You're so vain. . .

. .You probably think this post is about you. But it’s not. It is, as most things on this blog, about me.

“All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.

Of course this is excellent sense. Don’t put your goods in a leaky vessel. Don’t spend too much on a house you may be turned out of. And there is no man alive who responds more naturally than I to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as ‘Careful! This might lead you to suffering.’

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases him less. And who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground–because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend–if it comes to that, would you choose a dog–in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates. Eros, lawless Eros, preferring the Beloved to happiness, is more like Love himself than this.

. . .We follow One who wept over Jerusalem and at the grave of Lazarus, and, loving all, yet had one disciple whom, in a special sense, he ‘loved.’ St. Paul has a higher authority with us than St. Augustine–St. Paul who shows no sign that he would not have suffered like a man, and no feeling that he ought not so to have suffered, if Epaphroditus had died (Phil. II, 27).

Even if it were granted that insurances against heartbreak were our highest wisdom, does God Himself offer them? Apparently not. Christ comes at last to say, ‘Why hast thou forsaken me?’

There is no escape along the lines St. Augustine suggests. Nor along any other lines. 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 of your selfishness. But in that casket–safe, dark, motionless, airlessit will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”
~C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

So it seems that a lot of the people I am close to in Mission Year are undergoing some sort of tragedy. Ruth, who I work with at the foot clinic, just found out the man she thought she’d marry has a new girlfriend. She’s crushed.

Emily, one of my roommates, is dealing with a lot of stuff in her own life.

Kristi, another one of my roommates, is just a bit discouraged lately (which we were told last night is normal).

Noel, one of my roommates, found out today that her old roommate’s boyfriend (a friend of hers as well) was killed in a car accident last night. She found out this morning, and we have spent the day doing what we can to encourage her, booking her an airline ticket and taking her to the San Francisco airport.

So if I sound sad, that’s probably why. Up until today, I was incredibly burdened by the fact that I have no personal space, no alone time and nothing that belongs to me alone. I can’t even take a shower or use the computer without feeling guilty. I pretty much reached my breaking point last night after everyone went to bed, and I just didn’t know how much I could take.

But something good has come out of Noel’s tragedy, and her pain has really brought us together as a group. It has become clear that we really ARE a team, and that no one else in my life can really understand what’s going on here except them.

It has also become clear that I will emerge from this year a little more battered and bruised than when I started. But at least I’ll be able to think of myself as battle-scarred.