On Love

It's been a long week.   We lost a very dear loved one in the family, and it's been hard on everyone involved.  No one really knows what to do or say; there is no handbook on how to handle the passing of a young man who left behind two boys and a wife.  I will discuss this more in another post.

Thinking of life and how flimsy it is (as Dave Chappelle aptly puts it), I want to live it well.  Rent -- another fav of mine -- poses the question:  "525,600 minutes... how do you measure a year in the life of a woman or a man?" and then the cast sings, "Measure in Love."

I think that one of the problems of our culture is that it only glorifies really one aspect of Love:  romantic love. Think about it. In almost all movies there is a romantic love interest.  True Love's Kiss conquers a wicked spell.  The pursuit of romantic love has a monopoly on the content of modern media: it's integral to the plot of any "good" movie, shopping malls offer a host of material ways to attract someone into that romantic love, and our songs are riddled with that L-word; Paul McCartney just flat out admits that about his song in, "Silly Love Songs":  "some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs.  What's wrong with that, I'd like to know, cause here I go again!"  He then repeats the phrase "I love you" some thousand times.

Romantic love is great: it gives us that safe and warm feeling, but it's only one component of the full Love. C.S. Lewis in his book, The Four Loves, proposes four different facets of what we know as "love":  affection, friendship, romantic love, and unconditional love (the highest). The True Love proclaimed by the great religions of this world is much more than that expressed in a romance novel.   Gandhi, who identified himself as a Hindu and a Muslim, fasted nearly to death and would not eat anything until the violence between Muslim and Hindu sects ceased.  Martin Luther King, a Christian, conveyed the power of love in his speech, "The American Dream":

       And so throw us in jail and we will still love you. Burn our homes and threaten our children, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hours and beat us and drag us out on some wayside road and leave us half dead and, as difficult as it is, we will still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer, and one day we will win our freedom. We will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process. And our victory will be a double victory.

This is Love.   Can I say I've known this full spectrum of Love? Yes. However, I'm a little rusty in practicing this love.  

Valentines Day is coming up:  that day that can be hard on singles sometimes; that day which perpetuates the myth that a happy life hinges on romantic love, just one part of true Love; that day which spurs the urgent race to "find someone," that we may not waste away this life... alone! *gasp!*

But what about real Love?  What must we do to experience that full, joy-filled Love that God gives to us?

The Bible states it clearly in I Corinthians 13: [The Message] If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy, but don't Love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.  If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump" and it jumps, but I don't Love, I'm nothing.  If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't Love, I've gotten nowhere.  So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without Love.

How do I Love?  Thankfully, the Bible goes on to list clearly the qualities that comprise True Love in I Corinthians: Love is patient, Love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Starting today, there are 14 days before Valentine's Day.  There are 14 tenets to this statement.  I am going to take these 14 days and focus on one piece a day.  I need to get my head on straight about love and stop worrying about myself all the time.  I will try to write each day with what I've (hopefully!) learned.

On Animals

Thoughts on animals...

Mark Bittner of The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill studied a wild flock of parrots in San Francisco for six years.  Over these years, he learned that the birds had distinct personalities and experienced emotion ranging from pride, to lonliness, from contentedness to playfulness.  In one passage of the book (you'll just have to read it to get the gist), he describes a dying bird and how it conveyed a clear emotion of regret to him.  He believes unflinchingly that animals experience the same range of emotions as humans, unadulterated by neuroses and other disorders borne of a higher functioning brain.  

My experiences with J.R. has also given me insight into the meaning of animals, I guess.  J.R. loves to have a job; he used to get the morning paper when we lived on High St.  He was so proud of his post!  Animals like choice and , in fact, choice has been proven to stimulate brain development.   J.R. also likes to please.  Each night as lights get turned off and I wind down for bedtime, he'll dutifully crawl under the covers and with great care, begin to lick my legs.  If my I have long pants on, he'll lick my arms, or perhaps my hand.  Anything he can get to do his job!  Dad has knee problems, and J.R. would always lick Dad's legs over Mom's and mine; but, if Dad weren't around, he'd jump over and with alacrity lick our legs.  Another thing J.R. likes is touch, though he may be reluctant to admit it and often plays the strong guy role.  But it's true, and if you don't believe this quality exists in animals, look up the Harry Harlow experiments.  Baby monkeys were placed in a cage with the choice of two mothers: one was made of soft terry cloth, but gave away no food, the other was a wire mother who dispensed food via a baby bottle.  The monkeys spent the majority of their time with the terry cloth mother.  Harlow concluded:  "These data make it obvious that contact comfort is a variable of overwhelming importance in the development of affectional response, whereas lactation is a variable of negligible importance."  Yes, animals can give and receive love. 


When J.R. was recovering from a cyst removal surgery, he was dependent on me for his healing.  I administered antibiotics to him as well as pain killers.  I took him out.  Kept him clean.  And loved him. Sometimes the love required things he didn't like, like pulling on a string that drained his wound (much easier typed than done, believe me!) But all measures were necessary.  He had to have faith that I was taking care of him and doing what was best (to my knowledge) for him.  Sometimes, when his faith faltered and he'd protest, squirm, and growl at me, he had to endure the process against his will.  All these experiences made me think of God's role in our life.  Sometimes we have faith in him, sometimes we suffer under his care, but always he is caring for us.  


Perhaps animals give us a glimpse of God.  Man was made in God's image.  Man, as the other animals, evolved from a common ancestor.  Could we also not say that animals reflect something about God as well?


I particularly liked this morning's devotional by Elisabeth Elliot.  It approaches a question I've always had... what is the significance of animals?  Why are they here?  Are they more than flesh and basic instinct?  I believe so. 

Animals, My Kinsman
While driving recently I was listening to one of those "call-in" shows on the radio, and was glad to hear a question that had nothing to do with politics or abortion or the drug problem. A lady wanted to know whether mongrels were ever trained to be seeing-eye dogs. She felt sorry for all those mongrels she saw on the streets, and she thought it would be so nice if they could be trained to help blind people because (and here the host had to ask her to repeat what she had said to make sure he had heard it right) it would give them something to look forward to.
Just exactly what view did the lady take of the minds of dogs? Did they suffer identity crises? Were they bored with life on the streets, finding that there wasn't much future in it?

Then I heard a recording of the songs of whales. I wouldn't have believed it if I had not just read the fascinating article in the New Yorker by Faith McNulty, "Lord of the Fish," in which she says that whales do indeed "sing." A man named Frank Watlington, an engineer with the Columbia University Geophysical Field Station at Bermuda, recorded the songs with a hydrophone. In contrast to birdsongs, which are light and quick, the song of the whale is heavy and slow, a sort of muted trumpeting interspersed with ratcheting and at times with a surprisingly high, thin whining. It is jubilant and boisterous, eerie and sorrowful, often reminding one of an echo. I had the feeling the whale sometimes experimented with different kinds of sound and when pleased with one drew it out, then abruptly reverted to the ones he'd practiced before, even including a loud, rude Bronx cheer.

The question naturally arises as to why whales make these noises. "It must be the mating call," is the first suggestion most people come up with. But that theory doesn't stand up to scientific investigation. The truth is that nobody has figured out why whales make the noises they make. But then, as my husband pointed out, nobody has figured out why human beings make the noises they make either. Miss McNulty believes whales sing so they won't be alone.

I know a Vermont policeman who was on duty as a game warden one day during hunting season. He sat quietly in the woods and heard a stirring in the leaves over a little rise and soon a young bear appeared about thirty yards away. The bear lay down on his side and squirmed around in a circle in the dead leaves, pushing them into a pile in the center of the circle. Then he climbed a tree and jumped into the pile. He did this not once but again and again. Obviously he was having fun.

I have always found animals irresistible. The whole idea of a kingdom of beings utterly separate and distinct from ourselves who nevertheless gaze upon us and think thoughts about us ravishes me. What do they mean? Why are they there? What did God mean by making them? When he made man, he made him in his own image. When he made animals, his imagination ranged wide and free. But we confront them, we breathe the same air and walk the same earth and live and move and have our being in the same Creator. So we seek to understand them, and quite naturally we ascribe to them our own passions and needs--the ambition of the forsaken mongrel who roams the streets, hoping for some useful niche in the scheme of things; the loneliness of the tremendous beast that moves through dark oceans, singing his wistful song on the off chance that there will be ears to hear; the gaiety of the little yearling bear who, all alone, makes his arrangement for joy and then joyfully climbs, plunges, plays and climbs again.

These creatures are, I suppose, unaware (but perhaps I am wrong--perhaps they are profoundly aware) that a human heart goes out, a human ear is tuned, a human eye watches. And perhaps animals are aware of the divine heart and ear and eye. Perhaps they are not so oblivious as we. Even young lions, according to the Psalmist, "seek their food from God." Look at the face of a good dog. There is simplicity and gentleness and reverence in those liquid eyes. Does he behold the face of the Father? It is easy for me to believe that he does.
God meant the animals to instruct us. I am sure that is one of the things he meant. When he had listened to all the arguments and complaints of his servant Job, and all the bombast of his friends, he answered by the revelation of himself. And this revelation, beginning with the dimensions of the universe, the mighty harmony of the morning stars, the phenomena of sea, clouds, snow, hail, rain, dew, hoarfrost, ice and the constellations, wound up with animals.

What Job didn't know then was that God had already identified himself with one of his own creatures, the gentlest, most harmless little animal of all. He was a Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.
I have often thought that that terrible ash heap on which poor Job scratched and shrieked would have been made so much more endurable if he had had the least inkling of that. He was overpowered, but had he any idea at all of how he was loved? I have been comforted, in the midst of what seemed to me like ashes, by the thought of the Lamb, and even (does it seem absurd?) by the unflagging attention and affection of a little black dog. For I remember that when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness he had two comforters--angels and animals. The record says he was "with the wild beasts," which I once took to mean he was endangered by them as well as tempted by Satan. I now think otherwise. The animals were surely no threat to him. They kept him company in his sore struggle.

When the impact of life seems about to break us, we can put our minds for a few minutes on fellow creatures--the whale, the bear, or things that "take life blithely, like birds and babies," as Martin Luther said--and remember that there is a sacrifice at the heart of it all. The Lamb became the Shepherd, bearing and caring for the sheep, laying down his life for them both as shepherd and as Lamb, and, in the end, the Book of the Revelation promises, "the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes."

What Endures?

So, I've had the "Blah" as Kiersta puts it, for the past week.  Suffice to say, it's given me time to contemplate lots of things.  Physically, I feel icky, but I've had lots of reading time.  Mom gave me Uncle Tom's Cabin for my birthday, and I could not put it down, to my surprise.  I never thought I'd really be into a book based on the heavy subject of slavery, though I could definitely have learned more about it.  But the book, to me, is more than a exposition of the injustices of slavery; to me, it's a memoir of a man who embodied what Christ taught.  Uncle Tom, the namesake of the book, suffered much in his life, but was always loyal and a devout Christian.  Through all the hardships he experienced, he never gave in!  And, man, he goes through some heart-breaking times in this book.  The book taught me that Jesus has purchased us with his blood (yes, that cliche and morbid saying we've all heard... but true!) and that we're his, if we just hang on; Physically, we can lose all, we can be afflicted, tortured, lost, degraded, but nobody has a hold on our Soul, besides Christ.  That's it.  It's untouchable by those of the physical realm.  I like that.   I've never been much into fiction, but this book shoes me that fiction can be used, if not better than non-fiction, to illustrate a real-world lesson.  I also like that.  So, more fiction, please!

After reading the book, I began thinking about how things of the physical world inevitably fail. Whether jobs, relationships, our own bodies, or minds... things fail.  When Mom and Dad separated, I tried to be very practical about the matter. One of the things that I was reluctant to leave was our little home.  I liked that place, and had spent a good 15 years of my life there.  However, I told myself, "It's just foundation and wood, it doesn't matter."  Life went on.  But over the years, I've had this recurring dream that Mom, Dad, and I are squatting there, whether while the present owner (someone I went to school with!) is at work or on vacation.  We sneak in with just the perfect timing and leave the place immaculately untouched as it has been before... I've had about five of these dreams.  When I spoke with Dad about his selling his car (which he's had for way too long anyway!) to be replaced with a new one, we both were a little wistful of the matter.  It's a freaking car!  Why?  And I realized that it's because things are mementos.  We can ascribe memories, people, feelings to little, superficial things.  The items themselves are no more than an item, but the associations we make with these mementos are extremely important to us.  I remember when I was about five, Mom and Dad were trading in the White Car (a little Honda we'd had for a couple of years).  I remember looking back from the seat of the new Blue Car and sobbing, "Goodbye, White Car!!"  I knew how many moments I'd had in that car and how significant they were to me.  Things do matter, because the emotional associations we ascribe to those things. 

So, what endures?  Things will fail us.  They'll be gone, shadows of the past which echo in our memories.

I guess the expected answer is God, in all his glorious infinity.  Yes, that's true, but that's not where my thoughts lie today.

I believe that the people in our lives endure.  If we're blessed enough to meet those wonderful souls who plant a thought, or an experience in our selves which we keep throughout our lives, then those people have endured in our minds, hence the phrase, lasting impression.  Those people have given us something that will go beyond their physical presence with us (whether they pass, or get off the bus, or move to another country) the kind word, the relationship, the years, the children, or the home they've given us will persist in our hearts for our short stint on this rock. 

True, the house is gone.  My parents are no longer together.  But I'm blessed with two wonderful Folks who are still around this day.  And even if they weren't, they will endure: biologically in me (through DNA, as a friend wisely observed when speaking at her father's service after he'd passed), mentally by their thoughts and teachings and all the lessons they have cultivated in me over the years (though some took a good while to sink in), and spiritually, by showing me examples of their strong faith and introducing me to my Savior.  Yes, they'll endure.

As will my wonderful friends.  I've graduated and moved out of Marshall, but the people I've met there will go on in my hearts.  I've been fortunate enough to have the time this year to spend with old PROWLer's or APO brothers.  Others, however, have also moved on to a new stage of life, but they remain in my heart.  God has also put new friends in my life since I've started my Americorps term.  I've been so lucky to have these amazing people in my life who stay in my heart to the end!

I was on the plane from Iquitos, Peru (2006) to the States when a stranger sat beside me.  She was tall, lean, and athletic looking with very short, blond hair. We sat, wordless for a while, and then she leaned over and asked if she could have my fruit.  We began a friendly conversation (alternating between Spanish and English) after her question; she was a German college student who had earned a scholarship to travel throughout Peru.  She had been to los altiplanos with indigenous peoples, and through the sprawling cities whose chaos which can be understood only by visiting a developing-world-metropolis, and finally, she had made her way through the Amazon jungle.  She told me of the wonderful people she had met.  I was struck by the positive energy she just radiated!  Particularly, she told me of a parasite she had caught in the jungle, evinced by a small mark on her shoulder.  She'd had to go to the hospital eventually.  "But it was OK", she remarked glibly, "It was like I had a little buddy with me during my travels!"  I was awed by her positive spirit.  The plane landed after seven hours, we went our ways, and I've never heard from her again.  But I'll always carry that conversation with me.

These "observations" are probably obvious to some readers.  I guess, I'm more of a math and science, black-and-white person, and understanding people has proven a tricky process for me. What I've come up with is this:  I'm convinced that the experiences we have with people in this world are the things we will take with us to our last days. Because of this, it is imperative that we cultivate healthy relationships, and make a good lasting impression on the people we meet.  And finally, when we pass through our last days into Eternity, we may be able to resume those precious relationships.  :)

Quotes

"Loving like Christ, requires sacrifice"  -- Pastor Keith Battle, Zion Church

A prayer to use when we are tempted to judge others:  "God, show me, Me."  -- Pastor Keith Battle, Zion Church

 "So well is the harp of human feeling strung, that nothing but a crash that breaks every string can wholly mar its harmony; and, on looking back to seasons which in review appear to us as those of deprivation an trial, we can remember that each hour, as it glided, brought its diversions and alleviations, so that, though not happy wholly, we were not, either, wholly miserable." 

-- Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom's Cabin

The Calling

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: All That Was Ever Ours
Scripture Reference: Psalm 84:11 Psalm 145:18-19 Psalm 84:5

But I Don't Feel Called

A seminary student stopped me a few days ago to ask the question that troubles many young people today. It is not new. I struggled with it when I was a student, as I suppose people have for many centuries. "How can I tell if God is calling me? I don't really feel called."

Usually the question refers to a life's work. Nobody seems to stew very much about whether God is calling them to run down to the grocery store or take in a movie. We need groceries. We like movies. If the refrigerator is empty or there's a good movie in town, we jump into the car and go. Even Christians do this. Spiritual "giants" do it, I guess. They don't even pray about it. But this matter of the mission field. Oh, God, do you want me there? Shall I risk everything and launch out to some third world backwater, some waterless desert, some dreadful place where there are starving children, refugees, Marxists, dictators? Are you asking me to drag my wife, my children, to a place like that?

The call of God to Saul of Tarsus was dramatic--he was blinded, knocked flat, and clearly spoken to. God got his attention. But later in Antioch the Holy Spirit spoke to certain prophets and teachers. "Set apart Barnabas and Saul for me, to do the work to which I have called them." That was good enough. Barnabas and Saul obeyed the divine call, even though it came through other men.

It was during the Mass of the Feast of St. Matthias, in a chapel in the midst of a great, silent forest, that Francis of Assisi heard the call of God. It was not through an angel or a disembodied voice from beyond, but through the reading of the Gospel for that day: "Go and preach the message, 'The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!' ...Freely you have received, freely give." When the young man heard the words read by the priest, he felt that God had finally illumined his path. He did not, however, trust his feelings. He asked the priest to explain the passage. The priest said that Christ's disciples were to preach repentance everywhere, to take nothing with them, and to trust God alone to supply their needs.

Francis thrilled with happiness at this revelation and exclaimed enthusiastically: "That is what I want! That is what I seek! That is what I long to do with all my heart!" On the instant, he threw away his staff, took off his shoes, and laid aside his cloak, keeping only a tunic; replaced his leather belt with a cord, and made himself a rough garment, so poor and so badly cut that it could inspire envy in no man.
Omer Englebert
St. Francis of Assisi

There are at least six lessons in this short story:

1. The man wanted God's direction.
2. He went to church, where he could hear godly preaching.
3. He listened to the Word of God.
4. He asked for help from one who was his spiritual superior.
5. He accepted the help.
6. He acted at once.

It is significant that he found in the words of the Lord the answer to a deep longing in his heart.

In C. S. Lewis's Preface to Paradise Lost, he describes Aeneas' unfaltering search for the "abiding city," his willingness to pay the terrible price to reach it at last, even though he casts a wistful side-glance at those not called as he is. "This is the very portrait of a vocation: a thing that calls or beckons, that calls inexorably, yet you must strain your ears to catch the voice, that insists on being sought, yet refuses to be found." Then there were the Trojan women who had heard the call, yet refused to follow all the way, and wept on the Sicilian shore. "To follow the vocation does not mean happiness," Lewis writes, "but once it has been heard, there is no happiness for those who do not follow."

Yes. My heart says yes to that. What agonies I suffered as a young woman, straining my ears to catch the voice, full of fear that I would miss it, yet longing to hear it, longing to be told what to do, in order that I might do it. That desire is a pure one. Most of our desires are tainted at least a little, but the desire to do the will of God surely is our highest. Is it reasonable to think that God would not finally reveal his will to us? Is it (we must also ask) reasonable not to use our powers of reason, given to us by him? Does it make more sense to go to the grocery store because groceries are needed than to go to foreign lands because workers are needed? If we deny the simple logic of going where the need is most desperate, we may, like the Trojan women, spend the rest of our lives suspended

Twixt miserable longing for present land
And the far realms that call by the fates' command.
Aeneid, V, 656

While Virgil wrote of mythical heroes, his lines echo the more ancient lines of the Psalms which are rich with assurances of God's faithful guidance of those who honestly desire it, and of the lasting rewards of obedience.

Happy the men whose refuge is in thee,
whose hearts are set on the pilgrim ways!
The Lord will hold back no good thing
from those whose life is blameless.
84:5, 11 NEB

Very near is the Lord to those who call to him, in singleness of heart.
He fulfills their desire if only they fear him."
145:18, 19 NEB

It is the sixth lesson from the St. Francis story that is most often overlooked. Obedience is action. Often we do not have any instant light on the particular question we've been asking God, but he has shown us something we ought to do. Whatever it is, however unrelated it may seem to the "big" decision, do it. Do it at once. We thus put ourselves in the path of God's will. A single step taken, if we have his Word as a lamp for our feet, throws sufficient light for the next step. Following the Shepherd we learn, like sheep, to know his voice. We will become acquainted with his call and will not follow a stranger's.