Today is the day I was born 84 years ago, some time in the early morning hours. I, of course, was a joy to behold—at least that’s what my happy mother told me.
Today is also the day, my marriage partner, Dick Simeone, was born 81 years ago. He, of course, was also a joy to behold—at least that’s what his happy mother told him.
Forty-eight and forty-five years later we met, and in 1986, we made a love choice that grew into a commitment called marriage, the second such commitment for both of us, married to each other now for 36 years come November, 2022. Every night, no matter what grief or anger might still lie unresolved between us, we reach our hands under the bed covers for a squeeze as we say, “Okay, good night.” A love choice.
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When a child is born, few birthing, laboring mothers have a choice about loving this child immediately. It’s instinct. After that, love begins to lose its infant sheen and gets more and more complicated over time, depending on one’s circumstances. You all know what I mean. This post is not a plea for abortion care, but simply a plea for women, the politics of the womb, and the justice and compassion society and the law should guarantee all citizens, male and female and everything in between.
If, as the early 2nd-century Christian Bishop, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, said, “The glory of God is the human person fully alive,” then it is up to all of us human persons to help make sure that glory happens, that it is visible, honored. Every effort towards this vision involves love choices. What are love choices?
Love choices are the most difficult kinds of choices. And there are many in life. Love choices are always painful, always require aborting something or someone precious, including oneself. Doing a cost/benefit analysis may ease the emotional tension, but it is merely a mental exercise, emotionally inefficient. No one is unbroken by love choices, personal or professional. No one. Also, no one can be free without love choices. Let’s face it, love choices are hard, specially those love choices you make that you know will hurt someone else. Many women tend to make love choices that leave themselves out, or too far out, of the satisfaction circle. In truth, many men do the same. Love choices are God choices.
As I age, I have learned that love choices always include worry, just as love itself does. Worry is not about control, but simply what you feel when you love. Love choices, also always, are driven by the energy of deep caring and Love that is available to us but that we do not possess. God’s love is in Love with us—no matter what.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO US!!
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AND to recall today’s readings from Holy Scriptures, God tells Abraham and Sarai, who desperately want a child of their own for the faith, yes, and for them to love, to wait and trust. And Jesus tells his followers to wait and trust and pray and watch for Christ’s Presence even after Jesus’s death, because, there are warning signs, discord among people, and weather events we can see, and before which we are afraid and helpless. We live in a climate of grief. To wait and watch and trust is a love choice.
I tell you a story about a young man, a monastic, who recently heard a presentation about the urgency of global warming and with it, the possibility of a massive extinction event. The man walked into the winter woods, found a lone hemlock tree, dug a clearing in the snow beneath it until he could see and touch the body of the earth. He nestled against the cold dark soil and prayed as if his life depended upon it. He sobbed and sobbed, feeling grief and love and gratitude as his flesh knew the earth intimately. He laid claim to a “grief like no other.”
To grieve deeply and truly is a love choice.
