Funk and Jazz

Today I woke up in a funk. You know, the days when you feel like you've been nice for long enough and the things you tend to put up with and think, well that's just how it is, become intensely annoying and you don't feel like faking it anymore. Yep, that was today. But I got up and headed off the Starbucks with Bible and journal in tow to continue my reading of 1 Corinthians. I started reading 1 Corinthians because my pastor said it would be a good idea. It was. But today I was in 1 Corinthians 13, you know, the famous chapter about love. Needless to say, I was not in the mood. I wanted to have love and for the words Paul wrote a long time ago to sink into my soul. But my funk persisted and I couldn't get into it.

I went to church and heard a good message that was about peace and the joy of the Lord, and I asked God to give that peace and joy to me. It didn't come right away. The funk persisted through lunch and I decided to go home because I would only be a detriment to others in this state. So I came home, put on my pajamas and hopped under my comforter with Blue Like Jazz.

I've been working through Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz since about June of 2009, reading bits in spurts, trying to process through it and read it with a more critical eye than I did in high school when I thought it was extremely poignant. Truth is, it's not too much that's new, but Don Miller presents it like a real person. That's what makes it good.

Anyway, I picked it up today and read his two chapters on Love. I think they're the best in the book, especially the one about loving others. In the book, Don (I call him Don because he's a person and I think if we met, we'd be on a first name basis) talks about how discourse on love is rife with economic metaphor; we value people, we invest in people, some relationships are bankrupt. In short, we treat love like money, giving it to those we support or approve of and withholding it from those we don't like. It's funny, because I was just journaling about interfaith groups and how I feel that if I participated in one, I'd be supporting something I didn't believe in. I'd be giving my time and energy to something and thus validating it.

But love is not money.

God does not withhold love to teach lessons or to support something that falls into strict boundaries. God lavishes love on us. Knowing this, that I use love like money and that it's not ok, has freed me, just like it did for Don. I want to replace my economic metaphor with a magnet metaphor. A magnet just sits where it is placed and attracts things, because of the natural force it puts out. (Ok, I'm not a scientist, I don't really know how magnets work except on a basic level, so if this is off, just look at it metaphorically like I am.) And magnets draw things from somewhere else. Well, I want God's love to pour out of me like a force in a magnet, so people are drawn from the mire toward healing. I want the freedom to treat anyone and everyone like they're my best friend. I don't want to withhold love anymore in hopes of changing something about someone. See, it's not my responsibility to change people. God takes care of that. It's my responsibility to express love and approval, a love that brings people out of the mire toward and into healing--just like God did and is doing in me.