Loving Larger Than Fear

From Bluetruth

Until I met you, I was waiting for a woman with whom I could open completely. I wanted a woman who would not settle for less than love’s fullness, from me or from her. And if I did settle for less, I wanted a woman who would let me know.

But I have grown in my capacity to open to God, and I want to open with you, now, dear lover. I am ready for your trust. I commit to trusting the depth of your love, even though I know that sometimes you will close. Still, I trust the depth of your love. I trust your commitment to love. And I want you to trust mine.

I need your heart’s sensitive response so I can navigate our opening together with your heart’s intuition. I also need you to trust my commitment and capacity to navigate our hearts open to God. If you don’t trust my navigation, I’d rather you weren’t with me. I’d rather that you were with another man who you could genuinely trust to open you. I don’t want to suffer your mistrust—I’d rather be alone, or with a woman who inspired and trusted my capacity to lead our dance open in bliss. I want to be with a woman who trusts me enough to surrender open to God with me.

If you don’t trust my capacity to navigate us open in communion with your heart, then leave me, and find a man worthy of your trust. But if I do open you more deeply than you have opened yourself, then give yourself to me, entrust your heart to me, so I may open you and be invited beyond my own hesitancy by the depth of your love and the strength of your yearning.

If your heart’s hurt causes you to close or protect yourself, then you are no longer able to receive your man’s presence—or the divine presence for which he provides the wedge. Unentered and unclaimed, you feel empty and frustrated inside. You try to fill the hole of your yearning. You eat, work, shop, chat, and try to satisfy your craving with superficial sex or sweets. The power of your heart’s yearning becomes blocked behind shells of fear, so you settle for less than your heart’s deepest desire to give and receive love.

Your yearning is either genuinely deep or you are settling for something that can’t truly fulfill you. As long as you are willing to settle—for a good but not a great man, for a career and nice vacations, for new furniture and fancy restaurants—you will never be willing to suffer the vulnerable depth that is required for your heart to reach open to be taken by love’s divine presence.

What you settle for is determined by your fear.

You may be afraid to be without a man’s support, so you settle for the man who has loved you the deepest so far. His love may not be unwavering. His integrity may be slipshod. His commitment may be ambiguous. But he says he loves you, you love him, and you do share some moments of great beauty.

So, you settle for a mediocre relationship because you are afraid to be alone. You fill your heart’s yearning with an adequate, but not absolutely trustable, man.

As you grow beyond being dependent on a man, you may choose to settle for an independent life because you are afraid to rely on a man’s support.

You may choose to live alone, or perhaps you live your independence in a so-called “self-responsible” relationship based on “equality” with a man who gives you the space to do what you want and take care of yourself.

Such a man is safe; you know he won’t physically hurt you and he shares his feelings with you in a sensitive way. But still, you wouldn’t trust him with your total heart-surrender. You can’t give yourself to him entirely, because he doesn’t have the depth to know you fully and open you to God. He is a good partner, perhaps, for raising children and creating a comfortable household, but he rarely shocks you open to God in love’s ravishment.

He is not dangerous enough to swoon you. He is not certain enough of his own purpose to take you open in utter confidence. He is a good man, but not a great man. You are afraid of losing the security and comfort you have acquired, and so you settle for the benefits of living with a man who respects you and cooperates with your plans. You know there is more to life, your heart yearns for deeper surrender, but you will hardly even admit to yourself how badly you want to be claimed by a force stronger than yourself, taken open in love beyond your own resistance, ravished open in an ecstasy more heart-true than the comfort of your safe arrangements.

Finally, you grow beyond fearful independence. You are no longer afraid to confess that you want a man who you trust to open your heart more than yourself. Your heart yearns to be taken open by a man whose depth and integrity guide your heart open better than you can guide yourself. You realize that you are not weak; you can guide your life—financially, socially, artistically—just fine. But this kind of self-guidance at the surface of your life is not your deepest pleasure. Navigating your own heart’s openness doesn’t allow the ecstatic surrender for which your heart yearns.

As successful as you may be in your life, you long to merge with a man who can take you open beyond your shells by his deep and authentic claim, his gentle but persistent command—the dangerous demand of a man who will not settle for anything less than your total heart-giving.

He is willing to violate you open into God, to enter your resistance with a smile, to coax your heart from beyond crossed arms, to ravish you open—especially when your habits of fear and childish pout would keep you closed. He is not to be trusted to give you space, but you can trust that he will not be derailed by your resistance. His train is going straight open to where you want to go, and he embraces your refusal with the same humor and impeccable insistence with which he embraces all of life’s changes.

He takes you, relentlessly, humorously, unflinchingly, where your deep heart most yearns to open, and he does not take your resistance seriously. You want more space? You want to be left alone to sulk in moods of closure? You’ve got the wrong man. Your man can guide your heart open more surely than you can, and you know it. Your refusal is only a moment of drama; you know, sooner or later, your pleasure is to surrender to the surety of his loving command.

Eventually, you are only willing to settle for a man whose heart-opening guidance you trust more than yours. You are only willing to settle for a man to whom you can surrender, knowing that through his sure claim, divine love guides you open more deeply and consistently than you have been able to open yourself. Your loving has grown large enough to encompass worship in the form of two bodies.

Your knowledge of love is larger then a self-guided woman’s fear. You know that nothing is lost—and divine fullness is gained—by offering your superior devotional love-light to a man who offers you his superior heart-ravishment, so together you both open more fully and consistently than either of you tend to open on your own. Openness is love. This same love yearns open at everyone’s heart. Your commitment to open to God through two-bodied form prepares you to open as this love alive at the heart of all bodies.