Sight to the Slain Lamb

“Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue to exist, a wonderful living side by side can grow up, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole and against a wide sky!”

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Emily and I have no pure, romantic “love-at-first-sight” story. Partly because we had generally been aware of one another for quite some time—orbiting at far ends of the same campus ministry—and partly because we were both focused on other things, on our work at that campus ministry and on our solitary & communal pursuit of Christ (not out of piety, but necessity), such that when we finally looked up and saw one another, (immediately curious more than anything) it felt as though we had walked side by side in silence for quite some time without realizing it.

So there we were, sitting on the couch in a discussion group about death, having probably our first actual conversation—and, since I had to leave early, I gave Emily my notes from the reading (in the form of a poem, of course), as payment for not finishing the conversation.

She seemed to like the poem (decidedly an unromantic poem about human futility and mortality and subsequent reliance on God’s grace as per the reading). A week later as she passed me at work, mopping the floor no doubt, she slipped me a poem of her own—decidedly even less romantic than my own, but along the same lines.

Curiosity established, pretty much nothing else happened for several months. Our friendship continued, mediated by the natural dictations of our schedules, of serendipity, and of the slow roots of curiosity growing within us. We barely exchanged any contact information, and yet little by little, our paths seemed to intersect more and more. We realized we worked in the same building and could walk together to small group (yes, the one about death) and it seemed our hearts orbited the same solitary star.

We talked about the usual things—music, poetry, mortality and the vastness of the universe. I shared with Emily my strange, angsty verses. She, in turn, taught me the word apricity which refers to the warmth of sun in winter.

Those early days were lovely, marked by curiosity—which is perhaps the gentlest of passions (for even wonder can be fierce). Emily often remarks how if we’d crossed paths even a few months sooner in her journey, I would have scared her away with my brash and often eccentric sensibilities (or lack thereof).

But here, now, it’s my turn to tell you with full conviction, that even when I did meet her, it was by Grace and Grace alone that my eyes—the lamps of my soul— were opened to the radiant light, the easy flame, confident, soft-spoken-yet-fiercely-competitive soul that is Emily. And I don’t mean soul as a disembodied spirit of Emily—I mean the embodied life, anchored between twin eternities rhyming, echoing, chorusing the voice of her Creator with every breath in her lungs—that is a vision and a wound in me that I can explain no other way beyond the blade of Grace.

To be smitten is, after all, to be struck. Even if it is a slow, curious striking.

After a few months of this gentle interest, I found myself sitting at a table with Emily, watching snow fall upon the mountains of New Mexico. And as the snow settled, so too settled a conviction in my heart, that if I didn’t at least ask her to go on a walk with me through the fading winter, that I would deeply regret that decision. And trusting that the Story would go on unhindered either way, I did the sensible thing and asked.

She agreed to walk in the snow and the rest is, of course, history. But as anyone with any history can tell you, it wasn’t always too pretty. And at times it felt more mess than romance. But where mess abounds, grace abounds all the more, (or something like that). Which is to say, when my ugliness bubbled up to the surface, Emily showed me the shores of patience upon which my ugliness crashed its waves. She showed me the rocks of courage, looking out over the bay—taking a stand against me when I was wrong. And when Emily’s fears reared their heads, the Lord steadied my hands on the reins.

And when both of us showed up, barely, with almost nothing left to give, the Lord widened the path, time after time, and showed us a way forward that wasn’t always fun and certainly wasn’t as romantic as in the movies, but had the solid footing of a path that was real.

There were times when the pressure to “succeed” grew too great and we had to remind each other that we were allowed to walk away. There is, after all, no garden worth destroying the earth for. And in that freedom, curiosity grew its roots ever deeper until I knew that my love for Emily had grown deeper than my love for our relationship—its comforts and conveniences—that I was willing to sacrifice all I had, including Emily’s presence in my life, if I knew it would bring her closer to God.

And so we have committed, not to keep our eyes locked upon each other for all eternity, but to, side-by-side, keep our eyes locked on Him who brought our paths together, in whom we live and move and have our being, and to honor and cherish each other’s line of sight to the Slain Lamb.

(the proposal poem)

shall we?

walk for quite some time

step in step with one another

as stones in a low wall

seasons waging their tide

this wake of evening’s shawl

breath’s breathing set aside

like pearled rain ‘round us falls

shall we walk with one another?

cast our hope into the water

a line onto the lake

silken lull between waves

silence before we wake

folded space between lives

this thunder’s auburn shape

shall we walk with one another?

hold the starlit soil future

two gulls upon the wind

upon its tree branch harp,

the love i won't rescind

love that’s sewn between stars

within which we are hemmed—

shall we walk now, together,

side by side, hand in hand?