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Love Your Enemies.

Love your enemies is a phrase I'd heard before. I thought I understood it, but when there's no one I had thought of as an enemy, it was a bit hard to grasp. This week I started to understand it a little more, and it's a hard one to grasp.

The final week of February, it was Thursday and I was trying to arrange to meet for lunch while I was in between lectures with my friend and former housemate from Derry. I didn't get a text from her until later that evening, and it was then she informed me of the trial. It was the dreaded news we'd been waiting on. It was the trial that another previous housemate would be having in regard to his assault on this girl's brother. It was to happen on Monday. She wasn't needed there, nor was I, however her brother had to appear. Because, I didn't need to be there, I shouldn't have been overly concerned, yet the weekend proved a bit trying for me to put it out of my mind. I tried to not think about it. I had some luck but it came back a couple of times.

You see, until a weekend in October, even the way we joke about "the bad guys," seemed irrelevant to me. No one had truly been a bad guy in my mind. But that Friday night, this man on trial became a bad guy. I'd never felt terror until him. I'd never seen violence in my home until him. I'd never encountered answering the door and leading the police into a belligerent man, while my heart beat triple time, until him. I'd never felt like I needed to constantly check over my shoulder from palpable fear until him.

He had terrorized our home and assaulted another person. It is not anything I would ever want to experience again. Although I removed myself from the home, I still must walk by it when I return to the University each week, and I always feel uneasiness.

Throughout Monday, I was waiting anxiously to hear from my friend and her brother. What was the outcome? What would be his punishment?

The text came in the evening—one text then another. The first text said that the trial was over and he'd been found guilty. The second one said that not only had he done these acts to our house, he'd then moved onto another and done it again.

My first reaction was anger. AGAIN? He did it again? Then bewilderment. His sentence didn't seem long enough. Then it came. The sorrow. It was unexpected, completely unexpected. I began crying. I wasn't crying because of anger or hurt. They were tears because I felt broken for him. Trust me, this is not what I wanted to feel. I wanted to be angry. I wanted to say that jail time was what I wanted. But compassion took over.

Why God, why do I feel compassion for this man? And he answered quietly, "Because I do."

This man has made many, many poor decisions that have left his life in a chaotic state. In the early days I had known him, before anything had happened, he'd shared with me about some hurt and pain he had experienced. Whether that led to these poor decisions or not, I will not know, but he carries them. Now, there's more hurt piled on him. My only job is to forgive him for his actions toward me, not to hold them over him, demanding further punishment.

I've struggled the entire week with it. Loving our enemies is hard to do, but when you can recognize who are our true enemies and also who our Heaven Father is, it is much harder to not love them. At least, this is my case. I'm not done learning this lesson yet.

Today I'm in L'Derry. I walked by the house again and I felt the uneasiness. As I walked by, the tears came too.

Work Schedule

Take a moment

From Tuesday, January 24th 2012, by Colin Harman

Crashes and Speeding Cars.

"How'd you sleep last night?"
"Meh. I had an odd dream."
"Do I want to know? No, I'll answer that myself. I don't."
"In this one..."
"I don't want to know."
"Yes. You do."
"No. I don't."
"I'm telling you anyhow."

Countless times, conversations just like this have happened between my mother and I. She's learned that when I've said I had a dream, she probably doesn't want to know it because my dreams are...bizarre to say the least.

For example:

• 1,000's Whales flying Free Willy Style over a road that my family's car was traveling.
• Being operated on while awake.
• Tidal waves that I was able to dive under and survive.
• Gunman chases.
• Being thrown from moving cars. 

Honestly, my dreams are not really on the pleasant side often. I have to be careful what I watch and read before bed sometimes.

Lately, I've been having loads of dreams that are reoccurring. Near crashes are involved. I’ve had many where a car I’m driving has nearly smashed into to the back of a truck. I had one where I was on a bicycle on a highway that had a tunnel and I crashed into the wall and caused other vehicles to also crash. And recently there was a near plane crash that the plane was going down over the ancient ruins of Israel and Petra, but landed like the Hudson river crash- all safe and sound with no injuries.

Besides the crashes, another reoccurring dream is that I’m travelling in a car at high speeds. Sometimes I’m driving; sometimes I’m a passenger in a car without a driver, and the car speeds along, weaving through traffic. Whenever I’ve tried to stop the car the brakes fail. Or if I try to turn the car onto a safer road it will just swerve back onto the road I’ve been travelling. Once or twice, once I’ve tried to turn, the car just spins around and begins going backwards but traveling the same direction I’d been going, still at high speed.

I believe that dreams have meanings. Reoccurring dreams must to some degree. Yet, I’m definitely not a dream interpreter. I have my ideas.

I’m curious. What do you think? I’m sure my mother thinks she didn’t want to know these dreams either.

Do what you feel in your heart to be right...

Thoughts by the fire

"It requires patience lighting a fire. Your think it's going to easily light, but it doesn't. Then when you given up, it catches and none of your efforts made it catch. Literal and a metaphorical lesson tonight for me"

This is the status I wrote on Facebook, Sunday February 12, after I built the fire pictured above. That night, as stated, I was learning some lessons. Even then I wanted to write this blog, but tonight after building another fire there is more to be added to my thoughts. Another lesson learned, or should be learned.

Sunday afternoon was chilly and I had some time to be at home and relax and enjoy my time, so I thought I would build a fire. We had some logs, some coal, some newspapers, but no real kindling. My housemates had tried starting a fire a couple of times in the week or two prior and the flame never really caught so they'd given up. I was determined to not have their same fate. I began fiddling with it all. The flame caught easily on the paper, but the wood was not so cooperative. All of my time for relaxing was quickly being swept away as I tried and tried to get it to light, so I basically gave up. There were some embers burning, but it seemed unlikely that it was going to go anywhere, so I sat back on the couch with my coffee and my book and let my attention go elsewhere. A crackle caught my attention again about ten minutes later. When I looked up, the logs had finally caught flame. I was so happy and I just sat watching it and wondering how in the world did it finally catch. Did it get hot enough? Was there the right amount of air getting in? Was the coal/paper/wood ratio right? Then I realized it was none of my efforts. Ok, I'd lit a match (or 15), and it began something, but it didn't really make it catch. A perfect moment, an ideal situation, an accurate ratio was not something I was able to create on my own.

Again I sat back on the couch. This time, my mind went to analogy of love being a flame. I sometimes think love should start easily, though history has proved me wrong time and time again. I can light some matches, I can stir around the flames, but sometimes nothing I do is going to effectively start a flame.

Then there is tonight's lesson. I came home from seeing a movie. It's Valentine's Day and I thought all my housemates were gone for the evening having their celebrations. Again, I wanted to settle into a night of comfort in front of the fire and enjoy the night. I worked at lighting up a fire, and it was easier this time. It actually took quickly. I ran upstairs to grab something, and about as soon as I was back downstairs, a housemate walked in. She didn't walk in alone either. No, her boyfriend who has been away at uni in England surprise her and flew home for Valentines. Our home has only two communal rooms, the kitchen and the living room and you can guess which is the more comfortable one and where the fire is located. Truthfully, I wanted to be greedy and sit in with the fire that I just built. I could have said they could join me in the living room, but hello, it's Valentine's Day- not my idea, or theirs, of a fun time. I grabbed my things and gave them the room. Sometimes a fire can easily be made, but it's not in the right time or space.

The last year and a half has been a roller coaster for me in the area of love. Shoot, the last 8 weeks have been a tornado! I'm in this battle of long burning embers of feelings lit in me and new sparks. 
I've tried and tried to build something but kindling is missing. It doesn't make it an impossibility but through my own power it won't be lighting up. Then there are fires that others have tried to start for me.  If a song could be chosen to be the soundtrack for the last 8 weeks it would be Matchmaker from Fiddler on the roof, for all the connections people have tried to create for me) Some matches seem plausible, but it doesn't seem the time or place.

I've spent a lot of time praying over this metaphorical flame and I just keep coming back to a passage in Psalms 37.

 ³ Trust in the LORD and do good;
   dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
⁴ Delight yourself in the LORD
   and he will give you the desires of your heart.
 ⁵ Commit your way to the LORD;
   trust in him and he will do this:
⁶ He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
   the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
 ⁷ Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him

This flame will light one day, and it will burn far brighter than I would have imagined.