Meditations from Zion

It’s the “hippy” chapter: love, love, love. And yet, with all this talk of love being the most excellent way, greater than anything else, greater than faith or knowledge, it’s still missing in most of our lives.

I Corinthians 12:31b, 13:2b
And now I will show you the most excellent way . . . if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

A friend gave me Mother Teresa’s book, “In My Own Words,” which has a heavy emphasis on the love theme. Mother Teresa got it. She lived it. She taught it. And most people admired her for it but couldn’t live like her; they were amazed by her selflessness and her ability to reach out to the poorest of the poor, to actually love the unlovable. But isn’t that what Christ asks from each of us?

What would it take to become a person of love. . . to be known primarily for love?

I am still a product of my culture and my generation. We started the “me” generation and we’ve passed it to our kids. We don’t love because that exercise requires greater concern for the “other” than for self. That’s really the only hindrance.

I’d like to make this more complicated than it is and come up with all kinds of valid justifications for not loving, but there aren’t any, not really.

I get in the way. I am my own stumbling block.

My proposal for myself today: Just ask, “Is this loving? Am I speaking out of love? Am I responding to the “sacred center” of the other? Can I be generous in love?”

I want to be more conscious today. I want to be mindful. My habits, those automatic reactions, are not loving. To change, I must wake up. Look. Really look and sense. Ah! It’s prayer.