gravity

"what great gravity is this that drew my soul towards yours? what great force, that though i went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised, to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that i fear, the soul that i loathe, the soul that: if you will love, i will love. i will redeem you, if you will redeem me? is this our purpose, you and i together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and i invented of our own clay?
i am not scared of you, i am scared of me.
we were fools to believe that we would redeem each other.
what great gravity is this that drew my heart toward yours? what great force collapsed my orbit, my lonesome state? what is that wants in me the want in you? don't we go at each other with yielded eyes, with cumbered hands and feet, with clunky tongues? this deed is unattainable! we cannot know each other!
i will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. i will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. i will simply love. i am giving myself to you, and tomorrow i will do it again. i suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before i am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.
God risked Himself on me. i will risk myself on you. and together, we will learn love, and perhaps then, and only then, understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us. "
-Don Miller, Polaroids

the great gravity that brought jesus from the heavens unto this earth will bring me down too, unto my knees, for the least.

"she loves me, she loves me not"

" there is no safe investment. to love at all is to be vulnerable. love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. if you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin in your selfishness. but in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, inpenetrable, irredeemable. the alternative to tragedy, or atleast to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. the only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and pertubations of love is Hell." - C.S Lewis.

a friend of mine pointed out to me the other day that if we rotate the number "8" horizontally, then it becomes the "infinity sign". and it just got me thinking about The Father's love for us. He loves us even if we don't love Him. i think that is one of the hardest things to do: to love without being loved in return. it's kind of like our parents' love too. they just keep loving us despite of our rebellion. the cool thing about that is that sooner or later, the recipient will just feel like stop running away from the love and actually just give in to it.

it's pretty easy to love [or like] someone when you know they love [or like] you in return. but to continue loving them despite of the obvious contrary in their feelings, that's pretty hard to do . that's Jesus love. but like i always say: we can try. so this is one of my goals: to love and to like whom my heart chooses despite of their feelings towards me. don't give up just because they don't love or like you yet [read "pastoral peotry (milton is my favorite)] because one day, just like i have done with Jesus and my parents, they will give in. Have an awesome year.

"so you don't love me, well i'm just going to have to love you more now aren't i?"

"love thy enemies"- Jesus the King.


...comment left by a brother...:

This New Year 2008 has been billed as the year of “new beginnings,” because Biblically eight is known as the number of "new beginnings." That’s because after the Lord ended His work on the seventh day (Genesis 2:2) there had to come an eighth day, or "new beginning." It was also on the eighth day that a young Hebrew was to be circumcised, as a token of covenant, thus marking a "new beginning" to his life. (Genesis 17:15; Leviticus 12:3) Paul was circumcised on the eighth day. (Philippians 3:5) It is a medical fact that the coagulant bloodstream reaches its highest level on the eighth day, therefore making this the safest time to circumcise a boy. Yes, when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we receive the spiritual circumcision and also receive a "new beginning." (Romans 2:29 and Deuteronomy 10:16)It was on the eighth day that a sheep was to be given to the Lord in Exodus 22:30 as a first fruit offering. Jesus is the Lamb of God that was given to the Lord for our "new beginning."It was on the eighth day that Moses called Aaron and his sons and presented a sin offering for himself and for the people. (Leviticus 9:1) This also alludes to the sacrifice of Christ and our "new beginning." There are several references to this same thing in the Old Testament.When the great flood came there were eight persons that gave the world a "new beginning." (Genesis 7:7, 13 and 2 Peter 2:5)It was on the eighth day that Jesus appeared to doubting Thomas for him to believe and thus give him a "new beginning." (John 20:26)Noel, these are just a few of the examples that describe the number eight as a "new beginning," including the horizontal eight you mentioned.I am sure that there are many more, but now it's on you and the Holy Ghost to seek them out. Remember Proverbs 25:2; "It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honor of kings to search out a matter."
-mario torres

also, we would love to hear [or read] about anything you have on your heart. leave your thoughts in the "comments" section for others to be blessed as well. thanks.

love is free.

love
–noun

1.	a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

2.	a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.

3.	sexual passion or desire.

4.	a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.

5.	(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?

6.	a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.

7.	sexual intercourse; copulation.

Love - one of the hardest words in the english language to define - in my opinion at least. dictionary [dot] com makes seven (the number of perfection huh... coincidence?) attempts on defining the word (shown above) and most fall short when compared to the Bible's.

now, i'm not much of a note-taker and most of my high school teachers can attest with the low test scores, but a few weeks ago i took more notes than i probably ever have. it was a friday night when my church's college group Bible study saw "Flame," one of the many Nooma dvd's by Rob Bell. the dvd spoke of love and the definitions the Bible gives us of the word throughout it's "sexiest" book "Song of Songs."

bold = original hebrew word.
raya: friend or companion - somebody you hang out with.
example: Thou [art] all fair, my friend, and a blemish there is not in thee (Song of Solomon 4:7).

ahava: love of the will, commitment. more profound than romantic feelings or temporary urges. ahava is making a decision to join your life to the life of another.
example: Many waters are not able to quench the love, And floods do not wash it away. If one give all the wealth of his house for love, Treading down -- they tread upon it. (Song of Solomon 8:7).

dode: to rock or fondle, physical, sexual.
example: Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth, For better [are] thy loves than wine.

after reading those definitions of love, the first thought that ran across my mind was "damn, english is a pretty simple language, why can't we have different words for love?" wouldn't life be so much simpler when it comes to expressing your true feelings for someone?

i mean, how many times has a good friend of ours looked at us weird for saying "i love you" to them? instead we could have just said "hey bro, i raya you." hah, wouldn't that make life simpler, or is it just me?

i don't know, love is a confusing thing isn't it? we lose friends, jobs, and sleep over it all the time. regardless of the hardships attributed to it, i believe love is the most important thing on this earth, and G-d calls us to love not only Him, but his creations. why? because he created them in His image. my good friend Johnfrank once said: "to deny love to a stranger is to deny G-d," and believe him to be right.

now, don't get too excited, that doesn't mean you should dode everyone... or anyone for that matter, but it does mean you should raya everyone. as "christians" (i hate this label, but thats for another blog) we should love everyone. the ones who have wronged us, hate us, deceived us, cheated on us, the list goes on and on.

G-d is love.
G-d is free.
love is free.

there is nothing more important in this world than love. if every single person on the earth loved each other we wouldn't even need "unconditional love" because no one would wrong their neighbors. think about that for a bit... no wars, no murder, no suicide, no pain...

unfortunately though, as we all know, thats not the case, and thats why i believe that as followers of Christ we are called to be the change. to start a movement that should have started generations before us. a movement of love, unconditional love that shines Christ's love through us. to end the wars, murders, suicides, and pain.

so i ask you this:
1. define love and...
2. how can us "christians" show Christ's love to non-believers?
[answer in the comments section]

love is the movement.