Blest Guest Wednesday #11: Why Is Love the Greatest of All the Gifts from God? (Kathleen Smith)

At times, my crazy travel schedule interferes with my ability to post regularly, and I have to bring a little sanity to the blogging part of my life by asking for help. I am now entering one such crazy period. Some wonderful fellow bloggers have been willing to write guest posts for me on Wednesdays, hence the name "Blest Guest Wednesday."

As today's "Blest Guest," I asked Kathleen Smith (Heart 2 Heart), who comments on Blest Atheist frequently, to share something she thought would be interesting to BA readers. I think you will find her post interesting, so here goes:

Why Is Love the Greatest of All the Gifts from God?

I was reading tonight a book about Heaven and what it's actually going to be like. After all, it is where me and my family know for certain we are going when we die, so wouldn't you like to know a little bit about what it's like? I will discuss some of those things with you tomorrow but it isn't really about a tunnel of light either!

So the question that presented itself in my readings pertains to the chapter in the Bible known as the chapter about love. 1 Corinthians 13:13, which reads, in case you don't happen to have a Bible handy, is " and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

So why is love the greatest? To figure this out, you need to go back to the Bible in Genesis to when God originally created a sin free world with Adam and Eve. The garden and world in which God created was perfect! No sin, or sinful thoughts or any evil. Adam was having conversations with God in the garden so there was a sense of an intimate relationship with God. Adam didn't pray to God, but he actually talked to him like we do with close friends and relatives. So if you are living in a sin free world, it's easy to see why love remains the greatest.

Remember that the world we live in today is filled with sin and a sin filled nature. Which is why, even after we are saved, we will continue to struggle and often times go back to things we know we shouldn't, like books, movies, TV shows, language and other things. God never said once you give your life to him, becoming a Christian, that your life would be carefree and easy. In fact, the opposite is true. We are faced with more struggles because the enemy, the devil, does not want us to wind up with God in Heaven. His goal is to take out as many of us as possible before his time is up.

But God when he returns promises to destroy the earth as we know it and will create a new heaven and a new earth in which sin will be removed. Imagine that! No pain or suffering is easy to believe along with no more death. We will never have to face the fact of losing someone close to us ever again. The other thing is we will restore that intimate relationship with God and Jesus Christ. We will see them face to face. So there will not be a need to pray anymore. We won't need anything which is why we pray. We will have it all.

Our sinful nature and thoughts will go away as well. No more doubting things, no more evil thoughts ever!!!

So now that that relationship with God was severed on the initimate level we have to have faith. What is faith?

Let's define that. The dictionary states that faith is

1a: allegiance to duty or a person;

1b loyalty (1): fidelity to one's promises; (2)sincerity of intentions;

2a (1) belief and trust in and loyalty to God; (2) belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion;

2b (1) firm belief in something for which there is no proof; (2) complete trust;

3: something that is believed especially with strong conviction, especially a system of religious beliefs.

Basically, in a nutshell, faith is believing in something you don't see but believe is there.

Since we will be in heaven and everything we wanted to know will be revealed, we don't need faith anymore. God won't allow disbelievers of God or Jesus into heaven so the only people there are the ones who believed when they didn't see. Remember the Beatitudes? Blessed are those that are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

So with no needing of faith, that one is gone. Now we have hope left, so let's define hope.

Here is the definition according to Webster's:

intransitive verb
1: to cherish a desire with anticipation
2 (archaic): trust

transitive verb
1: to desire with expectation of obtainment
2: to expect with confidence : trust

Well, for now we can hope for a better life. We can hope to be reunited with our loved ones. It, again, is something we want and trust but can't be sure will happen until it does or doesn't. So, back to the new heaven and earth, if all our desires are provided for and given to us, what else is there to want?

That leaves love. To see why that is the greatest goes beyond the initial love, the romantic feel-good, emotional love that comes and goes. What I am talking about is the act of love. Unconditional love with expecting nothing in return when you give it. That is the love God gave us.

Imagine you are a parent and you have a child. No matter what your child does in life, you will always love him or her unconditionally. But let's say you had a child that was perfect in every way. Yes, to some parents, we would love a child like that. But a child that never talked back, never did anything wrong, always listened. Perfect in every way.

You go to a city one day with your child and find yourself in the middle of the courtyard that is filled with people who are about to be put to death based on their horrible, evil crimes: mass murderers, liars, thieves, rapists, (you fill in the blank with any crime that makes you sick or cringe). The men are ready to receive their just punishments. After all, we punish our children when they doing something that is wrong. Then, you hear about the worst one there, the evilest of all the criminals and he is about to be put to death by the executioner unless someone steps forward to take his place. You hear laughsfrom the crowd around you. People begin to shout for the execution to take place, and some in the crowd throw things at the man. Then you step forward and offer your child to take the man's place.

People in the crowd begin to whisper about how you could sacrifice your child for one of this city's most notorious and evil criminals. But you say I am glad I could do this for you. You owe me nothing. You watch the criminal walk away without being executed. How would you think the criminal should react?

If I were the criminal, I would be eternally grateful, offering to work for you or do something for you as payment.

Or would you say thanks or not say thanks perhaps and simply walk away?

The story is real!

The child as you may have guessed is Jesus Christ, and the parent who gives up his perfect child is God our Father. We deserve the punishment we should receive for all of our evil doings in the world. True, we may not be the most notorious and evil criminal or ever think of doing those things but the Bible says all fall short of the glory of God! Every one of us was doomed to be executed, but Jesus took it all for us so that we may have eternal life if we simply believe in Him. It is by His grace to offer us the gift of His son, that we can have faith and hope while we wait to return to Heaven when our lives are over.

Will you simply choose to be like the criminal and just say thanks and walk away! The great thing is that even though we would want to give that guy the world, he wanted nothing from us, but our love. That is why I believe that love remains the greatest.

Now that you know, what will you do with this gift?

"Make Me an Instrument of Your Peace"

A while back, I mentioned in a Monday Morning Meditation ("True Forgiveness Requires Love") a couple of years ago, the president of our union at the organization where I work died suddenly. His best friend took charge of the funeral, and his family flew from out of town. The friend gave the family a list of potential eulogists, with their backgrounds. They chose two others and me.

Had they been given the full background, they might have selected differently. The union president had opposed my being hired and not much time had elapsed since I had arrived for him to become supportive. He was, at best, collegial. I, too, was collegial. Actually, I forgave him. After all, he had lost; I had been offered the job over his dissent.

So, surprised but willing, I set about to write the eulogy, but I could not. The more I tried, the blanker the page became. The blanker the page became, the foggier my memory became. I could not think of one thing to write, let alone dreaming up those wonderful warm fuzzy phrases for starting and finishing. There really is not a lot of advance writing time for a eulogy, and so the night before the funeral I was facing the prospect of reading a blank sheet the next day.

I took a walk around our mission grounds where I go when I need special time alone to think and to commune with God. I asked God for help and was led to understand that I had to forgive this man. But I had forgiven him, I argued. No, was the response. Forgiveness is not simply the deliberate pushing aside of malice or resentment. True forgiveness springs from love.

You mean, I have to love this guy, honestly, seriously, fully love him? I took in that concept with more than a bit of incredulity. How would that be possible?

Yet, it must be possible. The realization, nestled in certainty, that the need to love him was the key to writing the eulogistic words sank deeply into my consciousness.

Well, as we know, with God all things are possible. As I began to think of the good things he had done for several of my employees, the times he had come to me to ask me to bend some rules for the good of one person or another or to take in someone who had run afoul of management in another division, and the way in which he had worked tirelessly, selfless, and humbly for the benefit of the employees, I began to feel both love and respect for him. I wish I had been able to achieve this level of forgiveness and love while he was alive. The minute that wish crossed my mind, the dam holding back the eulogistic thoughts broke, and ink splattered all over my paper. I had a eulogy, a really decent eulogy, thanks be to God.

The next day after I delivered the eulogy, my boss's boss said that, based on the warmth of my words, it must have been difficult for me to write that eulogy. How little did he know how right he was -- but for the wrong reason. Several days later, the union president's friend found me in my office and told me that the family asked him to relay to me how meaningful they had found my eulogy. They wanted me to know that their healing had begun with my last word.

Amazingly, God taught me a lesson in forgiveness and love at the same time that He used me to help a family. Two birds with one stone!

Thinking back on it, I cannot help but think of the words of one of my favorite songs (sung by Sinead O'Connor), often mistakenly attributed to St. Francis (definitely convergent with the Weltanschauung of St. Francis although it can only be traced as far back as a French-language version, published in La Clochette (The Little Bell) in 1912):

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon:
where there is doubt, faith ;
where there is despair, hope
where there is darkness, light
where there is sadness, joy
O divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

(I have no idea why I am being led to re-post this particular story, with adaptation and added details. I guess someone needs to hear it.)

Monday Morning Meditation #16: True Forgiveness Requires Love

After zipping right along for the last two weeks, this week I got only as far as the next chapter of Numbers. I found the story in Chapter 12 as very relevant to today, to my life, and to the life around me. In this story, Aaron and his wife, Miriam, become upset that Mose had married a Cushite woman and then tried to put themselves on a par with him, saying that God had spoken to them, too (In dreams). Now, there's a great lack of humility. The nasty root of all it seems to be jealousy (and failure to mind one's own Ps and Qs, as the saying went when I was a child.) So, God called them all together and told them why He spoke directly to his servant, Moses, who was a humble man. God was not happy with Miriam and Aaron, however, and after He left, Aaron noticed that Miriam had become white with leprosy. She had to be removed from the community. Aaron turned to Moses, asking him for help, and meek Moses, having apparently never taken umbrage at a brother he clearly loved, turned to God, who ultimately relented and cured Miriam.

Reading: Numbers 12: 1-16

Meditation: This story struck me as containing an important lesson, but I had to read the chapter several times to determine what that might be. (If someone more astute than I considers the lesson to be different than what I have analyzed it to be, please correct me. I love correction; it is the source of my learning.) At first, I thought the story was mainly about jealousy, i.e. Aaron's and Miriam's jealousy of the relationship that Moses had with God. Then, there was the issue of the sister-in-law that they did not like, and also the sense of self-importance expressed in a form of self-aggrandizement as they noted that God communicated with them, too. (Obviously, in a manner different from the way He communicated with Moses -- which could make a person jealous. Each of us has our own individual relationship with God. The relationship that one person has with God should not make another person jealous, but since God gifts individuals differently and human nature being what it is, I could see the chance of baseless jealousy developing.)

After thinking through all that, however, I posit that the story is more about forgiveness and love, the two being inextricably interwoven. How well I know about that woof and warp! A couple of years ago, the president of our union at the organization where I work died suddenly. His best friend took charge of the funeral, and his family flew from out of town. The friend gave the family a list of potential eulogists, with their backgrounds. They chose two others and me. Had they been given the full background, they might have selected differently. The union president had opposed my being hired and not much time had elapsed since I had arrived for him to become supportive. He was, at best, collegial. I, too, was collegial. Actually, I forgave him. After all, he had lost; I had been offered the job over his dissent. So, surprised but willing, I set about to write the eulogy, but I could not. The more I tried, the blanker the page became. The blanker the page became, the foggier my memory became. I could not think of one thing to write, let alone dreaming up those wonderful warm fuzzy phrases for starting and finishing. There really is not a lot of advance writing time for a eulogy, and so the night before the funeral I was facing the prospect of reading a blank sheet the next day. I asked God for help and was led to understand that I had to forgive this man. But I had forgiven him, I argued. No, was the response. Forgiveness is not simply the deliberate pushing aside of malice or resentment. True forgiveness springs from love. You mean, I have to love this guy, honestly, seriously, fully love him? I took in that concept with more than a bit of incredulity. How would that be possible? Well, as we know, with God all things are possible. As I began to think of the good things he had done for several of my employees, the times he had come to me to ask me to bend some rules for the good of one person or another or to take in someone who had run afoul of management in another division, and the way in which he had worked tirelessly, selfless, and humbly for the benefit of the employees, I began to feel both love and respect for him. I wish I had been able to achieve this level of forgiveness while he was alive. The minute that wish crossed my mind, the dam holding back the eulogistic thoughts broke, and ink splattered all over my paper. I had a eulogy, a really decent eulogy, thanks be to God. The next day after I delivered it, my boss said that, based on the warmth of my words, it must have been difficult for me to write that eulogy. How little did he know how right he was -- but for the wrong reason. Several days later, the union president's friend found me in my office and told me that the family asked him to relay to me how meaningful they had found my eulogy. They wanted me to know that it was my words that had started the healing process for them. Now I cannot begin to relay to you the flood of emotions that passed through and out of me upon hearing that, but the most important one was gratitude -- gratitude to God for helping me find the love I needed to write the words the family needed, for the memorable lesson on forgiveness, for a divinely induced change in my attitude toward the person I was eulogizing, for being allowed to be His instrument in healing the family (or at least beginning to heal the family), for the healing that this experience brought me, and for the spiritual growth through which He had led me compassionately but resolutely. How I love God's lessons!

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to keep on giving me lessons, to repent for times that I have been a slow learner or even rejected a lesson that seemed too difficult, to give thanks for His compassion and patience, as well as His resoluteness, and to offer praise for His ability and willingness to reach a person as dense as I can be sometimes/often.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation, open to any new understanding with which He is willing to bless me and, if nothing else, then welcoming nothing but His presence. The sheer joy of His presence surpasses any other happiness I have ever experienced.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation, but first, I would like to bring to your attention a Monday morning prayer post that you might enjoy:

Fr. Austin Fleming, priest of the Archdiocese of Boston and pastor in Concord, Massachusetts, posts a prayer each Monday morning that he calls "Monday Morning Offering." I enjoy his prayers very much. I hope you also will find them inspirational. He has graciously given me permission to include a link to his blog on my Monday Morning Meditation posts.

For inspiration throughout the week, I would point out two sets of blogs: (1) the list of inspirational blogs that follow the enumeration of Monday Morning Meditations on the right-hand side of this blog and (2) my blogroll, where I am following a number of inspirational priests and writers about spiritual matters. I learn so very much from all these people. I highly recommend them to you.

Have a good day and a week, remembering to forgive others as God forgives us. May you be blessed by the love which follows.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about today's reading or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to copy the image of the mission church; maybe some day my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons, but to date I remain incompetent at the more sophisticated blog stuff. In the interim, you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

Damaged Vessel

We have no right to compare ourselves to others for God loves each of us just as we are with all our imperfections. Yet, as a relatively new believer, I find that at times I cannot help but compare myself with other parishioners; it is one way in which I learn.

The comparison isn't good. I see around me people who seem more pious and more devoted than I think I will ever be. Although when I first first enter and kneel I feel God's presence so strongly that sometimes I can scarcely move, just a few minutes later I feel my mind slipping away and wonder what it is that keeps me from being as focused as others. (And yes, I do realize that I am probably not entirely alone in this.) Sometimes my focus is pulled away by events in my life that skitter through my brain. Other times, I become so absorbed in enjoying the presence of God that I find myself praying mechanically as I bask in that feeling of love -- a sort of contemplation that blurs out everything and everyone else.

More often than not, I marvel at being in the midst of those who love God and have taken the time to come and tell Him that in the presence of His community. That is when I realize that there is both a spiritual side and a social side to church. While they are intertwined, I don't think the best time for intertwining is during mass.

As these various thoughts swirl around in my mind, I realize from the swirling alone what a broken receptacle I am. I know that God can use all kinds of vessels -- the sturdier ones around me (those people who have spent their lives in the church and done much good in the name of God), the small shiny ones (the little children who have a life of service yet to come), and even the broken ones like me. Truly, I don't know why God entrusts such a damaged vessel as I with any of His tasks, let alone why He clearly selects specific tasks and lays them before me. I am grateful, though, that He does for I enjoy doing them.

Nor do I understand why He floods His enormous love into me when I cannot possibly hold it all; there are too many cracks in me, some possibly from the casting and the rest from a lifetime of rough usage. Again, I am grateful that He does. I sincerely hope that what leaks out through my cracks will be God's love, and that it will splash liberally onto others, both those others whom I admire as examples for my own spiritual development and those others I meet on a daily basis who live on the fringe and need that love so much more than I do.

Monday Morning Meditation #5: Forgiveness

I made it through another 22 chapters of Genesis this week, almost reaching the very end of this book at last. (It feels like it has been a slow journey, but the stops along the way have been worth it.) This week Chapter 50 halted the smooth flow of my reading. It was something that Joseph said that set me to ruminating.

Reading: Genesis 50:19

Meditation: Joseph met his brothers who had earlier sold him into Egyptian captivity. They feared that he would avenge himself after Jacob's (Israel's) death, but Joseph, who had done well for himself in Egypt, was simply glad to see them. "Fear not," he said, "for am I in the place of God?" In other words, only God can avenge or judge or sentence. We are not in the position of God, and so we must simply forgive.

But forgiveness is not simple, not even when we think we have indeed forgiven. When I first came to faith, God made it clear that I was supposed to learn to forgive, starting with my extremely abusive mother. I reasoned if God had forgiven her, who was I not to do so. Making that first phone call after years of not talking to her was difficult but worth it for both of us. Having made it over this hurdle and into the path of being able to honor one's father and mother, I prided myself (pride goeth before a fall?) on my ability to forgive. God has a way of deflating pride, however, with one prick of the balloon. I clearly had NOT learned the forgiveness lesson well enough, and so God gave me another chance to learn it. (I seem to get lots of second, third, fourth chances -- I am somewhat of a slow learner, being by nature both rebellious and skeptical.)

In the second instance, the person I needed to forgive was the union president who had held up my being hired as a senior manager in the organization where I now work. I forgave him for that. It was pretty easy to do so. After all, I was hired. Without going into all the details here (I will post the full story later), the situation complexified considerably when the union president died unexpectedly. I, of all people, was asked to present a eulogy. Up until the day before the memorial service, I could not write a word. Every time I tried, nothing came to mind. I had convinced myself that I had forgiven this man, but on a long walk around the mission that I took the night before the memorial service, God led me to understand that while I had, on the surface, forgiven this man, I had not forgiven him deeply and completely because I felt no love for him. Understanding this broke the emotional barrier I had thrown up, and I felt much love for him, love I wish I could have expressed to him while he was alive. Out of that flowed a eulogy. Afterward, his family told a mutual acquaintance that the eulogy I gave began a healing process for them. (God is so marvelously capable of using us to help others at the same time that we are being taught -- what an incredible teacher!)

And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God for greater willingness and readiness to forgive, to express my regret for not truly forgiving those people I should have by forgetting any transgressions against me and loving the transgressors sincerely, to give thanks for His willingness to love me in spite of my occasions of uncharitable thinking, and to offer praise to a God who cares enough about us to teach us.

After that, I will spend some time in contemplation with this wonderful God who never gives up on me, no matter how slow a learner I am.

I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation.

If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Genesis 50:19 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to export the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons. In the interim, perhaps you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.

Have a good day and a blessed week, filled with love and forgiveness!