To Grow in Love

I was praying a rosary for out country, for our president, supreme court, and congress.  I prayed for wisdom, that they rule with love, “teach them love, Lord.”  And suddenly I stopped.  That’s what’s missing, leading with love, but how do you teach love?

Love is a focus on others and their well-being.  It’s getting past your love of self.  That’s hard.  It is saying that you are not the priority, but among politicians that is something they automatically reject.  They were elected because they, and we, thought them and their ideas a priority.

As I continued my rosary, I prayed for local governments and school leaders and teachers, that they teach our children how to love.  And I realized that’s where teaching of love starts and IS effective, in children.  And even before schools, it starts in homes, from the moment we are born --- if we are allowed to be born.  For some, they never start to teach love, for out of love of the ultimate love of self, they kill their own child, not letting it be born.  That’s why abortion needs to be stopped; it kills love as it feeds self-importance, which rejects love.

The racial unrest we now see may be a good thing.  A recent television show on the protests ended by saying that we needed love.  In effect, it was saying we need to teach it, a most important endeavor, but didn’t get far into how that might be done.  From birth, love is taught in the family.  For various reasons --- some may be political --- black children are much more likely to grow up in broken families without two parents, and therefore they are shorted on love.  If we seek to fix things, that is one of the root things to try to change, to act as if each black life mattered from birth.  Each black life needs love, as we all do, but somehow we have a culture which makes that hard.  We need to change, to love.

From a spiritual point of view, we are called to grow in holiness, in love.  We can look back to see if we are making progress.  If we have statue or memory of some past time, it is not to celebrate the evil person or event then, but the memory is to celebrate some particular example of progress we made then, and it is good to remember, to celebrate our progress.  This country started with slavery, like most of the world, but we celebrate the start of the country because of it’s new founding principles, One Nation Under God, which marked the beginning of the end of slavery. 

As I lay thinking on these matters at home, the clock on the wall banged the hour, and I thought: “God is giving us time, and act of HIS love.”  He is giving us time to consider where we are, and ask: How are we growing in holiness, in love?  And even: ARE we growing in love right now; can we look back and see progress we have made?  Or are we growing in self-love, and growing further away from the love Jesus came (and gave His life) to teach us.  We need to learn again to make progress in love.  He is giving us time.  He’s giving us reminders of our lack of progress.  This time, right now, with all its sorrows and sufferings, is a blessing, a time to reflect, resolve, and to grow in holiness, to grow in love.  It is the reason we were created, why we were born, to grow in love.  It’s why He died for us.

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I wrote another letter to the newspaper, which won’t be published (or likely not), so I repeat it here:

            We Don’t Celebrate Bad

There are no statues of Hitler or Stalin celebrating the tens of millions they killed.  We don’t celebrate bad.  Statues of Washington, for example, celebrate his work in starting this country, “One Nation under God,” a major step forward in bringing love to this world.  The path he put us on inevitably led to an end to slavery.  Did Washington do bad things?  Of course, and every saint was a sinner, but we celebrate their sainthood, the good they brought to the world, not their sins.

If you look at a statue and can’t see beyond the sins of a man, you are focused on a lack of progress.  You are focused on thinking you want more progress than they began.  You are focused on yourself and your ideas as more important.  That is the thinking of Hitler and Stalin, who never thought of themselves as evil men.

The Parable of the Good Shepherd is a good one, but remember that the lost sheep doesn’t think it is lost; it is just finding a better way ---- away from the love of the flock.