Good morning…
I like to buy $3.00 bunches of outdated flowers from Kroger. Continuing to allow last week’s roses to gently unfold, I am keeping them on as they age quietly, at their own pace. With the dying process, the fragrance changes. The soft texture dries and browns. The layers droop down into a new form of beauty. These roses remind me of an important writing about love.
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What is Love? By Anthony de Mello
What is love? Take a look at a rose. Is it possible for the rose to say, “I shall offer my fragrance to good people and withhold it from bad people?” Or can you imagine a lamp that withholds its rays from a wicked person who seeks to walk in its light? It could only do that by ceasing to be a lamp. And observe how helplessly and indiscriminately a tree gives its shade to everyone, good and bad, young and old, high and low; to animals and humans and every living creature – even to one who seeks to cut it down. So this is the first quality of love; its indiscriminate character. This is why we are exhorted to be like God, “who makes his sun shine on good and bad alike and makes his rain fall on saints and sinners alike; so you must be all goodness as your heavenly Father is all goodness.” Contemplate in astonishment the sheer goodness of the rose, the lamp, and the tree, for there you have an image of what love is all about.
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Indiscriminate. Sheer goodness. Freely sharing fragrance, rays of light, and steady shade with everyone.
“You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the supple moves of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty” (Matthew 5:44-45, MSG).
As we each age quietly, might we give our best to everyone? That’s what God’s love is all about.
…Sue…
