"The world moves for love"

"The world moves for love. It kneels before it in awe." - The Village

The world does move for love--the world steps aside for love, and falls silent, and fades away, unpowerful as a baby. The "world" that I mean is the struggle of every day. I mean the longings and lonely wistful thoughts, the temptations and fears and cravings and petty selfishness, all the things that whisper, moment by moment, "There is no God. And if there is, you can't trust Him. He's a devil. He'll rip your heart out." I mean the way your hands tighten on the steering wheel right before that dangerous left turn, and the indifference to your baby sister's plea for help with the dishes. I mean the way you feel when you see someone else happy, and your life seems all messed up, confused, like a tangled skein of yarn. I mean that awful cold place in the pit of your stomach and at the base of your spine and in the core of your heart, where you don't believe that anybody, anybody knows or cares.

What I mean by "love" in this instance is that fountain in the Christian soul that won't stop chuckling and spilling over, no matter how many times you come, dead-dry and desperate, stretching out for water. It's the certainty, deeper than your stomach or spine or heart, that someone both knows and cares--knows everything, and still cares with a vast and splendid caring. It's the voice that keeps telling you, with the babble of laughing water, "There is God. And He's good. He'll rip your heart out, your stone heart, and give you a real one." I mean the way you feel ten years old again, so bright and young and carefree and songful. I mean the calm that carries you through many a difficult, hot, dusty, exasperating moment. I mean the secret knowing that whatever the desert, there's a stream running under it, smiling up to you and bursting through the dirt and old piles of camel manure and sand towards you... in the most unlikely places!

All the miserable hilly confused thoughts and feelings stand aside for that fountain. All the sandstorms cease their howling before its chuckle. All the heat and dirt--how glad one is for them!--are only there to make the feeling of washing and drinking that much better. As for the water itself, I cannot describe it. I will only say that once you have tasted that water, there will not be a wine anywhere, no matter how rich or fragrant, that can make you forget it. That water is the richest, coldest, sweetest thing of all.

The world moves for love. I just learned it again today.