To Love is to be Breakable

TO LOVE IS TO BE BREAKABLE—
Meter: CM (86.86) – Suggested Tune: TALLIS’ ORDINAL
By John A. Dalles – Inspired by Lines by C. S. Lewis

“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.” – C S Lewis, “The Four Loves”

To love is to be breakable—
So love with all you are,
Commitment unforsakeable
May leave a mark, a scar.

To love is to be bendable—
So love and limber be,
Become the one befreindable—
With lithe humility.

To love is to be vulnerable—
So love with openness,
At risk and truly honorable—
This is the way to bless.

To love is to be changeable—
By all you love each day,
Alive and rearrangeable,
So give yourself away!

Copyright © 2013, John A. Dalles

This hymn text is set as an anthem by Wm. Glenn Osborne and will have its debut on Sunday, November 17 at 4 p.m. in the Knowles Chapel on the Campus of Rollins College in Winter Park at the C. S. Lewis Evensong.