Warriors and Lovers

A warrior lives deeply. He knows that life is short, that nothing is worth fighting over but some things are worth fighting for. You could accurately interchange the names Warrior and Lover because it is impossible to be one without the other. You can be a fighter, a killer, or a soldier without love but it is impossible to be a Warrior without love.

It is also impossible to love without being a warrior. You can have sex, you can like people, you can enjoy all sorts of things, but you cannot Love without being a warrior.

If you love, you are willing to sacrifice yourself in whatever way necessary and only a warrior’s heart is strong enough to be able to sacrifice itself. But if you are a fighter without a love to fight for than you are an uncontrolled and aimless weapon.

A warrior lays down his life either living or dying for those weaker. This is a great mystery, why do the strong die for those who are too weak to keep themselves alive?

Warriors see the world as it really is and so have hearts full of deep pain, this is what makes their eyes sad and grim. Pain is everywhere. They have the choice to close their eyes to it, but they can’t stand to be willfully blind. They must see clearly. They believe the worst can and should always be faced because the worst is only the inverse of the best.

They would go crazy with despair if this were all they see, but it isn’t. Remember, warriors are lovers and lovers see beauty when no one else can. Warriors don’t fight so much against the pain but rather for the beauty. Warriors know that pain is a fungus, living off of the beauty; it has no life of its own. Where some see only despair, they see hope. If the pain is so great, the beauty it is living off of must be even greater. This is what gives their eyes a smile, in spite of the horrors within and without that they continually live through.

If you don’t understand warriors, or are not one yourself, then you will think that they have buried all emotion. In fact denying their emotions is a common fault among them. The truth is that they are more emotional than everyone else combined but their emotions run deep, fathomless as the ocean. This is their one fear, that their own feelings will sweep them away and toss them about uncontrollably.

The wise overcome this fear with humility. If God would sweep them away on their own emotions then so be it. They are not foolish and hate to be taken as such, but if God would make fools of them with their own emotions then they would gladly face that fate too. They find instead that God does not make fools of them but gives them the very keys to become the warriors and lovers they live to be.

Far from their emotions tossing them about, they find that they propel them very precisely, that they give them greater strength and greater insight. To be unafraid of weakness is to find fearless strength. Do not think that this means you will ever see the depth of their emotions. It is just as likely that you will see the bottom of the ocean. In fact, they will still seem to be particularly unemotional, because they despair of ever truly communicating their emotions at all. You must see them by faith or not at all.

They feel sorrow so deep that it seems they could weep without stopping forever. But they cannot weep forever and any fewer tears seem so inadequate that they may seem to never weep at all. They also feel joy. Joy so encompassing, so true, so fulfilling that heaven itself will spend eternity celebrating it. But here, they have not the time or the means to celebrate it appropriately so in fact, you may only see a content smile and a twinkle in their eye. Joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive to each other; they are usually full of both.

They feel hope, but this is no light hearted hope, neither is it a hope that wanes or waxes. It is the hope of those who die without obtaining the promises but are assured of what they hope for. They feel the strength of their own hearts. A deadly strength that only gets stronger as time continually assaults it. A strength that is capable of laughing in the midst of despair because it has learned that despair is a grim illusion that will vanish in a moment. They feel desperate but far from panicking, they become even calmer to compensate and so even more deadly.

They are full of compassion and will care for the wounded with a touch more gentle and tender than a Mother’s. Their hearts do not break for themselves, but for you. They are fierce protectors, fiercer than wild animals. Nothing is more dangerous than a lover at war.

Sometimes, they forget that they are not made to love or fight alone. Sometimes they forget that they too have weaknesses that need protection. Sometimes, they are so used to comforting that they don’t realize that they need comforting too. Sometimes they protect so fiercely that they begin fighting the very one they are trying to protect. Sometimes they forget that it is good for those who have healed to become warriors in their own right, that they should not be protected from becoming great.

Every weakness that appears in themselves they throw back to God and between His strength and the protection of those warriors around them, they are an invincible force. The faster they are slain, the quicker they will rise again and claim that God is victorious.

Truly, the spirit of a warrior-lover can only be found in one place and that is God himself. But he has made his bride to be worthy of a warrior as noble as he and so has given her no other spirit than his own.

My friend, I perceive that you are a warrior.