Tag: love

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Mother Teresa: Where Love Is Learned Best

Do not look for Jesus away from yourselves. He is not out there; He is in you. ~Mother Teresa

Mother Teresa learned love

Love is learned best in the places we would rather not be.

Nobody has proven that truth better than Mother Teresa. Her book, No Greater Love, was one book that found me and refused to let go.

In her ministry to the destitute and dying, Mother Teresa gifted the world with a living illustration of the greatest commandments: Love God with all you are, love your neighbor as yourself.

By being obedient to the extent few of us attempt, by responding to the call of Jesus to “come be my light” among the “unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for” in the streets of Calcutta, Mother Teresa left a hard-hearted world astonished. And wistful for something she had.

“By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the heart of Jesus.”

Was Mother Teresa the exception?

Let’s be honest. Mother Teresa seems impossible to imitate. We have trouble loving the person in the room with us, let alone loving impoverished strangers a world away.

  • By blood, we care for our own.
  • By citizenship, we are a nation self-absorbed.
  • By faith, we divide and point fingers at one another.
  • As to our calling, we have stopped listening for God’s heartbeat.
  • As to our hearts, we are owned by a thousand demanding idols.

But some of us long, when the clamor grows quiet, for the tangible, touchable presence of Jesus–we just don’t know where to find him.

In her book, Mother Teresa shares her secret. Prayer. Every day was begun with prayer and Communion. Every evening the nuns would gather for “an unbroken hour of adoration.” Greater intimacy with Jesus led to greater understanding for each other, led to greater compassion for those they served.

And in the eyes of the least, as she embraced their wounds as her own, Mother Teresa found the presence of Jesus despite his “distressing disguise.”

Where would you rather not go? Who would you rather not love? What if you knew that by going and loving you would find Jesus?

 

photo credit: Ludie Cochrane via photo pin cc
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Faith Life

Hope For A Small Heart

Prayer enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God’s gift of Himself . ~Mother Teresa

heart

Like the Grinch, most of us walk around with a heart two sizes too small.

In the land of the small-hearted, decisions are made based on the questions, “What is the least I can do, what is the minimum requirement, how close can I get and still have it count?”

We are relational bargain hunters and coupon clippers, pleased with our skill at getting something for close to nothing. Forget the high-maintenance and the many, give me the few and the easy–I can only love so much.

Be honest, now. Haven’t you thought it? I’ve heard it from the wise–“even Jesus narrowed it down to a few.” Common sense tells us, “we can’t be all things to all people, no one can love everybody.” True enough. The trouble is that by refusing to love the many, we seldom love the one.

Picture A Balloon

What if our hearts are just as elastic? As a balloon is only as large as what it contains, a heart is only as big as what it loves. When my heart is filled with self, my concerns, convenience, and consumable pleasures, I stumble at love–bumping and bruising myself at every turn.

But when my heart contains God himself–a spacious landscape opens within–nothing and nobody is left despised.

When I was a child we sang these words, “O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for thee.” I know now this was not a one-time invitation, but a daily emptying of the smaller loves that crowd him out.

Heart Hope

No effort of yours can make your heart grow by three sizes–you will only end up faking it. Trust me, I know. To allow it to be stretched by another, to come small but willing to expand, will work every time.

Try it. Next time you feel put-upon and Grinch-like irritation at the noisy annoyance of others, stop and pray. Fill my heart with you. Stretch and grow me until I can let in all of you, and so the whole, hurting world. Amen.

How about you? Is your heart grinchy or growing today?

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Faith

Sabbath Quiet: The First and Greatest Love

Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken the love you had at first. ~Revelation 2:4

Tahoe Meadow

First Love

Let me talk very intimately and very earnestly with you about Him who is dearer than life. Do you really want to live your lives, every moment of your lives, in His Presence? Do you long for Him, crave Him?

Do you love His Presence? Does every drop of blood in your body love Him? Does every breath you draw breathe a prayer, a praise to Him?

Do you sing and dance within yourselves, as you glory in His love? Have you set yourselves to be His, and only His, walking every moment in holy obedience?

We have too long been prim and restrained. The fires of the love of God, of our love toward God, and of His love toward us, are very hot.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind and strength.” Do we really do it? Is love steadfastly directed toward God, in our minds, all day long?

Do we intersperse our work with gentle prayers and praises to Him? Do we live in the steady peace of God, a peace down at the very depths of our souls, where all strain is gone and God is already victor over the world, already victor over our weaknesses?

Are our lives unshakable, because we are clear down on bed rock, rooted and grounded in the love of God? This is the first and the greatest commandment.

Thomas R. Kelly (1893-1941), Quaker Educator. A Testament of Devotion

Photograph of Tahoe Meadows, South Lake Tahoe, CA

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Faith Life

Love Like Jesus

Jesus modeled God’s true heart–love for the least, the last, the lost, the forgotten, the invisible. When we love people we love God. ~Kathy Escobar

Child in Mexicalli

How was Jesus able to love with such poise and certainty? The gospels share no hint that he hesitated, queasy with fear when he reached to touch the unlovely or alone. We don’t hear him longing for more vacation days, or a fantasy life surrounded by only low-maintenance buddies.

Jesus seemed eager for contact with the otherwise avoided, responding to the most tentative approach. Why such confidence? He knew the weight of heaven was behind him.

When we love in the name of Jesus, the full weight of heaven is behind us too–we just don’t see it. We look at our small cup of water, flickering candle, and battered broom and walk with trepidation into the pain.  Only the eyes of faith reveal that we

  • pour water on dry despair with an ocean at our back,
  • shine words of wisdom with a galaxy of suns behind us,
  • sweep away discouragement with hurricane-force provision.

The power is not of us, the transforming work is not of us. We fly, but not with our own wings; we bring hope that originates in another; we speak life-changing words we did not supply. We contribute the heart, will and permission to be used.

Love has our back

Just one time Jesus shrugged off the weight of heaven. On the cross he bore our helplessness so we could know his power. His reminder when it was accomplished? You will love with more than your small effort. Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.

Mission trip in Mexico

How are you being called to love in Jesus’ name? Do you know you never go alone?

Photograph of my daughter, Kimberly, loving and being loved by children near Mexicali, Mexico.

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Faith

Sabbath Quiet: Loved First

I miss my time with you. ~God

bench in the meadow

You have loved us first, O God, alas! We speak of it in terms of history as if You have only loved us first but a single time, rather than that without ceasing You have loved us first many times and every day and our whole life through.

When we wake up in the morning and turn our soul toward You–You are the first–You have loved us first; if I rise at dawn and at the same second turn my soul toward You in prayer, You are there ahead of me, You have loved me first.

When I withdraw from the distractions of the day and turn my soul toward You, You are the first and thus forever. And yet we always speak ungratefully as if You have loved us first only once.

Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher (1813-1855)

 

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Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: Rooted

To be rooted is perhaps the most important but least understood need of the human soul. ~Simone Weil

Barrington, R.I.

For the beauty of the earth, for the beauty of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For the beauty of each hour, of the day and of the night, hill and vale and tree and flower, sun and moon and stars of light,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For the joy of human love, brother, sister, parent, child, friends on earth, and friends above, pleasures pure and undefiled,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For each perfect gift of thine, to our race so freely given, graces human and divine, flowers of earth and buds of heaven,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

For thy Church which evermore lifteth holy hands above, offering up on every shore her pure sacrifice of love,

Lord of all, to thee we raise this our grateful hymn of praise.

~Folliot S. Pierpont

Photograph of Barrington, Rhode Island, where my roots keep drawing me back.

 

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Culture Faith Life

Truth and Love

The first reaction to truth is hatred. ~Tertullian

Truth

The relationship between Truth and Love is confusing. In a previous post, 7 Things Love is Not, I noted that biblical truth and love are inseparable twins. So why do I find it so difficult to live happily with both?

In recent years Truth has taken quite a beating. 

  • What once was true is now in question, so you can no longer trust your beliefs.
  • What once was evident is now computer-edited so you can no longer trust your senses.
  • What once was reliable is now filtered and slanted, so you can no longer trust the facts.

Any truth left over, any perspective we all still share, is as tasty and invigorating as yesterday’s leftover coffee. We thirst for something so much better…

In contrast to tepid relativism, the Truth-tellers among us seem strident–more hostile and mean than accurate. Rigid lines are drawn and defined, with no middle ground, no grey areas allowed.

If the choices are Truth-as-hammer, or Truth-as-bias, most of us will choose neither. Both feel like the opposite of Love.

But the opposite of Truth is not love, it is lies. And the opposite of Love is not truth, it is indifference.

An indifferent liar is exactly what God is not. And therefore is the worst thing that we can be. So,

  • The impulse to pretend,
  • To refuse to care,
  • To keep our heads down and thoughts to ourselves is not from God and is not who he is.

The problem is not with Truth, the problem is with us. We’ve forgotten its meaning, we’ve misunderstood; we’ve become hardened, skeptical and afraid. But oh, the delight that awaits us when we rediscover Truth once more.

So, what is Truth? What do you think?

 

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Bible Studies Faith Life

Sabbath Quiet: You are Loved

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. Isaiah 40:11

Where are you on this day of gratitude and grief intermingled?

Shout for joy, you heavens; rejoice, you earth; burst into song, you mountains! For the LORD comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.

But Zion said, “The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.”

Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!

See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands…Isaiah 49:13-17

Photograph by Laura Windes

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Life

7 Things Love is Not

hands make heart

As a young girl I would sing a song from the movie Goodbye Mr. Chips and, without fail, choke up on the last verse: “And the question I will ask only God can answer, Was I brave and strong and true? Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?“ It was my vow that, in the end, the answer would be an emphatic “yes.”

Years later, I was driving along in my car asking God if I could please have the planet to myself. Love was the last thing I wanted to offer the world, specifically some people in it. People hurt, disappoint, and refuse to stay within the lines of lovability.

I get tripped up by misconceptions about love. I don’t like pretending, I don’t feel “nice” enough, “tolerant” enough to join in the polite group LUV that often passes for the real thing. But I have seen real, biblical love at work, and I’m drawn to the evidence that:

  1. Love is not an emotion, Love is intention.
  2. Love is not an ideal, Love pursues a goal.
  3. Love is not blindly sentimental, Love is surprisingly shrewd.
  4. Love is not the opposite of conflict, Love often rocks the boat.
  5. Love is not the opposite of truth, Love is truth’s inseparable twin.
  6. Love is not weak, Love is the powerful weapon of the weak.
  7. Love is not cowardly tolerance, Love is radical trust…

…in God, who with great intention, weaves his winsome way through our lives, in passionate pursuit of our truest selves, upsetting our assumptions and  disturbing the peace for the sake of our highest good.

Now, that kind of love I want to learn.

We love because he first loved us.

Have you been confused about love? What have you discovered about the real thing? I would “love” if you would share it!

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