"Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife, which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself, “What else is the world interested in?” What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. We want with all our hearts to love, to be loved. And not just in the family but to look upon all as our mothers, sisters, brothers, children. It is when we love the most intensely and most humanly that we can recognize how tepid is our love for others. The keenness and intensity of love brings with it suffering, of course, but joy too, because it is a foretaste of heaven." from Dorothy Day - The Reckless Way of Love
Our little Egypt group got together over the weekend on Vancouver Island for some reflection on our two weeks together, having time over wine and good food to consider where in our journeys this experience was taking us. We attended a small little church where a visiting pastor delivered a sweet little sermon on the transformative power of love. His simple foot washing demonstration reminded us again of the radical nature of humbling ourselves to love one another and how incredibly shocking it is to think that the one who created the universe, in one of his last days on earth boiled three years of teaching down to foot washing. He ended the sermon by challenging us each to think of someone whose feet we would ‘wash’ this week.
"Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife, which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself, “What else is the world interested in?” What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships? God is love. Love casts out fear. Even the most ardent revolutionist, seeking to change the world, to overturn the tables of the money changers, is trying to make a world where it is easier for people to love, to stand in that relationship to each other. We want with all our hearts to love, to be loved. And not just in the family but to look upon all as our mothers, sisters, brothers, children. It is when we love the most intensely and most humanly that we can recognize how tepid is our love for others. The keenness and intensity of love brings with it suffering, of course, but joy too, because it is a foretaste of heaven." from Dorothy Day - The Reckless Way of Love
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
August 2022
Dennis deGrootCategories |