Hallelujah!!

Manan asked me a question today...
For those who do not know of Manan-
He is someone who knows me.
How he knows I do not know.
He is someone who understands me.
How he does I do not know.
He is someone who guesses at my truth.
How he does that I do not know.

I don't question it.
I accept it.
For what it is.

He is a regular reader of the blog and has a sense of what my writing is like- so much so that if I were to write somewhere else, I think he would be able to tell if the words were mine :)

Anyway-

So Manan asked me today, if I could go back in time to my 17 year old self what I would say to her. I pondered over that one for a moment... and concluded that I would say nothing. In fact I would probably pass her by and not even smile. Because if I did, if I made even one small change, I might alter the course of my own history, "the butterfly effect" and then I would not be where I am today. I would not change one thing about my past or where I am today. If I spoke to that 17 year old, I would deprive her of LIFE. I would deprive her of her experience of it. Deprive her of this most beautiful of all gifts- LIFE...

Experiencing it
Feeling it
Living it

He said that is what he guessed at, but wanted to be sure if I still felt the same way. Given the stark honesty of my last post (yes I deleted it!) (but I guess a reader here or there caught it!!! :S)Given the state I was in when I wrote that, he wondered if I still felt the same? If, perhaps, there was some regret.... But there is none. It is what it is. And life is still a wonderful thing. Incidentally Manan thinks he is the same way.

Manan asked what makes us different? People like He and I.... And I said it is the fact that we FEEL. More than half the human race does not feel. They refuse to. They mask their pain, so they never FEEL pain. They hide behind the fear of pain so they do not love and then they don't FEEL love. They lie to themselves when they are faced with envy, jealousy, anger, lust- they deny it....they hide from it so they never FEEL any of it, merely a shadow of it. Like Plato's analogy of the cave... they are content with watching the shadows on the wall and believing it to be true reality.

I was reminded of IQ today. He would understand what I mean. Incidentally I really miss IQ. I have not seen or spoken to him in a long, long time. A meeting is in order. A meeting of the intellect and minds that resonate on the same wavelength and can muse over the mysteries of existence.

So Hallelujah always shakes me-

It is sheer poetry and each lyric speaks volumes
Coded over and over
To be interpreted
In a zillion different ways

...I heard there was a secret chord, that David played and it pleased the lord...

Who knows what little action, what little acceptance, what humble thank you reaches the heavens, who knows what makes those beloved by God, the beloved of God..who knows...why he always stands by some? He always stands by me- I know this. I live this everyday of my life. That is why HE is MY GOD.

...but you don't really care for music do ya...

And shall you deny, favors, blessing, love, HIM and all that HE gives. Shall you throw away all that is given to you? The love, the challenges, the blessing? So Manan- this is why I would not change one thing, not one thing- There has never been one grief, one trial one tribulation has ever come my way that HE did not give me strength and courage and grace to face.

...it goes like this, the 4th the 5th the minor fall and the major lift...

technically referring to the chords and scales, "the minor fall and the major lift" speak to my poet's mind as the small challenges (the minor fall) that turn one into gold (the major lift), solid gold (the strength and courage, experience and wisdom that result). To turn to gold the ore must first face the furnace... Burn and melt and loose form and shape and then be reborn, impurities cleansed.

...your faith was strong but you needed proof...

How many times do we test those we love? How many times are we tested by those we love... how many times do they push us- push us that one small atoms weight too far... until all is lost, and they don't see what they break. And how many times does HE test us to bring us back to HIM...And how many time do we test HIM in our grief and pain and deny HIS KNOWLEDGE...

...and from your lips she drew the hallelujah...

And how many times do we give the utmost love, the divine love to a human? I believe that my God is a jealous God... He gives me a capacity to love. But I only know how to love COMPLETELY. And that completeness of love is the right only of HIM. So time and again I am brought to my knees and shown the might of the Lord. From my broken hearted lips is drawn a hallelujah. Rumi once said from the eyes of broken hearted lovers is God seen...

...love is not a victory march, it's a cold and a broken hallelujah...

So to those arrogant lovers who think they know HOW to love. Love is not about winning. Being the one in power, control, in the right. Love is not about being the one to leave. It is about surrender... about surrender of the most dignified and helpless kind. Where ego and pride are checked at the door. Where your being is broken to bits to create the space that is needed so that your love can expand and encompass and encase all of you... it's a broken hallelujah... it's a cold hallelujah because when you are there, you are seldom there with your love... you are there alone because it is rare to find one who can love that way too....


Hallelujah
Hallelujah

*Addendum

...you saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you...

When captivated by love, what will you not do? The mightiest are brought down to their knees by the whispered gentleness of a lovers beguile. We know that down that path can lie nothing but a destruction of the self and yet, powerless, we are willing to give it all, lose it all.... all for the fleeting brief moments in the lovers arms, moments that are worth eternities...

...and she tied you to her kitchen chair, and she broke your throne and she cut your hair and from your lips...

Betrayed by love! Robbed by the very being for whom you would have given it all away-willingly, happily, had they but asked it of you... if only they knew... and therein lies the irony- they did not ask it, they did not know it, they did not believe: in you, in love, they did not even LOVE
And so you lost it all, gave it all, and all for nothing...
And you would do so again, over and over, in a heartbeat because that is what it means to truly love, whether the love is reciprocated is of no consequence- the greatest love is unconditional and with no condition comes the absolute negation and decimation of the self... and that is how from the lips is heard the hallelujah! The surprise that indeed, we also can love like that, yet we never knew it... hallelujah! we see our own demise at the hands of our love who holds our broken heart and yet we still love... hallelujah...