“Better Than Flowers“

I walked 27.3 miles to see her.

How does one properly beg forgiveness?

The road shimmered with heat and toxic sweat,

the sun beat down on me like a scalding whip, the fire

driving me onward.



I looked at my feet under an overpass.

To receive, one must first give.

Angry blisters throbbed and bubbled,

my soul lay prostrate in the face of my pain.

Yet I walked on.



I hitchhiked for the first time in my life to see her.

One must humble oneself before God.

I had walked over halfway, and my water

was gone. For twenty minutes I rode with strangers

until they left me.



I limped slowly to her door, dying.

A great sacrifice must be made.

She, an angel, tended me, cared for my wounds.

Behind her eyes lay a sadness

born of my stupidity.



I healed inside her home, upon her bed.

A lesson must be learned.

Though welcome there, I was a stranger.

She smiled, but I saw only teeth.

No desire.



I wept within myself, so she wouldn’t see.

Then, our sins are forgotten.

It rained that day, but the sun came out

for the rest of the world.

Ninety degrees out. So cold.
                                    -Me 9/11/05




Her real name was Laura.


“Sunday September 18th, 2005 (excerpt)

My appetite is slowly making its way back to ravenous after being extremely fickle these past few weeks. My cold, one I’ve had since mid-August or so and almost defeated, has been resurfacing but is starting to tone down again. One of my two lost toenails is growing back.

I still can’t sleep well. I cry nearly every night, though it is departing more and more from weeping and entering more into the realm of soft sobbing. Either way, I still have to force myself to go to everything the next day. Class. Church. Room. The times vary, but the places don’t. Though I find sanctuary in my church, though I find peace and comfort, there are times when my peer minister duties steal that away and it is in those moments I am most miserable. Thankfully I have good friends here, one in particular has adopted me as her big brother and she my little sister. She is my saving grace, and for that grace I will be ever grateful.

I feel at times selfish for unloading the burdens of my soul on her, for asking her to spend time with me. But without her, I would surely go mad in my solitude. I do hope she realizes I would do the same for her, for I know that she too has her own heavy heart to bear. Perhaps that is what makes us such good friends; we are slowly healing from the same wound. Regardless, she has my eternal thanks, and she knows exactly who she is.”



Over the next four months, I only saw Laura from afar, distant snapshots from across campus, amidst the lunchtime rush in the student union, though once I startled her once at a praise and worship thing I attended to lift my languishing spirit. While part of me was overjoyed at seeing her, most of me screamed in sadness and merely wept interiorly the whole of the evening. I could not bear to look upon her, so broken was my heart.

“Friday September 23rd, 2005

I saw Laura today for the first time since she dropped me off at my dorm on Labor Day. There I was, just about to walk into the auditorium for praise and worship, my hair back in a ponytail, my beard trimmed, shirt, tie, the works. Truthfully, I probably looked my best since… well, since prom or something. I don’t know.

Suddenly there she is, dressed simply in a blue shirt and tan pants (I think… I was looking at her face). The startled look on her face when I said, “Hello,” at once shattered and healed my heart. The poor creature looked exhausted but managed to smile and chat ever so briefly before entering and melting into the crowd. I could still see her, far across the balcony and at times, peripherally, I saw her look at me.

The longing and saddness I saw, (though I do not know for certain if it was, truly, there), was breathtaking.

Why do we torture ourselves like this? It has been made clear as to my love for her. If she wants to be with me… why does she put herself through this? I am near giving up, for good, on this cause. It is too painful.

Imagine having cancer not just because it suddenly appeared, but because you chose to have it. Not some skin tumor or something easy. I’m talking a deep, expansive, vicious cancer. Imagine choosing that for yourself. That’s what I feel like every day. The mere thought of her slows my heart from the average beat to a slow, painstaking drum… drum… drum. Communication with her has been sparse as well. Her voicemail, thus far, has not been active, nor has she answered her phone. Emails have gone unreturned, save for just moments ago when she emailed a short apology. She felt that she had been rude by being so brief and unaccomodating to me, but I understood that she had company and an apology was completely unnecessary. She also commented that I “looked very nice.”

Never have words on a computer screen looked so sweet to me. I’m not letting my hopes get too high, though, unless she outright informs me that this is all just too difficult to maintain and that she needs me back in her life.

Think that’s funny? Well, I’m full of them.”

(I had also become very cynical. And please: anyone suffering from cancer or having a dear one afflicted with it, take no offense at the cancer comment. Again, I was very, very cynical.)

I also spent a lot of time in my room. For weeks I just cried myself silently to sleep, trying to pray. If it were not for the love and tender mercies of maje_charis, literally and angel of God in this world for me at the time, I don’t know if I’d ever have healed from this. But there she was always to spend time with me, help me to soak my blistered feet in warm water and Epsom salt, and she didn’t even get terribly grossed out when eventually three of my toenails fell off (they have long since grown back as if nothing had ever happened).

The months stretched on, and I lived a very uninspired life filled with class, Church-related duties, and Xbox. Lots of Xbox. Though I had an application for the Jesuits, I had only filled out the easy stuff- name, address/phone number, etc. But I knew that to send that in now would be to do so out of desperation, as though I had no other choice. Bad, bad way to enter into religious life. So I waited, hoping that God would heal me to the point where I would be free enough to apply out of love for God and not hatred of myself.

I loathed myself. I thought I was the lowest form of life in the world, completely unworthy of anyone’s love. I was ugly. Utterly rejectable. Quasimodo, Cyrano de Bergerac and the Phantom of the Opera (sans mask) would all have tied for first in a beauty contest, leaving me not in second place, but dishonorable mention.

Then God decided enough was enough, and he was very tired of all of this moping.

One day in Church choir, the college student directing it said, “You should try out for UNI choirs next week.” I said, “Whatever! Like I’d get in!” He replied, “You should try; I’m sure you’d get into UNI Singers.”

“Sunday December 11th, 2005

Today was awesome. I cantored at church, which meant a lot of me singing with a little choir action for a few songs. It was great! I got tons of compliments, including one older guy who asked if I was a voice major. “Nope, History!” Haha.

AND

Friday I decided to go and do a UNI choral placement hearing. Basically you go sing for the two choir professors and they tell you what choir they would like you to be in. Dr. B is a big guy with a HUGE voice and seems pretty nice, goes to my church in fact, but I’ve heard he can be really intense. The other professor is Dr. L, and she is a saint. She already knows me by name and we’ve only met like twice! A pair of wings would sell her angelic nature to any nonbeliever, let me tell you. She is amazingly beautiful in every way, one of those people that walks into a room and suddenly you are really happy and have no idea why.

So anyways I do this audition thingy, thinking I’ll be asked to be in the UNI Singers, which is just the main UNI choir. Well as I’m singing “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” I see the ever-present smile on Dr. Lamartine’s face get bigger and bigger and by the time I’m done, both professors are asking me to be in their top choirs!!!!! The Chamber Singers and the Chorale group!!!! HOLY CRAP! So, assuming I can shift my classes for next semester around a little, I should be able to be in both, which would be awesome. What an honor! All my friends are super excited for me and I’m just feeling great.

Well I should get to bed soon; I promised my lovely friend “Abigail” (silght name change…) that I would come eat breakfast at church in the morning. Yum! Free food! I love church!”

That’s right: I was accepted into BOTH choirs! And one of those choirs was lead by a true angel…

Only two days after my audition, she knew me by name, which utterly amazed me considering how many students she had and how busy she was. She was very beautiful, always smiling, and just an angelic person. My heart soared when she was around; one could not help but be overjoyed in her presence. Also, she was the first beautiful anything to pierce the clouds around my heart, and I basked in that light. I adored her from the first instant I met her, and have been devoted to her as though she were a queen ever since.

Two weeks or so after choir began in January 2006, I was still looking at that application on my desk with uncertainty… was it time to fill it out? “Not yet,” I kept saying.

One day before choir began, my dear professor came up to me and said, “Jacob, I had a dream about you last night!”

Good thing I have a beard, or the redness of my face would have lit the performance center!

With her big, beautiful smile she related to me the details of her dream. At the time (as now) I had long hair and a beard. Guess who people always thought I looked like? A particular carpenter/Savior from the first century.

In her dream, she said, she kept calling me Jesus, and in her dream and even upon waking it didn’t strike her at all as an odd or unnatural thing. “I just thought I’d share that with you.”

Then she walked away smiling to open the choir room.

I couldn’t believe it! Now, I had told her upon auditioning that I was discerning entering a religious order, so I couldn’t promise that I’d be at UNI after the semester was over. She was perfectly fine with that.

But seeing Jesus in me to the point of dreaming about it? Feeling that it wasn’t weird, seeing Christ in me beyond the fact that I resemble the traditional portrayal of him? It struck me in prayer later that if this woman, whom I love and adore dearly, could see Christ in me though I couldn’t… God probably did, too. If she can believe in me… God can believe in me…

Pushing all my feelings of unworthiness and self-despising aside, I called Student Health to schedule a physical, which is part of the application. Eventually it came time to go to Milwaukee for several days of interviews and psychological exams. Then, the long wait until mid-April to see if I was accepted or not.

My greatest fear during this time was not, “Will they accept me?” Certainly I thought that; after all, the psychological exam requires a complete sexual history, and I had plenty to be ashamed of (as referred to in my post about my ex-girlfriend). But no one is perfect, and God had forgiven me, and I certainly had not been doing any of those things since (even I can learn a hard lesson). My greatest fear was, however, “What if I fall in love before I hear about being accepted?”

For though my heart was still raw and wounded there was a young lady in my life whose place in my heart was becoming very dear and tender, and old feelings were beginning to surface. She was so lovely, so sweet, such a friend, Catholic, virtuous… everything I could possibly want. She had not even had her first kiss yet, and the sister at the Church always joked, “Twenty-one and never-been-kissed! Jacob, you should kiss her!” to which the two of us would look at each other and smile, shrugging the suggestion off as, “She doesn’t know any better.”

The thought of being with her, however, soothed the ache in my chest, and I dwelt upon the possibility. But my will held me committed utterly to my applying to the Jesuits, so I made a decision that I would not consider anything but the Jesuits until I heard back from them, for the sake of having a more open heart unclouded by “what ifs.”

Then, mere days before receiving that fateful email, God granted me a great gift- a truly perfect moment of truly perfect love.

“But Beren being filled with dread, for the splendor of Menegroth and the majesty of Thingol were very great, answered.  Therefore Lúthien spoke, and said: “He is Beren son of Barahir, lord of Men, mighty foe of Morgoth, the tale of whose deeds is become a song even among the Elves.”

 

“Let Beren speak!” said Thingol. “What would you here, unhappy mortal, and for what cause have you left your own land to enter this, which is forbidden to such as you? Can you show reason why my power should not be laid on you in heavy punishment for you insolence and folly?”

 

Then Beren looking up beheld the eyes of Lúthien, and his glance went also to the face of Melian and it seemed to him that words were put into his mouth. Fear left him, and the pride of the eldest house of Men returned to him; and he said: “My fate, O King, led me hither, through perils such as few even of the Elves would dare. And here I have found what I sought not indeed, but finding I would possess for ever. For it is above all gold and silver, and beyond all jewels. Neither rock, nor steel, nor the fires of Morgoth, nor all the powers of the Elf-kingdoms, shall keep from me the treasure that I desire. For Lúthien your daughter is the fairest of all the Children of the World.”

                                                                                                                     -The Silmarillion

The evening of that September 1st I was full of peace and consolation, all the questions I had ever had about Mystery Girl and myself having been answered. I felt ready to begin working toward making a decision, and I knew that God was with me. I chatted online with a friend from high school who, amazingly, had been roommates with Mystery Girl the previous year. Since she knew the woman I loved very well, I decided to tell her about our discussion that afternoon and told her how happy I was.

“Jacob, you have to talk to her soon! She probably thinks you are going to be a priest!”

“What?! I never said that!”

“But I know Mystery Girl. She is going to assume that it what you are going to do and she’ll convince herself that everything is over. You have to talk to her!”

I woke up the next morning full of dread and despair. What was I going to do? I did not want to lose her now; I still did not know what I would decide. What if, after prayerful discernment, I felt God calling me to marriage with her? Would she still be there with a heart for me?

I knew I had to do something. Fast. I jotted down a list over my lunch hour, a “to do list” of how to save my world:

-I need to pray.

-I needed to put all my trust in God.

-I needed to talk to Mystery Girl soon.

-I needed to prove to her that I was not messing around, that I really do love her.

By the time I was done eating, I had realized the perfect way to achieve all of these lofty goals at the same time:

Pilgrimage.

Labor Day weeked began the next day, and with three days I knew that I could “easily” walk the forty-some miles to her house. It was easy- just walk down the Interstate, hang a left at exit whatever, and turn right at such-and-such road. How hard could it be?

So I got a hold of maje_charis, told her my crazy plan, and she took me to Wal-Mart to purchase provisions for my three-day adventure. I bought a loaf of bread, baby carrots, jerkey, bottled water, apples, dried mango slices, and a single rose. I also bought a cardboard poster tube to carry the rose in, so it wouldn’t be damaged.

That night I prepared myself for war. I laid out my duster (kind of a cowboy-style trenchcoat for rainy days), my cowboy hat, my hiking boots, and I loaded my backpack with all of the food, a Bible, an extra set of clothing, and a few other essentials. I also had purchased a length of rope, on the sage advice of a certain Hobbit named Samwise Gamgee, and this I had maje_charis loop up with her magical rock climbing knot skills, and I also ended up tying three bottles of water to it, since I’d run out of room in my pack. Lastly I had purchased an outdoor blanket, just in case I had to rough it.

The next morning I awoke,  showered, and geared up, putting on the armor of my resolve. Lastly I put a holy card of the Sacred Heart in my pocket, the prayer on the back being one that I would pray often on my journey. Then maje_charis came to pick me up, all the while remarking (out loud or merely with glances) that this was the craziest thing she had ever done. “What about me?” I thought. I had her drop me off just outside of town, and with a hug I was off…

The Interstate is terrifying. Huge semi trucks fly by at over seventy miles an hour only four feet to your left, some of them releasing a deafening honk as they do so. A van pulled over to offer me a ride, shaking their heads incredulously as I tried to explain why I could not accept their offer.

While walking along, I heard the sound of tires squealing. Turning around I saw a pickup truck hauling a UHaul trailer, and it was swerving out of control. I ran into the ditch just as the trailer swept over the spot I had just been walking. Eventually the driver regained control and pulled over… to check his trailer.

I’m fine, thanks.

Eventually it started to get very hot, and having already consumed half of my water supply I began looking for homes close enough to the Interstate that I could ask for water. No one seemed to be home anywhere… or weren’t answering.

I sat down on the side of a gravel road near the Interstate to eat a lunch before continuing, all the while noticing how hot my feet felt, like burning acid. Soon I crossed into the next county and, taking a rest in the shade of an overpass I checked the map I found on the side of the road. I also checked my feet…

Three of my toes were tipped in large, blue-white blisters. The soles of my feet were basically large pouches of fluid; it felt like walking on ketchup packets. Shrugging my shoulders and praying to God that I’ll be OK, I put on an extra pair of socks to help prevent more blisters from forming and kept going.

I eventually ran out of water about twenty miles into my trip. I was really getting worried; I had already begun eating apples just to wet my mouth.

Just when I was ready to call maje_charis to bail me out, a car pulled over to offer me a ride. I took it after seeing that the driver was college-aged and wearing a beanie (you know, those caps with propellers on the top?). They happened to be from UNI and headed for a concert in Cedar Rapids. They asked what I was doing and where I was going, so I told them my reasons and asked to be taken to the nearest town, Brandon, so I could get more water.

They were amazed and took me to Brandon, but as I was about to get out the driver locked the doors.

“No, this is crazy! Let me take you to her house.”

“I have to do this myself…”

“Look, I don’t want to turn on the news tonight and find out you died or something!”

After a brief argument, I compromised by letting him drop me off at the exit to her house. He did so.

And as I waved goodbye to him, I realized that I had forgotten to get more water.

So I walked down the highway toward Mystery Girl’s house, knocking at every door, hoping that someone would answer. I was dying of thirst and in excruciating pain from my feet, and no one (not even the man with volunteer firefighter everything on his truck) answered their door.

Just as I was ready to lay down and quit, I came to the last house I could see. A kind old man answered and gladly refilled my water bottles. I drank one dry immediately upon receiving it.

Filled with a new sense of determination, I pushed myself the last several miles, drawing on a source of energy I didn’t know I had. All the while, every agonizing step I said, “Walk with me Jesus… walk with me Jesus…”

Eventually I came to her yard, throwing everything I was carrying to the ground except the rose. I limped slowly to her door, ringing the doorbell and leaning on the handrails of the steps for support. When she opened the door and I saw her face, I collapsed at her feet, embracing them and mumbling, “I luh-foo.”

She and her sister hauled me into the house and put me into a chair, Mystery Girl removing my boots while her sister fetched a glass of ice water. She asked what I was doing and I told her.

“Not now,” she said, “Let’s just be glad you are here.”

It wasn’t until later, after I had gone with her to her relative’s house to help celebrate Mystery Girl’s mother’s birthday, that I was able to talk to her in detail as to why I had come.

“No. No more. I can’t do this anymore. I cried and cried the last few days and talked things over with my friend, and I am just done.”

And I was… just… crushed.

But she wouldn’t let me leave, she insisted that I stay until she could take me back to UNI on Labor Day. She refused to let me walk back in my condition (I would’ve called maje_charis first anyways). So I remained with her, all the while hoping I’d get a second chance that never came. Her family adored me, and I did what little I could to help around the farm. I went to her sister’s rodeo, too. Her mother even taught me how to run a dishwasher, since I never had one growing up.

But eventually she returned me to UNI, and on the way we discussed “us.” Though she truly wanted to remain friends, and not in that cliché way that many relationships end in, she did not feel that she could give her heart to anyone at this busy, hectic time of her life.

With at least a candle’s flame of hope left in my heart, she dropped me off at my dorm, and I basically never saw her again.

“But Beren being filled with dread, for the splendour of Menegroth and the majesty of Thingol were very great, answered Therefore Lúthien spoke, and said: “He is Beren son of Barahir, lord of Men, mighty foe of Morgoth, the tale of whose deeds is become a song even among the Elves.”
-The Silmarillion

The summer soon came to a close, having yet to reveal to me anything regarding the fate of my letter.

It was not until the middle of my first week back at UNI that I saw her. Maje_Charis and I were in front of the student union amidst a large number of people when she said, “Hey, isn’t that Mystery Girl?” My head whirled around to see what would have been Helen of Troy on horseback scant ages ago… there, riding away from me was Mystery Girl on her bike, blond hair streaming behind a face full of light and glee.

I yelled out her name and ran after her as fast as I could in sandals. She slowed and turned, her eyes lighting up as she said my name. As I caught up with her I said (really, I did say this), “I thought I’d never catch you; I may as well chase the sun!”

I promptly decided that missing my next class was not important, and I walked her home. Upon arriving she treated me to a glass of ice water and a very dry sugar cookie, with her apology for the dryness (really, she could have fed me a handful of sand and I’d have eaten it!). While she propped her feet up on a chair and put ice on her lower legs (shin splints from running), we chatted lightly and after a lovely visit decided to officially catch up on our summers in a few days.

September 1st, 2005 will forever and always be etched in my mind as a date, though the precise details of the incident are not as clear as they once were. My main recollection consists of a few words said, a few images, scents, sounds, and emotions. Especially emotions.

It began as a very plain meeting (though a moment with her was hardly plain!). She knocked at my door, and I welcomed her inside. I’d been playing with Google Earth, and she immediately took me on a world tour of the places she had visited in Poland.

When she had finished, we sat on my bed as she talked about her summer. Then I gave her a few gifts I had picked up in Milwaukee. There was nothing expensive- a book of Pope John Paul II’s poetry, a hand-woven straw cross made by an elderly Polish woman, a lovely green scarf from India, and a few other things. Then I showed her pictures I took during my time with the Jesuits, and talked about the Hispanic children I got to know.

Eventually the courage to mention the letter, having shrunk sufficiently in size to pass through the lump in my throat to my brain, yet compact enough to have something resembling resolve, moved me to speak.

“Mystery Girl… have you… have you had a chance to read the letter yet?”

Her shoulders dropped as she sighed and looked to the floor.

“No.”

I was crushed in a sense and, in another, relieved.

“Why?”

After a long pause, “I started it once… but I was too afraid of what it was going to ask at the end, so I stopped.”

More silence passed before I broke it.

“The letter is no longer important; don’t worry about it anymore. I hope that you read it some day, but let’s talk about things now.”

So I began to talk about my feelings about the summer I spent with the Jesuits. I talked about how exciting it was and how fulfilling it felt, and how it seemed like something I really could do for the rest of my life. My intention in all of this was to share this knowledge; I was very, very, very careful to use the correct language to convey this desire. I did not want her thinking I had made a decision on anything yet.

Continuing on the assumption that we were having a dialogue, finally letting to the surface what had lain beneath it for so long, I concluded my words with, “Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do? Maybe God wants me to be a priest?” Again, I was very conscious of word choice and tone, tossing the questions out there just as questions I had and questions I wanted her opinion on.

What followed was one of the most beautiful two hours of my life.
What followed was the absolutely most heart-wrenching two hours of my life.

Mystery Girl then began to cry.
But not just cry. She wept. She lamented in such a way I had never before witnessed in life or film.

The tears she shed… were I to capture all of them, I could have drowned myself, as I would later wish to. I could have brought life to a great desert, and yet still have enough to destroy it all in a flood. I could literally hear her tears pitter-pattering on my tile floor like rain.

Between heaving sobs she related to me all that I had yearned for ten long months to hear. For those hours I filled my heart with her truth, thanking God that I could finally begin discerning the road I would take, now that I knew her feelings for me. One particular detail that touched me at the time was when she looked at me, tears streaming down her face, and said, “I’ve been praying for you this whole time… it felt so selfish, but I was begging God to lead you to me… but I didn’t want to tell you… I didn’t want to get in God’s way…”

I realized at that moment how much she truly loved me, that she would put aside all of her heart’s desire for whatever it was that God willed. I embraced her and we stood together as her tears completely soaked my shirt as though I had been stabbed in the heart, all of my life pouring out.

Eventually she had nothing left in her, and I was able to look into her beautiful, green eyes. Her lashes were stuck together in little bundles by tears, and her cheeks were flushed from crying.

I remember the salty smell of the tears… I remember the scent of her hair, always like cornsilk… I remember the feel of her breath on my neck as she looked up at me (she was shorter than I)… I remember being able to feel her heartbeat in my wrists and forearms as I held her… I remember seeing the many raindrops on my floor that had fallen from such a beautiful raincloud…

As she slowly began to smile again, I felt moved to mark the occasion. We had literally reached a new beginning (I thought), with the full and complete truth revealed to each other, and now we could enter together in prayer and discernment, endeavoring with Christ to discover God’s will for our lives, be it together in a relationship that would (God-willing) be called into marriage, or be it that we sacrifice our love for each other for the sake of the Kingdom, and I become a priest.

I asked her if I could wash her feet, as a way of entering deeper into the will of God and a way of recognizing the new aspect our relationship had taken on- a loving prayer-relationship.

She consented to this, and I filled a bowl with warm water and washed her feet. It was very humbling for me… I’d never washed the feet of one I loved so much. She seemed very close to more tears, but I could not tell for sure, and throughout those moments she said not a word. When finished, we said our goodbyes and she was on her way home.

Everything seemed wonderful.

Before I continue this story in the next update, here follows the letter that Mystery Girl never read. Whether or not she has read it since, I do not know. But here it is, very slightly edited.

“Dear Mystery Girl,

Please forgive me if any part of this letter brings any form of distress upon you; it was not my intention.

It is no mystery to you what feelings I possess regarding yourself. I love you completely, unconditionally, with every aspect of my being. I know you are aware of this. Everything I have ever written you has made this clear, and I have told you in person on several occasions.

Early in February when we finished watching “City of Angels,” I said something I might end up regretting for the rest of my life. When I told you about what I felt God might have had in mind when He brought you into my life, about how perhaps you were a lesson in which I was to learn how to love everyone, I tried to say it in a way that was as clear and as careful as possible. By telling you this, I did not mean to close the door in your face, not in the least. Never would I dare do such a thing! When you reacted as you did with tears and gentle frustration I was confused and I did not understand why hearing such things would upset you so. When I held you in the darkness and felt your hand clutching my fingers, when I felt your hot tears dropping onto my arms, when I smelled your hair and your breath and the tears on your face, I loved you even more than before. (** a small portion has been removed for personal reasons. Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything steamy. **)When you left suddenly, when you were ripped away from me by duty, I loved you even more. I wanted so badly to kiss you, to show without a doubt and without words that I loved you, but I feared at the time that a kiss would be too much. I feared that you never wanted anything between us except friendship. So I stayed my lips and restrained my heart.

The next day I wondered, bewildered as to why my words could have upset you so. Then it struck me, and when that wonderful and terrible realization dawned within my mind I was at once seized by joy and horror. I wondered if you might have loved me in return, and upon hearing my words you felt that I was unable or unwilling to return that love, causing you to think that you loved too little, too late, or maybe you were afraid that loving me might mean losing me to the priesthood later. Perhaps I was wrong in this conclusion, I don’t know, but judging from what you said the following morning (** again, edited**) I felt that I was fairly accurate in my realization. When I began looking into the Jesuits, I promised God that I would look into it, look. I never felt that God was telling me to become a Jesuit, or even a priest, but it was something He wanted me to look into for a reason only He knows. I know also that He meant for you to be in my life, and though I do not quite know what He wants, I do know what my heart yearns for. I have talked to my priest and a couple of the sisters at my church about my dilemma, and they tell me that they faced similar situations in their own journeys. However, they all agree that love is something worth pursuing. God is love, and few things make God happier than a love between two people strong in faith. Even my priest told me that the world is just as much in need of good, holy, relationships as it is in need of priests. If you want to love me, have no fear of me. If I give you my heart, only you can ever give it back. I can serve God just as well and just as faithfully in love with a woman as I can alone as a priest. The vocation director of the Jesuits sent me a small book called “Challenge.” It is a guide for a daily meditation that lasts for 36 weeks in which you ask yourself different questions, examining yourself, your faith, God, and how you fit into His plan. When I first started the exercise I was pretty excited about the Jesuits for a couple reasons. Firstly, it held great appeal for me. Second, I thought at the time that my chance to have your love had come and gone. Imagine my terror the weekend before Valentine’s Day when I realized your feelings for me!

Still, I continued to pray and meditate on what God’s plan was for me, and there were times when I even tried to stop loving you, to imagine not having you in my life. I couldn’t do it, no matter how hard or how long I tried. The more I meditate on my life, the more I keep coming back to you. It took trying not to love you to realize how much I do love you. I feel God, through all these long months, has been forcing me to pursue you in the right way as He tells us in Thessalonians 4:3-5:

“This is the will of God, your holiness: that you refrain from immorality, that each of you know how to acquire a [woman] for himself in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion as do the Gentiles who do not know God.”

[Edited to protect a third party... nothing huge] In regards to my love for you, I have never prayed so hard for God’s guidance and influence for anything in my life. Back in November, when I told you how I felt about you, I was not lying. Nor was I confused. However, it was too early and I feel God has put situations and choices in my way ever since to slow me down, to force me to ask Him for help and guidance, to make sure I do this the right way. If we had entered a relationship in November, I doubt I would have been able to watch you grow more beautiful every day from afar, I would not have been able to appreciate the peace and comfort you bring me in times of distress, and I would not be able to love every rare and precious moment I spend with you. All would have been taken for granted. God has forced me to slow down and pursue you step by glorious and painful step, even coming so close as to losing you just to prove how much I love you, and how dreadful the mere thought of such an occurrence is to me.

Ever since February I have wanted to tell you that you were not too late, that I still love you, even more so than before. Each sun that dawns, each time I see you, each moment I spend with you causes that love to grow more and more. But, as you are an extremely busy person, I have not had the opportunity to tell you directly. As of late you have been carrying a great burden of responsibilities and I did not wish to force you to carry another cross. So I have waited, hoping that perhaps a spare moment could be found to discuss with you face to face how I feel about you, hoping even that the poetry I gave you for Valentine’s Day might inspire a question that would lead you to me. This letter is the failsafe in the event such a spare moment, such a spark is not found.

Mystery Girl, I have no words that could come close to describing how much I love you. I am sorry if this declaration frightens you; please believe me when I say that I do not wish to pressure you or frighten you in any way with it. I do, however, still wish to give you some insight as to my feelings, and I think that the main character of the play “Cyrano de Bergerac” knew exactly how I feel about you:

“Surely, this feeling which pervades me, so terrible and jealous, is truly love; it has all the melancholy madness of love-and yet it is not selfish! Ah! How gladly would I sacrifice my happiness for yours, even if you should never know anything about it, if it might happen sometimes that from afar I might hear the laughter of your gladness born of my self-sacrifice! Each look from you arouses new virtue, new valor in me! Are you beginning to understand now? Can you account for it? Do you feel my soul a little, as it climbs in the darkness? Oh! But truly, this night is far too beautiful, it is too sweet! I am telling you all this, you are listening to me, to me, you! It is too much! Nothing is left for me now but to die! On account of the words I say she is trembling like a leaf among leaves!”

Cyrano was a man with an abnormally long nose and was considered a very unattractive man. However, he was pure of heart and though he knew he could never win his love’s heart with his looks, he won her with his words and his soul. I know I am not the most attractive man in the world, but I swear to you that my heart knows only your name among all women, and that my eyes see more beauty in you than all the beauty in the world. I wish I were a mirror so you could see yourself as I see you, how truly beautiful you are to me. I wish I could describe the soul I see when I look at you, I wish you could feel the joy that makes my heart leap when you are near! When I think about you there are times when I weep for no apparent reason. Many nights while praying for you I cry, so strongly do I love you. My heart is near bursting with love, I feel it quivering like a dam near its breaking point, waiting for you to say but one word to release the flood of affection that has gathered there these past months.

You are the greatest inspiration I have ever had in all my life. Writing poetry and prose for a woman I have feelings for is nothing new, I have done it before. But, NEVER before have I been able to continuously pour myself through a pen and bleed onto paper so often for so long for one sole person. The inspiration you give me is never ceasing, never waning, never fading. Every moment I spend with you, every sensation I experience with you, every mention of your name is as precious as the first, and treasured as dearly as if it were the last. Again Cyrano says:

“All those, all those, all those [words] which come to me, I am going to throw you in a bunch, without arranging them in a bouquet: I love you, I am stifling, I love thee, I am mad, I can say no more, it is too much; your name is like a bell in my heart, and as I tremble all the time, the bell is continually moving and the name ringing out! I remember everything about you, for I have loved everything! I know that one day last year, the twelfth of May, when you went out in the morning, your hair was dressed in a different fashion! Your hair had been to me a shining light that just as after looking too long at the sun one sees crimson circles everywhere, so when I turned from your overwhelming blaze, my dazzled eyes see only golden clouds!”

I know you feel bad about not being able to spend very much time with me or about not having time to read my poetry. I forgive you completely. EVERY moment I am with you is precious to me, no matter how distant or fleeting.

“Why, yes; it is heavenly. We can hardly make each other out. You see the blackness of a long trailing cloak. I distinguish the whiteness of a summer gown: I am only a shadow, and you only a gleam of light! You have no idea what these moments mean to me!”

Mystery Girl you are the most amazing person I have ever met. You carry a tremendous burden and you do so with the strength of titans and the grace of angels. Every night I pray that God will continue to bless you with strength, with endurance, and grace to continue to be amazing and wonderful and I also pray that, if He wishes, these things are taken from me in any amount so that His grace might be a gift from the both of us. I would be all too happy to carry as much of your burdens as you would allow, and if the burden crushed me I would gladly be buried in the earth in hopes of feeding a beautiful flower for you to enjoy.

Of all the things I want in life right now, I want nothing more than for you to be happy. I have tried as best I can to provide happiness for you without crossing any lines you may or may not have drawn. My greatest fear is causing you pain, even the slightest pain. Mystery Girl, I love you as much as a man can possibly love a woman, and you are the final woman I ever want to fall in love with. I have fallen so hard, and I never want to get up again. There is no other woman among all the women of the earth that I want to give my life to, and I know that I could wander the universe for many lifetimes and never come across a woman as truly incredible as you.

As I come to the closing of this letter, I wish to make it known that my love for you FAR outweighs my need for you. Do you understand this? I will love you for the rest of my life, be it one moment past your reading of this letter or a million years. My heart is yours forever, even if you do not love me the same way in return. I have waited many months to ask you a daring question, and I hope that it does not bring you any pain or discomfort, but I cannot contain it much longer and I certainly could not contain it over the course of the summer. Mystery Girl, how do you feel about me? Should I love you as a friend, or do you wish me to love you as a man loves a woman? Please understand this too; that I am not asking us to be a couple right now. I can wait as long as you wish, until you are ready. I understand that you are busy, that you wish to focus on other things for the time being. I want you to know that I can wait as long as you need me to. I will wait until you graduate from UNI if you ask me to, I will wait until you finish grad school if you ask me to, and I will wait until the LAST DAY if you ask me to; any wait would be worth it but only if I know that you are waiting at the end. If I am the man you want, please, claim me. I will put myself on a shelf so high that only God and you could possibly reach it. I would turn away the heart of Aphrodite herself if I knew that I would have your love one day. Please, I must know what you wish of me. Do not fear the truth, no matter how brutal. You cannot harm me with it; only a lie could do so. My love can wait; it will not go anywhere without you. It will not lessen or diminish in any way.

Do you understand what I ask? Merely tell me what you wish of me, and it will be done. I love you so much that you could tell me that you wish for us only ever to be friends, nothing more, and I will grant you only friendship and I will love you only as is proper between friends. I would throw all my romantic hopes and dreams aside at your asking. You have only but to ask. I will not give up on you, I will not surrender unless that surrender is a gift I give you out of love. Please, I beg of you, I must know how you feel. Even if you are unsure, let me know if it is all right to remain hopeful, to continue dreaming, to continue to write you poetry, to continue to hear a symphony in your voice, to continue to see the beauty of nature in your form, to continue to smell the summer cornfields in your hair and roses upon your breath, to continue to feel silk in your skin, to imagine the taste of honey in your kiss, to so strongly love the soul I see within you. If you wish me never to feel this way again, tell me and it will be so. I will banish all these thoughts, these feelings and you will never have to fear this heart again.

Again, please forgive me if this letter brought anything unpleasant to you. I ask only for a reply of some nature in your own time so I know what life I am to live from this moment on. God bless you Mystery Girl, and I thank you with all that I have for taking a moment to consider the contents of this letter.

All that I am, “Ancient Scribe”

“What happiness to reign a lonely king,

Vext- O ye stars that shudder over me,

O earth that soundest hollow under me,

Vext with waste dreams? for saving I’d be join’d

To her that is the fairest under heaven,

I seem as nothing in the mighty world,

And cannot will my will, nor work my work

Wholly, nor make myself in mine own realm

Victor and lord. But were I join’d with her,

Then might we live together as one life,

And reigning with one will in everything

Have power on this dark land to lighten it,

And power on this dead world to make it live.”

-From “Idylls of the King”

“It is told in the Lay of Leithian that Beren passed through Doriath unhindered, and came at length to the region of the Twilight Meres, and the Fens of Sirion; and leaving Thingol’s land he climbed the hills above the Falls of Sirion, where the river plunged underground with great noise. Thence he looked westward, and through the mist and rains that lay upon those hills he saw Talath Dirnen, the Guarded Plain, stretching between Sirion and Narog; and beyond he descried afar the highlands of Taur-en-Faroth that rose above Nargothrond. And being destitute, without hope or counsel, he turned his feet thither.”        

                                                                                                                                               -The Silmarillion

As you can imagine, waiting for her to respond to the letter was excrutiating.

 

“Friday, April 01, 2005

Today I had planned to tell Mystery Girl once and for all how deeply I love her. She had promised me one hour of her time tonight but, alas, her parents are going out of town and they need her to watch her younger sister for the weekend. I’ve been anticipating this sacred hour all week and suddenly I must wait possibly another. Oh I swear I’ll go mad!

However, the bulk of what I wanted to tell her has been put in written form, a thorough, four-page letter I was going to give her. Please think me not a coward for “passing a note” but I wanted to make absolutely clear my feelings for her. I’ve had several close friends read it and they agree it does the job.

I think, therefore, that I will leave the letter in her care tonight for her to read at her own leisure. Then, when I finally have one hour of her time, we have something to discuss.

Please, I ask of of you, remember me in your prayers. I have fear of few things in life, but it is times like these that tests even the most tempered courage.

To satiate your curiosity perhaps some day I will post the contents of the letter. We’ll see how well things go first.”

 

To kill time while waiting for her to respond that she had, in fact, read the letter, I decided it would be good of me to copy all the poetry I had ever written into one journal. Much of the poetry I had written over the years existed on separate bits of paper, and there are vast quantities still in the posession of individual young women that I have written for in the past, including my ex-girlfriend from whom, I doubt, I will ever be able to borrow from…

 

But, days after giving her the letter, I did ask Mystery Girl if she had kept anything I had written her. Here is the entry about that (along with a poem from the same entry):

 

“Monday, April 04, 2005

 

The Pursuit (for Mystery girl)

I run barefoot through tall grasses,

Going to check the trap I set with

My heart as bait.

Still there my heart lies, beating

Softly in the cold night.

What an elusive creature I hunt!

I follow your footprints leading

Away then back, away then back,

Then they simply cease.

Did you sprout wings and fly away?

I stop and listen to the wind, hearing it

Whisper the way to you.

Smiling, I take my heart and chase a

Cloud to where you are.

I pause at the edge of a clearing, the

Place where the sun sleeps at night.

Yes, only in a place of such beauty would

A creature such as you make its home.

I find you sleeping soundly without the

Slightest idea I was hunting you.

Quietly, I place my heart near you and

Depart, for in the end it was not I

That captured you, but you that

Captured me.

 

 

 

Just a quick note:

I went to Mystery Girl and asked if, perchance, she had saved all the poetry I have given her over the past several months.

She has. Every. Single. One.

I now have in my possession a folder near BURSTING with notes and poetry I have given her. Soon begins the glorious and laborious task of copying every precious word into my poetry journal. I hope I have room…

The poems she has read are in the side pockets. Those she has not yet read are loose in the center. Here is what is most touching, however: some of the poems in the center are those that she has pulled out to re-read.

When she told me this I wanted to LEAP so happy was I at hearing that. Oh Mystery Girl, when you finish reading that letter you’ll know what I’ve been trying to tell you for these past months. You’ll know without a doubt.”

 

I was ELATED! What a beautiful testament of her love for my work (and love for me, though at the time I hardly dared to see it this way). So while I slowly copied each and every poem into my journal I continued waiting and waiting, and though it moved slowly the world certainly didn’t stop on my account.

 

“Monday, April 11, 2005

So this past Thursday I was at my church, watching the Pope’s funeral. I was up the entire night, not a moment of sleep. I arrived back at my dorm a little after 8am Friday morning to find Mystery Girl working at the front desk. I saw her through the window and all I could say was good morning. That’s all that came to me. Then I went to my room, wrote her the following poem, came back down, gave it to her and chatted for a moment, then went back upstairs.

 

For you, oh sun

For you everlong have I waited

Through all the night kept quiet vigil

In hope, in strong but humble hope

Of seeing you rise this morn.

My quiet prayer was answered, and

Upon my pilgrim journey you shone

Brilliantly, heavenly

Oh God, how this shread of Thy Divine

Creation causes me to weep! A deluge

Born of eyes so blessed to view a

Beauty wrought in Thy spirit, bottled

In a cask finely crafted by Thy

Loving hand!

In the face of this angel,

Sun, resplendant flare, blossom, starburst

Flame, epiphany

Oh, what great words, what unsung song

Comes to my tongue, so divinely moved?

“Good morning.”

 

Things seemed to be going very well, and as the two-week mark approached, I finally worked up the courage to ask Mystery Girl if she had read the letter yet. She said that she had not, and expressed her feelings that she felt unworthy to be loved by any man. I was shocked; one might as well hear the Sun’s confession that no one should gaze upon it for its ugliness! My blog response:

 

“Wednesday, April 13, 2005

How do you convince a woman that she deserves to be loved by a good man? Even if that man is not me, how do I convince her of that? Mystery Girl has not finished reading my letter because she feels that she is not good enough for anyone. I used to feel that way about myself, but I rose above it. If God loved me enough to hand His only son to the wolves (so to speak) surely I have enough worth to be loved by someone else. And I know she feels the same way as far as theology is concerned, and yet she feels like she does not deserve the love of a good man. I hope that I can, if nothing else, convince her that she DOES deserve to be loved otherwise I don’t know what will come of this whole endeavor.

    How strange, to think that going into this I felt that it was I that was not deserving of her. Yet I hoped, and prayed, and tried to earn her, tried to convince her that I wasn’t just some schmuck with a crush. I don’t think it is possible to deserve anything so wonderful as being truly loved by another person. I think it is something that is earned and then given. I hope I can earn her, and then be given her. If not, well, we’ll see. Don’t worry Xanga; you’ll know when I do. Take care all.

 

 

Wednesday, April 13, 2005

A brief entry:

I was conversing online with my sister this evening and she was lucky enough to experience what few do: to see me create a poetic work out of thin air. Yep. She watched it happen. Here’s a bit of our conversation over my current predicament with Mystery Girl:

Sister: love makes people act stupid

Me: Then I am foolish

Me: and without care

Me: but for the love I have for her

Me: dumb to the world

Me: a jester in the court of ages

Me: not caring that all are laughing

Me: so long as one is smiling

Have a good day everyone.”

 

So I kicked up the poetry campaign, trying to write poetry to specifically address this issue. My attempts:

 

“Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Just wrote this. Sorry the blog is shortish but I am very tired. Just got back from Wyoming. I’ll try and update for real later today. Nighty night!

I do not sleep so much as I wait

For why bother employing the senses when

There is nothing more that I wish to hear

To see, to taste, to smell, to touch

Than you?

I go willingly into my daily hibernation

My sense deprivation

Hoping God blesses me with but a

Moment’s dream

A glimpse of your face, your hair

Shimmering golden in the wind

Or perchance I see nothing but the

Black canvas of sleep, yet

The melody of your voice

Floats in the darkness there.

Greater yet is my hope that one night

A blessed angel will rest in my mind

Composing a dream in which I see

Not a fleshy trinket of your body

Nor a musical note of your voice

Nor the pleasant perfume of voice, of hair

Nor the soft touch or warmth of your hand

Nor even the imagined taste of your kiss,

For compared to the beauty of your soul,

This true dream of which I crave,

All other qualities you possess vanish,

Nightmares by comparison

For only in my mortal memory will these

Mentioned things find an immortal place.

Your soul, beloved,

Shines on despite the erosion of time.

This dream of which I pray for every night

The one I long so to see within my mind

Is what I love about you, more than any

Nerve you might entice, any sense you

Might arouse with your earthly presence,

Your look, your way

‘tis only light reflected from your

Glory carved in flesh but

Oh! Your truest beauty shines with

Its own light and does not need a

Star, a torch, a candle, a spark to

Light my way through this world of

Dust, echoes, shadows, and cold.

 

 

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

 

If the sun knew its own brightness,

Would it shine brighter?

If a flower knew its own scent,

Would it smell sweeter?

If a pear knew its own flavor,

Would it taste yet more divine?

If a violin knew its own voice,

Would it sing more lovely than before?

Oh if only you knew, without doubt,

Your own beauty!

Would you become more beautiful?

If you saw yourself through my eyes

You would stand before a glimpse of heaven.

If you could inhale your breathe through my nostrils,

You could run the length of time without stopping.

If you could imagine your kiss on my tongue,

No fruit, honey, candy, or drink would have any favor with you.

If you could hear your voice in my ears,

Even the most beautiful music would be as silence.

All these, all this, all things of which I have

Spoken, I receive in but a moment of your

Presence, of a distance being an inch or a mile.

I need not touch beauty

to know beauty,

I need not eyes to see it

For what need has a heart of eyes to see

What it already knows to be truth?”

 

As the school year came closer to its end, each moment she entered into my day became more beautiful and precious. I did not fear losing her, but simply the thought of three months apart from her was like receiving a letter from Atmosphere Limited saying that they were cutting off my air supply for the summer. Here is a poem written about one of these precious moments, when I knocked on her door and she opened it, revealing not only herself but also the golden sunset pouring in through her open window.

 

“Thursday, April 21, 2005

The clouds broke for a moment

Your golden light spilled over me like

Holy water

Curing me of all despair

Washing away all doubt in

The tides of your beauty.

I had not realized how

Cold I had been until I was

Standing warm in the radiance of your

Sight. To think that upon me you

Looked! Of all things the sun could see,

The things your fair, virescent eyes

Would choose to gaze upon, of all things

Created by God you looked upon

Me! For that short cluster of heartbeats, one

Tick of heaven’s timeless clock, the

Rain stopped and there before me stood

you, the rainbow I shall ever pursue,

Chase ’til you’re in space, and I must

Fly to reach you.”

 

Alas, the summer came, and soon enough we were exchanging our goodbyes and sharing our last embrace. I would not see her until the fall, on the other side of my six weeks experience with the Jesuits in Milwaukee.

 

“Friday, May 13, 2005

Well I’m home, have been for a week now. Things have been relaxing for the most part, playing Xbox with my brothers, hanging out, etc. Week after next I start working for a few weeks, and then on June 16th I fly up to Milwaukee and I won’t be back until August 1st. I was accepted into a six week program put on by the Jesuits up there as a kind of vocation exploration experience. I know I haven’t said anything, but since January I have been mildly exploring the religious life. The more involved I get in my church and the more I pray that more I wonder if it is something I could do. Don’t freak out thinking I am a priest, or that I will be a priest; nothing is final. I’m just looking into it, like when you do job shadowing in high school.

   As far as the saga of Mystery Girl, I’ve been staying in touch with her via email and her summer is going well so far. I might even get to see her sometime soon, which would be truly wonderful.

   Well that’s it for my update I suppose. I’ll try and check in again soon.”

 

On the first of every month that summer I emailed Mystery Girl, asking very simply if she’d yet read the letter. She never replied.

 

The first half of my experience in Milwaukee was haunted by this, and I realized by early July that I needed to forget about her for a few weeks if I was going to be faithful in my promise to God that I would devote my whole heart to investigating my vocation. After doing a little “blood-letting” in a poetry sense, I prayed and then set aside my worries for the remainder of the six weeks. Here is the poem I wrote:

 

7/3/05 (recorded in journal on 7/6)

 

My memories of you are like dried roses,

brittle but everlasting remnants of a flourishing

moment of beauty

now devoid of taste, of scent,

but still come color remains in the petals,

though no longer do they feel like your lips when

pressed to mine.

Ah to grasp my memories as I wish to grasp

you!

Embrace you, crush you gently within my

arms…

Alas, the memory would be crushed

reduced to dust,

so I refrain and view you from afar

across the rift of time.

 

The next day I found a new energy and freedom in the work I was doing as a student teacher in a high school summer camp/summer school program, as well as teaching around twenty-five 3-6 year olds in a church summer camp in a poor Hispanic neighborhood on the south side. The last half of my experience was wonderful, and I felt my vocation to the Jesuits swell within me.

 

We ended the experience with a silent weekend retreat at Loyola University in Chicago. It was my first silent retreat.

 

During it I was lying on my bed, listening to “O Holy Night” to take my mind off of the brutal summer heat, and I just said, “Jesus” over and over again in my head as a prayer, begging him to help me know the will of God.

 

In the darkness of my closed eyes I saw what seemed to me to be a crown of thorns, and my heart began to race as the sensations described in earlier posts coursed through my whole being. When the experienced ceased I sat up on my bed, trembling in excitement and fright, firmly believing this to be an experience Jesuit’s refer to as “The Call of Christ the King.”

 

I dwelled upon that experience more, and realized, too, that the crown of thorns could also mean something else.

 

Sacrifice.

 

“Then the spell of silence fell from Beren, and he called to her, crying Tinuviel; and the woods echoed the name. Then she halted in wonder, and fled no more, and Beren came to her. But as she looked on him, doom fell upon her, and she loved him; yet she slipped from his arms and vanished from his sight even as the day was breaking. Then Beren lay upon the ground in a swoon, as one slain at once by bliss and grief; and he fell into a sleep as it were into an abyss of shadow, and waking he was cold as stone, and his heart barren and forsaken. And wandering in mind he groped as one that is stricken with sudden blindness, and seeks with hands to grasp the vanished light. Thus he began the payment of anguish for the fate that was laid on him; and in his fate Lúthien was caught, and being immortal she shared in his mortality, and being free received his chain; and her anguish was greater than any other of the Eldalie has known.”

-”The Silmarillion”

Mystery Girl and I had been wanting to watch a movie together for some time. Finally, on February 5th, 2005, I stumbled across her in the cafeteria, and asked if she had the evening free. She said yes and we planned to watch a movie that night.

She came to my room later and we watched “City of Angels.” She sat in my comfy, fold-out camping chair complete with armrests and a footrest while I sat on my bed. She is a person who expresses honestly the emotion she is feeling, so it was not long before parts of the movie were causing her to cry.

One of the many aspects of Mystery Girl that I had fallen in love with very quickly was her tears. Though I never set out to make her cry (it did on occasion happen though…), I was in a few instances honored to be present when the crystalline jewels appeared upon her face. I cannot express how my heart was moved by each one, they were so beautiful and she always cried so beautifully, as if her heart were a star and during these instances, and these only, the veil of her flesh was drawn apart and the star exposed for me to see clearly.

By the end of the movie she was sobbing (the ending is beautiful but sad) and I had no idea what to do to help. I gave her a box of tissues but you may as well have tried catching a waterfall in a bucket. Scrambling for some way to cheer her up, I thought quickly for something, anything in my life that brought me joy.

So I shared with her my excitement and joy after having read a book called “The Fifth Week.” It is a short book that talks about the Jesuits, relating tales of Jesuit saints, the basics of Ignatian Spirituality and formation, and other things about the Society of Jesus. I also connected that with my previous experiences of God (mentioned in the previous post) and I shared my thoughts on the idea that, perhaps, God was calling me to the priesthood.

Much to my dismay, she began to weep even more than before. Being what many would refer to as a “complete and total idiot” I thought to myself, “Wow, this movie really upset her…”

Completely out of ideas, I embraced her lightly, resting my chin on her shoulder. Still to this very moment I can remember the feeling of her hot tears dripping onto my forearm, the sound of her sobbing in my ears, the scent of the tear’s salt mixed with the scent of her hair (like cornsilk). The sound of my heart pounding is also quite memorable.

Eventually she seemed to calm down, and because many of my female friends have told me that I have a gift for it, I offered to give her a shoulder rub. I thought to myself that perhaps such a thing would calm her down; she was seemingly to the point of complete hysterics and I was on the verge of panic! She accepted, and so I began.

Afterwards she offered me a shoulder rub. I was caught by surprise; very rarely did anyone offer to reciprocate. So I accepted, and she asked me to lie face-down on my bed (which was simply two mattresses piled on the floor- surprisingly cozy!)

While she worked all of the many kinks out of my back and shoulders, I was mentally swimming in joy. “Oh God!” I thought, “Thank you so much for my dear friend, Mystery Girl! Thank you for calling us into this beautiful and chaste friendship, and thank you for this beautiful and perfect time together!”

I was so grateful, you see, because (as mentioned in the last post) I had surrendered to God my feelings of love for her, contenting myself with friendship. I did not tell her this, mind you.

After she had finished, Mystery Girl began running her fingers gently through my hair (which was long then; past my shoulders… actually it is about that length again now), which was very soothing and I thought, “Lord, thank you for this… it reminds me of when I was little and my mother would do this whenever I was very sick.” Then something beautiful and peculiar happened.

Mystery Girl slowly ran her finger over the outer edge of my left ear. My head was turned, and I could see her face when she did this. There was such a look of love on her face, but also a sense of bittersweetness, and at the time I thought surely she was experiencing the same gratitude to God as I, that we could be dear friends like this forever. So I filed this moment away as, “lovely” and thought nothing more of it.

Soon her pager went off and, after brief goodbyes, goodnights and hugs she was out the door to begin her 10pm rounds of the building. I brushed my teeth and went to bed with a warm heart overflowing with contentment.

The next morning as I showered, however, something changed radically.

As I shampooed my hair I replayed the events of the past evening: the movie, the tears, the shoulder rub, the hair thing and the ear thing. Time and time again my attention snagged upon the moment when I shared my thoughts about a possible vocation and how it seemed to make her cry harder…
… then this connected with the ear thing as well as the look upon her face…
…and then my brain worked for perhaps the first time in twenty-four hours.

She loves me.

I slopped a handful of conditioner onto my head, spread it around, combed it in, rinsed it out, turned off the shower, dried off and ran to my room in record time. Throwing off something decent enough to wear to Mass, I flew down the stairwell and stood nervously in front of her door. I knocked and she answered, wearing a long-sleeved shirt and coveralls. She smiled at seeing me, but her eyes betrayed the fact that she was as terrified as I was at that moment. Mystery Girl invited me into her room, crawling up into her loft and burying herself in her comforter, only her face peering out to look at me as I stood on her ladder.

I began to speak to her, beginning with, “I know why you were crying after the movie last night…”

When I had finished, she said not to worry about it, that she didn’t want to interfere with whatever God was trying to do with me. I told her that I loved her, that I have loved her this whole time, but I was afraid of interfering with this other man in her life. She said that there was nothing going on with him, that he wanted to be with her but never acted upon it, and she has given up on him for good. She said, though, that she doesn’t want to just keep dating men until she finds one she likes; she only wants to date a man that she thought she could marry. Hearing this caused my heart to swell with hope, and I related that I only wanted to date a woman I thought I could marry. I swore to her right then that I love her and that I would keep loving her until she asked me not to, and that I would keep writing her poetry as often as it came to me. I also told her, though, that I had promised God that I would look into the Jesuits further and with my whole heart until he revealed his will for me, and that I wanted her help and prayers on this journey because I could not do it alone. She promised she’d do what she could and with that I had to leave for church, lest I be late for Mass.

So began my poetry crusade. At the very least once a week, oftentimes once every couple of days, sometimes several in a single day, I would compose a piece of poetry, slipping it under her door whenever I had a moment. Day or night, class or not words came to me, and my heart filled more and more until it overflowed with love for her. On occasion I would dream about her, and the dreams were so vivid, so pure and so beautiful that I would awake in tears upon finding out they were not real. I spent as much time as a could with her, helping her with what I was able, but I also was in close contact with the Jesuit vocations director, and I attended a couple of discernment events and continued reading books about the Jesuits.

As the middle of March approached, I began to realize that the school year would be winding down very quickly, and there were things we had not been able to talk about regarding my feelings for her and the sense of vocation slowly growing within me. I had come to a point in both things where I must choose one or the other; I had come to a crossroads. One choice would lead me to a lifetime with the woman I had longed for my entire life. The other would lead me on the road to Jesuit priesthood. Surprisingly, the road to priesthood was much clearer to me, for whenever there was something I needed to know, the knowledge was readily available. But, there was one element of the road to Mystery Girl that remained, truly, a mystery- what were her feelings toward me? I knew that she loved me, but did she feel the same way about me as I did her? It was something I had to know before I could make a choice; it was the “x” in the equation that I had to know before I could solve the riddle of my future. Were I to work out a solution with such a crucial element shrouded in fog, how could I be confident of my choice? Choosing between two goods is never easy, and such was the case in this instance.

I therefore begged her to promise me one hour of her time between then and April 1st, that we might talk about a few things. She promised that she would let me know when she had an hour available.

In the meantime, I began to work on my backup plan- a masterpiece of a letter that explained to her everything I wanted her to know. If she was unable to provide an hour of her time before April 1st, the letter would have to suffice.

April 1st came quickly, and before I knew it I was placing that fated message in her beautiful hand…