Mornings

I have never been a morning person. Upon hearing my alarm clock, I've often told myself, I have absolutely no interest in getting up right now. My phone buzzes to remind me of the meeting I need to be at in fifteen minutes. But I'd rather be asleep.

Oddly, on the rare occasions I've gotten up earlier than strictly necessary, I like mornings. I like the feeling that I've discovered "extra" time and my day will be better because of it. I like the quietness and fresh new sunlight.

I made a haircut appointment for eight o'clock on Saturday morning (yesterday), to force myself to get up earlier than my normal weekend hour. After the haircut I went to Panera and bought a loaf of bread to bring home and a four-cheese soufflé for breakfast. I sat in my truck eating the flaky creation and watched a street market setting up across the parking lot.

Little treats like these make me want to be a morning person. To take that extra time to just BE.

Just being is what I think a quiet time should feel like. I would like to be that person who gets up early and reads the Bible with a cup of coffee and the whole day ahead. But instead I've been groggily grabbing my earbuds and listening to a couple worship songs with my eyes closed for a few more precious minutes.

At least I haven't fallen back to sleep yet. That's something.

Adventuring

I began seeing this image and line from The Hobbit movie all over Pinterest. And because I'm me, I started overthinking it. People want to "go on an adventure." But what does that mean? I hear myself and others applying the term adventure to a hike or a drive to an unfamiliar part of town. And something in me is dissatisfied. Are those really adventures? Why do I describe relatively safe and normal activities as adventures? It seems adventure means "anything out of my routine."

Consulting the dictionary yields these definitions of adventure: "an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks," "an exciting or remarkable experience," or maybe most telling, "to expose to danger or loss."

Danger and loss. Unknown risks. Bilbo is running jubilantly, if somewhat naively, towards them. He is swept away and into a larger story. I think this is what I want, or want to want, in an adventure. Sometimes I feel like I should devise some expedition for myself, that the story I'm living in is too small and I need to do something about it. There is probably some truth to that urge. I read an article on calling from Relevant recently that speaks to this:

So many people wait for their calling. They complain about their lives, lamenting that God hasn't shown them the path yet. Others live agnostically, as if everything depends on them. Neither of these is particularly fulfilling.

What does seem true is that we have a choice. Not to make our lives awesome or dull, but to choose to courageously follow the path ahead of us or not. At times, it will feel like everything is riding on you, but it's not. At others, it will feel as if you don't have to do any work and can just submit to the process; that is also not true.

I can't "make my life awesome" by manufacturing adventures. That smacks of pride and exhibition. Look at me, I'm cool! But neither should I be content with danger-free existence. Can I find a way to wait expectantly and courageously? To follow well the path that lies ahead, whether it fits my definitions of adventure or not? (And maybe I'll find, like Bilbo, that adventures are "Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things!")

Whatever comes, I'm pretty sure there will be an appropriate Tolkien quote. What would I do without him?

Back to Reality

Is a sense of contentment so rare that I feel compelled to blog about it? Maybe it's because this time of contentment was unexpected. I expected to be anxious and sad--anxious about the future and sad about my boyfriend returning to another state.

Just as our half a summer together was a gift, so too is the peace I feel now that it's over. Earlier this month, I considered buying a computer game to lose myself in after he left. But I haven't felt the need. Partly because I realized that as a Christian I don't numb pain. I walk through it. And I'm coming to see the ache of parting as something of a blessing. As Winnie the Pooh says, “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”

I haven't figured out how to channel this unexpected peace. I know I should be delving more deeply into prayer, Bible study, and the other disciplines. I have several books left on my To Read in 2013 list and a workbook on handwriting improvement. For the moment, though, I am getting reacquainted with myself. By that I mean enjoying afternoons when I can settle in with a cup of tea or clean out my closet or have a long talk with a friend. It's good.

Goodbye, iPhone

Today we had a funeral for my boyfriend's iPhone.

Last Sunday we visited the pool, and he waded in with the unfortunate device in his swim trunks' pocket. It took a few minutes for him to discover the disaster. Or at least I thought it was a disaster; he was unfazed. When we got back to my apartment we stuck in in a plastic baggie filled with rice to draw out the moisture. 

After almost a week, he managed to turn it on long enough to download two hundred some-odd pictures. And today we drove to Best Buy to return the phone and order his replacement. But before we left the car we took a moment to say goodbye to the old iPhone.

We knew we were being silly. But there was a real sense of loss, I think because so much of our communication is mediated through this device. It is the physical representation of all those texts and phone calls that make up a long-distance relationship.

A slightly different example of the personalization of impersonal things: last week I faced a large service bill for my truck (a 2001 Dodge Dakota). Someone mentioned that I should think about  getting a new car. Quite aside from the hassle of car shopping, I realized I don't want to part with this truck. My dad drove it before me, and it has been my friend "through many dangers," if I may borrow Gandalf's line.

Thankfully, my boyfriend was able to replace his phone at no cost, and my service bill was much lower than estimated. But I realized that it's more than money that ties us to phones and cars. They become invested with part of our lives. I suppose it's a hazard of modernity.

Self-Editing

I watched one episode of Downton Abbey tonight to de-stress, then felt guilty for neglecting Bird by Bird and my resolve to blog once a week. Earlier today I was trying to think of something to blog about. Several ideas came to mind, but I ruled them out as either too personal or possibly offensive. Offensive as in I wouldn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by saying too much. Too much of real life.

This self-editing hamstrings me. (I just had to look up hamstring to make sure it means what I thought.) I want to write about things that move me, but those things are better left to a private journal. I think.

Also I feel compelled to have a point to a blog post. A mini-essay with a theme and witty conclusion. Shades of English classes in college. I appreciate that discipline, but the purpose of a blog isn't to prove a thesis or wield vocabulary. It's not to show how literary I am. Not (gasp) to earn a grade. 

I guess one purpose of this blog would be to learn to write without those strictures. To get at that middle space between intimate detail and public persona. Or IS a blog simply an extension of a public persona?

Oh, questions...

Rule Books

Yesterday I stepped into my neighborhood Barnes & Noble with a sense of excitement. Purpose! I came not to buy something for a friend, not to redeem a gift card, not to sip a mocha, but to lay down my cold hard credit card for a new book of my own. Something I almost never do. Though I work in publishing, nearly all my reading material comes from the library. As they say, why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? I'm too risk-averse to spend money on a book unless it's one I already love.

So it was with the feeling of breaking my own rule that I scanned the bookshelves, keeping my smartphone queued up to a photo of my "Books to Read This Year" list. I justified the rule breaking by telling myself I needed to keep up with my reading plan for the year and didn't have time to wait for the library's hold system. All these self-imposed rules around reading! Quite sad, now that I think about it.

And I am thinking about it. I walked out of Barnes & Noble with Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott. I probably first heard of it in a college English class, and since then it has floated around in the "one day I'll read this and be a better person" category.

I think I make reading lists for myself because I know I'm easily inspired. Bird by Bird not only has me blogging for the first time in nine months, but resolving to blog once a week. Not to satisfy a mass readership. If anything, working in publishing has wearied me of words. Not even for the sake of keeping another rule. But because, as Anne writes,

"Good writing is about telling the truth,"

and

"becoming a better writer is going to help you become a better reader, and that is the real payoff."

The Golden Year

After Christmas last year, I bought a daytimer in a moment of nostalgia for a similar one I had in Oxford. My Oxford one was purple, but this one was gold, which I thought fitting because, in my mind, 2012 was going to be a golden year. I think I expected this because 2011 was a time of transition and stress in various ways. I suppose I was trying to predict how God would work, that a year of pruning is followed by one of growth.

Yet, here in November, I am tempted to characterize 2012 by a list of its tragedies. I'm not trying to trivialize them down to a list of life lessons or try to find redemption where tears are more appropriate. But it is a human impulse, I think, to see a story emerge from disconnected pieces, and to reconcile expectations with reality.

The year started crumbling one April morning when I called my mom to confirm the news I'd found in my inbox: my fifteen-year-old cousin had committed suicide the night before. Even as I fought nausea, I understood, a little, why he did it. I remembered a day when that despair flickered across my own mind.

A few months later, I drove home from work with ashes falling on my truck as the smoke from the Waldo Canyon wildfire clouded my mind with fear. My roommate and I threw some hastily chosen belongings in our vehicles and drove to her family's house on the north end of town, where we watched the flames engulf homes. Not sure where they would stop. Helpless.

As Colorado was still recovering from the fire, the Dark Knight shooting made me wonder when will it end. When will life go back to normal? I remember thinking that the arrival of cold weather would make it safer. After the lethal summer, the rain and snow would blanket us in security again. Yet the fall brought another blow.

There had been rumblings of what was happening, bits of news and conversations. But when my dad called and said the doctors thought he might have cancer, that was no comfort. Lung cancer. Asbestos. Aggressive chemotherapy. All words I now need in this golden year. Good news now comes in pieces I seize like life rings. News that the cancer has not spread. That the chemo is working. While my dad's cancer is not always the first thought I have when I wake up, it's there by the time I hit the shower. The new normal.

A few days after I got the news, I was flipping through a gift catalog and saw a plaque with a quote from Winston Churchill: "If you're going through hell, keep going." And while it sounds irreverent, I think that's what God would say. He doesn't tell me this year's events are not so bad. He doesn't wave them off and tell me they're all for a greater purpose (even though they may well be). They are hell. They are the work of Satan on earth.

So why should I keep going? Why is it so tragic when someone doesn't keep going? It's easier to stop waiting for the golden year, for Tolkien's eucatastrophe, the sudden and unexpected turn for good.

I suppose what I'm trying to understand is that the eucatastrophe has already happened. Every so often I'll catch the faintest hint of an almost mythical joy trying to break through. As if the most beautiful story in the world has been true all along. Tolkien wrote that "the Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man’s history. The Resurrection is the eucatastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. This story begins and ends in joy."

Why do we keep going through hell? Because Christ already did. And while there is certainly cause for grief, there is none for fear. None. "We do not lose heart...for this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 Corinthians 4:16-17).

I think I can still call 2012 a golden year (1 Peter 1:7).

New York: A Photo Tour

I loved visiting New York with two international friends, representing France and South Africa, respectively. It was a good way to connect with the character of a city that is at once iconically American and essentially cosmopolitan. While preparing for the trip, I remembered that New York used to be called New Amsterdam; it was Dutch before it was British. In the American Revolution, New York served as the base for the British Army.

Speaking of the Revolution, here I am thanking my French friend Juliette for her country's gift: the Statue of Liberty (you can barely see in in the background).


Also in Battery Park, not far from where we took the first photo, is "The Immigrants" statue. This reminded me of the haunting Famine Memorial along the river in Dublin--one of the most moving pieces of art I've ever seen. I don't know the circumstances under which my own ancestors came to America from Germany and Romania, but very likely it was with the mix of desperation and hope represented by these figures.


After Battery Park (and the obligatory photo with the bull on Wall Street), us three internationals visited the 9/11 memorial. Here you see one of the two reflecting pools, which will eventually mirror the new World Trade Center towers. Just to put this in perspective, before we could enter the memorial we stood in line for about an hour (this was after reserving tickets for a time slot) and went through an airport-style security check. It was a bit frustrating, but after what happened here, who can blame them?


Unexpected pleasures: one of the best things about the trip! After dinner at a gourmet pizza kitchen, we found ourselves at a folk concert in the middle of the subway.

Another serendipitous moment of a different sort: Tiffany's "Autumn Landscape" in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. After visiting the medieval tapestries, I wandered into the American Wing of the huge museum, and stopped in my tracks to stare at this stained glass. I associate stained glass with biblical scenes, but this was more beautiful than anything in a cathedral. Its beauty pointed to the beauty already present in the world; light on trees and water actually IS that stunning. It made me think of how nature is God's "stained glass," and that this artistic celebration of it is deeply fitting.

...more later!

Pottermore

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

—Dumbledore

I’ve never read the Harry Potter books, but last summer I watched all the movies in the space of a few weeks. Last night I rewatched Deathly Hallows Part 2 and spent an hour afterwards reading about various plot holes/details. And I understood how people could and did get drawn into that world of Hogwarts. (I might have been among them but for The Lord of the Rings.)

But what I really wonder is this. All those fans who love the story and write wikis about the spells and charms and don’t want to say goodbye to the characters—the fans who would presumably enter that world if given the chance—why would they not fully embrace the unseen “true magic” of Christ? (I’m now speaking of fans of any fantasy epic.) Why would such fans not take seriously the true supernatural—that there is indeed great power and transcendent forces and self-sacrifice and love?

Of course it is self-sacrificing love that forms the most powerful force in Harry Potter. Yet we will not believe that same kind of love in our own world. If we feel that we would stand with Neville Longbottom and the others to defend Hogwarts—if only we could have magic castles and wands—will we not stand guard over our own souls? Why? Why will we not fight for something we cannot see?

I’m sure there are other Christians who, like me, would admit to being more moved by the sight of Gandalf riding out to face the Nazgul than by even the most haunting Good Friday service. We ache for beauty; we wish we had a heritage and home to defend; we wish for the camaraderie that is only born of deadly peril. At least we think we do.

What would we really think if Harry and his gang broke into our world? If we were faced with a mission that would certainly mean death? Would we not want to slam the book shut? Say that such things belong in stories, not in real life? We prefer the Muggle world. The world that says transcendence belongs only in your head.

In the end, we will find it is real.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, and the sign that the things not seen are true.”

—Hebrews

New Start

For the second time in less than a year, I am writing from a new home: this time only a few miles away from my previous abode. This has been a summer of stressful circumstances: an unexpected move and atypical work projects top the list. But such goodness has accompanied me through all of it that I can't help but feel, as I'm writing from a new laptop in a new apartment, that this fall marks a new start.

Perhaps it's the seventeen plus years of an academic schedule, but September is more of a new year for me than January. Suddenly the library seems like the place to be. I have an urge to surround myself with books, notes, and maybe a paper to write.

But of course, little of that enthusiasm is left when I get off work (which, oddly enough, involves surrounding myself with books). I did give myself a "research project" for the next few months (or however long it takes to satisfy my curiosity/college nostalgia): looking into first-century Judaism (and whatever Jewish-history bunny trails I follow along the way).

Another new start began when a manuscript I edited last week rekindled a desire to be around horses. I am planning to volunteer at a local therapeutic riding center, possibly take a few riding lessons to see how much I remember, and maybe lease a horse a few months down the road.

We'll see.

Homesick

This post has been marinating in my brain for several months now; no doubt it will end up saying less than I wish.

But, given that my fellow 2010 MA Publishing students officially graduate tomorrow, my thoughts again return to England and Oxford, and I have to admit that I'm homesick. That's not to say I don't enjoy Colorado and my work here. On the contrary--lately I've started taking walks in the evenings when I get home from work, and the beauty of the Rockies makes me stop and stare every time. The crisp air tinged with woodsmoke. The fleeting sight of deer running like shadows over a neighbor's lawn. The rugged, undiluted Western beauty of this place cannot be denied.

It is still not home, though. Even when I was in England, I tried to figure out what made me love it so much. The best way I can describe it is peace between you and your surroundings. It's almost as if that place has a personality, that it understands you, reaches out and touches you.

Recently I read a question in a book-discussion guide. It asked if you would be willing to die to defend a piece of land. Would it be your country? State? The home you grew up in?

I've been listening to The Grapes of Wrath on CD as I drive to and from work, and Steinbeck's description of the land...the land your ancestors have bled and died on, the land you've worked with your bare hands, that has fed you and your family...that is land you will fight and die for. That land is part of you.

I guess the closest thing I have to that is Oxford.

Motivation

I know, two posts in two days...what is the world coming to?

But I feel strangely motivated to write. No doubt this will be short-lived...but here's one thing I hope is not.

Tonight I went to a discussion group hosted by a few members of the Anglican church I started going to a couple months ago. The group is loosely based around the books Radical by David Platt and Christianity Beyond Belief by Todd Hunter. I found this time immensely refreshing on several levels. Following a challenge from David Platt, several people in the group are reading through the Bible in one year.

So I decided I want to try. There's several reasons, probably, but foremost is that I am not doing a very good job without a plan. Last night I spent about thirty minutes reading Gods and Generals and about thirty seconds glancing at the Psalms before I decided to go to sleep. Also, and this is slightly concerning to me, but I am the sort of person who likes lists and plans. I like getting a syllabus at the start of a class--marking off the reading chapters, knowing exactly how much I have to accomplish and when in order to reach a goal. Now I readily admit that is often a weakness. You can't chart out a relationship, especially with God, in this way--ticking off chapters is no sign of real commitment or change. But even relationships have their disciplines and habits. And I've neglected this one long enough.

So here's to motivation, and the chronological reading plan I'm starting...now.

Light

Candles are forbidden in dorm rooms. On both sides of the Atlantic.

So in the last few months, after moving into a real house, I've been making up for lost time. Early in December I bought one of those evergreen-scented candles, one of my few attempts at Christmas decorating.

I've been in the process of settling into a new room, and along with a bedspread and bookshelf, I bought a candle that I burn nearly every night when I get home. What's interesting to me, though, is why a little flame in a glass jar is so appealing to the modern homemaker/newly hatched college student. It serves almost no practical purpose. My bedside lamp provides all the light I need, and if I want my room to smell like sandalwood, I can buy Febreze and not bother with matches and lingering hints of sulfur.

Why the entire aisles devoted to candles? Like a real wood fire, why do they mean cozy, romantic, comforting ... even mysterious?

Is it nostalgia--a longing for a past time? Yet I'm sure none of us seriously want to go back to lighting our homes with oil lamps. If it is nostalgia, it is very confined. Odd how the old-fashioned things become luxuries ... candles are far less efficient than light bulbs. Baking bread costs more than buying it. And don't get me started on ebooks.

We'll move past the 40-watt bulbs, too. But even then I doubt they'll gain the allure of the candle. There's something about the living flame.

Hello, Wild West

The new blog design reflects a similarly drastic change in my own surroundings.

A week ago I left Washington State (after only about 20 days at home) for a new job in Colorado Springs. It's with a Christian publisher called David C Cook, and truly, I could not have designed a more ideal "first job." It's exactly what I've wanted to do ever since I was 15 and discovered the world called publishing. In many ways, it's the culmination of many years of study, both as an English major at Grove City College, and my somewhat strategic pursuit of a Digital Publishing MA at Oxford Brookes.

I'm overwhelmed with how quickly God brought me to this next stage, and how He continues to demonstrate His absolute and intimate knowledge of me. Of course the transition was hard -- I expected to have several months back in Washington to catch up with friends I hadn't seen since I left for England. But in other ways I think this is for the best.

Sitting at my desk this week, I had to laugh when I realized that I am being paid to read and edit books all day. And not just any books -- books that have a deeper purpose than the publisher's profit line or tuning out the world for a few hours. Of course there's nothing intrinsically wrong with those things, but it is deeply satisfying to know these books have the potential to communicate the love and truth of Christ, to transform their readers.

And maybe their copy editors.

Goodbyes

With a sigh
You turn away
With a deepening heart
No words to say

You will find
That the world has changed forever

The trees are now turning from green to gold
And the sun is now fading
I wish I could hold you closer

(Howard Shore, "Arwen's Song")

The End is Near

In just over two weeks I will hand in my major project and freedom will commence. After spending most of July and the first part of August locked in the computer lab, I'm pleased the ebook files I've created are working! Earlier today I was able to read one of them on an iPad...very gratifying.

I'll be leaving England and flying back to Seattle on September 20th...a bittersweet prospect. But I have most of September to say my goodbyes and pack in as much travelling as possible, including just over a week in Ireland. I'm going to take a two-day horseback riding trip around the Dingle Peninsula, then spend a few days in Dublin, Belfast, and surrounding areas.

On the day I fly out, I will have spent exactly a year and a day in England. Oxford will never again be just a word on a page -- I know it now. And part of me will never really leave -- or maybe it's better to say part of it will never leave me. You can never really go back once you've been so touched, so changed by a place. Although changed might not be the right word. Renewed, reborn, restored to what I thought was lost and dead.

Before I left the States I wrote a post about time and how it puts more distance between me and my best memories while carrying me into unknown trials. In those months I dimly guessed that there might be good things ahead, but in my mind they would never live up to what was gone. If only I could have known how every joy of the old days would be swallowed up and fulfilled in what lay ahead.

I will not fear time again. It might bear me away from Oxford, but I'm still on my way home.

Switchfoot says it better.

From the Trenches

Apologies again for the long break.

The July sunshine is streaming through my window, making my keyboard hot to the touch. People who say it rains all the time in England obviously haven't lived here in the summer. It has been an idyllic one with long hot days and peaceful nights. Last week was the 4th of July, which obviously isn't recognized over here by the Brits, but nonetheless there was a carnival in a nearby park that some American friends and I co-opted for our own celebration.

Most of my time is now consumed with my major project (on ebook construction) and job hunting. Both are draining and frustrating processes at times. I've had to confront my various reasons for wanting to stay in the UK and the practical/emotional call of returning to the States. All that to say I still don't know where I will be living in two months, which is definitely a new experience for me -- so used to having life planned out months/years ahead. It's an exercise in trust and remembering the thousand ways God has proven His love and care over the years. How can I not trust that the same Father who brought me here to Oxford will lead me to the next phase of the adventure?

Last year I received a special graduation gift from some dear friends -- a book of Puritan prayers called The Valley of Vision. Various passages from this book have spoken to me over the months, but today I wanted to share the end of a prayer called "Contrition."

"In all my affairs may I distinguish between
duty and anxiety,
and may my character and not my
circumstances chiefly engage me."

That prayer reflects the same desire that awoke in me when I read this description of Brother Lawrence in Practicing the Presence of of God (find a copy and read it!) :

"He was neither hasty nor loitering, but did each thing in its season, with an even, uninterrupted composure and tranquility of spirit."

That's what I hope to do and be in my (possibly) last few weeks in Oxford...and with the rest of my life.

A Thousand Words

Classes have been over exactly one week, and today I started back on my major project with considerably more enthusiasm than I expected. I must admit, I got used to writing about publishing for my class blog, so if some industry ramblings show up here occasionally, that's why.

Over the weekend I wrote a little piece for the Brookes website about my experience of the course so far. It was good to reflect on the last eight months, for despite my frustrations with myself and the course in general, I am incredibly grateful for my time here.

A picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words, and I would need at least that many to give you a proper update. So here are three.



Easter Sunday in the Scottish Highlands













Loch Ness


















Spring in Oxford

Arise, my love, my beautiful one,
and come away,
for behold, the winter is past;
the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth,
the time of singing has come
Song of Solomon 2:10-12a

Freedom

It has been too miserably long since I've written to attempt a proper catch-up, so I'll just jump right back in media res.

I'm sitting in the computer lab right now finishing my last bits of coursework for the year. Freedom is nearly here, and I intend to fully enjoy the summer holidays. However, my thoughts are beginning to turn to what I'll do in September, when my major project will be finished and I'll find myself facing the world beyond Oxford.

One of my many hypothetical plans is to get a publishing job in Scotland. (I visited it for the first time over Easter and can definitely see myself living in Edinburgh.) BUT I just discovered a rather discouraging article that said one of the very publishers I was interested in (St Andrew Press) is "on the brink of closure." There is a glimmer of hope, however, in that one of the executives of Publishing Scotland said the industry "is moving to digital, publishing on demand, or the internet and blogs."

Maybe this MA in Digital Publishing degree will be enough to earn me a spot in Braveheart country?

Hello Love

“Love itself is our most selfish emotion.”

That’s the gist of an article that somehow ended up on my Google News alerts this week. So in the spirit of Valentine’s Day, here’s my rebuttal.

This is the author’s argument: “When you love someone it is purely to satisfy your ego. . . Every expression towards those you love is also a mutual trade between two people for reciprocal advantage and to regard love as sacrificial or altruistic makes it, and the relationships that result, pointless and contemptible.”

When I got over my initial irritation at this statement, it struck me that HE’S RIGHT. Love, as understood and practiced in our culture, is all about self. Romance is a cycle of emotion in which happiness is contingent upon how good the other person makes us feel.

Interestingly, this view of love fits perfectly with Richard Dawkins’s claim in The Selfish Gene: “Now they [the genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots... They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.” In an atheist, postmodern culture, love is simply what we call the relationship between two sets of genes using each other to reproduce. All the flowers, chocolate, lingerie…just natural selection marching on.

So why, if you read this article to your date tonight, would you get a slap in the face? Because, at our core, we know that love transcends self. It’s not just Christian tradition that asserts itself here. A quick review of popular films reveals the same theme. Consider the sacrifices in Band of Brothers, We Were Soldiers, The Dark Knight, Schindler’s List, even Terminator. On the girl side, think Titanic and Twilight. All involve putting your own desires and even life aside for the good of another.

Why this dichotomy? Why do we recognize that love SHOULD be selfless, yet remain trapped in self-interest?

I think it’s because we’ve mistaken human love for what it’s supposed to point to. Yes, love can deliver some of the best life has to offer: companionship, passion, understanding, pleasure, and the rest of the Valentine’s Day adjectives. But inevitably, something breaks down. Love fails, leaves us empty or broken. We become cynical, convinced that romance is just two people using each other, ready to move on as soon as the deal isn’t mutually profitable.

The fact that love cannot completely satisfy—even though it brings great joy—I think points to a far deeper reality. We were created for relationships, not just with each other, but with God. Only he offers the perfect love and faithfulness we crave (even though we may mock it). His love is unconditional, unearned, constant. Why he desires us is a mystery, but he does. We were made for his delight and to delight in him. And love is what he did to win us back. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

Selfless love happens when we realize we are already loved perfectly. It’s not selfish to desire joy—the problem simply comes from looking in the wrong place. The best of human love offers a stunning picture of God. When we turn from the picture to the artist behind it, only then do we know Love.

As usual, C. S. Lewis says it best:

“We were made for God. Only by being in some respect like Him, only by being a manifestation of His beauty, lovingkindness, wisdom or goodness, has any earthly Beloved excited our love. It is not that we have loved them too much, but that we did not quite understand what we were loving. It is not that we shall be asked [in heaven] to turn from them, so dearly familiar, to a Stranger. When we see the face of God we shall know that we have always known it. He has been a party to, has made, sustained and moved moment by moment within, all our earthly experiences of innocent love. All that was true love in them was, even on earth, far more His than ours, and ours only because His.”