Kingdoms of the Heart

I then looked straight at Arayna and stated pointedly, “Meet me at The Broom this afternoon at half past four. I have all kinds of news.”

“Are you kidding me?” she asked. “After all that went down here with the scathing criticisms of our relationship, you want to drag me off to The Broom? I greatly appreciate the painting, Alex, but sometimes I don’t know if you’re the prince of Aylon or the prince of Darkness enticing and wooing me to destroy myself.”

“In the first place,” I explained, “true love does destroy the old self. It destroys the old systems. It destroys the old understandings, and functions as the fertile soil for the birth of the new creation in all of us. The birth of the new self, like any birth, can be painful, awkward, and dangerous. Convenience love, or love of convenience, is what preserves the old self and dresses it up pretty in lace and linen so we don’t need to look at it too closely. It’s what makes the old stuff neat and comfortable so we don’t need to think about it too critically. True love makes nothing neat and comfortable. It challenges and changes everything! In the second place,” I pressed on, “I am through dragging you anywhere. You come with me because you want to come with me. Remember when I proposed touring you around the kingdom, and I referred to it as a grand gesture as if I were being coerced into doing it? You basically told me not to do it if it were some diplomatic obligation of good will, but to do it because I really wanted to do it. Do you remember that? You come to The Broom today because you really want to come to The Broom, and hopefully, you will want to come for the sake of someday!” I amatively proposed.

“I had a revelation Sunday morning at Mass, Snowflake,” I started to explain. “We’ve been looking at our relationship incorrectly. You and I have operated under the assumption that our relationship is wrong.”

“Assumption? The assumption?” Arayna interrogated. “This isn’t some abstract philosophical theorem, Alex. Socially, politically, legally, traditionally, morally, and theologically, our relationship is wrong whether we like that or not. This is reality, not assumption.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “You and I have operated within the reality that our relationship is wrong. Oh, and by the way,” I added as an aside, “unlike some abstract theorems, present reality changes across cultures, and changes within the same culture across time. Anyway, we have operated within the present reality that our relationship is wrong, and the societal institutions, which decry our relationship as such, are all right. Actually, it’s the other way around!” I exclaimed. “It is our relationship that is right, while everything else is wrong!!”

“Well, that’s a convenient way of looking at it,” Arayna remarked, rolling her eyes.

“In fact, it’s a terribly inconvenient way of looking at it because in our station in life, Snowflake, we have a moral and sociopolitical obligation to change in society the institutions that are so wrong,” I explained. “This is what the Paschal Proclamation is all about. It is about changing the present reality within our culture across time, but actively making the time now! Someday,” I reasoned with passion, “is not some entity that is going to fall mystically from the sky into our laps if we only close our eyes and wish for it hard enough. We actively have to create someday for ourselves, Snowflake.”

“Alex, our moments away at The Broom are so peaceful and beautiful. It’s like a respite from all else. Nothing bad could ever happen to us here. Society can’t adversely touch us here. Moments like these are redemptive. They are like our redemption from the world,” Arayna reflected.

I turned over on my left side, and looked at her lovingly. “I hear you, Snowflake,” I responded. “Believe me, I know and feel what you’re saying, but that kind of mentality is what keeps us hiding in a hole afraid of the world around us. Love should never need to hide. Love is what makes us stand with each other and face the adversity of the world no matter how unpleasant that may be. In that sense, love is heroic. I don’t want to be your occasional, secret liaison. I want to be your hero. This is why it is imperative that we work together radically to change the world around us so that you and I, and people like us, never feel we have to hide again. Both in the heroism of our love and the political nature of our station in life, Snowflake, you and I cannot concern ourselves with redemption from the world. We have got to concern ourselves with redemption of the world.”