And maybe that always comes through the love of another person who repeatedly reminds us of our belovedness to God-as Martin did for me. Maybe we only know how to love God once we’ve had the transformative encounter of God’s love. And that was to gaze at the divine with love and to sense that gaze returned. Yet somehow my 20-years-long friendship with Martin, who died in 2021, allowed me to see what I had sought all along. Ironic because in Martin I finally felt loved unconditionally and fully seen by another. Ironically, for me it was encountering at 30 a friend named Brother Martin, a 75-year-old Trappist monk, that helped me see the divine shape of my longing. I was also certain I would find that one, that love-match, the person to reflect back to me all the love I had to give, the person to prove me loveable. I wanted Jack, or Jim, or Trevor-whatever the guy’s name happened to be at that juncture-and I was quite certain of it. I remember hearing this idea as a young person (ie that God is who we truly longed for in our longings for love) and rejecting it wholesale. Not some ‘Being in the Sky’ kind of God, and not the heavenly groom in a weird bride-of-Christ sort of way, but God as in the source of all being-the divine seed we carry inside of us, the God to whom we return at our earthly end. The gaze of the divine parent the divine lover. We all desire to be seen fully by a beloved and uniquely appreciated but I’ve come to wonder if it’s always God we’re looking for. I think it’s even rare in parent-child relationships. What I’ve come to realize as I’ve aged is that it’s rare for people to have the experience of being fully seen and appreciated in romantic relationships. In fact, not only during adolescence, but during the first five decades of my life I never quite felt seen by a romantic partner. And not just any young man, but one with whom I was hopelessly infatuated. At that age, I felt I’d be incomplete until a young man validated me-usually against the soundtrack of an 80s love ballad. Listening to certain songs ( aka Journey love ballads), I recall the intense adolescent desire to be kissed, to have someone gaze at me like I am seen and loved.
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