"I thought to be married was to be known. And it is; it is to be known. But Danielle can only know me so much; do you know what I mean?"
"There are things you haven't told her?" I ask.
"I've told her everything."
"Then I don't know what you are saying."
Paul pushed himself up a little to the pitch of the roof from which you can see the Portland skyline. I joined him. "We all want to be loved, right?"
"Right."
"And the scary thing about relationships, intimate relationships, is that if somebody gets to know us, the us that we usually hide, they might not love us; they might reject us."
"Right," I tell him.
Paul continued. "I'm saying there is stuff I can't tell her, not because I don't want to, but because there aren't words. It's like we are separate people, and there is no getting inside each other to read each other's thoughts, each other's beings. Marriage is amazing because it is the closest two people can get, but they can't get all the way to that place of absolute knowing. Marriage is the most beautiful thing I have ever dreamed of, Don, but it isn't everything. It isn't Mecca. Danielle love everything about me; she accepts me and tolerates me and encourages me. She knows me better than anybody else in the world, but she doesn't know all of me, and I don't know all of her. And I never thought after I got married there would still be something lacking. I always thought marriage, especially after I first met Danielle, would be the ultimate fulfillment. It is great, don't get me wrong, and I am glad I married Danielle, and I will be with her forever. But there are places in our lives that only God can go."
"So marriage isn't all that it is cracked up to be?" I ask.
"No, it is so much more than I ever thought it would be. One of the ways God shows me He loves me is through Danielle, and one of the ways God shows Danielle He loves her is through me. And because she loves me, and teaches me that I am lovable, I can better interact with God."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that to be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously. And a person who thinks himself unlovable cannot be in a relationship with God because he can't accept who God is; a Being that is love. We learn that we are lovable or unlovable from other people," Paul says. "That is why God tells us so many times to love each other."
-Blue Like Jazz
Knowing someone is infinite. What I mean is that we cannot truly know all of another person or even ourselves because we are so complex. There are some things that will just never be understood or which can never be put into words. But the great thing about not being able to 'absolutely know' someone is that we can spend our whole lives learning more about people to love them. The more we know, the more it's usually hard to love. But that's why it's so beautiful to keep loving someone even when you know so much about them: their failures and constant struggles and those hidden qualities they're ashamed of.
What I thought was so cool about this passage is how it points to the fact that there is one who absolutely knows us. Infinitely. And this is not our spouse. It is the One who created us. Most human beings get married because they want that intimacy that comes with vulnerability. We know that marriage creates a very special sort of relationship that can't be compared to any other on earth. But even marriage is limited. It's limited because it's only a representation of the real sort of Love. It's only a shadow.
If you think of how much potential for love and intimacy exists within a marriage, it is only a fraction of what God offers. The love and intimacy that our Father wants to give freely to us is even greater and deeper than marriage. This is why He deserves all our affection, all our desire, and all of us.
"To be in a relationship with God is to be loved purely and furiously." Wow.
