Five years.

It's been just over five years since my world turned upside down. For me it's hard and a little embarrassing to go back and read what I wrote of that experience. Whether the writing is obtuse or clear, it is hard to see how much it lays bare. Of that particular shift itself: I have thought of other ways of expressing it, from time to time. Expectation no longer forming my reality. Thus, loss of everything I was attached to, everything I held to. Except, at the time, God - but that slipped away, too. But loss, loneliness, and only ever always falling. I'm five years more accustomed to the sense of it.

It's coming up on five years since I declared love to be my highest priority:

The argument is this: love comes first. I don't mean sissy love from afar without getting our hands dirty. I mean gritty, real, messy, beautiful, difficult love. (I could more easily show you than tell you, but this is a blog; please forgive my words for falling short.) Doing what Christ did in coming to earth. Sitting down and caring for people with no agenda whatsoever. To be one of those people whose qualities I mentioned in an earlier post:

... approachable, accepting, slow to anger, slow to judge, quick to pardon, seeking to understand, seeking to love, seeking to do right. They create a space where the tide of fear is held back, where no secret is too dark, no failure too deep, where any uncertainty is permitted. Where our humanity can be laid bare without shame or judgment.

Five years later, looking at my own writing: it's strong, vulnerable, and true. Five years. My aim was unerring. I still seek to be that love, and could say it no better now. Love is hard. Love is easy.