inklingfair In Before Sunrise, Celine says something like, “I think I can really fall in love with someone when I know everything about him, his mannerisms, his quirks, what story he would tell in a certain situation.” For the most part, I love like Celine, and I want to be loved the way I love. In our family, Nanay and Tatay aren’t secretive, but they reveal very little of themselves, so as a child I listened and observed and treasured my discoveries – Nanay’s scrapbook of their love letters, Tatay’s notes, the very rare occasion when they would give Patty and myself a glimpse of their history, when my aunts would tell stories about them, and so on.
I love hearing stories about Patty or Ian or Nanay and Tatay from other people, because for some reason, we don’t really like talking about ourselves among ourselves. Does that make sense? We can freely talk about ourselves to friends, but not within the family. So we would piece together each others’ stories from external sources – but I don’t think I’ve ever found this strange. It was just the way we were.
I think this is part of the reason why I have my strengths in Input and Learning, and why my love language is knowledge (and the pursuit of knowledge). For me, the three greatest betrayals a person I love can commit against me are (1) withholding knowledge without reason, (2) lying without justifiable cause, and (3) feigning knowledge. On the flip side, I find that I cannot bring myself to lie or deny knowledge to people I love – I cannot stand bullshit for long, which is why I am confrontational (in a nice way, I hope most people find). I want the truth, and I want it immediately.
Which brings me to my spiritual history. I realized that everything in the playlist I created is related in one way or another to: (1) discovering there is knowledge to be gained, (2) yearning for and gaining that knowledge, (3) being ecstatic about discovering and gaining knowledge, (3) uncovering hard truths about that knowledge, (4) finding conflict between the things that I have come to learn, (5) being angry or disappointed at people whom I feel misrepresented the truth, (6) accepting that I will probably never know anything fully [agnosticism].
6 is the most comfortable position one can be in without being lazy. It is Lao-tzu’s and Socrates’ “knowing you do not know”, and if wise men like them fence-sat, I found no reason to be definite about anything. But the universe had other plans. Along came Human Nature; along came Kate, and you. Maybe you most of all, because you came straight out of left field, no foreshadowing, no warning whatsoever. You are a bad plot device, my fiction teacher would say, a deus ex machina. And perhaps you had to be, because God and I have been at a stalemate for far too long. I was safe, but there are better things to be than safe.
I told you earlier that my answer to Helen’s question was a big if. Yes, I would believe IF I knew. IF I could prove there was something or someone worth believing. Because I could not love anyone I did not know fully – it was that simple.
Yet what Helen read afterward unlatched the fence (or unhinged maybe) – Celine, love languages, knowledge, the whole mess. Never mind that I read it a dozen times before, memorized it probably one time or another, years ago. I felt like I was hearing it for the very first time.
“…to know this love that surpasses knowledge.” (Ephesians 3:19) In the Greek translation, “surpass” is “hyperballo”, which means to throw over or beyond, to transcend (related to the English word “hyperbole”). For someone like me, for whom knowledge is the pinnacle of the expression of love, it felt like someone pulled a rug out from under me. The previous verse says “I pray… that you may have the power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ.” It was as if I, a Flatlander (remember what we talked about in Eastwood that night after having dinner with Trixie and Chris?), saw height and depth and width of this incomprehensible love that is beyond even knowledge.
You remember my last song, “All I Want Is You”? It was about hope. Despite being disappointed about the church and God (or at least their representation in Flatland), I hoped that I would find something, Someone to have faith in again. Yet in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 13), he says “if I have faith that can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.” It’s love that surpasses everything else. What spoke to me the most in Paul’s letter weren’t the “love is patient, love is kind” verses – it was this: “Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.”
I don’t know what’s next, but I know that I am loved. By whom, I have yet to fully know – and fully love.
Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash
