Together, We Light the Way

The Greatest of These is Love

1 Corinthians talks about love. In 13.2 it says: And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

It is pretty clear that there is nothing more important than the expression of love. Most of us save true expressions of love for those we are closest to, and yet, that is not what this verse is telling us. Nowhere are we told to love only those who are of our blood, or those who have personalities we like. It doesn?t suggest that we save our love for special people or special occasions.

The kind of love spoken of here is a universal love. Just as God loves us all without special favor, raining His love on the unjust as well as the just, we are to love everyone in that same way. In T-1.V.3:2-3, the Course tells us: God is not partial. All His children have His total love, and all His gifts are freely given to everyone alike. The trick of course, is how to express our love in this way. I can?t begin to tell you how you should accomplish this, I can only tell you how I try to do it.

The most basic tenet of the Christian religion is that God is Love. I also know that God created me like Himself, so I must be love also. The Course says: You are the work of God, and His work is wholly loveable and wholly loving. T-1.III.2:3 Then why do I have so much trouble expressing myself as love? It is a lot easier to tell you of those times when I fail to express my true nature as love than it is to come up with examples of love. It really shouldn?t be so hard to do. I must be making some basic mistake, putting up some block to my awareness of my true nature that prevents me from seeing the value of love.

Who am I supposed to love? Everyone that God sends my way is someone I am supposed to love. All of these people are lessons in love; opportunities for me to remember who I am. If I express love to you, I am teaching myself that I am love. I am removing one of those blocks to my awareness of my true nature.

I will be given many opportunities for practice. There are lifetime relationships such as I have with my children. These relationships are rich in opportunity. I am so deeply bound to my children that the ties are virtually unbreakable, so I have to find ways around our seeming differences and disagreements. If this were any other relationship I might be able to run from it rather than repair it, so it is very good that I have lifetime relationships because if I could run, I probably would. Then I would rob myself of the chance to learn that I am love.

I have long term relationships. These relationships, while not lasting a lifetime, are sustained and have their own teaching and learning values, and there is usually enough time to learn to use love to work out conflicts. Then there are short term relationships like the ones I have at work with people who come and go. There are shorter lessons to learn with these people, but it doesn?t mean that they are not just as important. One lesson well learned is enough.

Then there are the people who just pop into my life briefly. They are given me so that I can teach love and learn love. Someone pulls out of traffic right in front of me. I can make a rude gesture, or I can smile in understanding. After all, I have done the same thing because I was in a hurry, frustrated, or just misjudged my timing. One response teaches me that I am love, the other doesn?t. Each lesson, no matter how simple or how brief, is of equal importance in its value as a teaching aid.

So, now I am clear about who I am to love. I am to love everyone that God sends to me. How about the ones I don?t actually meet? The people I see on TV or read about in the paper? Surely they don?t count? But, yes they do. Even if I don?t verbally express my thoughts, they still count. The Course says: What you decide in this determines all you see and think is real and hold as true. T-31.VI.1.5 What I think is who I am, so I can?t discount these opportunities.

That is a lot of people to love, but on the other hand, there is nothing to figure out. I can?t confuse the issue by arguing that some people deserve my love and others don?t. I have one rule only to follow. If they are here in my life, they are here for me to love.

Then there is the question of how to love. I have often been mistaken when I thought I was being loving and really that wasn?t the case. When my son, Toby said he wanted to go sky diving, I wanted to convince him not to. I felt that it was the loving thing for me to protect him. Or was it? Perhaps I was trying to protect myself from fear. Perhaps, the loving thing to do was to teach him to be fearless and faith filled. I could teach fear or I could teach love. Doesn?t the Course tell us that: Perfect love casts out fear. If fear exists, then there is not perfect love. T-1.V.5:4-5

Nor am I talking about love in a romantic or physical sense. In fact, we call a lot of things love, when often we could more accurately replace the word love with desire or want. I might tell you that I love chocolate, and I do feel pretty strongly about chocolate, but that isn?t really love.

I have thought that strong feelings I?ve had for certain people was love, but it was really neediness. I thought I loved them, but what I felt was a need for their approval and affection. I thought they had something I didn?t have and that I wanted. That isn?t love either.

Let me give you an example of this. One of the things I was attracted to in my ex husband was his ability to socialize with so many people. Everyone liked to be around him. He was fun and had lots of friends. I found that intriguing because that was never true for me. I wasn?t very good at socializing and wasn?t what you would call a fun kind of person. I probably wasn?t the first person you would think of if you were looking for someone to liven up your party. I really wanted to be like him in that way.

This is not the only thing I liked about him, but it is a good example of the kind of thing we look for in others and hope to make part of ourselves through our union with them. The problem with this is that when the other person fails to produce this special behavior, or when you decide it isn?t important to you anymore, you become disillusioned with the relationship. Suddenly, you decide the other person isn?t what you thought they were, and you are ready to throw them over for someone with something more to offer. This isn?t love. This is a bargain that went bad. It may have been an unconscious bargain, but it was a bargain none the less. In 905: Special Relationships vs Holy Relationships, we read: If the truth were to be known it is saying, ?I?m looking for you to help me feel more special to make up for the feelings of lack and unworthiness I experience in myself.?

Another way to see this is in co-dependent relationships. I was in a relationship with a man who was emotionally immature. He needed someone to support his need to remain so. I needed someone who could support my need to feel worthy and important. So that was our bargain. It was such a good fit. He could be forever an emotional child, and I could be forever needed. It felt right and good. We called it love. Then, I grew out of that need, and suddenly the relationship was one sided. It became clear that what we had called love was really mutual need.

Love is not really an emotion, either; it is a decision. Contrary to romance novels people do not fall in love and fall out of love. People decide to love and they decide not to love. If I am experiencing an emotional response to someone, that is not love. It is something else, probably having to do with a sense of need on my part. The emotions that accompany this decision are not love. They are related to our perceived needs. If we are getting our perceived needs filled by our partner we feel strong positive emotions. If we don?t feel fulfilled by the other person, we feel strong negative emotions that can run from disappointment to rage.

I have decided to love everyone because it is what I must do to experience the peace of God. This kind of love is often referred to as Universal Love. It is unconditional love. We often speak of unconditional love as if it were a kind of love. Actually, unconditional is the only kind of love. If my feelings about someone are conditional, then they are based on something other than love.

I have a friend who is in and out of treatment for drug abuse. Do I love her any less because she does not stay clean? No, because that would be putting a condition on my love. If my partner were unfaithful to me, would that be reason to stop loving him? No, because, once again, I would have put a condition on my love. If my child grew up and moved away and seldom came to see me or contacted me, would I stop loving that child? No. My love has no conditions.

I don?t say to my friend that I will love you only if you are clean and sober. I might be sad to see her hurt herself. I might ask her not to bring her drugs into my life. But, I would not love her any less. I might decide that I did not want to share a home with an unfaithful partner, but that doesn?t mean that I would stop loving him. I might feel very sad to lose the company of a beloved child, but I would not stop loving him. Love, real love, has no conditions.

Now take unconditional love and apply it universally. If I apply this same kind of love to everyone, I am loving as we are told to love. So, how does this work in my daily life? Well, this is where it gets a little tricky. When the towers came down, universal love required that I love the terrorists who crashed the plane into them. This was hard. I wanted to hate them. But I cannot. 1 John 4:20 says, ?If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?? I at least wanted to put some pretty basic conditions on my love of these people. Quit killing people, or I won?t love you. Is this asking too much?

I am certain that the world was full of people who did evil things when Jesus was here. In fact, if you read your history you know there were some terrible people, but Jesus did not say, love only those who do good. In fact, he went to some trouble to emphasize that we should love everyone in every circumstance. He said: But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. Matthew 5:44

So, I must love Osama Bin Laden. Does this mean I must condone his actions? No, but I must separate his actions from who he is. I do not love what he does and if I could stop him, I would, but he is a child of God and so I love him. This is spiritual love. It is loving each person exactly the same and with no conditions.

Love is Universal and its laws are universal. If I am not expressing love always and in every circumstance, then I am not expressing Love. If I am not expressing Love, then I don?t know who I am. Because God created me like Himself, if I don?t know who I am, I don?t know who God is. It becomes clear why love is the most important principle of all; why none of the others mean anything without love. Love is the key not only to my understanding of who I am, but to my understanding of my creator, and to our relationship with each other. As it says in I John 4:8 : He who does not love does not know God, for God is Love.

I would like to share with you this ?Prayer of Patience?. I wish I could give credit where credit is due, but I don?t know who wrote it.

Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night could be a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job)! is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Lord, please remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Please remind us to open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Once again reminding us to be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.

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