The Faces of Love

The Faces of Love

By: Angie Wiranata

November 8th, 2024

 

At world’s end

stood I with grief

and lump on my throat:

Has life no trace of love,

has Sheol erased His name?

 

Alas! Two things too wonderful to me;
three I do not understand:

 

Her hand, a mother’s wrath,

           Her sorrow ran so keen,

           Then wept, she healed her child,

           With tears to mend his skin

 

A father’s trade by day,

           By night a bread he blazed,

           A smile to make a home,

           A smile the eyes ungrazed.

 

A friend who bore the blame,

           And gave his life in kind,

           For him who dealt the wound,

           Yet had no right to boast.

           He stood to shield his own,

           With heart so pure and blind,

           To guard against the guilt,

           He who deserves it most.

 

What wonder, what beauty!

For love to be free,

to feel, conceal, and heal,

to use, abuse, and bruise,

yet love forever holds

a value more than life,

a weight worth more than gold.

What wonder, what beauty!

For love be clothed

With martyrdom,

and grief-kissed skin.

 

Marvel! Marvel!

For have thee not heard:

That no plum unstoned,

As no rose unthorned,

As no bird unboned?

Yet, was it not stone,

which plum may be?

And was it not thorn,

The guard of its bloom?

And was it not bone,

That sets a flight to wing?

 

At world’s end

I stand as I behold:

‘tis love’s scarred face;

Whom once I know of,

now here I have known:

for who could fathom,

for who dare capture

the faces of love

and His lonely offices?

 

Fin.

Summer Memorandum

Dear friends back home,

It has been an awfully long time since I last thought about you. It's unbelievable how things have changed since I left home. I never actually believed what people say about leaving home. The excitement of exploring new places and meeting new friends always come along with the reminiscence of old places and friends. Now I realize that those words cannot be more true. If you guess that this post is all about how things have changed, it's not. I'm writing this more to deliver my late apology and also thanks to each and every one of you. I know I never actually speak from heart to heart to most of my friends, this is because how I act in front of you, might be the opposite of how I judge you in the inside. And from my deepest heart, I apologize for that. I left home carrying hatred and jealousy towards some of you. And as seasons passed, I had been nurturing that hatred and jealousy as well, building an invisible parasite on myself. But as seasons passed, God had taught me important lessons to see how precious you all are. I learn that every life has its own untold stories. Some beautiful, some sad, too sad to  be uttered out of the rooftop. And because of this, no one has the right to judge—neither positively or negatively—another's life.

I heard from my family that things have not been easy back home. I heard fights, deaths and enmities, all happening in the same year. Never assume that I'm here, far away in the land of honey and milk, not caring a thing about what's going on at home. I am struggling here and have a million sides of the story too. Truth is, all my joys and concerns lie on the land where we were raised together. I started there and my soul has not gotten up since then.