Category: love

Love included

Post author By dw
Post date July 1, 2020
No Comments on Love included

The “truth” that makes another man seem cheap hides another truth that we should never forget, and which would make him remain always worthy of honor in our sight. To destroy truth with truth under the pretext of being sincere is a very insincere way of telling a lie.
— Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, Sincerity

If love is not in the truth I tell, then I’m not telling the whole truth.

Not telling the whole truth reveals the truth that I am not whole.

That I am not whole means I am part of the problem.

When Jesus says Repent, he asks me to own up to that.

Then he says, Follow me and I will make you whole, part of the solution, able to tell the whole truth, love included.

Tags love and truth, No Man is an Island, repentance, sincerity, Thomas Merton, truth telling, whole truth

love Poetry

Note to self

Post author By dw
Post date May 24, 2020
2 Comments on Note to self

To do
during COVID-19
or any other crisis
or any other normal time:

Love God with all I've got.
Love every person that crosses my path.
Love the people I don't like 
  and who don't like me.
Plead for God's will to be done here 
  as if this were heaven.

Act and speak accordingly.

Grace and peace to you…

Tags COVID-19, God's will, love your enemy, love your neighbor, loving God, time of crisis

love Poetry

Our greatest danger

OUR GREATEST DANGER is not our sins but our indifference. We must be in love with God. It is not so much to change what we are doing, but our intention, our motive.
Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 29). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

What I do,
What I intend to do,
And how I feel about it
(I keep thinking)

Are distinct,
Separate, in fact,
And controllable,
(I keep telling myself)

Their interactions civil
And honorable
To any casual observer
(I keep believing)

Until the slightest whisper of a feeling
Changes my mind and my actions
Forever

Tags danger, decisions, Dorothy Day, emotions, following Jesus, intention, loving God, motive, sin, The Reckless Way of Love

Current Events love Scripture

The truth we tell

Young man wearing hat that says Love Your Neighbor.

If love is not in the truth we tell,
are we telling the whole truth?

dw

I read this from the apostle Paul today – he is coaching Timothy on how to be a good pastor.

The whole point of what we’re urging is simply love—love uncontaminated by self-interest and counterfeit faith, a life open to God. Those who fail to keep to this point soon wander off into dead ends of gossip. They set themselves up as experts on religious issues, but haven’t the remotest idea of what they’re holding forth with such imposing eloquence.

Peterson, Eugene H.. The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language . The Navigators. Kindle Edition.

Grace and peace to you…

Tags faith, God, Paul the apostle, religion, The Message, Timothy, truth and love

love

Love and ever more love

LOVE AND EVER MORE LOVE is the only solution to every problem that comes up. If we love each other enough, we will bear with each other’s faults and burdens. If we love enough, we are going to light that fire in the hearts of others. And it is love that will burn out the sins and hatreds that sadden us. It is love that will make us want to do great things for each other. No sacrifice and no suffering will then seem too much.

Day, Dorothy. The Reckless Way of Love: Notes on Following Jesus (Plough Spiritual Guides: Backpack Classics) (p. 22). Plough Publishing House. Kindle Edition.

In the same way that we cannot give up on Truth (because Jesus never did), we cannot give up on Love. Jesus took Truth and Love to the cross extravagantly, recklessly, scandalously, and he held them tight until he took his last breath. He calls us to follow him there.

Lord, have mercy on us.