LOVE URGENT EMERGENCY

LOVE URGENT EMERGENCY

A couple of years ago, at the end of 2015, my brothers got in a terrible bus crash. Thankfully both of them survived, but it was single handedly one of the most frightening experiences of my life. 

I remember the night that it happened as I was falling asleep, I felt like somebody was sitting in the room with me. I was filled with dread, and the desire to pray, but I shrugged it off and rolled over, drifting off. My best friend came to me in the morning and woke me up, letting me know the news. At the time, I didn’t know what state anybody was in, I just knew that things were looking very serious. I was flying out of Japan within a couple of days, so I did my best to hold it together(I did not hold it together well at all), and waited it out. I wondered if they knew I loved them, I knew I’d done a terrible job of letting them know how much. I loved them so much more than I’d ever shown. There was possible amputation, there was still in a coma, but there was hope. They were stable. They were alive. I waited at home on edge for news. Soon one brother came, and one did not. He took much, much longer to recover. All of this caused a lot of reflection. 

There are close calls that bring you just close enough to death that they remind you of the preciousness of life. They rush you up to the edge and when you look over, you see how unimportant so many focuses were. When I looked back, I saw so much less love than I wanted to. And there are large scale tragedies that do something to our hearts, give us a squeeze and send us skittering for our closest friends and family. They are a reminder that we’re small, small, small. With all the connection we’re sharing these days, there is always something to mourn. There are also victories, and baby animals, and wiser than expected children. The past couple of weeks have been packed with news from home that kind of covers both ends of the spectrum. 

I thought I was going to become a grown up and get all tough and feelingless, because that was what adulthood looked like to me, but if anything, I’m getting softer and more teary eyed. I’m getting more empathetic, more broken hearted, more sensitive to other people’s struggles. I think it’s just the way I’m wired. This week has brought the urgency of love into the sharpest of focus. 

I’m missing my loved ones that are far away. I’m questioning why I didn’t sit down with them more. Why I didn’t spend more time in their presence. Why I didn’t ask more questions, share more meals, play more games. Why didn’t I draw near more often? After the accident I was in a frenzy for a while, carefully choosing to be loving as much as I possibly could. I, of course, wasn’t always successful, but I was doing my best. But somewhere along the way, I stopped choosing to love them passionately. I sort of forgot how spectacular they were. 

When you zoom all the way out, we all become very, very small, unsearchable by the eye. But when you zoom all the way in, each of us is complex, a tiny universe encased in a human heart and mind, interesting, engaged, stunning. Full of love, full of grief, and grouchiness, and humility, and memories that start fires in our chests and names that still make us cringe and subjects that make our eyes glitter no matter the time of night or day. Then, as if this were all not layered and complex enough, other people cast out nets, open wide barn doors, lower the ladder, and allow you to cross over into their worlds. We get connected, creating living, thriving ecosystems of human hearts. I get to visit my mom at “love for animals” tunnel and hang out with my dad at “logical lodge”. I invite people over to hang up heart on a sleeve laundry and sip sing a song teas. 

I have a little spot in the hearts of my friends that no other single person on the whole entire earth, from ever before to ever after, can ever fill, and they with me. Where they hang hammocks or dance like goons or play with my hair or give hugs or print pictures or laugh forever, they are set up in there and their spot is always waiting for them to come back and until they do, we play re-runs in the background. 

So the tough thing here is:

I almost never love as fiercely as I feel. I prioritize other things. I get used to their unique presence. I say things like: “oh, well I live with them, I’ll see them,” or “we always do this together, this is nothing new, no big deal”. Or I excuse myself, saying “Well, I’m more loving than so and so”. Why on earth am I measuring myself against man? I want to be in awe. To remember the love that chooses others, consistently, through all things. 

This year I got asked to love people as hard as I could, and guess what? I’m still doing just okay. But I also know it’s a place that I’m growing. For all the love I’ve got hiding in the ol’ ticker, maybe 20% escapes and impacts. 

Sometimes it’s because I’m sleepy and sometimes it’s because they’re sleepy. Sometimes it’s because we’re shouting our I LOVE YOUS in different languages, like me doing the dishes or them asking “how are you?” We’re saying the exact same thing, but we don’t always notice. Sometimes, it’s because we forget just how special they are to us, they become regular-degular-schmegular. 

This is dangerous. 

So, my point is this: 

A love crisis. IT’S A NATIONAL DEFICIENCY!!!!!! AN INTERNATIONAL STATE OF EMERGENCY I TELL YOU!!!!!!!!

The easy response: do nothing, stay most concerned with #1.

THE WORLD CHANGING RESPONSE: LOVE PEOPLE AND PUT THEM BEFORE YOU.(Ari, what about ME?? Aren’t they going to walk all over me? Won’t everybody just dominate me and not appreciate me? I know, I know, but hold your horses) Mourn them and with them. Listen to them. Celebrate their wins. Protect them. Lay down your life for them. Challenge them. Encourage them. Tell them the truth. Believe in them. 

A little more than a week ago one of my brothers got to perform again with his whole band, all of whom had been in the accident. This chapter officially closed and I wondered all over again, Do they know how much I love them? About all of my people. My brothers, my sisters, my mom, my dad, even love for those I counted enemies has grown. I know that I didn’t say it enough, in enough ways. But I really, really do. It’s reminded me to stay vigilant. To sit atop the watch tower and bellow at the top of my lungs: I LOVE YOU in every way I can conceive of. To love God with all I have and then to love my neighbor as myself. Loving God makes loving people about 300% easier, to put it in scientific terms. 

For all the brokenness of the world Christ gave a painfully obvious solution with a harder, much more challenging execution. I think it’s impossible without Him. 

 “Let all that you do, be done in love.” 1 Corinthians 16:14 May every word, every action, every choice, be colored with and fueled by love overflowing out of your heart because He loved you first. He’s handing me piles of love so big and wide I can’t really wrap my arms around them, so it’s causing me to pass the love around a little involuntarily even, I couldn’t possibly contain it if I tried. With Christ, you don’t have to procure a thing, just pass along what’s been passed along.

P.S. Maybe picture God in boxing gloves. And He’s squaring off against the enemy. He’s ready to give somebody the good ‘ole one-two. God is your fighter, when He’s going before you, making your path straight, when the Good Shepherd leads you to green pastures, and beside still waters, then you don’t have to worry a thing about me, me, me. You get to lay your burdens on His back as He guides you along His paths for His namesake. He knows your name, He numbered the hairs on your head, and He’s fighting every second of every day for you, for you specifically, because He loves you and prepared a path for you, even when it doesn’t look or feel that way.