love is a miracle

I want to tell you something, in case you’ve forgotten.  Love is a miracle.

I flew down to Texas to see a dear friend’s son get married.  My friend, Tom, and I go way back. He is one of those rock steady quiet guys.  You probably know one.  Doesn’t make a big fuss about being here, doesn’t make a big fuss about stuff going on, just walks through life solid.  I love Tom in a way I don’t love anyone else.  I’m pretty sure he loves me like that too.  We don’t make a lot of noise about it, we don’t call each other all the time, or email, or send birthday cards.  But every now and then we get to see each other, and we take right up where we left off.

Tom’s whole family was at the wedding.  Tom didn’t become such a good man in vacuum.  He had a great mom and dad, all about love and honor, and two older sisters who have always been willing to tell him the truth.  I haven’t seen any of them in 25 years.  And of course there were the kids.  I had only met Tom’s sons once, when they were very young, and never met his nieces and nephew.  Wonderful families create wonderful families.  I had the pleasure of sitting next to the two nieces and their husbands at dinner.  Adults I had never met, from a family I knew well.  It was comfortable and delightful.

I cried a lot the night of the wedding.  Cried at the joy of getting to see his family again.  Cried at the beauty of this family creating such wonderful children, now adults.  Cried about his sister, Mary Katherine, finally in school to become the minister she has always been.  Cried when his mom, a Christian woman, said about Lisa, without any hint of judgment, with only happiness in her voice, “We introduced ourselves to your partner.  She seems lovely.”  I cried because in that Texas room, far away from where I exist, surrounded by strangers and a few people who haven’t seen me in 25 years, love was lapping over me like waves.

Love transcends time and distance.  Love is invisible but warms you, fills you, changes you. Love is the only thing that can wash a foggy spirit clean.  That means love, by definition, is nothing less than a miracle.

Driving along a Texas highway the next day, headed toward the Gulf, Carrie Newcomer’s “Geodes” came on my iPod.  And I cried again.

…All these things that we call familiar,
Are just miracles clothed in the commonplace.

There was so much love in my life right then that I couldn’t hold it all, it just had to spill right out my eyes.  And I wanted to remember to tell you not to forget how huge, and how delicious, the miracle of love can be.

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