{"id":19277,"date":"2023-02-14T11:30:30","date_gmt":"2023-02-14T17:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/?p=19277"},"modified":"2026-02-09T08:18:05","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:18:05","slug":"falling-in-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/customwordpresssites.com\/mjb\/2023\/02\/14\/falling-in-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling in Love"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I spent my entire last year of college waiting to get into the Jesuit Volunteer Corps<\/a>, your typical, post-graduate year of service program. I thought that I would love it. I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top floor bedroom, that was mine, was sweltering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The city was noisy, dirty, disorienting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My foot broke.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the children at my ministry site reminded me every day how much they preferred Mary, the previous volunteer, over me. Or so it seemed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I returned home in the evenings and brooded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteer houses are often repositories for left-behind items waiting to again become sources of comfort, inspiration and wisdom for emerging adults starved of certainty: Stained cookbooks, paperback classics with bent spines, religious artwork torn from newspapers \u2014 or words someone found fit to frame and hang. One such artist\u2019s rendering spoke to me from the wall and became chiseled into my consciousness, over time its colors and calligraphy becoming inseparable from the message they conveyed:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"graphic
Graphic by Holly V. Monroe, HollyMonroe.com<\/strong><\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

These words, long attributed to Pedro Arrupe, SJ (although more recently, believed to have been authored by Joseph Whelan, SJ) \u2014 in a place where light and other pollution obscured the sky, leading to many a restless night \u2014 became a North Star for me. I have gifted these words to countless wedded couples over the years. For me they have always spoken to the broader meaning of vocation lived out in the day-to-day \u2014 this pursuit of a God so often hidden in plain sight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My love for them made no sense, and I could only trust that it came from God. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When I first encountered these words, I was so enamored with the idea of definitively responding to God\u2019s call. I was convinced that serving as a Jesuit volunteer, while challenging, would be filled with consistent affirmations and a subtle yet discernible prompting of where to follow next. As the year unfolded, I was disheartened to discover this was not the case. I had entered into this experience wholeheartedly \u2014 having that heart crushed \u2014 time and time again. Especially with those kids; those grouchy, cynical kids who had so much of the joy stomped out of their childhoods. They rolled their eyes, made fun of my rules and called my \u201cfun\u201d activities \u201ccorny.\u201d Yet they were often my first thought in the morning, the ones I fretted about in the evenings and who I made plans for over the weekend.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There came a day that my eyes visited those words on the wall, and I immediately thought of the kids. And I realized I had fallen in love with them without intending it \u2014 inescapably, irrevocably. And it did not matter whether they ever gave me any sense that this was reciprocated. (Although they did eventually, in their own ways.) My love for them made no sense, and I could only trust that it came from God. Or even that it was God loving them. That was enough for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is the structure of these volunteer experiences, I left those children behind at the end of the year. Inevitable heartbreak ensued for all of us. Nevertheless I believed my own heavy heart would find a resting place in a permanent, future commitment. This still point has proven to be elusive. Contrary to the promise of those framed words, there has been no absolute \u201cfalling in love,\u201d no finality to any part of it. I have led a physically and spiritually nomadic life. As a consequence, so many of my relationships have had a transitory quality. My work, my ministries, have been varied.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou have done so many different things,\u201d they said at my last interview. \u201cAre you a religious sister?\u201d I laughed at the question that could have been confusion or a compliment. I laughed at myself. Maybe I am incapable of loving deeply or I am like a young fool, older now, falling in and out of love. Laughable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I remember my friends who have married. \n\nWhy did I presume to give those words to them?\n\nPerhaps it was like an offering, a prayer, \n\nthat in their vows, their profession of love\n\nthey found that \u201cabsolute, final way,\u201d \n\nthat touchstone, that sacred centering place \u2014 \n\nand so confirmed, \n\ngave witness to Love in the living of their lives.  \n\nIs it na\u00efve optimism, or hypocrisy for me to offer this - \n\n\u201cNothing is more practical\u201d than this Falling in Love, which \u201cwill decide everything.\u201d \u2014 \n\nwhen the quest for God has seldom been practical for me, \n\nand often, the choices are seemingly unclear, or non-existent. \n\nBesides, although most will fall in love, \n\nwho stays in love?   \n\nSuch a faint-hearted view presumes \n\nthat kind of fire can\u2019t be sustained \n\nand burns itself out quickly.\n\nBut what if we weren\u2019t the only actors when it comes to love?\n\nWhat if Love, in all its goodness and God-ness \n\nopens itself up for us\n\nand lets us stay always and all ways?\n\nThrough mornings, evenings and weekends\n\nthrough the arrivals and departures\n\nthrough joy and gratitude \n\nas well as the broken hearts\n\nin grief and loss\n\nin celebration\n\nriches and poverty\n\nsickness and health\n\nbetter and worse?\n\nAnd what if we get to come back if \u2014 when \u2014 we do fall out or away? \n\nDoesn\u2019t that sound like Love?\n\nMaybe not any Love we have ever known.\n\nI\u2019ve known a lot of less-than-perfect love, my own included.\n\nBut maybe it\u2019s a Love that sounds like God.\n\nMaybe Love is the only God we ever know.<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
ABOUT THE AUTHOR<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
\n
\n
Angela Paviglianiti<\/strong> practices social work in Chicago where she also completed seminary; however, she has not yet mastered divinity. On Tuesday and Thursday evenings, you can find her at The Fireplace Community<\/a><\/strong>, and on other days, you can usually find something she forgot there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n
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Falling in Love<\/a><\/blockquote>