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Demi Moore is my soul mate.  Well, that’s a bit strong.

Demi Moore is my sister.  Well, that’s not true.

But if Demi and I ever spent an evening together we’d have a lot to talk about it.  It seems that we share something in common: the fear that we are not worthy of love. Such is her confession in an interview with “Harper's BAZAAR.” 

“What scares me is that I’m going to ultimately find out at the end of my life that I’m really not lovable, that I’m not worthy of being loved. That there’s something fundamentally wrong with me.” 

That quote could have been attributed to me, but Harper’s didn’t ask. 

Had they contacted me I would have done one better than Demi. My fear is not what I might find at the end of my life, but what I fear at present. 

This blog could be perceived by some to be a rather self-serving attempt to get the attention of Ms. Moore in hopes of securing a private evening together where we can wax eloquent about the meaning of life over some Dom Perignon.

True enough. 

I'd love to spend an evening with her.  Some quiet place on the Pacific ocean would be ideal. We’d have to go “Dutch” but I think the conversation would make it worth her while. 

I can imagine sipping champagne together overlooking a moonlit ocean. The breeze is warm and gentle, and carries with the faint sound of an old 10cc lyric: 

Too many broken hearts have fallen down the river
Too many lonely souls have drifted out to sea
You lay your bets and then you pay the price
The things we do for love
(the things we do for love) 

As the evening unfolds our conversation becomes unguarded and without pretense.  She is merely Demi, and I, Dale.  Time seems to be suspended as we look back over our lives exploring the conundrum of love.  Our stories are different but have common themes.  Hurts in childhood, difficulties with parents, betrayal by lovers, and our own self-destructive relational habits.  Our stories have so redefined us that if it weren’t for the comfort of the champagne, and a sense of the divine in the night sky, we would be alone together. 

But on this evening the cosmos has brought together all that is necessary for us to feel covered under a canopy of safety that allows us to explore love. 

As the waves break gently on the shore, the more honest we become. As the conversation deepens we no longer seek a dream, but yearn for hope. 

We wish to cast off the burden of rejection, betrayal, and loneliness that enslaves us.  This burden is so heavy and painful it is hard to acknowledge it ... but not tonight.   On this evening we are freed by a glimmer of hope.  The stars bear witness to the fact we may not believe we are loveable, the universe is held together by love.  We may not feel the love of another, but there is love to be felt. Its presence surrounds us. Tonight our worry is that yet again love will pass us by.  

We don't speak of it, but we both wonder if we have befallen the fate of Jacob Marley.  To see what we might have had ... and be tormented by it forever. 

A second bottle arrives and as we toast love, another stanza is carried on the wind. 

When I get older losing my hair,
Many years from now,
Will you still be sending me a valentine
Birthday greetings bottle of wine?

If I'd been out till quarter to three
Would you lock the door,
Will you still need me, will you still feed me,
When I'm sixty-four? 

On any other evening this would strike me as a silly song, but on this evening it punctuates the conundrum of the moment.  I can see the intrinsic worth of Demi, and she me.  Indeed love has so transformed our evening that we find ourselves loving the other; not romantically but from a deeper place within.  We love the other, but we are powerless to persuade the other that they are worthy of love.

Why? 

We explore this until dawn, and the reluctant revelation it brings.

Love is within our reach.  We can feel its presence, but we cannot receive it as we are. 

The years have taken their toll.  Over time we gradually remade ourselves into something other than who we are.   

The bitter irony is that while we cannot love ourselves because we do not like who we have made ourselves to be, we cannot remember who we are.

But remember we must. In order to feel the love that can renew our lives, we have to die to our self-made phantom, and be reborn.

Demi is so many fantasies to so many people, but she is not a fantasy.  

Demi is a child of God.  Loved by God.  And by me.

But somewhere along the way she lost sight of who she really is.  

As did I.

We capitulated to the expectations of others and our misperceived deficiencies, by making ourselves into someone we are not. 

We listened to the lie that we can't be loved for who we are.  Only now, as the conversation comes to climax do we see that we don't love who we are not.  Moreover, others who proclaim love for who we are not do not love us.

As the morning sky bids farewell to the evening, everything looks different,  It is as if the creator has remade the world in HD.

Something else has changed. Our eyes.  As we come together to part we see in the eyes of the other a person of greater depth and beauty than what was revealed just a few hours earlier.  What's more Demi's eyes are also a mirror into my soul.  I can see "me" in a way I never have before and I can't believe I like what I see.  As she looks away I can see, like me, she has had a glimpse of unimagined beauty within her.  

Victor Hugo put into words over a century ago what Demi and I unexpectedly discovered tonight: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”  

It is only in the eyes of love that we can see ourselves. And we see not just the face of God, but the abiding presence of love within.   

As we take our leave we see a new path before us.  It diverges from the road we are traveling and confronts us with the choice we never knew we had. We can continue as we are and become more and more what we are not, and die a little with every step.  

Or we can traverse the narrower road.  But to do so requires that we die to the lie of what we are not, and open ourselves to becoming who we are.  

We are promised love, and are given no other assurance.  

At this moment I am praying for Demi. That she forsakes what she is not to become who she is. That she would die to the lie, and awaken to the Demi love designed. 

She is looking quizzical at me.  Each of us is powerless to walk toward the narrow gate.

It seems that you cannot walk this path without the help of another.  We can escort the other, but only if we are willing to be escorted.  

Rev. Dale S. Kuehne, Ph.D. is the author of “Sex and the iWorld. Rethinking relationship beyond the age of Individualism.” He is the Richard L. Bready Chair of Ethics, Economics, and the Common Good and founding director of the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College. He serves as pastor of Emmanuel Covenant Church in Nashua, NH and is a regular ShareWIK.com columnist.  

Read other columns by Rev. Dale Kuehne 

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