The Invitation

A little over a year ago I was on the phone with Jan Meyers-Proett, author of Allure of Hope and Listening to Love, and among the wisest of therapists. We were digging pretty deep and I mean down in the trenches. We were dissecting some recent happenings and the conversation was revolving around my future husband. Of course, through the years I had created “lists” in my head, thoughts on who I desired him to be. But this time it was different. Jan was asking hard questions. Who are you in response to him? How do others respond to you two together? Name very specific characteristics about him. How are you together, physically, emotionally and spiritually? What words come to my mind when you think of being in his presence?

That same day after I hung up with Jan, I immediately thought of this poem. It had been 5 years the last time I had read it, but it instantly filled my mind. I dug it out of an old journal and poured over it. The longing was so deep…yes, so much of what is written in the poem is what I desire between my husband and I.

Read it. Savor it. It is a call to passion; such raw and honest emotion. It is so rightly titled, The Invitation, as I feel that this poem beckons us to live deeply, asking us to want more, to live profoundly together.

The Invitation by Oriah

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon…
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own and if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful to be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself
if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul
if you can be faithless and therefor trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day

and if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon, “yes”.

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.