My Journey

 

2/9/10
What is Love?

As the commercial holiday of “love” approaches, I think we need to re-evaluate what it means to truly love someone.


“The love for equals is a human thing - of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.

The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing - the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.

The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing - to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.

And then there is the love for the enemy - love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured’s love for the torturer. This is God’s love. It conquers the world.”

Frederick Buechner "The Magnificent Defeat"


So I ask you, and myself, who do you/I/we love and in what manner? How can we show others the love of Christ in an unexpected way? I’m challenging not only myself, but others as well; to show someone else the deepest and most beautiful love you can show this coming February 14th. Let’s go beyond the cards and boxes of chocolate and conquer the world.