Dear Friends in Christ –
In his book, The Magnificent Defeat, author and Presbyterian minister Frederick Buechner writes of love:
"The love for equals is a human thing--of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles.
The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing--the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world.
The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing--to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints.
And then there is the love for the enemy--love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world."
We watch in horror as more people are randomly murdered, as a captive people is denied food, water, fuel and shelter, as revenge is exacted unabated, we look to the promise and reality of God’s love and we pray to be God’s instruments.
Jesus commands that we love God with all our heart, mind and soul and that we love our neighbor as we love ourselves.
We must remember and honor our covenant to be conduits of God’s love however it may be manifest. It is the only hope for these days. It’s what we get to do.
