Memory – 1 John 3.16-18 By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth
What is the greatest commandment? Love for God! What is the second greatest commandment? Love for people (cf. Matthew 22.36-40). It seems obvious that somewhere in all this God is trying to make a point. What follows are some aphorisms, poems, quotes, stories that I’ve picked up along the way which have helped me internalize these truths. As I look to the end of life I am very much aware that we no more than step out of the cradle than we prepare to step into the grave. In this very brief span of time we will prove how much we have grown in love. The true measure of a life well-spent is how well you love people. Faith has priority in salvation, but love is preeminent. It is one of the great ironies of life that more than any other single thing people need to be loved, but until they are transformed by love they are unlovable. God loves us as we are so we can love others as they are. It is a paradox that in life we all need love, but in order to receive it you have to give it.
In T.S. Eliot’s play the “Cocktail Party” a man under the influence of alcohol was leaning over the shoulder of a psychiatrist and pleads with him, “Please make me feel important.” Of this attitude C.S. Lewis writes: “… such people simply want friends and can never make any. The very condition of having friends is that you should want something else besides friends.”
"If the bud of a flower is injured by hostile forces, like an unseasonable frost, it will not open. So, too, a person who is without the warm encouragement of love, will remain closed in on himself. Generally speaking, the world cares nothing about church doctrine, or for that matter, it doesn’t care much about truth, but about love it cares more than anything else."
The poet Archibald MacLeish has noted that men are affected more by symbols than by ideas. The symbol of loneliness, he says is two lights above the sea; the symbol of grief is a solitary figure standing in a doorway. The symbol of Christ in this world is the Christian.
Years ago I came across this poem as I was thinking about a lifelong friend I had not seen in a long time.
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
yet days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friend’s face,.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired more:
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow," I say, "I will call on Jim
just to show that I am thinking of him."
But tomorrow comes - and tomorrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner! yet, miles away...
"here's a telegram, sire"... "Jim died today."
And that's what we get and deserve in the end:
Around the corner; a vanished friend.
Nehemiah Gore - I met him only once. As a student pastor in Ship Bottom, New Jersey, I had driven to Philadelphia to make a hospital visiting on a member of my church. The wife of the man who was hospitalized mentioned I might enjoy meeting a man in a room down the hall. How right she was. Nehemiah Gore, that was his name and how fitting a name it was too. He was a pastor about seventy years old who had come to that very hospital to visit one of his own parishioners'. As he walked out of the hospital to the street a car screeched to a stop in front of him and several young men jump out of the car and severely beat him taking his wallet which contained only a few dollars. They left him lying mortally wounded on the curb with two broken arms, a broken leg and gaping wounds from the knife they had repeatedly plunged into his chest. As I spoke with him to try and lift his spirits, I found his spirit did not need lifting. He was already living in the heavenly kingdom. He had been praying for the love and mercies of God to minister to his assailants. God granted me the privilege that afternoon to fellowship with one of His servants and to gain some marvelous insight into the proper love and forgiveness that is part and parcel of God's children. Nehemiah Gore – he was welled named, The Compassion of Yahweh.
Love seeks not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. Wm Blake
In T.S. Eliot’s play the “Cocktail Party” a man under the influence of alcohol was leaning over the shoulder of a psychiatrist and pleads with him, “Please make me feel important.” Of this attitude C.S. Lewis writes: “… such people simply want friends and can never make any. The very condition of having friends is that you should want something else besides friends.”
"If the bud of a flower is injured by hostile forces, like an unseasonable frost, it will not open. So, too, a person who is without the warm encouragement of love, will remain closed in on himself. Generally speaking, the world cares nothing about church doctrine, or for that matter, it doesn’t care much about truth, but about love it cares more than anything else."
The poet Archibald MacLeish has noted that men are affected more by symbols than by ideas. The symbol of loneliness, he says is two lights above the sea; the symbol of grief is a solitary figure standing in a doorway. The symbol of Christ in this world is the Christian.
Years ago I came across this poem as I was thinking about a lifelong friend I had not seen in a long time.
Around the corner I have a friend,
In this great city that has no end,
yet days go by and weeks rush on,
And before I know it, a year is gone.
And I never see my old friend’s face,.
He knows I like him just as well
As in the days when I rang his bell
And he rang mine. We were younger then,
And now we are busy, tired more:
Tired with playing a foolish game,
Tired of trying to make a name.
"Tomorrow," I say, "I will call on Jim
just to show that I am thinking of him."
But tomorrow comes - and tomorrow goes,
And the distance between us grows and grows.
Around the corner! yet, miles away...
"here's a telegram, sire"... "Jim died today."
And that's what we get and deserve in the end:
Around the corner; a vanished friend.
Nehemiah Gore - I met him only once. As a student pastor in Ship Bottom, New Jersey, I had driven to Philadelphia to make a hospital visiting on a member of my church. The wife of the man who was hospitalized mentioned I might enjoy meeting a man in a room down the hall. How right she was. Nehemiah Gore, that was his name and how fitting a name it was too. He was a pastor about seventy years old who had come to that very hospital to visit one of his own parishioners'. As he walked out of the hospital to the street a car screeched to a stop in front of him and several young men jump out of the car and severely beat him taking his wallet which contained only a few dollars. They left him lying mortally wounded on the curb with two broken arms, a broken leg and gaping wounds from the knife they had repeatedly plunged into his chest. As I spoke with him to try and lift his spirits, I found his spirit did not need lifting. He was already living in the heavenly kingdom. He had been praying for the love and mercies of God to minister to his assailants. God granted me the privilege that afternoon to fellowship with one of His servants and to gain some marvelous insight into the proper love and forgiveness that is part and parcel of God's children. Nehemiah Gore – he was welled named, The Compassion of Yahweh.
Love seeks not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care;
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell’s despair. Wm Blake
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