“Why won’t you talk to me? Why won’t you tell me what is wrong?” she asked.

Because I love you, he responded.

Why won’t you accept my apology for being scared, for being addicted to my drama, for wanting to embrace the fear that has dominated my life?

Because I love you. Because I love me.

Why won’t you help fix me, be my strength when I am weak, be my ears when I grow deaf, be my breath when I cannot breathe?

Because I love you. You are not broken, you are perfect. You are not weak, you are strong beyond measure. You are not deaf, or blind, or anything else, you simply choose to keep your ears and eyes closed. I cannot give you air when it is you who is holding your own breath. I love you enough to allow you to discover these things not through me, but through you.

Why are you so distant? Why are you being so cold?

Because I love you.

I have little interest in the tattered, rotting layers of fabric you’ve wrapped yourself in. Beneath them is the light I’ve grown to love, the song I love to hear. I love you there, and I am so close to you there that I cannot be close to you anywhere else. I accept the layers, but cannot embrace them and you at the same time. Let go of them, and see me where I am, right there next to you. Hold them tightly, and see there is no room in your embrace for anything else.

But they’re part of me.  You cannot love me without loving them, too.

Ah, but I can. Because I love you, I cannot love them.  They are not part of you; you have told yourself so many times that you and they are one that you now believe the lie. You’ve adopted them as your limbs, leaned on them as your crutch, and created an entire existence based on the stories they tell.  I tell you, that because I love you I can see the entire truth. You are not the noose you place around your neck, or the shackles you place around your ankles. You are the executioner and the jailer, but you are not the gallows nor the prison.

Why don’t you just accept me, for me, and love me for who I am?

Because I love you. Through your protests and your tantrums I have loved you. Through your delusions and your fantasies I have loved you. I can’t, and I won’t, carry the crosses you have built and decided to carry. I accept you, but cannot accept them. They are yours, and yours alone, and you choose them all. If you think it isn’t painful to watch, if you think it isn’t hard not to take them from you, you are wrong. Yet, because I love you, I am willing to simply watch you struggle so that you can choose either to cast them aside onto the ground, or continue to carry them as if they have worth.  These are your lessons to learn, and I can’t take them from you and love you at the same time.

Because I love you, I will listen to you suffer under the weight of your own devices. Because I love me I will recoil when you try to hand them to me. When you try to cover me with those rotting, tattered layers of fabric you have wrapped yourself in, the light within me will burn them away, and you will become angry. You will say horrible things, you will do horrible things. You will try to use your fear to force me to grasp, you will try to use your pain to injure me. Yet, because I love you and because I love me, it will not work. I will focus on our light, and bask in its glory.

Yes, because I love you, because I love me, I let them be as they are while remain rooted in who I choose to be. We deserve nothing less than to walk as one in the experience of our own individuality discovering our complete Oneness. Is there a greater cause for which we live?

Reposted from the original here.

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Editor: Jenna Penielle Lyons

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