A Tangled Mess

I woke from sleep and walked into the bathroom.  In the mirror, I saw that the three necklaces I wear (Brown Scapular, Miraculous Medal and Crucifix) were a tangled mess.  I could see in the mirror that I needed to move one necklace under and over the others a few times, but looking in the mirror as I tried to do that, I found myself moving one necklace over and under, rather than under and over.  My mind and my eyes didn’t seem to be connecting.  That was because although I saw ME in the mirror, the images were reversed and looking at that and moving, I was moving in the wrong direction.  I knew what I wanted to do; I could see it --- or seemed to --- but I couldn’t do it.  I needed to close my eyes, and do it by heart.  It was easier that way.

There was an hour-long special about the social unrest on a local television channel on Sunday night.  There were talks with small groups or individual local (Detroit) elderly, young, and people of different races.  Martin Luther King III was interviewed.  All agreed this racial awakening seems different than past risings.  There were examples spoken of racism that all black families teach their children to expect, and how to meekly react.  Every adult had a personal example, or many, of racial bias they had incurred.  One spoke of how he never puts his hands in his pockets in a store, in case someone might wonder what he was reaching for.  Many told of being addressed with the “n-word”.  Some spoke of needed changes in law, but none spoke of how the politicians can’t seem to agree on that.  Politics was not mentioned even once in the whole hour --- I liked that.  And one early-teen white girl spoke of her participation in marches, and how “everyone agrees changes need to be made and since everyone seems to agree, I’m surprised changes haven’t happened already.”  That comment had everyone agreeing it was the most pointed statement of the night.  And in the last interview, a group of three persons were asked what do we do now, and the first one said “what we need is love.”  And there were no further personal statements, as one after the other, along with the hosts, they all agreed with that statement.

I thought about my tangled necklaces, which are visible symbols of God’s love and my love.  When I tried to untangle them while looking in the mirror, I acted like the guy in the mirror was me, but he was only an image of me, and trying to do a good thing which I couldn’t get him to do.  Maybe that’s why “what we need is love.”  Love doesn’t try to fix things as we think they should be.  Love doesn’t say “I have the solution for you” to someone else.  Love changes oneself first, acting from the heart, and then asks another if they need some help.  And together, they get things done.

What we need is love.

The World Needs Love

I’ve written about this before, but of all the events of the world stuck in front of me, it seems like the largest point is the unwritten headline:  The world needs love, real love.

It seems like most people lead lives like following train tracks in front of them, they think they know where they are going, but THEY are not going anywhere; they are being led.

I was taught so much in my youth.  Acing the tests, I thought I KNEW so much, but I might as well have been taught 1 + 1 = 3.  I knew what I was taught, and was stupid, for I was not taught how to think.  Truth is truth, and if I memorized lies, it does not make them truths, regardless the scores on my tests. (And I fear many of our children are being taught great lies in our schools today.)

It was not a lie, but I was never taught a basic truth:  love is what I give, not what I get.  There are four words in Latin for what the English translates as “love”; they do not all mean the same thing.  Love --- as Jesus taught --- has only one of those four meanings; it is a love that if freely given from me to others:  Love God; Love Neighbor.  It is not about what I get --- which is the primary lesson our kids are taught in schools, whether it be the sex we desire, the goods we “deserve”, or even recognizing the desires of others and “in all equity” demanding things they desire for them.

I recently read yet another wonderful daily reflection from the book by Wilfrid Stinissen.  He wrote:

“Unity always begins in an inner core.  It starts in our family, in our community, in our workplace.  From there, it can spread like rings in the water.  To demonstrate against apartheid in South Africa carries little credibility, if you are headed toward divorce at home.  ‘Love your neighbor,’ says Jesus.  Begin at home.”

I thought about those words and recalled something I had recently read in the paper, as stated by one of the protestors for Black Lives Matter.  He said his young wife was at risk of the virus, but he had to participate in this protest.  The young man knew he was putting his frail wife’s life in danger, but participating in the protest rally was more important --- to him, and for him.  I am sure that man thinks he is showing love for persecuted black people, but as Stinissen explains, in his heart is foremost a love for himself: “I” have to do this, for what “I” feel when I participate.  That man knows so much, but is so stupid --- even as I was in my youth.

Certainly, many participate in these rallies out of love of neighbor, but I suspect more out of love of self, of what they “feel” when they participate, even as so many “feel” so good from pornography.  They don’t know the meaning of love, as it was meant to be lived.

It is said that without suffering, you don’t know love.  If love is about what I want and get, certainly I do not want suffering, but if love is about what I give, often I must sacrifice what I want so that I am able to give more.  It is what Jesus did on the cross; it’s what my dad did when he worked overtime to give me a much-desired present; it’s what a husband does for his wife when she wants something he doesn’t want to give; it’s what the widow did when she gave her last two coins at the temple.  It’s love.  Sometimes it hurts.  It is NOT about what we get, the feelings we desire, but in what we give.

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But what about love freely given to me; is it wrong for me to yearn for that?  But of course not, it is in our nature to want to be loved, but it is the same TRUE love we must be yearning for.  It’s in the mother’s pains of childbirth, as she receives the gift of life.  It’s in the acceptance of a physically imperfect child we are blessed with.  It’s in the corrections a parent gives to a child.  All those are acts of love, often difficult to feel or accept --- or understand --- by the beloved.  Accepting love, given in a way we do not seek is often as difficult as giving love in a way we do not want to do.

Yet, “If you do not love as I have loved, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”  Love is that difficult; love is that important.

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The Litany of Humility prayer begins with: “From the desire of being loved, deliver me, Jesus.”  So, is the Black Lives Matter protest wrong, people of race or color or creed or whatever group wanting to be loved?  No, wanting to be loved is innate to man.  The prayer is asking to be relieved of that desire as a priority; it is recognizing that what “we” want is often not the love Jesus preaches; that love is freely given.  It cannot be dictated by what we desire, which is why often when the government gets involved it turns “giving of love” into “giving of money,” but that isn’t love and it will never feel like it.

I read a large statement in the Wall Street Journal, written by a very important, very intelligent man.  He said “here’s what needs to be done.”  There were many good suggestions; many were money solutions.  But, I didn’t see anything which would change hearts.  It’s like the stimulus dollars recently given out by the government; it doesn’t eliminate the virus or its effects.

We can change hearts in schools and churches and prayer, together.  It is not dictated, no matter how much it is desired, but it can be taught, especially to the young.  Laws can support loving institutions, like marriage, child-bearing, and churches.  In a way, “hate crime” laws are an attempt to enforce the love that Jesus taught, but laws don’t change hearts, which is most important.  What the world needs is love.  I have no grand solutions, short of praying, together.

Blessed Are the Peacemakers

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God

The Gospel today was on the Beatitudes, said to be a summary of the heart of Christ.  The sermon on EWTN was again compelling; it reminded me of things I had heard before, but are most applicable today.  The priest quoted Mother Teresa of Calcutta:

The fruit of Silence is Prayer

The fruit of Prayer is Faith

The fruit of Faith is Love,

The fruit of Love is Service, and

The fruit of Service is Peace.

Peace does not start in anger, but it starts in Silence.

The priest also said how Mother Teresa’s Sisters are taught to pray each day the Peace Prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love.

Where there is injury, pardon.

Where there is doubt, faith.

Where there is despair, hope.

Where there is darkness, light.

And where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much
seek to be consoled, as to console;

To be understood, as to understand;

To be loved, as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

And it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

That prayer hangs in the hallway at the top of my stairs, and is one of the first prayers I pray each day.