Love All Around, March 30

Wednesday, March 30

Psalm 33:22: Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you.

I’m a long way from home now–I left in August. About 712 miles, as the crow flies. A lot has changed since then. That things would be different was something I knew. Which things, though, were entirely a surprise to me. I was without my mother’s care and my father’s splendid cooking, which I missed even more than they told me I would. But it wasn’t one specific thing I really ended up missing–I missed home, as a whole. There’s so much for me back there: my family, my best friends. Even now, I write back to Abiding Hope, just as much a part of Home (capital H) as any house or school ever was. What makes a home a home is love, I’ve decided. Love and familiarity. But mostly love. And here, 712 miles away in north-central Texas, I’m building a new home.

In college, unlike high school, you don’t really have many classes with your friends, which was something I was shocked to learn. It would have to be from my own efforts that I’d make Home, and form that community Pastor Doug was always going on about back in Littleton. The anxiety was unbearable. I weaseled my way into any group I could, said yes to every plan. I kept a busy enough social schedule so that I wouldn’t have to think about the thing I dreaded most: being alone. I did an excellent job of it, too. I was terrified of the prospect of being all by myself in a foreign land, cooping myself up in my room without any friends. That was a fate I simply would not resign myself to. And I balanced it all like I was taught: I was exhausted but, thank God, I wasn’t lonely.

The curious bit about love is that you don’t realize it’s crept up on you until it’s there.

Exhaustion, however, makes itself very known. You feel it in your bones. Exhaustion is something carried, like a held breath or a backpack. Eventually, there came a time close to finals season when, as a collective, everyone engrossed themselves in their studies. Put simply, the exhaustion won. Academically, I did alright. But I was drained in a way that eight hours of sleep or a lack of homework couldn’t fix. I realized, to my own horror, that I had been idolizing other people’s love: I craved it more than I craved anything else. The fear of loneliness became worse than loneliness itself ever could be. And in a time when everyone had to put their heads down and work, there was plenty of both to go around. I was lonely, and in my soul, I was terrified that it would last forever.

I think God asked me something then, though at the time I didn’t know it. I think God asked me to trust that the people that loved me just loved me and that I would stop trying to prove myself to them so I could earn their love. So I did. When my friends would ask how I was doing, I’d tell them I was doing a bit poorly, and that I was very tired. They asked me in return how they could pray for me. I was shocked–all around me was love, and I had been so obsessed with trying to hoard it that I didn’t realize it was already there; not because I won it saying yes to people I barely knew, but because I never had to win it at all.

Shortly after the exams were over, I recall waiting on the porch of my dorm, for my ride to pick me up and take me to the airport. I was sitting at a table with some friends, and we were listening to Simon and Garfunkel. Some people were dancing. Some people were just sitting. I did a bit of both. I could almost hear God saying, I told you so, Elias. There is music on the other

side of exhaustion. Across the way from anxiety there’s dancing. One simple and elegant truth was made crystal-clear to me this year: Home is where love is, and love is everywhere.

Words have always had power to me. Sometimes, when repeated with enough conviction, I find they can ameliorate whatever I’m feeling at the time. For me, those words are “Life goes on.” It’s so tempting to see whatever problem is most immediate as the worst problem we’ve ever faced and ever will face. But life goes on, and it changes our worries into triumphs, and our triumphs into worries. Part of life going on is knowing that the problems we face get better with time. It’s dissatisfying that we can’t make time go any quicker than it does–but it does its healing work all the same. Life goes on. Try telling yourself that as a daily practice.

Elias Manutes