This recent poem helped me to process the freedom intimacy brings when we offer ourselves to others fully. There are degrees of intimacy in every relationship, and God uses these experiences of human connection to bring us closer to Himself. Our faulty love is ultimately chained to His perfect love, yet so often our struggles with vulnerability, intimacy and trust come from damaged loves. Sometimes love can seem binding, or too neglectful, or elating--but whatever love we experience, it always carries a chain of commitment and memory, of self-discovery and self-knowledge, of enjoyment and the fruits of endurance. Loves chains are meant to ultimately bring freedom--what are the chains of like for you right now?
Response to A Homecoming by Wendell Barrey
all love is bondage.
chain links clanking
memories shaking their fist,
or the open palm receiving
lips pressed in a kiss.
aching souls longing only for chains
to free us
to see ourselves.
i am glimpsing love
in one (a slavery of becoming).
for freedom is indispensible
too precious to spend
so worth the savoring,
can you look to a heart
whom you would serve
without a painful regret?
oh, to be chained in love
is not loss to the longing soul—but its only life.
this is our liberty—
to be loved well
to share a life together,
the only true pleasure
a fragmented world
can offer.
so won’t you sit and sip
and eat with me
with love’s heavy chains upon us
and the freedom to stay
and never leave?
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