Learning to be a Community of Love
“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not
know God, for God is love.”
1 John 4: 7-8
I. Required readings
Christian Biography for the Day: Therese of Lisieux
Shane Claiborne: An Ordinary Radical (YouTube Video)
Shane
Claiborne, "Extremists for Love, " Ch 10 in The Irresistible Revolution
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II. Quotations for the
day
"What does love look like?
It has the hands to help others. It has the feet to hasten to the poor and
needy. It has eyes to see misery and want. It has the ears to hear the
sighs and sorrows of other people."
Augustine (354-430 AD)
As long as I keep running
about asking “Do you love me? Do you really love me?” I give all power to
the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is
filled with “ifs.” The world says: “Yes, I love you if you are good-looking,
intelligent, and wealthy. I love you if you have a good education, a good
job, and good connections. I love you if you produce much, sell much, and
buy much.” There are endless “ifs” hidden in the world’s love. These “ifs”
enslave me, since it is impossible to respond adequately to all of them. The
world’s love is and always will be conditional. As long as I keep looking
for my true self in the world of conditional love, I will remain “hooked” to
the world—trying, failing, and trying again. It is a world that fosters
addictions because what it offers cannot satisfy the deepest craving of my
heart.
What we would like to do is change the world – make it a little simpler for
people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended for them to
do.… We can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can work for
the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in a harried world. We can throw
our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will
reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing that we can do but love,
and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our
neighbor, to love our enemy as well as our friend.
Dorothy Day, “Love Is the Measure,” The
Catholic Worker, June 1946
III. Journal prompts
1. What connections does the article by Christopher De La Cruz make between love and vulerability? Can humans love without being vulnerable? Can God? How does the story of God revealed in scripture reveal something about God's willingness to be vulnerable? How might this change, if at all, your view of God?
2. As suggested in the image above, the word "love" is hardly foreign to contemporary cultures with which we are familiar. How do the readings for today enrich, deepen, or challenge your notions of what counts for "love" in the Christian tradition? How is this Biblical notion of "love" similar to or different from our everyday usages of the word? Why might this matter?
3. For many of you, at least some of the scripture readings for today will be familiar. How might a deeper understanding of the Biblical notion of "love" enrich and deepen your understandings of these familiar scriptures?
IV. Links of possible
interest
The literature and resources around the topic of "love" in the Christian tradition is enormous, as you might expect. Here are a few places to dig a little deeper if you're interested.
"Love, Love, Love, Love" A brief but helpful summary of C. S. Lewis's well-known work (The Four Loves) about the four different kinds of love that the ancient Greeks distinguished.
P. Kenneson, "Cultivating Love in the Midst of Market-Style Exchanges," Ch 2 in Life on the Vine
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