11 posts tagged “love”
--E.F. Schumacher
For many of us this friends assessment of how to love a child is just that: give them everything they want. However, love as I understand it, seeks the highest good for the beloved. I think giving a child everything they want is not only wrong but it makes for a spoiled child. How does one learn to appreciate things when you get everything you want? How does one stand in relationship with the poorest of humanity when one never knows need, longing, or not having? As Mother Teresa said, "The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted, uncared for, and deserted by everybody." How does a child learn to stand on it's own when it has spent its entire childhood growing up believing that anything it wants can be theirs?
The Houston Police Department put this Twelve Rules for Spoiling a Child out some time ago. I find that much of it is still relevant especially in rearing a child. Here are the points:
- Begin at infancy to give the child everything he (or she) wants. In this way he will grow up to believe that the world owes him a living.
- When he picks up bad words laugh at him. This will make him think he's cute.
- Never give him any spiritual training. Wait until he is twenty-one and then let him decide for himself.
- Avoid the use of the word "wrong." It may develop a guilt complex. This will condition him to believe later, when arrested for stealing a car, that society is against him and that he's being persecuted.
- Pick up everything he leaves lying around, books, shoes, clothes. Do everything for him so that he will be experienced in throwing all responsibility on other people.
- Let him read any printed material he can get his hands on. Be careful that the silverwear and drinking glasses are sterilized, but let his mind feed on garbage.
- Quarrel frequently in the presence of your children. In this way they will not be too shocked when the home is broken up later.
- Give a child all the spending money he wants. Never let him earn his own. Why should he have things as tough as you had them?
- Satisfy every craving for food, drink and comfort. See that every sensual desire is gratified. Denial may lead to harmful frustration.
- Take his part against neighbors, teachers, policeman. They are prejudicial against your child.
- When he gets into real trouble apologize for him yourself by saying "I never could do anything with him."
- Prepare for a life of grief. You will be likely to have it.
Ron
Bradley Nassif, an Eastern Orthodox theologian who teaches biblical and theological studies at North Park University in Chicago, writes in the May 2008 issue of Christianity Today (“The Poverty of Love,” 34-37) that the desert monks of the third century can give the 21st-century church insight as to why our modern-day gospel “is too small.” He says that the spiritual influx of “nominal Christians” in the third century created a spiritual malaise within the institutional church that required a radical remedy. Ordinary Christians, most of them illiterate, fled to the desert to live out their calling.
“The monastic movement was a response to the church’s spiritual poverty — the poverty of love. The monks protested that knowledge wasn’t the problem; the problem was love … If these desert dwellers were alive today, I believe they would tell us that our gospel is too small because our wills are too big. The core battleground, they argued, is the human heart. They would counsel us to declare war on the inner adversaries that hide secretly in our hearts, and to be watchful of their stealth attacks. We’re wisest, they taught, when we concentrate our energies on the source of all our problems, the inner person — its selfish orientation, dark impulses, sexual preoccupations, greed, lust, anger, unforgiveness, hatred and other ‘works of the flesh’ (Galatians 5:19-21). So the monks took decisive action in their reliance on God, engaging in the hard work of holiness, something they called ascesis, or spiritual training …“At the heart of their training was repentance … The gospel was so alive in the monks because repentance was a lifestyle for them, not a single event. Even after spending a lifetime in repentance, we hear them on their deathbeds encouraging the younger ones not to give up: ‘I’m only a beginner,’ they would say, ‘I’ve just begun to repent!’”
Nassif writes, “The lives of the great desert fathers and mothers of the third through sixth centuries show us how big our gospel can become in each of us when we obey Scripture. The more we keep company with these delightful people, the more they lead us away from relying on external remedies. They tell us that our gospel is too small not because we need to hear more sermons, or do more Bible study, or attend more church services or create new programs. Nor is it too small because we have not followed modern theological scholars into a nearly idolatrous reliance on the intellect. The monks interpreted the Scriptures not just through study, but also by putting them into practice.”
Love is all we need...but
Imagine the thrill of childbirth within 72 hours being shattered by a disease whose name you had never heard let alone could pronounce. Imagine finding out the disease was so rare that your family was now one of less than 500 in existence.
Would love be all you needed?
Imagine a day where 10 seizures for your young child is a good day and a day with 9 or less is just short of a miracle. Imagine rather than having a closet full of toys you have a closet full of oxygen tanks.
Would love be all you needed?
Imagine knowing that you would outlive your child. Not maybe outlive your child but definitely outlive your child.
Would love be all you needed?
Or would you think that you needed something else?
Would you think that you needed forgiveness? Would you think that you needed medication just to make it through another day? Would you think that you needed to run? Would you need a reason, an answer to the question "why?"
What would it take to get to the point in your life that love was all you needed?
One of the interesting things we see about Jesus' encounters with people is that he moved their hearts away from preconceived notions of how life was supposed to be. He would frequently start conversations with "Now you have heard it said, but I tell you." He would tell stories where the heroes were a surprise to everyone. He made it clear that in the Kingdom of God things were opposite, "the first will be last and the last will be first." He would look inot the eyes of the crowd and rip away their preconceived notions of how life was to be. And then in the void he would place love; "don't retaliate, take a step closer and turn the other cheek," "sureshe could have given that to the poor but pouring it on my feet is beautiful," and ultimately in his own life; "not my will Father but yours."
It seems that in the economy of love you must leave your picture of what life is supposed to be behind. The question is: "What picture of life do you believe must be there for life to be okay?" Or to put it another way: "What preconceived notino of the "perfect" life is robbing you of the chance to experience and share unconditional love?"
It seems that for love to be all you need you must believe you need nothing.
Francois Fenelon, a 17th century Roman Caotholic Archbishop, said this about communitcating with God in prayer:
"Tell the Lord all that is in your heart, as one unloads one's heart, its pleasures and its pain, to a dear friend. Tell him your troubles, that he may comfort you; tell him your joys, that he may temper them; tell him your longings, that he may purify them; tell him your dislikes, that he may help you conquer them; talk to him of your temptations, that he may shield you from them; show him the wounds of your heart, that he may heal them; lay bare your indifference to good, your depraved tastes for evil, your instability. Tell him how self-love makes you unjust to others, how vanity tempts you to be insincere, how pride disguises you to yourself and others.
If you thus pour out all your weaknesses, needs, troubles, there will be no lack of what to say. You will never exhaust the subject. It is continually being renewed. People who have no secrets fromeach other never want for subject of conversation. They do not weigh their words, for there is nothing to be held back; neither do they seek for something to say.
They talk out of the abundance of the heart, without consideratino they say just what they think. Blessed are they who attain to such familiar unreserved conversation with Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen"
Henri Nouwen once said in a Leadership journal interview:
"I cannot continuously say no to this or to that, unless there is something ten times more attractive to choose. Saying no to my lust, my greed, my needs, and the world's powers takes an enormous amount of energy. The only hope is to find something so obviously real and attractive that I can devote all my energies to saying yes...One such thing I can say yes to is when I come in touch with the fact that I am loved. Once I have found that in my total brokenness I am still loved, I become free from the compulsion of doing successful things."
Citation: Terry Muck, "Hearing God's Voice and Obyeing His Word," Leadership Journal (Winter 1982), p. 16
It's Lent again. And by now many of us who practice Lenten disciplines have already decided what it is we are going to give up for Lent.
As a priest of the church I often ask the members of the congregation how their disciplines are going. The responses range from "just fine" to large streams of conversation about the difficulty. I'd like to make a suggestion for all of us who go through this each year. The meaning of Lenten disciplines is love.
What do I mean? Simply this: the reason we do any discipline in Christianity, ulitmately relates to growth in love. In Christ Jesus we see the face of God and that face is love. Since his is the name that we choose to call ourselves and follow, we naturally want to reflect the face of God's love.
So what has this to do with Lenten disciplines? Everything!
I know of individuals who gave up "smoking for Lent." The end result? Not only were they miserable, but they made everyone else misrable too! Is that growth in love? Not even close. The purpose of Lenten disciplines is to give things up or take things on in order to make space for something else. That "something else" is growth in love. So instead of giving up chocolate for Lent, why not give up using God's name in vain. Now, that would be growth in love! Instead of taking on reading something esoteric and boring, why not spend more time with your family or even give some of your time in feeding the hungry. Here again is growth in love.
Our lenten disciplines should expand our hearts not make them shrink! The best description I know comes from watching my youngest child being born. As I held my wife's hand and looked into her eyes as he was born I could feel my heart expand beyond my own understanding. I was filled with tremedous love for my child. Thank God, too because as a parent you don't always "feel" loving towards your children. There are days when you'd like to "sell them all off for scientific experiments" as they said in the movie "Meaning of Life" says. The same is true for most of life: the expansion of our hearts is to enable us to love in the good times, the bad, and everything in between.
In conclusion, you may have to rethink what you're giving up for lent, but who cares? The point of it all, the meaning of it all is to grow in love.
Yours for the reign of God,
Ron
Let the reader take note: I am very proud of the work that my congregation St. Clare's Episcopal Church in Pleasanton, CA has done over the last three years. If being a loving, Christian community were a trial and the defense had to produce evidence, we could do so in a number of ways:
- The hungry are fed. And not just an occasional feeding at the local agency that feeds the hungry, but monthly feedings and weekly gatherings of food to fill the pantries of a number of a places that meet the needs of the hungry.
- The homeless are housed. We work not only with Habitat for Humanity, but Corazon, our partner organization with whom we build homes for the poor in Mexico. Add to that our work in New Orleans and you have vibrant ministry occuring through our community.
- The lonely are supported. Most take pastoral care in the life of a congregation as "matter of fact." Truth be known it is this particular ministry that often flies under the radar screen either because it's just not talked about, and/or the work is shared between a partnership of lay and clergy. There's more to be certain, but I think you get my point...we are a congregation that cares and strives to do so with the love that God has for all of God's people.
But recently, I've been thinking about who we serve, and perhaps more importantly who I serve beyond the walls and people of the congregation of St. Clare's. The question that lingers is "are we really serving the needs of God's poorest people?" I'm not sure I'm ready to make a qualified "yes" to the answer.
My doubt stems from a conversation I had back in 2002 with The Reverend Johnny Ray Youngblood, pastor of St. Paul Community Baptist Church. It was in a course offered by Cathedral College and I was doing what I normally do, challenge and question the guest speakers with the difficult questions that I myself wrestle with as a priest of the church. I'm not certain as to what we were talking about, but one line was emblazoned in my mind in his response to me. He said this: "Poor people don't live like their poor...they just give like their poor!" I asked him to explain. He said (paraphrased): "I go into the homes of those who claim to be poor and I see televisions, DVD players, Playstations, etc. Poor people, truly poor people don't have those things." His response hit like a fist...have I been fooling myself all these years believing I was serving the poor when in fact I've been serving the less advantaged?
It's a serious matter. The current statistics regarding the worlds poor are huge and growing without limit. In my opinion if poverty were classed as a disease it would rank number one in the world in its ability to kill...higher than AIDS, even higher than Cancer. And the numbers (which I list in previous articles) are probably conservative since the poor (the really poor) haven't the means for speaking out for themselves or stand up and say "We are here!" Addressing the deep seated needs of the chronic poor is a matter of urgency, and not just because the U.N. says so (The Episcopal Church is in partnership with the United Nations and other organizations to address the Millenium Development Goals. One of the goals is to cut poverty in half by, I believe, 2015), but because God truly loves the poor. Indeed, the poor only have God to depend on and so God loves them all the more.
But I digress. The issue isn't whether there are poor or even really poor but whether I and those whom I work with are really serving them. I don't have an instant answer because when I look in the hard mirror of truth the picture is mixed. Sometimes we serve the really poor and sometimes we serve the not so poor. For now, at least until I've taken a much deeper assesment, it will have to do. I write this not to be callous, but rather because I learned a long time ago that my duty to God isn't so much about discerning who is worthy or who is not, but rather about giving things away. In the 1980's I was in the Air Force and stationed in Egypt for a period of about two and half months. On the day I was leaving a remember asking my commanding officer about all the stuff we brought. I said to him "Sir, what will be come of all these things?" He said with a grin on his face "Son, were giving it all to the Egyptians. We can always get more." His words express how I feel about many of us in the First World: We should be more concerned about giving it away...we can always get more. Where is the love? It's found in caring much more about those in front of us and for those not so close...sharing with them deeply without judgement because the have need. I believe God would be pleased.
Yours for the reign of God,
Ron
I’d like you to humor me for a moment by reading a story taken in part from Homeletics Online.
Meet a 5-year-old girl named Megan. Like many kids her age for generations before her, Megan was terrified of a monster that lived under her bed. What to do? But unlike any previous generation before her, Megan did something about the monster under her bed.
She sat down at her computer and used a software package for children to tell her story about how scary the monster who lived under the bed was, about how she wanted it to go away, and about how she solved her problem -- she put the monster under her brother's bed. She included in her story pictures of herself, her bed, her brother, her brother's bed and the monster. These were pictures she drew on her computer.
When she was done with her little storybook, she decided to share it with some of her friends. You see, Megan has friends around the world she communicates with all the time -- friends Megan has never seen. So she sent her storybook by phone to an electronic bulletin board, where kids from around the globe could read and hear her tell her story. A CD-ROM multimedia magazine called Nautilus picked up her story and published it. Two of the most respected business consultants in the world, ran across it through a digital butler that was prowling the Internet for items they had programmed it to look for.
When they found it, they couldn't stop watching it. But don't listen to me. Listen to them. "We watched it five times. Here was a 5-year-old child who had accomplished all the major tasks of movie making. She was the star, wrote the screenplay, created the visuals, did the editing, was producer and director, and even did her own distribution. Her learning was integrated into the realities of her life. And to her it was all play." In fact, Davis and Botkin were so struck by Megan's story that they titled their text on how to transition into a knowledge-based business: The Monster Under the Bed: How Business Is Mastering the of Knowledge for Profit (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994). Pages 13-14 tell the story of Megan.
Now, you should know that I’m talking about more than a child named Megan, I’m talking about your own children. The Kodak corporation understands this, and so should we. A recent full-page Kodak ad reads, in words that take up almost half the page: "We've made digital photography so easy to use, you won't have to ask your kids for help."
Anyone with kids in their household knows how that camera ad reveals all too much about the hidden, real relationship between children and their parents. Children are the only reasons adults can function in an electronic culture. Children are the only reason our VCRs/DVD’s aren't blinking "12:00" (or at least it remains true in our household).
However, no matter how technically savvy our children are, they will always need parents, grandparents, family and friends, and the church community to help them make wise decisions and right actions for the welfare of the world. They maybe adults technically, but they are children in maturity.
Education and knowledge is not enough to make our children good people. Look around the world and you'll see what kinds of nightmares can come in the daytime when we fail to shape people who fail to care for someone other than themselves. Faith, hope, and love are the necessary ingrediants to shaping the heart. And young hearts are the most pliable and perhaps most important in shaping because, like Megan, there are already beginning to affect the world.
You know, it used to be that when I was a child I was asked the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” While that question still applies, we can’t wait to see how they will grow up anymore because our children are affecting and changing the world now. The shape of their hearts will reflect the shape of the world.
And so, in conclusion, I thank and bless all who shape the hearts and minds of children. It may seem cliche, but the work you do (in whatever role you fulfill that mission) has impact the likes of which touch us all.
Yours for the reign of God,
Ron
This old world could use a whole lot more of love. This video takes a glancing look at love that is kind and generous. In a world that is determined to blow itself apart, in a political climate that seems to be reenforcing hate, intolerance, and self-centeredness, my hope is that this little video will remind you and me of what we are called to. It's nothing short of love.
