a Rich life

I love Rich Mullins. Absolutely adore him. Or at least the persona he left behind when he passed away in 1997. Most people don't know who he is; I tell them he wrote "Awesome God" and "Step by Step." At that point, most people who spent any of their life in the church in the eighties or nineties knows who I'm talking about.

I'm also infatuated with C.S. Lewis. He reminds me of Rich in all the best ways and I think they could have been friends.

Obviously they're both deceased and no longer available as potential husbands for me. Tragic. There's just something about the way they expressed themselves as they delighted in their Creator that is irresistible and helplessly draws my heart. They loved people. They loved creation. And they loved its Maker. They knew how to just LIVE WELL and delight in the secrets that God had revealed in their beautiful, artistic, vibrant souls.

It occurred to me this morning that I have met someone... still living! and relatively close to my age!... to whom my heart responded similarly. After heartbreak and shut-down and disappointment after tearful disappointment, it's a rare day indeed that I'm immediately drawn to anyone at all, but this guy, I was. He's "just not that into me," sadly, but it's fascinating to see what my heart is still capable of. And what it might yet have and hold, one day. Because if I find that spark in two dead people and even a live one, chances are good that there might be another.

But then you come back to the real world. That every day world. And you remember all the stories you've heard about the marriages that fail and the couples that persevere and how the magic just doesn't ever last, so you shouldn't expect it to. Heck, why bother hoping for it to begin with, so long as you can both commit to enjoy each others' company and laugh and grow old together and support each other till death do you part? Happy. Home. Protected and loved. Just living life together, because that's all anyone ever really does, right?

The promises and longings of the past hold me in a warm embrace, but glimpses of the spark always leave me unsatisfied, if only for a second.