A spiritual one, anyway. So how do I take care of my spiritual self? What does my "diet" look like? Have I kicked the bad habits that lead me to need the transplant?

Well. That gives me a whole lot to think about tonight.