Pursuing Love

I get the feeling that I'm approaching a season in my life when I should talk less. Actually, most seasons in my life have probably been seasons when I could have spoken less, but I've got a conviction about this one in particular. It comes from an awareness that in many cases and for far too long, I've been a just clanging cymbal. The realization that I really would learn better if I would just listen has been a long time coming, but I think it had to wait until a real desire to learn swept away years of false modesty about my knowledge and ushered in a quieter, more patient heart. It is odd and humbling to watch yourself being built back up, all the sharp edges and disregarded shards of self being made fit for a new creation. This is not to say that it's easy. I hang onto my words, both the ones I write and the ones I choose to speak, like Icarus clutching at feathers and wax. They have been breathtakingly precious to me, but they are not the proper way to fly. I should know this. More often than not, my words have left me helpless as I grasp at the pieces of me, slicing my hands and cutting into others as I attempt again and again a construction project I should know I could never complete on my own.

That's a confession, if you like. There's pride and self-sufficiency wrapped up in a lack of trust that has left me over the course of a lifetime in a perpetual state of affection falling just short of love in even the best of my interactions with others. More often than not, my care for my neighbor has been a vague societal politeness, and even that is more a reflection of the kind people who have surrounded and upheld me throughout my life than any kind of real conviction. Despite all the wonderful things that have come into my life and everything I can be said to have accomplished, through hardness of heart or isolation of mind, I missed out on the most important and life-giving lesson a person can learn. I do not know how to love others as I ought.

I have a suspicion that that might be true for most of us. We may stumble into love in our relationships and friendships and may even succeed in offering love to strangers as we move about the world in our daily lives, but real, intentional, continual love offered to our neighbors (and let me be clear: every human is your neighbor) is something with which we all struggle, I think. And in this season of transition and uncertainty and concern, we could all love better. So this year, in addition to talking less (and I do realize the irony of that statement when I'm three paragraphs into a weekly blog post), I'm going to reflect each day on how I loved those around me. I'm going to use that chapter from 1 Corinthians that everyone uses at weddings because it's surprisingly cutting when you turn each verse into a question.

So, if you want to join me, plan a few minutes at the end of each day to ask yourself:

• Were you patient with everyone you met today? Were you kind?
• Or were you envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude? Did you insist on your own way? Were you irritable or resentful today? 
• Did you rejoice in any instance of wrongdoing today, or did you rejoice in the truth?
• What did you bear today? What did you believe today? What did you hope for today? What did you endure today?
• Did you pursue love today?

It might take a lifetime, but I look forward to the day when I am given grace enough to answer each one of those questions rightly before I go to sleep. It's a goal to work towards, a level of accountability in action to strive toward. It is a clear mirror we can hold up to ourselves and our leaders, both the ones that have been elected and the ones we've inherited, as we seek to build up our people and this nation we've made. Paul wrote those words a couple thousand years ago to a church struggling with disunity and questions of principle. It might be that those cheesy Bible verses hold real power for our lives today.

But wherever you are in your walk or in your lives, whatever you've come to believe, let me implore you to love better, friends.

It might be the only way we make it out of this.