The Hunger of First Love

It’s very easy to sit here, collected and hopeful, and talk of a time when I was unsettled and forlorn, but i’m’a tell ya, I don’t know anybody who can throw a more spirited pity party than me. (It’s funny, I’m thinking of the woman at the party in BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY(s) who stands in front of the mirror and watches herself cry.) While I was in it, so few things felt better than a nice good wallow. “No one here can love or understand me…” And when I was able to reach out, placing myself in the company of loving friends, it almost fueled the fire of my malaise because when you talk about it out loud it’s comical and silly and easily dismissible but "galdernit I’m not done sinkin’ my butt in to it yet so leave me to it !" It’s times like these when the Pentecostals like to pull out this old chestnut: “Press in to God.” It’s different than the Benedictine’s Ora and Labora (prayer and work), which just tells us to keep our head down and maintain The Rhythm and eventually we’ll snap out of it. It’s, instead, an almost substitutive therapy in a way. It’s like when you hear a fantastic new song, or you read a novel from an new author that sounds like a diary from your own heart, and you thoroughly and tirelessly run through that artist’s entire catalogue, finding new inspiration and new treats; it’s a hunger of “first love” that Revelation 2 talks about. It’s one of the reasons I’ve always prayed each day to find new ways to fall in love with my husband all over again (which isn’t hard to do if you know him). It’s turning back, not away, seeing the mundane but with fresh eyes. "Yeah, yeah", it’s easy to say, "yeah, yeah, I get it, but my FEELZ !" and go back in to the cycle of wallowing. I fully support it. But throwing on some moving piece of audio and letting it transport us from this world to the next? Priceless. Illuminating. Refreshing. Soul-stirring. Life giving. Shaking one’s self out of the doldrums can really be as easy as the transition through the rain storm at the beginning of Beethoven's 6th 'Pastoral' straight through to the other side when the sun shines through the clouds and all is breathless and terribly gay again. #LentUnEdited (Symphony here: https://youtu.be/dbfa86bTD34)