single white fiancée

it is true that i feel like a walking paradox. on the one hand, my human soul feels complete. my feet have landed somewhere beautiful and i don't ever want to part from this place. i am truly, deeply in love with my soul's counterpart. my yin has discovered its yang -- in the broadest of generalizations. and yet i live a life of total singlehood in my day to day life. at a bridal shower, a dear friend told me that although her season of singleness may not be the path she would have voluntarily chosen, she was making the most of the season - even celebrating it - commenting on how few people really know how to be single. i thought it was an interesting perspective, i applauded her creative approach and wondered if i were still single would i do singleness well?

and then, just the other day i was walking to the grocery feeling quite entitled to a bout of gloominess as i longingly missed my fiancé from across the pacific and wished terribly that he could be walking beside me, enjoying the sunshine and the refreshing breeze. i passed a coffee shop where a young woman about my age sat in the window cheerfully enjoying a tasty treat, smiling off into the distance and i was immediately struck - 'why am i not smiling like her?' i wondered to myself. there, was a perfectly, wonderfully, happy, content, single woman not much older than myself reveling in the moment, appearing so full of companionship as she enjoyed the afternoon to herself... i then turned the corner and glanced back only to see her (who i would assume to be) boyfriend lovingly stroking her hand from across the table. ah! he he...at that moment i decided i can't wait any longer for the example of another, its time i start doing singlehood well. and so i went to pcc where i purchased a raw carob mousse - which turned out to be a mistake... only go for the coconut carob, it is much tastier! and walked myself home with determination to savor the very unique flavor of being a very fiancéed, but often very single woman.

i have to say, for myself, one of the greatest entrenchments of single living is the tendency for loneliness. it is a moment by moment battle to create a sacred space in which to exist that does not soon become incurred upon by the world and suddenly the most immediate and disappointing senses arise as a loss of self ensues with a flood of melancholic emotion. the author of ecclesiastes rings in my head most ardently in these moments - for two are better than one and a cord of three strands cannot be easily broken. in these times of aloneness i often lament my shameful lack of seattle friends, or my quirky unloveability or some other irrational wound that still festers in my heart. but tonight i was reminded of our oneness with the Father that, in many ways, becomes matchlessly heightened when we are broken, alone and poor of spirit.

this is hardly a novel thought. the japanese zen buddhists and even the greek mythologists have often associated matchless perfection, God-likeness, with autonomy. seen in the japanese ensō or the greek monad (meaning 'unit' and where we derive the word mono). interesting that the Pythagoreans referred to God as monad. He is the separateness and He is the collective. all at once He is completely alone and yet completely whole. He is the first entity. of course the story of genesis then comes to mind - God created man in Their own image, in the image of God they were created male and female. and, in Their own image, it was not good for man to be alone. (now is this because of true aloneness or is this because the masculine was missing the feminine?) the feminine was born out of the masculine shape - without masculine, feminine is formless? it is the anti-type of form?

in this season of unorthodox singleness can i connect with masculine and feminine forces that i find myself lacking? can i reach a new state of ensō living that is wholly content in my autonomy? the thought of being alone is a frightful thing, but being alone itself is nothing more than aloneness, wholeness, unity with the Source. perhaps our Heavenly Father has simply chosen this road for jev and i as a way of showing that we truly are more of one another's shin and shang than we are one another's yin and yang. we are already complete in Him. it is only the opportunity to illustrate that wholeness that marriage offers.