How Love is Transforming Me? (Or, how do you fix a broken tomato?)

I’m reading The Interior Castle, by Teresa of Avila. A 16th century masterpiece, Teresa imagines the soul as an interior castle with seven dwellings, not one after another. In around the 4th and 5th mansions, the question begins to emerge: How is love transforming me? I took a shot at answering.

How have I been transformed by love?

My wife, wealthier than I am, more sophisticated,
Smarter. Still loves me, despite it all.
And stayed with me when I didn’t think anyone would or could.

And the kids, they moan at my dad jokes,
in just the right way.
And they keep coming back for more:
How do you fix a broken tomato?
Tomato Paste.

And once that happens enough times,
you begin to let the narrative go:
you’re not good enough,
You’re not measuring up,
what about our expectations,
how did you blow that start that you somehow got?

And you learn to replace it with:
Well, these four people like me,
love me even,
so there’s that.

And don’t even get me started on Gracie, the dog,
all grace, all the time.

And then, slowly, though you’ve been wrestling for so long:
call me Jacob, call me Thomas, let me touch the open spot,
before you commit, before you even venture a guess,
you begin to have this little stirring: there is in fact,
this love that will not let you go. That won’t give up on you.

You could even call that love God, the holy one,
the divine, breath, spirit.

Even though for the longest time, the longest time,
you thought God was a puzzle to put together,
a formula to solve,
and that any love would only come,
could only come
from whatever you produce, whatever you publish,
whatever you accomplish.

And you could even say that once, a while back —
never mind the time of day,
the sun was going down, or the sun was coming up,
or it was high noon. I don’t know.

What is time?

That the love that won’t let me go whispered in you ear:
Accomplishments? What are you talking about?
I love you just as you are.
Goofy man. Silly man.
All the time I was here,
you don’t have to produce one thing,
what kind of colonial bullshit is that?

Just be. Just let the love soak in your bones.
Love your heart. That is the prize. As I love your heart.

The Great Surmise says simply this: At the heart of all creation lies a good intent, a purposeful goodness, from which we come, by which we live our fullest, to which we shall at last return. And this is the supreme reality of our lives.
— Carl Scovel, King’s Chapel, Boston. “The Great Surmise”
The Berry Street Essay, 1994.