Love Will Keep Us Together

...and the busy boyfriend

I’m writing this on a Sunday, so it’s a bit of an amen.

Hope you’re finding some humor in the everyday as you push towards the most wonderful time of the year.

Yesterday, John had the blessing of playing in Handel’s Messiah with the Southland Symphony and I had the absolute blessing of watching. To say that this 281 year old musical masterpiece is amazing is an understatement.

Whether classical is your thing or not, one can’t help but sit in awe of a man who was born in 1685, and passionately composed more than forty opere serie over a period of more than thirty years. Since the late 1960s, interest in Handel's music has grown. The musicologist Winton Dean wrote that "Handel was not only a great composer, “he was a dramatic genius of the first order." His music was admired by Classical-era composers, especially Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven.

“Handel composed Messiah in just 24 days without getting much sleep and or eating much food. While writing the ‘Hallelujah’ chorus Handel’s servant discovered him with tears in his eyes, and he exclaimed, “I did think I did see all Heaven before me, and the great God Himself seated on His throne, with His company of Angels.”

Perhaps delirious or not, George Friedrich Händel was a passionate man. He never married and was known to be very generous man. Unlike other composers of his time he lived a long life and passed at the age of 74, dividing his assets among his servants, a niece, several charities and the Foundling Hospital.

So back to the title. My very first boyfriend was very passionate too. He was 16 and loved sports. He loved them so much that he played every sport possible. I really liked him, in that Firefly-Lane-Kate-kind-of-way. I was there for him and for the relationship but it kept occurring to me that he really didn’t have time for me. The kind of time where he was making up for lost time planning something to keep me in the loop of the relationship.

You know when you really like or love someone and you find yourself enmeshed in thousands of sheets of musical notes, feather pen in hand, digs looking like a candlelit dungeon of crumpled up trash, servants unable to find you in the mess, determined to keep going? That was more like my boyfriend.

Thinking Handel was smart. He had no time for a girlfriend and most girls probably knew that right away…

Isn’t that just life at times?

I have come to a new place where I am setting myself free. I have gone back to 16, standing on the curb of my family home, boyfriend leaning on his mom’s car, all my willpower intact. (No, I’m not leaving John. lol.)

I begin to tell this Handel character (that I’m somewhat dating) “you are just too busy for me and this feels very pointless.” His face downcast, football jersey, pants and cleats still on, he just says, “okay.” Then an afterthought, “you can come to all my games?”

? You can show up and watch me live my life ? what?

I was doing that and it wasn’t very fulfilling after awhile. Guess I knew more at 16.

It hurt my heart to do this but as I watched Messiah, marveled at the passion of this composer, I wondered where my courage went? Where my own sense of passion went? There are moments in classical music where you travel to outer space. It’s long. It’s a process.

BOOM. I remembered this high school moment and thought to myself this is exactly how life should be.

We can’t be in one-sided relationships. Of any kind. We certainly can’t serve them until there’s nothing left of us. That’s a no win. Nor can we take the blame when they fail. And it doesn’t matter what your “title” is in life. Wife, husband, mother, father, nana, papa, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, girlfriend, boyfriend, friend, etc.

You are still a person first. A person of value.

So., with love in our hearts, we are free to live without worry that we are not doing right by anyone that sticks us at the bottom of their list. Not with mal intent, but just because life is too busy and often more complicated for them. They need to sort that out. Not us.

For those that we love and care for, we are here, but we need to get busy serving relationships that are equally as passionate about us.

My old boyfriend never found his way back to me. Handel spent ungodly hours alone and everybody got it. The one thing I get… is that relationships of all kinds are work and all parties have to want them.

I’ve often wondered why the greatest relationships are those that don’t bind us. Friends from long ago, picking right back up where they started, time and time again. There’s some kind of safe, secret ingredient to them. Grace that we don’t give to those that are closest to us.

Love will find it’s way back though and it will keep us together.

Push forward gently… you’re human. And keep God near your heart, soul and mind.

Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1Thessalonians 5:11

I think this should be a family song. Not just for lovers :) Enjoy!