"We are our own aptest deceiver." - Goethe

"...he forgot for the while what experience had taught him—
that no human being can really understand another,
and no one can arrange another's happiness."

The Heart of the Matter
by Graham Greene

Those last two phrases in particular sound out in bold ringing tones, like a bell struck hard in an old abandoned church tower that grates out a harsh unused and funereal tone, scattering pigeons into flight and drawing the gaze of those working nearby in the fields.  So it might catch us, striking us out of the stolid comfort of our own assurance.

Sometimes we get caught up in thinking we can make others happy.  That desire often places upon us an undue burden, leading to pain or mental illness.  We may despair because of the impossibility of even understanding what will produce another's happiness.

In the sense of the above quotation, trying to arrange happiness becomes a sort of manipulation.  All too often that is exactly what our love is: an attempt to control others.  Thus even what is good—namely love, which is willing the good of the other—has become corrupt.  We may not realize how deep is the decay of our intentions.  We continue to deceive ourselves in focusing on doing the other good, but it is a good that ultimately seeks to give us a sort of power over them.

Similarly, the desire to please others leads us into the trap of manipulation.  The logic in our heads is as follows: if we do what others wish, they will be happy.  It is good logic.  The problem is in the premises; after all, receiving precisely what we want does not make us happy, ridiculous as that fact is.

Furthermore, as long as we are trying to force a result, we are manipulating, controlling, dominating.  We are not free to give and receive.  Henri Nouwen expresses this idea perfectly in his book called The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom:

"A lot of giving and receiving has a violent quality, because the givers and receivers act more out of need than out of trust.  What looks like generosity is actually manipulation, and what looks like love is really a cry for affection or support."

How many times have we gone to others looking for love, begging for them to fulfil our needs while trying to hide from them the fact that we were in need at all?  So many times we reach out in hope that another will fill the void within.  Sometimes we dare not even risk that much vulnerability and turn to pleasures instead.

Yet there is a way to break out of this crippling circle of insanity.  As Nouwen himself puts it, we must first experience love in the depths of our being:

"When you know yourself as fully loved, you will be able to give according to the other's capacity to receive, and you will be able to receive according to the other's capacity to give.  You will be grateful for what is given to you without clinging to it, and joyful for what you can give without bragging about it.  You will be a free person, free to love."

That is the key to achieving the liberty of being able to love generously: we must set others free from our desires for them and accept the fruit of our efforts and offerings made out of love, no matter whether we achieve success or failure.  We must do our duty and leave the rest to the One who is All-Powerful.

Yes, we must surrender our wills.  We must surrender everything to the Creator and Healer of our souls.

Yet if it is love we desire, how could we do better then to lay ourselves in whole-hearted surrender at the feet of the One who is Love?  It is hard many times to receive love from One so intangible.  It seems impossible to entrust ourselves to One so hidden.  How can we reasonably expect One so unseen to care for us?  And yet He does.  And He does so according to our capacity to receive, according to our surrender.

In the end, He is not after all so invisible.  It is we who are blind.