When Jesus revealed himself upon the holy mountain, he emanated light. I have always wondered what that might have looked like. Was it so bright that Peter, James and John found it hard to look? Was it like the sun on a blazing hot day when you cannot look directly at the light without blinding yourself? Was it frightening? Peter does not seem scared, he seems more distracted, trying to preserve the moment. He never once asks how this is happening, or what Moses and Elijah are doing there, talking to Jesus. He seems happy, but just gets distracted with his idea of how to preserve the moment by building homes for the three of them. The brightness of Jesus does not seem to scare Peter, rather it makes him want to preserve the moment.
I think that I have seem some of God's light in people's eyes. When they are completely joyful. When they have been praying. My friend Marcella went on a 48 hour silent retreat in college. She had never really prayed in a disciplined way before. I wondered if she would make it without going crazy. When she came back to our dorm after the retreat, her face shone. She seemed so at peace and she couldn't stop smiling. When I asked her what it was like, she told me that it was initially very painful, trying so hard to be silent and to sit still. But about halfway through the retreat, something shifted inside of her. She felt totally awake, as she had never been before. She went for a walk and everything looked so beautiful, the colors, the sky. And when she came back, just for that night, she seemed to shine.
I have had the privilege of talking to people whose faces shone with light when they talked about the people that they loved or about God. One old man in the hospital could not wait to see God's face. "I have been waiting all my life," he said. And his eyes, they just shone with light.
What is a halo? It must be a reflection of the light of God, shining in the person who loves God. St. Paul writes that those who love God will reflect God's glory. Like a mirror, the devoted will begin to shine with the light of Christ.
You could call it the Rub Off Effect. Just hang around God enough, loving God and basking in that love, and you will begin to shine like the sun.
Monday, February 15, 2010
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
Beyond Bad Moods
I am running a nursing home for dogs. Old Benjamin, our chocolate lab, is now 15 years old. He has two tumors, one under each armpit. He has warts, arthritis and hip dysplasia. Each morning, at about 4 a.m., Ben shuffles across the floor of the hallway, huffing and puffing. I hear him start to move and I have the most awful thoughts, lying there in my warm bed. It’s as if a demon takes over my mind. Talk about a bad mood, it’s all that I can do not to murder that old dog.
We can do awful things when we are in a bad mood. We blame our behavior on exhaustion, our mood swings. But does our exhaustion give us the excuse to be awful?
When I was 18. I had my wisdom teeth removed. When I came to from the anesthetic, my head was pounding and I felt exhausted. My mother was so happy that I had awakened, that she started to chatter. It was probably nerves on her part, but she just wouldn’t stop yapping. I could not speak, so I put my hand over her mouth. That didn’t stop her, she didn’t even seem to notice. Maybe she thought that I was delusional or something, so she kept on chatting and chatting, like knives in my head. So I punched her in the face.
It was the first and last time that I have hit my mother.
Peter was absolutely exhausted. He had been fishing all night. That’s how you fish on the Sea of Galillee, because the fish prefer to rise when its cool, in the evening. During the heat of the day, the fish go deeper to escape the heat. The water is fresh, for the Sea of Galilee is really a large lake, stretching 13 miles in circumference and no deeper than 150 feet at the bottom. So Peter and James and John would set out in their boats and dusk and spend the night throwing heavy nets of rope into the sea and then hauling them out again.
Sometimes they would make a good haul by midnight and could go home. There they could sleep, wake at dawn to sell some of their fish. But not tonight. Over and over again, they threw their nets into the fresh, clean water of the lake. Over and over again, they hauled in those heavy nets only to find dirt and weeds. They were soaked. They were exhausted and frustrated. By the time that the sun came up, they must have been mad. I would have been.
Once the night was over, you could not just go home and go to sleep. Fishermen had to clean their nets. Those ropes and knots would get covered with dirt and weeds. It was messy, back-breaking work. And all they wanted to do was sleep.
So there they were, washing their nets by the shore of the sea, when Jesus appeared. Jesus was surrounded by a great crowd, as usual. People kept moving closer to him, wanting to hear him, wanting him to touch them. Their desire to be near him caused him to seek a place where he could speak to them all. And what place would be better than the shore, where the water reflects sound and where Jesus could step out into a boat, get some space, and compose his words.
Jesus climbed into Peter’s boat. I imagine that Peter’s back was hurting, as he bent down and tried to remove the weeds and rocks from his net. Next thing he knew Jesus was standing in his boat. “Would you put this boat out a little bit from the shore?” he asked.
Peter obeyed. He did not say, ‘Hey! That’s my boat! Get out!”
He did not say, “Get your own boat! I’m too tired.”
No, he simply obeyed.
Jesus began to teach from the boat. There was nothing recorded in Luke about what he said. I wonder if Peter could even hear him, or maybe Peter was nodding off in the boat, as he now had been awake all night. Maybe he had that leaden feeling that comes over your limbs when you are sleep deprived and he was just fighting to keep his eyes open.
After Jesus finished teaching, he told Peter to go out into the deep water and let down his nets for a catch. Peter didn’t want to do it. “Master,” he said, “We have worked all night long but have caught nothing…But if you say so, I will let down the nets.”I know that kind of a sentence. The guilt trip kind. “Sure, I will do the dishes. I have been cleaning for hours and hours….But if you say so.”
Oh, how I love Peter! He is constantly putting his foot in his mouth, complaining or saying the wrong thing. You can just hear the implications in his words, “Master, you don’t know how to fish. We have been at it all night…This is ridiculous!” Peter must have been thinking about the fact that he had just cleaned his nets! Now he was going to have to clean them all over again. What a pain.
So he threw those clean nets over the side of the boat one more time. And the fish rose. When Peter tried to haul in the nets, he could not lift them. He called to his friends James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, and together they hauled in nets so full of fish that they were about to break. Never had he seen anything like this before! It was enough fish for a month, for more than that! The boats were so full that they were about to sink. Peter had never seen so many fish, so much abundance. It took his breath away.
When they get to shore, Peter falls down on his knees and he cries out to Jesus Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!
Peter was overwhelmed by the fact that he, in his stupidity and his exhaustion, almost disobeyed this incredible teacher. He began to catch a glimpse of who Jesus was, and he realized what a mess he is in comparison. Peter’s words are so much like many of the great Christian prayers. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Why do we berate ourselves in the face of Jesus? Because when we see God face to face, our petty exhaustions and mundane moods seem so trivial, so stupid. We recognize how broken we are in the face of God. It comes at the same time, the recognition that God is so great and we are such a mess in comparison.
You should not be with me, Peter says. You are too good for me.
But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. For now you will be fishing people.”
Don’t be scared or worried or fearful, just come with me. I will show you the way.
I am amazed by how Jesus asked Peter to fish before he asked Peter to do anything else. Why didn’t he just invite Peter to come with him? Why not simply teach Peter about God? No, the first thing that Jesus does is to ask Peter to do once more that which he has done all of his life. The first thing that Jesus does is call Peter to the mundane, the every day, the ordinary. And Jesus makes the ordinary extraordinary.
Most of us believe that to follow God’s will means to do something magnificent, to travel to exotic lands, to start a homeless shelter, to feed thousands or impact the world in some grand way. But Jesus called the founder of the church by simply asking him to fish. When he was exhausted, when his back was aching and his brain was fuzzy, Jesus asked just one more thing. “Get your nets dirty,” he said. “Do it one more time…for me.”
It makes me realize that God calls us powerfully in the day to day inconsequential things just much as God calls us to lofty tasks. God calls us to fix dinner for our loved ones, to get up in the middle of the night to comfort a child. God calls us to give a ride to an elderly neighbor, to help clean the house. God calls me to get out of bed and help my old dog make is way outside.
How strange it is to think that if Peter had not been obedient in the small things, he might never have been a disciple. Even though he was tired and overwhelmed and hungry and moody. Even though he didn’t want to do it and he dragged himself into the boat. Even though he argued and complained. Yet Jesus still called. And look what happened to Peter. From lowly fisherman, he became the rock upon which the church was built. The Bishop of all bishops, the founder of all that we hold dear.
Don’t forget that discipleship begins in the mess of life, with the simple act of being obedient.
We can do awful things when we are in a bad mood. We blame our behavior on exhaustion, our mood swings. But does our exhaustion give us the excuse to be awful?
When I was 18. I had my wisdom teeth removed. When I came to from the anesthetic, my head was pounding and I felt exhausted. My mother was so happy that I had awakened, that she started to chatter. It was probably nerves on her part, but she just wouldn’t stop yapping. I could not speak, so I put my hand over her mouth. That didn’t stop her, she didn’t even seem to notice. Maybe she thought that I was delusional or something, so she kept on chatting and chatting, like knives in my head. So I punched her in the face.
It was the first and last time that I have hit my mother.
Peter was absolutely exhausted. He had been fishing all night. That’s how you fish on the Sea of Galillee, because the fish prefer to rise when its cool, in the evening. During the heat of the day, the fish go deeper to escape the heat. The water is fresh, for the Sea of Galilee is really a large lake, stretching 13 miles in circumference and no deeper than 150 feet at the bottom. So Peter and James and John would set out in their boats and dusk and spend the night throwing heavy nets of rope into the sea and then hauling them out again.
Sometimes they would make a good haul by midnight and could go home. There they could sleep, wake at dawn to sell some of their fish. But not tonight. Over and over again, they threw their nets into the fresh, clean water of the lake. Over and over again, they hauled in those heavy nets only to find dirt and weeds. They were soaked. They were exhausted and frustrated. By the time that the sun came up, they must have been mad. I would have been.
Once the night was over, you could not just go home and go to sleep. Fishermen had to clean their nets. Those ropes and knots would get covered with dirt and weeds. It was messy, back-breaking work. And all they wanted to do was sleep.
So there they were, washing their nets by the shore of the sea, when Jesus appeared. Jesus was surrounded by a great crowd, as usual. People kept moving closer to him, wanting to hear him, wanting him to touch them. Their desire to be near him caused him to seek a place where he could speak to them all. And what place would be better than the shore, where the water reflects sound and where Jesus could step out into a boat, get some space, and compose his words.
Jesus climbed into Peter’s boat. I imagine that Peter’s back was hurting, as he bent down and tried to remove the weeds and rocks from his net. Next thing he knew Jesus was standing in his boat. “Would you put this boat out a little bit from the shore?” he asked.
Peter obeyed. He did not say, ‘Hey! That’s my boat! Get out!”
He did not say, “Get your own boat! I’m too tired.”
No, he simply obeyed.
Jesus began to teach from the boat. There was nothing recorded in Luke about what he said. I wonder if Peter could even hear him, or maybe Peter was nodding off in the boat, as he now had been awake all night. Maybe he had that leaden feeling that comes over your limbs when you are sleep deprived and he was just fighting to keep his eyes open.
After Jesus finished teaching, he told Peter to go out into the deep water and let down his nets for a catch. Peter didn’t want to do it. “Master,” he said, “We have worked all night long but have caught nothing…But if you say so, I will let down the nets.”I know that kind of a sentence. The guilt trip kind. “Sure, I will do the dishes. I have been cleaning for hours and hours….But if you say so.”
Oh, how I love Peter! He is constantly putting his foot in his mouth, complaining or saying the wrong thing. You can just hear the implications in his words, “Master, you don’t know how to fish. We have been at it all night…This is ridiculous!” Peter must have been thinking about the fact that he had just cleaned his nets! Now he was going to have to clean them all over again. What a pain.
So he threw those clean nets over the side of the boat one more time. And the fish rose. When Peter tried to haul in the nets, he could not lift them. He called to his friends James and John, the Sons of Zebedee, and together they hauled in nets so full of fish that they were about to break. Never had he seen anything like this before! It was enough fish for a month, for more than that! The boats were so full that they were about to sink. Peter had never seen so many fish, so much abundance. It took his breath away.
When they get to shore, Peter falls down on his knees and he cries out to Jesus Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!
Peter was overwhelmed by the fact that he, in his stupidity and his exhaustion, almost disobeyed this incredible teacher. He began to catch a glimpse of who Jesus was, and he realized what a mess he is in comparison. Peter’s words are so much like many of the great Christian prayers. Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. Why do we berate ourselves in the face of Jesus? Because when we see God face to face, our petty exhaustions and mundane moods seem so trivial, so stupid. We recognize how broken we are in the face of God. It comes at the same time, the recognition that God is so great and we are such a mess in comparison.
You should not be with me, Peter says. You are too good for me.
But Jesus says, “Don’t be afraid. For now you will be fishing people.”
Don’t be scared or worried or fearful, just come with me. I will show you the way.
I am amazed by how Jesus asked Peter to fish before he asked Peter to do anything else. Why didn’t he just invite Peter to come with him? Why not simply teach Peter about God? No, the first thing that Jesus does is to ask Peter to do once more that which he has done all of his life. The first thing that Jesus does is call Peter to the mundane, the every day, the ordinary. And Jesus makes the ordinary extraordinary.
Most of us believe that to follow God’s will means to do something magnificent, to travel to exotic lands, to start a homeless shelter, to feed thousands or impact the world in some grand way. But Jesus called the founder of the church by simply asking him to fish. When he was exhausted, when his back was aching and his brain was fuzzy, Jesus asked just one more thing. “Get your nets dirty,” he said. “Do it one more time…for me.”
It makes me realize that God calls us powerfully in the day to day inconsequential things just much as God calls us to lofty tasks. God calls us to fix dinner for our loved ones, to get up in the middle of the night to comfort a child. God calls us to give a ride to an elderly neighbor, to help clean the house. God calls me to get out of bed and help my old dog make is way outside.
How strange it is to think that if Peter had not been obedient in the small things, he might never have been a disciple. Even though he was tired and overwhelmed and hungry and moody. Even though he didn’t want to do it and he dragged himself into the boat. Even though he argued and complained. Yet Jesus still called. And look what happened to Peter. From lowly fisherman, he became the rock upon which the church was built. The Bishop of all bishops, the founder of all that we hold dear.
Don’t forget that discipleship begins in the mess of life, with the simple act of being obedient.
Monday, February 01, 2010
Love and Windex
In my years as a priest, I have learned that there is an enormous difference between love and attachment.
Take Selena for example. Selena was married for 52 years when her husband was diagnosed with cancer. Lung cancer. He tried every kind of treatment, researched thoroughly. She was with him every step of the way, her love never failed him. But he grew tired. After a year of treatments, he told her that he was ready to die. “No,” she said. “You are not ready to die. We can beat this thing.” “Honey, I am tired,” he said. “My body doesn’t work right. I am old. Let me go.” But she couldn’t. She held on to him for months. I kept asking her to give him permission to die, but she could not. Even though it would have made him so peaceful, she could not. He grew incredibly thin, he lingered on, his dying prolonged. Finally, he passed away in great pain. His dying was prolonged because his wife could not let him go. Even though he begged her, she would not let go.
My friend Anna waited to get married. She wanted to find the perfect man. By 38, she began to realize that the perfect man might not be out there, so she settled for a good man. And once they got married, they immediately began to try and have children.
Anna wanted to be a mother her whole life. Her happily ever after consisted of a husband and two kids, a boy and a girl. When she gave birth to first a girl and then a boy, she thought that this was it. Life had reached its climax. She was beginning her happily ever after. And she loved her children. Oh, she loved them. She stopped working to take care of them, focusing on every little detail from their diet to their clothing to their activities. She was the perfect mom.
But her children began to have behavioral issues fairly early on. Her daughter seemed angry and would throw large temper tantrums. Her son seemed unfocused, dazed. And the more they did not fit the mold, the harder she tried. She was consumed with anxiety. This was not the way that it was supposed to go. Her children had everything that a child could ask for, so why were they not behaving? She gave them everything. She loved them so much. And they were angry.
20 years after Jesus’ resurrection, when the people who loved Jesus were gathering together for meals and forming the first churches, Paul wrote a letter to the church in Corinth. The Corinthians were confused. They worshipped Roman gods, enjoyed the sexual freedoms of the Greek temples, and then came to church. They did not know how to love God let alone how to behave. Paul wrote one of this best letters to the church at Corinth partially because he was so frustrated. There is nothing like a problem to make you dig deep for the right words. The children of God were going astray and he wanted them to understand how to walk in Jesus’ ways.
Paul wrote one of the most beautiful passages of all time in his first letter to the Corinthians. It reads like a hymn, all about love and the true nature of love. We hear it again and again at weddings, funerals, special ceremonies. Tony Blair read it aloud at Lady Diana’s funeral. We have heard it a million times. It is the passage of a lifetime. Paul talks about how we see through a glass dimly in this life. It is as if a lens is placed in front of our eyes at birth. In order to love one another, we must be able to see each other through the glass.
I went to the Residences for a lovely lunch last week. The apartment that I visited was so beautiful, but the glass needed cleaning. You could see the beautiful view of the city from five or six stories up, but there was a lot of dust on the windows. I wanted to ask when they would be cleaned again.
It struck me that the lens of our lives becomes dirty, muddied sometimes and when that happens, we no longer love as God would have us love. Selena could not love her husband because her lens was clouded over by her need for him to be at her side. Her fear and her needs clouded over the glass, making it impossible for her to truly see that her husband needed to die.
Anna loved her children, but she dirtied the lens of her life by letting her expectations and her attachment to her children become obsessive. She no longer saw them as unique individuals. She saw them only as measuring up to whatever she wanted them to be. It was their job to fulfill her expectations and when they didn’t she became more controlling and they became angry. It was as if she drew a picture on the glass and asked them to stay inside her picture. She really couldn’t see them at all, not as God made them. What Anna failed to do was to get her expectations out of her sight. She never simply asked herself, “Who are my children? What are they trying to tell me? How can I give my life to them?” Instead she worshipped an idol of prosperity, a vision of family that does not really exist and she thought she loved her children, but her love was crippled by her overwhelming expectations. In her desire to live the happily ever after, she was suffocating her children.
The people of Nazareth would have said that they loved Jesus. They had watched him grow up. He was their little boy. They were proud of him. And when he came home, they treated him with great respect and asked him to read the Scriptures.
When Jesus revealed to them that he was the Messiah and that the prophet Isaiah was actually talking about him, things changed a lot. The love that the people said they felt for Jesus became anger and even hatred. Because it was never love. It was attachment, attachment to something that was never truly there. They loved the dust on the window, not the true person who stood there right in front of them. They loved the image of the child raised among them, not the Son of God.
The people who we love the most are those who ironically are the hardest to truly love. Our love for them gets so easily coated over with expectations, attachments, guilt and other issues. We find ourselves not listening to the ones we truly love. We want them to be who we want them to be, not the children of God that God has created them to be. Fulfill my expectations, we tell them. Do what I need and want. And we no longer listen to the ones who we supposedly love the most.
I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in hospital rooms with someone who is clearly longing to die and their loves ones will not let them go. “Who is this about?” I will ask. “Is this love or is this attachment? Is this about meeting your needs or is it about meeting the needs of the person who you love? Is having them around really better than letting them go when you are causing them undo pain and extended dying? Whose needs are being met here?”
Sometimes the lens of our life gets so clouded over with expectations or fears that we cannot see the person we love at all. It is as if we are having a relationship with someone who does not actually exist.
There is only one way to try to see through the glass clearly in this life. The love of God must come FIRST, above everything else. Love of God must come before love of spouse, love of children, love of friends. If you do not love God above all else, all love will for you become distorted.
Love of God is like Windex. It cleans off the lens of your life. It burns everything off: your needs, your wants, your expectations. If you can love God first, ironically, you will love everyone else better. Jesus said it so clearly:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
But you must love God first and above all if you are to have a hope of loving yourself or anyone else. You see, if you truly love God, then you are open to God as He is present in your Loved ones. You are open to the new and unexpected ways that your loved ones live their lives. You are able to listen in new and profound ways to their needs and desires. And the hymn of love that Paul so elegantly wrote so long ago becomes the song of your life.
Picture your loved ones. Picture their faces in your minds. We human beings are truly capable of no more than four or five intimate relationships. Who are they? See their faces. When was the last time that you REALLY looked at them? When was the last time that you pushed yourself to listen to who they are in a particular moment? Do you realize that they are constantly changing?
The people of Nazareth nearly killed Jesus by asking him to be something that he was not. Are you in danger of doing the same thing to the people that you love? Or is your love clean enough, pure enough, true enough to let them be? Can you wipe off the sins of your lives and see more clearly, even now?
Now we see through a glass dimly, Paul wrote. Yes, but we can work on that, even now. We can try as hard as we can to clean our sight, to see everything more clearly. We can try all the days of our lives to love God fiercely and purely, as Jesus did. For one day the veil will lift and we will see God face to face.
Take Selena for example. Selena was married for 52 years when her husband was diagnosed with cancer. Lung cancer. He tried every kind of treatment, researched thoroughly. She was with him every step of the way, her love never failed him. But he grew tired. After a year of treatments, he told her that he was ready to die. “No,” she said. “You are not ready to die. We can beat this thing.” “Honey, I am tired,” he said. “My body doesn’t work right. I am old. Let me go.” But she couldn’t. She held on to him for months. I kept asking her to give him permission to die, but she could not. Even though it would have made him so peaceful, she could not. He grew incredibly thin, he lingered on, his dying prolonged. Finally, he passed away in great pain. His dying was prolonged because his wife could not let him go. Even though he begged her, she would not let go.
My friend Anna waited to get married. She wanted to find the perfect man. By 38, she began to realize that the perfect man might not be out there, so she settled for a good man. And once they got married, they immediately began to try and have children.
Anna wanted to be a mother her whole life. Her happily ever after consisted of a husband and two kids, a boy and a girl. When she gave birth to first a girl and then a boy, she thought that this was it. Life had reached its climax. She was beginning her happily ever after. And she loved her children. Oh, she loved them. She stopped working to take care of them, focusing on every little detail from their diet to their clothing to their activities. She was the perfect mom.
But her children began to have behavioral issues fairly early on. Her daughter seemed angry and would throw large temper tantrums. Her son seemed unfocused, dazed. And the more they did not fit the mold, the harder she tried. She was consumed with anxiety. This was not the way that it was supposed to go. Her children had everything that a child could ask for, so why were they not behaving? She gave them everything. She loved them so much. And they were angry.
20 years after Jesus’ resurrection, when the people who loved Jesus were gathering together for meals and forming the first churches, Paul wrote a letter to the church in Corinth. The Corinthians were confused. They worshipped Roman gods, enjoyed the sexual freedoms of the Greek temples, and then came to church. They did not know how to love God let alone how to behave. Paul wrote one of this best letters to the church at Corinth partially because he was so frustrated. There is nothing like a problem to make you dig deep for the right words. The children of God were going astray and he wanted them to understand how to walk in Jesus’ ways.
Paul wrote one of the most beautiful passages of all time in his first letter to the Corinthians. It reads like a hymn, all about love and the true nature of love. We hear it again and again at weddings, funerals, special ceremonies. Tony Blair read it aloud at Lady Diana’s funeral. We have heard it a million times. It is the passage of a lifetime. Paul talks about how we see through a glass dimly in this life. It is as if a lens is placed in front of our eyes at birth. In order to love one another, we must be able to see each other through the glass.
I went to the Residences for a lovely lunch last week. The apartment that I visited was so beautiful, but the glass needed cleaning. You could see the beautiful view of the city from five or six stories up, but there was a lot of dust on the windows. I wanted to ask when they would be cleaned again.
It struck me that the lens of our lives becomes dirty, muddied sometimes and when that happens, we no longer love as God would have us love. Selena could not love her husband because her lens was clouded over by her need for him to be at her side. Her fear and her needs clouded over the glass, making it impossible for her to truly see that her husband needed to die.
Anna loved her children, but she dirtied the lens of her life by letting her expectations and her attachment to her children become obsessive. She no longer saw them as unique individuals. She saw them only as measuring up to whatever she wanted them to be. It was their job to fulfill her expectations and when they didn’t she became more controlling and they became angry. It was as if she drew a picture on the glass and asked them to stay inside her picture. She really couldn’t see them at all, not as God made them. What Anna failed to do was to get her expectations out of her sight. She never simply asked herself, “Who are my children? What are they trying to tell me? How can I give my life to them?” Instead she worshipped an idol of prosperity, a vision of family that does not really exist and she thought she loved her children, but her love was crippled by her overwhelming expectations. In her desire to live the happily ever after, she was suffocating her children.
The people of Nazareth would have said that they loved Jesus. They had watched him grow up. He was their little boy. They were proud of him. And when he came home, they treated him with great respect and asked him to read the Scriptures.
When Jesus revealed to them that he was the Messiah and that the prophet Isaiah was actually talking about him, things changed a lot. The love that the people said they felt for Jesus became anger and even hatred. Because it was never love. It was attachment, attachment to something that was never truly there. They loved the dust on the window, not the true person who stood there right in front of them. They loved the image of the child raised among them, not the Son of God.
The people who we love the most are those who ironically are the hardest to truly love. Our love for them gets so easily coated over with expectations, attachments, guilt and other issues. We find ourselves not listening to the ones we truly love. We want them to be who we want them to be, not the children of God that God has created them to be. Fulfill my expectations, we tell them. Do what I need and want. And we no longer listen to the ones who we supposedly love the most.
I cannot tell you how many times I have sat in hospital rooms with someone who is clearly longing to die and their loves ones will not let them go. “Who is this about?” I will ask. “Is this love or is this attachment? Is this about meeting your needs or is it about meeting the needs of the person who you love? Is having them around really better than letting them go when you are causing them undo pain and extended dying? Whose needs are being met here?”
Sometimes the lens of our life gets so clouded over with expectations or fears that we cannot see the person we love at all. It is as if we are having a relationship with someone who does not actually exist.
There is only one way to try to see through the glass clearly in this life. The love of God must come FIRST, above everything else. Love of God must come before love of spouse, love of children, love of friends. If you do not love God above all else, all love will for you become distorted.
Love of God is like Windex. It cleans off the lens of your life. It burns everything off: your needs, your wants, your expectations. If you can love God first, ironically, you will love everyone else better. Jesus said it so clearly:
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
But you must love God first and above all if you are to have a hope of loving yourself or anyone else. You see, if you truly love God, then you are open to God as He is present in your Loved ones. You are open to the new and unexpected ways that your loved ones live their lives. You are able to listen in new and profound ways to their needs and desires. And the hymn of love that Paul so elegantly wrote so long ago becomes the song of your life.
Picture your loved ones. Picture their faces in your minds. We human beings are truly capable of no more than four or five intimate relationships. Who are they? See their faces. When was the last time that you REALLY looked at them? When was the last time that you pushed yourself to listen to who they are in a particular moment? Do you realize that they are constantly changing?
The people of Nazareth nearly killed Jesus by asking him to be something that he was not. Are you in danger of doing the same thing to the people that you love? Or is your love clean enough, pure enough, true enough to let them be? Can you wipe off the sins of your lives and see more clearly, even now?
Now we see through a glass dimly, Paul wrote. Yes, but we can work on that, even now. We can try as hard as we can to clean our sight, to see everything more clearly. We can try all the days of our lives to love God fiercely and purely, as Jesus did. For one day the veil will lift and we will see God face to face.
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