Love begins when convenience ends

‘What is the most loving thing to do right now?’ This was the question I left my church with last Sunday. We were exploring 1 Corinthians 13, Paul’s famous chapter on love, in which there are 15 verbs about love…that love is something we do, not just something we feel. Often that space for action, to do, is very small, as we find ourselves reacting to things that happen to us. It is into this small space that I suggested we could try to wedge this question, what is the most living thing to do right now?

It was Victor Frankl the Viennese Psychotherapist and Auschwitz survivor who famously said “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Frankl believed that the choice to love, painful or as difficult as that maybe, is what leads to growth and freedom. And as I heard someone say just this morning, love begins when convenience ends. We usually know we love someone or are acting in a loving way when it costs us something.

The beautiful story below was written by someone reflecting on the possibilities or otherwise of faith. As they said I have to admit that throughout my adult life, religion has been to me what a bone is to a dog. I gnaw it, bury it, dig it up and gnaw it again. I found their honesty and integrity very moving and challenging as many serious questions were raised.

I was in a church in Tuscany and I saw a mother advancing on the altar hand in hand with a horribly deformed boy of around 12 years. He was wearing a jacket made of exquisite leather. The discrepancy between the ugliness of the body and the beauty of the jacket gave me an instant insight into that mother’s unconditional love. And her face – beatific would be the only word to describe it – told me that her love was founded-on and nourished-by her faith.

I think of this woman and I think of all the codes of practice and caring manuals which have been produced by well-meaning individuals and committees and I ask myself, do they provide an under-pinning as strong as that mother’s faith? In all humility I cannot truthfully answer this question.

It is in our choosing, sometimes again and again, day in and day out, to act and live in a loving manner that I believe we display the image of God in us and also offer our world a better way, one act, one verb at a time. Love begins when convenience ends.

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