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‘You live in a sea of love,’ so went the words I whispered to Ben on the night before he left for the university. I wanted to give him what I want, what I need, naming the only thing that truly fills the heart with joy: to know, to feel, to live in awareness of an ocean of love surrounding your whole being so that there is nowhere to fall that the waters will not hold you.
I did not
lie to him, though some might suggest I indulged in a fantasy. It’s undeniable:
The things we fear can and will happen to us and those we love; hurts and wounds
are unavoidable and there are those who don’t give a wink that we bleed or that
the knife that cut us was in their hand. And sometimes, we ourselves are the
assailant.
But when I
think of Ben stepping deeper into the complexity of that world (and remembering
how naïve, lost and unprepared I was at his age), I find comfort and hope in the
sea of love surrounding him—the love of his parents, his brother and Dixie, my
wife; also, the professors, tutors, helpers and strangers who, perhaps without even
knowing it, will become bearers (sacraments!) of the Love who alone satisfies
the human heart.
And I think
of myself, believing, trusting, knowing by experience that the love I whispered
in his ear in the darkness of a Saturday evening is not my private possession
but the Love and Light of the One who was from the beginning, the One who labors
in all that is good and true, the Love who flows like a river amid our aches
and pains, wants and needs, hopes and ambitions, successes and failures, carrying
us out of isolation toward one, great sea of Love.
‘Father, may
they all be one,’ Jesus once prayed, ‘as you and I are one.’ It’s a dream, God’s
dream for the world and every last one of us. We are a long way from it. But the
dream already comes true, like in the unmistakable joy of whispering words of the
love you need into another heart.
David L.
Miller
