Humans are wonderful creatures. We have the ability to communicate with words, that which is in our hearts. Every other creature has the ability to portray emotions, moods, intent, pain, joy, attraction, devotion, with body language and sound alone. Humanity was given the nuance of language, and with it, the ability to express lie as well as truth. We can be, and not be, in one breath. We can allow our emotional utterances out before the real feeling is articulated, replacing the subtle emotions of our grief, sadness or betrayal, with a loud outburst of anger.
It is also possible to form one’s own dialect, assigning new meaning to old words based on how we have come to understand them. And in that context, truth gets lost. Buried. Obliterated. Instead of reality expressed, there is, in its place, a filtered, even diseased rendition of truth that supercedes the standard.
I think western culture has done this with love. Something so simple, reduced to a system, labelled and intertwined with hierarchy to the point that identity once carefully designed is now lost. We have assumed that two becoming one is a process of melding to inter submissive mush (but with a distinctive roles in tact), when rather it should be the declaration of something that already exists.
I have had, in my past, already, a love void of natural flow due to an overflowing wastebasket of structural expectations for a working relationship based on religiously interpreted biblical hierarchy. There was space for a singularly directional submission, but no safe place to be vulnerable and heal for either party. Love that should have been given a place to be kind and gentle, and unselfish, was squelched by the need for the right one to lead. Nothing kills love faster than an external template that ignores innate design. Ask any child with an artistic personality raised by a firstborn, whose life and breath is in a schedule and a specific method. It will lack flow, and the child will feel the role of a square peg in a round hole in short order. Marriage is no different. You get two humans together and instead of encouraging them to nurture what attracted them to each other in the first place, you tell them what the balance of power template looks like, and you have a breeding ground for bitterness and resentment. The individual surrenders too much to the relationship, and instead of taking charge of their own well being, it becomes the stewardship of the other party. Any discomfort resulting from the strained relationship is labelled necessary refinement. It is then stated that if both parties are submitted to Christ properly, this system is flawless.
The difficulty is that one’s ability to submit to Christ gets very wrapped up in the desires of the other spouse. Surrender to truth and enlightenment becomes a casualty of a peaceful marriage. If two oxen are harnessed to a cart at the same time, both having been fed and watered, and are led into the field, and one ox falls into a hole, injuring a leg, the cart will no longer pull even, no matter if the stronger oxen is still in fine form. If the wounded creature is still forced to carry the load, the farmer has on his hands a very lame ox. It will need rest and attention. Putting them together would be to create an unequal yolk. Two humans properly in surrender to Christ, but with differing wound history and healing patterns can become just as out of step as two oxen, but if one believes proper submission is to never make the other uncomfortable, or that one innately stronger should require rest while the other shoulders the load for a time is shameful because of how the ideal is supposed to look, the relationship is doomed from the get go.
Loving properly is to create a secure place for the past wounds to heal, no matter who they belong to. Love is patient, kind, gentle, other focussed, peaceful, gracious. It does rejoice in the uncovering of truth. In fact, love peels back deception until truth is revealed, and it is long suffering, for it stays in the room the entire time. It does not shrink back, and it does not care if it is the masculine or feminine energy in the process. We function well in a couple, not because one is stronger than another, but because our strengths are balancing. We are part of one another’s refinement, not because our criticism points out our rough places, but because we choose to see more clearly the beauty in the other than they are capable of seeing in their dark moments. I am not as I have been, because the light has overpowered the darkness, and I am able to be seen. I am also confident in the transition because love, seeing clearly, has given me security in an identity flailing in my wounds. I am reminded that I am not the sum total of what has been broken, but rather, I existed before, and can heal to the point of no longer bowing to the encumbrance of my negative experiences. The truth is in the design, not the misuse of an object. Why should it be different with a human?
The most beautiful lover is the one who chooses to see you in your element and encourages the chasing of the dream. Suggestions to change might come up, but only as encouragement to growth. When your behaviour ceases to be a reflection of your character, they ask you if you are alright. When you cry, you are reminded that you are loved in all your moods. Your thoughts matter. Your response to them matters. Even when the discussion moves into uncomfortable territory, it is very clear that the emotion that surfaces is not the fault of the one asking questions, but there is ownership of what is already there. My pain is mine. His is his. We are welcome to walk through the room it is in and be there a while, but neither of us are responsible for the cleanup in the other’s chamber. Being asked to help is different. And there is not much work to be done to dust of a mirror so the reflection is accurate and recount the ways beauty is seen in that person. But if the one we love will heal and take us along on the journey, it will be because love made them safe in the process.
You have always been beautiful, says Love, it is my desire that you learn the truth of this, and not be abandoned in the process.
This understanding seems to make the question of “spiritual leadership” a moot point. If one is loved properly, this is not a question of, “will he structure your home life in a way that pleases God?” It is a question of whether or not he chooses to see you and your children, and incidently, anyone else who walks through your lives, accurately as the Maker designed them, and treat them accordingly, himself included. Or, will he choose to crush the spirit of those around him based on his misunderstood innate authority. How can I be unequally yolked with someone who views the earth, that is the Lord’s, and everything in it, as something to be cared for, cherished, seen, beautiful, of value. How can someone whose desire for me is that I shine like the noonday sun in the place made for me be an unsafe person to trust?
Spiritual leadership, is a state of being, not a series of responsibilities fulfilled. Its only template is love. Its only desire is the full revelation of those around them coming to fruition. It cannot be self seeking, for the nature of it looks to the advantageous creative healing of others. It creates joy, celebration, life. The most accurate picture we are given is in the Trinity… A constant flow of love moving between individual parts who are, at the core, one. Who is more equipped to lead than one who realizes love is the stewardship of beings whose oneness with them is the outpouring of innate identity, not external agreement.
Spiritual leadership, in any context; marriage, parenting, friendship, flock care, business management, is all the same. It cleans off the mirror and shows an accurate reflection of that individual to them, however broken they may be, and helps them find a way to visibly display who they are. I also put it to you, that all leadership is spiritual, for it is Love in action. It’s too bad it has been redefined by our western culture as, at best, stewardship of power and ability to give direction. The system seems to make hypocrites of us all… we have been reduced to playing a role.
I would rather be myself. Thank you Love, for making it possible. I am allowing my self to be loved properly, and I have stopped arguing with the mirror on a daily basis. If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I choose not only to look, but to see. Let Love be the lens of interpretation through which the words are measured, and the people are seen. In such light, no truth is lost.