I’ve been thinking about love lately. Not lately. I think about it all the time. All the time. Love is everything.
What more obvious point could a Christian make, right?
Love calls me out of myself. I am thankful to love because it has spared me decades of navel gazing. As a young man I grew so tired of myself because myself was all I had. What did I want to do? What did I think about this?
I used to see people’s lives very differently.
People’s lives seemed to be merely something that was happening to them, going this way and that way depending on the whims of others, seemingly accomplishing little or nothing. I wanted to live differently. I took to heart the belief that most men lead lives of quiet desperation. It colored everything I saw.
I’d see people traveling to work and it looked like despair. I’d see people watching television and it looked like they were wasting their lives. I saw parents standing on freezing sidelines as their unappreciative children kicked a ball.
It all seeemed too sad. So small.
But I missed so much. I missed everything.
I missed love.
I missed the triumph of a parent rising against their will in darkness and driving to work so that their children could live bette than them. That’s not small. That’s not sad. It’s beautiful. Heaven sings at that kind of sacrifice. I missed the fact that sometimes someone watching a Sandra Bullock movie on television may be an act of love. That is an act of kindness that makes angels raise their arms in Hosannas. I’m serious. Parents standing on the cold sidelines of their kid’s soccer games is beautiful to me now.
Love makes life exciting. Love calls me outside of myself. Because of love I’ve seen things and been things I never could’ve dreamed of. I’ve watched so many Sandra Bullock movies because I love my wife. II’ve learned so much about history and economics by attempting to edit my children’s essays and papers. I’ve been a basketball coach. I’ve coached soccer. I’ve met so many wonderful parents on sidelines. I’ve been to open mic night. I’ve attended robotics championships. I’ve been to rugby games where the entire stands joined in silent prayer for a player being taken off by ambulance. I’ve prayed the rosary with absolute strangers in emergency rooms. I became knowledgeable about diseases I never would’ve heard of. I’ve been to low masses and high masses. I’ve waited behind busses. So many busses. I’ve been on field trips and award ceremonies. I’ve waited for test results and medical exams.I’ve received calls from children wondering when I was coming home because there was a big bug under the couch. I’ve cooked, cleaned, and made ice creams runs.
I’ve been moved to tears, I’ve laughed until I thought I broke something. I’ve worried and prayed and sacrificed. Love is Christ crucified. And that’s really the heart of it, especially when we understand that the crucifixion is not merely something that happened TO Christ. But instead He took on the cross out of love. The smallest thing that happened that day was small men called for the death of an innocent man. The world changing event was Christ dying and resurrecting.
Selfishness is so small. It is small, petty, and stationary. Love moves. It moves us and the world toward Christ.
Yes, this life can seem messy. But I’ve come to realize that this big mess when lived right is unified by one thing – love. Life is just so beautiful when we act out of love. It is so big. Every act of kindness lives forever. Every act of love is cheered by heaven. Smallness, selfishness, and sin are worldly. They are a prison. Love sets us free. Makes us immortal. When we love we take part in Christ’s sacrifice in some way, no matter how small.
Every act of smallness, pettiness, selfishness is a step back, a retreat, a sin. Our tiny steps toward Christ are cheered in Heaven and live forever.
