ikon

I once told a friend that I was setting out on a journey to learn to love my wife. I believed that if I learned to love my wife, I would learn to love others. And if I can’t learn to love my wife, I told him, then I fear I will never learn to love anyone. My friend periodically, after long periods of time, writes to ask me if I’ve learned to love my wife. And I have always written back, “Not yet. I think it will take a long time.” Recently, I wrote to him to say:

“I haven’t learned to love my wife, but I’ve learned a different thing. I have learned to always be moving into love with my wife. But this is doing the thing I wanted. It it teaching me to love others.”

I have been listening to the Fathers telling me that pride is a denial of God, one of the forms of atheism, and that there is only one sin: that of despising anyone. I am listening. I am beginning to learn the beginning. To begin as often as necessary, as a rule, but to strive also for the end.

There is a gentle, unceasingly light. Love abroad. Love on the move. Love walking about in the world. Love looking for the beloved, calling the lover, and making, in the local sense, where anyone will, the unity of all men. I am experiencing it in my friendships; I am learning to love my enemies. I am learning to love those who have left scars.

Listening. I am listening, to be learning to ever be moving into love with my wife. Keep my feet, Father. Make of my heart a fire, a welcome door. Make my heart into alms, and save me.