Hidden River Events

Self Actualized Loving

Has any­one ever asked you:  “How did you know that your sweet­heart was really ‘the one’?”   I have asked this ques­tion a lot, and here is the best answer I’ve ever received:  “I didn’t rec­og­nize him.  He rec­og­nized me.”  This response made me pause to think, and here’s what I am begin­ning to understand.

We often enter into a rela­tion­ship with a check­list of qual­i­ties we think our Beloved must pos­sess:  Is she smart, attrac­tive, funny?  Is he kind, hon­est, inter­est­ing, capa­ble of mak­ing a com­mit­ment, etc.? I do not intend to sug­gest that any of these qual­i­ties are unim­por­tant.  I sim­ply wish to sug­gest that the approach, the empha­sis, is some­what mis­guided.  When we know we have met a Beloved part­ner, I am begin­ning to think we real­ize this because of the way our part­ner enables us to dis­cover ourselves.

I resisted this empha­sis on self-discovery at first because it sounds rather nar­cis­sis­tic to me and, as a card car­ry­ing mem­ber of the “Me” gen­er­a­tion, I worry  that life has been, more often than it prob­a­bly should be, “all-about-me.”  But as I have pon­dered my friend’s response, I’ve begun to see things dif­fer­ently.  When a Beloved rec­og­nizes me, this is what I think s/he is doing:  S/he is hold­ing up a mir­ror to me, invit­ing me to look deeply at/within myself.  What I see in this mir­ror is often­times a chal­lenge, e.g. the ways I am impa­tient, or the ways I can cut another off in a con­ver­sa­tion, antic­i­pat­ing a response instead of really lis­ten­ing.  The mir­ror reveals my flaws, to be sure.   Yet, because it is a mir­ror, it does not judge, it sim­ply reflects; it shows things as they are.  Thus, the infor­ma­tion can be chal­leng­ing, even painful–but not demeaning–when it comes from a mir­ror.  Like­wise, the mir­ror shows me my beauty, shows me latent qual­i­ties that are present but have never been able to emerge in quite the way they seem to be emerg­ing when I am in the pres­ence of my Beloved.  The expe­ri­ence of gaz­ing into this mir­ror is intense.…and liberating.

There is a scrip­tural text that reads:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (I Corinthi­ans 12:13)

I am begin­ning to under­stand this text in ref­er­ence to what it feels like to stand in the pres­ence of an earthly Beloved.  In his/her pres­ence, I see myself more clearly than I have ever seen myself before.  The gaze I expe­ri­ence is not judg­ing.  It is purely descrip­tive, and what I do in response to this gaze is purely up to me.

When the mir­ror reflects a deep beauty I may have never seen before, may have for­got­ten, or may only have been able pre­vi­ously to rec­og­nize par­tially, I feel awe, inspi­ra­tion, grat­i­tude.  This makes me want to be what I see, to become, more and more, my “best self.”  When the mir­ror reflects a flaw, an incon­sis­tency, an absence, I can choose to ignore it and look away or I can take a deep breath and say to myself:  “Per­haps it’s time to take a deeper look at this and address it.”  Because it’s a mir­ror, it’s not reflect­ing this Truth about me with any manip­u­la­tive desire to change me or to make me feel guilty.  It’s sim­ply revealing.

When two indi­vid­u­als dis­cover each other and bring to a rela­tion­ship a degree of con­fi­dence and self actu­al­iza­tion and, most impor­tantly, com­pas­sion, the mir­ror they pro­vide for the Beloved is clean and clear.  They are able to stand eye-t0-eye with each other, enabling the Beloved to know him/herself as s/he is being known.  This is grace.  This is free­dom. We are inspired to become more than we ever imag­ined our­selves to be capa­ble of becom­ing.  This respect­ful and com­pas­sion­ate gaze of the Beloved, the gaze that truly sees us, and the process of becom­ing more and more ourselves–more fully human–in response to this gaze, is per­haps the clear­est earthly man­i­fes­ta­tion of what it means to be loved by God.

I, for one, have longed for God to be more than an idea of Love.  Here’s what I wrote recently in my journal:

“I long to have a few friends, even a lover, who will see all of me, and accept me, just as I am.  If not, I think the God I have spent my life trust­ing may turn out only to have been an idea.  I hope this doesn’t end up being true, for I can’t help but believe that God has arms that hold, a mouth that speaks ten­der words of love, and eyes that gaze, lov­ingly though some­times with sad­ness, at the truth of who I am.” (March 3, 2011)

Here is my hope for any­one who is read­ing this today:  may you stand before your Beloved, sim­ply gaz­ing upon him/her with respect and eyes of com­pas­sion, know­ing that when you do this, you are enabling your Beloved to grow more fully into his/her own being, trust­ing that s/he is doing the same for you.  When you do this, you can love and be loved in free­dom.  No longer do you need to main­tain a check­list of qual­i­ties you desire; no longer do you need to keep track of who does more or less to make the rela­tion­ship work.  In response to the lov­ing gaze of the Beloved, we are sim­ply inspired to love in return and, here at this heart of deep lov­ing, true romance begins.  Uncon­di­tional love gives birth to desire.  We long, both of us equally, to love and to give to the Beloved.  What begins in a recog­ni­tion of self con­cludes in an over-flowing abun­dance of self-giving; it ends in delight.

Stay tuned for upcom­ing blogs on com­pas­sion and respect and delight.  Have a great day!

March 13, 2011 (11:20 a.m.)

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• Testimonials

  When Mon­ica and I set out to find the “per­fect” wed­ding des­ti­na­tion, we con­sid­ered all of the things most impor­tant to us: a place we could bring our fam­i­lies and friends together for an entire week­end, relaxed yet clas­sic, open­ing and warm, and deeply con­nected to the out­doors. In Hid­den River we found all of these things and more.

  We love Hid­den River and the NC moun­tains and really felt that every­thing about our wed­ding reflected who we are as indi­vid­u­als, and now as a mar­ried cou­ple! What a spec­tac­u­lar event. We can only hope that other engaged cou­ples have the luck that we had in find­ing the per­fect venue and pas­sion­ate and kind peo­ple to work with for their wedding.

  Thank you, thank you for the most per­fect, most beau­ti­ful wed­ding ever! I really mean it! Our friends and fam­ily are still talk­ing about how won­der­ful it was.

  We want to thank you for the won­der­ful job you did with all the event prepa­ra­tions for our family’s wed­ding. Love that car­riage ride!

  Last night was the wed­ding the both of us dreamed of. Not only the loca­tion, but the cer­e­mony itself was amazing.

  Thanks for fol­low­ing your dreams in Hid­den River and mak­ing the place avail­able for us to enjoy dur­ing a spe­cial time in our family’s life.

  Jeanne, thank you so much for the won­der­ful cer­e­mony at our wed­ding. You made our day so much more spe­cial than even we could have imagined.

  Every­thing was per­fect, and I’m so glad we got to work with you and your staff over the past few months. We really appre­ci­ate every­thing you did to make our wed­ding perfect.

  When we found your site at Hid­den River and read your phi­los­o­phy of mar­riage and com­mit­ment, we knew we’d found “the place.”

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