Could You Love Without Words?

Do you know what it is to love without words?

To speak absolutely nothing and show, act, demonstrate. 

To brush the cheeks of the sick or offer to fetch a glass of water or sit and listen with intent ears.

Do you know how to be sensitive to the beating of a heart? To feel the rhythm and to know when som  ething is jus t  off  bea   t?

Can you understand what a face means? Know a person enough to distinguish between happy and sad, and – what’s more –

can you risk yourself for the sake of intimacy? Can you invest your heart wholly and completely, expecting nothing in return yet expecting to lose everything for the sake of another’s cause? Can you expect to love the little quirks about someone and allow their life to become a part of yours?

Can you appreciate the time you enjoy in the present and be willing to embrace the road’s continuation or detour in the future?

*   *   *

I have no words to describe this thing I’m putting into words. I have no explanation of the beauty, the messiness, the persistence, the prayers, the sacrifice, the discomfort, the fun, the warmth, the joy, the peace, the rawness

that goes into love.

A word is nothing if is not connected to an action.

I know this:

if our actions of love ever become diminished, we are in trouble. If we ever lose sight of the immensity and depth, the non-romantic passion, and the devoted desperation of a blind faith (one where we see everything and choose the good), we will be sorry.

We will deeply regret it.

We will say, “I love you.” And they will respond, in their hearts, “You do not.” But we will both smile, souls dead, and accept that this is reality now, and love has ambiguous meaning.

And we will run through the town despairingly, hands held out in anguish, eyes begging for a truth.

We will ask every living creature the questions that were already answered: “Why am I empty?” “Why do I still feel alone?” “Who am I?” “What is love?”

We will curse love and the notion of its existence; spit on the ground in front of any soul with glistening eyes and peaceful chest who claims to know what it is. We will become the scholars who look at an object and say, “I cannot understand the object’s existence; therefore, it does not.” And forbid anyone disagree with our doublespeak.

But He will remind us of the moment when He bowed his head, relinquished His life-healing hands to the control of chains, and walked a silent road to a hill – one initially created to reflect His face  – so that He could love us without words. He will whisper about how He took everything that threatened to confuse our perception of His character… the loneliness, fear, hatred, anger, doubt, vanity, self-loathing… and bore it on His back, in His hands, in His feet, in His side. He will point us to the  moment when He publicly declared and defined His love for all eternity.

How dare we ask if we could love without words? He has freely given us the ability to do so.

We’ve only been too foolish to accept it.