How quickly we forget

Love, since it’s inception, has always been a force for change.

In a time where there is a lot of overwhelming change happening all around us, I fear some basic things will be either overlooked or forgotten altogether.

On one hand it’s a common reaction, to push against or push away something that makes us change ourselves; including our behaviors and way of doing things.

On another hand, we who have lived in the modern world with its instant response and gratification, we want change to happen now. Even though we don’t want to change we also don’t want to wait for it to become a part of the norm.

Yet that is exactly what we have to do. And it’s often in this time that the people in power forget why change was desired in the first place.

This has been true about economic reform, gun law reform, and civil rights reform to name a few things that we’ve been passionate about in my lifetime. I fear police reform will soon be added to that list. Some things just don’t change.

One thing that has been constant as well as ever changing for me has been love. I’ve enjoyed the love of my parents, the love of family and friends, the love of my wife and children, and the love of a community. I have felt the pain of losing a loved one through death, divorce, and distance. As well as the joy of physical love, mental love, and spiritual love.

Love, for many of us, takes on many different forms. It is constantly changing and evolving; drawing us closer together. That’s what it’s supposed to do. Love, since it’s inception, has always been a force for change. “It is patient,” according to one wise man who wrote about it nearly two thousand years ago. “Without it,” he declared, “I am nothing.”

Although we might forget about it, and perhaps we might give up on it because love isn’t happening or being felt right now, we need not give up on it. Instead we need to embrace it and hold onto it that much more. For love has the power to change all things, because all things were first created from a greater love than this.

Here is a quote from Henri Nouwen that speaks to such love; reminding us that even if we don’t feel it, or think we have it, love is within us - patiently waiting and evolving. May we never forget that. And always remember that you are the Beloved.

Life is a gift. Each one of us is unique, known by name, and loved by the One who fashioned us. Unfortunately, there is a very loud, consistent, and powerful message coming to us from our world that leads us to believe that we must prove our belovedness by how we look, by what we have, and by what we can accomplish. We become preoccupied with “making it” in this life, and we are very slow to grasp the liberating truth of our origins and our finality. We need to hear the message announced and the message emboldened over and over again. Only then do we find the courage to claim it and live from it.