The Finding Romance

As a five foot chubby adolescent I used to play in the courtyard below the building we lived in, it was one of eight fourteen story apartment buildings that all shared this small courtyard. In the middle of my playing my mom would shout my name from our balcony and I would come running to the door, my mom would “buzz” me in and I would run up the stairs to our apartment and my mom would carefully instruct me on the items we needed at the store and then hand me a 500 escudo note, about 2 US dollars. She would tell me that it is urgent and diner depends on it. Now on a mission, I would confidently stroll down the cobblestone walkway knowing that I was about to save diner, and nothing is more important than saving diner. Tonight, my cobblestone journey had purpose

When I reached the store I remembered that I was in search of oregano, which is a valiant spice, in many ways perfect and good. I would begin to go up and down the aisles, searching, scanning, on a mission. Then time would fly by and I still hadn’t found it. I would begin to feel awkward, walking through the store so long without finding anything. I would begin to fake shop, picking items up, looking at the ingredients. As my search continued I began to carry items that I had looked at, as if it was something I had come here to buy. But it wasn’t what I came for, I came for oregano. But then, suddenly the clouds of grocery stores opened and on the fourth shelf on the sixth aisle, next to the basil I saw the oregano. I carefully composed myself, dumped my decoys, knelt down picked up the spice, raised it high into the air in jubilation, then looked closely at my surroundings, I never wanted to forget where I had found the oregano. My heart skipped a beat, I had saved diner, and in all honesty, there is nothing like finding what you are looking for.

Our history is filled with great romance, Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, You’ve got mail, Sleepless in Seattle, 10 things I hate about you, Casablanca, Hitch.

Single people, including guys, think about their one-day mate. They think about how soon that will be, they think about what they will be like, and “their story.” Because you want to have something good to say when people ask, “how did you two meet?” We want our story to be filled with suspense, humor, unbelievable circumstance and coincidence, we want drama that ends in a climactic embrace on a rainy day or spring evening. As guys, we want to propose in the coolest way possible, and girls want us to propose in the sweetest way possible. For us the finding of our mate is romance.

The finding is a huge industry. There are big bucks in helping strangers find each other and even bigger bucks from writing about it. People are searching so intensely for “him” or “her” that our lives are defined by the search. So much so that the quest and the finding is the most important part, it is the excitement of love. Finding, or falling in love, is in essence the purpose; we just want to find it. But what happens next? The after finding? Is the finding the end? It is in the movies, the final kiss is the climax, and the shots of the wedding during the credits is the resolution. Is finding what you have been searching for the Climax? Or is there life after finding? With Christians it seems we are satisfied for the sum of our faith to be found in the quest for finding God the very first time, for our “salvation” experience and journey to be the climax of our lives, followed by shots of happiness as our story is resolved. But I would say that finding, is much more like the inciting incident and the drama that follows is a life lived having found what you are looking for and the journey that takes place being found. The only thing that compares to finding what you are looking for is experiencing what you are looking for.