Here we are. The very same table. The checkered floor. The quiet music playing. The standard cafe din. You are not the same person who sat across from me all those months ago and told me it wasn't love but you are here because, in your own life, it wasn't.
It should be raining.
Beneath the table, my hand slips to the floor to ceiling glass. It is still cool beneath my fingertips which rest as soft as whispers, barely touching, hesitant and shy. It should be raining, I think again. My thoughts, it seems, are wandering.
"I miss her and she knows it. She's outed me at church, on the boards, at work. She says she just wanted to see me, hold me a moment... but she wrecks havoc every time she touches me. She holds him -- they'll be married in two months, the date is set -- too tightly and stares at me over his shoulder."
I watch you, my eyes still and intent. You are drinking decaf chai because you're trying to prove some point to her. She ceased to be a human being some weeks ago. Now she is a force in your life, a symbol. You think she is your test. You think this will make you stronger. The thick, hot steam from my tall double hides my sleepless eyes. Make up (for the first time outside of work) disguises the rest.
If that which does not kill us makes us stronger... why am I not invincible yet?
"I'm praying so hard. I know I can reach her. She wants me to reach her. She's destroying me but I can't give in, give up. She wants me to show her, save her."
I hear every single word you say. I could even repeat them (or write them verbatim in this blog). But I will not lie to you, friend, I am not listening. I am *hearing* but that is simply not the same. Listening happens with more than just the ears.
We are a hundred miles from the ocean and four hours away from that beach, but suddenly I hear the waves. My heart is pounding, racing... my blood is roaring thunder in my ears. But then the stranger at the counter turns around, tossing full, wild curls, and I do not know her. Our gazes meet. Her eyes are green. I look back at you.
"Why would God have brought me here to this place, to this church, if not for her? How can I walk away from something He so clearly is asking of me? It would be so easier to hate her. To forget her... fine, not forget her, but still, walk away. But every Sunday comes and I find myself there again... and again and again."
The sky was deepest black and so crisp and cold and full of milky way stars like cream and diamonds. I dreamt of children running and playing and laughing. I dreamt of waking every morning alive with passion and rejoicing impassioned. I poured your coffee and couldn't meet your eyes. I don't think I ever met your eyes again.
"I write to her every single night before I sleep. Even when we work killer twenty-hour days. I just want her to know everything in my heart. She never writes back but she always returns the read receipt. That's enough for me. It... it has to be enough."
A conversation returns to me:
What are you writing?
A treatise.
A what?
Words.
About?
No idea. And you?
Painting the sky.
With?
Clouds.
Which kind?
That kind.
Nice.
They remind me of you.
I don't see the resemblance.
They're cool.
Cold?
No.
Out of reach?
They're right here.
On your canvas.
Right here.
...and I kissed you.
"She doesn't understand. I never explained enough. Discretion, respect, boundaries. Where I've been, what I've felt, why I came to her with my everything. I never explained enough. She didn't know. She can't know how I feel."
And I am staring at you. Unblinking. I am disconnected from this place, this (one-sided) conversation. I don't think I was ready. I thought I was. I thought we were variations on the same theme, you and I. Like Sister Light, Sister Dark experiencing like events. When I find my voice suddenly I think I cut you off because all at once the only thing I was hearing... the only thing I was listening to... was my own voice:
"She may have heard you but she wasn't listening. We hear with our ears but we listen with our hearts. We hear for ourselves and what we need. We listen for someone else. We learn when we hear. We love when we listen. Real listening is like touching your lover with no thought of her touching you. You are there entirely for that other person.
"This is how we know whether or not we are hearing Christ or listening to Christ. If what we hear is about us than we are hearing. If we are listening than we receiving Christ. We are receiving Him. He speaks truth, we listen. Later, we apply those truths to our lives.
"Even when we ask questions of Him, we can choose to either hear the response or listen for the response. Hearing it is like picking an option off a multiple choice list. We always knew the possible outcomes. But listening for the answer will always be unexpected. Because man cannot know the heart of God. We can't know His depth, His complexity, His possibilities.
"When we listen, we are open to anything... to everything... to all discoveries, rediscoveries, and salvations."
And you stare at me. A hundred million events flood my senses. My (unexpected) tears fall over my jaw and splash like the rain I wished for on my one clenched fist. I realize that if I had listened to the sound of the waves and the stars and your eyes, I would have understood so much more about myself. But I wasn't listening; I was only hearing.
"I'm leaving," you tell me. But you don't get up. I know you aren't talking about the cafe. "I'm letting go."
And I think, in the silence that follows, I am listening to the voice of Christ.
EJ
