Beloved

 The Lent 2027 Photo-a-Day challenge for today is the word Beloved.

That's a lovely word, isn't it? Beloved. What makes you feel that you are a beloved person?

I think my husband's love language is doing for others. He certainly "does" for me, and it makes me feel beloved - special, loved, cared for.

How does God make you feel like a beloved person?

If I love

The following is a repeat post from February 14, 2007 but it seems fitting for Valentines Day.  

Mark 12:28-31; Corinthians 13

Love God
With all of your heart
With all of your soul
With all of your mind
With all of your strength.
Love God.

Love your neighbor.
As you love yourself.

I hear it,
But what does it mean?

It means that there is nothing more important.
It means that even though God gives us many gifts,
The one which matters the most,
Is love.

If my words are spoken,
Without thought of anyone else,
Then I am just a noise.
Useless to God.
Even if I am smart enough
To predict what the future will bring,
Even if I am clever enough
To understand the most difficult thoughts,
Even if my faith is so strong
That the biggest obstacle I face is nothing at all,
If I do it all without love,
Then God cannot touch others through me.

Even if I am so unselfish
That my belonging are like chalkdust to me.
Even if I give all that I am
To whatever purpose God has for me,
But I do it without love,
Then I have no purpose to God.

I must receive and give the greatest gift of all.
I must Love.

Love works at its own speed.
If I love,
Then I do not wish for what I cannot or should not have.
I do not trumpet my own worth,
I do not value what I do over who other people are.
I show the value of other people by my actions toward them.

When I love,
My own wishes or desires sink in importance
Compared to the needs of others.
When I love, I am easy to be around,
And I do not wish it to be otherwise.

When I love,
I do not celebrate sin, but instead I glory in the truth.
Love will put up with a lot,
Love will trust beyond reason,
Love will hope when all seems lost,
And love never gives up.

Love never ends.

Everything else in the world is temporary.
All other gifts will eventually fade away,
But not love.

Love is so hard to understand,
But God knows that.
He understands that what we can accept
Is so much less
Than what he is willing to give.
The time will come, though,
When all will be made clear.
And love will be for us
Like the air we breathe,
And it will make us complete.

When I was younger,
My habits were those of a child.
My speech, my thoughts, my actions
Were immature.
As I grew older, I grasped something better.
And I gave up my childish ways,
For those of an adult.
We are like that.
What we see now, what we can understand now
Is so much less than what God wants us to be.

My relationship with God,
My ability to love God,
My hope of being able to love my neighbor,
Is fractured.
God has promised
That I will know fully what love means
And that there will come a time
When I am able to know him
Just as fully as he knows me,
When I am able to love him
With just as much completeness
As he loves me.

He has given us
Faith
Hope
Love.
But his greatest gift,
Beyond comparison
Beyond price
Is love.

Abundant Love

In Rachel Held Evans and Jeff Chu's book, Wholehearted Faith, in the Epilogue, are these words:

"The truth is, you can't earn God' love because you already have it.  You can't be any more loved than you are because God's love has already been freely and abundantly given."

In Sunday school the other day, we were discussing the curriculum.  The author said (and I am completely paraphrasing, because I'm doing this from memory), we can receive God's grace by asking for it.  I think the corollary of that is the common idea that we can be forgiven by God by asking for forgiveness.  What if our sin is that we can't ask for forgiveness? What if our sin is that we don't recognize our sin? What if we never overcome the perceived stumbling block of turning to God and asking to be loved?

The truth as I believe it is that we are loved before we ask, we are forgiven before we repent, and God's grace is freely given, without condition.

In our world, it's not very hard to believe that someone could love us but still hold a grudge against us, or could love us, and still withhold forgiveness because we haven't asked to be forgiven, or done the right repentant action to restore the relationship.

But I don't think God is like that.  I think God's love, and God's forgiveness, and God's grace are all wrapped up together in the nature of God. God loves us more abundantly than we can imagine - without limits, without condition, without boundary. God loves us, infinitely. And that means we are already forgiven, and that God's grace surrounds us without us asking for it.

So what is the value of repentance?

Because sometimes we can't accept the gift because we hold on so tightly to our sin. God has created a way for us to step into the light. Repentance convinces us to let go, and to find the gift, freely given.

It's not God's nature to withhold love. It is human nature to need a way to recognize it.

 

Unconditional Love

 Last Sunday, I was thinking about the phrase "unconditional love."

God loves us with an unconditional  love.  Agape love. Love that doesn't depend on what we do, or what sins we commit. God loves us unconditionally. I think we wonder if we can love like that. We aren't God, so we wonder about it. We are made in God's image - I believe I love my husband, my sons, my family, unconditionally.  The cat, I'm not so sure about.

But could unconditional love have other meanings, too. 

In Sunday school, we talked about how our society is transactional in nature. You do this for me, I'll do this for you. I'll give you $20, you'll give me part of a tank of gasoline. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. God's love isn't like that. God loves us whether we love God or not. God shows us how to live, commands us to follow God's laws, but if we don't (and we won't, no matter what you think), God loves us anyway.  It isn't an exchange.  It's unconditional.

I suppose loving someone no matter what they do or who they are or become is the other side of the coin of loving them no matter what they don't do. But do we love people WITHOUT an expectation of reward? Do we love people, serve people, without wanting or expecting something in return? Can we allow people to help us without feeling guilty about not returning the help? Can we love without strings attached? Unconditionally?

Love

In Sunday school today, we examined 1 John 4:7-21.  This part of the chapter talks about love. It’s a good one: go and read it.

Here is a sample:

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. (Verse 7-8)

The person teaching the class told us that the author of the curriculum said that we can love someone who we do not like. I would take that even farther to say that we can love someone we have never even met.  There are those of us who can even love someone we desperately hate for what that person has done.

I think we link together the idea that love is a feeling with this verse.  Love can certainly be a feeling, but I don’t think that is what John was talking about.  I think love is an action.  It is an action motivated by God who loves us without condition.  Because of that love - because God loved us first - we can love others.  That love isn’t linked to who they are, what they have done, or how we feel about them.  It is independent of all of that.  The love is motivated by God, and we love through how we treat others - with respect, kindness, and compassion.

Don’t get me wrong - there are people who I do not want to love.  There are people who I cannot love.  And yet, I know that they are loved by God.  (By the way, the opposite is true, too.  There are people who cannot or don’t want to love me, and yet I am loved by God). 

As a side note: I always worry when I say something like this because I never want this - this idea that I think is truth - to be the motivation for someone to stay in a relationship where they are being hurt by someone else.  You don’t have to stay in a position to be hurt because you think God wants you to be loving.  Maybe the way God will help you love that person is to eventually (with God’s help) forgive that person - far way from them.

Sorry - rambling post.  My point is that love is an action, independent of the person who receives it.  It’s not a reward for good behavior.  

If I love

This is a poem I wrote and posted on February 14, 2007.  I'm bring it out again, on its 15th birthday, as a repeat post.

Mark 12:28-31; Corinthians 13

Love God
With all of your heart
With all of your soul
With all of your mind
With all of your strength.
Love God.

Love your neighbor.
As you love yourself.

I hear it,
But what does it mean?

It means that there is nothing more important.
It means that even though God gives us many gifts,
The one which matters the most,
Is love.

If my words are spoken,
Without thought of anyone else,
Then I am just a noise.
Useless to God.
Even if I am smart enough
To predict what the future will bring,
Even if I am clever enough
To understand the most difficult thoughts,
Even if my faith is so strong
That the biggest obstacle I face is nothing at all,
If I do it all without love,
Then God cannot touch others through me.

Even if I am so unselfish
That my belonging are like chalkdust to me.
Even if I give all that I am
To whatever purpose God has for me,
But I do it without love,
Then I have no purpose to God.

I must receive and give the greatest gift of all.
I must Love.

Love works at its own speed.
If I love,
Then I do not wish for what I cannot or should not have.
I do not trumpet my own worth,
I do not value what I do over who other people are.
I show the value of other people by my actions toward them.

When I love,
My own wishes or desires sink in importance
Compared to the needs of others.
When I love, I am easy to be around,
And I do not wish it to be otherwise.

When I love,
I do not celebrate sin, but instead I glory in the truth.
Love will put up with a lot,
Love will trust beyond reason,
Love will hope when all seems lost,
And love never gives up.

Love never ends.

Everything else in the world is temporary.
All other gifts will eventually fade away,
But not love.

Love is so hard to understand,
But God knows that.
He understands that what we can accept
Is so much less
Than what he is willing to give.
The time will come, though,
When all will be made clear.
And love will be for us
Like the air we breathe,
And it will make us complete.

When I was younger,
My habits were those of a child.
My speech, my thoughts, my actions
Were immature.
As I grew older, I grasped something better.
And I gave up my childish ways,
For those of an adult.
We are like that.
What we see now, what we can understand now
Is so much less than what God wants us to be.

My relationship with God,
My ability to love God,
My hope of being able to love my neighbor,
Is fractured.
God has promised
That I will know fully what love means
And that there will come a time
When I am able to know him
Just as fully as he knows me,
When I am able to love him
With just as much completeness
As he loves me.

He has given us
Faith
Hope
Love.
But his greatest gift,
Beyond comparison
Beyond price
Is love

The New "I Love You"

I've been nagging my husband, pretty much daily, to wash his hands and to not touch his face.  The nagging has no real connection to the fact that he is doing those things (or not doing them, as the case may be) with my reminders, but still I feel a need to remind.

One day, I texted him to "wash his hands and not touch his faced."  He is working in his office again, so I reminded him.  Then I said, "I say these things because I love you.  These are the new I Love you words.  So now, when we end a text, he might say, "Wash your hands" and I respond "Don't touch your face."  

I love you.

I've also noticed how I end emails differently than I used to.  Invariably, I will write, "Stay safe" or "Stay well."  That isn't usual for me, but it is the new "I love you."

And don't get me started about wearing masks.  For me, wearing a mask is one of the ways we love each other through this pandemic.  Wear a mask.  It says "I love you."  

We need love in this world.  Say it.  Show it.  Do it.

Breaking News

I was in a meeting yesterday that involved our Bishop.  She said that while she was in the Atlanta Airport, she saw a person wearing a t-shirt that said, "Breaking News: No one cares."  Reading the t-shirt made her sad.  How does it make you feel?

I have two thoughts about the message on the shirt, and they are opposite sides of a coin, so to speak.  I'm not certain what message the wearer of the shirt wanted to convey.  Did she mean that no one cares about anyone, including that no one cares about her?  That is doesn't matter - she and no one else are beloved, and no one cares about her or about you.  Breaking news.  Or does she mean it as a more personal message? Does she mean that she hears you talking, but, really, no one cares what you are saying, especially her. Breaking news: no one cares.  Stop talking.  Stop sharing. Stop.  No one cares.

Either way, it is a failure of the church, don't you think? If she believes no one cares about anyone else, then she hasn't experienced that anyone has cared for her.  If she wants to convey the message that she doesn't care about anyone else, then she hasn't been taught to love. 

For us, the people who believe that everyone is beloved of God, this is an issue, and it calls us to action.  The only way to change the world (and the message on the t-shirt) is to love the people we know, and the people we don't know.  To love, as we have been taught to love.

Loving those with whom we disagree

Last week, a plan for the separation of the United Methodist Church was released.  This is one of many plans that will come before General Conference, but this one was interesting to the media.  In response, our Bishop released a letter.  

I encourage you to click the link and read the entire letter, but this quote is what I want to focus on today:

There is no doubt that we shine Christ’s light brighter, stronger, and more powerfully when we work together. It grieves my heart to think that we would give up on finding a way to move together – and yet I realize that we have forgotten or maybe never learned how to speak and work with one another in the midst of disagreement without attacking or putting down the neighbor who is different from ourselves – and that has resulted in great harm and damage to many of God’s children.

I watched the streaming of the last Special General Conference, I read posts on Facebook, and hear people's arguments.  I agree with her - "we have forgotten or maybe never learned how to speak and work with one another in the midst of disagreement."

And I also think this is not confined to the United Methodist Church.  I see it everywhere.  We often only know how to disagree - how to argue - and in doing so, we lose the humanity of the one in front of us.  

We are the Church, and Christ expects better of us than that.  Don't you think?  I can easily love the person who agrees with me, but can I love the person who disagrees with me? And what does that look like when our opinions are so different from each other? (and when I am obviously right?).  

We have to learn this, because until we do, we cannot change the world.  We should be the ones who are teaching others by how we act. We should be the ones shining this much needed light in the world.  If not us, then who?

Perspectives: 30 Years of Love

This is us. Thirty years ago today, Steve and I were married. 

This series of posts on my blog is called Perspectives. I post an image and write about what it says to me.

This image says love. This image is the beginning of my adult life with the love of my life. In this image I see the life that will come - the two boys who will be born - the joy and happiness that will surround our family. It began this day, thirty years ago.

My life changed that day. And I will be eternally grateful.

Happy anniversary, sweetheart. I love you.

Percpetives: Love Makes Room

I love this picture. I took it at the Alzheimer's Walk this past year. The two people with the dogs were always together, so I imagine that they are a couple, and these are there dogs.

That makes them sibling dogs. Brothers (or sisters) that are nothing alike. One was huge; one was tiny. And yet they are family.

Who is your neighbor? Who is your brother? Who is your family? Do they always look like you? Act like you? 

Family has room for differences - for different appearances, for different thoughts, even for different beliefs. Love makes room.

Perspectives: You Never Know

Steve and I were out for dinner one night. At the end of the evening, the waiter returned to the table with the check for Steve to sign. This picture shows the pen he brought with the check for Steve to use.

Can you read the pen? It says, "United Methodist Foundation of West Virginia, Inc." I picked out that pen, worked out the design on my computer, placed the order with the company that made them, and then The Foundation staff sent them out to churches. And there it was. In the wild.

I've seen lots of these pens in churches, but I've never encountered one in "the wild." 

This is just a pen, but it reminds me of how the word of God spreads. This is the effect that our actions have in the world. Help a person, and you never know the change your love will have in that person's life. God knows, and sometimes you might get a glance - most of the time you won't.

So serve. Shine. Help. Love. It goes around the world.

Choosing to Love

I few weeks ago, I wrote about our experience with the loss of our dog.  I wrote about being heartbroken, angry and grateful.  At about the same time, I went to a Diversity Summit. The worship leaders sang a song with these words:

In the midst of pain, I choose love

In the midst of pain, I choose love

In the midst of pain, 

Sorry falling down like rain

I await the sun again.

I choose love.

It reminded me that love while love is an emotion, it's more than that. Love is an action. Because it is an action - a verb - we can choose to do it, or not. We can choose to love, as we are called to do, or we can choose not to love.

I don't mean to imply that forgiveness is as easy as saying we'll do it. I don't believe that feeling love (or not) toward someone is as simple as making the decision. What I mean is that we choose how to act. We choose to act with kindness or not. Acting with love, even in pain, is a choice. It's not always an easy choice, but it is a choice.

Heartbreak

Yesterday I talked about expectations and disappointment. There is a particular kind of disappointment that Brown (Rising Strong) calls heartbreak. "Heartbreak comes from the loss of love or the perceived loss of love. My heart can be broken only by someone ... to whom I have given my heart."

The most obvious example of heartbreak is the loss experienced by the death of a loved one, but there are other kinds - the loss of love in a relationship, the hurt experienced after the action of a friend, the blameless loss experienced when a loved one moves away (or goes to college). We hurt - our heart hurts.

"To love with any level of intensity and honesty is to become vulnerable."

When I was dating Steve, Mom said, "I just don't want you to be hurt." I told her I knew I could be hurt, but I was willing to risk it anyway. And because I did, I have experienced the greatest joys of my life - my relationship with my husband, the gift of my children.

Do we avoid heartbreak by avoiding love? God has made us to love others, and it is that very love that makes us vulnerable to heartbreak. The only way to protect ourselves from heartbreak is to keep our hearts to ourselves, and to not love others. It's not an acceptable trade.

Extravagant Love

Have you seen this YouTube video from Pizza Hut?



 It's called Big Pizza Delivery - and it shows a pizza delivery done with mega-caroling. It's caroling beyond anything anyone has ever done, I think. Extravagant. Beyond the limits of expectation. It's caroling that is beyond the realm of what anyone might expect.

 At our bible study last week, we talked about hope vs expectation. When we have expectations, we have in mind what might happen. We can imagine what might happen. When we have hopes, what can happen can be beyond our expectations. It is unimaginable. It can be beyond the realm of words or thought. That's what advent is. It is the breaking in of God in ways we never could have imagined or thought.

 Have you loved anyone like that this week? Have you done something that was extravagant - and I don't mean extravagant spending, I mean extravagant in what is expected of you?

 Our son called early this week because he needed a some supplies for an assignment he is working on. He is incredibly busy at school, with more that 20 hours. He had something like four papers and two projects due after Thanksgiving, three juries this week and then seven or finals next week. And a concert on Tuesday. He called about an hour and a half before the concert to ask for the supplies, so that we could bring them to him.

He didn't realize that buying the supplies meant traveling way our of our way before going to the concert, rushing around to get it all done, and possibly missing our only opportunity for dinner. And he even told us he could wait until tomorrow for them - he was asking us now because he thought it would be easy for us to bring them to him when we attended his concert.

Steve and I made an intentional decision to drive out to Office Depot, go beyond expectations into hope. By bringing him what he needed, we knew that he could work on the project that night, wouldn't worry about shopping for the supplies - and that it was something we could do to help him during this busy time.

When Josh saw the Office Depot bag, he knew what it meant, He knew what we had done, and he felt (I hope), extravagantly loved. Not because of any amount of money, but because of our investment of time and effort in his needs.

Have you loved anyone extravagantly this week? Have you caroled extravagantly? Made someone feel loved beyond expectation, the way you are loved?

How large is God's love?

How large is God's love?
Its reach is to the heavens.
And it touches my soul.
The distance between the the stars
is nothing compared to the breadth
of God's love.

How strong is God's love?
God is more faithful than the sun,
more predictable than its rising and falling.
God's loyalty to those he has created
is more certain than the rain from the clouds.

How righteous is God?
The strength of his goodness is as firm as the mountains
Granite, bedrock, solid under our existence.

How just is God?
His judgment is as deep as the ocean,
probing into truth,
weighing feathers,
but granting grace so that
all of God's creation is saved.

God's children fail to comprehend
the goodness of God's mercy
and the completeness of God's love.
We can take refuge in God's presence,
secure under the shadow of God's wing.
We can find our fill,
even in our emptiness,
at God's table.
Abundance we can't even imagine.
Living water.
Life-giving light.

We pray that God's steadfast love will continue
even when we can't understand it,
even when we fail to comprehend its limitlessness.
We pray for salvation
even when we haven't earned it,
and we rest in the grace of God's love.

Inspired by Psalm 36:5-10

Fearfully and Wonderfully Made

This morning I read Psalm 139.  Look at verses 14 and 15:

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth...

Ashes to ashes.  Dust to dust.  Those words are often spoken at the graveside of those who have died as a reminder that we were created by God from the dust and to dust we shall return.  I wonder if the psalmist was remembering the creation narrative when he wrote these words about being woven in the depths of the earth.

It's an interesting image of God as weaver.  I don't know much about weaving - that's one craft I've never explored - but I know that the process is laborious and the product can be intricate and beautiful.  The weaver designs the fabric by the color of the yarn that is used to warp the loom and to create the weft (see me throwing out terms that I barely understand?  The warp are threads running perpendicular the weaver and the weft is the thread that is woven through them.  I think).  Woven fabric is fearfully (with awe and reverence) and wonderfully made.  I am certainly in awe when I see it.

And does the passage say anything to you about how long God has known who we are? If the psalmist traces our origins back to the creation narrative, when man and woman were created from the dust, then could it be that God does, too?  Has God known each of us from the beginning?  Or at least, has each of us been a thought - a creative spark - in the creator for a very very long time?

You are a beloved child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made by your creator?  Do you need to hear that today?  Is there someone else close to you - or who you have never met before - who need to hear that today?  And have you thought about looking at the person with whom you are angry and seeing that person as a beloved child of God, fearfully and wonderfully made?  Would it change how you respond to that person?

Beloved

What is in the word beloved?  What does it mean to hear it?  Is there a transformation of the soul to hear that you are loved?  How much more so to hear it from God?

I commend to your reading this blog post on the Painted Prayerbook:  Baptism of Jesus: Beginning with Beloved

Who's life can you change today by share words of love?

Love is an open door

Have you seen the movie "Frozen"?  It's a great movie.  Go see it, or I guess by now I should say, "Go rent it."  It's a great story.  Even though it's animated, don't wait around for a young person to give you an excuse.  Just watch it.

One of the songs in the movie is called Love is an Open Door.  I really like the song.  I don't want to write any spoilers, but there are reasons that at the end of the movie that you might NOT like the song. Even so, I love the idea of the song.  Love is an open door.

Think about the United Methodist statement of Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors (I never get them in the right order, so excuse that).  What are they really saying?  I think it is the same -- Love is an open door.

Love opens our hearts, it opens our minds and it should open our doors.  Doors become automatically open when love comes in.  We open the doors to let people in, and we open the doors so that we can go out. Love opens the doors.

Has love opened the doors of your church?  Of your home?  Of your heart and mind?  What doors still need to be opened?  

Love Like an Ocean

What does it mean to have love like the ocean?

1. Oceans are enormous.  In fact, we can't see their limits, and can even imagine that they are boundless.  So it is with love.
2. Oceans are deep.  They can be so deep that we can't imagine how far away the bottom is.  So it is with love.
3. Oceans are full of life.  They are teaming with huge creatures and microscopic organisms of all kinds.  Life is so abundant in an ocean that we even know every creatures that can be found there. That's a huge image for inclusivity.  Love it like that.
4. Oceans are passageways for heavy ships.  It's amazing to me that ocean liners and cruise ships can float.  Love lifts us up.
5. Oceans are salty.  Love is salty - bringing the important taste of God wherever it goes.
6. Oceans are not still.  There are always waves - the waves might be small or large, but they are a constant encounter if you are in the ocean.  Love is like that - relentless.

May we have and be love like an ocean.