Love: Verbal or Verb?

Faith is known by love, and love is not a feeling but works of love. The proof of faith, proof of love, is not in the language of words but in the language of the works of love. “Christ’s love was not an intense feeling, a full heart, etc., it was rather the works of love, which is his life” (Kierkegaard,Soren Kierkegaard’s Journal and Papers, 1967). So often we say “it would have been so easy to show our faith and love if we had been contemporary with Christ”. Ah, but we are contemporary with the sick, the poor, less privileged and the suffering. Christ made it very clear that if we do works of love to the“the least of these” we do them to Him (Mat 25:31-46).

The Great commandment, the one Christ calls “the great and the first commandment” (Mat 22:37-38) says: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind”. Christ did not say“You shall love God as you love yourself”. Instead, Christ pinned that phrase to the second commandment: “you shall love your neighbor as yourself”. The word “shall” and the phrase “yourself”place God in the middle of every human relationship, hence love to neighbor opens the door to love to God. The little phrase “as yourself” causes us to think and struggle with what it means to love ourselves; in this struggle we learn to love ourselves in the proper way so that we can love the neighbor as ourselves.

“Love to God and love to neighbor are like two doors that open simultaneously, so that it is impossible to open one without opening the other, and it is impossible to shut one without shutting the other.” (Kierkegaard, Soren Kierkegaard’s Journal and Papers, 1967)

My bellybutton!

We have entered into a new year. It is relevant and appropriate that we reflect on Meister Eckhart’s bellybutton theology. Only God has no bellybutton. All of us have a bellybutton right there in our centers to remind us that life is a gift-entirely gift. The apposite response to this implausible gift is gratitude. But appreciativeness does not come easily and impulsively for us. Our culture is bent on economic growth, and economic growth is dependent upon the constant stimulation of our appetites to want more. We are conditioned to be more “graspy”. We believe we become worth by showing off our acquisitions.

Have we ever wondered why it is that we have to teach our children to say “thank you”. Would it not just be a natural and reasonable thing to do, given the gifted character of life? Should not our children be able to figure out how much that is undeserved flows into them? But, it is precisely that giftedness to which we are blinded by sin. Consequently, our prideful egos convince us that we are getting what we deserve. We often think we are the centre around which universe revolves. We even think that we are the universe. But our bellybutton reminds us that we are not that centre of the universe.

Therefore, “thank you” is primal and primary. In 2012, let us treat each person we meet with the gloves of “thank you”. Let us say “thank you” to the living God from whom all blessing flow. Let me close with the words of Mathew Fox, “If the only prayer you say in your entire life is “thank you” that would suffice”.

Wish you all a very blessed New Year! God bless!