An open love letter

 Doug,

You wrote such a beautiful love letter.  Thank you!  I have been wanting to respond for quite some time.  What has delayed me?  Well,  I do have a particular gift of knowing when I am out-matched--  "know when to fold em!" 

 I can't possibly write as beautiful of a love letter to you as you have written to me, but I will do my best to speak earnestly and straightforwardly. 

I became a bit too obsessed with the Holocaust when I was an adolescent.  In particular with the question: "What would I have done if I lived in Nazi Germany and a Jewish family asked for my help?"  I read the Hiding Place several times.  In that intense time of faith discovery the question: "am I brave?" loomed large. .. this became a kind of test question for me regarding the authenticity of my own faith...  what would I do?  

I worried/worry that I would not have been brave.

I do not have those doubts about you, my love.

In the last year I have failed to defend you as vocally as you would have liked, but in a critical moment that should have made a world of difference this is what I said:  "I have no doubt what Doug would have done if he had lived during Nazism in Germany. He is the best person I know."  

What more can one say than that? 

You know that I also think that you are a royal pain in the ass.  We have disagreed vehemently about tactics and strategy since last October, but I don't think you ever wanted to be married to a "YES woMAN."  Sure....I know it is difficult to be married to one of those Muppet hecklers, but I also think you have the grace to realize that a bit of a heckler is precisely what you need! -- A bit of a ballast against your cocksured-ness.  I know this year has winded you. 

I also know that you are the more gentle of the two of us.  

I know it feels like your capacity to sit so patiently at a bedside, or write such a thoughtful eulogy, or make the impossible possible for a heartbroken Mother, or help a newcomer family secure a home or a sense of calling has been forgotten, but I remember. 

And also God....

Nothing is lost to the heart of God,

nothing is lost for ever;

God's heart is love,

and that love will remain,

holding the world forever.

No impulse of love,

no office of care,

no moment of life in its fullness;

no beginning too late,

no ending too soon,

but is gathered and known in its goodness.

I hope you know that you are loved... by me... and with an everlasting love that does not require computation or this-worldly accounting. We have both banked a lot on that being enough, more than enough, more than sufficient. We will see.  We will continue to see.

With Hesed, 

Your Jo.