We are irrevocably screwed up as human beings, seemingly broken beyond repair, or seeming repair or full or partial repair. Refashioned, renewed, forgiven, granted mercy, we keep breaking, smashed by our own hands and the hands of others, especially those closest to our heart.
Each of us is like a precious vessel, shattered throughout life by addictions, merry-go-rounds of self-pity, pathologies, Achilles heels, betrayals, brokenness, pretensions, hypocrisies, deadly sins, weariness and more. And, yet, there is a glue that repairs the cracks: love. We are lovable, capable of love, because we are flawed.
Perfection can be quite boring. But reconciliation, forgiveness and mercy are wondrous. To be gingerly pieced back together by the loving hands and courageous patience of a spouse, partner, friend or community is joy incarnate. Joy incarnate is the lifeblood of Christmas. We screwed-up human beings are capable of unimaginable goodness and beauty. The most beautiful painting in the world pales in comparison to the capacity for love.
In "The Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola", founder of the Jesuits, there is a dialogue among the Trinitarian community whose divine heart feels the sin and endless pining of the bodies and souls made in their image and likeness. Christ, the divine mercy, is sent to smash the original sin of human beings, who keep forgetting their original blessing of being crafted in the image of their creator. This is the gift of Christmas.
We are the ultimate expression in creation of God's love. When we forgive, reconcile and show mercy beyond measure, we manifest the image and likeness in which we are wonderfully made. Love changes everything.
Faithful
In the 1972 film "Man of La Mancha" based on Cervantes' seventh-century play, "Don Quixote", Peter O'Toole plays the quixotic lead character with James Coco playing Sancho, the faithful servant. Sophia Loren plays Aldonza, a woman down on her means, who sometimes offers certain favors in order to survive and to anesthetize her pain.
Aldonza is perplexed by Sancho's devotion to Quixote, who seems mad, deranged, delusional. Yet, she is intrigued by both men. She senses something more than her drought of hope, her ambivalence, her cynicism, her dreary existence:
Aldonza: Why do you follow him?
Sancho: That's easy to explain. It's because... a... because...
Aldonza: Why?
Sancho: I like him!
I really like him.
Tear out my fingernails one by one,
I like him!
I don't have a very good reason.
Since I've been with him cuckoonuts have been,
In season!
But there's nothing I can do.
Chop me up for onion stew,
Still I'll yell to the sky.
Though I can't tell you why.
That I like him.
Aldonza: But what do you get out of it?
Sancho: What do I get? Why already I've gotten... I've gotten...
Aldonza: You've got nothing! Why do you do it?
Sancho: I like him!
I really like him.
Pluck me naked as a scalded chicken!
I like him!
Don't ask me for why or wherefore.
'Cause I don't have a single good because,
Or therefore,
You can barbecue my nose,
Make a giblet of my toes,
Make me freeze,
Make me fry,
Make me sigh,
Make me cry,
Still I'll yell to the sky.
Though I can't tell you why,
That I... like... him!
Rescues
Why do we love kith and kin, family and friends, strangers, others? Because we are made for love. A love that rescues us from self-pity, self-absorption and street corners and cull de sacs in Hell from which we thought there was no return.
Love changes everything. The sweet forgiveness and reconciliation of lovers or dear friends after fights, betrayals and endless inconsideration, is like discovering the sole sweetest tamarind tree in an orchard of many bitter fruits. One remembers the sweet tree and its fruits in the midst of dry seasons.
Love changes everything: Children caring for ageing parents; a mother forgiving a murderer who killed her child; a Roman Catholic pope who embraces the LGBT community into the body of Christ; a husband and wife, who, after decades of marriage, are more in love than when youth first stirred their attraction. In his tribute to love entitled, "Aspects of Love", Andrew Lloyd Webber reminds us:
Love, love changes everything
Hands and faces, earth and sky
Love, love changes everything
How you live and how you die
Love, love can make the summer fly
Or a night seem like a lifetime
Yes love, love changes everything
Now I tremble at your name
Nothing in the world will ever be the same
Love, love changes everything
Days are longer, words mean more
Love, love changes everything
Pain is deeper than before
Love will turn your world around
And that world will last forever
Yes love, love changes everything
Brings you glory, brings you shame
Nothing in the world will ever be the same
Off into the world we go
Planning futures, shaping years
Love (comes in) and suddenly all our wisdom disappears
Love makes fools of everyone
All the rules we made are broken
Yes love, love changes everyone
Live or perish in its flame
Love will never never let you be the same
Love will never never let you be the same.
God so loved the world... He made us in his image and likeness. This is the gift of Christmas.
o frontporchguardian@gmail.com, www.bahamapundit.com.
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