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It’s an expression that is under-used, mis-used and over-used.  My experience with those three words, “I love you,” is so varied.    These days, I am most focused on how uncertain those words are to use and how cautious I am in using them.   I know part of why they are scary is that they are so ambiguous , and can mean so many things.

They can also be very revealing.

In their deepest sense, they can mean that I have opened my heart and can see the beauty of someone.   They are an expression of non-conditioned love, acceptance of someone, recognition of them as a lovable human being.    I find it much easier to talk about how I love certain individuals, and it is pretty rare that I will speak those words to them, face to face   It is a powerful experience when I have been able to exchange the expression of mutual love.   I wish I would use those words more often, but I am aware of their power.

I am also bothered by the mis-use of the expression.    For me, this can also be cases when they are over-used.    “I love you” has become so romanticized that it can be like too much icing on the cake.   I hear it used in all forms of media as a gushy expression of an unthoughtful feeling.    Sometimes it can simply mean “I want to be sexual with you.”    I think the words can be nothing but an expression of runaway feelings.    I want them to be more.

There is the throwaway expression of “Love you” which can casually mean that someone likes being connected with me.    The same expression can be used, especially  in family situations, to say that someone wants to keep me under their influence, or that they want to extract love in return.  I feel uncomfortable whenever I hear it.

I am grateful that there are a number of people that I can identify as individuals I truly love.    I’m not so agile about telling them that.    I don’t use those three words very easily.    I sometimes prefer to say “I see you,” which is a subtle way of saying ” I stand before you with open eyes and an open heart and I recognize you in all your radiant beauty.”

I know it is a lot to ask of those three words, but for now I want them to carry that message.   Some day I may figure out how to use the other three words more freely.

 

I am growing weary of watching the futility of people making promises to one another and I know that those promises are no reliable prediction of the future.  In spite of all the trust and faith put in them, the promises are little more than a statement of someone’s good intentions.    I suppose we all feel better when we think we can predict a future where things turn out just the way we expect.   I’m working on what I think is a much better way for myself.

I have come to accept that there are no guarantees that carry into the future, least of all guarantees we make to one another.   I have noticed that assurance I have given or received, no matter how good the intentions were, end up being a weak prediction of the future.   These promises assumed that the future circumstances could be adequately predicted and presumed how we would act   For me, it has been an attempt to live in an imagined time that is yet to happen.   I don’t see much stability in any of that.

All I can say or hear from someone else is to describe what is going on right now, and that can be a little fuzzy.   I can reasonably say that this is the person I am now, and these are my intentions.   I don’t think any of us can predict how we will act tomorrow.

 

It has been pretty amazing that in my old age I have actually entered a new Age of Discovery.  I have finally figured out, absorbed the ancient wisdom that the more I grasp and try to control, the more I am deterred and suffer.   I knew this in a kind of theoretical way, but experience has planted it deeply in my gut.

I learned it as I slowly let go of something I really wanted, moments I had savored and wanted to continue.   I wanted the continuance even though the reality may have only existed in my imagination.  It was a simple but lengthy process of evolving, a process I trusted even though I had never experienced its outcome.

I was hardly aware of this evolutionary process as I sat and settled into a time of clearing my mind twice a day for months.    The moments of grasping for something I so badly wanted showed up less and less frequently.   My sticky connection to the memory gradually loosened, and now I am mostly free.

Evolving is not an abrupt or obvious process for me.    I scarcely knew its beginning and doubt it will have an end.   However, I have stepped into the process with both feet, and am very unlikely to back out.   I have discovered dry land and the only direction I see is forward.  It is a process I have some skills to manage.

Each moment is beginning to be something brand new and I welcome them.   Each moment flows over me with a constant feeling of fresh newness.    The past quickly fades away, except for lingering signposts of moments that have been.   I will never recover them.   Neither can I basket the passing, joyful moments.   I know that grasping them will only cause me frustration and suffering.

This is an journey of evolution only I can take, even though there are companions that can join me for a time.   I am so grateful for my companions and welcome their walking with me.   I know this is can be confusing for them at times because none of us know where this is going. I trust the process.

I know that I am committed to evolving and savoring each new moment, then letting it go.   There is no assurance that the path will be anything but lonely and dangerous.    But I think it will turn out all right.

I am grateful that there have been so many people who have been witness to my life.   I am especially grateful for those who have simply been a clear witness to who I was, and less grateful for those who told me who I should be.   A witness does not judge.  A witness simply observes.

I can only hope that I have been as forceful a witness in the lives of those who have acknowledged me and in many ways validated whom I had become.

I want witnesses in my life, but it has been difficult for me to come to grips with the fundamental reality that I am alone.    My companions can do nothing for me, I must act on my own.   What they do for me and what I ask them to do for me diminishes my life, my presence.   What they do is theirs and not mine.   I am the sole actor in my life.    The idea of coupling can be a serious distraction from the healthy independent life I must live.

Even while I choose to act along, I do not intend that to mean that I want to be alone.   I feel a deep connection with the companions who surround me with their witnessing eyes.   I have chosen to open myself and to invite my companions with an intimacy that allows them to be witnesses.   I attempt to be transparent so that they can see me as I truly am.   I offer the same in return.  We have woven a lasting web of intimate witness.

For me, these have all been invitations to acts of love.   When my companions and I open to see one another as we truly are, this is what love is about.    Being witness to the beauty of one another as we actually are is loving one another.   While I still can get distracted by an image of what I imagine, think someone could be, I am finding it much easier to pay attention to who they actually are, right now.

I’m choosing to be an aware witness of my companions.    I also want it to become more of a habit.

 

 

From time to time, I get drawn into the thoughts of physicists who argue against free will.    Great thinkers, like Brian Greene, seem to be saying that our choices don’t have an effect because all activity in the universe is simply following a predetermined law.    And that includes us.

Not wanting to contradict the likes of Brian Greene, I am ready to concede that he and his associates may be correct.    I do have my own corollary to their argument.   I think that I do have a choice on whether I yield to what is, what is going on.   I have a choice whether I align with, decide to be part of the rhythm of the universe.

Every day, maybe every moment, I seem to have a chance to choose whether to be part of what is happening.   I think I have the option to stay within the confines of my mind’s imagined world.    I would rather be where the real action is.

I remember what it was like to go rafting with my family down the wild Rio Pacuare, a class 4 rapids in Costa Rica.   At every turn of the river, I had a new opportunity to let go, allow the river to carry me out of control, up and down, over the rocks.   In that adventure, resistance was futile.   The guide pretended to have some semblance of control.   It was wild, out of control.    I had to choose whether to cling onto fear or let go to the joy of flowing with the river.

My days are like the Pacuare River.  There is very little to hang on to, even if I want.   I often reach into the future and solve problems that have yet to come up.    I watch out for dangers.   I “solve” so many problems, fashion so many narratives that never actually occur.  This usually serves me well and gives me a template for choosing how to deal with the present when it finally arrives.   Mostly it means that I spend a lot of energy that far exceeds any problem or situation that eventually occurs.

My real choice actually occurs in the moment, and is essentially about how to yield to the flow.  Even if the outcome should be pre-determined, as the physicists seem to say, it is my choice whether to yield.   That is for me to determine.   Will I align myself or not.

The mother of a close friend has died.    It is a happening totally outside of my control and experience, nothing I can effect.   It might not even have a direct effect on me.    However, I can choose to be part of that happening, I can choose to open myself to my friend’s grieving.   I can choose to yield and align myself to her sorrow.   I can absorb, even without talking with her, some of what she is grieving by yielding to the oneness that binds us.

This is for me the choice I constantly make when I decide to align myself with the rhythms of the universe, and not resist.   It is reaching for the joy of harmony.   It is a choice I get to make, moment after moment.

 

Now I see that love has two aspects, and I’ve certainly gotten them confused in my past.   There is the enduring aspect of love.    This is the aspect that, once I open my heart, love goes on and on.   In some ways, this is the “forever” aspect of love that exists outside of time.   While it may have a beginning, it goes on and on.   It is nearly effortless once it happens.

Then there is the moment-to-moment aspect of love.    This is the aspect that does not endure.    It is lost with every fleeing moment, and must be renewed as each new moment arises.    It is the aspect of love that demands attention if it is to be sustained.    It is a glowing ember that needs repeated breaths of air if it is to endure.   It can be lost, but with effort it can be regained.   It is cradeled in the embrace of the moment, and is totally caught up in the transition of time.  It requires skill and effort.

I have relied on the enduring aspect of love to such a degree that at some point that was all that was left.

The moment-to-moment aspect of love can be very demanding, even tyrannical if it is to endure.    When I am not being fully attentive to someone that I love, the moments slip away and can never be reclaimed.   An opportunity is missed and imagination moves in.   This aspect of love is nourished by my constantly renewed attention.   It requires thousands of moments of unconditional acceptance, free of expectations.    My beloved must receive the same kind of mindful attention I give to each foot as it touches the ground.

The demands of this kind of attentive intimacy are so great, that once the focus is lost, it may require great effort to renew the focus.   Or, like any kind of mindful awareness, it can flourish in a habit of wakeful attention.

Actually, this is not unlike all moments of my life.   Any time I am inattentive, lost in my imagination, that moment has been lost.    The moment is only fully lived when I am alive to the encounter.    Moments of love can pass if I am not engaged, and a chance to create an intimate connection slips away.

 

Several weeks ago, I was slowly walking down a hall in Mechanical Engineering when I saw a poster on the wall titled, “Master of Science.”  That’s me, I thought.    It had never occurred to me in my many years after completing graduate school, that I was a Master.    Not only did I have a degree, but I was a Master of something.   Of course, I immediately thought of my identity as Master of Arts, and most recently I became a Master Gardener.   My  son thinks that “master” sounds pretentious and a little like a cult.   I’m beginning to think that he may be right.

I have had many names and have claimed assorted names on forms, all of which put me into a category, in an order that made sense to me and others.   My rank , role and place have made more sense when I had a proper identifying name.   I gave others names too that reciprocated the identifying gesture, “Doctor, Mister, Father, Friar, Brother, Mrs, Miss, Ms, Chairman, President,” and others less flattering.

There was a time when a person was known by their craft.   All of us today are named so that everyone can identify our paternal family of origin.   People have been named for places.

I gave an individual name to each of my sons within the first day of their birth.   It was to be a name that spoke to me of their essence, their future, and my hopes.    Actually, I think that they each gave me their name as I held them, and I put it into words I not only felt but could speak.    So Nathan, as he looked up at me through new eyes, expressed himself as “Nathan Bright Eyes.”    And he has now become a young man who sees the world with  glistening, perceptive eyes that see a special truth.

Sorin, on the day he was born, squirmed in my arms and clearly announced to me that he was “Logan Strong Heart.”   And he has now become a young man who shoulders his way along difficult paths with an intensity that is both strong and brave.

There was a time I put aside my youthful identity as “Charles” and decided that I would live as “Barry”.    I smiled with appreciation when Logan decided at a similar age that he will now be known as “Sorin.”   For me, it would be one of a string of identity changes I would make.    Sometimes it would simply be a rejection of identities others would want to give me, such as “husband, white, old.”   The one name I have enthusiastically embraced is “Gardener.”

Among all the names I could choose, Gardener is both my favorite and the one that speaks best who I am.   Like my sons, it is a name that has become a metaphor for my life.  It is an action name that both describes not only what I do but who I am becoming.

It  seems that it’s been important for me to belong to someone’s tribe.   I’ve have been alert to finding places where I fit in, where I felt accepted.   For the most part this has required my conforming and perhaps capitulating.   Gradually, I’ve been turning that focus around.

Over a period of years, I’ve slowly been forming my own tribe.   This is not at all an exclusive group; in fact it is rather open and airy.   I don’t feel like I’m at all in the center of this tribe, but I am finding myself in the midst of “my people.”

Who are these people?   As I look around me, they are the people I have fallen in love with.    For some of them, I think the love is reciprocal, but that hasn’t been a condition for my loving them.     For me, it has been a love freely and unconditionally given.   Some of the people around me have turned into specters, ghosts I no longer see face to face but definitely are connected to my heart and part of my tribe.

Some of these individuals have no idea that they are part of my tribe.   I have made them members without them even being aware it was happening.   It is something that can happen quite casually and with little fuss.    I may actually know very little about them, except that I am acutely aware of them and see them as lovable individuals.    That’s all it takes, and they are in.   They are connected to me, and they hardly know it.

There was a time when I longed for the very stones of the earth to speak and shout their love for me.  I immersed myself in the ache of wanting to be loved.    I didn’t know that, all along, it was I who had the power of speech, it was I who was unaware that I had the power to break the silence and acknowledge the beauty of anyone and anything I chose.   I just had to wake up and pay attention.

I once was ready, even anxious to fall into the orbit around someone else.   I never knew I had the power to shape the space around me and affect the orbits of others.    I never want to cause anyone to change their orbit to go around me, but I know I can affect movement in the cosmos in small and subtle ways.   That affects everyone I love.

No one has to do  a thing except be their beautiful self and they may become a member of my tribe.   If any of them ask me, “Do you love me?” I would without hesitation respond, “Of course.”

There can be no bartering in love, no initiation fee to enter my tribe.   Membership is freely given, not an exchange, not given in return.    It is good, pleasant and affirming when love is given in return.    An exchange is not part of the deal of being part of my tribe.

I seem to know who I am, but when I try to explain myself it seems that I can only reference something else.    In spite of seeming crystal clear of my presence and parameters , I can mostly explain myself only by pointing to something else, or to someone not actually me.  It is as if I have definition only by the relationships I have to realities distinct from me.   Or maybe I just want them to be distinct from me.

One of the first questions people seem to have is “Where do you live?”  It is one of the first things I tell them, defining for them and myself where I fit into the universe, the geographic scheme of things.   What is my place, where are I am anchored, am I anchored at all.   A lot more is signaled when I tell them that I live in Bryn Mawr, west of downtown Minneapolis. They instantly know a lot about me, and I identify myself by where I live.

One way or other people want to find out  “Are you in a relationship?”   They want to know if I am alone, dating, married, divorced, etc.   I am subtle and evasive about this, and somehow signal that “I live with my son, Sorin”   For me this is a delicate and dangerous question because so much of my past identity has been  intertwined with my close relationships.   It is not just a category for the benefit of others, but it has been a significant marker of my own sense of who I am.

I have been me only in relation to someone else, and the magnetism of that kind of defining relation can be powerful.    I have almost habitually given part of my identity over to someone else.    I might as well have their picture on my driver’s license.

Now I will not be part of a couple.   I do not want to be seen, identified as part of a couple.  I do not want to feel part of a couple.

I consider myself a Gardener, which speaks of my relationship with plants.   I am someone who attends college, which explains my relationship with a learning environment.   I am a dad, which gives an identity based on my relationship with two sons.   I am a male, which has meaning only because there are females.

The list could go on and on, as it has in my head.  It reminds me of a concept in physics that says that reality exists only in relationship.    I would like to think that does not apply to me, that I can have an identity apart from everything else.

For now, having a separate and personal identity will have to be my working hypothesis.    I want to be able to have an unattached sense of myself, and I especially want to have an identity apart from anyone around me.   However, I have a mischievous suspicion that tells me I will eventually figure out we are all actually one.

 

Today I am especially troubled that I am part of a human community that is so capable of cruelty.   I try to take great refuge in my small community of companions who struggle to be a source of compassion and human kindness.  I think of them often, turn to them for generous support, rely on them for guiding inspiration.   I also think how this small group is in turn connected to a larger group of like-minded, open-hearted people.   We have a life-link that nourishes us and penetrates the world around us.

But there are those others.

Today I am painfully aware that I have a similar life-link with those who would remove health care from 24 million of their neighbors.   I am part of the community seriously planning to take food from hungry school children.   Safe in Minneapolis, there is no ignoring that I am a beneficiary of my country’s ambition to increase its capacity for war and human destruction.   I identify with and am recognized as part of a class that secures its position of privilege by wresting privilege from lower classes.

It is discouraging that I am also companion with many who, as Claudia Schmidt once said, are  “foolish, incredibly foolish …….dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.”

I am part of an unknowing community that helps the wealthy amass even greater wealth, while blindly ignoring that this happens at their own expense.   We selfishly support the hoarding of resources by the few, in the vain hope that we too might share in the hoarding.

Even worse, we teeter on the edge,  and sometimes go over the edge of throwing one another under the bus so that we ourselves might prosper.

I take refuge in my community of humans who aspire to a life of compassion and human kindness, and shower me with the abundance of that intention.   I can never repay them with the gratitude due to the generosity they show me.   We meet somewhat quietly and hardly ever show up on the front page.   I don’t  especially like those people I meet on the front page, even though I recognize them as my own kind and still part of my community.