// men, take note.//

True masculinity envelops the juxtaposition of  both the fiery fierceness and the gracious gentleness of the Lion of Judah. 

// seeking solitude//

Don’t get me wrong, I believe relationships are reminders of the bilateral bliss of Heaven coming to earth; a beautiful kiss of love from a friend (figuratively speaking) results in a silent splitting of the Skies, cracking the door allowing us to eavesdrop on cherubim choir practice.  Jesus understood this and therefore directed us towards Aurora by stating: “Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other.” (John 13:34).  Just as I have sacrificed for you, you should sacrifice for others.  Just as I have been humiliated for you, you should be humiliated for others. Just as I have boasted in you, you should boast in others.  Just as I have forgiven you, you should forgive others.  Indeed, if you love one another, a glimpse of Eden awaits. 

The task seems daunting, but clear enough.

If I’m honest with myself however, the dryness of my soul these past few months has withered the roots of my motivation towards true, Christ-like love.  A teacher lectured  last night on the subject and, as enthralled as I was with the intricacies of practicing loving others as Jesus loved us, I found myself striving. I observed the desert that was my spirit this spring and I felt like a cactus unnaturally stretching my stub-like branches up to the sunset rain for any and all drops of determination I could get. 

Indeed, in a season of spiritual dryness, true love seems almost like a mirage;  Something you feel like you could possibly attain but also something you quickly lose hope for once you realize that what you had been attempting all along was, in fact, a fabrication of the real thing.

As I sat in my chair patiently waiting for a revelation of motivation, I suddenly realized that I didn’t need one. 

In my stubbornness, in my complacency with lethargy, the Lord only had to say one word:Selah.

One thing I knew: relationships are an expression of the trinitarian, multi-faceted, jaw-droppingly unconditional love of Jesus Christ for His friends.

But, who, my Daughter, did I call friend first?

My shoulders slumped in peace, “Me.” 

Come, let us take a stroll through Eden,He quipped with a grin.

And that was that.  I was enraptured with seeking after His love in order to even begin to understand how to love others well and rightly.

I’m not avoiding kisses from Heaven;  In fact, I welcome the relationships that the Lord blesses me with as gifts of love or lessons to learn about love or trials to endure with love. But He was my friend first.  And He deserves my utmost attention when giving me tours of the Kingdom.

// never date a girl who reads.//

Do it, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent of a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, goddamnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so goddamned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life of which I spoke at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being told. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. Or, perhaps, stay and save my life.

—Charles Warnke