Daily Word of Grace # 178 (November 19, 2020)
One of my favorite songs by the incomparable Joni Mitchell is her 1969 gem “Both Sides Now” from her album Clouds. She picturesquely describes seeing love from “both sides now”: “Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels, the dizzy dancing way you feel as every fairy tale comes real. I’ve looked at love that way. But now it’s just another show, and you leave ‘em laughing when you go. And if you care, don’t let them know, don’t give yourself away. I’ve looked at love from both sides now, from give and take and still somehow it’s love’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know love at all.” So insightful, so relatable. On one side of love you experience the rapture of “the dizzy dancing way you feel as every fairy tale comes real”—but on the other side of love you experience the disillusion that can lead to “if you care, don’t let them know, don’t give yourself away.” God’s love encompasses and transcends both sides of every experience of love in your life. Although Jesus knew what awaited him on Good Friday, that did not prevent him from letting the world know—including you—and giving himself away on the cross (John 3:16). God has always been there with you on both sides of love. Even after you die you will experience the eternal rapture of the eternal love of God, marked by “the dizzy dancing way that you feel as every fairy tale comes real” because the gospel is no fairy tale at all.
Love and Prayers,
Dave